#this makes my job of getting yelled at by gamers all day worth it

[pesterloglog]

Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Serket, Karkat Vantas, Tavrosprite

Act 6, page 7500-7501

TEREZI: VR1SK4, SHOULDN'T W3 G3T B4CK TO OUR STR4T3GY M33T1NG SOON?

VRISKA: Yeah, pretty soon.

TEREZI: 1T'S L1K3 W3 US3D TO S4Y 1N TH3 OLD D4YS

TEREZI: T1M3 1S D34D K1DS

VRISKA: 8elieve me, I haven't forgotten!

VRISKA: That's as true now as it ever was. Only difference is now we're working together to PREVENT the 8odies from piling up.

TEREZI: >:]

VRISKA: We still have a little time 8efore we need to get serious, and anyway, when you're managing a team, you need to 8alance things.

VRISKA: Gotta keep morale up, you know?

VRISKA: The troops have 8een itching for a feel-good moment like this for a long time.

VRISKA: As a competent leader-slash-power-gamer extraordinaire, it's incum8ent on me to recognize that and cut them a 8it of slack.

VRISKA: Give them a little space to remem8er what they're all fighting for, you know?

TEREZI: Y34H, GR34T PO1NT

VRISKA: We could do the same, you know.

VRISKA: Over the last few years, we've had so many gr8 times and 8uried all the old hatchets deep enough that I think it's easy to take our relationship for granted.

VRISKA: Doesn't hurt to remind ourselves how lucky we 8oth are. And how close we came to going in completely different directions.

VRISKA: Anyway, I'm glad this is the path we chose. I couldn't ask for a 8etter moirail. ::::)

TEREZI: M3 N31TH3R

TEREZI: 1 DON'T KNOW HOW 1 WOULD H4V3 L1V3D W1TH MYS3LF 1F 1 H4D... GON3 THROUGH W1TH 1T

TEREZI: 4ND W3'D B3 D34D 1F 1 H4DN'T...

TEREZI: TH4NK GOD FOR 3GB3RT

TEREZI: N3V3R N3V3R N3V3R T3LL H1M 1 S41D TH1S BUT

TEREZI: FOR 4 DORK, H3'S...

VRISKA: Hmm?

TEREZI: H3

TEREZI: L3T'S JUST S4Y YOU D1D 4 GR34T JOB TR41N1NG H1M, ONC3 UPON 4 T1M3

VRISKA: Hey, so did you!

VRISKA: Some version of yourself was 8adass enough to write down all those instructions in her own 8lood just 8efore she died.

VRISKA: Sounds like a real hero to me!

TEREZI: H3H3

VRISKA: Sometimes I wonder what things would 8e like if we never had our falling out.

VRISKA: It was a lot like this, 8ack in the old days, remem8er?

VRISKA: Just hanging out, working together, not much drama except I guess for the occasional ethical de88 on how our foes should 8e dealt with.

VRISKA: What if it never spiraled out of control? If I never 8linded you, if you never 8lew off my arm...

VRISKA: What if you decided to send John 8ack to change all that instead?

TEREZI: 1 D1DN'T WR1T3 TH3 1NSTRUCT1ONS MYS3LF, BUT

TEREZI: 1'M SUR3 1 N3V3R CONS1D3R3D 1T

TEREZI: 3V3RYTH1NG W3 W3NT THROUGH B4CK TH3N M4D3 US STRONG3R

TEREZI: 1T W4S SOM3TH1NG TO WORK TO PUT B3H1ND US, NOT 3R4S3

TEREZI: SOM3TH1NG TH4T W4S WORTH TH3 3FFORT >:]

VRISKA: Yeah!

VRISKA: <>

KARKAT: *SHOUT BLITHER BLAH BLAH WORDS*

KARKAT: *BLAH BLAH TACTLESS NINCOMPOOPS SHOUT RAMBLE SCREED*

KARKAT: *BLAH BLISTER BEMOAN BLAH BLAH GOSSIP-HUNGRY LOBOTOMY HOBBITS*

KARKAT: *SHOUT YELL SCREECH HOLLER BRAINLESS GUSHING YAMMERTWATS*

VRISKA: Oh god.

VRISKA: What is he going on a8out now?

TEREZI: SOUNDS L1K3 H3'S Y3LL1NG 4T D4V3 4ND JOHN 4BOUT SOM3TH1NG

VRISKA: So, John's 8een here for all of five minutes, and he already tripped Karkat's tirade siren?

