#this is where the character's lack of English comes into play

[greenfiend]

Are we ready to have an honest discussion about Will and El’s dynamic and possible ending yet?

Two characters sharing a similar narrative in this story. How will things end for these two?

It hasn’t occurred to me until recently just how little we discuss these two.

Over the course of the show, the development of Will and El’s co-existence has less to do with their relationship but more to do with Will’s character arc.

In the beginning (seasons 1 and 2), Will is so hidden that El takes over. Will “hides” in the upside down, and is again hidden when he is possessed. El takes the spotlight in his place.

Then in season 3, Will is physically present but in the background. He’s the side character. El is the leader. They barely interact.

In season 4, Will is starting to come out of his shell. He’s still a side character, but he’s closer to being on an even playing field with El. He’s not in the background as often, and is actually seen conversing with El, and he even confronts her on her lies to Mike. Which is also foreshadowing his lies to Mike later on in the season.

I’m going to be quite frank: El and Will are not actually very close in canon. The “wonder twins” idea is beautiful but very fanon. These two had so many opportunities to grow closer, especially since they were separated from the others in California… but they just don’t? They both seem lonely and disconnected in the other’s presence. But yet, they are connected another way: El is Will’s saviour/protector. She is like his security blanket. I mean this literally (textually), and a sub-textually. Obviously she helps him while he’s trapped in the upside down and when he’s possessed- making her a textual, and literal saviour.

But… what do I mean by a sub-textual saviour? Well, she protects him from having to take the spotlight. He is able to hide behind her in many ways.

For one, she takes the brunt of the bullies in Lenora. Will is able to go around unnoticed even as a GNC guy that he is. Back home at Hawkins, he is, unfortunately, very visible to bullies. Visibly different, visibly gay. But in Lenora? Bullies are too distracted by the girl who’s different instead.

Now when it comes to Will’s love life… El also is protecting him in a sense. He desires Mike, romantically, sexually, and intimately. Due to the rampant homophobia that surrounds him, these desires scare him. El is a safe barrier from these desires. Will is also able to safely express himself through her.

If El weren’t in the picture, Will may have been more bold in expressing this side of himself to Mike. He may just let his feelings slip out more. Perhaps he’d let his eyes linger a tad longer, or he’d be tempted to be a bit more tactile with the boy he’s overflowing with affection for.

El shields Will from having to confront many aspects of himself. That’s the problem. Because of her protection, he isn’t able to challenge himself and grow. This is why whenever El saves the day, it never lasts. She merely puts a “bandaid” on the wound. But this wound will grow and fester if the source of the problem is not addressed.

El’s Possible Origin

This is the first time in the entire show that El is mentioned. The context of this sounds like they’re implying that El also “came from” the upsidedown; precisely where Will was at the time.

Now, I’m aware this is a fairly unpopular opinion, but I do believe El was created from Will in a supernatural sense. I suppose in a similar way to how Eve was created from Adam, minus any romantic undertones.

Our very first sighting of El is of her emerging from the forest, barefoot, in a hospital gown, with very little hair on her head, and a limited knowledge of the English language. Not unlike an infant child. Now, please don’t take this the wrong way… I’m not implying that everyone with limited language skills are babies, there are many possible reasons for it. But within this show, it is implied that her lack of language skills are due to her experiences within the lab, and lack of experiences outside of it.

I do have to ask though, why do the other “lab kids” we have seen have no obvious language difficulties? Unless… El actually was an “infant” in a way…

This quote is interesting for multiple reasons. One I’m focusing on here is the mention of life starting that particular day. Of course I’m not referring to Mike’s life starting that day- I’m talking about the person we are shown in this particular shot- El.

Now, I know what everyone is thinking: how does El have memories that predate this day then?

Well, what I’m arguing is that many of her memories could be an altered version of Will’s memories. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that his memories could have been transferred to El.

This “fake” script of the episode Papa tells us that Will recognized Brenner. There’s a history there! Will likely could not quite pinpoint how he recognized him.

It’s important to note that Will only vaguely recalls aspects of his childhood. There’s gaps. Just like there’s gaps in El’s memory as well.

El’s Possible Ending

I’ve always been surprised just how little people dig into El’s possible ending in the show. I feel like people are somewhat aware of this possibility but choose not to give it any further thought. Truth is- El doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere.

I need to remind everyone of this last shot in ST4. Yes yes the couples, we have heard it a million times already… but look where El is standing. She’s on the other side. She’s in the upsidedown. Where she initially came from. Now, I’m not saying she’ll end up in the current unpleasant upsidedown- she will likely live on in a peaceful version of it. An entirely new environment one that exists…

[In Will’s mind.]

I do think this is an important foreshadowing quote- but not in the way most people think. They won’t work together as twins- they will work together as one person. What I’m saying is…

They will combine. Just like what this hug visually foreshadows… El and Will will become one again.

I can honestly make a whole separate post regarding references made in ST to other media involving two characters being one. There’s a lot…

[eufezco]

𝙎𝙏𝙍𝘼𝙉𝙂𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙎 𝙈𝘼𝙎𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙇𝙄𝙎𝙏

𝙄𝙉𝘾𝙇𝙐𝘿𝙀𝙎 : steve harrington, eddie munson, billy hargrove

♡️ fluff ☆ angst ☽ smut

english isn't my first language !!!

MULTIPLE CHARACTERS

DADS HEADCANONS | ♡️ billy, eddie, jonathan, steve

SMUT HEADCANONS | ☽ billy, eddie, jonathan, steve

STEVE HARRINGTON

YOU'RE TOO DRUNK FOR THIS | ♡️ ☆

you're way too drunk to have that conversation with steve.

CONFIDENCE | ♡️

he isn't that confident when it comes to you.

HELP | ♡️ ☆

you and your nightmares spend the night with steve.

POOL SEX | ☽

WAIT FOR IT | ♡️ ☆ ☽ king!steve

you think steve maybe didn't make the best decision when he broke up with nancy because of you.

THE GRIEF OF LOSING EDDIE MUNSON | ♡️ ☆

x byers!fem!reader. steve and your family help you to go through the grief of losing your best friend.

SOFT!DOM STEVE | ☽

JELOUSY, JELOUSY | ♡️ ☆

steve has to face his feelings in the worst way possible when billy hargrove, the guy you kissed last night, knocks on your door.

TO THE UPSIDE DOWN | ♡️ ☆

steve, nancy, robin and eddie are in the upside down, you are paranoid that something might happen. steve has to reassure it won’t.

🩷💜💙 | ♡️ x bi!fem!reader

a conversation with robin, eddie, you and steve about your sexualities.

WE | ♡️ ☆ x hopper!female!reader

you go running to steve after finding out that your father, jim hopper, is alive. you reunite with him and jim and steve realize that they are now family.

MAX'S DATE | ♡️ ☆

you and your boyfriend steve help max after surviving vecna to get ready for her date with lucas.

FIRST KISS | ♡️ ☆

based on the quote: if I were to kiss you then go to hell, i would. so then i can brag with the devils i saw heaven without entering it.

THAT'S WHAT I LIKE | ☽

he has been neglected so when the time comes, steve doesn't know what he likes.

VECNA'S CURSE | ♡️ ☆ x hargrove!fem!reader

while visiting the grave of your brother billy, you are cursed by vecna.

POTTERY LESSON | ☽ ♡️

your pottery lesson to steve ends up in something better.

FANBOY | ♡️

i just think that steve would be the biggest queen fanboy.

THE FAMILY YOU CHOOSE | ♡️

a conversation between steve and his mom about his friends and you.

FORGIVENESS IS A NICE THING TO DO | ♡️ ☆

king!steve x munson!reader. after saying something horrible about eddie munson in front of you, steve finds out that he's your brother.

... READY FOR IT? | ♡️ ☆ ☽

you overhear a conversation between steve and robin about how you and him haven't had sex yet.

TAKING CARE OF MAX AT THE HOSPITAL | ♡️ ☆ x hopper!fem!reader

you want to be by max's side while she's in a coma in the hospital but it's consuming you. steve asks your father for help to get you out of there.

NEW YEAR'S EVE | ♡️ x hopper!female!reader

celebrating new year's eve with your boyfriend, friends and family.

EDDIE MUNSON

FIRST TIME | ☽

THE PRETTIEST GIRL AT HAWKINS HIGH | ♡️ x plus size!reader

DREAM OF A LIFETIME | ♡️ ☆ x pregnant!reader

your lack of communication had caused you and eddie to distance yourselves from each other. now he, robin, steve and nancy were trapped in the upside down, and you regretted not telling him you were pregnant earlier.

STAY SAFE | ♡️ ☆

you are the only person that knows where to find him.

FOUR TIMES EDDIE MUNSON KISSED YOU | ♡️ ☆ ☽

THE STAINS | ☽

what were those stains on eddie's mattress in that scene in 4x07?

WHITE LIE | ♡️ ☆

after being accused of crissy's murder, eddie hides and breaks up with you. when you findnd out you are pregnant, you tell everyone that it's steve's (your bff) baby but eddie can't do the math since two months ago you were still together.

REUNION | ♡️

you reunite with your friends from hawkins after a couple of years but now you are famous painter who just got divorced and eddie is the lead singer of the most famous band yet the tension between you is the same it was years ago.

MASTER OF PUPPETS | ☽

eddie plays master of puppets in his guitar while you touch him.

BILLY HARGROVE

FIRST TIME | ☽

POISONED DRINK | ♡️ ☆

you are in a party and someone puts something in your drink. luckily, billy finds you before anything bad happens to you.

TRAUMA RESPONSE | ♡️ ☆

you're a baddie but then billy finds out you also got some trauma from your parents.

GOOD GIRL, BAD BOY | ♡️ ☆

you are a good girl dating billy hargrove. all of your friends try to warn you that he is the type of boy who will break your heart.

SUMMERTIME SADNESS | ☆

billy sacrifices himself for you during the start court battle.

[suzuran777]

Analyzing some of the very first BL visual novels

First of all, I've talked about most of these topics during my Citrus con panel on Augustus 24th, so for those who missed it or who wanted a list of all the visual novels mentioned during the panel, those are also mentioned in this blog post! Japanese BL visual novels have been something I’ve been interested in since 2010-2011, and even these days many people in English speaking fanbases are familiar with games like DRAMAtical Murder and the other Nitro + Chiral titles. I've played many older titles which I've previously reviewed on this blog, and in this post I will be looking at some of the very first BL visual novels and how the industry has changed throughout the years.

Before the very first "official" BL visual novels were released, some visual novels already existed in which a male protagonist had romantic or sexual scenes together with one of the other male characters. Some examples of this are games like Sotsugyou Ryokou (1996) and Ko-Ko-Ro (1998). Most of the other love interests in these games were girls, so they were not promoted as “boys’ love” games.

The oldest visual novel I could find that was promoted as a game which focuses on love between boys, is a game called Sei Valentine Gakuen, released by a company called B.M. in early 1999. This is a game in which you can name the protagonist, and none of the characters are voiced. While checking their old website through Waybackmachine, it seemed like the game had a lot of game-breaking bugs which they attempted to patch out, however the website quickly shut down within what seems like only a year (or maybe a few years) after its release date. Since there's not a lot of information about this game available online, I was surprised that someone bought the game second-hand and made a youtube video about it, so I recommend checking that out! You can watch it here. Despite being promoted as a game that focuses on love between boys it seems like there’s not really romance in the game, so I am curious why they marketed the game in this way.

Next is a game called BOYxBOY, released a few months after Sei Valentine Gakuen in April 1999. This is one of the games I actually got to play myself, and I was surprised to see this game was released by King Records (the record label) as I didn’t know they used to publish games, let alone BL games. The protagonist has a face and a name this time, but even though all the other characters are voiced, they decided to leave the main character unvoiced for some reason. This game does have romance elements, like confession scenes, but it's still quite minimal. There’s only one character who actually gets a kiss scene for example. This game did get a fandisc a year later, but it seems to be more of a collection of extra materials and minigames rather than something that really adds something to the story of the game.

Another BL visual novel that was released around this time in July 1999 is a game called Graduation (or Sotsugyou) by Joinac, which as the title suggests, focuses on the protagonist spending time with people at his school right before his graduation. This one actually got translated, so it's probably the first BL visual novel to ever get an (official) English translation. Unlike most other games from this time, this one can still be easily accessed too, as a digital version is available for purchase on DLsite.

Entering the 2000s, game developer AliceSoft created their own BL game brand called AliceBlue and released their first BL game called Kakurezuki in 2000. Even though AliceSoft released 18+ rated titles in the past, this first BL title was actually also all-ages. Some reviews mentioned that they don’t really consider the game BL at all, pointing out the lack of romance, and I can definitely see where they’re coming from. Pretty much all the other games I mentioned so far take place in a modern-day school setting, however this game is more of a historical fantasy game (although the plot still only focuses on the protagonist and his daily interactions with those around him).

A lot of the games during this time period still highly resembled the typical dating sim-style game, which was quite popular in the mid/late 1990s. This kind of gameplay means that usually, the player decides what the character is going to do that day, for example, what subjects he takes in school, which club he joins and which locations he visits. In games like Kakurezuki, it’s a bit different you decide what magic skills you want to strengthen that day. This kind of gameplay kind of limits what kind of story the writers can explore, as the plot mostly focuses on the main character’s everyday life and their interactions with other characters, and eventually also became something that’s not commonly used in BL visual novels anymore.

Later that year, in August 2000, one of the most well-known early BL visual novels was released. This was Sukisho (short for Suki na Mono wa Suki Dakara Shouganai) by Platinum Label. The company promoted this game as the “first 18+ boys love game” though Graduation also seems to be rated 18+ on DLsite. Sukisho gained a big fanbase, as many fans really liked the art (drawn by Tsutae Yuzu) and the characters. Even though the plot still focused on boys going to school, some characters do have a darker backstory. The company even created official forums where fans could discuss the plot of the game and fan theories. Some other boards also encouraged fan meetups at local conventions in Japan. It ended up getting 3 different sequels, a PlayStation 2 port, an anime adaptation, and various drama CDs and novels. These days a lot of BL visual novels get drama CDs, but back then this game really got a lot of extra content compared to other games. Like many others, I personally discovered this game through the anime many years ago, but I played the visual novel later as it has also been fan translated and was quite accessible back then.

Another visual novel that stood out, and which also got an anime adaptation, is Angel's Feather (2003). Unlike the rather confusing anime plot, which adds a new character that isn’t in the game, I think the plot of the visual novel is actually much better. Initially it does seem like another game about high school boys, but in reality it’s more of an RPG game that focuses on the characters learning more about the world they’re living in, and their own magic abilities. I think just like Sukisho’s artstyle, compared to many other games that were released at the time, the art of this game quite unique. The artist is Yamamoto Kazue, who worked on many visual novels, and is still active nowadays. This game also got a sequel and drama CDs, but sadly the third game they were working on was never released. The studio was also working on a completely new game called White Shadow, however this one also remains unreleased to this day. If you want to read a little bit more information about this game and other unreleased titles, I wrote a blog post about that too here!

The inclusion of RPG elements I briefly mentioned just now in visual novels was not something only Angel’s Feather did. For example, some of these other screenshots are from Ouji-sama Lv1, Teikoku Sensenki, and Apocripha/0. The gameplay varied from a simple battle system to complicated dungeons and hard to beat enemies, depending on the game. One downside of this is that it’s quite a time-consuming process if you want to see all kinds of different endings, as these parts of the game were usually unskippable. Gradually, this is also something that slowly became less common in BL visual novels.

Generally, a lot of older games were quite difficult to replay as most games only had a limited number of save slots, and sometimes there would be no preview images next to the save files either, so it was quite difficult to remember which save file you were supposed to load. Some of the oldest BL visual novels also don’t have a skip button, which means you have to play through all of the dialogue again if you want to see a different ending. The pictures below are my screenshots from Angel's Feather and Kannagi no Tori, a game that was released in 2001. Luckily both of these games do have a skip button, but there were never enough save slots!

Other than changes in gameplay and artstyles, something that has also changed quite a lot are the dynamics between characters in adult scenes. In most BL visual novels, the protagonist is either a top or a bottom, and this doesn’t really change throughout the whole game. For example, if the official website mentions that the protag is a bottom, that means he’s a bottom with every single one of the love interests. Something I noticed while playing older games is that this order wasn’t always fixed. In games like Laughter Land and Kannagi no Tori for example, the game would often let the player decide. A game that was released a bit later which also has this option is PIL/SLASH’s game Shingakkou -Noli me tangere. In every route, no matter what character, you make the decision. I think it’s kind of fun when the game gives you choices like this, although I’m not sure if they will ever bring it back.

Terminology and target audience When I talk about these games I use “BL game” and “BL visual novel” as these are easily understood when communicating with an English-speaking audience. However in Japanese these games are usually only called “BL game” or "AVG" which just stands for adventure game. In the early 2000s some official websites around this time would refer to these BL visual novels as ''boys games'' to distinguish them from a genre called “girl’s games” or galge, which are games that would typically target a male audience. Even though the term “yaoi” was becoming less common, some developers would also call them “yaoi games” on their website, as you can see in some of the screenshots below . It’s not like the term “visual novel” is something completely unknown to them, but it’s also not a term I ever see them using to promote their games.

As for the target audience, similar to a lot of BL manga, the target audience for many of these BL visual novels was also women. A lot of websites stated that these were games “made by girls for girls”. However, it’s better to not generalize the whole genre as something exclusively targeted towards women, as some games like Hotaru (released by Tarutaru in December 2000) and its sequels were specifically advertised as games "made by gay men for gay men". One of the games I mentioned earlier, Graduation, was also made by a doujin group that calls themselves the Gay Artist Support, and like the name suggests, they support gay artists and alleys. Therefore it can be concluded that even during this time period, it wasn't just women creating and reading BL.

Marketing and sales Some might be wondering; how did people discover these games back then? Around the year 2001, multiple websites were created by fans that kept track of new BL game developers, as well as any updates provided by the companies that were already established back then. A lot of these websites also gave fans the option to chat with each other in their forums. Some examples of these websites are BOY'S STREET and Boyslove Kenkyuujo (which translates to BoysLove research institute). They kept track of both commercial and doujin game releases. Companies and doujin creators would both sell their games at events like Comiket, Super Comic City and J-Garden too, where they would promote their games and chat with fans. Their games would also be sold at stores like Animate and Toranoana, which is not too different than how creators sell their BL games nowadays, as both of these stores still exist. A lot of BL game creators in the early 2000s were quite close to each other and collaborated. For example, some doujin groups like Anubis Label, Ritz, Moon Parrot and more created their own magazine called B-GAME, which featured information about their new doujin games, corporate games, survey results, game reviews and more. The picture below (on the right) is a picture I found on the website of doujin group Moon Parrot, promoting and selling their game Kuro no Tsuki at Super Comic City. Of course official BL game magazines also existed, but I think I will make a separate blog post about that (update: you can read it here!).

Well-known developers throughout the years Next I made a list of some BL game creators that established their brands in the early or mid 2000s, and who continue to be active nowadays. I will mention some newer games as well. There's way too many BL visual novels to include all of them, so I apologize if I missed some that were quite influential!

Langmaor/Tennenouji: The first game Langmaor released was a game called Enzai in 2002, illustrated by Yura. This game focuses on a boy whose name is Guys, who gets sent to prison as a result of a false accusation. In one interview, Yura mentioned that she was almost afraid that the plot of the game would be “too dark”, as the main character experiences a lot of abuse, but she concluded that at least the game would be unique. In 2004 Langmaor released Teikoku Sensenki, and a year later they released Zettai Fukujuu Meirei (or more well-known as Absolute Obedience). This game had a kind of unique system which focused on not one, but two protagonists. The final game this brand released was a game called Laughter Land (2006. The illustrations of this game were drawn by Yuzuki Ichi who had previously worked on Kannagi no Tori. Yura was also part of doujin group called Tennenouj, which already released their first BL game in 2000 called Sei Crain Gakuen, a BL game that you could play by opening HTML files in your browser. They released their second BL game in 2006, which was Miracle No-ton, a game about a notebook that could grand the protagonist’s wishes (horny wishes only though!). In 2009, Luckydog1 was released, which ended up becoming one of the most popular and well-known games in Japanese speaking BL visual novel fanbases. The game is about the protagonist Giancarlo, who’s a low-ranking member of the mafia and currently in prison, who receives the task to free 4 important members of the mafia from prison. Some BL gamemagazines like Cool-B have an annual popularity poll, and for years, LuckyDog 1 and its characters ended up in first place. On BL information websites like ChilChil it continues to be the highest rated BL visual novel to this day. Two years ago, Tennenouji also released the game Friendly Lab, of which the mobile version is still being updated, so even nowadays they are still very active.

