#but overtime take so much of my free time and i want to gaming other stuffs so you see i am in a bit of shambles right now

[laciefuyu]

marius definitely has the time of his life teasing our older duo with the notes they get (www rosa was also about to tease artem with "surprise attack snatching the notes, brats all of them (affectionate))

VYN AND ARTEM HELPLESS SMILE JUST MAKE ME WHEEZE. Then the follow-up response from vyn, like okay bestie you're also little shit (fond) and Artem just let it slide and read the note about Rosa instead ajsks.

Also love how luke and artem got the customer's crushes LMAO deserves 🫶 then also the first one think of foods and drinks for the hangout after LOL

NXX5 YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT TO ME 🥺🥺

They have Seaside holidays your honor, they're going for the iced drinks that luke wants to try, salmon meals that artem heard is good, playing at the beach like marius wants and have afternoon tea on the beach together.

I love you my NXX (yes even in Main Story, I love the pain you see)

[snaccpopstudios]

Hi everyone! We're here with the long awaited post on our newest bachelor, Simoun. We know you've all been abuzz with questions about him so we hope to answer some of that in this deep dive into his creation. This post is in lieu of our usual Wednesday devlogs as we've been writing this over the span of several weeks, and was co-authored, edited, and reviewed by Tobias, Jude, ToyboxToonz, Primarvelous, and Sauce. The above image was drawn by @toyboxtoonz.

You can read the full post for free on Patreon, or click the readmore to see it all!

Personally speaking, some of my concerns since Simoun's debut are thoughts like "Do people think I'm making SnaccPop Studios push an agenda?" and "Do people think I'm going through a checklist while making new characters?" It's made it difficult for us to write this quickly because this is quite personal to myself and the rest of the sensitivity consultation team on the DachaBo team.

Concept to Creation

The story of DachaBo begins way before SnaccPop Studios itself was even a concept (that's Sauce's story to tell though). Early Patreon art of Simoun exists from November 2022, back before I was signed on to manage the Patreon and any other projects besides Sunny Day Jack. Sauce had some ideas laying around for several other characters in the DachaBo universe that didn't make it into the proof-of-concept demo:

I dug up an old draft for the DachaBo cat character we teased and it featured a story concept where the cat character was originally a female DachaBo character, referencing the original female design. And overtime he got tired of how he was being treated and decided to change his own self to reflect who he wanted to be, not the sycophants who collected the toys and whatnot ... It was shelved because I didnt have the means to sensitivity check it The designs are half cooked is all but he was supposed to be Indian ethnicity coded for no other reason than I've never seen a character like that

One thing that's important to note is that there definitely are Indian folks who are gender diverse (see Hijra on Wikipedia for a quick primer on one of the traditionally recognized nonbinary genders in South Asia) so it's not a novel concept by any means, but it's also not very common in media whatsoever.

Why The Long Wait?

One of the other contributing reasons as to why Sauce wasn't able to do much with the concept at the time is because we didn't have a VA for him confirmed yet, as I explained in May:

One thing that's rather unique to SnaccPop Studios in all of my experience as a game developer is the fact that all of our series involve coordinating with Voice Actors from the start, which means we need to take the VAs themselves into account when making characters. Adding another layer of complexity in hiring is the fact that SnaccPop Studios is a strictly Erotic Adult brand focusing on masculine love interests, and even if we focus more on the softcore, there's still the unfortunate stigma that any 18+ work has when attached to your name. All of these contributing factors make the potential talent pool that much smaller. This isn't to make excuses: I know SnaccPop Studios can do better on this front. While we can't make changes to some of the existing series' main cast (we don't want to put people out of a role they've been promised), we will do better moving forward to incorporate more diverse characters into our future titles, and that's a pledge

In the field of voice acting, it's best practice to cast actors with similar backgrounds to the character they're voicing, particularly for characters from marginalized populations (ethnicity, culture, gender, etc.), because it's a recurring issue in all professions where marginalized folks are regularly turned down for employment or career opportunities. You don't have to look far for instances where other voice directors failed to cast the proper talent for a character, even in the AAA sphere where they ought to have the resources to be able to find the proper talent; at SnaccPop, we wanted to avoid that situation at all costs.

Finding Simoun's Voice

So we had to confirm a VA first before we could do anything. Sauce, Reece, and I all tried to put private ads out for a trans masc POC (any ethnicity with dark skin) actor for a R18 game, which was largely met with silence at first, then responded to by folks who didn't fit the role in a full capacity (many only hit one or two of the criteria we laid out, some of them none at all). And it's not hard to imagine why: it's common knowledge that the majority of erotic works often fetishize marginalized people who are otherwise underrepresented in mainstream media. Things such as skin color, body type, hair color, age, etc. are treated as traits to be objectified, and on the off chance that queer folks or people of color might see themselves in porn… it's usually not for the most flattering or empowering of reasons. How could we, an exclusively Adults-only studio, convince someone who isn't familiar with us that we wanted to make something for people like them rather than something that turns them into mere masturbating material?

We were almost about to give up on the Catboy until I decided to take a chance on contacting a VA whom I hadn't had any formal and proper interactions with before. I'd been a fan of his work and knew him from an audition he sent in from a previous game I had worked on, but he knew me solely by name at best since we were following each other on Twitter. Still, it was a lead, and after chewing my nails for half a day, I shot off a message to Soren Viloria.

And what do you know? He said he'd give it a shot as his first NSFW role.

Naming the Lad

Soren is a Filipino VA, and despite the fact that I myself seem to be mistaken as Filipino by other Asians quite regularly, I'm actually not as well-versed in that culture as I ought to be.

There's actually a reason why we were so secretive with Simoun's name for a while: he didn't have one yet, so internally we just kept calling him "the Catboy." We wanted to pick a culture-appropriate name for him, something that was meaningful: Soren initially suggested "Siopao" as it was a common cat name (it's a type of Filipino Steamed Bun, so think of how many pets you've seen who have names like Cupcake or Nacho Supreme), but that didn't seem serious enough for a tsundere catboy like him. A few days later, Soren did a little research on a few well-known characters from Philippine media/culture that fit the bill a bit better:

Elías from the Philippine Revolution novel Noli Me Tángere (a required reading in the Philippines). Cat may like his radical tendencies for revolution and his deep, devoted connections.

Simoun from Noli's sequel, El filibusterismo. Holds revolutionary values similar to Elías, but far less noble and more of a loner. Violent at times, and will do what it takes to get his way.

Panday/Flavio, a very popular hero. Part of his charm is that he doesn't have special powers, but took matters into his own hands and forged a magical blade. Has been portrayed in both 'cool' and comedic ways.

Ricardo "Cardo" from the Philippines' longest-running TV drama Ang Probinsyano. Just a cool action hero dude who cares about family, but is also very ambitious and angy.

Seeing as how we already had an Elias Gallagher, Simoun seemed to be the perfect fit, and the name stuck pretty easily.

Simoun's Boundaries

Now that Simoun had a name, we were able to talk about him more seriously beyond the simple "tsundere cat" tropes. You've all already met Gil Finnegan, who we originally brought into SnaccPop Studios to handle the narrative design for DachaBo but was then onboarded to help with Sunny Day Jack, and those of you in the Patreon Discord server are familiar with our mods Tobias and Jude; along with me and Soren Viloria, that brought the grand total of openly trans masculine members on the team.

We all talked about our personal experiences as trans masc/AFAB people, what things we rarely saw reflected in both mainstream and indie media, things we wanted to see more of. Something we all agreed that was difficult to find was trans masculine folks in sexually dominant roles in erotic media, whether that was live video, audio, writing, art, or a combination thereof; there was only a handful of series we could count on our fingers as far as sexually explicit content that featured trans masculine people in roles that weren't exclusively submissive/bottoms, and the majority of us had already seen those or at least heard of them before (ie. Gummy and the Doctor and Sasha From The Gym were prominent ones). Either discovering this content was difficult due to Search Engine Optimization favoring depictions of trans feminine folks, or it simply didn't exist.

All of this, along with the backstory that Sauce had for Simoun, led us to determine that Simoun would be adverse to submissive roles in intimate situations. Simoun isn't the type to want to be penetrated either due to previous trauma surrounding his gender. Bear in mind that this isn't meant to imply or suggest that there is only one "acceptable" sexual preference for trans masculine folks, nor is Simoun meant to represent all of trans masculinity; he may be our first trans masculine character but certainly isn't the last, as we hope to feature more types of characters at SnaccPop Studios.

As an aside, it should be noted that the trend of erotic trans feminine content being more readily available doesn't necessarily mean that trans women have more positive representation per se; for every kinky piece of art created by trans feminine folks out there, there could be ten more works that fetishize and objectify their bodies. We probably don't need to tell you about the common derogatory slurs that have been used to refer to them; trans feminine and trans masculine people deal with varying levels and types of transphobia as well as situations that oversexualize (or even undersexualize) them, and it's important to focus on content that doesn't strip them of their autonomy.

There actually was a period of time between the release of his concept art after Soren was onboarded where the team observed comments both on Patreon and in the Discord regarding Simoun, and we discussed how we could avoid having people try to ship Bo and Simoun together; because Simoun hasn't had bottom surgery of any kind, we wanted to ensure that tokophobia (fear of pregnancy) or dysphoria wouldn't become a thing for any of us involved in the team or for our trans masculine Patrons. It was a bit of a chicken or the egg situation, trying to keep up with the evolving comments about Simoun to try and anticipate what people might accidentally say.

Debut Day Thoughts, & Moving Forward

We were quite happy with the general reception everyone had with Simoun, and we're excited to see so many people taking a liking to Simoun after his reveal. SnaccPop Studios has always strived to provide inclusive and diverse stories for those who don't often get represented in media, much less NSFW media, and the team was quite elated to see folks who were just as happy to see Simoun.

We hope that the love and care we put into building Simoun has shone through in this post and will continue to shine as we write more of him for DachaBo, because we're just getting started.

[lucy90712]

morning cuddles with João Felix?

A/n: this is short but I think it’s cute

WC: 1.2k Life recently has been so chaotic I have been doing so much overtime at work to finish a big project which thankfully is finally done. Joao has been really busy too with the crazy schedule of games at the start of the new season. We have been able to spend a bit of time together but it has mostly been meeting for dinner somewhere when we both have a few hours free. Don't get me wrong I love having dinner dates with Joao but what I've really been craving is just sitting at home and doing nothing with him as I know we are both so exhausted. Joao has a few days off this week as the team don't have a game for a little while but the last few days I've still had work so we still haven't seen much of each other although he has made dinner every night. I've been a little jealous of him having time off as I haven't truly had a day off in ages but finally I can actually take the weekend off after finishing my project. 

Knowing I'd have the weekend off I've been really looking forward to not being woken up by an alarm and getting to sleep in. Typically I woke up at the time my alarm would go off even though I hadn't set it my body is so used to the routine that I naturally woke up way too early for my liking. As I was about to turn over and go back to sleep I felt Joao's arm move from where it was rested around my waist up to my face where he gently stroked my cheek and moved some of my hair that had gone astray over night. I turned to face him just as he opened his eyes slightly although I could tell he was still a little delirious as he kept blinking to clear his vision. 

"What are you doing awake you should be sleeping in" Joao said in his morning voice 

"I just woke up my body is so used to getting up at this time I just woke up naturally" I said 

"Well let's go back to sleep you deserve it plus I want to cuddle with you for once" he said 

"I can't say not to more sleep and cuddles" I smiled 

Joao was quick to pull me as close as humanly possible and wrap his arms around me so tightly I nearly couldn't breathe. Some people would hate to cuddle like that but I love to have Joao as close as possible as we have to be apart quite often so having him close it me always feels so comforting. My head nuzzled itself into Joao's neck as it was comfy and I found myself playing the the hair on the back of his neck and head which was so soft and slightly wavy from where he'd slept on it. He gently traced shapes on my side until my eyes started to feel heavy and I drifted back off to sleep.

I was sleeping peacefully until I felt something wet all over my face in my sleep which woke me up. For a second I wondered if Floki had made his way into our bedroom but then I decided that it couldn't be as he always runs about and stands on me on in the mornings and there wasn't enough noise either. As my eyes opened I was met with Joao's face right in front of mine pressing a kiss on my nose. Once he realised that I was awake he got more aggressive with his kisses all over my face which made me giggle but then he started tickling me instead which made me laugh even harder. He knows exactly where I'm the most ticklish so of course he had to focus on those spots and tickle me until I was gasping for air. Eventually he did stop and when he did he flopped down on top of me so I used my chance to tickle him as although he says he's not ticklish he definitely is. 

Once we had both stopped our assaults on each other we just laid down together with Joao resting on top of me while I played with his hair. Playing with Joao's hair is one of my favourite past times I love running my hands through it and scratching his head sometimes I put his hair up in different styles too but he often complains that it hurts when I do that. This morning I couldn't resist braiding the few stray strands of Joao's hair; for once he actually let me as he was too distracted playing with the edge of his shirt that I wore to bed. 

"I don't ever want to move from this position" Joao said 

"I'm happy to stay here for the rest of the day" I said

"Good because you're not going anywhere" he laughed holding me tighter 

"What do you think our lives will be like in 5 years?" Joao randomly asked 

"I don't know so much has changed over the last year that I would've never predicted but I'd like for us to have settled somewhere" I said 

"I hope we stay here I really love it here the city and the team are so great but whatever happens as long as you're with me I know everything will be ok" he said 

"What do you think our relationship will be like then?" I asked 

"I'd love for us to be married and thinking about starting a family but that's only if that's what you want" he said 

"I'd love to get married and have kids with you one day when the time is right" I said so he didn't get any ides just yet 

"I'll wait as long as you need amor until then we can just practice" he said 

That earned Joao a slap on the back of the head but he just laughed and continued to talk about life. We discussed loads of things like my ideal proposal, how our wedding would be and how many kids we would like. It was fun talking about the future with Joao, although we've talked about all of this before that was before all of the changes to our lives and things are different now plus we are older so it's good to know we are still on the same page. After talking about all of those serious topics we moved on to talking about what we are going to do with the rest of today and tomorrow as those are the only days we both have off. Both of us wanted at least one lazy day so we decided seeing as we'd spent a while in bed already today would be our day to relax. 

After a while of cuddling together watching tv Joao randomly got out of bed and went downstairs. I wondered where he had gone and why until he came back upstairs holding a tray of pastries and two plates. He had ordered breakfast for us from my favourite bakery in town which we both very much enjoyed in bed. When we were done we went right back to cuddling. I think this has been my favourite day in a long time as I've missed spending time with Joao so getting to do nothing but soak up the cuddles I've missed out on is exactly what I've been craving. 

