#especially because its gonna create more work for him the next day lol. he's a wares pricer

[plushie-lovey]

Ok. Ok tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day planned to go thru my collection

[mossible]

ALRIGHT i’d like to preface that this is most likely gonna be really rambly (mostly due to excitement), but i promise that some questions will be sprinkled here and there as well, just bear with me LMAO ANYWAYS

with that out the way, i just finished reading all the chapters you’ve released of Cracked Snowglobes so far, and WOW you’ve done such an amazing job with it!! seriously, the way you’ve characterized everyone, especially octavio, just makes my heart sing. i feel like nintendo’s slept on developing octavio within splatoon’s story modes when there’s SO much available that they could work with, so reading your interpretation is such a fresh breath of air. what inspired you to write it from his perspective?

also, i love how splatoon’s silliness and flair is still present without interrupting the genuine and heartfelt scenes; the story naturally ebbs and flows (sorry not sorry :)) between the two wonderfully, it’s really a treat to read. speaking of the pacing, you’ve done the cuttletavio content SO WELL. i really appreciate the seeds you’ve planted throughout the story, because it creates a solid foundation for their relationship to grow from and, well, make their development believable! after all, the two of them have been through a LOT, so it makes sense that’d it take a while to work through it all.

before i finish, here’s some misc. questions for you! what have you learned about yourself while writing this fic? did of any scenes leave you stumped on how you were gonna approach it? what’s your greatest strength and weakness as a writer? and lastly, what’s your favorite scene you’ve written so far? feel free to answer as many or as few of those questions as you’d like!

thank you so much for the time and effort you’ve put into the fic so far!! it’s evident you’ve done your research, and i can’t wait to read what comes next! wherever the story goes, i’ll be there for the ride!! :))

OMG HI!! sorry this took like a day to get to but holy shit this is such a thorough and well thought out ask im like. in awe thank u so much for sending all of this in

if i thanked you for every incredibly kind thing u said throughout this entire ask i would fr be typing for like. hours so i will consolidate that all here; THANK U SO MUCH FOR UR KIND WORDS OMG !! i am so glad that youre enjoying the fic so far, and that you think so highly of it ?? i am absolutely blown away every time yall give me such encouraging feedback like this thank u so much!

ok on to the questions though!

what inspired you to write it from [octavio's] perspective? ok well funnily enough, you sort of answered your own question, (at least, the second half of what my reasoning is lol,) in the paragraph before you even asked it nintendo has ABSOLUTELY slept on octavio's more indepth nuances, i totally agree! i think to fully contextualize why i chose to write his perspective specifically, i do need to let myself be a little smug and say that i just so happened to revisit and reread Dissonant Melody in its entirety this summer, long before the b-sides were ever being posted. it. oh my god it fuckign awoke something in my brain and gave me cuttletavio brainrot BAD up until the new game was released and even then that absolutely did NOT help considering how our beloved dj got such an awesome spot in the limelight during the final boss. to summarize, though, i decided to stick with his pov partly because i felt i was not alone in my own personal sentiments over him and how silly and interesting of a guy he is, that others would also probably enjoy to see his pov, (as well as the octarian pov as a whole,) quite a lot. the other part is just that i had baaad brainrot and also that he is so silly and i wanted to write him interacting w cap'n more. bc, again, nintendo!!! youre sleeping on these two!!!! quit making us writers and artists do all the work for you tell us what they were like before the war!!!

ok i said i wouldnt repeat myself over and over again thanking you but!!! ahhh im so glad that the humorous beats i wrote landed. ive genuinely always been someone who cannot handle something serious without it being just a little silly and goofy on the side, just to make it feel. believable i guess? that the world isn't as dark as it sometimes seems? that and just. most people who know who i am as a person know where a lot of my influences lie and that a lot of it is in comedic source material, so there's that as well.

what have you learned about yourself while writing this fic? did of any scenes leave you stumped on how you were gonna approach it? i am going to lump these two questions together bc i think my answer will go hand in hand. i have been very much humbled to the fact that i am naught but a humble young adult who has yet to truly drop the young part and quote, unquote, "grow up" as they say. …by which i mean; my scope of the world is very very limited, and for as much research as i am able to do about a fictional, sci-fi-esque, futuristic society dominated by evolved mollusks, there is just as much real life experience that i feel would change the entire trajectory of this fic, were i to have it under my belt. perhaps some future plot points i have prewritten would theoretically play out much differently? perhaps some characters would be characterized differently, leading to said different plot points? perhaps, we will never know… perhaps, though, there are some experiences that i will never feasibly be able to live through to then incorporate into my writing. like living for over a century to reunite with my scorned, ex-whatever the hell these two are! specifically addressing the second question with that in mind, i can say, without spoilers, that there is indeed a scene that i'm working on right now funnily enough that is. stumping me quite a bit. i'll let your mind and the context i provided before to fill in the blanks on what could possibly be in store that i'm trying to figure out how to approach next.

what’s your greatest strength and weakness as a writer? and lastly, what’s your favorite scene you’ve written so far? i'll group these last two questions together as well because i have both a short and a long answer to at least part both of them; DIALOGUE!!!! i adore writing dialogue so much i love it when characters interact and say things and when i am able to study and practice their vocal quirks and nuances in such a way that it paints not just a picture of two plot devices talking to move the story along, but two very much matching or opposing sides to a discussion that has been thoroughly baked into the narrative. that and i like making nintendo characters say things that the NA localizers would never have the balls to make them say. not just in a swearing way but in an actually natural and not trying-and-failing-to-be-hip-with-the-kids type of way. (sorry NA team i still love yalls work but sometimes it doesnt seem like yall even read the JP text at all </3) to answer the second half of the question though, i do think that my weakness is feeling a bit too comfortable writing dialogue and the like. as someone who got got their start in writing from roleplaying online, whether as canon characters or ocs, i can say for certain that it is physically impossible for someone to perfectly mimic how a character acts in canon, down to a T. you can absolutely get close, don't get me wrong! but everyone's always going to view their fave or their muse in a different light than how someone else views them. humans are perfectly imperfect, and the things that we create and put out into the world are equally such. there are most definitely a lot of times where i will let my own preferences and biases for how a scene should play out cloud my judgement, and, as a result, i write myself into a future plot hole when it comes to consistent characterization. still love dialogue though <3 speaking of things i love! that last question… hmm… i think i had the most fun writing callie's final scene in chapter 3, but genuinely everything that involved the octarians in chapter 2 is a close close close second! esp stella's little scene. i talked about this a little bit in the comments on ao3, but, without spoilers i can absolutely promise yall that she is coming back. she has evolved from just a side character to my dear sweet little scrumply munchkin she is my scrimblo. sorry shes just really fun to think about and im excited to write her more </3

[stormblessed95]

I'm beginning to think that Jungkook isn't running that In the Seom account anymore. At first I was like aw he's having fun, and woah he accepted a jikook shipper- that's sus, etc. I was just happy that he tried out the gamr. But now I'm wondering if maybe he was asked to post that account on his story by the company as a marketing strategy? Because it's definitely working like one. More people tried out the game, more people are sticking with the game because they feel like they're interacting and competing with JK. Idk but as more time goes on I can't help but feel that maybe this whole account is just run by some Hybe employee? I just severely doubt he's that bored + has that much time on his hands to keep leveling up every few hours. I know they're technically on break but he's still not jobless lol. Maybe I'm overthinking it? I've only seen one other person bring this up so I'm curious to see what other people think.

🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 I - why would he lie?! That's his Instagram! Lol and all these ways he wants to 1) play games and 2) interact in a special way with ARMY is soooo on brand for him. Those are 2 of his favorite ways to spend his free time. Lol and let's remember that they have more control over what their schedule is looking like these days and how much free time they might have. On top of that, JK has always had a weird and not so great sleep schedule. Meaning he doesn't get enough of it. Lol

He LOVES gaming and has shared on multiple occasions how he spends his free time gaming and how he can do it for hours and how he can get really competitive about it and not want to stop until he beats it or is insanely good at it. He used to post clips of him playing overwatch. They've shared that he used to game often at the dorms with Tae or with Jin. Tae shared a story once from an old clip where you could hear him playing League with JK, Yoongi, Jin and Hobi (those being the members who spoke into the mic at least). Staying up all night to play a game, not off brand for him. Especially also considering all the armys who are busy IRL and have full time jobs who are over level 100 in the game too. PLUS considering that JK has lots of disposable income to spare to get extra hearts, blue diamonds things and anything extra he can buy to help him level up faster and spend less time waiting for things to load etc. That's gonna speed up his game time too. Examples of JK talking about gaming:

AND I don't think having army visit his island or join a club is just a marketing strategy. It's just legit JK loving spending time with ARMY. It's super on brand for him to carve out time to spend with fans. He spent hours doing Instagram Q&As in the middle of the night, not just during quarantine, but also after a performance when they still had schedules the next day too. He spent HOURS in the middle of the night on vlives with army and singing to us, on days he has to wake up for work the next day too. He spent HOURS talking until the middle of the night, just to then go and hop on a bus to go film ITS. He used to join fancafe group chats with ARMYS. In 2018 he held weekly fancafe dates with army every single Friday for a long time. Where he would create a group chat and the first X amount of people who could guess what the password was could join his GC and he would sit in there and chat with the armys for 15 to 30 minutes every single week. And in 2018 they were so booked snd busy it was insane. But he still made time to hang out with army AND still made time to work on GCFs and his own music AND go work out AND some off time gaming. And whatever else he wanted. And he did this fancafe date thing without telling the company his plans to do it at all. Lmao it was all him. Some Fancafe posts about his Friday ARMY dates:

You don't have to be jobless to spend a few hours playing a mobile game before you go to bed, or while you are eating your meals, or while being driven somewhere. He really honestly isn't leveling up that fast compared to a lot of other people I've seen to make it seem like he isn't doing ANYTHING but gaming. Lol

So I guess, I DO think it's JK. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. And I don't think it's out of character at all for him to be doing this either. And I don't think Hybe has to worry too much about marketing it. The game was doing just fine before JK shared anything on his story about his island and his club. But you are all free to think whatever you want 😅 this is my opinion though 🤷🏻‍♀️💜

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[pjinthestreets]

artemiy burakh/child abuse discussion kind of?/longer post re dad artemiy emotions

while i do appreciate a ‘soft ending for the guy whos been through it all’ and i obviously share the instinct to imagine/create that (shuffles 45k of trying to get him to eat a big family dinner with the kids which has spiraled wildly out of control) i feel like i havent seen ANY content where artemiy isnt a gentle papa bear lol. which again isnt to say all of yous are Wrong for your Nice Dad Artemiy content but like. he kills people. he kills kids. theres a multitude of artemiys out there walking the haruspex path differently but you just cant make the argument that theres not room in him for full-on child-murder. and yeah its a video game and harvesting 100+ human organs in 12 days is just not even possible but like. especially classic-flavor artemiy (and i think some versions of p2) has a pretty low threshold for violence and having taken human lives is gonna impact how he is at home yk. plus like, even if you play him as tender as possible in p2 he didn’t come home to start a family..

idk what you guys’ experiences are with unanticipated troubled-youth mentorship but its not gonna be easy or intuitive to jump in as a father figure for two. lets say Troubled kids whove raised themselves halfway. and artemiy absolutely has anger issues, grief, and baggage of his own thats not even touching the ‘ive cracked ribcages to cut out warm hearts and i know what punctured intestines smell like’ aspect lol. one way or another i find it rly hard to imagine him as father of the year and i actually find that rly compelling. even the most well-meaning and stable adults whove actively planned their futures around parenthood fuck up badly because in this bitch of a world no one is without fractures and kids are gonna be impacted by that. i think healing is the work of a lifetime and loving-protecting-nurturing a child can absolutely change everything about a person but i kinda find it unfair to artemiy (and sticky and murky)’s characters to tack on a ‘and then it was all fridge drawings and baseball games and sometimes artemiy had nightmares but he’d go kiss his sleeping kids’ heads and feel better’ as the ending.

i wanna say part of that is the extreme taboo around depicting.. anything at all Problematique, ever, lest ye Endorse, and especially an extreme aversion to portraying someone who harms/abuses a child as anything but a vile monster (or occasionally a repressed alcoholic with PTSD, nonetheless a monster but at least a sad pathetic one?). ive been thinking a lot lately about Redemption Narratives and what we expect from them, who’s eligible for them, and what a Redeemed Character looks like. artemiy is a character id like to see heal and grow as much as the next guy and i can see why ‘artemiy harms a a child or literally anyone and its not done thru gritted teeth for the greater good’ is not a thing this fandom in particular is ready for. i can count the number of even ‘artemiy gets violent with an adult who in some way triggers him’ art/fic ive seen.  but for real, many to most of us have some pretty fucked up shit in our family histories, and most of us will do fucked up shit in our lifetimes. genuinely fucked up shit that changes the trajectory of other peoples’ lives! sometimes those people are children at the time too! how can we hold that harm without denying it, without forgiving it or erasing it?

all that is to say, i dont begrudge the wealth of happy-family endings that artemiy and kids get to have. i AM bummed about the dearth of more complex post-game content, because its something that i think bears thinking about.

[xpeachesncream]

perfectly wrong | one

summary: there were rules that had to be followed: no one could know about you two, there was no ‘getting to know each other,’ and there was absolutely no emotional attachment allowed. if this could be done, there should be no complications. but somehow, the rules always get bended.

pairing: reader x fuckboy!kth

genre: college au | fluff, angst, smut

words: 2301

chapter warnings: cussing, mature language, very slight angst, some hints of jealousy, alcohol consumption

notes: pls remember that this is set a few months after you and tae have been going at it, so it will seem like things are happening a bit fast. i’m not trying to prolong this series. also most importantly, i tend to usually write shorter chapters > shorter, but more chapters published. enjoy!

> series masterlist <

Jungkook decided he was going to see if he could jump over your couch and land perfectly in a seated position.

"Wait, wait, wait. Absolute silence everybody." He says as he's stretched over, trying to estimate the timing and height of his jump. He had always been super athletic and competitive since you two were small, so there was really no changing his mind on this. He always had to prove something, even if that meant creating his own competition of jumping over the couch.

"It's just me and you." You watched him from the kitchen, making sure the pizza in the oven was baking properly.

"I have an audience, okay? Don't be rude, Y/N." He says as he points over to the fake audience clapping and laughing during a 'Friends' episode.

"Whatever, as long as you don't go breaking my shit, Jeon Jungkook." He was 22, but his mentality was 8. That was for damn sure.

"Siiiiiiilence." He says at a whisper, his eyes shut as he puts a finger to his mouth. He lets out a huff and a puff before he gets the courage to throw himself over the couch and land a perfect landing. "And once again, he sticks the landing!" He stands up with his hands up in the air.

"You're annoying." You laughed, getting paper plates ready for the pizza that was about to be done because you were in no mood to do any dishes tonight.

"Thank you! I'll be here again tomorrow, same time." He calls out to his fake audience.

"No the hell you're not."

