#i am attempting gameplay once again

[softplumbs]

Robin was never sure what the answer to ' What do you want to be when you grow up?!' should be. In fact, as an adult she's still debating wether to follow in her father's footsteps and pursue a career in couple counseling or the freedom of the arts.

One thing is for certain, she wants to combine her passion for learning and her love for the outdoors before she even starts considering her life's path.

[arthenaa]

ikaw at ikaw (only you) — mizu x f!reader

synopsis: 4 times your team lead chose you and 1 time you chose her.

content: modern!au, office romance, you and mizu are creatives, specifically in the character and concept design department in a very very famous gaming company (take a guess), she is your creative director and lead designer and you are the concept artist, 4+1 format, FLUFF, work relations, dynamic, and position might not be accurate, forgive me, this is basically just me projecting yet again.

a/n: this is requested by @andieperrie18 ! the answer shit isn't letting me edit my answer so ill be @-ing you here. TYSM FOR ENJOYING MY WORKS !! means a lot ... u also chose pasilyo 🥹🥹🥹🥹 sunkissed lola is the best

1.

Being part of the creatives team was a nightmare.

To tell you the truth, the position for a Concept Artist with a specialty in 2D design wasn't actually all that bad. The monthly benefits and wage were something you're quite lucky to receive considering the constant side eye other departments have with the admin's treatment of the artist employees. This was also your dream job—having had to play their games, specifically, VALORANT, left you in awe and gearing to apply once you were ready for an Internship. After your OJT course, you were accepted for a position in Character and Concept Design and are considered one of the team's most beloved artists (Your followers on Twitter reckon so).

In short, the work environment was great. A solid 15/10 experience—I mean how can you beat a company that caters not only to you as an artist but also as a player? Nothing can beat that feeling of satisfaction once you see your work displayed on various monitors all around the world.

It was more of ... the relationships and interactions with that work space environment that left you grasping at a chance to breathe.

People think you're overreacting but you think it's completely reasonable.

"Yes, you are overreacting."

Your face falls at Taigen's words—watching as he plays a round of unrated in the company's leisure space decked with state of the art PC builds that could definitely beat your poor touchscreen fridge with just a move of its mouse. You could hear the familiar voicelines of Jett from VALORANT as he uses the character's abilities to swiftly enter the site and take a hold of the defenders' positions.

Taigen is part of the Gaming Development Department in the VALORANT Team. He often does routine user gameplay checks and one of its perks is that you literally just have to play the game and get paid for it. You think its unfair but then again, its Taigen. He's always unfair.

"I think you're just saying that to be mean," You frowned, eyes trained on his face—the lights reflecting back on his stupid, stupid, clear-skinned face. Taigen rolls his eyes but not an ounce of his focus leaves the game.

"Being honest equals to being mean, got it." Taigen's voice comes out in a sarcastic tone. You kick a speck of dust on the cement floor, twirling in the gaming chair you're seated on.

"I just think its a reasonable thing to complain about!" You throw your hands in the air in an attempt to get him to look at your side of things. "You're completely unfazed because your team lead has the patience of a mother with 7 kids."

You hear the familiar cue of an ACE kill as Taigen hits a headshot on the last player. The game's interface shifts to the winner screen and finally, he turns to you, pulling his headphones off and giving his best deadpan stare.

"You're freaking out over Mizu sighing over your concept design proposal for Neon and overanalyzed even the way she drank her coffee because you're obsessed with her like that." Taigen arches his eyebrow to make the situation all the more ridiculous. Your mouth closes and opens like a fish out of water. "Am I right? Wait no, don't answer that. I know I am."

"What the fuck?" Your voice comes out in a desperate attempt of self-defence but it ultimately just sounds defeated. Taigen chuckles as he turns back to his monitor to take a look at the game stats.

"Look," Taigen tries to be empathetic but you're pretty sure this is just to get you off his back. The queue for competitive is already up and running. "As your friend, I say this with the love that I have for you and your works but please, Mizu is just one woman. If my mind process went like yours, I would've assumed Akemi hated my very existence and this is coming from someone who IS dating Akemi."

You purse your lips in thought as he raises his eyebrows in exaggeration. You're not exactly sure why you approached Taigen with this problem but he was the only familiar face that you saw after walking out of the meeting room in a hurry.

But then the question in this situation is who exactly is Mizu?

Well, there were a lot of things you could associate with the familiar blue-eyed director. Mizu is your boss—the creative director for Concept and Character design for the VALORANT team. She oversees character ideas, map visuals, detailing, and the final approval for character and asset ideation before it's sent for building in the 3D and VFX departments. She is your employer but you can also consider her your friend, albeit a highly respected one (she did the character design for Jett and Yoru).

It's not that you were obsessed—Taigen is wrong, he's always wrong—it was definitely because you respected her very much. Being a Riot Design Lead is basically fucking God. You create and give life to ideas. She's part of the original team that worked on the pre-release of VALORANT during its early stages and got to see the whole thing unfold. Something you wished to see back then but glad that you were able to become part of the journey despite being a few patches late.

You respected her enough to always want to be on her good side. I mean, who wouldn't? She's talented and very... youthful-looking and one of Riot's youngest leads, you honestly think that being worried over her approval like this is just a matter of respect and definitely NOT obsession.

"You're doing that thing where you space out and I have to assume that it's probably because of Mizu, yeah?" Taigen's voice intercepts your reprieve and suddenly, a curl of your eyebrows creates a look of annoyance on your face.

"I am not obssesed with Mizu," You reiterate, but this time with your mouth. "I just... respect her."

Taigen leans back on his gaming chair, nodding as if you just told him that he didn't need to double double-click everything.

"That's the most unbelievable shit I've heard today," Taigen finally replies with a scrunch of his nose. Your jaw falls open.

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Do fucking not—Stop it."

Taigen purses his lips, and makes a motion of zipping his mouth and shaking his head. You huff in anger. Taigen was never going to believe you.

Just as you were about to chastise him again for being mistaken, a knock on the glass doors notifies you of a new presence. You turn by instinct and your eyes widen in shock and probably, dread—who knows.

"There you are," Mizu's voice filters through your ears like classical music on a good Friday evening. You stammer slightly as she enters the area, eyes trained on you through those tinted orange specs. Mizu momentarily greets Taigen who only raises his hand in greeting before turning towards the screen (only you can see through your peripheral vision that this motherfucker is laughing). "I've been looking for you."

"You did?" Your voice comes off quiet. Mizu furrows her eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah?" She replies with a confused tone. "I had your concept design for Neon approved, it was more direct compared to Matt's. I wanted to tell you in person since you just bolted from the meeting room."

You fall silent at her words. She looks a bit concerned as you try to make sense of the information.

"You seem in shock—Are you okay?" Mizu asks, eyes glancing towards Taigen who looks at her before shrugging.

You feel your heart speed up. You momentarily calm yourself before finally responding. "Y-Yeah, sorry. Just didn't think that you'd approve it."

Mizu tilts her head like a fucking cat and you're quite sure you would drop dead then and there. "Why not? It's your work."

You're not sure what she means by that but a sudden shiver runs through your veins at her praise and suddenly your cheeks are flushing.

"Ah," You're voice fills in the silence, awkward and quiet. "Thank you?"

There's a pause of silence before Mizu chuckles. She heaves a breath before pulling the glass door open.

"I'll see you at my office, Y/N." She smiles. "Great work."

The silence further pushes you into the void as you and Taigen watch her exit and disappear into another hallway through the glass windows. Just as you were a few minutes ago, you lean forward to slouch over your knees, hands on your face as you meltdown from what just happened. You hear Taigen chuckle beside you.

"Give it a few more months and she'll give you a ring on your finger with a bent knee on the ground."

You sob into your hands as Taigen erupts in heaps of laughter.

Oh my fucking God.

2.

The release for Neon was a hit. An all-time new duelist originating from the Philippines, your concept design took off without a hitch. It's safe to say that your hard work paid off as you stood over the central common room—leisure areas decked with your coworkers trying out and celebrating the release. A sense of satisfaction fills you.

"I hear you spearheaded the design concept for Neon," A voice infiltrates your sense like a lure. You can't help but smile at its familiarity. Akemi wraps her arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder as she continues. "Marketing was thrilled with the positive response. Good job."

You turn around, her arms loosely accommodating you. "Akemi," you coo.

The girl grins wide and pulls you into a hug. You return the affection in a grander gesture of squeezing her tight against you.

Akemi's part of the Marketing Department for Riot. While she often creates publication material for VALORANT, she also has cross work with League of Legends for its various strategic releases (ie. KDA).

"I just want to say that I already predicted Neon would be a sure hit, it's your work after all," Akemi pulls away from the hug with a smug smile. She grabs your hands in hers, swinging them slowly. "Marketing it was like a breeze in the park."

You laugh softly at her enthusiasm. "You give me way too much credit."

Akemi rolls her eyes affectionately. "Humility is a disease—live a little."

You shake your head at her quips, opting to smile in response. A member of your team passes by, eyes widening in recognition of you before giving you a thumbs up. Akemi watches the interaction—eyes trained on that person's figure as they walked towards Mizu who was busy talking to other creative team leads. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion at her prolonged silence.

"Who are you—?" Your words trail off as you turn to look at what she's so focused on before turning back at the sight of Mizu. "Nevermind."

Akemi raises her eyebrow with an amused look on her face. "Taigen always has a penchant for exaggerating but I didn't think it was this bad?"

Your face falls at the information. "Taigen told you?"

Akemi gives you a 'duh' look—eyebrows raised and eyes half-lidded. "Taigen's a loose lock if you pry hard enough. He basically can never keep a secret."

You give her a deadpan stare before shifting in your position. Akemi crosses her arms over her chest as she eyes you up and down—filled to the brim with amusement. "I'm fine, stop making a big deal out of it."

"Uh huh," Akemi squints her eyes playfully. You could only glare back in response.

The loud cheering at the front catches your attention as resident workers, interns, and newbies alike begin to tune in at the commotion. Akemi and you move to the sidelines, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you tried to find out what's happening.

"What's happening?" You ask the person to your front. He turns, eyes beaming with excitement.

"The creative director for C&C got pulled in a 1v1. They're playing against Beckham."

Your breath hitches at the information. Akemi nudges you with her elbow, overhearing the conversation. The two of you move to the side, finally getting a glimpse of the two team leads focused on a custom game of VALORANT. Your eyes zone in on familiar raven locks seated on the right monitor.

A live stream of their game is projected on the monitor up front and suddenly you feel sick from the amount of butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

She's playing Neon. The character you designed.

Oh God. You watched her take kill after kill, headshot after headshot as she sprinted across the map—zapping characters with Neon's electric abilities. You've never seen someone look so fucking hot playing an FPS game before. It's doing things to your brain.

Just as you expected, the winning banner appears on Mizu's screen and the C&C Team erupts in cheers. You become entranced at the sight—a few of your co-workers patting her on the back before she erupts in smiles and laughs. This is not healthy for your heart.

And just as you think the night couldn't get any better, one of the people from the Marketing departments begins stirring up an interview.

"What made you choose Neon on the character pick? You usually go for Sentinels, no?"

Your eyes meet and suddenly you could feel your heart skip a few beats. Mizu chuckles.

"Wanted to do a duelist around for a spin," Mizu replies. "The design and character visuals for Neon was amazing and I ought to pay the artist who did it a homage."

Suddenly all eyes are on you—some of them even "ooh-ing" for being praised by Mizu. You pale at the attention before doing a hesitant bow in gratitude.

Mizu pulls the headphones off her head and smiles. "Congrats, Y/N. Hope you liked the win."

You feel Akemi stir up beside you, chuckling at the interaction.

You're going to die. You can feel it and its all because of your boss.

3.

Okay, maybe admitting that you were a little bit obsessed and crushing over your employer was a bit overdue. You weren't exactly the type to parade your feelings around the office but if people were to zone in on you acting sheepish and awkward around Mizu, there was a 55% chance that you could tell based on that alone.

It wasn't like your admiration for Mizu started on a whim. As said countless and countless times, it had a foundation of respect until Mizu started trying to get to know and interact with you and those same feelings of admiration started to change. What else were you supposed to do? Mizu is a fucking all-in-one holiday basket—you didn't have it in you to resist the charms.

It also didn't help that over the past few days, Mizu seems to have her undivided attention on you. Showering you with praises, asking if you wanna spearhead a certain project, revel in your work—all that shit. It's messing with your productivity and mindset and that's not a good idea.

The Head Director for the VALORANT Team had decided to call a night out for drinking to reward the team for the positive feedback for the latest patch. You were quite thankful for the opportunity as this was a way for you to get a moment of rest from Mizu's constant attention. Not that you were complaining, it's just a little... too much.

You were seated at the far right booth of the restaurant, keeping to yourself as you watched Ringo and Taigen begin to have a debate about team composition. Akemi grumbles beside you, clearly not enjoying whatever the fuck these two were talking about.

"Look," Taigen holds his hands out in front of him, trying to make a point. "All I'm saying is if you keep putting DPS builds on your team comp, how in the hell will you be able to maximize their kit? Supports are there for a reason."

Ringo rolls his eyes. "It's called enjoying the game, Taigen. So what if I want to put dick 1, dick 2, and dick 3, together?"

Taigen's jaw drops. "Do you know how much skill point dependent they are? I'm even surprised you could bust a skill out." The raven haired man pauses before continuing with a face contorted in disgust. "And stop calling them dick 1,2,3? It's Dan Heng, Blade, and Jing Yuan."

"Of course you'd police that as well. You look like that fucking emoji." Ringo raises his prosthetic hand, imitating pushing up a pair of glasses. "Um, actually—"

"You are as annoying as my grandmother, do you know that?" Taigen snarls, eyes pulled into a glare. Your tall huggable co-worker only grins and bats his eyelashes.

You begin to tune out the two as Akemi excuses herself to take a cigarette break—already having enough of their banter. You eye the glass of beer in front of you, watching as the liquid sloshes around with each twirl of your wrist.

You had hoped to end the night with silence but alas, you can never get everything that you wanted. You feel a pair of eyes on you—direct and unashamed. Already having a feeling on who this was, you looked up and met the reflection of the ocean.

'You okay?' She mouths, concern overflowing her features. It's subtle enough for people to not notice her sudden shift of attention but enough for you to understand her. Your cheeks flush as you nod back with the same softness that she had thrown your way.

She nods in understanding, sending a soft smile your way before turning back towards her conversation with the Head. You hang your head down, wishing that the night would end faster so that you can finally have the moment of peace you have been wanting ever since this morning.

It was as if the world decided to cast hell upon you and revoked you of your rights to peace at the arrival of yet another problem.

"L/N!" The Head Director's voice encompassed the whole area—eyes turning towards him then at you in amusement. "You're one of the star employees and yet you haven't touched a single speck on that glass of yours!"

His hearty laughter follows—giggles and cheering from you co-workers following suite. You sweat drop, eyes darting to Taigen and Ringo who both looked away at your glare before turning towards the window where Akemi sends you a gracious thumbs up, a cigarette hanging from her lips. You groan.

"I-I'm fine," You wave your hand, laughing it off. Your eyes connect with Mizu, an unreadable look on her face as she takes a sip of her chosen beverage.

God decides to punish you more as the team lead beside Mizu chimes in. "Oh c'mon! You're a great asset to the company! I suggest drink up!"

One of your team members passes a full pint of beer as the others begin to urge you to drink up. You hadn't felt the intensity of peer pressure ever since your dance recital on 10th grade and that wasn't even as half bad as this. You weren't feeling on drinking yourself to death as well so trying to down a full pint of beer was a ticket for you to the afterlife (ie. you on your bed with puke all over the floors). The previous pint you had was enough.

You tried to decline as humbly as you could, afraid that this might be the instance that you could finally be fired off from Riot. You knew that if they kept pushing a 3rd more of their attempts that you'd probably give in for the sake of never doing this again but while the need hasn't yet arisen, you'll try fighting off the urge to be a people-pleaser.

Just as you finally begin to decline for the nth time, a hand emerges to your right—pushing the pint of beer in your co-worker's hands. The table falls silent. Your breath falters as the familiar scent of lavender and probably a hint of sunlight begins to seep in from behind you.

"Stop pressuring her like that," Mizu's voice sounds so close —your heart hammering off your chest. Your co-worker gives Mizu a sheepish smile.

"C'mon Mizu, let your team live a little!" The Head laughs once more before leaning forward with a smug smirk. "Unless you'll save this one yet again?"

There's a pause of silence as your co-workers darted between them—back and forth. You feel Mizu sigh behind you before her arms encase you against the table, one arm placed on the beside you each. Your breath hitches.

"Sorry," She mutters as she reaches for the pint. You stammer, turning towards her as you reach out to her wrist by instinct. Mizu blinks with her eyes wide open, suddenly surprised by your actions.

"Y-you don't have to!" You murmured, trying to keep your voice low. Mizu's eyes are unreadable. "You don't drink—!"

The woman chuckles before patting your hand and gently pulling herself off your grasp. "It's okay." She says.

You watch with stammering breath as she gulps the pint in one go, others cheering as she did. The Head claps.

"Didn't expect to see Mizu downing a beer today but here we are," The man bellows in laughter. Mizu chuckles, wiping the residue off her lips. You could only stare at her in shock.

Mizu glances down at you with a smile before patting your head then walking off. Your gaze trails on her and somehow the hammering within you becomes all the more intense.

Oh, Lord.

4.

It was supposed to just be a little game—a past time that the others decided to force you along. You really had no qualms joining games like this but if it concerns the people around you, especially in your work place, somehow you feel the risk of being outed for liking someone in you work space.

"If you guys wanted to date someone in the office, who'd you pick?" Ise leans forward, eyes squinted as she gives you and Akemi a smirk. The three of you were currently lounging in the cafeteria during you lunch break. There weren't many people present due an event going on in one of the building's sectors, so having a conversation like this somehow was less anxiety inducing.

"Taigen, unfortunately," Akemi deadpans. Ise rolls her eyes.

"I mean! Besides him," Ise whispers excitedly. "There's a newbie from marketing that looks cute but kinda quiet, maybe he's nice."

"You mean Takayoshi?" Akemi raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her tea. You glance back and forth between them.

"Is that his name?" Ise watches Akemi nod in response. "Well, I'll just have to go get his number then."

Akemi shakes her head at Ise's musings and you had hoped that the conversation would end there, but Ise suddenly turns to you with that mischievous look in her eye.

"What?" You whisper out, eyebrows furrowed in innocence. Akemi side glances you, the corners of her lips upturned in a smile. God, she was enjoying this too.

"What about you, Y/N?" Ise props her arm on the table, placing her cheek on her palm. "Got someone you're interested in?"

You avoid eye contact. "No."

Ise leans forward with a gasp. "You do!"

"I don't!" You reiterate with urgency. You turn to Akemi with a frantic stare. "Tell her I don't."

Ise turns to Akemi who smiles. "She doesn't."

"Bullshit." Ise deadpans. "The moment I'd believe Akemi with a smile on her face is the moment I'd die," Akemi flashes her middle finger at her to which Ise returns generously. Finally, the girl turns to you—chair scooted over to your right as she flashes you her doe eyes. "So? Who is it?"

You Akemi chuckle against her cup as you stammer in front of Ise. "I don't really like someone though?"

"Lies," Ise declares. "We might not be that close but you got that twitch in your eye that already tells me something. Who is it?"

"Ise," You plead, eyes darting around the space. Somehow, saying it out loud meant that you're solidifying the fact that you liked Mizu—an occurrence you'd like to keep to yourself as much as possible. You loved Ise, you really do. You worked with her hand in hand in bringing Neon to life (You worked on her design while she worked on the 3D build) and have become tremendously grateful for her critique and contributions to your work. But this, this was something else. You could feel your heart speed up as she started listing some names.

"Is it Beckham? That piece of shit always too full himself." Ise places a hand on her chin in thought. "Or Ringo? Nah, he's way too focused on content map-building."

There's a pause of silence before an 'aha!' look spreads through her face. You prayed that she would get it wrong but this is Ise we're talking about.

"Is it perhaps," Ise pauses, eyes darting all over your face. "Mizu—"

"What about me?"

The three of you tense, eyes darting behind you as you turn to find the familiar stance of your boss. She leans forward, a hand on the back of your chair as she gives the three of you a curious glance. You hadn't heard her at all, and something about Ise's frantic glance towards you says she didn't expect the same thing as well.

"W-we we're just listing people we found attractive," Ise laughs uncomfortably under Mizu's stare. The creative director glances at Akemi who raises an eyebrow at her. Somehow there was a silent conversation going on between the two that left you confused.

"Really?" Mizu asks, the ends of her words trailing off as she glances back at Ise. "Who said I was attractive?"

