#they are meant to be played on an actual handheld console

[sonknuxadow]

sorry i lied im not playing through the entire rest of sonic riders any time soon i am bad at video games . peace and love

[cinnasite]

the science of sleeping with your best friend

꩜ pairing: timeskip!kenma kozume x virgin!female reader

꩜ warnings: explicit content, language

꩜ word count: 4.3k

꩜ synopsis: you relationship with kenma has always been understated—quiet moments, mutual understanding, and an unspoken connection. but when you open up about your insecurities regarding intimacy, things take a turn. one kiss, a subtle shift in dynamics, and suddenly everything you once knew feels entirely different. caught in a whirlwind of desire and growing affection, you find yourself grappling with feelings that you've ignored for years. is it too late to turn back or is this the beginning of something far deeper?

You vividly remember the day you moved to Japan. You were eleven, your nervousness amplified by the way the airport had smelled—metallic, unfamiliar, cold. Your mother stayed back in your hometown with your younger brother, and you followed your father across the ocean for his new job… your new life. You told yourself it was an adventure, trembling in anticipation.

It wasn’t. Not at first.

Making friends when you didn’t speak the language fluently and stood out in every classroom turned out to be less like an odyssey and more of a series of long, silent lunch breaks. Teachers tried, some classmates smiled, but nothing stuck. Not until high school.

Transferring to Nekoma High at fifteen was your father’s idea. He’d said something about the school’s progressive curriculum and cultural diversity. You hadn’t hoped for much until, one week into classes, the principal cornered you near the shoe lockers and asked if you’d consider being the manager for the boys’ volleyball team.

“It’s part of a new initiative. We’re looking to build an inclusive sports environment,” he said. “And you have excellent organisational skills from your transcript.” You said yes, mostly out of curiosity. And maybe because it was the first time someone had sought you out, instead of the other way around.

The first practice was awkward, to put it lightly. A room full of sweaty teenage guys and sharp whistles. You stood off to the side, notebook in hand, questioning every life choice that led you there with a resigned sigh. Until Kuroo Tetsurō slung an arm around your shoulders and said, “Don’t worry, you’re one of us now. You’ll get used to these knuckleheads.”

The team protested. You laughed for the first time in weeks. That’s how it all began.

They took you under their wing like a little sister, especially Kuroo—he treated you with a big-brother protectiveness that made the transition less lonely. Lev would tell you outrageous lies just to see you smile. Yamamoto always tried too hard to impress you but meant well. Yaku taught you how to be blunt in Japanese without accidentally insulting someone’s grandmother.

But the one you inexplicably gravitated toward was Kenma.

You were the same age, and the same reserved type, at least at first glance. Though unlike him, you didn’t mind talking. People were drawn to you in a way that surprised you. So, Kenma didn’t intimidate you. If anything, you felt safe around him. He was calm, observant, and never asked for more than you were willing to give.

You’d sit beside him during breaks, leaning over his shoulder as he played on his handheld console.

“You’re always watching,” he’d say without looking up.

“I like watching,” you’d plainly reply.

And when he let you try it out yourself—tentatively handing over his console like it was something fragile—you knew you had earned his trust. You’d talk about things beyond video games. Books. Movies. Your homesickness. His dislike of crowds. The weird comfort of silence. He was the only one who didn’t flinch when you talked about the divorce or missing your mom and brother.

By the end of your second year, you were inseparable. Everyone saw it—hell, even Kuroo made a habit of teasing you about it.

“She’s the Kenma whisperer,” he’d joke. “He actually talks around her.”

You dismissed it. You told yourself it was just friendship, that the small twists in your stomach when his shoulder brushed yours were normal. That the deliberate and soft way he looked at you was just how he looked at everyone.

But somewhere near the end of school, when the weight of the future started crawling into every conversation, you realised you felt something more. And it scared the hell out of you. You didn’t say anything. How could you risk losing what you had when it had taken you so long to find it?

After graduation, the team drifted as people often do. University took everyone in different directions, but you all stayed in touch. Kuroo’s group chats were relentless and reunions became an annual thing, something precious to look forward to.

With Kenma, your bond never faded. If anything, it grew.

Even when you were in different cities, the two of you never changed—late night phone calls, half-asleep messages, and meeting up whenever you could. Both of you still talked like no time had passed. Still knew each other in that rare, bone-deep way. However, you dated around, courtesy of your college roommate urging you to move on and get laid. You had simply nodded, telling yourself the crush was a remnant of adolescence. It had to be. It wasn’t healthy to keep holding on.

Tragically, it never went anywhere with the people you went out with. No one matched the way Kenma understood you without trying. No one matched the genuinity and the slow-burn thrill.

And now, in your twenties, with a stable job and a quiet apartment, you were beginning to admit that maybe it had never been just a crush.

But if that was true… what in the world were you supposed to do about it?

Kenma’s penthouse was everything you’d expect: clean lines, muted colors, and minimalist furniture. Expensive in a subtle way. 

He was already curled up on the low couch when you stepped in, barefoot and hoodie-clad, legs tucked under himself like a cat. “You’re late,” he murmured without looking up from his nintendo.

“You’re lucky I even showed up,” you replied, dropping your bag by the door.

“Oh?” His eyes flicked up momentarily, amused. “Is this you playing hard to get?”

You rolled your eyes and sank into the seat beside him, close enough for your knees to brush. “If I was playing hard to get, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

That earned a low hum of laughter. “So self-assured.”

The night unfolded the way it generally did—casual banter, leftover takeout, and dumb inside jokes that had survived since Nekoma. You both sat there, bodies angled toward each other, the city lights painting the walls with a faint gold.

At one point, he turned off the TV, but neither of you moved. There was a falter. A lapse stretching between words. Then, after much thought, you said it.

“Can I ask you something kind of... weird?”

Kenma blinked. “Sure.”

You took a breath. “Do you ever think you’re, like, bad in bed?”

His eyebrows rose. That certainly wasn’t what he’d imagined the conversation would jump to. You winced at yourself. “Okay, wow, that sounded way more self-deprecating than I meant it to.”

“Little bit.”

“I’m serious,” you said, shifting to face him fully. “I’ve dated, right? But it never really went anywhere. And when it did get physical, it just… didn’t go that far.”

Kenma didn’t interrupt. Merely listened.

“I mean, I’ve done stuff,” you continue rambling, suddenly fascinated by the hem of your sleeve. “A little oral. Some handjobs. But, um, I’ve never… had sex.”

There it was. Out in the open. You’d lobbed the confession between you like a live grenade, waiting for it to detonate. Only that it didn’t. The lack of response wasn’t exactly suffocating, though it did make you scream a little on the inside. 

Kenma’s voice was gentler than you expected when it came. “Why are you thinking about this now?”

His words made you hesitate. “Because I’m trying to see people again. But every time I get close to someone, I panic. I keep doubting myself—what if I’m not good at it? What if they expect me to know what I’m doing and I don’t?”

A beat.

“And it’s not about being ashamed,” you added quickly. “I just want to feel... in control. Comfortable.”

Kenma studied you. “You could just tell them.”

“I know. But I don’t want it to be a thing. Like, ‘oh no, she’s a virgin, handle her with care.’” You wrinkled your nose. “I don’t want pity sex. Or worse, performance sex.” You dared a peep at him. “Have you…?”

He tilted his head. “Had sex?”

Your ears burned, unsure of whether you wanted to hear the answer. “Yeah.”

Kenma leaned back against the couch, arms crossed. “I have.”

The words sat in the air like smoke. You ignored the tightening of your chest. “Was it good?” you asked. Perhaps, a little too quickly.

He gave you a look. “You really want to know?”

You stammered. “Yes. No. Kind of. For research purposes.”

He smirked. “Of course.”

“Shut up.”

He was quiet for a moment before replying, “Some of it was good. Depends on the person, I guess.”

You hummed, eyes on his collarbone. “Would you ever, uh, be willing to show someone the ropes?”

A pause. “What do you mean?”

You didn’t answer right away. The apartment felt charged, causing your fingers to twist in your lap. Without meeting his gaze, you exhaled shakily.

“I was just thinking… if I ever wanted to figure this out—hypothetically—you’re the only person I’d trust not to make it weird.”

Kenma stilled, lips parting. “Hypothetically?”

“Yeah.”

Another pause. A longer one. “You’re asking me to have sex with you.”

Your stomach flipped. “I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you meant.” 

You groaned. “Forget it. This was dumb. I shouldn’t have—”

“I didn’t say no.” Kenma looked at you. Not joking, not teasing—just looking. That same sincere care you’d known for years, now sharpened with something else.

Something almost hungry.

“Do you want me to?” he asked, voice low. “Help you?”

Your heart thundered. “Well, I—Only if… you want to.”

He leaned forward. “I want to. Let’s start with a kiss.”

You froze, eyes widening at the abruptness of it all.

“Since, you know,” he added casually, “we’re doing research.” You laughed—nervous, breathy—and nodded. “Right. For the glory of science.”

He moved in leisurely, giving you every chance to pull back. You didn’t. His lips brushed yours once. Gentle and testing, your breath hitching at the sensation. You kissed him again. More assertive than previously. As a result, his hand found your cheek. The angle changed, the excitement deepened.

You realised begrudgingly that your idea had stopped being hypothetical real fast.

Kenma and you grew feverish, your actions slow, then speedy, like you couldn’t get enough. You gripped his hoodie in an act of desperation. His fingers trailed along your waist, reluctant yet calculating. You felt his touch at the hem of your t-shirt and gasped, pulling back.

“I—I need to stop,” you whispered.

Kenma, breathing heavily, nodded. “Okay.”

You sat there, chests heaving, foreheads nearly touching.

“That was…” you began.

“Mhm,” he said, voice hoarse. “It was.”

You didn’t sleep together that night. Be that as it may, something had undoubtedly shifted. Something you couldn’t take back. Neither of you were prepared for what that first sensuous encounter had unlocked. 

After the kiss, everything was different. Not in a dramatic, movie-like way, mind you. There were no whispered confessions or next-day declarations. You didn’t even text about it. Not directly, though every message after did have a different weight to it.

gamer boi: you left your ring on the bathroom sink

You: OMGTHANKYOU i’ve been searching for it all day :(

gamer boi: how did you even forget it?? isn’t it your favourite????  

You: it’s not my fault someone kept me distracted with his mouth 🙄

gamer boi: don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it

The next time you saw Kenma, you were wearing a sundress with zero intentions of escalating anything. Apparently, it didn’t matter.

You were barely inside before Kenma tugged you in by the wrist, your back hitting the front door with a loud thud. His mouth was on yours again, hands roaming like he’d been starved of touch. His fingers curled around your waist, dragging you flush against him. You let out an embarrassingly needy whimper, arms looped around his neck for balance.

It was supposed to be another kiss. Nothing too intense, nothing too fiery. But soon his tongue brushed against yours—mischievously coaxing. When his knee slid between your thighs, you knew that you were done for.

Your nails dug into his shoulders and he groaned into your mouth.

“Okay?” he checked in, lips grazing your jaw.

You nodded, breathless. “Yeah. Just—you… it’s all very new. ”

He paused. “Tell me if you want to stop.”

“I will.”

That night, you didn’t go all the way either.

But you let him touch you. Really touch you.

You ended up in his lap on the couch, your dress hiked up, his t-shirt discarded somewhere on the floor. His motions were maddeningly drawn out—smoothing over your thighs, teasing under your panties, fingers slicking gently over you until you were shaking. One thing you’d grown to learn thanks to these electrifying escapades was that Kenma neither rushed nor demanded.

Just observed.

He watched you unravel, watched you fall apart with nothing more than his hand between your legs and his mouth pressed to your throat.

You’d returned the favour a week later—kneeling between his knees in that same living room, palms steady even though your mind was a mess. He had gripped your hair, but not harshly—more like he didn’t know what else to hold onto.

And after, when you wiped your mouth and leaned your cheek against his thigh, both of you panting hard, he murmured, “You’re dangerous when you’re confident.”