[wheresmymilliondollarman]

Hiii! I've discovered your account recently and you can definitely count me as one of your fans! Also I've never saw someone write for book bfs before so that's cool of you to do it ! I really don't know if you take requests but if u don't it's ok! but if you do can I have an Kenjix reader where she's a trained spy with no powers and Aaron send her on a mission with Kenji where she hates him at first but then she gets to know him and fall for him ? (Maybe w/o spoilers for books after ignite me)

how you get the girl

kenji kishimoto x fem!reader

you were never fond of the newest recruit, but after being assigned on a mission with him, your perspective might just change.

a/n: ty for the request!! been wanting to write for kenji, but struggled with a concept, so this is a great idea !! this is more an au thing, not based on a certain timeline in the series, so it should be spoiler free !! there also a hunger games reference in this bc i can't help myself. extra note: thank you for being so patient i had to go on n unexpected hiatus because i got sick then a bunch of stuff in my life is happening right now, so it was hard to write. but i have finally have time again somewhat and i want to get inspo to write <3

word count: 6.8k

warnings: really bad corny pick-up lines, kinda bad description of action LOL, mentions of injuries and blood, take a shot every time reader rolls her eyes

your home lied within the reestablishment for as long as you could remember. your father had stood behind the idea since it first became conceived. 

before the reestablishment came along, your family lived in the trenches of poverty. living in a one-bedroom apartment in the unsafest part of the city. most lived the same since the world was slowly deteriorating — counties went hungry, climate change affected natural resources, and the grasp of government control slipped away. it seemed like the end of the world for some, but you were too young to say for sure. 

your mother came down with an illness when you were around three. it was unsure of what it was, but it damaged her greatly and fatally. your father attempted to gather the money to see a doctor, pawning items, stealing money, and even asking the government for assistance, but it all became futile. your mother ended up passing a few months later. 

your father’s grief and rage at society drove him toward the direction of the reestablishment. they had already been around quite some time, but no one ever took it seriously - another political group with empty promises, they called it. but your father had faith in their potential, he had to, now that he wanted to ensure a better future for yourself. so, he offered his undying loyalty to the group, and they took an interest in that and offered him a low level job. 

within years, he worked his way up in power, helped enhance the reestablishment’s control over the world, and soon they were the sole government. many resisted, but the majority resided their fate to them because how much worse could the world get? 

overtime, the distant memories of the old world faded and were forgotten by many, including yourself. all you knew and lived was reestablishment life. books, movies, devices, or anything pertaining to before reestablishment life was discarded. you were too young to even remember most of those things. so, unlike others, you never felt like you missed out on anything. 

you were trained to be a soldier since practically diapers. the rebellion against the reestablishment was prominent during its early years, so your father ensured you could defend yourself properly if the worse were to come. with your agility and stealth, you were recruited to be a spy for them, infiltrating other bases and spying on the rebellion. 

your father now works closely with supreme commander anderson at the capital, but you’ve designated yourself to sector 45, along with warner. he recognized your talent the moment he met you and employed you to his sector. that was how it became your current home. 

your father was more than thrilled you impressed the commander’s son, telling you it was important to have their favor. ever since, he’d push the idea of you two, repeating that if you played your cards right, you could become the future supreme commander’s wife. 

you felt nauseous at the idea. you would never want to be a second in command helping run a country, much less marry the person who does. 

“hey! warner’s calling you into his office.” a voice called out to you. 

you snapped out of your daydream, remembering your current location. you stood in the training room, gloves on, practicing your punches onto one of the many punching bags. you tended to zone as as you got more into your workout. 

you turned around to face the soldier who had come in for the purpose of recalling a message, “thank you, tell him i will be there immediately.”  he gave a curt nod and headed out. 

you sighed, you were sure you were about to be sent on another mission to gather data. and normally, you would’ve been up for it, dying to put your skills to use. but lately, it seems the passion has disappeared. it was getting too repetitive for your liking, and you feared the rest of your life would play out the same.  

you gathered your belongings, stuffing your water bottle and gloves back into your gym bag, and replaced your sweaty black shirt with a plain gray one. 

you procrastinated as much as possible on the way to warner’s office. you are in no rush to head back out into the field or hear warners endless instructions on the mission. for once, you envied the low ranked soldiers. warner never expected much of them, so they were often overlooked and free to do as (possibly) pleased. you were expected to be no less than perfect. 

you took a deep breath before knocking on the office door. once warner granted permission, you entered the room, and the first thing you noticed was another person was already there — one you recognized to be one of warner's many men, kenji kishimoto.  

‘this is already off to a bad start,’ you told yourself. kenji was fairly new to the unit, joining a bit over a year ago. you never saw him much because of how busy you are, but due to his poor performance, warner had assigned you to train him for a week. 

it hadn’t been your first time training a soldier, so you were prepared to follow a routine and help him get the hang of basics. but you quickly learned kenji was going to be a pain in your ass.  

first, he was half an hour late to your training, wasting time you could’ve used for your own personal agenda. then, when he showed up, he acted nonchalantly about it. you decided to brush it off and just get the training over with than argue and waste more time. but as training commenced, he started acting condescending towards you. asking if you were sure what you were doing and whether you were the most qualified person to be instructing him. again, you ignored him and remained professional — trying your best to just finish off the lesson without any hassle.

the final straw for you came when you asked him to throw a punch to examine his form and offer critiques. to this responded, “are you sure about that? wouldn’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.” he said haughtily. you just about had it by then. 

in a quick movement, you threw a punch to his face, twisted his arm, and flipped him onto the mats. “sorry, did i hurt you sweetheart?” you asked in a condescendingly sweet tone. all kenji does is groan in response. 

after, you just stormed off and informed warner he would no longer be in charge of his training. you offered him no explanation and simply walked out of his office. if you hadn’t been so upset, you would’ve slapped yourself for being so careless in front of the commander's son. but fortunate to you, warner had no objections and simply tasked someone else to teach kenji.

however, that wasn’t even the end of your meeting. despite you bruising his face, kenji started to follow you like a puppy. you suddenly would run into him at least once a day. you swore he had to be somehow following you, and pretending it was a coincidence the two of you ran into each other. despite your expertise in the art of spying, you were never able to catch him in the act. you could sometimes feel a pair of eyes on you, but when you turned around, there was no one there. 

you told him many times to leave you alone, but that only seemed to intrigue him more. he went from condescending to flirting with you. you weren’t sure which one was worse. you were starting to think the latter because of his awful pickup lines.  

“do you have a name, or can i just call you mine?”

“oh god, i’m gonna throw up.”

“i’m going for a walk, would you mind holding my hand?”

“if you get your hand near me, it’s getting cut off.”

“i love it when you talk dirty to me.”

“do you travel through time? because i’ve pictured you in my future.”

“you’re not going to have a future, if you utter another word.”

“let me be the flynn rider to your rapunzel.”

“one, shut up. two, who are they?”

“what! you don’t know the amazing film that is tangled?”

“never mind, forget, i asked..”

no matter your reply, he never seems to get the hint. no, scratch that, he definitely got the hint he just simply did not care. this guy could be hit with a tank, and you were convinced he’d still have some stupid line to say to you. 

back to your current predicament, you were unsure why warner would call for kenji as well. you were hoping they were just finishing up a conversation, and you happened to be a bit early. which you kinda doubted because you had taken as long as you possibly could to get to this room.

you walked up to warner’s desk, “you called for me sir?” you questioned. the sooner you got your task, the sooner you can get away from the man next to you. 

kenji turns his attention toward you, unfortunately for you, “hey gorgeous, funny seeing you around here.” he says with a stupid smirk accompanying. 

“not really.” you spoke bluntly. 

before he can speak any more, dumb words, warner clears his throat indicating he is about to speak. “yes i did, and as you can see, i also called kishimoto here because I wanted to speak to the both of you.” 

oh no. you weren’t liking where this was going so far, especially since this is an issue needing both of your presence in the room. you prayed he wasn’t about to assign you to train with kenji again. you lucked out last time, but there is no way you would be able to again decline in a way that wouldn’t defy warner. you remained stoic and nod to his words, waiting in suspense for his instructions.  

“oh please go on, i’m intrigued.” kenji inquires. warner pays no mind him, nice to see you’re not the only one who does that. 

“the reason for that is, i am in need of both of you for a mission in favor of the reestablishment.” he explains, folding his hands together neatly on his wooden desk.  

technically, your prayer was granted; you didn’t need to train kenji. no, instead you had to go & work with him on a mission. ‘that’s why they say be careful what you wish for.’

you couldn’t protest and say absolutely not, or you just look like a child throwing a tantrum. it took a good portion of your self-control to keep that apathetic look on your face. but even then, your left eye reflexively twitched in irritation. 

“no disrespect to your order sir, but why is kishimoto needed? i can handle myself quite well if you didn’t already know.” you try to reason. 

“are you that nervous to be with me?” kenji interrupts smugly. you can’t help but stomp on his foot, even if it is a bit childish, your face neutral, not even sparring a look his way. 

kenji yelps in pain, but still remarks, “nice to see your love language has switched from verbal threats to physical violence.” 

warner, unbothered by your actions, replies, “i’m well aware of your capabilities l/n. but this task is a bit more dire than your usual requests. i’d prefer if you had a helping hand. plus, kishimoto still needs practice in the field and there’s no better example to follow than you.”

“thank you sir, for the compliment, but-“ 

“is that an objection to an order, l/n?” warner challenged you, raising a brow. you knew that was the end of it. as much as you didn’t like kenji, it wasn’t an issue worth being on warner’s bad side for. 

“no,” you stated defensively, “of course not, sir, i am ready to serve the reestablishment as needed,” you restate your loyalty, but these days it felt like empty words. 

“i, for one, have no issue with this request sir. i’m more than willingly to go along with y/n on this secret mission.” kenji proclaims with a gleeful smile. 

“great, because the both of you will be departing tomorrow morning.” warner informed, leaning back into his seat. “that will be all,” he dismissed with a wave of a hand. 

kenji and you both respectively nodded and turned your backs to walk away and exit his office. once you’re in the hall, your cool demeanor vanquishes and is replaced with a distasteful look. you simply couldn’t believe this was happening. you got partnered with the guy who you heard already had 19 demerits. surely, the world was punishing you.

opposite to you, kenji stood there with a sneaky smile, obviously enjoying how today’s events played out. it only annoyed you further. 

“well, well, well,” he begins, “i guess we’ll be spending quite a bit of time with each other. you never know how long these missions take perhaps will be stuck teach with each other for a whole month. wouldn’t that just be exciting?” kenji teases, draping an arm over your tense shoulders. 

you rolled your eyes and roughly pushed his arm off of you, “this operation is solely for professional purposes, kishimoto. we’ll be in and out then come back and relay information. then i go back to ignoring you.” you don’t bother to wait for a reply and start the walk to your living, quarters to prepare for your departure.

“i’ll grow on you eventually y/n!” he hollers at you as you venture further down the hall. 

-

you dreaded the events to come the moment you opened your eyes to woke up.

a part of you had hoped your talk with warner yesterday had been a nightmare, but as soon as you saw your packed bag on your dresser, you knew it was your reality. 

you hopped in the shower for a quick wash, braided your hair, and suited up in all black attire. you slip your bag over your shoulder and reluctantly walk out your room. from there, you made your way to the weaponry.

at the weaponry, you didn’t see kenji’s face; you had hope there was still a possibility he would not end up going along with you, and he would either be replaced, or you be left to your own devices. you started supplying weapons into your bags and filling the holsters strapped on your body. 

“can’t believe you already started without me, angel.” you hear a voice announce from behind you. 

you groaned, apparently, it was too much to ask to wish him away. he reminded you of a small insect that just refused to die no matter how many times you stepped on it with your foot. 

he doesn’t miss a beat, moving to the spot next to you, “don’t sound too excited, or else i’d start to think you like me,” kenji playfully remarks. 

you scoff, “only in your wildest dreams.”

“right you are.” you grimace at his reply. 

“can you just hurry up? the sooner we set off the better.” you urge him. 

he doesn’t deter from his smugness at your fierce attitude, “if you were so eager to be alone with me, you should’ve just told me, would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.” 

you groaned, already sick of being around him. how were you supposed to do this for a day, or even more? “you have five minutes or swear to god i’m leaving without you.” you promised on your way out. 

-

you made good of your word, and waited by the plane for approximately five minutes (you even counted down the seconds in your head). warner assigned a plane for the both of you, with its own pilot, to take you to your destination. 

you wait until the last second before you board the small plane to inform the pilot to prepare for take off. not even a minute later, you hear the movement of footsteps rushing towards the vehicle. you try to conceal your look of disappointment when you see it, kenji coming toward you.

you step down the plane to coldly greet him, “you’re lucky you made it, i was prepared to about to leave without you,” you tell kenji seriously. “i suppose i can always just push you off the plane one we take off to rid of you,” you nonchalantly suggest. 

he just laughs in response, thinking there’s no way you would actually take off without him, his laughter silences down when you offer no humor in your tone, nor your face. “you are just kidding right?”

you remain silent, and turn your back to board the plane. 

“..right?” he calls at you, a hint of worry in his tone. the corner of your lip tugs up in amusement as you walk off.

-

“wow, this spy stuff is quite boring.” kenji complains aloud. “how are you ever entertained doing this on your own? thank goodness you have me around now. perhaps we can even be some sort of duo, we can even have a cool name - the terrific two? nah. the dangerous duo? eh. oh wait, i’ve got it! mr. and mrs. smith-“

“will you shut up!” you turn your head away to snap at him. you were ready to lose your mind with his absurd commentary for the past hour.

the two of you stationed yourselves on top of a tall building’s rooftop hiding from plain view & your target’s sight. your current target was a supreme commander of another country, one that had indirectly expressed his indifference toward warner, but remained loyal to reestablishment principles. warner believes it’s possible he may have a hidden agenda concerning the reestablishment, and just to be sure, he tasked you to report his activity. 

your mission wasn’t anything complicated, the majority of it consisted of keeping vigilant watch and reporting anything of utter importance. the two of you used your binoculars to spy on the commander and his men from above. but you understood why warner had wanted someone to accompany you. there were almost 3 times as many men than what you were used to on your operations. but you weren’t going to admit this to the person next to you.

kenji nods, “you’re right we should skip the mindless comments and instead get to know each other. after all, i’d be real awkward if i didn’t even know fun facts about my future girlfriend,” he makes a hand gesture toward you at the end of his words.  

“first off, never going to be your girlfriend. second, this isn’t a date; we’re on a stakeout collecting information.” you reiterate. 

“come on,” kenji complains, “these guys have done nothing for the past 2 hours. the only criminal thing that is worth mentioning is that the commander does not pull off purple .” 

you scoffed, annoyed, but you couldn’t say he was completely lying. it has been kind of a slow night. the commander stood by his post, watching the soldiers pack shipments meant for other countries & sectors, including sector 45. whenever the supreme commander would leave, either kenji or you would tail him, but it was also a dead end. he either needed to use the bathroom or go to his office to retrieve something. a part of you was starting to wonder why warner would think of this man as suspicious when he seemed as bland as the color beige. it was quite offensive to your spy expertise to be sent on such a mundane mission.

you sigh in defeat, “fine,” you turn to face kenji, “if it gets you to shut up. what do you wanna know?”

kenji places his hand over his chest, making a face of disbelief. “wow, i’ve finally done it, i’ve cracked you. it’s only a matter of time now before you actually start enjoying my presence like most of the female population.” 