Nitro + CHiRAL: Or just called “NITRO CHiRal” these days. They released their first game, Togainu no Chi, in 2005. In the early interviews the director stated that they wanted to create something different, as a lot of visual novels around this time focused on schoolboys and modern-day settings. So instead, they wrote a story that takes place in a futuristic version of Japan, devastated by a Third World War. Only a year later in 2006, they released their second game, Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID- which also takes place in a fictional world. Even though the characters look similar to humans, they call themselves Ribika and have cat-like characteristics. The characters in this game are struggling to survive, as a mysterious force called “The Void” is slowly destroying their world. Because of their unique stories and beautiful illustrations, Nitro Chiral quickly gained a big fanbase in Japan too. In some articles published in Cool-B magazine, they mentioned that they were taking even bigger risks with their next game, as the plot would be anything but happy. This was about their third game, sweet pool. Despite that, I think fans already expected dark and serious stories from the company, so it was still well-received. Before releasing DRAMAtical Murder, they released two more visual novels called Itsuwari no Alkanet and World’s end Nightmare, though these were only available on Chiral Mobile, an app that could only be downloaded on certain Japanese phones. These days these games are considered lost media, but I wrote a blog post about what I could find about them some years ago. Afterwards they released their more well-known games DRAMAtical Murder in 2012 and Slow Damage in 2021.

Pil/Slash: This is a BL visual novel developer that is well known for writing dark stories, with themes like abuse, noncon, physical and emotional torture. Though of course this is not too uncommon in BL visual novels, as all of the developers I’ve previously mentioned include themes like that in their games too.Their first game, Masquerade ~Jigoku Gakuen SO/DO/MU~, was released in 2006, followed by Koibito Yuugi a year later. In 2011, one of their most well-known titles, Shingakkou –Noli me tangere- was released. This game is about protagonist Michael who’s enrolled in a seminary. However, his school life is anything but peaceful, as his family gets murdered and he also discovers a secret society of devil worshippers in his very own school. At the moment this is the second highest rated BL game on ChilChil, after Luckydog1. After this they released Pigeon Blood in 2014, which was also a horror-themed game, and Paradise a few years later, which was quite popular in Japan too. In 2021 they released their newest game, Dystopia no Ou. This game focuses on protagonist Kiriku who dreams about becoming a rock star. Initially, this seems quite different than PIL/SLASH's previous games, but I promise the story still gets pretty dark. The writer credited for Paradise and Dystopia no Ou is Kyuuyouzawa Lychee, who's also the creator of doujin game group LOVE&DESTROY and games like CAGE OPEN and CAGE CLOSE.

Spray: This company’s first game was Saikyou Darling, released in 2001, but I think they are probably more well-known for their Gakuen Heaven series. The first Gakuen Heaven game was released in 2002, but since then they have released a few newer versions of the game, console versions and a second game. This is another one of these games that people might know because it has an anime and manga series. Spray has released quite a few different games like Soshite Bokura Wa, Piyotan, STEAL! and more recently Tsumi naru Rasen no Ori, but I think other than Gakuen Heaven their most well-known title is probably Kichiku Megane, released in 2007. This game focuses on protagonist Katsuya, a salesman who seems to be failing at everything in life. Just before he’s fired from his job, he receives a mysterious pair of glasses from someone. Whenever he wears these glasses, his personality completely changes. He suddenly becomes very skilled at everything, but also very sadistic. In recent years fans have started organizing fan events for this game at local conventions again, so it’s interesting to see how popular it still is.

Holicworks: Also known as LoveDelivery, as that’s the name they used to release some of their very first games, like Tsukigami (2007) and Beniiro Tenjou Ayakashi (2008). Their most well-known title Taisho Mebiusline, released in 2012. This game is a historical fantasy game which takes place during the end of the Taisho period, in 1923. The protagonist, Kyouichirou, moves to Tokyo in order to go to university. However, he runs into trouble soon after his arrival, as the Imperial Military becomes interested in his ability to see spirits. The writer of this game, Nakajo Rosa, is often praised for the historical research she did in order to write this game. The story covers all kinds of political issues, international affairs and military activity, and combines it with religious themes such as Shintoism. This also means that even for Japanese speakers, the game can be a bit difficult to read, as it tends to use difficult words and kanji. However, I think with a bit of research it’s not impossible. They also released games like Tokyo Onmyouji, Tokyo 24ku, and more recently Tokyo Satsujinki Gakkou no Kaidan, though the only game that has an English translation is Tokyo Onmyouji, which takes place in a more modern-day setting, but still focuses on supernatural themes like ghosts and spirits.

Karin Entertainment: Another developer that has been around for a long time, who released their first BL game series called Bois in 2002. Afterwards in 2004, they released the game Animamundi Owarinaki Yami no Butou~ (Animamundi: Dark Alchemist), which I’m not sure if I should be calling BL game as there are also a few female love interests. The games they released after this aren’t BL games, but instead they created a new branch called Karin Chatnoir Omega, which released the game Omertà ~Chinmoku no Okite~ in 2011. In this game the mafia controls the government, and the protagonist J.J. is a hitman who’s taking all kinds of assassination jobs. In 2016 they also released the game Omega Vampire, which is the first omegaverse BL visual novel.

Parade: This is a game developer known for creating games in which the protagonist is exclusively a top, or seme, which is also something that was not super common in the past. In a lot of other games almost all of the love interests are younger guys, so I think it was interesting to see at least two of the other main characters in NO THANK YOU!!! were over the age of 35. Even though most Parade games have a lot of 18+ content, like NO THANK YOU!!! and their second game Room No. 9, one should not underestimate the plot, as the writing is really good. My favorite game is probably their latest game, which is Lkyt., a historical fantasy game and my personal favorite.

CORE: This is the BL branch of a company called Orbit, and their most well-known game is Messiah, which was released in 2006. Though their first game was a game called Ever Loyalty in 2001, followed by Fanatica in 2004. Most of CORE's games only have 1 or 2 characters the protagonist can end up together with, although sometimes other characters in the game also have their own bad endings. In Fanatica, the protagonist only has one true love interest, but a lot of the other main characters are also paired up with each other, so even if they don't have their own route, you do get to see different scenes with them. Even though CORE released their last game in 2008, which is the Messiah fandisc Messiah ~ Paranoia Paradox. It was announced that they are actually working on a new BL project called Tokyo Gentou/Tokyo Phantasmagoria, under the new name Procyon.

Adelta: Not really 2000s as their first game was released quite some time later, but I think still important because they've gotten quite popular in recent years. This is a doujin game group created by Kurosawa Rinko. The first games this group worked on were Cocoon and Cocoon Black Noise, released in 2014. The game they’re probably most known for is Koshotengai no Hashihime (Hashihime of the old Book Town). This game is quite well known for its references to literature and real writers, and the story also takes place during the Taisho period. Originally it was advertised as a time-loop murder mystery. In 2020 Uuultra C was released, which is a completely different kind of game that takes place during the Showa period and focuses on heroes you’d typically see in a Super Sentai Series, or Tokusatsu movies in which the characters fight kaiju. Adelta is currently working on their newest game, Ooe.

Conclusion Of course there are many more BL visual novels which left a big impact on people, even less serious games like Gakuen Handsome which still get referenced a lot to this day. Another well-known title is Mada Koubou's Hadaka Shitsuji, which was mostly created by artist and writer Togo Mito. It kind of difficult to determine how many BL visual novels currently exist, but BL information website ChilChil currently lists 345 titles in this database. This does however include fandiscs and games that aren't technically BL games, and also doesn't include all doujin games ever released.

The early 2000s was a good time for BL visual novel fans and a lot of developers were making BL games back then, which also meant that there would be many new games to play. These days the number of active developers has significantly decreased, so most of the time you get about 1 or 2 big releases every year. Of course, there are still doujin groups and individual creators who make their own games, but the number of commercial releases is pretty small nowadays.

Some games that were released earlier this year however, are Tokyo Satsujinki Gakkou no Kaidan and Haiiro no Arcadia. I am personally also looking forward to the release of Adelta's new game Ooe, and Procyon's Tokyo Gentou/Tokyo Phantasmagoria, so I recommend checking those out when they're released!

[katiascraft]

"Is this the start of something new?" |LN4

Part 2: Made in Argetina: The Series. (Lando's Version)

Parings: Lando Norris x Argentine!Reader.

Summary: after the austin gp, lando and you have your "first date".

Word count: +2k.

Warnings: none. Just fluff. Not a native english speaker so there could be (so many) errors. (I do what i can). Not proofread.

Author's note: finally here it is! Hope you like it i accept more suggestions and contructive critics! Dont forget to like or reblog! And follow me so we can be friends :3 (and drink mate together!)

MASTERLIST

Watching the podium was a dream of yours and now you have made it come true. You heard the anthems for the first time in person. All of the tifosis screaming it out. Charles smiled so proud along with Carlos and Max. You were really intrigued by Max’s character and you hope someday you could meet him. That was another dream of yours. Like Franco said: a tiny human filled with so many crazy dreams. Yeah, he joked about it all the time because you have this dreamy personality but he loves you for that. His so logical and terrenal, he loves that you add the daydreaming he most of the time lacks. That’s why your besties, you understand anc complement each other.

When the podium party ended and people started to spread out into different directions, you decided to call Franco to see where he was at. But he didn’t respond. You felt now again embarrassed like when you bumped into Lando fucking the most handsome cute and hot persona you’ve ever seen Norris and born his phone. You felt so stupid. You forgot your friend is now a driver here and probably doesn’t have time to answer your checking calls. So you decided to get back to the paddock and headed to Williams garage. You didn’t wanna be lost so you concentrated on finding your franquito. Fortunately some guys from the team told you he was at a meeting so you decided to look for Lily.

You found her at a table with another girl and didn’t want to interrupt but you also didn’t want to be alone.

“Hey… hi. Sorry to interrupt girls. I was lost for a moment I’m happy to find you Lily” you said shyly and clearly sorry for making the two beautiful women stop talking.

“Y/n! Oh no, there’s no problem honey. I was telling Alexa about you. So perfect timing!” She said sweet and made you smile widely. She introduced you to Alex, Charles Leclerc’s girlfriend. She was so stunning in person. And also really sweet. Lily made you part of their conversation and your stayed with them until Franco was free to get back to the hotel.

Lando was on a meeting with the team he really didn’t want to be in. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to all of that right now. Oscar knew about it and tried to pay attention so at least one of them had the important information and the big men knew. Lando couldn’t stop thinking about you smile and your rosé cheeks. And what you said to him. He also was anxious about the fact you’d never replied. Nor add him to contacts. He wanted to see your profile picture. He wanted to talk to you right now but he had to be here doing driver things. He never tends to be distracted. But he couldn’t help it. You were too gorgeous to not overthink about the whole interaction you had.

When the meeting ended Lando and Oscar went to the mc claren building to get change and eat something before heading to the hotel and rest. They didn’t want to do much. It was a frustrating race and weren't in the mood to go celebrate like some of the boys will do. Maybe he’ll watch Cars and fall asleep before it finishes. It was his comfort plan to be honest.

You and the girls order something to eat at the Williams building. You couldn’t stop thinking about the fact you broke Lando’s phone and that you could have stayed with him. You didn’t know why you felt like that. Like you did something wrong and added to the phone breaking. You started playing around with your phone once Lily and Alex started talking about things you really didn’t understand. But the only thing you learnt is that Alex lives in Monaco and there people speak French and you didn’t know about that. That’s when you see his messages. You blushed by reading them. You got so nervous. Lando was flirting with you that was obvious but you couldn’t believe he was flirting with you like why? Out of all the girls that come to see races, why you? You bit your lip replying.

‘Oh hola pretty boy. Sorry I didn’t see it till now. And sorry again for breaking your phone. Funny both phones still work somehow jaja’

You didn’t know how to approach and English man. Of course you flirted with guys before but you know, with the same culture and slang and social context. This is so different. You didn’t want to come off as rude or whatever.

‘How brave you are to give your heart to unknown person 👀’

You didn’t know if that was actually considered a tease but you were trying at least.

You jumped scared when Franco out of nowhere hugged you from behind almost screaming in your head.

“Al fin te encuentro amiguita. En qué andas? Cambiándome por gente linda y famosa?” (He said hi and what you were doing “charging me for more pretty and richer people?”) that made you laugh and roll your eyes.

“Ojalá. Lamentablemente me tocó ser tu amiga y no puedo salir” you joked about how unfortunately you were his friend and you couldn’t run away. That made him room his eyes. He joined the conversation and met Alex as well. You talked for a few more minutes till Alex Albon came back and so we started going down the stairs all together. Alex headed to the Ferrari building and another girl said bye to Lily and Alex. She said it was Carlos’ girlfriend Rebecca. All of them were so beautiful. You were in love.

You and Franco were chatting about what the meeting was all about when you heard someone scream from afar.

“Wait guys! Franco! Alex! Y/n!” When you all turned you found lando coming to you. Franco looked at you with one brow raised, strange about how Lando knew his best friend’s name. “Sorry guys, I just wanted to say goodbye. We’re not gonna see each other until Mexico” he said weirdly and nervously . That wasn’t the usual Franco thought. He looked at Alex who looked at him the same. Lily looked at you with question marks on her eyes. You smiled at Lando. Your heart is racing. He gave everyone a hug. And you were last. You didn’t know what to do in this situation. You didn’t understand what he was doing. When he hugged you a paper fell on the floor. So when you two splitted he picked up the little paper.

“Here you go” he said and handed it to you so you took it suspicious. “Alright bye guys! Take care!” He waved, running again into the orphanage building. You saved the paper on your jeans and played it cool.

“Okay that was weird and nice at the same time” Franco said, making all of you giggle.

(…)

After leaving Franco at his room and spending some time with him just chatting and drinking mate, you decided to come to your room to rest as well. All of the feelings you felt have left you exhausted. You were so happy for franco. So proud. You could feel your heart explode.

You had a shower. You needed to take out all of the weight of the day from your body. Relax for a while. By yourself listening to a piano playlist you found on Spotify. Dark academia theme. You loved it. After a few minutes you were packing and preparing all of your stuff because tomorrow you headed to Mexico. You were gonna be with franco until the Brazil race. And then going back home to Argentina.

When you grabbed your jeans, the ones you wore today, you remembered the paper piece lando handed to you. You know it wasn’t yours but your intuition just followed along with his play. You unfolded it and smiled.

‘Wanna chill out and watch cars for a while?’

That’s what the paper said and under the question was his hotel and room number. He didn’t answer your messages. And you thought this was like the most romantic thing. Like not using phones and sneaking into hotels. And keeping it a secret. Like a wattpad story you used to read when you were a kid about Niall Horan. Or maybe are you just crazy? Whatever.

You hesitated whether to go or not by the time it was. But you had nothing to lose. He offered and maybe this one gonna be it. Maybe you wouldn’t meet Lando Norris like this or any other way ever again so.

You decided to take some candies you had in your bag and that was it. You felt really bad about not having anything else to take. Google maps indicated his hotel was the one next to the one you were so that was a coincidence that wasn’t in your bung card. You didn’t think much about it and just went straight to his room.

When you got to it you knocked on the door carefully. If he was asleep you didn’t want to wake him up.

Fortunately a few seconds later we opened the door with a sleepy smile and very surprised.

“I thought you wouldn’t come” he said letting you in. You giggled a little.

“Surprise! I’m not losing my chances here honey” you said teasing him and saw how he blushed closing the door.

“Is that a thing in Argentina like beating hot and a teaser?” He asked me to open his mini bar, take out two water bottles and hand one to you with a smile.

“Well I think it is, you know. We are all pretty charming” you said, taking the water and string in his bed. You saw the tv screen displaying the cars movie already in the middle of the story. You acted offended.

“So you invited me to watch cars but decided to watch it all alone?” You said arching a brow funny. He looked exposed and stood in front of the tv.

“Actually that was a trap because no one says no to cars cause it’s a great movie but I invited you to look at me” he said posing awkwardly making you giggle.

“Alright I’ll enjoy the view then” you said grinning.

You just enjoyed time together by chatting about Argentina and London and a few words. And trivial stuff but you laughed so much. He is so funny and laughed at all of your jokes. Like you matched each other’s energy. Or crazy.

It was time for you to go back to your hotel because it was already 2 am and packing wasn’t done. Neither you nor Lando had packed everything for tomorrow's flight.

“Would I see you around then? It was really nice talking to you” he said on the door looking down at you with sleepy puppies eyes. You were so cute and fun. He felt the butterflies. You made him so nervous. Giggling and blushing like a teenager. You smiled at him. You were the most precious thing he has ever seen.

You nodded “of course. I’ll be with Franco until the Brazil race. That’s when I go back to Argentina sadly. But maybe I’ll travel again for Abu Dhabi” you said softly, looking at him. God he was so beautiful. He nodded in response.

Silence took place between you two for a few seconds. You decided to end it by giving him a kiss on his cheek. “See you around landito, te me cuidas chico lindo” you said just like how you taught him earlier a little funny and waved at him heading to the elevator. He waved at you. His face red.

Was this the start of something new?

(…)

‘You looked beautiful in that orange hoodie you wore today’ he texted.

‘You only say that it’s because it’s papaya. Do you want me to be a papaya? You’ll have to work your ass off. I’m team Williams until franco gets a seat in another team’ you texted.

‘I’m on it darling. Get ready’ he texted.

‘Oh I’ve been ready my whole life for this moment’ you texted.

‘😍😍😍😍’ he texted.

‘👀👀👀👀’ you texted.

——————————————————————————————

Hope you liked it 💌 my inbox is open if you have any idea! Send your requests!

[kurokens]

In The Middle | Satosugu

anime/manga: jujutsu kaisen

character: gojo satoru & geto suguru

words: 798

pronouns: they/them

request: none

notes: probably an overused prompt but idc sue me, i needed to write one of my own. im a sucker for misunderstanding. i haven't written anything in such a long time, it's been a while im sorry, satosugu have been on my mind for a while, and i needed to write something with them because i love them so fucking much. it's gonna be a series, so hopefully i dont disappear after one part lol... later on it might be specific on some insecurities bc i need it and i thought well let's just share it with the world and other who might need it. sorry for any mistakes T-T

not proof read

song rec: SHE'S - In The Middle

genre: hurt comfort, fluff, slowburn, a little bit angsty, poly?

warnings: bad english not my first language, satosugu are in a loving relationship, misunderstanding, pinning, a lot of pinning on satosugu's end, reader is so oblivious (is that the right one?), insecure and self conscious reader

You've always told yourself you weren't the type to live with anyone, you liked your quiet and your peace. Alone in your little bubble, without a soul to disturb it. And yet, here you were awoken by your roomates lover quarrel in the room next door, for the hundredth time this week.

"Don't you love me anymore? Am I not enough for you?" a whiny voice whisper-screamed "Satoru, my love, it was a dream, it was all in your head." an exhausted voice replied

"So what?? It doesn't mean anything? Are my feelings not valid?" Gojo huffed.

"How are you so dramatic so early in the morning? Let's go back to sleep come here.", Geto carefully lifted the blanket so his boyfriend could go back exactly where he belonged, asleep and quiet in his arms.

