#so that you can kill him..? You're going to think about him all day?

[blondwhxrewrites]

It was an unspoken fact that you were the only one to get Bruce Wayne. The man was a mystery, a trauma-wrapped mystery that nobody could read. Yet, you could take one good look at him and immediately know what he was thinking about. You, the only person who could make the Batman tremble in fear because he hadn't eaten in a day and was acting too broody and it was 'ruining' your mood. 'Three years of being a masked vigilante, and yet he still can't take care of himself—scary my ass' you'd tell Alfred, to which he instantly agreed.

Bruce Wayne did not enjoy touch; he didn't mind when it came to Alfred, but besides that, his body was off-limits to everyone—not you though. He'd gladly come back to the tower after a long night, get his suit off, and immediately collapse into you even though he's sweaty and disgusting.

He had once been forced by you and Alfred to appear at a charity fundraiser, and when a man came up to flirt with you, Bruce had shot him down, telling him you were taken. You could've sworn he spent the rest of the night glaring at the man. A week later you're watching the news only to see the same man had been exposed for having relations with a trafficking ring.

The Batman didn't kill, but when you had gotten robbed one night, all hell had broken loose. The man that had robbed you barely made it out alive, and you had been put on a strict lockdown in the tower for a week. From then on, whenever you go out during the night, you can always look up and see the faintest outline of someone on top the rooftops.

You're the only one that can touch the suit—even Alfred isn't allowed. Yet, you can be found sewing it up every few weeks and adding things to help with his nightly escapades. You had even put the mask on one night, and it's one of the only times Alfred had seen Bruce laugh so much since his parents had died.

You are the only one that gets to see the man behind everything, not Bruce Wayne the billionaire or the Batman, just him, Bruce.

The funniest part of it all is that you two aren't even dating.

No, apparently it was strictly a 'platonic' relationship.

It's bullshit, you two are both in love but are in hardcore denial about it because you both have problems

[gyaruhana]

HEYHEYYYYYY!!! I know requests are closed, buuuut... my mind has been going crazy thinking about a yandere Min su. Ik he's a cutie patootie but, UGHHH. Am I the only one who sees him as having yan potential?? Idk, but I NEED him as a yan. 😭

Min-Su/Player 125 - Yandere!Min-Su Headcannons

Synopsis: minsu as a yandere..

A/N: i hear you and i see you. he could so be a yan ugh !!

Warnings: yandere content, smut content, kinda short..

➠ Min-Su is sort of like a stray puppy honestly..

➠ he stalks follows you around constantly but never gets too close

➠ he's more on the quiet side so he doesn't really think about going up to you and talking to you

➠ he instead opts for the much creepier move which involves watching you every single day and night

➠ you'll see him everywhere but he's careful enough to make it look like a coincidence so you'll never suspect anything more

➠ he might be a bit of a push over but do NOT mistake that for him being weak..

➠ he's not afraid to get his hands dirty if he knows he can get away with it

➠ he's very much driven by the fear of losing you to someone else and fear makes him do a lot of bad things

➠ If he's able to, he'll kill whoever poses a threat to his chances with you and then burn the body

➠ However, if he can't, he won't hesitate to kidnap you instead

➠ he's so sloppy when he tries to kidnap you because he's doing it out of sheer panic he might lose you

➠ takes three tries before he successfully does it and takes you to his place

➠ he's nervous when you first wake up tied to his chair and tries to be very gentle so you'll like him more but quite quickly gives that up when he realizes you won't change your opinion now that he's kidnapped you

➠ he's still nice.. he loves you and doesn't want to hurt you but he will get upset if you annoy him too much

➠ he will keep you tied to a chair but he'll tie you to his bed at some point for cuddles (he's clingy)

➠ like i said, he's so stray puppy core

➠ he always wants to please you and keep you happy because you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen and he's so hopelessly in love with you

➠ he won't let you leave the house though

➠ On the bright side, he will feed you amazingly !!

➠ 5 star meals all the time and he will not settle for anything less for you

➠ he wants to reward you all the time for being perfect

➠ he also wants to be rewarded with physical touch like head pats

➠ on a more sexual note..

➠ he will top but he is still submissive

➠ he's just on top because he gets nervous you'll try run if he unties you

➠ he's quiet for the most part but he whines every now and again

➠ so so sensitive he literally can't handle teasing

➠ and yet he overstimulates himself every time anyway

➠ he also cries easily

➠ I feel like it's important to mention he'd wait for you to come to him for sex

➠ he's patient and isn't super eager for sex.

➠ as long as he gets cuddles, he's happy

➠ overall, really gentle yandere but does get his hands dirty

"I'm really sorry but I couldn't let him take you from me," Min-Su spoke as he gently caressed your cheek with his thumb. Min-Su never meant if for it to happen like this. He'd rather be on a date with you instead of having you tied up to a chair in his house. However, that guy he saw you with last sunday looked like he was about to sweep you off your feet and Min-Su just couldn't have that. Ideally, he would've just killed the guy like he did the last few that risked his chances of stealing your heart. Unfortunately, Min-Su knew he'd be no match for that guy so he had to do the next best thing; kidnap you. Even if his heart ached at your tears of fear, he knew this was for the better. You were all his now. "Don't cry, please. It's alright. I won't hurt you - not when you're mine,"

[tragic-ships-tournament]

Tragic Ships Tournament Round 3

Propaganda under the cut!

Herongraystairs:

"Hey is it polyamory if you and your buddy are both in love with the same girl (and each other)? Is it polyam to die of old age and only have your wife and the guy you were platonic married to as a teenager in your final moments? Is it polyamory if you constantly bring up your wife's dead husband and make it clear you're also deeply in love with him?"

Lawrence and Adam:

No propaganda submitted however I think everyone should read this giant essay written by the submitter

"Okay so our buddy Jigsaw here, John to his friends, puts Adam and Gordon in a trap in the so-called Saw Bathroom.

Adam wakes up from unconscious in a full bathtub and gasps for air trying to get out. In doing so, he inadvertently pulled the plug. It is pitch black in the room. A voice calls out from the other side of the room.

The voice is Gordon. His name is Lawrence Gordon, he's a doctor. For a few moments his voice is all there is until Gordon turns on the light. They are both chained to metal pipes in opposite corners. They introduce themselves. There is a dead body in the middle of the room.

Neither man trusts the other. In attempts to escape, they find clues: a clock that is brand new and as such the opposite of the rest of the room; an envelope with a cassette in Adam's pockets; and a casette, a key and a bullet in Gordon's. The key opens neither man's chain.

But there is a casette player in the hand of the dead man in the middle of the room.

With some difficulty, Adam is able to reach it so that he can play his tape which detailed his crimes (as according to John) and how he will either watch himself die or do something about it. This is a poetic trap on John's part as Adam is a voyeur and is paid by various people to follow others around and takes photos on them. As for Gordon? Well, first he sends his tape to Adam to hear first before hearing it himself. His crime is that as a doctor (his name is Lawrence Gordon, he's a doctor) he spends his days telling people they're going to die, giving them their death sentence. Now he must carry out that sentence himself. He must kill Adam by 6 o'clock or Gordon's wife and daughter will die.

The dead man in the middle of the room was one of Gordon's patients.

The recording gives them several other clues and soon they find a plastic bag in the toilet with two hacksaws and a bag of photos inside. Adam throws one to Gordon and immediately begins on his own chain. The saw breaks.

In anger, Adam throws it at the mirror which smashes. Gordon realises the saws are not for the chains but for their legs. This is when they realise they've been abducted by Jigsaw. Gordon mentions that Jigsaw had previously tried to frame him for murder by leaving his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's crimes. Adam grows distrustful of Gordon because that's a weird detail to mention, huh? And in a fit of panic and anger, he takes the broken mirror shard and threatens to kill our boy Gordon (Lawrence Gordon, he's a doctor) unless he explains what the hell is going on. Then he notices that the mirror is a one-way mirror. He smashes the rest of it until he's cut through the glass and they see a camera.

A camera watching their every move. Adam soon learns that the camera is protected by another pane of glass, this one shatterproof.

Gordon, bless his heart, is able to calm Adam down and he begins to tell Adam about his family. He has a wife named Alison and a daughter called Diana. Adam asks if he wants more children, Gordon replies no as he doesn't think Diana gets enough time with her parents as is.

This nice conversation is ruined when Gordon tossed Adam his wallet so Adam can look at the picture of them in his wallet. That picture isn't there; instead, there's a picture of them tied up and gagged in their apartment. Adam doesn't want to worry Gordon so he quietly pockets it and just says the photo isn't there. This photo also has a clue that leads to Adam asking Gordon to turn off the light at which point they see a glowing X and are able to get the next puzzle in the trap. (It's a very drawn out trap compared to Jigsaw's more oftenly used one and one em traps) Gordon retrieves a box with a lighter, two cigarettes, a note saying the cigarettes arent poisonous (factually untrue consideeing lung cancer but John's an engineer not a doctor) and a phone. The phone can't be used to make calls so no 911 can save these white boys right now.

Adam, who doesn't know about the note, asks for a cigarette. Gordon says no.

Gordon asks Adam how he knew to turn off the light. Adam tries to lie, like a liar, and fails, like a failure, and is forced to reveal the photo. This is how Gordon (his name is Lawrence Gordon, he's a doctor) is able to come up with his big plan. He, having figured out it was poidonous, dips one cigarette into the blood of the dead man in the middle of the room. He turns off the light again. He explains his plan to Adam.

Lights come back up, Gordon gives Adam a cigarette and a lighter. Adam takes a drag. Suddenly what? Oh no? He's dying? Never mind, he's being electric shocked through his chain because boy howdy can that boy not act.

Also, when you turn off the lights, people can't see you. They can still hear you.

Gordon points his anger at Adam for the failure of the plan though again, he did just tell Adam the plan by talking. Like that's not that secure. But the electric shock triggers something in Adam. He remembers his abduction and having no one else in the room to talk to (besides the dead body), he tells Gordon about it. Their traumas are entwining. Then the phone rings. It's Diana. She begs her dad to save them. Then the phone is given to Alison who tells Gordon that he can't trust Adam and that they've known each other for a long time. Gordon confronts Adam. Adam admits that he's known who Gordon was for a few days. He'd been paid to follow Gordon around and take photos of what he was doing. Adam shows him the photos. Which photos, you ask? The ones in that bag that were in the plastic bag in the toilet. I'm sure you've forgotten about them now. They argue and Adam admits he followed Gordon to a hotel where Gordon was meeting up with one of his students, Carla. They were about to start an affair. Adam knows about this. As does John. That's the real reason Gordon is in this trap. A Welcome Home Cheater sign? No, no. This one gets the Saw Bathroom.

Convinced that whoever hired Adam must be Jigsaw, Gordon presses him on it. Adam relents. It's not Jigsaw. It's a detective who's convinced Gordon is Jigsaw.

They fall silent again. They figure out one of Jigsaw's henchmen is a guy called Zep who's an orderly at the hospital. The time runs out. The phone rings again. It's Alison! She's broken free! They're saved! Gunshots. Diana screams. Gordon cries. The chain electric shocks Gordon into unconsciousness. Adam immediately tries to wake him up, terrified Gordon is dead. He's not. But he's broken down. And when he was being electrocuted, he'd chucked the phone out of reach. Out of all other options, Gordon (his name is Lawrence Gordon, he's a doctor) uses his shirt to stanch his leg and begins to cut his foot off. Adam begs him not to and to just calm down, but Gordon's too far gone. When the deed is done (which you don't see in the film by the way, the first Saw was very tame when it came to gore surprisingly enough), he crawls to the dead body in the room and takes the gun out of the man's hand. He loads the gun with the one bullet he has. He shoots Adam. Adam falls back like he's in Looney Tunes. Gordon screams at the camera and begs them to save his family. And then Zep comes in. He was the one holding Gordon's family hostage. Gordon tries to shoot him. Gordon had one bullet in his gun. His shots are unsurprisingly ineffective. Zep is unimpressed with this. It is just a rapidly paling man missing a foot shooting an empty gun like he's in a water pistol battle in a county undergoing a drought. He decides to kill Gordon as he didn't kill Adam by 6 o'clock. And Zep is from the county over and has plenty of water to spare. He aims his gun at Gordon.

But he forgot about Adam. Like a Bugs Bunny reborn, Adam comes in from behind with the toilet tank lid. In his fear and pain and anger, he beats Zep over and over and over with the lid until Gordon is able to calm him down. They stare at each other like sad gay men. Gordon tells Adam that if he doesn't get out, he'll bleed to death here. Adam begs him to stay. Gordon promises to come back for him. Adam begs him not to leave him. Gordon crawls out the room. Adam is left alone, a bullet in his shoulder and his heart crawling away. He's all alone. Apart from John Kramer. He was the dead body in the middle of the room this whole time. He stands up. He tells Adam that the key to his chain was in the bathtub. The one that Adam had accidentally pulled the plug out of. He leaves the room. Game over.

Adam will die in this room. It was always going to end like this. One of them was going to die in that room. If Adam lives, Gordon must die. If Gordon lives, he must kill Adam. There is no way in the world for these two to survive, not together. There was always going to be a dead body in that bathroom."

[hwaslayer]

the space between us three (jyh) | five.

⇢series masterlist | series playlist

⇢summary: while juggling the demands of life, yunho continues to do his best to raise his independent 11 yr old daughter, seora. throughout the years, they've built a strong foundation, an unbreakable bond— one that consists of late night talks and food runs, father/daughter dates, and sideline cheerleading at her basketball games. so when you unexpectedly come into their world, things shift. despite the uncertainty and the fear of stepping outside of their comfort zone, yunho and seora eventually learn how to open their hearts and learn how to rebuild a home where three can thrive together.

⇢pairing: single dad!yunho x f. reader

⇢genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers to lovers, single dad au | fluff, angst, eventual smut

⇢word count: 6.6k

⇢chapter content/warnings: cussing, mature language/sexually implied content, more progress between oc x yunho 🥰, everyone is playing cupid because they feel it in the airrrr lol, a lil tiny, casual family meet and greet, oc talks to yunho a bit about her parents, yunho is absolutely smitten but he's def still struggling with his own feelings and thoughts

yunho: what kind of coffee do you like?

you: that's random. lol but anything sweet? i usually go for coffee with extra cream and sugar. or a vanilla latte!

yunho: gotcha. lol

you: why? what about you?

yunho: i usually just stick to an iced americano.

you: mud water.

yunho: don't say that. ☹️

you: you know we're supposed to be meeting in like 3 mins right? lol

yunho: sorry, gonna be a few mins late? 😅 got a coffee order to take care of!

you: yunho!

You playfully roll your eyes and smile when Yunho doesn't respond on Slack afterwards. It had been a few weeks since you and Yunho began meeting on a weekly basis, all meetings considered productive yet easy-going and laid back. Some had turned to lunch meetings, killing two birds with one stone whenever you or Yunho had to reschedule. You had grown comfortable with Yunho quickly, and to your surprise, Yunho was reciprocating the same energy. You would talk about the most random things in between going through the to-do list of items you needed to check in about. You were slowly getting to know him, and him, you. You couldn't help but feel like your crush on him was growing by minute, though you tried to tell yourself to take it slow and not act too obvious about it since:

One, you didn't wanna look like a fool.

Two, you don't even know if he feels the same.

Three, what if he's not even thinking about dating in general? 

Then, you'd look stupid.

You're not gonna lie, though; a part of you felt like he was also interested in exploring this idea. He was just taking his time, too. Probably checking off the boxes on his own list before saying or doing anything.

The Instagram likes were one thing.

Then, it was reacting to your stories. The likes, the messages. The subtle flirting in between the lines.

Yunho was over here in disbelief because he didn't think he'd be shaking off the dust on his instagram page just to keep up with you. He'd even post a few times on his story just to see if you'd do the same— which, you did.

Had him bothering his own daughter to make sure his posts were up to par.

⇢FLASHBACK

"Ace." Yunho calls for Seora as they sit at a café, indulging in drinks and pastries before getting their day started together.

"Huh?" She says, sipping on her iced peach tea.

"How do you add music to your Instagram story?" He furrows his brows.

"The music note at the top right corner .. ?" She lets out a breath. "Wait, hold on. Hand it over." Yunho cocks a brow up before handing his phone to his daughter. "Why are you posting this?"

"It's a nice picture, isn't it? The sun is hitting the drink and the pastry perfectly."

"It's good, but why don't we get some candids? I can take it."

"What, no—"

"Dad, please. It's impressive, but you need to put a little more umph. You've got a face, like jeez .. put it to use." She raises his phone. "Here, just sit and act natural."

"Seora, you don't have to."

"Sit and act natural!" She repeats. "Act like I'm not taking pictures." Yunho chuckles before shaking his head and acting as naturally as possible while sipping his drink. "Amazing." Seora aggressively clicks away before setting his phone back down. "Hm." She goes through the photos she took. "I'll post the best one and add a song to it, okay?"

"Go for it."

"Just so you know, since you are my dad, it'll be free of charge and you don't have to give me credit." He laughs. 

"Noted." She pauses and squints at him, trying to read her father while resting her chin on the palm of her hand.

"Who are you trying to impress?"

"No one! I can't just post?"