“i’m this close to pushing you off the ledge right now.” you exclaim, pinching your index and thumb very close as a demonstration. 

“well, if we’re gonna be working together,” 

he starts, ignoring your threat, “we’ve got to learn more about eachother - you know ,like the deep stuff.” 

“the deep stuff?” you repeat suspiciously. 

“yeah, like, what’s your favorite color?” 

you turn away dramatically, “well, now you’ve just crossed the line,” you say in a light tone. 

he shakes his head, “seriously, what’s your favorite color?”

“hm,” you ponder on it for a second before answering, “i like yellow.” 

“yellow?” he repeats, unsure of whether to believe you. “you’re telling me, the spy who is always seen in all black’s favorite color is yellow?” he speaks as if the concept is foreign to him.

you roll your eyes for the millionth time tonight, “i wear all black because i’m working, not by personal choice. my wardrobe is actually full of colorful choices.” you admit. 

kenji smirks, “so, what color are you wearing underne-“

“anyway,” your speak over him, cutting him off. “what’s your favorite color?” you ask to change focus. 

“purple. and not like the purple that supreme commander looks horrendous in,” you hold back a smile at the insult, “more like the shade of purple rapunzel’s dress is.”

you tilt your head, “who’s rapunzel, is she a friend of yours?” 

his eyes narrow at you, “a friend of min- she’s only one of the greatest heroines in the disney film history!” he exclaims. 

“what about your knee?”

“you can’t be serious-“

that was when you heard it, voices speaking in rushed and commanding tones, getting louder and louder to the point you were able to make out the words without your listening equipment. you recognized one of them - the supreme commander.

“shoot them!” he shouted at the soldiers. 

you’d been spotted. and now they were going to start firing. 

“kenji get down!” 

“what-“

you didn’t wait for him to understand and instinctively jumped onto kenji’s body to bring him down to the ground and avoid him from getting shot.

due to your heroic act, you were unfortunately caught by a bullet and shot in your left arm. you’ve been shot before, but it didn’t suck any less. luckily, the adrenaline coursing through you helped subdue the pain for now, but you know it’s only a matter of time before you were withering in discomfort. 

“shit!” kenji cursed in reaction to the many gunshots shooting at you both. you both are currently protected by the small four feet ledge from the building you were grounded on.

“how did they even spot us?“ kenji hollers so you could him him over the flux of bullets. 

“i don’t know, but there’s no time for explanations. this ledge won’t protect us for long we have to find a way out of here without being noticed.“ 

you had a lurking suspicion the commander was given a heads-up on the arrival of two spies. however, it wasn’t a time to investigate that. 

 kenji began to move from beneath you so he could somewhat sit himself up, still avoiding being hit. his movement caused you to unintentionally hiss in pain when he rubbed against your injured arm; that is when kenji took notice of your wound. 

he gently grabbed it for further inspection, blood oozing from the hole of the bullet plunged into your arm. returns his gaze to you. his eyes showing worry, “you’re injured. why didn’t you say anything?” he questions you gently. 

he then swiftly untucked his long sleeve shirt for machines and ripped a piece of it from the bottom. then he began to wrap it around your injury and tie it to give it pressure to lessen the bleeding. 

“didn’t think there was time, you know, with hundreds of bullets coming our way.”

kenji rolls his eyes. you speak up again before he has a chance to counter, “ok, we seriously need to focus on our plan of action right now. we are way too outnumbered to strike back.” 

kenjis nods and looks down in concentration of convincing a plan, and you do the same. you both could maneuver your way down towards the way you came in, but no doubt the commander's men have already begun to circle around the entire establishment. you both could sprint quick enough and jump onto the neighboring building, but it would require some climbing. and with your current left arm in bad shape, could be almost impossible for you to climb a building with one arm, no matter the skill acquired in your training. 

do you have to make a decision quick, so you went with the most logical one. “kenji,” you call his attention, and he looks up from his spot, “i have a plan. but..you’re going to have to go without me.” 

kenji’s face shifted from concern to confusion.  “i don’t understand..” 

you briefly explained the small plan you concocted, “with my with my injury , it’s clear i can’t do it. so, it’s better that you go on and-“

kenji doesn’t let you finish. “no. no. that’s not an option.” he protests. 

“you have t-“

his hand is covering your mouth in a second, “it’s out of the question. don’t go saying that stupid shit again, got it?“ he sternly tells you, looking you in the eye intensely. 

you’ve never had someone be so adamant about leaving you behind. if it had been anyone else with you, they would’ve up and left the moment you suggested it. a warm feeling tingled in your stomach at the thought to kenji caring about you so much. 

you’re quite stunned at his assertiveness, so you nod quietly - which is highly out of character for you.

once he knows you understand, he removes his hand from your face, sighing as he does so. “i have a way for us to get out of here unnoticed and safely,” kenji admits. you pique up, intrigued by how he has a better solution, and motion for him to continue. “but you’re really going to have to trust me for this to work, ok?” he says more like a statement than a question.

“ok.” you agree. 

while you may not have known kenji too long or even liked him much before tonight, he wasn’t incompetent, mostly, you had enough faith in him to believe he wouldn’t intentionally put you both in harm's way. 

kenji takes a deep breath in, and you can tell to ease his nerves. it bubbles up your curiosity more. it must be something quite grand for him to be nervous to do. but then again, it had to be something quite out of the box if it weren’t a plan you could’ve conceived.

“i’m going to grab your hand, and then i’m gonna need you to do your best to not freak out.” kenji instructs carefully to you. 

now you were getting anxious; what could possibly make you freak out? generally weren’t the type to scare easily, and you’re sure kenji knew this. but you truly had no other option unless you wanted to be stranded here. the sound of gunfire served over to reminder of your limited time. 

you nod in confirmation and hold out your right hand in permission for him to grab. kenji takes a second before he latches his hand into yours. 

for a moment, you’re confused. nothing seems to be happening. part of you thought he was going to continue with your plan, but forcibly drag you along with him. you turn your attention toward the other side to check if you were supposed to see something. but again, saw nothing of significance. 

you begin to scowl, “kenji is this a joke-“

but when you turn to see kenji, no one is there. right away, you assume he left you and did everything prior as some twisted joke. you were ready to get angry, but then you felt the pressure on your palm. you were still holding his hand. 

you looked around again and saw no sign of kenji besides his hand in yours. your confusion was deepening at this point, and you were beginning to think you passed out after being shot and were currently dreaming. you looked down at your interlocked hands, but you didn’t see your hands either. your eyes then moved over to your own body, but again - nothing.

you gasp, “what the hell?”

you instantly panic, not understanding what is happening. you move your body in the hope it would make it visible again, but failed. you try to free your hand from kenji’s, but he firmly keeps it gripped. 

“hey, it’s alright, i’m here. calm down.” you hear kenji finally speak from next to you. you feel his thumb rub over the top of your hand in an attempt to soothe you. 

you ignore him and attempt to make a list of possible nonsense that would explain the situation. “are we dead?” 

“no! just invisible.” he states calmly as if the whole situation were normal. he stands up, forcing you to do the same. he begins to build up a run toward the side of the building. you can’t see either of your bodies, so you do your best to keep up without tripping. 

“invisible?” you repeat, “how are we invisible?” it sounded ridiculous saying it aloud, but it was the only “reasonable” explanation for what was happening. 

“uh, let’s just say i have a certain skill set.” he says in a rushed tone. you couldn’t tell if it was because he wanted to avoid answering or focus on the task at hand. maybe both. 

“that doesn’t explain anything!” you say, waving your other arm around, although you both are unable to see it. 

now having reached the side of the building you entered from, you see the ladder that led you both up. kenji wastes no time on stepping down first. you can’t see his movement but can feel yourself being tugged and the sound of his boots hitting the metal. 

you follow, continuing to hold his hand as he leads you both down the ladder of the building. “as you mentioned over and over before, there’s no time for explanations. you just focus on getting down this ladder.” 

you did as he said (for once) and continued stepping down, with one hand on the rail, in silence. for once in your life, you were speechless.

you both successfully evaded the commander and his soldiers. the invisibility had proven to be true because you walked past them like it was nothing, as they still shot to where they assumed the two of you were still positioned. 

there were no words exchanged on the way back to the plane. kenji took the initiative to inform the pilot of your coordinates, so the two of you could be picked up. you felt foolish for being so unprofessional, but you finally evading the danger, your state of shock was brought back. 

when the plane finally landed down, kenji had finally returned both of your visible states and then released your hand. you could feel the sweat on it from holding on so long, but you were still reeling in from events to notice or care.

both of you moved to board the plane. 

if you hadn’t faced some blood loss and felt incredible fatigue, you would’ve hounded kenji for answers on your way back to sector 47. but as soon as you sat down on a seat, you were out like a light. 

-

the next time you open your eyes, all you could see was white. the ceiling lights temporarily blinded you, making it hard to see your surroundings at first. 

you groaned from disorientation and the blinding light. you turn to the sense of touch and understand you are lying on a bed. your vision settled, and you were able to vaguely recognize your surrounding. the long windows, medical supplies, other white-sheeted beds neighboring, faint smell of disinfectant — you were in the medical wing in sector 45.

you knew it was the infirmary from your sector because of the large indentation on the wall from a mishap of yours a few years prior, one of the few times you actually went to a trained nurse instead of mending to yourself. long story short, the nurses really should have de-weaponized you before attempting to wake you up after you’d passed out. 

now knowing you were in a dangerous environment, you slowly began to sit up. you used one hand to stable yourself since the other was put into a cast. the aching you were trying to put off the whole mission came in full force. 

you looked down at your attire; your first layers of clothes covered in grime and blood were removed. now you were only left in your black shorts and tank top. 

not even a moment later, you hear the sounding of the your door opening. 

“well finally you’re awake!” a voice says, “thought i’d need to wake you up with true love’s kiss.” 

kenji walks up to your bedside, his sly smile never faltering until he takes a glance at your injured arm. 

he peers down at your face. he takes a hand and moves a strand of hair behind your ear. your stomach warms at the feeling of his faint touch on the side of your face.  

“i thought i’d lost you for a second there, sleeping beauty.” kenji says in a gentle tone. 

another reference of his you didn’t understand, but you chose to focus on his other words instead.

you tilt your sore neck, which you regret,  in confusion, “what do you mean?”

“you were asleep the whole flight, and when we landed, i tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t stir. i knew something was wrong. my assumption was proven correct because when i examined your arm, your blood loss was almost severe. after that, i just rushed to get here.” kenji explains, his tone a bit somber. you fight the urge to hold his hold and comfort him, then chide yourself for thinking so something so intimate involving kenji. 

guess you probably should’ve checked your arm when you boarded the plane. somehow, your bloody arm had gone from the first to the last thing on your mind during the operation. 

“and now your facing my dashingly handsome face.” he cockily adds in. 

there it is. you don’t even snarkily counter back. for once, you just smile in response. you give in to your urges and grab onto his hand, giving it a soft squeeze, “thank you kenji. seriously, i know we started on the wrong foot, but i’m very grateful to you.” you say sincerely. 

kenji squeezes your hand in return, “to be fair, you’re the one who’s made your distaste toward me very clear while all i did was confess my undying love to you.” he corrects with a pout. he places a hand over his heart in fake pain. 

your mouth gapes, “what? you’re the one who not only showed up late, but acted like a total douche the first time we met.” 

kenji laughs at this sheepishly, “yeah, about that..” he goes to rubs his hand on the side of his neck. 

“what?” you question. “don’t leave me hanging.”

kenji laughs, “that first meeting, i wasn’t actually late.” he starts. 

you shake your head, “yes you were. i waited there for almost half an hour.” 

“i was there fifteen minutes early, waiting by the door. but then i saw you walk past me, not even sparing a glance, and go into the training room.” kenji confesses. 

“then why were you so late?” you interrupt impatiently. you don’t remember seeing him there at all, and if he had been there, why didn’t he just go in straight after you instead of wasting your time. 

“i’m getting there, angel.” kenji taps his index finger on the tip of your nose. you swat his hand and wait for him to go on. 

“after you went in, i was stunned. truly. you were the most gorgeous being i’d ever seen, and you walked around like you didn’t even know it.” 

you smack his arm at his dramatic flattery, “shut up, quit playing around and get to the point.” 

“am i one to lie?” he asks rhetorically. 

you give him a look. “alright, maybe, but it doesn’t make what i said any less true. you are beautiful, and anyone who hasn’t told you that is an idiot.” 

you scoff, turning your head away from kenji. you rather him not see the rising redness on your cheeks. 

luckily kenji continues without comment, “anyway, after i got a hold of myself, i thought, ‘how was a guy supposed to walk in and face this goddess of a person supposed to be his trainer.’ he can’t, so he does the classic guy move, ‘act indifferent to make yourself seem cooler in front of a girl.”

“so you acted like an asshole….on purpose….because you wanted to be cool in front of me?” you repeat slowly, making sure you understood his stupid plan. 

“ok, i get it; it's not my best moment. trust me when i say i realized my mistake as soon as you started kicking my ass like it was nothing. but it actually made me like you more and even turned me on a bit-“

“ok, i think i got it!” you weren’t one to be so easily flushed, but it was hard not to when he was so blunt about affection toward you. even if it was vulgar. 

“after that horrible first meeting, i had to get you to like me.” kenji explains, “so i did my best to use my attractiveness and charming persona to seduce you. but, damn, you wouldn’t even bat an eye at my attempts. that only made me wanna do it more.” 

you cross your arms over your chest, “so what, you like me because i’m pretty and a challenge for you?” you ask with an aloof tone.

“maybe at the start, but now, everything about you has me captivated. your strength and resilience. the way people undermine you, but you don’t let it stop you from proving them wrong. how to most, you’re uptight and cold, but you actually care more than you’d want to admit. i admire that you want to be the best, but not for warner, for yourself.” your eyes begin to soften at kenji as he describes you so passionately. you didn’t realize observant of you he was. 

kenji continues, “hell, even your stubbornness. though, you break my heart a little every time you reject one of my very well thought out pick up lin-“

you don’t wait to hear anymore. abruptly, you sit up and yank him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him down to your eye level. you’re moving automatically as if in a trance, and your sturdy hand reaches the right side of his face. “shut up.” you say in a rushed whisper. 

then you kiss him. you actually, willingly, lean in and collide your lips with kenji kishimoto. you like it very much too. and there is no better feeling than the way his lips on yours make your heart race and body buzz with warmth and exhilaration. 

everything happened so quick, kenji was frozen in his spot for a good moment - his eyes so wide they could’ve popped out. then, he smoothly regained composure. his face relaxed, now having a giddy grin into the kiss,  and slid a hand to the back of your neck, under your hair, to hold you closer. 

even though the kiss was a heat-of-the-moment decision, the kiss itself wasn’t heated nor rushed. no, it was almost the exact opposite. your lips were tenderly pressed together, heads titled opposite directions so you fit together in sync. 

you move your touch to his covered chest, gripping his plain fitted shirt for dear life, a way to remind yourself that this was all very real. 

you’re the first to pull away; part of you already longing for his touch as you did. you felt dizzy, not in a loss of blood way, but in a weightless feeling way. you couldn’t stop the silly smile etched on your face, nor the flushed look that was likely written all over your face. you couldn’t even find yourself caring about it. 

kenji’s appearance isn’t much different from yours, but his smile is crooked and screams more of satisfaction and a bit of cockiness. “told you i’d eventually win you over.” 

you chuckle and lightly punch kenji’s bicep, shaking your head, “tell anyone, and i’ll deny it.” you threaten in jest. 

you tap your lips with your index finger and look up in mock contemplation, “hm. maybe if you explain how you turned us invisible back there i’ll think about a date.” you remind him. you were still owed a great explanation. 

kenji grins, “is that all it takes? well, then, i’ve got a hell of a story for you.” 

special thank you to @butterflyreads for being so patient and liking my works, hope you enjoy this one <3

[pondering-gales-left-orb]

Sigh rambling about DA2 again nothing has captivated me as this middle child game

Any way

Sebastian Vael

I know alot of people hate him for being the annoying church boy but!!!!

