#these aren't really done in the sense that they're actually finished

[rosynova]

jam session !! 🎵🎶

[aayakashii]

could you feed us lyca simps?

I hope you don't mind the little slice of life fluff I ended up writing for this request, I just think he's too cute for his own good (๑•́ ᎔ ก̀๑) and thanks for the request!!

neapolitan

Warnings: none. Just tooth rotting fluff and slice of life. Lyca knowing nothing about the world, while MC holds his hand to introduce him to the fun things of life.

“You know you don't have to follow me right now, right? I'm just going to the store to restock my first aid kit…” you say, sighing in defeat, as you side-eye the tall boy prancing right beside you, almost attached to your hip.

Lyca puffs his chest, a small pout appearing under his sharp fangs.

“No, I have to! I don't trust that shop man. He is weird… He looks at you weird!”

Well… You couldn't quite deny that fact.

“But don't you have homework from Professor Moby?”

“Who is that again? You know I don't remember their names” Lyca asks, scrunching his brows and scratching his head, as if he was searching his brain for the right face to attach to the name.

“Professor squirmy” you suppress a smile as you use Lyca's nickname for the eldritch teacher.

“Oh! I have already done all my homework from his class, though?”

“Really?” you look at him with widened eyes “That's very responsible of you, Lyca. That's great!” you smile, giving him two thumbs up.

You do wonder how he managed to finish it all so quickly, since he had difficulty reading harder kanjis, but you just chalk it up to Subaru helping him out without your knowledge.

He huffs, cheeks just a little bit rosy.

“Of course! That's nothing for someone like me. I'm gonna be an exemp… exemp… eggs-emm-puh-larry… member of human society!” Lyca says, slapping his own chest with a loud thud.

“An exemplary member of human society, right?” you repeat his words, more fluently than him, so he can hear how it's usually pronounced.

“That's what I said.” he mumbles and pushes the door to Darkwick's local store open, pointing to the inside of the dimly lit shop “You first.”

You widen your eyes once again, and chuckle.

“Wait, when did you learn to be so gentlemanly?” you say, as you walk through the door with him right after you.

“The blonde gigolo has been teaching me some things. He says being a gen-tle-man would make people respect me more.”

You nod at his words right as the door closes loudly behind him, the chime bell slamming against the door frame.

Okay, well. Maybe he still needs a bit of practice.

You wince at the loud sound, but after just a few seconds, you immediately relax, feeling the cool air inside the store hit your body. The fragrant scent of pastries being displayed inside a small shelf and the gentleness of the low lights also lull you into a sense of tranquility.

It seems like the effect is the same on Lyca, because you see the way his shoulders slump a little bit and how his grumpy face gives way to an eased expression.

You decide to browse through the shelves for a bit, absentmindedly, before getting your supplies. Lyca stood close, his nose sniffing every little thing you pointed out.

After a lot of explaining about products (No, Lyca, you cannot eat tide pods, those are for washing clothes. Yes, Lyca, you can actually eat hard candy, they aren't made for biting though. No, Lyca, just because tide pods and hard candy look similar, doesn't mean they're the same thing), you grab all your needed supplies and make your way to the cashier.

Thinking hard about how to keep Lyca from growling at the shopkeeper, you barely notice how the werewolf walks towards a small freezer a few steps to the side of the cash register. You finish paying when you hear his voice calling at you.

“Hey! Hey! What's this?” he points to the inside of the freezer and you walk to his side, his hands instinctively grabbing your bags so he could carry them for you.

“Those are ice cream pots.” you look at the multi colored labels that advertised a small range of different flavors. “Have you ever eaten ice cream, Lyca?”

“What's that?” he looks inquisitively at the small containers.

“It's a type of frozen sweet. It has lots of flavors and it's usually eaten when it's hot outside.”

He hums, still staring at the pots.

“Do you like sweets, Lyca?”

“Hmm, not really…”

“Oh, I see...”

“But! It's, um. It's hot outside, right?” he replies quickly, looking at you expectantly.

You smile to yourself, thinking about how his tail would probably be wagging if it was out right now.

“That's true, it's very hot outside. I think ice cream sounds great right now, what do you think?”

“I- I agree! Of course.” he huffs, as if he wasn't almost hopping with joy at the idea.

You chuckle and open the freezer, grabbing a small pot for the both of you. After paying for the frozen treat and grabbing two spoons, you two go out into the merciless heat of Darkwick's campus.

“Okay, so.” you sit under a huge tree overlooking a lake, hiding from the sun rays under the cool shade, and grab the ice cream pot.

Lyca sits right next to you, back straight as a plank, paying full attention to you and the mysterious treat you bought.

“I bought this one because it has three of the most classic flavors, and since you never ate ice cream, I figured you should taste the most common ones first. It's called neapolitan.” you explain, opening the lid and giving him a spoon “It's vanilla, strawberry and chocolate”

His eyes sparkle, looking at the frozen sweet. Your eyes widen as you see his wolf ears and tail pop out instinctively, but you choose not to mention it.

“Oohh! It looks good! Which one should I try first?” he asks, tail sweeping the grass under him.

“You can try whichever you want. Go crazy!”

You immediately regret your words as he shoves his spoon deep into the ice cream, grabbing more than one flavor, and eating a huge spoonful in one go.

“Ugh!! My head!!” he yells after a little while, clawing at his own forehead.

“Lyca! You can't eat cold things so quickly, you'll get brain freeze” you scold him, rolling your eyes.

“Well, tell me that sooner!” he groans, still holding his head, eyes shut tight.

“You're supposed to know that instinctively!”

He grunts, shaking his head as the sharp pain disappears slowly.

“Grab just one flavor at a time for now, so you can see which one you like more. Then you can mix everything. Like this” you say as you scoop a bit of strawberry ice cream into your spoon and eat it.

He mimics your action, scooping a bit of vanilla ice cream first.

Lyca's face falls as he smacks his lips repeatedly, tasting the ice cream.

“It's not that big of a deal.” he says, visibly disappointed.

“That's okay, now try the pink one.”

He does as you say and immediately scrunches his face.

“Uwah! That's awful! I don't want to eat it!”

You sigh, thinking about how Lyca seems more like a werecat than a werewolf at times.

“That's fine, it's just your personal taste. Now try the brown one. It's chocolate.”

Lyca hesitates, not really trusting your words after the previous experiences, but scoops a bit of chocolate ice cream either way. As soon as he eats the treat, his ears and tail perk up.

“Ohhh!!! This one is good!!” He yells, tail wagging a thousand miles per hour and eyes sparkling as he scoops a huge amount of chocolate ice cream again.

“Careful, or you're gonna get brain freeze again!” You scold him, but immediately give up, sighing and smiling at the sight of him happily smearing chocolate onto his face, like a big baby.

“I like the brown one mixed with the white-ish yellow-ish one! The pink one is gross though!” He says grabbing the ice cream with his hands, spoon immediately forgotten.

“Ah, Lyca! You're not supposed to eat it with your hands! You'll get all dirty…” you fret, afraid he'll get his uniform stained once again.

“But it's better this way, because I can feel how cold it is with my hands. You humans are so weird with all your rules…” he grumbles.

You sigh, as he pouts and licks his hands clean, grumpiness fully back.

“You have to learn these rules to become human though? But…” you trail off and he looks at you as you rummage through your pockets, fishing out a handkerchief.

You hold his cheek, wiping his face clean, ignoring the little blush that tinted his face as you got closer.

“But as long as it's just us, you can eat however you want. Just don't do it in public. And don't tell Rui I said this! He thinks I spoil you way too much. Deal?”

Lyca looks away, clearing his throat that suddenly got parched, despite all the ice cream he had just eaten.

“Hmpft. D-deal.”

[tacky-optic]

The agony of being able to go through an entire tumblr tag from start to finish.... ANYWAY. we're back with more food for the hat trick niche ft. rare JigZeni pachislot (zeni acknowledges jigen for 0.1 seconds and jigen forgot he was there even tho he's driving)

One thing I like about rarepairs is the flexibility. They're a headcanon/hypothetical breeding ground of potential without having to sacrifice too much of the character's integrity, because they rarely ever talk/barely have a relationship to launchpad off of! yaay :'D

So let's talk about how! Five how's, actually. Might've gotten a bit carried away with this one.

As with anything involving these two, somehow, some way, it always circles right back around to Lupin. It kind of has to, given their shared obsession and/or dedication with the guy. But that can split up into all sorts of scenarios, with some equally varied results (and some exceptions!)

~ Getting together in spite of Lupin

In which Lupin's basically that "I messed up so bad that I turned my girl date gay/my guy date straight" joke but everyone's still queer and it's just his partner hooking up with his rival because of how much he's been frustrating them both lately (and oops the proxy hate sex turns out to be really good) INHALES. Does that even make any sense.

I'm sorry but Lupin fumbling the ball is just so funny to me. It is a bit deeper than that, obviously, and this'd have some weird love triangle logistics because Jigen and Zenigata are still hopelessly in love with Lupin, in their own ways. But dipping into that is always complicated and messy-- JUST HOW WE LIKE IT.

This one definitely has the most jealousy on all fronts. For me, there's always this little asterisk on the JigLup/LuZeni pairings because someone's getting left out. Tell me Zenigata's chest wouldn't ache every time he watches Lupin and Jigen escape, an arm slung over the other's shoulder, cheek to cheek, laughs fading off into the cold, lonely night. Tell me Jigen wouldn't hate waiting in the Fiat for Lupin to lose his dogged hunter, mind wandering as to why he's taking so damn long. He grits his jaw when Lupin finally saunters up, victoriously spinning yet another pair of handcuffs on his pointer finger.

There's a silent rivalry for Lupin's attention that they might not even realize is going on until they blow up at each other about it.