"All of a sudden." She continues to give him a look before resuming her work. "Your Instagram has been sitting in the historical section of the library for years."

"Hey, now. That's an exaggeration. What did I tell you about exaggerating?"

"Yeah huh. You didn't even know how to add music. That's how ancient it is to you." Seora laughs. "Dad, just admit it. It's fine. It won't make me love you any less."

"Are you done?" Yunho cocks his head to the side and playfully squints his eyes at her.

"Actually, yup! Just about." She slides over his phone. "Look at your story. In case you didn't know, you press your profile pic—"

"Ace, I know, okay."

"Sure about that?" She giggles, watching as her dad goes through his story— eyes widening in the process.

"Since when did you get good at taking photos?"

"Since ever, duh."

"Thanks, babygirl. Think you might've saved me there."

"You're welcome. Next time, there might be a service fee. Depending on the day."

"Service fee, huh?"

"Payment accepted are stickers, shopping dates and new Nikes."

"We'll talk."

"Great." Seora smiles just as Yunho ruffles her hair.

⇢END

It's the tiny chase. The pre-chase before the actual chase. Surveying the waters before going out to sea.

Yunho likes that part, and so do you.

You smile a bit to yourself thinking about the tiny moments, typing away and taking care of other items on your list until Yunho's figure appears in the hallway. He's talking to someone across the way, two cups of coffee in his hand. He laughs and bids his farewell before walking into the conference room.

"I'm only 7 minutes late."

"Only?" You snort as he puts your cup of coffee down. "Yunho, you didn't have to." You slightly pout and he smiles.

"Did you have coffee already?"

"No.."

"Then, yeah." Yunho chuckles. "Vanilla latte."

"Thank you." You smile at him before taking a sip. It does hit the spot, and you're not sure if it tastes extra good today because Yunho's the one that brought it. "Hey, is this from the coffee shop on the corner of the hospital wing?" You recognize the name as you've made the trek over a few times if you were truly craving their coffee.

"Mhm."

"They give stickers out with every purchase. Did they give you one?"

"Yeah." He digs into his pocket and slides you a cute cartoon drawing of a capybara holding a cup of coffee. You squeal as you take it into your hands, looking up at him with the cutest look he's ever seen.

"It's different every time! Can I take this off of your hands?"

"Go for it." He chuckles. "Glad you like it. I would've probably tossed it."

"I'll give it a good home." You tuck it into your pencil case.

"I know you will." Cute, is what he's trying to say.

"So, how is your morning so far?"

"Kinda hectic. Seora and I stayed up a little too late watching our show. She got up a few minutes later than usual and she was tired. Woops."

"Yunho." He laughs.

"What? We just get too into it without realizing."

"That's cute."

"Anyway, finally shuffled her out the door, then she realized she forgot a folder she needed for class so we had to turn back and .. yeah." 

"Eventful morning."

"To say the least." He chuckles. "What about you?"

"Hm, it's been pretty quiet on my end. But, it is Monday so I'm anticipating the chaos as the week goes on." 

"I feel that. Did you have a good weekend at least? You looked like you had fun at the vintage pop-up." Yunho types away on his laptop, the never-ending notification sounds of Slack going off.

"I did! Sian and I grabbed a few gems."

"The mirror pic was cute." You giggle.

"Thanks. How was yours?"

"Good. Seora and I did a little staycation downtown."

"Aw. Do you guys always do that?"

"The staycation kinda thing? Not really. But, we always spend time together doing different things. She wanted to hit a couple of spots down there so I figured we could just make a stay out of it. I think we'll camp next."

"That's so cute." You chuckle. "Glad you enjoyed yourself." He smiles.

"Yeah." He's doing that thing again. His eyes linger on you for a second and you aren't really sure how to respond or react. You break first, shifting your attention to the notes on your laptop before clearing the small tension in the air.

"So, how are things going with the team?"

"Good. I think we're ready to schedule a bigger meeting sooner than later to showcase what we've built so far. The majority is finished and they can just let us know what tweaks they want before we finalize and deploy."

"Oh, really? That's amazing, Yunho!"

"Don't thank me, I barely lifted a finger. It was the clinical informatics team."

"Shut up." You laugh. "You helped push it through with your guidance, regardless." You take a few notes. "How about the network and everything in the peds unit?"

"Should be good to go, too."

"Okay. I'll send out a poll later to the wider group to find a good time for us to meet."

"Sounds good, boss lady." You chuckle to yourself as you set your own reminders before meeting his eyes again. "How's everything else going on your end?"

"Hm, good. We're just waiting on a few approvals regarding patient transfers and all these other clinical roadblocks."

"Keeping you busy, I see."

"Kinda, yeah. But, I like it."

"That's all that matters." He gives you a toothless smile. 

"Is there anything else I should include in the meeting agenda for the wider group?"

"I think that's it. It'll be key for them to see the build and watch us play around with it. It'll probably take up most of the meeting."

"Should we aim for an hour?"

"Are you gonna stay for the hour?" You cock a brow up.

"What if I leave?"

"30 mins then." You snort.

"Kidding. I have to, silly."

"1 hour's good then."

"Why does it matter if I'm there or not?"

"I like having you around? You .. have a calming presence. It makes me feel comfortable." You giggle.

"Uh huh." 

"Swear. These people can be ruthless."

"I'm sure. I don't doubt that. I'll be there, I have to be. And you'll all do fine, I'm sure they'll be really pleased about the progress no matter what." You sip on your coffee. "Anything else? Going once, going twice?"

"Mm, yeah. Actually. Not to pivot or anything, but they're having food trucks at the hospital courtyard later for lunch. Wanna come?"

"What time?"

"I think they'll start around 11:30am, but we'll probably head down closer to lunch or a bit after."

"Cool. Let me know when you guys are there? I'll try to drag Noeul with me. I'm sure Sian will be there."

"I'll slack you." You shake your head, immediately feeling bold enough to slack him your number.

"My number. So you don't have to Slack me. I don't always check it." He smiles and calls the number before hanging up.

"That's me." He smirks. "Coulda just asked, you know?"

"You're full of it." He laughs as you both stand, gathering your things to head out of the room. "Guess I'll see you for lunch?"

"Mhm. I'm sticking around on this floor to take care of something else. I'll text you where we're at later." He presses the elevator button for you, watching as you safely get inside.

"Sounds good." He gives you a nod of acknowledgement just as the doors slide and close in on you. 

Lunch comes quicker than you can even grasp, the sudden wave of emails and little, never-ending tasks taking up your morning hours. It isn't until Noeul pops into your space that it triggers you to check the time again.

11:58am.

"Um, what are you doing?" She knits her brows at you, watching as you furiously type away. "I was waiting for you to come, but you never came."

"Sorry, time literally flew by with all this stuff coming up. But, I'm almost done." 

"Okay, let me go pee then. I rushed over thinking you might have left without me."

"What, no?" You laugh just as she scurries off to the bathroom, giving you time to type up the last bits of your email before sending it off and crossing it off on your to-do list. 

yunho: we're out here! coming soon? 

you: mhm, just waiting for noeul!

yunho: we'll stick around the fountain until you ladies come!

you: [likes message]

"Ready?" Noeul has her wallet in hand, a big smile on her face as she approaches your cubicle once more.

"Are you ready?" You chuckle as you stand and push your chair in. 

"Definitely. Starving." She sighs. "So, Yunho invited you, hm? Literally can't get enough of you—"

"Stop it right now. Don't go there." You press the elevator button. "We're just cool. He's chill. It doesn't have to be anything." You give her a look.

"Doesn't have to be anything when he could have just left it at your weekly Monday morning meetings. But, no." She smirks and turns to you as you head inside the elevator. "We got lunch dates and now, food truck dates."

"Okay, you know the lunch meetings were because either of us had to reschedule. And this food truck thing happened on a whim."

"Why are you trying so hard to deny all of it? Girl, it's right in front of your face. The man wants you and I know you do, too." She gently nudges you. "Atta girl." You feel the heat rise to your cheeks as you scroll senselessly on your phone just to distract yourself.

"Anyway." You let out a breath. 

"Uh huh." She giggles. 

"Sian's there. Any idea what you're craving?"

"You know, I've been craving a good pad thai." You nod.

"That's sounds right now, actually. With some vietnamese coffee."

"Hope they have a truck for it." The both of you swiftly exit the elevator and start making your trek down the path to the main hospital. There are a bunch of trucks parked around and near the courtyard area, with expectedly a ton of people in attendance from both hospitals. You spot the fountain in the middle, tippy-toeing to see if you can catch a glimpse of Yunho from where you're at.

"Oh, you're here!" Sian says, already with a to-go container in hand. "Where's your guy at?" Noeul laughs loudly.

"Shut up!" You glare at her. "They're by the fountain." You start heading towards the fountain with the two in tow.

"There's so many trucks, I'm overwhelmed."

"All so good, though!" Sian starts talking about what she bought and the other trucks she managed to pass by. When you finally approach the fountain, you find Yunho, Taehyun, Jihoon and a couple of their other team members hanging around— laughing and joking in their usual fashion. His eyes immediately land on you, and his lips turn upward into a big smile. He waves, Taehyun, Jihoon and the others turning your way to greet you with smiles or their own waves.

"Aw, she's here." Taehyun pokes fun at Yunho. "His ears are turning red." Jihoon laughs.

"Never seen that before. Must be a good thing." Yunho squints his eyes at them before you and the girls finally approach the group.

"Hey!" You greet them, along with Noeul and Sian.

"Glad you made it through the sea of people."

"Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people around." You chuckle.

"Hungry? Wanna go find something to eat?" You nod, letting Yunho lead the way. Before you even realize it, You and Yunho end up walking away from the group unintentionally— everyone splitting ways to grab food of their liking without coming up with a plan to meet somewhere in the middle afterwards.

Unless, this was their plan all along.

You can't even spot any of them in the surrounding crowd.

"Anything you're craving?"

"Me and Noeul were just talking about this." You chuckle. "We've been thinking about good pad thai."

"Mm." Yunho hums. "I think they have a truck over there for it. Line is kinda long though, if you're okay with that."

"It's fine. I have time." You look up at him. "What're you gonna eat?"

"Whatever you're eating?" He laughs. "I'm not gonna leave you alone in this line."

"Yunho. I'll be good, you can go find something you like."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm good with whatever. Besides, their garlic noodles sound good." You giggle.

"Okay then! If you say so." You pout a bit and he lets out a tiny laugh.

"How have the past few hours been?"

"The usual. A few emails did wash in and keep me busy. Had two quick check-in meetings over Zoom, too." He nods. "What about you and the team?"

"Yeah, it got kinda chaotic for a second. Lots of things were breaking at once, but we've got a handle on it. Systems are recovering." He checks his phone to make sure nothing else urgent has popped up.

"You guys are always running around."

"We are. Between both hospitals. Gives me a good workout to be running around like crazy." You laugh. "How's your brother doing, by the way? He seems cool. It was nice to see you guys together that one weekend."

"Cool? Please." You playfully roll your eyes. "But, he's good. Living life as he usually does." You chuckle. "We'll probably be back in the next weekend or so. Be prepared to get sick of us. Or, me. I guess." 

"Nah, never." Yunho laughs. "I'm glad you'll be around more often. I'm sure your parents are happy about it."

⇢FLASHBACK

"Your favorite child is here—" You smack Wonwoo upside the head as you two head in through the gate of your parents' house. You and Wonwoo decided to spend the night as an attempt to genuinely give them more time and be around them. "Ah-ow." He squints and looks at you.

"I don't recall you helping pick out their new couch last week."

"Oh, because the one weekend I'm away and can't come, you automatically think you're the favorite? Get a grip." You roll your eyes and gently push him to the side before entering the house. 

Yunho's car isn't in sight next door.

The both of you greet your parents loudly before going to your old, respective rooms and dropping off your things. Your parents waste no time shuffling you two back out of the house, dragging you along on their usual routine— Costco, other grocery stores and a bit of shopping at the mall. Wonwoo and your father start geeking out over golf clubs, fishing and coffee, while you and your mom are too busy shopping for makeup, bags, perfumes and skincare.

It's nice to see your family like this.

Calm, peaceful and enjoying each other without any side commentary and remarks.

Your family decides to grab a pretty early dinner at the food court— you and your brother opting for some rice bowls, while your mom and dad share some cold noodles. You and Wonwoo start updating your parents about where things are at work, with your mom happily praising Yunho when you mention how often you have to meet with him to push things forward on the IT side. Wonwoo talks a bit about how work has been keeping him busy and how him and the boys are planning more trips in the future. Luckily, your parents don't say much about how you both have been spending your downtime— the two of them too busy fighting over the kind of boba drink they wanna share before leaving the mall.

When you get back, you and Wonwoo clean up and get settled, already feeling hungry again after the small, early dinner you had.

"Hey." You lean against Wonwoo's door frame as he stands from shuffling through his duffle bag.

"Yeah?"

"Kinda want a snack. Ice cream. Something we can take and sit by the pit in the backyard."

"Convenience store trip?" You nod, already dressed in your oversized crewneck and sweats. Wonwoo throws on his hoodie over his shirt, sporting his basketball shorts and slippers. You let your parents know you're trekking down to the store, your dad calling out for you to bring back bottles of soju just as you head out the door.

You let out a breath when the crisp night air touches your skin; breath visible in the cold. As you exit through the gate, you notice Yunho's car is parked now, and you suddenly wonder what he's up to.

"It's a little nostalgic making this walk and sleeping in my room again." Wonwoo cuts in.

"Yeah, I know. I kinda miss those times. When we'd get home from school or head down to the convenience store with our friends before walking deeper into town."

"The simple days."

"Tell me about it." You chuckle, head pointed down as you continue the quiet walk with your brother. The door to the convenience store dings when it swings open, causing you to turn your attention back upwards.

You stop, and Wonwoo knits his brows at you when he sees you've stopped moving forward.

"Oh— Yunho." You pause in your steps when you see Yunho and his daughter come out of the same convenience store. A small smile tugs on the corner of your lips when you get a good look at how much she looks like her dad. She's got height to her, too. Makes sense she's an athlete. She's got dark brown hair, long. Eyes are brown, lashes are long. Her eyes and her nose are exactly her father's. She's dressed in a cute puffer jacket and flare leggings, Ugg slippers. Her dad is in a thick Essentials grey hoodie, jeans and brown Nikes. 

"Y/N, hey." He smiles. "Nice to see you."

"Grabbing ice cream after dinner?" You look at the ice cream in their hands.

"Before, actually." He shyly says before chuckling. "Haven't gotten to making dinner yet, we just got home not too long ago."

"Touché. All good. Can't go wrong with that, sometimes." You laugh a bit before turning to Wonwoo. "This is Wonwoo, my younger brother." 

"Hey." Wonwoo does a curt bow, which Yunho reciprocates. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too. This is my daughter, Seora."

"Hi." She smiles toothlessly as she sways from side to side, hand in a pocket while the other holds her ice cream cone.

"Hi Seora." You look at her with a soft smile while Wonwoo waves.

"They're Auntie Love and Uncle Po's kids."

"Cool. It's nice to finally put a face to it. Your parents talk about you alot. Like a lot! But we never see you around." She says.

"We just get busy, is all. But, you'll be seeing more of us from now on." Seora nods.

"Are you guys picking up some ice cream, too?"

"Yeah, and other snacks. Drinks for my dad." You chuckle.

"We're about to hang out in the backyard with our parents if you wanna join. Sure they wouldn't mind." Wonwoo adds with a shrug.

"Thanks, that's really nice of you guys. Don't wanna intrude, though. You should definitely take this time with your parents." Yunho responds.

"Well, I'm sure one of us will be knocking at your door with food tonight."

"I can look forward to that." Yunho laughs. "Anyway, we'll get going. Thanks again, and enjoy your goodies." His eyes land on you, and you can't help but feel the heat instantly rise to the surface of your cheeks. He doesn't break contact for awhile, which doesn't make it any easier for you. It isn't until Seora and Wonwoo start walking off that he finally breaks and gives you a tiny smile before following his daughter home.

"Aye." Wonwoo says when you reappear next to him again. "He seems nice. Is that the guy you were talking about? Mom and dad's neighbor that you work with?"

"Yeah, we're working together for the new department. It's also the same guy I almost spilled my coffee on."

"Damn. No wonder you were crying about it." He laughs. "I saw you two."

"Saw .. what?" Wonwoo clicks his teeth and gives you a look.

"Just looking at each other. That's what. Don't play dumb." He grabs the soju bottles for your dad and slips it into the basket.

"Oh. Jeez, that wasn't anything."

"Uh huh. Cause I stare people down on a daily basis the same way you two do."

"Wonwoo." You roll your eyes. "We barely know each other."

"And? Doesn't mean you won't, especially having to work so closely with him." He throws some of his favorite snacks into the basket, along with your favorite chips.

"Well, you know what, whatever happens, happens. Either way, I'm good. You know this."

"I feel that."

"Besides, I know Yunho is worried about his daughter more than anything. Wouldn't that be kinda weird to step into their life and disrupt their whole flow?" You head towards the ice cream. "I can imagine mom having a lot of shit to say about it."

"Dude, mom and dad love him and his daughter. He wouldn't have to do a damn thing to impress them." You laugh.