TEREZI: H3'S NOT 4CTU4LLY 4NGRY

TEREZI: H3'S 3MB4RR4SS3D 4BOUT SOM3TH1NG

TEREZI: MY 34R 1S F1N3LY TUN3D TO TH3 4LL V4NTRUM NU4NC3S

VRISKA: Em8arrassed? A8out what?

VRISKA: Think he might ACTUALLY 8e 8ent out of shape over the fact that he's not leader anymore?

TEREZI: NO W4Y

TEREZI: 1T'S SOM3TH1NG V3RY P3RSON4L

VRISKA: I wonder if John's 8een asking what the deal is with him and Dave?

VRISKA: John was pretty nosy, if I recall.

TEREZI: 1 TH1NK 1T'S MOR3 L1K3LY D4V3 1S JUST R4MBL1NG S4NS F1LT3R 4G41N

VRISKA: Yeah, he does do that a lot, doesn't he.

VRISKA: Hey, as long as we're swearing each other to secrecy on stuff, make A8SOLUTELY sure they never know I said this, 8ut...

VRISKA: He and Karkat...

VRISKA: Are KIND of adora8le??

VRISKA: In whatever quadrant that whole situation settled in.

VRISKA: I don't know, it's none of my 8usiness really. I just never would have guessed!

TEREZI: 4GR33D

TEREZI: 1 GU3SS W3 STUCK TO OURS3LV3S MOSTLY

TEREZI: 4ND ROS3 4ND K4N4Y4 W3R3 4LL... YOU KNOW

TEREZI: SO TH4T L3FT TH3M 4ND TH31R CUT3 M4YOR S1D3K1CK TO...

TEREZI: SORT TH1NGS OUT 4MONGST 34CH OTH3R? W1THOUT 1NT3RF3R3NC3 FROM 4 BUNCH OF CR4ZY FUCK3D UP G1RLS

TEREZI: 1'M H4PPY FOR TH3M

TEREZI: 4ND... FOR M3 TOO

TEREZI: 1F YOU H4DN'T B33N 4ROUND, 1 H4V3 4 F33L1NG 1 WOULD H4V3 GOTT3N SUCK3D 1NTO SOM3 W31RD BULLSH1T W1TH BOTH OF TH3M

VRISKA: Sounds rough.

VRISKA: Guess that's one more 8ullet dodged, thanks to yours truly!

TEREZI: GU3SS SO!

TEREZI: (G33K)

TEREZI: GONN4 M1SS YOU

TEREZI: SUR3 YOU H4V3 TO G3T GO1NG SO SOON?

VRISKA: Yeah, I really can't waste much more time.

VRISKA: Just have to get all these goof8alls squared away, then I'm off.

TEREZI: OH...

VRISKA: Is something wrong?

TEREZI: NO

TEREZI: W3LL, NOT R34LLY

TEREZI: NOTH1NG 1MPORT4NT

VRISKA: What is it?

TEREZI: 1T'S DUMB

TEREZI: YOU'LL PROB4BLY L4UGH 4T M3

VRISKA: No I won't!

VRISKA: Come on, tell me. What good is having a moirail you don't feel like you can talk to?

TEREZI: 1 DUNNO

TEREZI: 1'M NOT SUR3 1 C4N 3V3N PUT MY F1NG3R ON WH4T'S BUGG1NG M3

TEREZI: 1 F33L L1K3 1 SHOULD B3 PSYCH3D FOR TH3 B4TTL3 4H34D

TEREZI: L1K3, PUMP3D UP TO K1LL SOM3 B4D GUYS, 4ND F1N4LLY 3ND TH1S

TEREZI: BUT 1 JUST F33L 4 L1TTL3... W31RD?

TEREZI: 3SP3C14LLY KNOW1NG TH4T YOU WON'T B3 H3R3

VRISKA: What does me not 8eing here have to do with anything?

TEREZI: WH4T 1F

TEREZI: WH3N 1T'S T1M3 TO F1GHT, 4ND P3OPL3 R34LLY N33D M3

TEREZI: TO US3 MY "POW3RS" OR WH4T3V3R 1T 1S 1'M SUPPOS3D TO B3 4BL3 TO DO

TEREZI: WH4T 1F 1T TURNS OUT 1'M NOT 4CTU4LLY TH4T...

TEREZI: GOOD?

VRISKA: 8ut you already proved that you are!

VRISKA: Another version of you 8asically saved us all, remem8er?

