#more than deciding to stay anyway they sort of ended up building a relationship with the rest of the squad

[risswirly]

Hi hi!! I read your first two works and they are incredible!!! I need some more fics of my pookie warren to fuel my soul. (There isn't nearly enough..) anyways I would like to make a suggestion/request. Could you write one where you're Warren's best friend and you both always make 'jokes' about being in love with each other and being soulmates but you both think the other one is actually joking so they don't confess out of fear but there's so much tension and one day, (you decide who) someone can't take it anymore and do something about the tension and it leads to confessions and wanting to make up for lost time? Thank you for reading and I can't wait to read more of your stuff <3

You Know Me

SYNOPSIS: After constantly joking about being in love, keeping your feelings for your best friend a secret only becomes harder and harder GENRE: fluff and a touch of angst NOTE: I loved writing this request!! Hopefully I was able to do it justice (^_^) WORD COUNT: 2.2k

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The halls bustle with chatter and laughter as students excitedly leave school for the weekend. You exit your last-period classroom and make your way to your locker, a smile creeping onto your face when you spot him scrolling on his phone waiting for you. You stifle your grin as you approach him.

He glances up at you and pockets his cell, "Well, it's about time you showed up" he teases, rolling his eyes jokingly. You open your locker and return your books, sorting through the various sheets and notes stuffed into the pages from earlier classes, "Oh calm down, it hasn't even been 5 minutes,  Mr Taylor was giving us extra homework" You explain grouchily glancing back up at him, amused by his impatience. You shut your locker door and the two of you begin to walk towards the school's exit. "You know if I was anyone else they probably wouldn't have waited for you" he states matter-of-factly. You scoff, "What? Do you want to be rewarded with a kiss or something?" You tease, making kissing faces towards him as he chuckles. "Yeah, maybe I would" he jokes back, mimicking your smooching face.

These kinds of jokes had become the norm for you and Warren, saying you were in love, joking about being in a relationship, it was banter you made on the daily. The two of you had practically been inseparable since becoming friends at the start of high school. It didn't matter how you felt or what you were doing, Warren was just someone you were always happy to be around. You understood each other better than anyone else and felt comfortable discussing any topic or feeling. 

Well, with one exception, of course, the pitiful crush you'd had on him for years. Even after many attempts to move on and convince yourself those feelings didn't exist the ache in your heart always lingered. Every joke was a confession hidden in plain sight. Every lingering gaze was a cry for something more. But, in the end, it was all just a joke to him. No matter how much you wished it was real you remind yourself that he saw you as nothing more than a friend. So because of that, you stayed silent, swallowed your pride, played along and kept your feelings secret, pretending your heart didn't yearn for him every day.

The two of you walk across the campus towards the dorm building, agreeing to do homework in your room today since you'd gone to Warren's yesterday. As you walk, you rant about a bad class you'd had earlier while Warren listens, laughing and occasionally commenting. Eventually, you make it to the girl's dormitories, he has no trouble navigating your door since he spends about as much time in your room as his own. 

He opens the door for you, holding it as he waits for you to enter before him. You raise your eyebrows with a smirk "Wooow, a true gentleman. My family would love you" You comment with a chuckle, you feel a slight pang in your heart as you realise the truth your statement holds. It's true, if he ever made the trip to visit your family your mum would absolutely adore him and you can already picture him and your sibling being good friends. You quickly shake the thought from your head as you enter the room, reminding yourself again that it was never going to happen. 

He closes your door behind him "Speaking of, my grandma wants to know how you are, she was asking me earlier when I was waiting at your locker." He says as he drops his bag to the floor beginning to take out his homework. "No way! Tell her I'm doing great and that I'll come over again soon" Your face lights up at the mention of Warren's grandma who you had met a few times when you'd gone into town to visit his family. "Warn me beforehand, last time you came over she didn't stop asking me why we weren't dating for like, a week." He grumbles and you giggle lightly at his dismay. 

After you both settle down a bit you begin to do some work. As you reluctantly write your English essay, Warren makes a start on a chemistry quiz. Around an hour passes by and the two of you do a decent job at not getting distracted with the exception of some light chatter.

Warren huffs quietly as he struggles on the last question, prompting you to glance up at him without moving your head. You notice his hair hanging slightly in front of his face, your eyes trailing over the curves in his features, even the way he furrowed his brows in confusion seemed effortlessly perfect. You feel a pang in your heart as you fight the urge to reach out to him. You snap out of your trance, quickly averting your eyes away again. God damn it, longing glances and admiring the details of his face was not a part of keeping your feelings secret. Even after gluing your eyes back to your notebook, you feel the burden of desire weigh heavy in your heart.

After a few moments, you hear Warren sound an "ohhhhh" of realisation as he deciphers the equation. You chuckle lightly at his reaction, "What was the solution?" You ask despite your lack of chemistry knowledge. He smiles to himself pleased before answering, "I completely miscounted the number of bonds, which is why the additional electron pair was making no sense!" He continues to rabble on about his prior mistake and how the work should have been done, but that's not what you really cared about. You watch endearingly as his eyes light up with excitement while he explains the chemistry, and the proud smile that grows on his face as he gains confidence in his knowledge. He suddenly stops himself, "You have no clue what I'm saying do you?" He takes his eyes off his work and smirks back at you bashfully. You smile back playfully and shake your head. "Then why did you even ask?" he laughs back confused. You take a quick moment to think about it, "You look cute when you geek out" you reply in all honesty with a shrug. "Just admit you're in love with me" He teases back. "There's no point in admitting it if you already know" you say as he laughs.

He rolls his eyes with a scoff, however as you watch his face you see his playful demeanour dissolve. His smile slowly fades and his eyelids grow heavy as a million thoughts and emotions rush through his head.  He clenches his jaw, "Um, I should probably go actually" he mumbles, hurriedly gathering his things. His change in behaviour catches you off guard "What? I-" You quickly stop what you're doing and look back at him concerned and confused. As he stands to go you follow him, quickly picking yourself up off your carpet. "Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry, I only called you a geek as a joke" You explain desperately, worry setting in as you apologise. You grab ahold of the hem of his shirt in a moment of panic before he reaches the door and he stops in his tracks, back still turned to you. He takes a shaky breath, "I just... can't do it anymore" He says quietly, his voice laced with hurt and dejection. 

You let go of his shirt and your arm drops limply to your side. "Can't do what?" You ask slowly, voice barely above a whisper, the air around you drenched in tension. He finally turns to face you, eyes filled with sorrow and desperation. "I can't keep pretending (y/n). All this joking and teasing, saying things like we're in love? I can't keep acting like it isn't real to me." he confesses as you stand frozen wide-eyed in shock. Your breath hitches in your throat as your heart begins to pound in your ears "Warren-" you manage to choke taking a step toward him but he stops you. "(y/n) wait, please. I've waited years to tell you this. I just... I just want to get this off my chest okay?" He smiles at you pleadingly before continuing. " Every time we joke about being together or meeting each other's families or going on dates, every single time, I get this unbearable ache in my heart knowing it isn't real. Knowing it doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to me." He places a hand on his chest gripping the fabric of his shirt.

He takes a deep breath and runs his finger through his hair, "But I can't keep lying to you.. and I can't keep lying to myself either. I, I'm sorry I ruined it... that's all I had to say" he gives you an apologetic smile, eyes filled with sorrow and regret. 

After a moment of silence, you sigh "Are you done now?" you ask calmly. He pauses and blinks back at you for a second, confused at your reaction "Um.. yeah I guess so?" He stammers bewildered. Your eyes soften and you smile at him warmly. "Good." is all you say as you take a step closer to him, the proximity between you now limited. 

His eyes quickly scan your expression as you softly cup either side of his face. His confusion melts into longing as you gently pull him closer towards you, his hands hover hesitantly over your body unsure of what to do with them. Your breaths tangle with each other as your hearts beat rapidly, uncertain yet so sure at the same time. You let your lips linger close to his, giving him room to back out if this isn't what he wants. But he knows what he wants, and he knows he's never wanted anything more in his life than this, and he takes the plunge.

His eyes flutter shut and he leans in and closes that remaining gap between you, gently pressing his lips into yours. It's light and hesitant but after a moment he pulls back slightly and takes a deep breath. "Fuck" he mutters to himself before diving back in. As your lips collide again you feel a sense of hunger wash over you as you finally act upon the feelings you had hidden for so long. He kisses you more desperately this time, as if he's kissing you with the passion and tension that has built up over the years of yearning and unspoken feelings. His hands find the small of your back, pressing your body to his as you stand on your toes. 

Electricity and warmth shoot through your entire body as his fingers trail up your back, pulling you into his tight embrace, wanting more of you as he gains confidence. Your arms wrap around his neck and your lips move in perfect rhythm and it feels like your heart explodes when you feel him smile softly as you kiss him tenderly. You make your way over to your bed, pulling him on top of you as you lay down. The world around fades away into nothing as your senses become consumed by the passion of the long overdue moment. 

He pulls away breathlessly, your heart practically beating out of your chest. "you have no idea how long I've wanted this" He pants softly still holding you tightly not wanting to let you go now that he has you. You smile back at him, unable to speak but you undoubtedly trust he knows you feel the same. He gently places a kiss on your forehead, "I think I would be happy if I could just kiss you forever" He chuckles, gently tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You look up at him and bite your lip nervously, "Does... this make us like.. official now?" You ask.

He pulls away, breaking your hug prompting you both to sit upright, a horrified look plastered on his face, "Fuck no! There's no way I'm going to let my miserable breakdown be how I finally ask you to be my girlfriend. I am going to give you the romantic, thought-out, grand gesture you deserve."  He says firmly almost looking offended you'd suggest such a thing. He takes ahold of your hands, "Just.. give me some time to plan it, okay?" he admits sheepishly. His pleading face makes you crack a smile "I've waited this long haven't I?" you chuckle. He gazes at you tenderly, his worried expression dissolving away, "What did I do to deserve you?" He asks before showering you with quick pecks all over your face and neck sending you into a fit of laughter as you lay back down. 

he tenderly plants a lingering kiss on your lips again before pulling away slightly. You gently push his hair out of his face taking a deep breath, "We wasted so much time" you whisper, a tinge of sadness in your tone. He caresses your cheek softly with his thumb "We have so much time to make up for it" He whispers back, smiling at you lovingly. 

You smile too knowing he's right, because looking into his eyes you see a world of opportunity and everything you've ever wanted. 

Looking into yours, he sees the world.

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[foxglovegames]

Trouble Comes Twice - the Postmortem

We celebrated Trouble Comes Twice's anniversary around a month ago! We'd hoped to post this postmortem back then as well, but it's taken us a moment to find the right words haha.

Anyway, we hope that this postmortem can give our players and other visual novel devs some insight into what the development process looked like for us. It's also a great way for us to look back at what went well and what went less well.

We'll be taking about the ideation phase, our (lack of) marketing for the Kickstarter, and also sharing (what we can) on our earnings from the game!

Coming up with Trouble Comes Twice

The original tone of Trouble Comes Twice was a lot more comedic and packed to the brim with anime tropes we enjoy. Most didn't make it into the final game, but some stayed and evolved e.g. all of the love interests are based on popular visual novel archetypes - the childhood friend, the tomboy, the shy girl, and the bad boy. 

Some, like Cameron and Zoe, changed a lot from their concept while Adrian and Stephanie stayed quite loyal to our original ideas of them. Cameron's character actually underwent the most changes after the initial reception to the demo, where a lot of people felt like he was too much of an ass haha. (Fortunately, he became a fan favorite when we dropped the new demo!)

The premise with the bet was something we invented to create some drama and establish a common plot thread throughout each route. Honestly, looking back, we would probably have approached the bet differently if we wrote it today and a lot of our pre-planning was... clumsy, at best. Still, it was a labor of love and I'll never forget the fun and excitement we had everyday balling ideas for the characters and coming up with their designs.

As Melli and I are just writers with limited coding experience, we worked with a past game jam friend to code the GUI and set up the base for the game (though the actual scripting was done by us and Melli put everything together in the end). Our biggest expenses pre- and post-demo was the character art and CGs, meanwhile we relied on free music and BG packs to save money.

Why a bisexual romcom?

