#they’re both so stupid and unreasonable it’s so funny

[starlooove]

OK LAUREL LMAOOO

[wolfofansbach]

BEING A LIST OF THE THIRTEEN GREATEST RIVERDALE LINES, ON THE OCCASION OF THAT SHOW'S TERMINATION

As our much loved/hated show comes to an end, I feel compelled to record, for posterity, the greatest thirteen pieces of dialogue to spring from the pens of RAS and his henchmen. It was, of course, originally a top ten list, but I simply could not exclude a few of these treasures. Without further ado: 

13. 

“I dropped out in the 4th grade, to sell drugs, to support my nana.” 

“That means you haven't known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football.” 

Spoken by: an inmate of Leopold and Loeb Juvenile Detention Center, and Archie Andrews. 

In: 3 x 2 

Yeah, okay, this one had to be on the list. It’s funny, I’ll admit. It’s a great example of the overwrought semi-sincere melodrama that helped make this show so special. It’s low on the list largely because The Normies got their hands on it, so every time I hear someone make a reference I get all “do not cite the deep magic to me, witch.” 

12. 

“No! No! What are we supposed to do now? I’m horny as heck!”

Spoken by: Archie Andrews 

In: 7 x 16

Season 7 is undeniably dreadful, and yet there are diamonds in the rough. The occasion is the failure of a projector, just as Archie and Reggie prepare to watch a pornographic film. The utter desperation with which KJ Apa delivers this line is exquisite. One is made to feel they are witnessing a genuine tragedy. 

11. 

“Tonight, they’re making an exception and debuting a cover of the song my parents claim they were listening to the night Jason and I were conceived.” 

Spoken by: Cheryl Blossom. 

In: 1 x 1 

Really a fantastic line. A wonderful encapsulation of the casual absurdity of Cheryl’s character, and a foretaste of the lunacy we would plumb in later episodes and seasons. 

10. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird. I’m a weirdo. I don’t fit in and I don’t want to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That’s weird.” 

Spoken by: Jughead Jones

In: 1 x 10

A genuine classic. “High school football” before “high school football.” One is never entirely sure just how sincere the line is meant to be, both on a meta-level and in-universe. A perfect illumination of Jughead’s pretentiousness. It is made all the better by the occasional cuts to Lili Reinhard’s agonized face. 

9. 

“At the last dance, multiple students were murdered.” 

Spoken by: Principal Holden Honey. 

In: 4 x 2

Delivered as an explanation to Toni and Cheryl, as to why there would be no school dance this year. Principal Honey is in fact supremely rational in the cancellation of this dance. This being Riverdale, he is of course treated as an unreasonable tyrant. 

8. 

“Bro, I know all the secrets of this universe.” 

Spoken by: Archie Andrews (evil version)

In: 6 x 5 

Spoken as evil Archie reveals his evil plan to keep the parallel universes apart. KJ Apa’s delivery once again makes this line. He is comically sinister. Strangely, he sells it. 

7. 

“A Vughead kiss, right now, in the present might be precisely what it takes to save a future Bughead from imploding.” 

Spoken by: Jughead Jones. 

In: 2 x 14

One of those lines that both makes me laugh and makes me genuinely angry. This was a fairly early season, and this may have actually been the first line to get me asking, ‘did they genuinely write and deliver that?’ Extra points for use of the atrocious ‘Vughead’ portmanteau ship name rather than ‘Jeronica.’ 

6. 

“I’m the ultimate wild card. I am the daughter of The Black Hood. The nightmare from next door. I’m training with the FBI and I’m coming for you, you psycho bitch.” 

Spoken by: Betty Cooper

In: 4 x 14 

Just delicious. Another one of those lines that leaves you somewhat unsure whether or not the writers understood how genuinely hysterical it was. “The Nightmare from Next Door” sounds like an announcer hyping up a wrestler. Spoken with a raw sincerity by Lili Reinhart. Also points for the heavy homoeroticism between Betty and Donna. 

5. 

“For I am Cheryl Blossom, Queen of the Bees.” 

Spoken by: Cheryl Blossom.

In: 5 x 16. 

This one really doesn’t require any elaboration. 

4. 

“Elijah ascended…and I will, too.” 

Spoken by: Edgar Evernever.

In: 4 x 5. 

Admittedly, this one is only spectacular with context. But in context—the context being that Chad Michael Murray delivers this line while dressed like Evel Knievel and standing in a cartoon rocket right out of a Warner Bros cartoon—it becomes utterly magnificent. 

3. 

“It’s not queer baiting, it’s saving the world.” 

Spoken by: Veronica Lodge. 

In: 6 x 22. 

It’s actually hard for me to decide whether this one is funnier with or without context. Without context it’s wonderful, but it possibly becomes even funnier when you know that the context is that Veronica needs to kiss Cheryl to transfer superpowers into her body so she can turn into a Scarlet Witch knock-off and stop a magic comet summoned by Sephiroth an English wizard who is also the Devil. 

2. 

“If there’s no wedding reception, it means the Gargoyle King has won.” 

Spoken by: Kevin Keller. 

In: 3 x 12.

One of my personal favorites. This is a perfect line because like #3, it requires no real elaboration. There is absolutely no context in which it isn’t hysterical. 

1 .

“Word of my exploits serving Nick his comeuppance has seeped into the demimonde of mobsters and molls my father used to associate with, so the five families are sending their youngest and brightest, their ‘princes,’ as it were to, well, come court the rare Mafia Princess who can belly up to the bar with the big boys.

Spoken by: Veronica Lodge. 

In: 2 x 20. 

This is, in my opinion, the all-timer. Every word is perfect. The rapid-fire alliteration. The use of the word ‘demimonde.’ The entirely unnecessary addition of ‘as it were.’ This is borderline Dr. Seuss. The fact that Camila Mendes delivered it without cracking a smile should have won her an Emmy. No. An Oscar. This line is Riverdale. 

[dragonsdendoodles]

similar vein to that other ask but opposite, what do you think enoch and horace would argue about non trivially, like the worst disagreement theyve had

Oh good lord angst time. Buckle up kids today we’re going over why my friends yell at me. Fair warning this one’s also gonna be long

So there are two scenarios. One where Horace is the one hurt, and one where Enoch is.

I think whatever it is either way, it started small. I think generally they’d be good at communication, having picked that up from Hugh and Fiona, but it was, at the time, a small issue. It was not a stupid issue, because if it were a stupid issue it would turn into an argument about the argument itself.

The two things that made the first scenario significantly worse:

1. We have seen how Enoch is just in general. He has zero filter and he’s a jerk and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes he takes it a bit too far. I think, very similarly to myself, he can’t actually tell. He can tell when he’s hurt someone, but he doesn’t actually know what it was that hurt them. We’ve also seen him argue with people quite a lot, which leads me to believe he can be pretty volatile.

2. My headcanon for Horace being upset is that whenever he is, he gets in his head until he’s convinced himself that if he voices his concerns with whoever upset him (especially Enoch) he’s either going to be yelled at again and it’ll go nowhere or he’ll bother them more by bringing it back up and that combined with blaming himself for the whole thing means that eventually he just kind of shuts down. Stops talking. Waits for it to go away.

Normally, if I were writing them in this fashion (surprise surprise, I have a fic draft where I am,) Enoch would pester Horace about whatever he’s upset about until he fesses up, they talk it out, kiss a little, after an hour of trying to get this out of him it’s over in ten minutes.

However, if they were to get into a Big Actual Fight about whatever it was, I think Enoch would not have the patience to sit and deflect Horace’s “I’m fine/nothing’s wrong/you didn’t do anything/I’m just being stupid”s for as long as he usually has to. If Horace’s stubbornness wins out instead of Enoch’s and Enoch is both upset that Horace won’t ever fucking talk to him and doesn’t have near enough patience to keep pushing the issue to be able to have the information to resolve it, Enoch decides fine. If you’re going to be like this, then I’ll let you fucking be like this until you can be a fucking adult and actually fucking talk to me. Except that doesn’t come out like that, it’s Enoch, so it comes out as insults. Horace snaps back because the insults were uncalled for, Enoch snaps back because oh we’re doing this now, and neither knows who raised their voice first but now they’re both yelling. It gets messy. Someone gets called unreasonable, the other asks why he’s even still with him if he’s so horrible, the first asks why the hell he’d even say that when he knows why (the answer is he’s not, they’re both just pissed off and throwing words at each other to see what sticks,) it goes on for maybe twenty minutes tops. They get tired of crying and screaming at each other so depending on how bad they need one, one of them hugs the other and they actually talk about it or one of them goes away to calm himself down and process everything and then they hug and talk about it. Things are a little shaky for a while, but for the most part they’re just relieved it’s over and for some reason the other is still here and still loves them and isn’t leaving anytime soon. They apologized, they solved the issue by sitting down and talking about it, so for the most part everything’s okay now. There might be a day or so of walking on eggshells for fear of it happening again, but for all the hurt and all the shouting, chances are they don’t even remember what they were arguing about in the first place.

The important canon point and headcanon for the second option: Horace is shown in (at least my reading of) the books to be a bit of a people-pleaser. He does not like confrontation, he does not like upsetting people, he is too anxious and would much rather just Not Deal With That. Because of this, I am of the opinion that when he is in a particularly anxious mood or if he can sense that something is going wrong and he needs to fix it, he’ll make something up to hopefully dissipate the situation. (Think Dear Evan Hansen but on a lesser scale. It would not go farther than one person in this instance.) He knows it’s a terrible habit to have, and he is genuinely trying to fix it, but occasionally something slips out involuntarily and he feels horrible about it.

The biggest problem with that, other than the habit of being a compulsive liar: it doesn’t work. It works on people he doesn’t know, because they don’t know what his face means when he says something and then immediately gets even more nervous, but his friends and Miss Peregrine absolutely do. He knows they can tell and he is genuinely trying to fix it, so he just as quickly apologizes and corrects himself. It still hurts the other person, but it’s better than doubling down, which used to be how that would go because this all started to get himself out of trouble.

It hurts everyone involved and Horace absolutely hates that he does it, but the worst person he could do it to is Enoch. Because now his own boyfriend can’t fucking trust him and if there is one thing that pisses off Enoch more than pretty much anything else, it’s being lied to. And Enoch can and will call him on it. Immediately. Horace is doing his best to stop that from happening and chooses his words very carefully when he’s nervous in an effort to prevent it, but occasionally he gets paranoid that he’s done something Enoch won’t like and then he gets careless and forgets and then it’s just about getting out of this and uh oh.

When that happens, Enoch stops talking to him for a while. If Horace tries to say something, they fight about it and it’s an argument Horace cannot win because Enoch’s right. He should be able to trust and be honest with him, but for some reason he was scared enough to convince himself he couldn’t, and now Enoch can’t trust him. Once Enoch comes back from processing everything, they have a serious talk about why he said what he did and the thought process behind it and why Horace thought lying to him about whatever the completely innocent thing was would be a good idea and this cannot happen again. Horace understands and apologizes and tries to make up for it because that’s all he can do, and Enoch’s still upset about it for a while, but eventually he trusts Horace again and the issue is resolved. Neither of them feel good about the situation until it’s all but forgotten in a few weeks, after they’ve built that trust back up.

In writing this I realized that one can very easily lead into the other, so for all intents and purposes if we start with one and it becomes two, the argument stays two and two cannot turn back into one. It’s no longer about whatever actually caused it, it’s about the fact that now one of us is just saying things to appease the other and that habit happens to be the one thing that had it been literally anyone else that relationship of any kind would have been over.

Neither of these happens often. They are very good at communication generally, having been friends and best friends long before they were boyfriends, so 99.9% of the time if something happens that would cause an argument, they sit down and actually talk it out and it’s fine. This is just that .1% where it gets pretty bad. They understand each other better than even they think they do sometimes, so they come out okay, if not for a couple bad memories. They do talk about those bad memories sometimes as well, especially if it started with an insecurity of one of them, and they make sure that whatever it was all is forgiven and nothing is permanently damaged. If there’s damage left over, they talk about it immediately and do whatever needs to be done to resolve it. Neither holds grudges against the other.

[likecastle]

Ronance Femslash February - “I’m scared”

Thank you to the anon who sent the prompt “im scared”! I considered going in a more dramatic direction with this, something dire and last-night-on-earth-y, but I, uh, didn’t do that. Have some kissing instead!

I’m accepting Ronance prompts all month for Femslash February. Don’t be shy! You can find previous prompts I’ve filled here.

Please be advised this included a character who is anxious about having sex for the first time, a tiny little dash of internalized homophobia, and some very mild D/s themes. I would probably give this a teen rating still, maybe creeping towards mature.

It’s funny. Robin is scared of a lot of things. Rabies. Earthquakes. Doctors. Driving, although she’ll never admit that to Steve. In the old days, she used to think of herself as a fearful person, wound unreasonably tight about a lot of everyday things that plenty of other people seem to navigate without any trouble. But for all her hang-ups, the past few years have shown Robin that she’s actually pretty brave. She’ll spit in the face of a man holding her hostage, and dive into an interdimensional portal to save her best friend. It’s like she gets past a certain threshold of terror and whatever voice she hears in the back of her head urging her to overthink everything just shuts off.

Evidently, she hasn’t reached that breaking point yet tonight, because she’s trembling hard under her skin—the sort of tremor that doesn’t show in her hands, but that has every inch of her vibrating all the way down to her bones.

Nancy’s hands pause on the buttons of her blouse, and her eyes go wide. “Robin? Are you OK?”

“Totally,” Robin says, but her throat is so tight around the word that she knows that nobody could possibly believe her. She’s already blowing this, and they haven’t even gotten their clothes off yet. “Absolutely,” she croaks, as if doubling down is going to help. “Never better.”