"Wishful thinking." You shake your head. "Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves." You look at him with both your favorite ice cream in hand. "Ready?"

"Yup." You and Wonwoo head to the counter, allowing your brother to [happily] pay for the snacks and drinks. He carries the bag in one hand while you both joke around in your usual sibling fashion until you head your mom's voice echoing in the street.

"My kids! They finally make an appearance! You met them, right? Seora, you've met my kids?! They finally took time to see us—" You watch as Yunho and Seora turn towards you, tupperwares already sitting in Yunho's hands.

"Mom, jeez. You're the loudest thing in this street." Your brother teases, making you laugh. "Airing out our business to the whole damn neighborhood."

⇢END

"I guess so. Even then, our parents will still find ways to rub it in our faces." You let out a small breath, pushing upwards as the line moves.

"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Call me nosey if you want." You cock a brow up as you meet his eyes again.

"Try me."

"Do you and your parents get along well?"

"I guess so. For the most part. We're just like any other family who fights every now and then. Why do you ask?"

"I— I just heard it in your voice that first Monday meeting we had. It just seemed a little deeper, is all. Wanted to see if you were okay."

"Wow, you remember that far back?"

"Well, to be fair, it wasn't that far back. But, yeah. I don't know. I picked up on the shift." You look down at your feet.

"It's really nothing deep. We just argue like any kids do with their parents. They set a lot of their expectations and wishes on us, even if it's not what me and Wonwoo want right now. Or, I guess to put it plainly, they've been putting a lot of pressure on us."

"Which is?"

"Well, you know. The usual settling down and having a family of our own. We have each other, but they still worry that no one else will help take care of us or support us in the long run."

"I know it can get frustrating, but I'm sure the underlying message is that they just wanna see you both happy and taken care of."

"Right, but we're happy with where we're at. We aren't are rushing, but they keep acting like time is running out."

"Hm." He hums again." I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I think we've gotten used to it, and we're both just trying to remember the more positive side of it like you mentioned."

"They care about you two deeply, that's all it is. Nothing about you two doing anything wrong."

"Yeah. I know." You give him a subtle toothless smile before shifting your attention to the front. You finally get to place your order, with Yunho suddenly jumping in right before you get a chance to whip out your card. He relays his order and taps his card against the reader to pay for both meals, walking away with a shit-eating smirk on his face as you follow him in disbelief. "Yunho!"

"What?" He laughs.

"Why'd you do that! You already got me coffee! Let me send you some money."

"No, I wanted to." You pout.

"Are you sure? I mean, the food was kinda pricey, I wanna send—"

"Y/N." He looks at you. "I promise it's fine. I wanted to, so let me, yeah?"

"Okay. Fine. But, I'll get you next time."

"Sure." You whine a bit to protest. The food is whipped up quick, with you and Yunho only waiting another 5 minutes until it's being handed over in a thick plastic bag. You spot your friends and his team members huddled at a table, waving you over to join them while they eat. You plop down next to Sian and Noeul, who have already started eating— to your surprise, Noeul opted for something different than what she was originally craving. The group is engaging in lively conversation, the boys asking a lot about how the pediatrics unit usually is or picking Noeul's brain with HR cases [sparing any sensitive details]. 

Its nice that you, Sian and Noeul are blending in easily.

Conversation comes easy, even when Yunho is looking at you the way he is from across the table.

In the next 45-mins, both Sian and Noeul run off to a meeting, with a few of Yunho's team members heading back up to tend to service tickets. Taehyun and Jihoon are the last few to bid their farewells before they're leaving you and Yunho alone.

"Let me walk you back."

"You don't have to."

"Y/N, what can I do? I can't pay for you, I can't buy you coffee, I can't walk you. God forbid." You laugh at his teasing and playfully push him aside.

"I just don't want you to do extra work when you'll probably have a shit ton of work to get back to."

"No biggie. I can handle it." You nod. "Did you enjoy your food?"

"Oh my god, yeah. It was so good. How about you?"

"Yeah, it was good. Anything else on your plate for today?"

"We shall see." You look down at the ground. Yunho is literally battling with himself right now, trying to figure out if he should keep asking you to lunch or if he should take the leap and ask if you wanna hang out outside of work hours. You don't break the silence for a good while either; it makes Yunho wonder if you were thinking about similar things, too. "You okay?"

"Oh, yeah. Just kinda spaced out. Maybe the food coma is hitting me." You giggle, stopping at the side entrance of the pediatric hospital.

"Try to take it easy then, okay?" You look up at him and the sun hits you perfectly from where you're standing. You're having to shield your eyes and squint at him, and Yunho thinks it's adorable. He steps to the side to help block the sun rays, making you giggle even more at the use of his tall figure. "I guess I'll see you later?" You smile. "Thank you for walking me, Yunho. I feel kinda bad you have to trek back."

"Ah, can get my steps in." He shifts his weight and rocks back and forth on his feet while looking at you. "Lunch again tomorrow?"

"Sure, yeah."

"I'll text you." He smiles, watching as you nod and wave— shuffling over to the elevator. You give him one last goodbye before the elevator doors swallow you whole, leaving Yunho to his lonely trek back to his headquarters.

Should he have asked?

Would he lose anything by asking?

Is he being too much?

Do you even like him like that? What if it's just your personality to be that kind and sweet?

What if you're like that to everyone and he isn't any—

"Hey." His head turns upwards to see Ara coming out of the hospital. 

"Oh, hey." 

"Coming back from lunch?"

"Yeah." She nods quietly.

"I see you've been hanging out." Yunho furrows his brows at Ara. She nods towards the pediatrics hospital and he follows her gaze before returning his attention to her.

"Oh. We're working together on the new unit and she's the bridge from the pediatric end. We just meet weekly about updates." She nods slowly, silently.

"Over lunch, too?" Yunho tilts his head to the side. "You seem like you get along well with her."

"Yeah." Yunho pauses a bit. "We're chill."

"That was fast."

"Ara." He calls her name with slight disappointment in his tone. One, he's a little appalled she'd jump to conclusions so quickly. But two, most importantly, he understands why she would be frustrated but who was he to force feelings? He simply didn't feel the same way she did and he's genuinely sorry about it. He tried to bring her down gently and he still stands by what he said— he doesn't think he'd be ready to take on a super serious relationship right away if anything were to evolve.

He'd need to take his time and build his trust, his comfort.

And he just couldn't see that with her.

"All good!" She laughs it off. "Glad you're happy." She nods before brushing him off completely. "Anyway, I gotta run to eat before I do my rounds. See you around!" She flies right on by without giving Yunho any more time. He sighs heavily to himself, mumbling a low 'shit' as he turns on his heel.

"What was that about?" Seonghwa has his hands dug into his pockets as he points his lips behind Yunho.

"A whole misunderstanding."

"That, or she's just hurt." Seonghwa chuckles a bit. "Was it the whole lunch thing? Lunches, I guess. Lunches, meetings, coffee dates, whatever." Seonghwa corrects himself.

"Sure, yeah. Guess you could say that."

"She'll be okay."

"Where the hell were you, anyway? I tried texting you but you didn't respond."

"I went to go see Yoori." Yunho slowly nods.

"Ah. Got it." Seonghwa chuckles and shakes his head.

"Then I got caught up with some people in the lobby. How was the food truck event?"

"Good, they actually had some really good trucks posted there today."

"Damn. It's okay. Next time."

"Yeah, I'm sure your time with Yoori was eventful, anyway."

"Fuck off. Y/N came?" It's no secret that Yunho had already mentioned you to Seonghwa and Mingi at this point. Not only because you two were meeting frequently, but because he started to open up to his bestfriends about how comfortable you made him feel and how he had been interested in possibly exploring things further. They know what Yunho is like when he genuinely has feelings for someone and is deeply interested, and this is it. The constant messaging, down to meet up during the work day without question, dusting off the Instagram page to catch each other's attention— it feels like forever since they've seen Yunho gush over someone the way he had been doing with you.

They're glad, though.

They hope this takes off properly.

They hope it all works out well.

"Sure did."

"How was that?"

"Good." Yunho smiles a bit to himself.

"When am I gonna meet her?"

"Well you could've if you weren't so busy tending to your needs." Seonghwa clicks his teeth.

"She looked cute."

"She is cute."

"Okay, maybe you do move on fast." He jokes. 

"Correction." Yunho looks at him. "I put myself out there and gave it a shot with Ara just like all you assholes told me to and it didn't work out. Sorry." He shrugs. "I don't know what you want me to say." Seonghwa laughs.

"I'm just teasing. I know, I know. And that's fair. I can't blame you." There's a small silence before Seonghwa breaks the air again. "Well, it seems like you and Y/N are getting along more and more every day. It's nice to see."

"Yeah, we are. It's nice having her around and working with her on all these things."

"When are you gonna ask her out?"

"That's a good question." Yunho kicks at the ground below his feet before shrugging. "Am I?"

"Yeah? Absolutely."

"I don't know. I'm kinda shy to after the whole Ara thing."

"Well again, to be fair, that was you testing the waters. This is slightly different since you both are genuinely interested in each other."

"I dunno if she is."

"Quit that shit, okay? If she wasn't, she wouldn't be wasting time on your ass." Yunho sighs. 

"I should've asked her while she was with me earlier."

"You can always text her if you can't wait."

"I don't wanna be lame, though."

"You're not! It's all in the beginning stages, you're not gonna have everything down perfectly no matter how hard you try."

"I guess so. I'll think about it tonight."

"Don't lose out on it." Yunho licks his lips, interrupted by the notifications blaring through his phone. He sees a few urgent issues coming up, causing him to rub at the back of his neck before groaning and tucking his phone back into his pocket.

"Anyway, gotta run. Got some shit to take care of. I'll talk to you later."

"Don't text or call me unless you have good news to share."

"Fuck you." Yunho mouths out before doing a light jog towards the old hospital to take care of business with Taehyun.

"I mean it!" Seonghwa says loudly before walking towards the café for more coffee.

As the day goes on, both you and Yunho end up getting swamped with tasks here and there— the both of you leaving work a little later than your end times. You swing by the store to grab a few more groceries needed for dinner, while Yunho gets home and quickly showers to prep dinner for him and Seora. Although you had been busy, you had been wondering what Yunho was up to and vice versa.

Yunho, especially.

He manages to whip up some spaghetti, having a good, hearty conversation with his daughter about how school and practice went today. Yunho listens attentively when she complains about her teacher assigning a report due at the end of the week, listens attentively when she talks about a new play their coach pulled out during practice. He listens attentively to all the little quirks and details of her day, exchanging his own when she asks how work was and if he enjoyed the food trucks that came by.

Even throughout all of that, a part of him is still stuck on you.

You.

Torn and getting pulled in all different directions.

Bedtime comes and .. he still hasn't decided. All this internal back and forth is starting to make Yunho feel frustrated because of Ara, because of Eunha— because he thinks he just can't get past losing someone else, or not finding someone who could be a fit for him, his daughter.

He's scared.

He's scared he'll never get to experience that ever again, and if he does, it'll probably just get taken away from him.

Again.

That's why he hesitates. He's not sure if he has it in him, but at the same time, he knows he has to get past this. He has to try, and he has to stop assuming they'll all end badly in one way or another.

"Fuck." He mumbles to himself as he slightly sits back up, grabbing his phone from the nightstand. 

Should he wait? It's getting late.

He watches the minutes pass him by before he pulls up your number and begins to type away, thinking of some kinda excuse to pull himself outta this shit before it's too late.

But, he can't help it. He wants to text you.

Fuck it.

yunho: hey! sorry for the late text. hope i'm not bothering you.

Your eyes dart to your phone sitting on the edge of the bathroom counter while you continue to massage your night cream into your face, slowing your motions and smiling to yourself when you see who has finally put your number to use outside of work hours. You massage the remaining cream down to your neck before picking up your phone to respond.

you: hey you! you're not a bother. ☺️

yunho: oh, you're awake?!

you: i don't sleep that early! haha.

yunho: idk you said you fall asleep at like 8pm. lol

you: i said sometimes i'm in bed by 8pm but i don't fall asleep until later! i just get lazy and don't wanna do anything at the end of the day. lol

yunho: okay fine, fair enough! i'll let it pass.

you: please, hahaha

yunho: soooo .. this is kinda lame and i should've done it earlier but i was shy about it 😭 

yunho: but, by any chance, do you wanna grab dinner and kick it at the end of the week? no pressure or anything.

you: not lame! lol. i'd love to, yunho. ☺️ sounds fun!

yunho: really? 😀 cooooool. let me plan and think of a few things we could do.

you: sounds good w/ me!

yunho: i'll let you get to bed. see you tomorrow? 

you: mhm, mhm! goodnight. 😌

yunho: goodnight y/n, sweet dreams.

You bite onto your bottom lip as you giggle to yourself and grab your lip mask before happily waddling to bed. You let out a squeal against your pillow, instantly texting Sian and Noeul about what just transpired.

The end of the week couldn't come any quicker.

⇢taglist: @asjkdk @interweab @woojirang @svintsandghosts @cheolliehugs @persphonesorchid @mxnsxngie @jycas @cowboydk @nopension @curse-of-art @thechaotictheoryy @likexaxdaydream @dalsuwaha @enha-stars @yasuraokaa @professormingisglasses @yunyunrin @pommelex @astral-trashcan @laura1399 @domfikeluva @tournesol155 @hwaskookies @yusalterego @hwa-stars @hyukssunflower @chngbnwf @jaytheatiny @lucid-galaxys-world @chaotic-floral @sofkloster @honeyrecommends @hwashua-luv @luvv4bby @spicxbnny @pandyandy71 @sanniesaurus

[meanbossart]

Hey, I was just thinking about Drow as a companion, you've talked a little about what you think he would be like. Have you thought about how he would act at the goblin vs. the tiefling party in act one?

Good question! Supporting the grove happens to be one of those unambiguously good choices that he is 100% behind. He finds Khaga (and the druids in general) to be insufferable, despises Minthara because she's a drow and a cultist, and most importantly cares about the tiefling children's safety. Because of this, he will likely be unhappy about the grove being raided... Yet, not enough to leave the party or strongly challenge a Tav on it. Massacring the grove would sate that blood-lust in himself, and he would draw pleasure from it, despite it going against his bare-bones morality. DU drow would be too conflicted about his own feelings about it to express himself strongly one way or another after the deed is done, kind of like Shadowheart reacts to the whole ordeal.

If you save the grove, you will find him sampling from Mol's secret wine stash. Mol tells you they cut a deal and you can either pay her the 100 gold you "owe" her for his antics, or tell her to sod off.

You can then find DU drow hidden away and drinking himself into a stupor. He's still coherent but occasionally slurring his words, clearly a really experienced drunk. He talks about Mol, how he thinks she's a riot and just thought he'd teach her a valuable lesson about business. If you ask him why he's isolated himself, he will jokingly say he's too humble to be showered in all this praise. You can succeed an insight check to find out that he's nervous about something.

If you ask what he thinks about what you've done, he's expresses indifference about the adults but, again, that he's glad the children are okay.

Tav: You're drinking like a man with a guilty conscience. Just to remind you - we're the good guys tonight. The drow: (Scoffs) The hellspawn aren't making it far. They are too... too bright-eyed. We've only put-off the inevitable. ...I only lament the fates of the children. The little sods didn't choose this life. Tav: They're clever enough. I'm sure they'll be alright. The drow: Cleverness can only get you so far. They're still little.

You can trigger his romance here, but you can't have sex with him yet. Through being flirtatious but not pushy he will promise you to pick this up another time, when he's not quite so indisposed. The scene would trigger during the next event-less long-rest.

In the goblin party, on the other hand, he will be found standing at his tent as normal. He's sober and there's no nervousness to be uncovered through any checks, in fact, he doesn't seem to be in too foul a mood - but he does treat you with a degree of coldness.

Tav: You seem a little pouty. Don't tell me you're sour about a few dozen dead tieflings. The drow: Not at all - the ceremony was quite lovely, I'm just finding the reception to be... Lackluster. Tav: Oh - the goblins aren't worth your company, your highness? The drow: They aren't even worth roasting for supper. To make no comment of the head-fanatic - you'd be spewing her out both ends for days, if you chose to indulge.

As long as you don't antagonize him for his diarrhea joke, you get to actually have sex with him that very night as well as trigger the romance.

As an addition - if he's in your party he will actually kill Minthara when she tries to turn against you in the middle of the night. You still have to fight all of the goblins after this, but she will have her throat slit by him during the cutscene. This means you can only recruit both of them if you knock her out at the goblin camp.

[mindless-existence1]

Shadow x fem or gn reader thats sonic’s sibling but they don’t mention it until they get together, how would Shadow and Sonic react? Thought this idea was funny (oneshot)

Idk if ur requests are open, but take your time !

I didn't realize I finished this so I was scrolling through my writing app and found it finished and girl I was shocked. Sorry it's gone so long without being posted 😅😅

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shadow wasn’t the type to meet many people unless it was absolutely necessary. So when you brought up introducing him to your brother, he raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue, hed do anything if you said it nice enough.

The two of you had yet to start officially dating, you wanted to wait untill he at least knew your family. You spent nearly every day together, and it was clear to anyone with eyes that there was something deeper than friendship between you.

