#but the demo was a MUCH bigger mess than we were expecting >.<

[blackjackkent]

Phhhhbbbbb. Haircut aside, this has been a dumb day. We had a big demo for the enormous already-crunch project I'm on, and it turns out that a bunch of us all working on the same file caused some stuff to last-minute break right before said demo.

So now we're in more chaos crunch. Probably gonna be on the clock till like nine tonight. 🙃

Tell me good things about your day pls. <3

[ateezthings]

ATEEZ Reaction: Forced breakup with S/O + admitting their insecurities

@hongjoongscftie said: “Hey :) first thing,I hope you're having an amazing day! And secondly,could I maybe request an ateez reaction? I was thinking of the ateez members being insecure about something on themselves (like voice,looks,etc) and reader is telling them that there's nothing to worry about,and that they love them just how they are,and that they always will be there for ateez,but a week later the management is forcing reader to break up with their boyfriend,because it could affect their career,and as they are packing their things (member) walks in? I don't know if this made sense,and I'm sorry for my bad english 🥺”

I hope this is what you had in mind 😊 (Also please normalize dudes talking about insecurities)

 Genderneutral

Angst, Fluffy moments

Pairings: You x each member

Warnings: language, breakups, topics of body image, insecurities, crying (San’s part is the most heartbreaking)

Word count: 3.2K

 Songs, that convey the feeling I was going for:

     Twocolors – Lovefool

     Lauv – The Other

     Young Lions – You Are II

     One Republic – Didn’t I

     Halsey - Sorry

*~Seonghwa~*

“Do you like my voice?”

It was late. Seonghwa and you were in bed, about to fall asleep.

“Hm? Yeah, sure Hwa, there’s a reason you sell so many albums.”

“That’s not what I asked, I wanted to know if you like my voice.”

Now you sat up, he really was unsure of this. “Seonghwa, I love your voice… You don’t know this but whenever you’re gone over night, I listen to your demos to hear you sing because it helps me fall asleep.”

That statement conjured a shy smile on his face. “I love you Y/N” He pressed a kiss on your forehead.

…

“No no no… don’t leave me Y/N, please, don’t.”

After the very stern talk with their manager, you had no choice but to pack your bags. Halfway through packing, Seonghwa barged in, a panicked look in his eyes, worried when he saw your tear-stained face.

“We can talk about this… just please, don’t go like this” While begging you to stay he took your clothes out of the bag.

“Mr. Kim made it quite clear that I should leave if I don’t want to ruin your career… I don’t think we have a choice Seonghwa”

“We do, I’ll talk to him, we can be together... maybe we’ll have to stay quiet for a few months, but I can’t lose you, I love you so much and I don’t think I could live without you now, so tell me you really would be okay with leaving, because I don’t think you are” He spoke so fast, you had trouble understanding him.

A new wave of tears rolled down your cheeks as you slowly approached him. “I’m not, I’m not okay with leaving you because I need you too.”

He opened his arms to hug you. Feeling his heartbeat next to your ear calmed you down.

 *~Hongjoong~*

“Ugh, I need to train more” He mumbled when he saw himself in the mirror.

“What did you say?” You knew from your own experience that insecurities could consume your whole thinking, so you wanted to prevent that from happening to your boyfriend.

“I just wish I had bigger arms, I look like a weakling next to the other guys.”

“No… no you don’t, you look perfect to me, you know I love you the way you are… Please don’t think about it too much, Joong.”

“Baby, I love you too, thank you” He put an arm around you shoulder and pressed a kiss on your forehead.

…

You didn’t remember the walk home after the talk with Ateez’ manager. You couldn’t leave him. Hongjoong was the first serious relationship you had in quite a long time; you couldn’t give him up. But you couldn’t lie, talking to their manager intimidated you a lot. You didn’t know what would happen if you didn’t comply, and you didn’t want to find out.

You were still in a state of shock when Hongjoong arrived.

“Y/N? Are you home?” He practically ran to the bedroom where you were.

“Please Y/N, I’m sorry I didn’t know they’d do this” He helped you sit up on the bed and crouched down in front of you. You still couldn’t talk.

“Babe, please talk to me.”

Finally, you looked at him. “I don’t know… I don’t know what to do… I don’t want to leave, but I also don’t want to be the reason for your problems… Please tell me what to do.”

“I don’t want you to leave me” There was genuine worry in his eyes. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you… and I think we’ll find a way to deal with them.”

At the moment, you really needed him to be optimistic for the both of you. Slowly, you cupped his face with your hands, you never wanted to forget his face. “I’ll stay with you.”

 *~Yunho~*

“Y/N, can I talk to you about something?”

“Always, babe, what’s going on?”

You two were cuddling in his bed after a long and stressful day.

“Do you think I should get a six pack?” When you looked at him, he was biting his lip.

“Where is this coming from?” You knew he needed to be in shape to be an idol, but he was, there was nothing you’d change about him.

He still didn’t look at you “I just… Sometimes when we have dance rehearsal, I feel stupid standing next to San, we’re both dancers but his abs are amazing, he’s been working so hard, and it’s really paid off… we gained a lot of fans through him…”

“Alright listen to me Yunho:  If there are fans that are only here for your look, that’s pretty shallow, of course it’s nice to look at pretty people but your message and the songs and your energy is much more important… You are in shape, you’re a main dancer, rationally I don’t think you need to change anything if you’re happy with yourself… and if you’d like to know… I like your soft tummy; I wouldn’t change a thing about you… I love you.”

He finally looked at you, his eyes sparkling, slowly breaking into a smile “I love you too, baby, what would I do without you?”

…

Tears were running down your cheeks, blurring your vision while you were trying to put your clothes into a bag. A friend had offered you could stay with him for a few weeks after Ateez’ manager told you, you needed to leave Yunho. You couldn’t believe it. They didn’t leave you a choice, either you’d leave voluntarily, or they’d have to take more serious measures.

You hadn’t talked to Yunho, but you figured their manager did. You didn’t want to make it harder than it already was. Leaving without a trace would be the best.

Suddenly you heard the door open, no, you couldn’t deal with him now.

“Y/N?” It sounded like he was out of breath once he arrived at the bedroom where you were.

“Y/N? please don’t do this.” His eyes were wide open.

“What choice do I have? You don’t need me to ruin your career.”

“I don’t care about that; I care about you… I can’t live without you, please” He moved closer to take your hands into his. His eyes stared into yours, you could almost see his pain.

You let yourself fall into his arms, letting the tears flow “I love you, Yunho… I don’t wanna go.”

He held you close to him, running his hands through your hair “Then stay.”

 *~Yeosang~*

“Hi, baby… I’ve missed you today.”

Yeosang had just come home from work. You greeted him with a big hug. He buried his head in your neck and you could feel him shifting some of his weight onto you.

“Are you okay, Yeo?”

You could hear him breath deeply. “Actually, no, I feel like shit… Remember how we were recording our new song today?”

“Yeah, the one you practiced really hard for.”

“Yeah that. And I totally messed it up… I couldn’t get this one melody right and they were all telling me how I was supposed to sing it, but I didn’t get it right, so I have to go back there tomorrow.”

The way he looked at you reminded you of a hurt puppy, your heart burst inside. So, you pulled him into a hug again. “I’m so sorry, Yeo, that must’ve felt horrible… but I think everyone has bad days sometimes.”

“But it’s made me really insecure of my singing now… I don’t know how I’ll shake that off…”

“It’s okay to doubt yourself sometimes Yeosang, but don’t forget that you’re a professional singer, you have a great voice, so many people love your voice, including me, and you will be able to nail it eventually, you just had an off day, and that’s totally okay… You know there’s probably days were even Beyonce can’t hit the right notes, so don’t worry too much.”

He chuckled a little at your remark and finally looked up at you again to press a kiss on your cheek. “Thank you, love.”

“Now relax and let me take your mind off that.”

…

“Yeosang, I’m sorry, they left me no choice but to leave…” The tears were streaming down your cheeks, you had given up on trying to hold them back a long time ago. Yeosang however, still hadn’t said a word since he came home to you packing your bags. He just stood in the doorframe to the bedroom.

“I’m not going to stand in the way of you and your career, I know how important it is to you, so I guess… I guess this is good-goodbye…” Your voice was dangerously unsteady.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” You tried to wipe your nose on the sleeves of your hoodie when he handed you a tissue.

Slowly he walked over to you and took you into his arms. You could feel his heartbeat.

“Please, don’t go now…” His voice was only a whisper. “Y/N… don’t you love me anymore?”

In between soft cries you managed to utter a response. “I do lo-love you… but is that enough?”

You looked up at him. You could tell he feared what was to come.

“It is enough for me… I love you so much Y/N, promise you won’t ever leave without talking to me first?”

“I promise” The kiss that followed tasted like salty tears, but it solidified the love you had for Yeosang.

 *~San~*

“San, are you alright? You seem distant.”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine”

You two were having dinner at your favorite restaurant, but he hadn’t spoken much. Usually, he’d tell you how his day went, but not today.

“Are you sure?”

“Alright, no… I feel under pressure because I need to maintain my abs. Now that I’ve showed them, I feel like everyone expects me to be the muscular guy now… but you know that’s not natural for me.”

You felt for him. He worked so hard but now it was getting too much.

“San, you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone… It’s fine if your abs are not visible all the time… You need to take care of yourself… mentally… and I love you with or without abs if that helps.”

He softly put his hand on yours. “It does help.”

…

His management knew you two had been dating for only a few months, but it was getting serious. And they disregarded that. Being forced to breakup never even entered your mind, so it came as quite the shock to you when Mr. Kim, Ateez’ manager, revealed that you indeed had to break up with San.

At home you were halfheartedly putting your clothes in suitcases, but it felt surreal. Like a nightmare.

You had gotten so used to living with San and to think that it was all over now, because you needed to protect his career made your eyes fill with tears.

When the first tear hit the floor, you heard the door open. San stood next to you just a moment later. He himself had red swollen eyes, you assumed he had been crying too.

“Y/N, please don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about leaving me?”

“What choice do we have?” Your tears threatened to spill again.

“I-I don’t know right now, Y/N, but I’ll figure something- we will figure something out, please don’t do this right now, I can’t have you leave me, please.” The more he spoke, the faster and the more panicked his tone got, his eyes opened wide. His hands gripped your arms on each side. You assumed it took a lot out of him not to shake you.

“San, I don’t think that’s a- a possibility anymore… Mr. Kim, he sounded so serious…”

Suddenly he let go of you and took a step back. “Do you- do you want to go?”

You didn’t know what you wanted anymore. It was late and you were drained. Apparently, you hesitated a little too long for San’s liking because he turned around, headed for the door.

“No, San, don’t leave, please, I don’t-” But he was already out the door.

Had you not felt broken-down, you might have followed him out the door, but not like this. You collapsed to your knees and let the tears wash the little composure that was left, away.

 *~Mingi~*

“Wow, Y/N, you look gorgeous.”

Mingi entered your shared bedroom while you were putting on some makeup.

“Thanks, baby”

He walked behind you to look at the mirror. A few moments passed when you realized he was staring at his own reflection.

“What are you thinking?”

He took a deep breath before answering. “I’m wondering if my face is handsome enough.”

That was it, you weren’t having him doubting himself. You turned to look straight into his eyes. “Listen to me, your face is so unusually handsome, I’m still amazed whenever I look at you… your eyes are so warm, they’re my favorite feature of yours… also your face is doing a pretty good job at keeping your eyes, nose and lips in place, so you really shouldn’t complain” You had hoped a little humor would take his mind off his insecurity.

He chuckled. “That’s why we’re in a relationship, you always talk me out of bad moments… thank you baby.”

…

Mingi was already home when you got there. For a while you just looked at each other, neither of you knowing what to say.

“Hi…”

“Y/N, I didn’t know they want us to break up, I’m sorry, I’m going to talk to them.”

You couldn’t help but hug him. He was your safe place. “I don’t want us to breakup, Mingi… I can’t lose you” The thought of not having him in your life drew tears in your eyes, it was too painful.

“Shh shh, you’re not going to lose me… I won’t let that happen.” He tried to calm you down by caressing your hair. “We’ll find a way” He whispered, more to himself than to you.

 *~Wooyoung~*

It was very early in the morning. Wooyoung was already getting dressed while you were having trouble to get out of bed.

“Babe, do you think my thighs are too big? I feel like my jeans are getting tighter…”

Once you opened your eyes you saw Wooyoung trying to squeeze his fabulous thighs into some jeans, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

You slowly got out of bed, not taking your eyes off him.

“Clothes can always be altered… and I love your thighs… they’re really… hot” You blushed a little.

“Is that so?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and kissed you.

…

Why did you have so many clothes? All the tears blurred your vision and whenever you put five shirts in your suitcase another ten were behind that, it was frustrating.

You tried to focus on the simple task of packing, trying hard not to think about the whole situation. You couldn’t believe they expected you to leave Wooyoung. You loved him, and he loved you. And that was supposed to not matter at all?

When you were done, you just sat on the bed. You were worn-out from crying so much.

You didn’t even hear him enter the apartment. Suddenly Wooyoung stood in front of you in the bedroom.

“I came as soon as I heard… I’m sorry babe… you don’t deserve all this shit.” He helped you stand up and took you into his arms.

“I’m just tired, Woo.”

His response was to hold you closer to his chest. “I know… we can go to bed.”

A few minutes later you were lying in his arm about to drift off to sleep, leaving your troubles behind.

“Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“I just have one question.”

“What is it?”

You could hear him inhale deeply.

“Would you- Are you considering leaving me?”

You didn’t think he’d be thinking about that. “Wooyoung, I love you; I will never leave you… I thought you knew that…”

He pressed a short kiss in your hair. “I just needed to hear that… I love you so much, little one.”

  *~Jongho~*

“Baby, do you think my butt is too big?”

You were just about to leave for work when you saw him standing in front of the mirror in the bedroom.

“Hu- wh-what?” You took a few steps towards him to give his booty a little slap.

“Jong, booties can never be too big” You smirked at him. “I love your cute little butt… and I love you… so stop being insecure about it” You pressed a kiss on his cheek. He blushed.

…

After your meeting with a KQ executive, you couldn’t think straight. They told you, you needed to leave Jongho as soon as possible because of his career.

Somehow you made it back home where you collapsed into your tears. After a few minutes you mustered up enough courage to pack your bags.

You left the apartment with two suitcases dragging behind you. You had almost made it to the end of the street when you saw him running towards you. “Y/N wait!”

When he finally stood in front of you, he was quite out of breath. Looking at him drew more tears into your eyes. You had trouble holding them back “Jongho, we don’t have a choice, I need to do this, I can’t keep hurting you more.”

“No, please, I love you, this is hurting me more than my career ever could… please don’t leave me, we’ll find a way to fix this.”

He held one of your hands in his two big hands, his eyes opened wide.

You really weren’t sure if you could hide your relationship from his agency and the fans. You were so unsure of the whole situation, but you knew you loved him.

After a few moments of silence, you kissed him with all your passion.

“I do love you Jong, but this is going to be really hard, so I need you to help me when I doubt myself, when I doubt us.”

“I will, I won’t let you go again.”

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

pause, m | myg | 4

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Some things that are normal for most aren’t normal for you and Yoongi. He moved in and sleeps in the same bed with you, but still all you do is hold hands and kiss gently. Everyone has their own pace. Not everyone lives in the fast lane. There’s just... this nagging feeling. You have to be honest. 

warnings: rated M (18+) - mentions of a previous physically and verbally abusive relationship; language; smut (penetrative sex); there’s so much fluff you might die; also RIP to their heads XD; non-idol!AU; music producer!Yoongi x dancing fanatic!reader

rated M because I know how sensitive a topic domestic abuse is.

--

3.

-

"Sorry."

"What?"

You retreated your hand from the tuft of hair sticking out of Yoongi's black cap. He turned around and raised his eyebrows at you. You ended up apologizing before actually doing anything or even touching the little black tail in the opening of his hat. He adjusted the brim and gave you a weird look. 

"Something wrong?" he asked, tilting his head. 

"No, uh... I..." You struggled to find the words. "I almost touched you. I wasn't sure if you were okay with that."

Yoongi smiled a little. "It's okay. I know you're there. And I know it's you."

He was sitting right next to you at your computer in your bedroom. You had set up a station for him, the two of you in the corner, occupying two computers ninety degrees from each other. All you had to do was turn to the right and he was there. He turned to the left and you were there. It was kind of cramped and not ideal, but it had to do for now. Yoongi worked on music at home. Some things Yoongi could only do at the studio, but some things he could do at home. You found him a decent computer and some hand-me-down equipment and it was good enough. 

Actually...

It was miles better than it was before. He was surprised when you asked him if he wanted to work on his music at home. It wasn't permitted in Yoongi's previous relationship. But you saw he lamented sometimes, recording demos on his phone and wishing he had some sort of setup to do some things. You didn't understand the technical aspects, but it couldn't hurt to ask, right? It had become a fun project and now Yoongi was sitting beside you.

Yoongi spied the images on your monitor. "What are you looking at?"

You turned back. "Apartments. I'm just trying to see if there's something bigger, so you can have your own music studio at home."

He bit his lip. "I can't afford that right now."

You understood that Yoongi often mentioned money because it was a topic of arguments with his ex-girlfriend. You hadn't gone into this expecting Yoongi to be rich. In any case, it was better for him to invest in his music. You had already told him this, but habits take time to be broken. Thankfully, your work paid well even though it was mostly clerical duties. There were perks to having worked at the same company for a long time.

"It's okay. I want a bigger space too." 

"You mean you want your dance studio back?" he teased. 

You felt your ears heat. "I can use the living room... anyway, I want you to be able to work in peace. I haven't seen anything good though."

"Mmm, well, this kind of thing takes time and luck."

You turned your head to look at him and found his face next to your shoulder. A handsome profile. His eyes shifted to look at you. Something flitted in those dark brown eyes. The nagging feeling came back, tapping inside your ribcage, rattling impatiently. You looked away, back at your computer screen. 

Yoongi said your name softly. 

"Is something wrong?" His voice wavered. "Did I do something?"

"No, Yoongi," you replied, still not looking at him. The frustration inside expanded. You knew you had to communicate. You couldn't not. If you avoided it any longer, you would be growing the seeds of doubt and you wanted Yoongi to trust you. To do that, you needed to be honest. 

"I'm horny."

Silence. 

"What?"

You jerked a little in your seat, moving away from Yoongi before raising your head to make eye contact. Your chest felt tight, ashamed, even though it wasn't supposed to be embarrassing. 

"I'm horny," you repeated, rubbing your fist on your thigh. "I don't want to pressure you because I know that topic might be delicate. I just..." You kept looking at those wide cat-like eyes and then looking away, heart beating fast and heat building faster. "I find that I can't really look at you that long without thinking about it. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

Silence. You felt your stomach knot.

“I don’t remember the last time I had sex,” Yoongi murmured. “I don’t remember the last time I wanted it.”

Ah. Right. That would make sense. Of course, that’s how he felt. Also, you weren’t exactly sexy. The octopus dancing didn’t really get the guys, so to speak. You could handle yourself. It was fine. He was just so… You wanted Yoongi to feel good with your touch, wanted his heart to flutter the way yours fluttered, wanted to see him breathless with want.

There was a weight on your thigh.

You started, looking down, breath at your throat. You were wearing loose gray shorts and the matching sweatshirt. Not a sexy outfit to get your freak on. But you were staring at Yoongi’s hand, kneading the fabric and your leg underneath and the heat was rising, heart racing.

“I think I need a reminder…” he murmured. “A reminder on how good it feels to be loved like that.”

Yoongi lifted his head and you stared into his eyes.

He leaned forward and closed the distance, kissing you softly, and you breathed him in, fitting your hand over his, guiding it up, gentle touches, turning in your chair to face him, and he was turning to you, holding you close, your hands skimming over his t-shirt, not trying to get more, just wanting to show your want, just demonstrating how you would run your hands over his skin if there was no barrier, and he stood up, making you stand up.

