#i'm overwhelmed by content ideas so i'm making pretty things instead

[labrats-and-clonetroopers]

A random Citadel Arc collage

[mythicmanuscripts]

Hi! I love your blog so much. I'm literally obsessed! I've wanted sub aemond content for so long and your account is like an oasis in the desert.

I was thinking about aemond and how for so long he felt unwanted and unloved, like he didn't have a place among his family. Because of this I think he'd really like reader telling him "Your mine", even more so than being told "im yours". Not in a aggressive or possessive way (although I do think he'd like reader being protective of him) but in the sense that someone loves him so much that they would openly claim him as theirs. That they aren't ashamed of him or for others to know he's all theirs.

I also think it provides him some sense of security. Like he feels so safe knowing he belongs to you so he doesn't have to worry about anyone else.

Idk if this makes sense, hopefully it does😭I just can't stop thinking about this, I've had it on my mind for a while now.

Oh my god I love this!!! This is so perfect everything you wrote here is incredible.

There’s nothing explicit in my answer but it is very clearly sub!Aemond and has some suggestive tones so I’ll hide it under the cut just in case :))

So I think Aemond really struggles with the idea of being anyone’s first choice? He grew up as a second son, always teased and mocked and never taken seriously. He didn’t expect you to be any different.

The first thing you do that really shows Aemond how much you care for him is just how loyal you are? I’m thinking of a situation where you and your family are at the red keep to look for a husband for you, and obviously your family are trying their hardest to secure an betrothal from Aegon because he’s king.

But then Aemond catches your eye? You end up having a very simple conversations with him, and you know pretty much instantly that he’s the one you want. Aemond wants you too of course. He hasn’t felt this accepted in his life and he absolutely loves talking with you. You and him sit together at the far end of the table every dinner, taking amongst yourselves and Aemond doesn’t even acknowledge anyone else. He takes every scrap of your attention that he can, especially because he’s so certain that your parents are angling for Aegon and that once the betrothal is announced he won’t be able to spend time with you like this again.

You put a spanner in the works. After a few weeks at the red keep you tell your family in no uncertain terms that you want Aemond and Aemond only. Your family is hesitant, both because Aemond is the second son and because Aemond is known to be violent and cold.

But you insist.

When your parents go to Aemond to tell him that you have expressed your desire to marry him instead of Aegon, the poor lad just about feints. He says he would be honoured of course, and then the moment they leave he’s sprinting across the castle to your quarters.

You’re confused to see him knocking on your door. You know you shouldn’t open the door because people might see and rumours may start but you couldn’t care less. He is here, so you will let him in.

At first you actually think he looks upset? When you ask what’s going on he just softly asks, “Do you really want me? Did you mean it when you told your parents I was your first choice?”

You don’t even get to finish the word “yes” before he’s barrelling forwards and pulling you into a tight hug. He buries his head in your shoulder and clings to you. He’s so overwhelmed to hear that someone actually chooses him, never mind it being someone he already wishes he could marry.

You hug him back of course, and then when you try to pull away he just grips you tighter. It's like he's afraid if he lets go of you that you'll disappear. You end up having to just rub his back and whisper that you mean it, that you aren't going anywhere.

Aemond truly doesn’t even know what to do with himself when you tell him that you never even considered Aegon, from the moment you saw him no one else came close.

This is definitely where the possessiveness comes in, because there’d be a period between expressing this and actually having the betrothal ironed out and announced.

Until then, all the other male suiters try to get your attention and win your love and it drives Aemond absolutely insane. You actually have to watch him very closely or else he will lure a suitor into the gardens and kill them. He’s threatens to plenty of times.

A big part of this possessive comes from the fact that he honestly is just waiting for the other shoe to drop? He’s so certain that one day you'll wake up and realise what a terrible decision you've made and beg for the betrothal to be canceled.

So every time you talk to another man, he's so so convinced you'll prefer them and tell him that you don't want him anymore. Which is why he absolutely hates seeing you with other people because he thinks every time he's losing his chance.

And so every time you walk back to him and tell him that you can't wait for your parents to officially announce the betrothal he nearly starts crying. He's watching you choose him over and over again and he truly cannot believe it.

As much as he's very traditional and respectful, I think he kinda just falls apart when faced with the fact that you genuinely want him? He tell himself he'll do this the right way, the way that's expected of him but he can't control himself when he's faced with the reality that you actually genuinely want him.

I don't think you two would be able to wait until marriage for that exact reason. He cannot stand the thought of another even considering being with you and honestly he can't even sleep thinking about it.

He ends up knocking on your door most nights and spending hours with you. He can't get enough of you, and he especially can't get enough of hearing you say you love him and want him. How could he ever be expected to spend the night alone knowing that a few floors down there's a woman he absolutely adores who will open her door and let him cuddle her and hear about her day?

He cannot be expected to spend the nights alone and to watch you speak to others and to wait patiently until the betrothal is announced. He never expected to find someone who makes him feel loved and safe and now that he has found you he will never ever let you go.

[denwritesandcries]

Work of Art – H.C

Pairing: loser!hazel x artist!reader

Summary: You join a fight club just to spend more time with your pretty friend, Hazel Callahan. The fact that you're running out of time to finish an art project is just a detail.

Word count: 3,5k.

Content: loser!hazel trying to be smooth, sylvie being a chaotic ala, cursing, flirting, mutual pining, friends to lovers, my questionable comedy, a little blood at the start, reader is a SIMP.

Note: This came up to me after the ‘these girls are ugly’ scene and I had to make a dramatic story about it. I'm so soft for this character, I just wanna hold her and tell her how beautiful she is.

English is not my first language.

There's a sketchbook opened on your lap, a coal pencil on your hand and a fight happening in front of you.

Technically, that's what you were supposed to be doing too – fighting with someone – it was fight club, after all. Instead, you were sitting against a wall, hastily trying to finish a sketch for your art club project.

In your defense, you weren't even going to join this self-defense club in the first place, having been quite happy just occupying yourself with your art club after school, but your friend Sylvie came up to you one day completely excited about the idea, saying that she really wanted to participate, but that to keep going they needed more members and there enters you.

You said no right away, claiming that you would end up getting overwhelmed trying to balance both clubs with all the meetings, but Sylvie could be so convincing – more like insistent – with her methods, even shouting "PLEASE COME!" in a hallway full of people during classes, that you ended up giving in to when it became too embarrassing. Therefore, you agreed to go to a meeting without the promise of staying.

You regretted that decision and swore to burn Sylvie’s stupid beanie in the first punch that hitted you. You were terrible at fighting.

After being beaten up by a girl you didn't even know the name of, you ended up with a split lip and a bruise forming on your cheek and were ready to go find your friend and gently let her down by telling her that this really wasn't your thing, that is until Hazel Callahan approaches you.

Hazel. The same Hazel who sat three seats away from you in history class for four years, with whom you usually paired up during assignments but didn't talk much. The same Hazel who is standing in front of you with a weird smile and a washcloth in her hand.

“Uh…” you start, not quite sure what to say, “Do you need anything?”

"Oh!" She seems to realize that she's been silent and staring at you for too long, shaking her head, "No, not really, but you looked like you needed it," Hazel holds out the washcloth to you.

You notice that she's doing her best to look casual, shrugging her shoulders with fake indifference and pointing to your bleeding lip with the hand holding the cloth while the other is stuffed into the pocket of her baggy, ripped jeans. The sight is so captivating that it makes you smile even when you don’t want to, with the sudden feeling that you two should interact more.

“Oh, what a gentleman," you joke when you accept and take the cloth from her hand and are happy with the fact that the fabric is dark when your blood stains it, "You came to comfort me after spending all this time watching my ass being kicked?"

Her eyes widened in panic and Hazel squealed like an alarmed puppy, "No!" She exclaims, "I didn't mean that, really. It's just that you seemed upset and I—"

“Haze, it’s okay." You interrupt and reassure her with a gentle hand on her arm, “I’m just messing with you.”

She shakes her head, still in denial, her face red: "But you weren't that bad."

You snort, any trace of upset seeming to leave your body, “But it was bad.”

Hazel looks away from you while playing with the rings on one of her hands, she seems to want to tell you something, so you wait in silence until she has the courage.

"So…" she starts, "Are you staying? At the club, I mean."

No, you want to say. This place is completely chaotic, I have other things I'd like to do and I bet I'll get my ass kicked every time I go up against someone here. But Hazel is looking at you with her head cocked to the side and bright, hopeful blue eyes and what kind of monster would you be to deny something and wipe that look off her face?

“Maybe," you answer instead, an uncertain smile on your face, “I’m still thinking about it.”

That seems to be enough to satisfy her and you quickly turn around, putting the bloodstained cloth inside your backpack and packing your things to leave when you realize that you two were the only ones left in the place.

"Walk with me?" You nod towards the exit for Hazel to follow you and she does so shyly.

As you walk around the school grounds your bodies are close enough that your shoulders touch as you walk and the interaction brings you a surprising amount of comfort.

"You know," Hazel starts again, her voice at a high pitch, she clears her throat with a fist against her mouth before continuing, "You don't have to if you don't want to, but uh—" Hazel stutters, face red again, "It would be really nice if you stayed.”

You turn your head to look at her side face, her nervous attitude warming your heart in a jarring way and you suddenly wonder why you and Hazel have never been closer before, even though you've technically known each other for so many years. It seemed almost unfair to be deprived of her company for so long.

“This fighting thing really isn’t for me,” you shrugged and continued before a look of disappointment could wash over her, “But I think people make it worth coming back for.”

You hoped she would notice the flirting tone in your words; Hazel could be terrible at reading between the lines.

"Oh, you're right!" She replied with an excited smile, "I managed to make a lot of friends there since it started, maybe you can too!”

You raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for Hazel to realize what she said just to tease her, and she did, panicking.

"I didn't mean that you don't have friends!" She shouted with a wave of her arms, "I just— I just—"

Hazel's calm facade falls completely and you feel a laugh grow in your chest as you laugh openly. She takes a moment to compose herself before relaxing a little when she sees that you're not bothered.

"Okay, got it." you say with a final giggle, "Don't worry, I'll show up since it would be so nice if I stayed."

Sure, she may not have understood your flirting the first time, but her red face up to her ears and shy gaze stuck on the floor could only be an indication that she had now caught on.

When you reach the point where your paths part, you can't resist talking to Hazel one last time:

"Haze," You call in a relaxed tone as she heads to her car, "Is that really a women's empowerment club?"

Hazel smiles as she opens the door, without any nervousness this time, "I have no idea, but I like it."

You think you might like it too if you were going to see her like this more often.

When you get home that day, with your untouched art supplies weighing down your backpack, there's a message on your phone left from Sylvie. That little bastard had left without you even noticing.

slaygirl:

hey what u throught about the club

*thouth

sHIT

*thought

runned right home when I saw your mad face lol

You snorted with a roll of eyes. You had already made the decision anyway, there was no point in actually being mad at her.

you:

well I guess is not THAT bad

I'll make the sacrifice and participate

slaygirl:

HELL YEAH LET'S GOOO

told u would like it

You ask yourself one last time if you should really do this or not; the times between the fight club and art club meetings were so close together, it could easily turn into a mess. Then you think about Hazel and the way she seemed enchanted by the idea of you being there.

Fuck it, you thought. You can handle both.

You couldn't handle both. That was why you found yourself against that wall now, running out of time and without the proper sketches you were supposed to present later.

It was a relatively simple exercise that you had to do: draw everyday landscapes in charcoal pencil by sight. The problem is that you didn't have time to draw the requested amount and you haven't had much inspiration other than classrooms and parts of the school lately.

Luckily, no one really minded when you decided to opt to just be a spectator today; PJ and Josie being too busy flirting with Brittany and Isabel and Sylvie being just excited about getting into a fight with someone.

"And what are you doing there?" Hazel's voice scares you as she sits down next to you with a curious look and a small smile at the sound of your surprised squeak.

You had no idea where she had come from, having quickly talked to her as soon as you arrived and then gone straight to your task, but you were very happy to have her there now. You've been getting closer over the last few weeks since joining the club, just as you wanted, which has made all of your juggling between tasks totally worth it.

"Shouldn't you be beating up someone?" You dodged the question, giving her a look of fake reprimand.

She scoffed with a hand gesture, "I'll be right there, I just passed by to check on you." She pointed with her chin to the notebook with you, "So?”

You shrug, "Just trying to finish this project, but nothing seems to make me want to draw." You turn the sketchbook so Hazel can see the simple outline of the open area in which you practice defense, your hands are stained with coal pencil and the sheet is messy with outlines of bodies overlapping the paper.

For the confused look on her face and the slight tilt of her head, you can tell Hazel doesn't quite understand what you mean, but she gives you a reassuring smile anyway.

"You're talented, I'm sure you'll figure that out soon."

You feel a stupid smile growing on your face and you can't help the way your voice softens, "Thanks, Haze."

She returns your smile for a moment, but quickly looks away, seeming to want to break off the interaction.

Hazel breaks the silence that suddenly settles in: “Will you teach me?”, she asks.

You look at her confused, “What? Drawing?”

“Hm-hm,” She nods with a pout, “I always see you drawing during class and I'm terrible at it.”

You find her extremely captivating.

“Okay,” you snort. “I’ll give you drawing lessons if you give me fighting lessons. You’re better at this than me. Than everyone here, actually.”

And then she gets nervous again, cheeks colored a soft red, stammering, “Oh. I— hm, alright.”

You think maybe she's going to say something more, but Hazel gets up and shakes her head like a puppy and your heart warms, before saying goodbye, giving you an awkward pat on the shoulder and running off to find a partner for the day's exercises.

A sigh leaves your chest as your gaze follows her as she walks, deciding to watch a little until you get the courage to finish your work.

Hazel is paired with a girl you had never spoken to but who you were sure was in your English class. A very pretty girl, by the way. It annoyed you how close they were and the way Hazel touched the girl so she could fix her position before they started fighting, the same way she did to you when you asked for help with your movements the other day; and it annoyed you even more the way the girl seemed to lean into her touch, exactly like you did on the few occasions when Hazel touched you for more than a few seconds.

Damn, you wish you knew the girl's name so you could actually get mad.

Your stomach turned uncomfortably the more you watched the duo, didn't that girl know that Hazel is... what? Your girlfriend? Your friend who you flirt with? This was practically the same as nothing. You had nothing. You couldn't be mad.

But man, you are annoyed.

With a shake of your head, you look away from the scene and open your sketchbook again, this time to a clean page. Better get back to work.

When you look up again, Hazel has the girl trapped in her arms. The way her best features are marked is unfairly hot, your silly jealousy ends up forgotten in favor of admiring how beautiful she is.