I myself have been put off by his very loud attempts of conversion while just walking around kirkwall, hes all like "fenris,you will feel safe in the makers hand!! take mine and follow me to the light for you shall be delivered!! consider visiting the chantry once and try praying you will feel a peaceful stillness descent upon you" or something and im just like my guy this is a Wendy's... Hawk is literally buying toxins and fire bombs from a shady guy in a room in a shady tavern but ok go off prince

BUT

His story is actually extremely intresting because if you actually listen to him you find out he was sent away literally exiled from his home, his family gave him away because he was a drunken playboy and they didnt want to put int the time love or care he needs of them... They specifically asked for him to be locked in the kirkwall chantry( put like fifteen lines under kirkwall that is important for later) of all places and get the infamous andrastian reform (typical)...

And then you think on how strong his devotion is to the chantry during DA2 and realize that for this 180 drastic change to happen he has been hardcore brainwashed.

then you notice his mother son relationship with Althiena, and realize she probably was the one to reform him taking advantage of his anger and the hole his family left in him when they sent him away by shaping herself to that hole, fitting perfectly as his "found family" to easily manipulate him.

i mentioned "kirkwall chantry of all places" earlier because you have to realize, that with the horrid enslavement going on there, it was all by the approval of the chantry and not just during the events of DA2, but from the start of what was old kirkwall, remember the entire thing was built on slavery and glorified it for so long that they had gold statues made proudly to represent that.

And that were never removed by any of the authorities claiming to be anti slavery and despite things changing in kirkwall overtime.

Note how the kirkwall chantry is old its not a new addition its old and it didn't tear down the slaves Statues in the name of andraste which you would expect from a religion that preaches "Our Andraste died to free slaves!!!"

no it was built next to it, around it even...Elthiena and her elders were raised here, were educated here, were appointed here, and lived in agreement with all of this, rising up to the ranks to continue the cycle while gaslighting people into thinking they are neutral and convincing people that they will pray for this to get solved........

Sending him to kirkwall was not by chance they deliberately choose kirkwall to fully erase him, break him, and replace him with a "good son" without any chance of escape because kirkwall's systematic oppression is so strong in place there is no chance of escaping it unless you do somthing drastic.

Now think back to Sebastian being locked in all of this and getting reformed by these same people and you understand why he is the way he is.

so strong in his devotion with unwavering morals that are like concrete pillars to who he is, who he has become. he never once has any of his beliefs shaken never once thinks about abandoning his vows for love his belief in them is so strong that he welcomes love and embraces it into his beliefs when others think they have to abandoned them to love. he loves hawk understands his desire to enjoy her lovingly but never wavers because of it. He will marry her first and then enjoy her thus satisfying and fullfiling his vows to andraste and himself nothing less nothing more.

BUT, and this is what makes him extremely intresting, as much as he loves Althiena and the kirkwall chantry he is NOT like them, Sebastian is a true believer of the core of andrastism rather than what it has morphed into in modern thedas. (Some people say he believes in Andrastism the same way Devine liliana does and i kinda agree)

Ironically if Sebastian was responsible of kirkwall and its chantry non of this would happen the mages would never have been enslaved the templars would never had to be turned into prison gaurds, they also wouldnt have become monsters as a result of Meridith becoming the first red templar. He would enforce real andrastism and abolish what it has become and ironically people would hate him for it.

putting aside my love for Anders, at that end cutscene he is literally the only correct one he faces down EVERYONE including Hawk and defends both mages and templars by bringing back the focus to the current cause.

He is so baffled by Meridith blaming all mages and by orsino getting lost in the bigger picture of hating templars that he yells at them to try and remind them "your own differences dont matter you both personally dont matter the people who died - who will die, are the ones who matter!!!"

When no one listens he is forced into the same conditions that Anders was forced into (again how ironic but also shows you thatcthere was no other way for this to end but i digress) of using the last resort of threatening violence and invasion (and later in DAI acting on it)

he saw what Anders saw, finally he saw that they both (Meridith and Orsino) are too far gone that they dont see anyone but thier own hate, and you bet your ass if Althiena had survived and was present and started her Spiel about "we must return to the maker and pray" that Anders experienced when he was pleading with her and the devine for 7! Years, Sebastian would also have realized that she is full of shit too. that no one in this chantry actually cares. his faith in HER as his own devine mother would break and he would include her in his threat the same way his faith in HAWK broke (if hawk spares anders) and includes Hawk in his promise of pay back.

Somthing something he spent so long trying to heal from pain and abuse only for him to realize how much he has been lied to and betrayed by the people he trusted, and the religion he gave himself into, that nothing he thought was real was actually real, causing him to fall further into the cycle of Abuse instead of escaping, knowing non of the healing he did as a chantry brother non of his suffring non of his (suddenly realized) abuse under it non of his relationships non of his lived experiences mattered.

Oh Sebastian the tragedy that you are

[sonqgmi-sims]

Part 2 out of my Custom Neighborhood series! You can find my video here! You can view my Neighborhood Templates video here!

Guidelines I follow as well as any helpful links to some name generators will be under the cut! ♥

Starting a new Neighborhood can be tough! Where do you even start? Well, this written guide and video above is here to help you get started!

STEP 1: Creating/Choosing a Template - If you want to start from COMPLETELY SCRATCH, open up SimCity 4 and create your own map! - If that's too difficult or you just don't want to (like me!), you can download maps off ModTheSims or use the ones already provided in-game for you! :)

STEP 2: Naming Your Neighborhood/Lots - Take inspiration from real life! - Generators also help A TONNN! Below I linked the ones I like most! Feel free to mix and match them to come up with more unique combinations!

Fantasy Name Generators (Town Names) Mithril And Mages - City Names Sims 2 Name Generator

STEP 3: Lot Planning - Personally, I like to keep Community Lots/Apartments near the center of the map, and Residential homes around the sides/edges - Decide if you want just Small, Medium and/or Large lots in your neighborhood! - Place them around the map to figure out a layout until you are satisfied!

STEP 4: Choosing Your Community Lots - Main Hood Essentials: Cemetery, Restaurant, Park, Clothing Store, Grocery Store - University Essentials: Library, Town Hall, Lounge, Gym - Shopping District Essentials: Everything you can imagine! I also like to leave space for Sims to own their own businesses! I tend to use Shopping Districts as Secondary-Main Neighborhoods! - Downtown Essentials: Bowling Alley, Bar, Restaurant, Cemetery - Vacation Essentials: Hotels, Parks, Landmarks After I have the essentials, I fill in the gaps with whatever I want! Like I added a Car Dealership in my main neighborhood as well as a Cosmetic Surgery clinic! I also added a Train Station in my University!

The Mithril and Mages link above is great to come up with names and business ideas too!

STEP 5: Decorating Your 'Hood - I do this overtime! I don't think there's ever been a time where I've stopped decorating! Start by placing some trees or the flower decorations around the empty lots you placed!

STEP 6: Neighborhood/Lot Descriptions - Personally the hardest thing about Custom Neighborhoods! The good thing though is these can be left blank and nobody would know! - My best advice is to wait until most of the 'hood is built up, and then come with some descriptions! - Photoshopping the pictures like EA/Maxis will create beautiful pictures for the Neighborhood Stories album! (This is another post for another time)

STEP 7: The Families - Can't have a complete neighborhood without Sims and Families! - Use the Random Aspect Generator to come up with various Personalities for your Sims! - If you forgot to use a Clean Template (No Townies), I found a mod that will change up their names! - Take inspiration from TV Shows or the other Sims games! I always tend to recreate the Broke Family's storyline and Malcolm Landgraab's storyline with 2 families in my neighborhoods! (I like having a Rich and a Poor family lmao)

Creating new neighborhoods is always so much fun! I hope some of these guidelines help you get inspired!

xoxox

[kdinjenzen]

Feel free to not answer this but I was just wondering....

You have recently been talking about how much working with RT sucks, but you keep announcing projects you've recently done with them since you left the company. Why do you continue to work with them post-leaving?

Or did all of these occur before you left and they are only now coming out?

I’m assuming this isn’t a malicious ask and is just one that is mostly uninformed, so I’ll answer.

Animation, video games, etc take years to make. So there are things I worked on while I was still at Rooster Teeth that have NOT been released yet. That’s just kinda how things work.

Video games and animation take years to make, before you even see an announcement for something a project is likely half finished or more.

Such as: Voicing in BENEATH (came out post me leaving), Script Supervisor/Casting for RWBY: Arrowfell (came out yesterday), Script Supervisor for multiple Death Battle episodes, and Script Supervisor for RWBY 9 and the RWBY/JL stuff.

My work was done in 2020/2021 for RWBY Arrowfell, Beneath, V9, RWBY/JL, and DB. So if you see me credited for something, it was AGES ago that I worked on it.

Also, like I said, they didn’t credit me for my work so I’m kind of pissed off about it, AND it doesn’t even look like they credited the RT Anim 3D Team for any of the work they did on the cutscenes for Arrowfell at all.

Which, AGAIN, is par for the course because they STOPPED CREDITING THE PEOPLE WHO WORK ON RED VS BLUE as of the most recent seasons. Zero and FS were actually the ONLY two seasons to credit folks EVERY EPISODE for that series. Before that RvB didn’t credit properly and now it doesn’t credit AT ALL.

Additionally, I have stated many times that I openly refuse to reprise any roles for any RT series. And yes that includes RWBY and includes me saying “I will never voice May Marigold again”.

I have also mentioned this on my Twitch streams, multiple times, because folks don’t understand that production takes a very very very long time.

I will never, EVER, work on a Rooster Teeth project again. I will never work with any of the management, upper management, or higher ups at that company ever again.

To the folks who are still stuck there, doing the actual real work, being paid next to nothing, not being given proper benefits, and being forced to work long hours without any overtime pay, I say this:

I hope you find a new job soon, get out of there soon friends.

To those who were fans, like I was, who really dreamed of working at RT:

It was a nightmare beyond what you see being shared on social media. I mentioned that it was only “SOME” of what I went through, and the stories from others are just what they were comfortable sharing… there’s things we, as people who worked there, just don’t want to talk about because of how traumatic it was.

[mochamoth]

samarina magical girl headcanons?

I have a few headcanons so far and the whole plot is kinda done! Uhh sorry this is a bit of a rant in advance! Feel free to just skip to the headcanons, the order doesn't matter too much (also mild spoilers for the canon gamee!!)

Backstory:

So this takes place sometime in the early 2000s, not modern but also not the canon 1940s time era. The backstories are pretty much the same except the Ninth Circle has an even sharper eye on Samarie. At some point Marina catches Samarie stalking her and gives her a talking to. But, after several apologies and begging from Samarie, Marina decided to get to know her a lil better. They slowly become friends overtime until some plot stuff happens and they die. I don't have a solid idea yet but I was thinking what if the Ninth Circle was more of a lab than a "school". Still a cult but y'know the vibes are a bit different. They catch the two running away and threaten to shoot Marina if she doesn't turn Samarie back in. Marina refuses, they shoot, Samarie takes the shot for her but unfortunately they just shoot Marina anyways afterwards.

Somewhat luckily Samarie was close enough with the Gods to make some sorta deal with Rher specifically (for arguments sake let's pretend in this au Rher is still semi close with humans). Marina and her would be allowed to live and be resurrected, in exchange for.. Well idk yet. I was thinking something to do with Moonscorching. Maybe every night they turn, or every few days, full moon, you know something like that.

So they're brought back to life, but both have MUCH stronger magic. Not only that but Samarie doesn't feel as sick as she used to be. The two later on realize they're stereotypical ✨️magical girls✨️ and fight against "villains" ig. The villains would be actual enemies from the games. Uhh I might add other characters to this au later on, but for now it's just my own little corny ship indulgent au so yeah!

(Sorry for any grammar errors I am tired lol)

Actual Headcanons:

Samarie uses a Star themed staff while Marina uses a Moon themed staff. I just thought it fit their souls aesthetic wise!

Samarie has extremely powerful magic, but is a terrible fighter. She's clumsy, messy, and a nervous wreck. Marina is a bit weaker magic-wise, but is wayy better in combat. She's more confident, focused, and skilled.

I think it'd be funny as shit to make Black Kalev their little sidekick.

They're constantly saving eachother. Usually it's Marina saving Samarie, but if Marina is in danger Samarie fucking kicks ass. She's still a crazy girl after all.

They have more stereotypical sparkly magic cuz.. Well magical girl. But they can still use other canon spells. It's just less convenient.

Their staffs will transform when they do. When they're not in their combat fits the staffs both turn into crystals. Both wear them around their necks like necklaces.

They can't use the gifted magic without the staffs. Basically they're witches in a way.

They do flirt on the battlefield cuz that's romantic imo. It's more Marina flirting and Samarie being a gay mess but that still counts!

In this au they're not dating (yet). Samarie obviously has a massive crush (or obsession) with Marina, and again after becoming friends Marina develops a crush back on her.

This has nothing, and I mean NOTHING to do with the au, Samarie has autism. I didn't know where else I'd share that hc so taking my chance rn.

Samarie still isn't used to the outfit change. Especially Marina's outfit (she is a lesbian disaster).

They rest and cuddle together after long battles. It'd be cute okay?

I might add more later (in which case I will post), and yes this is out of character. Sorry abt that. Uhh also I've never seen a magical girl anime. Like ever! I want to. I really wanna watch a few, just haven't gotten around to it.