You smiled. “Guess the research is working, huh?”

His only answer was a smirk.

Life, as it usually does, got in the way. You were swamped at work and Kenma had his own obligations. Days passed. Weeks, even. You didn’t meet up with him, but you felt him everywhere. In your skin. In your thoughts. In the aching, restless emptiness of your bed. And worse: you missed him. Not just the way he touched you—but the him of it. His deadpan humour. The way he’d pause in conversation like he was thinking four moves ahead. The attractive rasp of his voice. The way he drank you in.

You missed your friend. You craved your… something.

You didn’t know what you were to him anymore. In spite of that, you knew that you needed him.

Kuroo’s reunion couldn’t have come at a better—or worse—time.

You’d dressed without overthinking it. Okay, maybe a little overthinking. The black corset hugged your curves like sin. The skirt hit mid-thigh, leaving appropriately enough to the imagination. The oversized leather blazer added a touch of effortlessness you didn’t actually feel. And the platform boots? Tall enough to be seductive.

When you walked into the high-end restaurant, every eye turned. On the contrary, you only looked for one.

Kenma was at the bar, drink in hand, dressed in a black button-up with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hair was tousled, face unreadable. But when he saw you, he froze. Eyes trailing down greedily, taking his sweet time. He didn’t smile or wave.

Later, after hours of group toasts, dodging Kuroo’s banter, and pretending you didn’t itch with anticipation, Kenma found you on the rooftop balcony.

The city buzzed beneath.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” you said, not turning around. 

He stepped closer, “You’ve been busy.”

“So have you.”

All you hear for a few seconds is the cacophony of traffic and pedestrians.

“You look good tonight.”

You swallow, your feet carrying you to him. “Yeah?”

Kenma appears just as tormented as you. “Too good.”

Your breath caught. “That a problem?”

He didn’t bother with an answer. Reaching for you, he hastily tugged you close. His mouth slanted over yours, hot and aching, weeks (he’d argue, proclaiming ‘years’) of self-control slipping like sand through fingers.

You didn’t even remember getting into the cab.

The moment Kenma’s apartment door shut behind you, it was chaos.

Lips crashing. Hands fumbling. Breath caught between kisses that were all teeth and tongue, no space for thought. Kenma backed you against the wall while you yanked at the buttons of his shirt like you were unwinding every second you’d spent pretending this wasn’t what you wanted. He dragged your blazer off, then your corset. His hands slid up your thighs, underneath your skirt, finding nothing but heat and skin.

“You planned this?” he muttered, strained, against your neck.

“I thought about you,” you whispered honestly.

He cursed, kissing you deeper—ravenous, like the time apart had built a pressure in him he could no longer contain. Soon, you were in his bed. Limbs knotting, bare. His weight on top of you was crushing—so real with almost a decade’s worth of tension, of friendship, of everything unspoken.

His touch skimmed up your stomach, pausing at the curve of your breast.

“I need you,” he said, hoarsely. “Tell me I can have you. Please.”

“I’m yours,” you reassured—just a whisper, but your whole body yearned to meet his. “I want you so bad, Kenma.”

He reached down between your thighs, fingers running through the mess there, working you open. You moaned, legs falling wider to allow him to move inside you better. You were drowning in sensation. His teeth nipped at your chest, hips grinding just barely against yours, and yet—

You wanted this. God, you wanted him. But—

“Wait,” you muttered, voice thin and trembling.

Kenma froze immediately. His eyes locked on yours, reading your face with terrifying precision. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“No,” you said quickly. “No, I—”

Your hand pressed lightly to his chest. “I can’t—I can’t do this like it’s solely physical. Not with you.”

The room shifted.

“I thought I could,” your voice was so low, one might believe you weren’t speaking at all. “I told myself this was just for fun. A learning thing. ‘Research.’ But I can’t pretend anymore.”

You looked up at him, shame creeping in. “If I sleep with you, I’ll fall completely. I already have. It won’t just be sex to me. I don’t think it ever was.” You gulped, words turning rawer. “And if that’s not what you want… then this was a mistake.”

Tranquility. Thick. Cracking at the seams.

You felt your panic rise. “Sorry. I know I fucked things up, god. I should leave—"

“Stop,” Kenma finally spoke. Your blathering halted.

His fingers trailed up your cheek. “You think I’d let you in like this—have you like this—if it was just physical to me?” You didn’t answer. Couldn’t, really.

“I’ve been in love with you since high school, you idiot,” he said, and your stomach dropped. “I just never thought you’d want me back.”

You blinked up at him, stunned.

“When we kissed that day,” he continued, reverent, “everything changed. I didn’t want to risk scaring you away, so I thought if I gave you what you needed… eventually you’d see it too.”

He kissed your forehead. “See that I’d burn down the world for you.”

You gazed up at him, shaking slightly. “You’re not serious.”

He kissed your cheek. Your temple. Your nose. “I’m dead serious.”

Emotion swelled in your heart, hand cupping the side of his face. “Kenma…”

He leaned into the touch. “Talk to me.”

“I used to wait for practice to end just to walk home with you. I used to sit in the stands and pretend I was watching the match, but I was only watching you.”

The corner of his lips twitched. His hands ran down your sides.

“I thought I was broken for never wanting anyone the way my friends did,” you whispered. “But then you showed me it wasn’t about anyone. It was about you. It was always you.”

The atmosphere in the room grew charged with something sacred.

“I love you,” you declared, like the words were stolen from your ribs. Like they were always there between the two of you, waiting for someone to speak them to life.

Kenma was silent for one moment—just one—before… “I love you too,” he kissed you like a man reborn. This time, there was no rush.

He moved over you like he was making a vow—hands smoothing over every curve of your body, lips mapping every inch of your skin, like he was trying to memorise the sound of your breath as it caught in your throat. 

When he lined himself up and pushed inside, it was slow. Intimate. He didn’t look away once. You clung to him, gaping at the fullness, the sheer gravity of him inside you.

“Alright?” he murmured, brows furrowing in concern.

You nodded, breath shaky. “Better than alright.”

He kissed you again, explosively possessive. After what felt like ages, he moved.

Each thrust was deliberate and claiming. His hand tangled with yours above your head. His other gripped your hip, holding you steady as he rocked into you, building a rhythm that made your back arch.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” he murmured into your ear. “Dreamed about you under me, begging for more.”

You moaned, eyelashes fluttering. “You have me now.”

“Trust me, I’m never letting go.”

Your bodies danced in a symphony that blurred the line between pleasure and worship. You came first, legs trembling. He followed right after, whining your name against your lips, pulsing with everything he felt and couldn’t say fast enough.

While you both lay there—spent and dizzy—you clung to each other. Because you knew this wasn’t the end.

You woke up to sunlight. Golden, slithering between silk curtains and spilling across the sheets in hazy lines.

Next to you was Kenma, his arm draped over your waist. The slight scrunch of his forehead indicated he was still deep in thought even while asleep. The sheets were rumpled around your legs, your body still sticky with sweat and afterglow, and every inch of you ached deliciously.

Oh my god, you thought with a giddy smile.

Your phone buzzed on the nightstand. You reached out, careful not to disturb Kenma, and blinked at the screen.

8 Messages from loser

1 Missed Call

1 Voice Note

You opened the texts, bracing yourself.

loser: where the hell are you?? kenma’s vanished too tf                  

loser: you better not have left. lev tried to arm wrestle yamamoto and lost. to YAMAMOTO                                                                    

loser: i swear if you ghosted the reunion i’m kicking your ass        

loser: wait                                                                                                    

loser: waitttttttt                                                                                         

loser: OH MY GOD DID YOU AND KENMA LEAVE TOGETHER???!!! 

loser: TELL ME THIS ISN’T HOW I’M FINDING OUT                       

loser: ANSWER ME FUCKER

You choked on your laugh, snorting into your palm. Kenma stirred beside you, yawning.

“Mmm… what time is it?” he mumbled, exhaustion evident in his voice.

“Too early for our best friend to be having a meltdown,” you giggled.

Kenma cracked one eye open. “Kuroo?”

You held your phone up. “He’s in panic mode.”

Kenma blinked. Then closed his eyes again and guided you down into his chest. “Ignore him.”

You laughed, cuddling into his warmth. His hair was mussed, bleached strands falling into his eyes. His fingers rubbed lazy circles into your back, like he couldn’t stop touching you in his tired state either.

“I still can’t believe last night happened,” you remarked dreamily.

Kenma nuzzled your shoulder. “I can. I’ve imagined it a thousand times.”

You flushed. “Okay, damn.”

He smirked against your skin. “You think I didn’t spend high school losing my mind over you?”

You were about to answer when his hand slid lower. Then lower still.

“Kenma—” 

He rolled on top of you before you could finish. You sucked in a breath as his mouth found yours—inviting at first, then insatiable. Your legs parted instinctively as he settled between them, hardening length grinding slowly into your wetness. His body was still warm from sleep, but his touch was awake. Very awake.

“You’re gonna start something you can’t finish,” you warned.

He kissed your jaw. “Wanna bet?”

You fisted his hair, pulling him back to meet your eyes. “We’re seriously doing this again? First thing in the morning?”

“You’re naked in my bed,” he deadpanned. “If anything, this is on you.”

You were mid-laugh, mid-moan, mid-thigh squeeze when… 

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU—”

The bedroom door slammed open. You both stopped, unmoving. 

Kenma’s mouth was on your neck. His hand was on your thigh. Your legs were definitely wrapped around his waist. Kuroo stood in the doorway like a horror movie freeze frame.

One hand still on the doorknob. Jaw hanging open. Eyebrow twitching.

You screeched and dove under the sheets like they could erase the last thirty seconds of reality. Kenma… just sighed. Still completely on top of you, showing no signs of clothing himself.

“Get out,” he said flatly.

Kuroo was pale. In a shocking display, he turned red. If possible, redder.

“I—WHAT—SHE’S NAKED—YOU’RE—WHAT—WHY—"

“By the way, I didn’t give you the code to my penthouse so you could come and go as you please,” Kenma muttered, frustrated.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Kuroo—” you poked your head out, expression absolutely boiling—“I’m begging you to forget this ever happened.”

“Oh no. This is burned into my soul. Wait till the group chat hears about this.”

Kenma finally stood up, arranging the blanket properly to cover you like a true gentleman. Instead of being embarrassed, he looked rather annoyed at being interrupted. Like this was your regular Saturday afternoon in the Kozume household.

Kuroo glanced between the two of you, hands on hips, processing.

Then he scoffed, “I watched you two lunatics dawdle around each other for YEARS. Years. You think I didn’t know?”

“Then, why are you surprised?” Kenma asked.

“Because I thought you’d tell me through a well-structured text, not with your fucking nipples out!”

You screamed in humiliation and retreated into the covers again.

Kenma shrugged. “We were busy.”

“Oh, no need to tell me.” Kuroo turned, still muttering to himself, “I'm gonna need bleach. For my eyes. For my brain. For my…”

The bedroom door slammed shut and it was peaceful for all of three seconds. At the same time, you and Kenma burst out laughing. He wrapped his arms around you, burying his face in your neck as you wheezed into the pillow, your body shaking.

“Never living that down,” you gasped.

“Worth it,” he whispered.

And then he kissed you again—slow and soft—like he had nowhere else to be.

[crownofgildedlilies]

stormed in

pairing: shigaraki x reader summary: who knew tomura’s worst nightmare was an apartment and a snow storm? wc: 2.5k event masterlist

You’re used to people hating you.

Glares people can’t hide—ones they don’t even try to. Strangers crossing the street to avoid you or leaving public spaces entirely when they realize something isn’t quite right. You’re used to it, really. It’s been a long time since you’ve really cared about what others think of you. 

You’re a villain, after all. 

A pretty notorious one, at that. An original member of the League of Villains, dragged into the fray by the only person you would even begin to consider a friend. Iguchi—Spinner, really—was the first not to turn you away. Instead, he dragged you along with him to meet with someone supposedly linked with his idol, Stain. 