It's difficult to tell if Lupin is being genuine or just messing around, especially for Zenigata. He asks Jigen how he deals with him, how he deals with.... everything. Just everything. The "will they won't they"s and the "does he really mean it"s. How does he stay so collected all the damn time. Jigen says he doesn't have a single friggin' clue. Maybe they make out sloppy style about it. Maybe they keep meeting up to vent, drink, exist in each other's company. During chases, Zenigata keeps dipping after Jigen instead of Lupin more and more often. Lupin's standing on a rooftop Pulp Fiction John Travolta style wondering where the fuck everyone went.

Ohhh jealous Lupin, where have you gone. Where did the tms writers hide your unchecked narcissistic ego. The other points after this support Supportive Lupin in some capacity but this one does not. The slow-burn's done slow-burning but it ain't over yet, baby. There's trouble in paradise and its name is Lupin the Third. He is Not Enjoying This. The two guys that are always looking at him aren't looking at him anymore and that just won't do. Drama ensues.

~ Getting together because of Lupin

Matchmaker Lupin! This is if Lupin's relationships with Jigen and/or Zenigata are more platonic-leaning (which is totally valid). The paired fics in Disreputable Company nail this dynamic perfectly imo. But as far as my own separate take goes....

They're both just so. So emotionally constipated. Intentionally or not, Jigen's been screwed over in the romantic interest department to many times that he's intentionally reduced his acquaintance list to how many fingers he's got on his right hand. Zenigata practically unloaded an entire clip into his foot as far as maintaining healthy family/friend relationships go. Spoilers for Zenigata Keibu, but he 100% knew what he was saying when he told Haruka he'd go back to her once he caught Lupin (I can never be yours), and that Zenigata's supposed to be the freest one! Bound not necessarily to Lupin specifically, but to The Chase forever.

Anyway. Jigen and Zenigata are Isolated. The fact that someone would consider them attractive is so foreign that they'd think its some kind of sick joke or ruse to screw them over instead of anything that could ever be even remotely genuine. They need someone to shove them out of their little self-made paranoia bubbles, and Lupin just loves to meddle in people's businesses. I dunno. I just think he'd think it's funny.

*dramatic finger point* "haha zenigata, you are banging my partner!!" "you... you tricked us into our first date? made the reservations?? th- the tailored suits???" "lu you friggin roller-skated out in a waiter outfit and immediately bought us the most expensive top-shelf booze they offered. not even remotely conspicuous about it" "lol yeah. good times"

He's just happy two of his favorite humans are finally getting laid for once, y'know?

~ Getting together for Lupin

Jigen and Zenigata are forced to team up. Okay, this scenario only goes down if 1) Lupin goes missing or is KO'd for a prolonged period of time or 2) the Truce demands they separate for a while. On top of seeing this play out in other fics, my good friend duke and I have been messing around with (a variant of) this idea for a while now (aka they've been letting me run around in their au Rampant and Unchecked. ty duke).

In ""canon"", if these two were to become at the very least amicable towards each other, this'd be the way to do it. In all honesty (and my personal bias for them aside), I'm genuinely shocked they haven't done this before. Not even an episode, tms? That 4-ish minute block in POTP is all you're giving me? One bar chat in the kobayashi sendoff ep. Okay. I'm not miffed i swear

Like I mentioned in this previous post, the idea of the two of them being able to function together without Lupin as a crutch is upsetting at first. They're used to following him to the Ends of the Earth and they're used to him living rent-free in their heads. They've convinced themselves that they're hopeless on their own, that if he disappeared for good they'd just go back to being two husks vaguely shaped like humans meandering around with no meaningful north star to head towards. Don't get me wrong, if the situation was Bad, Goemon and Fujiko would be devastated, too. But they could move on, albeit with a heavy heart. They're kind of known for heading out on their own should the situation call for it. But Jigen and Zenigata are in for the long-haul for better or for worse, whether they like it or not (they do not).

They're on edge the whole time. Hostile towards each other and passive-aggressive at best to any unfortunate folk they have to interact with on this stupid side quest they've been unwillingly shunted onto together.

It helps immensely that they're both "cut that out" people to anyone but themselves, because they can be that for each other. There's a lot of bickering/conflicts of interest and methodology. "You're being too harsh", "You're one to talk", "You're so goddamn stubborn", "You're such a hypocrite", etc etc. But holy shit they're so freakishly effective together, to a frankly terrifying degree-- maybe even moreso than with Lupin because they're honing the fuck in and nothing else-- no banter or bullshit-- and that's what gets them through to the end. Maybe it helps them come to terms with whatever sort of issues they've got going on, maybe it doesn't. Bare minimum, they come out of this with newfound understanding of each other. At max, uh.... see the point after this next one.

~ Lupin-adjacent

A shift in fixation. The slightest glance, the slightest exchange of eye contact for a second too long, the briefest moment of consideration, and the thoughts start spiraling. This is "in spite of Lupin" without the spite. The urge to know absolutely everything about someone, down to the marrow, just gets shifted a little bit to the right onto another guy. It's just them, in-between heists, with barely any mention of the Chase and anyone else involved therein. Their own little adventure away from the status quo. It's weird at first, sure, but it's new and exciting and real dang nice having things not revolve exclusively around him for once. It's a shot for Jigen to mess with Zenigata for once and the closest thing to a willing vacation Zenigata can get. Win-win! Well. Sorta.

The loneliness, though-- that's what makes itself most prevalent during the in-between times. They really don't have much left outside of the Usual. Forgetting the bare essentials, days blending together, moving around the masses like a ghost.... it's familiar, and it's common, not being sure whether they actually like someone or they're just desperately lonely. Zenigata wallows in it, Jigen shoves it down. They've got images to keep. but getting noticed for what they are is simultaneously the worst thing to ever happen and the highlight of their day. Real wholesome bonding material, ain't it

"I tracked you down for only you". "I dragged you into this issue because I want you here". "You get it".

~ Secret fifth thing

*points at playbohz mag* "lol wouldn't it be funny if zenigata was jigen's type??" *points at y series, miyazaki's zeni, island of assassins, that one manga where they put him in a tshirt, etc* "oh my god zenigata is jigen's type."

It's just a one-night stand lmao. I feel like I see this one a fair bit too, mostly because it's super duper simple and doesn't require a crap-ton of emotional angst setup just to get them into the same bed. It's the above point diluted into, like, an afternoon lmao. It doesn't have a lot of depth by design. Curiosity gets the better of both of them, plain and simple. They get buzzed enough at a bar, skip off to some motel to do what they gotta do one time and never speak of it again.

A part of me likes that, but another part of me in the deep deep recesses of my psyche is hollering "TACKY YOU GOTTA TURN THIS INTO THE SPITE BULLETPOINT!!!"

NO. For this one they get one nice hookup and THAT'S THAT. Sorry not sorry.

Maybe it's easier because there's actually something to decipher. There isn't some esoteric idea of "Lupin the Third, Gentleman Thief"; a mystery man(?) with a million little gadgets and masks and smiles; this unwavering, unpredictable force of chaos that likes taking shiny things from one place and hiding them somewhere else over and over again with no real rhyme or reason.

It's easier to find solace in turning to the guy next to you and going, "what do you think that is?" than in going up to "that" and poking it with a stick in hopes it'll give some sort of answer. "That" won't. "That" likes watching you guys flounder around together too much :)

[mdhwrites]

You've said before how you feel about Luz abandoning the Isles when they needed her because she refused to try and fix it. I think it's said that she genuinely believed she would only make things worse so she thought she needed to take herself out of the way? Are my memories faulty?

Okay so I'm going to start with a scenario to make my point clear because you're not wrong... But you also are.

Let's say you're assigned two partners for a science project. You decide the best way to split the work up evenly is to have one person do the research, one person to write up the conclusions and one person to do a lot of math for the calculations you'll need. You each state your strengths with one saying writing, one saying research and the last saying, "I like math."

However, a week passes and you are struggling to finish any it because you've gotten none of those calculations for it back. When you push, the person goes, "Well sure, I like math but I suck at it. As such, my calculations would have been wrong. That would have caused you all problems so I decided the thing that made the most sense would be not to do anything at all." The project still needs to be done though and the majority of the work has been done for them. As such, now you and the second person have to work your ass off to do what your third member cannot while they contribute nothing but they promise they feel really bad about it and they're okay taking a C if this ends up making the project fail, even though their actions would have gotten them an F on their own.

Luz likes to make decisions. She essentially never consults ANYONE on what she should do and half the time someone tells her, "Don't do X," she goes ahead and does it. This also constantly gets other people in trouble and gets her in trouble because she is really bad at making decisions. And yes, with helping Belos free the Collector, she admits that she made a terrible mistake and that she makes a lot of mistakes. Her literal statement on this is that she'll finally listen to her mom and learn from her mistakes by staying in the Human Realm. Permanently.

Do you potentially notice a problem here though? Yeah, my thoughts have NEVER stopped at "Luz left a planet to die because she wanted to stay home." No. I always do mention that she claims part of her reasoning is because she makes stupid, rash decisions on her own that hurt others but then she goes ahead and makes a stupid, albeit with implied a LOT of thought, decision ON HER OWN that will hurt people.

Do you know a great way to avoid making a mistake? Asking someone else if it's the right choice to make. Or hey, just decide you don't need to lead anymore. If your decisions are the problem then let someone else make the decisions. But... Then Luz doesn't get to do the fun thing she likes to do. She actually has to listen to other people and maybe do things that aren't her number one option because her first choice would get people hurt. That isn't what Luz wants. Luz doesn't want to actually grow or learn or get scolded for her mistakes. Otherwise, she wouldn't CONSTANTLY LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING.