"Ouch, nevermind. Someone apparently doesn't want me here." You laugh at how dramatic he is. At this point, you just let him be because that was something you always loved about your bestfriend. He embraced the kid in him and always brought good times. You had similarities, but you also had some major differences. You liked being in your comfort zone & you were labeled the innocent nerd amongst your friends. You just like to consider yourself simple, though. A 'take it day by day' kind of person. Kookie was fun, adventurous and childish at times. He was also shy, but loud at the same time? An introverted extrovert, you could say.

But you loved each other nonetheless, that's why you've clicked so well since you were young. You taught each other things & grew together.

"Here, fool." You placed the pizza in front of him with the paper plates.

"Set it up, I'll grab us the drinks. You want anything in particular?"

"That bottle of Stella Rosa, please." JK knew you loved that Stella Rosa, so he happily grabs the bottle and two wine glasses. He plops back next to you on the couch, pouring your glasses and grabbing a heaping serving of 4 slices of pizza.

You both decided you want a good laugh, so you throw on Kevin Hart's newest installment: Zero Fucks Given. It isn't long before you both are rolling on the floor, almost gasping for air at how much you're laughing at Kevin Hart's stand up. The pizza is gone, the wine is gone, and you're still feeling pretty tipsy. The whole thing sounds nice, until your head starts to wonder what Taehyung is doing and if he'll text you to come over tonight. You know he probably already has plans with another chick though, and that hits you.

Curse this fucking alcohol.

Let's get this straight - the only time you 'talk' is when he's trying to fuck.

And yes bitch, you let him do this to you. You're out that door before you can even fully slip your shoes on. Dick is just that good. It's something about Taehyung that makes you addicted. The way he gives you a stupid ass smirk when he opens his door, the way he touches your skin and gently lays his shit on you until you both become really invested in the moment. So invested that shit hits the roof. It gets messy. It gets rough. It becomes unspeakable.

You aren't friends. No one knows about you two, or that you even know the other exists. You don't know shit about each other. The only thing you know is that he's fucking other girls. He has a whole roster, you'd imagine - a starting five, at least.

He doesn't care about you, and for the most part, you don't either. At least, that's what you like to portray because it's been some months now since this whole thing started and you can't help but feel some kind of emotional tie to him. You're leaving your house between 12-2am in the morning and sleeping in his bed until 6-7am. It's a routine; a routine you've become used to. You skip out on some late night kick-its with your friends cause you anticipate a text to come through from him.

But, he doesn't care. You aren't the only female slipping into those sheets, and boy does it fucking make it hard to swallow. Reality hits hard when you think about it and you feel this huge pit in your stomach. You try to be different, you try to stand out one way or another. But it doesn't work that way. You knew what this entailed going into it, so it makes zero sense as to why you're hurting and getting jealous from time to time.

You know it still doesn't matter to him.

He's only fucking you over cause you let him. You know damn well you're not gonna change and let this go, though. You love thrill of it too much. It's the most thrill your life has had. You're not perfect and you're only human. You make mistakes, but this one definitely puts the cherry on top. Because not only do you refuse to learn, but you let it repeat itself over and over again.

"Aishhhh, my stomach hurts from laughing too much." Jungkook laid his head back and patted his belly. "But that was good though. I needed that."

"Yeah it was. Thanks for coming by to watch that with me, Kook." He tilts his head over to look at you and smiles.

"Sure thing." He checks his phone and sits up. "Yoongi is blowing up the group chat." You check your phone to see multiple unread messages from none other than Min Yoongi himself.

[yoongi] 10:37pm: aye

[yoongi] 10:45pm: all of a sudden, everyone is ghost in this group chat?! you all had a lot to say not too long ago.

[yoongi] 10:52pm: even though you guys are fake as fuck, does anyone wanna come with me to the bars tonight? meet at my place so we can head out.

You and Jungkook laughed at how butthurt Yoongi was in the groupchat. Yoongi definitely was the most serious and blunt one in your group, but he still liked to party and have a good time. It was just how he was. Hoseok was always full of energy and probably the most extroverted one out of all 4 of you. He was never shy. You and Jungkook met Yoongi and Hoseok your first year in college and became inseparable ever since. You all just click with your different attributes.

[jungkook] 10:53pm: lmaoooooooo

[yoongi] 10:53pm: fuck you dude lol

[jungkook] 10:54pm: i'll come through in a sec, i'm at y/n's right now. not sure if she's gonna come though?

[y/n] 10:55pm: i'll pass, i'm tired and wined out.

[hoseok] 10:55pm: ahahahah yoongi shut up, blowing up my phone for no reason. i'm passing on tonight too. im tired from working that overtime *cries*

[yoongi] 10:56pm: you both are boring. i'm especially offended at how i didn't get an invite to your little powwow, y/n. and now you don't wanna hang out?

[hoseok] 10:57pm: she mentioned she was going to watch kevin hart's thing yesterday and offered us to swing by if we wanted to though....... selective hearing, maybe?

[y/n] 10:58pm: ^ okayyyyy and that's on period! thank you hobi <3

[hoseok] 10:59pm: anything for the baby

[yoongi] 10:59pm: lmao you're a brat, y/n. whatever, i'm still hurt by you both! kook, hurry on over so we can drink

"Fuck I regret this, I'm gonna die." Jungkook laughed as he stood up and stretched. He quickly helped you clean up before he figured it was time to go or else Yoongi would have a fit.

"I feel like it has to do with that one girl he's been talking to on and off."

"Perhaps." Jungkook shrugged before putting on his shoes. "We shall see." he sighs before giving you a tight hug. "You sure you don't wanna come out?"

"Nope."

"You don't even have plans tonight."

"Yes I do."

"Doing what?"

"Laying in bed." Jungkook snorted as you shook your head and shrugged. What else did he think you were trying to do? He should know you by now, at the very least.

"Alright, I'm not even going to argue. I'm off."

"Be safe, have fun, text me if you both need anything, okay?" He nods as he shuts the door, leaving you to your lonesome. You swirled the teeny tiny drop of wine leftover in your glass around before picking up your phone.

No new texts. Well, let's be specific: no new texts from taehyung.

You did forget to respond to your oldest cousin though, when he was just trying to check up on you.

[seokjin] 8:35pm: pssst y/n

[seokjin] 8:35pm: psssssssssst

[seokjin] 8:35pm: oyyyyyyyyyy

He was damn near 30 years old and hated talking on the phone so much that he decides to blow up your phone this way. But, he was the cousin you loved dearly and you had a very tight, sibling-like relationship with him. He was like the older brother you've always wanted. He watched you grow, protected you, kept you safe, supported you and cheered you on - especially when your family talked so much shit about how you and him weren't gonna get anywhere with your goals. You know, the fucking stupid ol' saying of 'chasing your passion isn't going to bring you money & wealth.' Your family was all about the titles and money, but Jin was passionate about cooking and wanted to open his own cafe. You, on the other hand, wanted to pursue your art. Jin was the biggest role model for you because he was the first to defy your family's wants and wishes. He was the black sheep of the family with a huge 'I don't give a fuck' mentality and he taught you that along the way.

Don't ever be afraid to do what you're passionate about. Fuck 'em.

[y/n] 11:13pm: hi sorry, jungkook was over and we were watching kevin hart's new thing on netflix over some wine and pizza.

[seokjin] 11:15pm: that sounds fun! sorry, i just wanted to check on you but i see you're doing okay lol

[y/n] 11:16pm: i am. :) i'll hang out with you tomorrow

[seokjin] 11:16pm: how sweet, my freeloading baby cousin is coming by

[y/n] 11:17pm: hahahah shut up! although you're not wrong, i am going to steal some food. but most importantly, i do want to hang out and see my bestest oppa <3

[seokjin] 11:18pm: awww y/n, you're so full of shit <3

[seokjin] 11:18pm: go to bed

[y/n] 11:19pm: haha love you tooooo

And so, that's what you did. You got yourself all ready for bed, believing you wouldn't be leaving your house tonight. You pampered yourself, put on a face mask and got yourself all lathered up in lotion just to lay down. You're in Jungkook's shirt that he left behind (and never looked for, so technically it's yours now) when the guys had stayed the night and some Vicky Secret panties.

You're scrolling through your Instagram feed, seeing Jungkook's newly posted story with him and Yoongi already at the bars, acting a damn fool. You laughed at the video he took of Yoongi trying to dance in a tight, awkward space on the crowded dance floor even though he was never the best at dancing. It lowkey made you wish you went out with them so you wouldn't be stuck here thinking about your feelings and how lonely these hours get.

And then you see Jimin's story from an hour ago. He knew you were friends with Yoongi, and although Yoongi wasn't fond of their group too much, he was still an avid party-goer and mingled with people there. You've only spoken to Jimin once because you had to work with him in the same group on a class assignment. You tried to keep it that way though because he was Taehyung's bestfriend. They went everywhere together, did everything together. He, too, was very popular among the ladies and across campus. I guess it was just their thing.

You assume they were at a party cause Jimin quickly flashes the camera at Taehyung, who's in front of him getting a lapdance from some chick. Jimin quickly turns the camera back to his face as he's laughing uncontrollably then abruptly cuts it off.

Great.

She's forsure going home with him tonight.

You set your phone down on the night stand and put on a show on your laptop to help you fall asleep.

Just as you're about to get some shut eye, your phone vibrates. You let it slip at first because you thought it could be one of the guys playing around, but it vibrates again, signaling another text coming through. You pick up your phone just to make sure Yoongi and Jungkook aren't in any trouble and need you to bail their asses out.

[taehyung] 12:17am: hey

[taehyung] 12:20am: come over.

You scoff at how he assumes you're still up and that you'd be coming over. You hated that. He knew he just had your ass.

track two: hit different - sza & ty dolla $ign

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 307: The One With Shindou

Previously on BnHA: Endeavor and Hawks (and Jeanist too, although he didn’t really do anything, but BY GOD, WHAT IS UP WITH HIS NECK) held a press conference and were all, “everything you’ve heard is true, so we would just like to say, from the bottom of our hearts... our bad.” U.A. opened its doors to the public as an evacuation shelter. Deku and All Might told basically EVERYBODY about OFA, which is absolutely wild, and yet somehow we hardly paid any attention to this at all. Mostly because the chapter ended with Deku being all “I WALK A LONELY ROAD, THE ONLY ONE THAT I HAVE EVER KNOWN” and peacing out of U.A. to embark on a solo journey of angst. So this is either gonna be the best or the worst thing that ever happened to this series, so TIME TO FIND OUT WHICH IT IS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “so who do you guys want to see next? Deku? Bakugou?? Well how about SHINDOU?” Shindou is all “hi :) I’m Shindou :) :) remember me :) :) :)?” Horikoshi is all “I’m so sorry for depriving you guys of Shindou for so fucking long, how about an ENTIRE CHAPTER ALL OF HIM” and then he REALLY FUCKING DOES IT because, I don’t know?? Did we make him mad?? Am I being punished for something I did in a past life?? It really is, honest to god, seventeen whole goddamn pages of Shindou, punctuated by a few pages of Muscular, and topped off with one (1) whole appearance by Deku at THE VERY END. And we don’t even get to see his face. I am beside myself lmao I’m sorry you guys, you can skip this recap if you want. Or just skip straight to the end, because movie 3 promo.

“long time no see” now what could this mean?? can’t think of too many characters this phrase would apply to right now. although I can think of one big one, and I know that fandom has been trying to manifest his deadbeat ass to finally show itself for years now. could it finally be that time? if Hisashi shows up and debunks DFO a big chunk of the fandom is probably going to riot lol

(ETA: why oh why did I get my hopes up like that lmao. I’m pretty sure Hisashi doesn’t actually exist and Deku was either immaculately conceived, or the stork really did bring Inko a lil green baby from the cabbage patch.)

anyway, so the chapter is opening on this random scene of CRIME and DISARRAY

was this all done by that big villain from the previous chapter? utility poles knocked down, random holes in the sides of buildings, and it looks like this one car pulled over in a hurry and the driver just hopped out and ran

who are these people talking

OH NO, OH GOD

I am immediately struck by the urge to push Shindou off of this ledge. is that mean? probably that is mean, but also fuck this guy lmao. every year you cheat someone out of their well-deserved spot in the popularity poll, and every year I want to punch you in your stupid face for it

bah. and how are you doing, Tatami. love that hero name even if you do have arguably the dumbest superpower in the entire series

listen, though. here I am shitting on these Ketsubutsu kids for no good reason, and I’m sorry about that, and truthfully it’s mostly because I just want to see Deku and/or Kacchan and so it’s hard to give a fuck about anything else right now. BUT, I will immediately cease and desist ALL of my complaining if this means we also get to see my best girl Ms. Joke, omg. Horikoshi please

sdlkfjlskalk

FUCK YOU SHINDOU OMG. I’M SORRY GUYS I CAN���T HELP IT, EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM IS SO EMINENTLY PUNCHABLE AND DETESTIBLE. IT’S LIKE SOMEONE COMBINED WESLEY CRUSHER WITH JEAN RALPHIO

but LSKJFLEK at this random reminder that Bakugou refused to shake his fucking hand. like, that’s his “fun fact” apparently lol. it’s what he deserves

also living for this “cringe” here, too. fuck you Shindou. I am so, so sorry to any Shindou fans out there you guys because I’m just going to be like this the entire time he’s here. the hate is flowing through me

how has it been three whole pages and I still have to look at his stupid face

anyway so it seems like the kids are having to pick up the slack for Old Man Samurai and all those other assholes who retired. I’m guessing the U.A. kids will be seeing a lot more action as well

but in the meantime let’s hope no villains attack here all of a sudden, because all Tatami can do is make herself shorter while Shindou creates an earthquake to bring the entire building down around them dflkjslk

these guys don’t particularly want to go with them and I can’t say I blame them

so now Shindou is saying that yeah, they can probably handle the looters and such by themselves, but it’s a different story when it comes to the Noumu and the escaped Tartarus prisoners. Shindou how dare you make a reasonable point that I can’t immediately argue with

he says that one of the escapees was sighted in the area, so that’s why they’re trying to evacuate everyone

and the guy disagrees and says he doesn’t trust the heroes and thinks they’re pompous

fdskljk. fucking...

ME: Horikoshi can we please stop and get Deku HORIKOSHI: we have Deku at home THE DEKU AT HOME: 

Horikoshi. please. we get it, the civilians don’t trust the heroes anymore. I UNDERSTAND. I COMPREHEND THIS. so unless there is some other point to this scene I respectfully ask that you hurry things along because omg

did Tatami always have this habit of speaking in meme language and such? I thought that was Camie’s thing but hey

listen, I’m here for anyone who’s willing to drag this man down into the depths of the earth. I would just also rather not spend the entire fucking chapter on this oh my god. Horikoshi do you have any more of those chapters where things happen in them?? those are good, I like those

YESSSSSS FINALLY

so whoever’s on the other end of the call (ETA: it’s that rock-looking guy who can harden anything that he touches. why does BnHA have so many hardening powers) is telling them to run because there’s apparently a villain heading right for them, oh my

WHO IS HE

depending on who it is I can’t promise I won’t be rooting for them over you, buddy

ohhhhhh shit

huh. well that’s... hmm... but on the other hand...

okay lol no, I know it’s bad. Muscular fucking LOVES murdering kids. not even Shindou deserves that. I’m sure he has a family that loves him and stuff. and Tatami seems like a sweet girl. they don’t deserve to be murdered

that is the question isn’t it? are we really going to spend the entire chapter with Limbs-Retracting-Girl and her boyfriend, Joseph Gordon-Levitt from (500) Days of Summer??