“No, you’re not,” Nancy says firmly. Her hands come to rest on Robin’s upper arms, a reassuring pressure. “What’s wrong?”

Robin tries to breathe and mostly doesn’t, her breaths far too shallow to be of much use. She doesn’t know how to answer Nancy’s question. Because it’s stupid. It’s completely, totally stupid. She loves Nancy. She wants to have sex with her, like, a lot. They’ve talked about this, ad nauseum, and they’ve both agreed they’re ready. “It’s just—I’m scared. I guess.”

Nancy’s worried expression softens into something impossibly fond. “What about, d’you think?”

Robin chokes out a thin laugh, because the list of worries crowding to the forefront of her mind is so long she doesn’t even know where to start. That having sex will screw things up between them somehow. That she’ll be so bad at it that Nancy will say, Sorry, I’ve actually decided I’m not into girls anymore, and then Robin will have to crawl into a hole and die. That, impossibly, her dad will barge in, despite the fact that they’re not even at Robin’s house. That having sex with a girl is somehow a line that can’t be uncrossed, and even though Robin’s always, always been sure that this is what she wants, wanting it and actually doing it are two different things, and some part of her way in the back of her head can’t help being scared that this is going to make being gay real in a way that it hasn’t been so far, even though if anyone else said that to her out loud she’d punch them in the face. But she can’t say any of this to Nancy, can’t even find the breath to explain herself, so instead she just shrugs. To her supreme embarrassment, she feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

“Can I—?” Nancy holds her arms out, the universal gesture for a hug, and Robin nods miserably. Nancy enfolds her in her arms, and they stand there like that, Robin’s arms awkwardly at her sides, Nancy’s palms warm on her shoulder blades. “We don’t have to, you know,” Nancy says quietly. “Not now, not ever, if you don’t want to.”

“I do,” Robin manages. She buries her face in Nancy’s shoulder. “I really, really do.”

“OK,” Nancy says easily, like they’re talking about what to get for dinner. One of her hands drifts up and tangles in Robin’s hair, and the gentle tug of Nancy’s fingers through her tangled hair undoes some of the tension at the center of Robin’s chest. It’s kind of incredible, actually, how much more grounded she feels, with just this little sting on her scalp.

“Can you . . .” She recognizes, even as she says it, that this is maybe not a good idea, that, on balance, what she’s about to ask is maybe a little bit fucked up, but now that it’s occurred to her, it’s too tempting to resist. “Do that again? But harder this time?”

Nancy draws back to look at her, with a searching expression on her face—not quite worried, but curious. “Really?”

“Just—” Robin shrugs a little. “Go with me on this?”

Nancy nods, slow and thoughtful. And then she tightens her hand in Robin’s hair and tugs—hard. Robin moans, embarrassingly loud and almost helpless with relief, and suddenly the buzzing under her skin isn’t nerves anymore, but something white hot.

Whatever’s happening on her face, Nancy must take it as a sign to keep going, because she leans in and kisses Robin, her hand still gripping Robin’s hair so tight her scalp is tingling. And then Nancy draws her lower lip between her teeth and bites, and Robin’s knees buckle so deliciously. There it is, she thinks, distantly, and then she’s crossing it: the threshold she couldn’t figure out how to cross on her own. After that, she’s not afraid anymore, not even a little.

[tineteenieworld3]

This is off my most recent post, but I’m gonna keep talking about Mike Wheeler because I absolutely adore his character. So, we get two scenes in season 4 that really tell us, almost directly, what is going on with Mike. Of course, they’re both with Will because getting anything out of Mike when he’s with anyone else is nearly impossible. As I said in my last post, and as we all know, Mike is extremely observant and constantly aware of Will. He pays detailed attention to him.

The first time we see into Mike’s brain is the rink fight. We’ve all talked about it, but let’s do it again. For anyone with a brain (all of us) it’s very easy to understand what’s going on. Mike isn’t angry at Will, he’s angry with himself and is projecting that. We can pick that up pretty easily when he says, “you sabotaged the whole day.” He’s making very strange and unreasonable arguments or reasons to be upset with Will. He starts of their tiff by saying Will should have told him El was being bullied. In my opinion, it’s pretty clear he wants to start an argument and is angry at himself for more reasons than we can easily see. He’s not stupid, he knows why Will didn’t tell him about El, he knows it’s probably a ridiculous thing to say but it’s something, its like he’s purposefully trying to rile Will up. The douche part finally gets a full ass reaction out of Will and that’s where Mike jumps into this ridiculous argument that’s kinda out of left field.

He quickly uses El to talk about Will and says things he’s obviously been holding in. He talks about Will’s mannerisms and attitude, he moves so far away from the original point that it’s strange El was even used to begin their argument. Mike didn’t want to talk about her, he didn’t have interest in that, he wanted to talk about Will. It’s funny though because when Will easily combats what he’s saying in the first part (before the friends mic drop) Mike kinda backtracks, probably feels guilty and uncomfortable and tries to get out of it. Will is like no fuck you, ‘what about us!’

Going back to my original point, it’s easy to understand all of Mike’s actions up to that point when he says “we’re friends!” The famous line. It clicks as to what he’s dealing with. He obviously has romantic feelings for Will and that’s what’s on his mind during their whole day and fight. We his his face slip when Will says ‘what about us’ it’s a perfect example of ‘his mask fell for just a moment’. The friends line is a ‘gotcha’ moment for the audience. We can go all the way back to the airport and piece it together with ease. Mike has romantic feelings for Will and is absolutely terrified and defensive over that. That is the moment we understand Mike for the rest of the season. They basically told us straight up what was happening with him and a lot of people ignored it cause gay and not straight.

[the-cryptographer]

2 for Fenris and for Merrill for the question meme!

Best boy and best girl <3 <3 <3

Thank you <3 I feel like I'm just going to repeat all the things I've already said about them in various other places but, whoa-kay, let's go!

002 | Give me a character: FENRIS

How I feel about this character: Ugh, god. Best boy in the whole series. I relate a lot to his feelings of betrayal, his fear of vulnerability, the obsession with his own capacity for evil, and his everpresent need to rationalise and overthink to try to justify or curtail the needs propelling his behaviour. And outside of me, I think his capcity to be adoring and gushy with the people he loves is very endearing. He’s also imo the companion who has the best visible character growth arc in the series. It’s so lovely watching him come into his own identity over his time in Kirkwall, and I love seeing how he changes between the three acts of the game &lt;3

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Anders. Justice. Isabela. Merrill, kinda. In the unlikely circumstance that she gets to do something fucked up enough in the name of protecting him to give him a boner. Hawke, when Hawke looks and behaves in ways that are nothing like actual canon Hawke. (Rant incoming.) Aveline and Donnic, maybe? I feel like I haven’t figured out a way to make it work that’s not just him being their exotic unicorn which makes me want to punch them both (hope you understand) so I can’t actually justify this one. Velanna would be funny too. I have the need to see it happen.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Merrill. God, she is just- a friggin hilariously awful troll to him in canon and I always wanna take it further. Her talking down to this amnesiac, making excuses for the fact that her little brother elf is very stupid ‘forgive him! he only has seven years of life experience to draw from!’ In a terrible, awful, and funny way, I think Merrill having this connection to another elf she can relieve some of this First to the Keeper condescention onto is nice for her. And Fenris having an elf blood mage in his life that the last thing he needs to do is try to protect or even be nice to is nice for him. They’re both great. Five stars.

My unpopular opinion about this character: He’s got the worst canon romance in the whole game. (Rant incoming.) But within the worst canon romance of the whole game, he has the best scene for helping Hawke grieve Leandra. Idk, I’ve been in Hawke’s shoes there, and I wish I’d had someone like Fenris with me. Who knew there was nothing to say to make it better, but was willing to be there regardless.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: (Rant) Literally any overt textual acknowledgement anywhere that Fenris has made Hawke the outlet for his conditioning with Danarius - following Hawke around to protect him, killing people on Hawke’s command, wearing the Amell coat of arms in the romance, voicing his love for Hawke in the terms of possessive ownership (‘I am yours’), and showing unwavering devotion in the midst of the people around them saying dehumanising racist things about Fenris that Hawke makes absolutely no efforts to stop (ie. Carver calling Fenris Hawke’s ‘pet elf’ in the combat commands). Literally any overt acknowledgement that Hawke is a Hightown noble and Fenris is an elvhen foreigner and second-class citizen that relies on Hawke’s goodwill for immediate physical protection against slave hunters. Literally any overt acknowledgement that, in the fenhawke romance scene, Hawke decided that Fenris impulsively kissing them, directly after Fenris faced down his abuser and learned he had a sister, was an invitation for both pinning Fenris against a wall and any sex that followed after. Literally any overt acknowledgement that this is a completely unreasonable situation to expect someone with a history of abuse and slavery and child grooming be comfortable flexing their own agency and right to not consent to sex. Except perhaps after it’s already happened, which is when Fenris finally does so. I don’t know - I don’t even fully blame Hawke for not understanding some of this but... Man, I want Fenris to get ANGRY about some of it. I think he should go a little feral. I want him to unapologetically do more things that aren’t in Hawke’s best interests, but his own. Maybe unapologetically do some things in his own best interests that screw Hawke over entirely.

my OTP: Ugh, yeah, it’s fenders. And I hate saying that right after I’ve gone on that (Rant) up there ^ because I feel like it definitely makes me look like bitchy ship war trash. I swear it’s not like that! (I’m not sure I’d believe me either) Anyhow, yeah, disclaimer is I know Anders is a racist no-boundaries asshole menace. And I think any portrayal of this relationship worth a damn has Anders dial back the aggression and at least tacitly acknowledging that it’s unfair to ask Fenris to take up mage liberation as his cause. But, man, they want so much of the same things out of a realtionship. Like, a connection that fulfills their every cathartic desire for family and domesticity and safety - the safety to be just unreservedly gushy and devoted and adoring with their partner and ‘I’d commit attrocities for you’. They are both sooo intense in their romance scenes. It is TOO MUCH. Too much for anyone but one another, I mean. They should try fucking that out with one another. Also, like, nice tasty foils goodness of two ex-slaves with WILDLY different experiences of it. I think what gets me about Fenris is that he’s clearly internalised a lot of apologist rhethoric about his own slavery. Like the idea that someone sufficiently dangerous should be enslaved for the safety of others. Which you know is something that people in Tevinter said about him, Mr LyriumWolf BioWeapon. I think Fenris is quick to project this POV onto Anders and, in the moments when Anders makes these angry comments about how Fenris is a violent monster, I feel like you can hear Fenris bracing for the conclusion that he thus does not deserve to be free or deserve Hawke et al’s help fighting off his would-be captors. Because I don’t think he has the self-confidence and rhethoric to really argue against that. But, like, even if he’ll talk a lot of smack about Fenris in other ways, this just isn’t somewhere that Anders is going to take things. Because Anders believes that there are inherent rights to being a person and violences nobody deserves. And this is also something Anders has had the self-assuredness and presence of mind to argue for himself and other mages, even when the entire rest of the world is working against him. And that’s something about Anders that I think in the right circumstances that Fenris could be a little awed by and take inspiration from. A little more willingness to burden others with his problems, and to believe in and advocate for himself - that he deserves better, and that he deserved better even when he was at his worst. That’s what the ship is about for me.

my cross over ship: I got nothing.

a headcanon fact: I seem to have a lot of opinions about the books he likes to read. He likes reading nonfiction, history and economics and architecture. And also poetry. He does not like Varric’s pulp novels, lol.

--

002 | Give me a character: MERRILL

How I feel about this character: Ugh, god. Best girl in the whole series. I love how sweet and thoughtful she can be, and how she’ll extend goodwill towards the other companions at their lowest even when they obstinately haven’t done much to ‘deserve’ it from her. But it’s the moments when she’s not being sweet at all that that I really start to love her. Like, the way she’ll bait people like Aveline and Sebastian and Anders and Fenris with these ‘innocent’ questions that are so brimming with passive-aggressive missle-guided criticism (Asking Aveline why she doesn’t arrest them, and whether Aveline’s a bad guard, and watching Aveline get defensive about it, is one example of many that come to mind.) She’s just very cutting and insightful in all the right moments. And... even though I don’t feel like I agree with the general dogma of the game about blood magic, I do think through that conflict they captured Merrill’s own inability to accept critique well. I think it’s something you see a lot in people with a history of emotional abuse like Merrill, where she’s been criticised so much for anything she tries to do, that she’s just become completely unable to engage with any well-intentioned critique anymore, so she gets very withdrawn and stubborn instead. This is actually the last section of the meme I’m filling out and I’m a bit out of steam. I don’t feel like I really did best girl justice with this description but WRAAAAGH- Know that I love her to pieces.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Anders. Hawke. I realise that Hawke is pretty patronising and paternalistic with her in the canon romance, and I’m not sure I can even say it’s less exploitative than fenhawke up there ^  But she is the character that I tend to come around on wanting to romance as Hawke most. Hopefully I find ways to make it work that aren’t, well, upsetting. Fenris, kinda. And Isabela, kinda. As described up there ^ and in the Isabela ask here, respectively. Bethany/Merrill seems cute enough. Carver/Merrill interests me too, but only really in specific circumstances. I feel like the appeal of the ship is them both having inferiority complexes out the wazoo, and all this baggage about their families and not being taken seriously. And then they both come together to act this out on one another and ultimately work past it. Also farmboy hick Carver really projecting the idea of Merrill being this innocent, naive, out-of-her-depth sweet Madonna that knows even less about the world than he does - and then getting slapped with the fact that there are a lot of assumptions he’s making there as a man and a human that are wildly offbase. Haha, get wrecked, Carver! Also Aveline, kinda? It’s hard for me to wholly imagine going much of anywhere without Isabela between them (also because, you know, the Guard’s violences against the Alienage) but I think their friendship is underrated. They have a lot of cute and snazzy banters. I like the one from Mark of the Assassin where Merrill says they should get matching costumes and be crime-fighting partners together. Morrigan, in an angry ‘fuck you shem Eluvian stealer’ way. Dagna, in a ‘magic researchers and science nerds’ way. Pol, in an ‘evil arachnophobia horror’ way. Audacity, in an ‘awful incel tries to posess your mom when you reject him’ way. I have written a LOT of Merrill ships at this point.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Fenris. As per the above response in his section. That said, Fenris actually imo says the worst and cruellest thing anyone says in the whole game, to Merrill. Anders definitely takes the next 4+ spots on the Worst Things These Characters Have Said to One Another List, but #1 for me is definitely Fenris calling Merrill a monster in the immediate aftermath of Pol’s death. What a dick (affectionate).