Still, you hadn’t exactly told Shadow everything about yourself. Not because you were hiding anything—far from it—but because, well, some details just never seemed relevant. Like the fact that your brother was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog.

You didn’t think much of it. Shadow never really talked about Sonic, and you didn’t bring him up often either. It wasn’t until you arranged for the two of them to meet at a local café that you realized the glaring oversight in your plan.

---

You arrived first with Shadow, finding a cozy table in the corner of the café. He sat next to you, arms crossed, his usual stoic demeanor firmly in place. “So, your brother,” Shadow said, glancing at you. “What’s he like?”

You smiled. “Oh, he’s great. Kind of cocky sometimes, but he’s got a good heart. You’ll like him.” Shadow raised an eyebrow at that, but before he could respond, the door jingled, and you turned to see Sonic stroll in, his signature confident grin plastered across his face.

“Hey, there you are!” Sonic called out, making his way over to your table. His eyes flicked to Shadow, and his grin faltered slightly. “Oh. It’s you.” Shadow’s expression darkened immediately. “Of course. It’s you.”

You blinked, looking between the two of them. “Wait... you two know each other?” Sonic chuckled dryly, crossing his arms. “Know each other? Yeah, you could say that. Shadow and I have a bit of... history.”

Shadow scoffed, glaring at Sonic. “History? Is that what we’re calling it now? I’d call it a series of your insufferable antics.”

“Insufferable? Please,” Sonic shot back, smirking. “You’re just mad because I’m better and you're supposed to be "the ultimate lifeform".” Your mouth fell open as the two of them glared at each other, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Okay, hold on,” you said, holding up your hands. “I feel like I’m missing something here. How do you two even know each other?” Sonic blinked, glancing at you. “Wait... you’re telling me you never mentioned me to him?”

“I didn’t think it was important!” you said defensively. “Why, exactly, is this such a big deal?” Shadow narrowed his eyes at Sonic. “You didn’t tell me your brother was him.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me you hated my brother!” you shot back, exasperated.Sonic snorted. “Hate’s a strong word. It’s more like... mild irritation.”

“Mutual disdain,” Shadow corrected, his tone dry.You groaned, rubbing your temples. “Okay, look. Can we all just... start over? Shadow, this is my brother, Sonic. Sonic, this is Shadow. He’s... someone very important to me.”

Sonic’s eyebrows shot up, and a sly grin spread across his face. “Oh, very important, huh? Didn’t realize you had a thing for dark and broody hedgehogs.”

“Don’t start,” you warned, shooting him a glare. Shadow, for his part, simply crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. You shush himbefore he can let out the remark you could sense about to come from him, “You two are going to get along if it kills me. Sonic, stop being a smartass. Shadow, stop being... you.”

The two of them exchanged a glance, and for a moment, it seemed like they might actually listen.Then Sonic grinned again. “Fine. But only because I like you more than I dislike him.”

Shadow sighed, his expression softening slightly as he looked at you. “I’ll tolerate this... for you.” You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help the small smile tugging at your lips. It was going to take some time, but you had a feeling that, eventually, these two might just get along—or at least not fight on sight every time they were in the same room.

[xoxo-author]

My Salesman

Pairing: Salesman x reader

Warnings: my shitty writing, language, mentions of violence, probably so many errors

Side note: Does anyone know the salesman name in the show or do we really only know him as the salesman? Doesn’t bother me one bit either way 😉

Don’t be nasty! Please don’t copy my work!

Does the story make sense? No. Has it been living in my head since season 2 came out? Yes. Have I thought about the salesman at least 7 days a week since season 2 came out? Also yes.

Enjoy!

Credit to gif owner

I let out a long sigh, "Can you please watch where you're going?"

"Holy shit, I found you!"

My head snaps up, confusion written all over my face. Jin, who I haven't seen in almost two years and who was a family friend, stands in front of me with wide eyes. My confusion only grows deeper as he wraps his arms around me tightly, brings me to his chest, and lifts me off the ground causing me to tense. 

He sets me back on the ground before pushing me to arms length with his hands on my shoulders, "Do you know how long I've been looking for you?"

"Looking for me?"

"You've been missing for three years!" 

"Missing?"

He nods, "You fell off the face of the earth and no one has heard from you since. Do you know how worried we all were?"

I shake my head, trying to shrug off his hands, "I'm not missing Jin."

Jin looks at me as if I was crazy, "You're not missing? Do you think we're all going to believe that you went away on your own? No, your dad was right to report you missing."

My dad? What the hell did he do now? "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Three years ago you vanished without a trace, no one hears from you or knows where you are. Your dad comes into the station and reports you missing."

"You're telling me, my father reported me missing to the cops?"

Jin nods, letting his hands fall from my shoulders down to my forearms, "He was so distraught, he was talking about how you guys were in the train station when a man in a grey suit with a briefcase who was tall approached him and asked him to play a game for money and when your dad refused, the man took you instead."

It doesn't necessarily shock me that my father would lie to the police, he was nothing more than a crook but to know that he reported me missing when it was his fault that I've been gone for three years is mind-blowing. 

"We sent out search parties, hung fliers, posted reward money for your return or any information on you or the man in the grey suit, we sent bolos to other cities and nearby countries, we checked surveillance tapes and everything came back with nothing."

I tilt my head to the side, "What do you mean surveillance tapes came back with nothing?"

I know for a fact that there were so many cameras in the station that one of them was bound to have caught my dad just hand me over to the grey suit guy. Granted I went willingly but still.

"The cameras were down the day you went missing."

I shake my head, of course they were. While my father is a complete sleazeball, he's a smart sleazeball who would cover all his bases. 

"Your case went cold until about two and a half years ago. We had a guy come in claiming he was taken to this island where there were four hundred and fifty-five other people there who owed money to someone or something. These people could play a couple of games and win money but if you lost a game you would be killed so there could only be one winner and this man claimed to be the winner. We thought he was complete batshit until he mentioned that he was approached by a tall man who wore a grey suit that had a briefcase who asked him if he wanted to play a game."

My father came home roaring drunk one night talking about how he was approached by someone in the station asking if he wanted to play a game for money and how he wanted the entire briefcase but the man wouldn't give it up so my father offered him something for the money in the case. That something was me. My father traded his own daughter for money.

When I found out, I was livid but then I realized it would be my only way out and away from him. 

We went to the station that same night and the man in the suit still stood there, seemingly waiting for my father to return. I suppose I should've beenfrightened at the fact that my father sold me to a stranger but I felt the complete opposite. Maybe it was the fact that he was dressed as an everyday salesman. I was calm as I stood by the man's side and watched my father walk away with the money. 

There was a small part of me that expected the man to let me go but he did not. I've been with him the past three years and I can say they've been the best three years. Yeah, he was completely batshit crazy. I mean he sent people to games where they were more than likely not coming back and he may have killed people (not quite positive on that one but he did come home with blood on his clothes and face so using context clues) but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I don't see the entire crazy side, I mostly only see the "normal" side. 

That's probably the daddy issues talking but that's a problem for another day. 

Letting out a sigh, I manage to tug one of my arms free, "Jin, as you can see, I am completely fine. I am unharmed and not missing. You can tell people I am fine but please don't tell them where I am."

His eyes go even wider, "You're coming home with me. I just told you that your father has been worried sick about you for the past three years and yet you don't want to come home or let me tell him where you are?"

If only he knew the truth about my father, although that might not matter as Jin has always tried, for some reason, to get on my father's good side. I knew of his crush on me since forever so I am sure that is his driving factor for wanting to be on my father's good side. 

Jin looks down as I try to tug my other hand free, his grip only getting tighter, "What's on your finger? Did you marry your kidnapper?"

It was about a year and a half when we got married. I fell for the "normal" side. Again, thank you daddy issues. 

Jin begins to tug on my arm, "You're coming home and that's the end of it. You and I will get married, your father will be happy, and you'll be home. Everything will go back to normal."

As I use my free hand to tug at his iron-like fist around my forearm, I manage to look at the time on his watch. My head shoots up, eyes frantically glancing over the different faces in the park in search of a certain man who doesn't like when his things are touched. 

Giving my forearm another tug, Jin starts trying to pull me in the opposite direction of where I was headed. 

"Jin, you need to let go of me right now."

A throat clearing behind me made Jin stop in his tracks, his head turning back to look at me. Or rather who was behind me.

I knew who it was without even having to look. 

"Who's this?"

My body tilts to the side a little while my head turns up, "A friend from home."

Returning my attention to Jin, I tug my arm again, "Jin, let go and go back home."

Jin's eyes seemingly trace every inch of the infamous man in the grey suit (although he had on black pants and a white button-up today), "Is this your kidnapper?"

Jins grip on my forearm tightens causing me to suck in a breath and as soon as the words, "Jin you're hurting me" came out of my mouth, my view was obstructed by a stretched-out (rather stretched due to broad shoulders) white button-up. 

"I believe my wife has told you that you are hurting her so it's in your best interest if you let go."

Jin's grip falters for a moment before going back to gripping my forearm, "I'm taking her back to where she belongs."

The man in front of me chuckles and I knew it was game over. 

"I don't like it when people touch what belongs to me."

I couldn't see anything but I could hear and what I heard was a fist connecting to face, more specifically a fist breaking a bone. 

Jin immediately let go of my arm, letting me move out from behind my shield who had his head tilted and his signature smirk. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was in crazy mode. 

My salesman looks down at me, eyes quickly giving me a once over only to narrow when he sees my now see-through sundress. His eyes snaps back to Jin, who looked like he was about to shit his pants, "Not only was it enough to hurt my wife but you wanted to see what I get to have every night? Did you purposefully make her spill the drinks on herself?"

I quickly place myself in front of him, one of my hands going to his chest while the other goes to the side of his neck. Over the past three years, I've learned that skin-to-skin contact seems to help pull him out of the I'm a killer phase. "Look at me... Look at me, please...I want to go home."

His gaze snaps to mine and I give him a little smile, "Take me home?"

I could feel him relax a little before he reached up and takes hold of my hand that was on his chest. He shoots Jin a look that would for sure kill him if looks could kill and turn on his heels, pulling me in the direction of our home. 

I don't bother turning around to look at Jin.

"What was his favorite game to play as a child?"

My salesman was already looking at me when I looked up at him. 

"If you don't tell me, I'll have to pick my favorite and we both know which one that’ll be”

🔫🔫

[eldragon-x]

Game recommendations for In Stars And Time fans

There's only four of them but honestly I think each one of these is good enough of an excuse to recommend it to ISAT fans. All of these are more or less in order of how much I recommend them from most to least.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity (Nintendo 3DS)

I am a huge PMD fan, being as it's a largely story-based spinoff where you yourself play as a Pokemon. And I believe fellow ISAT fans would get the most out of this entry of the series.

Gates has the strongest cast of characters in the series and largely deals with themes of nihilism, hope, the importance of community, and how negativity can consume you. The core cast of characters develops a very lovely dynamic and go through compelling character arcs.

Heads up, as much as I adore this game, it has the most frustrating gameplay out of the spinoff between limited Starter Pokemon choices, being only able to take one mission per in-game day, and unskippable slow dialogue. Watching a playthrough instead of playing the game yourself is a valid way of getting into it.

Additionally, the game deals with suicidality. This also applies to parts of the other PMD game on this list, but it's especially present in GTI's main story.

The Dark Queen of Mortholme (free on itch.io)

The creator of TDQoM describes it as an "anti game". You play as the final boss, a Queen who considers herself eternal and is challenged by the Hero over and over again.

This game is very short (maybe ~20 minutes for one run) and has a few bittersweet endings depending on how you engage with and fare against the Hero. I believe this one might appeal to ISAT fans for its themes about change and in how the Hero always comes back in a gameplay loop, stubbornly trying to defeat the Queen over and over again.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky (Nintendo DS)

First of all physical copies of this game are expensive so consider emulation. Or getting Explorers of Time/Darkness instead, just know that Sky has additional story elements.

That aside, Explorers is the most popular entry in the PMD series for good reason. I don't think the cast is as strong as Gates', but I agree with the sentiment that the game has one of the best stories that has come out of Pokemon.

The premise you're presented with is that time all over the world is starting to freeze because artifacts that keep time flowing in different places are being stolen, which would lead to a frozen paralyzed world. But the plot gets a lot deeper at a certain point, and the situation becomes a lot more tragic than previously anticipated.

Detective Beebo: Night at the Mansion (free on itch.io)

Honestly I'm mostly putting this at the bottom of the list because I played this just recently, have yet to see all endings, and don't have very strong feelings about it at this point. That being said, it is a free game, just six hours long, offers several endings, and I've seen several ISAT fans fall in love with it. I def think you'll find something of value here if you like ISAT.

The premise is that you're playing as a private detective, Oliver Beebo, who was invited to a party at a mansion. Oliver seems to be trapped in a timeloop, first triggered when the party's host kills him, but Oliver has no recollection of the previous loops.

He gains a companion in Àngel, who does remember the loops, and both of them try to investigate the purpose of this party and why the loops are happening.

Heads up for child murder, as well as unreality and unsettling imagery/scopophobia at later points in the game. There's also endings that contain suicide and body horror.

[rat-rosemary]

Tommy doesn't wanna. His fucking tummy hurts like a bitch, and he does not want to think about having an accident while fighting.

Yes, he would be covered in blood anyway, whether this goes right or not, but it's different when it's coming from his pussy.

But they need to kill Dream. So they can all finally rest easy. So he shoves in a tampon and puts on an absorvent just in case and follows Tubbo out the door.

Fuck. He would kill to have some shape-shifting magic. Being kicked in the balls cannot be as bad as a monthly subscription to Satan's waterfall.

They meet no one on the way in, smeaking less carefully through the prison now that it's the fourth time and also Tommy is being stabbed from the inside out.

It taken an entire hour to find Dream, laying on the floor a seemingly random and completely empty obsidian room, a hot water bag on his stomach.

Tommy and Dream make eye contact. Kinship sparks in-between them.

"What the fuck do you want?"

Dream grumbles, not getting up as he turns to look at them.

"We're!-" Tommy puts a hand over Tubbo's shoulder, and he shakes his head when he glances back at him, "uh."

"If you're here to fight me I will start throwing my used bloody tampons at you. I swear to fucking prime."

Dream hisses, squinting at their weapons

"We're not," Tommy responds, "...if you give me one of those chocolate bars"

Dream hesitates for a long moment, a thousand micro expressions going through his face as he thinks it over, before he throws the bar at Tommy

"Get the fuck out of my house"

Tommy enjoys his spoils at the couch by Tubbo's fireplace, groaning when his cramps spike now and then. Fighting like this would be hell probably.

They'll do it another day

I'm another world the bomb finale never happens because every time clingy duo try to go kill Dream it's a very bad moment that would be awkward for them to interrupt

[cantgetworsethanthistbh]

Ford is Not used to being dependant on someone as an adult - especially since Stan isn't dependant on him At All in return. It's gotta be doing weird things to his neurons, he would probably sit like a dog if Stan told him to, he is pathetic amounts of in love with him this is past partner in crime he's his hero, his guide, his Muse, his god, Ford is in a really weird headspace

OOOH i love this version of stancest sm. i know this is likely about the little ford au but i also just love this kind of stancest in regular sea grunkles and kills me. so much of stancest (and tbh just in their canon dynamic) is stan nipping at ford's feet and following ford's lead even their sea grunkles era. a lot of darker stancest always infers with ford being obssesive and controlling too and usually stan lets it, because hey thats their dynamic and its better than nothing.

but the opposite has SO much potentil. ford following stans lead. to think of ford realizing that he's way WAY out of his depth and that he needs stan way more than stan needs him now?? maybe he ALWAYS needed stan more than stan needs him?? after all, what did ford say about how stan wouldve been able to see through bill's tricks?? if they were together, the apocalypse wouldve never happened...

ford would think he's so lost now, lost without any purpose now that bill is defeated and he doesnt want the fame anymore either now that he knows his chase for it is what made him lose his brother, so he feels SO empty. except hes not. theres stan. stan whos strong, brilliant, charming and the most selfless hero ford would ever know.

ford wants to protect him so much but another day of stan saving his ass from a monster they were investigating (because he got too curious again) and ford thinks he could never EVER measure up to the way stan protects him, loves him, cherishes him and takes care of him. it makes ford feel awful, unworthy of this love after he promised he'd do anything to earn back that second chance stan too gracefully gave him. he can't fathom the idea of stan finally wisening up and leaving him even if its no less than he really deserves, because what else will he have anymore if he doesnt have his best friend, his hero, his true muse? it'll fester in his mind, growing and growing and growing, and he shoves it down deeper and deeper as much as he can.

but one night, one bottle and a million inhibitions thrown over the railing of the stan o war, he'll finally break when stan smiles at him while they sit on the deck, looking so happy when that makes no sense.

stan deserves the world, the entire galaxies, and ford can't give them to him at that very moment. he'll start crying, overwhelmed with how much he loves stan and how stan deserves the best— one ford has to grudgingly admit isnt him.

"woah, woah, sixer," stan interrupts worriedly, face falling. "what's wrong? come on, we arent even that drunk yet."

the joking tone makes ford feel worse, because how could stan stop smiling because of him and still try to make ford feel better? "i'm sorry," ford chokes. "stan, god, i'm so sorry."

