#not like it’s THAT important to me since i dont typically write in the main text post anyways lmao but whatever

[voidscreamns]

Welp guess who has to use colored text now bc tumblr won’ t let me see what I’m writing on my posts (excluding tags) and changing the text to white doesn’t ACTUALLY make it white -_-

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

Thank you for walking study in demonology! Reading it brought me all the way back to the 2019 bnha era. Even tho im a chronic fandom hopper, every once in a while i got pulled back to the bnha fandom like a clinging abused ex gf, cause i feel like no other fandom has given me the same feels as bnha on ao3. It's probably partly because of bnha being a perfect sandbox for ficwriters, but damn you bnha writers are really sth else.

Your work is such an exquisite, heartfelt love letter to the fanfiction medium in general, and the bnha fandom in particular. I hope your pillow is always cool and your socks always come out of the washing machine in pairs.

What's your favourite part about the fic?

hi thanks so much for this ask! super appreciate the kind words :) i agree wholeheartedly i wldnt have started writing my bnha fics if not for the amazing fics ive read from this fandom.

short answer: my favorite part is the process.

super long answer:

(spoilers below fair warning)

demonology has been a learning process for me and also a very strange experience.

ive always been more of an improv writer where i dont really know where a story is going when i write it. with demonology being the way it is, you can surmise that its been a really crazy ride.

ive mentioned this before but it started as an idea of deku being just your typical satanic style exorcist, and as it is a crack fic, i did write it — at the beginning — purposefully to be nonsensical. all the made up “significant” stuff like affinity, authority, even the importance of names and all that — i didnt know what they mean and i didnt care either, i was just making them say whatever that sounded ominous and ridiculous. (often this is for the sake of comedic timing. it is crack after all.)

some comments say the fic didnt make sense, and i agree bc it didnt to me either. but then it DID start to make sense to me. whenever i started to write a new chapter id read back to whatever bullshit i did the previous chap and only then i understood what the hell the characters r talking about. if you look back to the earlier chapters there’d be a lot of foreshadowings, but they werent written to be foreshadowings at the time. its kind of foreshadowing in reverse, bc i only knew what they meant after i wrote them. i didnt know i was writing a meta multiverse time travel fic, but since i did, i had to commit and go crazy.

(in retrospect i think it rly did begin with hitoshi and that cat in ch 3. i didnt even know hitoshi was the “main character” until that chapter. i didnt know that cat was schrodingers cat until i wrote ch 8.)

so u can see how crazy, nonsensical and haphazard the entire writing process of this fic is, which in return gives birth to a crazy, nonsensical and haphazard fic. until its not nonsensical anymore. somehow, there actually is a clear logic in the mechanics of the universe. the cats are schrodinger cats, the demons are maxwell demons, entropies are plotlines which are often riddled with plotholes, the hell is production hell, to be in heaven is to be canonized — and lorem ipsum is the empty blank slate state of the universe. authority actually is authority. the fic gave meaning to itself by the end of it all.

comments ask if i waited for bnha to end — i didnt. bnha ending actually fucked a past version of ch 8, now scrapped. but then it actually … made a better version? and made more sense? its weird.

i did know about some things that were going to happen though. since the first time i had izuku do the “you believe [object] exist,” i always knew i wanted it to be turned back to him (“midoriya izuku doesnt exist”). after i wrote ch 6 i also knew i wanted them to “go back to the beginning” with izuku’s “fall” on the rooftop. but i didnt know until i wrote it that hitoshi was going to choose to fall, too. i know im the author but him choosing that shocked me and i found it moving.

if i had written this “properly”, if i had planned it all with better structuring and better pacing and emotional beats and all that — this might have turned out to be a better written story, in another world. as it is right now there are a lot of flaws that it has. but it wldnt have been the same fic. if not for this fuckass writing process, it wld never have reached the form it takes as of now.

and although it was a very difficult road, i can say wholeheartedly that this strange process has been my favorite part. im doubtful ill ever experience a writing process like this again. the story kept surprising me. a part of why i wanted to finish it was because i wanted to know how it ended too—bc i wldnt know until i wrote it.

of course, at the end of it all, none of us know what their ending is. in the end the story still didnt share its secrets with me and i really really love it for it.

haha this is so long sorry i guess this fic really means a lot to me after all. but yes, thats my answer.

i would also like to thank every reader and commenter once again bc i can honestly say without the feedback and support, this would not have been finished either, or become the way that it is. man. fanfictions, huh?

[ddostoyevskyy]

The Runaway Bride

Kamisato Ayato

Note: Can't believe I'm writing for another fandom again. Anyway, this man is my old main. I'm using my OC's surname (from my BSD fic) as Y/N's surname, just in reference of their origin. Typical arrange marriage trope.... with a twist. He fell first, and fell harder.

Warnings: idk how to label this - angst to comfort or comfort to angst? SEXUAL CONTENT — READ AT YOUR OWN RISK (unprotected sex, hate sex? idk, reader is a lil’ rough with Ayato, biting, overstimulation, edging, size kink, it started rough but it ended soft), afab!reader, enemies to lovers — to enemies (?), Ayato’s pining and an oblivious yet love-starved reader, graphic violence, child abuse, family issues, heavy implied incest (not from reader and Ayato), blood, descriptive murder, victim-blaming, manipulation, self-blaming, self-harming, I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANY OF THESE WARNINGS, THIS IS PURELY FICTIONAL, ANY SCENES ARE PURE IMAGINATION.

11.2K words

Part 1, Part 2 (?)

MASTERLIST

"Smile now, my daughter," Father had whispered in your ears with a huge smile on his face, eyeing your whole appearance in the mirror as you shifted and fidget your hands together in discomfort. Wearing a white, long sleeve dress made with the finest silk and your hair tied up in a bun, creating a sharp look on your fluttering eyes. His hands are on your shoulders while he whispers sweet nothings on your ear as you stood in front of the mirror, gradually staring intently on the clear reflection. "They've known my daughter because of her warm smile. We don't want to disappoint the visitors if they ever saw you frowning like that, right?"

You tried your best to smile that doesn't even reached your eyes, though, your father had praised you for showing him his favorite smile of yours and praising you for being a good daughter, you winced when he's finally gone to prepare, almost dropping on your knees for the pressure as you huff, both in annoyance and discomfort.

Being a perfect daughter is difficult —especially, when you can't act fine and proper anymore. All of these stupid acts and conservative etiquettes has you trying to break free from its chains. Too many do's and dont's, the perks of being a noble daughter from an old-fashioned family is exhausting.

You don't even like the silk cloth, nor to smile in front of people. You don't like the way your chest is exposed in the dress your father made you wore, nor the heavy make up planted on your face — you look like a whole different person in the mirror, almost not recognizing yourself.

You shakily sighed before calling your assistant — a young man with a fancy hat. He's been with you since you were little and up until now, he stayed loyal to you — and not to your father.

"Yes, My Lady? Do you need anything?" His face is hidden under his hat politely, a gentleman, a young man you would proudly say that you raised from your woman perspectives and feminist. He's dressed in a nice suit with a long, white coat that you eyed as you clicked your fingers before walking towards him.

"You know the drill. Hand me your coat, gentleman." You replied as he obliged, buttoning open his coat as he handed it to you. You thanked him as you turn around to put the coat on yourself, seeing how it perfectly wrapped around your body, covering most the important part you wanted to cover. You stayed it draped over your shoulders, buttoning it close only to where your chest needs to be covered. The color of the coat fits perfectly with the color of your dress.

"That looks good on you, My Lady -" You glance up to him on the mirror and he realized his words, halting as he cleared his throat, "Everything looks good on you, My Lady. Perhaps, you didn't talk the compliment back, so, you are really the person who raised me as I am. Lady Y/N."

He emphasized your name as you finally met his eyes — dark purple and glimmering under the chandelier of the room. You eyed him before raising an eyebrow in agreement. He took of his hat before putting it on top of your head — a signature he always did whenever it was you - the other Y/N — will appear in this kind of situation. Despite of the similarities, he can totally see the differences between.

Between you and your twin.

Despite of your older twin being exactly just the same as you, he could tell the difference after knowing you for a lifetime. Your older twin has the same love of fashion with what you wore, she also held a wide and warm smile to everyone and she always have a mischievous personality you sometimes despised. She has a carefree personality and a warm embrace that you've always feel after the end of the day.

While you, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. You took liking of reading — a scholar in Sumeru Akademiya despite living a fancy life in Schenezaya. Despite of that, both of you have the same taste in music - she had taken a liking of playing the piano and you playing the violin and collaborate with one another. Both of you found the comfort to each other despite being the exact opposite.

"Lower your voice, Mister Fancy Hat." He grunted at the nickname, but he can't hide the small smile that forms on his lips. You glance at him again, taking the opportunity to appreciate his beauty on the mirror. He looks dashing on a suit — which you can only see if both of you are not in Sumeru. His usual clothes are traditional, he's the General of Sumeru after all — an electro vision. His white, long hair is tied up in a high ponytail, making his lavender eyes sharp as ever, his dark skin makes it the complete perfection.

"You can always call me Cyno, My Lady. Now, we are running out of time. Let's go to the camel, shall we?" He offered you his arm and you raised an eyebrow while accepting his offer — wrapping your hand on his arm as he guide you out of the room.

"Isn't it appropriate to let a Lady ride with such an absurd transportation?" You challenged as you stared at him.

"Then, do you want me to fly you in the wind, then?" He spouts back with the same challenging tone and you finally break with a smile — a genuine smile this time.

"How annoying." You mumble, squeezing his arm in a playful manner and you gradually feel a little relieved and content now as you stood by Cyno's side, constantly brushing your shoulder on him to let him know that you're comfortable enough now. This is one of your mannerism that he discovered later on. Perhaps, it is the way the General would make you feel comfortable — by engaging you in a sarcastic conversation and he made sure not to engage you in one of his jokes anymore after you sent him a knife that luckily didn't hit him intentionally after he made a lame joke when you're not in the mood.

Despite being born and raised in a different worlds, it's not hard to get along with him, despite being both an introvert and silent personalities. He's making sure to read the atmosphere around you and he'd known you and your twin better than your father did. He understood the struggles of changing places and adjusting to another scenarios again. Despite that, he respected both siblings and had taken care of both of you — it's like, he's the older brother you both couldn't have.

"My Lady, you know why we're departing to Inazuma, right? I hope, you are aware of what will happen." He muttered and you hummed, every steps you make on the stairs is getting heavier at the thought. After you and your older twin had arrived at a coming of age, your father had been constantly visiting some mansions and families with you tagging along and introducing you to the families' son. Now that your father had invited you again, your older twin decided to switch places so you could experience the outside for a while.

Whenever you are in the mansion, it was you who's present. And, whenever you are suppose to be outdoors, your older twin is the one in presence.

"Yes, I completely understood why we're arriving at Inazuma. But, Cyno," You called out his name as you squeeze his arm in process before you glance at him, "Do my sister, perhaps, know someone from the said city? I don't want to appear clueless now and Sister never told me anything after she came home from Inazuma." You finished as Cyno guided you through the caravan. You hopped inside with his help — his hands find your waist to hoist you up as you stepped on the edge before you sat down inside, few people had offered their greetings and safe for the travel as you genuinely smiled at them.

Cyno followed shortly as he closed the door of the caravan and spoke, "Yes. As the matter of fact, a certain noble family from Inazuma had tried to put ties between your family. They are well known and wealthy, but after a sudden death of the wife's head of the family after your father and the other Lady had visited their respected estate, they immediately cut ties and took blame of the Barouqe clan, as result."

You nodded and hummed. It has been a while after your sister had visited the city Inazuma and you've been curious about what really happened. As far as you know, the wife is already suffering from a disease.... that you've seen in the book and you have an actual idea of the cure. If only, you were the one who tag along with your father before, no other clan would put a burden on your family's name in Inazuma.

"I see." You shortly answered before the door on your caravan swung open and your head shifted into the direction, seeing none other than your older twin in flesh as your eyes slightly widened before hoisting her up as you look outside the caravan, on the process. Thankfully, there are no one around anymore and her face is covered with a silk cloth.

"Sister, you are coming with us?"

"Yes. Father already decided to come back and visit Inazuma again." She removed the covet on her head as she closes the door's caravan, the horse started to move as you sighed.

"You two are not planning to do something reckless, are you not?" She looks at you with those same eyes - a hint of glint and a mischievous smile - something you always see whenever she's plotting and teasing. As much as you adored her, you hated her at the same time as how she's so troublemaker. Despite having the exact appearance, she's mischievous and playful — it's like a whole new side of you whenever you look st her.

"Come on, younger sister! Just imagine this as the game we always play when we were little kids! Remember?" She reminded you, her gloved hands skimming to raise your dress up to expose your thighs and your body stiffened — realizing that you are not the only on inside the caravan — Cyno is here too. "But, this time, we are playing like this with the Head of the clan."

Her lips are dangerously close to your ear as she whispered, sending shivers down to your body and a goosebumps appear on your thighs — that your sister immediately notice and she giggled. You didn't like the idea she said, nor the way her hand has been caressing your skin and biting the lobe of your ear. The disgusting feeling had been bubbling up on your throat.

"I think, that's enough, Lady." Cyno's hand had grasp her to stop her from touching you and almost distinctively, you put a hand on his arm to signal him that's enough, knowing how Cyno's grip can be forceful at times. Your older twin pouted.

"You're no fun, Cyno!" She huffed, "Come on, little Y/N. This will serve as a revenge for ruining our name in Inazuma, no? We won't murder anyone, okay? We just need to be a little more scandalous — yes, scandalous in an elegant way!" She has her arms wrapped around you again as she put her chin on your shoulder, giving your neck a peck as you sighed.

"Who are we gonna p-play with?" You asked, voice cracking. You don't really like that term for it.

"My Lady." Cyno warned you, violet eyes dimmed as he stares at you intently. You gave him a force smile as he look away, jaw clenching as he scoffed and shake his head in disapproval.

"Finally! The Yashiro Commisioner, Head of the Kamisato clan — Kamisato Ayato."

Your mind had strucked a familiarity of the name as you've heard — the Kamisato clan. The infamous clan that runs the Inazuma for years and their high social status had been kept even after the wife of the Head of the clan deceased. You were curious about them as you've seen their name on a list where your family's name also included.

You felt a sudden strike of anxiousness when you arrived at the Inazuma. Despite, departing safely and no avail, you felt like there's a whole disaster that happened. Your hair that is tied up in a bun was now cascading on your back as you continue to run your fingers through your locks as you look around the unfamiliar city of lights. It was full of different street lights and the city seems to be much busy at night.

Agreeing to your older twin is certainly not a good idea.

You felt like backing out. But, when your father's arm had wrapped around your shoulder, you knew you can't go back in Schenezaya without getting any profit here anymore. "Your older sister had definetely told you what we're here for, yes? That time when me and your sister arrived here, it seems like the heir of the Kamisato Clan didn't like your sister's personality. That's why, I told her that maybe, you, my youngest daughter can capture his heart," Your father mumbled in a low tone, voice seeping with such a vile and venomous words.

"So, do your best and be a good girl, alright?" You just nodded quietly, "And, don't forget our little game we played when you were little, my daughter. You could put that in a good use." He gave you a peck on the top of your head as he cups your face and stroked the delicate skin of your cheeks. You wanted to slap his hand away, but it seems like your father's vision had been electrocuting you the moment he touched you and you can't do anything but to follow his instructions.

"My Lady, are you sure about this? I have a bad feeling." Cyno mumbled besides you as you walk behind your father. The Kamisato clan seems to be notified by your departure and your father stated that there going to be a small banquet of celebration for the Barouqe's arrival. You never felt nervous like this, atleast. Not even the soothing sound of Cyno's voice will calm you.

"It's going to be f-fine, Cyno. You're here with me, right?" You assured him — or assured yourself? You aren't even sure enough as you step closer and closer to the Kamisato's estate. A traditional Inazuma's mansion with a small bridge above the clear lake is what caught your attention. The blossoming sakura trees had you knowing that the spring season is getting near.

You seems to be distracted by the view that you didn't notice the people that welcomed you.

"My daughter, come and greet them." Your father's voice had snapped you out of your thoughts as you averted your eyes away from the mesmerizing scenery. Your hand on Cyno's arm loosened before you turn your attention up front.

"I apologized from being distracted. Nice to meet you again, Mister Kamisato." You put on your best smile that surely appeared on your eyes now too — staring at the man in front of you. Your smile faltered a bit when you see how he looks at you; sprinkled with suspicion and admiration — well, the second one seems to be just an assumption — but his lavender eyes twinkled with such an emotion you couldn't decipher. Nevertheless, you appeared confident despite of how nervous you are.

"Lady Y/N, the only child of Barouqe, it's a pleasure to see you again after so many years," He took your hand and gently gave a peck on the back of your gloved hand. You were quite surprise at his sudden action and by the fact of how gentleman he is — far from what your older twin described him. But, you've noticed how his words came of sarcastically. "Despite of the feeling like we've just met for the first time, no?"

You retracted your hand as you smiled once again. The tension in the air created a heavy atmosphere as you answered. "Why, of course. It seems like we, again, met for the first time. People gradually change for years, Mister. So, I assumed, we shouldn't stay in the past anymore, right?" You answered with the same pettiness.

"Well, well, you are one to talk about the past that I presumed, you don't have any idea about." He retorted and you hid the way you gritted your teeth behind your lips. Your hand clenched behind your back.

This man might know something he shouldn't have any knowledge about!