Such occurences weren't new to you, you could even say there were your daily life, that's why you laughed hearing the bickering couple, and turned around in your bed to try and fall back asleep while their muffled voices could still be heard in the background. This was without counting on what part of their conversation your brain decided to pick up on next. "I dont know for how much longer I can do this Sugu.." Satoru sighed. "Me neither love, but there is nothing much we can do about it.They live with us." His black haired lover replied. "I know, ugh I know, but it's getting so much harder everyday. Seeing them is becoming unbearable. I can't stand it anymore, we need to do something." He went on. "Shh, I know, I feel the same. But we can't just drop this on them all of the sudden and expect it to go well." The oldest reasoned.

Your heart shattered on the other side of the wall, now sitting against the headboard, an unstoppable flow of tears falling down your face. You were a bother? You thought the three of you were friends, shit, scratch that, best friends. And yet, yet, this was how they felt about you. Fuck fuck FUCK You needed to calm down, it's okay, you're okay. It must have been a nightmare, yeah that's right, a nightmare. Your brain loved playing tricks on you, waking you up in the middle of the night with the most vivid and realistic nightmares ever, enough to send you into full blown meltdown. Nothing to worry about, it was just a nightmare, nothing else. That's what you told yourself and yet when you woke up you couldnt shake this weird feeling in your stomach. You contemplated staying in your bed all day and avoid your roomates but that would be silly to ignore them for something that was potentially just a dream. So you shook the silly feelings away and got out of your bed, made your way to the kitchen to make some breakfast. Your two roommates were already there, being lovey dovey in each others lap and the weird feeling made its way back into your stomach. "Hi there." You greeted tiredly, only to be met with an echo of short hms, and not even a nod to accompany the cold greeting. The lack of acknowledgment not helping with your already overthinking mind, you decided to take a quick breakfast and just leave them be. It could just be a coincidence, nothing to worry about haha, right? Or so you thought, because you were back in your room mindlessly scrolling through tik tok when you once again hear the muffled voices of your roommates. Your brain screamed at you to put your headphones on and drown out their conversation, but you couldn't get yourself to do it, and you decided to listen to them, to at least finally be able to know whether or not you dreamed what happened last night. And maybe you shouldn't have, but what else could you do now but listen to the cruel words of the ones you once considered your best friends. "Suguru, we need to do it soon. I can't even handle looking at them in the eyes anymore, let alone utter a word to them. We can't keep going like this." Satoru complained. "I know 'Toru, I know, but you need to understand it's not as easy as you think it is." You heard the black haired man answer. And it was enough for you, you needed to get out of there. You obviously were no longer welcomed here, and the sooner you left, the better it would be, for both parties. So inbetween tears you picked up a bag and threw some spare clothes and anything that you could think of in your frenzy state before you ran out of there, determined to never come back, at least not for a while.

here u gooo!! sorry i've been away for a while, i've been finding it hard to write and staying focused, but i missed it so much, especially for these two. i'll try not to take too long to write AT LEAST a second part, but would love to do more than this bc i want it to be extremely slown burn and a little bit angsty krkrkr

part 2 is here!!

[amethystarachnid]

Heeeeey, can you write Holiday Party Shenanigans with Loki please? 😘

MIDGARDIAN FEAST

⤷ LOKI LAUFEYSON

ᯓ★ Pairing: Loki Laufeyson x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance, fluff

ᯓ★ Request from: MARVEL Holiday special

ᯓ★ Story type: one shot

ᯓ★ Word count: 4.3k

ᯓ★ Summary: It's Loki's first Christmas ever and he can't help but be confused by this Midgardian feast, but for you he will do anything, happily so if it involves annoying your older brother, Tony Stark.

ᯓ★ TW(s): fluff

ᯓ★ Since the request didn't specify anything I made up a plot with the fem!reader, also this is kind of an AU?

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

Snow blankets the streets of New York, twinkling under the lights of the Avengers Tower, which glimmers like a beacon of festivity against the wintry skyline. The smell of pine, gingerbread, and peppermint wafts through the air, weaving its way into the grand common room where garlands of holly and strings of multicolored lights deck every available surface.

This is Christmas, Midgard's most beloved holiday—a time of warmth, joy, and familial gatherings. It’s also Loki’s first Christmas, a fact he reminds you of at every turn.

“Explain again,” Loki says, leaning back on the plush couch with a puzzled expression, his sharp features illuminated by the glow of the enormous tree. “You chop down a perfectly good tree, drag it indoors, then dress it in gaudy trinkets and glowing baubles for... what reason?”

“It’s festive, Loki,” you say, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear as you arrange a row of candy canes on the lower branches. His emerald gaze follows your every move, curiosity mingling with amusement. “It makes people happy. And it looks pretty.”

Loki arches a skeptical brow, his lips quirking in that smug way of his. “Midgardians have peculiar ideas about aesthetics.”

“Not all of us,” comes the dry remark from behind you. Tony strolls into the room, a glass of eggnog in hand, and offers Loki a pointed look. “Just some of us—especially those of us who date homicidal maniacs.”

You turn sharply, glaring at your older brother. “Tony.”

“What?” He gestures toward Loki with his free hand. “You can’t honestly expect me to pretend this is normal. The guy tried to destroy New York. Twice.”

“Once,” Loki interjects smoothly, lifting a finger. “The second time was merely a minor enchantment spell gone awry. Hardly my fault your city’s infrastructure is so delicate.”

Tony glares. “Keep telling yourself that, Rudolph.”

Loki frowns. “Rudolph?”

You sigh, stepping between them. “Can we please get through Christmas without turning it into a family feud? Tony, stop antagonizing him. Loki, stop antagonizing Tony. You’re both acting like children.”

“I am acting like a child,” Tony replies smugly. “Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas is for children. You know who it’s not for? God-tier villains with delusions of grandeur.”

“Enough,” you snap, rubbing your temples. “Tony, why don’t you go... build a gingerbread house or something?”

Tony raises an eyebrow, then saunters off, muttering something about “frosting some cookies into oblivion.” Loki watches him go, a faint smirk playing on his lips.

“I’m beginning to enjoy his petty insults,” Loki says. “They lack creativity but possess a certain... charm.”

You groan, but your frustration melts when he tilts his head to study the ornaments you’ve been hanging. “Are all these symbols significant?” he asks, gesturing toward the red-and-gold baubles.

“Well, not exactly,” you explain, stepping closer. “Some are just for decoration. Others, like the candy canes, represent traditions or stories. That one—” You point to a tiny glass snowman. “—reminds me of when I was a kid. I used to build snowmen with Tony.”

Loki leans down slightly, his gaze flicking between the ornament and your face. “You’ve always enjoyed this holiday?”

“Always,” you admit, smiling softly. “It’s about family and togetherness, and... it’s magical, in its way.”

His eyes soften. “A Midgardian concept of magic. How quaint.”

“It’s different from Asgardian magic, sure,” you say, “but it’s still special. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“Enjoying it would require understanding it, darling,” Loki replies, his voice low, intimate. “Which I still do not.”

“Well,” you say, pulling him toward the couch, “then let’s start small. We’ll watch some Christmas movies. That’ll give you the basics.”

Loki allows himself to be dragged, though he arches a skeptical brow as you hand him a blanket to drape over his lap. “Is this another ritual? Wrapping oneself in fabric to fully appreciate these... films?”

“Yes,” you reply with mock seriousness, tucking yourself beside him and grabbing the remote. “It’s an essential part of the experience.”

As you scroll through a selection of classic Christmas movies, Loki leans closer. “And your brother,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your ear, “does he also find this... magical?”

You stifle a laugh. “Tony’s... not the biggest fan of Christmas. Or anything, really.”

“That much is evident,” Loki says with a smirk, leaning back and wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “I believe he’s grown rather fond of disliking me, though.”

“It’s not personal. Well, it is. But it’ll pass,” you assure him, resting your head against his chest. “He just doesn’t trust you yet. Give him time.”

Loki hums, his long fingers tracing idle patterns on your arm. “I shall attempt to be... less antagonistic. For your sake.”

“Thank you,” you whisper, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He stiffens slightly, his pale skin flushing faintly, before his smirk returns.

“You’ll find I’m quite good at winning people over, darling,” he says confidently. “Even self-righteous metal men.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Hours later, the Avengers’ grand Christmas Eve dinner begins. The table is a dazzling display of roasted meats, savory sides, and sweets of every imaginable variety. Thor, already on his third tankard of spiced cider, slaps Loki on the back as they sit side by side.

“Brother!” Thor booms. “How fare you on this Midgardian holiday? Are you learning the ways of Yule?”

“Barely,” Loki replies dryly, reaching for a roll. “Your mortals have a puzzling number of traditions, most of which seem entirely arbitrary.”

“Arbitrary?” Steve interjects, his tone mildly offended. “Christmas traditions are rich in history and meaning.”

“Steve,” Natasha murmurs, “don’t engage.”

But Steve is already launching into an impromptu lecture about the origins of Christmas trees, which Loki listens to with the faintly bemused air of someone watching a particularly entertaining court jester. You nudge Loki under the table, shooting him a warning glance, and he quickly schools his expression into something resembling politeness.

Tony, sitting across from you, watches the interaction with thinly veiled skepticism. “So, Loki,” he says, leaning back in his chair, “what exactly are your plans here? Play nice for a few days, eat our food, then what? Back to world domination?”

Loki smirks, his gaze flicking to you. “I’m here for her,” he says simply. “The rest of you are incidental.”

Tony’s mouth opens and closes, clearly taken aback by Loki’s frankness. You sigh, reaching for your wine glass.

This is going to be a long night.

The dinner table hums with chatter, laughter, and the clinking of cutlery against china as the Avengers swap stories and rib each other in the easy way only close friends can. Loki, ever the outsider, sits beside you with an air of regal detachment, his sharp features casting faint shadows in the flickering candlelight. You’re relieved that he’s behaving himself so far—no biting remarks, no conjured illusions, no magical pranks.

Yet.

After dessert, when everyone begins to disperse into the cozy living room, Thor’s booming voice commands attention. “Now, my friends, I believe it is time for your famed Christmas festivities! Games and revelry, is it not?”

“Revelry sounds like my kind of night,” Clint mutters, popping a peppermint candy into his mouth.

Natasha smirks. “As long as it doesn’t involve karaoke. I draw the line there.”

“Games it is!” Thor declares, clapping his hands. “Loki, brother, you must partake in these Midgardian customs. Strength, wit, and cunning—you shall triumph!”

Loki leans back in his chair, lifting an eyebrow. “I was under the impression this holiday was meant to inspire camaraderie, not competition. But very well, let us proceed with your… diversions.”

Tony sidles up, his smile pure mischief. “Oh, this is going to be good. I can’t wait to see the God of Mischief fail at charades.”

You smack Tony lightly on the arm as everyone moves to gather in the living room. “Play nice.”

“This is me being nice,” Tony retorts, his grin widening.

The first game of the night is, of course, charades. Steve insists on explaining the rules for Loki’s benefit, though the process takes twice as long as it should due to Loki’s constant interruptions.

“So,” Loki drawls, lounging on the armrest of the couch as if he’s holding court, “the goal is to mime the word or phrase written on these slips of paper, and the others must guess it?”

“Exactly,” Steve says with a nod. “No talking, no sounds, no magic.”

Loki’s eyes gleam with amusement. “Ah, so we’re handicapping the cleverest participant. How democratic.”

Thor laughs heartily. “Do not fret, brother! You are quick of wit and nimble of limb. You shall excel!”

The game begins with Clint, who has everyone howling with laughter as he attempts to pantomime The Nutcracker by clumsily miming ballet moves. Then Natasha absolutely stumps the room with her eerily convincing impression of a reindeer. When it’s Loki’s turn, he strides to the center of the room with an air of unshakable confidence.

He picks a slip of paper, reads it, and smirks. “Child’s play.”

He lifts his arms dramatically, twirling in an exaggerated manner before freezing in an angular pose. You squint. Is he… trying to be a snowflake? A sugar plum fairy?

“Diva much?” Tony mutters.

Loki flicks a pointed finger toward Tony, who immediately begins sneezing uncontrollably.

“Loki!” you hiss.

“Oh, apologies,” Loki says innocently, snapping his fingers to end the spell. “Reflex.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony grumbles, blowing his nose.

By the end of the round, no one has guessed Loki’s clue (which turns out to be Christmas Star), and he takes the loss with an overly dramatic bow. “Your minds are duller than I anticipated,” he declares, earning groans and playful boos from the group.

The games continue with varying levels of success. Loki utterly dominates at trivia, much to Tony’s irritation, answering every question with an air of effortless superiority. When someone asks how he knows so much about Midgardian history, Loki waves a dismissive hand. “One must study one’s enemies.”

“Romantic,” Tony deadpans.

It’s during a spirited game of “Pin the Nose on Rudolph” that things truly go off the rails. Loki is blindfolded, spinning in circles at Natasha’s insistence. You’re about to give him a playful nudge in the right direction when he suddenly stops spinning, tilts his head, and smirks.

“Oh no,” you mutter.

With a flourish of his hand, the room fills with an illusionary blizzard. Snow swirls in glittering spirals around everyone, obscuring Loki’s location.

“Is this supposed to be happening?” Clint asks, swiping at the air.

“Loki, stop showing off!” you shout, though your voice is nearly drowned out by Thor’s booming laughter.

When the snow clears, Loki is standing triumphantly in front of the poster, the red nose perfectly placed on Rudolph. He removes the blindfold with a smug flourish, his expression daring anyone to challenge his success.

Tony glares. “That’s cheating.”

“Cheating?” Loki repeats, feigning shock. “I simply used my… resources. Is that not allowed?”

“You’re impossible,” Tony grumbles, crossing his arms.

“And you are easily bested,” Loki retorts with a wicked grin.

You tug Loki aside, fixing him with a stern look. “Behave, or no Christmas cookies for you.”

He blinks, visibly offended. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Loki huffs but refrains from further magical interventions for the rest of the night. Or so you think.

Later, as everyone gathers for a gift exchange, Thor stands at the center of the room, holding a sprig of mistletoe aloft. “Behold!” he declares. “The enchanted plant of Midgardian love!”

“Oh no,” you murmur, recognizing the gleam in Loki’s eyes.

Thor, oblivious to the mischief brewing, insists on explaining the tradition in great detail, much to the amusement of the team. “It is said that those who find themselves beneath this plant must share a kiss. A curious but delightful custom!”

Loki seizes the opportunity, conjuring a mistletoe wreath that floats directly above you and him. The others groan in mock protest as Loki pulls you closer with a dramatic flair.

“Really?” you ask, though you’re already laughing.

“It’s tradition,” he murmurs, his voice velvet-smooth. He leans down to brush his lips against yours, his hands resting lightly on your waist. The kiss is soft and warm, a brief reprieve from the chaos.

“Ugh, get a room,” Tony mutters.

Loki pulls back just enough to smirk at Tony. “Jealous, Stark?”

“I’m going to puke.”

By the end of the night, Loki is seated by the fire, a mug of mulled wine in hand. You curl up beside him, exhausted but happy. The others are scattered around the room, some dozing, some still quietly chatting. Even Tony seems more relaxed, though he still throws Loki the occasional side-eye.

“So,” you say softly, resting your head on Loki’s shoulder. “What do you think of Christmas?”

“It’s peculiar,” he admits, his voice low. “But… enjoyable. With you.”

Your heart melts a little at the sincerity in his tone. You smile, reaching for his hand. “Merry Christmas, Loki.”

He lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “Merry Christmas, my darling.”

From across the room, Tony groans dramatically. “I’m going to need so much therapy after this.”

Loki smirks but doesn’t rise to the bait. For once, you’re proud of him. He’s learning.

Sort of.

As the party begins to wind down, most of the Avengers head off to their rooms, leaving you and Loki chatting by the fire. Eventually, even you excuse yourself to get ready for bed, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek before retreating down the hall. Loki lingers in the now-quiet room, the warm glow of the Christmas tree casting long shadows across the walls.

Thor, who had also lingered behind, pours himself another tankard of cider and plops onto the couch with the kind of loud sigh that only Thor can produce.

“Ah, brother,” Thor says, his cheeks rosy from drink, “was tonight not delightful? Such joy, such merriment! Midgardians may be odd, but their Yuletide traditions are quite charming.”

Loki raises an eyebrow at Thor’s obvious enthusiasm. “If by ‘charming’ you mean overly sentimental, then yes, I suppose.”

Thor chuckles, unbothered by Loki’s disdain. He gestures toward the Christmas tree, where brightly wrapped packages sit neatly in a pile beneath the branches. “And tomorrow, we shall partake in the exchanging of gifts! Another peculiar yet endearing custom.”

Loki turns his head sharply, his eyes narrowing. “Gifts?”

“Yes!” Thor booms, oblivious to Loki’s alarm. “The mortals exchange tokens of affection to celebrate the season. It’s a tradition to give something meaningful—though I must admit, I find the concept of wrapping them in paper rather odd. Why hide such treasures?”

Loki stares at the colorful packages as if they’ve suddenly materialized out of thin air. “Those… those are the gifts?”

“Indeed,” Thor replies, taking a hearty sip of cider. “Did you not notice? Everyone brings something to give to their companions. I myself have crafted the most splendid carving for Lady Natasha—an intricate likeness of a hawk! She will be most pleased.”

Panic flashes across Loki’s face, though he quickly schools his features into his usual mask of indifference. “I see,” he says carefully. “And… is this gift-giving obligatory?”

Thor laughs again. “It is not a matter of obligation, brother. It is a gesture of love and gratitude. Surely you have prepared something for Lady Y/N?”

Loki’s stomach twists. The thought had not even occurred to him. Gifts, he realizes with mounting horror, are a cornerstone of this holiday, and he has nothing for you. Worse, you likely have something for him.

He rises abruptly from his seat, his long coat swishing behind him. “Excuse me.”

Thor blinks. “Where are you going?”

“To rectify an oversight,” Loki says curtly, striding from the room.

Thor calls after him, “But the hour grows late, brother! You must—”

The door slams shut before Thor can finish.

Loki paces in his chambers, his mind racing. He cannot simply conjure a gift out of thin air—not for you. You are not just anyone. You are his everything, the rare soul who saw past his facade and dared to love him. A trinket or bauble would not suffice. It must be something extraordinary. Something meaningful.

But what?

His gaze falls on a small chest on the corner of his desk, one of the few items he had brought with him from Asgard. Slowly, he approaches it, his fingers brushing over the intricate carvings on its surface. Inside are fragments of his past—pieces of his life before everything unraveled. Among them, an idea begins to form.

The next morning, the common room buzzes with excitement as the team gathers for the gift exchange. You sit cross-legged by the tree, a mug of hot cocoa warming your hands, your cheeks flushed from the heat of the fire. Loki enters the room with his usual composed demeanor, though you notice the faintest hint of nervousness in his eyes.

You don’t mention it, though. Loki and nerves are rarely seen in the same room, and you don’t want to spoil whatever is brewing in that brilliant mind of his.

Steve starts handing out gifts, his boyish enthusiasm contagious. Wrapping paper flies, laughter fills the air, and even Tony’s snark is muted by the holiday spirit. You’re halfway through unwrapping a set of beautifully crafted leather gloves from Natasha when Loki approaches you.

“Darling,” he says, his voice low, almost hesitant.

You look up, surprised to see him holding a small, neatly wrapped package in his hands. The paper shimmers faintly, as if enchanted, and you can’t help but smile.

“For me?” you ask, your voice soft.

Loki nods, his expression unreadable. “It seems I have been… educated in the ways of Midgardian tradition. I hope you find it acceptable.”

You take the package from him, your heart fluttering at the thoughtfulness of the gesture. “I didn’t think you’d— I mean, I wasn’t expecting—”

“I noticed,” he interrupts, his lips quirking into a small smirk. “But you deserve to be surprised.”

You chuckle, your fingers carefully peeling away the wrapping. Inside, nestled in a bed of dark velvet, is a delicate necklace. The pendant is a swirling, shimmering stone that seems to contain an entire galaxy within its depths.

Your breath catches. “Loki… it’s beautiful.”