My unpopular opinion about this character: She is a person capable of evil. That’s what having agency and power are - the capability to do good and evil. That does not mean I think it’s a power that she shouldn’t have and shouldn't cultivate, quite the opposite. So I need more fic about Merrill being sexy and evil (and also taking it up the butt).

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: It’s a shame Merrill’s quests are really so much Dalish infighting. I wish we could have had more information about her actual goals. What she is trying to accomplish with the Eluvian and her work in the Alienage. In her banters we see some pretty scathing opinions about humans and their culture. And I think any work she does organising and helping Alienage elves is ultimately going to be pretty violent and revolutionary, knowing the kind of disenfranchised that Alienage elves are, and knowing Merrill’s own skillset for helping is, um, highly specialised (murder, blood magic, crafting, and more murder). It’s extra disappointing knowing that Justice & Velanna were the original plan for DA2 instead of Justice & Anders. I wish we could have seen Dalish issues be given the kind of weighty treatment that mage issues ended up getting. But, idk... I feel like Trespasser went more in that direction and then just used it to shit all over indiginous cultures so... :/

my OTP: Merders, or Anders/Merrill. I wrote a post once about how I felt these two characters were far more similar than the game wanted to allow, and how I didn’t feel the game gave proper weight to Andrastian Chantry Imperialism as the base cause for both the mage and Dalish genocides. Those are still the ideas I like being at the centre of Anders and Merrill’s relationship. A lot of the vibes from Act 3 in the game are when I really start to feel this relationship because, like- they’re both at that point struggling with the fact that they’ve made huge sacrifices and concessions to seeing through their goals, and neither are sure that they can actually accomplish those goals anymore, and neither really feels like they can be dogmatically assured that they alone are correct or that the ends don’t justify the means they have each chosen. And I like how she seems a bit in awe of his determination and resillience in spite of that. Also Merrill’s nonreaction to TLS, lol. Going off what I said about Chantry Imperialism - I think of all the companions, Merrill easily has the most reason to want to see Anders wipe the Kirkwall Chantry off the face of the damned map. On a more personal note, I like exploring the kind of condescending protectiveness that Anders feels towards Merrill as another mage, and how Merrill both invites this and rejects this at different points, as it reminds her of Marethari’s controlling/sabotaging protectiveness. And also I like when Anders is a racist asshole and harangues Merrill about her differing cultural ideas about things like blood magic, and then she smacks back and slaps him with her own aggressions. Idk, so many of the companions she’s different levels of complacent with when they talk down to her or belittle her. I just kinda love that Anders gets her riled up enough to smack back.

my cross over ship: I don’t think I have one.

a headcanon fact: I don’t headcanon the mage characters actually walking around Kirkwall with staffs most of the time. I think for Anders just casting with his hands works best, both because it kinda plays up the feral abomination angle, and because I think him needing to get his hands on everything suits his boundary issues. For Merrill I imagine her weapon/casting focus of choice being an obsidian knife from her clan. It keeps showing up in all the fics I write about her :’)

[ifmywishescametrue]

I adore falling like the stars, I reread it for the 3rd time today!! Your AUs are phenomenal :D Can I ask for an AU where Tony is Bucky's younger brother and Steve grows up with them, with Steve and Tony also being close friends and they end up falling for each other after college when they become roommates? Thanks!

thank you so much!! this one ended up a little bit different from the prompt, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless 💙

to the moon and to saturn

1.4k words, stevetony childhood friends to lovers

Steve is nine years old when he falls in love for the first time. 

Of course, he doesn’t call it that then. He’s too young for such things, even if he understands the concept. All he knows is that his stomach does a funny fluttering thing sometimes when Tony looks at him with those wide eyes of his, and he likes the way it sounds when he laughs at one of Steve’s jokes. He likes it when Tony lays down next to him in the clearing between their houses, pressed to his side in the dark as he whispers the names of the stars he points at. 

It’s different than how he feels about Bucky, who always sits on Steve’s other side and never makes Steve’s heart do anything abnormal. Bucky and Tony are brothers, and they’re both Steve’s friends, but it’s different.

Tony follows them around like a shadow in the summers. He swims with them in the lake and rides bikes down dirt roads, holding Steve’s hand as Bucky patches up his skinned knees on the edge of the bathtub. He directs their make-believe adventures in the woods to turn them into pirates with stick swords and vikings with boats from fallen trees. Sometimes, he makes Steve a prince to save him from Bucky’s evil sorcerer with a cardboard shield and a true love’s kiss to his cheek.

In the fall, Steve shares classes with Bucky and waves to Tony through the windows each day during recess. Tony’s younger by a year, and it always feels a little off without him there, despite it always being that way during the school year. It feels like Tony should always be to his right, with Bucky to his left. One friend on each side, balancing him out. 

Steve’s nine when he falls in love, but he’s eleven when someone first puts a name to it.

His ma says it with a knowing smile as Steve is walking out the door to meet Bucky and Tony at their favorite spot. She calls it an infatuation, and Steve has to pull out a dusty, out-of-date dictionary later when she doesn’t explain it any further. 

He turns red as he reads the words, but knows immediately she’s wrong. The dictionary at his house says it’s ‘short-lived,’ and the one at school says it’s ‘foolish.’ Another at the library says it’s ‘unreasoned,’ so Steve closes it in a huff. 

Infatuation isn’t the right word for it.  

Steve’s nine when he falls in love, but he’s fourteen when Bucky mentions it for the first time.

His arms are crossed over his chest, and he rolls his eyes. A crush, he calls it. A stupid crush that he thinks is getting rather old.

Bucky says it when Tony leaves the room, getting more popcorn for their movie night. He’s been going through a phase lately where having his little brother around for everything is decidedly uncool, but Steve sees the little crinkle between Tony’s eyebrows every time he’s distinctly not invited. He sees the way Tony’s shoulders always fall, and he wraps his arm around them each time as he tries his best to bring his smile back to life. 

It puts a damper on movie night, though, when Steve can’t bring himself to do it when Tony comes back. Bucky puts on a horror movie to drive him away, and Steve can’t say anything when Tony looks at him to take his side in the unfolding argument. He sees the disappointment in Tony’s eyes when he leaves again, and he almost follows him upstairs into his room. But that would make Bucky right, and Bucky can’t be right when he knows Tony doesn’t share his feelings. 

The two of them watch the movie in silence, and Steve tells Bucky when it’s over that it isn’t fair to make him choose between them. Bucky whispers an apology and doesn’t do it again. 

Steve’s nine when he falls in love, but he’s sixteen when he watches Tony give his own heart to someone else.

He’s older than both of them and new to their school. He’s all anyone can talk about for days, but Steve doesn’t think anything of it until Tony’s still talking about him three weeks later. 

He’s smart, Steve hears. He understands all of Tony’s ideas and laughs at even his worst jokes. He’s good looking and nice, and Tony seems to think he hung the moon. 

Bucky pats Steve’s shoulder when it becomes official between them. He stopped being annoyed at Steve’s crush a while back, then moved onto lighthearted teasing instead. But he’s quiet when Tony comes back from his first date with an impossibly wide smile and all but skips up the stairs to his bedroom. Bucky offers Steve the last Skittle in the bag and lets him win every game they play that night. 

Steve does his best to move on. He goes on dates that sometimes turn into brief relationships and sometimes fizzle out after one night. He has his own first kiss and first time and thinks that maybe his ma was right after all. Maybe it was just a childish infatuation. Maybe it doesn’t have to hurt every time someone else gets to hold Tony in their arms instead of him. 

Steve’s nine when he falls in love for the first time, but he’s nineteen for the second. It lasts for almost a year, then leaves him scarred. 

Bucky lets him cry on his shoulder, and Tony lets him cry over the phone. Bucky tells him that she isn’t worth his pain, while Tony quietly sympathizes. His own heart was broken just the year before, and in their most dramatic moments they swear to each other over the phone not to fall in love ever again. 

Different colleges have put hundreds of miles between them and Tony, but it doesn’t change much. Tony calls Steve every second night, and he calls Bucky on the others. He sticks glow in the dark stars to both their ceilings in the same spots, and Steve closes his eyes each night as he listens to Tony’s voice through the tinny speaker and imagines they’re home again. He pictures Tony tucked into his side, and if he tries hard enough, he can almost feel the grass beneath him and the summer air on his skin. 

Steve’s nine when he falls in love, but he’s twenty three when he finally does something about it.  

New York wasn’t where he thought he would end up, but it makes sense in the end. It’s where Tony goes after he graduates college, and Steve’s place has always been by Tony’s side. 

Their shared apartment is small, and they learn to dance around each other in tight quarters. They brush their teeth side by side in the shoebox bathroom, and Tony’s shoulders bump Steve’s each morning as Steve makes their breakfast and Tony pours the coffee. 

But Steve wonders sometimes if Tony touches him more than he needs to. If their tiny couch actually warrants the way Tony leans against him at the end of the day or if the cramped elevator is the only reason Tony wraps an arm around Steve’s waist on their way to work. 

He tests it out slowly, like easing his way into shallow water. He returns the touches, then initiates more of his own. Brushes of fingers that push Tony’s hair back from his face and fix his crooked tie. A kiss to his forehead when Tony puts his head on Steve’s shoulder, and ankles hooked together in darkened movie theaters. He holds Tony’s hand on the sidewalk and twines their fingers together, just like when they were kids walking home from school. Tony smiles down at where they connect, and Steve knows he has it right. 

Steve kisses him that night, standing in the middle of their kitchen. His arms wrap tight around him, and Tony’s hands fist into Steve’s t-shirt to keep him close. As if Steve would ever even dream of being anywhere else but there. 

“How long?” Tony whispers in the inch between their lips.

Steve doesn’t have to ask to know what he means. He rests his forehead against Tony’s, blue eyes meeting brown like they always should, and whispers back, “Always.”

Steve’s nine when he falls in love for the first time, and he never falls out of it again.

[tora-the-cat]

while I’m on the subject of ‘jesus christ what do you MEAN people skip parts of naruto’......the Pein fillers. The PEIN FILLERS??? I always thoguht it was pretty obviously...breathing room? For the animators lol but also. The audiences hearts? Like we just watched Konoha get BODIED and Itachi (and Jiriya I guess) DIE along with like several OTHER pretty important deaths even if those only last a few episodes you don't know that for SURE at the time and it still has IMPACT and now we're about to get dragged into CONSPIRACY and Sasuke only spiralling FURTHER and the APOCOLOLYPSE and- like. is it so unreasonable to remind us that these kids are kids and love each other and have relationships going back years with both each other and their home? The Pein fillers are mostly tolerable I think because they're all lead into by...one or two or several character in the present, rebuilding their home and/or coming to terms with it's destruction, and still finding it in themselves to remember something cute or funny or childish. It's about the resilience of human spirit when there's something to cling onto. Which, I cannot stress enough, is taken in DIRECT CONTRAST to Pein's perspective that people can only relate/empathize/understand each other through. well. Pain. And these fillers, however stupid and forgettable, are a pretty solid case that he's full of SHIT and even when 'connecting through pain' or whatever, what people are REALLY connecting through is LOVE and HAPPINESS that they're trying to reclaim FROM pain. Pain is NOT the end goal Nagato just needs to, quite literally, BURY his corpses

[lcec0ldheart]

Random OC stuff of the day #1: What do they like to eat?

Ive accidentally made a habit where sometime in the morning i get a random idea and end up making a thread about it (but tumblr has no character limit so I can have it all on one post🎉)

Anyways, I was chatting with my friend, when I came across an…interesting tweet.

So, my friend said Violet would eat a battery. And they’re right, she WOULD. Frost would to prove a point. Citrine would because she’s kinda stupid (/lh) and thought it would be funny. They all would.

Thinking about it, Violet’s eaten quite a bit of inedible things…like batteries. Or drywall. Or lipstick because it smelled like fruit- She’s curious and likes to learn, which includes what things taste like. Luckily, she’s never gotten sick from eating inedible food, somehow. I guess that’s another power of hers? That she can eat (and digest if there’s any sort of nutrition in it?) practically anything as long as it’s not extremely hot or cold

(Violet holding a piece of bitten drywall)

“It’s crunchy, salty and kind of sweet…Enough so that i can’t taste the bitterness too much, it’s not bad honestly. I think it would be good with strawberry jam” -Violet

But that got me thinking, I haven’t really thought of the disaster trio’s food preferences yet? So, here we are.