TEREZI: 1 KNOW, BUT

TEREZI: TH4T W4S 4 D1FF3R3NT M3

TEREZI: WHO W3NT THROUGH SOM3 TH1NGS 1 N3V3R W3NT THROUGH, 4ND PROB4BLY F1GUR3D OUT HOW TO B3 4W3SOM3 4ND H3RO1C 4LONG TH3 W4Y

TEREZI: 1 N3V3R D1D 4NY OF TH4T, 4ND 1 C3RT41NLY DON'T F33L 4W3SOM3 4ND H3RO1C Y3T

TEREZI: 4ND

TEREZI: TH1S PROB4BLY SOUNDS R34LLY DUMB BUT

TEREZI: 1T K1ND OF M4K3S M3 F33L GU1LTY

VRISKA: Guilty? Why?

TEREZI: B3C4US3 SH3 PR3TTY MUCH S4CR1F1C3D H3RS3LF

TEREZI: TO M4K3 TH1NGS B3TT3R

TEREZI: SP3C1F1C4LLY, B3TT3R FOR *M3* 1 TH1NK

TEREZI: TO L3T M3 L34D 4 B3TT3R L1F3, PR3SUM4BLY

TEREZI: TO F1X MY PROBL3MS 1 GU3SS?

TEREZI: BUT

TEREZI: 1 DON'T F33L F1X3D

TEREZI: 1 4CTU4LLY K1ND4 F33L 4 W31RD S3NS3 OF PR3SSUR3

TEREZI: TO B3 TH3 B3ST V3RS1ON OF MYS3LF, L1K3...

TEREZI: TH3 MOST PRODUCT1V3 4ND H3RO1C 4ND W3LL 4DJUST3D T3R3Z1 1N P4R4DOX SP4C3?

TEREZI: BUT 1'M D3F1N1T3LY NOT TH4T T3R3Z1

VRISKA: Ok, you are 8eing WAY too hard on yourself here.

VRISKA: I really dou8t that's what the other version of you intended!

VRISKA: That's not even how shit works. People don't just get "fixed".

VRISKA: Even if circumstances change so you have a smoother ride, you are always going to have flaws.

VRISKA: I guess you should always try to 8e the 8est version of yourself, 8ut I think it's also important to 8e ok with the fact that you aren't perfect.

VRISKA: I've got flaws too! I mean, o8viously.

VRISKA: 8ut I'm mostly ok with them.

TEREZI: WOW. YOU DON'T S4Y???

VRISKA: Hey, shut up! ::::p

VRISKA: I'm just trying to offer a little perspective here!

TEREZI: Y34H, 1 KNOW

TEREZI: YOU'R3 R1GHT...

TEREZI: 1'LL TRY TO FORG3T 4BOUT TH1S STUFF, 4ND JUST FOCUS ON H3LP1NG OUT TH3 T34M

TEREZI: 1T'LL B3 H4RD DO1NG 1T W1THOUT YOU, BUT 1 GU3SS 1'V3 M4N4G3D TO DO 1T B3FOR3

TEREZI: 3V3N 1F 1 DON'T R3M3MB3R

VRISKA: Yeah!

VRISKA: You'll 8e fine. I know you can do it.

TEREZI: WH3N W1LL 1 S33 YOU 4G41N?

VRISKA: Some day.

VRISKA: I'll do my 8est to shorten the w8 for you as much as I can. Using time travel or whatever other nonsense I may have at my disposal.

VRISKA: When all is said and done, I'll drop 8y Earth and look you up.

TEREZI: 1 C4N'T W41T >:]

TAVROSPRITE: *bLITHER BABBLE, rAMBLE SELF ESTEEM, pRATTLE,*

TAVROSPRITE: *rAMBLE MUMBLE, bRAVE ALIVE HERO,*

TAVROSPRITE: *mUTTER BLITHER, fINALLY PROVE YOURSELF, bABBLE BABBLE,*

VRISKA: Tavros, would you leave that poor kid alone?

VRISKA: What sort of nonsense are you telling him?

[dismemberedyouth]

Do you ever...?

  Do you ever listen to music and realize, wow, I deserve to be treated a lot better in your relation to the songwriter when they have been wronged, or you realize the love you want does not match the love you have. If you are even able to consider what you have as love, or some twisted thing disguised as it. 

 I don’t want to leave him. But I don’t know what will change at this point. He is not what I need in a partner. We match each other physically and our sexual chemistry exists, and we have good laughs, but I don’t know if this is what I want for a lifetime. I don’t want to think back and regret wasting my 20s on someone who will never be who I need them to be. I also don’t want him to waste his time with someone who isn’t accepting who they are as is. We deserve partners who have the same values & morals. At this point, we are trauma bonded. 6 ½ years will do that to you, I suppose. 