You didn’t really care for the antihero, but the first person not to flinch away from you did, so with nothing else going on in your life, you trailed behind him. 

Joining the League meant meeting other people, which you weren’t totally a fan of. But Dabi left you alone for the most part, Compress treated you like you were human, Twice tugged at the bitter remains of your heartstrings, and Toga had the cheerful bloodlust that rounded out your group.

You liked the rest of the League enough to stick around. Maybe—and you would be loath to ever admit this aloud—maybe you finally felt you belonged. 

Except for one problem. One major, destructive, oddly handsome problem. 

The boss seemed to hate you. 

Spinner tried to reason with you, more than once, that if the boss really hated you, he wouldn’t have let you stick around. And it was hard to argue with logic, but you couldn’t explain the way he glared at you, or refused to talk to you, even. He gave all your orders to Spinner and had him relay the message. It was annoying, and childish, and you hated how it made you want to get his attention even more. 

Toga once suggested that he had a crush on you, and you laughed so hard your voice turned hoarse. 

It wouldn’t have been so bad, you knew, if he had been just a regular nobody. Strangers had hated you your whole life—it wasn’t anything new to you. But the boss wasn’t a nobody, or a stranger. He was the leader of the group of idiots that had wormed their way into your hardened heart, the only troupe of people that had ever truly accepted you. 

Tomura Shigaraki hated you, and you hated him for making you like him. 

“This is your fault,”

You rolled your eyes and slammed the cabinet door shut, not finding anything useful but canned food. 

“How, exactly?” You snapped, glaring at the cramped, decrepit kitchen you found yourself trapped in. A mission gone wrong, doubled with a massive snowstorm, and you were stuck in an old hideout apartment the League had never actually used until that very day. “Last I checked, you’re the one giving orders. I’m just following them.”

“Because you’re so good at doing that.” Tomura countered, leaving the kitchen and finding haven from your glare in the equally tiny living room. Scoffing, you weren’t going to let him have any peace as you pushed off the counter and followed him. 

“We’re stuck here for who knows how long and you’re going to start off by picking fights and ignoring me?” You questioned, feeling your temper rise as he dropped on the shitty little couch. Scrunching your nose in distaste, you were pretty sure something might have been living inside the couch. 

“Get in contact with Kurogiri and get me out of here.” He ignored you, pulling out his handheld game console he was always toying with. Spinner had tried to tell you what games he played on it, but you had acted like anything that had to do with the boss irritated you beyond belief. 

“In case you forgot,” You dug out your smashed phone from your pocket and tossed it onto the couch next to him. He barely spared it a glance before going back to his game. “We’ll just have to wait for the storm to die down. Or one of the others remembers this place exists.” 

Tomura remained silent, and you opened your mouth to curse him out. Except, you hesitated when one of his hands reached up to scratch at the skin of his neck. An obvious tell that he was nervous, and you knew if he kept it up he’d start bleeding. As much as he annoyed you, you still cared about him. 

For whatever reason. 

“Don’t do that.” You ordered, arms crossed over your chest defiantly. His hands stalled their scratching, so you knew he understood what you meant. 

“I give the orders, you follow.” He seethed. You shrugged, smirking once more at him as he dropped his hand back to his video game. Turning to investigate further into the small apartment—a bedroom and a bathroom left for your inspection—you called out to him once more over your shoulder in a final act to stoke his fury.

“Because I’m so good with that.”

At least he stopped scratching, even if he was pissed off at you.

You found a whole lot of nothing in the apartment. A ratty bed, bare minimum toiletries, a first aid kit, and a few spare blankets.

But you had found something in the bathroom’s cabinet that had caught your interest. Wrapped in a borrowed blanket to combat the drafty apartment, you wandered back towards the living room where Tomura hadn’t left yet. 

“Hey, Boss,” You called as you entered the room.

“I told you not to call me that.” He countered, not bothering to look up at you. In the time it had taken you to search the place, you had cooled off. But it seemed like he hadn’t. 

You smirk, feeling like teasing, even if it would only make his mood worse. 

“Fine then. Tomura.” You feel his glare without him even having to look up from the video game he held. You only ever used his given name on rare occasions—never in front of the others, always to make him mad. “I found this in the back of the cabinet.” 

A peace offering. A bottle of anti-itch lotion. 

And maybe it was for yourself, too. Watching Tomura squirm during your arguments was fun, but watching him suffer while he scratched at his obviously irritated skin was far from it. 

You tossed him the bottle and dropped onto the couch beside him, given that it was the only piece of furniture in the place. You hoped the blanket wrapped around you was enough to keep out whatever made the couch so gross. 

Tomura didn’t say thanks, not that you had expected him too after your little given name stunt only seconds before, but you knew he was grateful by the way he instantly picked up the lotion. 

You watched him in careful anticipation for the way he would spread the cream with only four of his fingers, always intrigued by the delicate way he navigated his everyday life with such a destructive quirk. It was admirable, really, that he had such control over his quirk. You couldn’t imagine the heartbreak it took to get where he was. 

“Stop staring,” He ordered, and you rolled your eyes. Admirable, yes, but still irritating. 

“No,” You countered, smiling brightly at him just to piss him off that much more. You watched as Tomura attempted to take off the screw top lid of the lotion with only four fingers, but something kept the lid from turning—no doubt old residue from the previous uses.

He cursed under his breath, and just as you contemplated reaching out to help him open it, his fingers slipped and all five touched the lid. In an instant, the lid was decayed, solving the problem of opening the lid but leaving the air thick with tension. 

For a moment, all you heard was the heavy snow that kept you trapped pounding against the glass window and Tomura’s ragged breathing. You knew he hated looking like he wasn’t in control. It was part of the reason you pretended to disobey his orders—it was fun to rile him up. 

But there was an uncomfortable buzzing in your chest as you watched him struggle to come to terms with the fact that his quirk kept him from something as simple as opening a bottle. 

“Here, let me.” You murmured into the quiet, and Tomura didn’t even protest as you knelt close enough that your leg brushed against his on the couch. Slipping the container of lotion from his opposite hand, you settled it on the cushion beside you. 

The cream was cold against your fingers, so you rubbed your hands together to warm it up before you used your index finger to turn Tomura’s face towards you. Distantly, you knew how intimate what you were about to do was, but you also didn’t care. 

Tomura gave you a place to connect with others that were just as broken as you. The least you could do was rub some lotion into his aching skin.

You started with his cheeks, making sure every inch of his face was covered. You rubbed the lotion in with smooth circles, more gentle with another human being than you ever had been in your entire life. 

Despite it all, Tomura’s stare remained distant. 

You could tell he was losing focus on the now. The accidental use of his quirk might’ve sent him down a dark path, and you knew you needed to retrieve him from it before it was too late. 

“Have you ever been touched like this, Tomura?” You asked, using your thumbs to spread the lotion gently around his eyes where you knew he itched most. Your voice was barely louder than a whisper, yet it felt like a shout in the otherwise silent room. 

At first, it didn’t seem like he was going to answer. Your words were meant to come out as a tease, as something meant to stoke the flames of his anger and get him to snap, to react, to do something other than stare blankly ahead. 

“My mother.” He finally answered. His voice was eerily calm, but he had answered, and he had given you a heart wrenchingly true response. Frowning, you found yourself applying the lotion to the area on his neck where you had seen him scratching earlier with a newfound gentle care.

Why did your hands feel like they were tingling each time your skin touched his?

“Can I ask you a question?” You avoided the topic of mothers. No one exactly became a villain because their origin story was a happy one, and you respected Tomura enough to bring up something so painful. 

“You’ve already asked two.” He countered, and the corners of your lips quirked up in response. Slowly, he was returning back to normal. 

“Well, here’s a third.” You rolled your eyes playfully, setting the lotion onto the coffee table before the two of you. You kept yourself facing him, and when he didn’t turn away, you took that as a good sign. “Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t.” His response was quick, and you frowned. He held your eye as he answered, and you could tell he was telling the truth. It didn’t make sense, though. He treated you differently than the other League members—snappier, sassier, almost distant. 

“Fourth. Why do you act like you hate me, then?”

You were leaning towards him eagerly, like a child listening to a made up story. You were pretty certain this was the longest you had ever talked to Tomura without him yelling in your face, and he had spent half the time on the verge of spiraling in on himself over his quirk. 

Not exactly the most romantic, but you’d take what you could get. 

“You make my chest hurt.” His answer, no more confusing than his silence, came in a murmur as he finally looked away from you. 

“Oh,” You frown, dropping back into your seat. It wasn’t what you had been expecting him to say, but then again, nothing he had said in the past ten minutes had been expected. Hell, even the storm that kept you trapped hadn’t been forecasted. “Like, in a good way or a bad way?”

“You’ve reached your limit on questions. Leave me alone.” He grumbled, picking up his previously discarded video game, though you could tell from the flush creeping up his neck that he wasn’t fully paying attention to what was on the screen.

“Bad at following orders, remember?” You reminded him of his own comment from when you first arrived at the safehouse, never one to turn down the opportunity to tease the boss. 

“How could I forget,” He murmured dryly, like you were annoying him, his focus still on the game he was steadily failing at. You were slowly coming to realize that maybe his hate actually masked something else. 

And maybe yours did, too. 

“Tomura, do you know what that feeling in your chest is?” With a rare spike of bravery, you extended a hand to press your palm over his heart, feeling it race under your touch. If you were wrong about what he meant, then you’d probably lose your arm. He had no problem decaying people he found annoying, even if Spinner would give him hell if you were hurt. 

But if you were right…

“I don’t hate you,” He repeated, like that was the only way he could express what he felt. And maybe it was. Maybe he was so far beyond help that what he really felt—that love you suspected he held for you—only made sense as not hate in his eyes. 

And maybe you were just as screwed up as he was, because the idea of saying you loved someone felt wrong. You weren’t loved by anyone, and you couldn’t love in return. How else would you have ended up in the care of the League of Villains? But you were still human, despite it all, and connections to others formed even without permission. 

“I don’t hate you, either.” 

Tomura met your eye, and you knew he understood what he meant. All the petty arguments, the teasing, the longing glances disguised as glares. All of it was a way for two broken people to connect, to cover up for feelings they couldn’t understand due to life and circumstance. 

I don’t hate you. Never, you.

The sentiment wasn’t enough, but it would have to do for now.

The storm outside caused the lights to flicker and dim until they finally gave out and plunged the two of you in darkness. Wordlessly, you shifted your position on the couch until your head was resting on his shoulder. He doesn’t comment on your touch, and instead continues his video game in silence, allowing you to watch while he plays. You would weather the storm together, enjoying the feeling of not hating each other.

[tainbocuailnge]

it really does feel like console gaming peaked with the 3ds and wii and i know rationally that this is an opinion with a sizeable chunk of personal nostalgia behind it but also when a game was for ds or wii it meant you could really only play it on that console because it leaned on the unique functionally of the console. two screens! motion controls! it enabled creativity on the part of developers. nowadays consoles and pcs are functionally interchangeable boxes that you plug a controller into and handheld consoles are just pcs in the shape of tablets and actual handheld gaming goes on phones now except the phone games make pc and console ports anyway because they're too heavy for normal phones and they all have microtransactions

[ouiouimochi]

Touch-move! Game for two

pairing: gen narumi x reader

genre: slice of life, romance(?), teen narumi

wc: 3k+

warning/s: profanities, manga spoilers for non-readers, no beta we die like (redacted), wonky format yey

note/s: takes place before narumi got recruited into the JAKDF. no mention of kaiju in this part. inspired by something I apparently experienced that I was unaware of until my friend hilariously told me (a better ending ig?)

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Gen Narumi was left on his own once more as his highschool peers chattered amongst themselves in their own groups. He paid them no mind, walking through the bustling hallways and up the stairs leading to the rooftop while absorbed into his handheld console. The male reached for the door handle and turned it, slightly wincing at the amount of light that greeted his face upon opening the entrance to the top of the school.