YES OMG

YES PLEASE CALL YOUR SENSEI. my god do you know what I would give to see Ms. Joke take down an S-class villain??

(ETA: all I’ll say is that we were robbed here, you guys.)

now Tatami is running away while Shindou stays behind omg

Horikoshi I know I said I hate the guy, and I do, but my god. seems I don’t hate him half as much as you do you. been nice knowing you Shindou my man

are you serious Tatami really ran all the way back up here to try and evacuate these guys one more time

SHE’S SUCH A GOOD PERSON omg if you assholes don’t listen to her you deserve to get murdered

BRO

HORIKOSHI DID YOU REALLY FUCKING DO IT I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

LOL OKAY NO, SO FAR HE’S ONLY MESSED UP HIS FACE

WHAT A SHAME WHAT A TRAGEDY. THE WORLD MOURNS

okay but seriously, now he has to be dead

r.i.p. Shindou. he died doing what he loved, talking a lot and being utterly useless

then again, damn Shindou are you really gonna come out here and be a badass?? gonna make me eat my words there kiddo?

I have absolutely no idea if I should expect this to work or not. all I know is that this is page 14, and so it would seem we really are going to spend the entire fucking chapter on fucking Shindou. this beautiful chapter had so much potential, Horikoshi. and now look at it. I hope you’re happy

nope it didn’t fucking work at all lmao

IT’S JUST LIKE I SAID. r.i.p. you pretentious handsome lump

OHHHHHH SNAP

DEKU YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO LOL. anyway but it’s good to see you!! it’s good to see ANYONE other than these guys sob but especially you

FINALLY SOMETHING COOL OMG

somehow Horikoshi actually made the bunny mask look badass?? I don’t think this is sustainable, but I am here for it while it lasts

Shindou should by all rights be nothing but A HANDSOME PASTE at this point lol but WHATEVER. it’s BnHA; getting smashed into walls and cliffs has more or less the same consequences as being set on fire. slap a band-aid on it and you’re good to go

we are REALLY ENDING IT HERE huh

well. and that’s it. I just did not care about any of that lmao. a rare dud of a chapter. well, but we’ve had something like ten in a row that ranged from “pretty good” to “amazing”, so I guess that’s fair

anyway I feel like I owe you guys something other than endless bitching and moaning, so! BONUS:

now this is more like it

first of all, I’m absolutely living for this promo’s “YEET THE CHILDREN OUT OF A HELICOPTER” vibes. FUCK YEAH WE’RE HEROES BITCH

is Deku wearing a jetpack/parachute?? let’s hope he is because I’m assuming he doesn’t have Float yet, so if that’s not a jetpack then it is a LONG WAY DOWN kiddo

these maniacs actually got Deku to wear something other than his red shoes holy fuck. I’m speechless. are we sure that’s not an imposter??

Shouto has the funniest falling position I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming his left arm is not in fact tucked under his leg like it appeared to be at first glance?? like, wtf is the outline of your body right now Shouto

this is what I think it is after careful analysis, but at first I thought this kid had some hidden contortionist abilities

and then there’s this guy

I MISSED YOU YOU BIG GOON. loving the new gauntlets!! and he’s changed up his impractical metal neck thingy into arm thingies! but most importantly, ARE THESE WHAT I THINK THEY ARE

ARE THOSE WEENIES. KACCHAN. KACCHAN HAVE YOU GONE NATIVE OMFG

and meanwhile, look who’s with them! Endeavor makes perfect sense of course, but Hawks is a very welcome surprise. does this mean we can expect to see Tokoyami too? because I would fucking love that

lastly, so this confirms the whole “world heroes” thing! which we all pretty much guessed anyway lol. I wonder if this movie will take place in another country (fingers crossed). the city in the background doesn’t look particularly familiar, but this image probably wasn’t meant to be analyzed in that way lol. anyways, looking forward to this so much, PLEASE GIVE US A TRAILER SOON omg

[headheartbellarke]

JEALOUS | Luke Patterson

Requested by anon: “5 times Luke gets jealous and one time he doesn’t have too. Luke x reader?”

PAIRING(s): Mercer!fem reader x Luke Patterson WARNING(s): angst, fluff WORDS: 2.3k SUMMARY: Five times Luke Patterson gets jealous and one time he doesn’t have to.

A/N: hi! sorry this took so long, lol. school sucks. :/ i promise im gonna be posting more frequently from now onwards! anyway, decided to make y/n alex’ sister, bc i’ve been wanting to try it for a while. hope u like it!! <3 also, song used is carry me by kygo ft. julia michaels.

1.

The first time that Luke Patterson feels that scorching, smoldering rage in the pit of his stomach is when he notices Y/N Mercer stare at his bandmate, Bobby Wilson, for the entirety of their hour-long Literature class.

At first, he doesn’t understand why he feels this way: Y/N’s just as much Bobby’s friend as she is his. Well, not really – Luke likes to believe that he is the one that she is closest to in the band, other than her brother, Alex, of course. Sure, Bobby and Y/N are friends – they say ‘hi’ when they pass by each other in the hallway, she helps him out with his Physics homework when he asks, and he asks her how her day’s been – that sort of friends. They’ve never really interacted more than it was required, and Luke knows that if Bobby wasn’t a part of their band, Sunset Curve, or if Y/N wasn’t their drummer’s sister, those two wouldn’t be friends.

Anyway, he thinks that maybe it’s because they are supposed to be partners, working on their assignment together – and instead, she is choosing to abandon him and stare at one of his best mates, instead. He thinks that maybe he’s mad because she promised him that she would help him out with this assignment, which is particularly hard, and now, it feels like he’s ditching her.

Instead of thinking about why he is so bothered at the fact that Y/N is staring at Bobby, Luke chooses to elbow her instead.

“What?” She whispers, a blush covering her cheeks.

“Can you focus?” He snaps as she rolls her eyes and opens their textbook.

“You’re annoying.”

2.

“Alex, Alex, Alex!”

“Luke, I’m sitting right beside you – you don’t need to yell.”

“There’s something that you should know.” Luke whispers, conspiratorially. Alex, who’s sitting beside him on the couch in the garage where they rehearse, leans forward, intrigued. “What?”

He points at Y/N, who’s sitting in front of Reggie in the opposite side of the room, strumming a guitar – Reggie’s teaching her how to play. Unlike her twin brother, she’s not naturally gifted in music, which is pretty evident from her occasional frustrated huffs, and the obviously off-key tune. Rather, science is her talent, and has always been. The top spot in their class has been permanently occupied by her ever since their first exam as freshmen.

“She!” Luke whispers. Alex furrows his brows. “Yes, I know that she has no musical talent whatsoever –”

“No, no, no. I mean, yes, she doesn’t have that – but you wanna know what she does?”

“I have a feeling that you’re gonna tell me even if I don’t wanna know.” Alex mutters.

“She has a crush on Bobby!” Luke scrunches his face, a disgusted look taking over.

The drummer raises his brows and bursts out laughing. “Really, dude?”

“No, no, no, I’m not lying, okay! I’ve seen her stare at him!”

He raises his brows. “So? She stares at a lot of people.”  

“It wasn’t that way, okay? Last week, in class, she was ignoring me and staring at him. Plus, yesterday, when you were god knows where, she and Bobby were having a conversation. An actual conversation! I’ve never seen them talk that much. They were nerding out over Star Wars!”

“Dude, are you…” Alex pauses, looking around, “… jealous?” A smile spreads over his features.

Luke’s eyes widen, and he looks horrified. “What? Me? Jealous? Huh? Me? How?”

Inside, he is panicking. He hadn’t considered this possibility. Is he jealous? No, that can’t be. Y/N – he’s known her forever, and he is supposed to think of her as his sister. He does think so. He’s sure. He can’t – he doesn’t like her. She’s just… Y/N. Sure, he’s always thought that she’s beautiful. And smart. And so, so kind. He’s always admired her. OK, he might have had a little crush on her. But, in a totally harmless, admiring way! (In the way everyone seems to like Winona Ryder these days. Nothing more than that. Absolutely.)

She’s just Y/N.

Y/N, who’s always there for him after he has a bad day. Y/N, who’s the first person he hugs after playing an intense show. Y/N, who’s the only person who can understand his silence. Y/N, who makes sure that he knows that she appreciates him. Y/N, who he knows like the back of his hand.

Before Luke can panic any further, Bobby enters the garage, and Luke notices her attention immediately shift toward him. They exchange a smile, and Luke feels that rage, yet again.

He falls back on the couch, locking eyes with Alex, who is silently watching with a soft smile on his face.

“I’m not jealous.” He says weakly, and Alex nods – but he knows that it doesn’t convince either of them. His friend lays a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “It’s okay.”

3.

By the time the next month rolls around, Luke is positive that he’s jealous: so, he’s resorted to not thinking about it, her or even interacting with her – which is hard considering that she’s always around.

Now, he feels like shit. For their junior year, they are supposed to do a report on a Victorian era novel of their choice, with a partner. He and Y/N were supposed to partners – they had decided months ago and have also done previous assignments together. But now, since he hasn’t even dared to look at her in a month, she’s now doing the report with Bobby, of all people.

As he watches Bobby and Y/N sit next to each other with their arms brushing, he feels that rage again, and curses himself. Could he not have behaved like a normal person? He knows that she is confused as to why he’s suddenly ignoring and avoiding her – she has even asked her brother about it. But Luke had threatened Alex that he would tell everyone about his crush on Reggie if he even said a single syllable.

(Although Luke knows that he would never.)

He sighs, dramatically, and searches for someone else to pair up with, ignoring the way his heart clenches at the realization that he may be losing her.

4.

“Luke?”

He looks up and feels a rush in his veins.

“Are you… mad at me?” Y/N asks tentatively, standing at the door to his bedroom. Her eyes keep flitting between his face and around his bedroom, and he hates the fact that there seems to be an ocean between them.

“Uh…” He scratches the back of his neck, not knowing what to respond. She looks down at her feet, biting her lip and Luke feels a tug on his heartstrings at that. It’s been so, so long and he has so, so much to tell her, but he doesn’t know how to bridge the gap that he created.

He builds up his courage and says, “Yeah. I was kinda mad at you.”

Her eyebrows furrow, and panic flows into her e/c eyes. “What – what’d I do?”

Luke inhales sharply and wonders what he’s gonna say. It’s not like he can say that he was jealous of the fact that she liked Bobby, nor could he say that in the past month he has realized the fact that he may have a tiny, little crush on her and had to avoid her at all costs because she will never like him back and it’s too embarrassing?

He clears his throat. “Uh. It’s because you promised that you would do the English project with me but you’re doing it with Bobby.”

“But I’m only doing it with him because you won’t even look at me! Why won’t you?”

“I… You also ignored me for Bobby the other day?”

She throws her hands up. “What other day?”

“When we were working on the Shakespeare thingy!”

“I was not – now you’re making –”

“Forget it. Just go home, Y/N.”

A look of hurt flashes over her eyes, but she quickly clenches her jaw, and stands straighter, masking her emotions. “Asshole.”

She walks out his door, slamming the door shut behind her.

For the rest of the day, Luke lies on his bed and stares at his ceiling, and when Reggie comes over, he tells him that he’s ruined everything. Reggie lies beside him and asks softly, “You okay?”

“I think I like Y/N.” He whispers.

“We know.”

His lips part and he says in disbelief, “Alex told you?!”

Reggie shrugs. “He didn’t need to. Everyone can see the way that you look at her.”

Luke sighs, too tired to argue.

“Hey. It’s just a date, alright? It’s not like they’re getting married.”

Luke props himself on his elbow. “What?”

“Y’know, Y/N’s really picky –”

“What date?”

Reggie’s eyes widen. “Y-You didn’t know?”

Luke raises his brows, urging his friend to continue. He purses his lips and says, “Y/N and Bobby are on a date right now.”

Instantly, Luke feels as if his world has drained of every colour. Reggie looks uncomfortable, and whispers, “I thought you knew.”

“I, uh, I didn’t. Obviously.” He whispers, falling back on the bed again. His heart physically hurts, and he can feel tears prick at the back of his eyes. Mostly, he feels anger – at himself, and regret.

As jealousy claws its way to the surface, Luke mutters, “I hate Bobby.”

5.

Luke sits cross legged on the floor of the garage, with a Spanish guitar perched on his lap. His hands dance over the strings, trying to find the perfect melody for the song he just wrote.

Writing songs has always been his way of dealing with his emotions, especially when they got too intense. Right now, the situation with Y/N is exactly that.

His eyes dance over the notebook in front of him, and he closes his eyes, trying to forget everything that’s happened in the past couple of days.

“Cause I don't know how we How we got so far, you and me Almost like there's oceans between us, us So I need to know Could you carry me? Back into your heart again Could you carry me? Right into your distant hands Could you carry me? Right back to where we started from Could you carry me?”

“That’s beautiful.”

Luke’s head turns sharply to the side, and of course, it’s her. He clenches his jaws, and says, “What are you doing here?” He hates the fact that she looks so pretty, wearing a beautiful red sundress.

She bites her lower lip, and says, “We should talk, Luke.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

She giggles. “You’ve always been the jealous type.”

He raises his brows, opening his mouth to deny whatever she was about to say next, but she raises a hand to stop him. “Alex and Reg told me. They said that they’re tired of seeing you mope every day.”

“I –”

“Hold on. So, for the past month, you’ve been mad at me because you thought I like Bobby?”

Luke lowers his head, choosing to stare at his open palm instead.

“You ignored one of your best friends for more than a month because you were jealous, and you were too much of an idiot to tell her the truth?”

“Well, you don’t gotta be so mean about it.”

She laughs. “Luke. Bobby and I – we’re just friends, okay? I was staring at him because I really liked his hair. And you have to admit it – it’s nice. I actually asked him for his shampoo, too. But, well, you and him both thought that I liked him. That’s why he asked me out to the movies last day. But... uh, well, it didn’t work out.”

His heart races at the last sentence. “Why?”

“Because I like you, Luke. I always have. I thought I could like Bobby, I really did – but all I could think about last night was you.” She shrugs, and Luke feels like he’s falling. He thinks that the universe is playing a prank on him, but when he sees her crimson tinged face, the vulnerability in her eyes and her fiddling with her hands, he allows himself to feel the slightest amount of hope.

She looks down, continuing, “I, uh, I always thought that you only saw me as your best friend’s little sister. I didn’t ever think that, you know, that there could be something more. So, I kept it to myself and only Alex knew. But, last night, Reg came over and they were screaming for a while, about you and me, so I went to find out what happened, and they told me that you, uh, liked me too.”