 What would change? I would lose one of my cats. I would lose Kitty, who although I love the other 2 endlessly she holds a special spot in my heart. Kitty actively seeks me out when I am hurting. Kitty has consoled me more in the last 6 years than he has. I will break to lose her 

I don’t want to go through the act of cleaning out the house of his things. That would be painful. It would feel empty.

I don’t want to live alone. I don’t want to live with anyone else but him.

How can I make this work’? I don’t want to experience any of this. But, is the pain of these event worth my future?  I can’t help but hope he will change. I hold onto that dream like a child believing in santa claus. 

Can this even work? Does he even want this to work? He doesn’t value the same things I do. He speaks over me. I have to over explain myself for every single thing. I have to have a reasoning being everything I do and the reasoning has to make sense to him in order for it to ever rule in my favor. While normally that would make sense. Yes, you want to know your partner is of sound mind. And I get how in certain scenarios you don;t want to feel as if you are being lead blindly. 

But man, what the fuck have the last 6 years meant?! Also, it’s not a normal question or two, it’s a full on mother fucking police interrogation. Is that fucking normal?

Okay, you probably need an example. So, recently he added a girl on Xbox (btw I get yelled at for having cleavage but I literally have fucking DDs) And I asked him to unadd her. He wanted a reason. Okay, it makes me uncomfortable because for the last several years you have stated your distaste for playing with girl gamers, so much so he has made points of it without me even mentioning it (Guess what? He needs me to give the exact fucking day we had that argument or else I’m just making it up.) While I was open and did say part of it was an insecurity, but that I genuinely think I would feel different if he knew the girl in person. Something about it being online makes me feel uneasy. I 1000% see where he would be on the defense for a moment and thinking I don’t trust him, but again I refer to my first point about him always being against it and now it doesn’t matter. Also, he originally told me he didn’t add her, they just played. Then I found out he actually did add her as a friend and planned to play again. I would also like to add, this man plays several hours of xbox a night. He does not come to bed until 5am. He has no job. Has not had one for the last 2 years and somehow that is my fault. I work full time and pay for everything btw. 

Okay, I’m fucking pissed now. I don’t think we belong together. We aren’t healthy!!! Literally, literally. I have nice things to say about us but honestly at this point it’s a god damn cope.  

11:11

I gave so many signs. 

Love stories exist like the movies, right? Like, obviously they have the ugly parts. The bad parts. Vulnerable parts. But I get all of that shit, without the fucking love, What makes this god damn worth it? Nothing!! I tell ya. Nothing.

[alaraxia]

Blazing your oc posts is like inflicting your mind blorbos on others. 100/10 I wish you wellness

tumblr just gave me the ability to duct tape people to a chair and force them to look at my Most Specialest OC and I think that's beautiful

[blu-joons]

Secret Santa ~ Kim Seokjin

Every year the company Secret Santa was one of the things everyone looked forward to the most, everyone gathered around in the main office on the last day before the Christmas break and exchanged presents, Christmas was never the same without it.

You took your seat around the table, placing your present into the black sack that Namjoon walked around with, grabbing yourself a drink from the middle of the table that had been prepared. Spirits were high as the holidays came closer, and best of all; you all got a few days off work!

The last people to enter were Jin and Yoongi, not that anyone was surprised. Your eyes watched the present Jin put in the bag especially, it was much bigger than all the others that had been put in, making it easy to guess who’s his was.

One by one once everyone was in, Namjoon called out the names on the presents for people to pick up to get on with unwrapping.

“Jin!” Namjoon yelled, as your hand came up to cover your mouth trying to hide your smile as you watched the present you bought be handed to him.

He was tentative as he took the present and went back to his seat, whilst you sat back, Jin was clueless as to who could have bought for him. You continued to watch on as he unwrapped the present, seeing his eyes light up.

“This is amazing!”

“Let the rest of us see then!” Jimin yelled, earning himself a glare.

Jin proudly lifted up the gift you’d bought for him, it wasn’t much, just an old remake of one of the games you remembered him mentioning that he played when he was younger. As soon as you saw it, you knew that Jin would love it as such an avid gamer.

A few more passed by before finally your name was called. As you stood up, you watched Namjoon pull out the huge present you’d seen Jin add to the bag, barely able to hold it for the sheer weight of it.