So instead... Why not just let them suffer the consequences while she stays home and lives in peace, her problems in a far off fantasy realm that she never has to think about again? People always like to say she's giving up so much but what is she actually giving up? The fantasy world? You mean the one that's currently ravaged by a child god and has a populace that she assumes will hate her? Yeah, that's hardly something to give up. The chance at friends? Too bad Thanks to Them shows people who are very interested in being her friend and also Yesterday's Lie showed there are people like Luz who would probably be willing to be her friend. What is Luz sacrificing by deciding to just sit at home with her loving mom and live a normal life?

So why grow? Why learn? Why try to do better? When you can do nothing. That's what Luz wants to do. She wants to just stay home and do nothing, even as that means condemning an entire world, bare minimum at least a continent, which includes her found family and friends, to death. Her claims of trying to do better are nothing but excuses so she can have a clear conscious as she allows thousands upon thousands to be enslaved and tortured.

So yes, she SAYS that she is doing this because she doesn't want to make things worse. The problem is that there are plenty of ways for her to still have even attempted to help without having to make the decisions she's afraid to make worse but those options would require more work and require her not to be the star. And none of this, even if this is the most expanded version of this point, is missing from those past blogs because they also talk about how she claims to have a problem making decisions and yet still makes this choice entirely on her own.

Because she isn't learning. She's just deciding that some broken puppets are a small price to pay to keep getting to do whatever she wants. It is an excuse, end of story. See you next tale.

======+++++======

Sorry for so many blogs about this. It's admittedly to me a very important point because it's the moment Lumity dies. It's the moment that Luz's character can never recover. It's the moment when the TOH fandom became genuinely horrifying when it comes to mental health as THANK GOD no one has tried to refute this with "She has depression" because yes, that will get you blocked if you try to tell me that. I am disabled by depression and I understand lives still matter. I understand I'm not supposed to lie, CONSTANTLY. I understand basic ass morality, unlike Luz. And in this moment, there's no turning back for her, let alone after For the Future when she doubles down on how selfish her desires are.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[profounddestinyrebel]

Pretty much my ideal dcxdp coexisting world

Danny had all his canon happen before Bruce and the JL started their vigilante careers

Before Bruce was born or Martha and Thomas even got married

Phantom Planet never happened and the world never realized that they were almost dead in the first place (I apologize for mentioning it)

Danny retires after blowing up the portal and designing a new system of gov for the Infinite Realms (why the hell is that a monarchy anyway? Fighting being a way of communicating AND the way of determining a ruler does not make sense so I'll choose the better one)

Danny still visits the Infinite Realms but mostly lives his life

He still has interesting things happen to him but more because he apparently has a curse placed on him than anything else 'may you live in interesting times'

Danny manipulates the curse by getting into situations on purpose and then resolving them without getting attention drawn to his civilian id and normal life

He keeps track of immortals and big names that deal with death magic so as to lower the chances of being summoned

The more powerful the Realm Being the more powerful the summoner has to be to summon them and with how powerful Danny is there aren't many he has to keep an eye on

Ra's has been losing Lazarus water at a steady rate for over a decade but only now has it become a noticeable loss. The day the that he notices is a Very Bad Day for the League of Assassins (the day Danny lets himself get caught satisfies his curse for 2 whole months)

Danny hasn't aged much at all since he left Amity at 17. He's still short but mimics the effects of age with stage makeup and other tools used by actors to look older they actually are. This is how he meets a certain Alfred P. who remains a good friend even though they never really meet in person.

His parents blow themselves up and wipe their house off the map when tinkering with a device designed to lure realm beings to them. Danny isn't really sorry they're gone. He finds out after leaving Amity that he wasn't really their kid and he wasn't even adopted. They made him in their lab while distracted from their obsession with ghosts then completely forgot they had done so when they refocused on ghosts. His growth chamber (terrible name) was coated in ecto which allowed the device to reactivate and allow Danny to finish incubating into a toddler then (suspicious) it mysteriously popped him out before his the fentons noticed the growth chambers success.

His parents never took any notes on the clone experiment out of the house due to it being a (perceived) failure. After going back to their ghost obsession they completely forgot about it so no one knows. Jazz only found after Danny told her and he only found out after growing older and continuing to look less and less like either of his parents.

Danny finds the notes and that's what inspires him to leave Amity, to start looking for his bio parent. The Fenton's had no clue that the clone they grew was Danny. They dismantled the growth chamber when Danny was four (actually two) and never realized that the toddler they adopted was the clone of wonder woman they made. They never said anything to anyone about Danny being adopted so Vlad has no idea that Danny isn't Maddie's child.

Vlad starts to age drastically after the portals are destroyed and Danny figures out that Vlad isn't a halfa after all. He's just a normal ghost who can prey on people like spectra but with an obsession directed at Maddie originally and then Danny. Afterwards Vlad gets shunted off into Walker's prison because of all the toxic and human crimes he's committed among them brainwashing, mind control and mind wiping various wealthy and not so wealthy individuals into giving Vlad their money and companies.

Ellie has to explore the Infinite Realms (literally Infinite though so she's not confined) only because she can't really produce her own ecto. She has to absorb it from her surroundings so she can wander safely all over the Infinite Realms (so long as she calls for help when she gets in over her head) but not the human realms unless she takes a buddy who can produce a steady stream of ecto for her.

Vlad makes Danny his heir so now he's rich enough to travel even after giving all the people Vlad stole from their money back. It turns out that Vlad was good with making more money once he had it.

just Danny being a crptoid for the entire magical community and them being unable to talk about it if they even know of him

while danny runs a NASA and space account where he talks about NASA's recent achievements, newly discovered stars, planets and new alien races that Earth has been in contact with

[imagitory]

@andrewmoocow Personally I find them to be misguided. There is a very well-done analysis video I've cited before that talks about the animation and why it ends up looking like AI, and I think it really addresses this argument better than I could --

-- but TL;DR, the animation looks "fake" largely because of stylistic decisions (l.e. turning off motion blur with the thought it would look "more like 2D") that weren't well thought-out. And I actually think the film's writing issues run into the same problem.

Because here's the thing -- writing high fantasy is not as easy as it looks. I can testify to this because I myself am writing a draft for a high fantasy novel right now.

All these years, Disney has been in an advantageous position with their animated films largely being adaptations of previous works, since they're already given a lot of the parameters a writer needs to build a world, plot, and characters. In a Snow White adaptation, for instance, you need a vain queen, an innocent princess, a prince, seven dwarfs, a magic mirror, and a poisoned apple, as well as a fairy tale world where these things fit comfortably. And since so much mainstream fantasy is largely inspired by medieval Europe, that aesthetic remains very familiar with audiences to the point that you need a lot less explanation for things. We don't really need an explanation for the political landscape of Cinderella because we see "fairy tale kingdom" and immediately know it's an absolute monarchy led by generally amiable rulers. We're not surprised when fairies appear in Sleeping Beauty, or when a magical sword predicts who should be king in The Sword in the Stone, or when Tiana and Naveen are turned into frogs in The Princess and the Frog, or when trolls appear in Frozen -- all of these magical conventions fit within the usual fantasy aesthetic and really don't need any explanation or backstory. I'd hazard to say that most people -- aside from those nitpicky critic types who get all hung up on how many servants are in Beast's castle just because they saw a bunch of extra silverware in the Be Our Guest sequence -- just don't bother questioning these things. And the original material also gives some shape and form to the adaptation's story, characters, and overall feel. It doesn't matter how close the finished product matches the original idea or even how familiar the audience is with that original material -- it still provides a jump-off point and sense of focus for the writer(s), the same way fanfiction (even an AU fanfic) can, in contrast to original content.

All right, well, what about those Disney projects that aren't fantasy? Well, in the case of stories like Treasure Planet, Robin Hood, and Mulan, they're still based off preexisting properties that people will find familiar enough that the writers can focus more on the adaptation's unique additions and not focus on detailed backstories and explanations about how the world and societies depicted in the story work. It's a lot easier to just focus on the fantastical elements like the space tech, talking animals, or Mushu and the ancestors if the rest of the story and cast are relatively easy to understand. Even in the case of original stories like The Lion King (which admittedly was largely inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet, but I digress), Lilo and Stitch, and Lady and the Tramp, they still exist in a non-magical world that closely resembles ours, with only superficial changes like animals being able to talk or the existence of aliens. Even quasi-historical settings like The Great Mouse Detective and Atlantis: The Lost Empire look enough like our real-world equivalent that their settings are largely recognizable to us.

In just about all Disney animated films, the screenwriters didn't have to world-build that much. They didn't have to put the character development and plot on hold to explain the rules of the universe these stories take place in that often -- not unlike how writers like Rick Riordan didn't have to explain as much about the country his hero Percy Jackson lives in, because his books are an urban fantasy where our real world is just "plused up" with magical elements. We don't need to know if gravity works on the story's characters the way it does for us. We don't need to be told about the political landscape, history, or terrain of our location. We don't need to ask whether dying is something our characters can come back from.

Wish, on the other hand, is an original story in a high fantasy setting that doesn't resemble our world. People might try to claim it takes place in the Iberian Peninsula, but come on -- Rosas is a completely fictional country in a world that has magic we don't know the rules of and countries that faintly resemble cultures from our world, but we don't know the histories of or how similar they actually are to their real-world inspiration. We also have a cast of characters we've never met in any other media and a story and messages that we know nothing about beforehand. This means that we have no preexisting framework going in for what's possible and impossible in this world; no frame of reference about who these characters are and what their histories are; and no parameters that the plot, characters, and themes must fit inside, whether based on the fantastical story being adapted or a real-world setting that's a lot like ours. And I don't think that Disney really thought through just how challenging it can sometimes be to tell this kind of a story without stuffing the script with a lot of "tell" and not "show," which, as just about any film person can tell you, is the exact opposite of what you generally want. In film scripts, you want to show your audience a lot more than you tell them -- this not only takes full advantage of the visual medium and communicates your point in a much more natural and artistic way, but it also lets your audience think for itself and come to its own conclusions.