Unconsciously, you begin to trace the outline of her strong jaw onto the paper, letting the simple body outline you had begun take shape.

To you, Hazel was a work of art in every sense of the word, from her appearance to her most unusual mannerisms. Everything about her seemed to scream art and drawing her was an extremely satisfying action. It wasn't even the first time you had portrayed her, having made small sketches during the times you worked together in class and given them all to her – you wish you had kept at least one now –, maybe that's why she asked you for lessons anyway.

Either way, anything involving Hazel is more interesting than your original project.

You notice the way her hair falls over her face, the dark color contrasting with her big blue eyes, and you think it's a shame you didn't bring any supplies you could use to color them. There is a small cut where a yellowish bruise is on her cheek; Hazel seemed to always be recovering from some injury, even though she was the one who won most of the fights, not that you would count – liar, you did.

You draw the outline of her nose and lips with the practiced precision of someone who has done this many times before; she's wearing a dark green button-down shirt, one of your favorites on her, along with baggy black jeans and an old pair of vans; her hands are missing their usual rings and there are little green dinosaurs in her socks.

You won't add all of it, of course, it's not a full body drawing, but you can't help but notice every little detail about her.

Time passes without you noticing, your project remains completely forgotten while you draw Hazel from memory, no longer needing to turn to the annoying vision of her and the other girl. When the meeting is almost finished, Sylvie approaches you smiling and looks over your shoulder.

"Dude!" She exclaims in a knowing tone, “So that’s why you actually agreed to join the club!”

“Shush girl, do you want everyone here to know!?” You whisper-shouting and quickly pull the beanie she was wearing over her nose tightly, ignoring the chocked ‘fucking rude’ that Sylvie lets out.

“You should tell her." Sylvie declares, because of course she would understand right away that you have a crush.

“What?" You ask, alarmed, “Like right now?”

"Yeah!" She pushes your shoulder in encouragement, “The day is almost over, it’s not like we have anything else to do anyway.” Sylvie shrugged, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

“I can’t just go there and tell.” You mumble, “And I have things to do.”

“Oh, come on! I’m sure she likes you back!”

“And how can you know that?” You asked.

“How come you don’t know that?” Sylvie replied, “It’s kinda obvious.”

“Okay, whatever you say, but I’m not going to tell her anything now.” You insist stubbornly.

Sylvie looks like she's about to say something else, but a tricksy smile forms on her face when she sees someone approaching.

"Tell what?" Hazel's voice coming from nearby startles you and when you turn your face to find her, she's alone, no sign of the other girl in sight.

You were about to stutter something in response – and most likely make a fool of yourself – but Sylvie was quicker.

“Oh!” Your friend exclaims in false innocence, “I was trying to convince her to show you her drawing, but she’s such a perfectionist.”

You elbow her in panic and Sylvie lightly tugs at your hair as she stands up; you don't notice the dirty look Hazel gives to the interaction, wringing her hands in her pockets.

Sylvie walks away arching her eyebrows in a suggestive expression at you and your cheeks burn at the implication as Hazel takes her place beside you.

“So…” she begins, her voice strangely tense, “Did you finish what you were drawing? Can I see it?"

“Well…” You feel nervous, there’s no way to get out of this without making her sad and that’s the last thing you would want to do. Taking a deep breath, you decide to go ahead: “Inspiration came to and I drew something, but it’s not for my project, I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

"Yes, I will!" Hazel adjusts herself excitedly, your knees touching, “Can I see it?” she repeats.

You gulp and nod, turning the sketchbook towards her. Hazel lens even closer to you to see the result, her chin brushing your shoulder and a hand running up your back and resting there, surprising you, you feel the coldness of her hand and the outline of her rings – when she did put them back? – through the fabric of your t-shirt.

You feel the moment Hazel registers the drawing on the sheet and her breath hitches, the action sending a shiver up your spine.

"Then?" You ask nervously, “What do you think?”

But Hazel remains silent. When you turn to look at her, her jaw is dropped in complete disbelief and a deep blush covers her face from her cheeks to her ears.

“Haze?” You call, unsure.

“That’s— it’s beautiful.” She stutters, one hand delicately touches the paper, coal staining her fingers, “It’s me. It’s me… beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” you correct without hesitation and Hazel’s gaze turns to you, “That’s nothing compared to you.”

She hesitates for a moment, “Why did you do that?”

"Why?" You echo, “You know why.”

And Hazel knows. You know she knows. There hasn't been a single day that the two of you haven't flirted, that there hasn't been this tension between you. There's no way she doesn't know, but someone needs to admit it.

She looks at you expectantly, the same lovely hope as before is back in her eyes, and again, who are you to take that look off her face?

You sigh, “I have a crush on you, Haze.”

She snorts, voice shaking in a confident attempt of a joke: “I know.”

You raise an eyebrow and give her an unimpressed look and Hazel immediately backtracks.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She exclaims, “I just— I like you too, a lot.”

You feel a smile tugging at your lips when you put the notebook and pencil aside to look at her fully and your faces are so close that you would only have to lean in for your lips to touch. God, you've never wanted something so much before.

You notice every little detail of her face; a fallen eyelash on her cheek, the faint marks of dark circles over her eyes, freckles over her nose that you had never gotten close enough before to see.

Hazel looks at you like she can't believe what's happening and honestly, neither can you.

“Please,” she whispers, eyes locked on your lips.

Hazel Callahan was the most beautiful work of art you had ever seen and as an artist, you know you should never touch artworks, but Hazel asks you and you could never deny her anything.

Your lips meet and it's softer than you thought it could be – even though you've thought about it many times then – and your hands rest on her cheeks like they belong there, she lets out a sigh of contentment that warms your heart.

When you pull away, there's a coal stain on Hazel's face from where your hand was before and her pupils are dilated like dark pits, it's unfair the way it makes your heart skip a beat.

She kisses you again, shorter this time and you would have chased her lips if it weren't for someone's voice scaring you:

“ATTA GIRL, I TOLD YOU YOU COULD DO IT!” Sylvie is on the other side of the gym, cheering and pointing at you.

You had completely forgotten that the meeting wasn't over yet.

“Dude." PJ starts on the other side, “When did this happend?”

“You know this is a public space right?” Josie asks with a hand on her hip, “Don’t make out here, man.”

You shake your head in amusement and start to gather your things, “Okay, okay,” you say. “Let’s make out somewhere else then. Come on Haze.”

Hazel seems too flustreaded to speak and doesn't argue as you take her hand and pull her along as you leave to the sounds of your friends cheering and joking.

“Where are we going?” She asks, you’re still holding hands.

You shrug innocently, “I promised you drawing lessons, didn’t I?”

In the end you don't show up at the art club that day, too busy spending time with your newest girlfriend and it's totally worth it.

[libbytwq]

hey can i be sappy for a moment, i feel like getting a thing off my chest (positive vent)

I love you all in the SMG4 Tumblr community so much. Y'all are absolutely epic and amazing and so creative and just. chill.

I've always been so nervous about joining set fandoms/fandom communities, cuz usually the community is huge and overwhelming, toxic, scary, crazy, and the idea of being in those communities and interacting with people in those communities and being in there not just to post a dingle fanart from it and dip, but to help be a big part of the community and whatnot sounded... overwhelming.

Then I slowly began getting super hyperfixated on SMG4, much more than I usually am, leading me to post more about it. Fanart, things I notice, goofy theories... more than just me saying a couple things i like about it, posting a fanart, then moving onto something else.

I started kinda just exploring the SMG4 tags and gradually, I began recognizing most of the people in this community more and more -- recognizing art styles, etc. I noticed how small a community it was.

And it was a mostly chill community. I wasn't really seeing much drama or questionable things, maybe some criticisms about the show or theories or whatever, but nobody was at each others throats. Plus, the fan OCs were super neat.

I had begun posting more and more SMG4 content, drawing fanart, their OCs, and the fact people were so just... chill and welcoming about it was so nice. It wasn't nearly as scary -- we are all just vibing here. Most of the artists you look up to will probably see your work, and give it attention too.

It feels super strange to be considered an SMG4 Tumblr artist, having people literally enjoying the things I make and making things for me when they make things for SMG4 fanartists... its honestly super surreal. But so so exciting and euphoric.

Cuz yall are so awesome!! Yall make my day so bright. Yall are the best.

I'll be honest, when I first was slowly being a part of the SMG4 community -- sometime right after summer vacation began -- I had been dealing with some petty but difficult irl person issues.

I don't want to get into it too much, but I had basically messed up in a pretty bad way (enough to make me feel bad the moment I did it, but not enough that we couldn't move on and mature from it), and the people involved were hurt worse than I thought they were, and instead of trying to talk it out they resorted lying about being my friends for months before school ended, and over summer break, tried to cancel one of my Scratch account and drag my followers there into drama that they had no business being in, for the simple reason being "you don't deserve all that fame".

Despite their attempt at trying to cancel me not really working out very well, it very much affected me negatively and made me very very scared about using Scratch again. I still post projects there sometimes, but i felt weird when i do it. I felt like those people were watching my every move, waiting to try and drag me down again. It felt so strange and scary to feel like the people I once cared so deeply about are breathing down my neck, waiting for me to make another wrong move and add it to their proof of why I'm an awful person.

It sucks ass.

The SMG4 community here on Tumblr, despite none of you knowing I was going through anything at all, you all helped a lot. Just existing.

Being a welcoming community that I feel safe to be silly and normal in.

I've never been the best at expressing appreciation, but let me just say:

I think of you all so highly and I never want you to change.

Keep making silly art. Or fanfics. Or AUs. Or OCs. Or whatever you like doing in this tiny close-knit fandom.

Keep doing everything you're doing to make this community mean so much to me.

❤️❤️❤️

...this sounds like im leaving the community,, IM NOT I just wanted to get it off my chest cuz ive been experiencing the emotions™ yknow, sorry that its not like my regular posts lol, im not gonna post like this much LMAOOO

TL;DR: yall are fuckin awesome please keep being awesome forever and ever ily bye

[iztea]

Do you like drawing in a sense that it relaxes you? Like a hobby you‘re looking forward to after a day of work. Do you feel joy while you draw?

I‘m currently battling my art demons and came to the conclusion that drawing actually makes me feel shitty a lot of the time because I only take joy out of the results yk? So if it‘s good, great! If I get overwhelmed woah my world is breaking down. My therapist told me I need a hobby that actually relaxes me and that I like solely for itself, not connected to performance, and I was wondering if drawing is just generally the wrong thing for that or if there‘s a way for people to actually enjoy it in a relaxing way.

You‘re so open about your drawing process and you‘re my favorite art account so you fell victim to my question haha but I get that this ask is pretty specific and kinda weird, don‘t feel pressured to answer :)

i do very much enjoy drawing in a relaxing way; for me, it's the equivalent of playing video games or watching Netflix so, in a way, i think of drawing as "unproductive work". Not sure if you're actually looking for a solution-based answer to your problem or if you just want to hear my side/my opinion on the matter, but I'll try to delve into both. 

I think for me personally, I've always found drawing to be relaxing for the most part. Frustration is always to be expected, of course, but I wouldn't say it ruins the mood, it's just something that comes and goes. The only unpleasant part about drawing for me is strictly related to the social media aspect or just making it public. Now, I'm not sure if you have an art account as well or how much you relate to this but I very often dread posting stuff online. I kinda have to force myself almost every time to make something public because I hate the applause but I am also rational enough to understand that art is meant to be shared with others, even if I personally don't feel a strong need to... It's just one of those human behaviour things you have to mimic or adapt to get by, similar to many other things that don't make sense to me personally but I cognitively understand why they happen but I digress

 When it comes to the process itself, I actually enjoy it more than the final result. If I had a lot of fun experimenting with brushes and new techniques and crazy effects i saw online then i get a sense of joy no matter the end result, and here is where my first piece of advice comes into play: learn to enjoy the process without thinking of the destination. For me, even when I do have a clear idea in mind, it always fluctuates and I let it fluctuate. Sometimes it even looks like shit. So what? It's just for your eyes, who cares if it doesn't look good? Just call it a flop and move to another thing, or revisit it sometime later when your skills improve. This is even easier when you do not have an art account where you share your art, there's zero pressure, you're creating the pressure yourself.

Just think about it: 

>why do you feel shitty and overwhelmed? -> because you care about the end result

>why do you care? -> because if it turns out bad, it feels like wasted time. or because you put your worth into what you create or because [  fill in your answer here ]

>do you still want to continue drawing? -> if there is a way to enjoy it in a relaxing way, then yes i assume

Ok great! Then, the solution is to remove that root feeling of disappointment, overwhelm or despair by learning to appreciate the process of creation and bask in the uncertainty of it instead of being so dead-set on the final piece. If you are not content enough with your skills to end up drawing something that you're always satisfied with, and if it causes you this much distress, then drop your expectations and don't reach the finish line. I mean this literally: draw forever-WIPs. Sketches. Doodles. Don't render, don't even try to think of a color palette. Don't Finish Your Art. Enjoy the process of discovery, of trial-and-error of indecision and I can assure you it will be during these moments when you'll find the relaxation you're looking for.

Enjoyment and relaxation, in my experience, come from two places/approaches: 1. the subject itself and/or 2. noticing improvement in your skills.

To give you an example, when I was sick with fever I drew Dazai as that "let's take ibuprofen together" meme and I thought it was the best shit in the world I was on cloud nine and giggling to myself. Looking back on that art, I now realize it looks terrible (and i lowkey want to redraw it) but back then i was laughing while drawing it and felt Great. because I was drawing something i thought it was funny. Not even once did I think "oh man, I hope this turns out nice ohh it will be so awful if it doesn't the world will explode" because that was not its purpose. Granted i was a bit,,,,,, unwell given my sickly state but my point still stands! So, what I'm trying to say here is that you can try drawing "funny/silly" things as a way to sort of lessen that burden of expectations. Or just something you reaaalllly want to see and you know no one else will do it. Taking matters in your own hands type beat

The second way to enjoy drawing in a relaxing way is by taking the other route: instead of focusing on the subject matter, try focusing on new techniques, new brushes, new tutorials or approaches you found online. Basically, focus on improving your skills in a fun-no-pressure-no-strings-attached way while keeping your subject of choice neutral or uninteresting. Or maybe take the artwork of an artist you really like and try to deconstruct it/ reverse engineer it and apply it to your own art. But whatever you do or choose, just never finish it. let them stay as wips or else you won't be very.. relaxed.