“Someone must really love you,” you overheard Soobin exclaim.

“I must have been really good to Santa this year,” you teased, placing the present on the table.

All eyes were on you as you untied the bow that was wrapped around it before tearing the wrapping down either side of it. Your breath was taken as you unwrapped the present to find a huge hamper of things that would fit inside your home.

You had mentioned to Jin just a few weeks prior that you’d recently moved into a new place, and that your job for the start of the New Year was to begin getting decorations for it, but now you had plenty to choose from.

As you glanced around the room, Jin was sure to keep his eyes away from yours, yet he failed to hide the bright red glow on his cheeks.

“Thank you to whoever bought this, it’s amazing,” you smiled, carefully looking through each item that was placed inside.

One thing you couldn’t knock Jin for was his choice of décor, everything he picked was beautiful, from a soap dispenser to a photo frame, to most it didn’t seem that Christmassy, but for you, it was exactly what you wanted.

It showed how much he cared and listened, when at times you wondered if he was ever really listening to you or if he just liked to pretend.

You sat back down as the rest of the presents were handed around, glancing over at Jin every so often, but still he tried hard to avoid your gaze.

His heart was pounding in his chest with relief as he watched you open his present, glad that he’d picked out things that you liked. It was a risk for him, but he wanted to make sure your present was perfect for what you would’ve wanted.

Once the presents were exchanged, the room began to split off into smaller groups to catch up and talk about what everyone had planned for the holidays.

You watched carefully as Jin walked out of the room, excusing yourself from those who tried to start a conversation with you to follow him outside. You paused for a moment as he pulled out his phone before walking across to stand right by his side.

Your presence made him jump as he turned to face you, this time he had nowhere else to look but at you.

“I know it was you Jin.”

His body tensed up as you spoke, slowly his smile grew as he saw how happy you were to have received his gift. “I didn’t really make it subtle, did I?” He asked, to which your head shook. “I just thought I’d get something I knew you’d like.”

“I love it, thank you so much.”

“My present was pretty cool too,” he teased, nudging his hip against your own, “don’t even try and tell me that it wasn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But he knew just as well as you did, that you knew exactly what he was going on about. As soon as he opened the present, he remembered the conversation he’d had with you about games, and after putting two and two together, he knew who was responsible.

“Don’t be like that, I really loved the present. I can’t wait to go home and play on it; it’s been years since I played something as old as that. It must have cost you a lot of money though.”

Your shoulders shrugged, the cost of it all simply didn’t matter, Christmas was a time for giving, and nothing would have ever have been as perfect as that game to give Jin for Christmas, and seeing his reaction made it all worth it.

“I wanted to get you something special to say thank you for all the help you’ve given us this year,” Jin softly whispered, “you’ve been really good to me, I was so happy when I saw you were my Secret Santa.”

You smiled back at him, “if I told you that you were my favourite artist to manage, then I think that makes us even. I was pretty relieved to get you too, at least I knew things that you liked.”

“I’m surprised you even listened, not many people do,” he scoffed, “I guess that’s what makes you such a good manager, you genuinely care for everyone that you work for. There aren’t many managers as good as you are Y/N.”

As your eyes met his you felt the butterflies in your tummy, feeling his hand rest against your arm. You shyly looked away as he let go of a giggle, feeling his hand pinch lightly against you to try and bring your eyes back to him.

“What are you doing to me Jin?” You blushed.

“I think this is my really roundabout way of trying to tell you I like you,” he admitted, “I hoped maybe the present would tell you everything, because I really do care about you. To everyone else you’re just a manager, but to me you’re someone who listens and supports me, and I’ll always be really grateful to you for that.”

“I’m happy I know how you feel now,” you mumbled, bringing your hand up to the side of his face, closing the distance between you both, resting your forehead against his. “Because I think I’m falling for you too Jin.”

“Are you really?”

You chuckled, feeling his hand rest over yours, “no one else makes me smile like you do, I look forward to coming into work every morning because I get to see you. You say that I listen, but you listen to me too, and no one ever really bothers listening to me.”

“Seeing you in the mornings makes the early starts worth it,” he complimented, moving closer towards you so his nose brushed against yours.

“Someone might see us,” you whispered, trying to look away.

Jin’s shoulders shrugged, making sure he kept you in position. “I don’t care if anyone sees us, no one understands me like you do, so I don’t care what they have to say. I’m not going to pretend, especially when I know that you like me too Y/N.”