He strides over to his usual spot only to find it was occupied by a girl that he figured was his senior as indicated by the colored stripe on her uwabaki. She was staring intently at the familiar checkered playing board and its signature pieces

You didn't hear the rooftop door opening, nor did you notice someone walk up to your spot. Very immersed in the game of chess you were playing…

with yourself

Gen was curious as to why this senior of his was playing a game meant for two on her own. He would've thought you were quite the sad sight but he spectated you silently, watching as you moved the chessmen of both sides in turn. He eventually gets engaged as well, impressed at how you move the pieces as if you were placing two chess experts against each other— without having a bias as to which side to win either.

You thought hard about the next move, in a predicament. It was taking you quite a while to decide until a hand smoothly took a piece and carried the ivory knight to a specific coordinate.

You processed the whole setup, in agreement that the action was the best one at the moment. You were delighted, only noticing the person that joined you on the rooftop had crouched on the ground to impose themself in your game.

You allowed your eyes to trail from the unknown person's green-striped uwabaki before settling on the person’s face. He doesn't seem familiar to you, heck you think you'd never be familiar with anyone even in your year level. However, you can't help but think he was pleasant to look at.

“Make your move,” his voice rumbled, snapping you out of your thoughts.

You blink a few times before placing your attention back to the chessboard. You scanned the pieces before making a bold move of threatening the ivory queen. The unnamed boy comfortably settled himself on the side where the white pieces were positioned.

You look up at him as his red eyes surveyed the board. It was intriguing for you to see how focused he seemed to be in the spontaneous game. You may as well be delighted that another person has joined you in your lonely session, he seemed to be good at it too.

Clack.

You snap your attention back to the board before using the ebony bishop to take his pawn. The male raises an eyebrow at the move, making you unknowingly grin.

He scoffs and confidently moves his rook, challenging to take your knight. You lick your lips, excited to have a thrilling chess game with an actual opponent. You moved a pawn, confusing the other player immensely. You two continued to play the game silently, not even a word of introduction to each other.

Narumi stares blankly at the chessboard, gobsmacked at the turn of events. He had realized a few turns in that your actions all had a purpose— the unsuspecting pawn from earlier had upgraded itself into replacing the ebony queen he took from you. The gears in his head going into overdrive, he realizes that no matter what he moves, you'd be able to counter and corner him closer and closer to checkmate. His pride didn't allow him to lose, no it wasn't in his dictionary to lose.

You surprisedly blinked at his decision to move his remaining bishop. You furrowed your eyebrows, staring intensely at the board as if with intent to bore a hole into it.

The boy became impatient, “Move,” he had crossed his arms to tap on his bicep.

“I can't,” your soft-spoken voice echoed, making him realize this was the first time you talked. “It's gonna end in a stalemate no matter which piece I'd touch.”

Narumi gazed at your delicate face before evaluating the game, figuring out that you were right. A dulcet laugh pierced through the silence, sounding like the pleasant tinkling of bells to his ears.

The two-toned haired boy stared at the hand outstretched to him. You introduced yourself.

“Gen Narumi,” he huffed out, tone having no hint of respect meant for someone older than him. You cracked a small smile, not liking the stiff dynamics of this school hierarchy anyways.

The bell rings, signaling the end of your lunch break. You were slightly disappointed, wanting to play an actual match against Narumi. You started neatly fixing up the chessboard.

“Rematch tomorrow, got that?” you gaped at the male’s suggestion, secretly ecstatic that you found yourself a player to go against without judgment or underestimation. He helped you pick up the other pieces to place inside the board.

You nod.

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“No fucking way, I lost again!” Narumi cursed, not believing that someone as great as himself was capable of experiencing losses back-to-back. Although he won a few rounds and got a lot more of stalemates, his pride didn't allow him to have such a bad W/L ratio.

You giggled and sat up proudly, finding it amusing to defeat your…

‘Can we be considered as friends?’

You shook your head at the thought. Poking your tongue out when he accuses you of cheating. You ruffled his already messy two-toned hair, making him glare at you like an angry cat.

“A million years too early to beat me,” you hummed.

“We're the same age, you just skipped a grade,” he argued back, not liking how you were treating him like a kid.

“Fuck this game, I challenge you to a different one!” he exclaimed, tired of losing. He wanted to rub in your face that chess would be the only thing you can have over his head.

He takes out his Nimtemdo Sweetch, positioning the screen to be propped up on a stand. He gave you the blue controller, taking the red for himself. You tilted your head curiously, although video games were not a foreign concept to you, you were not well acquainted with them.

“Don't fucking tell me you've never played any other games,” he raised an eyebrow.

You look at him, a bit offended, “I have, actually! Go, Scrabble, Game of the Generals, and so much more.” You crossed your arms and harrumphed.

“All of which you play alone,” he rebuked, making you blow a raspberry.

“Hey! I play with people sometimes, like the nice elderly at the park…and…” you trail off, unable to keep up the confidence when he continues to stare at you expectantly. You scrunch your eyebrows and pout.

Narumi rolls his red eyes, “Not video games then, fine I'll teach you. It's not satisfying to win against someone who knows little of the game,” he flippantly said. Despite his brash comments, you knew he meant no harm at all. If anything, you found it cute that he was willing to patiently teach you how to play.

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“OI, Why aren't you doing the combo I taught you?? It'd defeat the boss so easily too!” Narumi continued to smash his controller’s buttons as he angrily barked out orders to you. You get irked, focusing on the boss you two decided to fight in co-op.

The male cursed as his character died due to being unable to dodge the monster’s specialized attack, leaving everything up to you.

“Go, go, go! Use your items for fuck’s sake!” he commented, scooching himself close into your space.

“Can you please stop backseating?” you exasperatedly responded, still focused on surviving and ending the fight.

“I wouldn't have to if you had stuck to the plan!”

“Oh my god, my skills were on cooldown to do the combo! The boss was also transitioning to its next phase, stop hounding me!”

Silent falls over as the screen showcases the ending cutscene, indicating a successful boss raid. You smugly look over at him, making him irritated.

“If you just stop being a metaslave, you would've responded easier to unexpected situations.” You tutted at him as though he wasn't the expert in video games among you two.

He growls(I can't AHSHDH I CAN IMAGINE HIM AS A GROWLING CAT), but otherwise stays quiet since you made a point. You made it clear to him during the gaming sessions that you were quite quick on the uptake, soaking in game mechanics like a sponge.

He feels miffed, as your mentor, when he can't help but notice how you were better in certain aspects of gaming than him. Another jab at his pride. However, he couldn't ignore how he's enjoying your presence and skills in different gaming mediums.

“Congrats on winning the judo tournament, by the way,” you caught his attention as he raised his eyebrow in question. You then dangled a small keychain, a trophy with the ‘#1’ engraved on it, in front of his face, urging him to accept it.

Narumi does not know how to react, he had already grown accustomed to not receiving praise or even acknowledgements for his feats. This was quite new, you even gave him a token of congratulations.

His ears burn pink as he accepts the gift. He does not allow himself to be caught lacking so instead of straight out thanking you, he hits you with a

“It's only expected for me to win the tournament,” he smugly huffed out, raising his chin arrogantly while straightening his back to look taller.

You jokingly rolled your eyes, “Confident? Play chess against me, then.” You challenged him.

⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹

You were pleasantly surprised when Gen progressively improved in playing against you, slowly and surely bridging the skill gap between the two of you. He steadily gained more wins over losses recently too.

You furrowed your eyebrows, admittedly having a bit of a hard time. You zoned out for a while but noticed Gen’s lips moving from your peripherals.

Your eyes then lit up, before taking your bishop to check his king. You looked up at the two-toned haired male for his reaction only to be greeted with an intent stare from his carmine orbs. Confused, you tilted your head to one side as he pushed a hand on his forehead to mess up his locks. He muttered something too incomprehensible to reach your ears.

You didn’t dwell too much on it and took a bite out of the school cafeteria’s lunch sandwich he bought for you. It was quite delicious, actually — you could've sworn you've seen the limited promotion for this specific menu item. You shook your head and focused back on the board as he made his move. You smiled, a sign of guaranteed victory.

“Checkmate.”

⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹⚆⁠•⁠⊰⁠⊹

It was too cold to chill at your usual spot on the rooftop. You two didn't want to go anywhere filled with busybodies either, so you and your friend agreed to stay at the stairs before the entrance to the roof.

Despite being indoors, you still shivered, covering your arms for a little morsel of warmth. You closed your eyes before you felt a cozy weight drape itself across your back and shoulders. When you opened your eyes, Gen was already settling himself back to his spot. He didn't have his outer coat on anymore, finding that it was what he placed on you.

“Won't you be cold, then?” you asked, concerned for him.

“The cold’s nothing, you're just overreacting.” he rolled his eyes as he leaned backwards, his arms supporting him.

You can't help but smile, wanting to rebuke but decided against it.

“Thank you,” you gratefully said instead, knowing the male doesn't like to outwardly express his true emotions and intentions.

He wasn't making eye contact, instead bringing out the familiar gaming device and setting it up for you to play together.

You remember something and turn to your bag, rummaging through it, pulling out a small but well decorated package. You then extended it towards the two-toned haired male for him to take as he looked at you a bit weirdly.

“And what the fuck’s this for?” he suspiciously asked, eyeing the bag cautiously like a cat.

You rolled your eyes, “Just take it!” you urged. Excitedly anticipating his reaction.

He opens the bag to take out its contents as his eyes widen in surprise before turning to you in disbelief.

“Happy early holidays! Consider it as an early birthday gift as well,” you gave a thumbs up, but he shifted his body away to hide his facial expression.

It might just be from the cold but you can't help but notice how his ears were tinged a little red.

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Spring has arrived with the cherry blossoms blooming and scattering its petals into the wind. The front of the school was filled with a solemn atmosphere of tearful goodbyes among friends and the good memories made on campus. There were also students hounding other students to confess their dearest adoration for their crush and ask for their uniform button. You could've seen people confessing under the romantic blossoms if you squinted.

You sighed at your spot on the rooftop overlooking the front yard on your lonesome. Yet again, you didn’t notice someone sneaking up on you until they plopped themself beside you on the railings. You immediately recognized the messy black and gray mop of hair belonging to your only friend in this school.

“Shouldn't you be down there?” His question pierced the silence.

“I don't want to, to be honest.” you hummed out as he turned his head to look up at you, still resting on his crossed arms on top of the railings. You continued to watch the other students below hugging each other.

You heard a deep sigh before some rustling of clothes as Gen shifted his position to stand. He gets something from his pocket, catching your attention.

“Your hand,” he commanded as you placed your hand palm side up, awaiting what he'd give you. He unceremoniously drops a little accessory on it.

You inspected it, bringing it closer to your eyes. It was a very pretty keychain of an ivory queen chess piece made out of a crystalline material. It glinted beautifully in the sun as some refracted stray lights managed to hit the surface of your face. Gen might as well have had his breath stolen away right there and then, but refused to surrender.

You looked at him and gave him a smile wider than any he'd seen from you. You were quite giddy, more than happy that there was at least one person who was there to make memories with— to make your last year in this school more enjoyable than the previous years.

“Gen,” you called out his name so softly, the boy might have as well allowed his knees to give up on him.

“Thank you so much.”

“Why'd you need to thank me for a small, shitty gift?”

You shook your head.

“No… I mean to thank you for all the memorable lunch breaks of playing chess, of teaching me new games— of just hanging out with my lonely ass…” You spoke, perhaps his vocabulary may have rubbed off on you at some point.

Gen ran his hand through his hair, pushing it upwards as he looked away. He failed to muster up the words he wanted to respond with, being really bad with people for a long time. He didn't want to speak like he usually did, lest you'd burst into tears at his harsh tone even when you spoke with such sincerity.

Your phone rang, interrupting the moment. After picking the device up to your ear, Gen noticed how displeased you were getting each second that passed even if the call only had lasted for around 30 seconds at best. You clicked your tongue in distaste after the call got dropped.