[hammerhead-jpg]

I get in a mood sometimes

When I say cringe culture is dead and I'm cringe but I'm free I mean it

Not just liking anime, kandi and scene fashion, I mean all of it

If you're gonna say that cringe culture is dead it also applies to the beginer artists with bad anatomy and proportions, the furries, even the fat MHA cosplayers lip syncing "this is my todoroki"

Because back in 2018 or so during the sans fan girl era I was too much of a smartass kid to enjoy it for the camp goodness it was and instead had to be all fangirlmania "heh...you can't kill people over the internet 🤓"

Like I'm not joking when I say that the stars had to align for the sans fan girl craze to happen. If we actually exist in a multiverse where there are an infinite amount of universes then this is either a canon event or it only happened in this universe and no else

Like how do you explain that around 2018 a bunch of girls ages 8-13 made videos on YouTube roleplaying as their usually furry oc/persona(?), usually with flipaclip or a movie maker slideshow, declaring that a character from the game Undertale is their boyfriend AND husband, and that said character is so heavily removed from his source and his own personality that he might not even be there and- get this -they would make videos roleplaying and drawing out the (sometimes kidnapping and) murder of other sans fangirls because they were stealing sans away from them? And the declared "bad" fangirls eventually grew up into normal people while the "good" fangirls turned out to be horrible weirdos???

I can't describe to you how much I wish it was still socially acceptable to create a killing video of a person you're having internet beef with. Like imagine you're like "why are you talking about the vega ba, aren't you a mineral?" And then you're tagged in a video of their persona kidnapping, torturing and killing you?? I mean you'd probably be disturbed and think it's some sort of death threat but they win the argument instantly!

(btw if you have no context of this I know "killing videos" might sound very troubling but I promise they were kinda badly made and silly and no one really took them seriously, like if you look them up you'll know what I mean I swear they didn't have the same vibe of someone telling you how they're gonna kill you in your Instagram dms I swear)

You might be saying "okay I get it mr hammerhead you're nostalgic but even if you look at it from the lense of fun camp random videos made by 8 year olds aren't that entertaining"

And you're right, most of them aren't really

But there was this one person.

And their channel is still up, but I don't want to say their username cuz I don't know if this would be considered good or bad rep?

Anyways this person started off like any other sans fangirl at the time

Flipaclip curcle tool lil drawings, "hello my name is ___ and sans is my boyfriend and well if you take him away... you're gonna have a bad time"

They made regular killing videos where their character would kill other sans fangirls

But overtime things changed

The production quality because better and the stories became elaborate

Now, they were only killing out of necessity

They felt ashamed at their past self for going onto murderous rampages, but now, they had to kill to protect themselves or the people they cared about

It had lore it had drama, it was literally nothing like I've ever seen before

And it had actual Undertale lore in it?? Like it wasn't just sans floating there aimlessly there were other characters from the game??

And guess what, one time, one of the people they made a killing video about incorporated the lore from that video into their oc story and they became friends?!?! Bro how cool is that???

And the person basically allows and even incourages people to make killing videos with their oc?? Honestly me too if you have beef with me man up and make a killing video about me I'm waiting

And yeah, it wasn't some masterpiece that rivals the classics but who would think that killing videos about sans fangirls could be this emersive??

Do you know how badly I wish I was a part of that during that time???

And then history repeated in 2021

You see, ever since watching my hero academia during the 2020 quarantine I was into making ocs for it

And it became a big thing for me too, I made so many of them, and I kept making new ones and then scrapping them because I wanted to make newer ones but didn't want to have a bijillion of them cuz I thought saying "yeah I have like 35 mha ocs" would be cringe

Like it was my big obsession before I got into redacted (besides like, the actual mha show, class1b and monoshin)

I kinda lost interest in them some time ago but I think mha ending and the new season kinda resparked that interest because I'm actually redesigning them right now and thinking about revisiting their stories!

But at that time, there was and still is a community of mha oc artists on Instagram.

I made a ton of memories in that community and I could talk about it for who knows how long but I'm not here to talk about it

The thing is, I judged "mary sue" type ocs so hard.

I wasn't a complete asshole don't worry, I knew not to go to their pages and send hate or even unwanted criticism towards them, and I wasn't the type to say that every character that had a strong power was a mary sue or that every character that has a sad backstory was a mary sue, I was approaching my bitterness from a writing perspective

And I don't think that was that bad. I just had a gripe with certain tropes and as long as I wasn't being hateful towards the people that displayed them then that's really not an issue.

The thing is: I love "Mary sue" ocs now

I can't help but look at my 2021 self like the comments on an old Solar Sands video about rewieving ocs

"hurk...erm... Am I the only one that has a STRAIGHT HETEROSEXUAL oc who is HUMAN, has ALIVE, LOVING parents and NATURALLY COLORED hair with NO scars, NO heterochromia and NO powers 🤓🤓🤓🤓"

Yes and you're extremely boring for it!

Like I can't help but find the "well written" MHA ocs kinda boring now. I want the "Mary sue" mha oc who has 50 different quirks, was adopted by aizawa and is in love with bakugo.

I never stopped to think that a "Mary Sue" oc is a product of a person prioritizing having fun and creating an oc that they find cool rather than worrying about if the constructive criticism youtube channel would think their oc is good enough!!

And yes, saying that I enjoy those ocs unironically and not just as fun camp wouldn't really be the whole truth, I'm not gonna "Mary Sue"-ify all my ocs now, but they still bring me joy in the way regular old mha ocs haven't in some time!!

But the thing is, there are barely any anymore!! The ones I knew either disappeared into thin air or redesigned their oc to be more "well written"

Just like making killing videos is no longer socially acceptable and that sans fangirl channel deleted most of their videos, there are no more fun "Mary sue" mha ocs and I was too worried about what was "not cringe" to enjoy them!!

In this essay I will

[metamorphosisff]

|Interlude| II. FaceTime

[Author’s note: Interludes are not in chronological order as they are scenes that were deleted from chapters.]

Call Ms. Lena

The alert popped across the top of my phone screen in the midst of me watching a Tik Tok that explained Avengers: End Game that Xavier sent. Sighing, I finished the video but not nearly as into it as before. My thoughts were transformed by having to fulfill my one true duty as a sibling. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Ms. Lena, she counted as one of the people I loved but it was a love I could only maintain from afar. When I got too close, the love we shared hurt from the past that still tethered us together. Even at my big age I felt like a burden to her and Lonso. Something on a to-do list much like keeping in contact with them was for me but what choice did I have? They were the only remnants of my family that I had left. Closing out of the app, I found her name in my contacts, and pressed the Factime icon. 

As prompt as ever, she answered on the second ring. Her mahogany smile filled the screen inciting my own. Ms. Lena was the epitome of ‘Black Don’t Crack’, with regal cheek bones, a small pointed nose, arched brows and full lips, she commanded attention. It was easy to see why she and my father had fallen for each other, no matter how messy it was for them to do so while he had been engaged to my mother. I didn’t hold my father’s transgressions against her though. 

“My other baby decided to finally give me a call,” she beamed, excitedly. 

“I’m sorry, my current schedule leaves a lot to be desired,” I chuckled, even though we both knew I was only good for a call per quarter, warehouse job or not. “But I had to call because it’s your birthday and I wanted to wish you happiness to your face.”

I truly meant that. There was a time in my teens when I resented Lena for grabbing Lonso and leaving me to deal with the aftermath of my parents but as I grew older I understood there wasn’t much for her to do. Legally anyway, my grandmother had more rights over my custody and Lena didn’t want to stay behind to fight for me with a new life waiting for her in Virginia. I would have left too. She made the right choice for her family. I just wished I could have been a part of it.

Her face lit up as she pressed her free hand to her chest, “Thanks MiMi, that means a lot to me.”

I almost physically cringe at the nickname my parents used to call me but restrain myself in time. The muscles in my cheeks work overtime to retain my smile. “Any plans for today? I know the party is this weekend but I hope you’re taking some time for yourself.”

“I took the whole week off. Wasn’t about to let them folks at the office stress me out during my celebration time,” she cracked, as she propped the phone against something, allowing me to see the rich burnt Sienna sundress she wore. “Speaking of my party, we were hoping to see you. I know Lonso is a little disappointed.”

My eyes rolled then, leave it to him to complain about my absence when my presence was barely wanted by him.

“Now I know you two have been more like oil and water lately but he does miss you. That I’ve heard him say verbatim,” she added.

“Then maybe he should lead with that instead of being a judgmental prick,” I said.

“He does come on...strong, get’s that from me and the tactless part from y’alls daddy,” she said, causing me to snort.

Our father used to always say the first thing that came to his mind whether it was proper or not. His candid nature is what gave me my non-bullshit attitude. I hated when people beat around the bush. I preferred honesty. However, I had no tolerance for brutal honesty. There was always a way to be straightforward without making someone want to punch you in the face.

“That he does,” I agreed. “I will be there for Thanksgiving promise. The whole week according to the flight information he sent. Right now I’m working on a few things and can’t get away. I’m sorry it can’t be sooner.”

The work I was putting in on myself took precedent over everything and well...almost everyone. I was in the middle of a shift that couldn’t be threatened by examining things I was not ready to face. Lonso thought all my problems could be fixed with a military career and change of address. Truth was, my biggest problem stared at me in the mirror every morning. My reflection had to be something I could stomach before I could start proving my worth to anyone else.

Nodding her head in understanding, “I understand baby, I do, I just miss you that’s all. Looking forward to being able to hug on you and really see how your doing with my own eyes.”

I chuckled nervously as I said, “You’re looking at me right now.”

“No, I’m looking at your defense mechanism. Something I know can be lowered with a scoop of my peach cobbler,” she said with a conspiratorial wink.

At that we both laughed knowing how I used to bug her every holiday season for her signature dessert. I know Lena means well, that her love could probably pave the cracks in my heart if I let it but I needed to be the one to heal me. That way if it broke again I would know how to fix it.

“I miss you too.”

[tsukiyadori]

Reading (+Watching+Listening) Log 2024.06 - June

Previous: Reading Log 2024.05 - May

Pouty pout. (A tier.)

——————————————————————————

Reading languages: German, English, French, Japanese, not listing which was what. (There’s also been some feeble attempts at Chinese, but that was more on music.)

Titles are as I’ve read them either first or most and thus remember it for that title mostly

Not going to bother putting in the original titles of translated reads unless there is something worthy of note to it

Cursive titles have been completed

If it says a volume number, it may mean it has been finished or is still in progress

Some notes’ content may be subject to repetition here and there, as I also copied some older notes from casual conversations over and didn’t go through any rounds of cutting things down.

——————————————————————————

JUNE

I kinda feel out from reading stuff on the apps daily

and keeping up online serialized chapter releases has been a mess, too...

Maybe I need to do statistics on the JNC slices of the monthly readings, I definitely keep busy chasing deadlines and then not manage to read it all anyway.

No An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride has been read this month, but due to cascading little incidents at a certain place Chastille has kind of become my alter ego and… I have not much to argue against it…

In terms of single franchise, this month's probably mostly dominated by Spice and Wolf/Wolf and Parchment.

Also decided to add a bit of a music section, considering how much time I was busy chasing lyrics and trying to read those (This will get some overlap with the months prior.)

There's been one single anime entry this time, and it's just a KyoAni ad...

I also kind of fell of from the Comikey and Manga Up readings....

Something else of a major time sucker activity started this month, which is the ominous ((classified)), but that'll probably take until the end of the year to unclassify.

Anime:

ショート版【京都アニメーション ×「紫式部ゆかりのまち宇治」PR動画】「うじには物語がある」

Light Novels/Web Novels/Novels:

Brunhild v3p2 Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers v1p1-5(ch2 finished) Fushi no Kami v1 Goodbye, Overtime! This Reincarnated Villainess Is Living for Her New Big Brother (Light Novel) v1 How to Survive as a Villain Novel ch236 Spice & Wolf v23-24 The Apothecary Witch Turned Divorce Agent v1p1-v2p8 The Disowned Queen’s Consulting Detective Agency v1 Wolf and Parchment v6-v8 ((classified))

Manga:

8th Loop for the Win! With Seven Lives’ Worth of XP and the Third Princess’s Appraisal Skill, My Behemoth and I Are Unstoppable! (Manga) ch11 A Livid Lady's Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires (Manga) v2ch7-12 All you want, whenever you want Ano Natsu ga Houwa suru. ch18 Anti Alpha Buta no Liver wa Kanetsushiro v2ch6-11, ch36.3-4 Cooking With Wild Game (Manga) v9ch44-48 Dahlia lässt den Kopf nicht hängen v1 Daijuukou to Unicornis no Otome ch16.1 Dead Mount Death Play v7 Domestic na Kanojo v12-13 Duchess in the Attic (Manga) ch1, v2ch7-12, ch13-14 Goodbye, Overtime! This Reincarnated Villainess Is Living for Her New Big Brother (Manga) v1 Harebare Biyori ch24 I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic (Manga) v1ch6 Isekai de Ane ni Namae wo Ubawaremashita ch19.1, ch20.1 Kakan no Oukoku no Hanagirai Hime ch13.4-14(finale) Knitter's High ch28.1-3 Küsse & Schüsse v1-2 Mr. Mallow Blue ch30 My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer (Manga) ch1, ch6, ch11, v4ch16-20 Only I Know that This World Is a Game ch1, ch6, ch11, v4ch16-19 Rebuild World (Manga) ch1, ch5, v8ch35-39 Sakura, Saku v4 Shuumatsu Touring ch38.4 The 6th Loop: I'm Finally Free of Auto Mode in this Otome Game ch11.1-2 The Eternal Fool's Words of Wisdom: A Pawsitively Fantastic Adventure (Manga) v1ch1-6 The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects (Manga) ch1, v4ch16-20 The Magic in this Other World is Too Far Behind! (Manga) v1-v10ch50 The Unwanted Undead Adventurer (Manga) v11ch49-53 Unnamed Memory ch37.2 Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi Watatabe3

Webtoons:

The Silent Concubine ch33-122 Silent Lover (Silent Concubine alt. Counting) ch142-192(S2ch1-50) Taberare Usa ch106-109 To be or not be ch102

Music:

Just a selection of those that left the most impression, had me check out its lyrics and/or popped up high in the replay count.

雨霖铃 (Bells Ringing in the Rain) by 喵☆酱 (Miao Jiang)

笼中雀 (Caged Bird) by 喵☆酱 (Miao Jiang)

鴻音 (Resonant Sounds) by Sa Dingding

浮光 (Floating Lights) by Zhou Shen (周深), Jannik and some endless amounts of cover versions

The Blue Whisper OST - 鮫人之歌 (電視劇《與君初相識》片尾曲) by Zhou Shen

The Blue Whisper OST -魚躍而上 (電視劇《與君初相識》自由主題曲) by Sa Dingding/Mao Buyi

Solo Leveling OST - aikari

Notes:

How to Survive as a Villain Novel ch236 - After dragging it for weeks on end I finally finished reading the last chapter… that I had read before though gap jumping anyway. It's been a while where I simultaneously had an urge to read on asap while also not wanting to finish it at all. Anyway, some when next month or after that official Singapore English edition is coming, very curious how that translation will look like without any so many annotations.