"I do not know what you're implying." You stared intently in his purple eyes as he squinted them, glancing on your expression — the mess on your laid hair because of the wind, the seemingly change of your body appearance and the way your eyes sent daggers and eyelashes fluttering like angel wings. The Y/N Barouqe he'd known before is not as tough as you are now, nor as fierce and sharp tounged. You seems to appeared more..... attractive to him than you are already before.

Or is the young lady he met before was really you?

"Ah. It seems like you already did really changed, M'lady," He smiles with his eyes close, "Now, let's go inside before the food gets cold." His voice falters deaf in your ears when you finally confirmed it. Your head craned behind your back, silently speaking with Cyno using your eyes and pursed lips. He seems to get the right thing running in your mind as he only shook his head again in disapproval.

Closing your eyes, you felt your father's hand crept on your wrist and your turn your attention to him.

"I-I don't think I can play the game with him, Father." You stuttered as you tried to remove his grasp. But his grip only tightened when you started to resist.

"Come on, my dear daughter. It seems like, the Commissioner had taken a liking of you. We don't want to waste that, right?" Your father had whispered in a dangerous tone and you shakily sighed before you manage to let yourself free from his grasp.

When you finally arrived inside the mansion, your expression deadpanned, already uninterested as how this conversation will go. This is not the first time you've ever oppose to your father's orders, especially when your dignity and you, yourself will be ruined, at the end of the day.

"Welcome inside the Kamisato Estate, Mister and Lady Barouqe. I hope you will enjoy your remaining time here," The Yashiro Commissioner turn himself in your direction, a smile planted on his face as he stared down at you as you look up, challenging him with burning eyes.

There's really something in you that have changed..... was it your personality? No. Even the way you smile is different than before, even the way your eyes had this burning passion and hatred towards him is visible — you have no intentions on hiding your own feelings and emotions as you look at him with those eyes thag sparkling with an attitude. Even though, you're smiling at him, it doesn't even reached your eyes the way you smiled before at him.

Maybe, it wasn't really you that he had met before.

He just needed to confirm it with only you and him.

Alone.

"Mister Barouqe, I hope you don't mind. I want to make some time alone with your only daughter, if that's alright?" He finished and he sees the way you visibly clenched your teeth as you blink nervously. He knew something was up, though, he wanted to push you through your limits until you break and submit yourself to him.

You are an interesting woman and he'll make sure to play with you too.

Your father seems to be enthusiastic at his request, putting both of his hands on your shoulder before pushing you slightly to the man in front of you. He offered a hand and you're lucky to decide to wear a gloves. You turn to look at Cyno, but it seems like he's quite mad at you as he keep his eyes on the floor. You sighed before removing his hat on your head and putting it back to his head. You already had your back turn to him when he decided to raise his head to look at you.

The Yashiro Commissioner guided you to a room as you entered, admiring where he brought you; a room full of books in shelves. The room has a high ceiling, the scent of paper and wood entered your sense of smell as you breath a sigh at the familiar sensation. One thing you love in someone's mansion is their library — or wherever there's books and pens.

His eyes trailed at your expression as he confirms it, yet again. The young Barouqe he met 10 years ago is not as enthusiastic as she is when he welcomed her before inside his office. You look mesmerized — mesmerizing as you walk around the toom, constantly touching the spine of the book and Ayato's eyes followed your movement when you stop just right on the medicine book section.

He stands there, amused. "It seems like you took liking of books now, M'lady."

You halted on your movements, already mentally screaming at yourself at being too excited with the sight of the books. You close the book on your hand before putting it back to its place as you turn your attention to the man that was now one step away from you.

"Ah, indeed. After the incident ten years ago, I decided to read some medical books to understand what really happened to your deceased mother." You put an insult to the wound, already liking the way the man in front of you twitched in irritation. But he gave you a smile.

"The report said that my late mother us poisoned, that confirmed at this very day. You, Lady Y/N, were you poisoned too? Or perhaps," He stepped closer and you step backwards, already hitting the wall as you hissed through your teeth, "You were electrocuted?"

"I don't know what are you talking about —"

Your voice caught in your throat when he tugged your hand behind your back, his other hand quickly pulling something behind his back as your eyes widened at the familiar sensation of a sharp shard that penetrates on your skin as he cut deep — to mark your palm.

"What —!"

"Tell me, confess now, M'lady. You are not the person I met ten years ago, yes?" He's quite surprise as how strong your resistance as you keep resisting on his arms. He managed to press you up against the wall again, his thigh between your legs as you groaned at the pressure of his hand on your wound.

"Let me go, you bastard!" You resist. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Ah, ah. Feisty, aren't you? The exact opposite of your.... older twin, right?"

There's no point of excuses now as you sighed in defeat, loosening your grip on his hand as the attitude you gave him a few seconds ago disappeared in an instant. He stared at your softening expression, but your eyes still show the hatred emotion planted on your pretty face.

"What's your motive? You're not stupid as you portray to even let the person who killed your mother inside your own territory again." You spat at him as he smiled — that annoyed you even more. He keep smiling at you, lips stretch in an outmost stunning smile you ever seen as though to annoy you or it was a genuine gesture that made something inside of you stir.

"I have something to propose to you, M'lady," His grip on your wound finally loosen up as he gently graze at the wound before he's pulling you to sit down on his chair, grabbing something from the drawer, a first aid kit he had on his office. "Let's use each other for an important purpose. I let you work your motive to me and you will let me do as I please to your family."

You eyed him sharply as he started to gently jab the wound with an ointment. You were used to having your wounds treated before that even the feeling of a knife penetrating on your skin doesn't make you cry anymore. He's gentle, opposed from what his grip on you earlier.

"You're stupid to even think I will let you touch my family."

"Aren't you the one getting touched by your own family?" His reply made you halt as you stared at him wide eyes. He seems to hit the right answer when you grip his arm with your other hand. He turn his attention to you as he studied your reactions. You seem flabbergasted, breath hitching and pupils dilated as though you've seen a ghost.

"You —! How —"

"You think your assistant will only shake his head or stay quiet with your situation?" He confessed, "We've known each other after my mother died as he asked for my help. Now that you are here in front of me, the woman I want to help, I'm going to save you from your own family."

"What the hell are you talking about saving me?" There it is, your eyes sharp as ever as you stared at him, standing on your own feet as you pull him down closer to your face that you could feel his breath fan on your face. He's stunned for a moment, seeing you up close like this. This felt nothing like the woman he met ten years ago and it made his heart race. "I've been suffering from my own family, all my life. It's too late to save me now. And, besides, if I were to marry you, I will do anything to slit your throat while you're sleeping."

He hummed, clearly he is not listening when he had hid lavender eyes on your lips as he scoot closer, nose bumping on each other and you have no time to protest when he's quick to hold the back of your head and capture your lips in a seething kiss, your own hand clasping tightly at the hem of his kimono when he opened your mouth with the use of his sultry tounge, the warm muscle exploring on the roof of your mouth, on the back of your teeth and your own tounge dancing as he hums lowly, the sound vibrating on your lips and you hissed.

Your teeth graze on his bottom lip as you bite as a warning, but he didn't even stop to process the pain that stung, continuously stimulating your lips with his while your wounded hand is sti on his gentle grasp. You became breathless, gasping and breathing heavily on his mouth and he seems to enjoy the taste of your lips and the sinful sounds that starting to escape on your throat.

"Wait —! You.... bastard —!"

His hand had cupped your cheeks, lips moving passionately on your own as he captures all the noise and words on your mouth, deliberately opening your mouth using his thumb as you started to thump your fist on his chest. He tasted sweet with a mix of coffee — the aftermath taste of the sweetened boba tea he drank earlier as his tounge dances inside your mouth, leaving you unable to breath as you finally gave in — kissing him back with the same amount of tension he'd giving your mouth and he moans lowly.

"Kami — sato —! I'm.... telling you —! Let me go —!"

The movement on his lips seems to slow down, but he's still not letting you go. Lips attached to yours as he slowly move his lips in a sinful pace and you gasp, the sound that escapes your throat only desire him to go further — until you can't breath anymore. Maybe, the kiss he was giving you could be the reason of your death, as much as you want to deny the warm feeling on your chest and the sensation of his soft lips and unrelenting tounge — you were lost on his facade, too lost on his world once his fingers caress your face.

He finally let go of your lips with a smack and you gasped for air again, panting as he studied the mess he made in front of him. You look delirous with your eyes clouded with desire mixed with hatred and your lips swollen with his minstrations. He's not even better.

"You bastard! You're going to pay for this!" He's silent for a moment, still out of breath. His attention drifted from your face to the wound he made on your palm as he grabbed the cotton again, treating your wound like nothing happened and you stand there, flabbergasted at his actions.

You scoffed, but he never uttered a single word as he work in silence, his mind drifted at the feeling of your lips and the taste of your strawberry chapstick that had mark on his lips. You had noticed and your other hand graze on the bottom of his lips to wipe your glistening balm that has transferred on his lips. He halted as he finished dressing your wounds.

You stared at him like he's the most ridiculous person on the earth, constantly eyeing and judging his perfect appearance like he didn't took your first kiss away a few moments ago, you gave him a sharp look when he stared back at you with unreadable expression like he didn't have his tounge shove on your mouth. You hated his guts and his motives — why is he helping you, anyway? That really confirmed that assumption of your father might be the one who's responsible for his mother's death.

And, now you are paying for your own father's debt.

"I hate you." You blurted and a sly smirk appeared on his handsome face.

"Keep telling that to yourself, My Lady. You are now officially tied up with me." You grunted, pushing his attractive face away when he started to lean into you again. He kissed your palm that was planted on his face and you were startled at the gesture and slightly smack his lips in annoyance. He's being annoying as he keeps pushing you to your limits.

"You were a lot more different than your older twin. Maybe, because I didn't like her guts as much as I like you." His hand clasp on yours where you still had your hand on his face, kissing the tip of your fingers in a manner that made you huff in annoyance despite not pulling away from his warm touch.

"We're twins. If you ever planning to marry me, I will make her show up in the wedding instead." You poked a finger on his cheeks, but frozed when he leaned in your touch that made your blood boiled more as you grit your teeth.

"Don't you thought of the reason why I marked you here in your hand?" His fingers graze on your right palm, creating gentle stroke on the covered wound and you realized it by now; why he made a scar on your skin to mark you — his mark — his blade — on you.

"Or you want a different mark instead? Perhaps, on your neck or chest?" His other hand slid on your waist up on the back of your nape and you shivered at his touch, clutching on the cape that was wrapped around you. His thumb graze on the exposed skin of your neck and you bite back any sound that's threatening to escape. "Do you want me to paint you with my lips? Since, my blade hurts as much, let me paint you using no blood this time."

What.

You stared at him pupils blown wide as he leaned closer.

You were supposed to seduced him, not the other way around!

"I — WAIT —! YOU BASTARD!" Is the only thing left to your lips as you pushed him away when you finally gathered your strength back. Your legs feel numb as you stumbled back, almost crashing yourself down on the pile of books behind and he's quick with his movements to capture you, but he halted on his movements.

"Don't come any closer," He saw his own blade on your hand, pointing the sharp edge towards him and Ayato was stunned as he looked at you. When did you have his blade in your hand? You were sly and quick with movements that he didn't even noticed the subtle of your hand on his back as you caught his blade on your hand. "Let's talk like this."

"Speak now, My Lady." He offered you to go first and you took a deep breath.

"Father told me that you seems to not take a liking to my older twin, ten years ago. That's why, I am the one he sent here. He's been planning to fix our reputation here in Inazuma because of the assumptions and accusations which I've proven true. Father did killed the Lady of Kamisato clan, but not with poison." Ayato listened as he eyed you, your hand still had its grip on his own weapon.

"What did he used?"

"It's a herbal medicine which triggers a certain disease to become more complicated and later uncurable. I've read it in a book and I found out the cure for it and I might have save the Lady if I am the one Father sent ten years ago. But, he didn't plan on sending me because he knew I have such knowledge that will make a hinder for his cunning plans," You finished as you finally let your guard down, walking towards him as you wrapped a hand around his waist — yet again, you're close to him, his manly scent mixed with yours mingling on your nostrils as you put his weapon back on his pocket. His stature melt on your warmth.

"So, I, uhm.... I apologize," You spoke with such a small voice, hiding your face own his chest and arm still wrapped around his waist. "I apologize for my family's behalf. I.... I will do anything to pay for Father's debt."

Ayato gritted his teeth — it was his turn to get furious now as he stared at you; your eyed had lost its expression — it turned dull and regretful. His hand find its way to your jaw as his firm grip had made you startled a little before he turn your face in his direction, craning your neck to stared at him. He seems.... mad.

Your father is the one who has a debt to pay to him, but you are the one here — in front of him, asking for forgiveness and anything just to remove the burden Ayato put in your family. This wasn't supposed to happened; to have you beg - the sound of you begging is not what he meant you to do, he wants to hear you begging in other way around.

But, it seems like his plan already failed from where he kissed you with fiery desires.

You already have no intentions on lying in front of his face, nor lie for your family.

You wanted his help, you were tempted as you fell for this tricks the very first moment you let him kiss you and tease you.

"Anything? You can give me anything I please?" He saw the nervousness that flashed in your eyes, although, you nodded, you seem hesitant — he can feel it.

"You knew, you just did gave me a consent to kill your father as a payment for his debt, right? Your older twin is not even an exemption." His lips are dangerously close to your ear as he whispered and all of the attitude you gave him earlier disappered. He's keeping an eye on the very expression you're making when he pulled away, but his hand stays on your jaw, now gently grasping your face.

Ayato has been keeping an eye out of you with the help of Cyno, the General from Sumeru who's also your assistant. For ten years, he had known you even without meeting you, in general. He watches you from afar, the suffers you experienced and the tragic scenarios that happened to you — every single detail of your life — he knew it all.

He wanted to save you, but the heavy crime your family had made to ruin his own is unforgivable. He grew up quickly, his childhood forgotten and has to take care of the clan that was left for him. At a young age, he work for the sake of his family and his younger sister.

But, you also experienced the same with another scenario. You've lost your innocence at a young age, you've lost your dignity as a woman the moment your father had his hands all over you. Despite your protest, he tortured you with his vision instead while your older twin did nothing. The constant torture and pain had you turning numb through the years.

He's not mad at you, he's mad at what your supposed to be relationship had been ruined, even though you has yet to meet him.

"Just," Ayato felt a tug on his kimono as you buried your face on his chest, wrapping both of your arms around his waist and he melted in your touch. "Do anything and save me from this suffering."

He waited long enough for you.

Ayato will be selfish this time.

Your eyes fall open when you felt an electrocuting feeling that travels through your body, eyes widening as you push yourself away from him, flinching from suffocating feeling in your body as you silently gasp, vision slightly blurrying at the twitch of your every vein.

"Lady —!"

You brought a hand to stop him from stepping closer to you as you pant. The familiar feeling of this sudden power urging in your body is making you nauseous. Your father's vision was all over you - his power to electrify and turn you into a mindless puppet is activating yet again. The vision that was tied up on your waist is loosing its nature and you could only gasp at the feeling of being a puppet again.

Not in front of him.....

"D-Don't.... come any.... closer." You've managed to say before your eyes rolled at the back of your head and your vision blacked out.

It doesn't take a matter of time when your father slamming the door open where you're located, already dashing towards you with a faux look of concern on his face — knowing this is his doing. He could tell what happened inside this room by listening to your heartbeat; it became calm and collected and knowing that sign is just up to no good.

Were you acting just to escape this scenario or did you really fell for this man at first sight?

Nevertheless, he was furious and confuse to say, at least. Now that the first step of his plan failed successfully, he's making sure that you will play along with his further plans.

"My daughter, what happened?! What did you do, Lord Kamisato?!" He immediately blamed the Yashiro Commissioner, who seemed genuinely shocked and concerned at your state. "Oh, my daughter!"

“Call a doctor! Please!” Your father’s fake concern is now turning into reality when he put his fingers on your pulse that seems to slow down its beat and weakened in process. He didn’t mean nor attempt to murder his own child — it was just part of the plan and you’re not even listening to his commands!

THIS IS NOT HIS FAULT.

His whole body shooked as he felt your slow hearbeat and it seems like the people around him weren’t helping as they stared. Is this Kamisato Ayato’s payback? But, you can’t die! He can’t afford to lose his favorite child — his most obedient and precious child.... the one he tormented and carved into perfection. It was you! You were his perfect daughter, you were everything he could ask for.

He tortured you perfectly, made you his perfect puppet of a daughter and have you satisfy his own desires, although you always refused to be touched, you’re always gonna pay for that unacceptable actions, anyway as he sends bolts of electricity to run through your body that travels in every pits of your brain and have you gasping and hallucinating.

That created the other you.

You are an only child.

You are his only child.

Yet, at the sudden burst of emotions and raging vision, you created another version of yourself; a version of your father’s desires.

A version of a person you doesn’t want you to be.

THIS IS ALL HIS FAULT.

“CYNO!” He called him as the said man hurriedly run through the scene, already sweating at the sight of your paling skin and bluish lips. He slightly push your father away to carry you, hooking his arms on the back of your shoulder and knees as he keep you close, your body slowly turning cold and his heart beats fast when he realized.

He’s not dumb, nor into oblivion. He knew you too well than you knew yourself.

Yet, once again, he failed to save you.

In the midst of running outside the Kamisato estate, he could feel the Yashiro Commissioner following behind his fast pace — hearing a faint plead in the scorching cold wind as it reaches his ears;

“My Lady, please, stay with me.”