So, this was sort of a no-brainer to us. We had decided right from the start that both twins could date both the male and female love interests, and (at the time) we feel that a lot of similar games had playersexual MCs rather than established bisexual/pansexual MCs. While playersexual charas are also awesome, we wanted to write a romcom where the main cast are always queer regardless of who you end up romancing. 

At the same time, bi/pan people don't all approach romantic relationships the same way e.g. Cameron is confident and has experience dating people of all genders, while Adrian's demi and Jace still struggles a bit with his attraction towards men. We know that some of our players felt like that made certain routes less romantic than others and we hear you on that feedback and have 100% taken it into consideration for our future romance games. But anyway, that was our thought process behind Trouble Comes Twice's romance dynamics!

Preparing for Kickstarter & the actual Campaign

Our Kickstarter launched at the start of August and let me tell you, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been. 😭 We hadn't set up a Steam page yet, we were trailer-less, and we only had a couple of hundred followers across our socials at best. I feel that there's a lot more successful Kickstarter projects to refer to and even a lot of marketing guides and advice now, but mostly it's on us for not researching more. 

The Kickstarter campaign did surprisingly well despite the lack of promotion and only having a rough alpha demo - we were even able to double our goal! - but we  wouldn't recommend what we did for other devs.

You should invest time into making a good demo, spend time building an interested audience before launching your campaign, and research so you've got some kind of marketing plan. We were lucky with word-of-mouth and that other visual novel devs with larger followings helped share our game, but we should have made more effort reaching out to bloggers, streamers, and game sites. Some crowdfunding successes may seem like they came out of nowhere and were just pure luck, but there's usually a lot of grinding behind-the-scenes that you don't notice.

The post-Kickstarter era, at least for us, was the harder bit. We now had 353 loyal backers who had expectations based on promises we had made and we had to make sure we met those expectations while also staying true to our wants as the devs. It was a learning process for sure, but we're fairly proud that we always did our best to keep our backers in the loop. It's frustrating to write an update explaining that the game has been delayed again, but backers are more open to being understanding than you think as long as you communicate!

A tip we'd give to new devs considering Kickstarter: Don't overestimate what you can do, but overestimate what you need. There's always hidden costs, unexpected taxes/fees, and other unknown obstacles that might eat up your budget. In our case, we made enough to make the game as planned, but had to change CG artists around halfway through development which meant our original budget didn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, we had earned a decent amount from our Patreon and pre-orders that we were able to use to complete the CGs, but that isn't always going to be an option for everyone and that also meant we were unable to use that money ourselves. (We didn't take any money from the original Kickstarter campaign, so whatever was earned through patreon and pre-sales was our only "salary" at the time.) 

Writing the game

Writing is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important parts of a visual novel. Melli wrote Jace's routes and I wrote Hazel's routes, which removed some pressure off our shoulders compared to trying to write over 300,000 words all on our own. 

It's fun working with another writer, but there are also some unique issues and considerations that come up when you're writing a game with two protagonists split between two writers. Especially because at the time, there weren't many visual novels with a similar set up to refer to.

The main things we learned, were:

Consistency. We wanted each couple to have their own dynamic, but the characterization needs to remain consistent between routes. You don't want Adrian in Jace's route to feel like a totally different character in Hazel's route. Additionally, we had to be careful that the tone and writing style of the protagonists' POVs still felt like you were playing the same game. Some routes can be more comedic than others, but we've got a problem if Hazel's routes are all (unintentionally) more serious/angsty in tone than Jace's or vice versa.

Watch out for your word count! Longer does not always equal better and writing eight routes, we had to put some restrictions in place. Even when writing on your own, it can be tough to guess how long your story should be, and it was important to us that the routes were roughly the same length so that none felt more "canon" than the other. However, with two writers who have different writing styles and ways of planning, it was tricky to compare our outlines and we struggled at times when it came to matching each other's word counts. Moving forward, we're probably going to be more lenient when it comes to word counts - some routes have to be longer than others, it doesn't mean that route is automatically more "important". We're also doing more regular meetings and frequent check-ins to make sure we're on the same page. In the future, we hope that should save us a lot of trouble when it comes to pacing! 🙈

Balancing your own wants with the wants of your players. In theory, these overlap most of the time. But making a commercial game (that people had already "bought" through the Kickstarter), there is some pressure when it comes to meeting certain expectations. We can't always just write what we want and assume everyone else is going to love it, but we also don't want to neglect what we personally like. We had a survey for the beta where we were able to get regular feedback and a lot of helpful advice. We definitely want to continue with surveys in the future - they are a great way to gather opinions from different players and figure out what works versus what doesn't! 

We took on too many tasks outside writing that distracted us. This bit is sort of inevitable for indie devs like us. 😅 Working with a limited budget and limited resources, you just end up having to wear a lot of hats! We think we did quite well sharing these duties though, and moving forward (thanks to you guys) we can afford more hands on deck to help us out. 

Marketing

The bane of every indie game dev's existence... although secretly, I kind of enjoy marketing but don't tell anyone that!

Having learned a thing or two from promoting the Kickstarter, we spent more time researching games marketing but in the end, trial and error was the best teacher.

As we got closer to the release date, we were posting almost daily on social media and grew our Twitter to over eight thousand followers. We didn't have any viral posts, but we saw a consistent growing interest in our game and it was such a motivation boost to see comments from potential players being excited for the game. We know a lot of devs have said that Twitter didn't help their game much but according to our stats, a decent number of our players found us through the platform. 

We saw less success here on Tumblr. Perhaps we haven't cracked the code here yet or maybe we're just comparing our numbers from Twitter unfairly! We're not hung up about it though, we love it here because it feels easier to connect with our followers and other devs there, and it's nice because we're able to write longer posts like this one! 💓

Aside from posting on social media, we reached out to several streamers and some bloggers prior to release to send them free game keys. 

We also commissioned some art from other artists to share, as we obviously couldn't reveal ALL our CGs before the release lol and visual posts tend to do a lot better in our experience. It was so much fun to see the characters in other art styles and we hope we can afford to commission guest art pieces a lot more frequently in the future!

In hindsight, we definitely regret not releasing a trailer sooner! We underestimated how much interest a good trailer could garner and delayed setting up our Steam page because of it. Steam was the platform where we sold the most copies and most of our buyers found the game through Steam itself.

Also, posting your trailer on youtube adds another site where you're promoting your game so there's really no reason not to get that trailer done as soon as you can. 

Final Notes

After the initial stress, we were pretty happy with our release! Although there were some things we would go back and change if we could,  that's just the nature of these kind of things. For the most part, we're proud of what we achieved and happy that we have learnt so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can take into consideration for future projects.

We can't share exact numbers, but we wanted to open up a bit about our earnings for the game to help other aspiring devs: As of writing this, Trouble Comes Twice has earned close to 85,000 euros. This counts our profits from 2020 to now (the Kickstarter, Patreon, pre-sales, and actual sales). Removing fees, taxes, the salaries of our talented artists and other freelancers, as well as the money invested into our next game, our personal pockets did not see anything close to those numbers. But we're super proud of how much our little game has made and so grateful that it's allowed us more creative freedom with our next title! 

So, what's next?

You might have heard but for the past year, we've slowly been working on the demo and upcoming announcement for our next visual novel:

A 17+ supernatural neon-noir romance game about monsters, love, and other horrors. 

Play as vampire detective Circe (female protagonist) or hellhound cop Dante (male protagonist) and delve into the mysteries of North Haven, where demons, vampires, and supernaturals hide in plain sight among humans.

The game features six routes, with three romance options available to each protagonist. Dante only has male romances and Circe has both male and female romances. 

The game tackles a darker, more angsty tone compared to Trouble Comes Twice. Still, we hope that those who decide to check it out will enjoy it! We plan to announce the game this coming Autumn. Follow our Twitter (we're still not calling it X sorry) or Tumblr to stay up to date.

[aayakashii]

I'm going through the Sinostra chapter right now and I can't stop making theories omg there might be spoilers below so be careful, although I'm just enumerating my questions tbh lol

According to one of Taiga's home screen dialogs, there might be some sort of time loop happening which he's KINDA aware of? Or maybe just aware when triggered somehow.

He said "long time no see! You decide to ditch this future too? Sorry I'm not dead yet" which is INCREDIBLY ooc as to how he behaves during the story which leads me to

His extreme memory loss, which apparently lasts less than 24 hours. Why is that? Did he go through so many time loops that it started affecting his memory? There was one small moment in which he remembered Ritsu because he saw the MC face though...

The Clash. What the fuck was it

What's Taiga relationship to Haru? Haru sounds eerily nonchalant regarding Taiga even though the man keeps on threatening Peekaboo. And aftewards, Rui briefly mentions that Taiga has a "destroying what others hold dear" schtick, which leads me to believe that Taiga is seeking revenge for losing something important maybe???? Is the fanfic brainrot too big rn

WHY DOES HE HATE LIKE DOVES??????? I dont wanna go full romantic mode, but is he just resentful of seeing a bird that is the physical representation of someone else's feelings or something......

The spy. Honestly no idea. There's some theories floating around that Haku is the spy, but I would rather see him during the Hotarubi episode before jumping to conclusions, but it's understandable how people might think that I guess...? He IS very nice and helpful and randomly finding the MC fleeing by train was way too much of a coincidence... he does seem to always tie the MC to Darkwick somehow, firstly by KIDNAPPING her and then by talking her into staying. If the MC is the trigger to a bigger event, then one could see that as suspicious. But I would like a bit more evidence first lol

Back to Taiga, why is he. Like why

Okay no but seriously. If we take the timeloop thing seriously + Haku being a spy, here's the theory:

Taiga knows the MC is the trigger for an awful event and tried killing them back in the Prologue in order to cut the problem on its roots. Haku, if we consider him as the spy, WANTS the event to happen (considering he could also be aware of the loop), which is why he saved us and took us to Darkwick, therefore letting it all play out once again.

If Haku isn't the spy, then we would have to chalk it up as Taiga knowing and trying to kill us, but destiny (???) being a bitch, therefore putting Haku there as a pawn to make things play out again

Maybe the spy can control other ghouls? Who know tbh

Finally, what is going on during the first scene we see in the game? Darkwick on fire and the first character we choose jumping off of the building? I wonder what would happen if we choose Taiga as our first card....... maybe I should create a sub acc

Anyway if anyone has more questions/theories PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY IM OBSESSED WITH THIS GAME I NEED TO THINK ABT IT

There is also a good theory on reddit made by u/imonlybr16 that states this:

"Before the prologue, when you open the game for the first time, you're greeted with the opening scene involving MC running through the halls of a ruined Darkwick. The question is asked "When the world is collapsing around you, whose hand will you take?"

There you're taken to your character choice screen. The guy you choose is later shown on the railing of a balcony, about to jump off.

Now I think I have a very far fetched and vague idea as to what is going on.

In chapter 2, we learn that the person that Alan killed was Dante or at least he thought he did. But we meet Dante and he's very much alive.

This comes theory number one.

***You can't actually die on campus.***

Note the use of actually here. You can 100% still die, you just end up coming back to life.

If Rui is your home screen he talks about accidentally killing someone else in his dorm and being annoyed with having to lift them back to Obscuary. This struck me as a particularly odd dialogue because Rui's curse causes people to die.

Unless, you can't die on campus.

This would explain Dante pretty much instantly. Yes Alan killed him but yes he's alive.

The campus itself is an anomaly, stopping people from dying doesn't sound too far fetched. I expect this to be revealed with the other two members of Obscuary, as that dorm seems to have a connection to death. One of the things that always pops up is that ghouls aren't immortal, no matter how quickly they heal.

Also explains how Calamari didn't die in chapter 3. Ren ran from the dorm > the caves > the jetty and Calamari was already pretty dehydrated in the beginning.

But OP you might say, aren't all the guys talking like they believe they're going to die.

Luckily, that brings us to vauge and far fetched theory number two.

***The campus is on fire due to a rebellion***

In the very last chapter of the prologue we get to see Kaito's wickhive. There we see three pretty interesting threads.

. There's gonna be an uprising soon

. One of you is a demon

. There's a guy who could see the future

Kaito is surprised at something he sees in this scene but we don't learn what it is. This chapter's 'preview' is one of the scenes we see in the very beginning. Blood and a Lily.