*please note this is an "and/or" statement, so you can absolutely do both: try a new technique you found while drawing something that you also enjoy for uhhhhhhhhhhh relaxmaxxing as the would kids say

Lastly, what I would highly recommend is listening to Adam Duff's podcasts, he really hits the nail on the head when it comes to such topics and more, he really narrates and explores that soulful part of an artist way better than I ever could with this answer so please check him out, I think you'll find your answers there

[hangeslefteye]

HCS for having a couple's Only Fans with EREN and REİNER SLIGHT NSFW WENT WRONG!!!

My hand slipped and I accidentally wrote some HC's for owning a mutual only fans with EREN and REİNER oops D: (If there's anything to add feel free)

Eren:As soon as you suggest having an couple's only fans he just jumps right into it lol no convincing,no second time asking..Because the idea of him showing you off to rest of the world and claiming you as his is too overwhelming %100 super excited lol.And the image of poor internet simps paying money just to see him fucking you dumb sends him over the edge D: But you were just too shy and didn't wanted to show faces and make it a secret which kinda turned him off but he does understands </3 by aiming on your tattoos to camera's angles on purpose and making you moan and scream as much as he can lol.Do you really thought he would understand???Like really??Honestly modern au Eren too would have LOTS of tattoos so people could tell its him but no.He wants your star to shine lmao.You guys can deff make some money out of it and get somewhat popular tho nothing big.Yet i can totally imagine one day Connie just comes along to show Armin and Jean a peek of his favorite sexual content AND THEY FROZE like???IS THAT????NO WAY?? Somebody just bleach Jean's eyes he's disgusted afff lol.And Armin poor baby baby Armin D: Connie is just clueless goes around saying things like 'Aren't this types of tattoos so popular at the time?Eren too has one lol' D:::: 'Look at the coincidence his name too Eren haha' his laughter slowly dies as he realises D::: Jean is just wondering how stupid Connie might be as he hears you literally screaming Eren's name OwO they silently and guiltly look through the entire content deadpanned D: And how they WİSHED IT WOULD BE THEM fucking you in front of THAT mirror holding you close possesively as you mewl THEİR name in a bliss, instead of Eren's. Just like many other man did.

Reiner:Ofc has heard about only fans but never even thought about it until you bring it up and TERRIFIED of the idea of someone close to you two discovering it!!(CAN YOU IMAGINE PORCO FINDING REINER'S ONLY FANS?????) Honestly at first he will only accept it for your sake but then again he easily goes out of his way just to please you at everything :') Only fans is just one of many <3.This also can be his way of telling the world that he is entirely yours and proud.Yeeet he's kinda shyy so wont show his face.But this makes everything better???Like his body is so hot and no face thing makes him incedibly mysterious.I wont even talk about his natural talent he so efortlessly good at this.Like think of him triying to get a bj without choking their s/o but gracefully fails and you are stupid drooling,coughing mess D: I can see BOTH FANGIRLS AND FANBOYS going crazy over him and at one point you might be like???Hello I'm there tooo????But can you blame fans?? He's just waaay too pretty even without his face showing. As a result you two make good money with it so neither of you don't complain xD UNTIL your page literally BLOWS!! and everyday people talking about it.Just imagine sitting at a bar with Reiner and people next to you casually talking about a video of certain 6'3 mysterious blond man fucking their s/o on air while they look like a tiny rag doll over him and reiner gets choked on his drinkk xD he accidentally becomes a national porn star :D Honestly he didn't even think he could make any money out of it??Let alone his videos going viral??Neither did you so this was a interesting suprise for both of you.In the end this is where you two decided to drop it but his legacy lasted a looong time xDDD On the other hand do you think Karina can tell it's her son that's moaning???BECAUSE SHE ABSOLUTELY HAS SEEN İT :D

+I accidentally pimped out Reiner IM SO SORRRY xD BUT HE'S SUCH A PRETTY BABYYYYY AHAHAHZGXCX <3 also I REALLY dislike Karina :P

[littleclownopinions]

Why Henry's Completion Ending monologue still gives me chills

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of child murder and suicide

Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator released in December 2017 and was packed full of lore. From Candy Cadet's stories, to the Scooper blueprints, to the Fruity Maze minigame and even to the still unsolved Midnight Motorist gameplay, there was a lot to discover and unpack. However, today I don't feel like doing any lore solving or theorising, instead I'd like to simply explain why I love Henry's Completion Ending Speech. I will be directly quoting the important points, but if you need a refresher you can find the whole thing here. One last thing before I begin, I think it's important to remember that when listening to the speech for the first time, players weren't certain on who was speaking. Although Henry was an established character in the books and we were aware of William having a business partner, Henry's name in the games wasn't proven until PJ Heywood, the VA for Michael and William Afton, confirmed it to be Henry on Dawko's The FNAF Show. For talking sake, I want to approach and evaluate the speech from the angle of listening to it for the first time without the foresight or context we now have.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Connection terminated. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Elizabeth, if you still even remember that name.."

Henry's opening line is Incredibly effective for two main reasons:

Firstly, this was a pretty important name reveal. Although we already knew that William Afton's daughter had been killed by Circus Baby, and was therefore the spirit possessing her, we did not know her name. Considering the character's lore importance, her name being revealed was a big moment for fans.

Secondly, although we didn't know who exactly was talking, calling out Elizabeth's name made it clear that this was someone important. Someone with connections to the Afton Family.

So, with a single line of dialogue there are two major pieces of information being conveyed to the player. That's what I think makes this such a strong opening.

"I'm afraid you've been misinformed. You are not here to receive a gift, nor have you been called here by the individual you assume. Although you have indeed been called. You have all been called here into a labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune. A labyrinth with no exit, a maze with no prize."

Moving on, Henry begins explaining that the restaurant is really a maze and the map that we've been staring at throughout the office gameplay suddenly appears, except I think this time it seems a lot more... ominous. The thing is, FNAF6 is a pretty overwhelming game. There's so much constantly happening in each gameplay section that there's a pretty limited amount of brainpower one can put into analysing the layout too much. It's only at this moment that players have the opportunity to really weigh up the implications. I think this was done really well. This moment allows for the paranoia to peak as the reality sets in: there's no escape. We still don't know who is talking and therefore have no idea the motivations behind his plan. It's a scary realisation and just fills this moment with so much dread and anxiety.

"I am remaining as well. I am nearby. This place will not be remembered, and the memory of everything that started this can finally begin to fade away, as the agony of every tragedy should."

Now, this is where the speech begins to shift in tone. As the listener, your nerves begin to subside as you realise that, although you still don't know this character, you start to realise their intentions.

The last line here has always stuck with me for how beautifully written it is. I think it goes a long way to show exactly how Henry feels about everything that has happened over the years. He's fed up and wants to bring an end to this sad and tragic story.

"And to you monsters trapped in the corridors, be still and give up your spirits. They don't belong to you. For most of you, I believe there is peace and perhaps more, waiting for you after the smoke clears."

Hearing Henry refer to the animatronics as "monsters" is really intriguing to me because it means that, although he views them as alive, there is a separation between them and the child souls that inhabit them. It's sad, in my opinion, because I can only image that there was a time where he was proud of the animatronics. A lot of them were his own creations and they brought joy to a lot of children out there, but ultimately they had become unrecognisable to him. He veiws them as evil. Extensions of his ex-business partner and his wrongdoings. Ultimately, though, I think it's sweet to know that he imagines the children's spirits being able to move onto something better.

"Although, for one of you, the darkest pit of Hell has opened to swallow you whole, so don't keep the Devil waiting, old friend."

Honestly, I'm not sure this line needs much explaining. I think I'd be hard-pressed to find a single FNAF fan that didn't have goosebumps hearing it for the first time. There's something so chilling listening to Henry refer to William Afton as "old friend" while we watch his rotten corpse and soul burn in the fire that Henry has started. This is also where we begin to learn who is speaking to us.

"My daughter, if you can hear me… I'm sorry on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up into their arms the way you lifted others into yours… I couldn't save you then, so let me save you now. It's time to rest; for you, and for those you have carried in your arms."

These lines say a lot about who Henry was and again highlight his intentions. While I love hearing him speak directly to Charlie, I think the way he also mentions the other children says a lot more about his character. Yes, he's doing this for himself and Charlie, but he's also doing this for them. He isn't selfish or self-serving. While he may not have known the other children, he still takes the time to mention that this is as much for them as it is for himself and his daughter.

"This ends for all of us. End communication."

These last two lines may be simple, but I personally think they're perfect. Henry is attempting to end everything. His own guilt, William's evil, the suffering of all the children. All of these objectives are of equal importance, for the sake of everybody and everything, it all must stop. And who knows, Maybe in Henry's final moments he was still and quiet, reflecting on it all. Maybe he was given one last chance to speak with his daughter Charlie and tell her he loved her one final time. I think it's up to you to decided what your own headcannon is. Regardless, Henry's last lines prove that he was a good and honest man. He cared about it all, not just the parts that affected him or his life. He was doing what he thought had to be done to bring this story to a close once and for all. His monologue is, in my opinion, some of the best content across the entirety of FNAF. The writing is phenomenal and the performance given by Dave Steele is incredible. It's simply something I'll never forget.

[helium-stims]

Hi, I know you made a tutorial for making stim gifs before but I was wondering if you had any advice on how to find cool stim sources like you do in the first place? I'm super curious cos I feel like searching places like instagram and youtube could get super time consuming or overwhelming. So I thought I'd ask! Thanks~

Yes, looking for sources can be very time consuming and my process might not help much, but I'll share it anyway :)

Under a cut because I have a lot to say, lol

General tip

So the thing that has helped me the most is to make looking for sources it's own separate task. If I'm sitting down to do gif making, and in that time I also have to find sources, I get overwhelmed pretty quickly. So by the time I get to the gif making part, I usually already have some sources saved on instagram or bookmarked in my browser.

Sometimes I don't have enough sources for a board and I may do a quick supplemental search, but often this leads to my brain 'switching tasks' and I have a hard time going back to gif making. Or there will be times when I have a video saved and by the time I get around to giffing I forgot what I wanted to gif it for. So maybe it's not the best process but it's what works best for me.

Starting from a source

An easy way to begin looking for sources is to find a gif you like and follow it back to the source.

If it's a youtube source, you can let the algorithm recommend different videos, or you can go to the profile of the video poster, and look through their other videos.

If it's on instagram, you can search through the profile for other videos that weren't giffed, or you can look at what kind of tags they're using and type those into the search filter. Unfortunately instagram does not have a way to filter out videos vs. photos (that I know of), which is why I don't use it that much. Most of my instagram gifs are from people I follow or something that came up in a supplemental search because I wasn't finding what I wanted on youtube.

What to type in the search bar

If you're starting from scratch, staring at the search bar wondering what to put in, I've been there too. I owe a lot of my unique gifs on the unique requests I get. But when you don't have any requests to prompt you, think about something you might like. Favorite animals, favorite textures, or colors. If you can't pick something, try just typing 'asmr' or 'satisfying' and see what comes up.

A lot of asmr videos that pop up for me are of people speaking into a microphone and tapping their fingers on it, which isn't something I usually gif, but it can give me ideas of other things I might be interested in.

A quick glance at a thumbnail might show this asmr person uses bubble wrap, and while I know their video style isn't going to work for me, I could be inspired to type in bubble wrap in the search instead.

Or if someone is wearing gloves, I might be inspired to make a bunch of videos on gloves (anyone else remember all my gloves gifs)

Another thing to consider when looking through youtube, is that if you're looking for something with people, it will almost always show white creators on top. It can help to type ethnicities (Jamaican, Vietnamese, etc.) to try and get more diverse content. [this rarely works for food as it will usually show white people making ethnic food :( ]

Looking through videos

Once my search has begun, I usually start playing music or watching a show in the background. Then I mute my computer and just start playing videos. On youtube, I usually go for thumbnails that are nice (not too blurry) but not clickbait-y (This Shocking Video!).

I'll run my pointer to view the preview and see if there are any good looking moments. Paying attention to how things move, color changes, light movement, etc.

If I find a good moment, I bookmark it, then look at the recommended videos. If a video looks addictively good to me, I usually click on the uploader's profile instead and look through videos there.

Once I feel I've exhausted the algorithm, I go back to my initial search and see if any more videos look promising there. Or I may choose to search again with different keywords based on what caught my interest in other videos.

Doing Research

There have been a couple times where I know what I want to gif but can't get the keywords to work for me. The example I remember off the top of my head is when I was making the purple nature board. I knew I wanted to have a bird in it to mirror the other color nature board I did, but typing in 'purple bird' got me nowhere.

So I stopped looking for videos and started googling. Are there purple birds? The Costa's Hummingbird is what I was looking for and using that term I was able to find a better video.

Sometimes you can find reddit threads where people recommend satisfying videos or asmrtists with good visuals.

The End

So it really is just a bunch of clicking and going down an internet rabbit hole, but I hope that gives you a starting off point and gives some insight into my process.

If there are specific gifs where you wonder how I came across them, I probably remember how I tracked them down and am happy to share :)

[rubberduckswriting]

Jared and mowdown walked together down the red and white halls of their school, smiling and laughing as they did so.

Mowdown hadn't felt this content in a while, he actually really enjoyed Jared's company. Jared was like a breath of fresh air compared to the other delinquents mowdown used to frequently hang out with.

Unlike mowdowns other friends, if you can even call them that, Jared was kind and listened to mowdown and respected his opinions and ideas instead of disregarding him because he wasn't the leader of alpha of the group.

At first, the new dynamic between him and Jared took some getting used to. There was much less fighting and yelling than with his other friends. He would get irrationally angry at the smallest things, a trait he picked up from his other friends. But when he grew accustomed to the more chill atmosphere, mowdown found himself preferring Jared over everyone else he could have hung out with.

Mowdown smiled and looked at Jared as the two walked into the hall their class was in. His smile faltered ever so slightly, however, when he felt heat rising to his cheeks just by looking at Jared.

This irritated him. He had been feeling things like this around Jared for almost a month now. He always thought that Jared as pretty cute. He was a dork but mowdown loved that about him. He couldn't help but smile every time he saw the smaller boy. But he didn't think he would actually have feelings for him. He wasn't gay. Well, was he? He always found himself looking at boys rather than girls.

Mowdown huffed irritably under his breath. He was going to get to the bottom of his feelings, and he was going to do it now.

"Hey, Jared?" Mowdown said quietly in a questioning tone, tilting his head ever so slightly. "Yeah man?" Jared smiled and looked at mowdown, fixing his posture slightly. "are you..y'know, gay?" Mowdown stumbled over his words a bit and looked at Jared nervously.

"Well..I'm actually bi. I like boys and girls. Why? are you?" Jared hoped mowdown would say yes, a small smiling pulling at his lips. Ever since mowdown helped him with losing clair, he had feelings for mowdown which only grew the more they hung out. "Well..I don't really know." Mowdown muttered and looked down.