And then your heads banged together.

“Ow!”

“Motherfuc–”

You swore and Yoongi clamped a hand over your mouth, rubbing his forehead and shaking his head.

“Don’t ruin this,” he winced, removing his hand.

“My brain feels rearranged,” was your woozy response, cursing the narrow space.

Yoongi took your hand and pulled you away from the computers, towards to the bed, the same bed you two slept on, but didn’t touch, not like this. You only held hands or kissed gently. Late at night, when Yoongi was fast asleep, you would stare at his profile and wonder if he felt the same passion you felt, but it was weird to watch him sleeping, so you looked away and stared at the ceiling instead, thinking about him and his body against yours.

And now it was, his arms around you, pressing you to his chest, kissing your lips, cheeks, closed eyelids, making you laugh a little. Your fingertips on his back, tracing patterns, his gasp against your skin, cap falling off and tumbling to the floor, his black hair brushing your forehead.

“T-Touch me more…” he murmured.

He took your forearms and pushed them down, sliding your hands under his white shirt and then it was skin on skin, a needy noise between you two. With burning ears, you realized that was you, Yoongi’s hands on your shoulders as you explored his back, fingertips dancing up his spine, his pants in your ear, and then his fingers in your hair, messing it all up, rolling his body into yours.

Hardness.

You gasped, raising your thigh to press against it, and his hands slid down, and you looked up to see his half-lidded eyes hazy with desire.

“I want to follow your lead, Yoongi,” you breathed. “Any time you want to stop, we can stop.”

He nodded, leaning down to kiss you, deeper this time, tongue sliding in and playing with yours, your hands exploring the contours of his back. His skin, so soft, so lovely, smelling the vanilla and patchouli body wash you used because you shared the same shower and he used all your products. You shared so much with him, but there were some things you couldn’t share. Not yet. Not until he gave you his sign that he was ready.

You never told Yoongi, I love you.

The most precious words used in this world, turned to a poison dagger to hurt him, so you never said it, not until he was ready to hear it, not until he wanted to hear it. You knew Yoongi knew. You would hold his hand, draw a heart in his palm, small things like that, and he knew. He’d squeeze your fingers and smile a little smile and that was enough.

Maybe you were tiptoeing too much, but it was impossible to tell, because everyone is different and not even Yoongi himself knew what trivial actions or words would bring back unpleasant memories. He had spent so long repressing them that it was hard to tell reality from fantasy. He didn’t know what to be afraid of because he tried so hard to make them disappear.

You drew a small heart on Yoongi’s shoulder blade and he gasped, pulling you closer.

“I… like when you do that…” he mumbled, sounding a little embarrassed.

“Draw hearts?” you questioned, tilting your head.

“Yeah… on my skin…”

And then Yoongi surprised you.

He backed up a little and pulled his shirt over his head, taking your hands and placing them on his chest, not saying anything, but you could see it in his eyes, I don’t look very good, and you pressed your fingertips to his chest, over his beating heart, looking up at him.

“You will always be perfect to me, Yoongi.”

He gave you a wistful smile, believing you and not at the same time. “You have weird taste.”

You drew a small heart over his, feeling him shiver at your touch. You grinned brightly. “That’s how you know I’m devoted.”

He chuckled, closing one eye, looking sheepish. You waited, letting him work through the emotion, trying not to put himself down, taking it for what it was. It was not an easy thing to do. You had to be patient. Yoongi took your hand and pulled you to the bed, a familiar environment.

“I want to make you feel good,” he said.

“You don’t–”

“I want to,” Yoongi reaffirmed, looking you in the eye, determination in his tone. “I want my hard work to be the reason you feel good.”

You shouldn’t say it. Well, maybe it will lighten the mood. You struggled internally and then leaned forward, placing the back of your hand near your mouth.

“Hard work is a weird way to refer to your dick,” you whispered closely.

Yoongi burst out laughing, gums flashing, raspy and full, shoving you onto the bed. You bounced, hands flapping about, grinning at you own joke as Yoongi grabbed the bottom of your sweatshirt, yanking it up and over your head.

“This and your bad habit of moving your head at the same time as me–”

“It means we’re in sync!”

“I don’t want a concussion every time we make out,” Yoongi shot back, pinning your arms down and hovering over you, exasperated smile on his face.

He was so close.

Your grin slowly deflated, realizing that he was shirtless and you were shirtless, and Yoongi had you pinned down, gazing down at you with dark eyes and that open-mouthed smirk that was also disappearing, realizing he was on top of you, realizing this wasn’t innocent, realizing he was about to do something that should be normal but was made abnormal to him.

“You don’t have to do it,” you said gently.

“I know.” He looked at you under his black hair, messy and flat from being under the hat, brown eyes and pink lips standing out on his fair-skinned face. “But I want to.”

You always thought that parts of life were boring. It would be easier to fast forward and skip it.

But not with Yoongi.

He leaned down and kissed you, a kiss that you wanted to pause and live in forever, him inhaling you, pressing deeply, hands releasing your arms and cradling your head, his kisses like stars, precious light that brightened your whole world. But you also wanted to press play, kissing him back, your hands caressing his sides, drawing small hearts on his skin, your own heart swelling with the electricity of touching the one you loved, not knowing until now how nice it was, the simple sensation of dancing your fingers up his back and back down, his gasps on your skin, kissing down, down the curve of your neck and the swell of your breasts, so focused that his eyes were screwed shut and his brows were furrowed.

“Yoongi…”

His eyes opened slowly and Yoongi looked up at you with shaking pupils. Scared he was going to fuck up.

“It’s just me. You know, the one who dances like an octopus.”

His expression seemed to relax, turning into ruefulness. “How could I forget?”

“Should I wiggle a bit to jog your memory?” you teased.

“Please don’t.”

Your remark seemed to have calmed him, returning to your breasts, slipping the straps down, kissing along the curve of the cup, slipping his tongue under experimentally to make you jump, heart racing once more, a small smirk on his lips as he reached behind you and unhooked it, releasing them from their prison.

“O-oh!”

You yelped when Yoongi pulled your bra down, kissing your nipple directly, tingles flaring from the kiss, leaving you breathless as his tongue danced out, licking gracefully, slow circles that made you clench your jaw and tighten your core to avoid arching your back to get more. Yoongi seemed to sense your urgency and added more pressure, closing his lips around it, and your hands flew up, holding his head as carefully as possible but holy shit, holy shit, Yoongi’s tongue on you was pure ecstasy and he was doing it for you, showing his love for you and that’s why it felt so good, that’s why it was so fucking nice.

“Ah, fuck, Yoongi…”

He kissed to the other side, murmuring your name against your skin, seeped with desire and affection, pushing your wet nipple with one finger as he kissed the other, two points of pleasure that flowed through you, your gasps turning to moans, his hands coming up and encircling yours, lacing your fingers with his and holding them, whispering, faint, nearly silent, vibrating your sensitive skin with his lips and breath.

And then you heard it.

His whisper right above your heart and you looked down, Yoongi’s eyes looking up at you.

Apologetic for taking so long.

“I love you.”

If someone paused the tape right now, took it out, and your life ended right there, you would be okay with that. If that was the last moment in this world, if that was all that was and time stopped, you would be content.

But it wasn’t.

Play.

You smiled down at him, trying to prevent your voice from shaking.

“I love you too, Yoongi.”

The most precious words in the whole world.

“Should I stop?”

Your eyes widened. “N-no! I mean… if you’re…” You stopped speaking, seeing the playfulness sparkling in those dark eyes, pleased to have tricked you, even if only for a second.

“I’m kidding,” he chuckled, lifting himself up to kiss you lightly. “I only wanted to see if you would be bothered.”

“I am very bothered,” you responded, peeved. “Hot and bothered, even.”

Yoongi lifted a brow, small amused smirk on his lips. “Come to think of it, me too.” He backed up and you lifted your chest, only to have Yoongi press down on your collarbones, worry flitting his face.

“What?”

“Don’t bonk my head.”

You grimaced. “I’m not a serial head bonker.” You lifted yourself up and Yoongi swung his head back, eyes flashing with mock fear. You pointed to the nightstand, rolling your eyes, and rummaged around in the drawer, feeling to the back and pulling out the small box.

“How old are those?”

Your cheeks flushed. “L-Last month!”

“You wanted to fuck me since last month?”

“N-No, obviously earlier, but I didn’t k-know if you ever wanted…” you trailed off, flapping your jaw, holding up said box, the condoms tumbling out. You panicked a little, not wanting him to think you were expecting too much, dropping the box and scrambling to collect the pile, the tip of your finger hitting the box at the exact spot that would cause it to fly off the bed and hit the wall.

You stared at it, betrayed.

Yoongi burst out laughing. “I can hear you talking to it,” he chuckled.

“I’m not saying anything!”

“You wanna fuck me?”

Your head snapped back, eyes widening. Yoongi tilted his head.

“Yes,” you blurted. “Well, yes, I mean, you’re so…” This was awkward. It didn’t used to be awkward but, also, you had never been this invested. Your eyes widened. You were invested in a person. Actually invested, invested in Min Yoongi. You looked up at him and he looked back curiously like a cat, not realizing your epiphany. Oh shit. Now this was even more weird.

Do something. Do something. Not that. Oh no, you’re doing it.

You held up the plethora of condoms. “Pick a card?”

Living alone made you too fucking weird.

“Aren’t they all the same?” Yoongi snickered.

You shifted, putting them back down on the bed. “Ahaha… right…” Your leg pressed against his and you jumped, startled. “You’re hard.”

Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “When gorgeous tits are out, the human body reacts when there is attraction, even if you’re speaking nonsense.”

You blinked at him. “G-Gorgeous?”

Yoongi’s ears flushed pink and he reached over, ripping a condom off the others. “Y-Yeah…” He straightened, scooting back to between your legs, placing his hands on your shorts. “Ah… unless the mood is killed…”

“No,” you exclaimed, hands flying down to the waistband. “It is not. It is alive and well. Very well.”

Yoongi opened his mouth and shut it. Then he opened it again, smiling a little. “I’m beginning to think we are a bit strange.”

“it’s just because it’s the first time,” you rambled. “All first times are a bit strange.”

This wasn’t getting anywhere, so you yanked down your shorts and underwear at once, Yoongi gasping and snapping his head down as you kicked off your clothes, the sharp scent of your arousal suddenly very apparent. You felt your cheeks heat, unaware that you had such a strong reaction to Yoongi being above you, observing your wetness with round eyes, as if to say, I did that?

“Wow.” Yoongi raised his head, black bangs framing his beautiful eyes. “You’re stunning.”

Was it ever like this? Like every word was precious, every lyric in this song meaning more than the words themselves, like every single piece of the composition was perfect, special, everything pause-worthy, even the odd bits, you reaching up to cup his head, pulling Yoongi down for a kiss, him pushing his own pants down, sucking in a breath as your hand wrapped around him, moaning in his mouth, deepening the kiss, more erotic, more intense, his cock throbbing in your palm, getting harder by your touch, Yoongi whimpering in your mouth, backing off slowly, ripping the condom open, sliding it on, and you watching, oh, he’s beautiful there too.

“Thanks…?”

“… Uh, you’re welcome.”

You spoke out loud. Great.

“Do you need some prep?”

“Yoongi, please put it in before I say something stupid again–”

You cut yourself off as Yoongi pushed in slowly, both of you suddenly gasping at the sensation, you already wet enough because you had been thinking about this for so long, morning, night, morning, night, thinking about Yoongi, and if you could, if he was ready to have him inside you, filling you up, and it was happening, happening right now, sinking into you, looking into his eyes. And you could see the amazement, the wave of satisfaction that shimmered through his dark orbs, and the way Yoongi looked at you.

Like he was complete.

“I… oh, fuck…” His eyelids fluttered. “I might not be that good…”

“Are you kidding me, holy fuck, you feel fucking incredible,” you breathed, clenching around him, moaning softly at the perfection that was him, heart racing with every second. Your hands came up and held his cheeks, your breath hot and fluttering upwards. “You already feel so good, Yoongi. You can see it in my face, can’t you?”

His eyes searched yours, looking for the lie, the performance, but there was none, no need to lie when your hips were already slowly rocking into his, creating movement and pleasure, and he fell into the rhythm, complementing you. Your hands dropped and you put them over your head, grasping the pillows, letting out every cry and soft sound so Yoongi could hear and know this was the truth, your legs circling his slim waist. Yoongi bit his lip, breathing hard, whimpering a little.

“I mean… it’s been a while… and you feel too f-fucking good, oh fuck…”

You realized what he meant and you reached down with one hand, jolting as your fingertip touched your clit, rubbing it forcefully, shudders flying through you, gasping at your own stimulation, breasts pressing together, and Yoongi moaned, feeling you constrict and pulse around him, wetter, thrusting into you harder until there was a symphony of sound, heavy wanton breathing, slapping of skin on skin, chasing your climax as Yoongi chased his, eyes locked, almost there, almost there…

At the bridge.

Somehow you both knew the final chorus was coming.

“Yoongi…”

He breathed your name, drawing it out like the most precious word in this world.

You moaned deeply and it rushed through you, shooting up your torso and into your chest, an overwhelming pressure that took you under, making you throw your head back and gasp his name, pressing down on your clit to amplify every bolt of pleasure that made your muscles shake. Yoongi groaned, thrusting into you hard with his own gasp, cock jerking and shooting into the condom, surrounded by your suffocating embrace and you saw his eyes roll back a little, muscles in his arms tense, fingers bunching into the sheets, black hair sweaty and sticking to his face.

Hot breath mixing with yours, heavy pants of shared ecstasy.

“Whoa…”

His dark eyes flickered to yours, pupils blown out, blinking slowly as he exhaled. “W-What...?”

You felt your ears heat. “Oh… uh… it’s never been like that before. I’ve never felt… so much.”

A red flush bloomed over Yoongi’s cheeks. “Me neither…”

“Maybe we’re in love?” you offered lightheartedly.

A small smile grew on his lips. “Yeah, maybe.”

You began to raise yourself off the bed, but Yoongi put his hand on your collarbones quickly.

“Hold on. Let me get off first.”

“I’m not going to hit yo–“

“Ow!”

“Motherfuc–”

Press play.

-

fin.

--

masterpost

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

Still The One - Harry Styles Mini Series (Part 1)

*Kinda a companion to my series Outside the Rain... basically I didn’t like where I took that series, so I’m “starting over” with this one. It’s a bit of a flash forward about a year or so after where that series left off. You don’t necessarily have to read that series first, but you certainly can. 

I chose the title Still the One based on both song by the band Orleans and Shania Twain because I love both of these songs and I think both fit with where I’m going with this... hopefully. And... One Direction had a song by the same name too... so why not. 

**

“Like a cigarette without a light...like a whippoorwill without the night… a broken buzz that’s lost it’s high, oh baby that’s what I feel like,” you sang softly as you strummed the strings of your guitar.

You wrote down the lyrics into your journal. You had been itching to put this song… your feelings down on paper and you finally got around to doing it. Even though it was something you wanted, needed to do, it was also something that made everything you were feeling real.

It had been well over six months since you and Harry had ended your relationship. Technically, it was worded as a break, but it ended up being an actual breakup. Things had been going fine for the most part, but then 2020 happened and it all became too much. So, naturally, you pushed him away to the point neither of you were happy anymore. You even pushed your friends, the girls in the band you just reunited with, away.

Pushing people away, especially those you are closest with has always been your downfall. Whenever you’re feeling down or sometime of way, you rather deal with it alone because you don’t want to risk bringing down someone else. So, you just… push them away until they don’t want to bother with you anymore. Or they give you an ultimatum and you don’t choose them.

Which is exactly what happened with both relationships. Everything had been going great for you at the time. Your band was back together after you all took some time for solo projects and the fans were looking forward to you going on tour. But then, you injured your knee, putting the upcoming tour in jeopardy, which caused a rift between you and the girls. And it only got bigger and worse from there.

When it came to your love life, you were the happiest you’ve been in a long time. You met your ex, Harry Styles, at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, when you both performed and introduced Stevie Nicks that night. You and Harry had quickly hit it off and with the help of some nudging from your good old Aunt Stevie, you two got together. And you fell fast and hard.

And that’s exactly when things took a turn. With your knee injury, Harry had agreed to stay with you to help you out, but it was also around the same time that he had his own things he needed to do. You felt as if you were holding him back. Then there was a little mishap over an old photo, which eventually got resolved, but it also brought up some feelings that scared you.

So, with the mix of those two that then carried over into the hot mess of 2020, your abort mission instincts kicked it and well… now you’re in the exact place you had wanted all those months ago.

Suffering alone with a broken heart. Just when one injury fully healed, you brought another one upon yourself and honestly you didn’t know which one was worse.

You wrote half of the song when you finally couldn’t take it anymore. You had to stop and walk away. You put down your guitar, closed your journal, and went out to your balcony. You took deep breaths as you soaked up the remainder of the sunlight as the sun started to set and let the wind caress you.

All it would take is for you to pick up the phone and call him… call the girls… reach out and talk to them. But you couldn’t. Too much has been said and there’s been too much time that has gone by for a simple phone to make it all better. Besides, you don’t even know what you would say to any of them at the moment.

Especially to Harry. The second you hear his voice, you know you’d break down and wouldn’t be able to speak. And plus, did you even have the right to call him and expect him to even give you the time of day? You hurt him. You broke his heart just as much if not more than you broke your own. There’s a big possibility that he was over you, that he moved on, or that he was so pissed off at you, he didn’t want to hear anything you had to say.

And if you were being honest with yourself, the latter might actually hurt worse. The past few months, once the overwhelming feeling started to dissolve, you knew you had fucked up and of course, now you knew you royally fucked up.

Which meant Harry deserved to move on. He deserves someone who would choose him and wouldn’t push him away like you did, so with that being said, maybe…maybe it was time for you to let him go.

**

Punch after punch after punch, Harry strikes the punching bag in front of him. Sweat dripped down his face and chest as his arms burned with each hit. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm before going back to his punching fest. No matter how long he did this, no matter how long he went for a run, there was still this pressure built up inside his chest.

An ache that has been there for a while and no matter what he did, it wouldn’t go away. He even tried writing out his pain, but it only made it worse.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Jeff said from the doorway.

“Doing what?” Harry asked, chugging down some water.

“Sulking, feeling sorry for yourself, trying to beat the shit out of that bag to make yourself feel better,” Jeff mumbled.

“I’m working out,” Harry defends.

“That’s what you’re telling yourself, but it’s obvious,” Jeff said.

“What are you talking about?” Harry said, throwing off his boxing gloves.

“I get it, you’re still in love with Y/N and dealing with all of that shit on top of everything else, but avoiding what’s going on is going to work. You need to either try and reach out to her and get closure to whatever the fuck, or you need to move on, because this- this isn’t it,” he told him.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Harry snapped. “Do you think I enjoy feeling like this? I’m fucking tired of it! I thought… I fucking thought she was it for me, but once again I was too fucking blinded about falling in love, about wanting someone to come home to and look where it fucking got me.”

“You’re angry,” Jeff stated. “Let it out.”

“I can’t!” Harry snapped.

“Why not?” Jeff asked.

“Because I can’t be angry with her,” Harry sighed. “That’s the fucking problem. This… all of this shit would be so much easier if her breaking up with me was because she didn’t love or hell even if she cheated on me, but knowing she broke it off because she’s dealing with shit...I wasn’t enough for her. I wasn’t enough to help her. That’s my job… I’m supposed to be there for her… to help her… to protect her, and I fucking failed.”

“Hey,” Jeff rushed over, taking his best friend into his arms. “You didn’t fail. Y/N had her own issues, and she… I don’t know why she pushed you away, but that isn’t your fault.