“It is more than that,” he murmurs, crouching beside you. “It is a fragment of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. I carried it with me for centuries, a piece of home that I thought I would always keep. But now… my home is wherever you are.”

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You throw your arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I love it,” you whisper, your voice thick with emotion. “I love you.”

He holds you close, his hands resting gently on your back. “And I, you.”

When you pull back, you wipe at your eyes and reach for the small box you had tucked under the tree. “It’s not as grand as Yggdrasil, but… I got you something too.”

Loki accepts the box with an arched eyebrow, clearly intrigued. He removes the wrapping with the same precision he applies to everything, revealing a leather-bound journal embossed with intricate silver designs.

“I know you like to write,” you explain, suddenly feeling shy. “And I thought… maybe this could be a place for your thoughts. Or your plans. Or your poetry. Whatever you want.”

Loki runs his fingers over the cover, his expression softening in a way you rarely see. “It is perfect,” he says simply. “Thank you.”

He surprises you then, pulling you in for another kiss, this one deeper and filled with a tenderness that makes your heart ache in the best way. Around you, the room erupts into exaggerated groans and cheers.

“Okay, lovebirds,” Tony calls out. “Break it up. Some of us are trying to digest.”

Loki pulls back, smirking at Tony. “Jealousy does not suit you, Stark.”

“Neither does PDA,” Tony shoots back.

You laugh, leaning your head against Loki’s shoulder as the festivities continue. The day stretches into afternoon, filled with warmth, laughter, and the joy of being surrounded by those you love. And though Loki may have started the night unsure of Midgardian traditions, he ends it with a newfound appreciation for the magic of Christmas—and for the gift that is your love.

The days following Christmas are filled with a contented warmth that lingers in the air like the scent of pine and mulled cider. Snow blankets the Stark compound, and the Avengers have settled into a rare, peaceful lull. For you and Loki, it’s an idyllic time. For Tony, it’s borderline intolerable.

It starts innocently enough: a lingering kiss as Loki helps you into your coat before a walk in the snow. A cozy moment by the fire with your head on his shoulder and his hand tracing idle patterns on your back. But soon, your affection for each other becomes less subtle. Or, as Tony puts it, “a full-blown rom-com in my living room.”

One evening, as the Avengers gather for a movie night, the popcorn bowl makes its way around the room. You and Loki are curled up on the oversized armchair, his arm draped casually over your shoulders. Every so often, he leans down to murmur something in your ear, his voice low and teasing, his lips grazing the shell of your ear just enough to make you giggle.

Tony, sprawled on the couch with a soda in hand, finally has enough.

“Do you two mind?” he says, gesturing wildly with his drink. “Some of us are trying to watch the movie, not a live audition for The Notebook 2.”

Loki doesn’t even bother to glance in Tony’s direction. “You are free to avert your eyes, Stark.”

“Or your entire face,” you chime in, grinning.

The team laughs, though Tony’s scowl deepens. He jabs a finger at Loki. “Just so we’re clear, Lothario, I’ve got my eye on you.”

Loki finally turns, his expression one of exaggerated innocence. “Whatever for? I’m merely basking in the radiant company of your enchanting sister.”

Tony groans, burying his face in his hands. “Unbelievable. I’ve saved the world too many times for this.”

Natasha chuckles from her seat. “You should be used to public displays of affection by now, Tony. Didn’t you once make out with Pepper in the middle of a board meeting?”

“That was strategic,” Tony insists. “This is just… gratuitous.”

“Call it what you like,” Loki says smoothly, his fingers brushing along your arm. “I call it love.”

Thor claps a hand on Tony’s shoulder, nearly knocking him sideways. “Do not fret, Stark! Loki’s heart is true, and your sister has tamed even his sharpest edges. It is a union worth celebrating!”

Tony mutters something about regretting every decision that led to this moment.

Later that week, you and Loki are in the kitchen, attempting to bake cookies—a task that quickly devolves into a flour-filled mess. You’re laughing so hard at Loki’s utter confusion over measuring cups that you don’t notice Tony standing in the doorway until he clears his throat.

You turn, still grinning. “Hey, Tony. Want to join the fun?”

He eyes the chaos with a raised brow. “Fun is one word for it. Looks like a bakery exploded in here.”

Loki smirks, dusting flour off his hands. “Your sister has decided to teach me the fine art of Midgardian baking. It is… entertaining.”

“It’s also delicious,” you add, sneaking a bite of cookie dough.

Tony steps inside, crossing his arms. “Listen, Y/N, can I have a word? Alone.”

Loki raises an eyebrow but doesn’t protest as Tony steers you into the adjoining room. Once you’re out of earshot, Tony sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair.

“Look, kid,” he starts, “I know you’re happy, and that’s great. Really. But Loki? Are we sure about this?”

You fold your arms, leveling him with a pointed look. “Tony, we’ve been over this. I love him. He loves me. End of story.”

“Yeah, but love doesn’t erase the whole ‘tried to conquer the planet’ thing. Or the ‘stabbed Coulson’ thing. Or the—”

You cut him off. “He’s changed. You know that. And if you don’t, then maybe you haven’t been paying attention.”

Tony sighs again, clearly conflicted. “I just… I worry about you, okay? You’re my little sister. I want you to have the best, and Loki… well, he’s a wildcard.”

“Wildcards make life interesting,” you say, softening your tone. “And Loki makes me happy, Tony. Happier than I’ve ever been.”

Tony groans, rubbing his temples. “Fine. But if he screws up—if he so much as looks at you wrong—I’m sending him back to Asgard in pieces. Deal?”

“Deal,” you say with a grin. “But you’ll see—he’s the real deal.”

As if on cue, Loki appears in the doorway, holding a tray of somewhat misshapen cookies. “Am I interrupting?”

“Always,” Tony mutters.

You roll your eyes and take one of the cookies, pulling Loki into a quick kiss. “Perfect timing, actually.”

Tony makes a gagging noise and waves you off. “Great. Fantastic. I’ll just be in my workshop, away from… whatever this is.”

Loki watches him go with a smirk. “He’s quite protective of you.”

“He is,” you say, leaning into him. “But he’ll come around.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

You grin, popping the rest of the cookie into your mouth. “Then he’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Over the following days, Tony’s annoyance continues to simmer, especially as you and Loki grow even more comfortable with your affection. The stolen kisses in the hallway, the way Loki tucks your hair behind your ear, the private jokes that make you both laugh uncontrollably—all of it grates on Tony’s nerves. But eventually, even he has to admit that Loki’s devotion to you is genuine.

One evening, as you and Loki sit together by the fire, Tony passes by, shaking his head. “You know,” he says, pausing in the doorway, “for an ancient god of mischief, you’re a lot sappier than I expected.”

Loki smirks, his arm tightening around your shoulders. “And yet, your sister seems to find it endearing.”

Tony snorts. “Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head.”

As he walks away, you catch the faintest hint of a smile on his face. Progress, you think. Slow, grudging progress. But progress nonetheless.

I don't really know why I keep writing Thor and Loki talking like that, I guess I just can't get past this lol

[irmawrites]

Night encounter

Summary: Living in Dragonstone, claiming a dragon, it all seemed surreal to Ulf. Having a Targaryen princess in his bed all to himself even more so.

Rating: Explicit [18+], MDNI.

Pairing: Ulf the White x Targaryen!Reader (appearance isn’t specified, she's his niece but she could be Rhaenyra's daughter or Alicent's daughter, it’s all up to you)

TW: smut with a tiny bit of plot, fingering, oral sex (m receiving), p in v sex, slight degradation, corruption kink, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, dom/sub undertones, afab reader, not proofread.

Word count: 2017

Author’s note: hi everyone! Not too long ago I received the following request: "I was wondering if you would do one where Ulf is infatuated with the daughter of Rhaenyra and Harwin after meeting her after he claims Silverwing and could it possibly progress into smut?". To say that I was delighted to receive a request for Ulf would be an understatement. I am literally obsessed with this character and I really wanted to write something for him <3 HOWEVER I am incredibly sorry it's filthy, it's inappropriate, honestly I'm almost ashamed I wrote it ahaha

I should probably mention that English is not my mother tongue, so please excuse my grammar mistakes!

From the first moment he saw you, Ulf knew he had to have you. Such a sweet little thing, all soft smiles and happy giggles. A real ray of sunshine. He and you may have been related, but you couldn't have been more different. Uncle and niece like the moon and the sun. Where he was rude and boorish, you were polite and gentle. Where his lack of manners and unkempt appearance worked against him, your tact and polished looks made you stand out among all the inhabitants of Dragonstone.

But while he appreciated your sensitivity and gentleness, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like when he finally robbed you of your innocence.

And a little voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that it was just a facade, a role you only played in public. You weren't the perfect princess you pretended to be, of that he was almost certain. After all, hadn't he noticed your eyes wandering to his fingers several times while he licked off the meat juices that stained them? And then there was that one evening, during a meal, when your hand had wandered to his thigh. You had gently brushed his crotch, where a bulge was already stretching the linen of his breeches, without even looking at him, too busy laughing with Jacaerys. The older man remembered clearly how he had had to excuse himself in a hurry, feigning sudden fatigue and retreating to the chambers assigned to him. That night he had imagined your lips wrapped around his impossibly hard member, your silver curls between his fingers and your eyes locked with his as he pressed your nose against his pelvis, forcing you to take more, always more. He had come with a loud grunt, painting his palm white, and then swore he would have you. It was almost a matter of life and death for him at that point.

Perhaps the Seven had heard his plight, if they existed, for they soon offered him everything he wanted on a silver platter.

Claiming Silverwing was the achievement of a lifetime, and yet it seemed like a dull moment when he opened the door to his bedroom and found himself face to face with the woman he had been lusting after for weeks. Dressed in an almost transparent silk nightgown, you looked like one of his heated dreams. Instinctively, he even pinched the skin at the crook of his elbow to make sure it was all real and you weren't a figment of his wild imagination. "I couldn't sleep," he heard you say, your voice almost shy, "with this storm." Oh, but he knew that your nocturnal visit had nothing to do with the lightning that tore across the sky, or the thunder that shook the walls of the fortress. If you were there, it was simply because you too were unable to resist the tension between the two of you for a single minute longer. "Come in," his hand automatically came to rest on your waist to guide you inside, "I wouldn't want to keep a princess waiting".

If asked, Ulf wouldn't have been able to explain how he ended up in bed with your body pressed against his. Maybe it was you who had taken his hand and made him lie down beside you. Or maybe it was he who had persuaded you to slip into his arms, into his sheets, to find some welcome comfort. Everything seemed a blur now, especially as your buttocks pressed against his crotch.

You wiggled your hips. Maybe accidentally, maybe consciously, he didn't know, but the effect was the same. He could feel the warmth of your body under the layers of fabric, and he was desperate to show you what happened to women like you in the arms of men like him. It felt like a punishment, forcing himself to remain chaste and not give in to his desires in such a situation. Not to touch you when you were so close to him and his length was already so painfully hard.

He moved his lips to your ear, his breath caressing your skin. His hands slid down your chest and he let his thumbs lightly caress the two small, hardened buds. "Tell me to stop," he whispered as his fingers slid lower and lower, grazing the hem of your underwear in the hollow where your thigh met your hip, "tell me to stop if that's not what you want". "That's exactly what I want," your voice sounded like a breathless moan as your hand rested on his, as if to encourage him to give you more, " and I want you to continue."

The idea that he could take what he wanted, do what he wanted, made his head spin.

Between your legs, his fingers found your wet folds. "You're soaking wet," he breathed as he traced your slit from your entrance to that sensitive spot that sent shivers down your entire body, "we've barely started and you're already soaking wet." It was almost inconceivable that a beautiful, delicate princess like you would agree to give herself to a gruff old man like him. "How does it feel, here?", he asked as he kissed your neck, your back still pressed against his torso as his index finger circled your little pearl beneath the fabric of your underwear. "It's... It feels good", your voice was choked, a broken moan, "warm". Ulf gave an approving grunt. "And here?", his tone became more authoritative, and soon two of his fingers were inside you, stretching you just right. Tired of waiting, he barely gave you time to get used to the new sensation before he started moving back and forth, leaving you breathless. "Answer me". He could already feel you clenching around him, the friction against your inner walls something you'd never felt before. "I can feel your fingers inside me," you finally managed to answer, and to reward you he pressed a little harder against that sensitive spot that made you see stars, "I feel... full." He couldn't help smiling against the soft skin of your neck. "Don't worry, sweetheart," as if to back up his words, he pressed his fingers impossibly deeper, burying them in your wet warmth, "you'll feel even fuller soon."

He withdrew them almost immediately with an obscene noise. That would leave you empty, he knew, but he also knew that he wanted you to come around another part of his body for the first time, and not just on his fingers.

"Undress," the older man ordered, pointing vaguely with his chin at the little bit of clothing you were wearing. A satisfied smile appeared on his lips as you stood completely naked before him, kneeling between his thighs. "Such a pretty body," his voice sounded almost distracted, his fingers busy sliding down your sides as if to show you were to his liking, "a pretty mouth too, I wonder what it would look like around my cock." He saw you bite your lower lip before finally answering, emboldened: "Perhaps I could show you." Your hands rested first on his chest, brushing against the linen of the tunic he wore for the night. Then they slid lower, much lower, replaying a scene Ulf had seen a hundred times in his dreams. Your fingers undid the drawstring that held his breeches together and he had to remind himself not to make you pick up the pace, to give him what he wanted right then and there.

A curse escaped him as your hand finally wrapped around his manhood. It looked so big, massive, between your forefinger and thumb, which couldn't quite touch. And when your lips finally brushed the head, where he was already weeping for you, he threw his head back on the heavy silk pillows. It took all his strength and resilience not to close his eyes from the pleasure he felt from your back and forth movements and the wet warmth of your mouth. "You're doing so well," he growled as his hand made its way to the back of your head, finding refuge in your silver locks, "sucking my cock so well, like the perfect little whore you are." Around his member he could feel the vibrations of your audible moan. It seemed you liked it when people didn't really treat you like the princess you were supposed to be, but more like a cheap slut from a seedy pillow house. A discovery that couldn't have made him happier.

The vision was royal, the sensation divine. He felt like a king, he felt like a god, with a dragon under his feet and a Targaryen princess pleasuring him with her mouth. He had everything that he had ever wished for and yet he wanted more, needed more.

Bloody greed.

His grip on the back of your head tightened, forcing you back a few inches. His gaze fell on your red, swollen lips, glistening with spit and something else that testified to your sinful actions. You smiled at him, obviously proud of yourself, and he couldn't help but kiss you, tasting himself on your tongue. "On all fours," he ordered, right against the skin of your neck, his voice hoarse with desire. The order may have been short, the tone a little awkward, hurried, but you understood immediately what he was trying to tell you. With your face now pressed into the pillows and your hips raised, Ulf could hardly believe that this was your first time, and yet. One of his hands cupped his still aching manhood while the other gripped the flesh at your waist. Captivated by the sight of his member disappearing into your wet heat, his eyes couldn't leave the spot where the two of you were joined for a single second. "Fuck," he groaned as he gave you time to adjust to his presence, "such a tight cunt." Despite his vast experience, he had never tasted, never felt anything like this in his dull life of Flea Bottom brothel escapades and quick embraces with nameless prostitutes. Perhaps it was because he was now living with real royalty, or perhaps it was because your exchange was different, more intimate, almost affectionate.

He withdrew almost completely, the friction against your inner walls agonisingly delicious. Your juices had left his member soaked and glistening, a sight that drove him deeper into you this time, the headboard hitting the wall with a thud. "M... more," you begged as he pulled out again, your voice like a broken moan that made his head spin with desire and possessiveness. The older man was more than happy to comply, quickening the pace of his thrusts. Soon the pleasure became too strong, too great to articulate anything coherent. He wanted to tell you how good you felt, how perfect you really were around him, but the words remained stuck in his throat and only grunts managed to break through the barrier of his half-open lips. But you weren't any better. Beneath him you were a mess of moans and gasps, your fingers gripping the sheets tightly. You were close, he could tell, you had grown impossibly tight around him, and he was tired of making you wait. So, in an act of mercy, he let his own fingers slip between your thighs to briefly rub your pearl and finally, finally, push you over the edge. He joined you almost immediately, his approaching climax accelerated by the rhythmic clenching of your walls around him.

It was probably foolish to pour into you with white ropes, to fill you in a different way this time. But when exactly had Ulf ever been responsible? The sight was simply mesmerising, the mingled evidence of your release flowing from your still clenching hole as he withdrew. So divine that he could hardly tear his eyes away. And as you pressed against him, seeking the warmth of his arms, your noses brushing together in an achingly tender touch, he mused that he was prepared to do many more foolish things to keep a thing as sweet as you by his side.

[mentos-or-mentoes]

My God, just recently I watched Hotel Hazbin, and it just amazed me! Especially Cannibaltown and its inhabitants, they are all so cute, aristocratic and at the same time deadly!

So based on this I came up with an idea.

What if we take the Reader, who is also the leader of a small settlement of cannibals isolated from everyone, who are followers of the red crown, who miraculously managed to survive and hide, isolating all the settlements from everyone and waiting for the prophecy and the lamb to happen, which will free “the one who waits.”

It would be very interesting to see how the already defeated five bishops who are in the cult of the lamb accidentally stumble upon a settlement where Narinder’s followers still live, who eat the flesh of "heretics" and those who want to completely destroy Narinder's legacy. At the same time, they still continue to remain like one big friendly family, with their own manners and friendly character)

(I apologize in advance, because English is not my native language, but I hope I conveyed the essence correctly)

This wont be headcanons. mainly because i don't know exactly how i'm supposed to write this as headcanons. But i hope you enjoy!

I havent watched Hazbin Hotel yet, but i will try my best to make something somewhat like you asked.

Cult of the lamb ex-Bisops + Narinder / TOWW x Reader who is a Cannibal leader.

(this will be with the bishops in follower form).

Narinder / TOWW

Narinder was out gathering some meat for the cult per the lambs request when he suddenly heard a sound from somewhere. It was loud, maybe a shout? A cry? He didn't pay much attention to it at first. But curiosity got the better of him. When he went to investigate the general area, all he could find was some red robes and the remains of a (newly dead) body. It had definetly been a planned attack, that much he was sure of. It was obvious looking at the robes, it didn't have as much as even a singular scratch on it.

Suddenly he heard a noise, Narinder got ready to fight but was met by a seemingly innocent, joyful smile as you, greeted him. You offered him shelter and food for the night and he accepted the kind offer, not wanting to stay out too late.

Upon arriving at the little cult, he was surprised. Everyone seemed to be running around, playing and just having a fun time overall. You didn't have much of anything, yet everyone seemed perfectly fine. Nobody was even remotely sick, or lacking in nutrition. This did make him slightly suspicious. You told him that you'd have to go take care of some ''buisness'', he didn't really care too much, but he did keep an eye on you to make sure you weren't scheeming anything. A bit later, you came back, soaked in blood, and a bone in hand, ruínging a bell. It was then you announced dinner was ready, as well as in a slightly saddend tone announcing that a dissenter who was especially troublesome had been taken care of.

Narinder immidietly put two and two together, and realized that the dissenter you were talking about, was now the meat in the bowl of stew sitting in front of him. He freaked out a little and questioned you about it, You calmy told him that it was how things were around the area, thoose who failed to follow the teachings of the red crown, would help the faithful, by giving them energy, and filling their tummies. You also informed him that, after having to hide as a result of his excile, that rescources were not easy to come by, so it was how things were, and that everyone was fine with it, even scrapping together some vegetables for thoose who'd prefer not to indulge in the cannibalism. Most did so there was enough for a good bit of vegetable stew for him and a couple other followers who simply were too disturbed by the concept but didn't want to leave the cult.

Narinder couldn't help but feel as if he was falling for you, a tiny bit. A sweet, kind leader who wasn't afraid to do what had to be done. Fufilling your own needs first, but making sure everyone felt comfortable after your needs were met.