Before you had the chance to speak, you felt his soft lips press to your own, your eyes fluttered shut as Jin held you closely into him. You could feel the blush flow on your cheeks, but none of that mattered as you savoured the taste of Jin’s lips.

“That was a pretty good present,” you teased as you pulled away.

“I know exactly what I want for Christmas now,” he responded, pecking your lips once more.

“What’s that?” You asked, moving your hands down to wrap against his waist, as his own rested against your hips.

“You.”

---

Masterlist

[triforce-princess]

well, i finally 100% completed hyrule warriors age of calamity in its entirety, including post game content, so i’m finally going to write a full review. beware this review will contain every spoiler imaginable so please do not click the read more if you haven’t finished the game yet and don’t want to be spoiled!

tl,dr; this game is a lot of fun despite some of its shortcomings and it’s really nice to see characters get the development they needed in breath of the wild. also a huge improvement gameplay-wise from the first game. if you’re a fan of breath of the wild it’s worth a try, just don’t expect breath of the wild style of gameplay! and if you’re a fan of the original hyrule warriors, you are going to love this a lot. ok now to get into the details. this is extremely long;

about the gameplay; it took me a while to fully adjust to the new controls and mechanics, but once i finally understood it it was so much fun. i originally wasn’t crazy about the sheikah slate runes since it was difficult at first to remember that a. i had that ability, and b. when the proper time to use it was. but when it finally clicked for me it brought a whole new interesting layer to the gameplay that challenged my memory in a fun way. it took me even longer to learn what the use of the rods were but those were great in a pinch once i figured it out. i also loved the flurry rush mechanic since dodging is a pretty important aspect of the gameplay. all these new layers added to this gameplay makes me wonder how i ever put up with the original hyrule warriors gameplay lol. something i wasn’t entirely crazy about was the wall jumping and paraglider stuff? i never really found it useful and it always just became a problem when i was trying to dodge and i’d be confused about why my character was slowly flying around at critical moments.

the camera in this game was pretty frustrating. with the more organic map & lots of tight spaces (which i’ll get more into later), the camera would get stuck a lot and you’d be unable to really see what’s going on and it got pretty frustrating at times. i wish there were some way they could fix that but i’m not sure what they could do without having the camera go out of bounds & show the edges of the map. maybe they could’ve made some of the objects that are in the middle not be things the camera get stuck on though.

i also felt like there were too many special effects going on with some enemies and attacks, sometimes it would cover up large parts of the screen & you wouldn’t be able to see what you were fighting and that was pretty stressful (i found myself frequently yelling “i can’t see!!” when i’d defeat a guardian or something in a room with lots of other enemies. this only became an issue in the later parts of the game though.

now about the maps, i do love how much more organic and natural they are. it’s a big upgrade from the original which had a lot of wide corridors leading into square rooms which were allied/enemy basses. but unfortunately, this causes issues with navigation and the camera getting stuck (like i mentioned before). i had a lot of problems where the map was too natural and i was confused about why i was getting stuck on level geometry when it looked like i could walk through there. i think the breath of the wild style makes this confusing too because you can’t really undo a thousand hours of being able to walk through nearly everything. but also it was just really unclear what was a wall and what wasn’t sometimes. i was surprised i actually had to zoom in on the mini map and look at that to move around at times. definitely an ambitious aspect of the game & i appreciate the effort and detail, but i don’t know if it works that great for this style of gameplay. i also don’t know why they bothered putting so many small details on the ground if they’re just going to pop in so close to the camera. it was kind of awkward when you cleared out all the enemies & were traveling to another location and it was the only noticable thing on screen.

speaking of ambitious, we can’t ignore this game’s framerate issues. it’s the first thing on everyone’s minds when talking about this game. most of the time, it was pretty acceptable. but they definitely pushed this game farther than the switch can go and it shows. i really appreciate the love they put into making this game as detailed as they did, but i don’t know if it was worth it in the long run. there’s only a couple times i can think of where the framerates got absolutely unacceptable, and it always seemed to be when there was a lot of electricity and enemies on screen at the same time. it happened once during the final vah naboris mission and another time where there were a ton of electric lizalfos all shooting electricity at once at the same time you have to fight an electric lynel. but, i’m not the kind of gamer that loses my shit over dropped framerates, i grew up with the n64 & have had to put up with poor early emulation many times in my life so framerates don’t really phase me until it just gets unplayable.

