#i just caught up to vice versa recently........... whew............

[tailorbirds]

ooc: toying w the idea of making a multimuse blog..

[cohentm]

✮     ∷     ╰  𝖈𝖔𝖍𝖊𝖓  &  𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖜  :  

a connection  /  plot masterlist  .

              oof hey babies! i’m making this post so y’all know exactly how i’m breaking down the plots i have so far. i jotted down fulfilled connections, followed by the people i know i’m still in the midst of plotting with ( labeled “tba,” will be updated once we’ve decided on a backstory ), & at the end i listed some wanted connection ideas! even if you see your character on this list, though, and you’re like miss bri.... i want to change / add to / alter / etc that paragraph u wrote... especially if u see a wanted connection and you’re like whew i kinda want that now.... puhlease lmk. i’m down for absolutely anything & everything. mwah. x

𝖋𝖚𝖑𝖋𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘.

parker  ,  ride or die  .  

these two could be a tag team duo if they wanted to be--and practically are when it comes down to it. cohen isn’t scared to get into a fight just because parker’s already there. parker’s hotheadedness and cohen’s will to throw a punch have been melding since the earliest of days, when parker was getting into abrupt locker room fights with their own teammates, even. cohen, being the type who can’t avoid starting shit with those same teammates, never found himself pooling more blame into parker’s bucket. instead, cohen sympathizes the only way he knows how: by holding out his hand and letting parker know that cohen doesn’t need a rhyme or reason to have parker’s back. for cohen nowadays, it’s just on sight. 

olivia  ,  meeting in the middle  /  opposites attract  .

the truth is, olivia should absolutely hate cohen, and cohen should absolutely hate olivia. she’s all warmth & sunlight and he’s all hasty reactions & tunnel vision. but for some reason, olivia has managed to penetrate his demeanor without even trying. he tries to be marginally “better” whenever he crosses her path. when they speak, he finds himself thinking things out a fraction deeper before he throws the whole idea / person / situation in the garbage like the pessimist / self-acclaimed “realist” he is. at parties, he’s the first to jump into a fight, but with olivia’s soft touch, he hesitates. he doesn’t know what it is about her, but she makes himself second guess himself ( often for the better ).

finn  ,  chaotic neutral  &  neutral evil friendship  .

if there’s one person cohen can stand for extended periods of time, it’s finn. finn’s chaotic neutral personality melds with cohen’s neutral evil personality seamlessly. oftentimes, finn and cohen are the duo at the party nodding at each other from across the room because a situation is escalating and cohen’s already rolling up his sleeves prepping to knock someone out for the hell of it. no matter what, finn’s a non-team member cohen’s constantly catching himself leaning on a little. he doesn’t feel like he has to watch his mouth around finn, let alone feel guilty for something like a consistently dirty car ( LXFMDFG ), which is a refreshing feeling cohen doesn’t often run into.

leo  ,  harsh truth-tellers  .

it isn’t uncommon for cohen to bump into leo, given his record for getting called off the field. coach tended to send him to the locker room with a physical therapist just to hide the fact that what cohen was actually getting called off for was excessive anger during a game. leo’s a hardass just like cohen, though, which makes speaking to her simultaneously easier and harder--since she’s bound to knock heads with him, but also give it back just the way he takes it. if there’s one thing cohen’s an expert at in their tedious relationship, though, it’s judging leo for all she’s worth. part of him loves the fact that she keeps herself so upright, after all, so when she’s simping hard and cohen feels she’s dwelling or losing track of herself just to appease people who treat her like shit, cohen’s never been afraid to let her know. this gives their relationship a rocky little twist, but cohen doesn’t shy from the truth.

summer  ,  no strings flirtationship  (  ft. mild to severe seemingly unrequited pining  )  .

summer and cohen have always been oddly close in a way that cohen isn’t close with anyone else. in high school, in a dramatic effort to push summer away after too many a repeated fling, cohen invited summer to his chaotic home. however, poised as she was, she remained entirely unphased by his chaotic living situation & family. since then, cohen has felt more uncomfortably comfortable around summer than he has around anyone else. she continuously manages to seep into his life all on her own. they sleep together casually on occasion, often fight “playfully” in an effort to egg each other on, and tend to open up to each other entirely unprecedently.

clara  ,  ex-girlfriend circa cohen’s sophomore year of college ( two years ago )  &  family friends  .

cohen and clara have been linked via their love for each other’s sibling since high school. clara was always best friends with his sister natalie, and he was always best friends with her brother cam. although clara was a consistent aspect in cohen’s life, they never got together until clara’s senior year of high school, which was subsequently cohen’s sophomore year of college. cohen was convinced he’d make it with her ( which is a rarity in & of itself ) much longer than they actually ended up making it, since cam died a year into their official relationship, sending both cohen and clara spiralling in entirely separate directions. 

renee  ,  PLOTTING ENSUING  !  TBA  .

tyler  ,  PLOTTING ENSUING  !  TBA  .

rafael  ,  PLOTTING ENSUING  !  TBA  .

devon  ,  cousins  .

georgia  ,  PLOTTING ENSUING  !  TBA  .