Narinder would start visiting your little cult whenever he was snet out to get anything for the cult. and if you were up for it, he would be more then willing to ask the lamb, if your cults could kind of join together, your cult taking care of the dissenters who'd keep dissenting no matter what. He'd one day confess his love for you while you two were enjoying the guts of an outsider who had tried to harm your followers, It was a bit akward, but you just gave him a quick kiss, and if you decided to pet him then he'd practically melt into your touch.

Heket

Heket had thought that all cults worshipping the red crown other then that god forsaken lambs cult had died out. She had done so much to try and stop it, yet it seemed near inevitable.

She knew Anura the best so, naturally she took almost every opprotunity to go there, mainly to get away from the cult. One day she had heard a noise comming from a bush. Not afraid to fight, she got ready to take on whatever would jump out at her, After a bit nothing happend. She stopped for a second wondering what it was, before continuing to walk. Suddenly, she heard a soft, quiet, humming. It sounded nice, Heket went to investigate the sound to find you minding your own buisness. She knew something was off, she could tell very easily, but she couldn't quite put a finger on it. You introduced yourself to her, showing her around your cult, and talking about the history behind it

She was just taking a walk in Anura, gathering some mushrooms for the cult, when she saw you. Her whole view of you changed that day. As you were cleaning out the blood from the intenstine of a follower, whilst another of your cult members were chopping up the flesh, and another was boiling the sausages that had been stuffed with meat, and twisted to make hotdogs. You asked your friend if she was hungry and offered her a sausage. She accepted and then the little ''secret'' you had was out.

Heket was definetly amused at how your cult was. Everyone knew eachother and cared for one another like family, yet, every time you made your followers eat the flesh of the people they once knew, they seemed to only get more faithful. You even had options for thoose who didn't want to. Truly a place for everyone. upon revisiting the cult she asked you about it, and you told her that, after worshipping the red crown was forsaken, you and your followers had to go into hiding. And therefore you had to do all things nessecary to survive. If one member was caught, then surely everyone would be dead. so scavaging for plants, seeds and other things like that was out of the question, instead having to settle for whatever was available. Thats when you told her of how, thoose who dissented too much would either end up having to rot in a cell somewhere or you and the rest of your cult could get some use out of them, via cannibalising them.

She didn't really think much of it (She probably ate a couple of dissenters too back when she was a bishop herself). You treated thoose who had passed, and thoose who had been faithful with respect. promising to give them a proper passing, and not eating their remains, no matter how desperate things got. One day while at the cult you were even serving up a follower who had tried to sneak into the catacombs to try and take the meat from a passed elder. You of course didn't tolorate that in the slightest bit.

The day she asked you out, she had planned to cook a meal for the two of you, to eat alone. You seemed to read her open as a book because the second you two were alone, you gave a quick little kiss on the cheek, and confessed your love for her, right then and there.

Leshy

It was a cold, stormy night. And out on a journey to find his eye, Leshy was slithering around. When suddenly he tripped over something. He was met with somewhat of an embrace, rather then the cold dirt, as you greeted him. Offering to help him around, and to help him try to find his missing eye. You took him back to your cult, where everyone gave him a warm welcome, You gave him some soup. Leshy however, having a very good smelling sense to make up for his lack of vision, could immidietly smell that something was off. You, knowing that he couldn't see and wanting to try and calm him down fro, thinking you were trying to poison him, just told him that it was the meat of a worm follower who had recently started to dissent alot. On one hand it calmed him down a bit, that he wasn't being poisoned. On the other hand, it freaked him out even more how casually you just talked about turning a person into soup.

You told Leshy that, nobody would hurt him, and that you'd make sure of it. Your calm energy, and words of comfort definetly helped him out. The kindness of your followers towards him despite what he did, made him feel welcome

when he asked exactly who you and your cult was worshipping, he got surprised at the fact that you also worshipped the red crown. Not that it wasn't a possibility, but most people who had worshippec the red crown had been found, then put to the blade. He himself witnessed almost every single of its followers die infront of him. To think that you and this cult of atleast 60 people had hidden that well from him, and his siblings, just surprised him.

His amasement at how you handled, well, everything! You almost managed your cult better then he did when he was a bishop. You made sure everyone was comfortable, And that no boundaries were overstepped, as long as the followers of the cult were to be faithful, and respectful towards others. Your willingness to help others, both inside and outside of your cult, as long as your, and your followers needs were met, definetly lead to him developing some feelings towards you.

He'd start visiting more often, especially after getting his eye back, You'd make sure to avoid having him around especially gory sacrifices or executions, if we didn't want to see them.

Leshy would one day just, go up to you, kiss you, then wait to see how you'd react. When you kissed him back, immidietly followed up by a hug, was definetly one of the happiest moments of his life.

Kallamar

Kallamar was just on a walk to calm himself down, when he saw you, he immidietly panicked. You just saw him, and casually waved with someones severed hand. His screams could be heard all throughout the old faith. He was practically unable to move, And he was terrified the second he realized, that you, were only getting closer. By the time you were close enough to actually talk to him, he was practically on his knees just begging you to not hurt him. You reckognized him as one of the four bishops that had tried to kill you and your followers back when Narinder was banished, Didn't stop you from trying to calm him down, and telling him that you weren't gonna be hurting him any time soon.

He was shocked that a cult like yours was still going, especially after everything he and his siblings had done to try and eradicate any evidence of the red crowns existence. Turns out, you and your followers had been living far back in the caves, worshipping the red crown the entire time. Knowing that the prophecy of the lamb, that would free your great leader, would one day be fufilled. You had basically managed to make a secret society, but with everyone being cannibalistic.

You were terrifying, yet, oddly comforting. You made Kallamar feel like he was in danger, yet safe at the same time. It seemed you had affected you followers in the same way, with them gladdly following your word, doing as you said happily, both in the fear for their lives, but also out of will. Everyone knew eachother down there, and it gave people less reason to dissent. Thoose who did, would lose their life, as well as make everyone around them have to lose someone close to them. It hurt you and everyone else, what you had to do for survival, but it was nessecary. They understood, and everytime food was getting low, many people would be willing to offer themselves up, for the sake of everyone else.

Kallamar would never confess his feelings to you, but you became an unofficial couple because, his crush was clear as day to everyone around him, including you. so you just started being romantic, and started dating, no confessions needed.

Shamura

Shamura didn't leave the cult too much, not without someone by their side atleast. They however do have a tendency to just, wander off to god knows where. It was on one of theese times, that they stumbled upon what they at first thought was the cult of the lamb, because of the robes. Upon seeing a bunch of new faces, they started to think otherwise. You however, were kind, and accepting of them stumbling upon your little settlement. Offering them something that could remind them of their days in power, Something akin to eating the dissenters of their cult, for power.

Shamura could immidietly tell, that something, was different, about the food they were being served. After asking you, they found out that an outsider had tried to attack some children, much to their mistake, so you simply took care of them, and served them up to preserve space. It made sense, as the area had not much if anything at all to grow crops at, so having to provide for a whole cult would be difficult without some other food source. You started talking about how, it had been a family tradition, that you had brought with you as a solution to providing food and taking care of dissenters in the cult, at the same time.

You decided to try and teach them a bit about how to use every bit of the body for different dishes, and what nutrition, the different body parts had. It was knowledge Shamura hadn't heard of before. but something they'd love to hear more about, learning every single bit there was to know about the body, and surviving in places with close to nothing.

Your cult being the only remaining that worshipped the crown before Naridners excile, meant you had lots of ''Forbidden'' knowledge. Almost anything related to death, or the afterlife was something anyone in the cult could talk about for hours on end, regardless of if it was an adult or one of the many children. You knew how to preach, and you did it startingly well.

Shamura could see your cult and the lambs, merging together, or yours potentially growing bigger. Your charisma, your soft, gentle voice, your aura, everything was just so, calm and caring about you. And to think that you were possibly one of the most brutal leaders out there when you wanted to be or needed to be, it was seomthing that they knew was the sign of a great leader.

They would bring some books and some tomes from their cult one day and ask if you wanted to read with them, you accepted, and you two spent the evening together, cuddling, and enjoying eachothers company.

[petday]

whats little magic?

It is a puzzle game for the Super Famicom and Game Boy Color video game systems. I like the Game Boy Color game much more for its art direction, and it's also just more fun for me to play with the 'bubble magic' mechanic in that version. I wrote more about my enjoyment below, in case anyone is curious.

The game’s box art is very beautiful, right? It caught my eye right away. The in-game 'cutscene' artwork appears to be carefully-made pixel art versions of the same artist's illustrations and they are similarly beautiful. (Sorry in advance if my photograph quality is not great.)

But the actual levels themselves look very haphazard. Clashing colors and tiles. It's easy enough to guess that a blue tile next to a white tile represents water and snow, respectively, but what does the yellow cluster-of-boxes tile represent? Yellow bricks of a tower…? How about the spike-y objects in the snow-water levels? I guessed they were underwater mines, but then there's the same tile in a later level too, just palette-swapped to be red… The two monochrome tiles in the third picture above teleports your character, but it has a two-frame animation that made me think of an ‘industrial grinder’ and ‘static noise’, so I assumed it was dangerous at first. Was it intended to be nondescript ‘sparkly magic’? Where are all of these levels taking place, anyway? No other humans are in these areas, just various animals and vague environmental indicators. There are cute snakes in some ‘yellow brick’ levels that end your life upon touching them. Seems irresponsible for a teacher to allow her student into perilous areas, no matter how eager she is to pass her final exam at magic school and become a magician.

Oh, I should explain the story. (None of the above photos are in sequence, just wanted to show more of the game.) The story is about a girl who attends magic school, and aims to pass a series of tests to become a full-fledged magician. Her teacher encourages her. The lack of explanation in the story is another fun point for me. Her magic teacher doesn't explain why 'learning magic' consists of pushing a heart into a heart-shaped hole that triggers a staircase to appear, which is what you need to do to complete each level. (It’s a beating heart – is it alive?) No explanation as to why snakes end your life instantly upon touching them. The context of 'because you want to pass your exams, a teacher is putting you through trials to help you become a master of magic’ isn’t an adequate explanation, because the teacher also tells you that she has not passed the final exam - why is a teacher putting a student through something that is too difficult even for herself? Who is in control of all of the strange areas you need to ‘complete’ in order to become a real magician, then? (After you complete the game with the student, you can play a different set of levels as the teacher, but even the usual sparse context-giving ‘cutscenes’ are not there… Mysterious…)

So, all of that is why my drawing about ‘Little Magic’ is about ‘confusion’, ‘going along with something that makes sense at first, but quickly unravels to not make sense any longer’, ‘growing distrust of authoritative figures’, and ‘frustration from stagnation.’ https://petday.tumblr.com/post/730315736066768896

Maybe the instruction booklet explains everything; I did not have access to that while playing, and I like that feeling. ‘Renting a game from a video game rental store that did not come with an instruction booklet, and being perplexed by it, forced to create your own context because you have nothing else’ feeling. Randomly selecting games to play that do not have much documentation online is enjoyable to me, because of that feeling.

A fan translation group translated the Game Boy Color game from Japanese to English in 2018. There wasn't a lot of dialogue in the first place, though. I like games where there is little to no dialogue because one can imagine a story/context besides what is shown. Up until 2022, I could not find a solution for the teacher’s final puzzle, so I interpreted the ending of the game’s story as, ‘The magic teacher thought she could harness a type of magic far stronger than what she could handle, accidentally designed an impossible puzzle for herself and is trapped for eternity.’ Of course, the puzzle has a solution, but I wanted to honour my strange interpretation regardless. When I play games and have weird interpretations of them, I am definitely not saying, 'I bet this is what the people who worked on this game were thinking!' I dislike that attitude. It's just imaginative interpretation, and working with the odd way I interact with things in order to maximize fun for myself…

A part about old games that I also love, is that they can never be updated; they had one chance to release a finished game, and maybe another chance to fix glitches in a re-release if they sold very many copies the first time. I greatly enjoyed the ‘imperfect’ tilesets and abrupt feeling of this game, which might have been ‘improved’ in a patch if it had been released in recent years instead of 1999.

(I wasn’t sure where to include this point, but I must also say, my favourite YouTube comments are about someone’s unusual interpretations of a game, when they did not have access to a guide at the time. I read one recently – the comment author and their brother rented ‘Final Fantasy IV’ from a rental store, and they did not know about the ‘Poison’ status effect that depletes the characters health. There is a strange pixelation effect and a ringing sound when you walk around the overworld while poisoned. Because the save file they were playing from was during a point of the game where you visit the moon, and because of the unfamiliar visual and sound effect, they interpreted the ‘Poison’ status effect as, “The moon must be running out of air.” Things like that are beautiful to me.)

(I also wasn’t sure where to put this point, but the main character, May, from ‘Little Magic’, is stylized differently in some ‘cutscenes’. She resembles a dragon to me. It’s cute.)

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with NBC News (2024)

Jonathan Bailey admits he’s still grieving the loss of Tim Laughlin, the wide-eyed congressional staffer turned fervent gay rights activist he played in Showtime’s groundbreaking limited series “Fellow Travelers.”

“Playing a character who is always searching for truth and has something to fight for that is meaningful and important made me really think, ‘How do you want to leave the world behind?’” Bailey told NBC News. “It’s a tiring thing for everyone to be like, ‘I want to make the world a better place.’ But Tim is an example of someone who’s a normal guy. He didn’t come from wealth, and he lived life to its fullest, including loving in a way that was just spellbinding.”

That love is the animating force of “Fellow Travelers,” which chronicles the decades-spanning romance between Bailey’s Tim and Matt Bomer’s Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller against the backdrop of key moments in queer history. After falling in love at the height of the Lavender Scare in 1950s Washington, D.C., Hawk and Tim weave in and out of each other’s lives for years at a time, unable to sever their bond. But after learning of Tim’s terminal AIDS diagnosis in the ’80s, Hawk drops everything to take care of Tim in San Francisco, where the former lovers are forced to address the true nature of their volatile relationship.

“Fellow Travelers” was nominated for three Emmys in limited series categories last month: Bailey (who also won a Critics Choice Award) for supporting actor, Bomer for lead actor and creator Ron Nyswaner for writing.

Following the success of Netflix’s romantic drama “Bridgerton,” in which he played a rakish viscount looking for his viscountess, Bailey expressed a desire to tell a sweeping gay love story. He booked the coveted role in “Fellow Travelers” six weeks before the start of filming in Toronto, following an electric Zoom chemistry read with Bomer — one of the most prominent openly gay actors working today — that even brought one of the executives to tears.

While he said he inherited the “inherent shame” of the AIDS crisis as a gay man who came of age in the early aughts, Bailey, who is English, knew very little about the Lavender Scare. He credited the writing of Nyswaner for helping him capture the spirit of Tim, a devout Catholic struggling to reconcile his faith with his growing infatuation with the emotionally unavailable Hawk, who is adept at playing the system to avoid getting outed.

“There’s something so childlike and full of wonder and unadulterated kindness about Tim that never leaves him,” Bailey noted. “When you see the huge effects of the societal pressure and control on gay people and how it affects Tim, I thought, ‘How do you tell a story of someone who’s bruised, battered and frayed by relentless, unforgiving control?’ I think the older he gets, the more painful it is for him.”

Bailey, like many queer people, has had a complicated relationship with religion. He attended a Church of England school and, at 11, was a scholarship student at his local Catholic school, where he “was completely aware of the lack of education around sexuality and gender identity.” Like Tim, he began to question his own “inherited beliefs” in his 20s, when he came to terms with his own identity.

While Tim’s religion makes him believe that something is innately wrong with him, it also gives him the capacity to believe in a love that he has felt but cannot always see with Hawk, who complements him in a way that is both “beautiful” and “painful,” Bailey said. “I think to say that they broke up a few times somehow assimilates it to a heteronormative relationship — they were completely not afforded that.”

“What Tim realizes is that the act of loving is the thing that you want to survive with and live alongside and to die with, and to be the more loving one is sometimes easier,” added Bailey, who thinks “there was no other” man whom Tim loved as deeply as Hawk. “I think the power of their dynamic — the brilliance — is that they met at that time, and it’s just a genius way of discovering and exploring how political and social attitudes really can’t kill love.”

Bailey and Bomer, who have both acknowledged that a show like this might not have even been made a few years ago, see “Fellow Travelers” as a kind of love letter to the queer actors who came before them.

“The way we look at each other is also about the opportunity that we’ve got that wasn’t there before,” Bailey said of his and Bomer’s palpable on-screen connection, which has evolved into a close off-screen friendship. “There’s a weight that comes to telling your own story or other people’s story that are similar or shares elements of your identity.”

On the day of the Emmy nominations, Bailey was in Malta — where he has been shooting the new “Jurassic World” film — with one of his best friends. They had already planned to find somewhere to grab a celebratory drink together in the late afternoon. But by the time they had settled in and tuned in to the livestream announcing the nominees, Bailey’s phone began to ring off the hook.

“The thing that was special, if a little ridiculous, is that we took a little selfie, and I realized there was just a pride flag that was in the distance,” Bailey recalled. “Having now spent a lot of time in Malta, you realize there’s only a few.”

Now on the precipice of superstardom with his roles in “Wicked” and “Jurassic World,” Bailey is redefining what is possible for an out gay actor in Hollywood, becoming a heartthrob to male and female audiences alike — even if he doesn’t often think about that label. “I’m excited to play more roles the older I get, and we will see what the heartthrob status is when I’m in my 50s,” he said cheekily.

As his profile has risen, Bailey has wrestled with which parts of himself he is willing to share publicly. His Olivier Award-winning turn in a gender-swapped West End revival of “Company” gave him an opportunity to speak openly about his sexuality — something he didn’t feel the need to reveal unless it was tied to his work. Now, he feels much more confident in interviews to volunteer certain stories about himself, including a harrowing experience in which a Pennsylvania man called him an anti-gay slur and threatened his life in a Washington, D.C., coffee shop.

For Bailey, who is still adjusting to the privilege of being able to choose his next projects, the company he keeps going forward is just as important as the material he is given to work with. He will return to the stage next year in Nicholas Hytner’s London production of “Richard II” and will reprise his role as eldest sibling Anthony in the next season of “Bridgerton.” He will next be seen as Jack Maddox, a charming academic and celebrity crush of protagonist Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), in the sixth episode of the third season of “Heartstopper,” which premieres in October.

“I recognized in the show something that I obviously didn’t have growing up, which is aspirational, generous storytelling about queer identity and gender identity that wasn’t necessarily a gay [show],” Bailey said of his initial reaction to watching “Heartstopper,” which, like many older queer viewers, made him feel slightly melancholic. “There’s so many people of that generation who just love it, because it’s brilliant and so well-performed by such an incredibly talented young cast.”

But truth be told, Bailey doesn’t think he will ever be able to let go of Tim Laughlin, who he likes to believe had “a very happy end of his life” fighting for AIDS awareness with the ACT UP movement without Hawk by his side. After having spent a year unpacking the life-changing experience of playing the character in post-screening Q&As and media interviews, Bailey has grown to feel the power of his work “more than [he’d] ever known.”

When playing a character who is confronting his own mortality, “you just think about how life is futile and quick,” Bailey said, “and if I can live a life as front-footed and as curious as Tim, then I’ll be a lucky man.”

Source

[applestorms]

4 and 16 for the DN asks 👀

HEHEHE. ok <3 original ask game

4. who’s your favorite underrated or obscure character?

NEAR. we've got a pretty good community of near lovers around here but i'm counting him as underrated due to fandom-wide opinions. alternatively, kiyomi. <33

16. who do you believe is the smartest character?

i was actually considering writing a whole post on intelligence in DN, but didn't think i had enough to say for a full ramble so here's a (not so) brief overview of a bunch of notable characters. i'm of the opinion that trying to rank/judge intelligence by some kind of hierarchy or objective standard is kind of impossible (say it with me everyone, IQ tests are bullshitttt) and personality/temperament plays quite a significant role in DN's mind games, so. idk. here:

L: if you Demanded i choose one person to be the smartest character in DN, i'd probably give in and say L. that being said, i think L's intelligence mostly surrounds things like his logical reasoning/pattern recognition/memory for details/etc. his knowledge of people in particular is interesting to me, as while i don't think he intuitively Gets people very well, his ability to reason out their mindset/emotional character is one of his key abilities in the series (see: figuring out KIRA's mindset to confirm that he's even a real person at all)-- so, idk, it's kinda hard to judge if that could be considered Emotional Int or not. he's certainly also got great potential to learn more, esp if it's for the sake of a case, though his personality n picky, princess-y attitude trips him up a bit.