“That's my signal to go,” you turned to your only friend, a bit hesitant. “See you around, I hope?”

He nods his head, waving goodbye when you start to leave. His carmine eyes can only watch as you disappear through the rooftop door.

You arrive at the front where the crowd has significantly dwindled already, only a few stragglers left behind. The sleek black car awaited you beyond the gates of the highschool. You continued making your way towards the vehicle but got stopped when you heard your name being called from behind you.

You rotated to be met with Gen standing tall with his hand on his chest. “Your hand.”

You follow as he placed the small item in your hand, it was a button— more specifically a button from his uniform dress shirt. You look up at him to ask but get interrupted by a beeping horn, reminding you to get in already.

You hesitate again, but end up having to go and leave the two-toned haired male. You get in the car, the vehicle immediately driving off as the damned highschool grew farther and farther from your visuals.

You open your palm and inspect the button. More questions forming rather than answers. It was more of a common tradition for the graduating students to give away their shirt buttons to either friends and admirers in order to symbolize leaving a piece of themselves with these people. However, you cannot forget the crucial detail you noticed when Gen removed his hand from his chest.

The second button, symbolizing the piece closest to the heart, was absent from its spot on his uniform— and it was right there sitting in your hands.

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i was supposed to be working on something else lmao-

will post part 2 someday when brain juice comes back

[a-bottle-of-tyelenol]

regressor kaminari denki headcanons !!

— requested by @infanttoes —

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

⚡️ - usually regresses to around 4-6, but he can go younger if he’s sleepy or overwhelmed. he regresses pretty often and it’s almost always his choice. he just likes being small and thinks it’s really fun! he’s only ever forced into headspace after he uses his quirk too much and short circuits. it just takes a lot of his brain energy to make that much electricity and it needs to reset and heal by having some rest— which means he has to regress for a couple hours afterwards, minimum. he tends to avoid regressing when he’s upset or hurt because he hates how much more he feels while small. in terms of coping mechanisms, he mostly uses this one for stress relief more than anything.

⚡️ - very hyperactive kiddo! he has adhd and quite a sweet tooth so he’s almost always hyped up on sugar or dopamine. he can be very whiny about what his caregivers try to feed him and he drags his feet for pretty much any healthy habit. is it really too much to ask for dessert before dinner? or having juice that isn’t diluted with water? why does he have to brush his teeth so many times a day? honestly, it’s just ludicrous! he also really struggles in class to sit down and pay attention, and this is nearly tripled when he’s regressed. he doesn’t care about hero law and textbooks! he wants to go outside and roughhouse with his friends instead! he’s allowed to have fidget toys at his desk and he’s almost always doodling on his papers while he half-heartedly listens to his lectures, barely old enough to internalize any of it. his friends are nice enough to give him a crash course on the lesson when he needs it, though.

⚡️ - he really likes books and games! the only way to make him sit still is to put a game console or book in front of him. he likes reading chapter books meant for younger kids in english because it helps him feel like he’s younger and still learning to read, despite the fact that he’s actually pretty good at english anyways. he gets very excited and proud of himself when he finishes a book all by himself and doesn’t need to look up any words for it. as for games, he’s a handheld player! whether it’s a gameboy, DS, or a switch, denki is usually curled up around a screen (which his caregivers hate because it ruins his posture and makes his back ache). he really likes pokémon, mario, and anything that has levels or some kind of goals to meet. he’s really bad with more open games because he gets stuck not knowing what to do, so he never really got into animal crossing or minecraft because of how sandbox-y they can be, but he can still play them with his friends for a couple hours before he gets bored and drops them for a few weeks.

⚡️ - he doesn’t care much for regression gear. he finds that he doesn’t really use it as often as he’d like and it makes him upset that he can’t engage with his regression in a more “stereotypical” way. that said, he does like having a pacifier or some kind of chewelry when he’s doing something (homework, gaming, reading, anything that requires focus) because he uses it to orally stim. he likes sippy cups and straws for the same reason— though, he does tend to destroy the mouth pieces and the tops of his straws because he chews on them, even after he’s finished his drink. he does the same thing with headphone wires (which jirou hates for obvious reasons), the collars of his shirts (which his mother hates because he’s ruined every shirt he owns), and the end of his tie or hoodie strings (which bakugou hates because it’s “unsanitary”).

⚡️ - he gets really bad involuntary muscle spasms, similar to tics and bordering on seizure-like at their worst, because of his quirk. it’s especially bad right before and during thunderstorms, but sometimes it just randomly happens on bad days (or maybe it makes the days bad— he can’t tell). they sometimes cause the lights to flicker or black out entirely and it’s always exhausting and painful, leaving him sore and achey for hours or days afterwards. this is probably the only exception to his want to keep his regression chill and happy. it just hurts really badly and it’s easier to cry and be comforted when he’s really small and cuddled by a caregiver as he goes through it.

⚡️ - he really likes sleep overs and tends to crash in any dorm that isn’t his. he doesn’t like being alone and he loves his friends so much that he just prefers sleeping with them over being in his own room. he isn’t very picky about it either; denki crashes hard and is a really deep sleeper, and he’s able to sleep on just about anything. in sero’s room, he exclusively sleeps on a beanbag. in jirou’s room, he’s fallen asleep at the foot of her bed more times than she can count while listening to her play guitar. in bakugou’s room, he sleeps on the floor with a random blanket halfheartedly thrown on top of him. and in mina’s room, he usually cuddles with her in bed but he’s fallen asleep at her desk/vanity a couple times and if she couldn’t manage to wake him, she’d just leave him since he’s a bit too heavy for her to pick up.

(Cw: drugs)

⚡️ - I know this fandom is very split on weed hcs so feel free to skip this one, but I actually hc denki as being prescribed medical marijuana to deal with his seizure/epilepsy-like symptoms. Ik it’s illegal in japan but this is the future!!! because this is a quirk issue and not really a brain condition, it would make sense to me that traditional medications wouldn’t really work for him and that this would be something that can help because of how it can act as an anti-convulsant. he doesn’t take it all the time or anything, but he usually will pop a gummy when it’s a one of those bad/stormy days and ride it out (and he will sometimes just take one to chill out because ua is really stressful, it can really help with his adhd, and his prescription is pretty lenient about his doses). this also means that there are many times where he’s small and under the influence and it can help keep things running smoothly and more enjoyably for him. his caregivers have a rule that he can’t be small and high alone but, other than that, he’s free to do whatever and being high really helps him connect with the younger parts of his headspace in a way that he can’t usually— letting him play and pretend without the inhibitions that come with growing up.

[cartoonedin]

sapphire dorm + video games hcs. probably ooc but idc <3

sophia touches grass too much to be considered a gamer girl but after rory introduces her to first-person shooters? you're dead. you're gone. you're her dad you're reporting her but she'll never be dead or gone because pro teams all over the country are trying to recruit her. which country. who knows. she only plays at her friends' houses on saturdays because she doesn't want her brother to snitch on her swearing but sometimes she uses her 'oops i fell off a cliff again and need to call for help' projection and gets banned from those houses too. she and her horse-poop-covered hands hate mobile games. her parents are the reason new candy crush levels are still being added but she has neither the patience nor the long-term planning skills for level one. did the genocide route on undertale in record time because she thought it was how the game was meant to be played. into red dead redemption for the horses and the bearded cowboys who learn about fatherhood via gunfights.

ava is a handheld console girlie. if pokemon nurse were an actual profession she'd be employee of the month thirteen times a year. her animal crossing island has a better economy than every continent combined. that being said the day her brothers introduced her to warioware was the day the world was introduced to true bloodshed. has broken at least one controller because of sheer emotional attachment to a cute character. treats pikmin like a survival horror game and dead space like a sci-fi romcom. got the pacifist ending in undertale and does not understand why other rpgs don't have the mercy option. unless rory's in the game at which point she brings out the laser guns or whatever to get back at him for making her reveal her middle name. you know he's let that slip to more than one call of duty lobby ok let a girl live.

layla's favourite game is google chrome. she's boring and i love her for that. she speedruns minesweeper and solitaire to get her mind off particularly devastating biographies. she's friends with everyone's parents on candy crush and scrabble. she could be a gm on chess.com but she overthinks her moves to the point of losing on time despite playing as white. she's almost been hacked so many times because she can't resist correcting bad moves on word formation advertisements and gets led to online casino #infinity or something. she has a lifelong streak on every new york times game except vertex because you cannot tell me wildstar's constant use of her magic didn't destroy her eyesight even further.

isabel puts the bro in smash bros. rotates between king k. rool, sonic, and greninja because she has a brand and it must be tangential to adhd medication. in the same vein as sophia i think she touches grass too much to be considered a gamer girl but she makes rory keep up with madden and fifa news just to figure out if she's been added to the latest installment. she has a skateboard on her dorm wall but never uses it so i'm thinking she played through the og trilogy of tony hawk's games as a kid and echoed every voice line to the point of perfect memorisation. take the word dude away from her and she's mute. also i think she discovered happy wheels on her mom's computer and ruined several important business presentations that way.

valentina is a slightly grown ipad kid. i'm sorry but you can't tell me she didn't steal her style from dress to impress. also she rates everyone one star on those games not because she's a corrupt voter but because she has a sixth sense for when a bitch is hiding bacon hair beneath a hundred layers of sparkles. up there with isabel in terms of lacking screen time video game wise because i truly believe her family would spend their money on better (read: elite-r) past times but she 1000% plays the sims. one world is for planning fashion moments and carrying on the digital furi bloodline. one world is for drowning people by deleting their pool ladders and saying "not now sweetie mommy's cyberbullying the mayor" to her baby who's on fire.

rory's room looks like a gamestop. idc about his canon phone case he is SILLY. he will play anyone in smash as long as it looks funny next to the other character but he has a soft spot for kirby, yoshi, zero suit samus (isabel side eyes him very hard for this at first but it's still a very gay choice i promise) and wii fit trainer. his personality is held together by goat simulator, untitled goose game, and donut county. also duct tape and blue raspberry gum. he trolls a little (a lot) on first person shooters and mmorpgs mostly so he can pretend with an ounce of plausible deniability that he's just having a fun unserious time when sophia and/or ava beat his ass at both even though they're on the same team.

[moomingitz]

Been thinking about this recently, when it comes to how people have view games in the Sonic franchise and their expectations of them even all the way back in the 2000s. I honestly believe the price the games originally retailed for has a lot to do with it. I'm saying this as someone who came in late to play the most prominent "dark age" Sonic games, and the games that came after them. And I'm only referring to the console games here, not the handheld ones.

The first time I played Sonic 06 was back in 2013. I bought it brand new and still sealed for $10, and I did it because I wanted to get an actual informed opinion of the game, and as a strange curiosity in general. The game is definitely unfinished and very buggy. However, I did get some enjoyment from it(even if not for the intended reasons), I actually liked the cutscenes for most of the part, and I do see some redeeming qualities underneath it's scuffed to hell surface. But, again, I only paid $10 for it, so not really a loss for me. But when it originally came out, it was not only $60, it was also this big grand anniversary game, meant to be a drastic new direction and refresh of the franchise, and it was released on then-next gen consoles. So I think you can start to see a more full picture of what I'm trying to get at, here.

Same thing also applies to the games that I think are good, or at least better. Sonic 06 wasn't the only Sonic game I played for the first time around that time. Before 06, I bought and played Colors in late 2012 for around $15. While I still believe that it's a good game, it's very short and doesn't have much else to do after you beat the main story. I don't think it has enough content to justify the price it originally retailed for.

The lack of a significant amount of content offered outside of the base games is honestly why I miss games like Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Whether these games have actually aged well or not, there was so much you could do on the side. I would play these games religiously growing up, wanting to find and unlock everything I could do. I even %100 completed SA2 at one point. Sonic Adventure gives you hub worlds to explore and mess around in, and the Gamecube port even gives you the Gamegear games to unlock. In SA2 you could unlock costumes/skins for characters in 2 Player VS. mode and unlock other characters to play in it, among other things you could also unlock by completing missions and getting emblems. SA2 even had a timed boss rush. And, of course, both games had the Chao gardens.