𝖜𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘.

childhood best friends  and/or  cousins  :  someone cohen knows very deeply, and vice versa. maybe they lived in the same trailer park, maybe your muse’s rich family is related or connected, somehow to his poor cowboy redneck family ( maybe his construction worker dad was drunk on the job and now ur muse’s family thinks of his alcoholic messy parents as nuisances? maybe his parents think ur muse’s parents are too posh and hate their guts? ), maybe their families don’t get along.... maybe their families DO get along and ur muse is someone his parents ask after and talk about constantly! the possibilities are endless. regardless, though, this muse and cohen grew up playing together, smoking cigarettes ( or ur muse watching 12 y/o cohen smoke a cig MVLKFDG ), pretending to be grown because cohen FELT like he was grown by the time he could speak clear sentences, etc. cohen’s family’s a mess but they’re a family all the same. they may fight and drink constantly, but at the end of the day you can find them outside their trailers sitting in camping chairs drinking budweiser around a campfire and making fun of each other.

unrequited  /  secret  /  forbidden crush  :  maybe your muse secretly liked cohen and never said anything, maybe cohen secretly liked your muse and never said anything, etc. bonus points if your muse’s family knows cohen has a whole ass petty criminal record a la ryan from the o.c. and would absolutely throw a fit if they saw their kid even looking in cohen jetson’s general vicinity for too long. LKMDFK how they each deal with their crush today is totally up to us.

bail out  :  someone who vouches for cohen even when he’s getting into the worst kind of trouble. maybe they’ve caught him coming down from a high ( he used to take athletic stimulants for energy & performance, and is currently eight months into his most recent recovery / rehab attempt ) and have kept the fact that they saw him using on the dl in an effort to give him a chance to be better without getting kicked off the team. maybe they’ve given him a ride home from jail after getting picked up for fighting or public drunkenness and his parents weren’t picking up bc why would cohen’s parents ever.... LMDSFLKFG. maybe cohen bails ur muse out too and secretly helps them even when they should be left to suffer in the SAME way that cohen should be left to suffer. but they’re too close. it’s almost like they coddle each other. maybe it’s due to some romantic subplot or something like a sibling inkling. OOF maybe they’re exes. kill me now u know?

sponsor  -  esque relationship  :  basically someone who can cool cohen down when he’s craving a high, craving alcohol, when he’s getting irritable because he’s not performing well enough, when he’s going workout-crazy and needs someone to be like bitch.... can u sit down for like five seconds? LDMDFLKGKFG someone who doesn’t care when cohen cusses them out for no reason because they’ve got a tough shell and know he’s just getting irritable w them because he’s having a moment. someone patient w him. someone he has probably cried to before because he’s...... tired.

party friend  :  self-explanatory! maybe they’re infamous for ditching parties and heading straight to bars together. LDFMKD absolutely iconic of them. they’ve probably at least made out upwards of ten times because that’s.... cohen. SKDFJ unless ur a straight male, in which case, he politely flirts with u and that’s it. x basically this muse has seen him get into unwarranted bar fights just because he’s a bitch who will ALWAYS throw the first punch, this muse has walked home with him when they’re both way too drunk to drive, this muse probably goes back to cohen’s apartment PLASTERED with him after midnight and stays up to cook a meal and play a game of uno with him, etc, etc. we love nothin’ but warm-hearted fun in this house. 

exes on bad terms  /  hateship  /  enemies that detest each other  :  oof someone cohen has screwed over multiple times? more likely than u think. which is very likely. LKDSMFLKDF maybe they were exes? maybe cohen cheated on your muse? maybe cohen cheated WITH your muse and your muse didn’t find out until the break-up? maybe cohen beat your muse’s brother’s/dad’s ass and now there’s bad blood? maybe cohen broke things off with your muse before things could ever get serious? maybe cohen’s general demeanor just pisses your muse off? we’ve all been there KDNFDLKGN. basically these two hate each other and don’t even TRY to hide it anymore.

[imnobodyuknow]

I’ll take it from here, ladies!

And now, without further Splatoon-based ado, it’s time for “big reveal” number 18!

(Just a warning -- this one’s going to get pretty emotional.)

In one of the sadder moments in Doki Doki Literature Club, Sayori asks the following questions:

“Why go to school?”

“Why eat?”

“Why make friends?”