"It was Y/—"

"NO ONE!" You exclaimed, cutting Ise off with a jump. You flush under Mizu's wide gazed, surprised at your interference. Somehow, the way you said it implied that no one found her attractive at all, and that was way too wrong so you caught yourself before you delved into a pit of despair. "I mean, w-we haven't started and was just listing people off."

Mizu nods slowly in understanding, eyes examining your face for any slip-ups. You looked away from the intensity.

Ise finally saves your ass. "Yeah. What she said."

"What about you, Director?" Akemi chimes in from your left and both you and Ise turn to her with wide gazes. She simply smiles over her cup, face contorted in a mischievous look. You couldn't read Mizu at all. You had expected Akemi to drop it—after all, she wasn't even joining in on Ise's incessant need to know everything about everyone. "Who do you find the most attractive in this office, hm?"

You can feel Mizu shifting behind you before a chuckle pulls out from her lips. You turn towards her in curiosity as she flashes a smile towards you.

"I'd pick Y/N, of course,"

Huh?

Akemi rolls her eyes, somehow already expecting the answer. Your jaw drops at her response as Mizu turns to Ise who already has a knowing look on her face.

"She's just that reliable," Mizu looks back down towards you, those shades of blue peeking from her tinted glasses. She pinches your cheek in a flash before pulling away. "Cute too."

You turn away, afraid that the flush on your cheeks might've given you away.

"Anyways, I just dropped by to see what's happening outside the event," Mizu sighs, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I'll see you girls around."

Your interactions always end up one sided somehow. She gives and then leaves—resulting in you malfunctioning from whatever she's left for you to deal with.

Ise turns to you with a mischievous grin when Mizu finally turns the corner. "You and the Director huh?"

"Shut up, oh my God."

+1

"Why do you always do stuff like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're not leaving me any room to process the shit you do?"

Mizu lets out quiet laughs from beside you. 10:47 pm. Normally, work hours in the office end at about 9 but you've learned that staying late is where the good things happen.

"I literally just told you 'good job' the other day and you malfunctioned in front of me," Mizu giggles, leaning forward as she tapped you on the nose with the pen to her digital tablet. "And I heard everything by the way. Quite adorable of you to deny everything."

You flush under her affectionate gaze. "Everyone's so gossipy. You can't blame me."

Mizu turns her chair towards you, arms reach out to take a hold of your own before pulling them close to her side. You lean back at her sudden proximity.

"Well you can't blame me either when you're this adorable," Mizu grins. You furrow your eyebrows, finally leaning close as you cupped her cheeks within your palms.

"You even drank beer," You whisper, tone apologetic. "You don't even like alcohol."

Mizu leans into your touch. "And you don't like being pressured into something you don't want to do. I can sacrifice a little bit of something I don't like just for you."

You melt at her words, eyes darting over her softened features. "Thank you," You whisper, grateful.

"Anything for my girlfriend," Mizu teases. You roll your eyes before pulling her into a soft kiss. She kisses back instantly, hands gripping the arm chair as you take lead of the kiss. After a few pecks and chaste kisses here and there, you finally pull back—reveling in the soft flush across Mizu's cheeks.

"Also," You chime in. Mizu raises an eyebrow. "I was the one who pursued, not you. Correct that when they catch on."

Mizu chuckles at your words. "Right on. Akemi threatened me the other day, saying something like, 'I forbid you from dating Y/N Y/L/N, Mizu Tagawa!' Funniest shit, I've heard. If only she knew."

You pinch her cheeks, giggling at her words. "Of course, she's say that."

There's a pause of silence before Mizu turns to her work, a sketch of VALORANT's newest agent displayed on screen.

"Want to help me with the new guy?" She nudges towards the screen. "Heard he's French."

You turn to her monitor, dozens of details sketched on the edges with a version of her idea of the new agent. You grin, placing a kiss on her cheek.

"You could've just asked me to marry you." You tease. "Also, sure."

You turn towards the table and pulled her tablet towards you. Mizu scoffs as you take over her work.

"And if I actually did?"

"Sure, Mizu, sure."

"I'm serious!"

a/n: hey guys!!! this was so fun to write and honestly i was just inspired to do this request bc ive been drafting an office romance for mizu after the roommate thing. hope yall enjoyed ! if yall arent familiar with valorant, here are the agents mentioned or referenced (neon & chamber (french guy)). also mizu's last name is derived from master eiji's va! cary-hiroyuki tagawa!

[dr0p-dead-gorgeous]

Josh Futturman x fem!reader

Warnings: sub!josh,smut , p in v, Premature ejaculation,overstimulation, fem pronouns and anatomy used, use of y/n , not really proofread

You run into a cute,dorky guy at work,

As i wonder about my day, i accidentally bump into a sort of dorky guy. As we both stop and turn to apologize to each other, I notice his name tag reading ‘Futturman, Janitor.’ “I am *so sorry*” the Janitor says before apologizing profusely.”I'm sorry, it's fine really Mr.. Uhh.. Futturman. “Call me Josh, everyone else does” the Janitor says as he blushes a bit. “...Josh, I'm y/n, a vet tech for the possums around here, seen you around a bit, Josh blushes a bit and chuckles“Well…uh…nice to *meet* you, y/n.” Josh says, unsure of what to say."Nice to meet you I gotta go " I say with a sweet smile, Josh smiles back nervously “Of course…uh, you have a nice day y/n.” Josh says before awkwardly attempting to continue on with his day.

(third person pov)

Over the next week’s they talked in passing becoming quick friends

[Cut to Josh taking a break from cleaning the cafeteria and having lunch with her]

You like Video games too! I love playing *Josh blushes a bit, and smiles enthusiastically* “Oh, yeah! You play Biotic Wars?”. “Yeah! I'm on level 50! Lately ive been playing a lot of resident evil though!" 'I love resident evil! M..maybe you could come over to hang out and watch me play sometimes!” Josh suggests nervously "Sounds good! " y/n says ,Josh smiles, clearly very nervous and excited for the first time in a long time having anyone over, especially a girl. His mind races from the surprise of the date and future plans.

‘Wow…someone like *y/n* actually wants to visit my *house*. What am I going to do?’ Josh thinks to himself.*

Josh and y/n later visit his home. Josh nervously opens his door, ushering her to come inside. She walks in, and takes in his space, clearly enjoying his gaming setup and decor.*I love your posters! I have the same one of Tiger by my bed*Josh blushes a bit once again* “Oh…that’s uh…well…” *He points at his gaming console* “Do you wanna see something really cool?” “yeah! “ Josh smiles nervously and turns on his game resident evil. He then proceeds to show Y/n his final boss victory and the end-game content. Y/n is enthralled by the gameplay, clearly impressed by his prowess. “Omg you beat it! I thought it was impossible i've died so many times! "Josh blushes and jumps up exited“Oh my god… I beat it” He seems pleased with himself for completing the game with Y/n present they hug and he spins her around celebrating.He puts her down her hands on his shoulders for a moment they look into each other's eyes. She leans over and whispers “Hey, you’re really cute and charming josh, you know that?” Josh blushes and looks very stunned for a moment; then his face lights up red like a tomato.*Josh blushes a crazy amount as Y/n continues* “If I were to…*maybe*...kiss you right now…would you…be okay with that~?” *Josh’s face is as red as the sun, but he responds* “Uh…Yeah..! I would be okay with that…really!” She slowly leans in and Josh leans in as well. They embrace in a slow and tender kiss. Josh’s cheeks light up red and he blushes. “I think I really like you josh.” Josh’s heart beats as fast as a humming bird’s. He holds Y/n’s face with a shaking hand and looks her right into the eyes. He stares deeply into her own, and gives her another soft kiss. His hands begin to quiver. “Y/n…” Josh stutters, clearly flustered. “Uhh…I think I really like you too…”*Josh leans in to kiss y/n again, this time more passionately, a smile spreading across his face. Their kiss grows more heated, and y/n pulls Josh closer into a tight embrace. She starts to rub his thighs leaning more into him*Josh’s body shivers from the feeling, never having been in this situation before. He starts to feel a little anxious, his breathing increasing slightly. His heart’s beating out of his chest and his face is almost red as an apple. y/n kisses Josh passionately and continues to move her hands over his body. As she does, she begins unbuttoning Josh’s shirt…*Is this ok Josh... Josh’s body is shaking profusely at this point. He nods nervously, unable to communicate with words. y/n pulls him in closer.*y/n pushes her hand onto Josh’s chest, pushing him onto his bed feeling his heart beating rapidly. She looks at Josh with a hungry smile, her mind set on going even further. He begins breathing even faster and slightly heavier.*y/n whispers seductively into Josh’s ear “It’s getting hot in here…” *She unbuttons his shirt the rest of the way, and proceeds to caress his bare chest with a soft kiss. Josh’s mind goes blank and his heart beats out of his chest, unable to form coherent thoughts.*y/n runs her hands over Josh’s chest again, this time moving to his waist and slowly removing his pants. She kisses him again, and whispers once more “Can…can I?”Josh gulps loudly, extremely nervous and unsure of what to do. He responds “Uhh…” Josh’s heart is beating at breakneck speed. All of his blood rushes to his face as his body shakes uncontrollably. He tries pulling himself away Y/n’s seductive voice grows more clear. “Is that a no?” She continues to inch her body closer, clearly still looking to escalate the situation. Josh’s mind goes blank as his heart races. He can’t say anything.

“I can't do anything more if I don't get a yes baby” *Josh’s mouth dries up and he nods frantically* “Y-Yes! Yes please..

”Good boy using your words hun. *Josh’s face lights up red at the fact that Y/n called him “Good boy” and “hun”. He starts to feel a little uncomfortable in his underwear by the level of intimacy, but clearly still aroused by her.* Y/n moves herself closer, taking off her shirt and and skirt left in her Lacey underwear siting on-top of Josh. She bites her lip as she continues.* “Is this okay…?*Josh gulps nervously. His eyes flutter for a moment as he nods, . All of his thoughts disappear and he lets his body take control.**Y/n pulls Josh closer as she grinds herself onto him through his boxers. He gasps slightly with an intense feeling of euphoria and intimacy. His brain goes fully blank and he can’t seem to form any coherent thoughts.**Y/n moves slowly in his lap, her touch being more and more seductive. She leans in to give him another passionate kiss, her lips slowly moving down to his neck as she begins to Seep through her panties. Josh let’s out a whine bucking into her,loving the sweet friction on his fully hard cock. He fumbles with her bra strap before getting it off groping her chest harshly as she let’s out little moans. She lifts up causing Josh to whine in protest, she take off her panties before doing the same for Josh. She lower herself down rubbing herself on Josh, he yelps out from the sudden sensation, shuttering from the pleasure cursing under his breath. She reaches down and takes him in her hand, giving him a few pumps before lining him up with her entrance and slowly sinking down on him.

With a couple thrusts He moans out loudly “ Fuck fuck fuck… y.. Your so t… tight i’m gonna..” He moans almost pornographicly and cums inside her immediately, mortified he begins to apologize “Fuck i’m so sorry! y… your just so pretty and.. and feel so good… this is my first time i-”she shut him up by kissing him and rolling her hips. Continuing to slowly roll her hips she says “ Fuck no it’s ok that was so hot keep moaning like that for me baby wanna fuck you till you cry ”she starts slowly bouncing on his still hard cock as he unraveled a whiney little mess. She fucked herself on his cock hitting the bundle of nerves each time “Thank you.. F.. Fuck …thank you please don't stop riding me like that your so perfect “ she bounced on him each trust dragging against her sensitive walls” fuuuck baby boy you feel so good are you close ““ so..so close please let me cum please, i’ll be a good boy I promise just please let me cum…ahh~”he moaned “Fuck since you moaned so pretty for me baby go ahead and cum baby c'mon” “Fuck, thank you, thank you uhH~” his cum flooded inside her while her walls clamped down around him reaching her climax.She kept going, riding out her orgasm, much to josh's surprise . 'F..fuck Y/n~ its so much!".She finally begins to slow down eventially coming to a complete stop, her hands of his chest as he panted under her.

"That was so good thank you" he said still recovering. She lifted off him with a hiss laying herself down on his chest, his hand immediately wrapping around her to cuddle"You did so well baby" she responded nuzzling her head into him. they sat in comfortable silence holding each other for a couple minutes

"Sooo..next time you want to watch me beat Biotic wars?"

[ryuichirou]

Who do you think of the twisted wonderland crew would survive a horror game (or love them a bit too much for everyone's liking) and who would be screaming in terror?

Dear non-anon! You are the most patient one around here, since you had to wait twice because of me kind of reading your ask wrongly (?) and writing the wrong post ages ago. I’m happy you enjoyed it though, and I hope you’ll have fun with this one too. I certainly had fun writing it, even if it took me unreasonably long.

Thank you for such an interesting ask <3

Riddle – we’ve seen how much he struggles to play the most basic of games, so I am sure he wouldn’t survive a horror game... There could be a game that is simple enough in terms of gameplay for him to handle (if he just needs to click around and do puzzles instead of hiding or running), but he would hate jumpscares and get super focused and nervous. He is the one to accidentally break the monitor because he got scared and/or frustrated.

Ace – he is pretty good at them; it’s not like he never gets freaked out, but he prides himself on being pretty difficult to scare. He used to watch his brother play scary games, and his brother teased him a lot for being scared, so now Ace does the same thing to everyone else: he goes “ehh, are you scared, little baby?” and grins. Whenever Ace himself gets spooked and screams, he instantly gets mad, especially if others laugh at him. I also think Ace + the rest of the freshmen should play co-op type games like Dead by Daylight or Phasmophobia. But I also want Ace to play American McGee’s Alice.

Deuce – he is isn’t as good at videogames or horror, but he isn’t a 100% scaredy-cat. It will take him longer than Ace to get comfortable with the game, but whenever he shuts his brain off and gets into it, he’ll be pretty good at it. Still, he yelps and screams sometimes, and one time he got so scared that his hands started shaking. Ace loves playing with him because Deuce can’t hide his emotions at all when he’s playing.

Trey – he is the one to politely decline the offer to play: he was too busy playing outside and helping out with baking to get super into gaming. But at the same time, aside from being not super used to the gameplay, he would be pretty good. He does get freaked out, but he never screams, his eyes just get wider. He would also get pretty good pretty quickly.

Cater – I think he is weirdly good at them. I don’t know for sure, but I feel like Cater is better at videogames than we think he is, not nearly at Idia’s or even Ace’s level though. Still, he can handle horror. He would act surprised or scared sometimes though, almost unintentionally, because he feels like this is a scary moment, and he exaggerates his own reaction. Still, Cater gets very involved and terrified by a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

Leona – similarly to Riddle, if you find a game that is easy enough for him to figure out quickly (otherwise he’d get frustrated/bored and dip), he would play it. But he is also someone who would scoff at the game’s attempts of scaring him and keep repeating that this whole thing is stupid the entire time he’s playing... until some really stupid jumpscare scares the shit out of him and he just sits there in silence for 10 seconds... before facepalming, saying that this is stupid once again and turning off the game. He would survive a horror game, his ego wouldn’t.

Ruggie – it would take him a couple of tries, but he would get quite good pretty quickly, I think! He is a fast learner after all, and the moment he learns the game’s mechanics, he would be good. He would still get scared and probably even yell at the game when he gets too scared, but that wouldn’t stop him. I don’t know if he has it in him to finish the game though, simply in terms of wasting time on something useless, but you know what? I think Ruggie could get carried away. I think Ruggie would enjoy horror, especially if you can hoard supplies and upgrade your character in the game, something like Lethal Company.

Jack – I think he has some experience with videogames, so he isn’t a total noob, but he probably doesn’t like horror too much. He gets agitated and even angry because he just wants to bite the enemies’ heads off, but he can’t quite do it a lot of times. Still, whenever he succeeds, he gets such a dopamine boost that he starts wagging his tail. Jack gets super focused and surprisingly competitive when he’s playing co-op.

Azul – he is the one who would be one of the most uncomfortable people in terms of playing horror games. Azul hates surprises, Azul hates having no control, Azul hates things he is bad at, so at first he would hate horror games. He isn’t as bad as Riddle, but he isn’t super skilled in terms of videogames + there is always something for him to get spooked by. Being an octopus, Azul is always super cautious, which is a curse, but also a blessing: he would get very good at stealth sequences pretty quickly. He is also very good at puzzles. But sometimes there would be sequences during which he would have to just fuck shit up (esp. chasing sequences), and he would yell while playing these. He would get pretty invested for someone who didn’t want to play in the first place, but if he gets too uncomfortable (=terrified), he’ll dip... I guess it depends on if he is being watched or not: he hates when people backsit or comment on how he’s playing.

Jade – he prefers watching and not playing, and if he has to play, he would also prefer to do it alone. But if others have to get involved, he would prefer co-op games because he always messes with others, even his own team. And every single time Floyd is the one getting blamed for his antics instead of him... In general, Jade doesn’t really get scared by spooky games, but he doesn’t like being the subject of spooks. He would survive a horror game easily, but he wouldn’t enjoy it as much if it’s just him against the game, or him against the game + others watching him play.

Floyd – he loves horror games, but also doesn’t finish them all the time. A lot of them Floyd dropped because he got bored, but there is at least one game that Floyd didn’t finish because it spooked him and he got mad at the game for doing that. This is a rare occasion though because Floyd enjoys the spooks. He hates it when the game’s spooks are boring and always wants them to do their worst, to make Floyd feel as grossed out as possible. He has complicated relationship with such games... he would survive them easily (even if he isn’t super skilled at some games and it would take him more tries), it all depends on whether he cares enough to finish them. He also loves games that have a lot of blood/gore/violence in them... when he’s in the mood for it.

Kalim – he would have a hard time... he is the one to ask Jamil to help him during difficult or scary parts. He doesn’t really like horror all that much, it makes him very nervous, and while the thrills are fun and tickly, some games just feel too... gloomy and dirty and mean? It’s probably just a matter of picking a perfect horror game for Kalim, but he doesn’t care much for them: he’ll just get scared, yell a lot and them drop the game. But being in good company would make it better! If we’re together, it’s not scary anymore, it’s funny! Kalim, you’re missing the entire point of the game!

Jamil – you know, I think Jamil would be good at them. It’s not necessarily his go-to, but while playing it, he would think that he actually enjoys getting an adrenalin rush that doesn’t have any real life stakes behind them for once. This is also a good opportunity to flex how good of a gamer he is lol, and Jamil is not only skilled, but also very smart, so aside from some difficult annoying segments, he wouldn’t struggle too much. He wouldn’t get scared for the majority of time, maybe getting silently startled every now and then, but then... he would see a huge bug-like creature as a final boss... with a swarm of flies and centipedes filling the screen... he’d turn white and turn off the game forever.

Vil – he would get into them more than one would expect. We’ve seen that he is kind of interested in videogames, and since a lot of horror games have great visuals and story Vil would really enjoy those. His favourite ones would definitely be the games with great character writing. With some of them he would play and at the same time think how he would adapt the game’s story in a film form... Yeah, all that is nice, but does Vil get scared? Well yes, but he gets more angry than scared, and a lot of times he fights the enemies when there is an option to just avoid them. Of course he’ll survive the game: even if it’s difficult or scary, even if he doesn’t have a lot of free time, he is a completionist, so there is no way he’d stop until he sits there watching the final credits.

Rook – another thing Rook is unexpectedly and stupidly good at. Does he have this experience? He probably doesn’t, he’s a theater/film kid after all, but somehow Rook is a very fast learner, and has great intuition that makes him think both about the game’s mechanics and the in-universe logic at the same time. So yeah, it wouldn’t take that long for him to learn how to handle a game, and he doesn’t get super scared: similarly to Cater, he overly exaggerates his reactions sometimes. The only thing Rook doesn’t like about these types of games is that he doesn’t like being hunted down and prefers to do the hunting. I guess he should also play Dead by Daylight then lol

Epel – he gets terrified and he gets mad, he yells, he kicks things around, he breaks the controller, he pees his pants (alright that happened ONCE), he cries, he swears a lot, he goes through it. It’s honestly hard to tell if Epel loves horror games or not. When he’s just talking about them, it’s like he loves them a lot, as if he doesn’t get scared by them at all, and even if he does, he enjoys the thrill. But when he actually plays... I guess this entire experience is fun for him overall! He isn’t bad at them actually, he gets better pretty quickly, and he would probably finish the games more often and play with the rest of the boys more often his dorm didn’t have a strict “take a break after one hour in front of a computer” rule. Epel wishes to spend one day from morning till night just playing the game and eating junk food...