"Well that's okay..I can help you find out if you want." Jared spoke softly, the last part being barely audible. Jared thought mowdown wouldn't hear. But unfortunately for him, mowdown has very good hearing.

Mowdown blushed fiercely at jareds words, especially the ones at the end. Did Jared want to be with him? Did he want to be with Jared? "How would you help me find out?" Mowdowns voice was barely above a whisper as he stilted his head curiously.

Jared hesitated for a moment before speaking. "well, um. How would you feel it I told you I had feelings for you?" The question hung low in the air between them, a challenge. Mowdown looked at Jared with his heart beating out of his chest. Mowdown had to make a decision and fast.

Just as mowdown was about to say something, Jared reached out and grabbed mowdowns hand. His touch sent an unfamiliar shockwave through mowdowns body, making his heart flutter. Jared looked away for a moment and gave mowdowns hand a reassuring squeeze before looking to a nearby bathroom. "Let's go in here," he said, nodding towards the boys bathroom.

Mowdown smiled a slow, confident smile and nodded as he led Jared to the bathroom. He stopped by the sinks and turned to face Jared. He hesitated for a moment before slowly closing the gap between them. Emotions swirled between the two as they eventually broke the soft kiss and pulled away from each other.

"I would say I feel the same." Mowdown gave a confident, happy smile and rested his hands on Jared's waist. Jared giggled softly, "good to know" Jared looked at mowdown with genuine love in his eyes and wrapped his arms around mowdown.

Mowdown felt overwhelming joy bubble up inside him as he gave a wide smile. He looked at Jared with love in his eyes and kissed Jared on the forehead softly. He had never felt so much love inside him before, he felt loved and cared for for the first time in a long time. He trusted Jared with everything he had, and the more he thought about it, he trusted Jared with his name.

Mowdown finally felt ready to drop the nickname given to him by the group he always hung out with. "please, call me Phillip." Jared smiled at mowdowns words and nodded. "Okay" mowdown gave a content sigh at Jared's words. "I love you, Jared." Mowdown rested his head in the crook of Jared's neck. Jared smiled and pat mowdowns head

"Love you to, Phillip."

[goron-king-darunia]

Annon-Guy: Hi Darunia.

How's it going?

What did you think of my game idea for DotNW?

Do you ever get scared of getting Heart Disease (the clogged artery kind)?

1, It's going pretty well. I'm still catching up on things.

2.

And if you're talking about these posts, I think it's really nifty! I do think it would be an overwhelming amount of content to get through with all the extra side content. But I appreciate how much you want to see all your faves together.

3. I generally try not to worry myself with stuff I can't control because being afraid doesn't help anything. That doesn't mean I'm not afraid. But it means that I try to act on useful concerns and ignore anxious fear.

Think of it this way: If there's something you can do, right now, to fix/help your odds at preventing heart disease, take those steps right now. Plan a healthier diet, exercise, take care of your health, visit your doctor regularly. If you're already doing the best you can and there's nothing you can change, then it doesn't help anything at all to worry about it. I know it's easier said then done. I worry about a lot of things that I can't help. You can't just decide not to have anxiety about something. But if your worrying only stresses you out because there's nothing you can do about it, it's not healthy to dwell about it. Focus on distracting yourself because worrying about something you cannot prevent or improve your odds against just makes you suffer unnecessarily. Obviously it's not an irrational thing to be afraid of. But it's pointless to let fear paralyze you into not living your life. You just have to do your best and enjoy the time you have on this earth and make the healthiest choices you're able to make. It IS scary to think about. So I don't. I do my very best to not think of it. Instead I focus on things I can change and things that bring me joy. Cooking my own meals helps me make healthier decisions and brings me joy. So I try to cook my own foods. Playing video games and hanging out with friends helps keep my mind in a good place with less anxiety.

I find that it's harder to stop irrational anxiety when I'm overly tired. If I stay up too late, my brain spirals into anxiety when I try to go to sleep. So I try to go to bed before I get too tired.

When all else fails, I do my best to find things that make me laugh. I can't be upset if I'm laughing. Sometimes it's enough to just hear a human voice so that I don't feel alone with my thoughts.

Fear exists for a reason. It keeps us alive. But there are only 2 ways to deal with it. Either you address it, confront it, let it motivate you to change things for the better, or you ignore it because it isn't helping you.

So that's what I try to do. Hopefully that was helpful?

[labrats-and-clonetroopers]

A random "Home Sweet Home" collage

[black-salt-cage]

Hello again I am back and I have more questions. Sorry in advance for all of my questions.

I was reading your card-

Do you guys accept cross overs?

If so, what if one of the fandoms isn’t on your whitelist or blacklist?

And what if I provide you with character gifs/stims by link in the ask so all you have to do is copy and paste?

Would you be comfortable tagging kin? What about clicker (isn’t necessary though)?

Do you have a limit on how many requests a person can ask? (Like on HazyAltCare a person/Alter-Human can only send in 5 requests within a 24hr period or we, the mods, will get overwhelmed)

Are you ok with at-ing/tagging/pinging blogs?

I appreciate you asking instead of assuming actually, it's very considerate! 😊

1. Crossovers are completely fine, we've posted plenty of that before!

2. For fandoms neither on the whitelist nor blacklist I actually included in that you can still send in requests for unlisted media, it'll just be dealt with case by case. I'm sure to have forgotten something for the whitelist since we have an interest in so many things, or didn't consider something we wouldn't be comfortable doing. So depending on whether the request is approved or disapproved it'll be added to one list or another. So please feel free! Just no offense if we can't do said subject/topic/fandom/etc. :)

3. That would also be case by case, since depending on the person who posted said gif may have a dni we apply to. I'd say your best bet for that to work is just to make sure the op is safe for us, or that it comes from a source not affiliated with the community

4. Kin content is perfectly fine, just be sure to specify it's kin related! As for clicker, do you mean the clickers from the last of us? Because if it isn't in the whitelist then it should be and that's a perfectly acceptable request topic

5. I haven't had to set an exact limit, but that's a good idea I should include in. I'd say no more than 3 requests per person, and that I would probably ask you not send any more until all of them are completed. We get requests here pretty fast as of late so don't be offended if you send in the three and find requests are closed shortly after, it won't be related to anyone who's sent in the limit

6. Tagging is perfectly fine so long as the selected blogs don't mind/approve (I'd hate to be a bother to someone's notifs lol)

Anyway yeah if anyone has any questions about the carrd or our terms please let us know! I had to go back and make it super specific because we kept getting requests for topics that were in our blacklist or some that were just genuinely triggering or not appropriate for this type of acc (imo) so you guys showing you want to get it right means very much to us! I'll probably update the carrd soon to reflect these new questions and answers. But we won't ever bite on this, the worst we'll do is give you an answer you don't prefer 😅

[akehoshimystar]

Chapter 6

Riku: Here you go.

Ito: Thank you... Hmm?

A large park that could be seen from the building where our venue was located. I didn’t even have a chance to say “I'll buy it myself”. He really did buy me a cup of coffee, and when I gratefully accepted it… I spotted a flower sticker on the side of the cup.

Ito: Riku-san?

Riku: I know it’s not over yet, but I want to give you a flower to show appreciation for your hard work.

Ito: Oh….

Riku: What’s with that “Oh….”?

Ito: Oh, sorry. Thank you.

(He seems pretty popular, so I couldn't help but exclaim in admiration...)

I'll order a drink or something later and put one up on Riku-san’s board.

Riku: Hmm? Are you falling for me?

Ito: Do not worry. It's just gratitude with zero ulterior motive.

Riku: Awwww. That was close.

Ito: (I think I’m getting used to this characteristic of his now.)

(He doesn’t switch up that much, and I can’t say that he is pushy because he’s not... I feel like this is a new genre of “being easily in love”)

Riku: So, how is your first event going so far?

Ito: Before it started, the fact that this is my first really worried me. There were a lot of things going on...

The moment it started, everything was blown away. But I have bigger things to worry about.

Riku: If what was blown away was the bad thing, it should be favorable. 

Well, I think this one was quite successful compared to recent events. I understand that it must be hard for a first-timer.

Ito: You think so...? I guess it's a big deal that it's being held after a short hiatus.

Riku: That may be true, but the reason is probably simply the quality of the content.

The “competitive element” has many benefits, but it also increases the burden on customers and the risk to staff.

We went through a lot to make it something that everyone can enjoy, and that's why it's so exciting.

Ito: That's entirely thanks to Riku-san and everyone who gave me ideas and helped me out. Thank you so much. 

I don't think I could have done it alone.

Riku: Even if everyone played a part here, it was Ito who used those ideas to turn it into a reality, right?

Ito: I wouldn’t say I did that much. Your kindness overwhelmed me.

Riku: Stop for a sec. What would you say if I did what you did?

Ito: Come again?

Riku: “What are you saying? Your job isn't that important, is it?”

Ito: …………Absolutely not.

Riku: You don't have to express it that strongly. But don't you think you would say the same thing I said earlier?

Ito: I do think so.

Riku: Thus, I praised you with that in mind.

Ito: ……I understand. I'm happy to hear that.

Thank you.

Riku: When you say “thank you” instead of “sorry”, your great points stand out more.

Ito: …….

(.….Saying that while looking happy and joyful whenever you praise someone, as always.)

(That's a wonderful thing about Riku-san….. But I guess it’s a bit cheeky when I act like I know him well.)

Despite that, I was searching for the words to return his kindness. 

Ito: I……

Riku: Hmm?

Ito: Just like Riku-san, I also want to know how to let my words reach people.

Riku: ……

Ito: Anyway, I'll treasure what I received today. Thank you.

Riku: ……………Hey.

Ito: And that’s my gratitude and respect without any other implication. 

Riku: Still a no, huh. That was close. 

Ito: Ahaha.

Don’t fail. Don’t hold anyone back. It doesn’t change the fact that my abilities are lower than those around me, so there's no reason to let my guard down. With that feeling, I took a deep breath.

Riku: What kind of deep breath is that?

Ito: Deep breath of motivation.

Riku: Keep your head up like that.

Both of us just need one last push... We have to try three times harder if we want to wrap this up neatly. Let's do our best without overexerting ourselves.

Ito: Yeah. I can’t wait to see who will be titled the best florist.

Riku: Oh, we still have a war ahead of us.

By the way, who's at the top right now?

Ito: Everyone pretty much almost has the same points, but when I checked it before the break, it was Kiho-san.

Riku: What did I even expect? He's still got his old skills up his sleeve.

Ito: ?

(He mentioned something like, “Thanks to fortune-telling, I'm benefiting simply because I have more customers to serve.”)

Then I suddenly remembered what Kiho-san said. “Because of my previous job, I am quite familiar with the flower language.”

Ito: I made an assumption back then, but... Does Kiho-san have experience working as a florist?

Riku: A florist? That's news to me.

Ito: Huh? Then, what’s the previous job he’s got his old skill from? 

Riku: A host. Together with Roka.

Ito: Oh, a host............................... Wait, what?

The one that is some sort of night worker?

Riku: Eh? You didn't know?

Ito: And Roka-san, too!?

Riku: Well, yes.

Sorry, I thought you'd heard about it from Roka a long time ago. When we drink or whenever we get the chance, we tend to talk about old days.

They used to be senior and junior at the same store.

Apparently, it was a fairly large store in Roppongi. Roka was the one who came to where Kiho was working.

That was the encounter, the beginning of everything.

Ito: …..!

Riku: You’re good? You still look like you haven't gotten over the shock yet.

Ito: Oh, I’m fine. I'm just trying to process some information here. It’s all good, so let’s keep on working hard.

Riku: Will do.

Mao: Oh, welcome back.

Ito, now that your break is over, head to the kitchen for a bit.

His Majesty will be absent for about an hour due to another matter, so Yuzuru will be handling the hall.

Ito: Understood. I'll put on as many stickers as I have right now, and I'll be there right away.

Mao: I’ll leave it to you.

Ito: (Ah, that really surprised me... Aporia was started by two hosts who met and decided to open their own store....)

(So, Aporia is a legal host club...? Uh, I mean, host clubs are legal to begin with, so let’s calm down for now.)

Riku: Welcome.

Riku-san, who returned to his post early, stopped what he was doing and turned to the entrance upon hearing a customer coming.

3 people: Welcome.

Enomura: Hi, I made a reservation under the name Enomura.

Riku: Yes, Enomura Nagisa-sama, two people. We have been expecting you.

Ito: (Ah, judging by the name, she must be a customer who placed a reservation for fresh flowers.)

(What is it again? A specific order that specifies the type and the number. Sheesh, I can’t recall at all….)

Even though I know I don't really need to remember anything, I started scrolling through the reservation list I've looked at over and over again in my head. Fortunately, the answer was soon found.

Ito: (That's right, I remembered it now!)

(9 Gerberas.)

Satisfied that I remembered everything, I watched Enomura-sama and her companion take their seats. I quickly headed to the kitchen where Kise-san and others were waiting.

Chapter 7 >>

[rozinaaa]

Literally Me

Source: Webcomic Name

Honestly, this comic sums me up pretty well, because although I've had plenty of time to do an activity, I actually haven't done it since I've been too busy reading, writing, and thinking about it to actually do it, and I think this is a surefire way to make sure that nothing ever gets done.

Take, for example, the thought of setting up my own business, where I've spent the best part of the last three years (and perhaps much more than that) reading about successful entrepreneurs (who usually ended up overwhelming me since I used to follow too many of them) running their own businesses successfully whereas I'm just watching them on the sidelines, and when it comes to actually doing it myself, I'm just hung up on what tools I should use instead of actually doing the work, which I believe has actually prevented me from going beyond the first few steps.

If I had actually just Did The Thing without reading and theorising about it forever, the business probably would have been fairly successful by now, where I'd make a significant amount of my own money so that getting laid off wouldn't have felt as brutal since I'd know that it'd end up being a blessing in disguise because it would have allowed me to go all in with the business, but for now, I'm essentially starting from scratch for the millionth time since I've been way too introspective about it.

Additionally, the same also goes for writing about it, but not actually doing anything about it, since it gives me the illusion of progress and that I'm actually doing something productive, but then again, I'm just theorising and fantasing about things in a slightly more productive way, so I guess that this is basically the equivalent of having meetings for the sake of having meetings, and claiming that to be a productive use of time, but not actually having the time to sit down and do the work itself.

Now, all of this is ironic, because during my placement year (in which there was a strong emphasis on building my own business), I spent most of that time simply researching and theorising about it instead of actually promoting what I did effectively and networking with others in real life, so I barely have anything to show for it since I kept switching between two different ideas all the time, and not actually sticking to just one of them and watching it grow over time.