"stanford," stan says placatingly. ford understands that stan understands too, that this isn't about the alcohol, or about crying out of nowhere. his hands cup ford's face, so large and warm, like a place where ford could hide his face forever with the depths os his shame and stan might even let him. that breaks ford even more. "hey come on, bro, s'okay..."

"don't leave me."

"i'm not leaving you, your big brain knows that."

you should, ford thinks but will never say, because he can't. "i can't lose you again," ford whispers with shaky breath. "i w-wouldn't know what to do with myself—"

"ford—"

"— because you're so brilliant, and brave, and good—"

"— i guess but—"

"—you're so good stan," ford interrupts whatever faux preening stan was going to do. his brother doesnt believe him, and ford practically crawls into his space.

"you are so, so good. you are so good and you don't even realize, i—" ford's breath hitches. "i don't even know how i could ever repay you..."

"pff, alright," stan scoffs, looking away, cheeks bright red and smile unconvincing. "jeez ford, you really are drunk." he laughs, his shoulders stiff and unmoving. "like what, are you trying to suck my dick?"

"is that what you want?"

stans eyes snap back to him, wide and full of shock.

"what?"

"is that what you want me to do?"

"no, ford– i'm not–"

"stan," ford says, reaching his hand now to cup stan's face, and god he's just as much of a perfect fit in ford's as he was in stan's. stan is so much bigger and better than anyone else, but with his own extra finger he just might be fit for ford. "stan, it's okay. whatever you want, whatever you need, i'll do it. for you."

sort of something like that. i really really like to think of a slightly toxic, but like in the "its toxic and also the healthiest way this dynamic can really go about" ending where ford tries to overcompensate to stan with sex and romance and stan is relunctant at first but seeing just how willing ford actually is really starts getting into the whole dom/sub— which fulfills some purpose for ford AND he gets to have stan come all over him so its kind of a huge win on all fronts

[thedeafprophet]

On Eurylochus, Mutiny, and Starvation

I've seen a lot of discussion around choices made by the crew, and especially Eurylochus that have often not felt to be quite hitting the point. I've seen quite a few things in passing of analysis that seems to downplay the actions with the cow and make a mocking of a starving man, making him out to be dumb and 'just wanting a burger' or jokes around those lines, or worse, saying that he 'deserved to die' for acts made in desperation. [For as foolish as a notion as a character 'deserving' to die in a tragedy.]

It wouldn't bother me as much, if i hadn't also seen people tend to be dismissive of Eurylochus' character anf struggles in general. I think that does a disservice Eurolcyhus, the severity of the situation, the difficulty of odysseus' choice, and the overall themes.

Hunger and food are a frequent theme and struggle right from the beginning, something we are put to think about from the get go. One of the first things we hear from Eurylochus in full speed ahead is concern over food, most especially with that of the crew and feeding that many people. it is that situation that leads them to polythemus' cave - it is hunger and the aim to fend off starvation that leads to the killing of the sheep. Perhaps it could be said that all this wrath of gods and monsters itself is against humans for daring to try and survive...

This theme isn't just there, we see it again with Circe's island, and her offering of food and that changing the men to pigs. One could say its a reflection of greed, but with the over all notion of the severity, that is not at all comparable in my view. The constant struggle and search for food is vastly important.

and, of course, we see it especially, at the end of mutiny, with Eury. It was illogical, wasn't it? of course he shouldnt have killed those cows, of course he should have known punishment would come. the logic was there, surely he can't have wanted it that bad? Why didn't he just think logically like Odysseus?

except, that's not how hunger works.

For some context, this is a topic that hits close to me personally, as before I had surgery to help mitigate symptoms, I deal with a condition that caused me to be unable to eat properly for 2 years, by the end point I was basically starving on a day to day basis. Hunger is *heavy*. Unless you've experienced it, you cannot fully understand what it does to the body and to the mind.

It affects more than just making you hungry - you become exhausted, your body unable to fuel itself. headaches, brain fog, complete inability to process and think as you're supposed to. Your emotions run haywire, anger and depression can hit you so heavily. Sleep becomes disturbed, everything becomes dizzy, as your body turns inword, destorying itself until there's nothing left.

You cannot function properly at all.

It's easy as a listener to a musical to dismiss hunger, but the reality is vicious, painful, and destructive. in that condition, how could Eurylochus keep strong? keep motivated? think logically?

Combined with all the other intense trauma and loss, Eurylochus and the crew had been pushed to extensive limits. In better times, they would have never made that choice, never turned against Ody that way. Just as Ody would have never sacrificed his men like that, had it not been for the event that had transpired previously. That is the crux of a tragedy, the fact that thingd could have gone differently, but they didnt.

Yes, killing the cows was a illogical choice.

But hunger has a way with you.

No, it wasn't a good choice. It was an action done in desperation, a burst of irrtionatity fuel by hunger and pain. But refusing to understand why that choice was made does the story and its characters a disservice.

[heavysighing-dreamyeyes]

Hello, hello!

This is a little long, sorry. I've got 3 things.

1. I just read the difference between Jason and AK being married. Very well thought out as always Miss Rae. You would think they are entirely different people. It is crazy how much his mindset set changes and he overcomes his hurt. Especially if you guys were best friends in his Robin days and got to see him so happy, the differences are wild.

What are your thoughts on him and his marriage in the in-between/development from being AK to Red Hood? Would he be extra clingy? Guilty? Ashamed? My poor baby just needs some cuddles no matter what!

2. You asked everyone's favorite song and I wanted to know what yours is! You are a person too 💕

3. I have a request! What are your thoughts on road trips/trips with Jason? AK too if you'd like, but I have a hard time imagining him going on a trip with you.

I thought it fit your music event really well since music is very important (in my opinion at least) to make the trip fun. Humming or singing along, a special playlist, teasing your trip buddy about not knowing the words, trivia, Jason driving with one hand to hold yours and smile at you...

Ahem. Anyway! I hope you have a lovely rest of your day!

-🦧

Road Trip Headcanons 

Enjoy! (I answered your questions under the cut and I 100% agree that I only envision any sort of fun road trip happening with Jason and not AK) ~500 words

As you said, music is a must, essential for a long drive. There's not a quiet moment in the car. Sure, Jason could be convinced to listen to an audiobook or podcast, but there's nothing like scream-shouting the lyrics to your favorite songs with all the windows rolled down. Are you a public nuisance at every stop light? Possibly. Are you both laughing and having the time of your life? Definitely 

Matching Sunglasses for every road trip. LISTEN, you take turns buying the most ridiculous pair of sunglasses you can find for your road trip, and you have to wear them into rest stops/at drive-thrus no matter what. People stare sometimes, especially the time Jason brough gigantic, bright pink heart sunglasses for you, but the pictures you get out of it are worth any confused looks you get 

Whether it's you or Jason driving, he's almost constantly touching you. Fingers threaded together on your lap, his hand resting on your thigh, or your hand splayed over his knee while he drives, you're always connected in some sort of way. He really likes holding your hand while he drives and mindlessly tracing his thumb back and forth over your knuckles

When Jason is driving, he drives fast. He's always safe, borderline clinical in his decisions, but he's always pushing past the speed limit without even realizing it (He blames it on learning how to drive via the batmobile, and not on cars that are lacking Wayne Tech nuclear powered engines) 

You always try at least one new thing on your road trips. It could be small, like ordering a new drink from your favorite chain or listening to a new band/genre of music. Or, sometimes, it's something big. You saw a sign for indoor skydiving a few exits from where you are? You're stopping. There's an advertisement for the world's largest collection of colored rocks? You're there. You see a pamphlet for a museum filled with nothing but model dinosaurs at a rest stop? You're going. (There's nothing wrong with killing a few hours on a long drive after all)

Stopping for meals is mandatory! Sure, eating in the car quicker, but getting to stretch your legs, sitting across from each other and talking in whatever diner or dive-bar you decide to take a chance on is so much nicer. Jason always tends to order something warm to eat, but he's happy to split whatever appetizer you want to try 

Speaking of food, there's a cooler in the backseat. It's filled with drinks and all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and sweeter treats. As nice as it is to stock up on candies and chips when you stop for gas, munching on blueberries or grapes or whatever you've packed for the trip is just as good– if not better

You have a little tradition, when you finally get to your destination. Once the windows are rolled up, your goofy sunglasses pushed up to the top of your heads, Jason will lean over the dash and kiss your cheek. Doesn't matter if he's in the driver's seat or if you are, he does it every time. (it's partially for shock value, if he's being honest. He likes to use the moment your face starts to crack into a smile to race out of the car and get to your side, opening your door before you have the chance to)

The Arkham Knight and Jason Todd are different people, I SWEAR!! I know they're similar and have the same name, but their backstories are different and they have different traumas! What happens to them, at the hands of the Joker and others, changes their characters fundamentally. At the end of the day though, the biggest difference between them, for me, really comes down to that Jason 'forgives' Batman for not saving him, The Arkham Knight has not. 

Now, in between being AK and Red Hood, I really think you're Jason's only rock, married or not. Whether you want him around or you don't, whether he stays near you or runs for the hills, you're still his only constant. I think he really latches onto that. And even if you're not 'seeing' each other while you both figure out yourselves and your marriage, he's going to check in on you. You might not exactly see him do it, but you really can't blame him for having a bit of separation anxiety. 

And my favorite song right now is Hiding with Boys by Creeper! Thanks for asking nonnie! Have a great day!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

“Aang fans have to reach hard to find any sort of “development” in his story, and to justify why it’s acceptable for him to put the lives of millions of people at risk to maintain feelings of purity despite other Avatars (including an Air Nomad) telling him his decision is selfish”

Thoughts on this take? I found it on “longing for rain” blog.

1 - Zuko had THE perfect opportunity to end the war by killing Ozai during the day of the eclipse, but he didn't do so because "It's Aang's fate" and Zuko has a very rigid idea of what "fate" means and how it should affect one's behavior. Iroh also refused to even try to HELP in the battle because it'd make him be seen as a power-hungry kinslayer (even though he had zero intention of becoming Fire Lord). Both of these things can be seen as selfish, especially since they're all about how it'll affect their OWN image, yet only Aang gets labeled selfish. If everyone is throwing the burden on his shoulders, they can shut the fuck up about how he handles said burden.

2 - One of Aang's reasons to not want to kill Ozai is because HE'S TWELVE AND DOESN'T WANNA MURDER SOMEONE, even someone who deserves it. He never asked for this responsibility. He cannot be blamed for Sozin and every Fire Lord after him being a monster, or for Roku's inability to do anything despite being an adult. He's a child. This is not his mess to fix, and yet...

3 - He's not simply going "Sorry, guys, I don't feel like killing Ozai, guess you're all gonna die." He's trying to find alternative solutions - and when he can't find one, he ACCEPTS killing Ozai (and even almost does it AFTER being taught about energybending), despite...

4 - Him being a pacifist and wanting to stay true to his beliefs. He's not trying to be "pure", as in "I'm better than all of you 'cause I don't want to kill", but as in "I don't wanna be a hypocrite that preaches one thing but does the opposite" - thought I suppose I can understand how someone how tries to get praised by trying to pass off AI bullshit as actual art made by them would have a problem with a main character that vallues being an honest person.

Aang's development is not the same as Zuko's of "I need to completely alter my way of thinking" because AANG WAS NOT THE ONE SUPPORTING GENOCIDE. This doesn't make Zuko a better written, more realistic, or "more developed" character, it means he used to be a monster and now he isn't one anymore.

Aang's entire struggle is constantly having the world trying to beat his innocence and humanity out of him so he is nothing BUT the Avatar, just a super soldier/weapon that lives to sacrifice everything for everyone else's sake, while getting nothing in return because "it's his duty." His character arc is about realizing these "necessary evils" aren't actually necessary at all, and that he CAN save the world without destroying his spirit and identity in the process. He doesn't have to see the "error of his ways" because he was not the one in the wrong for saying "Fuck you, I'm a PERSON, not your sacrificial lamb."

And idiots like this particular dumbass would realize it (or rather, admit it) if they only they didn't have a giant stick up their pretencious ass and could get over the fact that their fanon ship "lost the ship war" TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AGO!

[monsterlimbs]

Okay third "sympathetic big bad" from bg3 post for Ketheric because he is the one guy that I think most can sympathize with, and he's truly the easiest to sympathize with.

Some horrible day, your beautiful Melodia, your darling wife, dies, protecting your daughter. You grieve horribly, but you keep going for your children. Everything for them.

Your daughter brings home a fucking IMMORTAL Aasimar, child of a god and declares her as her lover. A child or your god, yes, who you've known so far to be good, sure, BUT STILL A CHILD OF A GOD. It almost makes it worse that the Aasimar is a child of your god, considering you raised your daughter, per your wife's wishes, to trust Selûne, and you're worried that this Aasimar may use this to her advantage. And they're so in love yes, but that's such a scary power dynamic for you- what if Aylin asks your daughter to do something she's not ready for? How OLD is that Aasimar? And how could you live with yourself if your daughter was put into an unsafe situation, simply because you didn't put your foot down? So, you do, and your daughter's angry. Of course she's angry, you're telling her that her and her girlfriend can't be together, but she has to come around eventually, she has to understand what a horrible power dynamic that is.

And worse, worse than when your wife died, you're told your daughter, precious, sweet, innocent Isobel, is dead (who I believe was killed by Halsin in self defense with the Sorrow glaive, even though that content has since been cut from the game but y'know! so essentially, his daughter, in his mind, was killed by a damn druid, the guys who were supposed to be PEACEFUL). You spiral, of course you do, your precious baby is dead, how could you not? And when your god, Selûne, damned mother of that damned Aasimar, ignores your prayers to have your baby back, you turn to her sister, Shar. And Shar, for a moment, helps relieve your loss. In return for killing Selûnites, the same wretched folk that turned against you in your grieving, she rewards you, turns you immortal by letting you imprison that Aasimar that took a liking to your daughter. You're more than pleased to do so, to lock what you believe is a predatory Selûnite up. Shar helps soften your loss.

And then she lets you die to Harpers of all people, and uses you as a way to release the Shadow Curse.

You're revived (I like to believe by Balthazar), and shown the way of Myrkul's path, and HE, is the one to bring your baby back, a century after her fall. You're happily indebted to him, to have your child alive again, anything and more for your baby.

....But she's mad at you. She won't talk to you. She looks at you like you're a monster. She's STILL upset over you forbeying her and Aylin's love, and even more now that she knows you've been using her as a means for immortality. She doesn't get how much you did for her, even while she was gone. You've practically forgotten about all else besides her, and it hurts so bad knowing your baby is not only angry at you, but thinks of you as a MONSTER. You know she'll come around, though. ...And she's now running from you and hiding in the Last Light Inn.

Eventually, you send a Fist to get her and bring her back, and either, your daughter has been killed AGAIN by some random wretched folk- oh gods it's not random is it? That's Durge. OR, she survives and is brought back to you, OR she survives and is even angrier at you now. She doesn't see how much shit you've waded through, just for her. She only sees a man who's "gone too far". She doesn't even know how far you'd go, to keep her safe. Everything and more, just to keep her safe.

Whether she's with you or not, one day you wake to a suddenly... off feeling. ....Fuck, why do you feel so odd? FUCK, your immortality's gone, you can feel it. Your wounds don't close, you're vulnerable. And it's all the problem of, either, the folk that kept your daughter from being returned to you, or the folk who killed her and sent her back.

And once, Ketheric truly was redeemable. But now, he gets SO, SO, SO close and then Aylin's like "nah he'd NEVER surrender, isn't that right, you worm?" and he gets up and is like "oh fuck you" and every chance is gone. Then you see him again, and he's already decided, he WON'T grovel again. He's gone too far, he sees it now. Sweet, precious Isobel was right. There's no coming back from this. And if you try to convince him he's worthy of redemption, he selflessly gives up and his god ixnays his retreat. And otherwise, he may go down yes.... But if he's going down, so are you.

And then he dies. He dies knowing he's given up everything for his daughter, cursed an entire land, caused Hell for everyone, and that his daughter, sweet Isobel, doesn't even think he's her father anymore. In her eyes, he's so far gone that he's not even the same man.

[puckpocketed]

PART 3 of the modern defensemen transcripts I started a while back. You don’t need to have read/listened to the other parts to understand what’s being said, but they’re very fun reads if you have the time! Topics of discussion:

Broadly, more on Lane Hutson and how he defends (he is SOOO the main character of this entire series and I’m very happy about that)

passive vs aggressive defending

reading the pinch

surfing (skating forward when defending the rush)

inside vs outside leverage

the weak-side fold

Another archival effort as always… so many podcasts live and die by the whims of the services they’re hosted on + the guys who own the channels. </3 This is full of random extra media which is why it took so long. I ended up just making my own damn diagrams and archiving stuff and making gifs so I could put them here. This part is tactics-heavy and they kinda get into a little debate about passive/aggressive defending which I really liked! Will need to go over parts 1 & 2 soon when I can to clean them up <3

Published 20th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #3 - By Hockey’s Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube)

If you missed them: part 1 / part 2

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: Alright, welcome back. Week three of our series here with Will Scouch, we're looking at defensemen.