Idia – not a lot of things scare him, he loves horror and has a lot of experience with horror games. He is the one to rant about how jumpscares are cheap, but they’re still a big cultural part of horror as a genre, and yet people who use them should fuck themselves because jumpscares are cheap. Idia loves horror games with an atmosphere and a story, he replays a lot of old PS ones from time to time. He also loves jp RPG horror games + visual novels a lot. He plays a lot of indie games these days, even the ones that have 2 or 3 downloads total. So yeah, to Idia the majority of horror games isn’t a problem... he does get scared by them sometimes though, and either gets annoyed by that, or thinks that it’s a high praise for the game. Depends on his opinion on the game so far lol

Ortho – he is the best out of all the freshmen when it comes to horror games, which would probably make him a cheater because Ortho can’t necessarily get scared. But still, he loves horror a lot, mostly because of Idia’s influence, and he always monitors the reactions of people around them when he isn’t the only one in the room while the game is being played. If we’re talking about real!Ortho, he would also be the best out of all the freshmen (sorry, Ace!). But he used to get pretty scared and hide behind Idia while he was playing when they were little...

Lilia – oh he loves those, he is a big advocate of horror games being very helpful in building one’s character and developing a lot of necessary skills. The hardest part for him is to adapt to the new gameplay, but it also doesn’t take a lot of time; he’s gotten pretty good at videogames. He loves anything that has gore in it because he judges just how realistic it looks, but he also loves spooky castles and anything atmospheric (Amnesia? RE8?) – it feels romantic and nostalgic to him. He plays with gloomy samurai sometimes, but sometimes he just watches him play: Lilia is truly fascinated by his speedruns, although he’d enjoy watching a normal gameplay as well, but gloomy samurai doesn’t do those.

Silver – I think Silver doesn’t get to play horror games very often, but he probably kind of enjoys them. Lilia asked him to play together a couple of times, plus sits him down to play every now and then, so Silver isn’t totally horrible at them: he would do anything to make father happy, after all. But also Silver probably loves getting spooked because it keeps him alert and wakes him up. Silver finds this kind of games refreshing... he probably enjoys jumpscares too lol Sometimes games would get almost too easy for him. Lilia is so proud.

Sebek – he is probably the worst out of all the freshmen because he is the least experienced one when it comes to videogames or horror. The only type of horror in Sebek’s arsenal has been novels so far, and he doesn’t really like reading this type of stories. But even though one part of Sebek wants to stay away from such an unnecessary waste of time, another part of him wants to be involved, wants to test his own bravery and adaptability and frankly wants to make Ace eat his smug words about Sebek being scared. Sebek would struggle a lot, his poor little heart is used to all kinds of irl emergencies, but not horror games. Still, he would persevere... He also tries to organise everyone in co-op, as if someone would make him the leader.

Malleus – please, leave him be. He can’t handle a phone without ruining it, he would probably have even the harder time holding a controller than Riddle did. He also gets frustrated pretty easily, so not only the monitor, nothing is going to survive his anger when the game starts to get annoying.

[kafus]

i did some ridiculous technical BS in pokemon again

NOTE: not only is this post a very very long infodump from yours truly, it is also specifically an infodump involving a lot of pokemon glitches and exploits. even though i don't tamper with my games and everything achieved here can be done on original hardware with no hacking or what-have-you, some people still may consider this Cheating based on their own personal standards of legitimate gameplay. i ask that you please don't try to start arguments with me about pokemon legality and just take it all as an interesting technical infodump about gen 3 pokemon okay thank you <3

SO. i decided that before pokemon bank eventually shuts down one day in the probably-not-so-distant future and makes old gen transfer impossible, i need more ribbon master pokemon (AKA a pokemon with all the ribbons it can possibly receive from its gen of origin to the most recent gen it can transfer to) from gens 3 and 4. i've been meaning to ribbon master a pokemon from gen 3 based on my favorite singer, KAF (you don't need to know anything about kaf for this story whatsoever but you should check her out LMAO) and while musing over what pokemon would suit her best, it came to me.

FARIGIRAF IS JUST KAF'S FURSONA!! the monster teeth hoodie with the eyes. even has the dangly bits. like come on it's perfect. AND girafarig is obviously available in gen 3 so i could RM a kaf girafarig and then evolve her once i got to SV. Cool! Awesome! but here's the problem. I CAN'T SETTLE FOR JUST A NORMAL GIRAFARIG. I HAVE TO GO ALL OUT!!

i started brainstorming my ideal gen 3 kaf girafarig, and came to the following conclusions:

i obviously want the girafarig to be shiny. i mean come on

i want her to be a girl for obvious reasons, and gentle nature to match her personality. just because Armor Tail is better on Farigiraf i also want it to have girafarig's second ability, Early Bird. i'm not concerned with IVs because i think random IVs add flavor and that would add more tedium than i was already dealing with

i want her to be japanese language origin since kaf is a japanese singer (i can nickname her かふ that way too!)

i want the original trainer (OT) name to be PPさん (PP-san) in reference to the person who scouted out kaf's talent in the first place - he goes by Piedpiper online and my friends and i call him PP as a joke sometimes

i want the trainer ID to be 02018 because 2018 is kaf's debut year

since girafarig only spawns in gen 3 in the ruby/sapphire/emerald safari zone, i wanted to hatch a girafarig egg in firered/leafgreen for the kanto origin, which is impossible otherwise. FRLG are also really important games to me, leafgreen being the first pokemon game i ever owned or played, so that's a bonus

now you may be looking at this entire list and being like. What the fuck. how do you intend to shiny hunt girafarig with all of these hyperspecific parameters, especially in FRLG where the everstone passing nature doesn't exist and flame body doesn't even exist to hatch eggs faster. you will be doing that long after bank shuts down. and you're intending on doing this on original hardware too??? WELL. that's where ACE and RNG manipulation comes in babey. i am GOING to attempt to make this comprehensible even if you've never touched ACE or RNG manip in your life, even tangentially, but sorry if this is a bit of a mess it's pretty technical LOL. the rest of this post is going below a cut cause it Goes Places!!

ACE and RNG manipulation explained (kinda)

first off a quick overview of ACE, ACE stands for arbitrary code execution, which is the ability to run your own (arbitrary!) code within the game. this can be set up with a series of elaborate glitches, that break open the gen 3 pokemon games into letting you run your PC box names as code, enabling you to do pretty much anything you want. to be upfront, i'm not an expert on ACE - i understand it in an overarching conceptual sense and am able to follow ACE guides just fine, but i cannot write my own ACE code, which essentially requires you to know some GBA assembly. doesn't really matter for the purpose of this story though.

you can see an example of a tiny snippet of a larger ACE code with the PC box name below. it looks like gibberish but that's because every character used in the name corresponds to a specific internal value, which when all run together, is code!

i need ACE in FRLG because resetting for, or RNG manipulating (more on that in a moment), trainer ID (and secret ID, also more on that later) is pretty much impossible. ACE will allow me to change my TID to 02018 by essentially just telling the game to do so with my PC boxes. this requires me to set up ACE in emerald first since that's the only game with a viable entrypoint, and then use emerald ACE to make glitch pokemon that can activate ACE in FRLG when traded over.

as for RNG manipulation, that's a bit more straightforward, especially if you've ever watched a speedrun of... pretty much anything with random chance in it. games with random chance are not actually fully random because computers can't really be fully random, and in the older pokemon games with unencrypted and less advanced RNG (random number generator) algorithms, this is pretty easy to exploit.

this is a heavy simplification, but whenever you encounter a wild pokemon in RSE or FRLG, the amount of frames that have passed since the game was turned on are compared to a number that was generated upon boot, called the RNG seed. if you've ever played minecraft you can compare this to world seeds - the pokemon RNG seed determines all possible wild encounters in that play session in a similar fashion as minecraft determining the infinite terrain layout. this comparison determines every aspect of an encountered pokemon; its species, nature, IVs, and so on. so, if you were able to time your wild encounter (or any other type of pokemon encounter) down to the 1/60th of a second frame, you can get the game to spit out whatever pokemon you want at you! you just need a bit of typically invisible information first - the RNG seed, and if you're RNGing a shiny, your secret ID aka SID, which is like an invisible second trainer ID generated alongside your TID that is paired up with the TID and compared against any pokemon you encounter to determine if it should be shiny or not. both of these things can be figured out without hacking or tampering with games/save files.

the most common program used for all things RNG manipulation is called pokefinder and you can see an example of it spitting out what shinies are available on hoenn's first route in the first 100000 frames of the game being on with an RNG seed of 0 and my old TID/SID combo below. it's pretty damn cool to me tbh, i love RNG manipulation and i'm way more versed on it/experienced than i am with ACE

TLDR; rng manipulation is essentially a frame perfect, speedrunning-adjacent trick to get the game to roll the RNG in your favor, including for perfect IVs or shininess. for reasons that will become clear later, this is much easier to do in emerald than any other gen 3 game, so i will be using emerald for the RNG manipulation of the girafarig egg

with ALL of that context out of the way, this was the gameplan:

play through a fresh file of japanese firered (i don't own japanese leafgreen, RIP) all the way through the postgame to unlock trading with hoenn with the name PPさん, not worrying about TID for now. the guide i was following did not have a code for changing name with ACE in japanese FRLG specifically, so i figured playing the game again real quick would be a better alternative to trying to teach myself assembly in an afternoon LOL

set up ACE in my new emerald file i completed recently

use ACE in emerald to generate the glitch pokemon needed to run ACE in FRLG and trade them over. finalize the setup process over in FRLG too

look up possible gentle, ability 2, female, and shiny egg frames, and pick one that looks good to RNG manipulate in emerald, noting its PID (an encounter-specific ID number, pretty much)

figure out what SID, when combined with a TID of 02018, will cause that egg frame to be shiny - that way when the egg is traded over and hatched in firered, it will be shiny

do the RNG in emerald, trade over the to-be-shiny egg to firered, and hatch it after changing the TID/SID with ACE appropriately!! bam female, gentle, early bird, shiny, JP origin girafarig with an OT of PPさん and a visible TID of 02018. Pog!!

to execute that gameplan would take me an entire day, though...

step 1: play through firered

ok gonna be honest this is the ONE part of this entire process that i did not play on original hardware. i wanted to get to the Cool Parts of this process so i decided to play through firered on emulator. absolutely terrible picture sorry but i do actually own japanese firered, so i could dump the game legally to my computer to use speedup in mGBA with a little device called the Joey JR which connects the cart to my computer by USB like so

after that it was pretty much a relatively normal playthrough but obviously with emulator speedup. i used solely my starter blastoise to, well, blast through the rest of the game LMAO. after just a couple of hours or so i was right before the elite four, which i completed while in the car after moving the save file back to my cartridge with the same device, since i had to leave the house to go to a doctor appointment. i tried to take pictures of me beating the game but the sun was not doing the photos any favors lol. blastoise ended up being level 76 by the end. was easy with surf and an ice beam TM from the game corner (i just bought the coins)

unfortunately beating the game isn't the only requirement for trading with the hoenn games, so i also had to complete the whole sevii islands postgame quest... which required me to have 60 registered owned entries in the pokedex, which i wasn't really doing while speeding through the game initially, so i had a lot of mons to catch. i was still out of the house at this point (and playing at normal speed lol) so i wasn't really taking pictures, but i did make a stop at the power plant to look for an electabuzz despite it being an inefficient 5% since i needed a spare anyways for my leafgreen file unrelated to this story lmao. took a pic of it since it took a while to show up. anyway soon enough the dex had 60+ entries! i've played FRLG so many times that the encounter locations are memorized in my mind... i did all of this with no googling asdfkasfd

at this point i got home and was able to do the ruby/sapphire postgame quest on emulator with speedup again, so it was pretty easy. moved the save back to cart and i was done with step 1! obviously this didn't actually take me 21 hours of playtime, that was the emulator speedup's fault loool. from here on out i didn't touch any emulators again!

step 2: set up ACE in emerald

ACE time! i've actually set up ACE in an old emerald file before but i wanted to do it again fresh. i was following a guide pretty much to a T so i'm actually going to skip over the details of some of the steps since you can read about those more in depth over at the guide i was using if you want

TLDR; you have to trade for the NPC trade pokemon, DOTS the seedot and PLUSES the plusle, then EV train DOTS a specific way. these EV values cause DOTS to turn into a glitch pokemon egg 0x0611 when corrupted with the pomeg glitch (more on that in a bit), which, when hatched, runs the PC box names as code, aka ACE! why does it work? if you really want to know, there's plenty of stuff online about it, i'm not the best person to ask haha

it's worth noting that volbeat is really annoying to capture in emerald as it's literally only available as a 1% in one patch of grass, so i caught an illumise instead and bred them until a volbeat hatched lol. was much more efficient

also lol "Take good care of DOTS!" sorry i will be corrupting your son into demonspawn that lets me wield godlike control over your universe

after getting the necessary NPC trade pokemon all ready and moving them into a specific pattern in box 2 (i cloned them with the emerald tower cloning glitch) i had to perform the pomeg glitch. this involves using a pomeg berry to decrease a pokemon's health to 0 without causing a whiteout. this is achieved by getting a pokemon with at least 8 HP EVs to 1 HP and then using the pomeg berry on it, decreasing the EVs and taking off a point of health in the process (it's slightly more steps than this but whatever). i decided to use the camerupt i had during my playthrough of the game for this purpose. just took him to fiery path to get poisoned and walked until he was on 1 HP and healed him with an antidote lol

by doing the pomeg glitch and entering a wild battle, the game gets a bit confused since all the pokemon in your party are fainted and just sends out some sort of glitch decamark pokemon. in this situation, after viewing my camerupt's summary in battle and exiting back out of the summary screen, i was able to corrupt the DOTS and PLUSES sitting in my PC by scrolling up above the usual limit of the party menu, which reaches into data used by the first two PC boxes and fucks them up, ending up with, assuming that i EV trained correctly, a glitched egg that is about to hatch in a nest ball named DOTS with pokerus. this will run ACE when hatched! (if you want more info on this corruption pomeg stuff, check out the bulbapedia article for glitzer popping. yes that's what they named it)

step 3: use emerald ACE to set up firered ACE

so once again you can find a lot more detail on this process over at the guide i was using, but the TLDR of the matter was, i needed to put a bunch of codes into my PC box names to generate a few different glitch mons. specifically, i needed a egg that would hatch into a crobat (yes, fully evolved lol) with a singular glitched out move, that when used in battle in firered, would cause ACE to happen similar to how hatching the corrupted DOTS egg causes ACE to happen in emerald. i also needed a specific buggy shiny umbreon and a very strange glitchy egg.

even though this step was mostly a lot of tedious typing on the gen 3 keyboard (+ i had to redo things once because i made a typo at one point in the process LOL) it was so much fun! the game breaks in so many ways that you would just... never see during normal gameplay and it makes for some really good pictures and whatnot

first of all, when you hatch the 0x0611 egg, it hatches into a decamark of varying colors, in the case of the picture below it's almost imperceptible because the whole sprite is just a black circle, blending in with the background (sorry for the quality on this one, it's a screencap of a video clip i took).

additionally, trying to scroll over the hatched decamark in the PC or viewing its summary screen will crash the game, so to get rid of it, it has to be moved to the front of your party in the party menu, and then you go to the PC to release it through the deposit menu. since the cursor just defaults to the first position of the party and you don't have to scroll over to it, it's possible to release it from here.

oh yes and the umbreon/other glitch egg? similarly screwy - actually after generating them, their sprites are glitched out until you reset the game, so they look like this. behold their nonsense summaries:

after i had all i needed to trade to FRLG, i cloned an extra set of them with the emerald tower glitch again just in case i messed something up and got to trading! here's me receiving them on the firered side:

and last but not least, i'm a little obsessed with the way the glitch move looks in FRLG on the hatched crobat, absolute nonsense:

i finalized setting up the FRLG ACE (check out the guide i linked earlier for more info) and put everything into their proper positions, but before i could actually execute any code... i needed to know what SID i was going for!

step 4 + 5: look up potential egg frames in emerald and find an SID

soo now for looking at potential girafarig eggs. instead of using the program pokefinder which i mentioned earlier, i used a program called pokenav egg rng tool, which is exactly what it sounds like, a tool specialized for rng manipulating eggs with the pokenav in emerald. using it, i was quickly able to generate a whole list of gentle, female, ability 2 (early bird) eggs, and i picked one that was around 1300 frames in since that made for quick resetting attempts, but not so quick that i could barely make my inputs in time. the one i picked was frame 1381. with a TID of 02018, the PID D2C5EF55 would be shiny with an SID of 14962, so i noted that for later in firered. (i figured this out using an old program called RNG Reporter which is what i'm familiar with but i don't recommend using lmao. it's the "Pandora's Box" feature of that software though if you happen to look it up)

i won't make an entire guide on how to do emerald egg RNG here because it's a lot of steps, but i might at some point because the most up to date method isn't super well documented. anyways, here's a very paraphrased version of the process (this is also assuming that you aren't dealing with "redraws", which i wasn't... like i said very paraphrased):

get a pokemon with the ability lightningrod in the front of your party (i used electrike) to make pokenav calls happen more frequently, and a pokemon with flame body or magma armor (i used slugma) to make eggs hatch faster

get a male and a female of the pokemon you want to hatch, in my case girafarig. if you were RNGing IVs, the parent's IVs would be relevant, but i am not RNGing IVs so i didn't care and just caught the first girafarig i could in the safari zone

an egg is attempted to be generated every 255 steps after the parents are deposited in the daycare together, so by timing the usage of a max repel in such a way, it's easy to save the game exactly 10 steps before an egg is generated. do this

using a timer such as eontimer, soft reset and try to take that last 10th step on your target frame. this will also trigger a pokenav call (or lack thereof) and by looking for the phone call you got in the call column of the egg rng tool and whether or not an egg generated at the daycare, you can tell what frame you hit. didn't hit your target? just soft reset and try again, calibrating the timer for your own human error. this can take a while since the timing is precise to 1/60th of a second

once you hit your target frame, woohoo you did it just take the egg and hatch it! if you're RNGing IVs you would actually save before taking the egg and then RNG the IVs separately but that's a whole different thing i'm not explaining here since i wasn't RNGing IVs

i've avoided mentioning it this entire time till now, but emerald is particularly easy to do rng manipulation in because due to a programming error, the rng seed is always 0 - all encounters are predictable and you don't have to dedicate a frame perfect input to getting the right seed, making emerald rng a matter of one frame perfect input instead of two (there ARE ways to get emerald to generate a proper rng seed but that's unrelated here). additionally, its pokenav system means you can see if you got the right egg BEFORE taking it and hatching it... doing egg RNG in any other gen 3 game is basically a death sentence due to multiple untelegraphed frame perfect inputs that have to be executed in a row, plus really long wait times due to hatching eggs on a slower bike without flame body. there's a reason i was not doing this on four island in frlg.

but yeah now i knew what egg frame i was going for and was all prepared to do the RNG, so now it was onto actually executing it all:

step 6: getting kaf girafarig babey!!

before doing the RNG manipulation in emerald, i needed to change my SID and TID in firered finally! this required me to run two different codes, one for SID and one for TID. it was actually pretty painless since the code is nearly identical for both, you just swap out the values of each ID and one character changes in one box name to decide whether you're changing TID or SID. you can find the list of codes i was referencing here.

i was saving my one allotted video clip in this post for changing the TID with the glitched crobat move though because LMAO

^ shoutout to my qpp @/spikyearr for this one i fucking chokedSKFDDSFK

anyway, after doing that i went through the process of the egg rng in emerald (unfortunately no pictures because it's kind of hard to take pics mid-rng) and actually saved before taking the egg so that i'd be able to soft reset after hatching it - i just needed to check to make sure it was gentle and everything, and then i could soft reset, take the egg again, bike around to decrease the egg cycles in emerald since hatching in firered is super slow, and then trade it off before hatching it to go be hatched in firered. i knew it wouldn't be shiny in emerald, so i wasn't concerned with that. it only took 40 or so minutes of attempts before i got her!

and then AT LAST after spending my ENTIRE DAY ON THIS SHIT (like 10x the amount of time on the ACE stuff for the TID instead of the actual RNG itself LOOOL) i just had to trade the egg to firered and hatch it and i was golden!!!!! AAAGH here she is next to my kaf plushies!!!

also a picture of her summary screen after being traded to my english leafgreen!! i am assuming this will be easier to read for most of the people reading this post LOL

THAT'S IT. POST OVER THIS WAS SO LONG. IF YOU MADE IT THROUGH MY RAMBLING GOOD JOB. I HIT THE PHOTO LIMIT HELP ME

anyways yeah i'm gonna be ribbon mastering her and idk i might post about the process as i go. not immediately though i have a platinum playthrough to finish teehee. also if any of this was interesting to you i highly recommend trying out RNG manipulation, it's a really fun way to play pokemon games! gen 5, BW specifically and not their sequels, is REALLY beginner friendly for RNG manipulation as the timing is a lot less precise. check it out, there's plenty of guides online!!