I believe that the first thread is foreshadowing and will . After you meet your chosen guy standing on the railing you get a line of dialogue (or not if you picked Towa) that changes depending on who you picked. Some imply that what they're doing is going to save you(Jiro, Zenji and Sho), some apologize stating that they could protect what they cared about until the very end (Luca,Kaito,Haru and Yuri) but three characters caught my attention

Leo: Life sucks and then you die,right? I just want to make the assholes responsible regret it.

Ren: This is exactly why I didn't to do this! I knew this was how it was going to end.

Subaru: This is all my fault. I don't expect you to forgive me, but this is the least I can do. Please take this as my final act of good faith.

Especially Subaru's and Ren's, that seemingly imply either the MC's (Ren's) or their (Subaru) involvement in the current situation. Now what does this has to do with a potential uprising?

One of the things we learn from the very beginning is the inter-politics of the houses and by extension the ghouls. Especially after the fallout of the clash. Things are pretty tense and an uprising or rebellion seems to be the most likely thing.

As to what happened and why? I have no clue. Though one thing to note is that according to the prophecy, as long as the ghouls are in Darkwick, they prevent a disaster from coming. If Darkwick is destroyed however, the prophecy can't be fulfilled, or can it?"

This is such a good theory too, I really think u/imonlybr16 has probably gotten a lot of things right.

Although it's weird that death is such a big threat to us specifically, but maybe the Academy can't prevent death by curses, much like the Mesmer Matches dont work on someone who's cursed. Hhmm...

[bluegalaxygirl]

Undercover (Bad Batch X Reader) P2

Plot: Reader goes undercover at a prestigious event, her job is mainly to gather intel while the batch keeps watch.

Warning: Bad language, Drinking and Violence

Reader is female (sorry), Established relationship, Poly relationship between reader and each member of the batch. There's some brother moments and banter between the clones but no Clone X Clone stuff.

Language list

P1 - P3 - P4 - P5 - P6 - P7

Taking your glass you down the rest of your drink before placing it on the bar and sneaking away from the still bickering bartenders "Good luck with those idiots around him" Crosshair groans in your ear as you turn to look over at your target and his friends, knowing you have to get his attention you walk right up to the group to stand next to your target "Senator Cheesho, I'm so sorry to interrupt but i was hoping to have a moment of your time" The group stops talking to look you up and down, some seeming annoyed that you interrupted while other looked amused, your target Antart Cheesho on the other hand gives you a fake smile and turns to fully face you, his eyes look your over with slight supposition but that soon fades turning into genuine happiness "Do not worry, the conversation was dragging on anyway" Antart waves his hand giving his friends a silent order to go away, with some sighs and groans the group walks off going to talk to other people or to grab another drink, it surprises you since they all seemed quiet close so for the senator to treat them so openly like nuisances was unexpected but it works in your favor so your not going to complain. "How may i help you, young lady?" With his full attention now you a smile forms on your face as you bow slightly "I'm F/N F/LN, an Anthropologist at Yavin Prime, I first wanted to thank you for inviting my Boss, but he couldn't make it, so they sent me instead. I've heard a bit about this building and its history but i wanted to know more, who better to ask than the man who owns it"

He thinks for a second making you panic a little before snapping his fingers seeming to finally catch on to something "Oh yes, Mister Dune, are you one of his students?" He asks testing your knowledge to see if your telling the truth. Mister Dune was someone who was supposed to come but couldn't make it so Tech and Hunter decided you would take his place, you studied the man just in case you get asked questions so its easy for you to answer, with a raised eyebrow you tilt your head to the side acting confused "Students? Dune may be a teacher of sorts but he's way too busy for an actual class, I'm one of his collages… To be honest" You let out a laugh stepping closer you starting to whisper, the man leans in hoping to hear what you have to say with a smirk "I wasn't hand-picked or anything, Dune just threw his hat and who ever it hit ended up going" Antart lets out a laugh leaning back and gripping his side, pulling back you let out a giggle glad that he took your lie, after calming down the man holds out his hand for you to take hoping to lead you somewhere "It would be my honor to tell you about this place and its rich history but i think it would be more beneficial if i give you a tour" A growl in your ear indicated Crosshair isn't happy about this, his job is to watch over you and the hall, he can't do that if your not in sight "Get him to stay" His snake like voice runs through you, you feel his tense state just from his tone "As much as i would love that, wouldn't it be inappropriate to see a Senator going off alone with a woman" You state gripping onto your clutch bag in order to calm your nerves, Antart lets out a small chuckle shaking his head at you while muttering under his breath "It wouldn't be the first time" You pretended you didn't hear it but the comment does make your heart beat much faster hoping he wasn't intending to do anything if alone, you wanted information but you weren't about to sell yourself out for it.

Antart holds his hand out more to you hoping you will take up his offer without asking again, his eyes plead with you silently begging, despite your chest feeling tight and your heart telling you no, you need the information, you need him to talk so you reach your hand out to take his only to stop half-way when Crosshair's dangerous growl sounds in your ear. "No, don't go with him" The snipers angry voice sends a shiver down your spine and you can tell by the slight shake in his voice that he has an itchy trigger finger. The need of the mission comes first and it seems the Senator won't give any info while staying here so you give a small smile before taking his hand, a big grin forms on the man's face as he pulls your arm to link with his before starting to walk off. "Y/N, What the Krif? .. Hunter, she's going off with the Senator.. Alone" Crosshair whispers trying to control his anger before contacting Hunter hoping for some help or backup in getting you to stop or rethink this before your out of sight. "What? Y/n i told you to get his attention not go off with him" Hunter growls into your ear, you so desperately want to answer back, say your sorry but also state that this is the only way you'll get info out of him. "Osik, Ok, Crosshair stay where you are for now, keep a look out for the other targets and any trouble. Y/n stick to the halls don't go into any rooms with him and back out if you need too. The two of you are to stay in contact with each other at all times and Y/n be careful, if she goes dark, Cross you find her." Hearing the order you slightly nod mainly to yourself just as Antart walks you through a set of doors and into a long hallway.

The floor is now a hard dark wood making your heals click and echo through the empty pace, one of the white long walls is filled completely with paintings and photos, all framed in different colors and shaped frames not one looking the same as far as you can see, while the other wall has a few doors and lamps. "Wrecker and i are at the basement but its locked" Hunter continues as a groan is heard behind him from Wrecker "I could just kick it open" The big guy groans again clearly unhappy about not being able to break things "No, we can't let anyone know where here… Tech and Echo are still shifting through all the data and trying to gain access to the basement for us, once we have everything we need be ready to head out." Hunter orders earning conformation from everyone who can answer, the com chatter starts to fade away leaving only you and Crosshair on the same channel as the others switch over to another so you can work without all the chatter. "What do you see?" The sniper asks still pissed about you going off alone "That's a lot of photos and paintings, is this wall only dedicated to this building?" You ask Antart who nods stopping at the largest fame on the wall, a large blueprint of the first ever finished floor plan but it looks nothing like the building now "Not all of it, some sections are of the process of making material's for this place, photos of the families that lived and owned it. My favorite has always been the original floor plan though, mainly because its what this building should have looked like" Nodding you look over the blueprint seeing it's much taller than the building actually is and has the addition of a swimming pool. "So, was it time and money that was the problem or structural issues?" You ask earning a very big grin from the senator who happily answers your questions while guiding you along the wall of photos and paintings.

The tour had a lot more detail than you expected from him, it seems getting him alone was a great idea after all, he talks more passionately and less formal than back in the hall, he also let your arm go seeming uninterested in any kind of physical touch with you and more interested in showing off his smarts. The real him was now in front of you, everything outside seemed to just be an act, he seems comfortable with you now so you started to ask more and more questions slowly opening him up to where he let slip a few secrets. "Sorry, i hope i'm not boring you" Antart nervously laughs while rubbing the back of his head, its taken a while but your now at the end of the hall of pictures leaving your brain almost wrecked as if you've been listening to Tech ramble for hours but you shake it off giving him a smile "No of course not, I'm actually enjoying myself. Thank you" Antart seems to brighten up at this letting out a small laugh while rubbing his arm lightly "I'm glad most people take the first chance to run off back to the party… Your different though, maybe it's your perfection but i hope you can help me out" A pit forms in your stomach at his words as the man steps closer to you making you want to step back and away from him but you manage to force your body to stay still "I know this party is supposed to be a annual gathering but its actually a secret a fund-raiser" Antart whispers while looking around checking that no one is around to hear it. "A fund-raiser?" You ask in confusion wondering two main things, one, why is this such a secret? and two, if it is a fund-raiser event why are there were no auctions or money boxes for donations? With a shy look the man rubs the back of his neck while turning to fully face you "W-well, i hate to say it but yes… I-i want to keep this secret but-"

Antart quickly grabs your arm making you gasp in surprise as the man speed walks through another set off doors leading into another hallway "Come, i want to show you something" You try to pull away but surprisingly his grip is very strong unwilling to let you go in his heist to get to where he wants to go "Cyare, you ok? what going on? where are you?" Cross yells out clearly starting to be on the move to come and get you but with your quick thinking manages to stop both men even if just for a moment "I can walk, you don't need to drag me. I'm happy to go just tell me where" You state trying to keep your voice calm and collected but there's still a slight shakiness, the Senators eyes widen in surprise suddenly aware of what he's done to make you uncomfortable while quickly letting go of your arm and stopping in his tracks "S-sorry, i didn't mean too, are you ok?" Antart asks seeming genuinely concerned "I'm fine, you didn't hurt me just gave me a shock is all" You sigh managing to calm your nerves "Get out of there, He's too grabby and who knows where he's taking you" Cross growls seeming to have stopped where he is instead of coming to get you, it's a relief since your finally getting somewhere and you don't want anyone to ruin it. "I'm really sorry… It's been so long since anyone has taken an interest in this stuff, its normally just politics and Peace talks, i can't remember the last time i could openly indulge in my hobby" With a sweet smile you place your hand on his shoulder "Its fine, I like that your so passionate about history, people and places. It's a hobby i think you shouldn't have to hide, especially in a place like this, in a building so old and rich with echos of the past, I'd love to see what you want to show me. So where are we going?"

Your question immediately brightens the man up but earns a groan from Crosshair who isn't happy about you getting further and further away from him but at the same time he knows your skilled and that you can handle yourself, taking your hand the Senator brings it to his lips placing a light kiss on your knuckles "Thank you but you'll have to wait and see my dear. I want to share something with you, something i haven't shown anyone before but i think you more than anyone would appreciate it as much as i do." Gently pulling you along this time you follow despite the sigh in your ear from Cross along with some shuffling that sounds like he's laying back down to take his snipping position again "I don't like this. Remember don't go into a room with him" you let out a simple "Ok" mainly to Crosshair but the man your walking with gives you a nod thinking your talking to him, your ok wasn't good enough for your sniper though who lets out a frustrated sigh "I mean it Cyare, I can't see you, I don't fully know where you are or how long it will take to back you up so just.. be careful and stay in contact" Your heart pounds at hearing his concern, a mixture of sadness and yet love overcomes you, grateful that he cares for you but also sad at how he's feeling. "I will… I'm sure i will love whatever it is you have to show me" You didn't mean to say those two words out loud but luckily you managed to work it into a way that didn't sound odd, Antart nods happily leading you through the halls while Cross lets out a small chuckle knowing you slipped up "Am i too distracting pretty girl? Let's call this pay back for before… Flirting to with other guys to get what you want" Cross whispers sending a shiver down your spine "Going off alone with a man… I was going to make you pay later but if you don't behave I'll start now"