Now of course, can you write a high fantasy original story that's easy to follow and evokes a lot of emotion in your audience? Of course! But it does take time and a lot of careful and creative world-building. J.R.R. Tolkien was the king of such things. George R. R. Martin has done it. Neil Gaiman has done it. Ursula K. Le Guin has done it. Even the writer of the Nimona graphic novel, ND Stevenson, did a good job of it! But I think it's quite clear that Wish's script was not in the works that long -- development of the original idea started back in 2018, yes, but it wasn't until January 2022 that it was announced Jennifer Lee was writing it and Julia Michaels was brought on to write the songs, so the film's current trajectory likely wasn't pinpointed until then. And if the film was released in November 2023, then that means Wish's script was finished in under two years. Although there are successful Disney scripts that I daresay needed only that much time (Frozen, for instance, was quite rushed, by all accounts), once again, those scripts were done for stories with some sort of preexisting framework that allowed the writers to skip explaining certain visual or contextual short-hand in favor of focusing on their own creative flourishes in character and story. They were written with a tighter focus on the plot and its players without the need to build a complete stage under them.

The reason some people want to cry "AI!" when they look at Wish's writing is that they're looking at a script that makes the rookie writing mistake of exposition-dumping in an attempt to make its audience care, rather than evoking emotion. That kind of exposition-dumping is something that most novelists usually have to trim and rewrite in future drafts of their work: it's a mistake done while the writer is trying to world-build enough that their audience understands all of these original rules, societies, locations, and characters they're not familiar with. This exposition is then often trimmed down before publishing, and when adapted for the screen it's often trimmed even further or even completely rewritten, in favor of more visual methods of conveying the same information. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz writes about Dorothy traveling down the Yellow Brick Road and about the long journey that takes her and her friends through a lot of side adventures on their way to the Emerald City: it's the famous film adaptation that cuts out the Kalidahs and puts the whole trip to jaunty music for the characters to sing and dance to. Wish could've communicated to us the importance of the wishes to their owners through more visual means, but instead feels the need to reiterate this idea over and over through written dialogue. And again, this is a common mistake by writers when they're inexperienced in creating completely original content, as opposed to spin-offs, sequels, or adaptations of other people's work.

AI writing is generally known for repetitive phrasing and sentence structure, lack of accuracy, and lack of a personal touch. As much as I'll agree that there are a lot of character and world-building choices in Wish that don't make sense, I don't think that's the same thing. There clearly was a story someone (or multiple people) wanted to tell about a person hoarding the precious ideas of other people away, even if it means those ideas can never be shared with the world -- it just wasn't a story that ended up being told that well. And I think this is why Wish is almost worth seeing -- it serves as a good example of why certain writing decisions work better than others and how writing for fantasy projects and/or "family entertainment" is an art form that's worthy of respect when it's done right.

To sum up my stance on the matter -- I think Disney just bit off way more than it could chew and then didn't give its writers enough time to properly digest it.

[interact-proof]

Info Masterpost

Hi everyone, you may know me from around the IF community, probably primarily from here, but you may also be familiar with some projects I've worked on as an editor (the two most prominent being @bodycountgame and @nyehilismwriting's Project Hadea) or other things I've done around the place. Regardless, it's my intention to set up a place here to provide proof-reading and other editing services in order to help people in the IF community who may struggle with doing it themselves for whatever reason (be that due to time, or difficulty, or anything else).

What's on Offer?

We all know that being an interactive fiction author is a HUGE undertaking - we're our own planners, publicists, programmers and also editors a large amount of the time - and sometimes it can be a lot to grapple with. I also know from personally interacting with a lot of authors that editing in particular can feel intimidating for people who don't do it often, and lots of people feel like they don't get it right or don't trust their own judgement with it. That's a normal feeling for anyone inexperienced in a certain skill to go through, but also it turns out that luckily, the internet exists!

For a fee, I can hopefully take some of the stress out of the process by doing copy, line or developmental editing for you, or a combination of the three in some way, shape or form. This doesn't give me any control over your work, obviously, and any suggestions that I make will be just that, suggestions - though like any editor worth their salt, I'll always do my best to explain what I'm suggesting and why, so that you can hopefully make an informed decision about what you want to do about it.

See below the cut for more information, along with pricing and some basic FAQs. Thanks for reading!

So, how does it work?

Well, it's pretty simple, really - you reach out and talk to me about what you want edited, I'll let you know how many (if any) jobs are in my queue currently, we'll confirm what the price will be, and then you decide if you want to go ahead with contracting my services. If we agree to work together, you'll sit back and relax after finishing the exhausting writing process, or, if you're really a glutton for punishment, start writing something new, and I'll do the editing. Then I'll return it to you, and send you an invoice. Easy!

I'm not going to hover over your shoulder demanding certain changes be made or be offended if you disagree with me - that's not a good editor's function, in my personal opinion. What you choose to do with my editing suggestions afterwards is entirely up to you!

FAQs

What's the difference between copy editing, line editing and developmental editing?

Most people editing for themselves do all three different types of these at once, but they are actually three separate skillsets. Copy editing is another term for what's sometimes called proof-reading; basically, it's checking for spelling and grammar mistakes (including homophones and so forth) but not for other purely textual elements like ineffective word usage or weak sentence structures. Anything beyond basic grammatical correctness is covered by what's called line editing, which looks at some common things people worry about like overused words, weak metaphors or other imagery, and sentences or segments of the text that can possibly be written in a way to more effectively convey the message they're trying to get across.

Developmental editing is a whole other ballgame - this is the part that most often makes authors nervous, the act of considering the text in terms of the effectiveness of each paragraph and story beat, analysing which parts of the narrative and various character arcs are working and which aren't, and so forth. This is a type of editing that is heavy on critique, and very subjective: it's akin to the kind of feedback you might get from beta readers in many senses.

You don't have to want all three types of editing in order to contract my services for, say, just one, but developmental editing on its own will be by negotiation, and likely be an hourly fee rather than a per word cost. You also can't have line editing without copy editing, as it would be impossible to make sure it's effectively-written without making sure it's correct. (You can have copy editing without line editing, however.)

Do you accept works from people whose first language is something other than English?

Yes, this is not a mitigating factor for me. I've worked on some pieces by French- and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking authors before. My editing suggestions come with explanations of why I'm making them, so it should be clear even for ESL authors what I'm suggesting and for what reason. I'm not a translator (unless you're talking about from Akkadian or Sindarin), but as long as you're capable of having a conversation in English, we should be fine.

How should I format my files for you to work on? And how will I get them to you/receive them back?

The two most preferable options are either in a Word Document, or a GoogleDoc document, as these formats both allow me to highlight parts of the work and comment on it directly so that you can see my suggestions. Any other format will make the whole process difficult for both of us as it will require cross-referencing between your work and my responses.

It doesn't have to be formatted in any fancy way, though - as long as it's in the document and readable, even just via basic copy/paste from wherever else you write, that's fine.

We can exchange the files via email or discord, whichever makes you feel more comfortable.

Do you accept jobs unrelated to interactive fiction?

Yes! I've edited novels and short stories before as well, and done work specifically providing developmental editing on outlines so that authors can feel they have a well fleshed-out plan before they begin writing. It's just that there's not many editors out there who are familiar with the IF scene, so that's my marketing focus, so to speak.

You write using British spellings... do you know how to edit for American spellings, too?

Yes, I know how to edit for AusE and AmE as well as BrE. Many authors also use a combination of multiple spelling systems, which I can work with as long as you let me know your style and parameters.

My game is written in the style of Shakespeare... can you handle that?

Individual style, both affected and inherent, is not really a roadblock for most editors. The job of a good editor is to consider each author's personal style and make sure to respect it, rather than try to overwrite it with their own voice, so if you're writing a Tolkienian or Arthurian or epic poetry piece, I'm capable of working with that as long as you let me know what you're aiming for beforehand.

If you have a style guide with particular specifications, feel free to submit it along with your documents, and I'll abide by its specifications. I've worked on projects ranging from high fantasy to scifi to modern fiction in the past.

Can I break my writing up into multiple parts to give to you over time?

Sure! All of the interactive fiction work I've done thus far has been chapter-by-chapter, and you can break it down smaller if you like. However, I can't necessarily bring forward developmental editing concerns from one job into another at peak reliability, particularly if a long period of time has passed between the different jobs.

That's probably all for the FAQs for now - if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out and ask!

Pricing

How much the editing will cost is based on the length of what you would like me to edit, split up into three length categories: under 10k words, 10k-100k words, and over 100k words. Prices are in AUD, Australian dollars. Per-word rates round up (ie., at a rate of 1c per 5 words, 6 words would incur the cost for 10 words).

Under 10,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word.

Line editing: a flat $15 fee on top of the price of copy editing.

Developmental editing: a flat $20 fee on top of any other costs, or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

10,000 to 100,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word for the first 10,000 words, followed by 1c per each 3 words for the remainder.

Line editing: a flat $30 fee on top of the price of copy editing.

Developmental editing: a flat $80 fee on top of any other costs, or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

Over 100,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word for the first 10,000 words, followed by 1c per each 3 words for the remainder, plus a flat $20 fee for each 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur a $20 fee on top of the per-word price, while 250,000 words will incur $40).

Line editing: a flat $40 fee on top of the price of copy editing, rising incrementally per 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur a $40 fee, while 250,000 words will incur $80).