“She’s an only child,” Cyno blurted out as soon as the doctor leaves the room, leaving him and Ayato in an awkwards silence. Cyno’s eyes landed on your unconscious state, delectable sighing at the sight of your calm face that, although it’s calm, he can’t help but to worry that you might not be able to wake up anymore — or your nightmares will successfully haunt you in your sleep. “She’s been assaulted by her father after his wife died. Maybe, because Young Lady really look like her mother..... or maybe, it’s just the way of how he show his love to his daughter. Nevertheless, it was disturbing and disgusting. And, I did nothing but to only hear her cries as she refused to see me after it was ended,”

“Both of you share the same similary in life; the women who gave you this birth of life were killed by the same man. Maybe, that’s why she asked for assistance, even though it will also betray herself as a daughter to her father.”

Ayato stared at him, examining the way he looks at you with admiration amd hope glimmering in his eyes — it makes his stomach churned and his chest tight. Yet, he can’t lift a finger on the moment as Cyno exclaimed the truth and the fact that both of your mothers had been killed by the only man he despises, and the man that you called father.

You were so nice, so pure, too good in this world as he realized that you can easily escape by your father’s grasp with the help of this man in front of him. But, you didn’t — only because it was your personal matters and the General is your employee. Those standard has been engraved in your mind, tattooed in your heart.

That’s one of the reason why Ayato is in love with you.

He’s been mindlessly awaiting for your return to his life after ten years — where back when he’s young, he met you.

It was you again.

The young woman clad in slacks and button-up, longsleeve, white shirt that compliments your sharp aura, coat resting briefly on your shoulder as your stature is as elegant. He’s been seeing you at the same spot for a while now — a spot in the busy city of Inazuma where you can see the view of a lake and koi fishes swimming in the clear water.

He’s been enticed at the look on your glowing face as though it was your first time here. Well, maybe it is by the way you wore differently and obviously from a first class family. His own self were to keep coming back at this time of the night just to watch you from afar.

He staggers a little closer to where you are standing, yet it still far away as you seems in a deep thought, too deep that you didn’t bother to look at him when he finally approaches you — this time, you have a dark fedora hat that hid your face away from his vision, but he can stil see the shape of your nose and lips on his view.

“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” He spoke, rather than a greetings. He’s stunned by his sudden statement, he wasn’t suppose to say that! It was clearly a figure of speech for a confession of love.

And, you were aware of it.

He saw how your lips quirked up in a slight smirk and he felt embarrased, flushed pink as he internally scream to himself.

“Indeed, another peaceful night in the city.” You answered and his heart begins to rumble on his chest when he finally got to hear your voice — it was soothing on his ears as you spoke in a smooth voice, almost a little breathless as you puffed a breath. You seems deep in your own thoughts as he leaned on the railings, you still didn’t caught a glimpse of the stranger talking to you, but you took a glimpse of hands covered in dark gloves.

“Inazuma is a beautiful city, not to bribe since I am raised here, but it truly is.” His voice is laced with a hint of playfulness as the atmosphere turned comfortable enough, even though you still hadn’t take any glance of him.

“Yes, I can totally see it. This city is not only the beautiful one here; even the people too,” He’s quite caught off guard by your statement as he glance at you, seeing as how you’re now peeking to take a look at him under your fedora as he took a sharp, surprised breath when he finally had the chance to take a look at your eyes — glimmering under the moonlight as your lips looks lucious painted with chapstick, your eyelashes were fluttered just enough to let him know what you really meant behind those words as his face flushed with a hint of embarassment and admiration. “Truly, you were stunned with my words, Mister. Or is it because you’ve finally managed to caught my attention?”

“Well, I certainly did caught your attention, but you managed to overcharmed me with my antics. I never knew you were such a smooth talker.” You chuckled at his reply. He was clearly stunned as he rambled with his words, clearly flustered.

“I’ll thank you for that compliment, Mister. It seems like, you are very familiar with this city, yes?” You continue the conversation, and Ayato were happy to talk as much when you seemed interested to make conversation with him — finally, he could hear your voice as his lavender eyes never left you. He’s awestruck, looking at the very scenery in front of him in adoration.

He can’t believe, he had been pining over you for how long it takes that he’s willing to do anything just to cross your path again, just to see your pretty face again. It’s been a decade, a whole ten years he wasted just to put up a courage and reach you out with his own hand. Everything is now coming in place, yet he knew you still needed time to recollect things. He can’t come reaching for you that easy..... as of now, you are emotionally broken and physically exhausted. But, maybe this is the time where he could take care of you now, like a wife.

His wife.

That sounds.... so right.

And, later on, he hopes you will be able to feel the same.

“That’s why, I beg you,” Cyno’s words snapped him out of his thoughts as he glance at the white haired man that has been staring at you. “Please, be patient and take care of her.”

“Oh, you’re awake.”

It’s a surprise for the younger Kamisato to see you sitting on the bed. It’s been a month of being bedridden and unconscious, whenever her older brother’s not around, Ayaka will be the one waiting for you to wake up.

She’s the witness of her brother’s longing for you — as he described you as a quite daring lady with an attitude, right now, you were inna complete silent as you stared at the young lady with the same lavender eyes of her own brother, leaving you quite shakened at the fact that every memories before you’ve became unconscious coming back like a tidal waves crashing on the shore. It makes you quite dizzy as your hand came contact with the tip of your lips and Ayaka had stared at you knowingly.

“He’s been waiting for your wake. How are you feeling, Lady?” She approached you gently and surely, sitting at the edge of the bed on your side. “Here, have a glass of water.”

She reached to the bedside where a small table were aligned, reaching for the newly poured glass of water as you accepted the kind offer of the young lady, sipping on the lukewarm water as you sighed.

“Are you going to marry my brother?” Her question caught you off guard as you choked on the water, coughing a little as you stared at her in bewilderedment. Marry? Him? Thinking about everything that had happened between the Kamisato and your family is all and messy, and being tied up or worse, being married with the man you want to love and loathed with your life at the same time makes you want to run away.

“I think, you’ve got the wrong idea here, Young Lady,” You replied with a stern voice, eyeing the young lady intently. “I am an enemy and a threat in your family.”

“He didn’t thought of you that way.” She immediately answered and you sighed frustratedly.

“Clearly, he’s making a gain out of this.” You shook your head, flipping the blanket out of your way as you stood up, fumbling slightly and Ayaka slightly panicked at the sight — she already figures out that you’ll run away again as you put on your shoes that was on the side of the bed, putting all your strength to stand up and the young lady stood on your way.

“I don’t blame you for my mother’s death so, is he, so stop making everything is your fault. If he will ever blame you at something, maybe it was because you keep running away from him.”

“Why is he in love with me in the first place? We’ve barely know each other, and on top of that —”

“There’s no thousands of reasons for someone to be in love and this is not the first you saw each other, Lady Y/N. Please, remember my brother and, maybe you’ll consider. He loves you dearly.” She reached for your hand — it felt surprisingly warm and you stared at the pen she gave you and you vaugely realized what it meant.

You heave a sigh as you stood outside of his office — Ayaka had told you that Ayato is not on the mansion as he travels for a while without knowing the reasons, yet she told you he kept his office open even though he never left his office room unlocked.

You reached for the doorknob, twisting your wrist as you enter the familiar room — a sense of deja vu had hit you when you remembered what happened in this very room, on the spot where his table and chair is located.

A surge of warm sensation hit you when you remembered how his lips felt on yours and you tried to shake the thoughts out of your head as you arrived in front of his table.

Ayaka told you a certain file that Ayato prepared for you, and you already have an idea of what is it, but still, a surge of anxiousness hit you when you found it on the cabinet of his table.

“This.....” Your voice trailed as you stared at the paper, reading the entire file with trembling hands as your eyes landed on the pen on your hold. Ayaka is not forcing you to sign the paper that will tied you to her older brother for a lifetime. You eyed the paper hesitantly before you decided to sit on the chair.

“How absurd,” You whispered to yourself as you clench your fist. “You really think I would sign this?”

Ayato had arrived in his estate where the moon is already at its domain, it’s striking on the dark sky brightly as it illuminates in the room on his bed, where a familiar figure sitting on the edge. He halts when he closed the door.

You huffed. You’ve been waiting for him the whole night and he stands there, too stunned at the conscious sight of you. You gritted your teeth in annoyance before you stood up as you marched towards him.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Commissioner.” Your voice sounds harsh as he snapped out of his thoughts and his eyes landed on your form, wearing a white robe without nothing underneath. Your eyes looks dark and enriching as you pull him by his collar, slamming your lips to his as you wrap your arms around his neck to cage him close to you, the sound that escapes his lips only urge you.

His hands lands on your hips, his resistance to push you away disappeared when your hands started to roam around his body — to his chest where you push him slightly around as he landed a little forceful to the bed where it creaks loudly on the silence of the night. Ayato sighed in your mouth when he tasted the bitterness of the alcohol on your tounge — he hesitates to touch you when he smell the alcohol mixed with your intoxicating scent, but all of his hesitations merely disappered when your hands fumbled on his kimono, removing his upper clothes as you continue to kiss him; all tounge and teeth grazing on his lips and tounge as his grip on you tightened when your hips started to move on his lap.

His breathing is in unsteady rhythm when you finally remove his upper clothes, his other hand landed on the bed to steady himself with your harsh kiss. Your arms are yet to wrapped around his neck again, nails grazing on his back as he unexpectedly moans in your mouth. You finally let him breathe for a moment, only to reconnect your lips on his jaw, the smoothness of his skin were velvet on your lips as your harsh mouth marks his skin — painting him with your feverish series of kisses, teeth and tounge until your satisfied.

You slightly move away from him, admiring the art you made on his skin that was surely hard to cover for days. His lavender eyes were alluring under the moonlight — the only source of light in his dark room; you were no exception — you look heavenly on his gaze, the robe on your body had slipped on your shoulder enough to let him have a peak of your cleavage that is yet to be explored. But, your patience waiting for him all night is thin.

“My Lady? What’s the matter?” He asks you as you kissed your teeth together in annoyance. “This..... are you sure about this? We should probably let you sober for a moment —”

“I’m not drunk!” You raised your voice, brushing your hair away from your face as you gripped on his shoulder for support.

“I only drink two glass, Commissioner. If you won’t take me right here and now, I’ll kill you instead.” You huffed as you reach for his hand on your hips, guiding it on the crook of your neck as you sighed at the feeling of his large hand, he brushed his thumb over your skin as he pulls you again for a seething kiss — softer and slower this time unlike your previous pace. You mewl on his mouth when his hand brushed on your chest, cupping one mound on his warm hand as his thumb brushes on your nipple — the robe wrapped around your body had dropped all the way down.

You curse under your breath when his hand started to roam around your body, mapping every part that is making you twitch and mewl on his lap. His hand wandered on your thigh, caressing the skin before his hand brushes between your thighs and you gasped, eyes shooting open as you slightly pushed him away from your lips.

You hummed when his fingers started to caress between your thighs as he coats his fingers with your essence. You throw your head back as he drinks at the sight of your figure shaking on top of him — all bare and ready for him to take you. He eyed you with the same burning desire when your eyes landed on him as you grind down on his fingers before he let one finger slipped in, relishing at the warmth and how tight it convulsed on his digit — you moaned, pulling him closer to your chest as you buried your face on his neck, making a series of bluish puple marks as you heavily sigh against his skin.

“Ayato...” A mumble of his name as you call for him. He could feel the heat bubbling on his chest straight on his restraining cock confines still on his pants. He started to move his finger inside you, grinding on that certain spot he subconsciously found that has you panting and moaning as you muffled your voice on his shoulder where you bite and suckle on the skin. He slipped in another finger and you let out a broken moan, nails digging on his skin.

“Ah —! I’m close.” You could feel the coil tightening on the pits of your stomach, bubbling on the sensation of his two fingers scissoring you open and he felt you tightening on his digits, soaking his fingers with your essence — just a little more, and you’re there — not until he pulled his fingers out and you whined, tears pricked your eyes when the sensation disappeared momentarily as your body shake on top of him.

“Y-You bastard! I was close!” You sttuters in complain.

“As much as I want to pleasure you, I am losing my patience here, sweetheart.” He replied and you huffed, fumbling on his pants. He distract you, pulling you in a kiss as he sighed in your mouth when he’s finally free from his pants, the cold air contrasting with the warm feeling of your body as he hikes your hips up, his other hand holding his cock as he lined up with your entrance. You bit on his lips when the head catches on your clit, before he tease his way on your entrance, the hand on your hip guides you down and you moaned at the stretch, the first inch of his cock making its way inside you.

The burning sensation hurts so good as you push your way down until you can’t anymore. You push him down until he layed on the bed, propping his elbows in, so he could see you. He’s not even halfway inside, but you could feel your legs shake at his above average size — maybe, Ayato could’ve open you properly with his fingers when you seemed to struggle to take him all in. He eyed the way you’re trembling on top of him, you were dripping, though, it’s not enough to take him all.

“Slow down, sweetheart,” His other hand reached over to the both of your hands as he put it down on his chest and the other hand intertwining with yours. Your heart pounds on your chest at the gesture when he squeezes your hand. Something inside of you bubbling at the sensation of his cock and the way he looks at you; it was daring and full of passion as his lavender eyes never left your figure, he sits upright as his other arm wrapped around you to keep you still. “You can take me. I know you can do it.”

You hissed. You clearly isn’t used in this kind of treatment. You quite expected that maybe, if you were to seduce him tonight, he will force his way to you — but, your expectations differ when he let you take his fingers first even though, he edge you to climax. You were used having someone forcing you in this kind of activity.

“S-Shut up.” You answered and he grins, placing a chaste kiss on your lips, whispering praises on your ears when you took another bunch of inch inside of you.

It felt never-ending as you felt full now he’s halfway as he eyed on your lower stomach, pressing on the bulge and you yelp. You could feel the denied orgasm coming back to you in a surge when your ass finally came contact on his thighs, your voice were muffled by your hand as you bit down at the feeling.

You could feel, you could see him there, inside of you, buried inside to the hilt as the blunt head of his cock kissed on your cervix — the thickness and stretch of him is enough to touch the certain spot inside of you that had you crumbling in a bliss of oblivion as you came, writhing and grinding down om his more as he watched you fumble in a beautiful mess on top of him. He moaned, relishing at the feeling of your walls tightening and convulsing as he chokes at the sensation. You’re shaking and thighs trembling as you finally came down on your high, panting loudly as your mouth agape.

“Ah — wait, Ayato —!”

He gripped on your hips when you tried to move. “I told you, I could wait. Don’t force yourself, sweetheart.”

“Stop boasting about how big you are!” You replied in annoyance as you huffed, gripping on his shoulders for support. “Let me — l-let me move, bastard.”

He grins again, pecking on your lips before his grip on your hips loosened a little and you wrapped your arms around his neck, pressing your chest on him as he started to mark your ches, neck, and jaw with his lips as he sighed when you started to move slowly — up and down as you mewl at the feeling of his cock brushing on every and very spots inside you as you scratch your nails on his skin.

The hand on your hips guide you up and down as you created a steady rhythm — the sound of your bodies making contact filled the room as his breaths became foggy and unrelenting, eyeing the way your eyes rolled on the back of your head when your pace started to move faster until he can’t hold back his voice anymore.

“Y/N,” He moans your name and he felt your body shivered on his touch. “Let me, sweetheart.”

He whispered on your lips and you open your eyes in confusion as you halted, panting hardly and you yelped when he flipped you, your back comes contact with the soft sheets of his bed without pulling out entirely inside of you, your legs instinctly wrapped around his waist.

“Wait —! Still sensitive... Ayato —!” You tried to push him away by his chest as he pushed his light blue hair away from his face and momentarily stared at his stature — seeing him all naked in glory as the moonlight reflects on his panting figure.

“You can take it, right?” His nose graze on your cheek as he placed a kiss there, slowly and surely, he’s pushing all of him again inside you, eyeing your shaking figure and the erotic expression written on your face; your eyes are cloudy and widening, swollen lips parting, series of moans and his name falling on your lips as he pulls back to leave the tip inside just to thrust back again, angling his hips a little higher as he hits that spot.

His pace were slow, yet his thrusts were calculated and hard as his hips snap on the back of your thighs — he never goes faster as he make love with you slowly and deeply until you were coming again and again, coating his cock with your essence as he tried to muffle your moans with the help of his lips, drowning your sounds of pleasure on his mouth when you started to get louder than he expected — he’s no exception too as he comes, painting your walls white, filling you to the brim as he moans and whimpers on your lips.

“You can take more?” His question doesn’t sound interrogative even when his hips started to move again as your eyes filled with tears of pleasure and joy that you realized — the walls you built for him came crashing down as he make love to you — pushing your body to your limits with his deep, yet still slow thrusts until you were a moaning mess, marking each other all im while as he whispered those words that has your heart pounding on your chest.

“I love you.”

You bit back the urge to cry your heart out, feeling that swirling on your chest and the clench of your heart as you rethinks your choice; you signed on the marriage paper — you don’t regret that part, you won’t regret being his bride, his wife, and the future child that will grow after tonight — what you regret is your final decision that surging in your mind, the decision that will surely breaks him — because right now, the thought of being in love frightened you,the thought of finally having something to live to is making you crumble in the dark. But, you know he will understand you — you know he’ll wait until you’re finally ready. Right now, you were in the midst of chaos, right now, you will surely break his heart.

His runaway bride.

Disclaimer; This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved 2022 © ddostoyevskyy. Do not repost without permission or plagiarized.

[originsofevil]

Intro <3 !