NEAR: while i don't think near has as much Collected Knowledge as L, if only due to not having the same amount of lived experience/time to get there, i do think he's got one advantage over him when it comes to his rationality. i.e. near is Chill where L gets very, very invested in his projects, which can at times cloud his judgement when it comes to things not directly related to said projects. near just seems more likely to be the type to take a step back n reflect on everything, perhaps even to a fault, though this grants him the Distinct advantage of allowing him to keep his ego in check. don't get me wrong, he's still cocky and fixated and kind of an asshole, but man's got hobbies. he knows how to take a vacation.

LIGHT: light is dumb as fuck. at the start of the story he's in a similar position to near, lacking the lived experience and Collected Knowledge of L, and his planning/judgements are screwed not only by his lack of intelligence, but his overwhelming ego n temper. light's real strength is his ability to manipulate people, knowing the exact type of mask he needs to wear to get what he needs, and his ability to keep (outwardly) calm in the face of stress. once/if he gets past his temper, he's very good at reacting in the moment n rolling with the punches. light is also an interesting case in that his intelligence will often backfire against him-- where L can sometimes get his view clouded by viewing Everything through the lens of the case and missing some of the greater consequences of his actions (see: granting KIRA god status through lind l. tailor), light gets fucked up in that his reasoning allows him to better Repress and Deny the facts of reality that he doesn't want to have to deal with (e.g. his own murders). also, Knowledge-wise, i think it's notable that one of the few academic subjects we see light being Really good at (in the anime, at least?) is english-- communication is light's biggest strength, you could say. ig he is a Warrior of the pen and all.

MELLO: i kinda see him as suffering from the same faults/strengths as light, but to a more extreme/overt degree. he Struggles to keep his temper and ego in check, especially since it is constantly being aggravated by his inferiority complex-- but when he can, he is similarly quite good at keeping calm and chill and reacting well to the circumstances. i actually think he's one of the better planners in the series, and his willingness to take action grants him the advantage of catching other people off guard. it always gets to me that what ultimately takes mello out is his kindness/courtesy, allowing takada her blanket and her chance to kill him. he seems to care about People in the most genuine way out of anyone to me in this series, which is both lovely and tragic.

MISA: anyways, onto someone who Does Not care about people. misa's biggest strength is her acting and YES, SHE'S GOOD AT ACTING. SHUT UP. i would say she's even better than light at this, since it's literally part of her job and also she apparently fools half the fandom into thinking she's a moron. i actually think misa has a similar strength to near as well in that she's capable of getting outside her own head and reflecting on the situation in a way that isn't purely driven by her own ego-- part of her fault is just that, like L, she often doesn't care enough to bother. misa knows what the fuck she wants, and pursues it successfully and rigorously enough to keep light in a stranglehold from the minute she meets him until the day he fucking dies. the question is whether or not this Thing she wants so badly will actually make her happy, or whether she will allow herself to drop the stubbornness for two goddamn seconds and chill out enough to actually consider other options.

KIYOMI: kiyomi is book smart and has quite good logic and reasoning as well, but she is Stifled by social expectations a way that i see as very much parallel to light. i think her biggest strength and weakness are knotted up together, in a way-- she makes the connections, but only rarely bothers to say them out loud. i actually think she might have a similar mix of self-doubt and ego as mello, though the way they express those traits are polar opposite. she's Aware of people in a similar way too, or at the very least conventional rules of morality/ethics, enough so to be horrified when light asks her to kill (but not enough to stop herself from doing it). i fucking adore the idea that she's a bit of a closeted sadist too-- etc. etc. horror at her actions, or her own capacity for them in and of itself? juicy shit.

NAOMI: taking from LABB murder canon for this one too-- naomi Definitely has strong logical reasoning, being able to keep up with/follow much of the mind game bullshittery of beyond and L even as ryuzaki is fucking with her irl. she's got a more blunt, brutal version of near's Don't Give A Fuck-ery too, throwing away the bullshit without a second of doubt or care when she recognizes it. her weakness is again in her kindness, though naomi's has got more of a maternal edge to it than mello's. remember-- what fucks her up, what causes her to separate herself from the FBI in the first place is not her own experiences with racism or sexism from her coworkers, but her inability to shoot a child. kind of opposite to kiyomi in that way, actually, horror at her inability to execute violence against someone that she sees as an inherently innocent being? perhaps part of what endears her to L as well, and light.

SOICHIRO: his greatest strength is his capacity for reflection, which i see as a side effect of his age. soichiro is not caught up in the throes of his own ego, he doesn't have much patience for the mind games, and why would he? he's got a job to do, a family to take care of and love. he's more cool-headed than a lot of the younger characters because of this, capable of reconsidering his morals and the nuances of his ethical stance as he comes in contact with new situations, not holding to some Static idea of This Is How Reality Must Be 100% (see: him softening his stance to say that the true evil is "the capacity to kill," in his hospital bed). yet this love for his family, the fact that he has kind of Made It, is also his greatest weakness-- he's got something to lose now, and especially in the second half, we can see that Fear really get to him.

BEYOND: is simply not that smart. worse, he's all ego and got a simultaneous superiority/inferiority complex. he comes up w/ dumb, overly convoluted puzzles n then looks down on other people for being too Pedestrian to get it, walking naomi through his reasoning bc he thinks she's too stupid to figure out the important shit. i don't even think he's on naomi's level of reasoning, he's just good at murder mystery-esque puzzle bs and lighting himself on fire.

[rewritingcanon]

nextgen/hpcc characters going to an australian public high school:

rose: follows the social hierarchy to the tee and takes the shit from the year levels above her. but when she gets to year 12 she’s such a fucking menace to the years below her. and she gets her special year 12 amenities like access to the school microwave and toaster and kettle and she takes it very seriously that no one in the younger years can use it. if she had to wait so does everyone else. also she’s school captain and is the one always saying speeches at assembly and at athletics day. thinks she’s politically correct but then will turn around and tease scorpius for stuttering or sum.

albus: kinda unproblematic and keeps to himself but always gets bag checked and sent home for not wearing the right uniform (it’s always something so unserious like wearing a hoodie under his jacket or different socks). never used to actually lock his locker right and people immediately clocked that and stole his lock so its just unprotected. karl jenkins is always ransacking his locker so he barely has anything in it. wagged on formal and wouldve wagged on grad if he could. every time he walks through the school gates he gets swooped by a magpie.

teddy: choofs in the bathroom all the time, offers to share with anyone and everyone so all of the year 8s and 9s think he’s the coolest. only contributes in hums classes, dgaf about anything sciencey or mathy. chronic wagger. andromeda comes to his parent teacher interviews. got viral on tiktok once and people tried to clout chase him. a gazillion extracurriculars. pen ink all over his shirt. shit atar. has to do tafe after high school bc of it.

scorpius: the only one who didn’t fucking flop at specialist maths so the class’ mark didn’t get weighted up and so everyone whose ever shared a class with him hates his ass for it. when albus is absent scorpius tries to befriend whatever teacher is there on yard duty. you can catch his ass always at the canteen too buying the most outrageous shit for him and albus. he’s always got a fully stocked and well loved lunchbox, so its not for lack of care. constant victim of the eshays, once sat in the wrong spot and almost got bashed. school dux, but rose claimed valedictorian (she wasn’t happy).

craig: also definitely school captain, but he hatessss doing the speeches. just let him quietly organise the NAIDOC week activities in peace. studies in the library loads. unproblematic as hell, helps tutor year 10s in the library after school too. lowkey knew how to teach maths better than the maths teachers did, so they all liked him. wouldn’t let people copy off him so was kinda a stick in the mud for that. has beef with his year 10 english teacher who confiscated his beanie.

polly: she’s got a organiser in her locker and pictures of her friends put up everywhere inside. always cussing out the eshays and threatening to bash them. takes group costumes for athletics day way too serious and makes sure all her friends coordinate with her vision. absolutely slays the swimming carnival, her friends always are super annoying spectators on the side. super popular, always doing her makeup at the back of the class. did all the ATAR subjects but kinda flopped in it all. has secret beef with most of her teachers. chronic complainer, never thinks her shitty grades are her fault.

victoire: valedictorian of her year. prettiest girl in the school fr. played netball. knows all her friends and teachers birthdays and would always do the thing where she’d get a card and get everyone in her homegroup to sign it. has mostly everyone from school on snap. planned the yearbook, the year 11 formal, the grad afterparty, etc.

karl: lowkey an eshay but absolutely don’t say this to his face. his friendship with yann is like the only thing that is preventing him joining Those group of boys. only did outdoor ed for the camp. took a shit in the bathroom sinks during muck up day but no one could prove it was him. always goes to polly/rose/yann’s class during his frees to fuck around and usually gets kicked out for disrupting the class (“but Misssssss ☹️”). puts dollops of wet toilet paper in albus’ locker

yann: always the one filming school fights. starts rumours about people he’s irritated with, even his own friends. is best friends with the science teachers. is the one everyone goes to for gum. can dig up the most crazy info on teachers ever, someone give this guy a job in background checks. has been playing cricket since he was nine.

james: school captain but lowkey against his will. plays footy during lunch. had The Australian Mullet in year 8 but ginny threatened to shave him bald so it thankfully didnt last. gets invited to a gazillion house parties but stands most of them up to be at home and just nap. people always try to start beef with him for popularity but they always later find out that james dgaf at alllll. doesnt care for listening to music but doesnt want people approaching him so he’ll plug his airpods in and listen to the abc on the way to school/during lazy classes pretending he’s normal and listening to hozier or some bull. trauma bonded with his lote class.

lily: got suspended for bashing someone in the stairwell for calling albus a slur. plays footy and netball and highkey is better than most of the boys that play. planted a tree in the toilets one day. spends all her frees shopping out of school. buys herself heaps of ramen and forces james to use his year 12 privilege and cook it for her. has an electric scooter and is so irritating about it. actually really gafs about afl season and barracks for geelong (simply because she likes cats, and it just stuck). always getting moved in class because she yaps too much and too loud.

dominique: is always bashing someone and getting filmed (probs by yann). no one really learns she’s victoire’s little sister because they are soooo different in looks and personality. always going to school high as a kite. got sent home on muck up day for egging the principal and almost got kicked out of the grad ceremony. known as The Only Lesbian in school (she’s bisexual).

delphi: moved from getting homeschooled. does folio subjects. plays devil’s advocate in history class. never ever wearing school uniform but she’s too difficult to deal with so the teachers just leave her alone (also none of the office ladies want to call euphemia rowle 😭). spends most of her time at wellbeing. would sell empty vapes to year 7s in the girls bathrooms. that mf who tries to befriend the spiders 💀 and she’d throw them in people’s hair

hugo: used to be pressured by his mum to study for naplan so was waiting until he could be set free in year 10 (he doesnt have to do naplan anymore but he does have six assignments due tomorrow). he and rose were definitely kumon kids. always late to homegroup. the drama teacher loves him. got recorded bashing some older guy at a train station because the guy stepped in his hsp and then became a meme around school for a month or two. acts like he dgaf but will go home and cry over his grades in his room.

[epicspheal]

A Strong and Upstanding Heart! A Lance Analysis

Imagine you're a kid in the 90s playing Pokemon Red and Blue…you’ve gotten all eight badges, made it through Victory Road and bested Lorelei, Bruno and Agatha. Now the only person that you think stands before you and the title of Indigo League Champion is a certain cape loving Dragon Master…

That’s right we’re talking about Lance! Lance is definitely one of those character who has very different interpretations depending on whether or not you’re looking at the anime, games or manga. For the sake of consistency with my other analyses…I’m only sticking to the gameverse and any media that corresponds to it (mainline games, Pokemon Masters EX and Generations). 

Let’s start with his name…in English it’s a weapon. Which is very befitting a dragon master as in many pieces of European Folklore knights wielded lances to slay dragons. But considering in Pokemon Lance doesn’t slay dragon-types but befriends them you could compare him to many of the heroes of dragon-rider fantasy who often had weapons they carried while on the back of their flying reptilians. Lance in the games is very knightly in demeanor and one could very easily imagine him riding on the back of his Dragonite wielding a lance. In French his name is Peter which is actually derived from petard which is another medieval weapon again reinforcing that knightly demeanor. His German name is Siegfried who is a legendary hero who bested the dragon Fafnir, further symbolizing Lance as a proud warrior. 

But then his Japanese is Wataru which has a couple of different meanings. First is “Watatsumi” who is a legendary kami and water deity in Japanese folklore that happened to be a dragon. But also it is derived from “wata” which means “cotton” which his Korean name also is derived from. When we think of the language of flowers we usually think of Roses and Forget-me-Nots. Yet cotton has a lot of symbolism. Cotton is known to mean “fortune, gratitude, cherish, well-being and receiving blessings”. When we think of Lance, he’s had a lot of blessings in his life. He was born into a prestigious dragon clan and was chosen as the heir of said clan before he went to the league. He became an Elite Four member which is an esteemed position many trainers could only dream to have. He even manages to become champion afterwards which as a title bestowed upon very few. So much of his life is very much blessed and Lance recognizes that blessing and cherishes it. 

Now let’s take a look at his team. His team varies throughout the series due to his changing roles from Elite Four to Champion so we’ll be covering both

Starting with his Elite Four team, the first thing that often stands out is that he lacks a lot of diversity on his team with him having 3 Pokemon from the same family and two of them being unevolved. While some people may consider it poor team building (at least from a more competitive mindset) it actually means a lot storywise. We have to remember that Pokemon was originally meant to end at GSC and we know by then Lance has ascended to the rank of champion. So him having two Dragonair actually makes sense in that context as it was foreshadowing his growth in his strength as a trainer. Now let’s take a look at his movesets. One thing that sticks out is that he really loves the move Hyper Beam, Outrage and SafeGuard. Hyper Beam is a very powerful move with the drawback of causing the Pokemon to not be able to move after for one turn after its use. It definitely establishes Lance as a power player with a hint of recklessness since the use of Hyper Beam does leave his Pokemon so vulnerable. However it also shows the trust he has in his Pokemon’s power to have that move consistently in the movesets. Outrage is another high-risk, high reward move that allows him to utilize STAB as it’s a dragon type. Again this further solidifies Lances hyper offensive strategy and his trust in his Pokemon. However this is where the move Safeguard comes into play as the move actually protects against the self-inflicted confusion status. This shows that Lance is strategic with his hyper-offensive strategy

Now let’s look at his team as champion! We can see he now has three full Dragonite which again shows that him having Dragonair in the Kanto games was an intentional choice to foreshadow his eventual ascent up the ranks. And now we also see that all of his Pokemon share the flying type which leads to the joke that Lance should be known as the “flying type champion”. His movesets for his Pokemon have also drastically changed. He has way more variety in types which helps to enable better coverage. He still relies on high-risk, high-reward moves but with more focus on moves that have lower accuracy (Thunder, Blizzard, Fire Blast, Dragon Rush). This change in strategy reflects his growth in the time between the original Kanto events and the Johto events. He’s had to step up to the role of Indigo League champion which warrants a change in tactics. That being said, he still definitely relies on his old faithfuls Outrage, Safeguard and Hyper Beam on his signature Dragon type.

His rematch team in HGSS shows more Dragon types and a shift in strategy to involve more set up (Dragon Dance, Swords Dance and Double Team) as well as some more evasive techniques (Roar to get rid of bad matchups)

I also wanted to bring up his team when pairs up with his cousin Clair. His signature Dragonite in these match-ups knows the move Dragon Meteor- a powerful move that can only be learned by Dragon types that have a high enough trust in their trainer. This shows that he has a strong bond with his dragon types which is something Clair at the time hasn’t quite yet gotten to.

"Ah! I've heard about you, <player>! I lead the Elite Four. You can call me Lance the dragon Trainer. You know that dragons are mythical Pokémon. They're hard to catch and raise, but their powers are superior. They're virtually indestructible. There's no being clever with them. Well, are you ready to lose? Your League challenge ends with me, <player>!"

I really like this introduction quote from Lance as he does a good job selling the power of Dragon type Pokemon to the player. Not only that you can see how much pride he has in being the leader of the Elite Four.

"I still can't believe my dragons lost to you, <player>. You are now the Pokémon League Champion! …Or, you would have been, but you have one more challenge left. There is one more Trainer to face! His name is… <rival>! He beat the Elite Four before you. He is the real Pokémon League Champion."This quote here gives us a look into the mindsight of Lance in Gen 1 where he’s a little overconfident in the powers of his team. Which makes sense because as we know up until Blue and Red no one had managed to make it to the league at all meaning that he’s held the title of the strongest for a long time. So him getting beat by not one, but two 11 year old kids in succession was definitely a shock to the system.

"That red Gyarados wasn't acting right. As I feared, somebody must have forced it to evolve… Did you come here because of the wild tales? You're <player>? I'm Lance, a Trainer like you. I heard some rumblings, so I came to investigate… I saw the way you battled earlier, <player>. I can tell that you're a Trainer with considerable skill. If you don't mind, could you help me investigate?" This is our first conversation with Lance in the Johto and you can actually see a change in his demeanor. He’s not boasting about the superior powers of dragon types or his own skill as a trainer. He’s actually more humble with his approach saying he is a trainer “like you”. Also right now he’s focused on trying to solve the mystery of the Red Gyarados, showing that he is taking the mantle of being the champion of the Indigo League very seriously

"Dragonite, Hyper Beam."I just had to put in his iconic phrase in this analysis. We know what’s coming here- he’s about to blast a poor Team Rocket grunt to kingdom come and give him PTSD (as we know from Pokemon Masters as the grunt he hyper beamed is currently on Pasio). We see here how he has no tolerance for evil-doers

"Sorry, <player>. I saw how well you were doing, so I just hung back. Now all there is left to do is to turn off that odd radio signal."A lot of complaints about champions prior to gen 8 were that they let the protagonist take down the bad guys with little to no assistance. But here we get some reasoning from Lance as to why he took a backseat. He noticed that the player could handle the grunts by themself so there was no need for him to step in. 

"It's this machine that's causing all the problems. I don't see a switch on it… We have no choice. We have to make all the Electrode faint. That should stop this machine from transmitting that strange signal. It's no fault of the Electrode, so it makes me feel sad. <Player>, let's split the job.I really like this quote because it complements the “Dragonite, Hyper Beam” quote. Even though he is no-holds barred when it comes to evil, he recognizes that the Electrode are innocent and don’t deserve to suffer even though they have to be fainted in order to help save the Pokemon affected by Radio transmission.

"I've been waiting for you. <Player>! I knew that you, with your skills, would eventually reach me here. There's no need for words now. We will battle to determine who is the stronger of the two of us. As the most powerful Trainer and as the Pokémon League Champion… I, Lance the dragon master, accept your challenge!"Lance’s pre-battle quote before the champion battle is a nice progression from his pre-battle quote when he was an Elite four member. Again he comes to this battle with a more measured, less haughty response than three years prior (although he does kind of borrow Blue’s “I’m the most Powerful Trainer” bit). You can tell how much he’s grown not just in strength, but in attitude.

"…It's over. But it's an odd feeling. I'm not angry that I lost. In fact, I feel happy. Happy that I witnessed the rise of a great new Champion!"

Again we can see more of this growth from the defeat quote as champion versus when he was the leader of the Elite Four. Here we see he’s not in disbelief, nor is he upset that yet another kid bested him. In fact he’s happy to have seen the growth of another champion. 

"I'm glad to be on your team, Silver!"Alright now onto some Pokemon Masters EX quotes. I chose this one of the team ups because I like how we see throughout the game, we see how much Lance looks out for Silver and is proud of him. A far cry from when they first interacted in the Johto games where Lance had to give him some tough love by completely annihilating his team. It all comes full circle for Silver during the Johto Neo Champion arc where he’s finally able to win against Lance, and Lance couldn’t be prouder of him. 