Biting your lip, your cheeks start to heat up hoping and praying that he doesn't do this now, if he does its going to be almost impossible to act normal. "I'll find you once this mission is over with pretty girl and when i do… your all mine" The slight growl in his voice makes you gulp and bite the inside of your cheek in order to hold back a needy whimper, a part of you wants that so badly while the other is telling you to get to work, luckily it isn't too long before Antart stops in front of a large set of doors and pushes them open revealing a very dark room. He lets go of your hand and steps in to flick the light switch on which brightens up the room showing bookshelves of old and new books lining the walls, long glass cases line the way down to a large window with red curtains covering it, blocking out any and all light but what really catches your eye is the large handcrafted model of the building exactly like the blueprints from before showed. "Do you like it?" Your snapped out of your slight shock with a jump your eyes meeting Antart's overly joyful face "Y-yea… I'm just shocked at how detailed it is, its exactly like the blueprint, why would you hide this away? Why are the curtains closed?" You ask refusing to step into the room, the senator raises an eyebrow looking between you and the model building before taking a step closer to the model "You really are an export, seeing it all from there" The man ignores your question instead he flips a switch on the table the model is standing on making the lights inside the model light up "I'm sorry. i don't understand, if your so passionate about this then why are you hiding it?" You ask crossing your arms over your chest, the pit inside your stomach opens up again while your mind tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The Senator turns the smile on his face fading into an angry frown "I've had some trouble in the past, I may be a senator but that doesn't give me enough power to do what i want. This building was supposed to be something great, the biggest, brightest shining star of the city, my goal is to make it what it should have been but the council shut down my idea, saying it would cost too much and that I've spent enough already." Antart turns back to his model building running a finger over the detailed brick and tiny stain glass windows "They said i spent too much in this already but its only a small stepping stone to making this building what it should be, they said if i could make the money back within a few months then they would give me the go ahead. Those LYING BASTARDS… i paid them that money back, and they still denied me" You jump as the man slams his fist down on the table starting to breath heavy, surprise runs though you realizing that if he is working for the separatists then he's doing it for a building of all things, risking the lives of his people and those who work with him just for a building. That shock soon turns into anger as the man continues to rant but your mind blocks it out starting to see red while your fists turn white at your side, the clutch bag in your hand threatening to break under your grip and your teeth clench shut so hard the muscles in your jaw are starting to hurt. "Pretty girl… Cyare.. Y/N" Crosshair whispers before almost yelling into your ear making you jump and snap out of your anger filled state, luckily Antart was still ranting about the council so didn't notice or pay you any attention.

Letting out a breath you look around trying to get your bearing before replaying to Crosshair "I'm ok" You whisper knowing the senator won't hear you due to his own loud voice "Osik, get your head in the game you can't zone out like that" His angry voice brings you fully back to reality seeing the senator still yelling his back facing you, giving you time to calm down but that doesn't last long as Echo's voice comes through the com making you slight jump once again "Y/N, Crosshair please tell me you have something, there's hardly anything here" His frustrated voice makes your heart sink knowing right away there isn't enough to stay but theres enough not to leave yet "We have a few transactions for metals which are used to make weapons, some of which where shipped from separatists planets but its not enough to confirm that Senator Cheesho is working with them" Tech corrects his normal calming and straight forward voice bringing a lightness to the stressful situation helping to calm you nerves at least a little. "We might be on to something" Crosshair answers for you but since Antart is still ranting loudly you manage to whisper hoping to guild the two in the right direction "Reconstruction denial" Your words cause a curious hum from Echo soon following by the sound of turning and clicking "Wow, your right, there's a lot of angry emails between Senator Cheesho and the council, it seems he took money out of the budget and was forced to pay it back… although looking through his records i don't see any money transactions to the council, not from any of his accounts anyway"

Crosshair lets out a small chuckle a clear smirk in his voice "Under the table then, it's also what he's currently ranting about, the council not giving him permission to use funding for his pet project" Biting your tongue you force yourself not to laugh mainly because you are currently watching a grown man yell and scream about how life is so unfair while owning several homes, businesses and is a part of the senate. "Hunter?" You ask hoping they have at least found something, the mans anger is getting out of hand and you can tell he's going to start breaking things soon so you don't want to be around for that "The basement is blocking all communications, Hunter will contact us every 5 minutes, if not then we are to head over but so far things have been going smoothly, there's one room they can't gain access too due to a code we can't find but the other rooms do have some evidence that will prove useful" Tech answers sounding quite confident in what the other two have found "Not enough" Echo groans clearly done with this mission and at this point your feeling the same but you can push more, maybe even get that code for the locked door, if its not in the system than the senator is probably the only one with it, he's vulnerable right now and seems to trust you so if you choose your words carefully maybe you can get him to slip up. "I'm on it" You state letting them know your getting back to work, walking into the room you make your way over to the angry Senator seeing him gripping onto the table with his back still turned to you, panting in anger he spits out curses and insults under his breath trying to catch his breath in order to continue his angry outburst. "I understand your anger, this is an amazing project that can't just be shoved under the rug. For them to just shove it aside is.. It makes me believe they really don't understand the importance of history and society, yes it would cost money and time but in the end… wouldn't it be worth it?" You state managing to calm the man down at least enough to stop yelling and start to bring his breathing back to normal.

[kaijunouhhhhhhhhhhummmm]

ramble: soshiro centered/ family drama/ hoshina estate 🏯

you’re in the third division of the defense force and on one fine day you, along with your ass kicking colleagues are given vacation time. you all cheer and can’t wait to get some much needed relaxation. but are amiss at what to do. some decide to go visit home, this leads Iharu to say;

‘you know who’s got some sweet digs? the vice captain.’

‘those are just rumors right?’ kafka chimes in. ‘Kikoru probably has a huge mansion!’

‘not really’ she says

‘i did hear his family has a huge inherited compound.’ says reno

‘they were legends! i mean still are for sure.’ iharu says

days go by and word gets to soshiro that everyone wants to know just what his childhood home looks like. and in a moment of shock to everyone he says ‘you all wanna see for yourselves?’ everyone is speechless. the vice captain is usually not one willing to let anyone into any personal part of his life. very uncharacteristic of him. everyone is enthusiastic about going of course. there is however a sort of silence surrounding soshiro as the days continue. he gives some details about his home but answers most questions with a version of ‘you’ll see for yourself’

shortly thereafter you’re all on a plane, a train and a bus to the hoshina compound. ‘look up.’ he says as the bus climes higher and higher up a winding road on a mountain side. you all do, rushing and shoving to one side of the bus. ‘no way’ ‘shit!’ ‘okay yeah i would’ve seen that from the bottom of the mountain’. everyone is aghast. the roof of a towering building appears over high walls.

you arrive at the main entrance gate followed by almost a hundred steps leading farther up. it appears more like a shrine than a home. hoshina tribe keeps its ancestors close. you all loathe climbing the steps with your luggage but can’t wait to get to the top. the climb is worth the reward. it’s large enough for soshiro to call parts of it the north, south, east and west wings. there is the main house and open walkways leading to the rest. you can’t see most of it from where you stand but it spans wider than you can make out anyways. there are apparently four gardens, three training areas, a hot spring farther out and deeper into the woods a trail leading to a forge.

his father greets everyone. he seems happy and relived to see his son again. soshiros expression is unmoving but he keeps his place as a respectful son. there’s a shift in how soshiro is seen by all in this moment. bowing deeply to his father. everyone does the same in thanks. captain ashiro was mindful to bring a gift. his father welcomes everyone and has a housekeeper show all of you to where you’ll be staying.

the stay is for the week and is mostly touring the land. beautiful forests, relaxing in the hot spring or even training for those that don’t want to fall off entirely. the compound is excellent for just that. you all hardly see soshiro. he joins the group on occasion but for the most part is off somewhere in estate. you all figure he’s got a lot of family affairs to attend to. when he is with you all he seems like he’s thinking about elsewhere. asks if everyone is comfortable, enjoying themselves, having fun but doesn’t seem to listen intently to the answer. you worry. somethings been off since he invited everyone.

‘yeah i don’t know how to feel about it. i was so excited about seeing the place i didn’t think too hard about why.’ kafka says when you mention it.

‘he doesn’t have the best relationship with his fam so i thought i was having a stroke when he asked if we wanted to come along’ iharu says. you are all in one of the gardens admiring the statues of defeated kaiju and their victorious warriors.

‘i’m sure he has his reasons. cmon we’ll be hiking a bit more today’ says mina. everyone acknowledges out of respect for her vice captain the conversation must end.

it’s the second to last day and kafka wants to get everyone together for a game and asks where soshiro is. you say you’ll look for him. you leave the play room out the sliding doors and walk in a general direction occasionally bowing to the housekeepers. there aren’t many. and as expansive as the compound is it doesn’t have quite enough help. you notice parts of it look worn down and unused. it’s still beautiful but nature has taken advantage of the areas that have long been left unattended to. wood splintering, moss growing on stilts and wood boards, climbing plants growing over walls and roofs, grasses and flowers between the gaps on the outdoor tile.

you hear voices and decide to turn in that direction. the voices grow louder not with proximity but in volume. you’re too close now. surely whoever is nearly yelling will hear your steps. you can hardly make out what’s being said but you freeze up at hearing soshiros voice rise in frustration. you’ve walked in on a very personal moment and want to leave but don’t know how to.

‘why did you come if not for that?’ you jump at the clear exclamation.

silence follows. your heart is pounding.

‘i was hoping-‘ you recognize soshiros voice. he cuts himself off.

you feel a tap on your shoulder. it makes you jump but the housekeeper that guided you to your rooms when you first arrived puts a finger up to her mouth signaling you to stay silent. she has a soft smile. her expression understanding what you heard but without a word asking you to be mindful. she gently reaches out for your hand and guides you away. her trained footsteps hardly make a sound. you turn back to the room you heard the argument from. you don’t hear yelling anymore.

she guides you to a small kitchen and gives you a tray of snacks. ‘here’ she says ‘for you and your friends’ you follow her silently to the game room. what you both heard hanging in the air. everyone is grateful for the food and you tell them you couldn’t find soshiro. you turn to the housekeeper and she bows before shutting the door and leaving.

the next day is much of the same. tomorrow morning you will all leave. you are on your way down stone steps to a wildflower garden when you see soshiro approaching.

‘vice captain. it’s good to see you’ you say. better to not mention what you heard.

he smiles. if you didn’t know any better you’d have no idea he just argued with his father yesterday. ‘hey there. i’ll be joining you all today. have you liked everything so far?’

youre response is cut off by a greeting ‘soshiro!’ you both turn to see soichiro approaching. you sense once again this is not your place. you’re about to say you’ll see him down in the garden but when you see his face you freeze. once again your stopped in place. his face is stone. his eyes are sharp and focused on his approaching sibling.

‘i didn’t know you’d be coming out. dad says you’ve been here for a week now with your division. hey there i’m soichiro nice to meet you!’ he greets you. you both bow.

‘you as well. you have a beautiful home.’ you say meaning it. again you turn to soshiro but his face hasn’t changed. ‘well then i’ll be going.’ you make your exit swift. as you pace down the steps you hear pieces of what would be a bad excuse for a conversation. soichiro asks questions. soshiro answers in curt one word responses. you realize he did not bow to his older brother.

their conversation must’ve not been very long because he’s joined your group not five minutes after you walk away. reno and kafka are now in flower crowns and iharu is impatiently waiting for his from mina. you’re trying to make your own. soshiro greets everyone and your amazed at how different he is now. his glare was as cold as steel towards his brother but here he’s warm and as witty as ever. you all decide to stay out for the afternoon and into the evening.

dinner is brought to you all and you have a picnic as twilight comes. you feel stuck about what happened yesterday and not to long ago. you’re not sure what to do but decide not saying anything is definitely not what you want to do.

you walk up to where he is, observing everyone from a little distance. ‘here’ you say handing soshiro a flower. ‘i want to apologize.’ he looks at you confused. ‘yesterday. i heard you and your father, well, i shouldn’t have-‘

you’re cut off by a chuckle ‘ ah that was you.’ a bitterness in his tone. ‘i’m sorry you heard that. and for earlier as well. i meant to say something but…’

‘don’t apologize to me. it’s none of my business but i felt bad about it happening. to you i mean. fuck, i mean you don’t need my pity. not that that’s what i’m trying to say! it’s just i know it really sucks when you argue with your family so i wanted to do something so please accept this flower.’ god you’re embarrassed. what the hell was that? you two hardly speak and now here you are stammering the most you’ve ever said at once to him.

a smile grows on his face as he looks at you then the flower, then back at you again. he reaches out and takes the flower. ‘thank you.’ he looks at you in the eyes with such sincerity you can’t respond. you nod. a moment of silence passes and you’re distracted by reno and kafka wrestling in the field. possibly being refereed by kikoru. mina hides her face from laughing. you both laugh too.