I go by Michelangelo or any variation of that

(usually michael/mikey but names dont mean much to me)

but i recently found out that i'm the host of a system so if any tags are signed off with a different name thats why

dont care too much abt pronouns but i typically use he/him, ve/vir, and xe/xir/xem. mix it up, get creative. typically dont use she/her but ynever know

body is 21, we're an aries if u wanna make any judgement off of that, autistic + adhd if that wasnt obvious

i do post occasional nfsw/suggestive content, never anything too crazy but if youre a minor id prefer if you didnt interact with those posts, i have no way of enforcing this as i dont check my notifs unless theres tags but i am a full adult, i do pay rent and bills and taxes. on that topic i probably wont follow you if youre under like. 16/17ish. no hard feelings i just am an adult and im not around kids very much as the 2nd youngest of 4 so. if youre under 16 dont do drugs stay in school all that good stuff. i love you, go to bed on time. i've been on this website since i was 11 and it shows. dont be me.

dms are always open ! i'm not amazing at holding a conversation unless its abt my current hyperfixation (rn its zelda/lu) but i love to yap. if you follow me and we're not mutuals dm/ask me and ill follow back! I don't rly pay attention to my followers so i typically don't follow ppl unless theyre consistently posting abt one of my interests and i remember to

I talk in the tags a LOT feel free to <- prev or rb addressing my tags but i typically assume no one will read them all the way through. i'm writing whole essays. im oversharing. call op a college admissions office bc I'm telling my whole life story. if my tags make you uncomfortable on your post please let me know and i will apologize/delete them if you wish. i dont have a concept of tmi and tend to misread/miss social cues/the vibes so i apologize if i misstep

please let me know if i reblog any stolen artwork/ai generated anything/ etc

‼️‼️i am not spoiler free for anything (even if i myself havent seen the content) i dont have any sort of tagging system ‼️

list of my active fandoms! old hyperfixations tend to creep up on me so this is not complete

- bungo stray dogs (bsd beast fans pls follow me i adore beast)

- legend of zelda (all games + lu/links meet aus)(legend fans pspspsp)

- the witcher (mainly the show but i got attached to a character thats not even actually in any of the games. aiden i love you.)

- cars (2006, 2011, 2017)(yes entirely unironically)

- Voltron legendary defender. (again. yes. unironically.)

- star wars (mainly the main series and animation since i havent read thr or played the games)

- jujutsu kaisen (2nd years stan)

- the magnus archives (gerry delano fans i love you)

- percy jackson (mainly the books and musical, i dont care for the show much but i adore the actors)

- gravity falls ! (i actually just got into this like, last month. binged the whole series in like a week at age 21.)

- my hero academia (my hs best friend made me watch s1 and i got attached to aizawa hawks and the todorokis sorry)(im convinced the todorokis were based on my family. im literally natsuo. dont ask abt dabi unless u think you're prepared)

Non Fandom Interests

- I write ! once i start uploading ill link my ao3 here but its rough out here (microsoft word)

- I draw ! i mightve posted my art a few times but as i mentioned i dont have any tagging system so maybe I'll make one for art or link another social at some point

- this mostly falls under loz but i love video games :3 i MOSTLY play loz but animal crossing, minecraft, and random silly da games ive collected over the years are my pride and joy. i want to play the witcher games but i have assassins creed black flag and im really bad at it. (i only have nintendo consoles (ds, 3ds, switch) rn but i want a decent pc at some point. the sims calls to me.

- Politics! my politics are very important to me as a leftist so if you're right wing we will not get along. if i find out that youre racist/homophobic/transphobic/a zionist (i am jewish)/sexist/etc i will probably block you. id say no hard feelings but i dint mean that.

I will probably update this as needed/whenever i remember to <3 ty if u read this and i love you have a great day

[patchworksoulstory]

hey me again haha, im rereading the second part now and papyrus was listing the stuff he had in his dimensional boxes but stopped in the middle and im curious about what everyone has in their boxes now lol you dont have to answer if itd take too long though

I did it! (Just, keep in mind, some of this may change in the future, this is what I think makes sense at the current moment. XD)

[Incoming Text Wall]

It'd definitely be an ever-changing answer, I think, but I can give you some typical things for most of the main characters:

Papyrus generally likes to have several spaghetti dishes on hand, as well as any extra bone projects or weapons he's working on, and a book of something he's currently interested in (often puzzles or cooking). He also likes to keep practical things in there as well in case someone needs help, like a sewing/patching kit, face paint/makeup, and as things move more onto the surface, he'll start keeping a human medical kit as well, just in case. Something to write on and with are both important. He also usually has an extra set of clothes for Sans, boots for himself, and then, later, an extra coat for Frisk when it's cold.

Sans, on the other hand, doesn't keep much in the box for a while. He was perpetually losing/not having phones for a long time and he can teleport, so most of his stuff is usually stuffed into his pockets, ribcage, or left in his room. However, over time, he might keep whatever he's reading in there, as well as some prank items like whoopie cushions, and a few repair items and drinks. He often carries some sort of book or magazine about a seemingly unusual topic, but it'll turn out it's either something that lends itself well to wordplay or a topic someone close to him is really interested in.

Undyne switches her stuff out depending on whether she's on patrol or not. Work Undyne has a lot of utilitarian stuff in case someone gets in trouble out in Waterfall, like ropes, healing items, plants that act as floatation devices, etc etc. However, because of the current state of her gauntlets, it's sort of hard for her to actually use the phone while wearing them, so she keeps the floatation plants on the top slots so she can just mash the screen to get them out easily in an emergency. Otherwise, she typically keeps some headphones for music, some manga, drinks, and some extra weapons in storage. She often has strange or interesting items from the dump that she thinks someone she knows would get use out of.

Alphys's phone has all kinds of gadgets inside, like stuff to reattune devices, a laptop, sometimes power crystals, a magic screwdriver, and pieces of interesting scrap. A lot of her main projects are all kept in her workspace and so is her collection of manga and anime, so unless she's currently reading/watching them, those'll be at home. She also keeps earphones with her, chips, soda, and, since she’s been travelling to Snowdin more frequently, sometimes a scarf and mittens with warming magic inside of them. She’s kind of a homebody, though, and doesn’t really go out all that much without other people, so she typically packs pretty specifically for every thing she goes to.

Toriel is still getting used to carrying a phone with her. She only carries some emergency supplies inside. Everyone keeps reminding her she can put big things in the phone but she still forgets to do it sometimes and just packs a bag.

Asgore typically keeps a bunch of candy, a full tea set, a tin of cookies, and a box or two of tea (usually one of Undyne’s) inside his phone. Other things he likes to carry, he stashes in his cloak instead when he’s all dressed up in his King regalia, which is normally what he would wear out and about. He’s a little old fashioned as well and usually likes to just carry things.

Asriel mostly keeps food in his phone, usually packaged snacks, sometimes baked goods. He also likes to keep a handheld gaming system, and eventually some crystals and some seeds for specific purposes. Other than that, it changes a lot so its tough to nail down. 

Frisk likes to keep a couple things close, usually practical stuff or things that can be useful for puzzles: a notepad or small journal, sometimes a sturdy stick, something with a narrow end like a screwdriver or a metal nail-file (or Papyrus’s utility knife), and the old CD player and headphones that she got from Undyne. A magic book or two will definitely join those regular things. She sometimes ends up collecting things that she finds that could be useful for putting other things together. She also usually carries some extra food, often fruit or canned tea, and sometimes also has a handheld gaming system like Asriel does. She used to always keep the scarf Papyrus made her in there when she wasn’t using it, but she gave it away. This will probably be replaced at some point.

Gaster just got a phone with a box and hasn’t used it much yet, chances are it’ll just be filled to the brim with books.

A few more magic tools will probably join everyone’s regular items in the future. And, of course, everyone can keep their gold in there easily, though that doesn’t take up the same kind of item slot or anything. :3 

[felikatze]

bashing my head against a wall. i could fix binding blade's story. i could. and i am going to ramble about it and you can't stop me.

so long. this is so long.

Feli special usual features:

- tangents

- no apparent structure

- probably many typos

- getting emotional over the 2 moments i will actually deign to call well written

- i might as well just write fanfic at this point

- if you're me you understand

- actually dont even look at this. dont look at me.

first off one thing i actually really like about it compared to other FE games. everything, every location or name that ever gets mentioned, also shows up. every country can be visited and has more than one representative in the cast. additionally, you always know who to recruit people with if you paid attention to dialogue.

playing blazing blade rn and the augury really clutches it for that game. but in binding blade? the only characters i had to look up how to recruit were karel and gonzales. that's it. somebody's trapped or also fighting your enemy? talkto them with roy. anybody else? oh look, it's the brother clarine mentioned! that's the girl noah was hanging out with! that's sue's grandpa! character relations are clear and evident right from the introduction.

in short, the story is incredibly cohesive.

...doesn't stop it from being narratively weak though.

i've seen suggestions for changing who the main character is, and yeah, that works. the first suggestion is always lilina, which would work incredibly well. she fits more typically into the mold of FE lords, and hector's death gives her a more concise motivation for revenge against bern and zephiel. another suggestion i've seen is Fae, since she's the focus of the dragon conflict, and binding blade 100% undervalues her narrative potential (see: my complaint that she doesn't even get unique battle quotes against jahn)

(side note: for how cohesive the story is, jahn kinda spawns out of nowhere. like, he's the only guy not mentioned beforehand somewhere. wack.)

but the story could work with roy, i think.

so there's this part with roy and guinivere, when roy gets the binding blade. he asks if anyone could've pulled it, and she says yes. anyone could've pulled it with the fire emblem, but what matters now is that it's roy specifically who does so.

roy doesn't have anything to do with the conflict at large. he doesn't. the scouring? well, lilina's the descendant of one of the eight heroes. etruria and bern? elffin is actually the prince who faked his death, and he's the one percival and douglas care about. dragons? well, fae's the last divine dragon besides idunn.

but i think if you just like. made that the point. like echoes, except instead of undercutting your everyman protag by having him be a secret prince, he just stays.. some guy.

some guy who was in the wrong place at the right time, and it all just kinda spitballs until he's leading the etrurian army. ike is a protag who does this well, i think. it's just a job for him. and once he's done and paid, he leaves to do the next thing.

it's like. roy is kinda bland. but he doesn't have to be. this is ABSOLUTELY me honing in on minor character details because dissecting bland protags is a personal hobby of mine, but, dude was studying to be a bureaucrat. land management and shit. he's brains over brawn (if his stats didn't already show that). fucking string bean of a unit.

he is ardently chill about everything in the plot, but what if instead it like.. started to actually weigh on him. he struggles to live up to all the expectations suddenly on him, when all his life he just expected to be head of the second most important house of a minor nation. now there's un-dead princes and vengeful kings and dragons running about- and he has to unravel all these things as quick as he can to keep himself and his home safe.

what if he figured out that elffin is etruria's prince and had to weigh telling the three generals to gain their support, or potentially feeding an ally to the wolves? what kind of decision is dismantling the government of the nation you're supposed to be helping?

he just Does The Right Thing, Unquestionably, and that's it.

as for the dragons, introduce jahn earlier, by god. or, find some other way to exposition dump everything about idunn. hell, maybe fae has heard of idunn before, of a divine dragon who didn't make it to arcadia, and roy slowly reveils the horrifying truth of the demon dragon with what snippets he hears from bern's soldiers. maybe have an earlier fight with idunn actually staying on the field as a mysterious figure. anything. i bet you could just cut out jahn altogether if you did that.

like, make roy and everyman and commit to the bit. he wasn't born to step into hartmut's legacy. he just wanted to save his dad from a random attack. but he chose to do it anyway.

and one moment i do really like. from the atrocious exposition dumb of ch24. is when jahn says the binding blade conforms to its user's will, and that's how hartmut spared idunn, i could feel it just click for roy. in that moment, he knew how to save idunn. and he knew he would save idunn long before that.

play into the theme of legacies. hartmut's legacy is, on the surface, of the man who killed the demon dragon. a legacy of violence that roy finds himself in. but, beneath that, it was a legacy of kindness. of only as much blood as need be, and not a drop more.

put this against zephiel. he's like. i dont know how to phrase this. but the opposite of what the previous paragraph is. zephiel has a gigantic legacy as crown prince of an empire, but it's one that's denied to him out of petty jealousy by his father. i think his motivation is actually pretty compelling; he's lost faith in humanity. so he claims his birthright through murder, and uses it to end all legacies to ever exist. whereas the legacy roy obtains is kindness cloaked in violence, zephiel's is violence cloaked in kindness. by trying to end all conflict, he will only create an empty world. he doesnt really care about the dragons, either; it's idunn's soulless war dragons that are his ideal, not fellow creatures of ego like jahn.

and guinivere. god. the potential. zephiel has become to her what his father has become to him. it's again, legacy. zephiel's father broke his faith in humanity, and he has broken guinivere's. she is an ardent pacifist until the end.

....until she gives roy the tool he needs to kill her brother, that is. she first steals the fire emblem in the hope it will force a peaceful resolution. and she gives up. not in humanity. just in her brother.

GOD. THE TRAGEDY OF IT ALL?? in my head it could be so good. it's again just all cycles of violence and kindness. she's trying so so hard to break violence with kindness but it doesn't work. but she chooses to see the good in humanity despite it all. she really embodies that philosophy that roy brings up in his speech against zephiel. it may be humans who do wrong, but it's humans who stop them. we're all just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over, but we're always going to try to do better, and that's what matters. history isn't moving upward. just forwards. but we're trying. hartmut tried, and he didn't quite succeed; just prolonged it. but hartmut was just some guy who tried to save idunn, and that vain attempt was what allowed her to be saved for real.

(clears throat)

OTHER CHARACTERS!

so. since this hypothetical binding blade remake would cater to me specifically.

first of all, replace merlinus with lilina. binding blade's story with her is really hampered by the fact that lilina is killable.

only unkillable characters (i.e roy), characters who 'retreat' instead of dying (elffin, merlinus) or NPCs (Guinivere) are allowed to have narrative importance for more than their intro chapter and relevant gaidens. this blows.

make lilina the deuteragonist. there's already a clear trajectory for her; she calls herself a warrior, she says she must stay strong in the face of adversity, she cannot allow herself to cry now, but still she fiercely believes in the good of others. she's an incredibly good judge of character, and chooses to bet her life on kindness, as seen in how she can recruit both gonzales and garret.

she's, as brought up occasionally already, a much more archetypical FE lord, with a weighty legacy and a dead dad. it would be fun if she just bottles everything up and it crushes her. maybe she has her dad's temper and is trying to be a Proper Marquess in conduct. she n roy can find solidarity in fellow imposter syndrome. they'd both believe they're not good enough, think the other is so much better, only to end up as each other's biggest supporter.

and. listen. the lilina ogier support haunts me. and it gives a terrifying opportunity. like choosing your legacy and not being bound by blood but by shared conviction?

hey. what if lilina was adopted.

i dont know where exactly i'd put a reveal like this. second half of the game, surely. how would she find out? who knows. i don't. i'm just rambling about random points of potential. maybe she encounters someone in the enemy army who fought hector; murdock, maybe? and then it's pointed out how odd it is for hector to have a daughter when he died a bachelor. reverse alm.

and then she'd remember something incredibly distant, long buried as unimportant; of being young and alone and abandoned and seeing a city for the first time.

it would be crushhhingggg for her, since she relied so much on "blood of a warrior" as a crutch. BUT THEN! thematic coherence. it doesn't matter whether she's of his blood or not; there's no doubt in anyone's mind that she's hector's daughter, through and through. and she chooses to keep that legacy, to believe herself worthy of it. she didn't get so far by being roland's descendant; she did it on her own strength, her own smarts, her own merits. hector could've picked anyone off the streets, but it happened to be her, and that's what matters. the paths life offers are infinite, but we are here, and these are our choices.

and that's what i'd do for lilina! yay!

if it wasn't difficult to figure out logistically considering theme-ing and pulling an alm again i would also ABSOLUTELY make ninian!roy canon since blazing blade pushes elinini anyway. yeah i talked about the unimportance of blood but also. manakete roy is REALLY fucking funny.

"dragons still exist?" listen to me boy you are for real a dragon asking this.

also fun recontextual reading of his desire to learn all he can about dragons to learn more about himself since he would've thought his mother was the last dragon in elibe, which would've given it a more tragic slant. and additionally his very existence would be proof that dragons and humans can live in peace, which feels poignant. imo you could still push the everyman angle since ice dragons are largely irrelevant to anything happening with the demon dragon, and all the shenanigans nergal pulled had no effect on binding blade's plot outside of worsening zephiel's already bad relationship with his dad.

it's also just so so so funny to me. on god. it really is.

also allows for solidarity moments i.e sophia as part-dragon people. and also a reason for him to be invested in the dragon plot. and maybe a motivation for him to want to save idunn too. and the sheer irony of wielding a dragon-slaying weapon.

feli is this hypocrisy. maybe a little bit. But Also you can still push thematically. It Just So Happened that roy pulled the binding blade. there are dragons already living in harmony with humans. sophia may well have been the one to lead instead. she just happened not to be.

it also extends the just some guy-ness to eliwood i guess. he kind of is. to me. a gentleman, maybe. a righteous guy. but not the most important guy ever.

anyway! yeah! this was my word vomit about binding blade!

don't let me know what you think! i don't want to hear it because i am doing this to exorcise thoughts from my brain! thank you for not reading! bye!

[hohoz]

The ones that suffer the most

I wanted to talk about this for a long time.

I’m a Resident evil addicted, I finished almost every RE game released and I must say that Capcom made some poor choices regarding Jill and Chris, they are EASILY the most mistreated characters in RE Franchise. 

But let’s explain why is that: 

Jill and Chris are survivors, they had to survive in a mansion with a lot of puzzles and zombies, while looking for items that could help them to progress and find a way to reach Brad. 