Frost, surprisingly, has a sweet tooth, liking sweet foods, and he can tolerate extreme sourness…he’ll eat a lime if he feels like his mouth needs freshening. He loves hot chocolate, especially if there’s cream added. He likes ice cream, pastries, and citrus. Can’t handle spice at all

Citrine, unsurprisingly, can tolerate spice very well, and as such, tends to make her food unreasonably spicy. She prefers savory/salty foods -like garlic bread or spicy chips. She really likes spicy pepperoni pizza and spicy BBQ chicken, since it has both! Do not let her attempt those ghost pepper challenges! Can’t tolerate sourness

Violet’s a bit more balanced, liking both sweet and salty. Either one is good, though she likes Fruits and meats in particular. Coincidentally, both of those kinds of foods are quite fleshy…maybe that’s why she has those chompers? Anyways, her favorites are strawberries, steak, and anything with tomato as a main ingredient. She has her coffee loaded with sugar because she’s sensitive to bitterness -that’s why she dislikes dark chocolate lol

If you’ve read all the way through this, thanks! They all have 1 specific flavor/taste they struggle with, as for me I can’t have stuff spicier than normal talkis. I’m pretty good with sourness though. Violet and Frost are loosely based after myself, while Citrine isn’t, but that’s what makes her fun

Anyways, have a nice day! More infodumps coming soon -probably

[rockingrobin69]

Strictly Come Dancing

1.2k rated M for the wonderful @phasyvision17​ who asked for prompt no. 3. Or: the one where they’re professional dancers in a popular TV show, and Harry’s pining would win first place. Possessive, jealous Harry. Also, Draco in a bodysuit. With feathers. 

The problem was, keeping his eyes away was impossible, even if the sight made his blood boil in his veins and his head ache. The sheer brilliance of it – Draco’s graceful body swerving, bodysuit tight on his muscular form, the feathers adorning it making him something mythical, unreal. The light hitting his face, eyes determined and bright, skin shining with effort. The way every turn, every stretch of his beautiful body felt purposeful, intent. So bloody gorgeous. Even if the fact he was dancing with someone else –

This was ridiculous; Harry couldn’t possibly be jealous of this. They were both competing with different partners, they had to. That’s the way the fucking show worked. But seeing Draco, his Draco, spinning into the arms of another man, looking so stunning it melted Harry’s stupid little heart – he just couldn’t look away. Draco was magical, mesmerising. The music crescendoed, tension rising in the room as Draco spun faster, faster, arms up in the air – his partner lifted him, one leg rising impossibly high, foot in a perfect point – those large hands on Draco’s silver bodysuit, not Harry’s, holding him up – then releasing, thank fuck. Harry could feel the ripple of excitement through the crowd watching, hear the murmur of appreciation from the judges. Then, just as the music came to a stop, Draco made a little twirl, landing right in his partner’s waiting arms.

That twirl. Harry felt anger rise within him, tight in his fists, unreasonable and overwhelming. Then the lights flickered back on, the judges were speaking – the host said something funny, apparently, because Harry’s partner elbowed him in the ribs with a smirk. Harry couldn’t hear. Didn’t really care to, either. He was waiting, very impatiently, for the fucking judges to fucking shut up, and then – aw, fucking finally, Draco walked off the stage, still beaming and glittery with excitement.

Harry pulled him aside before he could even blink, hauling him through the set until he finally found a place deemed private enough. Draco, to his credit, didn’t seem all that perturbed. He kept a pretty straight face on for someone bodily thrown into a broom cupboard.

“So I take it you liked my performance,” he said, shadow of a smile on his face.

“It’s mine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Keeping the growl contained in his throat took effort. “That twirl you did in the end. That’s my move. You stole it from me.”

“I’m sorry,” Draco’s eyebrows knitted high on his forehead, “but are you saying you invented the act of twirling?”

“No. I’m saying that that move, it was mine. You know that. Everybody fucking knows it. And you did it with someone else.”

“Well, we’re not dancing together anymore,” Draco had the gall to say. “This is for charity, Harry.”

“Fuck charity. No, wait, I don’t mean that, I just –“ Harry closed his eyes, turned his face away, furious with Draco, with himself, with the whole thing. “I… shit.”

“An apt summary, yes.” It sounded like Draco was smiling, but Harry wasn’t brave enough to check.

How could he put it into words without sounding like a total lunatic? How could he possibly describe it, going from sworn-dance-enemies in rival companies, to sweaty-messy-frotting between show rehearsals, to this tight-crushing-need in his chest? How could Harry ever tell him how much – how nothing in this would ever be quite enough without him? How painful it was to have to watch him taken away without being sure – without knowing for certain he’d come back?

Harry took a deep breath. Be fucking brave now, Potter. “Look, I’m happy we’re doing this, don’t get me wrong. Even if dancing with Sarah could never compare to dancing with you, it’s still worth it. But I’m – you – I care about you, so much. And I just, I know this is silly, but every time I see you dance with him I can’t help but worry that, that you’ll like him better, that he’s better for you, because I have to remember that you’re not really mine, and the fucking twirl –”

“Yours,” Draco said, two warm hands gripping Harry’s arms. “Harry. It’s yours. I’m – it’s all yours.”

“I…” Harry couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t stand to see what was twinkling in Draco’s; pity, or fear, or rage, or something far worse. Something warm. He squeezed against the misery in his chest. “Fuck, I hate this.”

“But not me.”

Now he had to look, because his whole belly was writhing. “No. Of course not you. I –” but the word got stuck in his throat, unable to come out. Draco gave him a look; not angry or scared or pitiful, but uncertain. Then exasperated. Then determined.  

“I’m yours, Harry,” he said, voice surprisingly soft. “I’m – I mean, you’re an idiot for thinking otherwise. Do you think I do this with everybody?”

“Draco.” Harry didn’t know how to ask him to be honest, to be brutally fucking honest right now, because if this was a lie, it would kill him. Draco seemed to understand anyway, because his face broke into something intolerable, open and full of affection.

“Yes, you idiot. Yours, utterly yours. And, honestly, as if I’d ever go for Tom. He’s dead creepy. Of course I’m fucking yours. I’m so yours it’s sickening, really.”  

He couldn’t help the surprised snort. “Mine?” he asked, the light in the grey eyes making him at least three feet taller. “You mean…” and without a warning he grabbed Draco, pushing him against the wall of the cupboard, brooms clashing everywhere. “All this is mine?”

“Harry…”

He ran a hand down the endless stretch of Draco’s neck, hot and unbearably happy, with this tightness in his chest about to choke him to death. “So this is mine?” he asked, licking a stripe of Draco’s throat. His fingers kept trailing downwards, along the slick bodysuit, catching the radiant peacock feathers with his thumb. Draco gasped against him, melting into his touch, and Harry could float with what was happening inside him right now, all this giddy joy. He dropped to his knees right there on the cleaning products, and the look in Draco’s eyes as he threaded a hand through Harry’s hair nearly made him weep. It was an admission, a reveal. It was everything, all at once. Harry leaned against his thigh, ready to show him with his tongue just whose the twirl was –

“Erm, Mr. Potter? Mr. Malfoy? We need you back on set.”

Shit. “Oh. We’ll, er, come right out.”

A long pause. “Yes, all right. Quickly.” It took a second to realise that the sound Harry was hearing was Draco, laughing himself to tears with a hand covering his mouth.

“You twat,” Harry grinned, loving him. Draco helped him up, and together they fell out of the cupboard, flushed and thrilled.

“I did look good doing that twirl, though, didn’t I? I thought I did it rather well.”

“Yes, it was very impressive. Do it again and I’ll have to kill you.”

Draco squeezed his hand, pulling him back towards the stage. “Come on. For charity.” His smile was bloody radiant, mesmerising, just like he was when he danced. Harry never felt so terribly, perfectly, strictly happy before in his life.

Prompt me!

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: August 8th

Well, doing big posts all together worked for a while but lately I’ve been putting it off because it takes a long time to get them done. I think I’m gonna try switching back to answering asks whenever I can fit it in and posting them one at a time instead of waiting until I’ve filled out one of these major collections.

But for now, here’s more ask answers! Thank you for the questions and for all the kind words along with them ^^.

Hello!! I'm here to ask if its possible to get  the game and its dlcs on steam and play it on android?

I’m afraid not. Steam doesn’t have Android builds on their own site and Steam is not cool with keys for other sites being given out for Steam purchases, so you don’t get the Itch version from buying on Steam.

Hello! Sorry to bother you but, I had a question, if we buy the Game on itchio do we get steam keys or would we need to purchase it twice? 

You would have to buy it twice if you want it in both places, I’m sorry. To repeat myself a little, Steam doesn’t like the key trading thing. Itch may support giving keys for another site, but the reverse isn’t doable with Steam and Steam doesn’t even really want you to get a Steam key for buying somewhere else either. So we just don’t mess around with that.

hey, sorry if this is frequently asked, but is step 4 free dlc or paid for? some of your sources are contradicting each other. 

It’s free! There’s a paid wedding DLC, but Step 4 itself is entirely unpaid.

Hello! I just had a quick question, for the Baxter and Derek DLC's will we be able to confess our feelings to them or let them confess to MC? or will it only be one way? (they confess to MC)

Both type of options will be available!

Hey there! I wanted to ask whether or not the Derek DLC is still on track to be released in August since on the steam discussion board it says it will be released mid 2021. I totally understand if it isn't, I'm just really looking forward to it! If you answer then ty! And keep up the amazing work :D 

It’s not, aha. Unfortunately, 2021 wasn’t easier than 2020 as we hoped so things are still slower than planned. It’ll come out late 2021 or early 2022.

Hi! Firstly I just want to say that I LOVE Our Life. I have played a bit of similar games but this one instantly wins for the best one! Everything about it is amazing! I just wanted to ask if Derek would ever lose feelings for MC, like if they make the deal and then MC gets with Cove would he move on? and even if you don't, after "losing contact" would his feeling fade or would he still like MC? 

If you don’t really keep in touch with him and clearly move on with your life, Derek will too and he’ll be over it. But if you are still close as best as you can be, he’ll still think the MC is special. Though, he’ll always support your relationship with someone else if that’s what’ll make you happy.

Hello! Sorry if you've answered this before but: 'How's Lee related to us? Though which momma? And does she share our player-chosen last names? Also, do you know if Noelani took Pam's last name or did it happen the other way round? 

She’s related to Pamela and Pamela’s last name is the one they use, so the MC has the same last name as Lee.

Will we be able to choose which (they or he) we tend to call Qiu by more often, or will it randomly change depending on the moment? 

Qiu knows which pronoun they’re comfortable with at a time and you’ll call them what they’re happy with. And it doesn’t change between lines, it takes multiple scenes or even full Steps for it to switch. So for extended periods Qiu will be totally a guy or fully agender.

Will Step 4 of OL2 have moments?

It’ll be an epilogue like it is in OL1, so it won’t have a bunch of different Moments.

Hello! Just a quick question, is Sunset bird from OL1 based on a real location? If so what's it called? I wanna visit it +_+

ps i love your games so much <3

It isn’t based on one specific town you can go to, but there are a lot of little coastal towns in Cali that have a similar vibe!

Heyaaa ( I hope you're all well ), umm… it might seem kinda stupid to ask but did Patreon members can have a key for the dlc's ( all the steps-released dlc ) even if they became a member this month or later ? (me? saying this cuz it's my case? maybe ;-;), and once again thanks for absolutely all the amazing works on all the games ! u-u 

You wouldn’t get the DLCs for backing there. The Patreon is for extra bonus content/early access, rather than being a storefront to purchase the normal DLCs. Rarely we give them out as a side gift, but it hardly happens and if what you want is the DLCs it’s best to ignore the Patreon and  buy keys for those directly from Itch or Steam. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Hey y'all, love what youre doing w/Terry. Trans rep outside of player customization is so rare and important to see more of so thank you so much. I do have a question and its that does he have a canon sexuality? I know Miranda was said to be straight ace but I dont believe anything was stated for Terry probably because he wasnt revealed to be a guy which changes things. Im also curious if well get answers on how long hes liked Miranda since he may have liked her in step 3 before she liked him 

Terry likes women and Randy likes men! And he did like Miranda back in Step 3.

Will the Wedding Dlc release at the same time as Step 4? 

They’ll come out separately with Step 4 releasing first.

I really love Our Life so much! I've spent over 20hours playing it even though I only got it a week ago! I was wondering if I could make a fangame for Our Life with a different love interest but same plot. Next-door neighbors romance, multiple steps, etc? I'll probably make it on Google Slides though- 

Sure! I hope you have fun with it and I’m glad you love the game.

How does Cove feel about poly relationships? 

He’s got nothing against them for the people they work for, but he’s 100% monogamous and would only be comfortable with a partner who was willing to be monogamous with him.

Idk if this has been answered before but will Step 4 include the option to advance your feelings towards Cove? 

Yep, you’ll be able to determine your feelings and what your relationship is.

In step 4 will there be a chosen to say we live with Cove even as just friends? 

Yeah, you can choose to live with Cove and that can be done when you’re friends.

I just played the game with the MC and Cove being best friends and omg it’s still so damn cute like the wholesomeness of it all is too much for my heart I swear ^.^  Now with that all said I was wondering can we still marry Cove? if we only love him as a friend like let’s say we’ve made deal with him similar to the one we can make with Derek because let’s real no one could compete with what the MC and Cove have even if they aren’t in love. 

It’s great to hear you enjoyed the friendship story! You can live with Cove, but you can’t marry him platonically. Cove has familial affection for the MC if they’re best-est friends. He wouldn’t think to marry someone he loves like family and even grew up with as though they truly were siblings.

Are you still going to be making a DLC for XOBD? :] 

Yes! We’re slowing adding voiced lines and fixing errors.

It makes me laugh that Shiloh's last name is Fields because that's what I put as my last name! So in Our Life when he talked about "Ms. Fields" picking him up I was extremely confused, lol. That dude mimics personalities so much that he stole my surname!

Oh, wow, that’s a very funny coincidence, haha.

hi !! i cant seem to be able to get the scene where mc is able to propose to cove despite being at the 'love' stage and telling him i'd want to get married, are there any other details that im missing out on? the options just dont appear at the end... 