‘i didn’t want to do this by myself.’ he cuts the silence between the two of you. you turn to him. a content expression on his face. ‘i knew it wouldn’t be easy returning after so long. but i’m not the same boy i was when i left.’ he turns to you ‘i’m stronger now thanks to all of you.’

suddenly it’s hard to look him in the eyes, suddenly you palms start to sweat. your heart races. the last lingering sunlight on his face is so bright. you know what this feeling is and you want to kick your own ass for feeling it for your superior. ‘we can say the same about you.’

[valdangelodreams]

Au #30 (separated?)

I had a dream of what I think was the prequel to au #27 of this series, and I have more questions than answers

-so, high-school au

-the dream did not happen chronologically, so I tried to put everything in order

-it started at the climax more or less

-anyways, so it starts when Nico starts dating this guy right?

-and it was like implied that everyone thought the guy was great with him bc Nico started being healthier and such

-but he also started hanging out less and less, and for some reason no one called him out on it?

-and Leo notices because him and Nico had had this relationship where they started hating each other but having to see each other bc of shared friends and then eventually became close

-and Leo became like the person who knew Nico the best, and Nico him, and so he immediately thought him ditching hangouts for his new boyfriends was a huge red flag

-so he tries to bring this up to the others and everyone kept making it like Leo was just jealous

-but the guy hears him and starts trying to turn Nico against Leo, but like making him avoid Leo and not talk to him

-and also he was constantly managing the things Nico did and didn't do or say, and calling him annoying, and generally bullying him into changing his personality on the side

-and there was also a show of some sort that both Nico and Leo were a part of, which was important

-so Leo's feeling awful because he's watching his friend destroy himself and no one else can see it

-and it reaches a point where he's like so tired of it all and he just like decided to call it quits, bc he can't keep doing this

-and so he decides to use the show as a way to say goodbye to Nico, so he manages to talk to him one on one and ask him to stay and listen to his turn

-that's where the dream started, with Leo prepping to go on stage and Nico who just performed trying to stop his boyfriend from dragging him away

-and then Leo came on stage and started playing the saddest song, and Nico realizes that he's saying goodbye

-so he returns home with this in his head and he sort of happens upon this box that's labelled 'to burn' and it's full of pictures of him with Leo, and some with everyone

-and he has a full on epiphany and confronts the guy he's dating and then confronts everyone else

-and there was a specific scene where he was like "if getting better means abandoning everything and everyone I care abt then I don't want to get better" (this was where I woke up btw)

-this was to piper, bc she was like saying Nico shouldn't end his relationship since it was so good for him, and Leo was just being jealous

-and then for some reason that convo turned into them saying how Leo was jealous of Piper for years bc he liked Jason but he never got in between them

-and it was like everyone knew except Jason and Piper, like Percy commented that he thought everyone knew (I thought this was funny)

-and there was also a scene where I saw Nico running around town looking for Leo

-but I don't think he did, which is why I want to believe it was the prequel to the reunion

-like, I think they both realized their feelings, but Nico realized as he was desperately looking for Leo

-and like, if that doesn't build tension

[watermelonsloth]

NaruHina Makes Sense for All the Wrong Reasons

A lot of people have said that Naruto and Hinata ending up together doesn’t make any sense and I disagree. It does make sense. It just makes sense because Naruto is a narrative rather than it making sense in-story.

By the time the ships were made canon, it had already been decided that there would be a sequel to focus on the next generation (as far as I’m aware). If SP and SJ wanted to maximize profits, and they did, they needed as many of the coming generation to be related to Naruto’s generation as possible. So, I’m guessing they tried to maximize kids from a variety of relationships.

There were, of course, exceptions, but those exceptions tend to fall under one of two categories: no options that are non lgbt or unproblematic without getting into heavy crack shipping (Gaara, Kakashi, etc.) and not popular enough to make a difference (Shino, TenTen, Kankuro, team taka, etc.). Rock Lee probably adopted Metal to follow in Gai’s footsteps, Kishimoto probably putting the dog boy and cat girl (Kiba and Tamaki) together was funny but Kiba wasn’t popular enough to give a child, and Shikamaru was too popular to pass on making a second Ino-Shika-Cho (with all of them staying separate to maximize kids from different ships). I’m not entirely sure why he chose to put Choji with Karui specifically; maybe he wanted to diversify the cast, maybe he liked Karui’s design, or maybe he wanted one of the rookie nine to get with someone from another village and Karui was the only girl around his age (Kurotsuchi was the exception because she was hinted at becoming Tsuchikage too much to turn back).

So, what does this have to do with Hinata? Everything. Hinata was too popular to leave single and she had options. Or, rather, one option: Naruto. Now if you’ve spent anytime around the Naruto shipping fandom, you know that’s a bold-faced lie. Hinata is commonly shipped with Sasuke, Kiba, and, to a lesser degree, Shino. The only problems: Sasuke and Hinata never interacted in canon and Kishimoto wasn’t quite desperate enough to go with a crackship, and romantic feelings had never been implied between Hinata and her teammates, nor were her teammates popular enough to ignore that fact. Naruto was popular, NaruHina was popular enough, they had a handful of interactions, and Hinata’s character revolved around her feelings for Naruto. NaruHina was the obvious, safest option.

From here, SasuSaku makes sense. Sasuke and Sakura were too popular to remain single, Sakura was more popular than Karin (Sasuke’s only other available straight option that makes any sense), and Sakura’s only non lgbt, unproblematic (sort of) options that made sense were Naruto and Sasuke. Again, safest option.

Of course, mandatory disclaimer, all of this is speculation and isn’t necessarily the whole story. I do think this was at least part of it, but biases, interference from editors/SP/SJ/other people in Kishimoto’s life, building stress, and more could’ve also played a role in why the final ship-related decisions were made. I don’t know enough about Kishimoto or what the situation was production-wise to say for sure. For all I know, he threw darts at a dart board.

In conclusion, Kishimoto should’ve only used crackships, trolling the entire audience and production team, because that would’ve been the funniest option. It’s not like he was planning to write the sequel anyways.

[silvermeww]

common fandom opinion that everybody is wrong about and the unpopular character you like (and why more people should like them) :3

asdfghjkl OF COURSE I'M LATE WITH THIS but yay thanks for the ask (two whole questions yippee)!!!!! questions from all the way back here for context lol

for the common fandom opinion that everybody is wrong about, idk if it is a fandom ipion per say but can i just get it out of my chest: rewatching xy especially for my au has really cemented for me the idea that alain shouldn't have stuck with being a battle trainer ESPECIALLY in JN. how did everyone including the writers misunderstand my man here?? he was never a battler in the first place; he was only on that path to get enough strength to protect the ones he loved. and it was lysandre that lured him there, that made that want into something violent and destructive (if only the anime could've shown it a bit more... not enough villain for this guy heh). in the end of xy we clearly see him step away from that obsessive need and decide that he's going to go his own way, treasure the time he has now rather than idk gatekeep himself and go off for ages trying to attain an imperfect perfection of strength, and we see in that slideshow thing at the credits that he's off researching again JUST AS HE STARTED. he started on his journey orginally for research, to help sycamore. i just... idk why people assume that he would still want to 'be the best' when a) he's already proven it in the kalos league b) and what did that bring him?? c) when given a new perspective in the end, to keep the mega ring and keep on his journey, he instead stays back to reconnect and decides to start anew, gain his own mega ring (in which WHY DID JN GIVE HIM THE SAME ONE????) and just chill out. it's such a great lesson to not fixate on what could happen and live in the now with what you got, because you can never prepare for the worst and even if you have, how much time have you lost? what is strength to you? anyways free my man alain he should've never been in the masters 8, we could've used that space for literally anyone else instead (yes, even that tobias guy).

the unpopular character you like (and why more people should like them).... hmm idk i think everyone is hated to a degree, gotta search up... ig easiest option is goh??? JN thoughts rn ik, but how on earth does one guy get so much hate?? bigotry aside, i feel like goh is such a refreshing change for the end, a character who has dreams just as big as ash does and the stubborn will to go for it. to catch them all, juxtapositioning against to beat them all. a lifelong journey. ups and downs just like everyone else. like, for one you can't say that he has less involvement like previous companions (especially considering the last few series), and his episodes, like the region before it, are much more down to earth and linked to his emotional maturation as well. his growth in the series is amazing for what the series was (largely episodic), the relationship he has with ash is amazing (ash being in a mentor position but with actual experience and maturity to back it up, besties who understand each other, stubborn allies who won't budge on their ideals), and while we don't get to see much of his pokemon interactions the ones we do see are so, so good. his trust in suicune. him growing with scorbunny. him teaching grookey, and believing in sobble. there's probably a lot more i'm missing but having a male companion, let alone a companion in and of itself, get this much screentime and development is pretty rare in the anime itself, i would say even in horizons we don't get as much, and so while i can say that JN was a very messy sort of season, its episodic nature really lent itself well to goh, who is the kind of guy who wouldn't grow except if placed in many small different scenarios that builds up his character.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I’m in a lot of pain so I’m thinking about my nova au to stay calm (tl;dr for it is basically metal sonic makes his own sonic oc the aforementioned nova to try and infiltrate and assassinate sonic's friendgroup, immediately instead decides that they're His Now bc being treated like a person is nice, transes her gender into literally all of them, and gets into the world's most hilariously consensually toxic qpr with sonic based around eventual murder) and the robotnik family in it is so fucking funny like.

eggman's first child ended up running off with his arch nemesis for one. i mean like nova and eggman's relationship is more complicated than that they do care for each other a lot even if their relationship is strained, in a mutually very fucked up way, but seeing your daughter making out with the guy you fucking hate so much you literally created your daughter solely to kill him is not exactly the best way to learn your little robot killing machine is growing up.

outside of that, though, their relationship is such a mess it’s very funny. like, nova is still metal just like his organicsona. but that also means nova has been treated like a person and until that point metal didn’t even see himself as one bc he wasn't ever treated as having full sentience. this isn’t because eggman is a dick- i mean, he is, and that does impact their relationship, but not in this case- he legitimately did not know metal had developed free will bc metal's response to it was literally just to be perfectly obedient anyway. so he basically learnt he had a very sapient mentally ill teenager Because he saw it hanging out with team sonic (specifically, nova took a blow meant for sonic bc it refuses to let anyone else kill him, the force interrupted it's shapeshifting and transformed him back to its neo metal sonic state, it was very awkward for everyone). so like, he genuinely feels kind of bad bc like even though his whole thing of having his robots see him like a father is mostly an ego thing bc like. that means he made a mistake!

and nova's relationships with Everyone are equally very ego based so in return she sees eggman as her father to boost her ego too- bc she views him as one of the few organic beings with worth, and therefore as special. but that also means xe treats him more like a young child than a father bc of hir superiority complex xe views organic life as inherently stupid and lesser unless they’re sonic bc it’s literally programmed into hir Because xe was made by someone equally as arrogant as them. so, like, their relationship seems very strained on the surface, especially since nova spends most of their time with sonic and his friends, but they actually get along great and have a great deal of respect for each other. i mean like it’s not like nova defected he's a neutral party who’s goal is to build up sonic to his peak to prove his superiority to him when he murders him he helps eggman as much as he helps sonic and his friends depending on the circumstances. she's tolerated bc she does make sure no one dies and also bc she’s a singularity level intelligence entirely fixated on that goal she's hilariously op in the au bc the idea of the most powerful being in a setting being someone who's so obsessed over a singular thing they never actually do anything with it is very funny to me.

sage is in this au definitely made as like a second attempt by eggman to be a decent dad and Not have his child run away and become skynet in a psychotic episode at fourteen. like probably not consciously but she’s definitely sort of a replacement metal in a subconscious way. which like you might expect would lead to resentment since nova is incredibly possessive but no they get along really well. by this point metal's been living primarily as his organic oc for four years and while he's not fundamentally a different person as nova a lot of his traits present differently and one of those ways is that his sense of superiority tends to manifest less as obvious smugness but instead as treating people like they're children or pets in need of care, which isn’t, like, exactly great but it is genuine progress for the guy who murdered people for fun as a fourteen year old y’know. and that means she ends up as sort of like a mentor big sister type of figure for sage, who looks up to her a lot.

speaking of like taking on a mentor role bc they view themselves as superior, we get into shadow. who Is nova's distant cousin technically bc sonic lore is wild like metal sonic and shadow being distantly related through adoption is actual canon i was given on a silver platter by sonic team. anyway like nova ends up being very much a sort of mentor figure to shadow during his amnesia mostly bc it sees itself in him. they’re both inherently superior to those around them, they’re both very lost and alone at that point, as far as nova's concerned shadow is close enough to themselves that he's worthy of “help”. which is mostly kicking him in the shin and smugly telling him if he was a robot he wouldn’t feel pain then horribly misunderstanding literally everything going on worse than shadow would alone but it is a genuine effort at helping. so after they do have a very awkward but cordial relationship bc nova does show genuine kindness through her own very warped perspective to him but also like it is absolutely not at all helpful. (that is generally a decent description of nova's relationship with everyone she cares about, though, she fundamentally does not think the same as an organic life form and therefore attempts at empathy and kindness come off as weird and uncanny bc she's a sadistic murderbot who views being damaged as fun bc she doesn’t have a sense of touch and thinks she knows better than everyone else).

so like, tl;dr they are the most dysfunctional family in the world but like. in a funny way.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Decided to watch the Emmerdale episode...