Wolf and Parchment v6-v8: Volume 6 seems them with their newfound 'official relationship' that bubbles in and out and is perfectly tailored to them, especially Myuri. Hyland's being a complete fangirl of it is a nice touch, otherwise the whole case was interesting mystery and likely that cat is the same as from S&W is it? Some more real life history modelled things also got added, but the twist with the bears is interesting. The author speaks of three pillars he has to juggle, that of the overarching world lore, the characters and the plot of the current volume, while S&W he had pulled the former into a backseat. That also very much explains, why I had so many starting troubles with this one. The World Lore takes a good 4 vols to build up to have their first payoffs to feed back into the plot, and frankly the two characters only got more interesting from v5 onwards. Too bad I paused this for years after v4, which I remember to be more of a slog than not. Interestingly, that was also the volume the author had struggled a lot with, apparently. Volume 7: This volume starts with a really really cool passage from the conversation between Col and Clark:

Now, doesn't that kinda sound familiar. Espcially that last line nails it rather well.

This is kind of awesome. Not your usual bog-standard love bla bla is what changes the world, but this something that can't be named, this siblings like family, but that doesn't hit it, it's also not lovers, and whatever it is called, in the end one can only default to it as the umbrella term, but it is NOT what you'd usually think about it. The series definitely places a lot of importance to this something and this volume is so far the epitome with realizations sinking in just how important it is to them and then it culminates in the epilogue with Col being like, he's not planning to marry her, but he wants her by her side regardless. And he wants to make sure of it. In a form of equal side by sides, so if he's the Twilight Cardinal now, there he goes and makes it so, that she's going to be celebrated as a saint by his side. And it's all so cleverly weaved into the plot at hand about the wanting to be heroes, the inability to do so, but still wanting to dream about it in stories, and also the pieces fall into place for S&W's timeline as well. And it's not like it's denying your usual idea of relationship and under that world – after all, Holo and Lawrence are right there in their own series holding a spotlight and Col got his faith out of their love rather than anything else. Volume 8 however… seems a bit on the nose starting with the red string on the cover and the plot line in this volume unfortunately is a bit… well, the world is interesting, Canaan is a bundle of charm to bustle everything up and the wrap up to have the new continent plot line in is neatly resolved, but the sheer amount of folly in there…. Myuri, what are you doing? After everything last volume, you go and be all worried? Why the hell are you? Col at least even points out at just how OOC it all is for her.

Spice & Wolf v23-24: Speaking of those two's series, their antics… actually do start to get a little bit old. I dunno, maybe it's because it was getting slightly repetitive? like v24 is definitely a good plot, but the plotline twist is essentially the same as that previous short story about the regional lord that doesn't want to fell the forest, but is stuck between and rock and a hard place. Otherwise… Now that W&P has given a glimpse of how cool the overarching world lore can be S&W is starting to feel just a little pale in comparison. But as a companion it's really nice, how it picks up the pebbled behind Col and Myuri. It's just you really notice that by now Spring Log has a clear side story character to it. Also, I've had these weird impressions for a while now, but Eve and that Umbrella girl kinda smell a bit GL-ish and I do wonder if there's gonna be some plot around the desert after all. (Even if W&P v8 tries hard to deny it.)

The Apothecary Witch Turned Divorce Agent v1p1-v2p8: This has been pretty funny, and her groaning about failures in basically Anti-Cheese-Work, but also, she can't begrudge the happy ends for the couples where a thing I could feel so much, there is one obvious question to, how come people haven't come to her yet in hopes of the opposite, like they all seem to seriously want the break-up rather than her shaking things up to actually fix it.

((classified)) v1 first third: Well, not much that I can say as of yet, beyond: This MC gives me quite a few aroace vibes going by some thoughts and comments here and there, and I am going to be very curious how this is gonna play out. I expect it's going to be more of a late bloomer thing and the whole series is to be very very slow burn in that regard, with many other things on the forefront. But let's see.

Domestic na Kanojo v12-13: The whatever it is continues, and it seems to have reaches some lulls, which are mostly bolstered up by pouts from Miss little sister. Otherwise, Mr. Wannabe English guy remains punch worthy. What do you mean you'd not make her cry, as opposed to Natsuo? You merely tried to rape her, sure, you'd never make her cry. =V Miss twin tails also is like… sad to see. Where did your self dignity go?

Duchess in the Attic (Manga) ch1, v2ch7-12, ch13-14: We have another badass strong female MC, my ears are all perked! I mean, just look at this glare of dignity!

Now the LN just has to come. (Spoiler: it got licensed right the month after early July by the time I am writing this up.)

Sakura, Saku v4: It feels a bit like it tried to do a Kieta Hatsukoi and I will say it did it well enough. It also has a wholesome message and all, but somehow, I dunno. It's not bad, it plays the surprise out well, too, and it's in character of the cast, but it just seems a bit. Not having a charm of its own about it. I dunno. The whole series is down to earth 'normal' sorts of, but compared to the previous, it had more individualistic 'character' or so about it. Not sure how to phrase it.

The Silent Concubine ch33-122: Erm. Ok. What. Was. That. I maintain the beginning as written up last month is still so, and it's rather nice to have this uke fate doomed Shen Yu have his own agency and even using the help of the emperor who got smitten with him, while he is now quite the rationalist to know first come gains. Ok. he was described as bewitchingly beautiful, so people arguing over him isn't maybe that out of place. The whole background story about his lineage and the extra finger knuckle was either lacking in exposition to begin with or the translation has missed out something? It kinda came half out of nowhere. That Shen Yu seems fed up enough to go for suicide knowing how anyone else is just this more powerful than him, him still being poisoned, and his mother is gone anyway, also makes sense. But like, you make him the descendant of a line of former royals that doomed themselves for inbreeding and incest which would even give a reason for his disability also seem, but then, oh, it's psychological and oh, not only does he survive his suicide attempt, but his chronic poisoning is gone, and suddenly he's also not mute anymore. And it kind of completely topples the power dynamic over. And then goes that Chu clan and, uh, Mister new Emperor just goes to be his bodyguard somewhere hidden who knows where. Man's got some priorities, despite knowing the instable the state of things are. And then, right, he's gonna be the only one he marries. How to solve this? Oh, hey look, that ancient clever Chu clan has developed a concoction of a birthing potion (that only works on the clan). And then it still works when it's not both of them of the clan, well, way how he has to remain the uke. And then there's his blood relative of a few corners who wants to woo him, too. (Tho more for form's sake.) Erm. Okay. I guess. Something Omega in Ancient China. And then suddenly there is a side dish romance that seems to have completely bubbled in the background only to come and be all like oh well, they knew themselves from childhood and. Whatever. It just feels rather contrived a lot of times in the second half.

Silent Lover (Silent Concubine) S2 alt. Counting ch142-192(S2ch1-50): So, morbid curiosity brought me to season 2, and it's a sequel with the next generation, the son of the Main couple of S1 and the adopted son of the side dish couple. I have to say, I am almost amazed at how completely brazenly it goes and rehashes S1's plot line. With not much sense at places. So there's another arranged marriage, but like his adopted father is the right hand of the emperor and they are on good terms, his other father (who kind of never showed up, is he dead?) used to be a good friend of that emperor's spouse that is his birthing parent. That and that he is a brilliant scholar of his own with status and family pedigree should give him the means to stand his ground. Doesn't seem to matter. Well, maybe he is just timid. But somehow despite the series even having the galls to joke about how the MC's parent's tale is a cautionary tale and them knowing that their son is a bundle of a folly, nobody ever shows him the ropes properly. So he's just being all abusive again. There is another rival for the MC who is all super mean and anything, but just winds up dead along the way. Instead of poisoning, MC winds up suddenly having an oh so very dangerous blood illness on top of his weak disposition. Oh hey, turns out he's actually of the lineage of the previous emperor. Oh, also, he's been super in love with his abusive arranged marriage partner until there was too much abuse for him to call it quits. Also gets tortured and his hand crushed and disabled. Gets wooed by the prince of a foreign land. Oh, and there's a murder attempt to the emperor, how come S1's MC suddenly has vanished completely after showing up just a bit to be all pouty and everything? And isn't the prince the Chu clan bloodline descendant and crown prince, like probably that birthing potion would work on him, too, but of course as a clone of his emperor father he's gotta be the seme character yet again.

Well, as I got so little read this month some music babbling 雨霖铃 (Bells Ringing in the Rain) by 喵☆酱 (Miao Jiang): It started with that little chapter title from How to Survive as a Villain that is quoting a line of a poem by Liu Yong (984-1053 AD). 今宵酒醒何处？ "Where will I be, when I wake from my drunken stupor at dawn?" That poem has by now grown on me. Technically, apparently the inspiration was the author having to have to leave his lover, but the text itself is on a more abstract level of simply a separation to foreign lands. Googling that led me to the first result that is a youtube song with a dance and a cover of it, that is from the soundtrack of a game named 逆水寒 (nisuihan, "cold against the current"), which for whatever reason is called "Justice Online" in English. (How'd you get from one name to the other??) Not that I noticed that at first, both song videos are incredibly traditional styled and the dance by Tang Shiyi is definitely quite pretty. (And I mean, the video is from the CHINA NATIONAL OPERA AND DANCE THEATER??) It took me a deal of digging until I even found the singer's name, which had me go ????, because, it basically means Meow ☆ Sauce. That so far was still in April, but the song rather stuck and then there was also this other song from the artist and yet another song to that same game I came to kinda like.

鴻音 (Resonant Sounds) by Sa Dingding - that popped out in the playlist of the channel, and there's another dance by Tang Shiyi also to a song of the Nishuihan game. No poem, but it kinda sounds epic. And the dance video is also something. (The match cuts in particular left an impression.)

笼中雀 (Caged Bird) by 喵☆酱 (Miao Jiang) - No poem again, but the mood reminds me of Bells ringing in the rain. They lyrics of this and Resonant Sounds do sound a bit cheese, while Bells could arguably be about any sort of seperation. By here this had reached May and I was getting into that whole soundtrack of that game, which by all means has a good few of nice tracks. And while I was at that, I found this.

浮光 (Floating Lights) by Zhou Shen (周深), Jannik the original intrumental version and some endless amounts of cover versions both vocal and intrumental and dance videos - Apparantely the nishuihan game has some sorta feature where you get to replay some tunes or something? And this song was one of it? Or I don't know. In any case in some playlist the instrumental song by Jannik sat on top as the first track and it immediately struck a chord. The name is suspiciously Western tho (going by the discography they're probably even German??), but googling that you get a Chinese Baidu Baike Wiki page, which then talks about the vocal version by Zhou Shen, which struck even a bigger chord. That had me look up the lyrics and since Zhou Shen is a rather famous artist, it has some lyrics translation videos. Except.

So nostalgia and doubts are kinda the same thing, aha.

Or how about we just leave the word out completely?

This is what the dictionary has to say about the word btw.:

This sounds like a sort of saudade x nostalgia x hiraeth x natsukashii with touches and yet it's own thing, as baike explains it as "the unwillingness/reluctance to leave something or to let it go" as its first meaning and the second being "cherished memories (怀念) directed towards passed days" (which kinda sounds more natsukashii than nostalgia). And that is incredily interesting, but I am bewildered how this turned into 'doubts' of all things? By now it was end of May and now plans to study Chinese are plainly up on the table again. I just don't yet now how to best go about it.

For the time being… The Blue Whisper OST - 鮫人之歌 (電視劇《與君初相識》片尾曲) by Zhou Shen The Blue Whisper OST -魚躍而上 (電視劇《與君初相識》自由主題曲) by Sa Dingding/Mao Buyi June was loop the above and starting to go through a whole bunch of Chinese music (well mostly nishuihan and Zhou Shen) and this one's lyrics caught me again. Like 魚躍而上 starts with something like "Every pair of eyes is fish". Me: ????? Maybe I need to watch that The Blue Whisper drama to get it, but then it also looks incredibly cheese everything and… Also, do you know the agony of you kinda liked a song just by its song and then it just turns out to be all cheese lyrics once you look them up?? It kinda felt like a curse. =V

一梦惊�� by 黄诗扶 (Huang Shifu): There was also this one, which popped through the recommendations box and picked my eyes through a really nice dance video:

Solo Leveling OST - aikari: I'm not exactly sure why peculiarly this one picked my ears, haven't even watched the anime, but it was strangely loop-able.

[arthoure]

Pokemon Violet and Open-World Design Hell

I’ve got Quibbles with Scarlet/Violet -- the performance, the clunky intro that takes a thousand years and would be tedious even for the 8-year-olds it’s aimed for, the lack of scaling at gyms (which is something even I know how to code, unless you’re building on top of some kind of spaghetti code monster with all sorts of hidden variables and restrictions, which is actually more than likely) -- but I’m not going to voice anything in depth, because there’s only one thing I want to say about those games.

So far they’re fun, and that is a miracle, and the developers who worked on it should probably be praised for what they were able to accomplish, because a three-year dev cycle is not enough time to put together an open-world RPG for a global audience.

There are a million things about this process for an IP like Pokemon that take up extra time in that very small dev window, too. The localization. The rigorous art and design iterations that have to go all the way up high ladders to get approved because so much money is tied up in this franchise, and because the merchandising is so tied to it. The testing and iterations for any new mechanics that the players will expect from a new installment, and the balancing of previous mechanics within the new system. The QA!!! OH GOD THE QA!!!!!!!!

Now add the challenges of open-world design to that. Non-linear plotting. Balancing freedom of motion with a sense of direction and purpose for the player so they don’t feel lost. Balancing levels and pokemon types in a game where your level is always changing, which is now impacted by where you go and what you do and whether you stop to catch everything or plow through to gyms or fight every wild pokemon you come across or run away (ETCETERA! ETCETERA! ETCETERA!), in a way that’s fun for adult players but not challenging for small children. Placing new sights, activities, and rewards in ways that encourage exploration while having to avoid the repetition of these placements so players don’t get bored or predict what’s next--unless you’d like them to predict what’s next, to build a sense of anticipation! Open-world design is fun as hell to tinker in; it’s also an absolute monster.

I’m not aware of the conditions at Game Freak, but I’m having a hard time imagining any of this was accomplished without a significant amount of overtime and stress. There are no lazy developers. Every single person working on a Pokemon game right now--I mean the ones on the floor, the artists and coders and designers and QA and all the rest--they’re there because they fucking love video games, they fucking love Pokemon, and they beat out hundreds if not thousands of other qualified applicants for their personal position. When you see a game that arrives as some kind of disaster, it’s because some kind of disaster was happening behind the scenes. 

It’s OK to criticize the Pokemon games. They’re not nearly as polished as their price point warrants, which is frankly insulting to players from a company that regularly makes record-breaking amounts of money on its IP. The bugs have created frustrating jams for people, even forcing unsaved restarts (though the game does autosave a lot, thankfully). It could be a lot better, and it’s easy to see exactly how, and that’s very frustrating. But the game is still fun, and it’s trying a new format in a way that I believe is ultimately a success, and considering the restrictions imposed upon the devs, I personally think that was an impressive feat. I’ll be continuing to play during my next little snatch of free time.