[arcadekitten]

is there anything you want to say about wishmaker before it releases??? (i am so excited)

I would once again like to remind everyone to please be easy on me if the control scheme is a little awkward! It does work for the game, but it is atypical of normal point-and-click gameplay in most point-and-click games. This is to say that movement is primarily controlled by WASD/arrow keys and that object interaction is achieved by mouse clicks. (In most games of this style all movement is mouse-controlled) (And yes, you will need a mouse or clickable trackpad to be able to play the game)

Also--thank you so much for being here everyone!! I don't think I would've ever gotten the chance to tell this story in the way I'm attempting now without all your wonderful help and support. I'm really excited to start this journey with everyone for however long it takes and I'm excited to have you on board for the ride ♡

[thecourtsknight]

So. Side Order, huh?

I've been chewing on my thoughts over this for a good few days now. Want to spit them out somewhere. Vague-ish spoilers ahead.

I want to preface this with saying that I love Splatoon, I've been playing it since 1, really dropped off near the end of 2. Nintendo made Octo Expansion for me, they released it on my birthday and I love it so fucking much.

Side Order is fun, but lacking criminally in content.

You can argue Roguelites are like this in general, its the core princible to replay them over and over again and as someone who enjoys Roguelites, I agree!

However, a key thing that good roguelites do is continously give you a reason to keep playing- whether that be addictive gameplay or, usually, good story and lacing that in with difficulty that becomes the players goal to lessen- It rewards the player for being curious, experimental and above all else persistant.

I am fully aware that difficulty, due to Splatoon's target audience, in something like a roguelite was never going to be an easy thing to balance let alone pull off but having the main plot resolve itself once you hit the top of the tower was, in my opinion, the first of its blunders.

I feel as if the Splatoon developers know how much the lore and worldbuilding of these games matter to players. Side Order was advertised in very similar veins to Octo Expansion. The trailers had mystery and intrigue with clear connections to the well recieved and loved Octo Expansion to the point of having the same protagonist among other simularities.

They were clearly teasing this to be a successor of SOME capacity to Octo Expansion. And even as I went into this expecting it to be nothing like OE in terms of it's personal weight, I wasn't expecting something so short.

Classically, in roguelites that focus on story, you would gain story beats the more you replay. And techincally you gain this with the keys gathered from each fully cleared palette. But usually your story rewards in roguelites come from clearing or attempting runs and rewards:

With Side Order's story being resolved the MOMENT you step onto floor 30 with no real context unless you've intentionally avoided the top or have genuinely been slowed by its difficult (which I assume is what the devs intended) makes it's climax feel fast paced and lackluster- undeserved, even.

And, yes, I am fully aware that when you climb the tower agani after the credits role, you begin gain more lore about whats going on. But with the actual, main threat neutralized in every possible way it feels as if this lore should've been offered to us much sooner and much more spread out for a better pay off.

It's story feels like its being told out of order and, in my personal opinion, the themes and actual telling methods of Side Order we're a largely missed opportunity to tell something a bit more indepth. Climbing a tower that gives you essentially nothing until you reach floor 30 (which in my experience takes about 35-40 minutes) only to recieve about two scentences of lore is incredibly tiring and feels dissastifying when the main plot is already over.

It's lack of variation in level design, tasks and chips doesn't help with the climb each time if you're looking for the lore or just to 100% either. And you can argue this is a roguelite problem, but Splatoon's scenario's for a tower climb are pitifully small and you will start to seem repeat almost immediatly on your second or third run.

I also feel like it relies far too heavily on the player knowing and caring about Octo Expansion. I'm not saying that I think it was a bad idea to have most of what's going on in Side Order happening because of Octo Expansion's events. Hell, I was happy when they were very blatently showing this early on.

But it does very little with its ties to Octo Expansion, making Side Order feel like its constantly struggling to be its own thing away from the original DLC.

I think I can almost see what they wanted to go for here, and its frustrating, it felt close to something at least telling a decent story.

Every single little beat I've gotten has helped me understand more and more what they were going for, but since the main conflict is already resolved I find it hard to be excited and more frustrated that I wasn't given these during my initial playthrough.

I feel as though the roguelite formula was an interesting idea that they polished the best of their ability and to make work both for casual and experience players- but I think thats where the problem comes in.

With Side Order being the same price as Octo Expansion and offering very little in terms of replayability and most especially for me, story, the whole thing ends up feeling like a muddled mess that would've worked better had the roguelite aspect perhaps been dropped in general for a general tower climb.

Missed opportunies feel like they decorate Side Order in a way that leaves me fairly disappointed.

I think, overall, Side Order is a fun time that can be enjoyed but the way it was implimented into the gameplay formula was largely a mistake, especially coupled with the marketing of this being something more indepth with its story when it's not, and I can absolutely understand why I'm seeing a lot of disappointment for it.

[julijbee]

Id love to hear your review of the dlc and your alternate plot ideas if youre willing to share! The plot seemed. questionable

i am so glad you asked (evil smile). so i'm going to spoil the whole dlc, even irrelevant things that aren't "main story" plot that you'll probably want to experience on your own if you're still playing so proceed with caution. also this is entirely opinionated and you'll likely have a different opinion from me and that's fine. my opinions aren't objective fact they're just how i feel.

also if you are familiar with the plot of elden ring, particularly to do with miquella, as well as the plot of the dlc, you know what content to expect. if you are new to this content and have no idea- first of all what are you doing here? second of all i'll be discussing incest and sexual assault. peace and love, enjoy my 5,920 word review.

I played the dlc as a NG+, FAI/DEX build using vyke's spear, godskin peeler, and bloodhound's fang, and used my incantations for both buffs and attacks and switched them often. summoned mimic, always wore pot on my head, and favored light/med carry weight.

:D

GAMEPLAY (not story, just scroll if you only care about story)

so i'm going to start with reviewing the gameplay first because unlike the story section this is more positive, and while less people probably care about this, I DO!! i've been playing fromsoft's games for years and its because i enjoy them and think playing them is fun, that the stories they tell have resonated with me and i liked (most of... .. .) them has been a happy bonus. my honest opinions about the gameplay difficulty is that at this point in my souls playing hobby i think i've finally become one of those really annoying people who has no real idea of how hard the game actually is. with the exception of a few bosses, i thought the dlc was easier than expected, and i sometimes found myself wishing i found some of the earlier bosses more challenging, because those were objectively more fun fights than the later ones. i think the scadutree fragments are a really interesting way to both:

a: help players control the difficulty of the dlc, collecting more if they are stuck somewhere, or abstaining from use if they want more of a challenge

b: encourage exploration of their very vertically dense dlc map

it both maintains that idea thats vital to elden ring's formula, that the open map allows for you to explore and level up before attempting a boss again, but also ensures that you can find those levels you need without having to grind too hard in a smaller dlc area, and aren't kept from the main story for too long. i really enjoyed this, and honestly the side stories were the only things keeping me playing once i realized what the main story was doing, and all the life was slowly sapped from my body.

i am pretty sure at this point in time that i have completed most of the bosses- i think i am missing one of the four mausoleum bosses and i think i skipped one of the dragons on the way to bayle because i was sick of fighting so many dragons in a row, and i'm sure i've missed some mini bosses or areas, especially in the rauh area which i am guilty of sprinting through at a certain point.

with the exception of the final boss and bayle, i enjoyed the bosses in this dlc. the thing with the difficulty of these games is that in the past a lot of the difficulty spikes between games comes down to movement speed of player and bosses, and the effects this quicker and quicker timing has on the gameplay. they've also introduced some combat enhancements or tried out some ideas like weapons arts in ds3. (in non-souls games you have a lot more variations on the formula, with bloodborne's parry mechanics and less of a reliance on the character builds and armors, sekiro's systems being something that almost felt like you had to relearn how to play their games)

elden ring complicates this formula even further by introducing an expanded and much more practical system for weapon arts, a shit ton more weapons and armors, faith and int builds that are finally viable, and consistent boss summons with the spirit ashes. i'm both impressed that the game maintains the challenge of prior titles and even has some bosses that well outdo their difficulty, and also remains fun to play. the dlc maintained this FOR THE MOST PART, but with bayle and the final boss this kind of stumbled.

the problem i was shocked elden ring didn't already have was that when you're already going as fast as seems feasible, how do you augment the difficulty to give new challenges, and how do you make something fresh within this old formula. their bosses are difficult, but for the most part they're fun, and you can get to a point where you make that call of okay, this is hard but this is possible, or no this isn't possible right now, i need to change my strategy or level up or something else. the dlc was very fun to me because i was able to utilize the full arsenal of things id acquired over the course of my two prior playthroughs of the base game. if i had trouble with a boss, i realized at some point that i had plenty of viable builds i could apply to my character that better suited the boss. i switched between weapons, swapped out miracles, did some experimentation with the talismans and armor, and it felt a lot like fun trial and error to see which build would work, and very rewarding when it finally did!

bayle and the final boss felt kind of like they knew they were obligated to be crazy difficult, but they couldn't quite iron out how to do that without it being ridiculous. bayle less so than the final boss, but i feel like the warning for the final boss was there in bayle. he was whispering to me hey, hey, watch out. you know i cant be the worst, you know that final boss will be worse. also bayle gets a bit of a pass because he was a side story boss (i appreciated that the main story was a little bit easier than the side stories, because obviously you want your players to be able to get through the main stuff, with the side stuff being the extra. i personally liked that. anyways.) i did not have fun playing the final boss and it wasnt just the psychological damage (though that made me want to stop trying way more than the difficulty did tbf.) so far as gameplay is concerned i really enjoyed the dlc and i had a lot of fun exploring and fighting my way through it, there were some beautiful areas that made me excited to look at the concept art, and the weapons and new systems they added were a lot of fun when i tested them out. if it were just this gameplay i would be happy with the dlc and would probably still be playing it now.

THE STORY REVIEW. (hell.)

what makes me mad is that to some extent they gave me what i wanted. if you look back through my old posts or have the displeasure of knowing me in real life and heard me gushing about this, you already know some of my dlc wishes came true!

some of my dlc wishes:

i wanted new flowers to pick (small fish all things considered)

i wanted a boss with a large spear to skewer me in the air like a kebab

i wanted more frenzy content

i wanted some kind of resolution or at least some mention of godwyn's situation

i wanted miquella's gender to be unambiguously weird

i wanted miquella to be evil

i wanted more explanation for marika's whole "deal"

i wanted dumb melodramatic dlc npcs that are doomed to die horrible dlc deaths but one of them must be unspeakably snatched while doing so.

let sword freak (denoted by a line i heard from one of the dlc trailers) be a woman

please let the bewitching branch item description not imply what i think it implies about miquella and mohg

so. if you know the story you will already notice some red flags. i'll start with some positives

i really enjoyed my little dlc npcs, hornsent was the only thing carrying me through the middle-end section of the main story as i was buffeted on all sides with the terrible realization that they were going the exact direction that i begged and pleaded they would not go. i loved the heightened role the npcs played in the story, how frequently i was able to check in with them and have new little dialogues or tidbits, and i love that there are absolutely batshit unhinged women in this dlc and i am so happy there are more than one. in no particular order, things i really liked about the npcs:

hornsent is my sweet cheese he is my guy. i was really rooting for him and as someone who went into this dlc as an attached weepy miquella fan, i was on his side before the dlc killed my hopes and dreams and dashed them against the rocks. character who abandons all sense of self and personhood to become the embodiment of their hurt and rage? faceless formless gnarled twig of a character with desiccated bugs all over his face? character who i can feed soup to? character who somewhat hates me? character who made me laugh following the messmer fight by calling him "your ugliness"?? his death was inevitable and i accepted it, because i agree with him. miquella should not take his revenge from him, there will be no forced absolution nor "gentle kindness" imposed upon him. this was the evil miquella i wanted, the god so compassionate that no discord nor hate could exist under his rule, and all will be enveloped in kindness. it is horrifying to discard the self when the self is entirely made of hurt, and it is horrifying to be robbed of personal agency. anyways i love hornsent.

freyja is so gleefully ready to commit unspeakable acts of violence and so genuinely happy and excited about it that it makes me squeal. i love a character that is so excited to punch things that they cant keep it to themselves. they are happy and thrilled to be in the dimension of violence and strife. and she's so nice! usually you see these people falling into the edgelord stereotype which i am not particularly fond of unless they're especially pathetic and camp about it, but she was just a joy to interact with. when she told me not to worry if we were to fight on opposing sides, she would gleefully meet my blade and it would be an honor to do so, i wasnt even sad! yeah! it will be fun freyja, thank you. little bit soured to her towards the end there where she learned about the incest plot and had no other reaction to that other than to be excited radahn would be back, but to be fair to her why would she give a shit about this. sure, freyja. i'm happy for you, glad you're enjoying this dlc.

speaking of unhinged women, leda is despicable. i love her. the point that she sees nothing wrong with herself or her actions is integrated into even the most inane little dialogues, the one that stuck with me was her explanation of the war with the hornsent- she said they were the losing side of a war, and it was a terrible shame what happened to them, but they were no victims. (they had it coming. further than that, it was right that they were the ones to lose, winning holds significance in terms of showing divine favor and justice. its a terrible shame what "happened" to them (passive word), but they were not victims, the actions of marika and messmer's army were somehow vindicated in their actions). she's another look at what i had hoped for with my evil miquella point. i will expand on this when i start ranting about miquella so put a pin in this for now.

moore. another point into the miquella as a refuge category, or miquella as the water that washes away, and provides absolution. outside of that though i'm always somewhat on my guard with a character who has a speech impediment and seems to have some kind of cognitive disability, but he made me happy to talk to. i don't know if what i'm feeling is unsure about how he's written, or just wishing for more from him, but the exchanges you have with him where its clear his motivations are intensely people-pleasing, and that he is honestly very sad as a person made me sad :( hes a big guy, and dangerous in a fight (as i figured out pretty fast after he downed me with scarlet rot) so its difficult to minimize this outward appearance to keep oneself a: safe and b: friendly or pitiable enough to others that they offer the sort of protection necessary in numbers in the situation he finds himself in. i think he makes sense as a character, and i think hes very concerned with the opinions of others and his helpfulness to them and his perception. and while i think the kindness and generosity is learned and a necessity, i also think he's just genuinely a kind person, which is why he's relying on his strengths like this. anyways, sorry moore. :(

igon is way too much and i'm so glad he's real. i genuinely cracked up when i summoned him for the bayle fight and cackling at him got me killed. i wasn't expecting him to scream his little heart out and then keep going. and then keep going again. he won't stop it's spectacular. another thing of note is that he didn't get a single hit off that entire fight for me, drawing his bow took too long, and he spent most of that fight flat on his back with the damage counter going up. it just made his shouting even funnier, i wasn't even mad he was awful as a summon, he was so funny i was just glad he was there as a morale boost. also appreciate that dragon priestess seemed pretty done with him. i hope everyone else can appreciate his autistic charm with me.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MIQUELLA NOW.

so i want to set the context for my dlc experience properly so everyone can understand where i'm coming from, because miquella was already a delicate character to like, and how they're a radioactive trash fire that's trying to kill me.

(also dlc confirms he/them miquella alongside he/him base game and she/her trina so you'll note the pronouns shift around. it's a little complicated given the whole trina splicing and diverging of identities thing so it'll be inconsistent, but hopefully everyone can tell who i'm talking about as i'm talking about them.)

having a character who is unspeakably old, but also has the physical appearance of an 8 year old is a red flag so large that anyone could see it, and i knew this from the moment i started picking up their lore in earnest. IN THEORY this could be a very compelling character, it has been done a couple times before well, and countless times before very poorly. i was not optimistic, and already in the base game his character was not treated as well as i would have preferred, but i was coping.

having someone who is trapped by their own body, or confined by both the perceptions of- and the realities of their body can be a compelling character. having someone who's life is impacted by perceptions of, judgements upon, limitations thereof of their body tends to be a character that i gravitate towards because surprise, this can be relatable for a lot of people- and a lot of different types of people. whatever allegory you're applying to this narrative of the disconnect between the body's presence in the world and the world's treatment and expectation of the body, i'm sure you can tell there's a broad scope of applications there. and then you add on this element where they're present in the realm of dreams. the implications of a god who walks dreams, the realm of the subconscious free of expectation and limitation, and then also is trapped by both a cursed body and the weight of duty, faith, and expectation, i enjoy these dynamics, i really do. it only helped that their gender was weird, and he walked dreams as a girl.

and the thing is, i've wanted him to be evil, i wanted him to be evil so bad you have no idea. not just because (by base game assumptions...) evil had been done to them, and theevil was a reaction to this, no! there was always something wrong with them, he was always scheming, they didn't turn evil.

the haligtree and their actions in going against the golden order are calculated- do i think their aspirations are better than his mother's? maybe? i think it's more the order he instates has the possibility of being better as a side-effect of his actions and they would have gone forward with their own ambitions with or without this possibility of things being measurably better. taking in a class of people subjugated by the current order to build their armies feels a bit cynical and calculated, no?

the second huge red flag was the bewitching branch item description. at first i was a bit thrilled, there! i said, there is the canon justification for my somewhat unfounded hopes for evil miquella! the suggestion that he is able to meddle with emotions and perceptions is a pretty troubling trait to have! especially by a character who is spoken of with both love and to a smaller degree hatred and fear! and then i spent longer than a few seconds thinking about this and was immediately worried about the implications that had on the mohg issue.

THE MOHG ISSUE.

so first things first, the existence of the dlc does not mean that suddenly mohg isn't bad gay rep anymore. like let me be clear here, for two years we had a gay pedophile in our triple a title who kidnapped his little brother for pretty unambiguously sexually charged reasons, the fact that the dlc seems to tack on an addendum of "oh by the way its actually not his fault and he didn't choose to do that" doesn't suddenly erase those two years, and the initial judgements a new player or someone who is unfamiliar with the lore might make. like that's bad, guys, that's pretty bad. i was really disappointed at the time that they had included this character archetype- moreso because i was a fan of their previous games that had their little nuggets of queer representation, and i made the mistake of expecting better from the developers and writers.

i was also mad because they didn't have to write it this way, this was a choice they made to include this, and it's my preference to not enjoy it, but it wasn't necessary at all. if the plot necessitated that something go wrong with miquella's cocoon and initial schemes for god pupation, it didn't have to be that his half brother kidnapped him.

(my borderline au content writing no one asked for: an alternative that i was fond of at the time (B.D., before dlc) was that proximity to malenia's rot could have caused him issues. you still have the issue of something has gone wrong, miquella remains asleep and rots in his cocoon, but you also have this element of the potential guilt on malenia's end- that would be incredible guilt to know she was at fault for the failure of all they had been working towards, and the added grim irony that (as we figured at the time) in shedding his curse in order to help her shed hers, she unintentionally sabotaged him by staying so close to "guard" him. it also involves malenia more in the game story, which was something i had hoped for a bit more of from the base game anyways.)

my concern over the bewitching branch lore can be summed up by saying this. having someone the story paints as the victim suddenly revealed to have wanted it all along, and been the instigator behind the assumed assault is shitty. it's just shitty. and i'll admit i might be more sensitive to this topic than the average elden ring player, so this is all colored by my opinions and biases, but it's bad taste. it's not a fun surprising revelation, it's not a plot twist you feel particularly excited about, you feel bad, and then you feel confused. I like the lore of elden ring, i've spent a lot of time reading it and speculating on it, and it is confusing why miquella would be the one to instigate their own kidnapping and assault.

you would assume that their intended plan would be the plan A he was going with, stay in the cocoon, do his thing, remain in the haligtree so it is sustained and they are safe within it, let malenia handle the defense and conquest while he naps, wake up at some undetermined date with his goals achieved (whatever those mysterious goals may be) and continue on with later stages of their plans. and you would assume that being ripped from the haligtree and doused in blood in a basement somewhere was not within the bounds of his plan A. part of why i dared to hope that i was reading too much into the potential mind-control thing was because it didn't seem like mohg's actions were benefiting miquella's plan in any way- it seemed pretty bad. the haligtree was dying, malenia was rotting, their body looked to be in pretty awful shape, and even their allies did not know where he was.