Reggie. He must have told Alex that Luke was ugly crying on his shoulder.

“Please say something, Luke.”

He releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I – I feel like you’re pranking me.”

She grins. “No. No, definitely not.”

“Y/N, god, you have no idea how difficult this past month has been for me. I mean, I never realized that I liked you that much until I saw you with him, you know? I always thought that I had a tiny, little crush on you but I never… and I thought that Alex would kill me if I did anything, but he’s been oddly… nice about all this.”

“He’s just tired of hearing me talk about you.”

“Probably. But yeah. I think you’re brilliant, Mercer. And I really, really, really like you.”

She jumps a little, and whispers, “I really, really, really like you too.”

“Do you maybe wanna go to the movies with me?” His wide grin matches hers.

“Only if we watch part two of Father of The Bride.”

“Deal.”

+1.

Luke watches Bobby smile at Y/N, looking at her as if she’s put the moon in the sky. Although, this time, he doesn’t feel the rage. He doesn’t need to, really, with Y/N’s hand wrapped in his, and the ghost of her lips still lingering on his.

 requests open! as always, feedback is highly appreciated <33

[unlikelyempathpruneauthor]

Lovers at last

Calum Hood x Reader

summary: after years of being friends and even a band mate of the guys, you grow up and experience something you never thought you would.

a/n: this was definitely something from like 3 in the morning so hopefully you all enjoy. also this is during like youngblood era for those who like the timeframes. there are also some typos but i mean it’s okay lol adds on to the effect.

You and the boys have been together as friends since middle school, it was always the 5 of you, when the guys were creating the band and posting videos on youtube you helped them figure that part out and being the technical bandmate, especially when it came to social media. However as time moved along the boys were getting big and had gotten their own team, you didn't take this as a bad thing, it was good they were getting noticed and having their music heard. Even if they were away you were still a part of the band, it didn't matter if it was official or not, you were a part of the band.

You on the other hand, had gotten yourself in the music industry and started as an intern producer for a record label and making tunes for some starting bands. Your talent in creating these tunes eventually brought all types of artists from around the world to work with you. You later got into writing lyrics and started writing music for other artists. Of course this went around pretty fast getting attention from many artists. You had told the guys about this way before you started, they were all sure you were going to make it big as well. In the younger years you had helped the band before with lyrics and tunes or chords. Helping them find their sound.

Skip forward to knowing you were currently texting with Cal as he and the guys were on tour, while you were meeting or well about to meet the one and only Ariana Grande who needed to find some new sounds for her new album. Before meeting with her you were freaking out and needed someone to talk to and that's where this story leads us.

Meeting ariana grande was one of the things you have always dreamed of, of course when you were contacted for some help with producing you thought it was a joke because who would send an email saying they are ariana grande and would like to work with you on their album, that just doesn't happen, but in this case it did for you. You had everything prepared for her to give a listen to and let her decide on what changes needed to be made and for her to just be comfortable with the new samples you made for her.

Talking to her in text was something you were good at but now you were officially meeting her and getting her full opinion about the stuff you made. It was about an hour of you showing her all the stuff you came up with and she was just so fascinated with what you came up with. To be honest you were unsure what she wanted so you made a lot, and I mean a lot of material, so you were prepared for anything that she might need.

“These samples are crazy good! I've been trying to find a new sound and these three simple songs need these sounds, this is really amazing.” she said as you nodded being glad you were able to find her sound, “well i'm glad you like them, im happy to help, it's an honor really.” you said as she shook her head, “i should be saying that about you, you have crazy talent for this. Have you considered moving to LA?” she asked as you shrugged, “maybe one day, i'm not sure yet, i don't know if you know but i'm friends with 5 seconds of summer,” you said as she gasped and nodded, “oh yeah i've heard of them, but what do they have to do with you moving to LA?” she asked as you continued, “Well we grew up together here and i don't know i wouldn't want to leave them and the place where we all grew up.” you said as she nodded completely understanding, “yeah it's tough, but if they are your friends i feel like they would understand because they are growing, it wouldn't hurt for them seeing you grow too.” she said quite simply and honestly as you nodded taking that advice to heart.

You knew that maybe just one day you would move your career somewhere else, but you just didn't want to leave home. Yeah they leave you while on your but they always come back, even if it's just for a while, they come back. A part of you wanted to go to LA and pursue your dreams there, but your home was here. You didn't want to leave the place where you grew up. Of course this needed to be talked with. Not just your parents, but with cal and the guys.

…

Weeks later the guys had all come home and you sent them all a message that you needed to talk to them all together. The guys were slightly confused but they wanted to see you anyway so they all agreed.As you were in the old garage where they used to rehearse you were more nervous that you thought you were. You had made the final decisions and you were moving to LA, you had signed off with a good company and you were officially to move away from home. Everything was done, you just needed to tell the guys.They all walked in as they all saw you sitting down with a very serious face and began to worry.

“hey guys.” you said as they all smiled at you and gave you a hug as you looked at all of them and worried how they were going to react. “So why did you bring us all here?” Michael asked partly worried as the rest followed you to sit down, “Well i have some news i needed to share, and well you were on tour and i couldn't interrupt that.” you said as ash shook his head, “y/n, you know we're here for you no matter what, even if we are on tour.” Ash said as you smiled for his compassion, “what is it dovey?” cal asked probably the most worried out of all of the group. He was scared of what was going on and was prepared for any news that could change your life and his plans of telling you how he felt about you. To be frank he had always beat himself up for it whenever the days passed and he didn't tell you about his feelings, he was close to telling you, but with this news he might just tell you now. You two were close and you met cal first way before the guys, so it would be understable if you and cal needed some privacy with what you were about to say.

“Well, you remember when I met Ariana Grande and did some samples for her album?” you asked as they all nodded and luke spoke, “yeah those were amazing by the way, were sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate.” he said as you shook your head softly with a small smile, “its okay, i know you guys were out celebrating out there,” you said with a giggle as they all joined in, “Well we talk about uh.. about moving to LA and i've been considering it, but at first i didn't want to decide alone because well i didn't want to leave home but uh, what i'm trying to say is that basically..” you said pausing as cal spoke, “you're moving to LA.” he said as you looked at him with a sorry look and nodded looking at the rest of the guys. There was a slight pause but that was because the guys were processing this whole situation, you were moving away and that was okay as long as you were happy.

“Im sorry, if this is gonna ruin our friendship, but i feel like i need to go there. Things are good here, but LA is where I can grow and become better.” you said as they all shook their heads, “don’t apologize y/n, how many times have we left you? You didn't stop us, you empowered us to keep our heads up which is what we will do for you.” Ash said as Michael nodded, “as much as it hurts seeing you leave, we know they need you over there, our friendship isn't over, in fact it will grow. We might even create music together.” he said as you smiled and looked over at luke, “it's not the end is all i know, it's a beginning for all of us. I mean who knows we might all be in LA soon, so you won't be alone. We're here for you y/n we always will be. '' he said as you looked over at Calum who had a sad look, but he was happy deep down inside, but he couldn't believe that even more distance would separate you two.

“Cal?” you asked as he looked at you in a certain way and you looked at the guys to give you two some personal space and they nodded and left. You took one look at Cal and knew something was wrong the minute you spoke about LA. For you two him leaving was enough distance between you two, now he knew what you felt when he was leaving, but this time you were leaving for good.

“What's wrong cal?” you asked as he looked at you, this was his time he knew it, it was time despite the bad timing, “this is probably bad timing, but... i love you, i've always been in love with you.” he said as you looked at him in seriousness. You didn't know if this was him wanting you to stay or if these were his true feelings, but you felt your heart beating faster and felt it get warm as your eyes were on him.

“Wait what?” you asked as he looked over at you, “i'm in love with you dovey, always have been. I'm not telling you this to make you stay, I just needed you to know is all.. I just need you to know before you leave,” he said as you looked at him and your eye contact was firm, “what..what do you mean years?” you asked as he grabbed your hands and you didn't pull away. He knew this was a sign, “since we first met there was something about you that just pulled me in, it was everything about you, there wasn't one bad thing about you, i just can't stand keeping it in, i need you more than just a friend.” he said as you were nervous with what you were about to say next, “cal.. I'm in love with you too.” you said in a whisper as he looked up quickly hoping he had heard you right.

“You- really?” he said as you pulled him in for a kiss. Your lips had connected in need for one another's touch after years of thinking one another saw each other as friends. This moment that the both of you had dreamed of was happening. His hands were all over your waist as they traveled up to your cheek and yours were on his jaw and hair. Once the kiss broke you both stared into one another's eyes and you smiled, “i love you.” you said again as cal smiled and took you in for a kiss once again and this was definitely the start of something new.

...

Moving to LA had its perks, mainly for your job, you had met new people and even helped out starter bands or singers with their career and sending them off with a great bang. You have also been working with big time singers and bands and helping them out with some new sound. You were given some new material and had even created some for a band that your boss said would be coming in and wanting some sort of new sound for their album. You wondered who they were not knowing what band it was. All you were told was that they were working on their 3rd album and needed some help.

As you waited for their arrival you texted Cal to see how he was doing. Ever since you two started dating, texting around the day and being near your phone as a must. He missed you dearly and you missed him, so the small messages around the day helped. He also came over from time to time, but not a whole lot.

You were quick to get into the room and you were shocked with who was in front of you. Cal was in front of you and you were quick to run over to him and hug him tight. You gave each other a small peck as you enjoyed one another's company, “what? How and when?” you said as you heard someone cough as you turned around and saw the 3 other boys standing in front of you. “What are you guys doing here?” you said with a smile as you hugged them all in a group hug, you sure missed them after not seeing them for a year. “Well we are here to work on our album, we heard there's an amazing producer here.” Michael spoke and it hit you with the realization that it was them you were working with. “Wait seriously, you want my help? But I thought you were in europe?” you said as luke nodded, “yeah we were there a couple days ago, but we need your help. The album is going great but we still need more sounds and samples.” he said as you nodded, “well okay i can help you with that, but are you sure you want my help?” you said as cal grabbed your waist pulling you closer to him as the boys nodded, “yes we need your help, you know us better than anyone, and well you are the best in LA,” ash said as you smiled, “okay yeah i'll help.” you said looking at everyone and over at cal with a smile.

Before working you all hung out for a while and to also see the vibe they were wanting to find. You were just over the moon that they were here, you had missed them so much and just needed to see your friends again and of course your boyfriend. You were looking through lots of new material the whole day just to see what they like and seeing if you could place it all together and get them something they want so they can start with recording.

“These samples are all good, you could make something with that, but just, we want it simple yet complex.” Michael said as you nodded, “yeah for sure, I should have some stuff in here,” you said as Luke nodded, “yeah also if you want to, we have the lyrics set for these songs,” he said as he handed you the files with the lyrics. The songs titles in here were moving along, more, monsters among men, and one that was titled valentine but that one had no lyrics, “this one doesn't have lyrics? You're making a song about valentines day?” you said pointing it out as ash nodded, “well yeah, it's in a couple days and we were all thinking about how many people were going to make a song and release it as well, we want to make our own version of mariah carey’s all i want for christmas but with valentine's day.” he explained as you nodded. You then walked over to the computer remembering these two samples that were perfect for this song, “that's funny because i have this sample, well i have two actually,” you said clicking through and finding them both and laying them out in repeat as the boys all stood behind you watching you do your thing.

“Okay the first one is just a, “dum, dum, dum, dum, um.” over and over, and the second one is just, “valentine,” over and over again as well, but if you were to place it on top of one antoher..you get this.” you said as they all gave it a hear and it was so uncanny but perfect, the lyrics were already flowing in.

The guys were all happy with there they left things off leaving you to rest and of course spend time with cal. You two were walking out hand in hand into your car, you were heading over to the drivers side but he followed you and you looked up confused, “you wanna drive?” you asked as he took your keys and smiled, “yeah, i've got a surprise actually, so i was hoping we could make a stop there.” he said as you nodded, “okay cal..just don't kill me or anything.” you joked as you got on the other side of the car, “ dovey i would never kill you, i would probably kill for you though,” he said as you scrunch your nose and you had reached over for a kiss before leaving.

On your way there his hand was near yours, the most he missed about you was your touch and he just needed a part of you touching him making him feel safe. Ever since you left he had missed you dearly and well of course duke. You couldn't see duke as much which sucked, but you knew that you would see him soon whenever it was your turn to go to visit.

Once you made the stop, you were parked in front of a house, “who lives here?” you asked as he got out to open your side of the door and you two walked over to the front of the house as he held you in his arms hoping you could guess. “Well it's definitely someone,” he said as you frowned as you headed near the door, once the door was opened you saw duke run over to you as you kneeled down greeting the puppy and even picking him up missing the pup’s barks and kisses, you then looked inside the house. You had seen all of cal’s things and then it hit you. “You? You live here?” you said with a smile as he nodded with a smile, “yeah i do, i wanted to be closer to you and I know this is probably way too fast, but i love you so much and I just can't live without you, you are everything to me and i want you to know that i have no regrets and i will never have any,” he said as you started tearing up and smiled at him as you couldn't believe that the distance between you two was finally over.

“You did this for me?” you asked quietly as he nodded softly, “well i'm not gonna lie this is very surprising but im happy, i miss you everyday and this changes that..but what about your parents?” you asked as he sighed, “actually dovey, they were the ones who convinced me to move over here. They saw how much i missed you, i didn't even leave the house i just want to be with you and well they knew i had to move...look if this isn't what you want then-” he said as you cut him of quick, “no, stop, this is what i want, i just want you to be sure cal,” you said as he walked over to you and kissed you as he held you in his arms and had placed your hands near his heart, “dovey i already told you, no regrets. This heart beats for you only. I want this, not just for me but for us.” he said as you smiled and just knew this had to happen.

“Also i want you to live here with me, i wanna wake up with you and fall asleep by your side, i can't stand being away from you dovey,” he said as you smiled and nodded, “of course i will, you're everything to me.” you said as you kissed once again. This was meant to be. It was the beginning. There were no regrets on either side, you were all in. you and him are soulmates, it just took a while to settle.

[nightswithkookmin]

So every member has been posting on weverse or Twitter lately, they've been coming on vlive. But Jk has done none of this. Do you see his social media absence as a silent rebellion against BH for them trying to hide Jikook or do you think he's probably just staying away for like mental health reasons or something.

Run that by me one more time???

Are you asking for my opinion on why JK might be absent from social media or are you asking me to choose between those two opinions as explanation as to why Jungkook might be absent from social media???

Is it for his mental health or relationship??? Lol. You are juxtaposing two extremely opposite theories so one sounds more appealing and plausible to highlight the other as outlandish and ridiculous. But that's a fallacy ma'am. Nice try though.

Also, the part about BigHit hiding Jikook...

I object. You is leading the witness sir/ma'am.

It's a little bit silly and presumptuous to assume whenever a member is absent from social media that the only possible reason I could possibly think of is that they are rebelling against their company.