First week, we talked about modern day defending. Last week, we talked about point play, so; shorting the zone, why point shots are truly the worst… Point shots just suck, point shots suck. I mean, everyone knows it, we all know it.

Will Scouch: The crusade, yeah.

GR: We looked at Zach Werenski; he was leading the NHL in goals — he's consistently up there leading the league in goals from defensemen. And Will, you had a great study there showing the offensive increases that we've seen have all basically come because of defensemen being more involved in the offense.

It was perfect for our point play piece — making sure [we’re] going into the details; catching with movement, catching in good spots, giving ourselves spaces to operate in; and common mistakes of players [where] they start in wide open spaces rather than maybe starting in more congested spaces, but having space to go into. So, common mistakes there.

This time, we're going to talk about defending the rush. So [the team has turned] the puck over, we're now having to play defense. There's that transition moment where we're going from offense to defense. And now, just straight, we're playing defense.

Two ways I think about this when we're playing the rush is one, passive; and two, aggressive. [If we’re being] aggressive, we have an opportunity to maybe kill the play early, we can really get in the attitude of “We play you.” Versus passive; maybe we're not in a good spot or our team hasn't set us up in a good spot as a defenseman, maybe there's some kind of scramble, whatever it may be.

And then the third piece I'd love to dive into is reading the pinch.

So where do we want to start? I feel like this is maybe a good opportunity to start with our main man Lane Hutson because I feel like he's someone who has the ability to play aggressive, but often he's pretty passive in his rush defense.

WS: Yeah. I think that you're dead on with that. I've seen a lot of Lane Hutson over the last few years. I remember when he was a draft-eligible kid, I remember watching him in college. Now he's in the NHL and actually he's been quite effective on paper in the NHL.

I know people are throwing around player cards, and throwing around this, and throwing around that. But in aggregate, on the whole so far this season, relative to the rest of the team in Montreal, he's been — for a kid who's, again, 20 years old, playing upwards of 25 minutes a night — he's doing pretty well.

I think that that's asking a lot out of a kid, and he's doing quite well, especially [at] 5 foot 9, with all the question marks people have with players like that. With him, I think he's a really good showcase of how smaller players can play defensively and be a positive impact player, right?

There have been… I mean, I wrote for you in the newsletter over the summer. It's the area where I think, in the context of the NHL draft, there is still a lot of work that could be done of discovering some good value. Of looking at these really, really mobile and creative guys that may lean a little more offensively, but… may not actually.

A great example, while we're talking about Lane Hutson; a guy who doesn't score a whole lot, but every single time I watch him, he just does the right things all the time and has done so since his draft year, is Tyler Duke.

He's in Michigan now, and that kid is 5'10, I think, 5'9, and doesn't score a tremendous amount. But I remember watching him at the NTDP, and I remember a few interviews with his teammates going, “This guy is the most underrated guy on the team. He's small, but he works his tail off.” Just like his brother Dylan — Dylan Duke is having a great year in the AHL too — but that's beside the point…

GR: Both are Ohio boys, just say that.

WS: Ohio, yeah, exactly.

GR: I gotta rep the state that I'm from. Ohio kids!

WS: Yeah, I mean, hey, I love me some Ohio, for sure. But yeah, I think that guys like that, and Lane Hutson, showcase a lot of the same things.

Number one, possession is good defense. If the opponent doesn't have the puck because you have it they're not scoring, so that's number one. And number two, Lane Hutson does a really good job using his feet to at least put himself in good position to block play from occurring. Like we said; staying between the dots, not over-committing but not opening up too much of a gap.

I think you mentioned surfing off the top of the show, but he is an aggressive neutral zone defender as well. He can track that play laterally, challenge guys with his stick and force them to make plays, force them to make decisions, before the puck even gets in the defensive end.

And from there, if you've got good support from your partner or a forward that's backchecking, then you're golden.

To me, it's the little things that you may not notice or that may not jump out at you, but when you watch game after game after game, you kind of go, “Oh, I see how this guy has got the trust of a coach. I can see how this guy is playing so many minutes relative to the rest of the guys on his team because of the things that he brings, even though he's not the biggest guy in the world.”

He's not perfect.. There have been situations where I'm watching Lane Hutson going, “Well, that didn't really go your way, and that's unfortunate.” But that’s any hockey player.

GR: That's also learning as a 20-year-old rookie defenseman — at five foot 10, if you're lucky.

WS: And that's hockey. Hockey is a game where sometimes things are going to go your way and [sometimes] they're not. If I got upset every time a big physical guy lost a physical battle, then… But nobody really does that, nobody really is concerned when that happens once in a while.

So with Lane Hutson, he loses a physical battle once in a while. He's not involved in as many because they often have the puck, and if they don't have the puck he's doing work in the offensive zone or neutral zone to prevent [the opponent] from keeping the puck.

There's a lot of good things that happen in his game that I think brought him to this point in the NHL. Faster than I thought to be perfectly honest. I thought Hutson was going to take a little bit more time, but he hasn't really looked out of place and I think he's a really fascinating case study as to guys like him and how they might be able to work.

GR: Yeah. You wrote on the Hockey IQ Newsletter, so I'm just going to reference it exactly. You mentioned, “Hutson shows off a number of strong defensive moments that highlight his style of blocking offensive zone exits, keeping opponents to the perimeter, and establishing body position on retrievals.” Three very translatable things to the NHL.

Note: one of my very first Lane Hutson gifsets was a sequence like this. He beat Robby Fabbri on a puck retrieval by gaining body position on him — this was from his 2 games with Montreal at the end of last season. I’m so glad the broadcast chose to highlight that play. He really is something special.

Yes, he's going to continue to grow and fill out, so he's got more progress [to make]. I mean, we talk about the deficiencies and my actual areas of worry [are] more around his skating base and feet and all that. But from a standpoint of, “Can you survive in the league?” The answer is yes.

Victor Mete would be the anti-example, I would say, where he didn't have the way of deploying the things that Hutson does. The brain wasn't there to the extent that Hutson was while being small — also a Habs draft pick, so track that one as well for those that want to nerd out.

There were some great quotes that Hutson had talking about his defensive game. I'm just going to read them out because I think they're so good, and then we can dive into the details here.

So from Hutson talking about defense, “I just think it's more about being in the right spot, being more skillful and knowing the game rather than just being a big frame. It's about making the right plays and the right reads.” 

And continuing on, [he’s talking about how he does that], he says, “Being able to get up in their face,” so having great gap control, “…without getting pulled out of position,” [as in] not overextending yourself, “Controlling my speed and my gap and my spacing around the inside of the ice to keep guys to the outside.”

He just keeps talking about the things we're talking about, which are playing the game with intentionality, playing it very smartly. Basically, the opposite of how Rasmus Ristolainen came into the league, which was like, “I'm a big body, I'm gonna go make things happen.” This is just more tactful.

It's not gonna scream at you — like you said, he's gonna have his moments — but from an overall standpoint, he's gonna drive positive results. He has a way of playing the game smartly, especially for his size, where it has to be a very intelligent game, where he can't make as many mental errors and be able to recover from it. He's shown so far we're off to an absolutely great, great start.

WS: Yeah, I mean, it's like a different side of the coin. I talk a lot on my show and with you about players who seize control of the ice when they're on the ice, but that doesn't necessarily mean physical play.

It's a lot of other stuff that happens, and I think Hutson's a really good example of what that means, and it’s everything you said. It's this understanding of the game, and this understanding of what your opponents are doing.

How to minimize… Really, it’s like, “I'm going to take control of this possession and I'm going to minimize their opportunity to do anything. As many things as they can possibly try, I'm going to minimize as much of it as I can.” 

And there's ways of doing that that aren't that physical style of play that you see out of defensemen that is unheralded, a lot of it just kind of flies off by the wayside. I think people look at a guy like Hutson and see the way he plays, and if you have a really strong [tactical and aggregate] understanding of what is going on when he's on the ice, both the offensive-good, but also the defensive-good, you see a lot of really interesting traits there.

Guys like him, I agree with you, that the skating base and the quickness and all of that, like it's not… He's not Quinn Hughes, right? That's not really his brand, so he has to think of other things and have an understanding of the game that can help patch that up.

And so, yeah, the things like gap control and guiding guys laterally and being a little more aggressive are definitely key areas of interest for me. Especially because earlier on in this series, we were talking about how much I love defensemen who can skate and how many doors it unlocks.

But if you're not an elite skater, which I don't think I would consider Lane Hutson an elite skater — at least defensively — you have to… It doesn't mean you're automatically not an option, it's just that the equation changes.

The things that you need out of that player shifts and you have to help guide them in the right direction so that they can use what they do have to the best of their ability while the rest sort of develops around them. It’s fascinating to me, it's a really, really interesting thing, and I love seeing guys like Lane Hutson figure it out and play the way that they do, because it just goes to show that you could, you know…

He's obviously special in a lot of ways, but it just goes to show that all kinds of different players have a place at the highest levels of hockey. It's just a matter of how you approach the game, how you see the ice, how you manage your behavior, and what you bring to the table.

GR: Yeah. I want to dive into some of these ways to play, starting with if you're playing it passively. So say we're just doing our normal two defensemen coming back; passive, letting the offense kind of have some space. First step needs to be inside.

You need to get inside ice, you need to get good positioning, you need to get within the dots, that's first and foremost. So, first step is inside. I've heard a few coaches call it lateral gap. For me, I just say you need to get inside positioning.

And really, if I take this to the football field, so American football, Canadian football, think about it as leverage. So either you have inside leverage or outside leverage. 

Note: this next section on inside/outside leverage was reaaally messy sentence-wise. I tried my best to clean it up and make sense of it. Whenever anyone says “inside” or “outside” in hockey they’re referring to areas of the ice defined by an imaginary line we draw through all the faceoff dots where the side closest to the boards is the outside and the side closest to the center of the ice is the inside.

Inside leverage means you're taking away the inside, that's where you are and you're giving the outside. Outside leverage is [when] you're on the outside, you're taking away the outside, the boundary, and you're giving away the inside.

Now, the question is, everyone's like, “Why wouldn't you always [want] inside leverage?” And that's the most common [way]. But when would you [want] outside leverage? When you have help on the inside; like, you're pushing them to a bad spot, into a teammate, into support, into someone who's there to help you.

But for the most part, we want to be starting with good leverage. Some coaches call it lateral gap, where we're taking that first step inside, getting inside the [faceoff] dots, and being able to passively let them have the bad ice.

We may not be in a great spot to finish the play [or] stop the movement yet, but we're going to put them in a bad spot where they're no longer an A-plus threat that we need to address immediately, like we're in deep doo-doo.

You can pokecheck out there, just don't extend yourself. The time that you finally get aggressive off of that pass [is], “Okay, I'm able to get this puck, I'm able to separate, I'm able to get position before possession, I'm able to cut it off, able to seal it off,” that kind of stuff.

When I'm developing my defensemen, that's what I'm talking about with them. Like, if you have to, if you’ve gotta play passive, just get inside leverage. Unless you have a good reason to play outside leverage, just let them have the wall until they overextend, whatever it may be, and give you an opportunity to seal it off.

Great example would just be good pokechecking. You're kind of like a cobra, you wait, wait, wait, and then boom, pounce! Rather than overextending.

Showing your stick early is another classic terrible example of something you don't want to do, or we call it declaring your stick. You declare where your stick is. You're overreaching stick on puck, because some coach told you to go stick on puck, and now you're reaching, you've lost good posture, good balance, good weight distribution. That's bad. 

We want to keep all of the good things, the posture, don't want to overextend, but just make sure we're positionally sound.

WS: Have you been watching me at beer league? Like is that what you've been doing here? Is that what the prep is for this show? Because I gotta take some notes for sure. But yeah, I agree fully.

I think playing passive defense is something that can work. Personally, I think that it's something that is not as successful as being a little bit more aggressive, which we'll get to in a second. But everything you said is, to me, bang on.

If you're gonna do it you do have to play a little bit more… I guess the word would be cerebral? A little bit more unpredictable and positionally aware.

Be aware of what's going on elsewhere on the ice. You gotta keep your head up and scanning in front of you, and really just try to force them into… Nothing. Force them into a situation where they go, “Well, crap, now I have to rim it around the corner, or dump it back to my defensemen and hope that they're there with a drop pass.” [Keep] them in a position where they're not getting inside space on you or getting the puck through you into scoring areas, whatever it takes to get that done.

I think handedness plays a part in this as well, depending on which hand your defenseman is and what hand the forward is. It just makes things like stickchecking both easier or more difficult depending on the situation.

There's all kinds of things to sort of keep in mind with more passive defenders. And it can work. I think a lot of NHL teams still deploy their defensemen a little more passive.

They go, “Yeah, here ya go. You can have the defensive zone, but we're not going to give you many options. We're not gonna give you so much space that you can pull the puck around us and get in deep with a carry or get around our defensemen with a carry.”

In my view, I think that it invites a lot of potential for really talented NHL players to do just that; sort of tuck the puck between your feet and the stick. Or drive, drop a shoulder, drive down low, and make a play. You see more and more of that in the NHL these days.

But… that doesn't mean it's everybody, and I think that there's still a place in the game for this kind of thing. It's just a matter of, do you have defensemen who are aware of their surroundings, aware of where their partner is, aware of where the other offensive players are, aware of their positioning? [Are they] staying within the dots, like you said, and just keeping options as low-risk as possible?

If you [are] aggressive you may suppress risk initially, but you may increase risk down the road, assuming things don't go your way, which again, in hockey definitely happens.

So it’s, again, it's all a balancing act. And that's kind of the thing I love about hockey, there's a lot of different ways to do stuff and they all have trade-offs.

GR: Yeah, I like how you put that. It may be low-risk now, but it could be high-risk later. Where do you want to start making your defensive plays? Is it in your own zone or is it higher up the ice? Modern day [defending] is finding ways to, as West Point says, be an active defender. When you're thinking about military doctrine, you're talking about keeping the initiative.

Note: West Point is a U.S. Military Academy. I honestly thought he was referencing a movie <3

Who has the initiative? It's super important. Even if you're playing defense and you're almost in a siege perspective or you're in a fixed position, you still need to be active so they can't have free maneuvering, [so] they don't have the freedom of setting up in a good spot to challenge you.

You still need to have a way to be active and find ways to keep the initiative in some way, shape or form, which will lead us directly into our other way of playing defense which is a little more aggressive, where we're talking about concepts like surfing.

So surfing [is like] angling [while] skating forward. My personal favorite, I call it the weak-side fold. So you‘ve got a weak-side defenseman, they're able to see the whole play. There's no real threat on their side, whether it be from a forward coming back or just no one's really there.

Note: Imagine the ice bisected through the middle of the goal posts. The side that the puck is on is considered strong-side, the side the puck is not on is considered weak-side. Strong-side and weak-side are relative to where the puck is! Diagram here

They've got good defensive positioning, they're able to go and skate and angle actively over to the strong-side to take out the puck carrier, [who] inevitably ends up chipping the puck right to the strong-side defenseman.

So, weak-side fold, boom, pull that over. That means that your strong-side defenseman needs to at least get inside the dots, just like they should anyways. If not, start going over to the weak-side in case that play does get made there, whether it be an area pass or whatnot.

Note: per Greg Revak: “An area pass can be defined as a tactic where the passer spots the puck into an area of the ice currently unoccupied but allows the receiver the space to skate to that area.”

So surfing would be the first concept I think we should dive into, [where] you're on the offensive blue line, you see the play starting up, rather than skating back and playing it passive, you're skating forward and going to attack the offense.

WS: I love it. I love seeing this deployed all over the place. If I were coaching a high-level team, that's how I would want to deploy the types of players that I would put on a team.

Again, I think a lot of the battle in hockey is understanding who you have on your team, what they can do, and putting them in a position to do what they're best at as much as possible. Not everybody is good at everything, but that's okay.

So for me, I look at guys and I go, well, the types of players that I like, this is kind of how they should be utilized. Be a little more aggressive.

I love the weak-side fold idea. I think it gives a little bit more of a sense of safety because you have that strong-side defensemen who can play that more traditional style between the dots, but you're utilizing their partner to cut across the ice and apply pressure.

And in my world, again, this is where skating [becomes important.] You have the opportunity to go, “Yeah, okay, the weak-side guy is coming over to the strong-side and you have two defensemen on one side of the ice.” That opens up a whole half of the ice where there might be a lot of space, but then I'm going, “Right, but that's what you have a really good skating center for, that's what you have a really intense 200-foot winger for!”

It's why, when I look in the draft, I see guys who are more offensive leaning… I say a lot; you don't get the chance to really produce offensively a whole lot if you don't chip in defensively, at least in my books.

And so when I see guys like Zach Benson, for example, who we talked about in a previous episode… [He’s] a guy who did not take a shift off, a guy who covered for defensemen, a guy who chipped in defensively as a winger, and brought a lot to the table, that allows him to push play up the ice and be part of that, and allows his defensemen to be a little more aggressive.

That style of play definitely resonates with me; the style of defenders that I always value, those really high-end skating guys that, regardless of their size, those stick-first, body-later type of defenders, I think it works for those types of guys.

I love seeing this kind of play personally. I'm a person who, I think, on the ice, with my strategy and my view of the game, I'm a lot more risk-tolerant than a lot of people. But I think it's because in this situation and in the data work I've done over the years, no matter which way you slice it, when it all comes out in the wash, generally being aggressive is a better approach than not — on paper.