BACK TO THE DLC.

the dlc did not really expand the context in a way that made this make sense to me. context that he was discarding his body entirely made sense for miquella's character, and if they didn't care about the state of their body, i guess he wouldn't care that his body was taken from where it was abandoned- but it didn't seem like that was their intention to abandon his flesh from the start? or if it was, that they placed his flesh within the haligtree for a reason, and i'd assume he'd have wanted it to stay there. if they were concerned that his flesh was no longer safe in the haligtree and wanted it spirited away by any means necessary (i.e. "kidnapping"), first off i'm unsure of the danger that would cause that, but second off if he didn't care about their flesh- see earlier point- why would they care if it was endangered within the haligtree enough to have it kidnapped? so, this already doesn't make sense to me, and the added justification of oh, he just has the hots for their brother, this isn't satisfying to me. sure i don't enjoy it as a story element in general, but past that it just doesn't feel like a satisfying justification in context. he's ambitious and he's seeing his ambitions through by any means possible, why would they act in this selfish manner that seems to be detrimental to their own ambitions?

issues with the sense of the mohg situation aside, why radahn? the justification given in item descriptions and dialogue states that miquella found him sure and kind and worthy of being a lord in contrast to the conflict, fragmentation, and personal afflictions they were facing, but. why radahn? i liked radahn, i'll gladly point out that yes, he does seem to satisfy all of these character traits, but there isn't any established context between them. miquella doesn't interact with radahn in the base game, malenia dooms him to walk the battlefield addled by scarlet rot and reduced to an empty husk, and if it was miquella's intent to have him be their consort from the start, this paints malenia in a pretty negative light, no? we were led to believe they were a united front, her and miquella, that many of his actions were for her benefit, and they worked so hard in part because of his desire to cure them BOTH of their afflictions, especially and explicitly her affliction. so she's sabotaged miquella's plans? for what reason, did she not agree with it, did she hate radahn? there's no explanation given for this, like how there is no further explanation as to why it is radahn miquella is so hell bent on bringing back to life.

which is odd when you consider that there is another demigod who meets miquella's criteria, was definitely loved by miquella, seemed to be loved by malenia, seems to be depicted in the haligtree, and miquella was previously confirmed to have been trying to bring back to life. where the hell is godwyn?

let me clarify here, i do not like this plotline they have created where miquella apparently has the hots for every other brother in his family, i don't tend to appreciate incest as it occurs in stories, and if it were my choice i would just choose not to include it. i also understand that plenty of people don't care about that, and that media like game of thrones that features incest pretty prominently within the story is beloved by mainstream audiences. i am also aware of the historical trend of royalty being inbred and incest existing on a sliding scale of taboo through the millennia. the greek gods are all siblings, i still enjoy greek myths, etc. etc.. so if i were the sole writer for elden ring and was beholden to no one the story i would write would diverge from the current canon and i would not write myself into a position where miquella is marrying their brother because personally i do not enjoy this. this is not the reality we live in, and this is not the story we got.

within the framework of their story, it should have been godwyn, and i have no idea why it wasn't. i can speculate all i want, was it misplaced fanservice because people liked radahn? was it a plot twist executed poorly, is there some other reason im missing but someone else has pieced together and they'll call me an idiot over? i don't know, and i also sort of don't care, it doesn't make sense, and it also disregards a lot about radahn's character than i and others liked to get him to fit into this weird situation.

where is his horse? if miquella cared for him, and they were able to bring back a whole demigod, was it so impossible to resurrect his beloved horse? if miquella didn't care about him enough to bring back his horse, wouldn't radahn put up a fuss about that? if miquella was controlling him to agree to being his consort, and didn't allow for him to be concerned about his horse, this raises a few more questions about malenia fighting radahn and destroying all of caelid- and likely everywhere else if the fires at the borders of caelid ever go out. was he always controlling radahn, were they ever controlling radahn? what are the limits of this control, what are the rules, if any? there are too many frustrating elements that make very little sense about radahn.

conversely, these elements make a lot more sense when applied to godwyn, and it pisses me off that it seems like, to my speculative eyes, they pivoted away from him. it would make sense why they would need a body to resurrect him when he is just a deceased soul, and his body is busy being a tumor. you could argue radahn's body was not in great shape and was eaten by alexander, and that's a completely fair point, but to me godwyn makes much more sense. not to mention, again, miquella had been explicitly trying to bring godwyn back in the base game.

(and this is a smaller gripe, but radahn's previous boss model had no feet. in his lore they discuss him riding his horse, and then learning the gravity magic to lessen the load on his horse so he could keep riding it. like yes the missing feet could be chalked up to rot, but he also just could have not had feet and was using his beloved mobility horse and the gravity magic to get around the challenge of not being able to walk. i thought that was cool if true, and it was a little speculative thing about his character i really loved, and that just kind of got thrown out with the dlc too so i guess i'll have to die mad.)

was it really necessary to have the assumed sa victim with the body of a child secretly be the instigator and assaulter all along? and then to add insult to injury not even have their actions make any sense within the existing plot? like was that all entirely necessary.

OTHER DLC LORE OPINIONS

you might be surprised to learn that i did not hate most of the other dlc lore.

miquella using mohg's body as fuel to resurrect their consort, while fucked up, i think could work with character motivations. especially if he was holding a grudge towards mohg, or mohg's actions were in fact antithetical to their plans, or he wasn't the one in control of mohg's actions. it could make sense that he would want to humiliate him (as ansbach mentions a few times...). and as i've said before i think miquella is fucked up, i think they do bad things, i think their moral compass is skewed, i think he's a creature of ambition and spite. i could see a world in which he does this out of hatred and spite, but in the situation they've set up where miquella was the one potentially compelling mohg? it lessens that spite, why would they be so hateful or willing to humiliate him if they were the one to compel his actions? you could just say oh, miquella is cruel and messed up like that and he's doing it for the hell of it, but it's not that compelling and doesn't make it as interesting. it just kind of feels gross. so yeah, in the current story i'm not a huge fan, but i see the potential here.

marika's character development was genuinely cool to me- and i understand i'm speculating and i've been speculating this whole time, but that's my business and and i acknowledge it's speculative. marika as a hornsent is a really cool concept to me, and it makes pieces of the main game make more sense. it makes her motivations make more sense, adds color to her character (and she was already interesting to me) and even though this dlc is like a lot of their other dlcs where it adds characters and backstory for no reason and does the ds3 thing of surprise! more secret children! i enjoyed it. it gives her more of a why past judgements of her personal moral character, it grounds her more, i like it. i also enjoyed the tidbits with the pots and sages, further (if not vague) developments with the outer gods. like this is speculative lore than i enjoy, and it's the kind of stuff i was excited for in the dlc.

as i said before elden ring kind of did the ds3 thing where they just added a secret child that was suddenly plot relevant and added a bunch of unnecessary lore, but i didn't really care too much in ds3 and i don't care here. messmer's voice actor is funny and messmer himself is compelling enough that i'm fine with not taking things too seriously. it helps that without messmer there is not hornsent, and a dlc without hornsent is a dlc i wouldn't have finished. (genuinely, i was so discouraged by the main story plot revelations i didn't feel like it was worth it to finish the dlc, but i felt bad leaving hornsent unresolved so i killed messmer. and then just finished the dlc anyways, so thanks hornsent.)

truly and genuinely i was happy with st. trina. i was so excited she was included in this, i've been a st. trina truther for too long and i don't even know what that means because there were like two sentences about her in the whole game, but she's great. i could take or leave thiollier, on the one hand having a creep as a character is fine and hes written in a way that feels believably creepy while also like hes enough of a 3 dimensional character that he has his own personality and motivations, but him included with miquella being elected the president of incest for no reason was a bit of a sour note.

the idea that miquella is discarding his body, and every piece he discards is a piece that they may hate, but they also have to discard those pieces that he doesn't hate, and their power, and all that he is, that's a real sacrifice and i think it speaks to the depth their character COULD HAVE HAD. that and their very clear conflict with their own gender, and conflict with himself over his actions. they discarded the girl sleeping within them and locked her in a pit in the ground so that none would find her. and he discarded with her their love, and the "treacherous" parts of himself that doubted, and disagreed, and with this he was able to become more resolute on their path. trina disagrees entirely with miquella's path to godhood and begs you to kill him, pities him, says their path is destroying him, and those are all doubts he has discarded with her. it is genuinely sad to me that this is not the side of miquella that we get to enjoy as a character because of all of the rest of the mess that's thrown on top in the dlc.

and of course i'm mad because he's acting like marika, they're shaving off pieces of themself and sacrificing for ambition, and they're becoming her while he's intent on being the opposite of everything she stood for, and we were so close to having this. we were so close.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

so far as gameplay goes, i enjoyed this dlc and it did a good job of replicating that feeling of playing elden ring and exploring again in its condensed and familiar setting. i like a lot of their new mechanics and ideas they introduced, though some of the later bosses fumbled it for me balancing the difficulty with actually enjoyable boss fights that feel fun to play.

the main story pissed me off so bad i almost put down the dlc, and erased all excitement i had to play it (even keeping in mind the reservations i already had going in). the side stories were frustratingly fun and compelling when compared to the main story being such a trash fire. i wish things were different but they are not, and i am very disappointed.

if you actually read all of this bless you, i hope you have a beautiful day.

[smolwritingchick]

The Bangtan Gal Chapter 3O- War of Hormone

Chapter Summary: Jen portrays a sexy persona as she films War of Hormone with BTS. An old friend messages Jen when she creates a new Instagram. Nervous because she's not used to dancing so close to guys, Jungkook helps Jen to relax when up close and personal.

Genre: Major Jennie and Jungkook fluff!! JenKook! He's starting to show his feelings a little more!

Words: 7,000+

Author's Note: One of my fav chapters! The ending especially! I added a little more to this chapter compared to the first time I posted this years ago. New ideas kept coming and I thought the ending was sweet and foreshadowing.

----

What were her motives?

There must be a glitch, how can she keep doing this to me?

Angry thoughts filled the Golden Maknae’s mind. Frustration was visible on his handsome features as he continued to aggressively mash the buttons of the PlayStation controller. Currently playing Call of Duty with his best friend, Jungkook couldn’t help but feel taken aback when he noticed that he could not stop getting killed by her.

Noticing his frustration, Jen managed to keep her laughs to herself, smirking in amusement as she continued to snipe him, every time he would respawn. Her “Strategic” gameplay seemed to be working in her favor.

Her stomach dropped when she saw him trying to shoot at her character. A smirk appeared on Jungkook’s face.

He finally found her.

“How are you doing this!?”

She heard his frustrated growl, punching a nearby pillow. She managed to shoot him before he killed her off.

“Luck?” She quipped in an innocent tone. 

Finally, she could feel good beating him in one of the many video games they would play. It was pleasing to see him lose against her. Even if it was rare.

“JENNIE!” He shouted after he got killed, once again. Triggered by her laughter, he lunged at her, making her shriek.

“H-HEY! Wait!” She giggled as she tried to prevent him from snatching the controller out of her hands.

“Give me the controller!”

“Get away from me!”

Holding onto the controller with all her might, she grabbed onto a pillow to swing it at his head. His hair stood up, disheveled as he sat there, surprised at the sudden attack. 

“Oh, now you’re dead!”

“Get away!” She yelled, standing up on her feet. 

She ran around the couch with him running after her. With the game forgotten and playing in the background, the two friends stood on each side of the couch, watching each other’s move. Jennie, standing at the back of the couch, pondered how she would be able to get out of this.

“Hey! Over there!” 

As soon as he turned his head, she tried to make a run for it, only to get her wrist grabbed.

“Not falling for that, one.” He effortlessly picked her up over his shoulder. Feeling her fists banging against his back, he laughed at her pleas. “Suffer.”

With no remorse, he started spinning her around, attempting to make her dizzy.

“Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah! Cut it out! You’ll break a lamp again.” Namjoon scolded. “And I would appreciate it if I wasn’t blamed this time.” He added, staring at Jennie after Jungkook put her down.

“What the-it wasn’t me! I’m trying to tell you!” She exclaimed. “It was Jungkook! It’s been a year, Namjoon!”

“Uh huh...sure...”

“Why won’t you believe me!?”

-------

The next day was Jungkook’s birthday. He was finally 17 and as a tradition, Jennie and Jungkook would send each other random birthday memes and messages. Carrying on the tradition, Jennie sent him random messages while he was at practice.

To Jungkook, who finished his dance practice, he looked down at his phone, letting out a short laugh.

Jennie had sent him a Kermit Frog tea meme

Jennie: When Jennie beats you in COD multiple times but that's none of my business :)))) [9:36 am]

“Two can play at that game...” He said, getting evil intentions.

Back to Jennie, she got herself ready for the day and heard a loud ping while brushing her teeth in the bathroom. Walking back to her room, she picks up her phone.

“This...this overgrown motherchucker!” She yelled, feeling her face heat up from embarrassment.

He had sent her a derp meme of himself 

JK: When you have a 0-29 losing streak against the birthday boy in Mario Cart but that's none of my business [9:41 am]

Jennie: JUNGKOOK! [9:41 am]

Backstage, still promoting Danger, Jennie and the rest of the members took early birthday photos for Namjoon’s upcoming birthday, to post on SNS.

“Aw, you look so cute!” She pointed to his birthday hat.

“I refused to wear the hat, but I still had to wear it.” He sighed. Although he didn’t like the hat, there was no denying that he looked adorable with it on his head.

“I’m sure the ARMYs will like it.” She stood behind him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she smiled while he put up two peace signs.

As she chilled on the couch, with Yoongi, who was napping, she looked up to see Jungkook putting his mouth all over Namjoon’s hat.

“Whoa! Whoa! What is going on here!? Jesus Christ, Jungkook, what the frick!?” She exclaimed in alarm. The response she got from him was a silent laugh. As the Bangtan Bomb camera turned to her, she pointed out, “Mind you, he just turned 18, folks. What else is he going to do? ARMYs are going to go crazy over this, I hope you know. Jungkook better attend all their funerals.”

-------

Finally prepared to promote War of Hormone, BTS started the day off by posing for the concept photos. For her outfit, she wore high waisted leather skinny jeans, black heels and a red short sleeved crop top with lace on the shoulders. Her hair was freshly washed and straightened with loose curls. Her appearance seemed foreign since the outfit showed off a sexier side to her.

“Jennie...looking good. Do you know that your front is the best? And your back is the best?” Jimin tried to flirt, putting an arm around her.

Rolling her eyes, playfully having an annoyed expression on her face, she took his arm off her, retorting, “Boy bye!”

Letting out a nervous chuckle, Jimin tried to explain on camera, “Don’t worry ARMY, this is just how our relationship works. Please support JenMin! Right now, she’s just playing hard to get. She’s easily flustered. She was probably just shy.”

“Riiiight. Whatever gets you through the day.” She patted him on the back, strolling away. Jimin let out another nervous laugh, trying to hide his rejection.

“ARMY, Jimin and Jennie are just friends. They always do this, don’t worry.” Jungkook explained.

“Why are you telling them lies!?” Jimin shook him, earning a loud laugh in response.

As they finished the group photo shoot, they took their photo shoot to a local store. 

“Ooh, can I have some? Haven’t had whipped cream in a minute.” She asked Suga, who had a can in his hands. He sprayed some in her mouth and she happily enjoyed the taste. “Just as good as I remember.”

After watching the guys do their individual photoshoots, she sat down against the shelves of groceries, with her right knee up to her chest. She rested her right arm on her knee.

From posing with her tongue poking out of her mouth, puckering up her lips for the camera, to having a strawberry between her teeth, the photo shoot went well so far. Getting back up to her feet, one of the female stylists fluffed up her hair, so it could put off a sexier vibe. 

“Is this too sexy?” She gestured as she leaned against the wall.

After taking more shots, she checked out some of the photos, nodding in approval. “Well damn. I’m getting better at these concept photos.”

-----

The next day was the day of the Music video shooting. Jennie adjusted her leather jacket, zipping it halfway. Gathering around the director with the rest of the members, the director began to direct how the music video would go. “We’re doing one take.”

“Gah...one take?” Jennie asked in surprise. “This is going to be fast paced.”

“When it’s your cue, you’ll be sitting by the bench.” The director addressed.

After getting pointers, she turned to the camera, raising her shoulders up and down at a fast rate, clearly excited. “This is going to be fun! And I’m dancing in heels.” She pointed to her black heels. “Am I cool, yet? No? Okay, never mind, then.”

Getting out of the way, she watched the guys shoot the opening scenes of the music video. One of her favorite parts of the music video would have to be the beginning.

“Ah, it’s nice to chill for most of the music video. It’s fun to watch.” She looked on as the guys walked around the model. As she continued to watch, she couldn’t help but feel anxious about her performance for the music video. They were attempting to film everything in one take, she intended to make sure she didn’t slow anyone down.

When it was finally her cue as the guys were lip syncing the chorus, she sat on the bench, legs crossed, with a magazine in her hands.

La la la la la la la la la

aptaedo choego dwitaedo choego

La la la la la la la la la

georeumgeori hanakkaji choego choego

Throwing the magazine away, she stood up and strutted past them. Jin, taking a glimpse at who was walking past them, widened his eyes and pointed her out. Mesmerized by her presence, they scurried on to follow her, walking close behind her.

Continuing to strut in front of the camera, she had a sexy expression on her face as her hair bounced when she walked. Behind her, Jin, Rap Monster and Suga had their eyes widened, blinking in disbelief.

Jimin had his tongue out, occasionally licking his lips. V and J-Hope had their jaws dropped. V, being the extra one, also stared at her backside, pondering if he should grab it or not. Meanwhile, Jungkook checked her out by eyeing her up and down, biting his bottom lip.

Before she knew it, she began to lipsync her verse.

I know I’m the best, from head to toe

it’s completely ridiculous if you think I don’t know

Slowly unzipping her jacket, she peeled it off, throwing it back, allowing Rap Monster and J-Hope to catch it.

My hair

My body

My waist and legs

It’s okay to stare, I know that I look good

Stopping, she turned to the guys, calling them out.

Yea, I see you starin’ hard

Caught you off guard

I see you droolin’

Who are you foolin’?

V attempted to put an arm around her but she slid away from his grasp, wagging her finger, saying no. Suga got close to her, attempting to flirt but she placed a hand on his firm chest, shoving him away.

Sucks to know it won’t be easy to tempt me

You and I both know that I’m driving you crazy

Those sexy smirks and lip bites clearly show how much you’re yearning

Don’t try to hide it, I see your body twistin’ and turnin’

You call me an equation and say you can just do me

But we both know you’re the one dreaming and wishing you could touch me

With a sexy smile on her face, she pointed to the camera, continuing to walk ahead. Glancing down at her body, she lipsynced,

I could turn you into a man

But you can’t handle this

Halting, she placed a hand on her hip since Jungkook blocked her way. Unbothered by his seductive smirk and eyebrow raise, she met his stare, reaching out to run a hand through his soft, black locks.

You say you can’t hold back and you wanna please me

I’m gonna need you to behave and take it easy

Grabbing both sides of his black scarf, she pulled him close to her face.

And yes I’m the baddest

Yes I’m a bad girl

But I ain’t your baby, you gotta earn that

They both turned to the camera, placing one of their hands in front of it to block it. She and the members rushed over to the next spot and she stood in front of them. Rocking forward and back, she waved, dancing the choreography.

Hello hello, hello hello, I’ll tell you what I want right now

Hello hello hello hello, I ain’t givin’ it to you right now.

I’m the best and I know it but I’m not yours.

I make your body twist and turn when you in front of me.

Grabbing onto her hand, Jimin tried to kiss it but she pulled away.

nege dagaseogo sipjiman neomu simhage areumdawo

yeojaneun choegoui

seonmuriya seonmuriya

V tried to approach her again but she rolled her eyes and pushed him away.

jinjja nae sowoneun

neoppuniya neoppuniya

nan neoramyeon I’m ok

Oh jajega andwae maeil

aptaedo choego dwitaedo choego

meoributeo balkkeutkkaji choego choego

La la la la la la la la la

aptaedo choego dwitaedo choego

La la la la la la la la la

meoributeo balkkeutkkaji choego choego

Shaking her butt, she grabbed V’s hand before he could smack it. Then she headed inside the building that the model walked into. After filming, everyone checked out the finished product with bright grins on their faces.

“I think we did a great job!” Rap Monster said to the camera. “However, if Jimin says, ‘Hey...I did something wrong.” That’ll make me feel nervous.”

“Oh dear.” Cringing at the scenario, Jen grabbed onto Jimin’s arm. “Jimin, you’re fine, right?”

Turning to them, Jimin joked, “I did something wrong.”

“NO~!” She shouted while Rapmon grabbed onto him.

------

The next day, after a short and sweet dance practice to clean up the War of Hormone dance, Jennie sat against the mirror, creating her new Instagram account. Placing one of her war of hormone concept photos as her profile picture, she named her account, JJenniee_JW

After following people like the members of Girl's Generation, 4Minute, Jay Park, EXO, 2NE1, Big Bang and her sisters, she posted a photo of herself smiling, with the caption, ‘Long time no see. I’m doing well! I missed you, all!’