Harry put his head into his hands, wiping away the sweat and the tears falling down his cheeks.

“I think...I think enough time has passed that you should reach out to her. It might be the best for the both of you,” Jeff suggested.

“I don’t know,” he sighed.

“The Grammy’s are in a few weeks, both of you are going to be there,” Jeff said. “Don’t you think it would be better for the two of you to hash this out before seeing each other for the first time on national TV?”

Harry sighed, knowing he was right, but he still didn’t know if he could bring himself to reach out to you just yet. He didn’t know if he could hear your voice and not break down. However, he knew he would have to face this eventually, but now wasn’t the time.

**

You were currently in your home studio laying down the track of the song you had recently written. You weren’t the best at mixing or producing, but you knew and were comfortable enough to make it sound half decent. At least until you could get some others to come in and work on it.

It took a few goes until you found one you were satisfied with. You downloaded and sent the demo to your crew.

“Okay, that’s enough for the day,” you mumbled.

You turned everything off before heading into your kitchen where you made yourself some food. Just as you were sitting down to binge watch another show, your phone rang. Your heart instantly sank at the sound of the ringtone, still after all this time, you got a bit anxious wondering who was on the other line.

Seeing Stevie’s name across the top brought both a little ease, but also a bit of disappointment.

“Hey, Stevie,” you answered.

“How’s my favorite goddaughter?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” you sighed.

“You don’t sound okay,” she noted.

“I’m just… going through it,” you mumbled. “I’ll be fine.”

“Aren’t we all,” she said. “But I also know that just because you keep saying you’re fine doesn’t mean you are.”

You sighed.

“Look, I’m back in town, why don’t you come over, spend a few days if you’d like, and we can talk through this because if I know you, you’ve been alone this entire time and that’s not good for anyone,” she said.

“How do you always know everything?” You mumbled.

“I’ve been around a long time and lived an interesting life, I know things,” she smirked.

“Apparently,” you sighed. “Fine, I’ll stop by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I look forward to seeing you,” she smiled.

You sighed, ending the call, and wondered what Stevie had up her sleeve.

**

Harry finished up rehearsals before stopping by to get food. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he sat in the car driving to home, well the place he stayed at while he was in LA. Even though he lived there, he couldn’t bring himself to call it home. It felt too empty, too cold for it to ever be a home.

Just as he pulled into his driveway, got out of his car, and carried his bag of food inside, his phone started to ring. Everytime his phone rang, he silently hoped it was you calling on the other line, but if it was, he didn’t know if he could bring himself to answer.

But it wasn’t you, but it was someone close to you… and to him. Stevie. He thought about not answering it, letting it go to voicemail then maybe following up with a text that he’ll call her soon, but he knew it wasn’t fair to let his relationship with her be affected by what happened with you.

“Hey,” Harry answered.

“Hello there, how’s everything going?” She asked.

“It’s going,” Harry laughed. “I just finished up rehearsals.”

“For the Grammys right?” She asked.

“Yep that would be it,” he said.

“How are you feeling about that?” She asked.

“Nervous… and excited, ready to get back on stage,” he answered.

“It’ll be a great night, I’m sure,” she said. “But I know you’re probably busy, but I wanted to let you know I’m back in town and I would love for you to come over for dinner tomorrow night, as long as you’re not busy.”

“Um… I’ve got another rehearsal earlier in the day, but I could stop around for a quick dinner,” he nodded.

“Great, it’s settled, then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

Harry hung up and sat down with his food. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for Stevie to call him up and invite him over for dinner. They’ve both done that plenty of times, but there was something going on with this particular invite Harry just couldn’t put his finger on.

But whatever it was, he would find out tomorrow.

**

And there’s the first part... not sure how often I’ll update since I am still writing the Sunflower AU series, but I’m going to try and post every other week at first. 

Let me know your thoughts! 

[felassan]

Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games. 

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks. 

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet. 

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’” 

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue. 

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

[snesdudes]

FIST FIGHTING WITH FIRE

chapter III

Pairing: Mason x f!Detective (Alice Santos)

Warnings: Book 3 demo SPOILERS!!! Cursing, some angst, mentions of sex, a guy being a creep™, I guess. Sorry if there are any mistakes!

Word count: ~1.8k

Summary: A week after that scene on Haley’s Bakery, Mason deals with the aftermath of his words... Or has he been dealing with it since the very moment he said them?

Read on ao3

chapter I ⭐ chapter II ⭐ chapter IV ⭐ chapter V

                                         ☾  一一一一一一一一一   ☽ 

Outside the bar

"Can we just… not do this?" Alice spoke into the phone, her free hand running through her red hair and messing the waves she had carefully done that evening. A sigh from the other end of the line indicated her mother's reluctance to let it go.

"You seemed to be perfectly integrated with the Unit some days ago, and this week you made up a meeting with the Captain just to avoid coming to the warehouse."

Alice cringed, not her finest moment. "Look, I'm with them now, having a drink together. We're fine. Everything's fine."

"Does this have anything to do with what's been going on with Mason?"

Hearing his name made the detective snap. "Wait, is this you being a mother or being a boss?" She spat, venom on her every word. "Because you've barely gained the right to meddle in my life as either of those things."

The silence was deafening, and Alice's heartbeat kept getting faster and faster. "You weren't there when Bobby broke my heart, you don't have to be here now." Her voice cracked as she finished the sentence and she had to clear her throat.

"Is that what happened? Mason broke your heart?" Tears threatened to spill out of her green eyes at the genuine concern on Rebecca's voice.

"No, he didn't." She answered with a whisper, rebuilding her carefully placed walls.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am. I have to go, they are waiting for me."

"Alice, wait, tell me -"

She finished the call and stared at the phone's screen for a few seconds, taking calming breaths and trying to swallow the tears. The Unit would pick up on any change in her mood so she better calm down fast.

"Detective Santos. That looked intense."

She turned around quickly, finding the bearded man they were discussing inside before her mother called. Alice cleared her throat and offered a wobbling smile. "Kinda. Mr Rogers, wasn't it?"

"Please, call me Owen." He said, a wolfish smile on his lips as he offered his hand to her. Alice couldn't help but think of all the times the smirks Mason threw her way had seemed wolfish to her, and how different the chill she felt going down her spine was to the one she was feeling now.

Still, she was the detective of this town, so she shook his hand as professionally as she could. He took advantage of the situation to pull her slightly towards him, making her stumble on her heels and gaining a frown from her.

"I couldn't exactly walk up to you inside, surrounded by those guys. Popular, aren't you?"

Alice pulled her hand away and took a step backwards, creating some distance. "Those are my friends. And I would carefully think about what you say next if I were you, because so far you're doing a terrible job at flirting with me."

Owen blinked, slightly taken aback by her brashness, but recovering quickly and assuming she was challenging him. He didn't know he had picked the worst moment to annoy the detective, who usually was rather friendly and generous with her smiles. But the night had been a whirlwind of emotions and she was feeling irritated, miserable and ready to either go home and curl into the bed or get back inside and get shit faced drunk. Definitely not in the mood to deal with this man.

"I'm just saying you've probably let some of them get a taste." His grin widened, eyes travelling down her body. "Thought maybe I could be next. I'm sure I could teach you a couple of things… or maybe you could show me what you can do."

She opened her mouth to reply when a low growl interrupted her, making Owen turn around and allowing Alice to see Mason standing there, fists clenched and eyes narrowed, lips curled in a snarl. He looked dangerous, even more so than he usually did, and Alice tried to look at him from a stranger's eyes. Everything in his body and expression was screaming 'predator'. It would be the kind of situation where your body asks you to run even if you aren't sure about why you should be running. You just know you should. But she didn't feel fear, his anger was not directed towards her. She felt a thrill going through her body at his presence, forgetting her bruised heart for a moment.

"What the fuck did you just say to her?" The words were still growled as he stepped forward, and Owen took a step backwards, nearly colliding with the detective, who moved aside and around him. Mason reached out a hand to her, not moving his stormy gaze from the bearded man. Not even thinking, she slipped her hand into his and he gently moved her closer until she was tucked against his side. The detective had expected Mason to push her behind him, not keeping her by his side. She felt both of their bodies relaxing slightly at the touch, as if being close to each other was the only thing they needed in the world.

Owen looked at them with slight fear in his eyes. He could swear he had seen a glimpse of inhumanly big fangs when the long-haired man snarled. Mason's hand rested on her waist and her manicured one grabbed his shirt, his dark hair falling down his face and getting mixed with her red locks, tickling her cheek. He looked at him as if he was about to rip him apart, and the look on the detective's face let him know she would very much allow it… maybe even help him.

"Look," he croaked, "I didn't know she was with you. No harm done, okay?"

But his words didn't have the desired reaction. Another growl, and his snarl widened. It was taking all his self control not to pounce on this guy, but he knew he shouldn't. "So it was okay to be a creep to her when you didn't know? But suddenly a bad idea now you know she's my girl?"

Mason didn't miss the way her heart leaped inside her chest at his words and a pang of satisfaction almost made him shudder. If he hadn't been so fucking angry at the man standing before them he would have probably gotten goosebumps at the way she subtly pressed herself closer before speaking.

"You gotta learn how to treat women like human beings, you fucking dirtbag. If I see you creeping on anyone of this town I'll have you arrested for harassment."

The man nodded enthusiastically as he took another step backwards. Mason rolled his eyes with a huff.

"One of us is gonna kick your ass if you don't get lost. Now."

That was enough, and in a few seconds they were left alone in the street. Mason relished on her closeness, the scent of her honey scented shampoo tickling his nose, the warmth of her body expanding through their clothes and seeming to reach inside him. But she cleared her throat and he lost it all. She took a step away from him and the hand that had been resting on her waist fell limp to his side.

"Thank you. It would have been awkward if the detective of the town punched a newcomer in the dick." She chuckled awkwardly. "So, you know, thank you."

"You already said that."

She met his eyes and his forced grin let her know he was trying to mess with her to lighten the mood.

"Right. We should, uh, go back." She moved to walk past him, but his long fingers curled around her forearm and she spinned around to meet his face, now suddenly serious. He opened his mouth and closed it, his brow furrowed as if what he was about to say was too difficult to say it out loud. His fingers loosened their grip and Alice thought he was going to let her go. Of course he was going to let her go. He wouldn't face the way he hurt her because that would mean he accepted they had something worth saving. Her eyes dropped to his grip, wanting to watch, forcing to accept, he was never going to make her stay.

But his fingers tightened with new force, and her gaze snapped back to his face.

Grey eyes, tempestuous with emotion, stared at her, moving wildly through her features before he finally found the words.

"Don't go."

Her breath caught on her throat at the thought that he wasn't just talking about going inside.

He feels those things, alright. You gotta be patient while he figures them out.

Felix's words echoed inside her mind. The seconds that went by seemed to last an eternity, before she nodded slowly. Mason's shoulders dropped as he exhaled, as if a great weight had been lifted off them.

"Okay, Mason."

Meanwhile, inside the bar

"Maybe one of us should have gone outside to mediate." Nate sighed, staring inside his glass of scotch. "Those two aren't exactly good at sharing how they feel."

"Who knows." Felix shrugged, a grin widening in his face. "Maybe they're already back at Allie's apartment."

"Why would they…? Oh." Nate realised, eyes widening.

"They say the bigger the fight, the best the make up sex gets." Felix wiggled his eyebrows. "If that's true, they're in for a hell of a night."

Nate cringed, very much wishing Felix hadn't put that image of his friends inside his brain. "Ugh. I just hope Mason finds a way to fix whatever he's done without hurting her anymore."

"She knew what she was getting into by getting involved with someone like Mason." Adam said matter of factly. "He doesn't really try to hide his brashness."

Nate nodded, Mason was all sharp edges and bluntness, while the detective was much softer, gentle. It was easy for someone like her to get cut while trying to hold on to someone like him. Maybe it was a matter of how many cuts and wounds she could resist before letting go. But he liked to believe that wouldn't happen - instead, her softness would envelope his sharpness, showing him a side of himself he didn't even know it existed. A small smile bloomed on Nate's face as the thought.

"I think they both have to learn how to be around each other now that their relationship is changing."

Adam shrugged, but Felix let out a dreamy sigh. "You're such a romantic, Natey. Mason would learn so much from you if he didn't get nauseous every time he thinks about love."

Nate chuckled. "You know, maybe that's about to change."

                                     ☾  一一一一一一一一一   ☽ 

A/N: Let me know if you want to be tagged in the future! Thank you for reading, feedback is appreciated 😍

TAGLIST: @agentnatesewell @gloynporslen @sunchipz @agentmasonjars @msjpuddleduck @utterlyinevitable @kat-tia801 @oxjenayxo

[lukehughes43]

heartbreak girl - trevor zegras

chapter one

word count: 5,092 whoa vivi can write something under 10k?

your head was nodding along to the beat of the drums jack was busy playing. however, your eyes were focused on your best friend, who was currently singing the lyrics of one of the songs he wrote for the band. “i can be a liar, i can be a cheat. i can be neurotic, i can be a freak,” you sang along with trevor under your breath. kicking your feet as you sat on the couch locking your eyes with trevor’s blue ones for a split second before he was focused on playing the notes song on his guitar. 

as soon as the song came to a close you were jumping up and cheering for your four friends. “whoo!” you screamed before running over and giving your best friend a giant hug, “you guys killed that! when you go to la you’re gonna fucking kill it. get a fucking record deal!” with that you pulled away from trevor and walked over to hug both patty and alex. the black haired bass guitarist was quick to wrap you up in his own arms while all of you started to laugh a little bit. “but seriously trev, when, and how did you write that?” you questioned before walking back to give jack a quick hug. 

“uh i wrote it a couple days ago,” the lead singer answered while shrugging his shoulders. setting his guitar back in its stand in the zegras garage. “as for how i wrote it? i’m not, uh, i’m not really sure,” he trailed off. eyes looking at every single boy except for at you. only you didn’t notice seeing as jack had wrapped his arms around your waist to pull you to look at the wall instead of trevor. not wanting you to see the look of pain that was etched across your best friend’s face.

“there’s a lot of things you don’t even know about z, y/n. aren’t you supposed to be his best friend?” patty taunted as you turned around to walk back to your seat on the couch. “or has someone else taken that throne since you started dating caden and don’t have time for z, or us.” 

as soon as you sat down you were glaring over at the eighteen year old with brown hair. “take it back patrick,” you hissed, ready to pop out of your seat. only before you could trevor was sitting down next to you. throwing an arm over your chest to keep you in your place. “get off of me z!” you screamed trying to get out of his hold. “at least i can get a boyfriend, you can’t even get a girlfriend patty,” you snapped while finally pushing trevor’s arms off of your body. and before he could pull you back down to the couch you were marching over to be face to face with the tallest of the four boys. 

“i wouldn’t call caden much of a boyfriend,” he responded, arms crossing over his chest. “more of dick with legs.” with that you were winding up, only alex and jack hooked their arms with yours and threw you back on the couch. 

“patty stop talking,” jack huffed while glancing back over to the brunette. “y/n looks like she’s ready to kill you.” 

“i am going to fucking kill him!” you yelled while trying to break away from alex, jack, and trevor. “let me go so i can fucking kill him!” only instead the boys hold tightened on you. trevor’s arms making sure to hold tight around your waist. “you have no right to say that about caden!” your body was thrashing against the three boys, only it wasn’t getting you anywhere. finally sighing you slumped back against trevor’s body. jack and alex letting go of your arms. 

alex let out a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, “y/n/n come on, we all know you and caden aren’t even considered together right now.” you looked between all four of the boys watching as they all nodded their heads. your eyes rolled and your arms crossed over your chest. “you broke up tuesday because after our gig you ditched him to hang out with trevor and us. he got mad at you and you broke up. again.” 

you let out another huff while slipping into the open spot on the couch next to the brunette singer. “yeah, well i must have forgotten to mention that we got back together last night,” you spat, starting to fiddle with your fingers. legs throwing themselves over trevor’s lap. “and before any of you make a big dramatic sigh, over nothing, caden’s a good guy.” 

right on que all four members of the band had let out a sigh. trevor’s head dropped down so he was looking at his lap, patty let out a scoff as he shook his head, and jack and alex just shared an uneasy look. “what’s the longest you guys have actually dated for?” jack quizzed before sitting back down at his drum kit. “because my bet is five months, and that’s when the two of you first started dating three years ago.” 

“my bet’s two weeks,” alex added. 

patty hummed while shaking his head to disagree with all of them. snapping his fingers as he smiled right at you, “three fucking days.” before you could even have a chance to snap back at any of the boys, trevor’s eyes were looking up from his lap. he glanced over at you through his lashes while squeezing your ankle. then over to the boys. 

“you’re all wrong,” he mumbled, “it was seven months.” instantly patrick was shaking his head to argue with trevor. thinking that there was no way you and caden had made it that long. you weren’t paying any mind to the fact all four boys were now bickering, deciding to start scrolling through instagram while trying to find something more entertaining than them. 

only when you didn’t pay attention, and pushed the conversation out of mind, jack was sharing a knowing look with trevor. realizing the hurt he had in his voice, and the way he could barely even look over at you after he had said it. your relationship hadn’t come between yours and trevor’s friendship. no matter how many times caden had tried to make it, you always chose trevor. then after a couple weeks, days, or sometimes even hours one of you would always end up crawling back to the other. it was a never ending cycle of hurt you put yourself through, but it was for love, then you were all for it. plus you got to keep your best friend, along with your other three annoying friends, and still be the band’s biggest supporter, basically their manager. no matter how much it pissed caden off. 

trevor started patting your calves, causing your eyes to snap over at him. “what’s up trev?” you question, not able to help the smile that was forming on your face. the look of pure innocence, which he was not, was too sweet not to smile at. his shoulders just shrugged and you couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. “do you wanna head back to my house? seeing as you’re all done playing.” 

his head nodded right away, “i mean if you’re insisting.” your eyes rolled as you started to stand from the couch. “plus i heard mama m/n is making my favorite for dinner. boys feel free to stick around, but don’t expect julie to feed you, again.” 

“and before you ask, no you can’t come to have dinner at my house,” you sassed, with a smile on your face. “my mom already made it very clearly that none of you can come over for dinner without a reservation.” 

“hey it was one time!” alex screeched. referring to the time you and all four members of beyond michigan showed up at your house expecting dinner. julie having kicked all of you out not wanting to feed you dinner for the seventh time in a row. “plus doesn’t m/n love us?” 

right away trevor was shaking his head, “she only loves me. she tolerates you three idiots. then you’re her daughter y/n, so i think she loves you.” your e/c rolled as you grabbed trevors wrist and started leading him out the open garage door. “well i guess i’m being forced to leave you, bye guys. same time tomorrow?” 

“bye z, bye y/n/n. same time tomorrow,” patty confirmed as he dropped down on to the couch. pulling his phone out as he did so. 

“and you better have new songs finished trevor!” jack reminded the boy as the both of you opened your car doors. “we need the lyrics and to figure out the melodies, notes, chords. we gotta be on our a game for the demo track.” 

“you guys don’t even know what an a game is,” you teased, starting your engine. “you’re a mess.” 

patty scoffed from the couch, head tipping back to look at you and trevor. “oh and you’re not y/n? in fact i think you’re a bigger mess than our band is.” 

with that you flipped both your middle fingers up towards the boys still lingering in the garage, “fuck you patrick.” as you slammed your car door closed he blew you a kiss before returning to his phone. jack and alex both waving goodbye to you and trevor. as you started to back out of the driveway you turned towards your best friend. “having trouble writing z?” you were genuinely concerned. not once in his life had trevor had a problem writing songs. even when the two of you were two years old and barely knew what singing was, trevor still found a way to scribble his songs into a go diego go notebook. 

trevor’s shoulders just shrugged before mumbling, “i just dunno what i want to say.” your mouth fell open as you scoffed over at him. “what’s the look for y/n/n? i just don’t know what i want to say!” 

shaking your head at the boy you started the short two miles drive down the road to your family’s house. “trevor, you’ve always known what to say,” you answered, stealing a glance over at him. his blue eyes focused on the passing scenery that consisted of different houses. something he’d seen over millions of times along the drive to your house. “you don’t really expect me to believe that you don’t know what you want to say, do you?” you pressed while slowing to a stop at one of the stop signs. 