Sometimes it's just a case of volition and personal interests. Sometimes you just don't wanna be social on social media. Sometimes you have work, family, chores, practice. Sometimes you've outgrown the space or lost track of why you wanted to be apart of an online community in the first place. Sometimes it's the toxicity and wanting to take a break from it for your mental health. Literally a plethora of reasons all of which could be valid depending on the context.

I try to give my theories context by sharing as much of my thought process as possible. It's asinine to strip those contexts away and present me with a skinned theory devoid of context.

About his mental health-

Let's try it this way...

Your first Ask: is there ever a moment I wonder if Jikook are just platonic brothers or something along those lines.

Yes. When they are not together romantically. I look at them and go huh... that's a very platonic hug, or interaction. I still uWu over their interactions though.

Cute. Next.

Is he rebelling against BigHit....

Why would he?? What's the context?

Do you think BigHit is making changes JK and the others might not be happy with in the company? Do you think the company or the members are interfering in his self autonomy and determination within the group or suppressing him in anyway in regards to what he says, what he does or who he does it with?

If so then him rebelling in that way would make sense to me because he wouldn't be the first idol to have used that tactic. A lot of idols do these and worse to assert themselves against their company.

If there's no such underling subtext then him rebelling makes no fucking sense to me.

Is he staying away for his mental health

Again, do you think he's been exposed to severe amounts of toxicity and hate online beyond what all the members experience on a daily such that he would need a break from the internet to rejuvenate like we saw around 2019? If so then taking a break for his mental health would make a lot of sense too.

But for someone who keeps reiterating how important connecting with his fans is to him, you gotta wonder how he strikes a balance between his mental health needs, his emotional needs and his professional deeds.

This is the last he was seen on Weverse.

Relatively recent I'd say. So when you say he's absent from social media which timeframes do you mean? They were all pretty much off the grid until recent times post PTD not just him. Are they all dealing with mental health issues or are they all rebelling against their company or something?

You have all these tiktok trends and memes he's been referring to here and there and incorporating into their freestyle dance- seems to me he's active online alright. Just not in the way we are used to them being 'active' online. He is fulfilling that need to connect with his fans just not in a way you'd expect. I can say same for Jimin.

Just gonna have to observe things for a while to form a definitive opinion. If you know what I mean.

BigHit hiding Jikook

Sigh. Sounds like shade when you put it like that honestly and so I didn't want to touch it but also I don't think anyone in Bangtan has had an out in the open romantic relationship with anyone yet💀

Show me RMs partner or Suga's girlfriend.

BTS are hiding their relationships gay or straight. If you can see it from that angle then I think the idea of Jikook hiding their relationship or Bighit aiding them or asking them to privatize their relationship isn't so outlandish and ridiculous like you make it seem. BTS are allowed to date, they are just not allowed to make those relationships public💀

If Jikook were heterosexuals and in different bands I think a lot of people would have entertained the thought. Hell people are convinced they are each dating female idols and keeping it a secret. People are convinced JK is dating Mijoo and keeping that a secret but him dating a boy in the same band and keeping it a secret is kapushkalava😌

Theories of RM married and raising a kid abounds in this fandom and people entertain the idea. However, because Jikook are in the same band and play out certain interactions in front of the cameras the thought that they may be hiding sounds funny in y'alls ears? Jokers💀

Most idols hide their relationships and are required by their companies to keep that out of the public eye. Jikook are idols ergo they are required to hide and are hiding their relationships be it with themselves or with others.

And yes BigHit does aid them in doing so when they issue statements about that "this relationship rumor is false" or when the members evade questions about their relationships in a way to insinuate they are single and not in relationships.

How Jikook feel about being required by the company to keep their relationships to themselves or their peers taking it upon themselves to enforce those company policies of private relationships is up for debate and speculation.

BTS wrote a whole ass song dissing the company and calling them out for having a no dating policy yet expecting them to write love songs and yet somehow we think it's ridiculous that Jikook who are part of BTS would rebel against their company from time to time over certain mandates? Lmho.

Edit:

This ask was sent in a few days before JK's recent VLive. I started answering it and let it go to draft because I felt it was pointless to answer it. Especially since a lot of my thoughts on this were regurgitative, abstract, and based on my own subjective opinion and assumptions about the boys. I feel I keep repeating myself and repeating the same things I've been saying over and over with these kinds of shady trolling asks. Sigh.

However, due to recent events that gives more credit to my thoughts and feelings on the matter, I'll attempt to answer it again.

In JK's VLive he said he noticed it's been a while he interacted with Fans which is why he jumped on the Live to see Army- if we take his word for it and at face value then he said nothing about his mental health ergo it can't be because of that😌

Tae equally said in his VLive he noticed the others coming on VLive and so he thought he would come too.

Now, don't you think they wouldn't have come so spontaneously if they were dealing with mental health issues or trying to take care of their mental health???

There was a time Tae was constantly online interacting with Fans and I think I was one of the few people out here who speculated he was lonely and wasn't dating anyone at the time- which he confirmed in Soop by the way when he told JK he being online constantly was because he was lonely.

Do you think he staying off Social media in recent times is because of his mental or that he doesn't feel as lonely anymore??

I stay off line sometimes for my mental health, sometimes too it's because I feel there are people and things in my life I've neglected and need to spend time with and pay equal attention to them.

Sometimes it's because there's death in the family or studies, or work or a film I need to catch up on...

As to the relationship between campanies and artists- in case you can't pick up on the subtle cues some of the members leave- Suga captures it so well in his Weverse magazine interview.

We made you, as long as you follow our instructions you will be good. Idols are expected to be subservient and sycophantic. As Suga points out it's a thing in the industry and it's destroying the industry.

As to whether or not you think BTS are fully and totally exempt from this harsh reality because BigHit is different is up to you frankly. As to whether or not you think this type of attitude from companies can create friction and tensions between them and the bands is equally up to you.

As to whether you think certain members in BTS are more obsequious than others, more rebellious than others is equally up to you.

In what ways they rebel is up to you too.

That's part A.

Part B. Lol

I answered the first part of this Ask based on the assumption you were being shady. But just in case you were not then here is an alternative response.

Like I said, JK is not the only member who's been absent from SNS in recent times. They all were at one point.

It's interesting how they will promise to come on Vlive whenever they have some to sell us and only recently started showing up on Vlive consistently when Permission to Dance received such mixed reactions from the audience.

It seems their disconnect from their fanbase and its subsequent consequences is becoming much more apparent to them...

For Jungkook, I think the members discussed his rebellious phase at the beginning of the year when they talked about him not posting for the members's birthday, how they expect his post for Hobi to be a start of something new and Jimin even said he was gonna cut his head off if he didn't post for his birthday- I don't think in all the times he didn't post for the members it's because he was grappling with mental health issues. It's just a post. It doesn't take more than a minute to wish your bandmate a happy birthday on their birthdays.

Especially not when he was posting relatively regularly on SNS but would go radio silent on their birthdays... Forget mental health that's antisocial and we saw how the members felt about that from the VLive.

Also, I think it would be insensitive for the members to expect Jungkook to post on their birthdays or for Jimin to hold him to such high expectations when they know very well that he deals with mental health problems or was dealing with mental health issues in those periods he didn't post for them- whoever says Jungkook didn't post for the members because he was dealing with mental health issues is a fraud. Yea I said it. If I ever spewed that nonsense out here then I'm a fraud too chilee💀

His other forms of silent rebelliousness has been in passive aggressive backhanded remarks aimed at the company and at times certain members. In my opinion of course. He won't do what he won't do and if he has to do it he will do it huffing and puffing and later chat shit about it during pillow talks at night with his boyfriend.

So I don't know what it is he might zeffbe rebelling against now. Like I said, being asked to tone down does not mean he can't Jikook. They are Jikooking. It's just on the low low.

And when you say he is reacting to BigHit hiding Jikook, you have to take into account if Jungkook himself wants to keep things hidden and private. Why would he rebel against something if it's what he wants too?? Know what I mean?

This is why I was talking about context. Jungkook of 2018 and 2019 is not the same Jungkook now. He's pretty much the same person, has the same values but he is learning and growing and that is equally important in the way he sees the world around him.

For instance, he wasn't one to think much about the future when he made certain choices and this is something I've talked about a lot in my blogs. Carpedium, make hay while the sun shines etc used to be his values but now he places a lot of emphasis on thinking about the future, being considerate and about how his actions could impact his future.

Those two mindsets produce totally different actions. One is likely to do very childish things, one is not. One is likely to be reckless, not very ambitious, and less serious, while one is likely to be thoughtful, calculative, intentional and less impulsive. He talks a lot about growing up fast but now it seems to me he's catching up with the times.

This is not to say he is a different person but more so he is becoming. He is learning and unlearning. He is not there yet but he is getting there.

If he wants to sit with Jimin, Vlive with Jimin, post on his birthday and not the others, if he wants to stand in a line up next to him but he can't then definitely he's gonna react strongly to that. But as it stands he is not doing any of that in my opinion- not that I'm aware of. Dude is living his best life out here.

I think I've said this, he is happy with where they are at now. If he is not we will know. That's when they ghetto jumps out of him. Don't know if I'm making sense chilee. Lol.

On the part of the company, I can only speculate to the effect that they are looking for various means to optimize and leverage the bands high demand. That they are trying to monetize their platforms and so restricting access to the boys is part of their mid pandemic marketing strategy- something I have been saying from day dot since the pandemic hit.

Like Suga says, monetization is a huge problem in Kpop and the Pandemic has only exacerbated it.

Showing up on Vlive gives us free access to the boys. As often as we would like to see them through that medium it doesn't pay their bills- doesn't pay much especially if they earn money in Won or whatever currency Naver uses.

YouTube is great. However it comes with restrictions and challenges especially with censorship- videos can be demonetized easily and willy nilly, You have to comply with Coppa and YT guidelines. There's CPM- whixh I don't know if it's high for BTS...

Then there's that whole breaching into Korea/China market agenda going on with them etc

Bighit is a business. BTS is not a nonprofit organization. I think the members can understand that much should the company explain to them why they all- not just Jikook- need to limit access to them.

Bighit made them and holds a contract over their heads. There's a certain amount of control they have over them yet a certain level of autonomy they reserve within such a transaction or business relationship.

Take Tae's appearance in Peakboy's MV for example. It's indication BTS does have a ree will to embark on such out of company adventures. There's Hwarang and features and all these side hustles they do...

Yet in the same breath they were at one point prohibited from taking photos with fans on the streets and stuff like that- I guess I should say allegedly.

If they want to VLive they will- as to whether or not they can VLive outside schedule is another thing all together.

As spontaneous as their VLives can be, a lot of them are scheduled too. So it's interesting how they all went MIA for a noticeable minute without the company officially scheduling these 'compulsory' Fan interactions via Vlive or even YT.

Let's not pretend they don't post sometimes on behalf of certain members. Let's not pretend that that doesn't happen💀

Jungkook showed up on YT grumpy and passive aggressive talking about that he didn't know he was supposed to do a VLive, he wasn't prepared, his hair was messy, he didn't know how to operate things- sigh.

Then he nagged us to death about the arts and crafts thingy... but in his recent live he said singing is all he can do so he sang and thrust his hips away- we can't be mad at that.

So if your question is whether I think there's something up with BTS and how they are interacting with fans or not interacting with fans my answer is yes. I mean that much is obvious...

Money is the root of all evil blink blink. Lol.

Do I think there's something up with Jikook and BigHit my answer is yes still- my theory?? Well I'm still observing things and hoarding information. Can't put out half baked theories you know?

I'm a professional ship delulu theorist and I take my delusions seriously😐

I can say this though, I think BigHit has a lot to lose now that they are a publicly traded company. They have investors and stockholders they hold themselves accountable to- how the fear of a scandal or the stigma of a queer relationship plays into all that is yet to be seen.

They are trying to mitigate that risk through strategic marketing and business models- separating BigHit under Hybe is one, their partnership with Dispatch has always been one. There's just so much they are doing we don't know and can only assume or infer.

If their recent interviews and line of questioning has taught me anything, it's that they are all well aware of our theories on BTS and speculations on their sexuality and if Taemin's manager can ask him or was asked if he was dating Kai to his face then others can equally speculate, wonder and ask BigHit directly if Jikook being the sticky ones in the group are dating fueled by all the fandom theories out there.

Rumour says Jikook is gay and are dating eachother. How Bighit feels about this, how BTS feel about it, how Jikook feel about it open for discussion.

There are those who just want to nip all such rumours in the bud and those who want to lean into it and and profit off of it because negative attention is still attention.

Which brings me to your question about Jikook, because I see you sent that Ask in twice, they sure as hell are goofy and dorky. Jungkook admitted that much in his interview.

They are the ones to troll the lives out of us and feed into our delusions of them. It's why most people dismiss them as messing with fans and playful and fanservicey.

So I find it interesting that the members calling them a couple because of their outfits isn't being taken as goofy, dorky, fanservicey but as a reason to further invalidate their relationship.

If you can't take whatever Jikook says and does seriously then you certainly can't take whatever anyone says and does concerning them seriously either.

I will answer the rest of it under the Ask you sent in. This post is getting longer already.

I hope this helps.

GOLDY

[angstysebfan]

Okay I think I'm gonna hurt my own heart with this but hey, it's angst. Could you please write something where reader and Bucky are married, have a child or children and still work as Avengers. Maybe one day reader is sent to go on a mission and Bucky stays home on dad duty. Reader's mission goes badly and she doesn't make it home, leaving him all alone 😭.

(I may request an alternative ending to this because I'm a soft bean).

Oookay can I change up my second request that I sent, please (I've decided my heart can't handle the horrible ending I suggested 😂. Yes I'm a wuss). So mission still goes awry and they think reader is dead because they don't find her body. So Bucky is still told horrible news that she is dead. Maybe a month later he gets a call from a hospital that says they have her and have finally identified who she is and she's okay. (2/2)

--

Lol!! I understand not wanting the angsty ending. I might write angst, but I hate writing angsty endings... lmao! Hope you like this. WARNING: MENTIONS OF BLOOD AND INJURIES.

--

Be Careful

Bucky kissed you passionately, not wanting to let you go. You pull back and give him a smile, “I’ll be home before you know it. Take care of our little bean while his mommy kicks some ass,” you say as you walk backwards away.

“I will. Be careful. I love you, Doll,” Buck says with a smile.

You blow him a kiss before you climb the ramp to the quinjet before going on a solo mission. You turn back and look at your husband, “I love you more!” you shout before entering the quinjet.

Bucky watches as the quinjet lifts off and flies you away, until you are finally out of sight. He turns and goes back into the compound and into your shared apartment, where your 8 month old son is blissfully asleep in his crib. Bucky quickly checks on him before going back out into the common room, knowing FRIDAY will let him know if the baby wakes up.

--

It’s been several hours and there has been no word from you, and Bucky was starting to get nervous. You were supposed to check in an hour ago, but Steve told him to not panic. Bucky tried to distract himself with caring for your son. He fed him, played with him a little bit, gave him a bath and put him to bed. He hoped you would have been home before he went to bed, but there was still no word. 