Imagine how much more impactful all of this would be if these teens were actually developed as real characters. Now yes, Cathy has been more. We've seen her bully April and have crushes on older boys and have her messy pmdd story. So she has a sort of character. Not a very likable one but sure. But Heath and Angelica? These kids are less than nothing other than that Heath played the guitar and was Cathy's twin. Angelica is even worse.

Heath was in 29 episodes this year. Mostly showing up as a background character in Cathy's story or I guess being there in the lead up to this. In past years his stats are 2019 - 8 episodes, 2020 - 3 episodes, 2021 - 21 episodes, 2022 - 8 episodes. That's just not enough to build a character in any way.

Angelica was in 15 episodes in 2023. Her stats for past years, 2019 - 24 episodes, 2020 - 4 episodes, 2021 - 6 episodes, 2022 - 6 episodes. Again, not enough to even slightly build her character.

If they want us to care about these teen characters, they have to try harder and give them actual screen time now and then. And sure, they could use this story to finally develop Angelica's character and build on Cathy's character more. But I sort of feel like this is going to end up being an exit story for Cathy. I guess she could be more serious about acting than her brother and want to stay but I just kind of see them as a set so I feel like she might just end up in prison for reckless driving and manslaughter or something.

Speaking of which, if I was actually watching regularly, I would be dreading listening to all of these people dealing with Heath's death, especially since they never made even an ounce of effort to make me care about Heath or his relationships with any of these people.

Also, I'm sure Angelica will barely feature yet again.

Prove me wrong Emmerdale!

As for the rest of the episode....

Aaron and Mack stealing cars is already boring.

The party scenes were pretty manic, but I guess that was to contrast the tragedy. Still, it was kind of nice to see bigger gatherings of characters with extras. In a post covid soap world, that's still a rarity.

I wish Belle and Tom were just going to get to be happy and they weren't doing this engagement just to make the inevitable domestic abuse story more tragic.

I still fail to understand why they did any of this with Amit. Unless there's more to his involvement in Rishi's death, what is even the point of any of this??

Always having to drag Ryan into the pub so four people can wish him happy birthday always just feels so pathetic. I once again really wish they had never made him a secret Dingle.

This Tracy/Caleb affair continues to be the worst because they absolutely refuse to give me a reason why these people actually might want each other. Or even what Tracy and Nate's supposed "blip" could even be about.

Slightly intrigued by the idea of Mary and Suzy. At least that's a relationship that we've actually seen develop. And I'd rather that than her getting back with Vanessa when she returns.

I don't know that I particularly care about Baby Ivy other than that I wish they'd just call her Ivy instead of "little Ivy" all the time. It's annoying. Also, eventually Rhona and Marlon are just going to end up raising her anyway so let's get on with it.

Overall, not a terrible episode but could have been soooo much better if these producers didn't suck.

[enlighten3d]

okok soo gonna try to put a timeline for janette and adele’s relationship/story! (in order)

-They both meet at the town’s pub (adele being there after an argument with josh, her husband, and janette being there after a problem at the church)

-They end up flirting, adele lying about being married and end up hooking up basically (but before that janette explained her being aro-spec to just put put there that she isn’t wanting anything romantic and adele pretended to listen)

-They then end up in a friends with benefits relationship (adele’s husband josh is oblivious to this she’s definitely not telling him) for a couple of months and janette says that she hopes they can be friends as well

-Adele refuses that, since she has very complex feelings about aro-spec people (adele your arophobia is showinggg/hj) and thought they had a romantic relationship(since she didn’t believe janette) and they don’t speak for a while after an argument over that

-During that time, Janette has to (forced by her mum’s ghost) carry out a ritual of sorts to solidify a next heir to run the cult when janette’s dead and she doesn’t want to give up her nephew so she chooses a girl named Carmela (i have lore for her too) and due to the prophecy (that this ritual is based off) carmela has to hurt/kill a loved one, and it ends up being her boyfriend ryan beckett, adele’s son!

-This ends up with him loosing an arm and adele immediately knows who’s behind this (janette) and decides to carry out her own form of revenge (of her son and herself since she thinks janette was manipulative in their short lived relationship- adele darling stop making things worse)

-Said revenge ends up being burning down the cult building and Janette ends up being in it when that happens and she burns alive (uh oh) and adele thinks that’s been taken care of

-Until Janette comes back alive thanks to weird monster/spirits that give her life basically except with a catch- which is that if she cuts her skin in anyways, blue flowers and vines will burst through her skin and probably kill her again

-She’s forced to stay out of the town since if she walked back in, she’d be killed on sight (weird rules that i can explain) so she has to figure out how to kill adele

AND THATS ALL I HAVE! FOR NOW! So basically yeahh adele is kind of a shitty person!!! I have more lore for all the characters so if you have any questions pls do send them my way! (i live for questions about my lore/hj) :D these characters stay in my head aghh toxic yuri beloved uhmm okok byee this was longer than i thought oopsies

(sry this took a hot sec to reply to)

oooh boy.. this truly is VERY toxic yuri... i want to fight adele ngl. as an aromantic person, i am staring at her and Judging.

adele is on some shit.. sgdhdnf

ARSON. ARSON AS REVENGE 👍👍 IS YOUR SONS ARM GONE?? ARE YOU AROPHOBIC AND VERY GAY?? THE SOLUTION IS ARSON.

gods i feel bad for josh... he knows Nothing. poor guy.

OOH THATS FUN.. (janette being cursed like that). are bruises and shit okay?? if its severed skin specifically... oh boy yeah shes not gonna last long is she.. paper is her mortal enemy...

whys she gotta stay out of town?

ALSO WHAT DOES THE CULT WORSHIP. I AM SO CURIOUS. IS THE EXISTENCE OF THESE SPIRITS WIDESPREAD KNOWLEDGE, OR JUST SHIT THAT THIS CULT KNOWS?

was adele insane before she met janette or was she always this way

does janette know it was adele who started the fire...

WHAT ARE CARMELAS THOUGHTS ON ALL THIS (esp the having to fuck up her boyfriend... do they break up afterwards.. does he know it was her...)

i have so many questions /pos

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Ghost Dan Masterlist

A Small Eternity - ihavecoldhands

Summary: Dan is a sort of ghost who can never be touched by a human, or he’ll disappear. Phil falls in love with him anyway.

Bad (Actually Very, Very Fucked Up) Romance - full-dark-no-starss

Summary: A year ago, a boy died falling down the stairs of A Block. A year later, Phil Lester who accidentally lets the ghost of the dead boy possess the body of school bully and his own personal nightmare, Dan Howell.

Bury the Dead Beneath You (ao3) - pinkieprimpotter

Summary: It was a car accident. A car had rammed into Dan, as he was texting Phil that he was just down the street. He was trapped behind heat and metal, and he felt so much pain he thought he would be ripped apart.

ghost boy (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: "Phil's house just might be haunted."

Ghost of you (ao3) - Latenightdream

Summary: Phil is recently graduated and finds his dream job as a weatherman in a cold and gloomy town but everything changes when he learns that he is not the only one living in his house. . . . . . . Aka weatherman Phil and sad ghost Dan fall for each other

Haunted - ficster28

Summary: In which Dan is a ghost. Just. Because.

Haunting My Life (ao3) - Anonymous

Summary: Any of you ever play that online game, Haunt the House?

Ghost!Daniel is antisocial as all heck, but when his house is flooded with potential buyers, he decides there's only one way to deal with it- flush them all out. Which would of course work better if he could stop getting distracted by PJ's uncomfortably pretty friend, Phil, who isn't even here to buy the house.

What began as a crack fic turning into pure fluff.

Losing a Life (To Gain Another) - harajukuhowell

Summary: Dan’s a ghost and a bit of a cock block but Phil likes him anyways.

Monster - full-dark-no-starss

Summary: Phil may have most definitely tried to bring his dead boyfriend back to life, after Dan Howell lost his life after electrocuting himself at the BBC. But is it really Dan he brings back?

New apartments bring stories with them (ao3) - gaywizard

Summary: good lord kill me

Dan's a ghost.

Phil moves into a new apartment.

Notice Me - full-dark-no-starss

Summary: Dan Howell just wants to be noticed by his crush Phil Lester. He never thought he’d be more visible as a ghost.

Paranormal Phantivity - sexyendscreensmut

Summary: Phil is haunted by not-dead university student and fan Dan Howell. Set in 2009 prior to the filming of Philisnotonfire1.

See Me (ao3) - Misha_with_wings

Summary: Dan gets in an accident, leaving him in critical condition. He ends up stuck in between life and death, watching his own body fight to stay alive- and watching Phil fall apart, but he can’t do anything about it in his ghostly form.

He was confused and didn’t know what to do but he was sure of one thing, he wasn’t going to let himself die.

Watchful - cafephan

Summary: Phil is part of one of the world’s most famous paranormal investigator groups, along with his friends Joe, Zoe and Louise. The never before investigated Harrowick Penitentiary catches the group’s attention, and they settle in the town for a week long investigation. Most importantly, they hope to make contact with one spirit in particular, Dan Howell, who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and was murdered in the building. When Dan becomes attached to Phil, things become a lot more complicated.

We Can Still Drown (ao3) - rain_on_his_umbrella (orphan_account)

Summary: Phil rents a flat he can more than well afford because of a reason he doesn't understand, until he discovers a lonely ghost named Dan is living there with him, and everything makes sense again.

You Are Not Trivial - phanimist

Summary: Dan being a ghost doesn’t once hinder the friendship between him and phil. the two are constantly there for each other, despite their various differences in problems, and they never let the concepts of what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t define them and the relationship they have.

[goddevouringserpent]

tagged by @miseryscrowned to take the "Which D&D class suits your personality?" (or, in this case, your OC's personality) quiz. took me ages because I have been so busy & stressed out I am starting to lose track of time, but wat ever we stay silly and take things as best as we can take them~

putting it under a cut because I chose not one, but two OCs for this, and as is often the case with me I started rambling and this got long as hell, lol.

in light of the DLC release date announcement, I'm back in WOTR mode and rotating my beloved wrathful girlie at washing machine speed, so!

picrew credit

Kaija (she/they), my most developed Knight Commander. who, yes, has a canon class, or... sort of canon? IDK, she's a Sword Saint/Vivisectionist, but I've been contemplating a different build for the run I'll do once the DLC comes out—probably will still be martial heavy, but we'll see... anyway, I just wanted to see what class she got assigned based on her personality LOL

and the result was:

Rogue

You’re a practical and unusually resourceful person with big dreams that may or may not involve copious amounts of money or treasure. You’re ambitious, you know what you want, and you’ll do whatever you can to get it. Some people might think you’re selfish, but you know it’s important to take care of yourself first. You thrive under pressure and you might have a bit of a mischievous or chaotic side.