“i do actually,” he sighed while looking over towards you. his brown hair falling flat against his forehead as he did so. “none of the boys will believe me, but you’re my best friend y/n.” his voice was pleading as he spoke. blue eyes searching your e/c ones before you look back to the road. “so yeah, i expect you to believe me.”

sighing you nodded your head, “i do believe you trev. i just, wow. you really don’t know what to write about?” he mumbled back to you, something you couldn’t quite make out. now that was unlike trevor. the eighteen year old was always confident, and hardly ever mumbled. “i think i might know how to get you back into writing tz.” 

a smile lit up on trevor’s face as you pulled into your driveway. “tell me!” he screeched while leaning over the middle consul as he threw his seat belt off. seeing as you car was now safely parked in your garage. “y/n/n, you need to tell me. right now!” he hollered, arms crossing over his chest while he started to pout over at you. the smile that was starting to pull on the corners of your lips was a large one, and it only ever happened because of trevor.

“so you don’t know what to write or sing, huh?” you asked once more. just trying to make sure that you had it all figured out. 

“yeah y/n/n! i’ve only said it like seven times,” he grumbled while pushing open your car door. 

you followed suit, leaning against the side of your car while smiling over to him. “then sing what you’re feeling trevor. write what you’re feeling z,” you explained while starting towards the door that was connected to your mudroom by the kitchen. “and before you try and tell me that’s what girls do, every great songwriter does it trevor, and you’re a great songwriter.”

trevor’s head nodded as he walked into the mudroom, kicking off the pair of converse he had on. “so you’re telling me that i should just sing what i feel, y/n/n?” he repeated back to you, watching as you leaned over to undo the straps of your chacos. ready to catch you if you were about to fall over. “because i don’t know if i can do that. putting my feelings on to paper for everyone to hear in the world,” he added on once the two of you were starting into the kitchen. 

“but you can write and sing about jack, alex, and patty’s feelings?” you retorted with a knowing smile. trevor just shook his head, eyes rolling as the two of you walked further into the house. “what no answer because you know i’m right?” 

sighing the lead singer ran a hand through his hair, “with them it’s only a certain level of how personal it is, you know?” once you nodded your head to show you understood he continued to speak. “but when if me singing about my feelings i dunno, that makes me nervous.” 

you started to laugh a little bit, smiling wide as you looked over at him. “that’s why you look at me when you’re singing your feelings, trev. i make you less nervous, right?” you smiled while leaning up on the balls of your feet. arms wrapping around trevor’s body since you had the feeling that what he really needed was a hug from his best friend.

“right.” 

there was something about the way he said it that you couldn’t let go of, but when he hugged you back you let it slip from your mind. “so at the next gig, when you’re singing about your feelings for the first, you look right at me trevor zegras. i’ll help you get through it, okay bud?” you asked, head dropping to rest against his chest. gently rocking the two of you as you stood there in your kitchen. 

“how’s caden gonna feel about me starting at you while i sing about god knows what?” trevor questioned, head tilting down to look at you. “i mean don’t get me wrong i’ll do it y/n/n. i hate him, he hates me, so it’ll be easy. i won’t feel bad about it, but i don’t wanna cause any problems for you with him,” he rambled on, his hands playing with the fabric of the t-shirt you were wearing. 

glancing up at trevor your mouth opened to speak only you were beat to punch, “hi kids. how was band practice?” slightly pulling away from trevor’s body you turned to seeing both of your parents standing in the doorway from the mudroom. grocery bags in hand, smiles on their faces. 

“i mean i just sit there, but i thought it was good,” you answered, fully untangling yourself from trevor’s arms. walking over and right away starting to help grab some of the bags. trevor was hot on your tail, passing by both of your parents with a smile as he grabbed the rest of the bags that were on the floor that you couldn’t. 

“so then why don’t we hear from the main man of that band,” you dad suggested. your entire family's eyes were on trevor, his cheeks burning pink as he started to put packages of fruit in the fridge. 

he was biting his lip when you stole a look at him from the corner of your eye. his head bobbed to what you assumed was the beat of a new song he was currently thinking of before he started to string together a response for you parents. “of course you thought it was good y/n/n, you always think it’s good,” he countered towards you. making sure that a smile was strung on his face while he teased you. “but in reality it was pretty good. would’ve been great if i would finish some more songs,” trevor revealed to your parents. his focus on putting the eggs into their spot in your fridge. 

your mother smiled over at trevor while she set her bags down on the island. the ones that held all of the ingredients for dinner. “well that’s great to hear,” she replied, trevor turning to face her once she started to speak to him again. “why don’t you guys run up to y/n’s room, and we’ll come get you when dinner’s ready.”

“are you sure?” trevor pondered, quickly looking over to you, and if you had it your way you’d be making a run for it up to your room. only trevor always wanted to help out with your when it came to your family. said that he owed it to your parents seeing as they were basically his second mom and dad. “we can help finish putting away groceries m/n. it’s not a big deal,” he informed as he folded up the reusable bag and put it back in the pantry your mom kept them in. 

she laughed while walking over to give the boy a side hug, “oh trev it’s perfectly okay. d/n can finish putting all of these away as i get dinner started.” 

“yeah i’ve got this,” your dad boasted, knocking his hip against yours while he placed his own empty bag back in the pantry. “go relax a little bit or something.” 

right away you were nodding your head, “you don’t have to tell me twice, come on z. you can talk to my parents at dinner.” before the singer could even argue with you, your hand was latched around his wrist pulling him through the dining and living rooms and up the stairs. as soon as you were in your room you let go of his wrist to fall back against your bed. “you can pick a record today trev,” you said while pulling your own phone out. shooting a quick text back to caden saying that you’d talk to him later. not going into much detail so he didn’t ask any questions of you. 

when you locked your phone you were staring over at trevor who was busy sifting through the record collect you had acquired over the years. bottom lip sucked between his teeth as he looked over all of his options. probably half of which he had gotten for you for gifts over the years. “how does mamma mia sound to you y/n/n?” he quizzed while pulling out the record. one you had probably listened to more than any of the other ones, mainly because it was the first  vinyl trevor had ever given you.

“it sounds perfect to me z,” you beamed while sliding over in your bed. moving over enough so trevor had room to sit down next to you. as soon as ‘honey, honey’ had started to play over your record players trevor was seating himself next to you. quick to lay himself out and take over half of your bed up. “so when is the next gig tz? none of you guys have even told me, and i’m supposed to be your guy’s quote unquote manager.” 

trevor’s shoulders shrugged as he pulled out his phone, going straight to the group message that you were a part of. typing out a quick message before it popped up on your phone. 

beyond michigan + y/n

trevy z:) : guys when’s our next gig. manager won’t get off my ass about it:/

y/n/n<3 : fuck off z, i just needa know so i can plan my outfit. 

y/n/n<3 : ew. let’s pretend i didn’t just say that. 

jack hughes: come on manager, you’re the one who’s supposed to know these things

pAtTy: yeah come on y/n, aren’t you the one who booked this for us? some manager you are

y/n/n<3 : thanks for defending me trez, it’s okay. just sit there jamming out to your mamma mia

turcs: z, you’re listening to mamma mia? 

trevy z:) : no. y/n’s lying. 

right away trevor was looking over at you, “y/n, please shut up. they don’t need to know about mamma mia.” shrugging your shoulders you looked back down at your phone. “oh come on!” 

beyond michigan + y/n

y/n/n<3 : we’re currently on money, money, money;) sorry trev

trevy z:) : *trevor has left the chat*

jack hughes: the next gig’s next saturday 

pAtTy: you’ve got a whole ten days to plan your outfit princess:)

y/n/n<3 : *y/n has left the chat*

locking your phone you looked over at trevor who was pouting back at you. “oh come on trev, you can’t be mad at me. you love me trevor zegras, and there’s no denying it either,” you sang while your smile started to grow. “you love me trevor zegras,” you repeated, leaning over to start poking at his toned abdomen which was hidden by the fabric of his shirt. 

after a dramatic sigh trevor looking over at you smiling, “of course i love you y/n.” you let out a victory ‘hmp’ before his blue eyes rolled at you. “do you want anything from downstairs?” he suddenly asked while changing the topic. sitting up in your bed before he pushed himself up off your bed as he stared down at you. “well i’m waiting y/n/n, do you want anything or not?” 

you couldn’t help but laugh as you rolled over on your side to give him a questioning look, “shouldn’t i be the one asking you that z? this is my house after all.” 

“well i figured since i was gonna go down there, and your parents love me,” trevor answered, slowly walking over towards the door. “so do you want anything, girlfriend, or no?” he sassed as his arms crossed over his chest. rolling your eyes at the drama queen you let out a hum. 

“just a water please,” you responded, while smiling over at him. “please and thank you trev.” 

with that he nodded his head before heading out of your room. as soon as trev left your room you pulled out your phone once more to send a text to caden. 

y/n: trev’s over for dinner, and before you freak out at me, i was planning on having you come over once i brought him home c 

caden<3 : i guess that’s okay. am i sleeping over, or can i not because i’m not trevor. like seriously, your parents are letting you and trevor sleep together in the same room in new york, but i can’t spend the night? 

y/n: baby please. trev and i have been best friends since we were born. you’re my boyfriend c. it’s a little bit of a difference. plus new york? can we not fight about this. again. 

caden<3 : yeah fine. whatever, text me when you’re bringing him home so i know when to leave

downstairs trevor padded right into the living room, rounding the corner he came face to face to see that both of your parents were still in the kitchen. only now your mom was currently working on making dinner, and your dad was sitting at the island drinking a beer to keep him company. “hey m/n, hey d/n!” he called while sliding into the kitchen. 

“hi trevor!” your dad smiled, tipping his beer bottle over towards the boy. 

your mother turning around from tossing the salad, “hey hon how are you? we barely got a chance to talk and catch up.” 

the blue eyed boy shrugged his shoulders while smiling, “well if you wouldn’t have kicked us off grocery duty we could’ve talked more.” your mother let out a small laugh before rolling her eyes at the boy. “but i’m great! i’m just grabbing y/n/n a glass of water, and highjacking a bottle of arnold palmer for myself, of course.” 

trevor didn’t notice the way that either of your parents looked at each, too focused on digging through the fridge to grab the bottle of half and half. the look that the both of them shared was a sincere on, both of them knowing something you didn’t. “you’re such a good boy trev,” your mom complimented as she went back to tossing the salad. 

“how’s the band?” your dad then inquired, taking another sip of his beer.

your best friend couldn’t fight the smile on his face while he turned his attention to the cabinet that contained the glasses. “amazing actually,” he started to explain while grabbing the glass. “there’s been some record dealtalk in the past few weeks,” he then expressed. looking over his shoulder while he filled your cup. gaging your parents reactions, loving the way they both had proud smiles. “it’s really looking good for us right now.” 

“really? that’s great!” your mother gasped while walking over to hug him. “well let’s hope that the deal goes through then,” she smiled while hugging just a little bit tighter. 

shaking his head trevor bit his lip a little bit. this was his childhood dream he was talking about. one that both your parents knew about. “that makes both of us,” he mumbled to himself. “i know that y/n/n is excited, i think that all of us are,” trevor explained while beaming towards your parents. “it seemed far fetched at first, but not anymore.” 

both of your parents were nodding their head to agree with the boy. “trevor we’ve been listening to you sing since you and y/n were two,” your father reminded, “we never thought it was far fetched.” 

“your guy’s band is amazing.” 

with blushing cheeks trevor put down the glass of water while he tried not to smile. “well thank you m/n, d/n. i would say we could sit and take about the record deal and the new york trip, but i’ve gotta bring this to y/n,” he smiled while pointing down at the glass of water before picking it up. “but thank you guys, really.” 

“anytime trev,” your mother replied before the band leader picked up the glass, his bottle of arnold palmer in his hand before walking up to your room with a smile on his face. 

the smile on his face only proceeded to grow as he walked back into your room, “one water, as asked for.” your locked your phone before turning to look over at your wide open door. “here you go y/n/n,” he smiled while handing it over to you. 

“thank you trevy,” you sang before taking a drink of it. “was dinner almost done when you were down there?” you then asked, part of you wanting to hurry up and eat so you could spend time with your boyfriend. just so there would be no more problems caused at the fact you had spent practically all of today with trevor, and hardly any time with him. 

he shrugged his shoulders while dropping back down into his trademarked spot on your bed. “your mom was tossing the salad if that means anything.” you nodded your head while setting your glass on your nightstand. “why are you that starving y/n/n? or do you have ulterior motives?” he questioned, leaning over towards you. face inches away from your own as he stared you down. 

biting your lip you shrugged your shoulders, “me with ulterior motives trevy? never.” he let out a hum before you smiled over at him, gently pushing his body away from yours, “i’m just that hungry.” a frown crossed trevor’s face as he watched your phone light up, of course it had to be a text from caden right now. 

“you’re ditching me,” he mumbled, his whole body shifting away from you. “of course you’re ditching me y/n/n. caden’s just so much better than me, isn’t he?” 

“trevor,” you rushed, leaning over to grab his arm. “trev please,” you begged, hand resting on his bicep. gently squeezing knowing that he would always give into you if you did that. “trevy-” 

he shook his head as he scoffed at you, “no y/n. you don’t get to ‘trevy’ me.” your mouth fell open as you stared over at him in shock. “you’re ditching me for caden again y/n! you always do this. ditch me and beyond michigan. you know what, i can’t right now y/n. i need to cool off a bit, so i think i’m gonna head home,” he laughed while pushing up from your bed. “needa run it off. i’ll expect your apology text sometime tomorrow morning since i’m sure caden’s gonna be here all tonight.” 

closing your eyes you let out a huff, as ‘winter takes it all’ played through your room. “trev please,” you pleaded while getting up from your bed to follow him to your door. “what about dinner? please just stay for dinner trevor. please,” you whispered, while you could feel the tears start to form in your eyes. you and trevor hadn’t fought like this in forever. “please, please stay for dinner, trevor.” once again you grabbed his bicep, pleading up at him. 

trevor shook your hold off, “suddenly i’m not hungry anymore. don’t worry i won’t tell your parents the real reason why i’m leaving. expect i’m sure they’ll figure it out once caden shows up.” with that the brunette walked out of your room and down the hall towards the stairs. shaking your head you let the tears fall as meryl streep’s voice drowned out the pain you were feeling. letting out a frustrated sigh you grabbed your phone to read the text caden had sent you. 

caden<3 : hi z, after you leave? y/n/n is all mine, like it should be:)

tears fell down your face as you typed out your response to him.

y/n: you can come over whenever

[ochakourarakah]

long way down to the underground | chapter 1

Summary: It’s an old tale, except…Eurydice was already waist-deep in the Underworld when he met Orpheus.

Notes: Hawks x G/N Composer! Reader

Story: previous | next 

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This is the thirty-seventh (thirty-eighth? fortieth?) document you had to sign with your already cramping hand and you’re seriously considering tossing them all into a dumpster fire if fire wasn’t the reason you were in this mess to begin with.

The next few weeks after the accident (arson by some gang, apparently) are spent getting everything back on track.

You did not expect this much paperwork to come with it. 

Ugh.

You lean back and stretch in your chair, wincing at the audible pops your back made as you did, tearing your eyes away from your desktop screen.

With relocation still underway, you were instructed to work from home until further notice, corresponding through emails until a satellite office could be established.

It wasn’t really a problem; you lived alone and you had your own recording set-up if you wanted to work on a demo. Most of your work files were backed up on a cloud (thank God for modern tech, you probably just overreacted the day of the fire) and you still had basic instruments in case you wanted to arrange something.

You sigh. 

Okay, maybe your apartment was still on the small side (struggling musician and all) and what soundproofing you had didn’t block out everything (from construction machines across the street to neighbors fucking), but it was still your apartment. 

You had fridge magnets from the places you’ve been all over Japan. Framed and signed posters and album covers lined your walls. A bulletin board dedicated to photos, tickets, backstage passes and other paraphernalia from singers and other musicians you’ve worked with. 

Furnished just enough. Music is always playing, whether it was your own or someone else’s. Cluttered, cozy and lived in.  

It was home.

.

.

.

At home as you were, though, there were still insurance claims to receive, files to sift through, warranty policies to review and the last few weeks of work to salvage if not work on.

.

.

.

There was a whole orientation on this when you were first hired. 

Emergency Response and Recuperation. 

You should’ve known better. 

.

.

.

You glance at the to-do list you hastily wrote up in your planner, grimacing that the unmarked checkboxes still outnumbered the checked ones. 

.

.

.

Ugh.

You really should’ve known better. 

The clock on your phone screen told you that it was roughly half past five.

You groan again, getting off your office chair. 

A much-needed break was in order. 

You save whatever files were open on your laptop before shutting it down. 

And dinner too, if you could help it. 

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Another one of the perks your apartment had to offer was that the complex was within walking distance of Fukuoka’s shopping district, giving you a variety of places to eat.

You take your time on the streets, earphones in and music up as you make your way and map out your night. 

You’ll take your time with dinner, and finish the reimbursement form for your work laptop then call it a night. Tomorrow morning you’d follow up on Ishikawa from accounting and maybe add to the latest song you were writing, if inspiration allowed for it. Maybe get some groceries later this week, too.

Your eyes narrow at the crowd clogging up the sidewalk on the other side of the road. 

Rallentando.

Maybe there was a hero?

And it took you tiptoeing to see above someone’s head to catch a glimpse of crimson wings.

Oh.

He was on patrol. 

In your area. 

Even with your earphones on, you can still hear a few feminine squeals and childish cries, excited voices from people of all ages as they surround the Number Two Hero.

You glance at the scene a beat more before continuing your walking, shrugging off the idea of joining the fray. 

A tempo.

You may be grateful to Hawks for saving your life, but you were busy and hungry and not in the mood to wade through all the people for someone who wouldn’t even remember you. 

It was all in a day’s work, you recall telling yourself that day.

.

.

.

Did his job also entail calling you Songbird, though?

.

.

.

You stepped into the alley that led to your favorite izakayas in the district. It was thankfully empty, and from the restaurant’s windows, you can tell they weren’t as occupied either.

Your steps go from andante to moderato. 

Then there was a gust of wind and a shadow overhead. 

Caesura.

And then Hawks was right before you.

You manage to take off one of your earbuds in time to hear him say, “Hey, Songbird.”

You blink at him. “You remember me?”

“Of course, it’s only been a few weeks since you jumped out of a building and into my arms,” 

If you were flustered at that, you don’t show it. “Right,” You look around. Maybe he had to check out all the alleys before he could call it a day. 

The alley was still empty. 

He’ll be off in no time. 

You give him a smile. “Thanks again for that, by the way.”

He waves you off. “Don’t mention it,” 

For a moment, you just look at him. You’ve only seen his face in short glimpses, in passing billboards and magazine ads, maybe even the occasional skippable YouTube commercial. 

(Which you, admittedly, have opted to skip more often than not.)

And on the day of the fire, you maybe saw him up close for one, two minutes before he took you to the ground then sped off into the sky?

Now he seems more relaxed, hands tucked into his pockets. His wings were another story completely, though. 

They seem bigger, even if they were folded behind him. His feathers look plush and supple. 

If he noticed you staring, he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he gives you a lazy grin. Almost cheeky. 

“You work for Hayashi Records, right?”

You snap your gaze back to his face and nod. “Yeah,”

Were you caught staring? Most definitely yes. 

But he’s probably used to the attention, anyways. 