She also posted her Instagram link on the BTS Twitter account, so the fans can be aware. Immediately, comments floated in like crazy, along with new followers.

‘WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?’

‘FINALLY!’

‘Yes! You made one!! I hope the other members make one, too!’

‘JENNIE!’

“Munchkin made a new insta!’

“YOU’RE ALIVE!”

“MISS BANGTAN~~”

‘Tell BTS I said hi!’

‘WHERE ARE YOU!?’

‘I HEARD YOU ARE IN A KPOP GROUP! YOU LOOK GREAT!’

‘@ItzAngelinaa SHE MADE A NEW INSTA!’

'@ItzAngelinaa SHES STILL ALIVE!’

As she read the profile name, she smiled and immediately followed Angelina on Instagram, checking out her photos. She looked so happy, and even her hair was back to black. Not even a minute passed when Angelina commented on her photo

‘Hey stranger...DM me ;)’

After getting her number, they FaceTime each other as Jen put on her earbuds to speak with her.

“Long time no see, you bitch!” She heard Angelina shout. Jennie let out a laugh at her enthusiasm.

It’s been far too long. She missed this. She missed her. But guilt began to be on her mind because she didn’t stay in touch. 

What kind of friend is that?

“Jennie! Where have you been?! I’ve been worried about you! And now I hear you migrated to South Korea! K-Pop?! You were in LA for a show with your boys? You’ve been winning awards with them? Music videos!? GIRL! I want details! Now! I missed you! Why didn’t you keep in touch?” Angelina ranted as she started to tear up. “I’ve been worried sick about you! I thought you were pissed off at me for something. You legit fell off the face of the earth!”

Jen’s eyes began to sting as hot tears began to form in her eyes, as she couldn’t escape the shame. “I’m sorry...I should’ve kept in touch. Everything was so overwhelming. I’m sorry, no excuses. I’m a shitty friend, aren’t I?”

With a teasing smile, Angelina requested, “Well...if you treat me to a big dinner, I’ll forgive you.”

“Deal!”

“Good. But don’t think I’m mad at you, JW. Leaving Amity took a toll on you. I understand you needed time for yourself. I’m just glad you’re happy. You look different. You’re glowing.”

“Thanks, girl! You’re glowing, too. Before we get to me, what’s going on with you? Still with Amity? Still rapping, right?”

Letting out a snort, She bluntly replied, “Oh, I left the group.”

Genuinely surprised at the sudden statement, Jennie asked a simple, “What?”

“Yeah, I actually left them a little after you did. I signed up for a new label. Went solo. I’m with Colombian Records. Been doing great, I’ve been collabing with bunches of artists. Nicki Minaj is hopefully next on the list.”

“R-really!? Wow! I’m so happy for you! I remember how much you told me you wanted to collaborate with a bunch of people. So, what happened?”

“What didn’t happen? Ugh, Hailey was pissing me off. As soon as you left, she wanted to try to stop me from doing new things. That bitch tried it. I dunno why she doesn’t just leave the group, instead.”

Frowning, Jennie shook her head. “She just wants followers...people to boss around. That’s not a leader. Hey, let me listen to your music! I can buy it off iTunes, right?”

“Yep! Tell me what you think, when you listen. I’ll even let you listen to my new work! And I hope you know that you and I are going to be doing music together. No ifs, ands, or buts. I will fly over to Korea, to see your ass. And I will find a way to book a flight for you to come see me, I don’t even care about your schedule, we’ll make it work, missy!”

“Haha, I’d like that. So how is Amity doing anyway?”

Angelina let out a sigh. “The three girls can have their girl group. They’re getting more popular. But it’s for the best.”

“I encountered Hailey in LA...”

“What did she do?” Her voice got angrier.

“Interrupted my breakfast with my leader, and threw a drink at my face.”

“That bitch did what?! Did you hit her? Please tell me you hit her! Damn, I wish I was there! Like no, who throws a drink at someone? That’s some weak shit.”

“I got held back and she hid behind her security. And as much as I really wanted to smack her, I’m representing BTS, I need to not do anything too crazy.”

“Ha! I can’t believe this girl...She’s a whiny little brat, she would probably threaten the sue since she can’t fight her battles. But I’m impressed with how you’re maturing. You’re being the bigger person. Honestly, she’s not worth it. But to me, she is, because I really hate her guts. I got into a physical altercation with her.”

“WHAT!? ANGIE!”

Jennie’s sudden shout, made the guys turn around. She grinned sheepishly, waving their amused stares away.

“Hahah, don’t worry, I didn’t go to jail. Thankfully...”

“Oh god, what did you do?!”

“She hit me first, okay!? Remember that! That was also one of the main reasons I left. She got pissy with me because I called her out on her bullshit and then she got in my face. Need I remind you that I don’t like it when people are in my face? So then, she shoves me.”

“Oh...so that’s how we’re doing things?”

“I know right? It was a wrap after that. It’s on World Star. I’ll send you the link.”

“Angelina!” She sputtered. “Why is it that I miss the good stuff when I’m not around? Jeesh!” 

Angelina laughed wholeheartedly. “Hey, you know I have a temper. I just regret getting grabbed by security so damn quick...ugh, I could’ve ripped the hair off her. You know she got plastic surgery, right?”

“I thought she looked different. She didn’t need it though.”

“Welp. I may had something to do with that because I ruined her face. I was let off the hook because I had to pay for all her damn plastic security. Waste of money, I could’ve donated it to the animal shelter.” She ranted.

Jennie smiled when she mentioned an animal shelter. Angelina always had a soft spot for animals underneath her strong image.

“But anyway, I wanna see you! When can you come to America? Or better yet, I’ll make my way to South Korea to see you! Show me around, and let me know how their food is. Remember, you’re treating me to a big dinner, so prepare your wallet!”

“Hahah, you and your eating habits. I’m promoting the new album that BTS just released. So, we’re going to be busy. I can’t have my singing exhibit this year either because of our tight schedule. But I’m planning the next one early for 2015, so I’m looking forward to that.”

“Ah, it’s cool. We’ll see each other, soon! By the way, are you dating one of the members?”

“Yo, why is everyone asking me this? First, it's ARMYs after I clearly stated multiple times that we’re all friends, then it’s my sisters, and now it’s you!”

“Haha, well are you sure? Because you and the guy with the black hair are always together. You sure?” She teased.

Knowing who she was talking about, she shook her head. “We’re best friends.”

“Hm. Yeah...that’s what they all say.” She muttered in a sarcastic tone, not impressed at her excuse.

“I’m serious! We’re all too busy to date, right now, anyway. Plus, I want to wait until I’m older.”

“Hm, maybe it’s because of your chemistry with him. It’s cute. Make sure you introduce me to the guys! I want to meet the leader. He’s sexy.”

Jennie groaned at her statement. “Oh God...”

After catching up, Jen packed up her bag after she and the members were told that they could leave.

“Jennifer. Jungkook. Could you two stay for a moment?” Mr. Son called them out. The two teens stand before him, awaiting what his request was.

Mr. Son glanced at the two of them and nodded to himself. “All right, as you know, War of Hormone is going to have various choreography changes and you guys are going to have fun with it. But I was thinking, for one of the choreography changes, you two can dance together. Will you two be okay with that?”

Jennie and Jungkook glance at each other and smile. “Yeah, sure. What do you want us to do?” She asked.

Dancing was always important between them. They both took it seriously, making sure their performances on stage were topnotch. With their minds on work and no play, they listened to what their dance teacher had to say.

“I believe you and Jungkook can pull this off. I have some ideas in mind as I’m listening to the lyrics, especially your verse. There’s a lot of things I want to work on.”

“Anything specific?”

“Jungkook, I want you to make sure you work on your facial expressions. The song is War of Hormone. She’s a beautiful young lady and you really want her.”

Nodding, taking mental notes, Jungkook said, “Understood.”

“Oh, okay, so basically you want him to look at me with want on stage? How the song is supposed to be? Like they guys did in the music video?” Jennie asked, getting the picture.

Mr. Son nodded. “Now you two are teens, your hormones probably have gone crazy, I’m sure.” He turned to Jennie. “What I want you to work on and to keep in mind is to act hard to get. Do not let this handsome young man woo you on stage when you perform.” He warned. “It’ll defeat the purpose of your verse. Jungkook, he’s beginning to woo a lot of ladies. Try your best to not get added to the charmed list.”

Waving his warning away, she nodded at his request. “I’ll be fine, on stage.”

“Be careful.” She heard Jungkook playfully warn. 

She playfully punched him on the arm. “Please, it won’t be that hard to resist you on stage.”

“We’ll see.” He raised a brow in a teasing manner.

“Oh boy, what have I started?” Mr. Son let out a deep chuckle at their funny banter. “Jennie, I also want you to flirt with the camera. I need you to act very sexy for this concept. Sexier than the music video. Your stage presence needs to be strong for this.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“All right, think about what I said to you two. I’ll see you guys in the morning to practice what I’m thinking of.”

--------

A few days later, Jennie met Jungkook in the dance studio.

“Sorry, I’m late!”

Hearing a calm voice, Jungkook’s eyes lit up when he detected Jennie walking into the dance studio.

“There you are, I thought Jimin was going to keep you, forever.” He lets out a laugh.

“You know how he is. He asked me to eat lunch at the last minute when he knew I was meeting with you. He’s silly.” She set her bag down and plugged her phone into the stereo.

“He did it on purpose...” He grumbled under his breath, making a mental note to beat him up, later.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait too long.”

“Nah, I don’t mind waiting for you.” He responded in a soft tone.

Smiling apologetically, she replied, “I’ll try not to make it a habit.”

Walking to the middle of the studio, she began to stretch out her limbs. Already stretched out, Jungkook opened her phone and began to take photos of himself making derp faces. After he was done, he placed one of his derp photos on her lock screen.

“I’m afraid to see what you just did to my phone.” He heard her sigh. Letting out a laugh, he showed her the new and ‘improved’ lock screen “...Really?” She deadpanned as she stood up.

“Just trying to make you feel comfortable.”

Comfortable.

Was her nervous demeanor that obvious since they started learning the dance?

“Don’t get me wrong, I am comfortable. I’m comfortable with you. It’s just that I’ve never danced like this before. And with a guy so close. Sorry, I’m taking a while to get it.” She let out a disappointed sigh.

Recently, Mr.Son had a female dance partner with him, to demonstrate what he wanted Jen and Jungkook to do for War of Hormone. And when Jen watched with nervousness at how close they were, doubts filled her head.

How was she going to pull it off? Make it look real if she had never done anything like this before.

But with Jungkook, he seemed at ease as he analyzed the dance, making sure he could better himself and be good enough to perform it for the crowd.

Part of her wanted to just chicken out. Maybe they should just do something else instead. But another part of her wanted to dance with him. It was Jungkook. If he was comfortable with her, she should be, too.

“I think I know how to make you feel more comfortable.” 

Her thoughts were interrupted by his statement.

“I see that you’re still nervous but it’s okay. I’ll loosen you up. Jennie, I want you to be comfortable in your dancing and when you’re dancing with me. So, before we go over the dance, I want us to try different songs to dance to, so you can get into the feel and loosen up. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Yeah, I have a few songs.” She grabbed her phone from him.

Flipping through her song list, she tried to pick out certain songs that had a certain rhythm. Deciding to put on Body Party by Ciara, the sultry melody filled the room.

“Okay, this seems like a good song to get into the feels for dancing close. Ah, but I wanted the instrumental. These lyrics are too sexy...” She murmured in English as she tried to search for it on YouTube.

‘My body is your party, baby’

“Oh dear.” She mumbled in embarrassment, at the lyrics. All she wanted was the music, not the lyrics. Letting out a sigh in defeat, she put her hair in a bun. “This’ll have to do, I can’t find it.”

Meanwhile, Jungkook listened to the beat, thinking it was a good song to dance close to because of the music.

‘I hope he’s not uncomfortable.’ She thought as she turned to him. “I’m sorry, do you want me to change the song? Are you uncomfortable or anything?”

Shaking his head, he gestured for her to continue what she was doing. “Nah, keep it. Dance for me.”

“Come again?”

Smiling, he leaned up against the wall. In his work mode, he seriously stated, “Dance for me. I want to see how you’re moving so I can help you.”

Nodding curtly, she walked to the middle of the room. Freestyling as she danced and body rolled on beat, Jungkook carefully analyzed her movements with his arms crossed.

“Ah, you’re still stiff.” He pointed out.

Stopping her movement, she let out a sigh, turning back to him. “Really? I don’t feel stiff.”

“You’re overthinking it. I can see it by the way you’re moving. Try doing it like this.”

He got off the wall and effortlessly did the same movements she did but in a stronger manner, making the movements pop.

“I think I might have it.” She turned back to the mirror, attempting to mirror what he just did, but failed. Annoyed at herself, she let out a frustrated sigh.

“It’s okay!” He chuckled softly. “You’re going to get it.”

“Can you guide me, please?”

With a curt nod, he got behind her, gently placing his warm hands on her hips. She could feel her ear getting tickled when his warm breath hit her ear. Out of habit, she tensed up, feeling her stomach flip.

“Follow me.” He said as they swayed to the beat. His hands moved her hips to guide her. “Make the movements slower and more powerful.”

Stiffening again, she murmured out a “Sorry.” as another chuckle escaped him. 

Who knew she would get nervous around him?

Feeling his chest against her back, he pulled her close while firmly holding on to her hips, getting a more intimate feeling for the dance. Her body began to heat up from the foreign contact as she let out a hitched breath.

Was this supposed to happen?

Was she supposed to feel this way?

Do all dancers feel nervous when it’s their first time dancing close to someone?

“Relax, Jennie, it’s just me.” He murmured in her ear.

Relax?

Easier said than done.

But it was something about him that made her begin to feel at ease.

She thought about how he danced. He was so passionate. She knew what she was missing. It was the passion. He was right, she was overthinking it.

Relaxing her body, just like he said, her movements met his, in sync with the beat. As the song progressed, her movements were more fluid and stronger.

“There you go.” He saw a difference as they continued to move together.

“Aye! I’m getting it!” She happily said.

“I never doubted you.”

As soon as the song fades out, Chris Brown's Wall to Wall blared out of the speakers, boosting up her mood even more.

“Aye~” She shouted as she started jamming to the song. 

Jungkook let out a loud laugh, watching her dance around the room. 

It was cute.

“We’ll practice after this song! Dance with me, come on! It’s Chris Brown for goodness sake!” He heard her say over the music. Next thing he knew, his wrist was grabbed by her as she freestyled with him.

After the song ended, she finally put on War of Hormone.

With her nervousness gone, she confidently requested. “All right, back to business. Let’s go all out like we’re on stage. So, use your stage persona.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, do whatever. No holding back. Let’s perform like we’re performing on a music show.” She waved his warning away.

Watching Jungkook dance full out, inspired her. He was so good. He wasn’t called the Golden Maknae for nothing. Once it was her cue, she strutted to the front, putting a fist near her mouth, imitating a mic.

Touching the side of her head before lifting up her right knee, and tapping the side of her shoe, she lipsynced, “I know I’m the best, from head to toe. It’s completely ridiculous if you think I don’t know. My hair. My body. My waist and legs."

Turning her head back she saw Jungkook while ‘It’s okay to stare, I know that I look good’ was heard, she widened her eyes and quickly turned back around when she caught him biting his lip with a smirk across his face.

‘Jesus...his stage persona is no joke. I hope he didn’t peep that. Please don’t tell me he peeped that.’ She thought as she tried to remain focused.

Yes, I see you starin’ hard

Caught you off guard

I see you droolin’

Who are you foolin’?

“I saw that...”

She froze when she heard him whisper in her ear, teasingly. Looks like he noticed her breaking character because she was shocked at his intense expression change.

“Damn it!” She whined while he let out a laugh, pausing the song on her phone. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to being stared at like that.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I?”

Walking up to her, his brown irises met hers as he looked down at her. “Are you nervous?”

“Not yet.”

“Good. Don’t be. Don’t look at anything else but me.”

Holding his strong gaze as he requested, she noticed some strands of his hair sticking to his forehead. His warm eyes watched her as she remained calm.

“Say your verse. And don’t take your eyes off me. If you avert your eyes, we’re starting from the beginning. And no matter what I do, don’t take your eyes off me.”

It looked like he was going to help her with her eye contact. Making facial expressions and doing gestures he would do on stage.

Was she in trouble?

“I know I’m the best from head to toe. It’s completely ridiculous if you think I don’t know," she spoke as she held his intense gaze. But she couldn't help but notice him getting closer and closer. "My..." she trailed off and looked away.

Letting out another chuckle, he took a few steps back. "Again,"

She restarted the song and repeated her lyrics, getting further this time, "My hair. My body. My waist and legs. It's okay to stare, I know that I look good,"

He started leaning forward while she leaned back, not expecting the sudden closeness. She took a step back as she continued, "Yea, I see you starin' hard," 

"Where you going?" he pulled her back forward by wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her into his chest and she immediately folded, covering her face and looking away as he laughed again. 

Starting over again, she continued with no issues, "It’s okay to stare, I know that I look good. Yea, I see you starin’ hard. Caught you off guard. I see you..." she trailed off and looked away when he smirked and raised an eyebrow.

This was going to be hard. His charisma was impeccable.

"You see me what?" he teased. "Didn't you say it wouldn't be that hard to resist me? You're failing, Miss Bangtan. Try again,"

Jennie shushed him and got back in position. She'll get it...eventually.

Starting again, she went on, “I see you droolin’. Who are you foolin’? Sucks to know it won’t be easy to tempt me.” 

Watching him raise a brow as a smirk came across his face, she remained unfazed, keeping eye contact.

“You and I both know that I’m driving you crazy. Those sexy smirks and lip bites clearly show how much you’re yearning.”

Feeling bold, she placed a hand in his dark locks and moved it down to caress his face. Jungkook reacted by grabbing her hand and placing it on his chest before moving it down his torso.

"Jungkook!" she exclaimed, feeling her face heat up as she averted her eyes and backed away.

"Try again," he looked at her, amused. "You're getting better,"

"Yeah, but a warning would have been nice!"

"That defeats the purpose, Miss Bangtan,"

'This guy...' she thought as she restarted the song again and got in position. As she said her verse, Jungkook ended up pressing his forehead against hers, slowly moving her backward while she managed to keep going.

'Don't look away. Don't look away. You got this.' she thought.

"Don’t try to hide it, I see your body twistin’ and turning. You call me an equation and say you can just do me. But we both know you’re the one dreaming and wishing you could touch me.” she removed her forehead from his and lightly pushed him back.

Tilting her head to the side, she mirrored the smirk on his face as she walked back and he followed. “I could turn you into a man. But you can’t handle this. And yes, I'm the baddest."

He pulled her back into his arms as he held her. She kept her eye contact with him but the lyrics were forgotten. Both remaining silent, they held each other’s gaze. It was something about the way he was looking at her, that made her go silent as the music continued to play in the background.

“I messed up.” She finally spoke up, with the song way past her verse.

“Sorry, I didn’t notice. Let’s start again.” He let her go, broke eye contact, and went back to his starting position.

Before they could start, her phone started to ring. Walking over to it, she answered it. “Yes, mom?” she teased as she answered Jin's call.

“Sweetie, when are you and Jungkookie coming back? I’m making dinner, soon,”

“We’re at the dance studio, cleaning up the War of Hormone dance. We’ll be back at the dorms, soon! It won’t take much longer.”

Not thinking much about it, Jin said okay and they said their goodbyes.

“Sorry about that. Mama Jin is wondering where his babies are.” She joked, earning a soft laugh from Jungkook. “Want to start again?”

“Yeah. You're doing good improvisation as we keep doing this. Keep that in mind. Since we can do different things during the choreography, use those improvising skills of yours.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Make those sexy expressions?”

“Because I’m the Golden Maknae?” He grinned.

“Never mind, you big bunny.” 

“Let it come naturally. Just don’t overthink it. That’s your habit that I’m trying to make you break out of. You’re doing well, so far. Keep going.”

Nodding at his words, she started her verse again, successfully. Grabbing onto his white shirt, she pulled him close to her face as he grinned at her.

“And yes I’m the baddest. Yes, I’m a bad girl. But I ain’t your baby, you gotta earn that.” Shoving him away, she happily shouted, “I did it!”

“There you go! Strong contact. You’re learning fast. Let’s continue working on the dance.” He replayed the song and got back in formation.

Practicing the routine multiple times, each time Jungkook would restart the song if she messed up. He was patient and helped her with her facial expressions. She felt comfortable around him. And before they both knew it, they noticed how strong their chemistry was when they danced.