Arcane Trickster subclass

Some rogues enhance their fine-honed skills of stealth and agility with magic, learning tricks of enchantment and illusion. You’re an adaptable person who likes to cultivate a range of skills and interests. Once you decide to pick up a new skill or hobby, you’re more than willing to put in a little time and effort to learn how to do it well. You like to feel competent and powerful. You’re not always the most direct person and you may sometimes hide your true thoughts and feelings behind lies or misdirection. Some people might not know what to expect of you, or you might be a bit misunderstood, but you’re capable of a lot more than some people give you credit for.

and I'll admit the result really surprised me at first because I've never seen them as the roguish type—she is quite literally built like a wrestler, roughly 190cm tall, contains multitudes of rage & does not have a single subtle bone in her—but upon reflection I can definitely see it, especially considering how the test openly states that it assigns a class based on personality, not mechanics. the descriptions given match really well, too; INSANELY resourceful, ambitious, materialistic, selfish, chaotic, adaptable, hates feeling powerless/needs to feel like the strongest and most powerful person in the room at any given time, rarely if ever shows her true feelings, often underestimated or not taken seriously despite being more than competent enough to deserve a different treatment... so yeah, fair, she would make a really good rogue! might keep that in mind for the aforementioned new build plans hehe

also: fun result considering one of the characters I ship Kai with—and who is essentially her "endgame" pairing in terms of being a healthy, loving, long-term relationship—is Woljif... who is an Eldritch Scoundrel 🤭 meant for each other~

--

then, because I am equally as excited about Shadow of the Erdtree releasing soon (June release dates for both DLCs, in fact... I'm gonna eat GOOD this winter break 😌), my Tarnished Yunia! aka the other she/they I have been spinning in the vortex of my thoughts 24/7, and who hilariously enough could not be more different from Kaija if they tried lol

art credit (and also sick as hell modern fit design credit)

Yunia got:

Cleric

You’re dedicated, caring, and probably a sucker for happy endings. You spend so much time helping other people that you might forget to take care of yourself. You’re very idealistic and have a strong sense of faith in your beliefs, which may be actual religious beliefs or just your personal moral code. You like to be prepared for a variety of situations and you may have a bit of a protective side.

Nature domain

Gods of nature are as varied as the natural world itself; from inscrutable gods of the deep to friendly deities associated with particular springs and groves. You feel comforted by nature and you’re drawn to the outdoors. You want to do as much as you can to take care of our world and you wish other people would take environmental concerns more seriously. You might come across as a calm and easygoing person most of the time, but you can have a surprisingly vicious side when someone violates your principles. You’re not afraid to confront harsh truths and you generally have a practical and realistic outlook on life.

Cleric tracks, it's a ridiculously good fit for her thematically—their entire Character Thing is passionate devotion towards the House of Caria (and later, to Ranni & her ideal for the Age of Stars) which overrides even their most basic self-preservation instinct at times and is pretty much, like, the core of their identity. so in a D&D AU, Yunia being a cleric of the Moon goddess Ranni would work out extremely well: following her dogma to a letter, doing everything in Ranni's name and to serve her earthly purposes, drawing from that very faith and dedication to find their own power and way in life, hopelessly in love with Ranni but shh don't tell anyone

Nature domain, on the other hand, I did not see coming, but the description works... ish? like, I'm not sure Yunia is particularly concerned about environmental issues in their source material LOL (even if there is quite a lot of shit to be concerned about, but that's probably on account of the Lands Between being an absolute shithole at the best of times <3), but in a modern AU I could definitely see her going for something like Environmental Sciences, yeah. being a protector-type with very firm beliefs is, again, a core part of their personality, & it's more likely they'd find themself working with flora or fauna because she is just Not good with people at all lol

(the part about having a "surprisingly vicious side" is 100% true though and I hope one day I can write any of the fics involving her I have planned, because that would be SO much fun to delve into :3)

--

tagging @hate-not-wanting-a-name (Zimka and/or Fixer? Zimka and/or Fixer maybe? my beloved little guys perhaps? 👀), @takers-flames, and UUHHH whoever else wants to do this, feel free to say I tagged you / mention me in your post so I can see! I'd tag more but I'm pretty sure that most of my mutuals' OCs already have assigned classes lmao 😭

[deeisace]

Thinking Bellamy thoughts today huh

It's going to be very difficult writing more using no pronouns for Bellamy, but it'll be interesting to try and get phrases right

I can't stand first person things so that's not a solution, neither's second, I'll just have to do some thought-rotating, actual work for once

I don't really have a great completed story that just needs writing - I've got several characters, a beginning, but no solution

I spose there needn't be a solution to everything, really - I've learnt that from my grandma, if nothing else, she never seems to have written a clear ending in all her 93 years - but there ought to be some sort of wrapping up, an ending of a kind even if no clear conclusion

Maybe it'll come as I think on it, or actually write, that'd be a fine rare thing - I can't remember the last time I did any writing of my own but I'm certain it's over a year ago now

Anyway basically

What I have got, is,

Bellamy is a secretary/general hand - I can't think of a word, but 'hand', as like stagehand, farmhand, cs 'nurse' or the like don't fit - anyway - live-in to this doctor out in Aigburth, one'v them fancy houses round sevvy park, that's split to doctors surgery and quarters - again, what's the word - residence, that'll do

Anyway, Bellamy is the "young girl" reported who found the fella hanging off the iron bridge - that's a real case, I forget the exact year but 1890s I believe - in the real paper article there's nothing on the young girl, so I've rather taken over

Everyone's a hundred years dead, I doubt they mind - tho depending on their disposition, I suppose, cs there's a great deal more queerness in my Victorian Liverpool than has survived to be known nowdays

So, Bellamy finds the fella, slips and falls on a rock in shock, suffers a head wound, and is taken to the doctor off the park - and through health-monitoring visits (the head wound caused persistent balance/vertigo issues, which malady I did look up and have since forgotten the name of) gained that sorta secretary etc place with him - helping with appointments that need two people working, since the doctor's previous assistant

Assistant! There's the fuckin word!

Anyway the previous guy left to set up his own practice, and to marry the secretary, so Bellamy's left to do both jobs, in effect - but it's a job, no, and far far better that than the matchworks or something

Did Liverpool have a matchworks in the 1890s?

Nope, no, no sidetracking (there was one in Speke, but it only opened in the 1920s and - nope, stop it)

Anyway,

Eventually, gets to be Bellamy's friend and sort of on-again-off-again lover - I haven't decided the exactitudes of the relationship, and don't fully think it matters at all - Charlie, she calls Bellamy over one night, to help with her friend Soph who's got hisself in trouble rather, being beaten up on her way home and finding their way to Charlie's in a sorry state - stays at least until she's back on his feet, taking as much of Bellamy's medical advice as is possible for them around work an such

Comes to light, somehow, that Sophie was attacked as he was leaving The Blue Dunn - a queer bar of the time, a pub ran out of someone's house, originally, on a rather seedy street that does exist - up further past London Road, what's it called, it doesn't really exist much now with all the buildings changed about some - Bay Horse Lane! There, I have a memory for some things

I'm calling it The Bluey cs of Scousers' habit of shortening everything to one syllable with -y on the end, and that it rather comes natural tbh - as like Sevvy Park for Sefton Park, or Kenny for the area Kensington - I can't think of any more examples off the top of my head, but I'm sure it's a thing

Anyway, turns out somehow, I've not ironed any of this out, but Sophie's attack were done on account of to cover up, sorta, another attack, on someone else as frequents The Blue, something about secrets known and kept, and somebody rich needing them kept secret and not known, or else. I think this other fella worked at the exchange - big square up by moorfields ish, just a courtyard now but once used as a trading floor we'd say now I think - I'm not a finance guy, idk, but murders are to do with lust money or anger, aren't they, something like that, why not have Benny's be all three, and only discovered in truth because of the cover-up - not that the police give a toss, Bellamy's just found it unable to leave alone, no matter the danger of investigating that sort of crime properly, in 1896 or so, especially on your own - with an occasional assist from a network rather centered round the bluey

The cast of characters mostly contains as I've said above, but there's Alice the maid, Sid the cabby, Frank who tends bar at the bluey, Henry is another friend of Bellamy and Charlie's - I'm not sure there was a great deal more to the story as I've got it so far, tho I will be honest I have written an evening (shall we say) between Charlie and Bellamy and since lost the notebook - tho I'm pretty sure I typed up the morning after somewhere here to read, I'll see about finding that if not the other

[apocryphalfiles]

Kano Family Slice of Life

Even though Kana thought she understood Takumi Kano's fixation on Rinko, maybe she didn't really "get" it. She had her own thoughts and feelings on how he handled that girl, and when she started to reflect on them, she decided that it wasn't her place and put said "thoughts and feelings" out of her head. Sure, Rinko wasn't the healthiest... obsession to have, and it made Takumi look bad in front of other people when he lost his head over his slave's insubordination, and even Kana could tell that his feelings were too complicated and at least a little bit like smashing a mirror when you were frustrated with something going on in your life, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been... as it was before. In Altera's underground bedroom, Takumi had withered under the derisive stares of his daughters and then raised his head and promised not to make the same mistake again. And, well, he hadn't. Since he already won and claimed his prize, he didn't have any reason to go chasing after that girl like a maniac. Since he'd painted both her body and soul in his colors, he didn't need to fret about her leaving him and make an ass of himself by rambling in front of any reasonable person and losing face ("Didn't know the emperor was such a psycho..." "He sounds like a stalker..." "Was he actually screaming something about wombs just now?" Kana could just imagine the kinds of gossip that would start spreading if Takumi relapsed!). So Kana decided that she'd gently step in if Takumi went too far.

...But what was "too far," anyway? It wasn't like she could seriously suggest he cut that girl loose, not now that she'd spent over a decade living together with her, er, not ever, since Takumi was the sort of lovable (cheating) scamp who never really let go of the people he got attached to, and, of course, there was the matter of Rinko being one of his top prizes. After all he suffered to bring them to this brand new world full of life and hope, he deserved to indulge in one or two unhealthy treats, right? Scolding him about that would be like a shrill of a wife nagging at her husband for enjoying a scoop of ice cream after a marathon run. So, again, it wasn't Kana's place to object or interfere. And in the end, worrying about both sides of that equation, she usually ended up just not getting involved...

Just as she left Takumi's relationships alone, Kana quietly excused herself from his bedroom affairs with Rinko, who doubled (tripled?) as his concubine in addition to a bodyguard and general-purpose servant. She stayed out of his sex life and gave up the space next to him in bed whenever he had one of his brides over for more than just resting. But this- this wasn't that. It wasn't like she was peeping through the corner of his bedroom door. After all...

Takumi was totally out in the open right now, wasn't he?!

Takumi Kano and San-sam (a member of the Shinsengumi who was never seen out of his handmade cosplay of Tobi from the hit anime Naruto) were sitting next to each other in the West dining hall, one of the more modest dining rooms in the main palace building with a rectangular table only big enough to hold six places at most and high windows that let in plenty of light. Although the room itself was on the smaller side and sparsely decorated save for a few potted plants, two glass doors opened out into a courtyard where a patio space provided additional seating with wooden chairs and round metal tables with umbrella poles through the center creating the impression of a restaurant's outdoor dining area. During the Spring and Summer, the family would host events in the courtyard with the glass doors propped open. But today, it was not only the dead of winter, but the sky had turned navy blue early because of the season and the light the courtyard lamps cast through the windows illuminated the snow flurrying outside. Hearing the commotion of two rowdy men from down the hall was what led Kana to her current position, peeking past the doorframe cautiously to check up on them.

With his staff of servants and harem of doting wives who took turns cooking dinner for the emperor, he never lacked a private chef to wait on him, so the spread laid out at the end of the table at this hour, only a little while before supper, could only be called an irresponsible cheat meal. French fries, big macs, chicken nuggets, packets of sugary sauce, and two Oreo Mcflurries made a feast that was more suited for a bachelor's apartment than a king, but Takumi shoveled a teriyaki-glazed burger into his mouth anyway, and San-sam dipped a fistful of fries into ketchup that had been squirted into the empty end of the paper hamburger carton before sliding his orange spiral mask to one side and shoveling them into his mouth. He was still chewing when he started speaking again, apparently continuing some story that Kana had come into the middle of.