Developmental editing: a flat $80 fee on top of any other costs, rising incrementally per 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur an $80 fee, while 250,000 words will incur $160), or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

Code-checking

If you're able to include your code with your writing (such as by viewing a proofing copy of a game via twine), and provide me with an outline of your variables and what you're using them for, I can by request check for possible errors (such as adding to a stat when it seems like it should be subtracting instead, or using a wrong or misspelled variable) for a flat fee of $80 per 100,000 words (in this case, the code is included in the wordcount, since I'll be checking it).

Outline Help

If you want me to look over an outline or plan and provide developmental feedback before you begin writing, this can be done for an hourly fee by negotiation.

Thank you again for reading! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

[maleyanderecafe]

The Yandere Angel is obsessed with a good-natured succubus (Oneshot)

Created by: aironiro

Genre: Smut

This one was really difficult to word properly and I'm not really sure why. It's not because of the angel and demon words that I don't know it's just kind of weirdly translated. That might be on my end because I finished this one while I was still sick. Hopefully it makes enough sense that it's still enjoyable though, I did like the backstory that the yandere had in this one. It's pretty interesting. If you are interested in a sequel, please donate to kofi.com/lovesicktranslation to fund it.

The story starts out with Lilith being recognized by her fellow succubus, Meribel, who hasn't seen her since the French Revolution. Meribel talks about how there's a corrupted angel attacking people, including the reaper, Yvette. While talking, Meribel is threatened by Cyril, the corrupted angel she was talking about, and Lilith is able to shoo her away. We see that Cyril has been chasing after Lilith for a while, to the point of attacking other Reaper. Cyril asks to have sex with Lilith, which she accepts because she it's kind of her nature, but is basically overwhelmed by it, something that she is confused and horrified by as Cyril ravishes her body. She passes out and recalls her first encounter with him, having gone to an orphanage to corrupt a priest, only to meet Cyril as a child. Cyril seems to be bullied at the orphanage, and Lilith defends him from spirits that want to take his pure soul away. She talks to him a bit, about how she's actually quite fond of humans. She remarks that because his soul is so pure, he will likely become an angel, and that the two will never meet again, and that even if they did, she would eat him. Lilith ends up waking up at her human friend Akari's place after having passed out. She's worried that Cyril might attack Akari and gets a note from Cyril on where to meet. Cyril upon meeting Lilith again, apologizes for what he's done, and states that he wants to be corrupted so that he can be with Lilith again. The two have sex again, and apparently the reason why Lilith feels so good while having sex with Cyril is because it's a taste of true love (?) something that succubus don't taste as they usually charm the people they're targeting. After all that, Lilith takes a liking to Cyril, even planning to allow him to meet and sort of make sure that he doesn't cause any problems.

I'm not super used to oneshot yandere smut splitting up the actual sex part into two sections, but this one does do that and it kept on throwing me for a loop while I was translating. Personally, I think the idea of a succubus feeling intense pleasure when they are actually loved seems kind of stupid, since I feel like there are people who do fall in love at first sight, so a succubus should be used to that type of feeling, or at least have experienced it once before. The lore of the angels and devils aren't made that clear in this story, which might be because this is part of a second series, with the first one introducing Togo and Akari. I guess it doesn't really need to be because it's a smut, but it does leave a lot to be desired. The most interesting part for me is the backstory, since we do get to see how and why Cyril became so obsessed with tracking her down, even if there is seemingly a weird age gap between them since I believe Lilith would have been around 200 years old when meeting Cyril who died at age 14 according to the end profiles (which is never mentioned at all in the story but alright).

Cyril as a yandere is pretty obsessive, having basically ignored the orders of god so much that his halo and wings ended up getting corrupted just so that he could track down Lilith, and even ended up attacking and wounding Yvette (who supposedly is difficult to kill) and nearly hurting Meribel had Lilith not stepped into saving him. He also seemed to have kept his virginity up to this point. I mean I am sort of glad they have a reason to why Cyril a virgin is able to make Lilith a succubus feel good, but it's still pretty stupid in my opinion. I still don't really get why Lilith ends up keeping Cyril at the end, but I guess it's better than letting a yandere angel run around for a bit. Always cool to see a yandere angel though since that's not something you'd normally see in this scenario. Yandere demons seem to be more common and for good reason.

Anyways, hopefully you enjoy this oneshot. The artwork in it is pretty loose so I could get away with the cleaning easier. The fonts kind of irked me because the original Chinese I was basing it off of uses way too many different fonts.

[toxinoire]