Obviously, though, that depends on the types of players you have on your roster.

To me, this is exactly what I want to see out of the game, this is exactly the kind of strategy that I think is a modern development that really benefits a good type of hockey player that I love to see more of. So I'm all about it. I'll throw it back to you, but this stuff gets me going.

GR: I can already feel that the passion has risen in Will Scouch.

WS: Well, it's also after 9 a.m. now, so I'm good, yeah.

GR: Yeah, the other piece here is… I'll call it the strong-side surf. That's that inside, like, you're getting inside or starting inside positioning. So either [your] first step is inside or you're already starting inside the dots, and you're able to just surf very short.

Rather than a big weak-side fold, you're able to do a short surf into the player. Again, position before possession, feel free to take their head off if the opportunity presents it, but really, you can do this all over the ice.

And finding ways to defend skating forward is a good thing. I've yet to find the defenseman that skates better backwards than they do forwards. I don't know any player that does that. It's probably impossible, unless you're that bad of an offensive skater and you need to absolutely skate backwards to have any ability. [It’s] something that we should all try to find; more opportunities to skate forward to defend.

The other piece that I think is super important is finishing with contact and staying on the inside.

So, going back two episodes where we were talking about Rasmus Ristolainen, where he would finish with contact, or he'd try to finish contact — or even if he made it, he was the last guy getting up and the other player ended up on the inside.

If we do go stick-on-puck, we are doing position before possession — you still need to rub that player out, you still need to hit the player; have some level of contact where you're now jarring them, you're getting in the way, you're limiting their freedom of movement.

In which case, advantage [to] you and your team.

And then [we’re] making sure we're smartly staying on the inside where we've gotta win the race off the wall, where we've gotta continuously have inside leverage over the opponent.

That's a common mistake I see with guys, we just do stick-on-puck and that's it. 

Well, now the other team still has the opportunity to get a second crack at a puck, or they're still very fast to get to it. Rather than finishing it, sealing it off, [the defender has] to now restart their speed, restart their feet, all of that, where they're in a terrible, terrible position.

So making sure that, boom, you may have got [the hit, then maybe take] another step or two to ride [the attacker] into the wall. That's a step or two well taken.

WS: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I don't have any real notes to expand on that, to be honest. It's a multi-stage process defending like that, and [you] don't want to give your opponent too many opportunities, you don't want to overcommit.

I think, being a guy who's played defense my whole life I can attest skating forwards is a lot easier than skating backwards, and so if you can have defensemen who can defend by skating forwards, it's probably going to be easier for them, especially at the NHL level. So yeah, definitely something that I'll get behind fully regardless of the risk.

GR: Yeah. The last piece I want to touch on before we go into reading the pinch [is] around keeping clean feet. One of the best opportunities for a forward to change direction — and this is something that I've been toying around with and it's been absolutely great for my offensive production off the rush — is just reading the defenseman's feet.

One; I gotta figure out, “Okay, where's their stick? Are they declaring it or are they not?” And after that, “Can I get them to cross their feet? Or are they really good at shuffling [and] therefore, they're able to move wherever I move and be able to respond easily.”

So, as much as humanly possible, defensemen that are [defending] the rush should be shuffling, not crossing feet.

Basketball would be the prime example, they do a ton of drills on shuffling your feet. [It’s] similar here with defensemen, we’re making sure we're able to shuffle — so going back to our passive [concepts], now that I'm thinking about this further — making sure that we're not putting ourselves in bad positions to [defend] the rush.

So if you have anything on that, feel free to add. Otherwise, we'll go towards reading the pinch.

WS: No, I see what you're saying, I get it. I think that lateral motion is extremely, extremely important. And, again, I have no notes on that situation. I'm all about all of this stuff, I'm learning lots.

GR: Prime example of this, for anyone who wants to see Connor McDavid absolutely burn someone. This exact example of changing direction when the defenseman crosses their feet — like, just starts the crossover — would be Connor McDavid. The goal against Toronto where he just absolutely burned Morgan Rielly there.

It's so noticeable, you can't unsee it once you're looking at Rielly's feet. As soon as he makes that crossover movement, McDavid changes, boom! And he's behind him already. It's insane, so feel free to look that one up if you want to.

Note: I looked it up. Good lord. Here is the clip, and I gifed it:

The last piece here is reading the pinch. So this is maybe more of a team component, [of] seeing more than just your role. [As opposed to how] Rasmus Ristolainen, early in his career [would] just go for the pinch, destroy the guy because he could. Like, he's got him, but is that good for your team? Maybe not.

For me, you‘ve gotta look. Do you have help? Where's that help coming from? Is your team’s system to always have F3 high where it's almost like a left-wing lock in the offensive zone?

Note: here’s a fun article I archived on the left-wing lock if interested!

WS: I mean, that's the difference between a two or three-on-one coming your way, or a neutral zone stop.

I think that it highlights the importance of mobility, especially from your forwards, because if you have a center who is caught between the hash marks in scoring position and your defenseman goes for a pinch and misses, it certainly helps to have a guy who can really skate and help backcheck and help cover for that. It sort of mops up for what might be a mistake from the defenseman, or maybe the defenseman thinks they have the support from a better skater. But that absolutely is a big thing.

It goes back to hockey sense, or awareness; being aware of where your linemates are, being aware of,  “If I cause a turnover in this situation, who is probably going to have the puck at the end of this? Does this guy — who I'm about to hit 20 feet inside the blue line — does this guy have someone directly behind him, supporting him, who's just going to get the puck after I hit this guy? And then just toss it to a breakout option coming up the middle, and I'm caught a third of the way into the offensive zone.”

It's these little decisions, and in the NHL…. Again, I go back to my work doing stuff outside the NHL, but the NHL is fast. These things happen really, really, really quickly. If you're caught, you can be caught for a while.

It's about finding and identifying players who can, if they are doing that kind of thing, they are either really, really effective at it, or they cover their own butt really, really well, or they just play it a little more safe and a little more reserved, and it works out for them in that way.

But in terms of reading it, yeah, I mean, awareness is so, so important. Head on a swivel, peripheral vision-type things, it's all super important.

GR: I like your point about, who's going to get the puck once you do smoke this player? Or if you go for the contact…

WS: It might not be you, you know.

GR: It’s probably not going to be you. So who's it going to be? Like, do you have F3 support? Is there someone on the other team? Thinking is always a good thing.

I know everyone wants to read and react, but there is an opportunity and there's time and places where [you can think, you know?] Like, “Oh, okay. Should I go? Yay or nay?”

Or team rules, if you're a coach, “Hey, if you have F3, go for it. You think you can get it, go for it!”

Or just reading, I always like reading the winger. “Did they scan up ice? Do they even have an idea where I'm at? If they're looking directly back at the puck, [I’m] probably going to go.”

[If] their best option is like, “Oh, crap!” And when you go, “Oh, crap!” rarely do you make the best play possible. Often, it's a turnover.

WS: Yeah. And I think the point about having support — winger support makes a huge difference as well. I think it's a really interesting thing. I mean, all of this, this whole discussion about defensemen, it just goes to show why guys might take longer to develop, why guys might take longer to play more premier roles in the NHL, because there are so many little details.

They might have an area of the game that when they're 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, they hit the NHL and they're comfortable with it, right? That's totally fine. But then, they play game after game, after game, after game. And opponents start going, “Okay, well, here's the thing they're good at. So let's try to target blah, blah, blah…”

But the better that they can be at these little fine details of monitoring defensive rushes, pinching in the offensive zone and trying to pick the right timing on all of these things… Not trying to do everything themselves, but chipping in as much as they can in a positive way. It’s all really complicated and very on-the-fly, considering how fast all this happens in the NHL.

It’s thinking a little bit more beyond the thing that's right in front of your face, that I think is a huge thing that makes the difference between a guy who may be able to play in the NHL and a really good player at that level.

If you have that ability to read the ice, take a good survey of what's going on, not take on too much risk, but take on risk here and there when you see an opportunity to do so, I think you're laughing at this point.

GR: I think the key piece for me in what you mentioned was, you're reading the ice beyond what is directly in front of you. I think this may be just a maturity thing as well, but the more mature a person becomes, the better they are at surveying their surroundings. They take in more of the picture, they're not just hyper focused on, “This is my thing. This is what I do.”

[In life and in hockey], having a better picture of, “How does my little detail play into the bigger picture?” [That’s a big part of] reading the pinch and the thing I love that you brought out there. [We’ve got to] survey the ice and understand, “More than just my little piece, is there speed ripping? All this guy has to do is chip it and they're off on a two-on-one or a breakaway. Bad time to pinch.”

If you're not reading beyond the one player that you're trying to pinch on, [you’re] likely to make a bad decision there. That is super critical. Read the winger, read your support, read the whole play. How is it playing [into] everything?

Will, I think this has been a phenomenal series on defensemen. I feel like everyone should send this out to their favorite defensemen in the world, or just send this to your favorite NHL hopeful prospect, or just like anyone in the AHL. What’s their (inaudible)?

Anyone in player development at the NHL level should send this out to the defensemen. And if you're at any kind of level of player development, which is pretty much every other coach, yeah, send this out to your defensemen.

There's no way some of this information isn't one; going to get them thinking about “How do I play the game better?” [and] two; it's probably actionable items for them to go and work on in their own game.

WS: Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to find a way — as we talk about this and all these little subtleties of playing defense and all the things that kind of go undervalued — I'm trying to find a way to shoehorn Brad Hunt into this discussion but unfortunately I'm not sure I'm going to be able to.

I think he's just a really good example of a lot of these things going his way and seems like a beauty of a dude. And, I don't know, if Brad's a reader of this I want to have him on the show to talk about his experiences as an NHL player because I find him fascinating for a lot of the reasons we're talking about. 

It's just [he] might have been a little bit ahead of his time, but a lot of this good stuff is there with him. I don't know, it was the last thing on my mind before we call it a day.

GR: Beautiful. Alright, someone knows Brad Hunt — or, Brad, [if] you're out there, please reach out.

[END Transcript]

[spectrum-core]

Fuck

Well, I saw this coming from miles away becaude of course the gacha game will throw any semblance of artistic integrity through the window if they can make cheap fanservice, hence why I made the og post in advance, I didn't want to elaborate more on it when it happened because whatever, people were already dicks about me making the initial post anyway lol

But a guy began bugging me about how the comparison made sense, actually, and I felt the need to elaborate with a final point about why I feel the comparison absolutely misses the point of what full stop is and represents and everything that made them special to me.

Ok, so this guy has been analyzing limbus ids for a while and trying to figure out common themes among them, his conclusion for sinclair ids was, simply put, these are people who are either extremely good at what they do but cant fully see it or arent proud of it (blade lineage, cinq), or people who are slow and trailing behind compared to their peers while also having the potential to be absurdly good at their line of work if they were given the proper support (molar office).

According to him, stephan would be the second case, a guy who is very bad at what he does but could be amazing at it with the proper motivation. The issue is that… if you look at stephan and i mean you really look at him instead of forcing him in a haha funny meme fandom archetype or mold him into whatever can fit the power fantasy of the month that'd be a limbus character, he's really not that.

That's not to say stephan lacks any talent at all, his pessimist and cautious personality makes me imagine he is probably a great planner, coming up with escape plans or alternatives if the team gets cornered or overwhelmed in any non color-fixer-chasing-them-with-killing-intent situation, his physical strength is also there, and i think he'd be at least half decent at unarmed one on one combat because of it, and i feel he appreciates this and the people around him do as well, he has talents and they are in plain sight, and he makes full use of them when the situation requires him to.

But the thing is… everything from his dice ranges to his card names to his passive name are very clear in one thing: he's fucking terrible at aiming and firing a gun, the very thing he's supposed to do and excel at if he doesn't want to lose money. Maybe he's nearsighted, maybe he has astigmatism, maybe he pulls the trigger too fast before being sure he's even aiming at a target, maybe his anxiety is so bad he's shaking and sweating constantly and his fine motor skills are shit because of that, maybe even all of these at the same time.

And it's not just stephan who has this going on either, liwei's keypage wouldn't be talking about "this is what people normally think and what i know i'm supposed to want but i simply can't see the point of all of it" (<- this is autism coding if you're delusional like me but i digress) if he was a "proper fixer", tamaki wouldn't be losing her cool regularly every time stephan begins to complain if she was a "proper fixer", everyone here is notoriously bad at their job one way or another due to things that are quite directly part of who they are so there's no "actually stephan would be a shi section 1 fixer if he wore glasses" or "liwei could become a color if he got rid of his gun and started fighting with a sword instead" for any of them, not without them losing who they are in the way as opposed to the character growth that represents sinclair.

For me these are average people, with average talents which can only take them so far, in a world where most people in their line of work has superhuman skills, and to make matters worse they're focusing their strengths in the wrong things, these aren't the people who will wake up one day and awaken whatever specialest boy ever superpower project moon comes up with next time and become the strongest people who ever lived in the city. Even if they decided to drop everything suddenly and start with something else, there's absolutely nothing they'd excel at.

And that's precisely the thing, they won't just drop everything and suddenly do something they are better at, because the sunk cost fallacy is a fucking bitch when you're risking bankrupcy with every job you take, and that's why the full stop office is to me, the tragedy of people who invested too much and worked for too long in the wrong thing and now they don't have the resources, time or evergy to reinvent themselves anymore even if it'd be better for them in the long run.

I wanted to write a cool conclusion or something but i dont have the energy so just take this instead

STEPHCLAIR IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD

Alternative title: a very angry (and tired) Full Stop fan's thesis.

ok, so me being the stephan/sinclair comparison's strongest hater is a bit i really like to lean into, but for the sake of keeping things semi-serious i will try to keep the actual essay content as free of me ranting my frustrations as humanly possible (which i mean commitement to the bit aside this will be hard bc it is frustrating to see people calling them both the same character, at best it shows a very surface level understanding of either character and at worst it shows just reducing them to cookie cutter meme fandom archetypes neither character actually fits into, so bear with me if i slip up and make unserious comments from time to time)

so before i start the actual essay let me say this: this essay doesnt even scratch the surface of how much i hate this comparison you guys cant even possibly fucking imagine ive been obssessed and i mean OBSSESSED with the full stop office since 2021 and im glad i wasnt in the limbus prerelease fanbase because if i had to see people comparing my beautiful boy and beloved best friend to a guy we had no info about other than "hes based of the guy from demian" i would have turned into the joker this is not even about saving my own mental health this is about sparing the entire pjm fandom of the monster i would have turned into

spoilers for ruina and limbus, universe terminology heavy and surface level references and interpretations of demian by herman hesse because imma keep it real with you guys the first and only time i read that book i was still in high school and i barely remember shit.

Table of contents:

Stephan - a summary

Sinclair - a summary 2.1. Emil Sinclair in Demian (1919) 2.2. Emil Sinclair in Limbus Company (2023)

Addressing common arguments

1.- Stephan - a summary

And of course I will start with Stephan, because I love him very much, just like Liwei he's one of my favorite pjm characters (yeah i like him more than your favorite popular character don't ask) so it's not surprising that i have A Lot to say about him, right?

And of course, I do.

As I said in the serrated duo post, a core part of my perception of the Full Stop office depends on the fact that they are poor. Mentions of money are common all across many factions in the game, yes, but the Full Stops are extremely constant about money, how taking a wrong turn means losing more than they can afford, how they can't afford to drop their weapons because they were too expensive, how even getting the permissions to be able to buy and wield these weapons was ridiculously expensive and so on. Of course, Stephan is the one talking about this the most (something I will elaborate on later), but Liwei and Tamaki also make a few ocassional mentions to it in their dialogue and keypages and considering this is a shared business it just makes sense that this is something that affects all of them.

These are just some few of the callbacks to money that Stephan alone does in his dialogue, without focusing in keypage text or what Liwei and Tamaki have to say about it.

And idk man, at least to me the difference between social classes is an important aspect for their characterization, specially because of how constant the concern with money is for Stephan. From this point alone comparing them feels like erasing a core aspect of Stephan's characterization, a lot about Stephan (and the Full Stop office as a whole, let's be real here) starts making more sense once you read the office as lower-middle class (and I'm saying lower middle class because they can afford some place to live and their weapons, but to me these guys are the types who precisely because of their need to keep bullets at all times can't pay for water or electricity all the time and sometimes they simply can't afford food or if they do they can spend a week straight eating nothing but unsalted pasta).

Now, going back to Stephan being the most outward about his complaints with money, he is in general the most outward about all problems the office is facing, to the point in which he doesn't mind inconveniencing everyone else with his rants, being one of the few guests who interrupt Angela's introductory speech and getting into Tamaki's nerves (something he's well aware he's doing, as these two know each other) at least two times through the course of their pre-battle cutscene, even Roland comments after the reception on how he wishes he would always have been as open about his problems as Stephan was.

However, it's worth nothing that he doesn't spend the entire cutscene crying about his miseries, and he only starts losing hope at three key moments: when they can't kill Eileen inmediately (making them waste more bullets than needed), when Argalia shows up (forcing them to retreat and making them fail their mission, meaning they won't get paid for this after they already lost a ton of money, as well as turning the situation into something much more dangerous than what they had signed up for) and once they enter the Library (an Urban Plague grade threat they have little to no information about, when him and Tamaki are almost out of bullets so Liwei is essentially the only fixer with some chance of putting up a fight and, you know, making it out alive).