“Let’s do it one more time, full out. Then we’ll head back to the dorm.” He requested.

“Let’s go!” She gestured for him to replay the song.

After Namjoon’s verse, Jungkook smoothly came up next to her with a big grin on his face.

jakkuman nuni doragane yeojadeurui bae (Yup)

yeojadeureun bangjeongsik uri namjadeureun hae (Yup)

ttam ppilppil gwaenhi bilbildaege dwae

deo manhi jom sineojwo haihilhil

As she was in front of him, the both of them hopped forward and did the same on the other side.

nado yeollyeodeorp al geon da areo

yeojaga segye choegoran geot mariyeo

Placing a hand on his chest, he turned his attention to her. She brushed him off, while he lip synced,

Yes I’m a bad boy so i like bad girl

illu wabwa baby urin jal doel geol

After the chorus, she strutted forward while Jungkook was near the back of the dance studio, watching her.

I know I’m the best, from head to toe

it’s completely ridiculous if you think I don’t know

My hair

My body

My waist and legs

It’s okay to stare, I know that I look good

Turning her head back to see Jungkook watching her, biting his lip seductively once again, she remained relaxed, waving his looks away.

Yes, I see you starin’ hard

Caught you off guard

I see you droolin’

Who are you foolin’

Turning back around, she continued to lipsync her verse while Jungkook slowly made his way over to her. With a hand on her hip, she ignored his attempts to flirt as he tried to get closer.

Sucks to know it won’t be easy to tempt me

You and I both know that I’m driving you crazy

As she continued to lip sync, Jen body rolled with him mirroring her movements from behind. Placing his hands on her hips he grabbed her back as they effortlessly moved together, in sync.

Those sexy smirks and lip bites clearly show how much you’re yearning

Don’t try to hide it, I see your body twistin’ and turnin’

Escaping his arms, she turned around and grabbed him by his shirt, walking forward as he walked back.

You call me an equation and say you can just do me

But we both know you’re the one dreaming and wishing you could touch me

Letting out a laugh when he suddenly wrapped his strong arms around her waist, from behind, she held onto his arms, giggling out a, “Behave!”

Letting out a laugh himself, he released her as they both got serious again. He moved her body with his in sync with the beat as she continued her verse. She got used to the feeling as their motions were on beat and full out. She turned around and grabbed him by the collar, getting up close and personal.

And yes I’m the baddest

Yes I’m a bad girl

But I ain’t your baby, you gotta earn that

Deciding to kiss his cheek instead of shoving him away this time, he smiled brightly at the unexpected kiss and then got in position with her to dance the chorus.

Hello hello, hello hello, I’ll tell you what I want right now

Hello hello hello hello, I ain’t givin’ it to you right now.

I’m the best and I know it but I’m not yours.

I make your body twist and turn when you in front of me.

nege dagaseogo sipjiman neomu simhage areumdawo

yeojaneun choegoui

seonmuriya seonmuriya

jinjja nae sowoneun

neoppuniya neoppuniya

Approaching her once again, he grabbed her hand, smiling down at her as he gently lifted up her chin.

nan neoramyeon I’m ok

Oh jajega andwae maeil

aptaedo choego dwitaedo choego

meoributeo balkkeutkkaji choego choego

After the successful dance practice, she chugged down the rest of her water. Taking out a small towel, she kneeled in front of Jungkook, who sat against the wall. Handing him the towel, he dried off the perspiration on his face, messing up his hair.

Feeling her hand run against his damp black hair, attempting to fix it, his eyes lingered on her, as a soft smile came across his lips. He lowkey liked the feeling of her hands in his hair.

Jennie laughed nervously. “Sorry, I think I made your hair worse.”

“It’s okay. You can mess it up and style it how you like.”

“Hm, I’ll keep that in mind.”

They sit next to each other, resting their bodies.

“How do you feel?” He asked her.

“Much better, thanks to you.”

“Good to know.”

“I don’t want to come off as sounding too crazy but I’ll just come out and say what’s on my mind.” She spoke up, making him turn his head to her. “Jungkook, I admire your stage persona. I like how fierce you are on stage, and how you’re a sweetheart off stage. You inspire me. More ways than you think. Thank you for being so patient with me, today. I’ll work hard.”

“Anytime, baby girl.” He smiled softly. After he realized what he just said, he quickly stood up, letting out a couple of fake coughs. “My parents thought I was going to be a baby girl. That’s what I said.”

Laughing wholeheartedly at his statement, she questioned him. “Wait, what did you just call me?”

“N-nothing! Forget about it.”

“No, repeat what you just said.” She got on her feet.

Reluctantly facing her as his face heated up, he repeated what he said. “I called you baby girl.”

‘She’s going to kill me.’ He thought with a groan. ‘I just had to speak. I ruined everything.’

“Babygirl, huh? I like it. Keep calling me that. It’s cute.”

Her statement caught him by surprise as he watched her pack up.

Sighing out of relief, he replied, “All right, I will. I also wanted to let you know that I can continue helping you with our dances. Unless you want Hobi to then that’s fine or-Jimin or even-“

His ramblings were cut off by her light chuckle as they started walking out of the room with her walking a little bit ahead. She spoke out loud, not expecting an answer, “First, you’re my personal trainer in the gym, now you’re my dance instructor? What else do you want to be for me?” 

Smiling shyly to the floor, he mumbled something under his breath as his heart fluttered.

Hopefully your boyfriend one day...

[presiding]

Another question regarding the fic. I wanted to make it short but couldn't word it this way

I liked how you choose lethal elimination of Breanna in your monster in the hull fic. Was it done from Emily's character perspective or do you think that Ashworth is a lost cause herself?

Personally,i always felt conflicted on that matter. She's too dependant on Delilah.

Her whole freedom is about running away from an unwanted marriage with an old man to relationship with a woman.

And yet,was she truly free in a witch coven or Delilah made her a caged bird? I think that Breanna's feelings are genuine but they became twisted with time.

DH2 (to some degree) makes me feel as she could've had a normal life. She became a curator of conservatory on her own before Delilah started communication with the coup through the void.

And still...she returned to her again once she got an opportunity.

Such an interesting character and there surely something is up with Delilah's arcane bond.

BREANNA!!! BREANNA ASK WOO

tysm you're so kind 😭♥♥ you sent me another ask with a fantastic analysis and i'll publish that as soon as i can work out how to add spoiler warnings but! YES! YOU GET IT!

talking about breanna in canon - yeah i totally agree! yes yes yessss

i think breanna's feelings for delilah are 100% genuine. to put it entirely in metaphor, i can't see her as being a caged bird, i'd describe her as trap-happy instead! though --- she viciously defends her cage from anyone who gets too close. i like that she's dependent on delilah and i would argue she likes it too.

the main thing that bothers me is that in low chaos/canon, breanna, after losing her powers, seems to immediately give up. from memory she says deliiah will have no use for her now.

i know that's meant to reflect more on delilah, and breanna's deep understanding of what drives delilah as well as her acceptance of it (😭), but i can't help but headcanon that she wouldn't give up on delilah so easily. whether its, as you say, a return to some semblance of normal life (aka biding her time), or an obsessive hunt for delilah, i also don't think she'd ever get over it really.

the lengths breanna might have gone to find delilah again, are really interesting to think about!

(from a gameplay perspective i see why they wrote it so that she just gives up - it's a convenient low chaos ending for her to stop being a threat to the protagonist.)

talking about the monster in the hull - generally when i choose the fate of a character in a fic, my primary concern is, what am i trying to say with the piece of writing overall? as opposed to how i feel about the character specifically. i have been accused of being ruthless before when it comes to character deaths, but i don't like making anyone miserable unless there's a reason for it. i'm a softie who, unfortunately, loves themes ™ so sometimes i have to pick whose story i'm exploring, and how am i doing that, and then pare back from there.

though the monster in the hull is a Dishonored 2 rewrite, i wanted this to be primarily about meagan foster, and secondarily, emily's relationship with meagan (with a few other running commentaries/themes as well - namely monsterhood, power, guilt/regret, family).

i wrote it a year ago so my memory's hazy but the main things that made me decide on a lethal approach for breanna, was:

emily at the halfway point in the fic is a loose canon, and even if she has taken a genuine shine to meagan foster she still needs to be a threat

loose canon as distinct from high chaos - her heart is in the right spot but she's still lashing out. and she's still behaving fairly self-centredly - she wants to do the right thing but hasn't gotten her new powers under control.

all emily's attempts to crack meagan's facade... have come to nothing. meagan is keeping her mouth shut. so finding out the hard way that meagan DID have a relationship with emily's greatest enemy - delilah painted her! - and all this time she's said nothing - she's so pissed off she fumbles a mission that technically she could have ghosted through.

and by the time she gets back to the boat, she's eerily calm about it - which is why i went with the canon dialogue.

billie's prior relationship with the witches means she has a high investment in the outcome of this mission. but! she knows she was a coward by choosing to not say anything to emily beforehand!

so to find out that emily has been ruthless, and yet is acting like she's fine, is really to twist the knife of fear. meagan's been wondering this whole time what she's gotten herself into, and she just found out - not even breanna, who was both powerful and meticulous, was able to save herself from emily

but of course... there's still the assassin beneath her meagan mask, so they are both concerningly detached in a way.

not to mention! the implied jealousy <3 as a treat!

oh and from memory! i think later on sokolov was absolutely roasting emily for having killed breanna. you know you've fucked up when sokolov is the voice of reason.

there was a delilah plotline i was considering, but i ended up cutting, in which breanna would have played more of a role, but i realised it was going to blow my word count estimate out of the water. funnily enough every time i draft up something with delilah in it, she takes over really quickly. very on brand!

thank you SO much for the kind words again and thanks for letting me ramble in response here, its really really really nice to see that people are still reading the fics that held me hostage so it's super lovely of you 💓💓💓thank you for making my day!

[clairethecutepup]

Tykes at Heart: Getting Your Goat (Ch. 3)

Chapter Summary:

For once, the animal IS being sent to an actual farm. But is the goat going to be KEPT on that farm...?

Episode Summary:

Cio decides to save costs by making his own ingredients. However, things go awry when his milk goat is instead a male goat-- and a rowdy one at that! Can Claire, Leena and Sparky help him tame or remove the unruly beast; or will his attempts at reducing costs end up costing him everything?

[Chapter 3: Sent to an Actual Farm (Hopefully)…]

Cio ordered the goat off the company’s site, and confirmation emails are typically sent whenever someone completes an online transaction. As he recalled, it also included a receipt of what was ordered. Unfortunately, it listed every detail of his transaction…

“Wait a minute…” he presses his nose to the screen, then snaps around in his swivel chair, “I really did order the wrong sex?!”

On his shy behalf, Suru phoned the company to complain about receiving the “wrong” goat, but they claimed Cio did order a male goat… and now, he could see it’s true. Sparky, Leena and Claire stand before him, sharing the disappointed frown; Faxie whimpers and sympathetically paws his master’s shoulder from the computer desk.

“I don’t believe this…” Cio rests his face in his hands, his fox ears drooping, “How’d I even make that mistake…?”

Faxie glares at him.

“What, man…?”

Faxie raises an eyebrow. Cio thinks back to the night, slowly shifting his eyes away and pursing his lips.

***

It was another night of Cio staying up and mashing the buttons on his computer-connected controller. He generally preferred console gameplay, but the game he awaited only came out on PC. Faxie yipped at him, furrowing his little brow and sitting tall. Cio just muttered to himself and button-mashed hard enough to make his controller bob in his hands. Faxie barked at him then.

“Dude, not now!!” Cio stayed focused, “I’ve been trying to beat this guy for a while now, don’t mess me up!”

Faxie would just pull that darn cable and tell his master to sleep already, but he knew it’d just make his owner too angry to sleep instead. Cio then screams out in annoyance as he slams his face onto the desk, making poor Faxie jump back and arch his back.

“Verdammt…” Cio muttered, “Still can’t beat this jerk… Man, no offense, but you really need to be quiet sometimes…”

Faxie turns his nose up and stomps off the desk. If Cio didn’t want to care about proper self-care, then that was on him. The fox-hybrid eventually sat himself up again, then exited his game and opened the internet.

“Whatever, I still got that thing to do…” Cio sighs, “That game’s just too fun, man…”

After some browsing and selection, Cio put the final touches on his ordering form. Then, he needed to select the proper sex of his goat. Unfortunately, a sleep deprived guy can’t identify the differing “Fe” prefix all too well… After placing his order, it was finally time to sleep.

*****

Faxie snorts at Cio, finally snapping him out of that embarrassing flashback.

“Okay, okay, I get it, man,” Cio huffs, “No more late night gaming…”

“Sorry, Cio,” Sparky shrugs, “but I think that pretty much clears them of any need to help you out… I guess you could call again and explain everything, and see if they’re willing to make an exchange?” Sparky then widens his eyes, before hanging his shoulders, “Oh, right… You said something about ‘all sales being final’ and generally not taking animals back…”

"Great," Cio sighs, "What am I supposed to do now...?"

"Well, I think the obvious thing is to find someone who will have him," Sparky suggests, "Maybe you could even trade him for a female goat?"

Leena adds, “Or, sell him for enough for a girl goat instead!”

Claire didn’t care which method Cio used for that female replacement, she just wanted the scary thing gone… She watches the deadly caprine from Cio’s back window, observing his consumption of grass. It probably did take a lot of energy to maim people like he did… When the goat realizes her big blues gazing down: he snorts and lowers his horns, pawing up grass in anticipation-- making it clear the pup dies first. … Okay, any of these poor fools could be the “first,” really; save the idiot who can’t seem to perish, no matter how many times the goat smacks his head against the brunette bimbo’s or any other part of her. Still, Satan’s-Fitting-Symbol puts the fear of his holy enemy deep into poor Claire’s very soul: the pup not only runs from the window, but crawls underneath the blanket of Cio’s futon and leaves only her shaking tail visible.

“Aw, do not worry, Little Buddy,” Leena lifts her, making Claire little more than a large and swaddled baby, “Cio will figure out a way to take care of the bad goat, and we will help him.”

“Huh, we probably could do something like that…” Cio taps his chin, leaning into his chair, “Question is: who’d be crazy enough to take that maniac?”

“Oh, I know!” Leena raises her hand, still supporting Claire in the other, “He could be a guard goat, instead of a guard dog!”

“Actually, Leena might have a point,” Sparky explains, “Maybe a shepherd or a farmer could appreciate the help in protecting livestock?” he then rubs the back of his head, “I can’t exactly say I’d see a museum or some manor using a goat instead of a dog…”

“Okay, I could probably get in touch with a farm,” Cio faces his computer again, “I should probably put up an advertisement, though. I don’t think people would like it if I just randomly called and messaged them about a goat,” his fox ears droop, “... I probably wouldn’t like calling ‘em anyway…” his ears perk back up, “But still, random emails can be pretty annoying, too.”

“And there’s also the risk of them thinking they’re being spammed or scammed by you,” Sparky adds, then looks at Leena with his most deadpan expression, “... You remembered to learn from that, right, Leena…?”

“I cannot learn from it, as I have been banned from emails forever.”

It was a simple lottery scam: the typical, “Please give us your personal information, so we may give you your winnings-- and don’t forget the lottery taxes and fees, first.” Leena didn’t have access to an actual debit card nor credit card, so she adhered to the “fees” by giving the numbers on her Perrito Burrito gift card instead. Perhaps a couple burrito combos or a few tacos would have sufficed as well as actual bank funds? Of course, it was demanded that Leena actually pay with a proper card. All she had to do was ask her parents for theirs, and the rest was history… As well as Leena’s permitted, independent use of the internet-- although there were a few other offenses, but it's better for less to be said.

“Well, whenever you’re able to use them again…” Sparky sighs, “Anyway, I’d suggest the newspaper as much as any sites, some farms might not have internet access.”

After taking out an ad in the paper and posting one online, Cio would eventually be contacted by a man on the outskirts of town: a farmer by the name of Johan. They just needed to bring the buck over, and Johan would decide if it’s another “fierce protector” for his grazing goats. Hopefully, Cio’s goat wouldn’t end up being the opposite-- and for more than just the other goats’ sake. They’d need a ride out there, however, and Skyler seemed perfect with his truck. Unfortunately, the demonic caprine managed to pop a back tire with his horns, before Ryuketsu could restrain him again. One spare tire later, and the group finally drove off: Ryuketsu and the goat in the truck’s bed, everyone else inside the vehicle.

When they arrive, Cio gives one final, "Thanks, man," to their driver. ... Along with the proper apology about the prior tire destruction.

"Well, as long as you’re getting rid of him," Skyler sighs, "I'll gladly accept that apology. Also, don’t worry about giving me a new tire, I can see the goat’s difficult to handle."

If this was a simple taste of the goat's behavior, then Skyler dreaded the thought of what everyone else went through until now... The idea that his younger sister and her friends could've been hurt or worse by that crazy caprine made him dislike the creature even more. He offered to come along and help, despite lacking the proper strength to maintain the beast, but Cio assured him they could manage; so Skyler simply sat beside his truck and practiced some field-based sketch work, his wolf tail curled at his side. He needed to get an idea for a commissioned poster, anyway.

Everyone else walked towards Johan's house-- or was dragged toward it, in the stubborn goat's case. Sparky rings the doorbell, being the one who'll speak on Cio's behalf. Johan answered, looking as stereotypical of a farmer as one could: the straw hat, the shirtless overalls and the boots. All the full-human missed was a piece of straw hanging out from the mouth. When he spotted the goat, he knew who exactly this group was.

"So, you must be the one who agreed to trade a buck for a doe?"

Sparky nods, "Yes, we are."

"Hoo wee, this goat must be something valuable if he's apparently guarded like one of them bank vehicles..." he smiles down at Claire, "I especially wouldn't want to be the poor fool who decides to tussle with this little pup for him."

Claire closed her eyes and accepted the head-patting, slightly wagging her tail.

"So, lemme get a look at this fella..." Johan leans toward the goat-- closing his eyes in response to the face-aimed snort, "My, my, you are an ornery critter. Well, too bad for you," he pats the goat's head, "I've dealt with even ornerier."

Cio gulps at the idea of getting "lucky" when it comes to insane caprines. Maybe his pizzeria would have actually been leveled...

"Well, first thing's first," Johan motions them to follow, "We gotta introduce him to his future herd."

They approach an outdoor pen that has a small structure for any shelter the goats need, but the does and bucks remain separated in either section via inner fencing. Seeing Johan, they assumed it to be feeding time and instantly ran toward him, if not just following along the fence's side.

“Okay, listen up, all of ya…” the man begins, motioning to the potential new caprine, “We’ve got a new face here, and I expect all of you to treat him nicely-- even if he’s not exactly the nicest himself, right now.”

Cio’s goat snorts at them all.

“See?” Johan points a thumb, “But don’t worry, I’m sure that once he’s settled in, he’ll warm up to us all,” he reaches to relieve Ryuketsu of gripping the goat’s horn, “Okay, Big Guy, I’ll take over from here: I’ll get him into a private pen, just to make sure he won’t pass on anything nasty to the others here. As for you guys, go ahead and look at the does over there, and decide on which little lady suits your fancy the most.”

Leena grins and runs over to the fence, as all the goats approach her for possible food.

“Oh boy!” she glances around, “Let us get that one-- oh, no, that one! Oh, let us get--”

“Leena…” Sparky puts a paw on her shoulder, “Cio’s the one who needs the goat… He should choose.”

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got…” the mentioned fox-hybrid looks over the fence, “I dunno, man, it’s hard to tell which one would give the most milk… Maybe we should ask Johan.”

“But Cio,” Leena points at a doe, “this one looks just like my little buddy… It is so cute.”

Claire’s big blues stare into the goat’s, as both pairs scan the other being up and down. The goat only needed a set of blue ears and hooves, and a blue tail, then it’d be the perfect glasses-less goat twin. Claire’s wolf ears tilt, as she wonders if there’s a full-fledged wolf out there that’d answer the question: “What if I wasn’t a hybrid?” Honestly, if Claire ever had to choose between human or animal, than remain a combination…

“Uh, I don’t think I’ll get that one…” Cio grimaces, then mutters, “It’d be even freakier if it were me instead…”

No one feels comfortable at the idea of milking their own friend, essentially-- or something close enough, and double for their own self.

"Whoa, look out, he's loose!"

Everyone's blood froze. Oh no, Johan didn't mean...? The quartet runs for their lives, as Cio's goat rushes toward them from the side. Sparky lifts up Cio from behind, while Leena picks Claire up. Hopefully, the taller duo's longer legs would see everyone saved... Perhaps the pursuing Johan and Ryuketsu would provide salvation instead?

"Don't you kids worry none!" Johan assures, "I've had my fair share of ornery critters to wrangle!"