Bucky sat in bed, thinking about what could have happened. He tried to think about how something had gone wrong, and you had to find a safehouse, and it was taking a little longer. He knew something was wrong, but when Steve knocked on the door, and Bucky saw his face, he knew it was worse than he could imagine. 

Wanda came to watch the baby, while Bucky went with Steve, Sam, and Nat to the location where they lost signal from you. When they landed outside of the abandoned HYDRA base, they search and eventually find your empty quinjet about a half mile away. 

Bucky ran over to it, calling for you in desperation. It was dark, but with the lights on the quinjet, the team was horrified to not only not find you, but see a lot of blood around the inside quinjet. Bucky thought he was either going to throw up or pass out. Nat seeing his reaction, pulled Bucky out of the quinjet so he can breath some fresh air. 

Sam looked at Steve sadly, “This is a lot of blood, Steve. If this is hers, there is no way Y/N is...” Sam couldn’t bare to finish his sentence. Steve took a sample with a piece equipment Tony and Bruce created, which showed that the blood did indeed belong to you. He sighs defeatedly and looks out of the quinjet where Nat was holding a sobbing Bucky.

He walks out and looks at Nat, “Take him back to the compound and have Tony and yourself come back when the sun is up. Sam and I are going to continue to search the area,” he says. 

Bucky pulls away from Nat, “I’m not leaving. I am finding my wife,” he says.

“Buck, you have to go back to the compound and take care of your son. You aren’t emotionally able to handle this mission. If the roles were reversed you would say the same to me,” Steve said, putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

Bucky choked on a sob, but nodded, knowing Steve was right. Nat pulled Bucky to the other quinjet and set off toward the compound. Bucky was silent the whole ride, praying to whatever god there was that you were still alive. He knew he was going to make whoever hurt you pay no matter what, but he needed you to be alive.

--

The next day Wanda stayed with Bucky to help with his son, as she knew Bucky was distracted waiting to hear back from the team. When he saw the quinjet land he ran out, hoping that they found you. Steve walked out and looked devastated and like he was crying. Bucky took a deep breath as Steve walked up to him, “Buck...”

Bucky nodded, knowing you were dead. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t even recover her body,” Steve said, fighting back tears.

Bucky took a deep breath, wiping the tears that threatened to fall. He looked behind Steve and saw the rest of the team crying, all feeling the devastation of losing their friend. Bucky took a deep breath as Wanda brought his son out to him, knowing Bucky needed him. 

Bucky looked at his hansom son, who looks just like you, with Bucky’s eyes. How was ever going to be able to explain to him how he failed to keep his mother safe? How would he explain how amazing his mother was and how much she loved him, and Bucky let her go out alone and get herself killed? 

He forced himself to swallow the sob that threatened to come out when looking at his son and grabbed him from Wanda and held him close. After a few moments and walked away from team, not able to handle seeing them distraught. He went to his apartment and sat on the couch with his son in his arms. He looked at the big smile on his sons face and let the sob out. 

“I’m so sorry,” he cried.

--

After a funeral a few days later, Bucky was benched from missions, though he was pretty sure he was going to retire now anyway. He didn’t want to make his son an orphan, plus he was in no mood to go out and save the world. He tried to act normal for his son, but every night he cried himself to sleep while he held your pillow, which still smelled like you. 

He constantly apologized to you for letting you get hurt and killed. He had made a vow to protect you and he failed. He would never forgive himself for that. He knew his son would never forgive him either once he was old enough to understand. The team tried to be there, especially Steve, but Bucky was pushing everyone away. They all understood, but was worried about him. 

It’s been a month and Bucky was not doing well. Nat stepped in and started taking care of the baby. Bucky fell into a deeper depression then he thought possible, and finally asked for help to take care of his son. He felt he didn’t deserve to have his son. Steve had never been so worried for his friend and didn’t know what to do.

Tony and Sam took lead in looking for the people who did this, and went on a mission to another HYDRA base. Once they entered the facility they went to find files to see if they could get information, but what they found surprised them even more.

--

Bucky was lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. This was life for him recently, and he was ok with it, since he obviously deserved it. Your death, he concluded, was punishment for his transgressions as the Winter Soldier. He did start to take better care of his son, but still required a lot of help. 

While lying there, Steve came in, not bothering to knock. He rushed over to Bucky. “Buck, there is news,” Steve said urgently.

Bucky let out a sigh, “I thought revenge was what I wanted, but I don’t have the energy to find them and kill them. It won’t bring her back,” Bucky said sadly.

“No, Buck... Tony and Sam... they... they found her,” Steve said.

Bucky sat up and looked at his friend, “You mean they found her body?” he asked, hoping that’s not what he meant.

Steve shook his head, “She is alive, Pal. She is down in med bay, and she is alive, awake, and asking for you.”

Bucky was never up and out of bed faster, running out of the room and toward the elevator to get down there. He had to see it for himself. Once he got down to med bay he ran down the hall to where Tony was standing.

“Woah Barnes, you have to stop and take a deep breath before you go in. She needs to remain calm, you got it?” Tony said quietly.

Bucky nodded and slowly walked in and saw you lying in the bed, bruised, bloody, but alive. He thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest. “Y/N?” he asked, still not believing his eyes. 

You looked at him and immediately relaxed, “Bucky,” you said in a raspy voice. 

Bucky walked over to your bed and grabbed your outstretched hand. “Baby? Is... is it really you?” he asked.

You let a watery laugh escape, “It’s me baby. I’m sorry I’m late,” you said. 

You pull Bucky into a hug and you both cried into each others shoulder. Wanda brought your son into the room, and you both held him and each other tightly. Bucky swore nothing and no one would ever take you away from him again. You were home, safe, and alive. He was going to make sure you always were.

--

Oh i loved this one! Thank you for requesting it! Hope you liked it!

Permanent Taglist:  @hailmary-yramliah @tuiccim @comedictragedy @cap-n-stuff @thefridgeismybestie @aleaisntcreative @lookiamtrying @pinknerdpanda @morganclaire4 @iamvalentinaconstanza @verygraphicink @im-squished @joannie95 @peace-love-hobbitness @connie326 @arundhati1609 @amandamdiehl​ @harrysthiccthighss​ @its-izzys​ @roserose26​ @rebekahdawkins @elegantobservationstudentsblog @broco8​ @bestofbucky @white-wolf1940 @loser-alert @jassy2101

[protectchara201x]

(ignoring all the other juicy Deltarune 2 stuff to shove Chara Talks into it lololol)

I haven’t been super active on this blog because frankly I have like, three? looong analysis/theorycrafting posts I’ve been putting off working on and it fills me with shame to log in and see them waiting in my drafts.

But.

With the release of Deltarune Chapter 2, I wanted to talk kinda in general about how I thought it could impact the fandom’s perception of Everybody’s Favorite Demon Baby, and also point out something in specific about the Weird Route that might connect back to Undertale.

Putting it under the cut to avoid spoilers and long-winded ramblings for the unwilling. Includes spoilers for the Weird Route.

(NOTE: may update later if I notice more things for to put in section II. I’d like to make a full list of parallels if I can tidy them up.)

I. Pre- vs Post-Release Thoughts (you can skip down to II if you don’t care, it is genuinely Long and Pointless)

Okay, so first off. I got SO worried like, the day before the new chapter dropped? It hit me that whatever new stuff we got out of this, people would connect back to Undertale, and. Honestly, I really do hate connecting everything back to Chara, because I do think of Kris as their own character and I really like them and don’t want to ignore everything they got going on. But, I am first and foremost a shameless Chara stan and they’re very important to me, so I kinda... did spend a few minutes reeling from all the new DR stuff as its own stuff, and then immediately started thinking about how this would reflect back on Chara in Undertale lol.

But that’s ok for me to do here because this is my All Chara, Only Chara, All The Time blog, so I am gonna only really talk about Deltarune here to talk about them lol.

So yeah, I started getting anxious beforehand worrying about how everyone would take any and all implications and apply it to mean “aha, Chara IS evil!” The fakeout with the pie reveal in the anniversary stream was a big relief, but I still got worried leading up to the release about what could be in it.

Because part of why I’ve always thought that “Chara was genuinely evil from the start” and even “ok maybe not TOTALLY evil, but Chara was still a kinda bad person” were unlikely was, even if you throw out all the other popular Chara-sympathetic theories. To me, both these takes just seemed too below TF’s talent and the way he wrote all his other characters with depth and love; a Chara like the one these theories propose just doesn’t belong in a world created by TF, and the way the Dreemurrs talk about them overall, the way TF made a point of having Chara say they were guided and repeatedly, correctly blame you the player for the destruction in Kill-All, I was sure that he never intended them to ever be as bad as the fandom sometimes tried to make them out to be.

... Like, mostly sure. Like, 80% sure? Because he never ever talks about them, so it’s impossible say for sure, and it is still theoretically possible that “Chara was and is bad” was the cold-ass take he’d intended all along. So yeah, leading up to the release, I started getting antsy that whatever new lore came out of it, either he’d directly confirm “Chara was a villain?” “*cocks gun* Always has been” or there’d be something that’d at least heavily implicate them, or could be twisted to implicate them, as a negative force. More ammo to be used against them in the Chara Debate Circles would be a drag, and outright confirmation of them as a villain would honestly break my heart and I’d be forced to disown Toby Fox, My Beloved Cool Dad.

And, right now? Tell the truth, I’m SO relieved and I am SO happy. And not just because of how much depth and characterization it seems Kris is getting! (imo, because rn I just headcanon them as an unhappy teen desperately trying to keep their new friends going on adventures with them and trying to fight back against the player’s control)

I love how this chapter seems to be TF doing course-correcting based on fandom interpretations. Because Kris just isn’t evil, even if they are a knife teen, even if they are the Knight, they’re just NOT evil and that’s canon, baybeeee; it’s made clear in this chapter and the previous one that they love their family even outside of the player’s control, they care about their new friends even outside of the player’s control, they’re established as a weird creepy kid but no one sees them as scary or evil, they’re just Kris, and even in the Weird Route, TF made a point of hammering in the differences between Kris and the player in the Weird Route: Susie and Ralsei notice how distressed Kris seemed after you have Noelle ice Berdly, Noelle heard a voice that she said wasn’t Kris telling her to kill, and the FUCKING Spamton fight: “Kris called for help... but nobody came” again and again, and then “You whispered Noelle’s name”... you, not Kris.

I know TF has never commented much on fans’ perceptions of Frisk and Chara, or who exactly is pulling strings in different routes. But after all this, and especially after seeing all the little winks and nods to fandom jokes in this chapter (what comes to mind: pulling everyone’s leg by seeming to have Kris attack Toriel with a knife only to reveal that pie theory was right, Susie not liking Ralsei’s real face as much as his shadowed one, Ralsei with a gun getting referenced with the ad, Kris getting a joke fixation with knives after the fans made Chara and Kris have knife obsessions as a joke), and seeing what looks like him try to correct some things (what stuck out to me was doubling down on showing that Kris is loved and valued in their family: lots of fans came away from Chapter 1 thinking that Kris was not valued as much as Asriel, but here we see that Toriel is supportive of Kris’ friendship with Susie, and it’s stated that Asriel is the one who used the crappy controller, not Kris) -

I think while he hasn’t commented directly, while he admitted to being overwhelmed by Undertale’s success, while he tends to be pretty tight-lipped about the lore (whether that’s because it’ll be addressed by future chapters or because he prefers to let fans sleuth it out), this chapter convinced me that Toby does keep tabs on fan reactions in Deltarune, so he probably does with Undertale too and would know about all The Discourse surrounding Little Mx Pink Cheeks (and in turn, popular theories like Narrator Chara... Toby if you integrate Narrator Chara into Deltarune being a borderline creepypasta and have the narrator start talking directly to the characters or to the player or the characters start talking to the narrator I will lose my damn B E A N S).

(Kris and Chara not being demonized and the narrator interacting directly with the characters were the only two things on my wishlist going in, I was fine with literally anything else happening lmao)

I even kinda think he’s going out of his way to separate Kris and the player because we didn’t get it before with Undertale, we still insisted that Frisk or Chara was the one doing it, and he’s even using Kris to show that even if this kid can be scary, maybe even mean, and maybe they’re even the Knight (with their reasons unknown), they’re still not a bad kid, they’re still funny and likable, and they still genuinely love their family and friends - which falls in line with Undertale’s cast of complex but likable people who can be antagonists and make mistakes but still aren’t truly bad people, and imo is a direct response to some people fixating on the idea that Chara was always evil because they seem scary/complicated.

... Which is a long way to say that I came out of Deltarune with my confidence fully restored about TF’s intentions with Chara and Kris. Even if he never comments on Chara directly, now I really don’t think TF thinks they’re evil or ever intended for them to be. Deltarune convinced me more than ever that Chara is meant to be complex, yes, and able to be influenced to do horrible things, but they were never intended to be as malicious or shallow as some fans insist.

TLDR:

Toby Fox read your mean fanfiction where Chara is a bad abusive serial killer no one likes, and he made Deltarune in revenge.

... Hm? Ah, you’d like me to get to the point! Right this way!

II. Undertale, Deltarune, and The Point

While no doubt some will still take the voice Noelle hears to be Chara influencing her to turn her into a murderer (I haven’t gone looking for it yet, but I’m sure it’s already a thing because I know this fandom), since it’s made too clear by the game that they can’t blame Kris for this one, I think at this point that’s just being too stubborn to consider other ideas.

If you believe in the totally made up idea used in so many fanfics that Chara is an evil spirit trying to whisper in Frisk’s ear to kill everyone, literally (for some reason) the embodiment of raising stats, and gets more control over people who have increased LV to take over their body... sure. Could be them, they did talk about moving on to the next world and all. I mean, that wouldn’t really make sense because it’s literally never implied in the actual game that Chara encourages you to kill outside of the Kill-All Run or even wants you to, certainly not as the narrator and we get no hint of them doing this as an unseen, unheard third-party either.

Not to mention they’re NOT literally possessing you because of increased LV; they don’t control you even with high LV in any Undertale route other than arguably the Kill-All, and if you fail the Kill-All and it turns into a high-body count Neutral, Chara suddenly stops using first-person narration and showing up in mirrors entirely even though they were showing themself before, the LV remains the same or even can get raised as high as LV 19, nor do they suddenly take over in any other Neutral runs. We can speculate on why (personally, I’d place this either on Chara’s mindset, such as them sinking into shock from the trauma or becoming more assertive as the player feeds their megalomania, or as a sign of Frisk’s withdrawal, leaving Chara alone in the body to take the reins and act out the player’s orders), but canonically, no, Chara does not take over due to high stats.

In fact, there’s even more evidence against this. First-person narration also exists for fleeing your battles in Undertale, even on Pacifist runs with base stats, 0 EXP, and an LV of 1. Since Chara is established to use first-person narration to refer to themself, is the only one who canonically does so, and is confirmed to be present even in all runs through their name and memories always showing up, it seems pretty likely that Chara can take control to flee battle. That means an increase in stats is not a sign of their presence or control, in Undertale or Deltarune.