After a few brief explorations into self employment and freelancing, as well as a few false starts over the past couple of years, I need to tell myself the following, essentially becoming my own business adviser:

Consuming content about entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business owners doesn't automatically make you become one of them, no matter how convincing the content is, and no matter how much you can relate to it.

There is a huge difference between consuming content and actually doing the work for yourself.

It won't always be as glamourous as everyone makes it out to be.

Writing about your plans (but never following through with them) and reflecting one every single thought isn't the same as actually running a business.

As much as you might hate it, content and marketing are highly important life skills, especially if your livelihood revolves around anything other than working a 9-5 job (or being employed by anyone else other than yourself) and collecting your paycheck at the end of the month.

Having a strong social media presence, a good "personal" brand (although you can choose to anonymise some parts of yourself, but in a way so that others know that they're still dealing with a real person), and a good website will make all the difference.

Focus on providing value first, and soon, the money will follow.

Focus on what you already know and share that with others.

Don't start a business with the intention to create a lot of money from the word "go", since this will never actually happen, unless you're already a super successful entrepreneur creating your 10th business.

Overnight successes actually take about 10 years to happen.

Never chase money (if you can help it), because it will leave you stressed.

Don't listen to the anti-capitalists, since you'll end up agreeing with them, which won't make your business that successful.

You have to be a bit of a capitalist (since you'd want to at least make a little bit of a profit), but don't let it become your entire personality.

Avoid Reddit and Twitter (plus similar platforms) like the plague, since people absolutely love to complain about everything and anything on there, which is one surefire way to make sure that you feel absolutely stuck and miserable, and that you'll get nowhere in life.

Become a social media addict (i.e. post frequently and consistently, actually engage with other people's posts) within reason, since people will use social media to discover new things.

r/nosurf and similar anti-social media things don't apply to you, but do remember to take a break from it every now and then to avoid burnout and feeling overwhelmed, as you would with a regular 9-5 job.

Stick to one niche, so that everyone will know what you do, but do broaden it to include very similar things that would be typically related to that niche (i.e. an interior designer might also be an illustrator, where they'd either create their own prints, or create illustrations of other people's homes, or perhaps they might work in real estate, where they design the interiors of different houses before selling them), just to keep things interesting.

Everyone basically posts the same thing as each other, so try your best to keep a very small network of people, because you're not actually missing out on anything.

The only way to have a successful business is to do the work and interact with others.

Keep up with general trends, but don't obsessively follow every single micro trend.

Keep your business idea extremely simple, so that when others ask what you do, you can confidently say it in less than 10 seconds.

What tools you use shouldn't be the defining factor of your business (unless you specifically make plugins or courses for a certain piece of software), since the what you do with those tools are a lot more important than which ones you use.

Start with what you have, and work your way up from there.

Be prepared to wear multiple hats, although this will come easily to you if you struggle to sit still and do precisely one type of thing at a 9-5 job.

Hopefully, all of this advice should help me out in the long run, since I actually want to have a business that is going to be somewhat profitable, and for that to replace the need of looking everywhere to get a regular job that's most likely going to make me jump through a lot of hoops just to get paid peanuts just to work on someone else's dream that I might not be fully passionate abour.

[hexbugnano]

FWIW this lead isnt technically new but like yeah I agree ever since the other two devs left there's been such a huge shift in priorities in aesthetics and I'm like... How much of this is genuine "we need to broaden our appeal because this genre is highly competitive and generally aren't incredibly successful" and not just the current guy being like "I will make this game what I think is pretty because I can make all the rules now."?

Like I don't want to speculate too much bc it feels a little disrespectful but based on the timing of the other devs leaving I think some changes (like redrawing the artwork) was probably stuff they were also in favor of but bigger changes like making calico obsolete by creating the white coverage system, completely changing the color and breeding system, and now removing the undercoat patterns do have a smell of being heavily influenced by this dev's personal preferences which, ok, its his game now I guess so he can do whatever now I guess. And people seem decently receptive to these changes so.. :/ I suppose this guy just has an aesthetic most people align with as well.

Sidenote: I was mostly ok with the undercoat change when reading about it until I actually tried it out and it looks like a lot of people are kinda peeved by it too, lol. I doubt we're gonna get fun patterns back but users seem to be really wanting at least being able to have more options instead of being forced into the dynamic thing. It's ain't much but it's something I hope.

ooh yeah i know the current project head isn't entirely new to the project (and even having a leadership position in it i'm pretty sure) i just know there was a change of leadership at some point that put him in as the current head dev. i agree that redrawing the artwork was probably done under the old leadership.

honestly i felt like the original target audience was going to provide a pretty solid niche which i think can work pretty well for these games too. a dedicated but small userbase can be better than a bunch of users making accounts and then losing interest (see dappervolk). i really, really connected to the idea of a petsite as an avenue for character creation and written and drawn creative content like the original concepts of the kickstarter laid out. however it's entirely possible that these elements are still considered a significant focus of the game and are getting less emphasis due to the part of the development cycle currently being asset and base gameplay focused. the cats just feel weirdly glamorous now? which makes it harder to make characters with different personalities or energies as i would imagine people might like. the white markings are also confusing to me, i felt like maybe they were inspired by pce's white markings but pce's markings being divided on a scale of 0 to 10 and in different categories means it doesn't get in the way of planning out the appearances of cats even if there's a lot of different options.

at first i was actually really excited about the breeding system changes because it seemed like an interesting to concept but then they seemed to change it AGAIN and it got kinda... too complicated for me to keep up with it? which again i bet a lot of people like that level of complexity in breeding but for me it gets too overwhelming especially how it was being visually expressed on the creator. trying to remember both a color's name and where it falls on the saturation and color scale feels like a lot.

re: your sidenote i wasn't sure about the idea of removing undercoats but i wasn't fully against it until i also tried the cat creator and got.... bored? it felt like i couldn't come up with my own concepts so much so i just kind of checked out and stopped playing with it. it doesn't really help that i don't like the way blossom and ivy overgrowth are looking most of the time, the higher amount of rendering makes them feel pasted on because of all the fur detail but of course none of the plants displace the fur. the preview art of the genes felt less like that to me because there wasn't enough details that it felt like something was Missing in order to blend the plantlife with the fur, you could just intuit that was happening but the simplified art style wasn't depicting it. ivy generally does a bit better than blossom for me in that it's resting on the cats backs and not growing out of their fur so it looks less strange.

[accirax]

What a fun idea! As a fan of DRDT, Milgram, FF's work, and mystery solving in general, I feel like it'd be a shame if I didn't at least try to take a first stab at whatever's going on with these kooky Ultimate prisoners. (But not THE Ultimate Prisoner, that title's taken.)

Of course, since only Undercover has been published thus far, 1) we only have a brief overview of each prisoner to look at, and 2) I don't want to spend a ton of time crafting some crazy theory about each prisoner when there'll clearly be more information to be had down the line (assuming you continue on with this fan project). So, I'll try to keep each prisoner's section brief, while also concocting an initial theory of what might have gone down in each crime. (Update after finishing writing: it is not that brief. I got too invested down the line. Help /j)

The formatting of this is really just going to be my thought process written out, so I apologize if any of it is obvious and therefore boring to read. A lot of it is just going to be me gathering all of the information we have on each prisoner so that I can look at all of it at once. Also, I am fully willing to believe that I am basically 100% wrong about everything. I wrote out what I genuinely think could be true at the moment, but it involves making a lot of calls on things we don't have evidence for. I look forward to being proven wrong on many counts.

In some places, I also summarized things using my own interpretations of the evidence we have instead of being fully objective. This is meant to help anyone reading quickly understand my opinions on the evidence, but if you're trying to refer to this for the sake of your own interpretation, know that the information presented is not always 100% literal.

Oh woah, there are now Voice Reveal Lines too. I'll add those in here. Damn you FF and your speedy content generation!! (/j)

This AU does differ from Milgram in that these characters come from an external piece of media, and thus, some lore and characterization will come from DRDT itself. I didn't write any of it out in, like, a "backstory" section, but I certainly brought it up for pretty much every prisoner. So, unmarked DRDT spoilers ahoy. Also, CW for mentions of suicide, self harm, and eating disorders.

I'm super excited to take a closer look into all of the hard work that's gone into this project thus far!

PRISONER 01: Levi Fontana

Trial 1 Song Title: Torn Stitches Crime Location: Alleyway Special Image: Levi sits slumped over in a kitchen/dining room(?) with a boiling pot of tea in the foreground Murder Method: Levi punches Es with brass knuckles, knocking them to the floor Voice Reveal: "Levi Fontana, a pleasure. Yes, I am a murderer. I couldn't bring myself to pretend to be sorry for what I did. I suppose I should watch other prisoners to learn how normal prisoners should handle themselves. ...I know you didn't want this, but it had to be done."

Well, the murder method is pretty easy to understand in this one. Levi uses brass knuckles, his custom weapon in DRDT, to kill someone in an alleyway. Can we call him a murderer without remorse for this one...?

Torn Stitches imply sewing, which makes sense with his eventual passion for fashion, as well as redoing something you did wrong the first time. They could also have to do with opening up a painful wound (medical stitches) or something growing too big for its capacity (no longer fitting into your clothes). I'm almost a fan of the latter, given with how it would combine with the imagery of the boiling tea pot. That, to me, is a metaphor for a situation growing hotter and hotter until it reaches its boiling point, all while making an overbearing and overwhelming environment in the meantime.

From canon DRDT, we know that Levi estranged himself from his family. So, in this AU, I would guess that Levi snapped and killed (a member of) his family under the pressure. Maybe they'd even coerced him into murdering prior to that, who knows. But, either way, he doesn't seem to regret his choices just yet.

PRISONER 02: Arturo Giles

Trial 1 Song Title: Wilted Crime Location: Bathroom Special Image: Arturo appears to be messily packing a suitcase, considering a white turtleneck shirt Murder Method: Arturo kneels facing away from Es, who is on the ground in an uncomfortable position Voice Reveal: "Arturo Giles. Ugh, do I really have to be judged by someone this ugly? I'll have you know, I've never murdered anyone. I mean, there is... no, no, that wasn't my fault... How was I meant to know?! Even if she's dead because of what I did, it's not my fault!"

Arturo (holding hands emoji) Shidou: surgeons with floral imagery in their MVs. At least, if the title "Wilted" is anything to go by. Mu too, with the "It's Not My Fault!"

Arturo's murder almost certainly has to do with his canonical secret: that his leaving caused his sister Felicity to commit suicide. We can see the suitcase in his special image already being packed, implying his departure. The clothes messily strewn about may imply that it was a hasty and not particularly thought-through escape.

The simplest answer is that Arturo chose to leave his likely toxic family environment, and once he was gone, Felicity killed herself in the bathroom. Arturo facing away from Es implies that he wasn't there to see what happened to Felicity, his presumed victim.

The main thing that gives me pause is the fact that, unlike what's specifically mentioned in Veronika's murder method, both of the victim's shoes are on. For anyone who's not clear on what I'm getting at, I've seen written in the Milgram fandom that, apparently, having one's shoes off is a common visual metaphor for that person committing suicide in Japan. Thus, the fact that the shoes are on might imply that the victim didn't commit suicide.

Again, assuming that Arturo's victim is Felicity, DRDT canon doesn't give me much of an incentive to believe that he would have killed her himself. So, maybe the parents could have killed Felicity? I initially thought that might take too much blame off of Arturo's shoulders, but on second thought, if the parents were that obviously bad, it could make him look even worse for leaving her alone. So, I guess that's what I'm settling on for now.

PRISONER 03: David Chiem

Trial 1 Song Title: Star in the Night Crime Location: Bedroom Special Image: David performs, possibly for someone important, on an otherwise empty stage, lights all shining on him Murder Method: David yells at Es with the 正 (tally) symbol in his eyes Voice Reveal: "My name is David Chiem. It seems there's been a mistake. But, don't worry! I won't hold it against you. Mistakes can be corrected. It's not difficult to change, as long as you're willing to! I try to be as positive as I can, since I know there're a lot of people that don't get the privilege. ...AGH! CAN YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT, YOU HUMAN PIECE OF GARBAGE?!"

Well, now I'm really wishing I had ever solved the tally5 puzzle. Might be missing some information on this one, sorry about that.

Let's get back to what I wrote in the special image portion. It was unclear in the text if the rest of the seats were filled, but I think that David's victim might be hidden behind his torso in that image. As in, his victim is someone he was inspirationally speaking to, and was likely sitting in the front row. 'Cause, hey, if Literature Girl Insane is on the table with tally5, then we know David also has associations with some suspicious gaps!

...I also really wish I knew whether or not Diana Chiem was real.

My best guess at David's murder would be something similar to the conundrum he believes himself to be in at the Chapter 2 Trial. He broke his speaker's facade in front of this special listener, and the despair that his words caused them led to their death (although again, this one may not be a suicide). Based on that situation, he may have said the thing about being a piece of human garbage to himself.

I think "Star in the Night" is also an interesting hint at where his first song may be headed. In the nighttime, stars are beautiful and visible, the subject of many songs, poems, and pieces of art. They guide people's way. Stars are typically thought of in the night, because, in the daytime, they're useless and invisible, and pale in grandeur next to a real source of brightness, like the sun (I know that the sun is a star, but you get my point). I suspect that David's MV may focus on him, "the star," only within the context of being in his element, "the night," and leave us to wonder what David is like when he's not on stage.

PRISONER 04: Whit Young

Trial 1 Song Title: Mind the Gaps Crime Location: Park Special Image: Whit analyzes what are likely dating profiles ("Analyzing profiles..."), looking bored Murder Method: Whit uses a gun to shoot Es through the heart Voice Reveal: Yo! Whit Young, nice to meet you. Are you really sure everyone here is a murderer? That's wack. I don't remember doing anything suspicious! Yesterday was normal, the day before that was normal, the day before that... the day before that... My mom's really amazing. I love her a lot. I would do anything for her."

Whit is... complicated. In canon, the death he's associated with is the death of his mother, which he reveals in the Chapter 2 Trial (assuming he's telling the truth about that). With the title Mind the Gaps, I thought the story could have something to do with the gaps in the story he tells people while pretending that his mom isn't dead.

Given the rest of the information, though (I WROTE THIS PART BEFORE THE VOICE REVEAL CAME OUT), I've started to think that his murder will be about something else. Like, I don't think his mom was particularly in the market for dating profiles, and even if so, I doubt Whit would be the one picking through them. No, his crime seems to have something to do with his profession as a matchmaker.