When they arrive at STARS Office, they are revolted that Umbrella did all that under their noses and innocents were dying because of that and they explained EVERYTHING in a report - but Irons made that go away. 

In the ORIGINAL RE3 we had this special file (Jill’s Diary) 

August 7th Two weeks have passed since that day. My wounds have been healed, but I just can't forget it. For most people, it's history now. But for me, whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly. Zombies eating people's flesh and the screams of my teammates dying. No, the wounds in my heart are not healed yet...

August 13th Chris has been causing a lot of trouble recently. What's with him? He seldom talks to the other police members and is constantly irritated. The other day, he punched Elran of the Boy's Crime department just for accidentally splashing Chris's face with coffee. I immediately stopped Chris, but when he saw me he just gave me a wink and walked away. I wonder what happened to him...

August 15th Midnight. Chris, who has been on a leave of absence for a "vacation," called me so I visited his apartment. As soon as I walked into his room, he showed me a couple of pieces of paper. They were part of a virus research report entitled as simply as "G". Then Chris told me that, "The nightmare still continues." He went on to say that, "It's not over yet." Ever since that day, he has been fighting all by himself without rest, without even telling me.

August 24th Chris left the town today to go to Europe. Barry told me that he would send his family to Canada and then he would follow Chris. I decided to remain in Raccoon City for a while because I know that the research facility in this city will be very important to this entire case. In a month or so, I'll be joining with them somewhere in Europe. That's when my real battle begins...

For some weird reason this file isn’t available in RE3 Remake. 

But ok, here we see that Chris was doing some investigation - in the RE2RMK  you could see this letter that Chris left in a way that normal people wouldn't understand - the only thing that Claire says is that “doesnt look like him” but how normies would understand what Chris is like is he is not well represented in media ??????????????????

And Jill had all the detective work in her wall. 

So far so good - we understand the basics about them - they are Special police force, the elite, they had a traumatic experience and they survived to tell the story. 

Some problems until now:

Jill had a MAJOR personality change in RE3 RMK- I honestly like most of that, she is a badass in the originals and she is a badass in the rmk but I still dislike the fact that she swears all the time (specially because in RE1, RE Rev, RE5 she doesn't do that) 

We can tell a lot about her personality just looking at her room, but I still miss some stuff (I had expectations - so this is not a real problem. but still) like a Vinyl player (since she is probably into classical music), some letters from her father so new players can understand her origin and why is she so good in lockpicking and more about her dog (she had a pic in the original that could’ve been her boyfriend but it was replaced by a dog in RE2 rmk but in RE3 Rmk there in no dog) 

Okay - after you finish the game the only thing we see is this: 

In my opinion this is Chris since he is always associated with Green colors while Jill is associated with blue. 

So my speculation here is that she found him while in the original we had this: 

This is not a major chance but still is important (lore of course - duh) but the problem here is that while Jill is looking for him - Code Veronica is happening. 

So I can only assume two things, they did not show him because they DON’T HAVE A FACE FOR HIM or I am wrong and that is Jill, but if that is Jill so why there is no decent epilogue like the original ? 

Okay, now we are arriving in the real trouble area

I will do RE5 first and the Wii and Rev1 (even tho those two comes first in the lore) 

RESIDENT EVIL 5 

So before the game was release we had some propaganda, including this: 

So have in mind that Jill was dead, I thought that she died and RE5 would explain that shit. 

But in the beginning we see that Chris is looking for her and have in mind that Chris HAD A MAJOR CHANCE IN HIS APPEARANCE, and I’m not talking about his muscles. 

I will not address Chris in CV since he was good in that game but I the team that made CV also made the original, it had CONSISTENCE. 

Here we have Chris, he’s THE classical american soldier protagonist from Hollywood in the 80′s/90′s and he had some omage to TOPGUN

He also shares some traits with his sister

A major trait here is that HE HAS BLUE EYES, typical good looking soldier from US. 

and now let’s have a look at Chris in RE5...

Yeah... I still hate this face even tho I love his Character in this game, this ugly a** monkey looking mf and he had a lot of steroids

So we have some lore to him in RE5, Jill and Chris went to a mansion looking for Spencer (one of the fathers of Umbrella and the one that was behind project Wesker, he wanted to do this Virus so he could live forever, so RE has a good lore, it’s not just about zombies) but when they found him, he was dead and Wesker was by his side, in a fight Jill sacrificed herself to save Chris’s life. 

Chris started doing mission after mission because her body was never found, and he made a name for himself, he became a ‘legend’ inside BSAA and you can see that in the beginning of RE5.

The reason behind the muscles was probably to fight Wesker mano to mano but still is not well made, it really felt weird playing for the first time. 

So now we have a problem here, there is thing that you use in a narrative that is to make someone strong af powerless, and they did that to Jill. (a good example of this is in TWD- Ricky is a fucking legend and Negan made him powerless in the face of a event) 

Jill was used in a Boss fight and that is it... She is not in the game as a character, she is being manipulated and her whole design was changed, she looks like Nina from Tekken. WTF. - BTW, the fact that Wesker had mind control over her created 1000 fics of sex 

 So that is it, my main problem here isnt Jill itself, but it’s the fact that they used her character as a boss even tho she is the heroine, she never appears in RE lore again until some guy inside Capcom said “Well people are asking about Jill so let’s place a file in Rev2 saying that she is in rehab” 

The only time that she appears again is in a 3DS NINTENDO ONLY game, it felt that Capcom simply don’t care about her character. 

By the way Revelations 1 is a great game and was adaptable some years later for PC and consoles

But you think that this is bad, wait until we arrive at RESIDENT EVIL 6 

When I learned that Jill was not in RE6 I was mad... But after I played that game I said “thank you God” that game was bad, transformers kind of bad, it had bad writing, the lore was all over the place and Chris was the one that suffered the most in this game. 

He was responsible for the death of an entire squad, suffered amnesia and people still wanted him in the command 

THEY MADE HIM AN ALCOHOLIC 

The golden boy of BSAA reduced to THIS. 

By the way, the director said that HE WANTED TO KILL CHRIS IN THIS GAME to SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS - so if you liked Piers now that he died only because of that. 

So now let’s analyse what we know: 

The first 2 main characters are not well represented in media until RE6, they don’t know how to re introduce Jill in the games and Chris was reduced to a normal guy at a Russian bar;

But it gets worse... 

Capcom LOVE Leon, we know that. he is always the hero, he is the protagonist in almost every movie and he is always the cool guy so when he get’s a new model, he looks like this:

But When Chris get’s a new face he look like this: 

WHO DAFUQ ARE U, no offense to the model but he has NEGATIVE JAW LINE.

And still he doesn't look like Claire’s brother, there is no blue/green eyes and he looks younger that he was in 6 (and 6 still uses that ugly character model) 

But let’s go in the lore- we HAVE 0 info on Jill in RE6 / RE7 and no sight of her in RE8 

And speaking of which, they tried to make Chris the bad guy in the trailer so when we play we see “Ohhhh he was not the bad guy, that happened and that is why he did that” 

But still... 

If they are going to do that to his character don’t use this character, shit ! Do something with that Wesker’s son that made 0 sense in RE6 but leave Chris out of this - it really feels that they simply don’t know how to treat him right

And you may think that I may be complaining a lot because of his appearance

But this is him in RE8  

(to me this is some random dude from Russia) 

And this is him in RE:Verse (that is going to be release TOGETHER) 

So this tells me that they have 0 clue of how to handle his looks

Jill got RE3Rmk but it felt like a cheap game compared to RE2Rmk where the original RE3 was SO MUCH BETTER

And this is bad because there are so many new fans joining the fandom only to see 2 great characters suffering from poor director’s choices. 

I’m sorry about this rant, if you like Chris face and looks its okay, really, but dont tell me that Chris from 5/6/8 is the same from 1/CV and if you think im wrong about Jill its fine, but she is an amazing character that could have so much more impact in RE universe (I mean, she never even appeared in a RE movie - animations) 

But it’s sad to see so many characters that receive good representation in media and good games/lore while Jill get’s almost none and Chris is handled like random face guy. 

I was going to talk a little bit more about Rev 1 and RE Umbrella Chronicles but there is no need since Im mad right now and it seems that Capcom has 0 interest in making Code Veronica and Umbrella’s fall after that since their fav boy Leon need a rmk in RE4 even tho RE4 is not that old. 

Bonus:

Fun fact: Chris served in the Air force, so yeah, to me even Tom Cruise looks more like Chris than Chris from the games

[omegawolverine]

Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol

[shyrose57]

2nd part than.

8: (This ones longgggg) Their rooms all have the same beige (like brown mushroom color) walls and floors. As their not allowed to change that. But Watson has some bookshelves in his room along with a old adventurer cape that goes in front of his body and hangs to his ankles (Item-Ya Adventurer Cape is a perfect example. Idk the actual name for the kind of cape it is), some display cases featuring his strongest bows and arrows, along with a sword and axe, along with pictures of the group toghere and pictures from his travels on the walls, he has a single lone desk that is only used when designing new bows or arrows. Ran also has bookshelves, but his is bigger and takes up a whole wall, he also as a winter cape with fur on its shoulders hung up (he lived in a snow biome for a little while and made the cape himself), along with a single weapon case that features a lone damaged neitherite sword, he also has chests stacked along a wall filled with random stuff that he sometimes gives as gifts or uses to throw at people. Jackie has a few paintings and posters in his room, along with the only carpet in any bedroom (that he totally didnt steal from Grievous), a panting easel, he has a single display case in his room that displays the sword Porkius gave him for winning, theres also pictures of the group toghere and a small chest next to his bed filled with things that belongs to someone in the group. Grievous has a small bookshelf (one book is a naming book Watson jokingly gave him), a chest filled to the brim with blankets and pillows (cause for him comfort is a necessity), he also has a desk that he tends to fall asleep at when doing literally anything on it. Everyone also has a good sized wardrobe somewhere in their room that is filled with different outfits and w statue stands with either iron armour or empty. There is also a four-way-bunkbed in the living room/area, they typically use it when someone is having or had a very bad day and needs comfort, or when Jackie's separation anxiety is bad and needs to sleep with everyone nearby. 

Ran loves reading and sometimes gets mad when someone intrupts his reading. Watson loves designing new bows and arrows and just designing weapons in general (Grievous does too and helps him sometimes). Jackie likes to paint and has a interest in adventuring one day. They are well known but only in Subbin and surrounding cities. Though word does travel about them at times which can bring people to Subbin. They have 2 titles actually! First is used in typical matches, while the second is used in more formal or serious matches (like those for general). Ran: The Enderman, Partikel Tari (Dancing Particles, referencing how when he fights when serious its like he's dancing as he teleports around the field). Watson: The Archer, Multi (Referencing how he has more experience than anyone in the use of all kinds of weapons and can quickly adjust to situations). Grievous: Multi-Named, Unpredictable (referring to how he is by far the most unpredictable person in serious battles). Jackie: The Child, Diremehake (Underestimated, referring to how he gets underestimated a lot during any battle). They get recognized quite often and get called their stage names, when they dont want to deal with people recognizing them they often either yell at them to go away or just run away. 

9: They do all of the above! It depends on the match up (Jackie and Watson stay out of eachothers way mostly, Ran and Grievous make it one on one, and Ran and Jackie take them out quick). Oh the first time Ran threw Jackie was hailours. You could hear Watson screaming from the stands in fear and Jackie just head-butted the guy in the stomach. Then when Jackie recovered he just yelled for Ran to throw him again, and once again you could hear Watson screaming no and threats at them from the stands. Ran agreed and threw Jackie at the last person, who he just bear hugged as he hit and held them down. Then after the battle Watson smacked the two and chastised them.

10: At first he drops stuff and trips over his feet on a regular basis. But after about 3 weeks he fully regains his balance, and is able to finally walk without tripping at the start. While the attempts at bonding do work to get Ranbob and Cletus closer the two never get as close as the rest. Neither can really name what's stopping them from getting closer though. For the first week people need to constantly remind Ranbob to do all of those things. As he thinks the constant hunger, thirst, and tiredness is all normal when its not and their trying to get him to understand that. And while he eventually starts to do it himself, theres still some nights where he doesnt eat or drink or sleep. They just leave the two in the house, but later they do start to expand the house a bit to fit the new addition. He does not get his own place up, he just gives up after some time. He doesn't fall asleep out there to often thankfully, but since the house keeps falling on him he does get cuts and bruises quite often. He gets stuck in a rain storm only 2 times which isn't bad, but he does get semi-bad burns from them sadly that Benjamin has to sit him down for and have Charles distract him for long enough to wrap his wounds properly. And it only took Benjamin like 4 weeks before he finally got fed up and forced him inside and had him stay with them. He has dealt with a storm before when he was young! But it was when he was about 12 so its been a long while. 

11: He spends all of his free time glaring at them. And for the first few days whenever he sees someone from his group hanging around his brothers, he'll go over and pick em up and just carry them away. The fishermen worry for a bit that Ran may hurt them, but Watson assured them that Ran knows the two groups like eachother and wouldn't hurt them incase that could hurt his families feelings. 

12: Ranbob is extremely happy about potentially getting new members of his family! And eagerly tries to talk with them. But Ran is far less happy and actively avoids them (and drags his family away at times).

13: At the start they have no idea where their going. But when Grievous brings up about Rans damaged sword they decide to find a nether portal so they can find whats needed to repair his sword! And Watson decides on the way he can show them all the different biomes in the world, which Jackie is extremely excited for. 

14: If the fishermen get separated from Ranbob for too long he actively goes and searches for them. And refuses to stop until he finds them. When upset Ran loves to pick up members of his Haunting, though he doesnt do them often as he knows his Haunting doesn't like it when he does it to often. He and Ranbob also pick up blocks though as it's a comfort action and soothes them. Cuddles piles do happen! They happen more for Ranbob to comfort him after a nightmare or just a bad day, or when he basically relapses and wants to go back to Dream. But cuddle piles are more rare in Rans group, as cuddle piles only happen when anyone is doing really badly mentally or physically and just need comfort, or when they all just need some comfort. But their much more sentimental and have more meaning than Ranbobs groups. 

15: Oh definitely. I forget if I included it when I first introduced my Au. But soon after Ran escaped Mizu, he was hunted for his pearl and respawn ability. Though he killed the people hunting him. Every year he was out of Mizu and every year before he entered Subbin he was hunted by multiple groups. He's become legend just for avoiding so many groups and killing a vast majority of them. He's known as the "Green Eyed Enderman." and is a top goal amongst hunters. There are some times Ran got jumped in Subbin for being a hybrid but he quickly defeated them. 

Karl has played his role in this! Though maybe I could make it so he comes in later on during a really difficult part between the  brothers, and helps out. Using his own experiences in the SMP and seeing what ruined relationships like brothers does to someone and others, to make sure their relationship doesn't stay so broken and hurt so many people. Maybe at the end I'll have them go back and face Dream so Ranbob (and even Ran slightly, with how Dreams presence affected him) can finally be completely free. As of rn no one has a pet. But that question made me really want to give someone a raven and idk who. I want to have bits of the other Tales in it! Im not quite sure how yet but I want this to be a mostly Tales ONLY au (no main SMP stuff unless needed or necessary) as the Tales don't have enough love. He does write down the experience he had with the Dream Experience and writes down very important things, but other than that he leaves it behind. 

Im really happy to hear that you like my au. I love world and story building a lot and can't control how much I write sometimes, again im sorry this is so long and I'll do my best to not make anything this long ever again. Sorry if this bothered you

8: Sounds pretty interesting, overall. Was Watson-as his cape suggest-perhaps an adventurer? And he designs his own bows and arrows? Very cool. What kind of things does he come up with?  Ran also sounds like he’s traveled a bit. He knows how to sew? Has he ever made anything for anyone else? Where did he get his sword? Jackie’s got a carpet? Very nice, he deserves it. And a painting easel? How good is he at painting? Or is it more of something he’s just trying? Grievous sounds like he could build a very good pillow fort, and honestly, good for him. How often do they camp out in the bunk bed room? 

Ran not liking being interrupted is understandable. Does he ever read to anyone, or is it more some alone time for him? Grievous and Watson must design some terrifying weapons. Where is Jackie looking at adventuring to? Anywhere specific, or just around? And what language(s) is Ran and Jackie’s secondary titles in? Latin? 

9: Very smart of them, means it’ll be harder to pick up a pattern. And hearing about Ran tossing Jackie-I’m laughing. I’m not going to lie, kind of assumed it was planned pre-match, but hearing that they just decided to throw him? Watson’s reaction? Just...hilarious. Was Jackie even prepared for it, or did Ran just toss them without warning? Honestly, it kind of sounds like people might come to the Pit for the comedy just as much for the fighting. If this was the kind of thing that went down, I’d probably come to watch.

10: Oh no, Ranbob! At least he’s getting better. So Cletus and Ranbob never quite click, huh? Well, that’s alright. Sometimes people just don’t. Doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other! Ranbob thinking it’s normal, oh god. Does he ever say something along those lines, or get confused why the others are so worried about it? If so, how do the fishermen react to that question, and how does Ranbob react to the answer. As for the house, well. He can say he tried if nothing else-and hey, funny story to share with the gladiators later on. It’s good that he wasn’t caught in too many storms, less that he was caught in some at all. I’m sure that was a big help in convincing Benjamin to finally just put his foot down, which, honestly good for him. You go, Benjamin!

11: Ran, bud, chill. I like how you said his free time though-my first thought was that he immediately finished a book and went over to glare at them. Probably not true, but a hilarious mental image. Very glad Watson has reassured the fishermen-how did Ranbob react to that worry of theirs?