Maybe you missed telling Cove you were in love with him even if you mentioned wanting to get married or you might’ve accidentally said earlier in the game that you don’t want to progress your relationship further with Cove. We haven’t removed them, so you can get the scene again. It’s just kind of easy to miss since there’s multiple requirements. You can read a little guide in the FAQ.

wait what di you need to do to be able to propose to cove? I've been trying but haven't had much luck 

You can check out the FAQ linked above!

does cove only develop a crush on the mc if the mc is also at crush/in love with him? 

Technically, yes. We treat the non-romantic relationship options as truly non-romantic since we don’t want to bait and switch people. But there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning that Cove does have feelings developing for the MC even before the MC has.

Is there a way to make/allow Lee and Baxter to date?

No, they just don’t have enough time together.

We also got a group of asks related to Tamarack in OL2, but I’m afraid the way they talked about people with larger bodies made me not want to post their words, even if the person didn’t say they’re trying to be hurtful. I will separate out the core question and answer it though, so people can know that info.

Does Tamarack lose weight in later Steps?

No, she doesn’t. As for the other questions included, to be honest, I don’t have to explain/defend having romance options of different sizes. I’m sorry if you’re dealing with unhappiness that’s connected to body image, if that’s where the negative emotions are coming from, but even so I can’t meet you on that level and pretend it’s a problem that needs an answer. A girl who simply isn’t thin being a main love interest is just not an unreasonable concept. Also, Tamarack isn’t a lesbian. Yes, she can date a female MC, but that doesn’t undo her actual sexuality, so I’m not sure where that one part at the end was coming from.

I wonder... can we "fight" with Qiu over leader status? 👀

Not really, haha. No matter how cool your MC is, they’re never gonna replace Qiu for the other kids around. So you can either partner up with him, follow him too, or not be a part of all that group politics stuff.

So when I play the game, sometimes I mentally call Cove “Covie/Covey” and that made me wonder, how does Cove feel about being nicknamed? Not like Romeo/Space Cadet/etc. but like pet names relating to his actual name

It’d depend on his age, personality, and your relationship with him! When he’s younger he’d probably be embarrassed, when he was grown he’d probably be more casual or happy about it.

will you be able to date baxter in step 3 while at crush with cove (but not dating him ofc) sorry if this has been asked already. i really love baxters step 4 design btw!! 

Yeah, you can be crushing on Cove and date Baxter if you weren’t already dating Cove. You just can’t be truly in love with Cove and then switch to Baxter.

I just got my friend into our life, and they adore shiloh and derek sooo will there be more of them in the second game? 

I’m afraid not. But you can see plenty more of Shiloh in XOXO Droplets/XOXO Blood Droplets, haha.

I see you haven't gotten any xoxo droplets asks recently but I'm still obsessed with these boys!! I was just wondering if Nate would curse under any circumstance? 

Yeah, Nate does use certain swear words (damn, hell, bastard) on very rare occasions.

Hi there! I have a question about the wedding dlc. Will we be able to plan a honeymoon during the planning stages of it or would it be something that Cove and the mc would rather plan later on? Thank you! Absolutly love the game by the way, definitely one of my favorite games! 

The focus will be on the wedding day itself. The topic of the honeymoon might come up a bit, but there won’t be any choosing of the exact location and such.

Hi! I have two questions and it's completely understandable if you only answer one/neither and I'm sorry if you've already answered either before! First, is there a set year in which OL:B&A takes place (ex: Step 1 being set in 2010 & Step 2 being set in 2016, etc.) or is it simply up to interpretation? Second, have you guys thought about doing a coming-of-age game where the MC has a tough home life or upbringing? (like one of their parents is an addict, a parent being transphobic whilst the player has the option to be trans, or having friends that are influencing them to do drugs, etc.) That's all! Thanks for making beautiful games. <3 

There is a set timeline!

Step 1: 2006 Step 2: 2011 Step 3: 2016 Step 4: 2021 

And we don’t currently plan on making a game like that. The Our Life series exists to be a safer environment for people to play around in and if we did do a brand new series that was harsher edged it’d be something more fantastical and/or plot-driven instead of a different type of modern day slice-of-life growing up story. I’m sorry.

i don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but do you have a guess on when phase 4 will come out? as well as ol2? i’m so excited for both of them, the inclusivity in this game is amazing, you guys should be really proud of it! 

Step 4 will be coming out very soon! OL2 is gonna take until 2023 to be anywhere near completion. But we might episodically release the Steps one at a time as they get done instead of waiting for three to be finished before launch like we did with the first game.

Hello, I was curious if there was an official or unofficial discord server for the game? 

We do have a discord! You can join by clicking this link HERE.

how long do you plan to keep ol's patreon running? 

Hopefully for at least a few more years.

Are you considering ever making merch? 

Yeah, but I don’t know when it’ll happen or what exactly we’ll make, aha. It’s something we want do, just nothing is set.

hi! i just found out about your game a couple of days ago on tiktok (so sorry if you’ve already answered this question) and i was wondering if y’all are ever planning to release it on iOS? 

I have no idea. It’s hard for a small group to get Apple approval and I honestly can’t say if it’ll ever happen or not. Maybe someday, though!

Hi, I love the art style of Our life and I would like to know if the artist has a Twitter? Also, could it be possible to fund more CGs for the game from him/her? So many times, I wish there was one like when the cutscene of the sunshower. 

That’s nice of you to offer. He doesn’t have a Twitter, at least not one that’s public enough to be shared with me. And I’m afraid not. The issue is that the CGs take huge amounts of time rather than there not being a budget for it. He’s gotta make CGs for Step 4, the DLCs, and new character sprites, too. There isn’t space in the schedule for even more. Sorry for that.

Hi, how are you?!

Are you planning on accepting new writers or is it always the same people who write your stories??

Thanks!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be getting new writers, but we will be hiring a new team of writers for Our Life: Now & Forever eventually!

perhaps this counts as nsfw and I'm sure it has been answered before but what does Cove prefer, chests/boobs or butts? or perhaps both :3c thank you for this wonderful game (and the patreon bonus moment, it was worth all the waiting and more ♥) 

He’s a “chests of all shapes and sizes” kind of guy, haha.

i was wondering- did any of the writers actually grow up by the beach? as someone who's lived in a beach town all their life it really did feel nostalgic to play through our life 1 

I was born and raised in Cali! Though, not right by the beach. We still had to make trips out, but the setting is based on my own childhood memories of small beach towns we went through.

In Derek’s upcoming DLC, will we be able to reference the pact we made as teens? (love olba and xod/xobd so much btw you’re literally amazing) 

Yep, you will be able to talk about that!

Oh, sorry about the Cole being secretly L ask, then!

If you wanted context: Death Note is about this one guy who finds a notebook that kills anyone who you write the name of in there. The guy eventually develops a God Complex and starts mass killing criminals and stuff. L is the one trying to find out who is killing all these people.

Me and my sister first joked about it because I couldn't remember how to translate a word about the way Cove was sitting, so I just did the pose, and it looked a lot like how L himself sits! Then we just snowballed from there, with more and more nonsense connections.

That’s okay! Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I didn’t know what you meant.

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

I need to share soft sign language buddies ninogami headcanon because they’re taking over my brain always:

(This got so long, so youre welcome if youre also starved for ninogami content)

Nino’s mom is Deaf , so he grew up signing as much as speaking. When he was younger he always signed as he talked.

It turned out he’s also Hard of Hearing, so sign language is way easier for him to understand most of the time.

However, though he’s great at making friends, he’s very awkward when it comes to talking about himself. So never comes up in conversation.

It’s not a self-deprication issue. It’s just a “thinking of things to say is hard and I’d rather have someone else do the talking” thing. He’d rather talk about anyone except himself.

Additionally! He’s great at helping other people, but he’s terrible at asking for help. He does not EVER want to be like “hey i cant understand what you’re saying, my ears dont work great,” its his worst nightmare

And it doesnt help that there have been a few cases of people being rude about it when he doesnt hear them after they repeat themselves. And possibly worse, there have been even more cases of people giving over-the-top apologies instead of just,, telling him what they said. So it’s not worth the trouble in his mind

with his few close friends who still dont know, it feels like its too late and it’d be awkward to bring it up, so he just… doesnt. He’s procrastinating on telling them he cant hear them

He stopped signing as much as he talked in middle school because strangers would always be like “woah thats so cool, how do you know sign language” and he’d just panic because he was an awkward tween, and he didnt know if he was comfortable telling them he was HoH, but ALSO just saying his mom was Deaf and not mentioning himself felt like directly lying by hiding information, so he just took the “lazy” way out and signed less in public.

Sometimes fighting the anxiety was not worth it so he just let it win in that case.

Nino is so nice and energetic and loves people, but he is way more introverted and anxious than his friends think.

But when they start to get closer, Kagami who is ever-observant, notices him signing a little bit, (not ever to her, not ever on purpose, but he’d sometimes sign a word he needed to remember while speaking or sign along to emphasize something)

and she luckily for his anxiety, she doesnt know how to have a normal conversation either.

Her (platonic as well as romantic) love language is studying and research, and Nino seems very cool and she likes him, even if she is awful at holding a conversation with him or doing anything to show it.

She thinks he’s so cool and such an amazing talented kind friend. She has so much love for him that she doesnt know what to do with it. So she channels that energy into learning to sign through the internet and whatever tools she can find

And then after a while of this, she’s like “oh no, he’s gonna think that’s so creepy, I cant tell him I know sign language or he’ll be so uncomfortable”

So, like a whole idiot, she hides that she’s learning sign language from anyone. Because OBVIOUSLY if word got back to Nino, he’d assume it was because of him and that she was a weirdo he shouldn’t be friends with

But also Kagami accidentally falls in love with sign language because she has undiagnosed autism. She always assumed that communicating was just going to be impossible no matter what, but as she gets proficient in sign language she’s like,,, oh,,, OH,, this is very nice

Even just signing while she talks makes it so much easier to keep words and sentances straight, but she only does it when she’s alone with her mother, who is literally blind and would never know.

They become closer friends in late high school, and by that time a lot of Nino’s anxiety has worn off and he’s become completely comfortable letting teachers know when he needs to hear somthing, and middle school feels like a distant dream

At some point, Nino invites Kagami to his house a few times, and he signs with his mom. Nino is like “I can interpret for you,” and Kagami is like “wow thanks, I’m so lucky, because I obviously do not know any sign language, why would I have learned it, and also for the record it is brand new information to me that you can sign,” and Nino is like “cool? Its not a secret but im glad i told you if you somehow didnt already know,” and Kagami is like, “yep :)”

But then eventually as they become really close, they are texting one night, (Kagami can still barely get out of her house, so they need to communicate remotely. And both of then HATE phone calls bc its so hard to understand whats happening, but neither of them have admitted this to anyone)

Nino admits that he likes using sign language better than talking, and he wishes he could use it with his friends, but he’d feel so guilty asking them to learn an entire language just to make him slightly more comfortable. He can talk and hear OKAY so he shouldnt put the pressure on them.

and Kagami is like “you could always ask, worst case scenerio they say no, and i dont think thats an unreasonable demand” and nino is like “it is though,” and kagami’s like “ok so haha funny story, please dont hate me” and nino is like, “…what.” And kagami confesses everything and nino is like “why… why would i hate you for that?” And Kagami is like “oh wait youre right im stupid,”

And then Nino’s also like “hey if YOURE more comfortable signing too, then why dont YOU ask your friends to sign for you. Do you see what i mean? It’s hard to ask-” and kagami is like, “as your friend i will prove it is not.”

So then Kagami ends up confronting Adrien and Marinette the next day and is like “Hi. This is a sign language dictionary. Learn from it.” And they’re both like “what?” And she’s like “oh wait sorry. Backing up. I’m autistic. I decided like three years ago. Forgot to tell you. And I need you to learn to sign a little bit so you can understand if i sign something at you. If you want, of course. Please :D.” And theyre like “ok sure yeah i can do that.”

(Theyve already learned and accepted that shes extremely direct in asking for things)

So then she texts nino and is like “i did it. Youre welcome.”

But anyway both of them are uncomfortable in crowds and parties: Nino cant hear anyone and Kagami tends to get sensory overload, so they start signing mostly in those situations, and then it starts to sink in that they’re allowed to sign whenever and that the other really IS also comfortable with it.

(Both of them are much more willing to make sacrifices for others than to try something new and intimidating for themself, so this is the perfect situation to trick them into getting out of their comfort zone, ironically by trying to be more comfortable in the long run)

so they will just sit together and hang out and have long conversations while just chilling somewhere in a park or at cafes or whatever. Both of them become chattier than they’ve ever been because talking and understanding is so much easier, and its addicting

And their close friends all become proficient enough in sign language to have simple conversations.

But also Nino and Kagami start sitting together automatically even in group hangouts, and they start hanging out more with just the two of them, and soon neither of them feel bad about asking to hang out in quieter places, because they can justify it knowing that it will also help the other one, and together that makes both of them also more comfortable asking for little accomodations from other friends, if only to prove to the other that they can do it too.