wasn’t crazy about how many late game missions were just boss rushes, but that’s pretty standard hyrule warriors fare. at least it was more fair in this game where most of the time you only had to fight one boss at a time and the next boss wouldn’t spawn in until you beat the first one, so there was no risk of accidentally aggro-ing a boss in another part of the map & have an unfair fight on your hands like in the first game. it was pretty anti-climactic how the seemingly final mission which had the highest recommended level was just another boss rush, and not even the hardest one (it was just a bunch of regular malice bosses in a row).

bit of a side note but i didn’t like having to grind for materials and find koroks for 100%. the koroks weren’t nearly as bad as breath of the wild though, thank god.

i’m pretty disappointed that some content that’s clearly in the game isn’t unlocked in the base game, it’s looking pretty likely that they’ll add it as dlc later & pretend it’s new content to make the game relevant again...i’ve always firmly believed dlc should be extra content that’s added in later. hopefully they’ll add some really cool stuff as dlc alongside the stuff that’s in the game & it won’t be so disappointing. there’s two characters i was sure would be unlocked as playable characters (sooga and astor) but i found it weird that you don’t get them in the post game and instead you get to play as the egg guardian (terrako) and calamity ganon???? talk about subverting expectations. also really frustrated to learn that zelda’s royal dress isn’t available in the base game but its in the files & is just missing one body part?? really hope that’s just a free update and not like, paid dlc. kind of dumb that they didn’t give the devs one extra day to model feet on the character.

about the story; the story starts out really strong i feel, i loved seeing characters get the development they didn’t get in breath of the wild and this game’s story makes breath of the wild’s story feel even more incomplete than it did before this game came out. and actually seeing the story play out in chronological order in real time without link having amnesia gave the story so much more feeling and connection. this is probably my favorite aspect of this game because i was always so disappointed with how disconnected you feel in breath of the wild because of the way the story is told. and it does so much of a better job illustrating link and zelda’s feelings. i’m probably the single most difficult person to convince when it comes to link and zelda being in a relationship or having feelings for eachother and i thought this was quite possibly the best master sword scene in any zelda game;

in previous games link has always had to prove his courage in a variety of trials spread across the land and to me its really boring, especially after how many times its been done. the thing that gets me about this scene is the master sword deems him worthy because of his desire to protect zelda even when he’s been beaten down & disarmed. that was a really beautiful moment to me & i’m glad they wrote the scene this way.

speaking of being worthy of power because you want to protect someone, i wasn’t really that crazy of zelda unlocking her power just because she loves link but honestly this game illustrated it in a much better way & i’m more down with it now. i loved this shot how it really captured what she was feeling;

it’s also in general awesome to see the champions in action, both in gameplay and in cutscenes. i remember being in awe the first time i got to play as urbosa. it feels like we finally really got to know them and how powerful they really were, instead of breath of the wild just telling us they were cool & we just had to believe it.

now for the part i know people say this game is shit because of; the time travel aspect. yeah, it’s a little silly and nonsensical, but honestly, it was kind of fun. and i don’t get how a time travel plot is somehow weird for the zelda series. the most critically acclaimed game of this series, ocarina of time, is entirely revolved around a time travel plot & the heroes would not have won if it weren’t for time travel in that game. yeah, it’s goofy, but this series is known for its nonsensical aspects & plotholes. there’s always some kind of unexplainable magic in this series that solves problems. i don’t think that makes this game shit. plus i was kind of starstruck when i first got to play as sidon lol. i was thinking to myself, man, who would’ve known 3 years later we’d get to play as sidon! crazy! none of the champion descendants were really my favorite to play as but it was still cool to see them & play as them.

something i didn’t understand was why kohga and the yiga clan joined zelda’s cause? i feel like a vital scene got cut. i don’t get why he’d join even when astor betrayed him, considering his group’s ambitions and how many times they tried to kill zelda. and where’d sooga go? the scene of astor betraying them kind of implied he was going to die but we never got confirmation of that, and he even shows up in a post game mission as an ally (no cutscene, just one line of dialogue during gameplay)

as for the ending, i guess it was alright? astor was a really lazily written villain and i just did not care for him at all. kinda don’t even care that we don’t get to play as him (yet, probably). calamity ganon’s design in this game was terrible. and i guess it would’ve been hard to make it work, but no beast ganon? just felt a little to easy to wrap up. despite this i guess it was nice to see hyrule get a happier ending even if it was a bit nonsensical at times. also this is just a bit of a personal thing for me but i liked seeing  hyrule before it was destroyed. it always bums me out when you find a locaiton in game that’s been destroyed & you can only think about what it mightve looked like before. this is something that’s bummed me out since wind waker (was always disappointed you don’t get to see what greatfish isle is like!!) and breath of the wild gave me so much disappointment in that aspect lol.