"You all haven't changed one bit, I see! I must admit, I'm looking forward to these battles myself!"I really like this line from the Normal Champion Stadium where the original Indigo Elite Four and Blue team up. It’s nice to see how he interacts with some of his former colleagues 

"(I guess he's right. I was very happy to witness my challengers surpass me.) But maybe that means I'm starting to forget what it feels like to WANT to win.) [...] I still remember how frustrating it was to lose to Red and Blue back in Kanto. Both Dragonite and I need to approach this like challengers, not Champions..."I really like this quote from the Arc-Suit chapter as we see Lance coming towards an important realization. He’s been so focused on being an ideal champion, a trainer who can be a role model to others and mentor as well, that he’s forgotten what made him want to aim for the title of champion in the first place. His drive to win. His joy for the taste of victory. He thinks about his losses to Red and Blue and how he was frustrated he was bested by kids. And now he’s realizing that if he wants to continue to grow stronger, he has to approach battles like he’s not at the pinnacle of what it means to be a trainer.

"It's true that you're strong, Clair. And it's good to have confidence in your own abilities...but there's a limit to what's good and what's not. Too much pride can make you overconfident, and overconfidence can make you vulnerable." 

"You can be a little impulsive sometimes, Clair...but that earnest, straightforward attitude of yours is one of your greatest strengths as well. If you can learn to hone that, the sky is the limit!"I really like the relationship Lance has with his cousin Clair. Even though their personalities clash a bit, we see how much he does care for her even when he is chastising her. He wants her to be the best version of herself that she can

"A long time ago, when I was a member of the Elite Four but not Champion, I was defeated by a Trainer.He claimed to be the greatest of all, and he had the strength and skill to back it up. But eventually, a stronger Trainer came along, and even he was defeated... It was then that I realized something. That title—"the greatest"—can inflate your ego, but it doesn't really mean anything. It's an illusion, there one minute and gone the next...The way I see it, seeking to grow and improve yourself is far more worthwhile than chasing a fleeting illusion of greatness."

This quote here shows the moment where we can see the shift between his Gen 1 and Gen 2 personalities. It was the quick succession between Blue and Red as champion that allowed him to temper himself when it comes to chasing success. Sure he still values the title of champion, but he realizes that just because he obtained it that he can’t rest on his laurels, lest someone else come by and snatch the title away from him

"Leon, I think that capes should be more simple! When you're the Champion and greet new challengers with a swoosh of your cape...I understand that the details of your cape speak volumes about who you are. But for me, the simplicity of my cape helps me stand out more!" The dialogue about capes between Lance, Steven and Leon was a cute little interaction between the three champions regarding capes. We see Lance prefers simple capes compared to Leon’s whose cape is filled with advertisements. We know Lance has a huge fondness for capes even back from the Fame Checker where a woman from the Celadon Department Store mentions he comes by to purchase capes frequently. Even though he disagrees about designs for capes with Leon, we know from further into the conversation that he still greatly respects the symbolism Leon’s cape has showing him to be an open-minded and respectful individual

"I noticed you weren't your usual self right before our match.It was almost as if you were so worked up, you couldn't tell what was happening with your partner. Iris, you must remember that you're no ordinary Pokémon Trainer. You are a role model to others, and you represent Unova as Champion. I hope you can understand that and conduct yourself accordingly."

Ah so this is dialogue from the Iris event that definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. We know from earlier in the event that Iris was struggling with knowing that people seemed to find her an embarrassment as the champion from Unova. And then her Hydreigon goes out of control. We see here Lance actually could tell that something was up, but didn’t know the full context. His words do come off a bit harsh here to someone who knows everything going on with Iris, but you can see that he was trying to help her out. He understands the weight that comes with being champion, and also the weight of being a dragon tamer. 

"It's never too late. You can start with whoever needs you most."I really liked this line from Lance to Diantha once Iris is able to regain confidence in herself. Diantha was lamenting the fact that she didn’t think about mentorship as a champion (as she was kind of removed from the Team Flare plot in the gameverse canon). And we have Lance who's not admonishing her for that but showing there’s room to grow.

"Someday, stories about me will be passed down to future generations of our clan as well. If I think about it that way, it reminds me that I have to be on my best behavior.I'd like to be a good role model for all future dragon masters."This quote from Lance really helps to shine light on why he is so passionate about being a good role model and having a strong and upstanding nature. He realizes that he will forever be immortalized in his clan’s history and in the Hall of Fame. He wants to make sure the legacy he leaves behind is one that makes people feel energized and not ashamed

"This outfit shows off Gyarados's power as a dragon! What's that, you say? Gyarados isn't a Dragon-type Pokémon? Haha, not all dragons are Dragon-type Pokémon!" I remember this quote making rounds on social media as we get to have some in-universe acknowledgement that dragons =/= dragon types! It’s a distinction that you would expect a dragon master like Lance to know!

Lance is an iconic character and he’s a really good case study on how Gamefreak has always cared about their characters even as far back as gen 1. A lot of people deride the first region as being barebones but he’s one of the many characters regions that has had layers woven into him from the beginning as we can see his growth between the events of Kanto and Johto. He grows from the proud (and just a tad cocky) leader of the Elite four to a wise noble Champion and Dragon Master

[minkparched]

About Bartleby and Sonia's dynamic in Sonic Underground...

Since Sonic Underground is so hated by much of the fandom and VERY FEW fans engage with it outside of an irony-poisoned lens, there's so much subtext and interesting tidbits thrown in that got lost in the wilderness of fandom ghetto. One thing I noticed is the dynamic between Bartleby and Sonia.

Bartleby seems to embody both the "cowardly" and "loverboy" archetype, being a (for the lack of a better word) utter simp for Sonia and promising her he'll "do anything for (her), my pet. Anything" as soon as she uses her ~feminine wiles~ to change his mind into becoming more sympathetic towards her "disreputable" brothers for a scheme against Robotnik. In most of their interactions, Bartleby lights up each time he sees her and despite believing that her brothers Sonic and Manic are bad influences, still genuinely cares for her well-being..

That being said though...

In several scenes, Sonia is in disguise and she often comes across Bartleby. On two occasions, she sees her fiance on a date with another woman and she (rightfully) becomes jealous. In one scene, she's in disguise near a hair salon to investigate unrelated matters and she comes across Bartleby, which makes her nervous. Bartleby, not knowing who spotted him, becomes visibly offended at the thought of being "caught" from whatever he was doing (however, it seemed innocuous). The series sets up a punchline that Bartleby lives some kind of secret (or at the least, separate) life from Sonia and it's a reoccurring joke that shows up whenever Sonia stumbles across Bartleby doing whatever Bartleby likes to do when Sonia is not around.

This also separates him from a character that he's constantly compared to, Antoine D'Coolette. Antoine was Sally's number 1 simp that refused to move on from his blind romantic devotion to her until he faced constant rejections and in spite of all, only gave up once Bunnie showed interest in him. And unlike Bartleby, he did not try concealing anything about himself outside of excessively playing up his bravery to win Sally's affection (well, unless you count Patch as being "Antoine" but then that got retconned by Penders for an admittedly better idea). Although there are some stunning similarities among prototype Antoine Depardieu and Bartleby Montclair, which makes me think that some of Antoine's prototype character motifs did get recycled for the Bartleby character.

Anyway back to the main point. And that is Sonia and Bartleby's relationship dynamic. Another thing that is pretty funny, is how Bartleby and Sonia argue over stupid things even when they're clearly still together like in the Artifact where Bartleby refuses to believe the ball he has in his hand is an explosive sold by Robotnik, accuses Sonia of trying to sell it for Resistance, and says she used to be a nice hedgehog before her brother's corrupting influence.

Certainly, Bartleby's classist views on "peasants" and his borderline racist/xenophobic views of some indigenous Mobians (strangely, Jamaican-accented but wearing Native American headdresses) whose island he wanted to turn into a resort (in the French dub, these connotations are way clearer with him calling them "primitives", while in the English dub he calls them peasants while calling their living conditions primitive) influences his disdainful feelings towards Sonia's "unruly" brothers. It's also especially narratively potent in a canon where class warfare is an established part of the living world and 3 of the main protagonists (Sonic, Manic, and Sonia) represent the different social backgrounds.

Ngl, I live for the drama and the potential storylines that can be sprung out of this dynamic. XD I mean I'm someone who loved pre-Flynn/early Flynn Archie for this reason.

Although Bartleby does seem to get redeemed at the end and has a nice little romantic moment with Sonia before departing to who knows where, I still wonder how that would work if Sonia's new love interest was Knuckles and she dated Stripes during their downtime. Maybe if Sonic Underground continued to a Season 2, he would've officially turned from a Neutral to a Good character and Sonia would be with Knuckles.

[otomehonyaku]

DIABOLIK LOVERS アニメ公式ノベライズ Official Novelization ☽ Chapter 2 Translation

[Previous chapter] ☽ [Next chapter]

Originally written by Yukuzuki Hiroha 結来月ひろは Translated from the Japanese by @otomehonyaku

STORY Following her father’s job transfer, Komori Yui is sent to live with the Sakamaki brothers. However, these six brothers turn out to be sadistic, ill-tempered vampires. The men are after Yui’s sweet and incredibly rare blood, and go to great lengths toying with her body and soul to get it. Before long, Yui finds herself trapped in an alluringly dangerous love game(1)...

1. 吸血愛戯 (ラブゲーム): Stylised as ‘love game’ but written with the characters for bloodsucking (吸血), love (愛), and play (戯). The latter character also has a connotation of playfulness/mischief.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial translation intended for those interested in reading the story of the Diabolik Lovers game/season in a slightly more literary format in English. I have no affiliation with Rejet or Frontier Works whatsoever. All rights belong to them, but PLEASE DO NOT POST THIS TRANSLATION ELSEWHERE OR TRANSLATE TO OTHER LANGUAGES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

Now that that’s out of the way—have fun reading! ❤️

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Episode 2

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The evening sun cast a warm glow on the mansion. By the time the chandelier was lit, Yui was sitting on a bed in an unfamiliar room. 

Where am I?

Yui sat upright and looked around. In the corner of the room was the suitcase she had brought to the mansion, as well as her bag. The room was gorgeous with its pink tones and large bed with a lavender-coloured canopy that most girls her age could only dream of. However, Yui wondered why she had been sleeping in this room. 

I arrived at the mansion, and then…

Yui gasped. Right. I found out that they are vampires, that’s why. Remembering the moments leading up to her losing consciousness, she inattentively pressed her fingers to her neck. 

“Thank God, I wasn’t bitten.” Feeling reassured, Yui lowered her fingers to her chest, but suddenly noticed something. “Huh?”

She wasn’t wearing her own clothes, but instead wore a négligé that she had never seen before. 

“Did I change clothes earlier?”

However, Yui had no memory of doing so. In fact, she didn’t remember anything after Ayato pushed her to the floor and she lost consciousness. That meant a stranger had undressed her while she wasn’t conscious. 

“Why am I here? I want to talk to my father…”

Yui wrapped her arms around herself, a thought ran through her mind.

The fact that she is not my own child bears no meaning at all. 

That was what her father’s diary had said when she found it in the forbidden room. I’m not my father’s biological daughter after all… Still, she wasn’t quite sure if she really believed that. She didn’t want to.

“Dad… What’s going on? Please come back home…” Tears started welling up in the corners of her eyes when she remembered the days she’d spent with her father, but the moment was cut short.

“Oh, Bitchlet. It’s no use crying, y’know?”

Yui yelped in surprise. 

When she looked up, Laito was sitting there on her bed, watching her intently. 

“You look hot in your little négligé,” he said, “and you smell delicious, too.” 

Painfully reminded of her current lack of clothing, Yui scrambled for the bed sheets and used them to cover up her chest. Still, the smirk that had been on Laito’s face the entire time grew deeper.

“I wonder if you’re trying to seduce me, little bitch.”

“Why would I…” Yui made an effort to get away from Laito, but soon felt the headboard press into her back, and she knew she had nowhere to run. Oh no… If I don’t do something, he’ll…

The boy was only a hair’s breadth away from her face when he abruptly disappeared from her line of vision, along with the sound of an impact.

“Don’t go touchin’ my things without permission.”

Ayato was the one who had sent his brother flying. 

Laito repositioned his hat onto his head and looked at him. “Ayato, you’re too rowdy.”

“Shut up.”

Has Ayato come to my rescue? If he hadn’t come in, Laito would surely have bitten me. But why would he help me? Even though Yui had not said anything aloud, Ayato called out her wishful thinking immediately.

“I’ll have her.”

So he didn’t come to save me… he was only acting because he didn’t want me swiped away from under his nose.

“Please, don’t!”

“You three. If you do not hurry, we will all be late.” In the blink of an eye, Reiji had also appeared by the side of the bed.

“Again, Reiji?”

“Aw, man, things were just getting good…”

Ignoring Ayato’s and Laito’s complaints, Reiji turned to Yui. “You too. Hurry up and get dressed.”

Yui was glad that the second son had saved her from getting bitten once again, but grew suspicious at his words. “Get dressed? Are we going somewhere?”

“Of course. We’re going to class.”

“Class… at this hour?”

“Please, Yui. Your dull-wittedness is astounding. Do you really not understand anything until I spell it out for you? We attend night classes.”

Yui cast a glance upon the clock at her bedside, and the hands pointed to 5:20 PM. Had she not been here, her classes would have already ended at this time.

“But… we still have an entire day of classes ahead?” Having attended a regular school until now, Yui could not hide her confusion.

“Contrary to what is normal to humans, going out during the day is bothersome for us. As you will be living in the Sakamaki household from now on, we expect you to conform to our lifestyle.”

“But…”

“If you have any complaints, you are welcome to leave at any time,” Reiji said. He then turned to walk away..

“But you said you’d kill me if I ran…” The complaint slipped past Yui’s lips in a voice that was too quiet for Reiji to understand.

“What was that?”

“N-nothing.” Yui shook her head vigorously.

“Then please hurry and put on your uniform.”

When she followed Reiji’s gaze, she saw that a brand new uniform had suddenly appeared on her bed. It consisted of the same blazer that the brothers wore, and a skirt that had white frills attached to the hem. The white shirt ribbon that came with it was tied together with another red ribbon on the centre of the chest. Did they go through all that trouble to get me a school uniform?

“Um…” When Yui raised her face, the three brothers had disappeared from her bedside. And now they’re gone. They really are vampires… 

Alone once again, she sighed heavily. When she tried to get up from the bed, her hand grazed past her rosary.

“Right…” Yui tightly gripped her rosary. “This might be the time to look for the room where I found that diary.” The brothers would be gone, and she would have the room to herself. This chance might not present itself again. 

Yui went to the door and eased it open the tiniest bit in order to check her surroundings. Good. Nobody’s outside my room. Ready to seize the opportunity, Yui prepared to leave the room.

“Yo.”

“Huh?” Somehow, Ayato was standing right in front of her. 

No way. There was nobody here. 

He looked at her scantily-clothed form with an amused grin on his face. “You’re still wearing that? C’mon, I’ll help you change.”

“I’m fine, thank you!” 

Yui shut the door in his face and sighed again. 

Not a chance after all… because I’m not dealing with humans, but with vampires. I should keep my head down for now.

Having given up the idea of going to the forbidden room today, Yui reluctantly got ready to head to class.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

When Yui finished getting ready and descended to the ground floor, a large black limousine was waiting in front of the mansion. Are we… going to school by limousine?

She hesitated for a second, but the driver opened the door for her. 

Well, I guess I have no choice, then.

“Thank you,” Yui said to the driver before she climbed into the limousine, but he kept silent as he shut the door.

The limousine was spacious enough to fit all of the brothers, and Yui was the last one to arrive. When she sat down on a seat near the door, the limousine quietly departed from the mansion. 

The brothers didn’t talk to one another. The only sound that could be heard was the car’s engine, and the lack of conversation was in stark contrast with their behaviour yesterday. 

Yui looked at the brothers. They couldn’t have been more different from each other—they each had their distinctive hair and eye colour. Are they really brothers?

Reiji was reading a book, and Subaru was sitting next to him, staring out the window with a sullen look on his face. Maybe they just don’t get along. On the opposite side, Laito’s face lit up like he was scheming, Kanato was talking to Teddy, and Shuu was listening to music with his earphones in. 

They really aren’t talking.

“What’re you thinking about, Pancake?” 

Yui had been lost in thought until she was surprised to see Ayato coming towards her, and she instinctively held out her hands to avoid him. The vampire didn’t seem pleased by that. 

Taking advantage of sitting right next to her, Ayato moved in closer. “You got some nerve trying to disobey me, Pancake.”

“All this time, it’s been ‘Pancake,’ ‘Pancake’… I have a name, you know. It’s Komori Yui. Please use it properly.”

“Shut up. Names lost their meaning to me about a hundred years ago, Pancake,” Ayato retorted, drawing out the syllables. Obviously offended, he suddenly bent over Yui, his mouth going for her neck. 

SNAP!

The sound of Reiji’s book slamming shut broke the tense atmosphere.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Ayato? Take such behaviour to your own room.”

Grumbling, Ayato let go of Yui.

Thank God…

“And you. Take this.”

“Huh?”

Reiji held out a juice box for her. “It’s pure cranberry juice. It works best against anaemia.”

“T-thank you,” Yui said in earnest, feeling a little surprised at Reiji’s sudden kindness. 

“No need to thank me,” he responded, sending her a cold glare. “You will have to learn that you are simply our prey, and drink that every day.”

Their… prey? Yui’s hands trembled. She had known it deep down already, but still, Reiji’s cold words struck a chord. Her body was seized by fear. Soon, she was shaking.

“You know, Teddy? When humans are scared, their teeth start ‘chattering.’ Interesting, isn’t it? Let’s observe closely.” Kanato held out Teddy toward Yui.

To these men, all I am is prey. 

The one eye Teddy had that wasn’t covered by an eye patch gleamed at Yui.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

With her lips forming a tight line and her body absolutely rigid, Yui sat in the limousine for another while until it passed under the moonlit gate of Reitei Academy. So this is the night school they were talking about… This was her first time to attend a night school, but Reitei, with its courtyard bathed in moonlight, looked to be a particularly prestigious one.

Yui trailed behind the brothers after they’d gotten out of the limousine and followed them into the courtyard. It was bright and enormous, and the staff had done a good job keeping it tidy.

That’s good. Even though they teach classes at night, it still seems to be a normal school. Yui had felt a little uneasy when she was told to go to the school the brothers went to, but most of the students somehow seemed to be normal humans just like her.

The moment the Sakamakis entered the school’s courtyard, all students stopped and stared. 

Well, if you count out the fact that they’re vampires, they certainly are handsome… When Yui looked at them properly once again, their outward appearance was very well-put together. It certainly wasn’t strange for them to attract attention looking this good.

However, nobody tried talking to them.

Even when they passed through the hallways and a group of female students looked over while chatting with one another in a low voice, they fell silent when Yui returned their gaze. When Yui averted her eyes again, the girls hurriedly moved past them.

What was that for? She turned around and looked at the girls’ backs as they walked away, thinking it strange. Reiji stopped in front of the staircase and called out, pulling Yui out of her daze.

“You are in the same class as Ayato and Kanato, so please go with the two of them.”

“Okay.”

In all earnest, Yui had been looking forward to some time away from the brothers, but she had no choice. She did as she was told, but Reiji’s cold voice stopped her before she could leave with Ayato and Kanato.

”I am not done talking yet.”

Yui reluctantly faced him again.

“If you do not wish to be struck with a whip, I would advise you to not do anything reckless. Understood?”

Meaning that if I tried to run away…

Reiji’s unrelenting gaze gave Yui the chills.

“Answer me.”

“…Yes.”

Feeling Reiji’s ice-like stare on her back, she walked away and headed to the classroom.

This should be it.