And Kagami has the lesser-known autism side effect where she makes WAY TOO MUCH eye contact. She’s aware of it but that doesnt make it go away. Normally she feels so awkward about it, and overthinks her gaze because she doesnt want to scare people away. But when signing, you literally HAVE to be watching the other person constantly, so she has an excuse to just be herself, and its so relieving

(and also its kind of fun to look at Nino anyway because he can get so animated and his smile is really nice and oh no she is in love a little bit)

And Nino always struggles because he emotionally ALWAYS needs to be the nice polite one. His anxiety sometimes gets the better of him and he’s constantly worried about sending the wrong signals to his friends and coming off as rude somehow. But with Kagami, he can literally just ask?? And she will tell him her honest opinion without making it weird. And its so comfy and so good and he really loves hearing her unfiltered opinions on so many things because she sees the world in such a unique way and she gets so passionate about such little things and then oh no, he is fallen for her before he can realize it

And they also learn that they’re both artists, they both love to just observe the world because even if they;re awkward, people are actually pretty great most of the time, and its fun to observe them and try to capture the world, and they just sit together and sketch, or they watch each other sketch, and the thing is, both of them draw ONLY FOR THEMSELVES, its not a ‘skill,’ and they don;t want it to be, its just private art for relaxation. Somehow, though, its okay if they share their art with each other. They can just sit in comfortable silence for hours while one of them sketches something and the other watches patiently

And they start to get more comfortable with one of their heads resting on the other’s shoulder as they watch them doodle, and sitting so close their legs press together, and soon enough their hands start brushing against each other’s as they walk next to each other and then all of a sudden they’re casually holding hands whenever they’re not signing because it’s nice

They try to share headphones so Nino can share some of his favorite songs and his compositions with Kagami. But try as she might, Kagami can not handle the sensory of only having one earbud in. Nino knows her tells by that point, and he’s not about to let her suffer for a stupid reason, but she REALLY does want to hear his music. They somehow end up with Kagami putting a pair of headphones around her neck and turning up the volume a little bit so she can hear, while Nino rests his head on her shoulder so he can hear just enough to know where she is in the song

And then he has to sit up and scootch away just enough to see her hands so they can talk about it, and they both pretend not to notice how nice it was to snuggle as they sign. Its fine, though, because now they get the excuse to just look at each other again and sign overdramatically with exaggerated facial expressions, and no one else around can overhear their conversation, and Nino likes to go a little over the top when signing onomatopoeia and acting out particular parts of the song rhythm that he likes, and Kagami laughs, and they both mentally save the image of each other in this moment the same way that they look at reference images for artwork, memorizing the lines of each movement and the things that make each smile unique,

and Nino also shows up at every single one of her fencing tournaments, and he sits as close as he can and signs encouraging messages to her from the crowd whenever she’s not actively competing, (that her blind mom can never catch, which is somewhat of a bonus to Kagami, because every element of their friendship that her mother cant interact with makes this more personal and special and HERS). Every little sign she sends back at him, even a simple thank you, always feels so good and rebellious and free because shes supposed to be focusing on fencing but shes deciding to care more about friendship. And even if she’s expected to leave immediately afterword, she’ll find every excuse possible to find him and give him a hug, which he’ll always accept even though she jokingly warns him shes sweaty and gross

And eventually they are special best friends and it brings them instant joy to see each other and theyre able to interact for no reason other than that they want to and like each other

(And then they kiss)

[ectonurites]

hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

[stevenbasic]

By Tuesday afternoon, I was beside myself. Seeing patients again, but distraught. The office was a hot mess - so many new girls, crowding the hallways and desks, mostly being trained by people who also didn’t know what they were doing. My schedule was a hot mess - they’d overbooked me, with all the patients I was supposed to see the day before but had been rescheduled. And my mind was a hot mess - surrounded by not only all these new women (I’d kept my head down, sneaking into my office between patients when I could, and hadn’t really introduced myself to anyone yet) but also by the din of construction and random dudes walking down the hallways from time to time...

For some reason the presence of guys - mostly strapping young men in hard hats and t-shirts - upset me more than the bustle of bimbos giggling and pointing at me as I snuck from patient to patient. Maybe I was imagining it, but they seemed to look at me funny, askance, with a condemnatory eye. In particular I’d seen that one with the shaved head and tattoos, the tall one who’d disappeared with Melissa from the parking lot this morning. He was the one hanging around the most, glaring at me snidely. It was jealousy, I knew, that was tightening my chest whenever I saw him - an unreasonable reaction, not an emotion I should be feeling; Melissa was not mine to covet. But when, right around lunchtime, I saw the door to Melissa’s office open and him get pulled inside? Well, my blood began to roil. She’d made no effort to see me all day, and now this??

What were they doing in there?? Would she be having him take more pictures of her for Instagram? Would she be changing into new outfits for her followers, bikinis and lingerie? Would he be bending her over her desk and-

I knew I was being crazy, jealous, stupid. I had no reason to suspect any of this. But still I couldn’t stand it. So, finally, I broke. Right around 3pm.

“Can you tell Melissa I need to see her in my office?” I told Aubrey. She was standing behind the front desk with Brittni and Bobbi and three new people, training. It was pretty crowded back there.

“Of course, Doctor,” said the slight, pretty girl with the dark, pixie haircut. Aubrey had always been one of my best, most loyal employees. Quiet, serious when she needed to be. Less flighty for sure than most of the women that worked for me now. Take, for example, Brittni and Bobbi and now I guess these three new ones that I recognized from their jiggly applications; they were all looking at me and quietly giggling. Aubrey - since our front desk manager had left - was trying to get everyone trained. Piles of paperwork were everywhere.

“Okay I’ll head there right away,” I said, turning on my heel and knocking over a mound of charts from the counter.

“Don’t worry Doctor I’ll get that…” Aubrey offered, as I quickly moved away. Snickers followed in my wake.

Finding the hallway that led to my office mostly quiet, I turned a corner and -

“Oh, therrrre you are!” Melissa beamed, stopping me in my tracks. I felt my eyes go wide and my heart leap into my throat. I hadn’t really seen her since Friday and I was struck again by just how tall she was. Heels, yes, but my head came just up to her upper chest, if that. She made me feel smaller, in spades, than even the biggest of the construction workers.

She took a step towards me.

“Hey, uh….m-m-my office?” I stammered, trying to direct her but unable to keep my eyes from a quick trip up and down her unbelievable figure. The red heels, the sleek, bell-cuffed black pants, the tight, high-necked top. The hair, the eyes, and those knockers.

“Why don’t we talk here?” she returned, stepping in again closer to me.

I took a backpedal in retreat, turned my back to the wall. My eyes went wide again as she planted her right hand on the wall behind me, just above my head, between me and where I’d been heading. The door to my office was just steps away to my left, but now it might have been a mile. “o-okay, sure…” I yielded.

“So happy you finally want to say hi,” she said, with her left hand now coming up at my other side, placing itself just aside my head on the right. Now I was trapped, penned in, faced with a wall of woman. “I’ve missed youuuu…”

I swallowed dryly, suddenly assaulted with a barrage of feelings and a heady cloud of her captivating perfume. “Oh? Uh, y-yeah, haha, sorry,” I started, beginning to explain my absence, “I’ve been out of it. It’s, uh...all the construction, the noise. Kept me up last night, I’m exhausted…”

“Oh you poor thing…” she cooed, her smile turning crooked, weight shifting on her feet. Her right leg had bent, knee pushing in aggressively towards my groin. “I’m sorrrry…”

I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been captured, and she was possesively trifling with me - here, out in the open, in the hallway where anyone could see. But, from my position, I also couldn’t help but notice how her bra was just visible through her too-tight top, and that her breasts looked enormous today.

“uhhhhh….” I tried, struggling to remember what I’d wanted to talk to her about in the first place. Oh yeah.  “...and now they’re all milling around here. I saw, uh...one guy go into your office, earlier?”

“AJ? Oh...yeah, Angie’s ex,” Melissa explained, eyes narrowing, “She’s one of the new girls, a friend of mine, just broke up with him. He’s pretty upset. I invited him in for lunch...”

“Oh, uh, lunch?”

“Yes,” Melissa answered, a funny tone in her voice, “He bought a salad for me.”

Of course she’d like someone like him. He’s tall, strong, pretty good looking. He’s closer to her age...

Melissa looked down at me, regarded me, watched me thinking. “What’s wrong?” she finally asked.

“I...I don’t like him,” I too quickly answered, glancing down at the safety of my feet, speaking before thinking, “He...he looks at me funny.”

“Ohhhhhh….is that it?” She sounded amused.

I couldn’t tell her that, no, that wasn’t it, really. The sideways glances from these dudes I could handle. What I was struggling with, what I couldn’t tell her, was that he made me so fucking jealous. No way I could admit that, not to her. It would be weak, sniveling, petty and unprofessional. Plus I was married, still, and needed to hide my feelings for my new Office Manager deep deep deep. I could not let Melissa know how jealous I was.

But, when I looked up into her face, and she leaned down in to bring her face closer to mine, I could tell she saw right through me...

“Do they scare you? The big scary construction workers?” she giggled, teasing me, “Do they make you feel...unsafe? They are all so much bigger than you...” Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights flickered.

“Melissa, c’mon,” I pleaded, sounding much more pathetic than I wanted. I could tell she knew how I really felt, that it was my unreasonable jealousy that was making me upset. That fact? She loved it. But that I was denying it? For that, she wanted to torture me a bit.

“Awww did you hear that ladies?” Melissa called out, to the tall forms that had just started to appear in the hallway behind her, the voices I had begun to hear, “Dr. J here doesn’t like having all the big, noisy men in the building…”

Suddenly, two other girls appeared aside Melissa, one on each side. My eyes shot from one, redhead and statuesque in a blue top, to the other, chocolate-skinned and bosomy, dressed in green. Both were tall, taller than me, I couldn’t help but realize.

“I agree, I don’t like it either,” said the girl to Melissa’s left.

“Me neither,” said the other, “We should get rid of them…”

“Then it’d be just us…” the dark skinned girl replied.

“Dr. J,” Melissa said, in introduction, “this is Bianca…”

“Hi,” said the girl in blue, inching closer.

“...and this is Shanette.”

“Hi,” said the one in green, stepping in as well.

If I had been faced by a wall of woman before, it had now been fortified. Everywhere I looked, it was boob.

One of the overhead lights flickered again.

“We don’t like tall men, do we girls?” Melissa asked.

“Big guys? Yuckie,” followed Shanette.

“Yeah, gross,” said Bianca, her voice a natural purr, “We like our men short…”

“Helpless…”  cued Shanette, biting her plump lower lip as she looked down at me.

“...weak…” smiled Bianca.

“...needy,” Shanette finished.

By now, the three girls had me all but plastered to the wall. Melissa did nothing but smile down at me, apparently enjoying every moment of my well-deserved distress as these new girls soaked me in. Finally, though, she spoke. “See? No reason to be jealous, Doctor J-“

“I wasn’t jeal-“

“...it’s like I’ve been telling you,” she continued, speaking right over me, “It’s the thing. Girls want their men vulni these days, and you…”

“You are- rrrrrrrrrrr….” Bianca...growled?

“...you’re perfect,” Shanette giggled.

“And, no reason to be scared, sweetie,” Melissa assured me, though the current situation - I felt like I was about to be squashed into a girl sandwich - gave me more than enough to be frightened about, “You don’t have to worry about the big, mean men.”

“We’ll keep you safe,” Bianca promised, her eyes gleaming with portent, “don’t you give it another thought.”

“We’re all here to take care of you,” Shanette cooed, her expression growing softer by the moment, “it’s all we want…”

Unsure of what to say, I looked from one girl, to the other, and then back to Melissa. She merely smiled, closed her eyes to take a deep breath, and then opened them again as she spoke. “You see, sweetie? You see what kind of girls I hired for you?” she said, and leaned in to whisper down into my ear, “I did such a good job…”

Her melony breasts squashed into my neck, her voice in my ear.

“...won’t you just accept that?”

===========================

Thank you to good friend and master-of-the-craft AlexGTSArtist for his newest donations to our little story.;  these renders are fantastic. Please support him where you can.

More stuff at my Patreon

[5uptic]

crewfu: fanfic spotlight!

We work together by Anonymous (5up & DK, unrated, gen | 248 words)

Summary: One likes plants and baking, the other loves to create and design video games. They stay up and create monstrosities together, it's their fun, it's their favourite game. Aka a 5up and Dk roommate au!

No matter how life tangles, I’m still here with you. by hungryandsleepy (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 279 words)

Summary: 5up has been working so hard on his new map, and of course, he needs someone to give him a motivation to go to sleep.

objectively pretty by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 462 words)

Summary: steve is drunk. he's pretty sure 5up is too. that doesn't mean being called pretty is any less momentuous.

you plus me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 489 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve meet.

he said to me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 656 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve share a moment.

by the snowmen by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 670 words)

Summary: Steve has a moment when it's all over.

today you got to know me (a little bit too slowly) by runninohhoney (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 675 words)

Summary: Steve lights up a cigarette. 5up doesn't smoke.

what would it take by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 787 words)

Summary: It's Steve's first mission. He hecks up. Or does he?

sorta cute by floweruru (5up/Steve, unrated, m/m | 822 words)

Summary: ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘That’s just disrespectful,’ he said. Yet there was 5up, crushed like a can in Steve’s embrace, feebly kicking at nothing as his feet leave the pavement.

i was gonna kill u, but ur kinda cute?? by Cthulhuer (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: Steve is a mess and 5up is worse.

I hear a Symphony by AwkwardAce (5up/Fundy, unrated, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: He exhaled until his lungs ached for air, fingers twitching as he opted to remove the sleek white gloves he wore in a feeble effort to soothe himself. It didn’t work. He wrung his trembling hands together as his eyes raked down the worn leather case taking in the doodles- some etched some drawn- across the faded surface. He snapped the buckles open and his breath hitched, catching in his already tight throat. For a moment the world span, his head throbbed and he wanted nothing more than to run and hide. 5up breathed out slowly, shakily.

staring by lytriis (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: steve asks 5up out. 5up doesn’t know how to respond.

and it's four am, and yet, you're here by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: in which steve shows up at 5up's house, in the middle of the night, completely spontaneously

more than this by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve catches 5up venting.