Mean Girls as Senior High School students of a private school

(I am currently a SHS student in a private school and a HUMSS student so here's what I think these characters would be if they were in SHS)

~~~

• Janis, Damian, and Karen are all in the Arts and Design strand

• Regina is in Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM) strand

• Gretchen is in Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) stand

• Cady is definitely in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strand

• Their Practical Research teacher is their favorite teacher because their teacher here allows them to cuss in class but still scares them enough to work smart and hard

• Gretchen hates the Politcs, but she gets amazing grades at it out of spite

• Cady is generally just good at Math so everyone turns to her for help in Statistics and Probability and well, General Math.

• They still wear pink on Wednesdays, but like, maybe a jacket or a bracelet because, well, uniforms.

• Janis and Damian hate the uniforms

• Gretchen and Regina have no problem with it, but sometimes it's a bother. especially when it's cold

• Karen rocks it

• Damian hates the strict dress code. especially the haircut policy

• Regina, Janis, and Gretchen hate the "not too flashy jewellery/make up" thing too

• Cady sucks at presentations. But she gets better.

• Gretchen is that student during recitations that can say anything and everything so fast but is understood and makes sense. The other HUMSS students usually want her out of debates because they know she'll kill them all.

• Karen's charisma is everything. she's friends with literally every student and teacher and her performance skills are fire too

• They all share Homeroom

• They all get along and absolutely love the Academic Director because her office is just next to their homeroom classroom

• They all have this one shared teacher that they really fucking hate

• Regina and the Junior High School History teacher have beef

• Nothing serious, they just have history-offs everytime they see each other

• He is also Gretchen's politics teacher

• Janis is now besties with the Guidance Counselor

• She is also Gretchen's HUMSS teacher.

• The Math teacher doesn't know whether or not Cady is his favorite student or not because she participates the most, but she also finishes his examples before he can input it in the calculator, and she does it without a fucking calculator

• He's a nice dude though

• He's also everyone's Statistics teacher

• Damian is the school's favorite theatre kid

• The Prefect of Discipline is so done with their batch

• The Principal is Regina's Applied Economics teacher

• She took one look at Regina and thought "This kid is a lesbian, isn't she?"

• She would know, she has a wife

• Cady's calculus teacher adores her

• She mentally adopted Cady, actually

• The Arts and Design teacher is so done with Janis's bullshit

• "Welcome to the club, sir."

• He is a very supportive straight man

• He doesn't know whether to be impressed or scared of Karen

• Their homeroom teacher doesn't question their group dynamics anymore

• Their entire homeroom just one day subconsciously picked up wearing a hint or pink on Wednesdays

• So did the homeroom teacher.

• Every admin, students, and teachers all noticed this

• But they said nothing since it doesn't really break the dress code

• It annoys the Prefect of Discipline a little

• Why didn't she have this when she was still a teacher dammit

• They aren't exactly the popular kids, but if you ask anyone "Do you know (name of anyone from the group)" it's an automatic yes

• Regina's lacrosse coach is a wholesome 50 year old man that will throw crampled paper at someone that doesn't take the drills seriously

• He's the most respectful and in tune with his emotions Gen X man anyone's ever met

• Cady is obviously in the Math varsity which is run by the Calculus teacher

• If smart kids get bullied in canon, here, they cannot be bullied because your grade depends on them

• No seriously, they're usually the group leaders and they will be all "Give me the research design by Friday or you have no group anymore, and you'll do the entire research on your own."

" ⬆️ Cady, Janis, and Regina are part of these

• Overall, it's organized chaos

[masquayla-the-splendid]

In an earlier post, I listed the evidence pointing towards the one and only metallic noodle clown as being some robot form of neurodivergent. I have since dubbed this as "bot-tism."

(The Sonic half of my brain argues an episode of Aosth touching upon this concept and calling it "mechanically challenged." Egh.)

Since we're taking April, I finally finished this sketch from a while ago.

I made a whole render of it for reference and everything, but I ended up drawing over the limbs and stuff anyway.

It is actually a redraw from 2020! Blech the messaging is so blatant.

As you can clearly see, this was drawn and posted when I killed the part that cringes.

I left the new and improved version textless and up for interpretation, but if you want my exact thought process, then see below the cut, because I don't wanna ruin the fun for anyone else.

The 2020 drawing was the first instance of me using Ennard's mask as a metaphor for "masking." Although not used directly in a ND sense, but for an internal struggle nonetheless.

Ennard’s desire to be human, and the ambiguity of how his mind even works is a perfect metaphor for a number of neuro types.

The former can be interpreted as many NDs struggle of being treated differently than NTs in a social setting. Like I said in the previous post, they only wear their mask when they know they're being perceived, and when he does finally get his skin suit, it only lasts for a week before it fails him. Burnout.

"But oh! Silly goose, why don't you just be yourself?" The neighbors reactions to the skin suit deteriorating. The entire point is that they need look/act "normal" to be treated like a human.

The latter can be interpreted to how many NDs have so many differing brain signals than a NTs, that they aren't even aware of.

To add on to the other post, Fnaf 6 seems to characterize Molten Freddy/Scrap Baby as if they were mindless entities that must be destroyed, hence "burn it" in the 2020 drawing. This bled into a whole different interp of Ennard as more animalistic than he really is. It wasn't widely used, but it was noticeable enough for 14-15 y/o me to draw about it. This to me is a lot like what I said prior about masking and looking "normal." This interp seems to paint him from an unknowing observers point of view. 'How dare you visually emote with your hands' or, 'how dare you get stressed out over the complexity of sound or light, weirdo.' You know. Which is probably my injustice sensitivity typing up paragraphs backing up a fictitious robot.

The latest version has his mask removed voluntarily, while covering his face his with his own hand. The mirrors are now silly mirrors, the floor is a spiral, and the reflections remain of himself, but also of his components, and another character of importance on the far left. (It's a bloodied Michael hand.)

He voluntarily unmasks, only to be surrounded by distorted reflections of himself. The Funtimes can represent the many oddities of his mind, and the aforementioned bloodied Michael hand can represent the damage that can be done to yourself or others if you dont take the accountability and measures to learn your own boundaries.

Also the irony that the horror clown character endures how a horror clown character would torment their victim.

The true message: Unmasking is a process.

[staybabblingbaby]

SKZ x Coordi (Intro Part) a1 d3

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: Reader is a successful makeup artist with a notorious and prolific career and no self awareness. Reader joins JYP as a part of Stray Kids' team and encounters their hazing ritual for new coordis: flirting.

Word Count: 1,178 Notes: This spawned because of my conviction that I could never get my makeup done by a professional bc I would fall in love. Getting your makeup done by someone else just feels very intimate to me (ik its not, ok, I'm just touch starved T^T). It's sort of lending itself to long one-shot style formatting, but for tumblr purposes I'm posting it in parts. Also, I think I accidentally avoided pronouns for Reader? Not sure how but I didn't see any when I was reviewing this part. Will update as I post (idk how to add emojis, just imagine a thumbs up here pls TT^TT). Needs to be edited for clarity. Warnings: None that I know of? Reader has weird self esteem but it's not bad?

Masterlist Link :D | Next Part Link <3

You're fairly sure, by the time your sunbae finishes showing you around and giving you the low-down on your new duties, that you'd gotten this job over other make-up artists because you were the safe choice. You suppose it's not an awful thing to be thought of as safe and professional. You can’t help feeling stung anyways.

You'd come to this conclusion after your sunbae, while showing you a few of the dressing rooms in the company building you'd be working in, casually drops, "oh, yeah, if you end up having relations with one of the idols, just make sure the media and management don't find out. No one else will rat you out." mid-tour.

You'd had to stop and give your sunbae the most confused and alarmed look you could manage, and when she'd seen she'd immediately laughed and made the face back at you. That made you crack, and the two of you ended up giggling together for a minute. Once you'd calmed down, she elaborated.

"It's a bit of an open secret that the unattached idols will sleep with a willing coordi every now and then," she explained "As long as management doesn't find out, and the media is entirely clueless, it's pretty much useless to try and stop it." You’d nodded along, fascinated by how similar celebrities were around the world. Sure, the cultures surrounding them were different, but there was almost always a similar sort of system when you were contracted long-term somewhere.

"Staff are pretty safe options for them, at least here at JYP.” Your sunbae had continued, “They vet our staff and stylists really well." You’d nodded again. The background check had been intensive and you’d had to sign a lot of release forms about it. It was one of the things you’d liked most about this opportunity, actually.

"Your group in particular have probably fucked at least 2 dozen coordis between them." You’d choked on air and turned to her incredulously again. What was with her and dropping bombs like this on you? It was your first day! She’d just laughed and rolled her eyes at you. "Why are you so scandalized? There's 8 of them." She reasoned, "That's, like, 3 flings a piece. Not that many." You’d conceded her point with a tilt of your head. You're sure the actual numbers aren't so even, but she had made an excellent point regardless.

"I guess that makes sense," You’d mused, "I mean, they're grown men, right? Their hands must get awful tired." That startled a laugh out of your sunbae and you’d grinned at her before you continued. "But, sunbaenim, you won't have to worry about that from me." You’d stated confidently. She’d shot you a questioning look, so you’d continued, “They’re both my clients and my coworkers under my contract. Two types of people I categorically refuse to sleep with.”

She’d laughed again, simply saying “That’s probably for the best.” and moving on with your tour. You’d let yourself be distracted by memorizing everything she was telling you and promptly forgot all about your scandalous conversation.

Despite moving on, a seed of doubt had been planted in you. You couldn’t help but think back to one of the odder questions you’d been asked when you were interviewing for this position. As an independent make-up artist you’d had to negotiate everything yourself, and at the time you’d assumed it to simply be part of their vetting process.

“What are your views on workplace relationships?” They’d asked. At the time you’d simply said you strived for friendship with both your clients and coworkers, but that you preferred professionalism over all else. Which was true, obviously, but after that conversation with your sunbae you couldn’t help but add a new context to the question.

That doubtful seed sprouted at the end of your tour, when your sunbae gave you another warning.

“Don’t mind the boys, by the way,” She’d said out of nowhere. “They’re playful, all of them, but they’ll respect a boundary to the death the moment you set it.” Once again you’d had to look at her, hopelessly confused, and you’d become pretty sure at that point that she just liked getting a reaction out of you because she snorted a laugh at whatever face you’d made and explained herself.

“I mean that they can be pretty loud and playful with both each other and staff. That includes being flirty and touchy.” she said, “I think it comes with the territory of being an idol. All that fanservice must do something to them.” She laughed, and you’d smiled along, still somewhat confused of the warning.

She must have noticed, because she elaborated further, “It can be flustering for new stylists.” She explained, and you finally started to understand, “A lot of the time it’s the first time a new stylist has been so close to an idol, you know? You have to prepare for it, like, mentally.” She made a weird gesture toward her head and you’d giggled at her antics but shook your head.

“I’ve seen so many beautiful people at this point in my life that I'm pretty sure I'm immune.” you’d declared with a chuckle. You weren’t lying either, you’d seen so many examples of so many different culture’s beauty standards you could probably write a book on it.

You’d sort of made it your career’s goal to learn as many different styles and skin and face types as you possibly could. You’d done pretty well by that goal so far, doing everything from tiny private boudoir shoots to high profile fashion shows, just about anywhere you could get to, from Cairo in Egypt, to Hollywood in California, to tiny barely-named towns all over Europe.

“Idols are different!” Your sunbae insisted, “There are hot people everywhere, but idols are built different. They’re manufactured to be desirable.”

“So are models,” you’d dismissed with a wave, “Honestly, sunbaenim, I’ll be fine. If anything, it’s the idols you should worry for.” you’d given her a saucy wink and she’d howled with laughter and clapped in delight. You’d giggled right along with her, and when you’d both calmed again, you continued. “No, but really, I’ve been told I can be quite intense when I’m focused, so maybe you should be warning the group instead.”