“So what do you do?” he cocks his head to the side.

“I’m a composer,” You were about to add to the answer when you realize that he didn’t leave right away like you thought. 

He was still here. 

Why? The street looked pretty safe. 

“Do you do anything else?”

You don’t understand why he was still talking to you. 

Didn’t your acquaintance end as soon as the villain attack was over?

You nod anyways. “I’m a composer, but I’ve done just about everything, really.”

You busy yourself by unplugging your earphones and tucking them into your pocket with your phone.

Is he always like this? Did he always follow up on the people he saved?

When you look back up, you ask him, “Don’t you have other hero things to do?”

He only gives you that grin again. “I do, but I have some time to kill.” he gestures around him. “And besides, this place is the last area on my patrol.” 

“I see,” you say slowly. 

How the heck were you supposed to respond to that?

You clear your throat. “I’ve been working from home all day. Emergency Response and Recuperation and all that. A lot of paperwork,”

You’re rambling. 

“I got hungry and my head was starting to ache so I’m taking a break for dinner.” you nod over to the izakaya. “One of my favorite spots.”

Oh my god, kill me now. 

Hawks raises a brow. “You were going to dinner? Well so am I.”

Wait. 

Is he..?

“How about it?”

He is. 

Holy shit. 

You barely manage to follow behind him as he strides over to the izakaya. 

He even opens the door for you. 

“After you, Songbird.” 

You walk in the restaurant in a bit of a daze. 

Who were you, that you were about to share a meal with the Number Two Hero?

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It’s after you’ve settled into a private booth and ordered that Hawks spoke again. 

“So how long have you worked under Hayashi?”

“About two years,” you take a sip of your water. “That’s including my unpaid internships,”

Then you’re both silent. 

You swallow, and the air feels like a chord that was a microtone off. 

Not completely off key, but not right either. 

Just...off. Strange. 

A little jarring.

Hawks must’ve noticed that you were uncomfortable because he shifts in his seat. 

“Be honest, did I come on too strong?”

And here you thought you were the one overstepping your boundaries. 

You shake your head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m just surprised that you’d have dinner with a random person you rescued.” 

“I uhh,” he rubs the back of his neck. “I’m actually familiar with your work,”

“What?”

“I thought I recognized your name somewhere so I looked it up. You worked with Ayapeta on an album?”

He was a fan. 

Again, holy shit.

He looks up at you. It’s then that you realize his usual visor was on the table. “I’m gonna ask you again, am I coming on too strong?”

You shake your head. “I just never really had a fan approach me before,” 

You were far too used to the singers getting all the credit for the songs you wrote. 

It actually feels nice.

The waiter arrives with your orders and you give a small thanks, getting your bowl and chopsticks.

“Itadakimasu.” The two of you say in unison.

A due.

You smile at him before digging in.

Yes, the ramen you ordered was exactly what you needed.

You look across the table to see the yakitori skewer he was helping himself to. “Isn’t that cannibalism?” you ask after swallowing.

Hawks stops mid-bite. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a hawk.”

You shrug. “Still a bird.” 

He chuckles. “What can I say, chicken’s pretty good.” 

You roll your eyes at him, and taking another good slurp from your ramen bowl.

Hawks adds, “I try to avoid chicken wings if I can help it, though. Can’t be too cannibalistic now can we?” 

After swallowing, you meet his eyes from across the table.

Amabile.

And this time, you chuckle along with him. 

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Hawks was a celebrity. You know this much. 

While you weren’t aware of any dating scandals or affairs on his end of the showbiz spectrum, you knew that he was considered an eligible bachelor by the press. 

So what was he doing here with you? 

The curiosity gnawed at you so insistently that, when the tab’s been paid and you’re out of the restaurant, you ask him, “Why’d you come along with me?”

He stops in his tracks. “Can’t I share a meal with someone who seemed nice?”

You purse your lips. “You barely even know me.”

Granted, even if you were a villain, you were pretty sure he could beat you in a fight anytime. 

The silent dissonance is back again.

You watch as he nods his head, just a little bit. “I feel like I’ve always known you.” 

You raise a brow. “Do you say that to everyone you hit on?”

“Nah,” He shakes his head. “Only for songbirds that fall into my arms.” He starts walking again. You follow suit as you roll your eyes, retort ready and then he speaks again.

“How about it, we go on one date?”

You furrow your brows. “Wasn’t this a date?”

He grins, shaking his head again. “Close, but no cigar.” he tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Sadly my favorite place burned down in the last Nomu incident.”

You nodded, remembering seeing it on the news the day it happened. You watched the carnage unfold from bay windows in your studio building, then you were told to evacuate to the lower floors before the fighting escalated any further. 

Maybe I didn’t have it so bad...

“But I know of another place I can take you.”

You smile at him. 

Then a phone rings. 

But it isn’t yours. 

You hear Hawks curse under his breath. “Hey listen Songbird, I’ll be busy the next few days and I bet you will be too with your Emergency Recuperation whatever,” he winces as his phone kept ringing. 

“But I’ll come find you when I’m free so we could set a date.”

You barely stutter out an affirmation when Hawks spreads out his wings. “I’ll see you soon, Songbird.” 

And then he was off. 

Leaving you staring up at the sky yet again. 

.

.

.

You walk home in a daze.

Did tonight really just happen? 

You shake your head. Maybe this was just a one-time thing. 

That seemed about right. 

You were just in the area. 

He’d probably forget when he rescues someone else. 

.

.

.

This doesn’t stop you from blushing all the way home, though.

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All thoughts of Hawks are banished when you get back to work for the next few days. 

It was all probably just by chance. One of those once-in-a lifetime things that might as well happen to you because real life was weird that way. 

And real life was also taxing because Ishikawa hasn’t looked over your statements yet and you were missing a few more requirements for your insurance claim. 

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A few days later, you find yourself trudging home from the grocery store as planned.

You're carrying a whole tray of eggs in one hand while your other groceries sit tight in the reusable bag hanging off your other shoulder.

Even though the night is peaceful, you were still stressed.

You still had some forms to fill up and lost equipment to canvass for and a meeting with one of the bands and-

“Hey there, Songbird,”

-and you yelp at the voice, dropping the carton and spilling eggs all over the pavement. 

You look up at the sight of an equally shocked Winged Hero.

Oh. 

He didn’t just not forget about you. 

He came.

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A/N: in case the whole basis for this fic isn’t enough to go by, i’m also a musical nerd. i’ll try updating this weekly, as well. 

thanks for reading!

[justjessame]

Avery Emerson Clay: Harsh Wake-Up Call...

When I felt my bed dip and the heavy sigh that accompanied it, my lips curled in my half awake state and I moved closer to his heat. My eyes weren’t open, not yet, so when his arms pulled me into him it took me longer to realize that something wasn’t quite right - that there was something that felt less Jake-like than I was growing used to - but as my dozy mind started to snap into gear and catch up with my body’s knowledge - my eyes snapped open and the eyes looking into mine weren’t Jake’s. FUCK.

“Good afternoon, Miss - wait, you told me I could call you Avery, didn’t you?” Max’s smirk was repulsive and I was thinking about how I wanted to torch my bedding - no my entire bed - now that his disgusting ass was in it. “What’s wrong? Not who you expected to wake up with?” He was still holding me tight, and I was terrified to look lower than his face, since his arms were bare against my own. If he was naked, I fucking swore to myself that I would make what that Bobbit woman did to her terrible husband look like a fucking field trip to Disneyland.

“How?” I was happy that my voice didn’t sound as upset as I felt. “How are you here? And where -” My family, Jake, my loved ones - I didn’t hear anything - and that did fucking scare me from the top of my head to my fucking toes.

He tsked and shook his head. “Now, now, Avery. We’re finally all alone.” I felt a tremendous urge to throw up, but fought it - I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “No need to worry about anyone or anything else just now.” He raised one his bare hand, the one that didn’t wear a glove, and brushed my messy hair away from my face. “I have to be honest, hunting Clay and his team down is just business - pure and simple. But then I saw YOU,” I was going to end up throwing up, despite my urge to fight it. “How does someone like him - annoying pain in my ass that he is - end up with YOU for a sister?”

“You don’t know me, Max,” I offered, thinking that he was clearly expecting too much. “I’m definitely more irritating than Clay. Haven’t you talked to the asshole you turned?”

He chuckled, and I swear his fucking eyes twinkled. “The one whose testicles you nearly boiled with a taser?” Max sighed, but his smirk was a full blown grin now. “Oh he bitched about you from the moment we met, and I have to say, I was impressed.” I raised an eyebrow. “You made a lasting impression on him, Avery. You made a mark. Sure he wants revenge, but I think, once I get the two of you face to face - you’re going to show him just what happens to a traitor, aren’t you?”

I stared at him. Max wanted me to kill the man who turned traitor to HELP HIM FIND MY BROTHER. “Why would you -” It hit me, he thought my rage against that idiot made me more like him than like my own family. That urge to harm and maim, the ugly urge to lash out and leave a lasting blow - “You listened in,” he nodded. “How?”

“It isn’t all that difficult, Avery.” His fingertips, the bare hand that had brushed the hair free from my face hadn’t lowered, were now tracing the curves of my face. “Your Captain Jensen loves to believe he’s the smartest tech in the room, your brother wants to believe he’s the baddest badass in the country, and your daddy, well - I’d rather NOT go into just how he failed on multiple levels.” I was still trying to process how I’D fucked up. “I heard the story about the dog attack -” He pulled his other arm and hand free from holding me, and as I watched he removed the leather glove and showed me his own scar - just as terrible as mine. “You wear yours just as I wear mine, Avery.” Jesus, he thought we were fucking soulmates. “Then Daddy Clay showed up and talked about you beating that bigger kid senseless -” Seriously, Avery, I thought we have got to get our shit together, psychos think we’re a worthwhile chick to date. Fuck.

“Rose,” I had to focus, where were my loved ones? “Is she -”

“She’s fine,” he brushed off the question as if it made no difference. Seeing that I was about to argue the point, he rolled his eyes and groaned. “Rose is literally on vacation. The GI uniform wearing grunt? He stopped her, told her that Daddy Clay thought she earned it - what with Clay coming home and surprising the family, you guys were going to be working non-stop on clearing his name/death/blah blah blah - and long story short, she’s on a cruise to -” he stopped and bit his lip. “Somewhere tropical? I don’t know, I had one of the other grunts buy the fucking ticket. She’s safe, Avery. She just needed to get the mess started, so we could get to this moment.”

“This moment?” I asked. “You made me think you abducted the woman who helped raise me so you could get IN MY FUCKING BED?!” I jumped out of my bed and glared down at him, happy to see that he WAS still mostly clothed. Wearing his linen slacks and undershirt, but having ditched his shoes and button down, plus jacket. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I mean, honestly, what’s your fucking diagnosis?”

“You’re fiery,” he was grinning as he got more comfy on my bed, sitting up against the headboard and crossing his hands over his stomach. “Surely you have to know that it was leading to this, Avery?” I stared down at him with the incredulousness that any normal human being would when confronted with a batshit insane being. “Come now, the elevator, the emails - it was a dance.”

“It was me being BAIT, you fucking idiot.” I shook my head. “Where are my cats and dogs? Where’s my boyfriend? My parents? My brother? His fucking team?”

Max sighed and stared at the ceiling. “Why are you being so fucking difficult?”

“Oh, you think THIS is difficult?” I started stretching because if he wanted to see difficult and just how fucking similar the two of us could be, boy was I fucking ready for a demo. “Max, I think it’s time for a fucking seminar on DIFFICULT.”

[baconpal]

Bravely Default and BD2

Here it is, the partially prompted bravely default rant/retrospective/whatever the fuck!

With the announcement and demo of bravely default 2 out now for a bigger market than the original game ever had, I feel that as a massive fan of the original I should put some amount of effort into explaining what the appeal of the original is, why bravely second missed a lot of the appeal, and why bravely default 2 has been very, very worrying so far.

If you care about any of that, come on in and I'll try to actually avoid spoilers this time and make this a more legitimate recommendation of a game than usual.

THE APPEAL OF BRAVELY DEFAULT The games obviously have a beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Every city is like a painting, a beautifully composed shot that you see from just one direction to give you one very strong impression. While the overworld and dungeons are fully 3d and do not have as strong of an artistic impact, they are still very competent and have good colors and cohesive elements. The character design, including the job outfits, the monsters, and all the villains are just top notch. Simple, evocative designs that make the most of the 3DS' limited hardware and build upon the teams skill in making handheld games look good. (its the same team that did the ff3 remake and 4 heroes of light, which looks absolutely kino on original DS) The music is also consistently excellent, with great use of motifing, a full and varied orchestra, and many good slow paced tracks for most of the non-combat segments. Shit like "Conflict's Chime" being the main battle theme, "Infiltrating Hostile Territory" being a common dungeon theme, and "That person's name is" as the rival boss themes makes even the seemingly repetitive songs a constant joy to listen to.

The story is pretty decent, it's not the best part of the game, and there are definitely some aspects of the story some people loathe, but the characters (specifically ringabel fuckin love him) are pretty good and the make for an enjoyable experience. The side material like D's journal are really well done and integrate into the main narrative well for how tucked away and ignored it is.

The gameplay and systems are also some of the best of any RPG I've played, and I've played far too many. The job system from ff3 and 5 is brought to an even greater depth with the addition of universal job abilities, allowing any character of any job make use of another jobs features to create an endless depth to strategy. The way various jobs can mingle together, and how no job is completely perfect on its own makes for very compelling team composition and unit design. The extensive amount of jobs helps as well for replay value and for assuring that no easy winning strategy is found by all players.

The BP system makes battles take on a very unique pacing as the player and enemies can choose to save up turns or blow them all at once to make more complicated strategies possible, or to make the most of an enemies vulnerabilities. This powerful option gives the player a meaningful way to capitalize on their knowledge of the game, while also allowing them to make truly detrimental mistakes. That may sound not good if you're a fucking baby, but nobody wants an RPG you cant lose, but losing because you fucked up is much better than losing because the enemies are just stronger than you or anything to that effect.

But the single greatest part of bravely defaults, which creates the games wonderful balance and unique design philosophy, is that the player is expected to hit the level cap long before finishing the game. Reaching level 99 should occur somewhere just after the middle of the game, at the point where the player has access to almost every job and has encountered almost every type of threat. Reaching level 99 brings with it a certain security, the implication that from then on, all enemies will also be level 99, and that any failure to defeat an enemy will be a result of a bad strategy or the players own mistakes. The game is not easy, and is certainly intended for veteran final fantasy players used to the games with job systems and changing up your entire party to combat a single encounter. Leveling up is not a slow grind part of the game, as you have a lot of control over the speed and frequency of battles, and it is not difficult to keep up with the games level curve.

The other layer to this unique design is that the game expects you to "cheat", or use strategies that would be overpowered and frowned upon in most other games. Bravely default easily expects you to know or discover strategies such as: applying a status to all enemies and killing every enemy with that status using another spell, cycling a counter move over and over to have a nearly invincible party member, applying a healing attribute to a self-damaging character to get huge damage at little cost, casting reflect and dangerous spells on your own party to bounce them at the enemy, or duplicating a move that does maximum damage 15 times in a row. The game builds all of its encounters with the knowledge that your team will be the maximum level and that you will be using the most vile tactics you can come up with, and the game will do the same. Bosses and even common enemies will employ equally vile tactics using the exact same moves that you have access to, meaning you can learn from your enemies or quickly grasp the enemies strategy through your own experiences. One of the late game dungeons is entirely optional, but involves several fights against parties of 4 just like your, using the same jobs and skills you have gained during the game as a perfect test of your ability to develop counter-strategies, instead of relying on your own overpowered tactics. This type of design is really not something you find in many games due to the prominence of grinding or the lack testing strategies, and it is the most true appeal of bravely default to me.

BRAVELY SECOND EXISTS I GUESS So bravely second, a direct sequel to bravely default, definitely is a video game. It uses the original game as a base to generate more content, but completely misses the appeal of the original, and the new content added makes the experience even less focused. Overall, it's still a fairly alright RPG, but it fails to follow up on bravely default in a meaningful way or to provide as compelling of a gameplay experience. Here's some of the things it fucked up.

The game reuses almost everything the original game had, including the same music, world map, and most of the original's towns and dungeons, while adding a few of it's own. Going through areas you've been before never feels good, and the new areas lack the quality or brevity of the original game, leading to uninteresting areas that overstay their welcome, despite being the only break from repetitively reused content.

This extends to the classes but in an even worse sense. One important trait of the original jobs is that they were not perfect by themselves. While every job provided some useful abilities to be shared with other classes, or provided a good base with which to make a character, no class was without flaws. The new classes in bravely second are a lot of the opposite, they are closed loops that think of everything they could have to make a good standalone character. The 4 starter classes you get in bravely second are all brand new, and there's almost no reason to use any class besides those 4 as they are just insanely good. The priest and magician specifically augment magic in a way that makes spells infinity scalable into the end game, completely trampling on any other magic classes territory without needing the extra effort of grinding a new class out. Many of the new job concepts are actually really interesting, like going back in time to return to a healthier state, or a class that changes the stats and attributes of all units in a battle, allowing for all new kinds of strategies; but these classes lack any opportunity to be used to their full potential since they don't mesh well with other jobs and are limited by their self-centered design.

Another completely missed aspect of the original is the level curve discussed before. Bravely second only really requires you get somewhere in the ballpark of level 60-70 to comfortably beat the final boss, and getting too leveled up is really hard to avoid if you are plan to try out various jobs.

Second also fails to account for how many incredibly strong strategies the player can come up with, and even introduces some of its own strategies that it has no way to counteract, such as halfsies (the first skill the first class gets) pretty much splitting the game in two by tripling the value of items like phoenix downs, and allowing for fool-proof strategies by making 1 character focus entirely on defense, effectively making the party unkillable. Essentially, if you play second after having played the original (like any sane person would) then you will absolutely destroy the game with no sense of satisfaction.

The story is also a large step down, enough to become an annoyance, as the writing style changes to a strange romantic comedy situation with, for lack of a better term please forgive my sin, anime writing, but like bad anime writing, ya know the kind of shit that makes people write off all anime cus a lot of it is awkward and unpleasant to listen to. The story tries to mess with some big concepts like "what if new game + was a real thing???" and time travel and shit like that but it doesn't mesh with the tone the rest of the game has and that tone doesn't mesh with the world or art style and it's just a mess.

BRAVELY DEFAULT 2 SEEMS KINDA POOPIE SO FAR So unfortunately, the big appeal of bravely default being part of it's end game makes it hard to judge how 2 is gonna go given we only have a demo of the beginning, but given that the original team behind bravely default has slowly been stripped out of the series as it goes on, the outlook is bleek.

Most immediately obvious is that the artstyle has made a horrible transition from handheld to console, somehow even worse than pokemon. The areas are all fully 3d and lack the style or compositional excellence of bravely default, and the outside environment look like asset store products. The small proportioned characters with simple features to be readable on a small screen have been replaced with identically proportioned characters with excessive detail and ugly features, and look horrible up close on a big screen. Only the negatives of the art style have made it over, and everything good has been made unsavory. The character and enemy design overall is much worse as a result, everything is messy, unclear, and clashes with everything else. It's an absolutely shocking downgrade.

The characters themselves are overly hammy and feel like shallow attempts to have a similar party dynamic to the original without having identical character types, and the writing as a whole doesn't seem to have improved from second, which was already quite a step down from the original.

The gameplay also has not done anything different or interesting yet, and seems to be selling itself to people haven't heard of or gotten enough of the BP system. Enemies being on the overworld as opposed to random encounters shows they have dropped the player agency over encounter frequency, which is dumb. The battles lack any of the flow the original had, especially when using the battle speed option, as the camera does not present everything very well and changes position often as a result. Overall, I have not enjoyed the bravely default 2 demo and feel it shows nothing but a continued decline in the series that likely should have just been a single game. With the release date being set for sometime this year, I feel there is no chance any amount of player feedback could save the game or even begin to pull it in the right direction, as it seems to be fundamentally flawed with an inescapable feeling of shovelware.