3:15 by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve tries to guess Five's name. It's much more difficult than he anticipated.

things were different by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: His eyes circled around to his friends, Kimi and Janet engaging in pleasant comversation, sleepy and becoming increasingly more sober. He looked, finally, across him, and caught Dumbdog staring at him. What now bro, what did this guy want. small talk, turns into not small talk, then there's no talk

Once Upon A Dream by SmearedWords (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: 5up looks ethereal, while Steve is struggling to breathe. "You're not real either." Or: Steve has a crush and a nightmare in three parts, 5up is tired, the crew life is hard and Polus sucks.

the ones you love will call you back by homeward_bound (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.8k words)

Summary: stevesuptic: dude, is it weird that i miss vegas   DumbDog: No? I do too.   stevesuptic: okay [steve misses vegas and apollo. they talk about it]

cough it out by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2k words)

Summary: Apollo thinks that Steve must be well and truly gone, at this point, because he giggles, like Apollo’s just told a particularly funny joke. He looks Apollo right in the eye and asks, “Do you trust me?” “Absolutely not.”

ivy by Secular_Czar (5up/Steve, teen rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: It might be a sad day, in general, but Steve isn't about to let it get to him. His friends won't ever let him wallow either.

The Colosseum by WhenTheFogClears (general rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: Five squinted, looking at the colosseum intensely. He thinks Apollo was latched onto the sphinx’s shoulder, fur matted with blood. Janet was slumped against a column, probably out, with Kimi whose bow was snapped in two, her leg twisted at an odd angle. DK was in the corner trying to cast various supporting hexes and charms with a broken arm, whilst Hafu was dragging a heavily bandaged Steve away. or 5up slaughters a cat

Oneshots :) by woofles1990 (5up/Fundy, 5up/Steve, teen rating, multi | 2.5k words, oneshot collection)

Summary: Just a bunch of MCYT/Among Us oneshots, mainly featuring 5up's crew because yes :)

the adventures of 5up and steve staying up late because they're under 30 by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.5k words)

Summary: “The night is young!” Steve yells at the ceiling, throwing his hands up in the air. “Take advantage of it! Commit crimes! Fuck hoes!” Five catches his hands in the air and laughs. “You wish you had hoes.”

unreasonably in love by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.6k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "It was like pieces of a puzzle, everything coming together. And now, here they are, standing in their apartment, which looks more like a hollow shell than a home, filled solely with scattered boxes and the minuscule amount of furniture that they brought with them to Vegas." Or: what happens after Apollo and Steve move in together.

cant be love by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 3.5 words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: He had chuckled to himself, he felt so stupid. Who in their fucking minds names a playlist 'sugr?', he thought, internally cringing. A story where a Steve meets an Apollo, and some things happen.

Somewhere in the darkness, us together for a while by tumtummeke (Apollo & Kimi & Steve, teen rating, gen | 3.6k words)

Summary: Apollo worries about Steve. Steve breaks his vape pen. Kimi plays power washer. Self-indulgent angst, with a generous helping of friendship and cuddles.

odyssey by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 23k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens...they warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. Therefore pass these Sirens by and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear." -Homer, The Odyssey

Also: SilverSprinklez10‘s yupwaves collection.

Summary: This is a Harry Potter AU based on the characters/personas of the youtubers/streamers.

FAQ:

Wait what is this: pretty straight to the point! i’ll regularly share crewfu-related fanfictions to this blog :)

How regularly is “regularly”?: great question! LOL. it depends on the flow of fanfics that get uploaded, which i do not have any control over, but i’m looking forward to do this twice a month. after all, it’s only me doing this and i often run on a tight schedule.

What’s the format like?:

[title of fic with link] by [author of the fic with link] ([main pairing(s), if there is one/multiple], [fic rating: eg, general rating], [relationship: eg, m/m] | [word count in k] ([added prompt to specify if it’s complete or not)])

Summary: [summary provided by the author. if it doesn’t have a summary, a “No summary” prompt will be put instead]

(What does WIP mean again?): Work In Progress :)

Why are you doing this?: from the beginning, my blog has hosted conversations about RPF (real people fiction) and crewfu pairings. this has evolved into people sending me updates about certain fics in the crewfu tags every now and then, but i wanna take the next step and just do these things myself. after all, i’m already lurking in the tags often to see the fics that get posted. as someone who is both a writer and a reader, i wanna appreciate fanfic writers and help out other people that want to read fanfic and consume more fandom content!

Will it be AO3 only?: well, ao3 has a very helpful tag system that makes finding fics incredibly easy, as well as allowing people with no accounts to like and comment on fics, so that’s the site i will personally look in for fanworks. but if there are any fics you’ve written or liked in any other platforms, such as wattpad, you can always contact me through my inbox (send an ask or a dm!), and i’ll make sure to include for the next fanfic spotlight :)

Does it mean you won’t reply to fic asks anymore?: yeah, i guess. since i’ll be doing the searching myself it seems counterproductive. but if i ever skip a fic or again, it’s in another platform, or you’ve posted/read the fic a while ago and you want to get more traction on it, hit me up and i’ll take it into consideration!

Will you read every single one of the fics on your list?: oh no. again, i run on a tight schedule, and also i have my own taste when it comes to fics. i won’t be reviewing fics or any of the sort, and my intention extends to simply sharing these fics to this page so people will have easier access to them :) that’s where ao3 tagging becomes SUPER useful!!!

So what’s the criteria for the way you’ll sort out the fics in your list?: word count, going from lowest to highest. in case of fics in other platforms, i guess i’ll put them at the top of the list. i’ll also be looking for fairly recent fics, so let me know if you want any old-ish fic to be included.

I see you talking mostly about 5up/Steve and Steve/Apollo. Can I still send/see other crewfu fics?: why yes absolutely! my goal is to push every fic which heavily features regular crewfu characters - 5uptic and supdog just happen to be very popular pairings. so, to give you a list: core 4 (5up, hafu, dk, steve), apollo, aipha, annie, janet, kimi, ellum, koji... you know the drill. it doesn’t have to be centered on a relationship, or about 5up in specific, etc. my only requirement is that any of the previously mentioned members are a central part of the fic or are HEAVILY featured in it (sorry, minecraft fics with 50+ tags who only mention 5up as an afterthought won’t make the cut :/).

Isn’t shipping Bad™?: well, it’s a little more nuanced than that. i will go out of my way to discourage and shame people who often violate CCs’ boundaries by acting like so and so has a crush on this person, or that this and that are Actually Into Each Other or secretly dating. any sort of tinhat bullshit is a big nono (think larries). but i run on the assumption that people who write rpf understand that what they’re doing is simply write a completely fictional story using real life personalities, and understand the boundaries necessary to do it - aka they’re not tinhats, they understand they can’t assume everything about CCs’ thoughts and personalities, they understand that what they’re writing is strictly fiction, they keep these works only in fandom circles, etc. (but again, it’s only one me doing this, so please be kind if i don’t happen to know that this person is Actually a tinhat or whatever).

show fic: NO. (seriously. i don’t feel comfortable putting my ao3 account out there. please respect my privacy on these trying times <3)

I REALLY don’t care about your rpf/fic talk: fair! i’ll be tagging every single one of these posts as “fanfic spotlight”, so just mute the tag using tumblr settings so you’ll never have to look at these! likewise, you can follow the tag if you want to keep up with it, or search it on my blog to look at the other entries you might have missed (but this is the first one! lol).

Hey, my fic is here and I don’t feel comfortable with it being shared over here: no problem! let me know as soon as you can and i’ll take it down <3

[still-a-morosexual-help]

OBEY ME! LESSON 56 DETAILED SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION/THEORIES

*I wrote this days after the lesson was first posted and never bothered to go back and edit it so meaning there will be me theorizing about the next lesson as well

*I write a small para for each chapter and I write it immediately after finishing that chapter so there’ll be theorizing about the next chapter too

*I swear more than usual here

*Some of the dialogue is heavily plagiarized and a few is lifted directly from the story, the game is to figure which is which.

*Summaries and Discussions/theories for all the other lessons can be found on this blog under #obey me spoilers or #my theories or #my headcanons

This has one locked lesson cause of course it does

Belphie’s upset that their names got called on the loudspeaker as if they were the lost children and not Diavolo. MC says the others won’t let them ever live this down if they found out and Belphie says he’ll be teased for centuries. Belphie tells a story about how he once got lost in the Celestial Realm and spent hours in a tree crying, MC asks why he was on a tree, and he says cause he thought he’s be able to see the direction of the celestial palace from there. It had eventually been Raphael who found him and he ended up taking a liking to the tree so he would climb it and nap up there whenever he wanted to avoid work. MC asks whether he like Raphael. Belphie says he never thought about it either way but that Raphael always looked like he had it rough (course he did – he had to try to get Belphie and his brothers under control cause Lucifer was much more lenient those days. I’ve mentioned this before but I’m certain that Lucifer blames his leniency as what got Lilith killed and that’s why he’s unreasonably strict with the brothers now) MC asks what Raphael was like – he says he worked hard for little reward and his job was looking after Michael’s needs no matter how unreasonable (and they really are the Lucifer and Diavolo of the Celestial Realm aren’t they!?). He was meticulous and methodical and he always had a sullen, irritated look making him always seem like he was in a bad mood. And his evil eye looked so evil you could almost mistake him for a demon. Belphie says he hasn’t seen him in a ling time and wonders how he’s doing. Belphie says all this with a smile on his face and this is the first time we’ve heard someone talk about Raphael in a positive light and this supports my theory that Belphie sees the Celestial Realm in a more positive light than the others probably do (which is why he irrationally directed all his anger at the humans). I’m also 10% certain the person Simeon was meeting with was Raphael not Michael cause I don’t think we’ve heard Belphie mention Michael once so it makes sense that they would have him recognise the angel he would later talk about. They get to the desk and Belphie goes to give their names but MC cuts in with ‘snoozy’ before he can say his. The employee comments on the name and Belphie blushes and says it’s embarrassing and asks MC to stop laughing about it. The employee gives them the note which happens to be a ransom note. Lol this guy is fucked.

Belphie complains about Barbatos failing to teach Diavolo not to walk off with strangers (in my very first theory/headcanon posts I compared Barbatos and Diavolo’s relationship to the one between Alfred and Bruce Wayne and I completely stand by that. I think Barbatos is significantly older than Diavolo the same way Lucifer’s significantly older than his brothers and similar to Lucifer and his brothers I think Barbatos had a hand in raising Diavolo. Given that we now know that Barbatos might have powers that rivalled the demon king it’s possible that he may be as old as him, or just slightly younger, than him as well. Tldr; Barbatos gives off heavy Alfred Pennyworth vibes). Belphie doesn’t want to deal with this and MC says they can’t just ignore it (also they will be murdered twice over if they do) and Belphie says he knew they’d say that and agrees to humour this stupid fucking human. He says he doesn’t wanna get tortured by Lucifer and Barbatos but the idea of going and rescuing Diavolo like one of his good little pawns makes him sick too. They head to the circus tent and are greeted by a happy and beaming Diavolo sitting on a chair with a man holding a gun to his head and demanding money (what a fucking amateur ass kidnapper at least give ‘em time to go and get the money! What you think people just walk around with wads of cash in their pockets!?) Belphie ignores him and scolds Diavolo for just waiting around for them to come get him and for leaving them in the first place. The man panics and tells them to stop moving closer unless they want him to shoot Diavolo. Diavolo also ignores the man , apologising and saying with a bright smile after the ride he was feeling sick and this man stopped and checked he was alright. Diavolo calls the man considerate cause he promised to help diavolo find the two of them and look! He kept his promise! Bsdjfjibvdmck this poor fucking kidnapper… Belphie groans and asks Diavolo if he even realises what’s going on rn and says even after being from a royal family he can’t be this sheltered and oblivious. The man’s just getting more stressed at how no one here seems to care about him as he keeps screaming about being serious and blowing Diavolo’s head off his shoulders (This poor guy – even MC who’s lived the most normal life from the three of them has faced more threatening life or death situations to give a shit). Belphie just tells the man to shut up with the most bored expression on his face. He then transforms into his demon form resulting in the man screaming his head off. Belphie just tells the man he talks too much, casually asking if he should make it so that no one has to ever listen to the man run his mouth again. The man stutters, calls Belphie a monster and tells him to stay back and panicking points his gun at Belphie. MC either using their very on magic creates a wind (called ‘wind of protection’) strong enough that it stops the bullet when he shoots or a raging fire (called ‘fire of judgment’) that takes over the bottom of the screen that’s powerful enough that it actually melts the bullet mid-flight and then rushes to the man making him scream and making the whole screen flash red (I had a moment of ‘HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT DID MC JUST BURN A MAN ALIVE!? DID ALL THIS LEAD UP TO MC COMMITING MURDER!? WHY AM I LOWKEY EXCITED!?’) but no the guy’s still alive, I think the fire just made him move back from all of them. (but can we talk about how powerful MC’s own magic is and how it seems to be at its most powerful when they’re protecting the people they love? (like when they unconsciously counteracted all the curses in the reaper’s cave that should have killed the brothers, or when they saw Satan use a healing spell once and were later able to effectively use it on Mammon later despite the fact that the were having trouble picking up the spells Satan was actually trying to teach them). The man screams asking what the two of them are (ajfkjfcijzh didn’t Solomon say just last lesson that they were supposed to keep this all secret!!!!???) Belphie says bullets can’t actually harm him but he still smiles and thanks them. Diavolo seemingly in shock says that the man fired his gun at Belphie and that he was trying to hurt Belphie (despite the fact that Diavolo knows a gun wouldn’t hurt Belphie it’s the fact that the man didn’t know that and had the intention to hurt Belphie that sticks with him and I think that means a lot), A pale purple aura starts swirling around him and he instantly transforms into his demon form, looking furious and screaming “HOW DARE YOU…!” The man screams.