I also have my doubts about Whit using a literal gun to kill his victim (where would he get that? mastermind Whit interpretations goin wild), so I believe that it may be more of a "playing cupid" type scenario. Thus, my next idea was born: Whit, in his joking nature, accidentally told one of his clients something along the lines of them being unlovable and how hard it would be to find a match for them, and they fell into such despair that they killed themselves!

...What the hell does the park have to do with that? And, what about the victim's lack of removed shoes?

So, here's idea #3: Whit set up one of his clients on a date with a bad person. He took his innocent client and, whether due to a lapse in judgment or straight up negligence, he set them up with a stalker/serial killer type. Maybe he even told them to go on a date to the park specifically. When his client turns up dead, the question becomes, "how much responsibility did Whit have to screen the date before he set them up together? How much fault is Whit at for the innocent's death?" That sounds like a Milgram-y enough question, right?

...AND THE VOICE REVEAL COMES IN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!!!

Uhhhhh, idea #4! Basically the same as #3, but his client was actually his mom (his dad being fully absent in this AU, not just working abroad). He sets his mom up on a date, the date is sketchy and kills her, and then Whit kills that date out of revenge. He could even use a real ass gun in this iteration. Whit loves to repress and ignore things that bother him, so all that talk about "not remembering doing anything suspicious" could be a lie.

Goodness gracious, Whit, you're really taking me on a rollercoaster here. Truly wack.

PRISONER 05: Ace Markey

Trial 1 Song Title: Unstoppable Crime Location: City Street Special Image: Ace looks at the night sky from atop his motorcycle Murder Method: Ace runs away from Es, who appears to have suffered from a collision Voice Reveal: "Tch. Ace Markey. You wanna fight?! Wait, fuck, you probably have weapons, don't you?! Shit, don't get any closer! You think I'm a murderer? Horseshit! Get off your fucking high horse! ...Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit shit shit, FUCK!"

...So, I'm just going to assume that we've replaced Ace riding horses with Ace riding motorcycles in this story? They're both risky and wild, but motorcycles are much easier to get into more common settings. There are some hilarious references to horses in the dialogue, but I'm not getting the impression of any physical horses yet (what a weird sentence to type), so I'm rolling with this.

That being said, I'm kind of at a loss here. Everything seems to be set up with the assumption that Ace committed a hit and run with his motorcycle, but I find it hard to believe that that's the case for two reasons. The first is that I just don't think it's complex enough of a moral debate for Milgram-- like, yeah, he's definitely guilty if it was just a normal hit and run, although obviously not to a death penalty degree. I feel like discussion would be more about trying to figure out exactly what an innocent or guilty verdict means in his case than dissecting what he did.

The second is that Ace isn't riding a motorcycle in his murder method. The text specifically mentions him "running away." Obviously, a motorcycle is a lot more complicated to draw than a knife or a baseball bat, but if it literally was the murder weapon I see no reason why Ace couldn't have been pictured with that prop. Also, the murder method images didn't even have to be drawn in this case, so, take that!!! (/lh)

However, if it's not a hit and run, what exactly is going on with his murder method? Was someone trying to steal his motorcycle, and he just knocked them over and they hit their head on something? Did he accidentally (or purposefully) lure his victim into oncoming traffic? Where was he going on that starry night?

The only real insight I have is into the song title, Unstoppable (omg, Raise a Suilen collab? /ref). In canon, Ace feels his life is very out of his control; he's anxiously stuck with a job he hates, his diet is determined by his eating disorder, and nobody seems to side with him even when he was almost killed. I have a mental image of the first trial MV focusing on him taking his motorcycle on a ride to nowhere in particular, just lost in the speed and his fear of how the cars could hit him at any moment. The whole vibe would be very similar to the "pressure, pressure"s of Backdraft.

Don't know how accurate that'll be, but I wanted to say something at least vaguely smart for Ace. Hopefully I succeeded?

PRISONER 06: Nico Hakobyan

Trial 1 Song Title: Fight or Flight Crime Location: Locker Room Special Image: Nico plays with a cat using a pink mouse toy while standing in a puddle of water. Murder Method: Sitting on top of them, Nico pushes Es's head onto a wire Voice Reveal: "Uhm... Nico Hakobyan. I'm- I'm really sorry! You're pretty weird. Ah! I'm sorry! Don't get mad at me! ...Why should I own up for the mistakes that someone else made?!"

Nico's murder almost certainly has something to do with their gender identity. We learn in Chapter 2 that Nico is nonbinary, and locker rooms are an incredibly common place for LGBTQ+ people (especially amab ones, I think, although it's not confirmed that's what Nico is) to be bullied for their genders and/or sexualities. I would not be at all surprised if, similar to how they (allegedly) treated Ace, Nico's murder is them getting back at one of their bullies. That would also make sense with the title Fight or Flight, and "making up for mistakes that someone else made." Nico had been tolerating the bullying for a while, just running away, before choosing to fight back in retaliation.

Although the special images tend to be real (like, Yuno's image wasn't of her buying balloons because the balloons were just a metaphor), I can't help but feel like the special image is largely meant to be an analogy to the murder itself. I mean, how many cats are usually hanging around in wet (presumably) high school locker rooms?

We know that Nico's weapon was some sort of wire, which reminded me of the strings that often appear on dangling cat toys like what I imagine Nico playing with. Basically, I see the image as representing how Nico extended their more mousy personality out into the world, making them a great target for feral bully cats that wanted to eat them up. However, Nico isn't really the mouse-- they're the person, the one who has the true power over the cat in this situation. Their old personality becomes the trap that they use to lure the cat into a false sense of security, and therefore what kills the bully in the end.

I have no idea where the physical wire would have come from in this situation, though. I assume that Nico couldn't have taken it from Hu in this universe (again, assuming that's even what happened in canon), and I don't think there are usually giant, sharp wires just hanging around in locker rooms. There weren't in my high school, at least. Maybe it could be, like, a towel or something? A lanyard? Those would probably look different, though. I guess we'll just have to see.

PRISONER 07: J Rosales

Trial 1 Song Title: Showtime Crime Location: Bridge with camera equipment Special Image: J tries to block the camera from taking a picture of her while several more shutters flash in the background Murder Method: J points a remote control at Es, who has fallen to the floor with contorted limbs Voice Reveal: "J Moreno. What do you people really want? Ransom money? There's no way you're doing this just because you want to "judge our sins" or whatever bullshit you're saying. Don't make me laugh. Find evidence I killed anyone, and then we can talk about murder. Do you really think you're going to understand everything I've been through, just with a silly little song? How arrogant are you?! ...What happened to her was nothing short of a tragedy. Sorry, but I will make no further comment."

Especially given the Voice Reveal quote, I think it's likely that J killed her mother, Mariabella Rosales. The fact that J is still using her stage name and gives talks of ransom money imply to me that, like in DRDT canon, J is working in the theater/movie industry, but trying to pretend that she isn't the daughter of a famous celebrity-- same with the special image seeming to be her avoiding the papparazzi.

The bridge with camera equipment was, in my opinion, most likely a movie set where J and Mariabella were working together. It's unfortunate that they had to be filming on a bridge that day, as I'd reckon that falling off that bridge may have been how Mariabella died. If true, the question then becomes, "how did Mariabella wind up falling to her death?" Ah, we're back into the Kazui zone with this one.

Unless Mariabella is a robot, I really doubt that the remote did anything to her directly. So, the remote is possibly doing what remotes typically do: turning on a TV of some kind. I think that J might have shown Mariabella a video or presentation of some kind that caused Mariabella to react in such a way that she fell off the bridge.

As for what the video is, I'm not sure. Mariabella being part of some kind of scandal isn't something that's been explored in DRDT, but involving her in one would be totally fair game for an AU like this. Thus, J could have been trying to blackmail her mother. Alternately, maybe J was really trying to communicate to Mariabella how miserable being her daughter had made J for her entire life. Then, the shock caused Mariabella to react negatively.

It's possible Mariabella jumped off of the bridge in despair herself, but the shoes once again lead me to believe that wasn't the case. Instead, I think it's possible that A) the shock caused her to accidentally back up too far and fall over, or B) J and Mariabella started arguing physically, and J either accidentally pushed her off the bridge, or backed her into the railing to the point that she fell.

This whole concept is a little surreal, but stranger things can happen in Milgram, I think. It's the most sensible way I can see to piece together all of the evidence so far, but I wouldn't be surprised to be disproven.

PRISONER 08: Rose Lacroix

Trial 1 Song Title: Still Life Crime Location: Dining Room Special Image: Rose sits, upset, in a room full of her personal paintings that she chose to destroy Murder Method: Rose looks away from Es, who is choking on the floor next to an opened jar Voice Reveal: "Mmmm... Rose Lacroix. Zzzzz... Yeah, I killed someone. This really isn't that bad. At least I can paint here. ...I wonder if I can be happy now."

Let me take this moment to express how much I appreciate all of the great puns in the song titles. Still Life is such an awesome title for a song about Rose. It's a genre of painting, obviously; perhaps one that the Spurling Foundation forces her to paint frequently. But, it also hints at how Rose feels stuck in life, like time is just passing her by as she paints passionless masterpieces. And yet, it's still life-- she's not dead, even if she might feel like it sometimes. So cool.

Anyways, the special image is definitely a reference to when Teruko witnesses Rose paint a beautifully haunting portrait, only to cover it up with black paint so that the Spurling Foundation, who she's contracted to, wouldn't own her personal art. That also means that Rose was still likely an art forger in this universe. This is not necessarily true of prisoners like Levi, who may have not acquired the skills associated with their canonical Ultimate talents yet.

Rose has a lifetime of debt to make up for after being arrested as an art forger, but still hates being chained to the Spurling Foundation and slaving her life away making art she hates. In this universe, I think Rose probably killed Richard Spurling in hopes of being free of her contract. Maybe the contract was "until the end of his life," so if she ended his life early, she could be free without keeping all of the debt she was saddled with before joining the Foundation.

I think the weapon is probably Rose's custom weapon, the turpentine. Turpentine can have... a lot of varying abilities, depending on how much you look into it, but I'm pretty sure that ingesting it would lead to you poisoning yourself. Rose might have slipped the turpentine into Richard's drink to kill him, hoping that it wouldn't lead to her getting arrested for a second time under an even worse crime. Fearing that level of imprisonment, Milgram could seem kind of nice, right?

PRISONER 09: Hu Jing

Trial 1 Song Title: High Strung Crime Location: Unknown room with zither in it Special Image: Hu plays the zither Murder Method: Hu strangles Es with both hands as they choke out blood Voice Reveal: "H-Hu Jing. I know what I did was unforgivable... I really am selfish... I'm scared of receiving the punishment I deserve. Please Forgive me! ...Wake up! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Hu's case definitely seems to be missing a lot of information thus far, and whether that's intentional on her part or not has yet to be seen. Given that she seems to be afraid of punishment (which itself is intriguing, given that her DRDT hidden quote includes "but even then, I want to pay for what I did"), I could definitely see her trying to reign in any evidence that might make her look bad.

Both her crime location and special image are strongly connected to the zither, the instrument she loves to play. I'm not sure how that connects to the murder, given that it's not like she's shown bashing Es' head in with the instrument. Instead, she uses her hands to grab Es' neck, just like she might grab the strung neck of the zither. Is it possible she became so stressed, so high strung, that she mistook a human for a zither? That seems a little far fetched, even to me.

However, perhaps those images are trying to show that, prior to this point, all that Hu did in her life was play the zither. If we went on the route that her parents were super overprotective and wanted her to devote her entire life to music, maybe they trapped her in that room to play (Toya Aoyagi moment). One day, she wanted her freedom and snapped, killing her parents, which she immediately regretted.

That is... a lot of speculation. But, even in DRDT itself, Hu's backstory is largely unknown, other than that she cares about her family's intentions a lot, wants peopel to rely on her, and has the anglicized name "Julia." (I imagine that, because of this, it may have been hard to design her murder for this AU. Godspeed.) Especially given that Min's murder in this AU seems to be based on the "poison the competition" secret, we can also speculate that Hu's backstory includes the "hopeless child" secret about attempting suicide three times. If Hu was suicidal as a child, perhaps that would give her parents an additional reason to keep her safe and within arm's reach? Or, maybe it was being held in captivity that led her to try to take her own life three times over.

I'll stop spitballing about Hu now. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

PRISONER 10: VERONIKA

Trial 1 Song Title: Bloodletting, The Horror Inside Us Crime Location: Rooftop Special Image: Veronika stands in a dark room with blood all over the floor Murder Method: Veronika kneels with her hands on her chest in front of Es' mangled, bloody body, one of Es' shoes removed Voice Reveal: "My name is Veronika Grebenshchikova! If you don't mind, could you choose not to Forgive me? Death sounds boring. I'd rather stay alive, if you don't mind! To Forgive what I did... it would be denying everything I believe about my life... [Cackling laughter, that trails off with a wheeze] I really am a monster..."

(I know I put a warning for suicide and self harm at the beginning, but it gets extra intense and graphic in this section, so please beware.)

What a long song title! A fun one, though. It makes me wonder if Veronika's MV will have some kind of leech imagery in it. That's what my mind jumped to, anyways.

Speaking of blood, let's talk about Veronika's special image. It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that the blood on the floor belongs to the victim, but I actually think it's Veronika's blood. It's widely speculated that Veronika has the "harm yourself for fun" secret, and some people particularly say that her arm coverings are meant to cover up self harm scars on her arms. If, one day, she got particularly out of control, she could have wound up dripping her own blood all over whatever room that is. A dark interpretation for sure, but both Milgram and DRDT are too.

And, hey, we finally have an Es with shoes off! (...That feels like a really terrible thing to celebrate :((( ) I wouldn't have necessarily expected it from Veronika's crime, but it gives us a solid piece of information to theorize off of. Here's what I think might have happened.

I think that Veronika was super depressed/bored one day, and on the edge of suicide herself. Her friend (you know, the one who gave her the earring whose name I can't remember-- she/her pronouns, I think?) came over to help Veronika and try to save her life. However, whether due to the horror of seeing Veronika surrounded in her own blood or some deeply depressing, nihilistic words that came from Veronika's mouth, Veronika turned the tables and caused her friend to become suicidal instead. So, the friend went up to the roof, and jumped off of it.

However, when Veronika found her friend, she didn't react in tragedy. Instead, she found the results of her actions incredibly interesting, and skipped the horror movies phase straight to being fascinated with death itself. Death finally gave Veronika's life worth, and upon making this realization, she saw herself as a monster.

...Hopefully I wasn't just being incredibly edgy for no reason there. It is the course of actions that I find most plausible at this point, but also, I don't really see how there would be that much of a guilty/innocent argument here? Like, if Veronika firmly planned to do something like this again, then I don't see why an innocent would be viable, even if it was an accident the first time.