Cio replies, "Dude, I'm not a kid!"

"I know!" Leena leads everyone to Johan's front door, "Let us hide in here!"

Normally, Sparky would protest the rudeness of barging into someone's house without permission... But there's a crazy goat trying to maim them!! Leena holds the door open for Sparky and Cio, before pulling it shut behind herself. Sparky sets Cio down and catches his breath, Cio eyeing the door; while Leena pins her back to the door and still holds a trembling Claire.

Leena sighs, "Phew, we are safe..."

Leena yelps, as she and Claire are sent flying by the dislodged door. The goat glares down Cio and Sparky, causing Faxie to whimper and hide inside Cio's front overall pocket. Sparky picks Cio up again and runs screaming, Cio's own terrified vocals joining in, as the goat chases-- ensuring to jump onto the landed front door, to crush the two canine hybrids still underneath.

"I think my spine is broken, Little Buddy," Leena groans, "What about yours...?"

Claire can't even process if she's still alive, let alone if she still has a spine. At the very least, the girls were left alone (and left dying), while the boys continued their fleeing from a mad caprine. Somehow, Johan's house was still standing... but it was just still standing. Ryuketsu managed to get hold of the goat again, as much as the beast fought; while Johan glares at the entire group, not pleased with the internal destruction of his humble abode.

"Uh, w-we're really sorry..." Sparky gulps, "I-It just seemed like our best bet at--"

Johan towers over him and points in a direction.

"GET THAT DEVIL OUT OF HERE!!"

"... O-Of course..."

Skyler naturally inquired what all happened, once he laid eyes upon the goat that should've been replaced. As if the goat didn't cause enough chaos, he managed to pop another of Skyler's truck tires.

"Sorry..." Ryuketsu grabs hold of him, "He's a little slippery..."

[End Chapter]

-----------

As you can see, I'm done with italicizing and all, those fancier fonts are gonna be replaced by capitalization for SUPER emphasis in influctuations and general screaming. Less tedious.

[figofswords]

what is octopath? your art looks cute and the game's style looks cool but i'd like to hear your summary + what you like about it (you got me into tlt, so i am already likely to buy it based on your recommendation lol)

SO glad you asked. Octopath Traveler is a party-based, turn-based JRPG by Square Enix with an emphasis on story - at times it almost feels like a visual novel disguised as a JRPG. The game features eight “travelers”, each with their own individual stories. Each belongs to one of eight classes: cleric, scholar, merchant, warrior, dancer, apothecary, thief, or hunter. You pick one as your starter character or “protagonist” before you pick up the other characters and they always stay in your party as you travel around and work your way through everyone’s stories. In both games these stories do eventually reveal themselves to have connective tissue between them that lead towards the true final boss, although this connective tissue is much clearer in the second game.

Octopath isn’t the type of video game I usually play since initially it struck me as kind of just being like a TTRPG without the collaborative or social aspects, but my roommate @adoraartt is a big octopath fan and watching her play through OT2 got me sort of second hand invested so of course then I had to go through and play both games. The characters and stories are really interesting (mostly), the music SLAPS, and the gameplay did end up being really fun once I understood it better. I would honestly recommend starting with the second game if you’re planning on buying either of them. The plots of the two games aren’t connected at all aside from a few easter eggs and OT2 made a lot of improvements over the first game - more interesting characters and stories, more subversion of tropes, clearer connective tissue, more interaction between the characters, and stronger indication toward the true final boss - in the first game that boss is really easily missable.

If you’re planning on playing either game I personally recommend trying to start with one of the more powerhouse characters since it can be a little rough getting from place to place and dealing with random encounters before you have your party together. Apothecary, warrior, and hunter are all very sturdy classes. Scholar is your glass cannon, so even though they’re squishy they deal big enough hits that it doesn’t matter so much. In my very first attempt at playing the first game I started with Therion the thief and didn’t even make it through his first chapter before quitting the game, because thief is such a support class on his own that combat just draaaaaagged (also I think Therion is annoying but that’s a different problem lmao). I fully wrote off the game after that until i watched my roommate play OT2 and decided to try again, this time with Cyrus the scholar as my starter. It was a significantly better experience. Don’t make my mistakes lol.

Anyways! That may have been more info than you wanted but hope that helped. If you play it have fun!!

[dirtyoldmanhole]

revelation ch24.

here we go man. whoof.

all right, so corrin & co are in anankos' castle now.

lights turn off, corrin realizes she's walked in a trap and then we get this sick cutscene of hoshidan queen mikoto, corrin's (biological) mother.

possessed, of course.

mikoto's cool as hell.

she also gets a raw as hell deal in fates considering the first time she meets her child way back in uhhh ch8?, corrin's still shellshocked from krakenburg/"losing" gunter/being re-kidnapped by hoshido. corrin's not in any state to believe a word she says. mikoto's actually much less pushy than the other hoshidans who are all 'sisterrrrr!!' and lets corrin have some space.

... and then mikoto dies right after.

little bit awkward when this is the first reaction from corrin when they meet again.

you see corrin's desperation of clinging so tightly to the idea that an anankos possession = loved ones aren't themselves at all. nice, easy, clean, still heartbreaking, but you can convince yourself to kill the person more easily by reducing them to a thing.

its a trick old as time.

(this also hurts a lot more when you think about the fridge horror of corrin not having any real consistent parental figures around her whole life.)

(except uhhh..... ahem.)

corrin tries to attack mikoto but then pulls back at the last minute.

..... oh hell.

ohhhh helllllllllll.

i just realized queen mikoto's a perfect halfway between garon/scarlet/arete and gunter in terms of possession mechanics.

garon/scarlet/arete - their will is not their own, once possessed. once possessed, they're essentially "dead" and genuinely only exist as a lifeless puppet. ironically, corrin's "i will not believe you" reaction is the healthiest for this type. they're gone. they ain't coming back.

mikoto - "even as a puppet of anankos, my spirit is my own". clear understanding she's possessed, and dies immediately after anankos' spirit leaves her, but she still has enough will to herself that she attempts to help out corrin verbally. this is when corrin's 'she's dead la la la' backfires on her terribly and the rug gets pulled under her in terms of 'oh shit i'm not prepared for this amount of emotional horror'

gunter - has his own mind/willpower to the point corrin could not tell he was possessed. straight up explicitly says there's no separation between him and anankos, and makes no attempt to un-blur that line or as to "when" anankos takes hold. corrin's reaction is.... well. we're getting there.

* now of course, if you've read the super secret JP-only line from the pelucid crystal artbook, you know that nintendo probably intended gunter's possession to "start" when garon force-fed him the dragon's blood before the northern fortress days. i actually am on the fence about incorporating that line in my interpretation of the character as imo i actually prefer his characterization without it - there's something about the idea of him being slo-owly tempted by anankos and not resisting that hits in a different way.

so ironically, mikoto's "different tier" of possession happening now is rather brilliant in that it's fates' subtly telling you 'hey hey anankos can influence people in different ways. heads up.'

this is important since in the FE series as a whole, possession is usually a very un-subtle 'somebody else jumps in the driver's seat and the old mind is booted out/killed permanently.'

there's a lot of fridge brilliance in a more subtle handling.

as we'll uh.

learn.

rather intimately ~~~

ch24's gameplay mechanics is an optional stealth mission where you can opt to take mikoto's advice that she says right after the above conversation (take the blue doors until you have to fight her), versus fighting your whole way through the level.

the fun stuff happens post-chapter.....

[dootiexcupcake]

Test Your Might !

Pairing: Sunoo x fem!reader [shao kahn player!Sunoo x Jade player!reader💀]

tags: gamer!sunoo, gamer!reader, fluff, first meetings, bullet point fic, mortal kombat players, two nerds in loveeee, bad attempts at flirting cuz i'm corny

Warnings: reader is a bit dumb when it comes to online safety but for the most part, none (let me know if i am perhaps missing something tho!)

A/N: i think it is extremely important to state that i have never played a single game of MK in my life💀💀💀. I just like reading/watching cutscene movies of the lore, gameplay, and characters. So if smth is wrong...thats why loool.

TL;DR OP is using this as a way to mix her two hyperfixiations into one thing

• you're a Jade main who, although is not considered a "professional gamer", can handle yourself pretty well in an online match

• after going thru several players and mopping the floor with them you match up with a Shao Kahn player

• username: "handsome_starr"

• "cheesy" you cant help but chuckle at the name and assume this to be a easy fight against someone who isn't above the age of 10

• as soon as the round starts you're immediately backed into a corner by a barrage of combo attacks from the other player

• suddenly straightening up in your seat your grip on the controller gets tighter as your health gets lower and lower with each brutal attack of the heavy weights hammer

• you finally got yourself grounded enough to land a few critical hits to him but it wasn't enough to save you. and before you know it, you hear those familiar words

• "finish her!"

• you feel your nose twitch in irritation as the player throws in a taunt at the end of the 1st round

• "How disappointing." Shao Kahn wags a finger in front of him as the 2nd round begins

• usually you would roll your eyes at the use of the taunt, but with this particular player...

• you welcome the challenge

• the second round begins and once again "handsome_starr" releases a flurry of attacks that leaves you in the corner completly at his mercy

• dont get it wrong, you have played as shao kahn before. you know his combos, fatalities, general move set, etc. you're no stranger to the character.

• but the way this player managed to move this heavy character around so swiftly was something you couldn't wrap your head around

• thankfully you've wised up by now, so you dodge Jade out of the way before Shao Kahn lands a devastating blow with his war hammer

• the match ends with "starr" getting the victory, much to your dismay

• naturally, you rematch with the player and you two go at it for way longer than you both realize

• after the 3rd or 4th rematch you get a notification at the top left corner of your TV screen

• "handsome_starr sent you a friend request"

• you exit out of the game momentarily and accept the pending request

• as soon as the action goes through you receive a message from your new friend

• "gg"

• short, sweet, and to the point. nice

• "u 2" you reply

• "I like ur play style w/ Jade. its cool !"

• your mouth curled up into a smirk, pride swelling up in your chest at the compliment. you decided to return the favor to him and give him some very much needed credit as well

• "thx. ur rly rly good w/ shao k."

• time once again slips past you two as you talk over the system chatroom for what seems like mere minuets. But when you glance at the display clock on screen it shows that a few hours have passed

• how you both managed to type for such a long time using game controllers is beyond anyone

• this quickly becomes a thing between you guys

• you power on your console, play some games, get a notif from starr asking to play MK11, then go back and forth in the mobile chatroom (you learned from last time)

• you also learned that starr isnt just an amazing shao kahn player but he's an even better spawn player too

• one day while the two of you are chatting after a particularly good match (you decimated him in all 3 matches. props to you being a quick learner and spotting his patterns) starr ask a question you weren't quite expecting

• "socials?"

• you stared at the screen for a second as you realized what starr meant by that. why did you never think of this before?

• you thought about every middle school online safety video you were shown as a kid

• well...starr doesn't seem like a murderer who will stalk you so..

• "ya, heres my ig:"

•was it stupid to give your personal social media account to someone you've only known for a few months? yeah

• was it even more stupid if you also didn't even know the guys first name?...yeh

• but you didn't get much time to think through all the logic behind your reasonings as you accepted his follow request

• you were absolutely baffled as you saw pictures of who you assume is starr

• how is it possible that this is the same person who mains such brash and gruesome characters? starr looks so...much different than you imagined

• to be honest, you weren't exactly sure what to expect

• but the first thing that came to your mind when you imagined a shao kahn and spawn player was definitely not the cute and seemingly innocent face of the male smiling in these photos displayed in front of you

• it was a good different though!

• a very good different...

• starr sends you a dm through instagram while you were looking through his page

• "ur name is y/n?"

• "ya thats me" you mentally facepalm when you realize you didn't even check to find his real name.

• you look at his profile again and read his bio

• "kim sunoo?"

• "yup thats me ^^ " comes the reply from the other end

• starr..well, sunoo always used little emojis at the end of his sentences when you guys would speak but, you're not sure why it comes off as so cute this time around..

• you shake the thought off as soon as it comes, 'really? falling for the guy as soon as you see a picture of him? you're better than that y/n!' you mentally scold yourself as you try to get your senses together

• sunoo send a picture of you in chat, which confused you but also brung on a small pang of anxiety.

• "this is you??"

• you swallowed down harshly and replied back with confirmation

• "woah..ur rly pretty :o "

• you wanted to throw your phone out of your window and never talk to sunoo ever again

• you felt your whole body heat up at the unexpected compliment and hid your goofy smile from no one in your empty room

• "thx. ur not too bad yourself haha"

• "oh thanks, that means a lot coming from you ~"

• huh, you give a guy your ig page and he suddenly takes a flirty 180

• "dude ur cute ! dont even try it lol"

• "haha 😅"

• sunoo sends another picture of you in chat, but luckily your heart doesnt beat as nervously this time around

• "woa! you cosplay!?"

• ah, how could you forget about that post

• you were at a convention posing dramatically as one of your favorite characters

• "lol yeah i dont do it *all* the time but since i was attending that con i decided to go all out, ya know?"

• "wow! as if you couldn't get any cuter.."

• you huffed out a laugh through your nose and shook your head at his message

• "heh, ur down bad sunoo"

• of course you were too. but sunoo did NOT need to know that...

main m.list | enha m.list

[drizzileiscool]

drizzile's mind presents:

That one time I absolutely demolished one of my irls in puyo puyo tetris 2

starring: drizzile

and irl who I no longer see as a friend because they are transphobic and I want to stop hanging out with

this is another long post

back when tetris 99 released, a youtuber I liked played it for the first time. they kinda sucked tbh but I'm not gonna say who the youtuber is. during the intro of the video, they played footage from a streamer named wumbo. at this time, I had no understanding of the concept of competitive tetris. I immediately checked out his channel and saw gameplay that seemed impossible for me. I later got the t99 dlc to try to practice playing competitive tetris. I still sucked but now I could almost kinda do a t spin. fast forward to me falling down the puyo puyo rabbit hole. i downloaded the demo for ppt and tried playing against the cpus.

Fast forward even more. I have done my first tst in t99 marathon mode and was proud of myself. my irl was also slightly into tetris, but not nearly as much as I am. he knew how the game works but that's it. he didn't know how to t spin (I think he still doesn't), and also believed that combos could only go up to 4 (he also doesn't know about 4wides).

fast forward to the release of ppt2. I asked for it on christmas, but due to me having covid, I had to wait until new years to play it. after beating the story, i went online and got destroyed.

I then looked up some tips on how to get better, slowly improving my speed, and "mastering" the t spin. meanwhile, my irl played tetris party deluxe on the wii and attempted a single t spin.

Fast forward again. I challenged my irl to t99 (the update that added private rooms came out). although we couldn't see what we were doing, we both assumed we were at the same skill level, and we were wrong.

Another fast forward, this is the last one I swear, irl challenges me to ppt2 because he thought the t99 thing was unfair. During this time, the school we were at announced that if people had good enough grade, they would get to participate in a thing called "fun friday", where at the end of a friday, we got to hang out and do whatever in the gym, including playing on switch. When the first round started, I literally swept the floor with him. he did not get the chance to do literally anything. I pc'd him, repeatedly t spinned, and attempted a 4wide at the end (but failed at the 4wide since I still wasn't good enough for that). All he pulled off was a few tetrises and regular line clears. I had several hours of training in tetris, while he only had like 10 minutes. after this, he was very visibly shocked at how good I was compared to him. we never played against each other in any tetris game again (except for te:c once, which he gave up on), and he now calls me the tetris god.

unimportant to the story but also funny: one time when we were talking about this to another friend (who thankfully isn't transphobic but I rarely get to talk to them), he casually mentioned that I am a god at tetris and devoted my entire life to it. coincidentally, I was wearing a tetris shirt under my coat, so I immediately showed it off, resulting in a few laughs.

[spinningbuster98]

So...now that the initial hype (and bewilderment?) for the trailer has largely subsided I would like to give my own personal thoughts on Sonic X Shadow Generations

I'm not happy

In fact after the initial feeling of "holy shit they're actually doing this!?" wore off I got pretty goddamn furious if I'm gonna be honest

Putting aside the fact that I am not the biggest fan of Shadow's game, in fact I can quite comfortably say that I hate it, a sentiment that I confirmed for myself after replaying it for a marathon roughly 2 years ago, so much so that, if it weren't for 06 and Secret Rings existing (and maybe Chronicles as well), it would quite easily be the worst Sonic game to me.

Putting aside also the fact that it is very likely to be written by Mr Ian-I can't work with these Shadow mandates man!-Flynn, whose track record on not only the IDW comic but also Frontiers leaves... quite a lot to be desired, especially when referencing past games is concerned

Putting, once again, aside the fact that what little level design we've seen in the trailer seems to be roughly on the same level as Forces', which should make it at least a tiny bit more inspired than Frontiers' though that's not inspiring much confidence in ME

...why?

Really: why?

Why celebrate Shadow The Hedgehog of all games?

Generations is a celebratory game, a game that, very optimistically, looks back on Sonic's story, both the highlights and yes, even the lowlights, which is why Crisis City was included

However it's one thing to include a level from an infamous game that ruined your reputation as part of your historical celebration while also making it far better than how it was in its original iteration

It's another thing to create a whole seperate story campaign dedicated to revisiting one of the most embarassing entries of Sonic's history, one of the titles that is most responsible for Sonic's reputation going down the drain over the years. And no: I'm not claiming that Shadow's game is the biggest culprit, even before its release Heroes was getting a lot of flack, and as early as the mid 90s, after S3K's release, people were starting to dunk on Sonic a bit. But I think we can all agree that it's when Shadow first appeared with a gun in his hand while cursing like an edgy teen that people collectively agreed that Sonic was now washed out and unsalvageable.

And you know I don't wanna act like this thing is doomed before it's out: it is technically possible that they can deliver something decent both gameplay and writing wise and if they do then I'll eat my own hat and praise it like it deserves!

But I am very doubtful about this, given Sega's quite frankly abysmal recent track record with this stuff, especially in light of Frontiers

And I know: it's just an extra mode bundled with a preexisting good game. Why are you bitching so much?

I'm bitching because this is but a symptom of a larger issue that's been going on for over a decade now, which is Sonic as a series being absolutely dependent on revisiting its past in often half assed ways in an attempt to pander to nostalgic fans rather than, y'know, genuinely and fully moving forward! The actual attitude hasn't really changed in 10 years, it's just that now instead of pandering to the classic elitists they're pandering to the Adventure fans, who will gladly eat this up despite whining for years about nostalgia pandering themselves because all their rhetoric during the past decade was mostly bullshit that can be summed up as "Yeah but they're not pandering to the REAL Sonic aka the one I grew up with!"

There's a part of me that would almost like to praise Sega for "taking it on the chin" so to speak, for wanting to take their chances by revisiting an old, hated game and doing something potentially good with it

But let's be perfectly clear here: Sega's not digging up Shadow's game or SA2 for that matter because they want to redeem them or anything, there are only 3 reasons why they're making this

For the aforementioned Adventure-era pandering, Sega have no doubt noticed that the kids who played Shth back in 2005 have now grown up and love it, while the older fans who bashed it have now largely left the fandom so this game is now free to be used as nostalgia bait

It's Shadow and not only is he so popular that everything with his name attatched to it is bound to sell but his playstyle is 90% Sonic's anyway, so they'll mostly just have to make new animations for him

Sonic Movie 3 is coming and they obviously want to capitalize on it. This game is very clearly for newer fans to serve as a "who this guy is and what his deal is" history lesson

The last 2 reasons are especially obvious because honestly, if they're so adamant on pandering to the Adventure Era nostalgia, then why don't they draw from other, better and more deserving sources?

Why not recreate levels from SA1 and 2 or even Heroes? You can even recreate story scenes from them if you truly want, it would still be pandering but at least stuff like Tails and Amy's character arcs in SA1 are far better written and more respectful to their characters than anything from Shadow's game is towards its own protagonist! Hell why not do something TRULY cool, something that is ACTUALLY unthrodden ground and maybe give us for the very first time 3D versions of levels from the Advance series? Cyber Base and Chaos Angel in 3D anyone? Or maybe the Rush games? With a playable Blaze for the first time since forever? I mean Shadow already had his own DLC episode in Forces and it was pretty ok, why not give someone else their own Episode?

Look: if you like Shadow's game and you like what you see? Good for you, I honestly, genuinely hope that you have a good time

But as for me? A (former?) Sonic fan who hasn't enjoyed anything Sonic related to come out of this entire franchise since 2013 (with the semi exception of Mania and maybe Superstars though I still haven't gotten around to playing it), and who's been extremely cynical of Sega and Sonic Team's way of handling this series? This is just the latest in a long list of nails in the coffin