[lucy90712]

Hihi its me again could you do gavi x f1 driver where the reader is one the youngest f1 drivers

A/n: thank you for this request I enjoyed writing it as I like formula 1 too 

wc: 2.0k+

Racing as been a passion of mine since I was little it first started when I went to watch my brother train on a motorbike as thats what he enjoyed. While there I saw people on go karts and instantly wanted to try so my parents got me one and from that day on I have been racing. I worked my way through the ranks in go karts before getting into single seater cars and then to the formula one paddock when I got a seat in f3. Everything happened so quickly but after winning in my rookie season in both f3 and f2 I have finally made it to the top flight of racing formula 1 which is a dream come true. 

Of course there has been criticism of me and the team for giving me a seat but overall so far it’s been a great experience. The first few races were really difficult as the car is very different to anything I've ever driven before but slowly overtime I have been improving and getting more confident in the car. A lot of the places we have been racing in I haven't been too familiar with but once we started racing in Europe I got a bit better and now we are going to a track that I have spent my life at the circuit de Barcelona Catalunya I am hoping for a really good result. Not only do I want a good result just to show that I'm improving but I also want to do well because my boyfriend is coming to watch me race for the first time. He is a footballer with Barcelona so is always busy during race weekends which means he has never been to one of my races in a proper championship but finally he has a weekend free which just happened to fall on the week we are in Barcelona. 

For weeks I've been looking forward to Pablo coming to watch me race so now that the weekend is finally here I'm just so ready to get in the car. Sadly Pablo couldn't come for Friday practice so we have already done two practice sessions although they went really well and I have been fast in both sessions. Today he is coming with me though which has had me so excited that I barely got any sleep but I did managed to fall asleep eventually after telling myself that time would go by faster if I slept. Eventually my alarm went off and I got ready in record time which meant I had to wait for Pablo to arrive at the hotel all drivers were made to stay at so that we could go to the paddock together. 

Eventually there was a knock on my hotel room door so I ran to open it and before he could come into the room I had my arms wrapped around Pablo because we haven't seen each other in a while as I've been so busy with racing. Luckily he arrived a few minutes before we needed to leave so we got some time to greet each other and talk a bit as we probably won't get much time together once at the track. I told him everything he would need to know before we left like what time every session was and where everything was even though I'll give him a quick tour when we arrive. He seemed really excited but I could tell that there was something he wasn't telling me so I tried to get it out of him. 

"What's going through your mind?" I asked 

"Nothing I'm just looking forward to watching you out there" he said 

"I know there is something you aren't telling me Pablo just tell me whats wrong and I can help" I said 

"I'm just a bit nervous I've seen what it can be like going into the paddock and I know I deal with it before games but for some reason this just makes me more nervous" he admitted 

"Thats ok you can be nervous I still get nervous going to your games but I will be there the whole time and we can always walk to the garage quickly" I said 

"Thank you love" he said 

After that we had to leave so we got in the car that would be taking us to the track even though its only a short distance away we are made to go by car. As the car entered the track there was a lot of fans waiting and filming as we went past which I've got used to but I know Pablo hasn't experienced it before so I made sure to grab his hand to let him know I was there. Once the car was parked Pablo let go of my hand and ran around to the other side of the car to open my door for me which made me laugh because he always has to open my door no matter what. Before we walked in I made sure we took a minute in the car park just to make sure he was ready and secretly I had to calm myself down as I was nervous about what would happen when I walked in with Pablo. 

As we got to the entrance to the paddock there was people waiting like always so I went and took pictures and signed things but I always made sure to keep Pablo by my side if I couldn't be holding his hand. I love to talk to fans but today I wanted to make sure I didn't spend too long out there so I only signed a few things before heading into the actual paddock. Even once inside there was people taking pictures and trying to ask me questions but I just kept walking until we made it inside the team hospitality and my driver room. I expected Pablo look a bit overwhelmed but he had the biggest smile on his face before he launched into telling me how much he loved seeing people excited to see me and how they completely ignored him like he was no one and only cared about me. It was so heartwarming seeing him get so excited about watching me interact with fans because he always feels so bad whenever we go anywhere together and people want to talk to him but ignore me so for the opposite to happen isn't normal. 