I also find it really interesting that she says that she wants a Not Forgiven verdict, but also says she doesn't want to die. Does she have reason to believe that an Innocent verdict would lead to death? Most people usually assume the other way around, if anything.

(Extra severe suicide/self harm warning over.)

PRISONER 11: Arei Nageishi

Trial 1 Song Title: Life's Queens Crime Location: Bowling Alley Special Image: Arei looks in at her unevenly cut hair in a bathroom mirror Murder Method: Arei hits Es in the head with a bowling ball Voice Reveal: "Arei Nageishi! Pfft! God, you're pathetic! Why the hell are we even here? How could anyone be stupid enough to do anything but Forgive me? Are you really that much of an idiot?! ...WHO'S THE WEAK ONE NOW, HUH?!"

Yeah, I can see how Arei's backstory could lend itself to murder as is. Given how similar her special image is to that one CG in Chapter 2, it definitely seems like the bullying from Arei's sisters persisted.

The fact that the title of the song is Life's Queens, plural, I would suspect that both sisters (why can I not remember their names) are probably victims here. Like, the song might start off with the two of them being the queens of life, but after Arei kills them, then she becomes the new queen.

The most interesting thing to me is that the crime location is in a bowling alley. That's a really public location. Did Arei kill her sister(s) while other people were watching? At the very least, you think it'd be caught on some kind of camera. That definitely speaks to the crime perhaps being a crime of passion, where Arei didn't plan to kill her sister(s) until the bowling ball was in her hand and the rage was coursing through her body.

But also, why were her sisters even there in the first place? Did they come to humiliate her while she was practicing her hobby? Exactly how much of a professional bowler is Arei in this AU? It'll be interesting to learn that as more information comes out.

PRISONER 12: Eden Tobisa

Trial 1 Song Title: Alarm Bells Crime Location: Bedroom full of clocks Special Image: An exhausted Eden sits at a work bench in front of several analog clocks that all read 6:00 Murder Method: Eden covers her eyes while the roman numeral for 6 (VI) glows on her hand, while Es lies on the floor Voice Reveal: "Uhm... Eden Tobisa. Even when things are looking down, we just have to try our best, and trust each other! I... I never wanted anyone to die! Es... why are you doing this? ...Wh-what have you done?!"

I definitely think it's an important detail that the clocks on Eden's desk are analog. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Eden has stated that she has a preference for making unique, detailed, antique-style clocks that could one day become a family heirloom. Analog clocks are clocks with faces and inner gears and such, which means that, unlike Rose (or even Mikoto, maybe), I don't think Eden is being forced to do work she doesn't enjoy. That doesn't mean she couldn't be unhappy at the quantity of work in front of her, but at least she shouldn't hate it at its core.

...Is the murder method magic???

No, seriously, what the hell is going on with Eden's glowing hand? Is it important that it's in Roman numerals as opposed to the Arabic numeral 6? Although Eden isn't prisoner 6 (that would be Nico; seems irrelevant?), there definitely seems to be an emphasis on the number 6 (VI) in Eden's story. I'm not coming up with anything particularly related to 6 in Eden's backstory. So, what gives?

My strongest idea is that... maybe Eden had to tell somebody that they were running out of time in some capacity (either on a project or in their life), and it caused the other person to die of shock? I guess that could be the girl she kissed, or someone else who she surprised with her canonical lesbianism. Although, someone dying of shock that Eden is gay would make Eden pretty obviously innocent, in my opinion.

For what it's worth, I do mostly believe her when she says that she didn't intend for anybody to die. The hand covering her eyes might imply that she was blind to the consequences her actions might have had. Not to say that covering your eyes can fully absolve you of guilt for a crime, of course. I wonder where you got that idea from, particularly for Eden...

PRISONER 13: Min Jeung

Trial 1 Song Title: 100% Perfection Crime Location: Untidy bedroom Special Image: Min is slumped over a desk, at which she had been writing the chemical formula for tetrodoxotin (thank you reverse image search) Murder Method: Es lies on the floor clutching at their neck as Min yells into a phone, "ln(x³ - 2 . 13) = 0" written on her arm Voice Reveal: "Min Jeung. This is ludicrous. How are we meant to expect a fair judgment when your "justice" is determined by one person's whims and biases? When an institution is non-functional, it is highly illogical to indiscriminately tear it down. Improving the basis already in place is by far the most constructive way to conduct process. There is no country in the world in which I would be judged a murderer. To say one person has the authority to decide that I am is a flagrant display of vanity. ...The condition has been met. There is no need for further intervention."

Fuck you for making me remember high school calculus (/lh). The answer is x = -1.042, if it's at all relevant to the story.

I truly expect it's a random equation, but in case it's relevant, I'll say what I think the answer could mean. It would make more sense if the answer had an "i" in it, representing an imaginary number created by taking the evenly-numbered root of a negative number, but because we have an odd numbered root, it doesn't. Anyways, you could read the answer as "negative: won zero for two." Basically, if there were some kind of match or competition that Min was in, she could see it as a negative that she won zero out of two times, AKA that she lost twice. Again, the actual answer is probably irrelevant, especially given that you only get this answer if you choose to round to three decimal places, but this is Milgram. Even the most unexpected of elements can be important to the story!

Not to mention, themes of competition are likely relevant to Min's story. Although it's debatable whether Hope's Peak Academy and the title of Ultimate Student exist in this universe, we know that Min's backstory involves her entering an academic competition in order to secure status for herself and money for her struggling family. Many people also theorize that her secret was one about poisoning the competition in order to get ahead. Combined with the formula for tetrodoxotin, a poison found in pufferfish that's more lethal than cyanide, it seems very likely that this is the path that Min's story is headed down.

However, I do believe that Min is largely telling the truth when she says that she wouldn't be judged a murderer in any country. Min should have been busy participating in whatever competition she was in, which means that someone else would have taken the action to actively poison the competitors, taking the blood off of Min's hands. However, the crime would have been committed for Min's sake, and Min may have even directed them to carry out the attack over the phone. She at least would have been aware of the plan, if you assume that the "condition being met" was her winning, and the "further intervention" would have been more poisoning. I'm not sure what exactly XF-Ture Tech would get out of helping Min in this situation, but perhaps we'll hear more about it later.

PRISONER 14: Xander Matthews

Trial 1 Song Title: Will of the Many Crime Location: Entire City Special Image: Xander rallies a crowd from atop a simple chair Murder Method: Xander stabs Es in the gut with a knife Voice Reveal: "Alexander Matthews. Just call me Xander. Don't you see how broken this entire system is?! What makes you think you hold a monopoly over morality, huh?! What gives you the right to Forgive or Not Forgive?! When something is rotten, you throw it away. It's the same with this twisted place! ...Warden? ...Ah... haha... I did it... You all can finally rest..."

We might be back to our good buddies the Spurling Foundation here with Xander. After all, he also has beef with the Spurlings, as they were the ones who polluted the water(?) in Xander's hometown while he was studying abroad, causing his family and hometown to die excruciating deaths. It would make sense if his friends and family were the ones he was saying could finally rest, after he led a rebellion against the Spurling Foundation and killed Duke.

Xander calling out to the Warden also makes me believe more strongly that this is what's going on. As DRDT enjoyers should be able to tell, Es is represented by Mai in this AU, and Mai (assuming she is Unnamed Student) was the one on the bus talking to Xander when he first revealed his backstory to us, the audience. In that video, she urged Xander to not get too caught up in negative memories involving the incident, nor to put himself in danger trying to enact revenge. If Mai remembers this universe's version of that conversation, on some level, it would make sense that she might look crestfallen that Xander acted on his impulses in her absence, and that Xander could notice that. I am assuming an emotion onto Mai, here, but I think it's likely what was implied?

Making the crime location the entire city, though, is... a bit intense? Even as an attempted murderer in canon and a basically confirmed murderer in this AU, I don't think that Xander is a huge fan of causing the deaths of innocents. In fact, the Spurlings killing innocents is what got him so riled up in the first place. Thus, I wouldn't think he'd tell his group to raze an entire town-- maybe if it had turned into, like, a Spurling-operated factory city, but even then, there'd be a lot of innocent employees in the line of fire. Perhaps the city could indicate that Xander's group had to hunt for Duke through the city, and Xander just happened to be the one to find him?

PRISONER 15: Charles Cuevas

Trial 1 Song Title: Chain Reaction Crime Location: Laboratory table with test tubes Special Image: Charles desperately kneels in front of a grave Murder Method: Es stands in a pool of blood with a question mark above their head, and Charles is fully absent Voice Reveal: "Charles Cuevas. I was hoping the Warden would be competent, at least, but clearly I was a fool to think that could ever be the case. Are you stupid?! Warden... Es... I have a request. ...Hgh... Ack!... kch [sharp inhale]"

Aha, classic Charles forgor moment. This will make for an interesting premise, indeed.

What I mean to say is, in DRDT canon, we know that Charles has childhood amnesia, as well of a debilitating fear of blood and dead bodies. These traits originated from the death of his brother, Elliot, and (in DRDT, at least) likely had something to do with dogs. However, Charles doesn't remember any of that happening until an outside source tells him about it. Therefore, it seems very likely to me that the question mark and Charles' absence is meant to represent that Charles doesn't remember what exactly his crime was, sort of like Mikoto.

It seems like Elliot's death will be Charles' fault, somehow. It might have something to do with the test tubes on the laboratory table that make up the crime location-- after all, it would be pretty irregular for dogs to be in that location, and we know little enough about the canonical dog incident that it may have been more convenient to make up something new. It could be an accidental poisoning, I guess? Or, maybe Charles accidentally caused some sort of explosion that Elliot needed to save him from, thus bringing some more blood and gore for Charles to be afraid of into the situation.

My other main point of interest is that special image. At first glance, it seems simple enough-- Charles is sadly visiting his brother's grave. But, there are a few contradictions in that interpretation. It isn't mentioned that Charles is a child in the picture, so I'm assuming the silhouette is of his current, adult, 20-ish form. Unless the crime was time shifted for purposes of the AU, Elliot should have died long ago. That means that it wouldn't have been the funeral, or, more importantly, anything that Charles would have been able to block out with his childhood amnesia. If the event is the same as DRDT, 20-something Charles shouldn't know that Elliot exists, much less the location of his grave or that he should be sad about Elliot's passing. So, what's going on here?

The simplest answer is just that Charles' crime was time shifted, and instead of childhood amnesia, it's 20-ish amnesia. The special image could be almost the exact moment where Charles forgot it all due to his trauma. I don't think we have enough evidence to theorize about anything counter to that at the moment, so I'll stick with it.

You can't leave me on a cliffhanger like this with that request, though!!! Is Charles going to try to strike a deal with Es like Kotoko did in t1? If so, what could it be? I'm so curious. Why is Charles Prisoner 15 aaaaaaaaa (/lh)

PRISONER 16: Teruko Tawaki

Trial 1 Song Title: Armageddon Crime Location: ??? Special Image: Teruko reaches out to a dark figure in a void of bright light Murder Method: Es lies as if in a coffin before a calm Teruko, who has a question mark on her left hand Voice Reveal: "Teruko Tawaki. Are you okay? You don't need to know anything about my crimes. I'm unforgivable. That's all you need, right? If you can find a way to do it... just kill me. ...[sigh] Why did I ever get my hopes up?"

And now we have Teruko to bring it all home! My, uh... my brain has been running a little wild on this one, so here's your warning to leave now before the delulu truly sets in.

...

Okay, your fate is now sealed. To talk about Teruko, I think it might be helpful to talk about our Warden at the same time.

WARDEN: Mai "Es" Akasaki

Song Title: Undercover Cover Song: Hibana Notable Characteristics: Covered left arm that Es doesn't want anyone to touch Special Phrase?: "This is not what I wanted"

Knowing canonical Mai (I say "knowing" as if her two canonical speaking roles aren't technically still a theory), she has a flower tattoo on her left arm. In Teruko's murder method image, she has a question mark on her left hand, very similar to how some believe that Teruko is also covering up a flower tattoo on her left arm in canon. Additionally, Teruko's special image really reminds me of this second anniversary art by DRDTdev, in which Teruko is reaching out to, who else, but Mai? (Nobody else wears gloves like that, to my knowledge.) Bringing attention to these details makes me think that they are very connected in this AU. In fact, I think it's possible that Teruko's victim was Mai.

While I don't have a link to one in particular, I know that there are theories floating around out there that Milgram is some kind of purgatory. If this AU follows that concept, then it would be totally fine if Mai was dead. This "Es" form of her would be reincarnated, which would be why they mostly look like Milgram's Es, but have red highlights and pointy eyes reminiscent of Mai. Other than the outfit, it seems like Milgram's wardens don't have to look like our Es, which means that, theoretically, there should be nothing stopping Mai from appearing exactly like herself. Whatever process Mai used to bring her ghostly self into Milgram might have messed up her appearance slightly, while the other students are prisoners who get to retain their unique looks.

Yeah, I said "bring herself into Milgram." I think Mai may haven been the one to bring all of the prisoners to the facility. Have you ever heard of the DRDT time loop theory? Based on some of Veronika's dialogue in the prologue, as well as hidden text on the DRDT Tumblr page, some people believe that the story of DRDT is a time loop, in which the students have been repeating this killing game over and over. Again, I don't have a link for this, but I think I've seen some versions of the theory where it was to protect them from something, maybe Ultimate Despair?

In this AU, I think Mai might have done something to bring the prisoners into Milgram for the same reasons the time loop might exist-- to protect them from something. Could have been whatever legal repercussions they would face for their crimes, or could have been a feared corruption of their personality. The first probably makes more logical sense, but the second would fit with what I wrote about Xander calling out to her. Could be both, also. Either way, MonoTV and the Trial system forces her to judge them, potentially sending some of them to their deaths, resulting in something that wasn't what Mai wanted.

I'm really glad that I have to pull on crack theories from both Milgram and DRDT to pull this off.

Here's the quicker rundown: whether they were all in a class or not, Mai at least individually knew all of these people before her death. However, Mai was tragically involved in an incident of Teruko's causing, possibly due to Teruko's bad luck, and she passed away. As a ghost(???), she was able to look over the realm of the living, and see that all of her friends were doing way, way worse than how she left them. All of them were succumbing to the worst parts of themselves, and becoming murderers!! So, she made a wish: that she wanted to see all of her friends again, and protect them from themselves by letting them listen to her good judgment once more. The wish actually succeeded, but not in the way that Mai wanted. Mai wasn't allowed to be herself, and she wouldn't remember her friends, nor would they recognize her. Additionally, the judgment was codified into a system that seemed to only punish her friends or worsen their existing ideals. She might be able to save some of them, but, would it be worth it, if she has to harm the others along the way...?