"And so I told him, 'Taste the Mangekyō Sharingan I unlocked from killing my brother, you bastard!' and while he was stunned, I unleashed my dōjutsu and exploded his wicked heart! Bwahahaha!"

"Wahahahaha! Serves him right! I'm a pretty forgiving guy and all, but I can't just let those kinds of rumors go unchecked, you know? Freedom of speech is one thing, but I ain't about to just roll over and let those dipshits use one of my own for their conspiracy bullshit."

"I get you, man. Who knows what they'll think up next? If you don't stay vigilant, those dark-hearted guys will end up dragging your happy family down like the Uchiha clan. So then I said my usual prayer for safe passage of his soul-"

"Oh? You religious now?"

"Nah. I just opened up my phone and played 'Hokage Funeral' from Youtube while I moved the body."

"Wahahahahaha! How about trying 'Sadness and Sorrow' next time?!"

"Ohhhhh, I love that one! You always have the best ideas, bossman! By the way, have you tried dipping your fries in your milkshake-"

Kana had absolutely no idea what these two idiots were yapping about.

More importantly, her eyes were quickly drawn away from the junk food Takumi was stuffing himself with before dinner and to his left hand, which was holding the end of a red leash made out of high-quality leather. At the other end of that leash was a familiar blonde-haired woman on all fours inside of a doghouse that definitely wasn't used by any of the family's pet dogs and, Kana was almost positive, was not part of the West dining hall the last time she was here.

On her hands and knees with her cheek smushed against the floor, Rinko kept both of her fists curled up so that they resembled paws while making a completely pitiful expression. Kana knew that Rinko typically wore a different collar with a heart-shaped charm that she could still see dangling from underneath the thicker red collar strapped around her neck, so she could only imagine how uncomfortable it was from how tight it looked and how the edges of the bottom choker must have been digging painfully into her neck. Every so often, Takumi would yank on the leash, and Rinko would let out a yelp as she was jerked forward just a few inches, enough to jostle her and make her change positions without pulling her out of the doghouse. Aside from that, Takumi largely ignored her and focused on his conversation with his friend over pre-dinner instead.

Was this... a punishment for something Rinko did? Kana wondered to herself, her nails digging into the doorframe she was clinging onto as if it were a piece of driftwood in the ocean that was the hallway. Anxiously, she started going over her options. Should she say something? She was kind of eavesdropping already. If Takumi wanted a doghouse in the dining room, that was fine, well, it wasn't REALLY fine if you were worried about hygiene, but this was a family home, not a five-star restaurant, and anyway, the dogs sat at the foot of the table all the time either way, and they could let them out into the courtyard if they started getting antsy, so it wasn't a terrible place for it... no, that wasn't even the problem! In the first place, what would he do if someone walked in on this scene that was so wide-open it was like walking out onto the stateroom balcony wearing only boxers?!

After much back-and-forth with herself, Kana settled on standing guard in the hallway to personally make sure that nobody walked in on Takumi and his careless bro-reverie. And after twenty minutes of that, listening to his and San-sam's mind-numbing back-and-forth mixing Shonen anime with politics had driven her to her limit, and she went with the Plan B she'd come up with during the time she spent trying to tune the two of them out for the sake of her own sanity. Puffing out her cheeks, she called loudly into the hallway:

"Oh, Mira-chan! What are you doing here? Did you want a snack? You know it's almost dinnertime, right? Ah, well, if you're thirsty, I'll pour you something to drink and then we can wait for dinner in the dining room together~"

The din coming from the dining room quieted immediately, and, in less than a minute, the whole mess was cleaned up.

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

Two months later, Kana joined Takumi for a Shinsengumi business meeting only to see him holding Rinko by a different leash, one that was slimmer and hooked onto the loop attached to her usual collar instead of overlapping it.

(So, he didn't end up learning any lessons about the leash, huh...)

Accepting defeat at the hands of the audience that was already there to witness Takumi's particular degene- eccentricity, Kana resigned herself with a sigh and let it go.

[franeridart]

Can i ask what (& why) Mina dragon is protecting?

You mean in the pic I posted? That’s just Baku and Kiri haha they’re there more for scale than anything else, really

Anon said:What role do Denki and Sero have in your take on the fantasy AU?

Sero’s a simple normal non-magic herbs merchant and amateur healer, Kaminari’s a lightning mage and a swordsman! They both also stumbled their way into being bards of sort, more for fun than anything else really - they used to travel alone and then they travelled together, till they travelled into the dragons’ territory without even realizing. Somehow, they managed to not die and get on the prince’s good side enough to be allowed to freely roam and maybe stay if they so wished

(they so wished)

Anon said:Ahh are you okay? If everything’s bad and all, feel better soon 🌟

Ahhhh, you’re sweet ;u; thank you!!

Anon said:Hey, I just really wanted to thank you! I only found you a couple months ago but your art has really inspired me. I owe a lot to you on finding an art style that’s comfortable for me. Not to mention, everything you do with Bakugou and Kirishima is the damn cutest thing and I can only love them more~! So thank you for all your lovely work!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man that makes me super happy to hear!!!!!!!! I’m really really glad my messy art could help you like that haha and thank you so much for the compliments too aaaahhhh!!!!

Anon said:If you ever get around to some more fusions, how about some of the teachers with some students like midnight-bakugou and aizawa-momo?

ngl I have about maybe forty asks in my inbox with fusions suggestions in them, and I’m just letting them pile up cause… that au hasn’t been fun lately, but I think it might be again in the future? Maybe? So I’m leaving those there and waiting for inspiration to strike again - that said, I’m sort of intrigued about these specific combos :O why Midnight and Bakugou specifically? The more I think about this the more I can’t tell if what’d come out would be something sexy or just utterly ridiculous lmao

Anon said:Just imagine Kiri and Baku getting married, and Fatgum is the one to give Kiri away and they couldn’t decide on a best man so there’s like 5 people giving speeches and there are Manly Tears shed.

What do you mean imagine, isn’t this exactly how it’s gonna go hahaha tho I can totally see Bakugou being 100% unaware of the best man situation, at some point after maybe the third speech he’s like is this done can we go now but nope there’s more people - Kirishima has a vague idea of it but as far as he knew it should have been only Denki and Hanta and Mina? Maybe? Most of the oragization of the wedding was left in Mina and Kaminari’s hands after all. But since everyone noticed that Bakugou’s already short patience is disappearing fast and  since 1A is made of a bunch of assholes once Mina’s done Jirou’s like, okay my turn, and then it’s Deku, and then it’s Uraraka, and then Todoroki and Tokoyami and Hagakure and Tsuyu and Iida and Momo too why the hell not - Kirishima’s crying and laughing and Bakugou’s 1% touched and 99% ready to blow up, which, honestly, is exactly how a wedding between these two is supposed to end

Anon said:Hello.-wave- I know this isn’t a question but i love your art work and how you made Baku and his red haired boy friend (i forgot his name :( ) just bounce off each other so perfectly. Now I hope those two actually be a couple in the anime. :)

Ahhhhh I doubt they’ll actually become canon haha it’s a Jump shounen after all - but I’m glad you like the way I portray them!!!!! thank you so much!!

Anon said:TINY DRAGON BAKUGOU IS THE BEST AAAAAA (He’d be like the tiniest, bitchiest cat.)

HAPPY YOU LIKED HIM OMFG!!! and yes, yes that’s exactly how he is haha

Anon said:I wanna tell you how much I love you. Except… there are no words that can express just how much that is. I’ve tried writing to you off-anon before, but, I’m just too shy. (Even using anon, I’m really nervous.) Seeing your artwork always brightens my day. I enjoy reading your tags, comments, replies. I really appreciate your hard work and thank you for sharing it with us. I’m sorry for bothering you and you don’t have to reply. I hope you have a very lovely weekend!! ^^

You’re so sweet orz so damn sweet oh my god, thank you so much for every kind word ;O; I hope you’ll have the best week, anon!!!!

Anon said:Dragon Baku be lookin like a mango, I love him so much. Bless u Fran

A mango!!!!! Amazing, I was thinking about an explosion as far as colors go but a mango incredible I’m never unseeing that ever hahaha thank you, by the way!!! I’m glad you liked himmm!!!!!

Anon said:OOF SO ARE THEY BOTH DRAGON SHIFTERS??????

YES THEY ARE!!!!!

Anon said:How do you think Bakugou and Kirishima would react to finding out their kid was getting bullied in school? What would they say to them?

What a heavy question holy shit, I’m actually not sure? I’m not even sure a kid raised by Bakugou and Kirishima would ever let themselves be bullied, really, so the real question here is why is this kid being bullied? Based on what the answer to that is, they’d probably react in different ways. And what they’d tell the kid would change as well, of course. Well, either way they’d probably go raise hell inside the school, both of them

(then again we’re talking about Bakugou (a former bully himself) and Kirishima (a kid that used to physically fight bullies) and their kid, so maybe the actual conversation - in case the kid were ever to actually admit to it, cause Bakugou and Kirishima’s kid might not even ever do that - would probs go something like,kid: “what if there were someone at school I was having problems with?”baku: “kill them” kiri: “Katsuki! you don’t kill them, you talk to them, and if they try to touch you you punch them as hard as you can right on the chin just like we taught you”)

(When the next day they’re called in because their kid has made a classmate bleed Bakugou fist-bumps them and Kirishima put on his hero face and voice and tells the principal that next time if they don’t want their kid to defend themselves they should make it so that they didn’t need to in the first place)

Anon said:I started reading black clover because of that one sketch you did, and i had such a tough time stopping so I can get school work done 😅 in one day I’ve read 122 chapters and I didn’t want to stop

AHHHHH I’M SO HAPPY YOU LIKED IT!!!!!! It’s such a nice manga oh boy ;O;

Anon said:Imagine Bakugou seeing Kirishima being attacked or hurt by a villain. I imagine he would immediately explode and charge in to kill said villain? I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but I also think of that scene in RWBY Volume 3 with Blake and Yang.

I haven’t watched it, sorry ;-; but yeah! Bakugou protecting Kirishima is something I’m waiting for the actual manga to deliver, so I try not to think too much about it to keep it fresh in case Horikoshi’ll ever be that nice to me haha but anyway we sort of saw how he reacted to Kiri being in mild “danger” during the license exam, so I guess for him to actually lose his mind and explode/get angry Kiri should be in serious danger. Like, post-Rappa fight type of danger, probably.  Ahhhhhhhh boy, I seriously hope Hori will be kind enough to make something like that happen (………not that I want Kiri hurt, tho ;–;)

Anon said:Fran, Fran!!! New dgm chapter on the 16th October!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW! And I won’t be here for it, can you believe ;~; I’m sad o

Anon said:what are your thoughts on trans kiri??

More or less the same as my thoughts on trans baku! I don’t share the headcanon myself, but there’s a lot of good art and works out there with that headcanon which I enjoyed a lot, and if that’s how you wanna see the character then go for it! Who’s even got the right to stop you hahaha

Anon said:Ooh, u read erasermic fics?? Got any faves??

Seems like I only got two in my bookmarks :O x x (and the second is an hp au haha) (I’m sure I read and loved more tho, I’ll have to come back on this when I have the time)

Anon said:Another thing about Invisible girl and Aizawa using his quirk on her. They used a tail as an example of erasing quirks and the tail was still there but it was like a dead limb. So if he used it on her she may actually be visible. I was thinking about this for awhile and I think it might work that way.

That might be! But then again, that still depends on why she’s invisible - if that’s just the way her skin is made then I don’t think Aizawa’s quirk would change anything? I dunno tho, it’s hard to headcanon about Tooru since we know so little about her!

Anon said:sorry I asked about eri-chan and I agree I really want her to be able to but what about her completely destroying her entire ability?? like not giving people their quirks back but make it so she can’t erase them anymore?? if you get me??

OH YEAH SORRY I TOTALLY MISREAD YOUR ASK OH MY GOD I’m not sure she can do that tho? Like, assuming destroying quirks is her quirk to begin with, I’d assume her body would be built in such a way that she’d be immune to it? It’s just the way I see it, tho :O