The man drops his gun and runs away. Diavolo says, serious for once, that they can’t let him run away and that he’ll contact Barbatos to get the royal army and – (bro you’re gonna start a war bro chill), Belphie says he can’t bring the army here he might accidently bring about the destruction of the humans (funny how a couple yrs ago Belphie would have been all for this plan) and Diavolo looks sad saying he can’t just let this go. MC and Belphie both get Diavolo to try and calm down, with Belphie telling Diavolo he wasn’t hurt and transforming back to his human form, before saying that Diavolo didn’t need to transform as well & that if Lucifer and Barbatos find out Belphie’ll get in trouble. Diavolo transforms back and says the man tried to harm a dear friend and he couldn’t help but get angry. Belphie blushes and can’t come up with words. MC teases Belphie asking if he’s blushing and he denies it while still blushing. Diavolo also notes that he’s flushed and is worried that it’s a sign that he’s been hurt somehow. Still blushing Belphie says he’s not hurt and to stop worrying about him and that they should leave. Diavolo says since they’re here at the circus tent they should watch the circus perform since Belphie likes human world circuses.  Belphie’s surprised and asks Diavolo how he knows that, Diavolo says Lucifer told him a long time ago, Belphie asks why and Diavolo says when they’re alone Lucifer talks a lot about his brothers, specially Belphie (Lucifer also has random pictures of his brothers that he takes without them knowing as they go about their daily life… This man is such a proud dad. He pulls out his wallet and a whole roll of pictures unfold all the way to the floor and across the room and he’ll tell the story behind each picture to anyone who listens.) He’s also told Diavolo about Belphie’s favourite tree in the Celestial Realm and the story of how he found that tree. Back then Lucifer always thought whenever Belphie wasn’t with his siblings he’d be up in the tree napping or down in the human world watching the circus and that’d made diavolo determined to see the circus too. Diavolo then asks if they can see the circus together. Belphie’s still shocked but then he blushes again and agrees. Inside Belphie and Diavolo are both clinging to MC as they cheer, scream and argue about the safety of the trapeze artist. MC can ask Diavolo if he wants them to cover his eyes cause he’s scared for her safety despite Belphie telling him there’s a net, ask Belphie if he wants to hold their hand cause he’s just as nervous or excited or comment to no one how they’ve got a demon attached to both their arms.

It’s night out and as a reward for coming to get Diavolo Belphie was allowed to pick all the rides they went on, Diavolo looks like he’s gone through hell, stuttering and asking if that was all. Diavolo asks how MC’s doing they say they threw up in a bin and are feeling better now (or they can say they had fun) Diavolo says he threw up in so many bins he lost count. He asks if they should head home and Belphie says there’s one last thing he wants to ride, Diavolo starts stuttering again. Belphie says it’s the ferris wheel, Diavolo’s shocked and asks if it’s cause Belphie remembered him saying he wanted to ride it, Belphie tries to deny it but Diavolo doesn’t buy it – instead he smiles brightly and gushes about how nice and sweet Belphie is which makes Belphie blush and demand him to stop. Diavolo marvels at the lights from up in the ferris wheel and how they look like stars, Belphie says he’s getting too excited. Diavolo ignores this and points out his hotel and the brothers’ manor. Belphie says he sounds like a child and Diavolo laughs and says that Lucifer says the same. Diavolo, while still smiling, says that in a way he is a child, a child who spends his time alone and never gets to do anything interesting (and holy shit that’s sad – he really did grow up alone in that huge castle…) Belphie doesn’t know what to say to this and Diavolo asks what’s wrong. Belphie says he’s surprised cause he never knew Diavolo saw himself that way. Diavolo laughs and says he never expected Belphie to treat him with kindness and Belphie asks what kind of heartless monster did Diavolo imagine him as (look despite all the shit I give Belphie I do really love him but also I mean…. He does kinda make it known how much he dislikes diavolo…) Diavolo laughs it off, he says today he learnt things about Belphie that even Lucifer hadn’t told him and that there’s probably a lot about Diavolo that Belphie doesn’t know about either. Diavolo says he knows they’ve had there differences, specially cause Diavolo had his position to consider and that he had been very strict with Belphie in the past and that he still doesn’t consider that a mistake (YES!! FINALLY!!) and that despite all that they were still able to get along well today, he thanks MC for their help in bringing them to this point. They say they didn’t even do anything special, Belphie says that he agrees with Diavolo and that they did help. Diavolo says he wants to talk more with Belphie and if Belphie agrees nothing would make him happier. Belphie’s silent for a bit before he slowly agrees. Diavolo thanks him and says there’s one more place he wants to drop by.

They end up at the brothers’ place. Asmo welcomes them back, Diavolo says “I’m home!...just kidding pardon the intrusion” AND you just KNOW this man wishes he wasn’t kidding and that he could really live with all of them. Asmo asks how his day went & Diavolo says he had fun. When beel asks Belphie says he’s really tired. Asmo invites Diavolo to stay for dinner, saying Lucifer & Barbatos are cooking. Diavolo says he’ll go and help them but Belphie makes him sit down and tells him to relax after the day they had. Diavolo beams and thanks Belphie for worrying about him and Belphie blushes and tries to deny it, saying that since him & MC aren’t helping if Diavolo goes to help it’ll just make them look bad. Diavolo says he actually wants to help and that the other two can wait here (hey Lucifer and Barbatos are Diavolo’s closest friends right? And you tend to tell your closest friends everything that happens… MC & Belphie are so fucked). (this next interaction has such strong sibling vibes? Like I’m telling you I’ve had this exact same conversation before) Levi & Mammon seem to find the whole interaction between the two of them interesting and make noises about it, when Belphie asks them what, Levi says it’s nothing and Mammon asks how it went. Belphie says they went to a park and now they’re back. Satan says the others meant how it went with Diavolo. Belphie says like he said before there was nothing to it. Asmo says the interaction between the two of them says different and Satan agrees. Beel congratulates him and Belphie blushes and says he has no idea what they’re talking about. Mammon then asks MC if there were any problems, if they wondered off and got lost. MC either denies it so harshly it’s immediately unbelievable or says no…not really. Levi asks what ‘not really’ means. Belphie asks Mammon why he asked that and if he remembered the time he got lost in a park. Beel also then remembers that. Mammon says he’s not the one that got lost and that it was the twins. The three of them then argue about who really got lost. Asmo tells them to each say their side of the story. Mammon had been playing darts when the twins disappeared and he’d ended up searching all over for them and he’s been really freaked out. The twins say they went to buy soft serve and when they came back Mammon wasn’t there and they ended up going around finding him. MC, Satan and Asmo says it sounds like all 3 of them fucked up. Diavolo then calls them for dinner. (This whole arcs gives me ‘taking your new partner’s kid who hates you on a day out so that you can bond’ vibes with MC there solely to act as the buffer)

During dinner they talk about their day at the park, apparently they rode the freefall of death thrice in a row and Belphie happily tells Diavolo that next time they go they should ride it again. Diavolo very obviously reluctantly agrees to, which Mammon points out. Diavolo said he did enjoy it but next time he wants a break between riding it over and over again. Belphie says it wouldn’t be a marathon if they took breaks. Diavolo says next time they should all go together and maybe even try out a different theme park. Levi suggests a space themed park with another insane ride that tries to kill you, Mammon reads the description of the ride and immediately nopes out. Satan teases Mammon for being scared which he protests to, Beel asks for a place with good food, Levi says he was waiting for Beel to say that and Diavolo happily laughs and after being alone for so long a lively dinner like this full of people he cares about who care about him in turn was probably something he always wanted. After dinner in the warmly lit music room Barbatos brings Lucifer coffee, Diavolo and Satan are playing chess, Levi is rambling to Asmo about the game he and Diavolo were playing and Asmo happily tells him he has no idea what he’s talking about, and Belphie asks to talk with MC. He tells them despite how much he initially complained he had fun and he thanks them, they say they’re happy things turned out well. He says he never thought he would end up feeling like this. Lucifer then calls the both of them to him. He says they did well today and seeing the relaxed way Diavolo’s getting along with the others like there’s no tension between them is a relief. He thanks them. Belphie smiles as he says that Diavolo looks like he’s having fun with the others. “By the way…” Lucifer says with a smile ‘Diavolo told me about what happened today you little fucks’ (told you he’d snitch to Lucifer) Belphie’s shocked and speechless. A purple aura starts rising off Lucifer as he smiles sweetly at them, “Perhaps you’d like to explain to me exactly what happened?” “DD! …Why’d you have to tell him!?” screams Belphie before he accepts his fate and the screen goes black.

MC leaves the house to walk Diavolo and Barbatos to the street to drop them off, for which Diavolo apologises for troubling them. Barbatos says he could have ordered a car to come right up to the door of the house (Barbatos pls read the room!) and Diavolo says he doesn’t mind catching a taxi from the street. Barbatos is silent and contemplative for a moment before he says he forgot to tell Lucifer something and heads back inside (he read the room!). When they get to the street Diavolo worries cause Belphie had seemed really pissed when they left, he says when Belphie told him to keep it a secret he’d genuinely thought Belphie meant the picture they took together. He assumes Belphie told him not to tell about the ransom right after he told him not to tell about the picture but Diavolo had been so thrilled by the picture he hadn’t processed most of what Belphie said. He worries he messed up all the progress he made during the day. MC says though Belphie’s mad now he’ll get over it in time. He’s still worried that next time Belphie won��t be as willing to talk to him like he did today (he was still calling him DD though even when he was pissed so I don’t think it’ll be a problem. I hope they keep up the nickname Lucifer will hate it and that at least should be incentive for Belphie to keep using it). Diavolo says he had a lot of fun today and that he’ll never forget it. He goes on to say that growing up he lived a very sheltered life and that he’s never felt more free than he did today, though the ride was too much for him. He says even thinking about it makes his hands shake and he shows them to MC. MC can either take his hands or do nothing. If they take his hand he blushes and says it’s strange but that made him calm down. He says he wants to spend more time together and asks if they can go for a walk. MC agrees and he’s delighted by it. He says he’ll message Barbatos to let him know but that it’ll probably not be necessary since Barbatos went back to give them space anyway (You know Lucifer saw Barbatos come back alone, figured out what is happening and is now pacing a hole through the floor

They go to a park with a lake from where they can even see a ferris wheel in the distance. Diavolo asks if they think it’s the ferris wheel they rode today or a different one. He then laughs and says the human world’s really beautiful from the trees in daylight to the buildings at night. He asks if he can hold their hand and they can do that or put their arm through his. If they hold hands he says they almost look like a couple. If they do the second one he’s shocked but smiles and says they saw through him and realised what he actually wanted to do even though he wasn’t smooth enough to ask. He says his mother dies during childbirth and his father was always very strict with him, and he doesn’t know if that’s cause he was training him to be the next demon king or because he resented Diavolo’s birth for taking away the love of his life (I also HC Diavolo looking a lot like his mom. ALSO this confirms what I said earlier in one of the other lesson summaries about demons being born through biological reproduction like humans and unlike angels). He says growing up he never got a chance to talk to anyone outside the castle until he met Barbatos who told him stories of the outside world that fascinated him (this really does give the vibe that Diavolo was a child while Barbatos was an adult at the time). He liked Barbatos so much he begged him to stay with him. Barbatos had kept saying no but Diavolo had refused to give up. He’d thrown a tantrum then and said he’d refuse to be the next demon king unless Barbatos stayed with him and Barbatos had given in. Then he gets sad saying that what Belphie said today hit him, and how he always used his royal status to get others to do what he wanted. He asks if it’s possible that he’s forcing Barbatos to stay against his will. (and I get that what diavolo did was shitty but the fear he must have had for the rest of the day since Belphie said that cause he thought Barbatos will leave too and he’ll once again be truly alone in that castle is heartbreaking). MC who spent the last two lessons with Barbatos more or less talking about Diavolo (or Solomon) reassures Diavolo that Barbatos is staying cause he wants to. Diavolo’s happy for a bit before he becomes sad and doubtful again. He then says MC reminds him of Lucifer cause Lucifer is also constantly saying similar things to him (AND THE IMPLICATIONS!!? FIRST IT WAS THE OTHERS COMPARING LUCIFER’S FONDNESS FOR MC TO HIS FONDNESS TO DIAVOLO AND NOW IT’S THIS!!? Can I just say again: remember how the twins wanted to share MC if they ever got together with one of them? I think Lucifer x MC and Diavolo x MC make a lot more sense if it’s all three of them together. And in any case where MC doesn’t choose one of them, they get together like the LIs in The Arcana do). He asks if it’s possible that Lucifer and MC flatter him too much. He then says it can’t be fun listening to his childhood stories but that he wanted them to know about him and that he wants to know more about them too. He asks what kinda food they like. The options are sweet, spicy and sour. He likes sweet too. He asks if they like animals. Options are they love them, don’t or it depends on the animal. Look after all the time in the devildom, after two paws events, after bathing Cerberus and after the brothers all having their own vastly different animal representatives MC can’t not love all animals. Diavolo says imagining them playing with different animals is really sweet. He says he’s known them for quite some time now but there’s still so much he doesn’t know. He blushes and asks if they can do things like this more often, where they just spend time together. He then confesses and asks how they feel about him. If they say sorry he smiles and asks them not to apologize, saying that he didn’t say it to make them feel bad but that he understands. He asks if they’re in love with one of the brothers an they can say yes, no or stay silent. He smiles sadly and says he guessed. He says that even though they don’t have feelings for him it doesn’t change the fact that he still loves them. He says he still wants to get to know them more and asks if they can still meet up. He thanks them for being a part of his life. (While I still don’t think the side characters liking MC makes much sense and I still much prefer them as very close friends I like how all their confessions are very one and done. The brothers romantic plotlines with MC are still going on and there’s never a “I love you, do you love me? No? okay I still love you but I’ll back away too” moment. MC never gets the chance to reject them. But with the side characters MC rejects them, they understand that MC loves someone else, they accept the rejection really well and they go back to being friends and I really like that. It feels like it probably won’t be explored again after you reject them.)