It might be something of a meme to demand the Chao Gardens make a return. But fans, me included, want them back for a very good reason. Not only is it fun and relaxing to raise Chao and customize them to your liking, but the Chao gardens incentivize you to replay stages in order to find things like certain small animals to use for your Chao, or to scrounge up rings to buy things at the market.

As someone who played both Sonic Adventure games, when both their Dreamcast and following Gamecube ports originally came out, I really do feel like both the base games, and the amount of content provided outside of them, made them worth the price tag they had during their initial releases. The only games that have been able to scratch that kind of itch for me afterward is Unleashed and Generations. And before anyone asks; I can't comment on Frontiers gameplay wise because I still haven't played it yet.

[300iqprower]

Looking at that recent thing on Nintendo and I'm wondering several things. Is this to prevent fan games, other official games (which will most likely backfire on Nintendo themselves, since several mon catchers and mount riding games are exclusively on their consoles and handhelds), or both? And further more, is this only restricted to Japan, or will it affect worldwide?

I know that Japanese copyright laws are ungodly strict (just ask anyone who has to deal with Toei's shit), to the point that they could give Disney a run for their money, but this is a new low. No matter how you (general you I mean) slice it, it's bad. Like, rotten bad.

"what is this meant to affect specifically?" Everything. The answer is everything. Nintendo have been as vocal as possible without actually being vocal about how upset they are with Genshin over its perceived success as a "Free to play Breath of the Wild". They had been doing this patent shit since before then too and were using it to basically just go around like full blown yakuza running a collection racket, finding successful companies with broad successful games and sueing them for millions. Literal "youtube copyright troll" level shitheadedness

It's literally just so everytime Nintendo sees a nail sticking up they can hammer it down and take a cut. They have been nonstop filing patents on things they didnt even come up with (Megami Tensei predates pokemon, Half Life 2 certainly predates Tears of the Kingdom, and dont even get me started again on that horseshit horse shit where they patented MOUNTS).

This is them trying to make sure that literally anything that so much s gets compared to Nintendo, and according to nintendo any platoformer is inspired by them and any game with horses you can ride is inspired by them, gives them legal course to sue for a cut of the pie. Where's that gif of CEO brennan lee mulligan saying "We're fucked!" cause that's what it is. This is basically Defcon 2 on the situation now that Nintendo are publically flaunting patents to bully whoever they see as competition in any form, and not just doing it behind closed doors to avoid scrutiny as they run collection schemes on mobile game companies.

[nineparlor69]

Okay! Here are the descriptions of the games!

Tale of The Snake (ToTS)

This game takes place in the early 2000's, with a young boy named Tyler exploring an old building filled with mascots, living statues, and evil forces. Tyler had quite the troubling past with these horrific mascots, all because of his evil father.

Whiskers' Wonderland (WWL)

This game takes place here in the 2020's, and a 16 year old explorer named Alex is documenting his findings at an abandoned amusement park. However, Alex isn't greeted by the friendliest of enviorments. Alex faces off against and kills off the animatronic mascots of this haunted amusement park, and escapes.

Wobbleland (WL)

This game is a goofy RPG where a little stick figure named Himb fights monsters and saves a princess. But it isn't just that. It's really a tragic tale of a man who lost his life to an awful accident.

Spikey Boy! (SB!)

Spikey Boy is a collection of games that are reminiscant of those 100 in 1 handheld consoles. But underneath the surface is a tale of a greiving father pushed off the edge by the loss of his children, and pure hate taking over the family.

Outcast

Outcast is a FPS game where you play as a space explorer trapped on a hostile alien planet after being kicked off of the ship for being framed for murder by his best friend.

New Game (NG)

This is a simple puzzle game where you have to escape the hold of a power hungry AI meant to control the system the player is trapped in.

Three Nights in The Ring (TNiTR)

A FNAF fangame that I haven't really got much about, but it will be more open than just an office. ;-;

Love of Carnage (LoC)

This game is a dating sim about a girl who found her way into a cabin in the woods, where she meets a woman named Aiki. Aiki is actually a canibal with her little brother trapped in her basement so she can make her new guest something to eat...

Marshall's Radio Service (MRS)

This game is about a young radio-headed boy who strives to become a talk show host, but eventually discovers that he isn't as free willed as he thought he was for all those years.

[edeneffect]

also streetpass! which actually encouraged you to take your handheld with you y'know. instead of just leaving ur switch in the dock and watching tik tok or some shit.

play coins and streetpass rewarded you in the games you were already playing for playing portably, its such a neat feature!

the DS's ability to fold meant that i could actually fucking take it with me because it fit in my pockets and/or handbag, the switch is portable the same way an ipad is portable, technically you can take it with you, yeah, but you'll look like a fucking troglodyte ALSO BRING BACK DOWNLOAD PLAY YOU FUCKING COWARDS

the switch isnt built like a handheld, its built like a portable console with the power of a handheld, there is no sociable features to encourage you to take it with you, for most people it sits in the dock forever

Unironically I think we need just a more powerful DS again. Dual screens fuck. The amount of creativity and interactivity and cool UI that went into DS games is literally unmatched and like those things were tough as fuck too. Please hear my wish. I get that the switch is technically handheld and thus portable but also no it is not that thang is so delicate and lacks the sophistication of just being able to shut it at a moments notice to pause everything without having to hit a pause menu. Does anyone hear me. Hello. Pokémon ranger.

[gikairan]

Theres a lot of rumours flying around about an xbox handheld and i am watching them with a Lot of interest 👀👀

Like, im a big fan of the concept of the Steam Deck, but the actual physical hardware is just too big for me to hold comfortably. That, and i kinda dont want to go in and install a 2nd OS on my devices bc one game id want to play on the thing isnt on Steam.

So i got an ASUS ROG Ally, as its slightly smaller and Windows instead of a specially designed Linux OS?

And its just... not the best experience. One of my gripes is its still a little too heavy. but mostly its that W11 was not meant to be run on such a small touchscreen based device. Setting up this thing like you would a new PC is a bit of a nightmare, and windows sort of assumes the thing is a real PC for updates and whatnot. Youve got general PC software bloat, it trying to recommend you download Office, constantly trying to kill Copilot off the thing... all on a tiny screen

What these handheld gaming PCs really need is a special instance OF W11 that KNOWS the device its running on is a gaming console - not a laptop. Its basically THE most stripped down version of W11 you can make, with a special UI on top.

So, like, im super interested to see if this xbox handheld uses some modified version of the xbox series OS.... or modified W11. The former would be a huge error, the latter would probably fix a lot of the issues with the handheld gaming PC experience?

I WANT to like this format, but right now its still in its early days. The experience is really janky, and without support from the OS manufacturers, it cant get better? But if Microsoft actually HAVE an OS on the way, it could very well do a lot for the handheld pc market?

.... But if its a modified version of the Xbox Series OS, itll probably flop ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[the-backspin-alchemist]

When did you first start playing video games? What games/consoles?

The TL;DR is, first gaming device was a GBA with Pokemon Silver, first actual console was an Xbox 360 with Halo 3.

My intro to video games was the GBA, and for a loooooooooong time the games I was allowed to play were basic PC games or handhelds.

My parents got me a GBA for a kindergarten graduation gift when I was 5, and I started that journey with Pokemon Silver. For a while, I was just a Pokemon gamer, because:

A) I was obsessed with Pokemon

B) it was the most consistent game series I could get a hold of between my GBA and DS Lite

C) I was OBSESSED with Pokemon

The exception to this rule (and it is a very glaring exception) were the GBA Metroid games.

I’m pretty sure I have almost 400 hours in Metroid Fusion across my lifetime.

It was my comfort game until Dread came out.

I did also play a lot of strategy games because they were what was available to me on the PCs at my grandparents’ place and at the family house in Jersey.

Dune II (made by the Command & Conquer studio before they made Command & Conquer, and was ironically my introduction to Dune, which is hilarious given the inaccuracies in that game to the actual lore of Dune), Anacreon (MSDOS game my dad and I would play, I actually found a reskinned version of it that was able to run on Mac using Wine for a while during high school), and Lego Rock Raiders (I loved the SHIT out of that game and I am sad there is no viable way to play it anymore) were the reason I gravitated towards games like Homeworld and Fire Emblem once I had the ability to branch out.

I got into a lot of RPGs during my preteen years once I bought my DS Lite and was able to get games for it. I got Final Fantasy III as my first DS game. It was my second game for the DS Lite, though, as once I bought it I immediately bought Pokemon LeafGreen to go with it, because…well. Pokemania. I was 11. I don’t know what anyone was expecting.

I also had a lot of people around me that played FPS games despite my parents seeing how obsessed I was with Pokemon and assuming that video games were bad for me somehow and were determined for a LONG time to keep an actual console out of the house, so I had bits and pieces of exposure to Halo and Metroid Prime, but they couldn’t keep consoles out of other people’s houses, so I played some of those games when I went to go hang with friends, or we visited family up north or down south. I eventually learned more or less what types of games I thought were cool, though, which meant…

…I saved up $400 of cash one summer and forced my dad to drive me to GameStop and bought and XBox 360 over his initial protests (because I had backed him into a corner when I managed to save up to buy my own DS Lite) and brought Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed back with me.

The rest is history, at that point my parents realized they couldn’t stop the influx of the gaming consoles (especially since a family friend undermined my parents AGAIN by gifting the family a Wii, which…we kids loved and my parents initially wanted nothing more than to strangle said friend over, until they discovered how good Wii Sports was as a distraction), and from there I have been exploring basically everything ever since.

[punishedsurge]

SBFC 003: My Snake Have Started to Move

Woolie sets up the website, it dies right away and he stays up all night trying to buy better servers and make sure the shit works.

Audible is the first ever sponsor, Woolie says it’s a product he uses and is comfortable advertising. He goes on to list Opie and Anthony as a favorite radio show on the service, he mentions they have Louis C.K interviews on their show. Some comic called Woolie Shitlocks.

[Anthony Cumia got kicked off the show with his name in the title because of racist tirades on Twitter dot com. Louis C.K was cancelled for jerking off in front of people, maybe DON’T do that?]

As Matt cleaned his snake’s tank it escaped the temporary enclosure, he calls out to the silent predator, its name is Jack. “My snake have started to move.”

Pat: Woolie, who are you?

Woolie: A black person.

They make it a point to introduce themselves so the listener knows who is who, and realize they didn’t do it last week.

Woolie: I’m gonna let everyone in on a little secret: Woolie isn’t a nickname.

Pat: That’s not a secret. Are you going to let people know the real secret? As to—

Woolie: NOOO. YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[A mystery we still don’t know, probably.]

They talk about where the podcast is available. [You could listen to them on the Zune, what a fuckin’ throwback.]

On to their weeks:

Liam played Dragon’s Crown. He also watched episode 1 of RWBY, he says the action is good but the characters are shallow and tropey, the rest of the writing doesn’t fare better. He doesn’t think he’ll keep watching it. 6/20 review score.

[RWBY is fairly popular, I only see rule 34 in my feed on the rare occasion.]

Matt has been working on Rustlemania and playing Divekick, is hyped for Killer is Dead. His birthday is today (the day the podcast publishes, they record the day before) so his birthday is coming up.

Pat has an aside. He played Saints Row 4 on pc and tried to fix a texture issue, he ended up having the entire rig shit on itself and then just played Divekick on every other console he has. Dork girl beats his ass with Kenny in every match she picks him. He tried to play FF14 but it was broken so he was unable to, Woolie jokes it’s because of its massive popularity.

Woolie has been mourning his recently bought, pre-owned launch PS3 that was also repaired. The group talks about how many 360 consoles they have burned through; Woolie went through 3, Pat through 4, Liam broke 1 at work, Matt went through 5 at work and only 1 personal console. Woolie laments the issue with getting his saves off the console because apparently PS doesn’t automatically back up your saves digitally? Finally he looked up the podcast’s performance, Ep 002 hit #15 the day it came out.