When Yui went into the classroom, Kanato was sitting at the very back, a book open in front of him as he cradled Teddy in his arms. Ayato was slumped over on his desk. For some reason, they were the only students there.

But class is just about to start. Why isn’t anyone else here?

Yui considered asking Kanato, but seeing him talk so animatedly to Teddy made her close her mouth again. She quickly glanced at the blackboard. It said Today’s Home Economics class is cooking practice. Please assemble in the school kitchen.

“So we’re doing a cooking class today.” That’s why the classroom was empty—everyone else must have already gone to the kitchen.

We should get going, too. I can’t be late on my first day here. But where is this kitchen?

“…Cooking practice?”

Yui’s voice roused Ayato from his nap, and his face twisted into a suggestive grin. “Hey, Pancake.”

“Ayato, please don’t call me weird names at school.”

“Shut up. You’re better off worrying about where to find the school kitchen.”

As if he had read Yui’s mind, she fell silent.

“Yours Truly could do you a favour and take you there.”

“Really?”

”Yeah. C’mon.” Ayato grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the classroom.

“Ah, wait!”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“…Um, Ayato?”

“What?”

“Where are we?”

The room Ayato had dragged her to was filled with cooking utensils and supplies. However, there were no other students in sight.

“It’s the school kitchen.”

“Then why is nobody here?”

“‘Cause this is the old kitchen. They teach the cooking classes in the new one.”

In other words, Ayato tricked her into coming here.

“So why did you bring me here?”

“As for the reason…” Ayato stood up from the chair he’d been sitting on, and stalked towards Yui.

Oh no, not again… Yesterday’s events were still etched into the back of her mind, making Yui freeze in place, but the answer coming out of Ayato’s mouth surprised her.

“Make me some takoyaki.”

“T-takoyaki?”

…Like, actual takoyaki?

“Well, I don’t expect anything but the world’s best takoyaki.”

A takoyaki pan was already present on the table, making Yui realise the height of his expectations. So that’s why he brought me here? She wasn’t sure if this was the actual reason why, but this wasn’t the time to think about that.

”But… we should head to class, quickly.”

“Don’t talk back to me. Yours Truly will eat your takoyaki. Now get cooking!”

“You could at least ask nicely…”

“You say something?” Ayato clearly wasn’t intending to go back to class. 

Yui did as he said, and started the preparations to make takoyaki. Fortunately, most of the ingredients were already there, and Yui somehow managed to make takoyaki with them.

“Here you go.”

Ayato stuffed the takoyaki into his mouth without hesitation. “So good!” 

Next to an innocently grinning Ayato, who feasted happily on the takoyaki, sat a rather dreary-looking Yui. “It’s only my first day of school and I’ve already skipped a class…”

Yui had never expected it to come to this on her first day after transferring to Reitei. She had never skipped a class before, even at her old school. 

“No use worrying ‘bout such small things. Have a bite.”

Before Yui could answer, Ayato pushed a ball of takoyaki into her mouth. “It’s delicious!” 

“Right?”

For something she had made herself, it had turned out pretty well. As the two sat and enjoyed the takoyaki, Yui caught a glimpse of the clock hanging on the wall. 

Their next class was about to start.

“We need to clean up. I don’t want to miss our next class too.” Yui began carrying the cooking utensils she used to make takoyaki to the sink. To avoid her getting wet, she took off her blazer, and hurriedly began washing a bowl. She had not realised there would be so much washing-up to do. 

Ayato, satisfied with a belly full of takoyaki, stretched out his legs and reclined in his chair, watching Yui as she did the dishes.

“Give me a hand, Ayato. You were the one who wanted me to make takoyaki, right?”

Silently, the vampire got up from his chair and crept over to her. He stopped just at her back. Yet Yui had not heard him coming over the sound of the running water, and so she called out to him again.

“Hey, Aya—”

When Yui looked over her shoulder, Ayato was right there. He was looking down on her quite literally, and as soon as she saw the look in his eyes, she immediately squirmed away from him.

“What’re you running away for?” He stalked over Yui, who was now standing by the window. “I’ve been going crazy since yesterday. I don’t wanna hold off any longer.”

I have to run…

Ayato captured her in his arms with ease.

“Let me taste you.”

“Please, don’t…” 

The words did not reach him. Ayato grabbed her chin and turned her face to the side, exposing the nape of her neck.

“No bite marks at all. Your skin looks delicious, really.”

Taking in the sight of her slender, pale neck right in front of him, a satisfied smile played at Ayato’s lips.

“Yours Truly will be the one to take all your firsts.”

The next moment, Ayato’s teeth hovered above the skin of her throat. A predatory gleam clouded his eyes before he buried his fangs deep in her neck. 

Yui gasped. The pain of Ayato’s sharp teeth piercing her neck and the feeling of her blood flowing freely into Ayato’s mouth made her body tremble. Even if Yui wanted to run from him, he had a strong grip on both her jaw and her waist. 

“Fuck… what is this? I’ve never tasted blood this sweet before.” Ayato briefly pulled away from her neck, his eyes twinkling with delight. “I like you.”

Before long, Ayato’s fangs brutally punctured Yui’s skin a second time.

“Please…”

Yui was not sure whether it was because he was sucking her blood, but her head began to grow numb, as if she was not herself anymore. 

I’m… scared… If he keeps feeding on me, I'll truly become their prey… I’m so scared.

Yui gathered all her strength to push Ayato away from her. However, the force of her push made the skin tear where Ayato had punctured it with his fangs. The intense pain shooting through her neck knocked the breath out of her, and her face contorted in agony.

“Idiot. If you move around while I bite you, you’ll only make it hurt more, you know.” When Ayato looked up, his lips were stained a bright red when they pulled away from his teeth in a smile.

“Ah…”

His lips were stained the colour of Yui’s blood.

I’ve really been fed on.

With the pain and shock of having her blood sucked, the fear showed plainly on her face.

“Seeing you in tears with your face twisting in pain… It’s too tempting.” Ayato wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, and then licked it off before reaching out to Yui again. 

“Please, stop…”

“No stopping now.”

Ayato pushed her up against the window and bit down on the nape of her neck again.

The moonlight illuminated the two of them through the window, contrasting with the dark room behind them. The moon above Yui was the last thing she saw before her consciousness fell into a deep darkness.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“You two are an embarrassment to do such a thing on school premises.”

Before long, Reiji was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Ayato and Yui. Ayato clicked his tongue as he turned around to face his brother.

“Damn it! Shit was just getting good.”

“Look at the state of her. That is your fault, Ayato. Take responsibility for your actions and take her home.”

When Ayato glanced at Yui, who was still in his arms, he noticed that she had already passed out. Might’ve been a bit too rough. The colour of Yui’s face was past the point of flattery, and she did not look like she would be waking up anytime soon. At the same time, Ayato could not simply leave her there. He knew exactly how Reiji would react if he did, and he wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Hmph.”

Ayato swept Yui up into his arms, and the next instant, they had disappeared from the room completely.

“Good grief. If only they could just behave.” Reiji let out a heavy sigh and walked out of the room.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Ugh…”

Yui opened her eyes on a bench next to the indoor pool inside the mansion.

Why am I here? I thought I was at school…

“Yo, you’re awake.”

Ayato was sitting on the armrest, lazily playing around with the uniform ribbon that had somehow found its way from neck into his hands.

Right, he fed on me…

Yui tried sitting upright, but the loss of blood had also drained the strength from her body. Seeing her struggle, Ayato walked over to her. 

“S-stay away!” 

Ayato halted.

The fact that vampires needed human blood for nourishment, Yui knew. But Ayato, on the other hand, only seemed to be toying with her. 

“Why are you doing this?” Yui asked.

Ayato stood over her, staring at her coldly. “You still don’t get it?”

“Huh?”

In a flash, Yui’s body was raised in the air, and Ayato’s face was a hair’s breadth away from hers. He’d picked her up with ease and began walking. Yui struggled to have Ayato put her back down, but he leisurely strode over towards the pool. He came to a stop right by the edge of the water.

“Yours Truly is the one who controls you. Stop complaining about everything!” 

Ayato had barely finished speaking before he threw Yui into the water. 

Yui screamed. A loud splashing sound echoed off the walls of the indoor pool. 

Oh no, I can’t swim…

To make matters worse, Yui was still wearing her uniform, and it weighed her down even more as it absorbed the water. She tried to wrestle herself to the surface, but despite her desperate efforts, she still felt herself sinking towards the bottom of the deep pool.

Ayato watched her struggle from the poolside.

“Tell me that I’m the best. Tell me that I’m better than anyone else, and that you’re mine.”

In a stroke of luck, Yui managed to come up for air. She begged for Ayato to help her, but she kept getting pulled back down. 

“Ayato—I can’t—I can’t swim…”

Yui desperately screamed Ayato’s name, but she had already disappeared under the surface of the water. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Whether he had heard her or not, Ayato's expression remained unchanged as he stared down at the water. This is Pancake’s fault. She disobeyed me…

Memories from his childhood haunted Ayato as he watched Yui’s struggling form in the pool.

In his thoughts, Ayato travelled to a lake far away, one hand strenuously reaching out of the water, flailing desperately. The blurry shape of a woman seemed to come closer from under the surface of the water. Ayato fought his way up, and reached out a hand towards her.

However, the woman had not come to save Ayato from drowning. She merely looked on, her expression flat.

Help me…

Ayato’s face twisted in despair knowing that his words would not reach anyone, but rather disappeared into the lake.

Help me…

Yui’s screams for help lined up with Ayato’s distant memory and without giving it any more thought, Ayato launched himself into the water. He did not know why he did it. Even though he harboured a sliver of doubt about his own behaviour, he took Yui into his arms under the surface of the pool.

Well, he did tell us not to kill her.

Reminding himself of this fact, Ayato cupped Yui’s face in his hands, and pressed his lips to hers.      

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It’s warm… and I can breathe again.

When Yui opened her eyes, she realised that Ayato had been transferring air to her with a kiss. Ayato pulled away as soon as he saw that she had regained consciousness. 

Why is he looking at me with such a forlorn expression?

In the deafening silence of the water, Yui saw herself reflected in his eyes, which were clouded with sadness.

Don’t look at me like that, Yui wanted to say, but the air Ayato had given her became bubbles under the water. 

I can’t breathe…

Seeing the struggle on Yui’s face again, Ayato undid the top buttons of her blouse to expose her shoulder, and sank his fangs into her skin.

“Nnh!”

Bubbles rose to the surface of the water again when Yui cried out. When Ayato switched to a different spot, biting her again and again, the blood seeping from the wounds in Yui’s skin floated around the two of them like a red ribbon that bound them together.

I have no air left…

Just when Yui was about to lose consciousness again, Ayato held on tight and pulled her with him to the surface. Yui coughed heavily to clear her lungs of water and desperately fill them with air at the same time. Ayato’s head was now above the water as well, and his eyes gleamed with a bewitching ferality that she had never seen of him before.

“Fuck, I can feel your blood flowing through my body… I can feel its power…”

“Please, no more…” Yui begged in a soft voice. Her face was white as a sheet, and the cold water and Ayato’s feeding had left her trembling incessantly.

“It can’t be helped. Let’s call it here for today.” Ayato held on to Yui as he swam to the edge of the pool, and hoisted her upwards onto the tiles.

Feeling an intense relief at being on solid ground again, Yui fell to the floor. Ayato threw a towel over her head.

“Huh?”

Yui was surprised by Ayato’s small gesture, but before she could thank him, Ayato turned his back on her and walked away without saying anything.

What does he really want with me?

Unable to figure out his motive, Yui tightly gripped the towel.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Around the same time, a man in a long, dark coat appeared in the woods surrounding the mansion. His motives seemed unclear窶派e merely stood there. However, as if he had noticed something, his head suddenly snapped up, and his red eyes focused on the sight in front of him.

Ah… Brings back memories.

The man’s eyes were trained on the Sakamaki mansion.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Yui had used the shower room adjacent to the pool, and when she returned to her room, she was stopped by the faint sound of a door unlocking once again. With suspicion, she followed the source of the sound, and reached another dilapidated spiral staircase.

“This staircase should lead to that room…”

Since then, Reiji had forbidden her from entering, but Yui was not prepared to give up on finding her father’s diary. I might be able to sneak into the room unnoticed from here, Yui thought as she ascended the stairs and found, as expected, the forbidden room.

Yui entered quietly, and immediately began the search for her father’s diary. It should have been right around here…

Carefully tiptoeing around the shards of broken glass, Yui eventually found the diary among the books on the floor.

“Gotcha!” She opened the little notebook without delay. “Huh…What’s this?”

Yui’s eyes widened in surprise. Her hands trembled as she flipped the pages. 

The pages were all completely blank where her father’s handwriting had been.

“It’s all… gone…” So what on Earth did I see before?

In a daze, the notebook slipped out of Yui’s hands and fell onto the floor, the sound reverberating through the quiet, empty space.

[dicenete]

Hey, I'm rambling about IkePri again

Okay, I just need to get these thoughts I have about Gilbert von Obsidian out because I enjoy predicting stuff and overthinking design and narrative choices even tho they might not be right. :P But there really isn't that much predicting other than me overthinking about narrative and design choices. This time there will be most likely spoilers of Gilbert's route so far, and route of Clavis and some thoughts I have just gathered while playing the game in general. I try to put these thoughts in cohesive order, but well... I don't know if I can really, because I just need to get these out of my head. These are my thoughts, ramblings and opinions. Feel free to form your own and certainly disagree with me! I apologize about the lack of art in this post. I'm busy with work currently so no fanart for a while. I'm also not native English speaker, so there might be grammatical errors and such. Sorry about that. Everything under the cut.

To start with Ikemen Prince is a romance visual novel first and foremost. That doesn't mean it can't be deep (and it certainly has been deeper than I initially expect, which left me positively surprised). I suppose there is somesort of thematic vibe that there is no prince whose ideals are the main thesis of the game itself. But that also kinda leaves that fact there is no huge catharsis regarding the world and it's state. Everything so far has been left quite open. And the more I have learned about lore of the world, I really feel like anti-monarchist here xd Clavis really sold me the idea for real. Or atleast throw away the absolute monarchy. That's where I think things should go, but that's my own belief. (really, the last king of Rhodolite... He umm... I have some opinions.) Chevalier and Gilbert First things first: I don't hate or dislike Chevalier as a character. There are just some things that give me Deus Ex Machina feels. But I know it is what they are going for with him. This genius that so far ahead of everyone that it is so alien concept to rest of the people. And well that is a very hard concept to pull off without being a genius yourself as a writer. Or that is what I feel like. But what I do love is what the writers are doing with him and Gilbert in thematic sense! (Hence why Chev x Gilbert sounds so juicy to me)

I really took steps to the deep end as I started to think about why I have enjoyed Gilbert's route or was interested in his story to begin with, but have little interest in trying Chev's one. Because they are so similar but they really aren't.

How I would describe it is that where as Clavis is the complementary to Chev, the purple to his yellow, the emotionality vs rationality, the heart vs the brain, Gilbert is more like right brain to Chev's left brain. If it makes sense like that xd Their color schemes are harmonious. Not opposite. Almost like how Nokto and Licht's color schemes are harmonious with each others.

(Nokto (Blue + white + gold) vs Licht (Blue + black + gold)) Not to mention that their names clearly are meant to mean light and dark. (Licht: variant for light, Nokto: comes form latin nox or noctis, meaning night = dark) But that is a rambling for another time.) Both their crests are tigers. White and black tiger. Chev's color scheme is White + gold and black. Whereas Gilbert's is Black + gold and white. But then the overall color that game devs use to signal about the characters baffles me a bit. Gold/Yellow vs Black/dark red. They don't seem to have too much connection or that of which comes to my mind quickly and without digging deeper. (because I believe that if you dig deep enough, you have digged yourself into a trap of overthinking about things. (Justifying things because you want to justify them, which I'm not big fan of. And sometimes things don't need meaning and we have to live with that. As much as it pains my overthinker brain.)) But here is my impressions about Gilbert so far. I'm at the point where MC has left the Clavis's party (I loved it btw). Gilbert really does give me toxic INFJ villain feels, but let's not get too hang up on terms such as that. But he is someone who is driven forth by his own ideals and desire to change the world better. He, like Clavis, seems to cloak himself in this idea that he is the villain and is okay, even happy, to take that role. He is the one who, like Chevalier, has thrown away emotional attachment out of the window (or so they say) unlike Clavis who makes his choices based more on emotion rather than rational thinking. Maybe that's why I like Clavis and Gilbert, they push MC out of their black and white thinking. That things are not so easy peezy as "choose a right king and everyone will be happy". There will always be someone who is mad about it. That's why I really loved the scene with Gilbert with the orphaned kids and the Clavis's party. He seems to enjoy the company of children (who are not morally corrupted or tainted) and he really empathically listens to those who are angry. He believes in the idea that "no one remembers what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel". (A quote with debatable origin, people say that it was coined by Maya Angelou. But I really love this quote, because I think it is the truth.) Gilbert isn't trying to rationalize against someone's choices with pure intellect. He uses empathy to guide him to the most rational outcome in that emotional scope. But he also uses this to manipulate people with fear. He uses fear extensively and he does it actively. Where as I feel like Chev just has that aura about him automatically. Hence my next thought: Action vs Stasis!

Gilbert and Clavis are action oriented. They shake the gameboard, they make the first moves. Gilbert probably more than Clavis. They both want change. Is it change for the better, we will see, I still haven't finished Gilbert's route but he really gives me this "I'm willing to become the greatest threat so that people unite to defeat me." or "I will conquer all so there will no longer be wars.". Chev, on the other hand, symbolizes stasis. His goal is to keep the kingdom of Rhodolite going. That's his duty and he is willing to take it. (even tho we can debate if that is something he really really believes in or even thinks about that much. I feel like it is out of obligation rather than of personal ideal. But alas, I have not played Chev's route yet.) Chev is reactive rather than proactive. He waits for the opponent to make the first move and reacts accordingly. (I'm not saying he is not reactive once game is on. More like "if there was not threat to deal with, he wouldn't create one".)

Chev doesn't care what you think about him. Gilbert does. He might seem like he doesn't but he is really there to prove a point. (I will pick up his dislike for lying later >.>) Chev is not. Chev knows that his way is the right way for him and that is enough for him. Chev also actively makes a "gettaway plan" for himself in Clavis. He knows that Clavis is the final thread that keeps him from going overboard because he understand that he has to be blind for "individual people" aspect to be a good ruler. Gilbert probably understands this about himself too, but he is trying to prove a point. So he needs to go overboard. Because masses of people need absolutes to react to. If it is something banal, it won't do. His evil actions need to shake the very foundation of ideas. The people have to face those things head on and see it for themselves. They cannot be sheltered. Gilbert gives me the vibes that he is willing to sacrifice himself not for the kingdom, but for the betterment of all mankind. He is happy to become the villain #1 if that means that other people will rise and take down the corrupted Obsidian or the corrupted idea. I would say that he is Lawful Good going on about things like Lawful Evil.

Gilbert asking questions means that he wants you to think, he wants to challenge your opinions and how you look at the world. Same as Clavis. They yearn for change. They want to change the world. Where as Chev wants to maintain things as they are. Chev "If it is not broken, we don't need to fix it" Michel. Where as Clavis and Gilbert want to improve the system. They are idealistic. Gilbert and lying

This is something very interesting. At first I thought that he was all "I dislike when people lie to me." but he really is "I dislike lying in all its forms." And he does say that he doesn't lie. And I'm starting to believe that is really the case. All the things he says are true. But because how other people see him, they are suspicious anyway. Like MC is. Like we all probably are when we start the route and think "So what is your trauma, baby girl?" When he is unsure or knows that he shouldn't say the thing he really thinks or that is true, he will deflect or give a very vague response. Which makes me quite happy to replay his route at somepoint with this in mind. In conclusion: Welcome to my TED talk, with no head or tail, just me overthinking about things about a otome gacha game. If you read this far, thank you for your time. Remember, if I ramble about it, it just means that I'm invested. Have a good day~