She’d waved you off, saying “It’ll do them some good to be humbled by someone they have no chance with.” with a devious giggle. And that had been that. The click of a conclusion sliding into place in your mind had sounded and you’d become certain that you’d been the safest of the candidates who’d applied.

It hurt, just a bit, because you’re used to being selected for your experience and ability to mimic and blend styles, not for your personal beliefs. You stave off the hurt by reminding yourself that reputation matters in this industry. If they hired you because you value your professionalism, then you’d show them exactly how professional you could be! You’d wrapped up your tour with mixed feelings and lots of determination.

[panharmonium]

What do you think about this: "Kakashi was never interested in Sasuke as an individual, he only projected himself into him and saw a smaller version of himself on Sasuke, Sasuke was never Sasuke to him, just a little Kakashi". I wanted to know your opinion because I miss your meta posts and I feel like lately people are hating Kakashi for things that aren't real :/, also you are really good at explaining and I feel that both characters need love

Hello! Thanks for the question!

The answer to "what do i think about this" is, honestly, that I don't think about it X) I watched the whole show without engaging with the fandom at all (for fear of spoilers, initially), so I was able to experience it without being exposed to anyone else's thoughts, and now that I'm done I generally still avoid poking around, because devoting mental energy to opinions that I find bizarre/not supported by the text doesn't enhance my fandom experience.

Kakashi and Sasuke's relationship is one of the most compelling things about the series to me. I was very surprised when I finished the show/manga and first exposed myself to the fandom only to find so few people invested in them, but at this point I've (mostly) stopped asking myself "what show was everyone else watching" and just settled into enjoying the show that I watched, because that's more fun for me. I can't convince people not to dislike Kakashi if that's what they want to do. I do find it a little weird, because I don't think that's what the story is asking from us, but as long as people mind their business and aren't bugging me on my own blog, they're free to do what they want.

I know it can be frustrating when there are people hating various characters for "things that aren't real," but the fact that these criticisms aren't "real" is precisely why I generally avoid engaging with them. For Kakashi, specifically, there are certain things people can say that will immediately make me stop taking them seriously - "projecting" is one. "Bootlicking" is another, but again, these terms are so wildly inaccurate that I'm not interested in talking about them. The manga and the show are easily accessible; if people want to rewatch/re-read them, they can.

In general, I just prefer to avoid engaging with most of the fandom negativity I see. I think overall most of the rancor I've stumbled across boils down to people engaging with the story in very ungenerous ways, if that makes sense, and that's not how I prefer to read/watch things. Like - back when I was still in the middle of watching the show, I remember someone sent me a message saying that they loved seeing me talk about the story with earnestness/joy, and it was such a lovely message to receive, but it also made me pause and wonder for a second if this was really an uncommon enough thing to be remarked upon. Wouldn't that be the default? Aren't we all here because we love the story and the characters so much? But the truth is that sometimes it does feel like large chunks of fandom spaces (not just Naruto, I mean; I've certainly experienced this elsewhere) are very focused on being negative about "things that aren't real," as you said. Like - people calling Sakura "abusive" for bopping Naruto on the head when he says something rude, when this is not something the text is even remotely trying to say about her. People writing off Jiraiya's entire storyline because of the non-consensual spying on women - which, yes, of course, is disgusting and wrong. Obviously. I am very aware of that. However, I can simultaneously recognize that the story isn't really interested in that or intending me to read it like that; the voyeurism is written as a joke (yes, I understand how gross that is) and there are a hundred potential personal and/or patriarchal and/or genre-related and/or cultural factors that may have gone into Kishimoto writing this particular fail. If I want to understand and appreciate what the story was ACTUALLY trying to communicate with Jiraiya (that he's an idealist who gave up on the world when everything went wrong, who turned to shallow pleasures of the flesh to distract him from the pain of his disillusionment, and who was finally restored to his former faith after meeting Naruto), then I have to mindfully set the voyeurism aside and go, "This writer wrote a gross thing, and I recognize that, but I'm also not going to fixate on it, because I can simultaneously appreciate/find meaning in what he was really trying to say."

I think some of the Kakashi complaints out there very much fall under this umbrella. If I have to see one more person frothing at the mouth about Kakashi briefly tying Sasuke (a qualified ninja who has already demonstrated his ability to escape rope restraints and whom Kakashi has been individually mentoring, sparring against, and connecting with for a month) to a tree for approximately sixty seconds - honestly. I don't know how to tell people they're missing the point, so I don't bother.

Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that people are entitled to dislike any character that they want, even for contrived reasons. As long as they're doing their own thing in their own space and letting me do my thing in mine, we're good.

[somesmartsmarties]

F7 eating habits headcanons!

So after seeing this wall of text, a friend of mine asked if i could make one for their eating habits, and who am i to say no U_U

I humbly apologize for the fact that this one won't be as long as the previous one, there aren't that many eating habits headcanons to get ideas from so about half of this will probably just be what i think some of their favorite foods would be- 😭

Anyways, here we go

Merlin

- i feel like he'd be a picky eater, but maybe not the most picky eater out of the group - he'd be the type of guy to divide the food on his plate in "food i like more" and "food i like less" and eat the former for last - it'd be pretty funny if he couldn't handle spicy food like at all - i actually don't know what his favorite food could be- - we've seen he likes carrots in the movie but that isn't really a dish i don't think- - carrots are probably one of his favorite vegetables tho - i feel like he'd have a preference for savory foods (not spicy however, just salty) - probably doesn't ask for seconds very often, but he's done it a few times in the past - always leaves some amount of food on his plate (usually not that much however)

Jack

- SO picky - refuses to eat bird meat - saves his favorite food for last - has called food bad just because of how it looks at least once - "I don't have a sweet tooth, don't be ridiculous" he says, eating his fifth marron glacé of the day - i honestly don't know what his favorite food would be, something fish based maybe- - eats rather quickly, but not like "scarfs his food down" type of quickly, does that make sense- - hates beans - apples are his favorite fruit (yes, even after all that happened with Regina; he avoids eating them in front of Merlin and Snow for a while after the movie's events) - barely ever asks for seconds, you REALLY need to make something amazing for him to ask for seconds

Arthur

- the least picky eater on the planet - scarfs his food down, but he doesn't do it too often and even then he doesn't look like a wild animal when eating - you'll be hard pressed to find a food he doesn't like - probably always asks for seconds - has probably asked for thirds a few times - the group trash bin (aka all the food that everyone else leaves he'll gladly eat) - i don't think he's the type of person to not finish all of his food, the few times it's happened he was probably really tired and fell asleep before he could finish everything - his favorite food would probably have meat and vegetables in it, me thinks - i don't think he'd eat vegetables unless paired with something else, like fish or meat

Hans

- not picky in the slightest - tries the food before calling it bad - always eats less compared to everyone else (because of... reasons..) - probably doesn't have a favorite food, likes most things he eats honestly - takes his time to savor everything, but doesn't take forever to finish his food - always finishes his food - has a slight preference for sweet food, but only slightly - only ever asks for seconds if he's not the one cooking, and even then he doesn't ask that often

Pino, Noki and Kio

- don't ask them their favorite food, it changes every month - not super picky, but sometimes it is hard to find something they like - favorite vegetables are carrots (onions are close seconds) - usually eat everything that's on their plate (or at least they try) - super fast eaters, they can be done eating in 5 minutes if they want to - don't really have a preference for sweet or savory foods, both are equally good in their eyes - usually ask for seconds - have a bad habit of eating so fast that while they're done eating everyone is still halfway done so they either leave the table or they remain seated and talk a bit, either to each other or with whoever wants to - they really don't like it when fruit or vegetables are really ripe, they don't like how squishy they get

[lorddeathofmurdermountain]

So I just finished Dungeon Meshi. The manga.

I am yet again blown away by the amazing story. I am also blown away by the fanfiction fandom and it's incessant need to ship anyone and everyone. I get it. You think some of the interaction are romantic. They aren't. That's not what any of this is meant to be. But I get it. Romance ships have their own place in the ecosystem and any healthy community has a dedicated group that really likes to ship anyone and everyone.

It becomes less healthy when I go to AO3 and you can go through pages and pages only finding like two or three fics that aren't ENTIRELY "Two random characters have the sex" with occasional romantic undertones. Of those three that aren't just that, two are instead "cleverly crafted AU but the focus is still on the secks". People I get it, it's nice, it's got, and by god everyone is horny for the Faligon x Marcille ship. I get it, I do.

But the story has so many interesting aspects to it! I'd go as far as to say it's a modern day Lord of the Rings! I really fucking would, and I love LotR like no other story on this fucking planet! I'm barely holding back from gushing about it right fucking now. I'm taking deep breaths.

Look, my point is, it's an amazing story about friendship and genuine camaraderie, the sort of thing that sends the message of "people can forget extremely strong bonds without having the hots for one another." The story, beyond it's generally tasteful comedy and the repetitive but reliable skits, is chock-full of meaningful messages, pondering and it has some of the most beautiful and tasteful conclusions to story arcs I've seen in a while! I'd go so far as to say it's fairly innovative as well, not unheard of but you don't see something this good all that often. You really don't. I usually obsess over just sticking FromSoft protagonists into everything to have them fuck around and mess with everything but for once I'm genuinely unappreciative of the idea. The conclusion to the story is perfect if very traditional in a certain sense and all in all it's got very few real flaws. In the end, a very simple, kind and good lad alongside his party of misfits saves the day and everyone gets to live happily ever after.

So why the shit is almost everyone only ever thinking about hot ladies or hot men fucking each other? No, actually, forget the distinction, it's irrelevant! Why is sex with a side of corny romance the only thing everyone is doing?! Fuck, make literally anything else! I get having a niche but for Christ's sake expand your horizons or something! FF doesn't even have the damn tag for the setting yet, AO3 is just porn and SpaceBattles only has Vs discussions and one single story ideas thread that I myself also sperged out in while I was only halfway done.

Christ, there are so many ideas in my head it's actually hard to focus! What about a serious setting examining the end of the story and how it could have gone on? Remake it into a tragedy, or just a feels-good epilogue that's only slightly longer than the story. How about tossing someone you KNOW would mess up the story into the story, but have it be so messed up it loops back around to the same end? Why not just do something really stupid and see where it leads? What if Laios and Kabru switched places? What if Laios and Falin were in Utaya when they were young (they're still the same people inherently just with a more tragic backstory) while Kabru is just some country schmuck that no longer has a tragic story to spur him on to the Dungeon? Does Kabru actually become even more of a textbook hero type? Would the Touden siblings let their past bog them down and make them gloomy or would it only make them more aware of the world around them and thus more willing to look at the other? The story establishes that they're inherently selfish people - they are of course also selfless, but the initial drive for the story is a selfish one for pretty much everyone. Laios just wants to look at and eat cool monsters. Falin wants to tag along and experience new things. Marcille wants to research ancient, forbidden magic. Chilchuck... Uh... Wants to make money and not be constantly scammed at best and backstabbed at worst, I think. Senshi just kind of wants to vibe. Izutsumi wants to stop being a beast-person and is by far portrayed as the most openly selfish in everything she does and decides.