Well, that's my answer. I'd say there's about a 5% chance I've just cracked the entire thing wide open, and a 95% chance that this will all be very embarrassing as soon as, like, Levi's VD comes out. I don't really like bringing ghosts and "wishes" into Milgram or DRDT when there's no evidence either of them are present in either story. But, despite it all, this is still a first look, so I can be a little silly here.

Either way, I had a lot of fun writing and thinking about it!

I commend you for all of the effort you've put into this AU project, and all of the work I'm sure you will put in the future (assuming you continue on your plans of at least making a first trial). Hopefully reading all of this will convey some of the excitement we have for following this AU.

If anyone wants to talk about their own theories or counter points, I can try my best, although it honestly might be better to wait until some more information comes out before trying to get too deep into things. Also, my hands are tired from typing all this out-- somehow, I always seem to have more to say than I think I do. This has been my first thoughts on FF's DRDT Milgram AU, you have been very strong to make it through I-don't-even-know-how-many-words of me rambling, and I am now going back to trying very hard to not sink a ton of time into thinking about DRDT related media.

Aaaaaaah, and now people are making DRDT x SDRA2 swap AUs? Right after I finished DRDTtober and swore that I would take a break from drawing DRDT for a little bit?! You people, I swear (/aff).

DRDT + Milgram AU: Undercover (Introduction)

Finally succumbed to the Urges and came up with ideas for a full Danganronpa Despair Time - Milgram AU, and now I feel like sharing. This means giving each character a MV + VD concept (not a full VD though I ain’t writing that much dialogue, and not a full MV because who do you think I am), plus this Undercover post! I’m not sure if I’ll commit to this for a full three trials, or I’ll just drop it after just one, but I can guarantee I’ll do this trial in full. Feel free to make analysis posts (no pressure obvs), but also obvs don't expect this to be that good, I'm doing this for fun.

And if you come from the Milgram side, uh... have fun? I am curious about what people with no prior conceptions of these characters would think, but I do recommend DRDT if you haven't watched it (the overlap between the fandoms is non-trivial, I imagine you'll like it). If not, you should probably look up the character designs at least, but be wary that there will be DRDT spoilers.

As an obvious disclaimer just in case, I am not affiliated with either DRDT or Milgram in any way, this is just a fanmade AU done entirely for fun.

Basic Concept

Pretty simple. What if the 16 students of DRDT were prisoners in Milgram? This means they're all "murderers" by some loose definition of the word, implying most of their backstories must be changed to acommodate for that. For the prisoner pairs, I just paired them based on the Chapter 1 recap. The rest is pretty self-explanatory provided you know how Milgram works; three trials, vote Forgiven/Unforgiven, etc. I won't repeat it all here. You can go to the official Milgram YT channel for more information if you're not familiar.

Meet Es

Although they are of unspecified adult age, this universe’s Es is very similar to canon Es from the main series, at least in appearance. The only differences are red highlights in their hair, as well as sharp yellow eyes and taller height. They also wear arm sleeves on both their arms, being particularly adverse to people touching the left one, and their voice is slightly higher pitch. As for their personality… well, you’ll have to wait for the VDs, right? But as a heads up, they’re quite a bit nicer than canon Es, though they can still get pretty strict with the prisoners. 

(Can you tell who they’re connected to yet?)

Their uniform is the same as canon, including the band thing which in Milgram runes reads “reciffO eciloP”. The only difference is that their other band thing is longer and has the following runes:

(As a heads up, since there's no rune for 'q' I just used the rune for 'c/k' in its place. You probably don't need to translate it all to know what this says if you're familiar with DRDT lore)

Jackalope is replaced by DRDT canon MonoTV, no big changes to its personality. It still breaks the fourth wall and talks to an audience,which is odd for the prisoners (and Es) seeing as there is no audience in-universe (at least, that's what it claims). 

*Es’ VD is mostly the same, besides changes in dialogue caused by the difference in personalities. The only real difference is that there is no ‘extra cell.’

*Cover is still Hibana. 

Alright, let's get to the fun stuff.

Undercover

(It is highly recommended you know what the canon Undercover looks like before reading this, since a lot of it is pretty similar)

The opening is still the same minus Es' different appearance and MonoTV replacing Jackalope, and only starts changing when the prisoners begin showing up.

(Don’t- Don’t expect this to actually work as a song btw. I’m not insane enough to make that work)

UNDER Split in between decisions, my conscious is made up of torn stitches

Levi (01) holds a mostly neutral expression as he holds up his prisoner card, which displays his face alongside an image of an alleyway. His pose keeps changing slightly in smash cuts. Levi’s face darkens right before there’s a switch to the next prisoner.

(Note: I won’t mention the pose switching and the face on the card all the time, since that’s part of canon Undercover. Just assume it always repeats)

UNDER The beauty in simplicity, wilting with rising complexities

Arturo (02) has his chin up arrogantly at first, showing a prisoner card with a picture of a bathroom. He scoffs and turns around before the switch. 

UNDER A liar? No, that’s wrong! My honesty shines like a star in the night

David (03) (speaker persona) smiles nervously, rubbing at his cheek with a finger. His card shows a bedroom. He covers his face with his free hand, sighing before the switch.

UNDER A sinner? No, you’re kidding! I’m innocent as can be, just don’t mind the gaps

Whit (04) throws a cheeky grin to the camera, doing a finger gun with his free hand. His card shows a park. He nervously rubs the back of his neck before the switch.

(Note: Yes I gave him 04 because of the tetraphobia thing sue me-)

UNDER With a fury and a passion, unstoppable, show them your fangs

Ace (05) snarls at the camera. His card shows a city street. He throws it to the floor angrily before the switch. 

(Note: Sometimes I wasn't quite able to tie their talent to their murder, so it's either tangential to their story or has been replaced with something similar. I am mentioning this with Ace for... no reason in particular, sure, you'll believe that)

UNDER Your fears and anxieties, Respond to the stress, show me fight or flight

Nico (06) hides under the part of their cloak which looks like a scarf, peeking out nervously. Their card shows a locker room. They take a step back as the scene switches.

INSERT CHORUS HERE

UNDER Each existence is like no other, Lucky, unlucky, showtime reaches all

J (07) holds up her card with an unsatisfied expression. It shows a bridge surrounded by camera equipment. She rolls her eyes as the scene switches.

UNDER And yet, it’s all the same In the end, this wretched still life goes on

Rose (08) yawns as she holds up her card lazily. It shows a large dining room. The card slips from her hand as she falls asleep.

UNDER It’s too much, too much, I’m high strung, please forgive my sins

Hu (09) looks nervous, glancing around as if to find a place to hide. Her card shows a zither in a non-descript room. She drops her card, and closes her eyes with a pained expression, a hand on her chest. 

UNDER Please do condemn me, Bloodletting, the horror inside us is what makes me feel.

Veronika (10) spins and gives the camera a bright smile as she pulls out her card. It shows a rooftop. She throws the card in the air dramatically, laughing as it spins around and falls beside her. Her eyes fall back on the camera, and she smirks menacingly. 

UNDER  Unopposable, incontestable Merry kings, life’s queens, for me they bow down.

Arei (11) is sticking out her tongue and looking to the side dismissively. Her card shows a bowling alley. She laughs into her hand before the scene switch.

UNDER My weakness haunts me, Alarm bells are ringing, there's no going back.

Eden (12) fidgets with her hands, shaking nervously. She hides her face behind her card as she shows it, but her teary eyes are still visible over it. The card shows a bedroom full of clocks. She cries into her hands before the switch. 

INSERT CHORUS HERE

[The music winds down, a bridge of sorts. As it plays, a few scenes are shown, where only the characters’ silhouettes are visible, white noise covering them]

[01: A steaming kettle covers most of the foreground. In the background, Levi is seen sitting at a table, head slumped forward. Most of the table is visible, but no one else is in the frame]

[02: Arturo is seen to the left, holding a white turtle neck shirt in his hands. Behind him, an open suitcase sits on a bed, clothes splayed haphazardly around it]

[03: David stands alone on an empty stage, arms wide out. The spotlights are all on him. The entire stage and some of the front row seats are visible, with David’s silhouette only covering a small part in the center of the frame]

[04: A computer monitor covers almost the entire frame. There are countless photos and words, but they’re all too blurry to see, with the exception of a small message on top which reads “Analyzing profiles…” Whit is reflected on the screen, resting his head on one of his fists]

[05: Ace sits on a motorcycle, looking up and admiring the night sky which takes up most of the frame]

[06: Nico is crouched beside a cat, holding out a pink mouse toy for it to play with. Only their legs are visible, but there is a puddle of water under Nico]

[07: J has her palm spread out all over the screen, as if blocking the camera. There are flashes of light behind her, but the source is impossible to see]

[08: Rose sits slumped in a chair, hands on her face. All around her, dozens of canvases can be seen, painted entirely in black. Small bits of color poke out at the bottom, but no full paintings are visible]

[09: The camera is entirely focused on the top of a zither. Hu’s hand is visible, touching the strings with her plectra]

[10: Only Veronika’s footwear is visible over a dark floor. The rest of the scene is filled entirely by blood]

[11: Arei stands in front of a bathroom mirror. She’s holding the right side of her hair, the only part that’s visible. It looks very unevenly cut]

[12: Eden is holding her head in her hands, slumped over a work desk full of small machinery. Behind her are a multitude of analog clocks of various designs, all showing the same time; 6:00]

[13: Min is sitting on a chair, slumped forward and apparently collapsed over a notebook. A pen sits just beside her right hand. A bit of the writing can be seen, showing this:]

[The brown part being Min's hair. Don't make fun of me I'm using Paint and have zero art skills]

[14: Xander, the focus of the shot, stands in front of a crowd, standing on a simple chair. His fist is in the air, and so are the fists of everyone in the crowd]

[15: Charles is kneeling over a grave, the name on it hidden behind the silhouette. Charles is pulling at his hair with his hands. Other graves are visible around him, but the edges of the screen are darkened and it’s impossible to see them well]

[16: Teruko’s hand is reaching out to a black figure, this one without white noise. The figure is completely non-descript, more a simple shadow than a proper silhouette. Blinding white light surrounds this figure] 

UNDER No mistakes, no corrections, 100% Perfection, results shall not vary. 

Min (13) wears a neutral expression, and she holds her card perfectly upright. Her pose changes only to match the exact angles actual mugshots use. Her card shows an untidy bedroom. Before the switch, she lowers her hand, and looks briefly to the side, before turning back to the camera. When she does, her left eye flashes magenta behind her hair. 

UNDER Fighting for true justice, Stand strong, a reflection of the will of the many

Xander (14) is glaring at the camera, moving his card around flippantly. Said card shows a window overlooking an entire city. Xander throws the card away before throwing a punch at the screen.

UNDER Leave no room to hide, No hesitation, a chain reaction of truth unfolds

Charles (15) looks serious, if a bit annoyed as he holds up his card. It shows a laboratory table with several test tubes. He turns his back to the camera, adjusting his goggles, but gives one last, softer look behind him as the scene switches. 

UNDER Or shall the secrets remain? What lies beyond the lies, armageddon untold

Teruko (16) looks at the camera with cold eyes, but a hint of a frown on her lips. Her pose never changes; unlike everyone else, her segment is one continuous shot. It starts with her holding her card at an angle such that only her face is visible on it. She closes her eyes solemnly, before finally flipping her card around so only the backside is shown. It has the Milgram logo combined with the DRDT logo. She never shows the rest of the front of the card, as the scene switches moments after. 

[Pre-chorus, as the prisoners hold their hands to their mouths before a scene of them smiling plays. At the end, for a few frames, a white camellia blooms, before there’s a sudden shift in scenery as we hit the final chorus. All the prisoners’ silhouettes have a still shot each with Es, with a blood splatter always under the latter. The scene starts to focus on each individually]

[Levi’s punching Es in the face, Es thrown to the floor from the impact. Brass knuckles are barely visible on his hand. Levi’s shouting, as are all the other prisoners]

[Arturo is kneeling, facing away from Es. The latter is laying on the floor behind him in what would be a pretty uncomfortable position. Arturo is holding his head in his hands, his mouth visible from the side and open in a shout. One of Es’ shoes is off]

[David is holding Es by the neck of their shirt, shouting at their face (from now on I’ll stop clarifying that they’re shouting). The following symbol appears over where his eyes would be, glowing yellow: 正]

[Whit is pointing what looks to be a gun at Es, who is recoiling as if they’ve been shot in the heart]

[Ace is seen running, Es’ body falling to the ground beside him and twisting as if they’d been bumped into]

[Nico sits on top of Es’ back. With one of their hands, they’re grabbing onto Es’ hair and apparently pushing it forward. With the other they’re holding two ends of a wire firmly planted on Es’ neck]

[J stands normally, pointing what seems to be a remote control at Es. The latter is face-up on the floor, their limbs contorted in unnatural angles]

[Rose is standing, facing away from Es, who is kneeling and grabbing at their throat. A small jar sits beside them, the cap taken off]

[While standing, Hu is grabbing Es by the throat with both hands, blood coming from the Warden’s throat]

[Veronika is kneeling besides Es’ face-up body. Her hands are on her chest, and there is blood under her as well as the Warden. Meanwhile, Es’ limbs are contorted in unnatural ways, and one of their shoes is off]

[Arei is violently swinging a bowling ball at Es’ head, causing their body to twist around as it falls]

[Eden is standing, covering her eyes. Her right hand has a Ⅵ symbol glowing bright yellow. Es is uncomfortably laying face-up on the floor]

[Min is standing with her back turned to Es, who is kneeling on the floor and grasping at their neck. Min is shouting into a landline phone. Along her arm, an equation glows bright yellow:

ln(x³ - 2 . 13) = 0]

[Xander is grabbing Es’ shoulder, plunging a knife into their stomach]

[Es is standing neutrally, but there is still blood on the floor. A glowing yellow question mark floats above them. Charles is nowhere to be seen]

[Teruko is kneeling calmly besides Es, who is lying face-up with their hands crossed over their chest as if in a coffin. A question mark glows on Teruko's left hand. Teruko is the only prisoner besides Charles who is not screaming]

[The song winds down while a sped up and translucent version of the video plays in the background. A shadow begins growing in the middle, and for just a moment, two sharp yellow eyes stare at the camera from the center of the screen. The finale simply has Es exiting to the left as they do in canon Undercover]

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And there's Undercover! How we feeling? Hope you enjoyed! Take care!