12: Ran’s actions are pretty understandable, but still a bit sad. How does Ranbob feel about them? Is he resigned? Determined? Upset?

13: Adventure! Into possibly dangerous places! How fun! Can’t wait to see where it goes. What do they see? What’s the first stop? How long are they heading off?

14: He won’t stop? Like, potentially will work himself into the ground won’t stop? Ran just picks up his members like blocks. And, oh boy. Ranbob wanting to go back to Dream? That’s just. Oof. Very much oof. How do the fishermen deal with that, and how do they feel about it?

15: Ran sounds like he’s had a less than enjoyable time out there. Do these hunters ever go after them once they leave Subbin? Do they target Ranbob? I mean, he’s another Endermen hybrid, and one who definitely isn’t as skilled as Ran, or as used to them. He’d be a much easier target.

So Karl’s gonna come in towards the end. Nice. Ran was also affected by Dream? How so? Obviously less than his brother, but did he ever notice? Did Ranbob? Sounds like it’d be a good final showdown, over all.

As for that pet raven, may I offer some suggestions? You could give one to Jackie and Grievous, so it can help them cause havoc, or maybe one to Benjamin, so it can help him keep an eye on his dorks. Maybe even Cletus, to help snag things, and mess with people, or Isaac, maybe to help find things. Even Watson, or one of the brothers, to help keep watch over their groups. Really, you could give any of these guys a raven. Depending on said bird’s personality, it could fit anywhere. Just depends on what you want to do with it.

I completely agree with you, we need more Tales AUs. Ranbob and Ran did come from what was basically a city of historians, perhaps you could use that to tie in the other Tales? Or even have them across the old ruins of areas on their adventure. Even chunk in more time travel, via Karl or otherwise, if you want to toss in more characters.

Ranbob pretty much starts over then. Good for him. How does Ran feel about that? Actually, who was Ran’s idol, and his general life on Mizu, before the Dream incident?

Other questions:

One thing I’d like to know is how the groups react to each other’s experiences and general life styles. Like for one, Ranbob and the fishermen generally seem more physically affectionate with each other, while Ran and the gladiators seem fairly less so, but no less close. 

For another, the fishermen probably still remind Ranbob to eat or sleep, which would probably seem a bit confusing for the gladiators. How much do they know about both sides? Obviously enough for them to want to help get the brothers back together, but like.

How much do the gladiators believe Ranbob’s side. Are they wary, or skeptical, or do they believe it completely, and if so, why? 

How long was Ran left running, evading hunters, and how has that affected him? How many times do both brothers say something concerning, and how do they react to what the other says?

You’ve said Ranbob occasionally relapses and wants to return to Dream. Does this happen on the trip? And if so, how do the gladiators react to such a thing-depending on how much they know about the whole thing, I can imagine mixed reactions. How does Ran react?

How do both groups react to the new endermen hybrids? They seem to have dealt with different instincts before now, so seeing Ranbob trail the fishermen and Ran just pick up the gladiators must be a bit strange. 

What can Ranbob keep down? Not only was Dream in control, and not particularly careful with his body, but supplies were probably also somewhat limited when he did eat. So how has that affected him? 

Are there any nicknames within in the groups? How do the gladiators react to the schedule change, considering they had set times for so much before? How do the fishermen react to the new areas? What habits are/become shared, and what habits are restricted to one group.

In general, just...how the fishermen and the gladiators differ in lifestyles, basically. 

For another, in one of the earlier post, you mentioned both Isaac and Cletus wanted to return to Mizu. Isaac kind of gives me a historian vibe himself, or some sort of archaeologists. Just a kind of person who wants to learn about history-perhaps something to do with the fact that he was played by Karl, and the whole time traveler thing. 

But anyway, what exactly did those two want to do down there? Explore, learn, steal?

And how would you say everyone’s personalities are like? Will you be introducing anymore characters, Tales or otherwise. It’d be interesting to see a Pit version of Tommy, or Puffy, or such.

How does Ran react when he finally accepts the truth, and what exactly pushes him to that? 

Hope this isn’t too many questions. I’m pretty invested, not gonna lie.

And seriously, I don’t mind the length. Long or short, I’m really just happy to hear more about your AU, and I look forward to more.

[bean-pole-art]

Ed’s Borderlands Fics Masterpost

well finally

here is the masterpost of all of my Borderlands fics posted. most of them are Rhysothy focused to various AUs. I’m gonna update it as I post more but here it is, along with some of my commentary

right from the start big big BIG shoutout to @spoks-illogical-art​, my partner in crime, my biggest inspo, without them honestly most of these fics wouldn’t exist, please check out their amazing art <3

(latest edit - 21/02/2021)

Atlas AU - our main timeline, follows events of Moxxi’s Heist. lots of different concepts and ideas but the core really is Tim moving to Promethea to get help from Rhys. gonna sort em here with posting date, check the ao3 series for the “timeline”

Hypothetically - 2240 words summary: Rhys talks a lot, but usually thinks about it too little.

coffee, cats & monographs - 2880 words summary: “Hey hey, easy. You don’t want to repeat the accident from last week, do you?” Rhys cooed towards the cat and picked her up, just as Timothy instructed him to. Hearing these words, Felicity meowed. “Oh, don’t say that. This is my office and I have the power here,” he answered, carrying her back to his personal space.

Or Timothy's cat pays a visit to Rhys' office in the morning. note: I am a stupid mofo and at this point Tim would also have Loader Bot fkjbfd just imagine hes not mentioned cause hes wandering off, typical LB

Have Faith - 1470 words summary: During the 7 year lockdown at the Handsome Jackpot, Timothy couldn't really have any hope for himself. But maybe on Promethea it could be different. note: sudden feelings while watching JoltzDude139′s stream

Warm Cheeks, Cold Hands - 1170 words summary: Rhys comes home early and wants to say hi to his husband. With no ulterior motive. None at all. note: first fic Ive ever posted where characters are married, actually. fuck it, Rhysothy Real, his name is Rhys Lawrence

the battle (and the aftermath) of the ages - 2970 words summary: In a situation like this everything was possible, they could pull any punches they could think of. Four beasts playing against each other, every single one of them thinking of striking the winning blow.

Or Promethea Squad plays UNO. And then watches a movie. note: I love Promethea Squad with my whole heart

okurimono (贈り物) - 4/4, 17170 words summary: “Not a bomb. Just a device with a message for Rhys. Trust me on that,” this time an emoji of both winking and showing off a tongue [;P] appeared on the surface of Zer0’s helmet. Ah. So they were definitely trying to mess him up. In a way. Unfortunately, he really didn’t have any other options. Almost with a defeat, Timothy took the ECHOrecorder right from their hands and looked around it again. Or Zer0 gives Timothy a peculiar mission. note: my first ever multichapter fic. took me legit abt 8 months to finish but I am absolutely satisfied with this. also the bonus ending. yes

(there is) something I see in you - 8690 words summary: How one Rhys Strongfork met one Timothy Lawrence and how they fell for each other. More or less. note: best to go into this one blind, I swear. dumbest fic Ive ever written and please take this as a recommendation

this world is gonna pull through - 14380 words summary: Timothy really hoped it wasn’t anything important. He had that tendency to forget things easily, even if he tried to fight it. But Rhys kept on smiling and went by his side. So it couldn’t have been that bad. Still dumbfounded, he felt Rhys leaving a kiss right on his cheek.“November 11th? 

That- That seriously doesn’t ring any bells?” Rhys continued, brushing his hands against his shoulders. Or how Timothy spent one of his birthdays. note: also a love letter for Tim but a nicer one I guess kdjfnb dont ask how old is he i have no gdamn idea man

Strawberry Sweet - 3560 words summary: Rhys surprises Timothy with a gift for their date night in.

Happy Mercenary Day, Mr. Lawrence - 4670 words summary: How Timothy spent his first Mercenary Day on Promethea. note: I swear this is the best writer night Ive ever had. Ive written this whole thing in one night on Christmas day, solely on the inspo of that song I linked

Don’t Go Wasting Your Emotion - 4/4, 17080 words summary:  Afterwards, he went around with his usual duties. Getting a quick roundabout from his PA, checking several sectors himself and looking through the thousands of messages already sent to him via ECHOs. Rhys was ready to finally take on the day, yet when he made his way to the office, he saw the unusual envelope right by the edge of his desk. “For Rhys” was written on it. Straightforward enough. Or Rhys gets a letter from a secret admirer. note: another multichapter fic!! this one also took some time and well. its inspired by ABBA songs. cause only I would write a Rhysothy fic inspired by ABBA

Ratchet Effect - 7130 words summary: Knowing just how much overworked Rhys has been, Timothy wants to let them have a nice getaway in Lazy River Land. There's only one problem to overcome - ratch infestation. note: first fic of 2021!! Ive been playing a lot of bl3 suring the writing of it so it has a lot of stuff I had observed both on Promethea and on Jackpot

Reflections - 2250 words summary: Sometimes, Timothy needs a reminder.

Tales AU - second most important timeline. it’s Tales but Tim is a part of the group. sorted chronologically

A Story For Another Day - ongoing, for now -  2/25, 15280 words Tales AU main fic. it’s gonna be a big one

Connection Interrupted - 3240 words summary: With his driving shift finished, Timothy checks up on Rhys and Vaughn's plans.

Completely Hopeless - 1040 words summary: In which Fiona notices that Rhys behaves differently in front of a certain doppelganger.

infinity times infinity times infinity - 3460 words summary: Rhys and Timothy share some dreams and secrets underneath the stars. note: the beautiful combination of Sleeping At Last and Minecraft parodies. I promise it makes sense

reality can be whatever I want - 11420 words summary: “Hey, Tim?” Timothy didn’t even spare him a look, “Are we alone, or is he there with you?” Oh, this definitely won’t be pretty.

After the confession of Handsome Jack's AI in his head and his plan to infiltrate Helios, Rhys needs to set things right with Timothy. Somehow. note: thanosdancing.gif to Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” 80′s remix and a guest appearance from Ferocity but I cant legally say her name here

still here - 2820 words summary: It all had to go down, after Helios crashed. note: I have...a love/hate relationship with this one kjdfbfg I like it but it’s honestly an alternate ending and doesnt fit within our usual bad ending, so take it with a grain of salt. i ten jebany błąd językowy w summary, kiedy ja go poprawię

together at last - 5590 words summary: It all struck him down in an instant, in this one minute. They were all safe. And they were all alive. Nothing was threatening neither him, nor Timothy, nor Fiona. He could finally breathe out.

They all found each other again. note: I am multitasking most time of my life but I dont relate any other fic to multitasking more than this one. I was honestly doing 10 things at once while writing this dfkjbndf

David AU - this one is a sub AU to Tales AU and the plot is kind of complicated dfjkbfb please check the fic for further explanation

building in curved lines - 22490 words summary: “To be fair, you look terrible. You’re barely standing in one piece and none of your coffees will hold you together for that long,” Lilith paused, seemingly weighing the correct words in her head. “You haven’t really been holding on since… We rescued The Double.” Rhys sighed heavily. Why did she have to be so right about everything. Or how Rhys and Timothy adjust to the reality after the Handsome Jack AI. note: bday gift for Spok, EASILY one of my absolute faves and the longest fic Ive written thus far

outside of AUs - some concepts I play with that are honestly outside any of our concrete timelines/concepts + fics not focused on Rhysothy

Real - 770 words summary: Reconciling with your past is a little easier, when you have someone you love right in your arms. note: first blands fic I’ve ever written. the characterization isn’t really there yet but as a first shot at the game and my kind of “introduction”, I am still satisfied of it

(Un)Familiar Faces - 9620 words summary: Timothy pursed his lips and leaned over the wall a little. He’s had enough of this solitude of closed doppelganger cabinet. Today wasn’t the day for another self-loathing session. Today, he should go off on Helios and do something for himself.

Or Timothy spends the night at a Helios bar. But not as Handsome Jack. And not as Timothy Lawrence either. note: personal favorite of mine, tough love letter to Timothy Lawrence. I have so many fond memories of writing this, including getting drunk out of my mind just like Tim and Rhys here

basics of survival - 2010 words summary: Athena taught Timothy everything he needed to know about survival. Now, it was time to put these skills into use. note: wrote this right before rona outbreak on last day in my dorms. thats all

[readingaccountability]

snow crash - neal stephenson

my playlist (because of The Way That I Am)

final thoughts:

okay, im going to be honest right out of the gate- i cant decide whether this is a book id recommend or not. it was really fun for the most part, but personally there was a lot more exposition than id like. the early portions of the novel have exposition which feels completely fair, mostly things relating to worldbuilding. stephenson creates his own vision of future america, and some places online referred to it as cyberpunk, and some as post-cyberpunk. id be more in the latter camp, mostly due to the way he plays with tropes, leaving the reader unsure of which will be subverted and which wont.

the use of language was really fun, and i enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. his vision of a futuristic capitalistic earth feels surreal in its immediacy and recognizability. the back jacket blurb ends with "a future america so bizarre, so outrageous, you'll recognize it immediately." which, yeah. a texan info-tech magnate? two competing corporations owning the highway system? suburban city-states? this was another enjoyable thing- everything was colorfully named, and names treated totally normally, which kind of poked fun at how we have everyday things named very ludicrously and for the most part we are totally blind to it.

one aspect i really enjoyed was that the author often doesn't make certain things clear to the audience, until he does, and then it becomes necessary to reassess the entire story and setting. this goes to underscore the theme of the importance of information and the ways we take it in and perceive the world based upon it. for example, we don't learn that y.t. is fifteen until maybe 75 pages in, at which point a lot makes sense in retrospect. the same thing occurs in the worldbuilding, as suddenly a detail is given in passing and the reader must incorporate it into the setting, which by default we assume to be similar in many ways to our idea of america. it keeps the reader on their toes as well as furthering the worldbuilding. for the most part, the tech stuff didnt feel outdated to me, despite being a future projected out from '92.

however, aspects of the book are definitely very 1992. id put these into two camps: the first, being that the book does at different times use slurs. the main character is black and asian, the n word is used a few times by racist side-character/antagonist types, as are a few other racial slurs. there was also the occasional usage of the r slur, within the narrative prose itself, rather than usage as an insult within dialogue.

the protagonist, who is named, unfortunately, hiro protagonist, is a great character and felt very fleshed out to me, though at times he reminded me more of dirk strider than normally would be ideal. (its obvious that stephenson and andrew hussie are of a similar type of writer, and play with similar tropes, lmao.) hiro is a man of many worlds. he seems to shift between them easily, though never fully existing in any of them. this is reflected in his background, both in his biracial identity and in having been raised on a myriad of army bases. this is layered further in his fluidity in interacting with both reality and the metaverse, yet remaining slightly, consistently aloof. fascinatingly the first moment i sensed this drop was when we meet juanita- aka where his real and meta realities coincide. the description of them as the adam and eve of the metaverse is both insanely romantic and thematically key (good god i wish we had more than like, two conversations between them). juanita designed the facial component to metaverse avatars, doing the majority of this work when the two were together, and hiro can see echoes of both their facial tics in the face of every avatar in the metaverse. in a way, by having done this work juanita is positioned by the narrative as one of the gods of this digital realm. she is also hiro's call to action, being aware of the coming trouble and alerting him to it, as well as connecting him to the informational database he needs to prepare.

y.t., the secondary protagonist, fucking ruled. i loved that she was just a fifteen year old punkass kid whose mom doesnt know how crazy this part time job is. y.t. being worried about her mom was a great thread throughout, and a really good balance to how obviously independent y.t. is. i do wish there had been a chance to explain more about her background (she has a dad who left who is mentioned in a throwaway sentence, and a boyfriend who is mentioned near the beginning but never again.) i really enjoyed how obviously hyperaware y.t. was at all times about her own place within the insanities of the setting, while also consistently writing her as a teen maybe in way too deep who thinks about things in typically teenage ways. but like, that wasn't ever held against her? the narrative meets her where she is. it was honestly awesome. HOWEVER,

i absolutely hated the raven and y.t. scenes. how creepy!!! he basically statutory rapes her!!! we know hes at least late 20s early 30s, because hes the same age as hiro. if this sort of content is upsetting to read for you, i definitely do NOT recommend this book. (if you want to avoid reading these bits: ch 47 y.t. meets raven, ch 50 they are in a bar eating, ch 52 things happen that result in y.t.'s anti-assault device activating- she did not activate it on purpose, but forgot it was there- and raven is knocked out.)

please PLEASE dont take any of the following analysis as like, trying to be apologetic towards this scenes. because again they were awful and hard to get through and really gross. but im also cognizant that the author was obviously trying to convey something by making the choice, like the way it was written is obviously not condoning this sort of thing.

i think maybe what stephenson was trying to get at with that, was that we see hiro internally negate any potential for anything untoward with y.t. basically immediately, since he kind of senses that she might have a small crush on him (though this doesnt last more than a fleeting moment, especially from her perspective). vs raven, whose 'poor impulse control' warning tattoo eventually elicits a sarcastic remark from hiro after he finds out raven and y.t. were "a thing". i really dont think hiro knew how far it went? like it was just suuuper weird, but i figured it was meant narratively to 1. execute the chekovs gun of y.t.'s anti-assault device, 2. contrast hiro and raven (especially considering the bike-racing argument where theyre telling the story together, which is supposed to parallel them, while contrasting the differences in how they ended up?), and 3. just to get raven unconscious, i guess. but good god it was weird and i hated every second of it, why couldnt the device have like, activated way earlier?? gah. fucking upsetting. moving past that!

honestly i was really frustrated by how little screentime juanita got, because the way she was introduced was so fucking interesting and then shes mostly off doing her own thing. the bits of explanation she gives at the end about what she was up to on the raft are so sparse and im like damn, can we get a little bit of her pov in here? please? that would have ruled. additionally, shes supposed to be hiros love interest, but we see so little of them interacting outside her intro scenes. a huge portion of why hiro is getting into the sumerian mythology is literally framed as something that will help him understand juanita, but we dont get to see him talk to her about it barely at all.

the supporting characters were quite fun, i particularly liked the librarian. big surprise, i liked the overly literal ai information-dispensor, lmfao. watching him and hiro interact reminded me SO hard of geordi laforge having honest to god conversations with the computer where he tries to coax information out of it, aka one of my favorite little aspects of tng.

and lastly, the major plot themes themselves. i adore the way stephenson approached action, it was very entertaining. usually i cant really visualize action scenes written out, but his use of language was really really effective and engaging. the plot itself was absolutely fascinating, though i found the premise pretty contrived. which isnt bad in itself, i was fully suspending my disbelief until the last hundred pages or so. which for a 550+ page book, isnt too bad.

i did like the approach of linking the ancient to the modern, that is always really neat. and i think ultimately stephenson did it in an interesting way, not how i would have done it, but definitely interesting! creating these ideas about information infrastructures, and there being words that can access those and be used to control people, was wild. not sure if i agree about the equating of religion to a virus, though he did specifically establish that it was more the approach to religion, than religion itself. (maybe if juanita had been more goddamn present in the narrative that could have been elaborated on a little more. literally her perspective would have been perfect in balancing that out!!)

ultimately what did me in was the very very very long winded MONOLOGUE where hiro re-explained the whole premise, in ways that didnt really neatly organize into a cohesive argument. a lot of the scenes where hiro talks to the librarian, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really exposition heavy, because stephenson is rooting his ideas in historical concepts that need to be explained to both hiro and the audience. and i thought all that was fine, because it was a conversation where hiro was grappling with the information, and he was figuring it out along with the reader, and most importantly it was a conversation between him and the librarian computer program.

howeverrr later on we get a full rehash of all that, where hiro makes clear some stuff that was just implied for the reader, and hes literally just telling these important men whats up in this big long monologue. utterly worthless. i kept reading it and going YEAH, we KNOW, we know this we know this. and the important men barely interjected. it added basically nothing to our understanding of the situation, other than reframing it. but everything added was already an implicit thing, and didnt really need to be said again.

the resolution to the book was stellar, the last 30-40 pages, once hiro is onto the raft, were great. ultimately after reading and giving some time to digest it, i think it was a solidly great book with a few big drawbacks near the end, but which dont carry through and sully the ending.