The whole story is really about people being selfish and realizing that's no good, realizing that the people around them are PEOPLE and they should maybe consider each other more. That's how Laios learns to take responsibility, for instance. Oh sure some characters end up not ACTUALLY bring selfish at all, some of them right from the start even, but narratively until told otherwise we start off thinking everyone in the main group are first and foremost in it for themselves. The unifying moment and first instance of selflessness comes when they decide to immediately go rescue Falin - well, Shuro and Namari didn't but we don't know that right away.

Look what I'm saying is there's so many fucking themes in this story and what everyone is focusing on is sex. My argument isn't "sex bad", in fact. It's that the porn with plot - or even the tasteful romance stories - would be even better if you had some other nice fics alongside them. After all, if you eat the same thing the whole time it's bound to become boring eventually, but have a good spread and every part of the meal will be all the better in combination with other parts. If I just ate soup I'd be kind of disappointed, but make some simple rice and cook some simple meat for AFTER the soup and now both the soup and rice and meat feel so much better based on the other things I ate alongside them. Fics are the same. Please. I beg you. Give yourselves some diversity.

[blazehedgehog]

How is progress on your Ghostbusters RPG?

Almost dead, unfortunately. I think about it from time to time but I haven't done any meaningful code work since my Mom died. At some point in the last year I decided I'd write out the entire game script, since I was coalescing around a story idea.

With making an RPG in Clickteam Fusion, planning ahead is your best friend, so knowing every story beat ahead of time would give me a clearer picture of what needed to be coded on the back end.

But naturally, the opening to the game is going to be the most text heavy, outside of the ending. I wrote about three chapters, encapsulating a teaser and a recap of how the original Ghostbusters ended, and have been too distracted with other things to write more.

The general gameplay flow I was gravitating towards was something like Metal Max. Not long after starting this GB fangame, I watched somebody stream all of Metal Max NES and the bounty system in that was really interesting. Basically, over the course of the story, you'll hear rumors about special creatures and bandits roaming around the overworld, and if you can kill them, you earn a big reward by turning in the bounty.

If you ignore bounties, it cuts the gameplay length in half and you lose out a lot of level ups and gear. Taking/ignoring bounties almost ends up being kind of a difficult selector. Like doing a three heart run in Zelda.

For a Ghostbusters RPG, all of this just made sense, and it'd make it easy to reuse areas. You get calls about ghosts to catch, and you can either go catch the ghost (your bounty) or you can follow the story. Maybe the bounty is along the way to the next story event, maybe it's in a previous dungeon. It's up to you where you go.

I dunno if the game will ever get finished, but I'll let you peek on what I'd decided story-wise:

So it bothers me that a lot of recent Ghostbusters movies are kind of hero worship. Ghostbusters Afterlife is all about how these four guys were total legends that saved the world, and what a tragedy it is that they've been forgotten. "omg you kids don't know who the ghostbusters were? let me, paul rudd, educate you on the coolest, strongest and most epic titans to ever dress like sweaty service industry workers."

That's dumb. The Ghostbusters are working joes. They stumbled into this job, and saved the world kind of by accident. They are barely heroes and could have ended all life on earth as we know it just as easily. They just wanted a paycheck and were looking for a niche to fill.

And in the wider view of producing the first Ghostbusters movie itself, that too was kind of an accident. The movie got rammed through production, the script was an unfinished mess so they adlibbed a lot of it, and basically nobody expected it to do as well as it did. It is the very definition of lightning in a bottle, and it hasn't really been replicated.

So I wanted to push in on that. These guys aren't looking to save the world. They aren't actually that strong or cool. They don't have a sense of duty. They're just regular people, and they can (and do) make mistakes.

When Egon says crossing the streams is like "all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light", I imagine that means it's more than just a really big explosion. Ray calls it "total protonic reversal", which makes it sound more like the creation of a black hole, or something.

When the Ghostbusters crossed the streams and directed that into the doorway to Gozer's world, in my story, they effectively collapsed an entire dimension. Erased it, and whatever it inhabited.

I wanted there to be consequences for that. It was an impulsive action they made out of desperation to save themselves, and though it worked in the short term (sealing the door, almost certainly killing Gozer) I wanted there to be much worse long term consequences. They more or less punched a hole in reality, and there's really only two things that happen with holes:

They get bigger and deeper

They get filled in with debris

Ultimately I wanted to say that when the Ghostbusters crossed the streams, it was a mistake. They didn't know any better. They were messing with forces vastly beyond their comprehension. And the thrust of the game would be them figuring out what they did wrong and trying to come up with a plan to do a better job at fixing it.

But they don't know if they can do it. What happened with Gozer was a happy accident (that turned out to be not so happy). The scale of this problem literally dwarfs them. They are so small that they are barely even specks of dust. This is a supernaturally cosmic issue.

To me, The Ghostbusters are screw-ups that were in the right place at the right time and did the wrong thing. But not maliciously, just ignorantly. And the decision to take responsibility for that mistake is the grease that turns the gears of the narrative.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

this was supposed to be longer but i got tired (and realized maybe this wasn't such a good idea) so i kinda bs'd this to just finish it up. sorry it doesn't look all that good lol

transcript of my shitty handwriting + more rambling under cut

panel 1:

len: rin, just leave him—

rin: NO! i'm not going to give up now—

len: i know you're upset, but all you're doing is—

rin: HE'S NOT GONE YET!

panel 2:

rin: i know he still remembers, he has to...

panel 3:

rin: kaito-san, it's me; rin. you tried singing one of len and i's songs the other day. you got the melody right, remember? meiko-san's birthday is soon. remember her? a few weeks ago you said you needed to buy her a present. what were you going to get her? do you remember? tell me.

---

aight yea so this is what yall get for picking that ❄️📺❔🕚💾🪦 option on the poll (which btw was related to this drawing)

i'll just keep it simple: basically kaito gets dementia (or i guess the robot equivalent of it??). yeah.

not sure if this takes place on the cusp of v3 happening and just this specific kaito v1 module was unable to be updated for some reason? or if they're all still stuck in v2 and v3 hasn't happened yet/will not happen for a while... but i do know its def before v4 happened, so people like fukase and una don't exist yet

anyways though as you might expect, it pretty much sucks all around for everyone involved. not just the other 5 cryptonloids watching their close friend so previously full of life deteriorate into a husk of his former self, but for kaito himself too. he suddenly can't remember things like where he is or who the people around him are, and its incredibly frustrating b/c he knows he did have the memories at some point, its just as if they got misplaced... there's random bits of recollections that do come sometimes but as much as he tries to hold onto them they flicker and fade away just as quick as they appeared. left sinking back into a feeling of hopelessness that then becomes pure emptiness, as you can feel how you're losing yourself but there's quite literally nothing you can do

visually the static is used to represent a lot of that "foggy" feeling as things become more and more unclear, and given the robot/android nature it makes sense i guess? it's not really seen here but just as an actual machine might be when breaking down, his visual + audio processors begin to malfunction, causing a literal static overlay on his vision with faces/objects he can't recognize occasionally glitching out as well as constant white noise in his hearing and the sound of people talking to him becoming garbled and unintelligible. as time goes on he also loses his own ability to synthesize speech so aside from becoming withdrawn and quiet out of fear he'll say something that makes no sense, he then literally just becomes incapable of responding at all

again (as you might expect), the other cryptons aren't doing very well as this is happening. rin and len see kaito almost like a father, so watching one of your parental figures slowly march towards death is... not great. rin (as seen here) is still trying to hold on, because she swears kaito has had a few good days where he does recall more, where he seems much more like his old self, and maybe, just maybe if they wait a bit more he'll get better [tbh she's speedrunning the 7 stages of grief but goes between being stuck in some of the earlier stages its... not good]. len's grief on the other hand is manifesting itself in a way more similar to meiko's: he's not as distant as her, but he has already recognized that there's pretty much nothing that can be done and just wants to minimize kaito's suffering. len's just as shattered as rin though, but he's not showing it openly, figuring he has to accept it, as fighting against the grief like his sister won't help anything.

i just mentioned meiko so speaking of her: this is also probably extremely difficult on her, as, yknow, the counterpart v1 to kaito. she's withdrawn herself away from kaito, as she doesn't want to cause him pain in case he happens to recognize her, remember something about their relationship, but not comprehend what it means and just become confused/distressed. at least, that's what she says; it's more or so she can't bear to see him in this state, as he slowly loses more parts of himself, so she isolates herself in hopes the pain will be somewhat less when its all over, for having seen him less and not having false hopes of his recovery. that being said though she has definitely still been around him and tried to keep her composure... from kaito's pov, in moments of recollection, its disheartening seeing your wife close friend suddenly ignoring you, almost like she's mad or sad about something, but you can't remember why. did you forget to do the laundry? is it something unrelated? you want to ask her but she won't tell you; why? did she already and you just forgot? why...

miku's usual cheeriness has also crumbled, as even with rin's attempts, she can't find anything to be optimistic about in this scenario. she just feels this immense guilt, that she should've done something about this; she has influence as the most popular of the entire group, surely she could do something to make it all better. but aside from the arguments and indecisiveness regarding ethics and not wanting to do something without everyone's collective decision, she does know deep down its not her fault. maybe someone like one of the technicians or programmers would be more at fault, but she doesn't want to blindly throw accusations either, because surely they hadn't foreseen this happening either; nobody would intentionally throw in such a cruel fate for someone, it was an unfortunate system glitch that they were working to fix, but even if they did come up with a patch for it, it would be far too late for kaito at that point. she doesn't want to dwell too much on the logistics of it, miku just wants to be there for everyone else, because she knows how deep in despair the others are—she is too—and doesn't want their whole group to fall apart after such a devastating event.

as for luka: i would assume we're kind of actually seeing everything from her perspective, so as an audience lens she'd be more objective about presenting everything as it is without putting too much of her own bias/thoughts into it. but she's not completely unfeeling either. she tries interacting with kaito quite often, despite some of the others warning her about doing that too much. she tries talking to him about random things, not necessarily aiming to get him to remember anything in specific, though if any of his memories do surface in conversation she'll def address them and ask if he recalls anything more (and if not that's alright too). on some occasions she's been accused of being insensitive, but she doesn't want his death to be this huge tragedy, she would want him to be somewhat happy in his last moments. after everything that's happened, he deserves to leave in peace, in her opinion.

i've mentioned death a few times and there's a literal gravestone in the original emoji combo so safe to say, yeah, he dies. unfortunately the damage to his hardware is beyond repair from the critical/fatal errors and glitches, and it's decided that it'd be best to ultimately just deactivate him and delete all his files to not prolong any pain he might've been in for any longer. not exactly sure what would happen afterwards (aside from an obvious aftermath of the grief): if this is before/on the verge of v3 happening, there's the situation i thought about of them receiving a new replacement v3 kaito module, which has its own angst w/ it: its almost like seeing a fucking ghost, but it's not the same one they all remember, nor does it have all those memories. and this v3 kaito himself experiencing conflicted feelings as someone who was brought in to try and give back happiness to this group, only to seem to cause more despair for being so similar to someone long gone that he'll never truly replace. again though i'm not sure if i'd actually have that happen for the sake of everyone involved's sanity but it is something interesting to think about

i've been typing this for like 3 fcking hours now and i have no idea if this makes any goddamn sense lolol uhhh. like all my things it sounds way better in my head than when i actually put it on paper 😭 but congrats if you actually went thru the effort of reading all this. i might do more explanations like this of my things if anyone's interested, like of the other poll options, but we'll see