Now, while it's true that Stephan is someone who dislikes danger, he isn't someone who isn't used to seeing gruesome events, his instinctive reaction to seeing a guy getting his head put into a meat grinder was cracking jokes and calling the concept of thought gears "a load of horseshit", which is something that falls in line with him being a somewhat experienced Fixer (sure, grade 5 isn't amazing but we can assume it's still either in the higher side of average or barely above average, and for someone specialized in firearms, which are far from the best weapon in the city, getting that high means he must have some experience and skill, right? more so considering he's been at this for 5 years at most) who has seen a fair share of horrid shit and can be unfazed by (most of) it as long as his own safety isn't on the line.

Another point is... he dislikes danger and is always wary about money and expenses, to the point in which he enjoys checking his bank account (or at least he believes so, if we go for the theory of the artbook profiles being more a mix of what the characters perceive themseves as/would describe themselves as to others, which is a theory i go by, I see him as someone who's convinced he does that for fun instead as out of desperation), but this seems to be more a generalized feeling of impending doom at everything rather than something that can be traced back to a particular traumatic event (anything can be dangerous, anything can cost him money), dude's from the backstreets after all, he's seen shit and he's used to assuming the worst. How I see Stephan, he's a guy who already expects bad things to happen but once things go wrong he starts freaking out about how this time They're Screwed For Real, but he never really tricks himself into believing "maybe things will turn out just fine this time?" or who thinks "well, we've done this before, surely we can handle it again."

This is not very related to Stephan as a character in terms of personality but I think it's still an important point to make as it is particularly related to body mods, his physical condition and his body shape.

So we can easily say that Stephan is a strong dude, at least if compared to real world standards without the fancy and insane body mods we see people in the city have access to. He carries that huge rifle around with his bare hands, something that Tamaki doesn't do and that not even Stephan himself in earlier iterations of his dessign did, and his main talent (which based of my theories is something that can be assumed as "something he's proud enough of to consider it the thing he does best") is physical labor.

Pictured, Tamaki's talksprite, carrying a rifle almost as long as she is tall with a strap supporting the weight on her shoulders, like a normal person.

Also pictured, an earlier iteration of Stephan's dessign, carrying the same rifle his current version does, but also holding it with the help of a similar strap supporting the weight on his shoulders.

And finally, Stephan's current dessign, holding that shit with his bare fucking hands in an exhibition of his brute animal strength, what the fuck is wrong with this man (affectionate)

And Stephan's artbook profile, the important part here is his speciality being physical labor, not only he's strong but he aknowledges this.

However, I made a point about the Full Stop office being poor, right? Even Roland says that "giving a whole office augmentation procedures is cheaper than keeping a decent supply of bullets in stock" (not the exact phrasing).

At least personally, I see this as Roland essentially saying "it would be cheaper (and more efficient) to get body mods for everyone in the office and buy another (cheaper) type of weaponry instead", but as things stand, the Full Stops can afford to either buy more ammunition and maintain their weapons, OR to get body mods, and since their whole deal is firearms... well, they can't really Stop investing in them, meaning they have no body mods At All and they got their grades purely out of their own physical strength.

Similarly, Stephan makes a similar point about how body augmentations are required for people to be able to run while carrying their weapons around (specifically talking about the rifles he and Tamaki use).

And... you know, the whole point is that they couldn't run carrying their weapons because they were too heavy, Argalia mocked them for that, Liwei urged them to drop their weapons, something they refused to do because of the prices.

Lastly on this point, while it's true that Ruina talksprites have a very bad case of Long Anime Legs (to the point in which how Roland's legs take about 2/3 of his height is a common joke), if we focus only on his head and torso, Stephan looks pretty Wide, and not only because he's wearing thick, fluffy and multilayered clothing, as other characters wearing similar clothing styles still look thinner than him.

This is all to say: I don't think this guy is a twink, or thin at all. He's a prime example of the strongman build to me and this is yet another hill I'm willing to die on watch project moon turn him into a beanpole once he inevitably shows up in limbus and me turning into the first real world distortion as a consequence.

Finally, Stephan is very notoriously the most informal member of the office, not only being the only one who doesn't wear any sort of formal clothing fully prioritizing comfort and practicality over looks but also completely disregarding formalities with his attitude at work (again, he interrupts Angela's introductory monologue, and again, his first two lines when being introduced are him cracking jokes), being the only member of the office to swear on screen and using several informal expressions and metaphors through both the reception dialogue and his keypage story.

And for good measure, he's a compilation of Stephan being the creature he is.

The literal introduction of the characters, also known as the moment in which Stephan became one of my favorite characters because he's Just Like Me Fr

Very normal behavior for someone who hates blood and violence and isn't used to seeing it. This man is more than capable (and willing, assuming money is involved) to murder kill.

Which, I mean, this attitude is very different from what we see from Sinclair.

2.- Sinclair, a summary

In retrospect I probably should have made this one first because I'm gonna be honest with you, Sinclair is one of the sinners I care about the least (I still like him and think he's pretty cool mind you I just don't vibe too much with most of the tropes making up the character) so what I have to say about him is less me grasping for straws and subtext because I don't care enough about him to be bothered with a super serious and in depth analysis like I did with Stephan and more things we can explicitly see about him in game and things that happen in the novel Demian.

And if I can have a small parenthesis here, people saying that one of my favorite pjm guys Ever is in any way similar to a guy who despite being pretty cool is just Not the type of character I fully vibe with... really, it gets annoying fast. Anyway back to the serious analysis now.

2.1- Emil Sinclair in Demian (1919)

To be able to understand Sinclair as he is depicted in Limbus Company, it is important to first be familiar with the source material of the original iteration of the character, that's it we're doing your high school homework by compiling several literary analysis of a symbolic psychological early 20th century autobiographical novel i hope you guys signed up for this (and if you didn't, though luck! i will do this anyway, I love literary analysis).

In the novel, young Emil finds himself torn between the worlds of light (which can be equated to the Garden of Eden, but it's more tangible meaning for our protagonist is his childhood home and family, a serene and well structure/organized space where he can be innocent, untainted by the evils of the outside world) and darkness (basically all the scary shit that goes on outside, where people do evil things for the sake of it), he finds himself tempted by the violence of the outside world, particularly through the actions of his classmate Franz Kromer, which eventually leads him to consider that due to being exposed to this tainted world of evil he no longer can return to the world of good and innocence.

Here, the character of Demian acts as a guide, someone who helps Sinclair to trascend this binary perception of good vs evil and to see himself as someone worthy of happiness because him witnessing the world of evil didn't taint him as a person but rather merely showed him another face of the world, Demian here mentions the Mark of Cain as a symbol of mental strenght and freedom, considering that bearers of this mark are capable of making their own choices and should be able to go beyond their assigned roles, being able to embody aspects of both worlds. This is to say that Demian's view is less focused on good vs evil, instead taking a more order vs chaos approach (without giving an explicit moral character to either).

In the book, the symbol of a bird breaking out of the egg is frequently used to represent Emil's personal growth, the egg represents safety and innocence, but a bird must eventually leave the egg or it will die, and getting out of the egg is a process than can be seen as violent, as a bird must fight to get out of the egg, and getting out of the egg represents birth but also an irreversible change, it can be seen as breaking out of the world of light and getting permanently in the world of darkness since a broken shell can't be fixed, but it can also mean achieving the enlightment and personal balance to not feel permanently bound to a condition, place or state of being and therefore growing as a person by learning to see himself as a whole human instead of supressing his "evil side" by only forcing the "good side" to surface.

Max Demian is here to show this second meaning of growth/self improvement (while also explaining that Sinclair is permamently growing and must always keep this balance between all the parts conforming the whole being that is himself rather that trying to make parts of himself antagonize each other). This idea of personal growth being one of the core themes of the book.

2.2- Emil Sinclair in Limbus Company (2023)

With Sinclair's source media analyzed (at a very surface level, mind you), we now can start talking about the depiction of Sinclair in Limbus Company, how it parallels the book, why the book symbolism is important for this instance of Sinclair and so on.

When we are first introduced to Sinclair in the game he's clearly nervous, he doesn't know what he's supposed to do as he hasn't worked for a similar company before and he isn't used to the gruesome sight of the bus eating people, this does fit inmediately in the motif of a naive person with limited experience about the world (well, to be fair to him most people won't be seeing man-eating buses at a regular basis, but the average backstreets dweller would be familiar with equally violent situations).

With this said, despite Sinclair's obviously nervous behavior... he isn't really a pessimist like Stephan was, in fact, almost every chapter (counting cantos, intervallos and the short mini chapters such as the Dante's notes update episode) have at least one key moment with him trying to rationalize horrible stuff as something much less violent, or simply going "but I thought this thing didn't work like this..." when confronted with the more horrible realities in the city. He thought the G corp veterans were really going to let them pass without a fight, he thought the people being controlled by headhens were just actors wearing mascot costumes, he thought mermaids were the beautiful half-woman half-fish creatures he heard about in fairy tales, and there's more examples but I don't really feel like looking for The Entire Fucking Plot Because This Guy Is An Actual Protagonist Instead Of A Background Guy Like Stephan Was to make my point clearer than it already is. And it's only when he realizes that the real world doesn't fit his expectations that he panics.

Well, there is one exception to this pattern: his own canto. Here, he panics inmediately as soon as K corp's nest is mentioned and spends the first half of the chapter pleading to turn back while saying that they are going to get killed. So what is different here with the rest of the plot?

Obviously, the fact that is related to his very own very personal very specific trauma. That is to say, unlike Stephan who is wary of anything that can put him on danger or cost him more money than it should, Sinclair has a very specific traumatic event that makes him act Like That (sure, he gets scared and nervous outside that, but these are more normal "I'm unfamiliar with this and I don't fully know how to react, this is normal behavior in a human being" reactions than outright "I am Actually Terrified due to being reminded of an actual traumatic event, this reaction is a textbook definition of post-traumatic stress disorder").

HOWEVER, Sinclair being someone who's deeply traumatized and kind of a scaredy cat when it comes to violence and unfamiliar situations... it doesn't mean that he's incompetent or a bad fighter. Almost all of his identities are terrifyingly good fighters (at least in their lore), Los Mariachis fear jefe Sinclair, Cinq director Sinclair is someone most association members are terrified to duel even during training, Blade Lineage Sinclair is considered a talented killer (it's also worth noting that save maybe for the mariachi one, in none of these mirror worlds Sinclair is precisely happy of being recognized as "the guy who's very scary when he fights people", unlike Stephan who I don't think he particularly likes killing but has a more "as long as I get paid..." mentality about it), the only "not very good at this" Sinclair id I can think of is the molar boatworks id where he's more a mechanic than a fighter so he fears he's lagging behind in that aspect. Hell, even the Canon Timeline so to speak (which is to say: his base identity) has him carrying that huge halberd, going on a frenzy attacking some already mutilated inquisitor's corpse, piercing through Guido's armor and dealing a fatal blow that finally killed him for real. To compare, Stephan is good at physical work, but we don't know about his close combat capacities other than the fact that he dislikes it, for Sinclair however we know he's terrifyingly good at physical combat.

Now, I've seen a lot of people call Sinclair a twink and while it's one of these words that nobody agrees on what it means, let's give it the benefit of doubt and say "alright, for the duration of this analysis let's settle on a twink being a young looking (regardless of actual age), thin man with almost no facial/body hair".

Since Sinclair is a rich guy (not just Any Rich Guy though, we're talking of someone whose family had ties to a Wing, probably not some elite guy like Daniel or Hong Lu, but not a self perceived "mediocre" nest dweller like Samjo either), and pressumably not very experienced in combat in most mirror worlds (we know he has no prior experience in the base one where he joined Limbus, at least), let's say that he has enough body mods for him to be much stronger than he looks like despite being thin, he does look thin and young and much to my dissapointment he also has no facial hair, so yeah, under this very broad definition of the term he is a twink.

However if you start adding personality archetypes to the definition he stops being one almost inmediately, as we've been shown time after time that his "submissive" attitude is mostly a result of him not knowing too well how to impose himself and just going along with what the rest say or do, but he's starting to grow tired of that ever since Hell's Chicken (even if he clearly still isn't great at that), as it should be more than obvious for anyone who even just googled "demian herman hesse literary analysis", Sinclair is undergoing a lot of changes even now, and the game is doing a good job at portraying that.

Honestly I also think he'd be hotter with a sleeper build but really, I don't care enough about him to argue about that.

And for the last point, precisely due to his upbringing as a rich guy AND his traumatic experience with Kromer, Sinclair is not only a very polite and mild mannered guy (again, unlike resident creature Stephan), but also he tries to take as little space as possible, both literally and metaphorically, as Dante notices near the end of canto 3 when they finally comment on how Sinclair never talks about his own problems until it's too late because he doesn't want to bother the others as they probably have it worse (again, unlike Stephan "i don't mind loweing team morale and making everyone in the room uncomfortable as long as i get to vent" Full Stop office).

3.- Adressing common arguments

Alright, now that I talked about each character, let's see some of the most common arguments I've seen people use to compare them.

"They look the same!" No, they don't. The only thing they have in common is being blonde but even their hairstyles are different with Sinclair having a simple bowl-ish cut with slightly wavy hair and Stephan having curlier hair (not to mention the whole point I made about body types because I'm the sort of lunatic who cares about that stuff). I won't even bother with this argument.

"They have the same personalities!" Again, they don't. Stephan is very cynical with a lot of his attitude being clearly derivated from him coming from a poor background and having stayed there his whole life, he also doesn't care about his cynism getting in the way and bothering everyone else. On the other hand, Sinclair is someone who could almost be described as naive due to having lived a sheltered childhood and only having his experiences with Kromer and his time at Limbus as moments of realizing that the rest of the world is Not Like His Childhood House, still believing that the world is a binary of good vs evil and expecting things to turn out fine or be much better than they actually are, just to be hit with the reality of the city Not being a nice place where people are nice and polite and not trying to kill him, this is not to say he doesn't have his own issues but even Dante notices during his Canto that Sinclair makes a point to avoid bothering everyone else with his personal problems, keeping them to himself even if that makes things worse on the long run.

"Both are opposed and harmed by a lunatic!" This is an argument I've seen a lot and is incredibly filmsy at best, half of the city's population are lunatics and the other half are people who got opposed by them some way or another. Will you say that Ishmael and the rest of the Pequod crew can be compared to the Full Stop office (or really, even mention the other Full Stop fixers instead of just focusing on Stephan because he happens to be blonde and can be compared to Sinclair) because of their situations with Ahab? Or the W Corp crew who got their train targetted by Jae-heon and Elena (or, you know, the train passengers who were turned into Love townspeople or puppets)? What about the Vermillion Cross who got killed by the Reverb Ensemble? Or the Cane office fixers? or the Zwei association section 6 who got beaten to death by Gyeong-mi just because he felt like doing so? Or the Liu association section 1 who had to deal with Argalia taking Philip away? Or the Kurokumo clan members when they were attacked by Tanya? You aren't comparing them to either Stephan or Sinclair, right? Not to mention that in her weird and fucked up perception of things, Kromer was less opposed to Sinclair as she was trying to lead him to join her and her cause, even the last things she says before getting killed are her calling him to follow her.

"Both are compared to birds!" Oh, right, because I forgot that a very directed symbolic comparison to a baby bird breaking out of it's shell as a symbol of rebirth, learning about the nuances of the world and self improvement/liberation that is consistently used in the source material Sinclair comes from is exactly the same as one (1) throwaway line the big bad guy uses to mock not only Stephan but the whole Full Stop gang, right. And if you want to say "but Tamaki compares him to a bird once too", yeah she calls him a parrot because he keeps repeating the same complaints over and over, it's still not the same as a consistent metaphor.

"Both are sad blonde twinks! They're essentially the same guy." Sad? Yeah, everyone in the city is sad but their ways to be sad are polar opposites, and neither of them is the pure cinnamon roll uwu crybaby archetype people tend to lump both into, Stephan was merely having a bad day and people decided to make that his whole personality (when honestly we get more insight on his actual personality before Argalia shows up, when he's making sarcastic remarks and getting impatient because they weren't starting killing people fast enough) but he's still perfectly capable (and willing) to murder people, and Sinclair is just... someone who lacks experience about the real world and how it works and has a tendency to get nervous because of this, but he can adapt quickly to situations once he understands them. Blonde? Yeah, but I guess if that's a point to draw a comparison then we should also compare them to Don Quixote, the Tiphereths, Lenny, Yun, Lulu, Olga, every single npc, librarian, and agent who comes with blonde hair from the generator... Twinks? Stephan absolutely isn't one, Sinclair depends on how you define twink as nobody seems to get to an agreement with that, if you define it as merely "young looking thin man with almost no visible body hair" then yeah he is one, but if you go for any more specific definition than that he stops fitting into the definition almost instantly.

In conclusion: if I see anyone else comparing them I'll start blocking people liberally bc I'm sick of seeing that shit (I do that already tbh but just so you know), now scram