SO WHAT? Basically, all I wanted to say here is that the original bravely default is a very unique experience I think every RPG fan should give a good chance (and just do all the optional stuff during the "repetitive" part of the game, it's where all the best content is you bozo) and that the sequels are NOT the same experience. I guess it's kind of mean to just say "hey don't buy or like this new thing cus its not like the old thing" but people should know why there's a bravely default 2 in the first place, and should fight for what made the original great. I worry that BD goes down the same sad path that FF did, becoming a completely hollow, middling series that strayed so far from it's home that a whole new series had to be made to give the fans of the old style a place to go.

Thanks for reading, and hope you got something out of it.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

We’ve got the blues

Tonight is all about the blues - the musical kind! Big Top and Agent S are performing all weekend after days of rehearsing. They've been inspired to form a blues duo after watching a documentary on music history. I'm really digging their sound and now I want to look into more bluesy artists!

Joining us at the camp on an impromptu vacation are Storm, Buddy, and Sam. It's nice to see Storm and Buddy again and an even bigger surprise to see Sam, who I haven't seen in what feels like forever. In fact, I didn't even know they were around the area - Peace Coast Island, to be specific.

So, what would these three be doing in a place like Peace Coast Island? Storm's the only one who really has a reason to fly up to the island from Airy since he's a recording artist at a studio over there. Ever since he started performing at Golden City, Storm has been getting back into writing songs and recording music.

And he's not the only one who's been hanging around the recording studio. In fact, Storm's working on two projects at once - a new single and an album with the Airy Community Choir. That's why the three came up to Peace Coast, to record some music and make plans for the choir album.

The upside of being friends with musicians, particularly recording artists, is that you get teasers or early access to new material! After we got lost in the Floating Petal Garden, Storm was struck by inspiration and with Sam and Buddy's help, it became a song that hopefully marks the start of a promising future. Us campers were spoiled by hearing the recording and a live performance. If this song doesn't get Storm some well deserved recognition, then I don't know what will.

In Hopes and Dreams is a song written by Storm, Sam, and Buddy. The song's about grief and how the ones you love can hurt you a lot by leaving. The unexpected death of his cousin/Buddy's brother led Storm to thinking about how losing loved ones through death leave the kind of scars that stay with you for life. Then Sam came along, contributing to the lyrics based on his own experiences with grief, particularly with Ellie's death - something he rarely opens up about.

In a way, working on that song was kinda therapeutic for the guys. Buddy's doing a lot better since I last saw him, which is good. Sam's lyrics were inspired by a conversation with a grieving Buddy, where he mentioned Ellie, leading to a moment of vulnerability for the two. He was the one who pulled Buddy out of a deep depression as if it wasn't for him, Buddy wouldn't have gone to the Floating Petal Garden with us.

The lyrics themselves are a strong point of the song, and knowing the story behind them makes it hit even harder. It's an emotionally driven song, one that gets you thinking about the impact you leave on people. The song also makes you think about your mortality, how your absence will hurt the ones you love the most. How sometimes you can love someone with all your heart and be kinda mad at them for leaving you. It's a feeling we all know too well - Buddy with his brother, and Sam with his wife are just a few examples that stick out.

After hearing In Hopes and Dreams for the first time, I knew that I'd be listening to it on repeat for a while. Not only it got me thinking about my own feelings with loss, it also got me wondering about Sam and Ellie.

I've met Ellie a handful of times and she was a lovely person, one who I wish I could've gotten to know better. Sam and Ellie were happily married, a sweet love story that was sadly cut too short. Not too long after Ellie May, also known as Little Ellie May-Berry, came along, Ellie was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. She passed away a little less than a year later, leaving behind a young grieving husband and a daughter who would sadly never get to know her mother.

In the years that passed, Sam rarely spoke about Ellie. Though it's becoming harder for him now that little Ellie May's asking questions about her mom. Along with Buddy dealing with his own loss, Sam was kinda forced to finally deal with his unresolved grief. Working with Storm on In Hopes and Dreams gave him an outlet for those emotions he had buried for the past six years, finally putting that part of his life to rest. It's a slow process, but he says it's getting a little easier to talk to Ellie May when she brings up her mom.

In Hopes and Dreams came together in a matter of a couple of days. The demo was recorded at Sam's house with Storm on lead while Sam provided a guitar accompaniment and backing vocals along with Buddy. Since this is the first song Storm has written in almost a year, he wanted to strike while the iron was hot and arranged a recording session with Lawrence as soon as the demo was done.

With the demo going super well, Storm became inspired to record some songs with the choir. At first he wasn't so sure if everyone would be on board to do an album but they were quite enthusiastic about it. Nothing's really set in stone on that yet but Sam and Buddy have already recorded some demos and Storm's working out arrangements for recording sessions.

So Storm, Sam, and Buddy flew to Peace Coast Island earlier this week to record In Hopes and Dreams. With JB Lesedi as producer, the recording sessions went smoothly and quickly. I know some lucky friends who have worked with JB, who's not easy to get. Storm got lucky as JB's schedule happened to clear up, making him available on short notice. Knowing him, he saw potential and immediately got to work on the song. Like in the demo, Storm sang his heart out while Sam and Buddy provided backing vocals.

Along with recording In Hopes and Dreams, the guys also did some work on the choir project, which JB offered to help out with. Sam sang Precious Memories and Buddy sang Just a Closer Walk With Thee, both which sounded great. I knew Sam can sing, but hearing him front and center shows how great he really is. Buddy's also got a good voice, though I shouldn't be too surprised since he often joins Sam when he pulls his guitar out. The Airy choir's quite good so I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the album when it's finished.

After finishing up in the studio, Storm took Sam and Buddy around the island. They also visited Spectrum Falls and Golden Sunset Hills, two other places where Storm often visited when he lived around the area. Then, instead of heading back to Airy, the guys decided to drop by the camp since it's not too far. They've been enjoying the islands, the city, and the campsite. It's always nice to have old friends dropping by for a visit.

As for the blues, Storm and Sam have been getting into the beat. Big Top was looking for vocalists so it's a good thing the guys came along. It's fun seeing the four of them make music together!

As expected, the guys enjoyed fishing at the creek and the ocean. I brought up the idea of them coming back to the camp during a tourney event and they were all for it. Sam hopes to bring his parents, sister, and Ellie May along. It's been ages since I last spoke to Franny and little Ellie May's growing up so fast - I'm so looking forward to seeing them again! And of course, Storm and Buddy will be there too - in fact, they're pretty much honorary members of the Beryl family at this point.

The cousins have been enjoying hanging around OK Motors fixing up RVs. Buddy's got a knack for fixing up anything that has an engine. He even managed to disassemble and reassemble a car inside the courthouse once - an impressive feat, though a bit of a mess for the town council to deal with. It's so good to hear him talk about the shenanigans he and the guys get up to in town - the whole car in the courthouse incident being a sign that Buddy's slowly getting back to his old self.

Sam has been busy with the town council and raising Ellie May. As of two years ago, he became the head of the Airy town council so he spends most of his time running things there. Franny took over from Frawley as pharmacist at the drug store a couple months ago after graduating last year. His dad's still with the newspaper and his mom's with the clinic. Little Ellie May's a bit of a handful, curious and excitable as ever. Of course, most of the pics on Sam's phone are of Ellie May being her adorable self. I'm excited to see her again, though she won't remember me.

It's been fun seeing the guys hanging out, bantering and joking around like they would do in Airy. Sam even brought his guitar for an impromptu singalong. I should drop by there for a visit someday, it really is a nice little town. Storm's been living there for less than a year and he already feels like family, fitting in seamlessly with the townfolk. Things have changed quite a bit, but it's still the same old Airy.

Since finishing up with In Hopes and Dreams, Storm and Sam have been working on some new music. Storm's not sure exactly what direction he wants to go if he were to record a new album so he's playing it by ear. Not only Sam is a talented guitarist and singer, he's also got a knack for writing lyrics.

Sitting out here under the stars with the guys while listening to Agent S and Big Top playing the blues - it's a fitting way to unwind after a busy day of fishing and hiking.

[bltngames]

Review: Lloyd the Monkey 2

Back before TSSZ News imploded, I would often do write-ups for many of the games at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE). SAGE is an annual online expo that I started all the way back in September of 2000. I personally ran SAGE for over a year, and remained deeply hands on for at least another two years as it continued to grow. The main focus of SAGE was primarily to showcase fangames, in particular Sonic fangames, but the event never limited itself to any one type of game. It's never been uncommon to see original games appear in the lineup -- especially now, given the modern indie scene. 

One such original game was Lloyd the Monkey, a bit of a strange game, written in Javascript of all things and run through a webpage. That by itself was notable enough to stand out from most of the games at SAGE, but Lloyd was also a completely original product created by someone who possibly seemed to be young and new to game development. Making games is no easy feat, especially when they’re written in Javascript and you’re doing tons of original artwork yourself. Taken as that whole, the game impressed me, even if it was more than a little rough around the edges.

Now we have Lloyd the Monkey 2, written in Unity. The developer, Noah Meyer, sent me a Steam key in order to review the game. Up top, I just want to say how I think it’s kind of brave to go all the way in putting the game on Steam and everything. It felt like just a few years ago, newer indie developers sort of had to work up to releasing their game on Steam, usually getting a few releases under their belt first. People view games differently when they’re asked to pay for them, and critics may not be so willing to let circumstances influence their review. It can be a harsh world out there for a beginner.

Lloyd 2 is a much bigger, more ambitious game than the first. Whereas the original Lloyd didn’t even have sound effects, Lloyd 2 introduces voiced cutscenes, some of which are full-on animated cinematics. Quality is about what you would expect -- I would assume the developer sought out friends and acquaintances to voice characters in Lloyd 2, leading to wildly varying audio quality due to differences in recording hardware. Lloyd himself sounds fine, but some of the other characters are a bit quiet, while others have clear background noise. Nothing I heard was unlistenable, however. 

The story is also a little hard to follow. Not much is done to refresh our memories as to who anyone is or what’s going on, we’re just kind of thrown into the middle of things and turned loose. On one hand, it’s nice that the story doesn’t slow the pace of the gameplay down too much. On the other, you’re given a map screen with different objectives to clear but there’s very little context as to what you’re doing or why. At one point I made my way to the end of a Power Plant level only to confront what appeared to be an evil monkey. Despite a whole cutscene involving a conversation between four or five different people, this evil monkey never seemed to say a single word. He just stood there in total silence with a sinister smile. Then I killed him.

I suppose maybe I missed something, however. With greater ambitions comes a number of unfortunate bugs in Lloyd 2, one of which happened not long after our monkey and his crew landed on planet Grecia. I entered what appeared to be a castle to talk to the Queen, but I think the game expected me to take a lower route, where I was apparently meant to overhear the Queen making secret preparations before my arrival. Instead, I took the direct route straight to her chambers, and triggered the cutscene with Lloyd standing in front of her while ominous music played, even though the camera was still clearly focused on the next floor down. I apparently still had some amount of control, because midway through her dialog I touched a teleporter that sent me to the game’s map screen before she was done talking. If that cutscene was meant to give context to what I was doing, I didn’t get a chance to see it.

That was one of the more harmless bugs in my time spent playing Lloyd 2. Harder to ignore was the fact that, within the first 30 seconds of getting control, I soft locked the game. Lloyd 2 opens with a short prologue section where you play as a man with black hair. If you decide to ignore the obvious and go left instead of right, you quickly run out of solid level tiles and begin falling indefinitely. Later areas feature invisible walls presumably to prevent this exact scenario, but for whatever reason they weren’t implemented in the prologue. 

For the most part, Lloyd 2 seems to be a co-op game. Many levels see Lloyd teamed up with an alien princess named Lura, with gameplay vaguely reminiscent of Mega Man X crossed with the tag mechanic from Sonic Mania’s Encore Mode. At the touch of a button, you can switch between the Swordsman Lloyd and the more projectile-based Lura… assuming your partner is still alive, I guess. While playing alone, your partner is controlled by artificial intelligence, but it’s incredibly basic and prone to accidentally committing suicide. That wouldn’t be such a big deal (considering Tails in Sonic 2 never acted in self-preservation either), but once your partner dies, they stay dead. Your only option to bring them back is to either restart the stage or hope another cutscene triggers, since they’ll magically spring back to life in order to say their dialog (though, again, usually only seconds before they fall back into the next death pit). 

This might not be much of a problem, depending on your viewpoint. There’s not much incentive to switch between Lloyd and Lura, so once you pick whoever you think works the best, chances are, you’ll just stick with them. You do unlock special team-up attacks after beating each boss, but this just reinforces the idea that Lloyd the Monkey 2 is meant to be experienced with another person holding a second controller, as most of the team-up attacks require both characters to do something specific that the single player artificial intelligence usually can’t interpret. Regardless, the team-up attacks never seem strictly necessary to progress, so they can be safely ignored if you’re playing solo.

I understand this is a pretty negative review I’ve written here. Lloyd the Monkey 2 aims high and tries to the best of its ability to get there. I assume it was a struggle to get even this far. Making games is hard work, and like any skill, takes practice to get good at. Just because this is Lloyd the Monkey 2 doesn’t mean Noah Meyer, its developer, is automatically an expert. I'm sure he's doing his best, and, quality aside, this game has a lot of heart put into it. This isn’t something cheap, quick, or lazy. It’s really, genuinely trying, and that matters. 

I’ve said a few times here and there that I see pieces of myself in the releases of Lloyd the Monkey, and I still see them here. I remember, for an early SAGE event, I was working on a fangame project of mine called The Fated Hour. I was probably already a year or two or maybe even three deep in the game by now, and after a lot of hyping up the community, this was their first chance to play the game. I spent months and months coding this iteration of my engine, and by my standards back then, it seemed like bleeding edge technology. I felt like I was going to blow everyone's minds. 

It was a mess. Few were impressed. Even worse, the game straight up didn’t even run correctly for some people. What followed was multiple patches, and even rebuilding some entire areas from scratch. My ambitions got the better of me and I unintentionally cut corners -- not because I was trying to cheap out on doing proper development, but just because I simply didn’t know any better. I may have done the best I knew how to do, but I was running faster than my body could keep up with and I stumbled.

When I see things like the missing invisible walls in the prologue, or how easily partner characters commit suicide by accident, I think back to that demo for The Fated Hour, and how I've been in this exact place myself. There’s even a side quest in Lloyd 2 where you have to track a floating girl as she drifts through a level -- there was a nearly identical set piece in The Fated Hour, where you were chasing a robot. It’s a very strange feeling to see something like that and think, “I’ve been here before.” Like looking through a window at a younger version of yourself.

It’s true that I stumbled, but I didn’t let that stop me. I learned by doing. I kept going. Three years later, a game of mine was featured on TV, leading to more than a million downloads. The mistakes of past projects did not weigh me down and I soldiered onwards, newfound knowledge in hand. 

So where does that leave us with Lloyd the Monkey 2, then. Well, it's not exactly a game to compete with Super Mario Odyssey, but given the circumstances in which it was created, I don't think that's necessarily the point. As a learning experience clearly made for the fun of its own creation, I think it's a success. And who knows what awaits in the years to come?

[riverscuomohhh]

Rivers’ first solo interview from 1994

From Lyndsey Parker via facebook

I was the first person to interview Rivers Cuomo of Weezer solo (the band had done one interview together, for Strobe Magazine) in 1994, before #TheBlueAlbum came out 25 years ago. Rivers and I were both very inexperienced at doing interviews (this was for my fanzine, Porkchops & Applesauce) but I figured since today is that album's 25th anniversary it would be fun to share it now. It's kind of funny how back then Rivers was embarrassed about his heavy metal past!! I never was. There's some Pinkerton prediction at the end of this one...

LP: So you moved to L.A. about five years ago – was it to specifically pursue music?

RC: Yeah, definitely. I moved here with like, the intention of being a rock star. And I completely failed. So, after a few years of messing around with really bad style, I got my s*** together.

LP: What do you mean by “bad style”?

RC: Well, I don’t want to get too specific, because I’m completely embarrassed.

LP: Were you into metal, by any chance? I don’t look down on that.

RC: Yeah, but the people who read your fanzine might!

LP: Well, that’s their problem. But anyway, it was the ‘80s; that’s what was around on in L.A. then.

RC: Yeah, so I can’t really blame myself, since that’s what was cool at the time. Anyway, I got out of that and discovered songwriting. It’s kind of a different thing. So I got a Weezer-prototype band together with [future Weezer drummer] Pat [Wilson], and our bassist was Scottie [Chapman] who used to be in [Los Angeles indie band] Charles Brown Superstar. We were called Fuzz. We had just two shows, at the [Sunset Strip club] Coconut Teaszer on a Sunday night, in front of a grand total of about five or six people. After about two months we broke up, then somehow made our way to this.

LP: How did you get interested in music in the first place?

RC: Well, I always wanted to be a football player. Like, really bad. But as soon as I became a teenager, it became apparent that I was not going to evolve into a football player. My brother had a guitar, so I’d just sit at home and be depressed about not being able to play football, and play with his guitar.

LP: You’re better off!

RC: Yeah. Anyway, because I loved bands like KISS and stuff, I wanted to start my own band, so I got a band together with my brother and my friends, and ever since, I’ve been in bands – since I was like 13.

LP: Were there places for you to play in Connecticut?

RC: No, there weren’t any places at all, and there probably still aren’t. I think if we ever tour we won’t even stop in Connecticut, even though it’s my home state, because there’s just nothing there. We played parties, or at school, like in Battle of the Bands [contests]. We’d do Twisted Sister covers.

LP: Is that the kind of stuff you grew up listening to?

RC: I started off pretty cool. I think my first concert was Men at Work. I was really into them and the Kinks. Cool stuff. Then right around 7th or 8th grade, things really took a turn for the worse! All my teenage years sucked. Then I got a job at Tower Records and they kicked my ass and told me to listen to cool music. They enlightened me.

LP: What did you think of supposedly “glamorous” Hollywood when you first moved here?

RC: I didn’t really have any expectations when I came here, and I was really excited about the whole thing. Even the gross stuff is really exciting compared to the backwoods of Connecticut. Even the weird, strange, gross things in Hollywood were really exciting to me.

LP: What did your family think of you moving out here?

RC: They were all for me getting out and doing something. Of course, they would have preferred for me to go to school, but I really wanted to be a rock star. It probably wasn’t their first choice for me, but they were still supportive.

LP:Are they happy for you now, now that you have a record deal?

RC: My ex-stepdad is. I’m not sure how much my mom understands what it all means – not that I understand what it all means! I think she’d still like me to be in school.

LP: So, Ric Ocasek produced this album. How did that happen?

RC: Well, I like the Cars a lot, so I suggested sending him a tape. I guess he liked it, because a few days later our record company guy called us and said, “Ric’s coming to your rehearsal today.” We were all really nervous. And he opened the door and we see this guy, 7 feet tall with sunglasses, looking like an ‘80s rock star.

LP: Is Ric a cool guy?

RC: He is so cool! He’s so sweet and nice, and makes us all feel really comfortable.

LP: What was it like working with him?

RC: Just really mellow. He didn’t have too much to say. He was just kind of there as a backup, in case we got stuck. He made sure everything went smoothly. But it wasn’t like he messed with our sound too much; our demo tape [The Kitchen Tapes] is pretty much the same as the album.

LP: So it wasn’t Ric’s idea to have those new-wavey keyboards on “Buddy Holly”?

No! Everyone thinks that! The keyboards were on there before we ever talked to him. He hated them! I guess maybe he was afraid that people would think it was him.

LP: So, what plans does Geffen have for your guys? Are you going to tour?