Gamescom time:

They start with the Xbox showcase, or the lack of anything. They laugh at Fighter Within, Liam calls it flail simulator, Woolie calls it QWOP for Kinect. Matt wants to get a copy of Fighter Uncaged and compare the two games jokingly, he then says the game’s screenshots look nice, like it would be a game he’d play if it were an actual fighting game.

PS4 talk begins with talking about how ugly the red and blue Dualshock controllers are, Pat blames it on the ugly PS4 controller. They agree it’s way more comfortable than the PS3, Pat says it’s 1% better than the 360 pad, “Completely negligible,” he states. Pat feels the Xbone controller is worse and feels bulkier, doesn’t care for the ‘Impulse Triggers’, or rumble in general.

They lust for the White Xbox One, which was ultra limited at the beginning of the console cycle. They spiral down conversations about wanting specific color consoles and cobbling their limited run handhelds together to keep them for longer.

The rest of the news:

Wonderful 101 was meant to be a Nintendo crossover game, similar to Smash Bros. They discuss which weapons would correlate to which character, then Liam says, “Yo, a Captain Falcon character action racing game by Platinum!” Pat and Woolie pog. Pat believes there will a Star Fox-like level in Wonderful 101 that just barely skirts the line of being Star Fox, based on Kamiya’s constant talks about the IP.

[Platinum Games made a Star Fox game in 2016, I think people liked it.]

Matt brings up the issue with potentially making 101 a crossover game, claiming people would complain Nintendo is not making new IPs, but then voices that people are already complaining it’s not a crossover game. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he aptly says.

Pat: The problem is that new IPs are great, but crossovers are rarer than new IPs.

[AYYY LMAOOOO THIS ONE TRULY AGED LIKE SHIT. Sasuke, Doom Guy and Ariana Grande squadded up about to hit 2013 Pat like a fucking Mack truck.]

Rare is ‘kicking around ideas for their IPs’. They lament the state of the studio. Matt states ex-employees said they had dozens of game ideas and Xbox shot them all down because they didn’t include Kinect integration. Woolie and Matt mock Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Pat doesn’t care about the upcoming Killer Instinct reboot, but says he’d care more if Rare was working on it.

[Rare has put out Rare Replay and Sea of Thieves, they worked with the devs who made KI and the newest Battletoads, and Everwild has yet to be a real game. Not a great record, but hey Banjo and Kazooie got into Smash Bros, that’s something I guess. Also Nuts and Bolts walked so TOTK could run. The validity of the last statement is irrelevant because I have played neither.]

This section is dubbed “SNK get your shit together” by Liam. Evidently there are 4 games called KOF Online, this most recent one is a MOBA. They joke about other kinds of weird spinoff games the series could be, RTS, etc. Woolie proposes Metal Slug as a Maple Story type of game.

Blizzard is not opposed to making World of Warcraft free-to-play. Pat claims they’re on the way to it, based on the decline of players in the game. He also mentions cosmetic packs that players can buy have been very successful. Liam asks their guesses for FTP, Pat says in 2016, Woolie mentions ‘Titan’ is delayed until 2016 so he guesses 2015, Matt agrees with someone, Liam says 8 months.

[WoW has maintained ‘free up to level 20’, which was started in 2011 from what I can see, so they’re all wrong. We can all blame WoW whales for the microtransactions hellscape being normalized, fuck you MMO dorks. Titan, a new MMO, was delayed in 2013 but was actually cancelled internally, a small team of 40 (from 140) were tasked with making a new game. They made Overwatch.]

Woolie doesn’t care about the FTP date because the farthest things on his ‘list’ are SF5 and the Mars Mission in 2023, where we’ll be sending humans up to the red planet to colonize.

[Lmao that Mars shit ain’t happening bud, grab a brewski and enjoy the end of the world if you can see through the smoke. Street Fighter 5 released on 2/16/2016, so he didn’t have to wait too long.]

FFXIV relaunched and people are turning around on the game, the problem is the server are entirely busted. [They go into a viewer question that asks which MMOs the boys played, it’s not interesting enough to reiterate here. But Pat did say this:]

Pat: Phantasy Star Online isn’t an MMO. PSO2 is, but you’re never going to get it, shut up.

[PSO2 is on all major consoles and is playable outside of Asia as of 2020, thanks Xbox.]

Fite Game time:

Woolie and Liam played Aquapazza. They like it as a fighting game but are confused as to why *this* one is coming to the West.

Woolie jokes that Undernight Inbirth is coming over, they all agree that it doesn’t need to come over. [It did eventually, as well as its sequel.]

Yatagarasu is getting renamed to Legend of Raven for the Western release, it is also switching from 3DS to Vita. They wonder why the full switch from the different handhelds, Matt says it’s because Nicalis is “a shit publisher that will do anything they can to get the easiest thing….” He is spoken over by Liam and Woolie who adamantly contest his claim.

Woolie says Nicalis deserves respect because he is the guy who convinced Pixel (creator of Cave Story) to get back into making games. Matt’s issue with them is that they promise new games for years, then do not support them. Woolie and Liam are still upset with ‘shit publisher’, Matt doesn’t back down.

Pat tries to divert away from the topic by calling Capcom a shit publisher. They aren’t giving Ace Attorney 5 a retail release, and the WiiU version of Shadow over Mystara has been delayed until September. No one knows why he brought that up during the fite game section.

Ultra Street Fighter 4 is coming out and getting rebalanced. Liam and Pat will fight to the death over Hakan’s oil. Post hit KOs were breaking the game so they took it out.

Killer Instinct has a bit of info. They feel the model for KI is weird with the ‘packs’ that were being introduced, apparently they were different than the new character add-ons and is confusing. Pat would have preferred if they made the whole game then released “Super KI” later like Capcom.

Liam: The biggest bummer for me is that there’s no physical version.

Pat: Hey Liam, get used to that being a bummer.

Matt: Ken Lobb said the physical version will come out way later.

Pat: Oh, I meant in general.

[Killer Instinct’s model is the current model for most fighting games now: launch, add new purchasable characters and costumes, add other free stuff, update until you’re done. Lack of physical releases has only gotten worse, physical is disappearing everyday. I personally don’t care but the choice should remain.]

Pat is concerned about game preservation. If a digital storefront is closing, like Games for Windows Live, the games on it will simply disappear; he also brings up the issue of discs needing to activate via server pinging. He has an opinion about Xbox wanting people to buy into their online infrastructure, even though they have shuttered the OG Xbox online service as well as Games for Windows, though he doesn’t quite finish the thought. He does call those 2 services garbage, however.

[This section is still very relevant, but Pat hasn’t even seen the worst of it yet. Nintendo has closed the Wii, WiiU, and 3DS shops, entirely cutting off the last legal avenue to obtain those games easily; they clearly hate game preservation so it’s a good that emulation is a thing. Xbox has at least tried to get older games onto their backwards compatibility library, though the amount of exemptions is undeniable. We’re still waiting to the Xbox 360 closure coming July 2024, they are vocal about preserving as many titles as possible before then. PS and Xbox are no longer making all-new storefronts it seems, so that’s a plus.]

They have a discussion about how online services lasting longer than it’s initial lifetime is rare, they end up comparing games like APB to digital storefronts, which really aren’t comparable. Pat believes Steam is the gold standard that all other online services should be compared to.

Back to KI [yeah, we’re still on that topic], Ken Lobb promises that KI will be THE first party fighter, they will keep adding onto it rather than make a sequel. A new character was accidentally shown in a Thunder video provided to Gamestrailers, Woolie believes it was Kim-Wu but it is actually Sadira; Maximillian Dood is the only one with the footage of the character so he went sort of viral for it.

Matt thinks all the old characters should be in the game first before a new one, they rip on Spinal for being a dumb skeleton. They also speculate how the returning characters will play.

[Spinal is undoubtably awesome in this KI. The devs release both new and returning characters throughout the game’s life and no one really seemed to complain about all old characters not being before characters like Hisako and Rash.]

Ben Affleck is confirmed the new Batman, “what’s his face” is still Superman. Woolie describes Zack Snyder flicks as ‘cool action, nothing in between.’ Woolie gives Batfleck the benefit of the doubt because of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Pat says Affleck already sucked as Daredevil so he has no faith in the casting. Matt retorts with Chris Evans going from the Human Torch to Captain America. Matt continues with saying people shouldn’t be mad about Batfleck, they should be mad they’re getting ANOTHER Man of Steel movie.

Pat: Ben Affleck has like a 13 movie deal…

Matt: Everyone has a 13 movie deal.

Woolie: Until it tanks.

A bit of an aside, but they get to Mark Hamill voicing the Joker, they state how he’s ‘not doing it anymore’ because Troy Baker is voicing the character in Arkham Origin.

Pat: Troy Baker is going to be the new everything.

[Ben Affleck was fine(?) as Batman. We wasn’t Batman in very many DC movies, cameo or otherwise. Not naming Henry Cavill as Superman is hilarious to hear today because of his status as the unhygienic nerd’s power fantasy come to life: absolutely nothing against the man himself, he’s just a dude. Mark Hamill voiced Joker plenty of times after Arkham Origins; he has stated that he’s no longer interested in portraying Joker now that Kevin Conroy, his Batman, has passed. I hear Troy Baker a lot less nowadays, probably because game devs are avoiding using unionized actors.]

Matt Watch:

He is stalking Trish Stratus, iconic WWE Diva. She owns yoga studios in Toronto called the Stratusphere.

Questions:

“So, has many times has Matt been banned on Neogaf?”

3 times.

“At any point in your life, were you ever sucked up in a shitty card game?”

Woolie: Marvel trading cards, Yomi

Pat: Triple Triad [Answer Validity Contested]

Liam: Magi-Nation, Neopets card game, Legend of the 5 Rings

Matt: Killer Instinct fighting card game, Udon Street Fighter

“Have you ever cosplayed?”

Liam: Brown haired guy in the blue team from Ouendan 2, Neku from TWEWY, Naoto from Person 4.

Woolie: Xavier Stone from Guitar Hero.

“Woolie, why do you hate Deadly Premonition?”

Woolie: I don’t get it. It’s weird in a way I don’t get. It doesn’t appeal to me.

They jokingly talk about the requirement to finish a game before you can dislike it. It leads to Woolie calling out “the i, Robot game.”

Pat: Binary Domain, a great game that you hate because it’s kind of racist.

Woolie: When your black character makes Cole Train look like Nelson Mandela, there’s a problem.

Pat: I wish that Nelson Mandela made Boateng look like Cole Train.

What’s coming up:

Maybe start the next LP, coming 9/1 or 9/2. Rustlemania, one-offs.

[kalimarmar]

Okay I had everything in the tags but I want to say more than I'm comfortable tagging (because those like to show up in tag suggestions), so I'm gonna say it on the post.

My parents also made me stand in the corner. It sucked. I wasn't allowed to sit, fidget, talk, look around, or anything like that. But I wasn't as heavily monitored in the corner as OP, so I could get away with little things like fidgeting. It also seemed to take FOREVER to little adhd me. I hated standing in the corner, but I beat it.

I started pretending my fingers were people climbing the paint-texture on the walls. Sometimes they would fall a couple of inches and regain their grip. Sometimes they'd climb higher than I was tall (of course, this was easier to detect so I'd get caught if I did that). I'd have competitions between my right and left hands. Listening to my dad's footsteps across the atrium behind me let me know when I had to stay still.

One day, when my dad told me I could leave the corner, I refused. I didn't like being told what to do, and in hindsight I also thought it was a good "fuck you" to pretend I was enjoying myself.

I never had to stand in the corner again. Clearly it wasn't a good punishment if I was having fun.

Unfortunately, this meant my parents had to think up new punishments or go back to old ones, like spanking.