[veeranger]

Thoughts on Halo Reach's plot and best to worst noble team members?

you know ive actually been a lot more critical towards reach lately because i think it fails on the biggest thing it advertised: noble team. characters have never really been the strong suit of bungie’s writing (idk who destiny is so dont @ me) and while this isnt usually a major issue, it is an issue when a game wants to sell you on this squad of your teammates it wants you to care about or at least be fond of. ODST and Reach both have a cast of characters that could be really interesting but since halo is a shooter and not really a storytelling kinda game series all they really get are a few lines here and there and some cool moments, nothing really solid or anything to get a glimpse at who they are. maybe thats kinda the point though since spartans are all fucked up broken people like inherently. i dont think thats why bungie did that though

as for reach’s actual plot, i think it works well for what it is, a playable tragedy that tells you the conclusion up front. halo fans who are any level above completely casual knew that reach got completely glassed right before the start of halo ce and the advertising of this was very clear. the fact that you’ve never heard of spartan 3′s or noble team before was a pretty clear indicator of what their fates would be before you even turned on your xbox. the game literally opens with your smashed helmet embedded in the ground as a tombstone to your inevitable heroic sacrifice. reach invokes the same kind of feeling as star wars rogue one, you just know things wont end well for our main characters but you know that their deaths will pave the way for the main series protagonist to eventually win the whole damn thing 3 games/movies from now. 

so even with this in mind you go through reach and you think “wow things are going pretty well, we’re holding out own against the covies and even striking back at key targets” and maybe you forget whats going to happen or you dont and you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. and boy fucking howdy does it drop. jorge dies thinking he just saved reach and as you fall through the atmosphere you realize how hopelessly fucked you are. thats where the game enters its second phase, the “we’re fucked but still fighting” phase, as opposed to the first half of the game where things were still somewhat hopeful. noble six wakes up like a week later to half the planet burning and civilians being slaughtered as they try to evac. the first level of the second half of the game features you busting your ass hard to clear an evac point for civilians only to see them all get shot down and die. its brutal stuff, especially for halo who had never shown the conflict though that lense. 

what follows is a parade of squadmate deaths as your numbers dwindle with every level until its just you and emile, and then just you. unlike in rogue one you actually aren’t immediately told what the key item in this quest is, in this case its cortana, the equivalent to the death star plans in rogue one, the most important thing in the universe since cortana will be the one to slipspace jump to halo 04 and kick off a series of events that will lead to the survival of humanity. but once you get this item suddenly it all makes sense, carter is told this is “what his spartans died for” and to you that means a lot more than it ever would to him. 

reach ends with a profoundly impactful epilogue level where you just. are doomed. you can’t hold out forever and even if you could there’s no rescue coming for you. noble six gave their life to save the universe and never even knew it. the fact that their death isnt a cutscene but you actually yourself have to try to stave off death or just take as many elites with you as you can before they get you, it really adds so much to the impact of the final noble team death. nevermind that six isnt a real character it does work in this case because you’re seeing it from a first person perspective.

so overall my thoughts on reach is that despite the major flaw of not making you care enough about noble team (unless you do, this is my personal view) it does its job very well in portraying the desperate struggle of humanity against a threat that they cannot possibly comprehend or rightfully stand up against, but despite devastating loss the small victories they achieved still ended up mattering in the end. 

now as for noble team i wont do a best to worst but ill give my thoughts on everyone

carter: hardass commander type, not much to say imo. his death scene was his best moment and i wish his relationship with kat had been fleshed out more because it was so so funny to see her pull his strings to get what she wants. you can tell he has the respect of everyone, especially emile. 

kat: the only girl! i actually like cat, im glad they gave her a buzzcut instead of trying to make her sexy or anything even if they did give her that ass in her armor. shes the typical smartass better than you genius character but it works, especially with that accent. i wish i could be friends with her, there was that scene right before she died where she confided in six that this was also her first glassing. her death was kind of shock value to me and i wish she could have at least died with a little more dignity like the rest of noble team but alas :(

jun: probably my least favorite. i cant really remember much of this guy. he’s the only one who got to live and i kind of hate him for that because he was the least interesting of the bunch. 

emile: certainly the most iconic of all the noble spartans. he comes off as sadistic but not a maniac, he listens to carter when he speaks and is on good terms with kat even through his obvious inability to really connect to other people. this is certainly because of the fact that he’s a spartan-3, he’s probably the most “inhuman” of the bunch. i wish his relationship with jorge was given a little more, i liked how despite his pushing jorge early in the game he still mourned his death, and yet refused to carry his dogtags because he knew six was the one who was entrusted with them. his death was very iconic i think everyone remembers that. 

jorge: the big man himself, his death is what set the tone for the second half of the game and was probably pretty impactful to most people playing. i always thought it was interesting that he was a spartan-2 and not a 3 like the rest of noble, i wonder why that was. his relationship with halsey was interesting and it showed that not all spartans hated the devil woman for what she did to them. his defining characteristic was his big heart and that was especially interesting for a spartan-2, that he managed to hold onto something like that through all the shit he probably went through. 

[corvidry]

All About RP Icons For Beginners by Birdy

Hi OP, I’m not sure how experienced you are with all the nonsense surrounding the making and using of RP icons, so I’m gonna come at it as though you don’t have any experience with it at all and I’m sorry if that’s too simplified for you, but also if I’m gonna write many paragraphs about one topic I may as well make it accessible for as many people as possible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post goes into what tools are out there for the popular methods of finding/making RP icons in the first half and my personal methodology for choosing and using them in my RP for the second half. This is a very surface level answer to the question and is not meant to be an in depth tutorial for the more labor intensive aspects of the process, but if you guys want more information and can’t find it elsewhere, please ask and I'll know what I should be talking about next. 

Also I’m also contractually obligated to mention to the masses that I do take commissions both for the drawing of RP icons and the service of capping, cutting, recoloring, and framing canon icons. Sometimes I even post batches of canon character icons for free on this blog so like,,,,, hit me up if you want. But!! You don’t need me, you can absolutely do all of it yourself!!  I go into the broad strokes below.

Question 1: “How do you get icons?” 

This is kind of a broad question and the answer depends on what your needs are. The right answer for you is gonna live in one of two camps 

Find some that already exist that are free to use

Make them yourself / commission somebody else to make them for you. 

What you'll choose is gonna depend a lot on your character first and foremost.  The big determining factor in most cases is whether or not the face you want has been in anything you can take pictures of. 

If you have a canon character who exists in visible media--

--you're in luck! The chances of you finding some resources that exist already is higher when you have a canon character who is in at least a few pieces of media. OP asked about Pearl from Steven Universe, and she's a great example of a character with a lot of resources. Searching for rp icons of a popular character will often yield packs of icons on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, Livejournal, etc. Most of these will be completely free to use or have very reasonable conditions for use (like credit the person who made them for example.)  It's often a good first step to see what preexisting resources are available to you even if you still plan on making your own icons. 

If you have an OC or a character that's not all that popular--

--you're gonna fall into the second camp. If you want icons, you have to have them made. So what are your options?

Help! My character appears in no media! What are my options?

If your character appears in no media you're in a tough spot. Different people approach this problem in different ways. 

Face Claims

One option you have is to choose a face claim to represent your character. In roleplay a face claim or ‘FC’ is a person or character whose appearance you use for the physical description of your character. I personally am not big on doing this, I prefer drawn icons and I tend to RP as animated characters, but some people really like using celebrities and stuff to represent their characters.  When I was playing Angus McDonald he hadn't appeared in any visual media yet, so I sometimes used Bryce Clyde Jenkins as the face claim for certain types of threads.  

If you're somebody who likes to use face claims there are loads of resources out there for finding the perfect one, including here on tumblr. Try searching up RP Faceclaim Directory and playing around with some of the ones that pop up.

DIY RP Icons

The other option you have is to create those icons from scratch. Draw them yourself based on icons you like or commission an artist to draw some for you.   If you can't draw yourself, I've seen some people get really creative with this. Some people create their character in the sims, dollmakers, or their favorite RPG and then take screenshots of that to use for icons.  There's also no law that says every icon you use has to be your character's face. When I was writing a trashy mermaid AU I got a lot of mileage out of icons that depicted harbor and oceanic scenes with no actual faces. Get creative, go nuts, have fun.

Icons Aren’t That Important

The other thing to remember that icons are not a must in many RP circles. It's perfectly possible to have a great time and write cool stuff without any pictures at all. Depending on your platform of choice there are probably also other interesting ways you can make your posts unique to you by formatting the text or using symbols or emojis or otherwise denoting your personal style in text.

Help! My character appears in lots of media! How do I make icons?

Again, there are a million and one answers to this question and it really depends on what tools are available to you and what your preferences are. This section is not a tutorial but it will outline some of the options you can look into.

The icon making process is typically in 2 stages-- stage 1: get all your images of your character, and stage 2: edit all of those images into icons.  

If you have access to the source material, any version of Photoshop, and software that automates the collection screencaps from video (KM Player, VLC, etc) you're pretty much gucci. You're gonna have no problem getting loads of nice icons in a reasonably short amount of time and there are a million different tutorials on how to use those things whichever way you prefer. 

If you don't have access to those things you still have options. 

You can still screencap things manually, and you can screencap in batches by holding down the windows key and pressing PrtSc any time you want to save an image. They should be saving to >pictures>screenshots unless you’ve set things up differently. It’s a good way to take a lot of screenshots without stopping in between.

( EDIT / UPDATE: to say that if you use automation for taking screencaps remember to turn that shit off when you’re not using because it oh mylanta it WILL continue to take images without you realizing. Figured out where all my disk space has been going with this rookie mistake, thanks OP)

Additionally, PhotoScape X is a really great little tool for windows and mac that I've never seen anybody talk about, but I use it sometimes and it's totally free with the exception of a few paid features I’ve never once needed or wanted. This program is not as efficient as using Photoshop but it has presets for cropping images easily as well as batch editing options for some basic borders and color retouching.  While it’s not as powerful as Photoshop, you can get a lot done with it reasonably quickly compared to other choices. You can also take and edit snips of anything on your screen with it, which is really really useful if you don’t have access to the video or image files you would need on your hard drive for other version of this process.  The program looks like this:

Also, not to be like a minimalist about it, but you can also just fucken use Microsoft Paint or whatever you have. Like, whatever, there’s no law. You graphics dont have to be comlpex or deep fried. Half of my icons have been made or edited in paint at some point. It wont be as fast as some of these other methods but a lot of us aren't out here making icons in batches of 100 at a time. 

Anything that you can use to make smallish images of your characters face will work to make icons.

If you want more information about any of these methods of icon creation let me know and I’ll talk about them.

Question 2: “How do you make your icons ‘work’ in posts?”

I'm a little confused on what you mean by "make them work" so I'm gonna cover my bases here. I'm assuming what you're getting at is a sort of sense of cohesion in the icons I use, or having the "right" expression for the scene I'm writing. Either that or them not stretching and looking weird thanks to tumblr. I’ll get to both of those.

And before I go into my own rationale for icon choices I feel I should point out that a lot of people who aren't me do successfully manufacture cohesion out of their images by doing fun stylistic things like recoloring their images all the same way or putting cute borders and stuff around them or making them fun shapes, and that's totally something you can learn how to do if it interests you.  I do this for icons commissioned by other people and I’m not against talking about how to do those things, but I don’t really bother with them for my own icons all that much. That stuff is all fun and it’s a neat thing you could get into that can make your icons all look really nice together.

BUT ANYWAY --

Since the character you asked about is Pearl, I’m going to focus on her. Nearly all of my Pearl icons are completely unedited and a lot of the credit I would have to give regarding icon quality goes to Pearl herself and the consistently good lighting that the show uses. I don’t have a huge need for editing or color retouching beyond making memes or whatever other goofy things I might be getting up to. Pearl is extremely expressive compared to other characters I have written and since she's in nearly every episode, I've managed to collect…

...oh god, that’s too many icons.

Pearl is a main character and I've been RPing as her for over 6 years now so I have a fuckload of images to choose from and I'm not gonna pretend that doesn't help when I wanna “make things work”. She gives me a lot of options.

That said, you absolutely don't need 3000 images to make a good post. The way I've collected and organized these images may be of use to you even if you dont have as many icons. I've done a lot with my setup to make finding the right icon very easy. 

For starters, a minor subset of my Pearl icons are grouped by a particular defining feature. I have one large Pearly folder full of icons and then a few smaller folders inside for icons I thought worth grouping separately. For example, all icons of SUF Pearl in her new jacket are in the same folder. All icons of Pearl in short term alternate outfits are in the same folder. Anything I sourced from Attack the Light is in its own folder. I do this with anything that has a very specific use, such as writing AU content or flashbacks to specific time periods. If I can picture an icon in my head, I usually know where in my ridiculous hell collection to go to find it. 

This folder was originally just for her pre-canon outfit but now all of her outfits that only appeared temporarily are in there.

Perhaps more important for the sake of cohesion is that nearly all of my icons that aren’t squirreled away in some smaller folder are loosely arranged by episode. What that means is that most of the time I have icons from the same scene right next to one another. It makes it incredibly easy to make my RP replies appear as though it's all one cohesive scene even if I use more than one icon. When you do it this way it becomes very easy to choose icons that have the same lighting or that appear to lead from one expression seamlessly into another. Exhibit A:

While the vast majority of my icons are numbered, I do take the time to name ones I find myself using a lot or that have particularly unique expressions. Usually I'll choose names that I'll find descriptive or easy to remember based on the context of the icon. You can have a lot of fun with that and never lose your favorites.

Also don't be afraid to lean on icons you got from weird places if you like them.  The icons of Pearl from the official comics run don’t look like most of what I have. I think them being different would turn a lot of RPers off, but I use them a lot because I like the style and I almost never see other Pearl RPers using them.  It either makes me stand out or it makes me tacky, one of the two, haven’t figured out which, but also I’m not stopping.

And just to reiterate, you can use icons that aren’t your character if they’re thematically relevant or vague enough to look like them. When I’m capping I’ve started saving a folder of miscellaneous environments of interests, hands, and other everyday types of scenery that appear in the thing I’m taking screencaps of.

You can use any size you want for RP icons but the most common is 100x100 or 150x150 pixels.  Any smaller than that and the image gets to be difficult to read and work with in my opinion. That doesn’t stop people, of course, but I’m elderly and need glasses now, so no tiny icons for me.  On that note, I rarely see RP icons larger than 300x300. Any larger than that it tends to get bulky and be in the way of other people’s comfortable internet browsing experience, especially on mobile.  Of course, these are just my suggestions. What you choose will ultimately be up to you, but somewhere in that 100 to 300 px range is pretty safe.

A very tumblr specific thing to know is that any image that is wider than 300 pixels will be stretched to hell, so you probably want to keep it smaller than that.

Thanks, Tumblr, I hate it!

Also, don’t be afraid to make trash images for fun if you’re so inclined. People love that, or at least I do. Not having the right icon can be fun and lead to a very silly solution. Lean into being a shitposter if that’s what you’re called to do. 