We hope to tour, but it’s so hard to get on a tour right now. Everyone’s turning us down. We’ve been dying to tour for months now, but all the other bands want to tur with someone bigger than themselves, so they can play in front of more people. Nobody wants to go on tour with a completely unknown bands. We’ll probably go out on our own.

LP: What about a video?

RC: I think we are actually going to do a video for “Undone” in a few weeks. The best idea for it is us just playing in an empty, plain room, just one shot – no cuts or anything.

LP: Sort of like the Police’s “Roxanne” video?

RC: I don’t remember that one, but possibly! We didn’t get MTV where I lived until really late, like “Livin’ on a Prayer,” so I missed all the early cool videos entirely.

LP: I often prefer simple videos over today’s big-budget extravaganzas.

RC: I think ours will be very cheap! We’re not counting on getting on MTV at all. I’d prefer not to even have a video, but I wonder if it’s even possible to be successful without a video anymore. That sucks.

LP: I think the humor in your lyrics is really clever, but I’ve heard you hate being labeled “fun” and “quirky.” Why?

RC: I had no idea we were funny or goofy or whatever until people started talking to us. I always thought our music was really sad and kind of dark. And then everyone comes up to me and says, “You guys are hilarious!” I think our next record [Pinkerton] is going to have a lot less silliness on it. It’s going to be much more difficult to interpret it that way, because I’m consciously steering away from that now. I just don’t want to be perceived as light, or that we’re not really feeling it, because we really are. All the lyrics are borne out of intense feeling and necessity, and it’s a drag when people think we just whipped them off and don’t really care about it.

[moonanagames]

Good and bad news, CHECK THIS OUT PLZ

(are... are you ready)

Haro my fellow earthlings and interplanetarian folks!

Today I bring good and bad news altogether, so please bear with me for a bit! Firstly, I wanted to talk about how development has been going since the very beginning, so let us go to our nice time capsule :D

This is a timeline of the development up until now, I tried to be the most accurate as I could, but it can be a bit difficult when I don’t remember many things anymore lol

The game is in development since January 2017. The timeline goes like this:

2017

From January to May, 20, I developed on my own my first public demo of Virgo Vs The Zodiac. It took longer as I was all by myself.

Then my Grandma said she wouldn’t be able to support me anymore if I was going to quit college to develop games. From May to August, I prepared the Crowdfunding Campaign to help me fund the project and my EXISTENCE. The Campaign was launched in September 2017, I think.

After the campaign ended, I could finally get Anglerman onboard! Ay! He does animations for enemies and some party members animations too and is also the greatest deity of our lives. A legend. He helped me a lot with the Game Design Document I was working on because new people would join and I needed to make the things in my head to be a bit more concrete.

From the end of the Campaign until October we were working with a another programmer, but that didn’t work too well since they had another big project they were working on at the time. We had to change the programmer. It was when I found Ben here on Tumblr, current lead programmer. Our lord and savior.

After that I was browsing tumblr randomly and I found Veyerals among asks sent to this tumblr and thought his work with menus was pretty cool (and I liked his game as well, played a lot of that back then). Veyerals joined the project too as the UI programmer and would also be working with the SHMUP mini games, which he had experience with. Bless the UI G.O.D.

From that point on we had to basically rebuild the game from scratch from the moment we got the new programmers. Not only develop the game from scratch, but doing everything RPG Maker already had built in for us into the new engine because that was the only thing I knew in terms of “programming”. That and adding everything new I thought for the project. It was a huge amount of work, and we only had a battle system working fine in December, where we started developing a new build.

(concept art of lady nurse)

2018

In this year things got a bit complicated!

At first, when the battle system was mainly “complete”, as we thought back then, we delivered a 15 mins build for ID@XBOX to be shown at the Game Developers Conference, on January 2018.

We had billions of problems from january to august with the development and also unrelated to the development, like dealing with US taxes. A lot of things weren't working as we wanted them to be, this time was mostly spent on making the timed hits to feel nice, rebuilding the base systems and trying to make the game to have the same feeling as the RPG Maker build had of it being challenging. Also, overall asset production. That was demanding as heck. In RPG Maker the enemies didn't move, while in Game Maker they were animated. I had never worked with Game Maker before, so me and Anglerman (the animator and fellow game designer) had to learn the engine from scratch while developing the game, that resulted in a lot of set backs, but lead us to where we are now. We're confident with the overall game's scaling, difficulty, battles and systems. In Game Maker the maps are also bigger and have way more polishing, so that took a lot of time to get used to on the new engine.

(a really weird, but solved, bug)

From that point on we built Capricorn, and started working on Taurus and other realms at the same time. After some time we determined that doing several realms at the same time, even though we knew which level the player would be wouldn't work well, and we decided to finish the realms before heading to other realm.

Billion lines of code later, in october we started development of the first 2 hours and a half of Taurus. All of it took one month and a half. It was a significant improvement from the previous 5 months to develop the same amount of gameplay! We determined that we can finish the game on the first half on 2019 upon seeing the progress of the development in Taurus. Now we have a stable work flow, as our lead programmer only has to work on random tiny things, for example, "I would like for Virgo to throw Alpacas for an event, can you add that?". Those are small details that Ben can do easily. Everything that was promised on the campaign, like SHMUP minigames and the crafting system is also all working nicely and well.

That brings us to the bad news: The release will be delayed, for all the reasons exposed before. At first we thought of keeping with the date announced in the Crowdfunding Campaign of December 4th and release the game in Early Access. However it all seemed unfair to the Beta Backers who donated first to get access to early builds of the game. Other than that, a save system of something like a RPG such as Virgo Vs The Zodiac wouldn’t work well with the early access system of Steam. Just imagine your save messing up every time the game is updated. That would be just bad. xD Unfortunately I didn’t know that back then when I announced the date, and I didn’t know the amount of hassle I would go through to learn the engine while developing the game. I can only blame my naiveness, honestly. Other than that, December isn’t a good time to release games because of the Steam Sale that makes it harder for new games to be noticed with so many games on sale.

With that being clarified, I can say now that the game would most likely be released in the first half of 2019, around Q2. I apologize deeply and am extremely sad, I was even avoiding saying this here and avoiding social medias in general due to anxiety attacks <_< I’m sorry for that as well! For anyone who said their birthday was in the same day as the game’s release, I apologize immensely, and please send me a message and I’ll send you a card of Sagittarius wishing you a happy birthday. It’s the only thing I can do now, to be honest. S O R R Y =(

O U T R A G E O U S

New possible release date: Q2 2019.

As for the good news now:

Taurus Realm Build For Backers

The Taurus build I was talking about will be sent to backers this week! :D You can expect a bossfight with a Zodiac, millions of new characters, around 1800 new lines of dialogues, new equipment to check, new fellows to beat or spare, quests and the SHMUP minigame, now implemented on the game! Also, as seen on the trailer, you can throw enemies off screen now :3

Kinda Funny Games Showcase

We’ll also be participating on Kinda Funny’s Games Showcase that’ll be happening in December 8th! You’ll be able to see a new trailer of Virgo Vs The Zodiac on the stream that’ll be happening on Kinda Funny’s Twitch. That’s a really cool opportunity for us, so eternal thanks to Greg Miller for chosing VvtZ. That got me by surprise! xD

Date: Saturday, December 8th

Time: 10am PT

I think that’s it! Basically we had a lot of setbacks, but we’re in the right path again now and I can say doing anything is faster as is! The game’s quality improved and the development became more demanding of our skills, but it’s also a nice challenge for everyone. I’m glad to have started this project, my life was pretty dull back then, I had lost many important things before and VvtZ brought sparkle back to my life. That’s important, as even in the most difficult times I can remember I’m creating something I have so much fun with. I’m blessed to have all the people who support me on Virgo Vs The Zodiac discord, who supported me in the campaign and everyone around social medias. It’s what makes my days happier, tbh.

Ever since I began development I lost contact with many of my friends from the other city I lived in, but I also made many other precious friends who helped me along the way! All the good and bad memories on my life shaped this place I created for myself in the world. I like this place, it’s comfy :3 Again, I’m sorry for ruining your expectations to have the game up on Steam this year, it’s a first delaying the development like this. As a Taurus I can say it pains the most to not have things done when I need them to be despite the hard work going behind this game. Damned Bugs. I want the bugs to die. Gotta work even harder from now on to extinguish bugs the maximum we can!

[keinart]

Last update of the year

(A lot of you have already probably seen this picture but it's relevant so here it goes.)

Hello everyone, and Merry Christmas! This week update will be public for everyone and will be the last until after the holidays. The team and I will be out some time so I'll see you all in 2019.

I'll start with the obligatory: thanks everyone for your support during 2018. It's been really important for me, even more considering the huge jump this project was from One Thousand Lies. I've made tons of mistakes and I'll probably keep doing them due to my inexperience, and despite that you have been keeping your trust in me and that has a value I cannot put into words.

I technically finished writing this project at the end of 2017, although I didn't finish writing all the secondary events until around March of 2018. I started looking for artists and musicians at the end of 2017 too although we technically didn't really start until 2018. So in a sense 2018 has been a full year of development, also translated as "me trying to figure out how making video games work".

I went from my original idea of making it in Renpy to move to Unity, then figure out how Unity works during the few first months. During this time I also had the help of a few programmers, musicians, graphic designer and other people that due to different circumstances had to drop from the project, so you can say that these were a few months dedicated exclusively to try to get a properly organized team and work ethic.

For example: here's a look of the game IN MARCH!

I was using placeholders for everything except the background as you can see, but at least the basic functionalities were all there.

My focus a bit after went into keep scripting the first versions of the novel even if they were with placeholders and looking ugly, while at the same time I started the battle programming around May. Well technically I started it before that but I had to discard a few versions until I finally started the base of the current game. This is how it looked back then:

As development went new ideas for the battle system kept coming, and I kept discarding them to, funny enough, leave a design a lot closer to my original idea. The current version is almost 1:1 to my first design documents I did about it.

The hardest part of the battle system was no doubt the AI. This is a system where all units move around with a certain degree of intelligence and there are many situations you never plan ahead where they end doing whatever they want. Luckily I found help from a new programmer that helped me to fix many of the issues and improve the system to what it is now. Once that was working I expected that the rest would be "easy" but the truth is that going from what you see on the gif to what it is now there's a huge amount of work in GUI design and programming and functionality too. The first version had too many buttons around to decide everything your character could do but I managed to come out with a new design simplifying the system and making it a lot more intuitive.

We didn't really start this change in GUI and design until the AI and all attacks and abilities were working, which it was around September! So yes it took 5 months or so of many mistakes and work until we finally managed to get the battle system. As I mentioned before it is a complete new system made from scratch so there was a lot of trial and error. In fact I am still finding errors and minor changes to do.

Here's for example how the AI Behaviour Tree looked for one of your own characters in September when we were still trying trying to make it work properly and it was an mess.

Sincerely the battle system has been a huge idea that has become bigger than I never expected, but at the same time I think it has a lot of potential and really fits with the game. I designed the basics of this system before I even started writing, it's part of the game even if I allow you to make it optional. The costs and time dedicated to it won't probably come compensated once the game releases, but it is still the biggest project I've ever tried in my entire life. I want to make sure that I can be proud of it.

It's been a lot of work and it never seems to end to be honest, but I guess that's part of the first time developers feeling. I only did one other project before and it had little to now programming involved so you can imagine.

The image on top is what you can guess, a screenshot of the demo main menu. During these past few days I had a build ready and getting tested by a few people, and I wanted to release it today but... I'm not really happy with the quality of it.

I feel bad because I keep giving dates but I'm being unable to fulfill them. This is only and exclusively my own incompetence, so I don't want this text come out as excuses. Explanations are still in order however.

My main issue is with the battle system balance, of course some people managed to find ways to beat the map in like 2 turns haha. I made it relatively easy considering it is a demo map but that was a bit too much. There's also a few minor bugs like part of one menu not disappearing if you press certain buttons (how? I don't even) among other things.

So if you really want to play I can build a version with only the Visual Novel part or even upload a video so it's easier to watch, but I personally want to polish it a bit more. I think that first impressions are important too and considering I've messed up almost every announcement and first impression up to now I would like to clean that record.

It's been one year, so I was kinda pressuring myself and other to step up, more than I can probably manage.

Anyways that's all for this year. Hope you enjoyed a bit at least this short look at the game development process during 2018. There's a lot more I could talk about but this entry is already pretty long!

See you in 2019!

ESPAÑOL

(Muchos ya habréis visto esta ilustración antes pero es relevante así que welp)

Hola a todos y feliz navidad. La actualización de esta semana estará abierta al público y será la última hasta después de las fiestas. Tanto el equipo como un servior vamos a estar fuera por lo que ya nos veremos en 2019.

Empezaré con el obligatorio: muchas gracias a todos por vuestro apoyo en 2018. Ha sido un año muy importante para mí, aún más considerando el salto desde un proyecto como One Thousand Lies a esto. He cometido todos los fallos que podía cometer y probablemente los siga cometiendo debido a mi falta de experiencia, pero a pesar de todo muchos me habéis seguido apoyando y eso tiene un valor que no puedo poner en palabras.

Técnicamente terminé de escribir este proyecto a finales de 2017, aunque estuve luego trabajando en todo el contenido secundario hasta Marzo de 2018 o así. A finales de 2017 también fue cuando comencé a buscar artistas y músicos por lo que realmente no empezamos hasta 2018. En ese sentido 2018 ha sido un año completo dedicado al desarrollo, que se puede traducir también como "yo intentando averiguar cómo hacer eso de los videojuegos funciona".

Al comienzo fui de mi idea original de usar Renpy a finalmente cambiar por Unity. Durante estos primeros meses todo lo que podía hacer era intentar averiguar cómo Unity funciona ya que ha sido mi primera experiencia con el mismo. Durante este tiempo tuve también el apoyo de unos cuantos programadores, músicos y diseñador gráfico entre otros, pero debido a diferentes circustancias tuvieron que dejar el proyecto. Al final estos primeros meses realmente fueron para intentar formar el equipo y averiguar qué teníamos que hacer.

Por ejemplo, aquí tenemos un vistazo a cómo el juego se veía en Marzo:

Estuve utilizando placeholders para todo excepto el fondo como se puede ver, pero al menos las bases de funcionalidad estaban ahí ya.

A partir de ahí me centré en pasar las primeras escenas al juego aunque fueran llenas de estos placeholders y teniendo una pinta horrenda a la par que me familiarizaba con el motor. Poco después también comencé a programar el sistema de combate, en torno a Mayo para ser exactos. Bueno en realidad comencé antes de eso pero fueron todos versiones que deseché hasta que finalmente comencé lo que sería la base de la versión actual. Este es el aspecto que tenía por aquel entonces:

Lo curioso es que conforme el desarrollo avanzaba nuevas ideas para el sistema de combate seguían surgiendo, pero a la vez las iba desechando. Al final el diseño actual es casi un calco exacto de mi primer diseño documentado sobre el sistema de combate y todas esas pruebas acabaron fuera.

La parte más difícil de todo este sistema es sin lugar a dudas la IA. Este es un sistema donde todas las unidades se mueven con un cierto grado de inteligencia y hay unas cuantas situaciones en las que al final acaban haciendo un poco lo que les daba la gana. Por suerte encontré ayuda de un nuevo programador que arregló y mejoró mucho de mis problemas para dejarlo en lo que tenemos ahora. Con eso terminado esperaba que el resto fuera a ser fácil pero lo cierto es que ir desde lo que ves en el gif a lo que tenemos ahora fue una cantidad ingente de trabajo. La primera versión tenía muchos botones también por lo que también había que intentar diseñar un sistema simplificado y mucho más intuitivo.

Todo este trabajo respecto al GUI y el diseño no se comenzó hasta que la IA y todos los ataques y habilidades estaban completos, que no ocurrió hasta Septiembre o así. Por lo que sí, llevó 5 meses de muchos fallos y trabajo hasta que finalmente se completó el sistema de combate. Como ya he mencionado antes es un sistema completamente nuevo al fin y al cabo y hecho de cero por lo que hubo mucha prueba y error. De hecho todavía sigo encontrando pequeñas cosas constantemente.

Aquí por ejemplo hay una captura de cómo el árbol de comportamiento de la IA para uno de los personajes se veía en Septiembre, cuando todavía se estaba intentando hacer que funcionase y era todo un poco lío.

Siendo sinceros el sistema de combate ha sido una idea enorme que se ha vuelto incluso más grande de lo que nunca imaginé. Al mismo tiempo sin embargo creo que es algo con un enorme potencial y que realmente encaja con el juego para crear algo único y novedoso. Diseñé todo esto antes incluso de empezar a escribir, es parte del juego incluso si permito que sea opcional. Los costes y el tiempo dedicado probablemente no compensarán lo que luego el juego gane, pero sigue siendo el proyecto más grande que he hecho en mi vida y al menos me aseguraré de que pueda estar orgulloso de él.

Es un montón de trabajo que no parece acabar nunca, pero supongo que es lo que hay cuando haces un juego por primera vez. Solo he hecho otro proyecto antes y no tenía casi nada de programación por lo que te puedes hacer una idea.

La imagen de arriba es lo que ya os podéis imaginar, una captura del menú principal de la demo. Durante estos últimos días conseguí finalmente tener un build listo y una cuanta gente jugándolo. Mi idea era sacarlo hoy pero... no estoy muy feliz con la calidad del mismo.

Me siento mal porque sigo dando fechas que no puedo cumplir. Esto se debe exclusivamente por mi incompetencia por lo que no quiero que suene a que pongo excusas, pero obviamente tengo que dar explicaciones.

El mayor problema viene con el balance del combate. Por supuesto ha habido gente capaz de completar el mapa en 2 turnos je. Lo he hecho relativamente fácil considerando que es una demo pero igual es demasiado fácil. Además sigue habiendo unos cuantos errores como por ejemplo unos botones del menú que no desaparecen si usas ciertos botones (¿cómo? Ni idea) entre otras cosas.

Por lo que si realmente queréis jugar no me importa daros un versión con solo la parte de novela visual o incluso subir un vídeo para que sea más fácil de ver, aunque personalmente preferiría poder mejorarlo un poco más. Creo que las primeras impresiones son importantes y considerando cómo la he liado con todos los anuncios del juego pues quiero limpiar mis propios errores.

Ha sido un año, por lo que igual he estado presionando al equipo y a mí mismo demasiado, más de lo que realmente puedo hacer.

En cualquier caso eso es todo lo que he podido hacer durante este 2018. Espero que hayáis disfrutado al menos de este pequeño vistazo al proceso de desarrollo este año. Hay mucho más de lo que podría hablar pero esta entrada ya es muy enorme, ¿no te parece?

¡Nos vemos en 2019!

[kelphero47]

Drop pop candy - Lavashipping

Back again with another songfic of my OTP. Based on the song by reol. Check out the companion picture done by shelbot98.

https://shelbot98.tumblr.com/post/166400804309/this-is-a-request-and-cover-for-my-middle-sister#notes

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

This is so stupid.

Kai knew this was stupid.

The Ninja had been called to help catch a mysterious figure who had been attacking young girls in a local park in Ninjago City. They had made a plan to lure them out. Nya had originally volunteered to act as bait but after they learned the attacker had a thing for targeting short brunettes. Jay had then stepped up, having already been dressed up like a girl before, yet he was too tall to fit the description. So, the task had been given to Kai, the shortest of the group (much to his annoyance), and he was not at all pleased.

Kai  had been dressed up in an outfit Nya helped him pick out to help make  him look younger and makeup which helped covered his scar while making him look 'cuter' as his sister put it. The worst part however was the fact that the others had made her brush his hair down so that his fringe covered his right eye. The icing on the cake being a large bow attached to the top of the back of his head to complete the look. He looked like a girl. He didn't feel pretty though.