“Why make other people put their energy and caring to waste by having them spend it on me?”

This is why.

As difficult and depressing as life can get, I believe that it’s always worth it to see where it leads you, and in many cases, it can lead you to moments as warm and bright as this one.  Here we have Sayori on the other side of one of the roughest parts of anyone’s life (the teen years, specifically), now a married woman and mother of three, letting out a loud gasp as she squats down and marvels at her middle child’s latest artistic creation.  By the way, if her husband looks familiar, that’s because he is, in fact, the protagonist of DDLC!

So, a little backstory on this -- in this headcanon of mine, Sayori finds the help and support she needs from her friends (and most likely a therapist), and graduates from high school before leaving for college in a different town, bidding her friends a tearful but fond farewell.  After earning a degree in Recreation, she struggles for awhile to find a career before running into a familiar face (not literally running into him, although that would be in character for her.  : P )

While sitting on a park bench, she is reunited with the protagonist, who, as it turns out, didn’t become a NEET -- he studied journalism and became a writer for a newspaper (we all know how good he is at writing, after all *eye roll*), and happened to visit the town Sayori lives in on a business trip.  Needless to say, their reunion was both happy and loud.  Over time, the two of them began seeing each other more often, exchanging stories, encouraging one another to keep trying new things, etc., and it wasn’t much longer before he made her the happiest woman alive, and the two became Doki Man and Doki Wife.  X }

So, why did I pick the protagonist to be her husband?  While I myself went with the Natsuki route in the game, I honestly imagined good old Say-Say as being the best choice in terms of a love interest for the protagonist, if only because of their friendship and familiarity with one another.  I don’t claim to be an expert in matters of romance, but I find it very likely that an ideal girlfriend/boyfriend is someone who already has the “friend” part well established.

Anyway, back to the present day.  As an adult woman, I imagine Sayori being practically the same, with a few small but crucial exceptions -- she's gained more self-confidence, more conviction, and (slightly) more maturity.  Other than that, she’s still the same bright-eyed, happy-go-lucky girl she’s always been on the inside, bringing sunlight with her wherever she goes.

Then there’s the question of what kind of wife and mother she would make.  I imagine her being extremely happy with and devoted to her husband (and vice versa), especially after everything they made it through together up until now.  And to say that I think she’d make a great mother is a gross understatement -- I think she has the potential to be one of the greatest mothers in history.  (I mean, let’s be honest, that’s practically what she is to the protagonist for most of the game.)

As for her career, I imagine her mostly being a stay-at-home mom (and if you me, that counts as a full-time job), but she might also pursue any number of different careers: a teacher, a counselor, a babysitter...  Heck, she’d make a perfect anchorwoman for News 39.  One thing’s for certain, though -- she’d never stop writing about her innermost thoughts and feelings.  After all, who wouldn’t want to read more from the girl who once wrote the best poem ever?

In the game, the protagonist’s name is decided by the player, but in my headcanon, his name is Haruki, and his and Sayori’s children are named, from oldest to youngest, Hiroto, Reina, and Nanako.  In this picture, Hiroto is showing his brand new Chogokin toy to his dad, who just came home...

...Reina is showing her mom her newest drawing, which is soon to join the fridge with the rest of her creations...

...and little Nanoko is quietly observing her surroundings.

Also on the fridge is a couple of photos -- one of Sayori and Haruki’s wedding, and another of a moment when they got caught in the rain...

...and around Sayori’s next, not an instrument for taking life, but a symbol of her life as it is now -- a necklace shaped like a jar with a ball of sunshine inside it.

Guess who designed it for her, by the way?

And finally, there’s no song I know of that better describes Sayori’s love life (in this headcanon, at least) than Some Hearts by Carrie Underwood.  An honorable mention goes to Follow Me by Kay Hanley, though.  I can just imagine Sayori singing both of these songs herself.

Anyway, here's the picture I used as a reference for the delighted Sayori:

Haruki’s design was, once again, inspired by the sprites made by Childish-N, while his outfit was inspired by that of Ace Attorney’s Godot.

Hiroto’s design was also inspired by those sprites, while Reina’s and Nanoko’s designs were based on that of Non Non Biyori’s Komari and Renge, respectively.

And let me just say one more thing about you, Sayori.  Even as an adult, your hair is a mess!

Whew...  That was a mouthful.  I’m sure you can understand why I had a lot say about this particular drawing, though.  If there’s one thing I hope you’ll take from it, it’s that life is full of surprises -- not all of them good, perhaps, but still worth experiencing.

Oh, and one more thing -- the kitchen in this drawing was based on the kitchen in the house where my family lives.  I should also mention that my mom’s been sticking my most recent DDLC drawings on our fridge!

Aren’t moms the best?