The most damning blow to the idea that Chara is the voice corrupting Noelle are the lines in the fight with Spamton I mentioned. Kris called for help, but nobody came. You whispered Noelle’s name. Well hold on. If that’s Chara, shouldn’t it be “I whispered Noelle’s name”? As soon as you’ve officially started the Kill-All in Undertale, Chara starts up their “It’s me, Chara” schtick right away, right there in Toriel’s home in the first area, and if they weren’t the narrator before, they’re beginning to speak through the narration now. If the voice was Chara, surely Toby Fox knows it’d be a way bigger “oh shit” moment if the creepy scary hidden route once again switched into first-person, scaring us the same way he did before when we first saw “It’s me, Chara” and knew something was wrong; unfairly or not, their reputation as a villain is still well established and hinting to Chara’s presence with a simple “I” would drive the menace even further, if he intended for them to simply be a demon that possesses player characters when you grind enough. But it’s still just you. The player.

The Weird Route does even more to help Chara’s case than that. Not only is it made pretty clear that Kris and the player are separate, and the player is the one responsible for corrupting Noelle and making her kill... consider how similar Noelle and Chara are, in the Weird Route and the Kill-All Route.

This “voice” that “guides” them in growing strong, compelling them to kill everyone in order to fight for them, eventually driving them to murder people they know. Chara calls themself “the demon that comes when people call its name”, and you whisper Noelle’s name to have her appear to kill Spamton. Noelle’s conflicting emotions towards Kris and the voice as she is manipulated, as she becomes more violent and sadistic, as she goes into shock; does that not sound like Chara, who flipflops between holding you dear as their partner and wanting to move on to the next world together, to be together forever, and them being disgusted by your refusal to accept consequences and the perverse enjoyment you get in killing everyone again and again? Chara, who clings to their quirky narration for much of the Kill-All, but keeps slipping up, who becomes terrifyingly cold, aggressive, power-hungry, and even sadistic, yet still calls Undyne “the heroine”, still seems to still care about their locket, still has moments where they seem to falter?

Noelle does put up significantly more resistance to the voice’s commands than Chara does, and at least much more visibly shows distress and trauma. I don’t think this is a black mark on Chara’s chara-cter either, or an indication of them being more violent or cruel.

For one, while Noelle is still herself with her own soul, it is heavily implied by Chara, Flowey, and Undertale’s lore that Chara was reincarnated without their own soul, at best perhaps attached to Frisk’s (or yours): as I speculate in one of my currently unfinished theories, while monster souls are made up of love, compassion, and hope and thus Asriel was reincarnated without these qualities, it could well be that human souls are correspondingly made up of their own multiple traits, namely determination, patience, bravery, integrity, perseverance, kindness, and justice; if true, a soulless Chara would be lacking these qualities, which would make them less equipped to resist the player’s commands or to feel as torn up about it.

Also, the player has a hold on them both as “party members” to the player’s vessels, but it is also possible that the player naming Chara and having them directly attached to Frisk also gives them a stronger connection to Chara they can abuse, similar to how Kris and Frisk (as the player’s direct vessels) have much less autonomy than Kris’ party members.

(Fun observation: We know that when the thing controlling Kris forced Noelle into becoming a killer and using her to kill Berdly, Kris was horrified and shaken-up according to Susie and Ralsei. How do you think Frisk felt watching Chara be used to slaughter the Underground and then erasing the world when they’re totally corrupted?)

And lastly... look, Noelle and Chara are both minors, but Chara is significantly younger - a small child compared to Noelle’s teen. I know it’s fiction and strong wills and determination and anime is real and all, but a traumatized young child who died two violent and awful deaths back-to-back, may have literally experienced being a corpse in their own coffin/grave for who knows how long, and then came back ”confused” only to immediately start hearing a voice relentlessly commanding them to kill everyone?? I can absolutely see a traumatized kid shutting down and just going with it out of fear at first, before the LV sets in.

TLDR:

What you do to Noelle in the Weird Route is the same fucking thing you do to Chara in the Kill-All Route.

[ninjago-bingo]

final month recap

wow, everyone.  we’re here.  we’ve made it.  we’re reached the end of our bingo time, and i’m absolutely floored by the sheer creative output that i’ve seen over these last four months.  everyone, take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back!!!  no matter if you made 1 piece or 10, there’s now a work of art out there in the world that wasn’t there before.  and truly, that’s super heccing rad no matter how you look at it.

so let’s celebrate!  for this recap, we have a total of 20 new pieces, bringing the total amount of ninbingo pieces up to 50.  in the span of four months, this little event has created 50 individual works (five of them in the last day!)  holy cow ya’ll.

i’m putting out this recap now, but don’t worry, it’s not the end yet!  any submissions made to the end of the 30th still count and this post will be updated accordingly :D

fic:

all the things i’ve never done by @sa-you-na-ra. tumblr || prompts: competition and teasing

It’s always a funny thing when the ninja realize new things about each other. Even though living with each other meant they had to see each other all day, there were still small habits or actions that amused the others.

(mod comments: all these little interactions made me smile so much :D looking forward to the rest!)

error 404: answer not found by @m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: memories

Akita and Zane talk after the battle in ‘Awakenings’. The conversation… doesn’t go as either of them expect.

(mod comments: the nuances in this fic are fantastic!  also Akita is always a win :D)

Five times kai was a good brother by @/master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: nightmare and brother

I'm writing kai centric stuff again.

(mod comments: kai IS the big bro of the team!!! i support him all the way!!)

How Garmadon became a chauffeur by @master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompt: driving

"um...Kai? Don't you think we should go Slower?" Garmadon asked nervously trying not to panick as they raced down the road at what had to be over the speed limit.

(mod comments: who let Kai drive?  no but honestly this is canon alskdfj)

little things by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: hugs and crying.

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things." -Kurt Vonnegut

Lloyd’s tired of being left behind. How is he meant to be the green ninja when he always has to work harder, train better, and wait longer to go on missions with his team? He wants nothing more than to be their equal.

At least, that’s what he thought he wanted.

(mod comments: a post-ep-18 resolution scene?  SIGN ME UP!)

Neither Snow Nor Rain by @fangirltakesall. tumblr || ffn.net || prompt: post-fight

After their return from the Never Realm and all its troubles, Zane is quiet and Nya is incredibly worried. A call to action to a peculiar sort of battle might be enough to change both of those things.

(mod comments: the concept of these two on their own mission together is just so good! excited to see how their dynamic plays out!!)

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: video games and chores

…what can be done today, yada, yada, yada, we all know the saying. So do the ninja- when Master Wu is drilling it into their heads every minute of every day, it’s kind of hard to forget.

Naturally, it only takes them a week (and the biggest new video game in Ninjago) to do so.

(mod comments: this is so in character that it’s frustrating lol.  also Pixal ftw!!)

oh take me back to the start by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: comfort and 3 am

The past should be left in the past. Or, at least, that’s what Jay keeps telling himself. Nadakhan is gone. It’s not logical to still be afraid. But he is, and now everything that he left behind suddenly feels like it’s never going to be the same again.

Cole isn’t so convinced.

(mod comments: Cole is truly the man we all deserve in our lives.)

On Our Own by @redefine-your-identity. tumblr || prompt: home

It’s been a few weeks since Kai and Nya’s parents disappeared without a trace. Needless to say, they’re struggling.

(mod comments: OU C H no poor babies 😭 the relationship dynamic here is great!)

orange and gold by @/m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: cooking

...I just need more Cole and Vania content, they seem like they'd be great friends.

Basically it's just 'Cole goes to visit her there, they almost burn down the kitchen, and make way too many puns', lol.

(mod comments: I also always need more Vania content!! the puns in this were breadful!)

permafrost by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: loss of control and promise

It’s not like this is the first time this has happened. It’s not like none of his teammates have ever suffered this kind of guilt and pain. It’s not like Zane himself hasn’t walked through hell before and come out the other side (mostly) in once piece.

Except, this time, it is. It shouldn’t be different, but it is.

(mod comments: super sweet moment between two ninja who deserve more interaction like seriously!!)

Precautionary Tale by @/fangirltakesall. tumblr || ffn.net || prompt: protective

Fighting is different now, and Zane doesn't know why. Yes, he is titanium now, but why should that change anything? It seems to be changing everything, although is all really as it seems?

(mod comments: a great start to a zane-centric fic!  interested to see where it goes next :D)

Star-Ninja! by @rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: siblings and competition 

What happens when the loveable gremlin the ninja adopted off of the streets introduces them to Starfarer comics?

Chaos ensues, of course.

stuck with you (through bright and blue) by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompt: protective

Kai only wants two things: to protect Lloyd, and to give him the best birthday ever. Unfortunately, Lloyd seems hell-bent on making that as difficult as possible. Kai’s always prided himself on achieving the impossible, but dealing with human emotions is much more complicated than beating up Garmadon’s generals or shooting enemies with fire, as he quickly learns. Movie!verse

(mod comments: happy birthday lloyd!! look at him getting the love he deserves uwu)

Take a walk in the rain. by @/master-of-fluff. tumblr || ao3 || prompt: rain

Cole had always loved the rain, the way it smelled, the way it felt on his skin, and especially the mud! Whenever it rained his Mother would put on his rain coat and boots And they'd both go out and splash around in the puddles and make mud cakes and do all sorts of things.

(mod comments: this fic made me smile a lot :D loved the way it was arranged!) 

the hues of an empty sky by @/m-aster-of-spinjitzu. tumblr || prompt: crying

Missing memories, or having two of them for one moment - not quite the same, but if there’s one thing Jay’s leant over the last few weeks, it’s that literally nothing makes sense anymore.

Or, some Skybound aftermath, Zane actually expressing emotions about his memory switch being turned off for all those years, and what was supposed to be a ‘they tell everyone about the erased timeline’ fic, but it turned into a 'two characters who barely interact on screen talk at like one am in the morning, and don’t actually tell the other what exactly they’re alluding to the whole time’ fic that I wrote at like one am-

(mod comments: Skybound resolution? SIGN ME THE HECK UP YES)

The Make-Cole-Realize-How-Much-We-Love-Him Competition by @21st-century-ninja. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: bets and competition

Jay and Kai share a horrified look.  “He really doesn’t get it,” Jay says.

Kai shakes his head.  “We need to show him somehow.”

“Show me what?” Cole asks, exasperated again.  

“How much we love you!” Kai exclaims.  “Somehow, it’s not getting through your thick skull that we want to sit next to you because you’re you, so I’m gonna have to just prove it to you.”

(mod comments: a silly little movie fic!)

twitter was a mistake by @/21st-century-ninja. tumblr || ao3 || prompts: teasing and birthday

Kai 🔥 @flaminhotninja ☑

so who was gonna tell me that Jay used to be a game show host huh

🌺✨ the Gift of Jay ✨🌺 @zaptrap ☑

Replying to @flaminhotninja

NO WHO SHOWED YOU

(mod comments: twitter was a mistake)

two halves of a broken whole by @/rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: scars and post-fight

The Sons of Garmadon have been defeated. Garmadon is in prison. The city has been saved.

In the aftermath of the battle, Nya is more than ready to take a much-needed break. But the life of a ninja is messy. Recovery is never that simple. Although the wounds may have healed, the scars still remain.

Zane’s scars seem to match up, though. And maybe together, they can begin to heal.

(mod comments: aggressive care is my jam, and this is it!)

wait by @rosiehunterwolf. tumblr || ao3 || ffn.net || prompts: home and memories

Lloyd’s not so great at being patient. It’s not his fault though- maybe he would be better at it if waiting didn’t always end up being so disappointing- if people actually kept their promises. But this time’s going to be different, he knows it. His father will come back for him. And Lloyd’s going to wait.

As long as it takes.

(mod comments: baby.  baby boy.  baby.  protecc him plz.)

[leafcabbage]

hi hello very cool tumblr user leafcabbage. i sent an ask a few days ago abt starting your fic i dont remember if i was on anon but if i was then thats me!

anyways bc i'm clinically insane i finished binge reading ycssgwtlfs this afternoon and haven't been able to stop thinking about it actually!! sometimes the it gets worse before it gets better trope isn't my cuppa but you definitely made it work so well if not for the SHEER amount of hurt no comfort liiiiikeeeee omg omg omg omg that series of chapters where ranboo was just slowly losing their grip was just so exhausting to read (shals pos so slash pos!! i mean that like it very deeply emotionally affected me!!) and i am so here for it because it made the comfort at the end so so worth it. very excited to continue w the next parts :D

i also loved the little moments scattered throughout. i want to see so much more of techno and wilbur's relationship because that is really fascinating to me. i could read a whole other fic about that actually they have a great dynamic also bc we saw both their biggest flaws come to the forefront when trying to help ranboo. its just interesting. and!!!!! woah?! whats up with big q and techno?!! intrigue moment!!!!

and even though dream was a piece of shit (btw you wrote the gaslighting SO WELL that is exactly what it feels like. i was genuinely nervous everytime i read his name because we don't know whether ranboo was gonna get manipulated until he started talking. i thought it was a great detail that dream's mood was always the first thing we learned in every scene's narration because ranboo had to walk on eggshells with him. GOOD SHIT!!!! GOOD SHIT!!!!!!!!!) i rlly hope he gets out of that clearly toxic family eventually. how dare you make me empathize with him >:[

and purpled my beloved...... idk i just liked his and ranboo's dynamic. it was cute and i really liked seeing him and punz at the end. he is in the bathroom a lot. hope the guy is doin okay. i took that uquiz you made bfore i started reading the fic and i got him, so i am just attached ig oopsies. also tubbo and tommy's roomie was such a good moment it was genuinely really wholesome and is like my new favorite long build up joke ever :D

(also ahhh sorry if its annoying that i'm sending this in ask form instead of just commenting, especially since its kinda long!!!!!! but my eyes hurt from staring at the ol screen, tumblr interface is just a lot less headachy lol, thanks for writing such a wonderful fic and i hope youre having an awesome day!)

ahh this made me so happy!!! dont worry about sending it in ask form, i love seeing the little blue dot that means i have an ask, its very exciting. this did genuinely jumpscare me (in a funny way), which sound so dumb but i open the ask box and saw a long ask and went "woah!!" and genuinely actually jumped. thought you might enjoy learning that.

long answer so

i really really work hard on making the hurt worth it for the comfort, and having enough time to have that comfort and recovery. i think it helps that im writing a full series so if something wasnt dealt with in ycssg, i have quite a few more fics to deal with it and create closure. but im glad it was worth it! and it got tiring for me writing those chapters to be honest, it draws out just a little long and that was on purpose. it doesnt end at the perfect time, like in an ideal world ranboo would have accepted help at thanksgiving and that would be the beginning of things getting better, but thats not how life works. ranboo did not willingly seek out help, and thats an important part of the story. they accepted help because they were convinced they were literally dying and didnt know what else to do. and then they were somewhat reliant on tommy and tubbo, and if that hadn't been the case things wouldn't have ended up where they were.

sorry im now just talking about my own fic, that was all to say thank you ajshdlfk

thank you with the relationship comment too! i really wanted to make it clear that everyone has a life outside of the bench trio too, so in my head they have semi fleshed out stories and lives. especially dream. theyre all real people (or as real as fake people can be) not just props

dream was such a complex character to write, and he continues to be, and i love writing him so fucking much. he's ranboo's antagonist but he isnt evil and inherently awful, he has his own life and his own problems (which doesnt make what he did to ranboo ok at all, but thats just to say that hes a person out side of it) and im glad the emotions in his scenes came through so clearly!

purpled has ibs thats canon and its because i have ibs and i thought it would be funny. love the guy, really. hes one of my favorite side characters. i love him and im glad you like him too he deserves to be liked. IM GLAD YOU LIKED THE ROOMIE i have this ongoing joke with myself that he was fridged but in like a moving out kind of way. he was uhauled. hes my favorite NPC <3

im glad you enjoyed ycssg so much!! and i hope you enjoy the next fics too!!! this ask made me smile very much so thank you for that!!