The next few hours were incredibly busy with practice and then preparing for qualifying but it was all completely worth it as I managed to get p2 which is the best I've done in qualifying all season. Afterwards I was dragged off to do interviews but as soon as I was done I ran back to the garage to find Pablo who was waiting for me just outside. Without really thinking I jumped straight into his arms and we celebrated together. I think he was more excited than I was but that just made it all so much better because I wanted to show him what I could do and I feel like so far I've done that. 

~~~~~~~~~~

After yesterdays qualifying I have been on a high for most of the day but as the clock has been ticking down to the start of the race the nerves have been creeping in. I always get somewhat nervous before a race but today I'm even more nervous because I'm starting from p2 and so there is a higher expectation of a good result. Having Pablo here is also making me more nervous because I want to do well for him which is silly as I know he will be happy no matter how I do but I still keep putting the extra pressure on myself. We have already had our team meeting this morning and they are confident that we can fight for the win as long as we get the strategy right but sometimes they do get it wrong so that has me worrying too. 

With the race being in under an hour I already have my race suit on and am just sitting in my driver room trying to keep calm. Pablo left to go and do something so I've been sat on my own for a while which hasn't been helping. Just as I was getting myself really worked up the door opened and Pablo came back in holding something behind his back. Instantly it perked my interest as he had a smirk on his face as well which can be scary when it comes to Pablo depending on his mood. Luckily he didn't make me wait too long as pretty quickly he whipped out a hat with my number on it and put it on with a big smile on his face waiting to see my reaction. I loved it but I couldn't make myself smile too much as I was still worried about the race. 

"What's wrong do you not like the hat?" He asked 

"No I love it I'm just really nervous for the race" I said

"There's no need to be nervous you have been doing so well all weekend you will do amazing" he reassured me 

"But there is so much that could go wrong the team say we need the right strategy to win and you've seen what the strategy can be like sometimes I might be fine but what about everything else" I pointed out 

"Don't worry about it all you can do is drive to the best of your ability if you don’t get a good result it just wasn't meant to be and you will do it next time and before you say it I don't care how you do I just want to see you out there" he said before giving me a kiss 

"Thank you Pablo you always know what to say" I said 

Before I knew it I had to get in the car and then I was lined up on the grid with the lights about to go off. For some reason seeing the lights settled my mind and I got in the zone like I do for every other race. Once the lights were out I just went for it and had the best start of my life ending up in first before even getting to turn 1. The rest of the race was much the same I was racing really well and putting down really good times each lap which kept a healthy distance to the car behind. By some miracle the strategy worked out and we had two really good pit stops which gave me the best chance of winning. When the last lap came around I was in first with enough of a gap behind that I didn't have to worry about losing position so I just got to take it all in and really enjoy my first win. 

After crossing the line I was instantly screaming down the radio and thanking the team before pulling down pit lane and stopping the car. Everyone was waiting for me to get out the car so I got out as quick as I could and jumped into the crowd to celebrate with them all. When the team put me down I took my helmet off and went straight to Pablo who was stood off to the side. He brought me into his arms and hugged me so tightly my feet came off the ground. When we pulled away he gave me a few kisses before telling me how proud he was and how well I drove which was nice to hear as sometimes I doubt myself. Once I let go of him I headed to the podium and the whole time I was just looking down at Pablo smiling as he filmed the whole thing like a proud mum. 

I had a lot of media to do but eventually I was done and met back up with Pablo to head back to his place to spend the night together as I don't have to be in the hotel anymore. When we arrived I went and flopped straight on the sofa where Pablo joined me and wouldn’t stop telling me how much he enjoyed the race until we both went to sleep a few hours later. 

[thaisibir]

The Niijima sisters and envy

I want to talk about the Niijima sisters AKA best girls and how their relationship stands out to me in this epic 100+ hour game. (P5R spoilers below the cut)

There's no denying that Sae is hella stunning, smart, talented, and successful.  Yet it's interesting that Makoto never shows obvious or outward signs of jealousy or resentment whenever these aspects of Sae are brought up in the games. I'm sure there was pressure or inadequacy felt on Makoto's part when the principal mentions Sae's success as a prosecutor to get Makoto to follow in her footsteps. (Dick move on the principal's part) But we never get moments like Makoto expressing wishes to be more beautiful or smart like her sister. Instead there's just that fierce, earnest sisterly love she has for Sae, a love so strong that it's the reason she joined the Phantom Thieves, and why she's willing to "fight in her corner" and say to Sae "I'm on your side." Even in times when Sae didn't really deserve it, like when she lashed out at Makoto over dinner, or as she teeters on the brink of corruption by the time of the casino palace arc. Whenever Makoto does talk about Sae, I perceive respect and admiration from her more than anything else. In the dancing game, Makoto talks about how both are trained in aikido but Sae kicks her ass every time. I never got a sense of Makoto disliking Sae for this. It's more like "my big sister is so good and I want to keep trying and work harder to be her equal one day." That's part of why I like Makoto so much. Drive, ambition, and strong work ethic are core parts of her character, but she doesn't let envy or resentment get the better of her. That's what differentiates the sisters, why one of them becomes a heroic Phantom Thief and the other is almost consumed in shadow.

Meanwhile it's Sae who's experiencing the envy. This may have come as a surprise to some people. Like I mentioned before, she's practically perfect. What does she have to be jealous of? But I've been in her shoes before. I'm an older sister who works in a high paying male-dominated field (surgery and anesthesia). My younger sister got to pursue the major and career our parents wouldn't let me do (art). With a retired mom, deceased dad, and sister + brother in-law scraping by on minimum wage, I occasionally work overtime or pick up incentive shifts to rake in extra money to support my family on top of supporting myself. The position Sae is in, the career struggles she faces as a woman in a gentleman's club, it's so, so relatable and scarily realistic. The envy an older sibling feels for the younger sibling with more freedom is something I've experienced, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. The way Sae loses her temper at Makoto and calls her useless is definitely unfair and unwarranted, but we can at least understand where she's coming from. Maybe Sae used to have Makoto's optimism when she was younger. But now she is an overworked and stressed adult, the sole breadwinner for the family, worn and beaten down to a cynical and bitter shadow of herself due to the trappings and pressures of society. The very unhealthy way she is dealing with the death of her father, and thinking of him, is certainly not helping things. (Having lost my dad unexpectedly a few years ago myself, I can't help really pitying Sae for the way she's trying to fight through life without apparently any kind of support network or healthy outlet for her emotions.) The manifestation of Shadow Sae is what happens when Makoto's pure drive and ambition become twisted and corrupted. Meanwhile Makoto is a high school student brimming with potential, free to take matters into her own hands so she can enter another dimension with her thief buddies to drive a nuclear motorcycle and punch the hell out of monsters and save and free Sae from herself. The inevitable clash of sisters is a valuable lesson, a cautionary tale, to remind us that we shouldn't lose sight of the values we hold dear, to not let the world twist us into shadows of ourselves.

All of this more or less articulates why I was so drawn to the Niijima sisters, their characters, arcs, and development as I played P5R. It's a refreshing and (in my opinion, at least) a well written portrayal of sister dynamics. I do wish there was more Sae could do and say to try making up for the harsh treatment toward Makoto after the casino palace. But hey, that's what fanfic is for.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Self-Reflection

I'm not sure if it's really good or really bad that I do this much self-reflection. Thing is, everything interests me and I like to poke at the logic of things in general. I guess starting with myself is as good a way as any to go about it. After all, the mysteries of Me are close to hand.

See, yesterday I had to go out to the Sainsbury's for some ingredients for the upcoming Baking Extravaganza - sour cream for the banana bread, eggs and sugar for ... like, everything ... stuff like that. And I had just literally missed a bus that only comes along every 10-15 minutes because the bus driver did not notice (or just plain ignored) the person with the cane desperately hobbling in the direction of the bus stop as they meandered past. No, seriously, that bus cannot go very fast in this area because it uses a two-lane road that has cars parked on it on both sides, effectively turning it into a one-lane road and everyone has to kind of do some funky swervy Red Rover shit to get anywhere if someone's driving in the opposite direction. So they had time to see me if they were checking their mirrors but just ... nope. Ambled on past.

So since there wasn't really time to go back home and sit for awhile, and also because I wasn't going to go up the hill from the bus stop to my house more times than I had to, I popped to the corner shop briefly for a chocolate bar and then still had a five-minute wait for the bus, more or less. And I'm standing there with my reusable shopping bag and my chocolate bar and my aches and pains from two trips to the communal skips (dumpsters, whatever) with loads of trash and recycling (because I can't take too much at one time, what with the cane and all), on top of the aches and pains of just existing with fibromyalgia ... and I sat there and wondered, "Why the fuck do I do this to myself? Why can't I just buy snacks like normal people? Spend fewer spoons, y'know?"

It was as good a way as any to kill time waiting for the bus, thinking about that.

There are a few answers, I guess. A goodly part of it is spite, I think, and it comes in two parts, both aimed at "My body has betrayed me but I am not giving it the satisfaction of winning". Which is honestly stupid if you think about it too long, but it also makes sense in a way. Like, I developed a gluten intolerance and suddenly there was all this stuff I simply cannot eat unless I want to be really sick, and capitalism is such that most of the gluten-free options on offer are also vegan, and those two things don't go well together just because of the nature of gluten-free flour. So I could give up all semblance of having a baked treat now and then ... or I could say "Fuck you; if capitalism and my own body won't let me have tasty treats, I'll make them myself". That's the easy part.

The harder part of that is ... well, I'm going to hurt anyway. That's my life now. I could sit doing nothing and I would still hurt. Maybe not quite as much, but it depends on the day and the weather and all manner of other shit. And obviously I'm not going to court pain too much, or for things I can more or less avoid, or things that don't matter so much. I won't court pain for video games (or ... well, not many video games). I won't court pain for my job unless I really have to, and even then there are limits (specifically "DO NOT MAKE ME COMMUTE AN HOUR AND A HALF EACH WAY, ESPECIALLY IF I'M DOING ILL-ADVISED OVERTIME BECAUSE OF 'UNEXPECTED ABSENCES' AND UNDERSTAFFING").

...I won't court pain unless it's worth it, I think is what I'm trying to say. MCM Comic Con 2023? That was worth it. It was excruciating, but it was worth it. So the question becomes, is treating myself well worth the pain? Is making sure that I have food that I enjoy, the occasional treat, and the sheer joy I get out of creating something nice, worth it? The answer is yes. The answer has to be yes. Otherwise, what's the point?

I've been at a "what's the point?" stage before. I have more actual reason for one now. If I can have random spasms and unbelievable fatigue and occasional brain-fog moments and unreasonable bowel upset and constant pain, I can see how easy it would be to start thinking, "What's the point if the rest of my entire life is this? And probably getting worse as time goes on because the body deteriorates anyway..." So I have to make it worth it. I have to do whatever I can to keep from absolutely despairing about what I can't do anymore. I have to do things that I can be proud of, and that I can turn to and say, "I am worth the effort and the pain involved in doing this for myself".

Do I sometimes still despair that the rest of my life is going to be spent in pain? Yes. I can't pretend I don't. I'm still grieving a halfway normal life, and I probably always will be. But ... well, fuck fibromyalgia; I can still make banana bread. And I deserve banana bread. As long as I can think that way most of the time, I'll be okay.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Replay/Rewind/Restart

Chapter title: the pulse through the night/that sets my heart alight

AO3 Link

Getty | Cache

Rating: T

Summary: A series of one-shots focusing on different characters from the truly amazing fic Buy One [S]et One Free. (Please read it before reading this, it’ll be worth it, I promise!!) Some will be set before the story, while others will take place throughout it! Everything here belongs to EeveeningNews, I’m just messing around in an attempt to express my love for this fic in the only way I know how.

The room was quiet, as it tended to be on a Thursday afternoon. The only noise at all came from the light clicks and taps on Getty’s keyboard, as he answered email after email in an effort to get his inbox cleared out before he clocked out for the day. 

Tonight was special, after all, and he could not afford to work overtime.

At the exact second the clock changed to five-thirty, Getty sent his last email, and shut his computer down with shaking hands. His still form suddenly overflowed with energy as he practically leapt from his seat. 

The rose-colored Addison darted over to his closet, replaying his memory of the conversation with Cache that had started all of this in the first place…

“Listen, cuz.” they’d said, before mentioning you by name. “I know how you are about asking her out…and let’s be real, I know you, period. So guess what? I’m feeling generous for once, I’ll ask her for you.”

Getty felt his heart begin to beat twice as fast. “Oh—oh goodness, Cache, y-you don’t need to do something like that for me! I’m perfectly content, I promise!”

“Uh-huh.” they hummed, clearly unconvinced. “So that’s why you didn’t spend the better part of our hangout gushing about her just the other day, right?”

“I—surely it wasn’t that long!” he protested, but he couldn’t quite meet Cache’s eyes. 

“And that’s not even mentioning all the other times you’ve gone on about her, either.” they continued mercilessly. “What about that one lunch where we were supposed to catch up on everything and it turned into an hour-fucking-long presentation on the specific color of her eyes?”

“Now that is just blatant exaggeration.” Getty sniffed, folding his arms. “That degree of ill-mannered behavior suits you better than me, I would think.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you don’t want to go out with her, then?” Cache shot back, the corner of their mouth twitching as they restrained a smirk. 

“N-no!” he cried. “I do, I just don’t want to put her in an uncomfortable situation where—you know, she might have to refuse, or she might not refuse but solely out of a sense of obligation…” He winced at the mere thought.

“And that’s exactly why I’ll be the one to ask her! She knows I ain’t the type to hide behind pretty words or some shit like that. I’ll know if she’s not being honest, too, so I can get you a straight answer. Alright?” they said, in a tone which very much suggested that they would do so even if it wasn’t alright.

“I couldn’t stop you if I tried, could I?” Getty asked, struggling to ignore the way he suddenly felt ill with nerves.

“Nope.” Cache said simply, finally allowing themselves that smirk from earlier. 

Two days later, Getty had received a single text from his cousin.

She’s in.

…Getty beamed, scanning the contents of his closet for something appropriate to wear. The elation, the sheer delight he had felt upon reading those two words simply could not be described. He was finally going to properly spend time with you! Tonight!

A thread of fear blended into his joy at that particular thought. He had to make sure that everything was as perfect as it could possibly be. And that started with his outfit. 

He selected some of his bolder items of clothing, hoping that his appearance would bolster his mood as it had many times before. A pastel yellow blazer completed the look, and he stepped in front of the mirror to double-check his choices, before taking out his phone and opening up a fun new gacha game to soothe his nerves until it was time to leave.

Ten minutes later, he was back in front of the closet, panicking. What if you expected something a little more formal? The reservation was for La Barre D’espace, after all. Rifling through the hangers, he pulled out a much more formal black-and-white ensemble, trying that on instead. 

He eyed himself in the mirror, cringing at how stiff and washed-out it made him look. Perhaps…something a little more relaxed? But not too relaxed, that was why he’d picked out this second outfit in the first place!

Getty sighed, sitting down on his bed. After a moment, he eased himself into lying on his back, and then closed his eyes. “I’m being terribly silly, aren’t I?” he said out loud to the empty room.

Nobody replied (for which he was rather thankful, he would have been quite frightened if anyone had), but he suspected if Cache had been there, their response would be something rather like No duh, dingus. I wouldn’t set you up on a date with some jerk, so why’re you acting like she’s gonna tear you apart the second she lays eyes on you?

…they would probably swear more than that, but he wasn’t quite willing to simulate that particular trait of theirs at the moment.

Getty ran a hand through his hair, getting up from the bed once more to return to his closet and properly pick out an outfit. To be fair, the one he wore wasn’t terrible, it was just so…bland. He needed at least a pop of color, or else it wouldn’t be true to him, now would it?

Hmm.

Well, if he was trying to build an outfit that was true to him, he might as well use his own color, mightn’t he? 

Slowly, he pulled off the black jacket he’d been wearing and replaced it with his favorite magenta vest. And this time, when he turned around to face the mirror, he finally felt ready to leave his room and head over to the restaurant.

When he picked up his phone, he saw that it was over an hour too early for him to leave on a normal night, although to be fair, this was not by any means a normal night. After all, what if traffic was bad (a surprisingly common occurrence in Cyber City)? Or what if you arrived early and were left there, all alone, waiting for him to show up? What a terrible first impression that would be!

Resolved, Getty set out immediately, walking his oft-traveled path through the halls of Queen’s mansion and giving any vases he saw an extra wide berth. He definitely wasn’t about to let something like that ruin this night. 

As a matter of fact, if his hopes came true, nothing would.

When he stepped out into the lobby, luckily enough, there was already a blue-tinted Swatchling by the name of Cobalt lingering by the door of the Color Café, seemingly without a job to do. Getty approached him somewhat hesitantly, smiling. “Pardon me…I don’t mean to interrupt, but are you busy at the moment?”

Cobalt turned to him, his expression registering surprise for only the briefest of seconds before he relaxed back into a more work-appropriate, unruffled demeanor. “Ah, Master Target. I am unoccupied at the moment—is there anything with which I may assist you?”

“Well, yes, actually!” Getty beamed. “I have a, erm—” his voice dropped momentarily as a light blush spread across his face— “A date, tonight. At La Barre D’espace. And since it’s rather far away, I was wondering if you might be available to chauffeur me there? Only if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, of course!” he added hastily.

Cobalt offered up the smallest of smiles at that. “Sir, it is my primary duty to assist the residents of Queen’s mansion with whatever they may possibly need. I am perfectly capable of driving you to La Barre D’espace. When would you like to depart?”

“Now would be lovely, if that’s alright.” 

“Of course.” The Swatchling bowed briefly. “Merely permit me to inform Head Butler Swatch of my intended whereabouts, and then we may leave at once.”

“Oh, absolutely!” Getty replied, waiting politely just outside the café until Cobalt was ready.

Soon enough, the two entered a limousine, and they were on their way to the restaurant. Despite the fact that he was facing the window, Getty was so lost in his own thoughts that he hardly even noticed the city go by. Would you like the food? Had you ever been to a restaurant like this before? Would you like him now that he was more than just another paying customer? He’d never really spoken to you beyond requesting a meal back when you worked at that diner. What if—

He shook his head abruptly. There was no use working himself up so long before you would arrive. He wanted to be a good host and date, not a flustered mess!

Yet still, he struggled to keep his mind on lighter subjects, continuously circling back to the same few topics over and over again.

Halfway through the ride, however, Cobalt interrupted him in his pondering. “If you’ll pardon my curiosity, sir, who happens to be the lucky person invited on this date?”

Getty blushed once again at the implication that you were lucky to be invited to spend time with him—if anything, he felt that the reverse was true. After a moment, he found his voice once again. “She’s a Lightner, actually. Her name is—” He smiled as he said your name, remembering the very first time you had introduced yourself to him. Even back then, when he had only just been hit with the true extent of his own feelings, he had found himself particularly struck by your friendliness and warmth in spite of the difficult job you worked. It was truly stunning. “She is one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet, and funnily enough, she’s actually quite close friends with my cousin!”

“Your cousin? I would say I find myself surprised, Master Target, but since they seem to enjoy your company so much, I suppose it only makes sense that they would choose to spend time with others who are equally suited to you.” the Swatchling mused.

Getty chuckled softly. “You make a very good point, Cobalt.” he replied. 

“Well, if she is half the person that I know you are, then I am certain you two will have nothing to worry about.” Cobalt added, making Getty smile bashfully.

“Oh, thank you! You’re far too kind.” the rose-colored Addison insisted gently. 

“I would protest that statement, but I am afraid that shall have to wait until later. We have arrived at La Barre D’espace now, sir.”

Getty jolted slightly, surprised. “Already? Oh my! Thank you very much, Cobalt. Will you be available after we have finished as well?”

“Certainly. I shall be right here until you are ready to leave.” 

“Thank you again!” Getty said, stepping out of the car once Cobalt opened the door for him. 

“I sincerely hope that you enjoy your date, sir.” Cobalt said, offering him another hint of a smile before stepping back into the car.

“I hope so as well.” Getty murmured to himself, taking a deep breath as he approached the building.

He made his way inside and over to the elevator, stepping inside and pressing the button for the top floor. The car stopped a few times during its ascent, and each time Getty held the door for those who were entering and exiting, earning him several smiles and as many “Thank you”s in the process. However, not a single person seemed to recognize him, for which he found himself grateful. He wasn’t entirely sure that he would have been able to manage the nerves stemming from his relatively new wealth and his date-nervousness all at once, at least not without failing to maintain his usual calm demeanor.

Mustering up what remained of his courage, Getty walked up to Cardinal, the Swatchling working at the host stand for this evening. “Hello there, Cardinal!” he said warmly. “I believe my reservation is under a different name than usual for tonight. My cousin, Cache, is the one who organized this particular dinner.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, Mx. Cache is indeed the one listed here. Thank you very much for informing me, Mr. Target.” Getty cringed internally upon realizing that he would probably be referred to as such in front of you. He had never had the chance to explain his nickname properly when you worked at the diner, so now he just had to hope that he could correct any misconceptions you had about his preferred name before one of the Swatchlings irrevocably gave you the wrong idea.

Cardinal informed him which table he and you would be sitting at, and he made his way back through the restaurant, having been here more than enough times to find his own way to any table at all. He smiled, taking a seat at this particular one, which was one of the nicest in the entire restaurant. It featured a lovely view of Cyber City, one that he sincerely hoped you would enjoy.

Before he could begin to even consider worrying once more, Saffron approached him with a couple of menus tucked under one wing. “Good evening, Mr. Target. I hear you are waiting on someone in particular?”

“Yes, Saffron! I’m afraid I’ve arrived dreadfully early, so she won’t be here for quite some time. Could I just have my usual drink for now, while I wait for her?” Getty asked politely.

“Of course, sir. I shall have it brought out to you shortly.” Saffron bowed lightly, before leaving the Addison alone again.

Getty spent a few minutes people-watching in an effort to amuse himself, trying to see how many repeat customers he could spot in the restaurant tonight. He definitely recognized many of the Addisons there, as well as a few Plugboys and one or two Werewires. It took him several more minutes to recall all of their names (as well as their most recent purchases), by which point his drink had arrived.

After thanking the Swatchling who had brought his glass, Getty took a small sip, feeling his shoulders relax slightly at the familiar flavor. Soon enough, however, he found himself lost in another memory—this time of the first moment he’d ever seen you.

The Color Café was even busier than usual that day, and his second choice of restaurant was closed as well because the chef had come down with a virus. Honestly, at this point, he’d be content with just about anything, so long as it was food and he could get it in something approximating a timely manner.

Suddenly, Getty spotted one diner that was normally too busy for him to even consider, but seemed to be having a slow day today. Feeling slightly apprehensive (but mostly just desperate) he pushed open the door and stepped inside, putting on his usual salesman’s smile.

At first, he didn’t notice any workers, only a few sparse patrons at various tables. Just as he was about to feel truly concerned, though, a voice spoke up from the back of the diner.

“Good morning! How are you today?”

And Getty nearly bluescreened at the sight. 

He knew that he was a bit of a hopeless romantic (or perhaps more than a bit, really), but somehow, he’d never had all that many romantic moments happen to him…until now. The Lightner working at the diner—and how was a Lightner working at a diner??—was by far the most gorgeous person he had ever seen.

Time stopped. His heart pounded. Your sweet, warm smile lit up the room, and he nearly melted at the sight. 

Suddenly, he remembered that you’d asked him a question. “O-oh! Perfect, thank you, absolutely wonderful!” he managed to stammer, feeling as though his legs might give out at any moment.

“I’m Getty, by the way.” he added shyly. “He/him, if you please.” 

“Oh! It’s so nice to meet you!” you said brightly. “I’m—well, it says it right here on my name tag, doesn’t it?” You laughed briefly at that, before continuing onwards. “Um, she/her works just fine for me.”

You opened your mouth, about to say something else, when a voice rang out from the back of the diner. “Oi! Lightner! You’d better not be slacking off out there!”

You jumped, the brightness disappearing from your face instantly. Getty silently mourned the sight. “S-sorry!” you called, before turning back to him and flashing him a shadow of the smile you’d worn before. “Feel free to pick whatever seat you’d like, I’ll be over as soon as I can to take your order!” You snatched up a menu and handed it to him, before dashing off to speak with whoever had just yelled at you.

Getty sat down at a booth by the window, frowning in concern. At any other point in time, he would have noticed that the diner wasn’t quite as tidy nor as beautiful as the places he normally preferred to frequent, but right now, he was consumed with worry for the lovely person he’d just met. 

Were you being mistreated here? Or was this just a bad day? And were you really the only server in the entire place? If so, then he couldn’t imagine the kind of stress you must be under, and he settled in to wait for you to be finished with the other patrons.

You took rather longer to return than Getty would have liked, but your profuse apologies more than banished any hints of frustration he might have felt. Admittedly, the food was…also less than stellar, but the way you smiled every time he showed you even the smallest scrap of kindness made his heart flutter and ache simultaneously.

Before he had even paid the bill, he knew he’d be returning here tomorrow.

Getty blinked, rousing himself from his reminiscing and looking briefly around the room. The same people were mostly there, but Cardinal was currently showing someone new to their seat. He glanced back out the window, not wanting to stare as they walked through the restaurant—

Wait.

It was you.

Getty nearly gave himself whiplash with how quickly he looked back over in your direction. You looked utterly stunning, clearly having both dressed up very nicely and done your hair specially for the occasion. It felt like that first day at the diner all over again, except so much better, because now there was no rude manager, no difficult work, and no poor quality food.

Just you…and him.

Getty jumped up out of his seat, his eyes meeting yours as he prepared to speak, and he felt his heart pound. 

Goodness, he hoped he was ready for this.