My dad threatened to take my door off its hinges because he caught me playing on my ds with the door closed once. I wasn't allowed to lock the door, and even if I did there were like a thousand keys around the house that could be used to unlock it. My parents took away all of my electronics, put monitoring software on my laptop, and used parental controls to get rid of anything fun (including every web browser and the app store) on my phone because I got my first C. The idea was to reduce distractions so I would actually do my homework, but I just drew with paper and pencil instead.

They generally only tried the more creative punishments once each because I apparently fought them too hard.

Here's what infuriated me even as a kid: if I showed any hint of defiance, smart-assery, resistance, or anger, the punishment would continue. It wouldn't stop until I let go of any shred of dignity that I had. I was not allowed to have any sort of control in my own life or decisions.

What I still don't understand is why I was expected to just roll over and take it. I was a kid. I perceived my parents (specifically my dad, the one usually punishing me) as enemies. Why would I willingly submit to an enemy actively trying to hurt me?

The only thing I learned from all this was how to entertain myself with as few resources as possible, and that if I wanted to do something fun, even as harmless as playing video games, I had to hide it.

My parents later admitted to me as an adult that I was a "hard kid to discipline" because I'd find ways around everything they tried.

Even in my 20s I am still feeling the psychological consequences of all of these things. I hate people looking at my screens, be it my phone, handheld gaming consoles, or laptop, because it's too much like when my dad would check to make sure I was doing homework. I still have nightmares about not being able to close my bedroom door. Being embarrassed triggers my fight or flight. I don't trust authority. I can't not stand up for myself when I am being targeted by an unfair boss because I can't stand being powerless, which has gotten me in trouble at work.

Ironically, standing in the corner was the least traumatic thing they did. How fucked up is that?

"I'm doing this because I love you," my dad would say. If that's how he loves, then I don't want his love. I don't want it.

I know I'm not the worst case of things out there, but it is shocking how common stories like mine are. Punishing kids doesn't make sense. Correct them when they are wrong. Teach them to be respectful of the world around them. But punishing them when they make mistakes or even willfully do something wrong? Someone else in the tags said it very well: punishing kids only makes them distrust you. Whatever you do, don't HARM them. Physically OR psychologically. As soon as you do, you become an enemy to be overcome.

when i was a child, once it had become obvious that spanking was considered gauche and extreme among their early-2000s drum-circle-attending hippie friends, my parents moved to a new default punishment: standing in the corner.

it was very simple. when told, i was to stand facing the corner, not moving, until i was told i could stop. in retrospect, the standard seemed to be to leave me until i had entirely stopped crying, then to start counting down some short, arbitrary block of time (maybe 5, 10 minutes) once i was silent and still. at the time, i didn't know this; the corner was a limbo state, it was a place i was suspended indefinitely til my parents considered me appropriate to deal with once again.

i wasn't to fidget, to sit down, make noises, sing or talk to myself. theoretically, i was supposed to "reflect on what i did wrong," although that never happened. i was, what, five? six?

frequently, i would get a cold, nauseating sensation that crept its way up my back. i would feel stiff and tense, the muscles in my neck and shoulders growing rigid, goosebumps prickling. i would feel as though i was being watched. i would sneak a peak over my shoulder at those times; when i saw i was alone, i would shift and stand on one foot for a bit, then the other, in order to take the weight off the other and ease some of my aches. sometimes i would start whispering to an imaginary friend, or lean against the wall. anything i knew i was not allowed to do, that i could immediately stop when i heard one of my parents approaching.

one specific time, i got that sensation. the creeping dread, the deep bonesickness of feeling watched. i snuck a peek over my shoulder.

my father had crept into my room, and was watching me silently.

"face the corner," he said.

i did.

almost as an afterthought, he told me i had earned myself more time.

the horror this evokes in me can't be described; it's a sheer, yawning precipice of paranoia, buttressed by the casual, uncaring authority of a parent-god, the architect of the childhood panopticon so utterly foreign, so removed from your world, that they not only do not, but cannot comprehend the pain and fear they're inflicting on you. my feet hurt. my legs hurt. my back ached. i was itchy and damp, utterly helpless, bound by rules i didn't understand and at the mercy of beings whose feelings and responses were utterly unpredictable and incomprehensible.

my father wanted to go play a video game.

i write a lot of horror that i don't think most people would automatically classify as "horror." most of it is an attempt to capture this feeling: the shaky, racing terror of survival without knowing the rules, the stakes, even the consequences. the understanding that anything could be a wrong move, that self-preservation can be punished. or it can be rewarded. or it can go entirely ignored. i want to capture that nauseating, paranoid dread and bottle it. every room is an escape room, the win conditions are up to the gamemaster, and he will change them. he always changes them.

maybe he's watching. maybe he went to the bathroom. maybe he forgot about you. you could always try looking over your shoulder to see.

[obeymedevil]

Obey Me x M!Reader 

Summary: After getting overwhelmed and bursting into tears, the 7 brothers try to support you the best they can. They'd do anything to see you smile again. They love you so much, Mc!

A/N: I hope you guys like this! If any of you ever need somebody then just dm me. I'm here for you all! Guess who just got their accounts back? I did! Everything works fine and I'll finally be trnding to your requests after long last hehe. I'm thrilled to be back posting again! ♡ It's a reupload because nobody could see the first I posted oops- but its all fixed :3

Warnings: Anxiety mentions and being overwhelmed. Lots of fluff! ☆ Not proofread just yet but will be. ♡

(Tip here if you'd like to!)

Breathe with me.

Things had felt heavy all day weighing upon your shoulders and pushing against your chest. In class at RAD academy, had people been talking about you? Maybe not but their gaze lingered on you for more than a second and that had shaken you up alone. Let alone the amount of work that just didn't seem to be registering in your head. Currently you were in your room, laying on your bed and staring at the ceiling - vision blurred. Things had been getting better since your arrival to the Devildom but it was always bound to sneak back up on you again. It had always felt like a dark cloud hovering above your head only that you'd have no idea when a storm was coming.

 A light knock on your door caught your attention, momentarily pulling your mind away from that devastatingly heavy cloud.

"Mc?" Satan's voice sounded from outside the door. "Dinners ready, aren't you coming down?" In all honesty you really didn't feel like it. But, truth be told, if you didn't go down then everyone would worry. All you had to do was last until the end of dinner, then you could just relax and maybe get these tears out of your system.

"Yeah! I'll be down in a moment!" Listening to his footsteps getting further and further away, you decided to finally head down after wiping your face a little. This could work! The perfect distraction is 7 demon brothers, the amount of chaos that ensues every dinner would be brilliant. You allowed your feet to begin to drag you out of your room and down the hallway resulting in those lovely mixture of voices to get clearer.

"Mammon, we don't need another lecture on your schemes for more grimm at dinner." Lucifer sighed, probably with his head in his hands at this point. 

"Nah nah, ya gotta hear me out this time!" Walking forward you watched as he leaned across the table. "I'm tellin' ya this is perfect and it's gonna work this time!" Already you started to giggle a little at his antics, this would be a breeze.

"Ah, Mc!" Asmo cooed as he looked over at you, "I saved you a seat beside me!" Smiling at him in return you sat yourself between Asmo and Levi before gazing at your rather delicious looking dinner. Your eyes however soon shifted their focus to Levis gaming console in his hands. 

"What game are you playing, Levi?" His eyes instantly lit up at your voice, finally joining the real world. 

"Ah here, look! It's a more chill game. You can cook and stuff like that!" Lucifer once again let out a long and rather drawn out sigh.

"Mhm and instead of cooking in this game of yours, shouldn't you be focusing on your actual dinner?" Levi gulped a little at his older brother's voice, shoving his handheld console into his deep Pocket. 

"Ah... Oh yeah. Mc, I'll show you more later okay?" He grinned at you before shoving forkfuls of his meal into his mouth. Mammon's eyes soon moved onto you with a rather mischievous smile. Oh no. What does he want?

"Hey Mc, do ya wanna-" 

"No." The words were caught in your throat as Belphie spoke them first in his sleepy haze. "He doesn't want to hear anymore of your schemes." Belphie had appeared to save you pretty quickly which meant that you could just shrug and put the chaos on hold until you felt a little better within yourself.

"Aw c'mon he hasn't ever heard me out yet!" Giggling lightly at his words, you hummed a little.

"Later I promise Mammon, 'kay?" Your words seemed to settle him down pretty quickly as he slumped back in his chair, arms folded with a proud smirk against his lips.

"Hmph, see? That's my human." Shaking his head, Lucifer breathed a light sigh of relief as his eyes met your own - Softening instantly.

"Mc, how are you anyway hm? It's unlike you to be late to dinner-" Soft sobs cut him off as you began to cry almost instantly at his calm and gentle tone. 

"Mc!" Beels face instantly softened as he rushed over to you and in the Process abandoning his food. You're way more important than food. His hand gently placed itself on your shoulder and once you leaned into his touch he pulled you into his chest for the warmest bear hug you've ever experienced. Your sobs were muffled by his shirt as his hand rubbed soothing circles against your back. It didn't take long before the rest of the brothers rushed over and began to fuss over you.

"Hey hey it's okay lovely!" Asmo hummed lightly, moving your hair away from your face so it didn't irritate you further. He cooed softly at how sweet you looked with the other half of your face squished against beeIs chest. He just wanted to protect you... They all did.

"Human! We're here. What's wrong? Are ya hurt? Not feelin' well?" His hand soon held your own and you held it with dear life causing Mammon's usual protective instinct with you to go into overdrive. Levi and Satan were sharing comforting words with you all whilst rubbing your back. Belphie was beside his twin, worried as ever but not wishing to overwhelm you - he knew you were safe in his twin's arms though and he wouldn't hesitate to end anybody who attempted to harm you. Lucifer soon walked over, Concern lacing his eyes as he crouched down and held his hand against your cheek to catch some fears with his thumb.

"Hey hey... I'm sorry Mc. Did I upset you, love?" His words were So gentle and loving which just resulted in a light whine from you. But an apology from the Avatar of Pride even though he didn't do a thing wrong? Well he just loves you so much… His sin is nothing compared to how much he and his brothers adore you!

"N- no… 'm sorry i'm just upset. Anxious." You managed to barely form a sentence through your tears but the boys knew exactly what to do. With a gentle nod from Lucifer, Beel softly scooped you up into his arms and allowed you to hide your face against his neck. 

"That's Okay Mc, it's okay…" Satan soothed as Belphie left, only to return and begin wrapping you up in what you taught them was called a 'blanket burrito'. They all soon brought you to the main room before all of them held you closely in their arms.

"We won't ever let anything harm you no matter what." Beel spoke as Belphie wiggled his cow printed pillow into your arms with a soft smile. 

Letting you relax and lay back against Beel, Satan soon sat before you with a gentle smile.

"Breathe with me okay?" With ragged breaths you began to follow his lead.

"Breathe in for four seconds.

1...2…3…4

Hold for four.

1…2…3…4

Breathe out for four seconds.

1…2…3…4

Hold for four.

1…2…3…4

Let's repeat this Okay?"

You both repeated this until your breathing evened out and those tears slowly came to a halt, an occasional hiccup being the reminder of your tears. Satan soon praised you for doing so well as Mammon held onto your hands. 

"Hear that human? Ya did good! I'm so proud of you…" Lucifer soon smiled as he gazed at you softly.

"Please Mc, always tell us when things get to you okay? We will forever be here for you." With a gentle nod and tired smile you mumbled out a gentle thank you.

"Thank you all so so much…" Asmo Stood up rather abruptly.

"Now I think a self care day is in order!"

Be prepared for Skincare, your favourite movies and shows with literally all of your favourite snacks. Well... Most of the snacks considering Beels puppy eyes absolutely melting you. A giant cuddle pile would soon ensue during the movie filled with sleepy brothers and a sleepy you.

"Mc?" Levis' hushed voice soon piped up among the piles of blankets.

"Yeah Levi?" You whispered back, giggling a little at the hushed conversation coming from a very sleepy Levi.

"Love you, Mc. Let's play that game together tomorrow… All our favourite games."

"That sounds good! I promise we will Levi.♡"