That plan brought him to his current situation as he was standing out in the rain with his umbrella. Waiting. The short skirt blew in the breeze as it brushed past part of his knees not covered by his socks. He was walking around the area by himself as the others hung back to watch if anything happened.

It was so boring.

Kai sighed as he turned a corner to a more unused section of the park. The rain pitter-pattered against the leaves of trees before falling gracefully to the ground. The sound was constant and calm. Until it was interrupted by something a lot more interesting. He followed the noise to a stray box on the ground, damp from the downpour.

Inside  said box was a kitten no bigger than his hand. It was the most adorable  thing he'd ever seen. It made small sounds at his arrival as raindrops  hit its head. Kai smiled at the tiny creature. He took pity on it and  placed his umbrella down over the box to shield it.

Amefuri demo kasa wa sasanai no  'Even when it's raining, I don't use an umbrella'

(Hajimemashite to neko wa naku)  '(The cat meow "It's a pleasure to meet you")'

Okiniiri no hiiru o nurasu no  'My beloved high heels get soaked'

He  kneeled down in front of it as the raindrops began to soak into his  clothes. The heels he was wearing scraped across the floor, they were  going to be ruined after this. Kai reached out a hesitant hand towards  the kitten which it sniffed before nuzzling into the outstretched  appendage. He  laughed when it began to lick his fingers, "Hello there." He cooed,  almost sweetly, which made the kitten meow loudly in response.  

"What's  your name?" He asked as he picked up the small creature carefully in  his palm and brought it in front of his face. It was a pure black with  soft brown eyes that stared at him in wonder. It reminded him of...

Cole.

Thinking  of the earth ninja made him smile more. He had also been displeased  with the decision to use Kai as bait but had been quite happy seeing him  in his current clothing, despite his earlier protests. The two had yet  to start dating as Kai was too nervous to make the first move, in case  he was wrong in reading the others feelings about him, so he waited. Sometimes he was tired of waiting.

Nanigenai you na nichijou ga ima hora  'See now, how the run-of-the-mill everyday life'

Kawaritai to aiiro ni somari dasu   'Is being dyed in blue as if wanting to change'

It was the same every day.  The same longing stares, the same nervous interactions, the same   lingering touches. But, somehow neither of them had made any move to   take it further. Kai blamed himself for that. He was hesitant.

He  was brought out of his thoughts by the kitten shifting in his hands and  move closer to his face. It leaned forward to the point it could lick  in nose. Kai giggled at that as he brushed his thumb over the kitten's  cheek, which it seemed to enjoy.

Mizutamari ni utsuru ichibyou kan  'That one second when it appears in the puddle'

Tada ichido kono me de mite mitai dake nano  'I just want to see it one time with my own eyes, that's all'

"You  know what? You remind me of someone." Kai explained to the kitten,  despite knowing it wouldn't understand him. "Yeah, he's strong and  considerate and always looking out for me. We're just friends at the moment, but you  know... Anything can happen." The kitten seemed to respond as it gave  another loud meow. "You'd like him and he'd like you, hopefully."

"And I'd like you."

Odoru yo sekai ga yuraide mawaru no!  'I am dancing, the whole wide world shaking up goes round and round!'

Todoku yo sokudo o agete  'We will reach it, so let's pick up the speed'

Kai  jumped at the new addition to the one-sided conversation between him  and the kitten. The voice was silky smooth and smug to the point it sent  shivers down his spine. He turned around to see a man slightly older  than him leant against a tree leering at him. For obvious reasons he  didn't like that look. Kai held the kitten closer as he stood up to fully face the stranger, "Hello."

"You lost, Hot Stuff? You're a little off the beaten path." The man questioned giving Kai a not very subtle look over. "And wet."

"Well... I.. Um..." Kai hesitated in responding as the other stepped forward into his personal space, "Could you back up a little bit?"

"I don't think I will." The man smirked as Kai tried to back away himself only to stop when his heels hit the box behind him, "The name's Jonah. What's yours?"

"Kai."  He glanced around hoping the others were going to make an entrance  soon. This guy had to be the attacker, he could feel it.

"As in 'water'?" Jonah asked jokily as he re-enter Kai's personal space.

"As in 'fire'," Kai explained as the kitten in his hands gave a loud meow.

Kakedashitai no ashita made hitottobi  'I just want to break out and run until tomorrow in one fell swoop'

Kinou no kare mo asayake mo inai kedo sore de sore de ii no  'Although the guy from yesterday isn't here in the early morning light, that's okay, that's all okay'

"What's that?" Jonah reached for Kai's hands  before the ninja took off running. He didn't trust that guy. Said guy  smirked at his actions as he muttered to himself, "Oh, she'll do  nicely." Kai didn't look behind him as he ran for the main path and out  of the dense tree canopy. Where were the others? Why weren't they here  yet? They said they'd be just out of view for when he needed them, well  he needed them right now.

He  heard Jonah's footsteps calmly walking behind him. God, why were his  legs so short? He hated tall people sometimes, and Jonah was a good  couple heads taller than him. He was almost as tall as...

Cole.

zutto tsuzuiteku kitto susunderu  'Always keep on going, it's definitely moving forward'

Motto aishiteru! Hibi o kimi o  'I love you more and more! With every day, with you'

Why  was everything reminding him of Cole today, he sounded like a love  struck teenage girl. Uh, now was not the time. Kai finally looked back  at Jonah to find him not even there. He slowed down almost to a complete  stop as he surveyed the area around him. His focus was broken by  another loud meow from the small creature nestled safely in his arms.

This  lapse in concentration meant he didn't notice the presence behind him  until it was pressed up against his back. Kai spun around to come face  to face with Jonah's chest which made him stumble back. The wet floor  allowed his heels to skid and his legs to fall out from under him. He  met the ground with a thud as Jonah loomed over him.

Isso nana koronde nankai okiagatte  'And just fall over and over, then get back up many times'

Sou yatte mata kyou o omoi aeteru  'By doing this we can again love one another today'

The kitten escaped his grip to stand on his lap. It hissed at Jonah as he crouched in front of Kai. He swatted the animal away making it skid across the floor until it hit the dirt the other side  of the path. Kai moved to go help it until Jonah wrapped a hand around  the back of his neck to hold him in place. He kept still as the other  moved closer so that he was once again pressed up against his back. He  felt his breath on his ear and heard him inhale deeply through his nose.  "You smell wonderful..." Jonah sighed as he tapped the bow on the back  of Kai's head. "All wrapped up like a present for me to open... And I think I will."

Before Kai could respond a foul smelling rag was placed over his mouth and nose. He held his breath for as long as he could until the need for air became too strong and he was forced to take a deep, gasping breath. Without him wanting to, his vision began to fade to total darkness.

*Time skip*

Jay had been sent to check up on Kai as the others hung around at their temporary  base at the park caretaker's shed. Nothing had happened yet so they  were preparing to give up for the day when he came back in a frantic  mess. All they understood from his rambling were the words 'Kai' and  'gone' before they were out of the door.

The group of ninja   didn't stop running until they reached the quiet path where Kai once   stood.  His umbrella rested on the ground above a box but the area held no other evidence of his existence there. Cole was the first of them to go for the object, as the others spread out around the area, before he heard a quiet noise beside him.  He glanced down to see a ball of fluff shaking on the wet floor. It let  out another pitiful noise as he crouched down beside it.

He registered it was a kitten by the meow it let out when he touched  it. Cole tentatively picked it up to bring it in front of his face. It  looked up at him with curious eyes and he smiled at it. He knew it was  stupid but he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Have you seen my friend, Kai?"  

What he didn't expect to happen was for it to meow loudly as if responding to him. He knew it was crazy, "You have?" He almost cried  when it meowed again, "So do you know where he is?" It fell at that  question and Cole actually felt tears rolling down his face at that  point.

Hoho o tsutau kanojo no shizuku wa  'The water droplets that are trailing down along her cheeks'

(Mite minai furi neko wa naku)  '(The cat meows pretending not to see)'

Utsumuita sink taikutsu narabeta  'Looking down the sink the boredom starts piling up'

"Cole... Are you talking to a  cat?" Lloyd's concerned voice came from behind him as he clung to the  tiny animal in his hands. He could hear the entire group behind him  before he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. Cole looked over his   shoulder to see Zane crouching next to him as the others all held   expressions of confusion, "Are you alright?"

"No...  I'm not." Cole held out the feline in front of him, "He doesn't know  where Kai is." He explained as the others looked between themselves,  unsure what to do.

Yasashisa de tsumugareta uso demo  'That we're spun out of the yarn of kindness'

Kanashimi ni irodorareta jitsu demo  'And even the truth that has been taken by sadness'

"Why... Would a cat know where Kai is?" Jay asked chuckling nervously at the end.

"I  don't know." Cole shrugged before resting his hands on his lap in  defeat. He felt so useless. Useless to help the sweetest person in his  life. The person he loved. They just didn't know it yet. "He was taken  and we weren't here. We promised we'd be right here, protecting him!" He  yelled making the others wince, they knew what he said was true.

They stood there in an awkward silence as their friend broke down on the ground. Nya leant her head on Jay's shoulder seeking comfort, "What are going to do?"

Mizutamari ni sawagu amatsubu no  'The raindrops acting out in the puddle of water'

Fuchi o sotto yubisaki de nazoru you  'As if your finger tips are gently tracing the edge'

Cole  looked up at this point to seek answers from the group at Nya's  question. Lloyd decided to step up at this point with a determined look  etched on his face, "We're going to find him."

"But how?" Jay questioned as he patted Nya on the side of the head.

Egaite kanadete kirameku negai ga kanau yo!  'Draw it out, play it out. Sparkling wishes will be granted!'

Todoku yo koudo o agete  'We will reach it, so let's raise the altitude'

"It would be logical to assume whoever took Kai would have to live nearby. After all,  for Kai to be taken he would either have to overpowered drastically to  point he wouldn't put up a fight or somehow knocked out." Zane concluded  as he surveyed the area, "With  the surrounding area still being intact we can assume no major fight  went on and he was mostly likely surprised allowing the latter option to  occur. Either way carrying around an unconscious person would be  suspicious so their home would have to be close as not to draw too much  attention."

"That's right!" Lloyd smiled as he reached to help Cole off the floor while addressing the entire team. "So, all we have to do is ask around the neighbourhood for... What was their description again?"

"Authorities presume the attacker to be a male, large build and possibly in his late teens to early twenties." Zane listed off word for word.

"A person matching that description and we're bound to get leads." Lloyd explained hoisting the earth ninja to his feet.

*Time skip*

Kai had woken up in this dark room hours ago. He had been placed on a surprisingly soft bed in what  looked like a completely ordinary bedroom. Except the door was made of  what seemed like steel and his wrists had been chained to the bedposts. Jonah had yet to make an appearance, much to Kai's relief, as he lay on the bed.

Kakenuketai no uchuu made hitottobi  'I just want to break out and make it into space in one fell swoop'

Ukabeta hoshi mo tsuki ni mo aenai kedo sore de sore de ii no  'Even though I cannot go and meet the stars and moon up above, that's okay, that's all okay'

The only indicator to anything outside of the room was  a window on the far wall which shone with moonlight. He flinched when  he heard a click echo through the room as the door was opened from the  other side. Kai didn't look in his direction when Jonah entered the  room, still leering at him, "Evening Beautiful."

"F**k off." Kai snapped as he pulled on his restraints, "Where am I?"

"Somewhere  safe... Where we can be alone." Jonah waved off his questions  nonchalantly as he moved to sit beside Kai on the bed. He raised a hand  to the exposed skin of his thigh to caress it lightly with his thumb.  Kai's breath hitched as he moved the offending appendages  under his skirt to feel more skin, "Such a vulgar mouth you have  though... I wonder what other kinds of naughty noises it can make."

"You dare and I'll kill you." He growled as the other continue to slide his hand up further.

"As if you could in this situation." Jonah laughed as he grabbed his ass, "Just enjoy yourself, I certainly know I will."

"Y-You know I'm a g-guy, right?" Kai stuttered as his face heated up at the others unwanted touches.

"I know..." Jonah leaned in close to whisper in his ear, "And that just makes this better." Kai shivered as he blew against the shell of his ear. He felt them lick it before moving to do the same to his neck causing him to gasp, "Looks like someone's sensitive."  

He  tried to think of anything other than being in that room, under the  control of this nutcase. He thought about the kitten he met earlier, his  friends and Cole. They all must be looking for him by now. The thought  warmed his heart. Cole was trying to find him.

Zutto tsuzuiteku kitto susunderu  'Always keep on going, it's definitely moving forward'

Motto aishiteru! Hibi to kimi to  'I love you more and more! With every day and you'

He  wished Cole was here instead of this guy. Holding him close and making  him feel safe. Unlike the sicko feeling him up at the moment making him  feel dirty and ashamed at his own reactions. Kai felt tears roll down  his face as Jonah continued to caress his thighs and lick the expanse of  his neck and shoulders, "P-Please stop."

Isso uzukumatte nankai nakijakutte  'And just crouch down, then cry your eyes out many times'

Sou yatte mata kyou to meguri aeteru  'By doing this we can again see one another today'

"I  don't think I will." Came Jonah's sadistic response as he moved to look  the brunette in the eyes, "Not when you're already crying so sweetly  for me, just begging for it."

"No..." Kai gasped as the hand on his thigh moved the grab onto his underwear but before they could do anything more he screamed at the top of his lungs.

*With the others*

Cole wandered the streets of the small neighbour with his family as they searched for their missing brother. He cradled the now sleeping kitten in his arms, not having the heart to leave it anywhere. He looked up at the sky to admire the moon and the star as they lit up the night sky.

Boku o terashite buruu muun  'Shining brightly upon me, blue moon'

From speaking to various people in the area they had narrowed down their search to a much smaller radius. However,  the late hour meant they had no else to question making the remaining  search harder. He just hoped Kai was okay, wherever he was. Cole had  spent some time during his search thinking about the object of his affections. His smile. His laugh. His passion. All of them warm, like him.

Nagai yume kara mou sameta  'I've already awoken from a long dream'

Asu no hougaku e tsuretette yo!  'Take me away along towards the path of tomorrow!'

Cole didn't have much more time to think about Kai as his thoughts were broken by a blood   curdling scream ripping through the air. That sounded like... "Kai!" He took off in the direction of the sound with the others close behind   him. He just hoped he wasn't too late.

Sokudo o agete  'So let's pick up the speed'

*Back to Kai*

Kai began kicking his   legs about the moment Jonah flinched at his scream. He managed to nail   him in the face before his ankle was grabbed. "Little B***h, can't stay still can you?" Jonah growled as he reached for something under the   bed. Kai turned pale when it turned out to be rope which was used to tie  his ankles together. Jonah laughed as he leaned over him again to get closer to him face, "There we go. Now just stay plenty quiet so I won't have to do the same to that pretty mouth of yours."

"Bite me." Kai could feel his fire bristle at his fingertips, he didn't want to use it this close to a flammable objects.

Kakedashitai no ashita made hitottobi  'I just want to break out and run until tomorrow in one fell swoop'

Kinou no kare mo yuuyake mo inai kedo sore de sore de iino  'Although the guy yesterday isn't here in the late evening glow, that's okay, that's all okay'

"Don't mind if I do." Jonah smirked as he moved to bring  his lips to Kai's neck. He was about to mark to clear, tender flesh  there when a loud crash came from downstairs. His head shot up towards  the door before he glanced between it and the body underneath him.  Sighing, he got up and left the room but not until after he gave the  other a sly warning, "Try to escape and the next part won't be  pleasurable."

Kai  wanted to throw up when the man went out of view, leaving him alone. He  pulled on the chains again, listening them creak under the strain but  not giving way. Instead he turned his attention to a faint conversation  going on far   outside the room. Whoever it was seemed to have pissed off Jonah as he   was far louder than those responding to him. Then it happened.

Zutto tsuzuiteku kitto susunderu  'Always keep on going, it's definitely moving forward'

Another voice yelled back at him in syllables he recognised. It was Cole and he sounded angry. A crash followed the shouting before it sounded as if someone was running up the stairs. They stopped close to the door but made no move to open it. Kai yanked on his restraints once more as he called, "I'm in here!"

The metal of the door proceeded to creak as his rescuer forced open the door. It gave way suddenly to reveal a heavily breathing ninja in black.

Motto aishiteru! Hibi mo kimi mo  'I love you more and more! With each day and you too'

"Kai!" Cole rushed over to the side of the bed, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..."  Kai sighed as he looked away blushing, "Just get me out of here,  alright." He pulled on the chains around his wrist, "These kind of  hurt."

"Sure." Cole easily broke the metal around his wrists then picked him up bridle style without hesitation. Kai made no move to protest as he buried his head in the crook of the others neck. He was shocked when Cole placed his head on top of his in comfort, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"No..." Kai hiccupped he began crying onto his shoulder, "H-He did things..."

"What kind of 'things'?" Cole questioned, his tone turning darker to match the scowl on his face.

"Like licking me and touching my thighs..." He sniffled clinging to Cole's gi, "And he tried to..."

"To?" Cole coaxed as he felt a wet patch begin to form in the fabric of his uniform. That guy was going to be dead when he was finished with him. When Kai didn't respond he sighed and stroked the back on his head. "Come on now, it's okay. Just tell me what he did?"

Isso nana koronde nankai okiagatte  'And just fall over and over, then get back up many times'

"He tried to touch me 'there'." Kai explained as he tried to pull down the hem of his dress. It took Cole a few moments to understand where 'there' was. When he did however, he felt something in his own head snap. He was almost completely silent as he carried Kai carefully down the stairs and placed him the arms of a bewildered Zane.  

He  then turned his attention to the guy cowering on the floor in front of  the group, "How dare you..." Cole grabbed Jonah by the front of his  shirt to drag him off the ground to rest eye level with him, "How  f**king dare you!"

"Cole, don't-" Lloyd rested a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"No!  This piece of trash deserves what's coming to him." Cole narrowed his  eyes as the man he was holding gripped his wrist in fear.

"He's  not worth it... Just look at him." Lloyd scowled as the man looked at  him desperately, "It's better if we leave the cops to deal with this,  and take Kai home." Cole glanced over to the small teen in the ice  ninja's arms as Nya and Jay began trying to comfort him. He felt his  grip loosen to the point the man fell to the floor.

Sou yatte mata kyou mo meguri aeteru  'By doing this we can again see one another today'

"You're  right... You're right." Cole chuckled dryly at his friends before  moving past him to the others. He watched Nya smooth out her brother's  fringe despite his weak protests. He got closer to stand beside her and  address Zane, "Can I have him back?"

"Of  course." Zane smiled sadly as he gently placed Kai into Cole's waiting  arms, "I took the liberty of removing the rope from around his ankles."

"Thank  you," With those words Cole made his exit out of the front door leaving  the others behind to take out the trash. He smiled as he felt Kai rest  his head on his shoulder and relished in way his eyes were half-lidded. "Is someone tired?"

"Mmmm."  Kai groggily nodded against his shoulder so that his hair tickled his  neck. He shifted so that he was better facing Cole so that they could  look each other in the eyes. Cole couldn't help himself as he kissed Kai  on the top of the head in an affectionate gesture, "Wha-"

"Kai listen,  I've liked you for a while now and today just put into perspective how  easily I could lose you." He explained as Kai made a small frown, "So  please, give me a chance to show how much you mean to me."

"Yes."  Kai smiled as Cole moved in closer to initiate a kiss. They were an  inch apart when a soft noise interrupted them from the confines of the  earth ninja's gi.  "Is that what I think it is?" Kai laughed when Cole blushed reaching   into his uniform to take out a small ball of fur. He giggled when it   uncurled itself to reveal the kitten he had found earlier, "Oh my gosh. You shouldn't have."

"It's nothing."

Omoi atte iku korekara zutto  'Continue to love one another from now on and always'

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

Do make requests for songs and ships if you want. I like a lot of ships.