So yeah, that’s basically what my suggestions are. Collect your images in a way that helps cohesion and ease of use. Keep them a good size. Don’t be afraid to get unconventional with your choices or make memes or whatever. It’s all for a fun time.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now, but more info on any of this can be obtained at the price of one ask, I know it was a lot of different moving parts.

[preathfics]

Idk if im the only one that feels like this but i feel like its kinda weird when the main friendships are mostly tobin-chris-kelley-alex in the the fics like i feel kinda funny reading about how theyre best friends but they all dont seem like THE group that hangs out irl ya feel me? Theyre just the most popular players that people like.

I think that the relationships/friendships you observe in these fics are a function of both when the author got into the fandom and when the fic is set. The relationships you mention feel, to me, like a function of a slightly earlier era.  That is, they are relationships that used to seem really strong and apparent, but have fizzled and been replaced by others more recently (irl). 

A great example of this is the continued regular appearance of Cheney and ARod as Tobin’s confidants and best friends. That clearly comes from their New Kids days, but hardly seems to represent the current state of affairs (At least in public), and may even be befuddling to those new to the fandom. Same with Harry. 

I think Kelley is, and will continue to be, ride-or-die in many T+C fics for six reasons: (1) she came up with Chris in college and played with Tobin on U20 at the same time–so she easily provides a long-term history in a way that could only be replaced by a fully-fictional character, (2) she is still a social butterfly on the team and is clearly friends with Tobin and Christen as well as really everyone, (3) she still plays with Christen in Utah, (4) she essentially came out at the WC, so wlw extra-stan her right now (5) she is a staple on the NT and has been with them through their NT journeys (6) she has an incredibly compelling personality in real life as well as in the WOSO RFP that allows her to be and do things nobody else can. 

If you look at the newer fics that are emerging, especially from people who started writing T+C since the world cup, I think you’d notice a shift toward Pinoe, Ashlyn, and Ali. Certainly compared to before. Nevertheless, because the fanfic universe is only a fictional parallel of our own, relationships that are no longer important in real life can persist across fics. Newer fics are typically built on the backs of previous fics. The current fics set the Overton Window for future fics in many ways. 

In this essay I will…

[lypomania]

🌸 The Present Perfect and Pluperfect in Spanish 🌙

In Spanish there are two main forms of verbs in the perfective aspect: the present perfect (es presente perfecto) and the pluperfect (el pluscuamperfecto). These verb forms are conjugated by combining some conjugation of 'haber' with a past participle.

🌸 Part I - Past Participles 🌙

So what even is a past participle? A past participle is essentially a way of stating that an action has been completed. We do this in English typically by adding -ed to the end of a verb (ex. create » created). This way a verb can be used with a perfective aspect (ex. I have finished the assignment) and can also be used as an adjective (ex. it is finished).

In Spanish the past participle serves the same function. It can be used to put an action in the perfective aspect (ex. yo he comido “I have eaten”) or as an adjective (ex. está comido “it’s eaten”). There are three main categories of verbs in the past participle in Spanish.

The first category is the past participle of regular -ar verbs (ex. cantar, bailar, gritar, etc.) To put these verbs in the past participle simply remove the -ar at the end of the verb and replace it with -ado.

Examples:

cantar (sing) » cantado (sang, sung)

bailar (dance) » bailado (danced)

gritar (scream) » gritado (screamed)

necesitar (need) » necesitado (needed)

viajar (travel) » viajado (traveled)

The second category is the past participle of regular -er and -ir verbs (ex. comer, correr, venir, etc.) To put these verbs in the past participle simply remove the -er or -ir and replace it with -ido.

Examples:

comer (eat) » comido (eaten)

correr (run) » corrido (ran)

venir (come) » venido (came)

tener (have) » tenido (had)

sentir (feel) » sentido (felt)

Note! There are some verbs which are still regular -er and -ir verbs that get an accent right before the ‘d’ but still are regular. This happens mainly for pronounciation purposes and to keep the proper stress, as this tends to happen with -er/-ir verbs with diphthongs. Some examples are:

leer (read) » leído (read)

caer (fall) » caído (fallen)

traer (bring) » traído (brought)

The third and final category of past participles is the irregular ones, of which there are a good number. Some of these are similar to each other, but in general they dont follow a singular rule with which we can categorize them with other past participles. These are:

abrir (open) » abierto (opened)

absolver (absolve) » absuelto (absolved)

cubrir (cover) » cubierto (covered)

descubrir (discover, reveal) » descubierto (discovered, revealed)

decir (say) » dicho (said, spoken)

describir (describe) » descrito, descripto* (described)

desdecir (deny) » desdicho (denied)

deshacer (undo, unmake) » deshecho (undone, unmade)

elegir (choose, elect) » elegido, electo (chosen, elected)**

escribir (write) » escrito, escripto* (written)

hacer (do, make) » hecho (done, made)

morir (die) » muerto (dead)

poner (put, place) » puesto (put, placed)

redecir (retell) » redicho (retold)

rehacer (redo, remake) » rehecho (redone, remade)

resolver (resolve, figure out) » resuelto (resolved, figured out)

romper (break) » roto (broken)

satisfacer (satisfy) » satisfecho (satisfied)

ver (see) » visto (seen)

* - the forms escripto and descripto are used primarily in Rioplatense Spanish in Argentina and Uruguay. You don’t have to learn these forms unless you plan on using this dialect or you’ll be coming into contact with it a lot.

** - the form elegido is completely regular, the other form electo is not, however. This form is mainly used to mean “elected”, though, whereas “chosen” is more commonly said as the regular elegido.

It is important to note that the past participle is not the same as the past tense. The past participle cannot stand on its own, whereas a past tense verb can. To say “escrito” (written) without further context would be grammatically incorrect, however to say “escribí” (I wrote) without further context would be grammatically correct. The past participle always needs another word to help it out, and it cant stand on its own. To do so is sort of like just saying “written” as a sentence in English. It just doesn’t work, it leads to questions like “what was written? who wrote it? what are you even talking about?” Meanwhile you can totally say “I wrote” as a sentence in English and it makes total sense. It’s the same in Spanish.

🌸 Part II - The Present Perfect 🌙

The present perfect is used to talk about an action that has been finished at the time of speaking. It’s similar to the preterite in that it tends to describe actions which have been completed once. For example the sentences “I haven’t eaten today”, “have you made a decision?”, and “have you ever been to Spain?” would all use the present perfect in Spanish. The form is often equivalent to “have ___” in English.

To conjugate verbs in the present perfect you take the present tense form of haber and make it agree with the pronoun of the person(s) who has done the action:

Yo he = I have ___

Tú / vos has = You have ___

Él/ella ha = He/she has ___

Usted ha = You have ___ (formal)

Nosotros/nosotras hemos = We have ___

Vosotros/vosotros habeís = You all have ___ (informal, chiefely Castilian Spanish)

Ellos/ellas han = They have ___

Ustedes han = You all have ___ (formal in Castilian Spanish, normal form in Latin America where “vosotros“ is uncommon)

Once you have the present form of haber and you’ve properly conjugated it, add the past participle after it and you have a verb in the present perfect! Ex:

Tengo hambre, ya no he comido - I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten yet

¿Hoy has ido a la escuela? - Have you gone to school today?

Él nunca ha viajado a México - He’s never been to Mexico

Ella lo ha dícho a su mamá - She’s told her mom about it

¿Usted ha escrito el artículo? - Have you written the article?

Nosotros no hemos asistido a la iglesia - We haven’t been to the church

Nosotras todavía no lo hemos leído - We still haven’t read it

¿Vosotros habeís cocinado algo? - Have you guys cooked anything?

¿Vosotras no lo habeís visto? - Y’all haven’t seen it?

Ellos no han elegido nada - They haven’t chosen anything

Ellas no han cocinado nada - They haven’t cooked anything

Ustedes lo han leído el libro - You all have read the book

Some notes about the use of the present perfect:

In Riplatense Spanish the present perfect has been almost entirely replaced by the preterite. Thus in Rioplatense Spanish you’d be more likely to hear for example Viajé a Buenos Aires (I went to Buenos Aires) rather than He viajado a Buenos Aires (I’ve traveled to Buenos Aires.)

In Latin America as a whole, you’re far more likely to hear the preterite instead of the present perfect to describe actions in the recent past, whereas in Spain you’re more likely to hear the present perfect. So unlike in Latin America where one might say hoy comí una arepa muy rica (I ate a really great arepa today) in Spain you’re more likely to hear someone say hoy he comido una arepa muy rica (today I’ve eaten a reeally great arepa.)

If an direct or indirect pronoun is used alongside the present perfect, it will never cut between the conjugated haber and the past participle. For example, to say no he se lo dido would be incorrect, the correct way would be no se lo he dido (I haven’t given them it.) The direct and/or indirect object pronoun is placed before the conjugated haber, not after.

🌸 Part III - The Pluperfect 🌙

The pluperfect is used to talk about an action which was completed at the time the speaker is talking about. It’s like in English saying “I had eaten the banana” versus saying “I’ve eaten the banana.” You will often see this conjugation used alongside words like ya (already) or todavía (still, yet) since it will often describe an action which is already done by the time the speaker talks about it.

To conjugate verbs in the pluperfect you take the imperfect tense form of haber and make it agree with the pronoun of the person(s) who has done the action:

Yo había = I had ___

Tú / vos habías = You had ___

Él/ella había = He/she had ___

Usted había = You havd___ (formal)

Nosotros/nosotras habíamos = We had ___

Vosotros/vosotros habíais = You all had ___ (informal, chiefely Castilian Spanish)

Ellos/ellas habían = They had ___

Ustedes habían = You all had ___ (formal in Castilian Spanish, normal form in Latin America where “vosotros“ is uncommon.

Once you have the imperfect form of haber and you’ve properly conjugated it, add the past participle after it and you have a verb in the pluperfect! Ex:

Ya había comido cuando él venió - I had already eaten when they came

Tú/vos habías leído el libro antes de la clase - You’d read the book ahead of the class

Él había hablado con su mamá cuando yo llamé - He’d spoken with his mom when I called

Ella te había escrito un mensaje cuando tú/vos llamaste - She’d already written you a message when you called

¿Había usted tomado agua antes pasó? - Had you drank water before it happened?

Nosotros ya habíamos elegido algo cuando llegaste - We’d already chosen something when you arrived

Nosotras lo habíamos hecho cuando nos llamaste - We’d already done it when you called us

Vosotros ya habíais visto la película - You guys had already seen the movie

Vosotras habíais elegido una película cuando llegué - Y’all’d already chosen a movie when I came

Ellos todavía no lo habían visto - They still hadn’t seen it

Ellas ya habían comido cuando su mamá las preguntó - They’d already eaten when their mom asked them

Ustedes habían leído el libro - You all had read the book

A note about the usage of the pluperfect:

If an direct or indirect pronoun is used alongside the pluperfect, it will never cut between the conjugated haber and the past participle. For example, to say ya había se lo dido would be incorrect, the correct way would be ya se lo había dido (I’d already given them it.) The direct and/or indirect object pronoun is placed before the conjugated haber, not after.

Disclaimer: I’m not a native speaker of Spanish, just a lover of the language. If there are any mistakes or things you think I missed please let me know so I can correct this post! 💖

[wittyy-name]

Hey, Wittyy, do you have any tips on planning a dnd campaign? Especially as a first timer. Advice? Lifehacks? Warnings? (to clarify first timer, i know a lot about dnd and even read some worldbuilding guides but I'm not sure if they're working for me, maybe you have a little different, unique approach to planning process?)

This ended up being a very long post about me rambling about my experience world building my first campaign, so I’m just gonna slap it under a cut lol

Idk how much advice I can give?? I’m running my first long term campaign and kinda just flying by the seat of my pants at this point. World building is a PAIN and it can be hella frustrating, but it’s also kinda rewarding?? And I have experience with it from writing stories that definitely helped.

I built a world from scratch, which is a first for our dnd group. We’ve done a campaign in Skyrim, and we’re also doing a campaign in the Witcher universe. Mine is the first where the players can’t just google world info, which I like a lot. 

My campaign started with an idea of having a party of bards. And I wanted them to have a REASON to stay together. Not just the typical dnd “we’re together bc why not”. I wanted them to KNOW each other but still have secrets to hide?? So it wasn’t just strangers?? So THAT was my starting point. And I asked myself, how do I make that happen? So I had the idea that they all have to start bard level 1. They were in a band for a year together, but then they broke up. They haven’t seen each other in five years. ALL of them have gone through hell and back ((bc what’s dnd without tragic backstories??)). They’re level 4 now, and they got to multiclass into whatever they wanted to. So they’re forced back together through circumstance, and they’re stuck in this party of people they used to know but are now so different. 

My goal for my group was simple: I wanted a story where every player feels like the main character. I wanted them to have their own secrets and quests and things to figure out and pursue. I wanted each and every person to feel like they’re leading the group. Everyone to feel important. So I had several brainstorming talks with each of my players. I figured out what they wanted to play, and ideas they had, and then we expanded on them and build up their characters together (bc it’s easier when you have a dm to build with you). Another goal I had was to give everyone a personal rp challenge. Which is unique to the player. It’s mean to help them build up some of their weaknesses and gently guide them out of their comfort zones. 

So now I have six players with crazy unique and complicated backstories. They all have secrets and weird quirks. They all have goals to pursue and things to keep from the others. And most of them have aspects of their backstories that THEY dont’ even know. Missing memories, secret bloodlines, unknown curses. This is really important to ME. Since these are secrets even from the players, they get to learn surprising new things about their characters as the campaign goes on. Even THEY don’t know everything about themselves, and that’s exciting to them. It means more work for me as a dm, but it’s worth it for them. 

This was an important factor for me in planning my campaign because my group plays online. With online dnd, it’s harder to keep engaged. When you’re not in person and you can’t feed off the energy, it can be easy to lose focus. I noticed that from previous campaigns, and I tried to come up with ways to help it. What I came up with was this: the best way to keep online players engaged is to make them invested in their characters. Simple, yeah? By having complex characters that they put so much into, they love those characters, and thus love playing them. By giving them an rp challenge specifically suited to them, it forces them to pay attention, to constantly be in the mind of their character so they can consider how that character would act and react at any given time. By giving them individual goals to pursue, they’re constantly trying to figure shit out. By keeping aspects of their characters unknown, it gives them a feeling of excited anticipation. All these things help keep them engaged and locked into their character’s minds, which makes the whole experience a lot of fun. 

As for the WORLD, I kinda just... figured out an aesthetic that I thought was cool and tried to run with it?? I don’t remember how I got to this idea, but I thought the feywild was cool, so I said “what if something cataclysmic happened and the material plane and feywild are now mixed together and people have adapted to living with a constant fey presence?? And then one night I was almost asleep when I thought of SKY SHIPS and FLOATING ISLANDS. So I said “what if a lot of the material plane races raised sky cities to get away from the fey threat on the surface??” And so I had my aesthetic for the world, I just needed specifics. 

I thought “well, if there were old kingdoms before the Cataclysm, how would they have been affected when the planes merged??” So coming up with an old political climate, and how things have changed since. How the surface and the sky cities function now. Where do all the races fit into this map? Into this world? The feywild and Material Plane are only two of the three mirror planes, how does this affect the Shadowfell? Okay, the shadowfell is starting to leak through the thin veil and we have pockets of shadow portals that are becoming worse and worse as the centuries go by. 

I had the area where the Cataclysm happened, but what happened there? This was admittedly the hardest part, and I got a huge writers block here, but I figured it out. What society lived there. The magic they used. How shit went wrong and they merged the planes. 

What gods exist in this world? Well, I picked a single pantheon in the dnd handbook and said “these are the gods” bc I didn’t want to incorporate ALL of them. But the idea of this pantheon was that there was no afterlife, which started play into ideas I had for the lost city that started the cataclysm. And it kinda all started to come together. 

The whole time I was building the world and history, I kept my character’s backstories in mind. I wanted all of them to be important SOME HOW. All of their importance differs. But I wanted them all to be tied to big world big picture things SOMEHOW. So they could all feel chosen, in a way. 

But the best part?? This is an open world campaign. There are things in the world that are happening, and they’ll happen with or without the party’s interference. But their interference can cause domino affects in world events. I didn’t want to set my party on ONE QUESTLINE. I wanted them to CHOOSE. So I slapped them down in a town, got them used to their characters, and now they’re out of the “starter zone” so to speak. They can choose where to go. What ideas to pursue. They all have driven backstories, so it’s interesting to see who kinda pushes theirs to the front of the agenda. And there is no Good and Evil. I wanted a whole world of gray area. So the party’s opinions of world events will probably change depending on who’s backstory they follow first. Who they meet first can shape how they think and what side they get on. Which is super exciting. The whole campaign is malleable and the party has free rein. In fact, they can choose to never interact with world events and just do small time fuckery quests. It’s all up to them. But shit will be happening and the world changing. And it’s exciting to see where they get to go.It’s a very character and roleplay driven campaign, which is what we all wanted. And seeing them so invested in characters is so nice. Seeing them love my world is great. And knowing what I have in store for them is exciting. 

I know this isn’t so much TIPs as me just rambling about my experience, but maybe it’ll help??The best actual advice for building the world... come up with an aesthetic you want and the goal for your campaign. Those are your keystones. Now ask yourself why? How? Where? Who? You want a king to be insane? OKay, why? You want there to be a world that’s mostly water with ship travel? Okay, what’s the history? How have the people adapted to this world? How are cities constructed and what social constructs come about in a mostly ship/water based world? 

I can give you some specific examples from my campaign about how I designed social constructs for different societies if you want, but I feel like I’ve rambled enough for one post lol. Good luck!