[softer-ua]

I have no idea what Bakugou would have done if Izuku died in the sludge Villain accident. They had a lot of strong unresolved emotions, I just can't fully visualize it, the only thing I have clear is him trying to latch onto anger, but that would burn out fast because the Villian was trapped and the heroes did their thing (Winning, which at that point he believed everything was) so I don't know what would he do. Sooo...could you please give us your insight? Please :D

I’d love to give my insight! Thank you for asking!!!🥰

It would depend on which sludge incident, the one where Deku ran to save Katsuki or the one where Deku was on his own? 🤔 I’ve got ideas on both lol

Buckle up this is gonna be a long one, and it’s not a fun ride

For the first I think Katsuki would latch onto anger and be a self hating righteous little monster for the rest of eternity. Because obviously he’s never getting therapy.

If he can blame himself for AM’s retirement and his parents can blame him for getting kidnapped than I have zero doubt the Entire Bakugo family would blame Katsuki for Dekus death. That family loves to victim blame, and Mitsuki would have a field day with chart topping world’s lowest blows like

If Katsuki hadn’t been hanging out in an alley and had gone straight home the villain wouldn’t have got him

If Katsuki hadn’t just been randomly blasting the heros wouldn’t have had to divert their attention to the fire

If Katsuki hadn’t been so weak(what’s the point of that flashy quirk if you can’t even save yourself)

Going with him to make him apologize to Inko (trying to imagine this feels like my brains touching a hot stove, it would be a thousand times more horrible and scarring than being forced to apologize to his Idol and teach for being kidnapped)

If hs Katsuki didn’t have the tools to block out his mother and broke down over a 50 year old man retiring, then poor ms Katsuki doesn’t stand a chance against being forced to bare the blame in someone’s actual death, especially not Dekus. Plus whatever destructive aftermath Katsuki created.

Did you have to blow up the entire alley way??

Katsuki would also never stop blaming those heros, even if the villain was captured they lost what really mattered, Dekus life.

They should have stopped the villain before Deku ever showed up

They should have never let Deku cross the line

They should have saved him

I think his fear of being weak would have been magnified by 10000. And it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to believe that witnessing that kind of hero failure so personally would be his villain origin. But even if it wasn’t, I think 10 months of stewing in grief, rage and self hate at such a young age would leave some very permanent scars

He’d habitually train to the point of self harm(reminder to check in on your fitness bros)

He’d never ever let someone close to him again (he didn’t want Deku close to him in the first place and look at how bad it hurt anyway)

He wouldn’t give a shit about any heros opinion anymore, if it’s not about how he can get stronger than any would be mentor can fuck off

His ego would have taken a massive hit, he’s no longer trying to prove he’s the best

Instead he’s insuring it because he’s never losing anyone again

Even with that in mind I think the sports festival actually would have gone a lot calmer because he no longer gives a shit about showing off, he’s just fighting to test himself and Dekus the one who pushed Todoroki to the point anyone even knew he had a fire side(I always wonder how much longer Aizawa was gonna let that go on for) so he’d except his medal quietly so it’s possible the lov would never have tried to recruit him

I think he’d be a lot more proactive in helping his classmates get stronger

Just not in a cute tsundere way anymore, but in a “if you can’t keep up with me I will keep attempting to murder you until you drop out” way, because B List heros are not allowed to be a thing anymore

Eventually he would grow up to be the top hero and he revels in that victory by hating himself, his job, his coworkers, his family, and everyone and everything else. The best part of his days are the adrenaline highs and that’s not even a happy high, in a bad headspace it just makes you ansty and aggressive, still better than being a hallow husk of resentments

I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually did kill a fellow pro for not meeting his standards. Depending on what the hero did to earn his ire would shape wether he went on to be the new hero killer or simply stopped being a hero himself in custody or more permanently

Now if the villain had instead been captured after being caught hiding in Dekus flesh suit things would have been very different than the above

Katsuki would definitely be traumatized at this news, so would most of their class and they’d probably do some kind of memorial deal, and over the course of a couple of days Katsuki would slowly descend into madness at watching his class act like they have ever given a single fuck about Deku

Then he would speedball into it, because how dare they grieve over him, non of them deserve to especially not him

He’d be angry for as long as he could, at himself and everyone else, but eventually that’d putter out without anyone stoking the fire, no one else blames his class for feeling sad and no one blames the heros for not existing on every single possible street corner

Maybe he makes it through UA. He’s not as hot head, not as naive, but teens hold grudges like no other, he can be mad at the world a little longer.

Throws himself into the work so he doesn’t have time to think. He’s going to be the best because Deku always believed he would be and if he’s not allowed to be sad than this will be his only way to honor the nerds memory.

But the thing about pain is that it demands to be felt.

Eventually his regrets and grief would come for him, in a year or in ten years doesn’t matter they will eventually claim the time and space they need with interest.

He’d probably meet his regrets first so that he can be mad at himself for a little longer

He should have let Deku be

If he hadn’t held Deku up after class maybe he’d have made it home

His last words play on loop growing distorted and more malicious as the years go on(fun fact about memory ! It’s easily manipulated because each time you remember something you’re actually just remembering the last time you remembered the thing! Basically your brain reconstructs the memory completely each time! Fuck it up once and it’s all down hill)

He regrets not ensuring that he’d have more than his flimsy memories to hold onto Deku with, he never realized he’d want to, never could fully conceive that he’d actually have to.

He should have been kinder

He should have been less of a coward and faced his own insecurities

He should have talked to Deku about so many things

He can’t just focus on what he did and didn’t do forever tho, eventually he’ll have to recognize the hole Deku left behind, his regrets will paint the picture of his grief

Maybe he forgets the exact date of Dekus birthday but he knows it was in the summer, he regrets not going to his last one and grieves never going to a next one.

He regrets not going to the funeral, of course he was sad, he’d been an idiot to think he couldn’t be

He regrets not visiting Dekus grave, and grieves over how long he’s been gone now

He regrets that he had to learn what the value of saving is by having lost, god how he grieves that loss

Without Deku Kaminari never hears that nickname, Kacchan died with Deku. He grieves over never hearing it again

He wonders if Dekus hanging out with Kacchan wherever he is, he wonders if this makes him crazy.

He grieves over Deku dying so young, so alone, so horribly. It gives him nightmares, he can’t imagine the pain of having all his organs crushed down from the inside, and yet he’s some how intimately aware of its possibility. He debates looking for the autopsy results, maybe if he confirms it was asphyxiation and not internal blunt trauma the nightmares will stop. But you don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.

He grieves over the dreams Deku never got to chase, and regrets ever playing a part in taking away the happiness a dream is supposed to have

He grieves over the Deku shaped hole in his life that seemed to grow with him despite only ever getting to know the knobby knees version, he can’t help but think with every achievement and milestone “you should be here”

He doesn’t hate his life, it just feels half lived.

Without Deku pushing his buttons and no god complex shaped alarm bells people were slower to reach out to him.

Without Deku to vouch for his good qualities people were a lot more hesitant to see them.

He still did make friends it’s just a shallower connection and he doesn’t make time for them

He becomes top hero but the victory feels hallow like there should have been more of a fight for it. Maybe he is crazy but it feels like it should have been Deku fighting him for it.

His saves are legendary and numerous, he’s never able to shake the feeling that there’s someone out there who needs him just around the corner

Between the nightmares and the anxiety clocking off gives him he probably gets less sleep than any hero before him, even Aizawa.

It was a short career

[beelspillowpet]

If your requests are open - it says they are but I always like to double check- could you do the OM brothers with a F!Mc that starts dating a girl from RAD ? I want pretty demon lady ... please devs make a female option.... 😳😳😳😳😳 if the relationship doesn’t work out that’s fine! I’m just simping for women

Requests will most likely always be open because I can never get enough of reading about these ideas and stuff... IDK I’m obsessed lol.

More lesbian MC stuff.... feeding me lately, Mira. Because I’m impulsive af I am now casually inserting an OC how everyone will eventually get to know better~... DW. She’s mostly nice.

Introducing, The Manipulator! Or as you may call her, Liza!

She has a bit of history with the boys, but nothing intimate. Without further ado, let’s get into the HCs.

F!MC Dates a Demon Girl from RAD

Lucifer is the first one trying to put a stop to this. How the fuck- why the fuck- what the fuck? When did you even get in contact with another demon? You were meant to be monitored 24/7 while out, especially at RAD. Did Mammon or any of his other younger brothers leave you unattended for that long!?

Not only does he, and most of his brothers, not like Liza, but they’re also incredibly jealous. It’s not like they’re owed anything, but...

Really? Of all the demons in this realm you’d pick, it’d be her? Now sure, none of them are perfect... Maybe with exception to Asmo with how often he cries about it, but...

Okay so maybe the pickings aren’t that great. They’re all guys and... maybe you just want to spice things up with a girl? They can understand that. I mean they clearly all like you in some shape or form.

Satan tries to understand her. They both have issues to work through. Serious ones. Ones regarding their situation around birth. He’s meant to be a constantly angry person, but he doesn’t want to seem that way. Liza is seen as someone who only lies, cheats, and manipulates to get what she wants... but Satan can see that’s not all she is. He’s suspicious of her, but doesn’t question it too much.

Belphie, just like Lucifer, is not having it, though. Liza? Really? If he weren’t trying to be respectful of your choices, he’d immediately list every reason why you shouldn’t have picked her. She’s manipulative- worse than him- she’s a liar, and she’s really mean. There were rumors she was created to be the exact opposite of Asmo, even.

But alas, they all keep their mouths shut. Life is good for you here in the Devildom, and who are they to stampede on that?

Things with Liza are actually great too. She takes you out almost daily, and while she can’t spend the night in the HoL for... various reasons... she visits when she can. Usually baring a gift.

She brings food or little plushies most of the time. Eventually she starts upgrading to gifts that last longer in your room. She takes to even bringing over beautiful Galaxy Roses just so you have something to have from her.

Don’t think your clothes are safe either. Nuh-uh. She’s taking your sweatpants, hoodies, jackets- all of it. Sometimes she gives them back. Most of the time she doesn’t. Your stuff is now her stuff. And her stuff is still hers but... she’ll share. :)

Because the guys clearly aren’t a fan of her, you two spend the majority of your time out together. Liza promises Lucifer that she’ll take good care of you. He doesn’t believe it, and thinks she’s plotting something, but realistically, she’s in love. Truly in love. Father may have made her differently from Asmo, but he gave her the ability to love and treat what’s hers properly.

Hell, there was a time when some demon was threatening your life over something. Probably a stupid thing, like bumping into them while walking. Before either of you could even swing, she had the demon in a headlock, threatening to snap their neck if they didn’t get down on their knees and apologize to you. You’d never been so moved in your life.

Speaking of her strength; it is considerable. She catches Beel at the gym often- in fact, he’s caught you both at the gym a few times before. He thinks its... a bit awkward. He and Liza hada  few conversations, and she was nothing but considerate to him. But something always felt off. Like she was hiding something.

While respectful and willing to listen, Liza isn’t too keen on being... soft? She doesn’t mind vanilla, but I mean... You’re her little bunny. Are you gonna upgrade to Rope Bunny or what?

She is one of those types of people who are very straight forward. If you have a problem, she works to find a solution instead of outright comforting you right then and there. She often forgets there’s an emotional side to tend to, rather than a logical one. She does try to fit in the comforting afterwards, offering a hug and cradling you in her arms. She shushes you and kisses the top of your head, hoping that she’s doing it right.

As for having space...? Yeah, you can have it. Just ask. She doesn’t mind it. Honestly just tell her anything and she’d be willing tot ry and make an adjustment. Keyword is try.

She’s not really known love for thousands of years. True love anyways. It’s a work in progress, but if you tell her you don’t like one thing, she’ll try to do the exact opposite. If you tell her you need some time alone, she won’t throw a fit. Just huffs a little before leaving.

She’s a biiiig texter. Like... your phone will be blowing up. Morning texts every day without failure. They’re unique too, not a copy/paste. Way too many emojis.

Good🐣morning🌅 My MC💖🔥! I hope 🙏🏿 you had a great 👍🏿 sleep 😴. Here’s to a ✨ really great👌🏿day, 🏞️ my 💗 beautiful❤️incredible🌟love! I left you 🥺 a special bento 🍱 this morning! Please enjoy it! 💝💟

She’s honestly not perfect. She’s sometimes too clingy, and other times she’s a bit aggressive. She’ll ramble on about the guys, forgetting you live with them and know them so well. They’re like family to you, and you’re actively bad-talking some of them. Especially Lucifer. She’s pretty defensive about it too if you try to tell her to cut it out.

“MC... You have no idea how much suffering I’ve been through because of them. They’re cool people and all but... I can’t always been friendly about them, ya’know?”

She tries though. Kind of. The only one she can kind of have a conversation with is Satan. Maybe Beel ona  good day.

Oh and competitive... don’t play games with her, please. She’ll get pissed off and sabotage everyone. No one is safe from her when she plays CLUE or Scrabble. She’s a lil’ dorky.

Having a pact with her isn’t that much of a big deal, really? She sort of... offers it to you one day. Like “Hey, so when are we gonna make that pact?” And then cringes at herself because she could have done so much better.

Like she sort of sees pacts as an engagement. Is she moving too fast? That’s up to you. But please make a pact with her. She loves you, MC. She wants to protect and hold and love...

Aside from all this, when you do go back to the human world, she’s right there at the portal giving you a hug and kiss goodbye. She doesn’t shed a single tear. At least not in front of you. When you are gone though, she’s much more angry and irritated. She’s snappy with the people around her, and she’s hurting because she never realized how dependant on you she was.

She needed you to feel like she was normal. Like she was excepted. It’s not like you’re gone forever, but you won’t be back in.... who knows how long?

You’re allowed to summon her whenever, at least. But just... obviously not as often, because getting back home can be annoying. Also because Lucifer is usually there, scolding her about “heading out without letting someone know.” As if she has much of a say. She usually doesn’t, with him talking so much. The bastard.

All in all, with Liza she is a girl who has your back. A bit much at times, but who doesn’t like a bit of excitement in their lives? She wants you to be able to understand her struggles, but it’s not her place to even tell her own story anymore. She just wants to forget, move on, and be with you. So please. Please stay in the Devildom a bit longer, next time...?