one final thought but it was odd to me how many lines revali got & how often he interacted with link lol. was weird to see him slowly warm up to link a little towards the end (but of course he’s still a little mean...). no other character acknowledges link as much as revali. this scene confused me the most??

there were so many other people revali could’ve spoken to. he barely even acknowledges teba who was the one who specifically came to his aid!! and the way link looks at him with big puppy eyes?? link barely makes a facial expression at anyone else! and how revali expresses gratitude for the first time in his life after looking at link’s stupid cute anime face and smiles (but he turns around because he would be too ashamed to smile at link i guess)

anyway that’s it, i finally got out all my thoughts about this game. this went on way longer than i intended and i’m sorry if you read the whole thing & it took forever lol. this game is fun, get it.

[starlightbuck]

It took me far too long to decide, wow but I shall request #23 please!

23. Happening to sit next to each other on a park bench, reading the same book. 

you gotta read between the lines || read on AO3

“Here, take this.”

Eddie looks down at the book that May has thrust into his hands. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - he’s never heard of it. “What-”

“I overheard you telling Bobby that you want to read more so I figured I’d let you borrow one of my favorites.”

Eddie’s confusion gives way to understanding and is followed shortly thereafter by a burst of affection that he’s sure May would much rather he not put on display while surrounded by their family. And that’s what this, the 118, has become for him - a family. 

It’s something his parents swore up and down he’d never have after he told them about his decision to leave Texas. He might find better job opportunities, but he’d never find anything better than the family he was leaving behind. 

How wrong they were. 

“Thanks, May. I’m looking forward to reading it.” 

It’s a statement he means wholeheartedly. After a few months, Eddie has finally found a way to balance his work and home life, but he’s still lacking in any hobbies that he can call his own. Maybe that’s what reading can become for him - a moment of peace in his otherwise hectic day-to-day schedule.

May tilts her head to the side and stares at him for a moment before holding her hand out to him. “Give me your phone.”

He does as he’s told without asking, even if he doesn’t know what she’s planning to do. 

Her fingers move across his screen with a speed that Eddie finds a little intimidating. In no time at all, she hands him back his phone. “I put my number in so you can text me your thoughts on the book.”

Eddie shouldn’t make a big deal out of this exchange, but there’s a small part of him that wants to. He’s an adult, May’s a teenager, and she just willingly gave him her phone number.  And told him to text her. Does this make him cool now? 

He’ll consult Hen later to find out. 

“I can do that.”

Eddie starts the book while at work and regrets that decision immediately.

The first interruption comes from Bobby.

“Put that book down, Eddie. You’re helping me cook lunch.”

The next one is from Chim. 

“Hey, Eight-Pack! Help me clean the truck!” 

And then Hen.

“Eddie, please come and explain to Chim why I’m the superior video gamer.”

Then the alarm goes off and Eddie leaves the book behind in his locker. It remains untouched for the rest of his shift. 

Eddie (9:42pm): i’m not sure who i’d want to be paired up with if i was in this game

May (10:01pm): you JUST got to that part??

May (10:02pm): i’m disappointed

Eddie (10:07pm): i’ll try to read faster

May (10:15pm): good

“Daddy, what are you doing?” 

“Reading a book.” 

Chris takes a seat beside his dad on the sofa and leans heavily against Eddie’s arm. “I’m bored. Can we do something?”

“I thought you were having fun drawing,” Eddie answers, eyes still skimming the words on the page in front of him. He’s managed to make some leeway with the book and now that he’s gotten into it, it’s been harder for him to put it down. 

“I was but now I’m not. Please can we do something?”

“Chris.”

“I said please.”

Chris peers up at his dad from under golden eyelashes with a pout firmly in place. He’s only doing it to sway Eddie’s decision and not because he’s genuinely upset but that doesn’t stop the sight from tugging uncomfortably at Eddie’s chest. If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to hurt Eddie, it’s his son’s unhappiness. The reaction can easily be traced back to not being around when Chris was growing up. 

That guilt that will haunt him forever. 

It’s what pushes him to mark the page he’s on before closing the book. “What do you think about having a movie night?”

Chris’s eyes light up at the suggestion. It’s the best thing Eddie’s seen all day. 

“Really?”

“Of course. How about you pick out a couple of movies and I’ll order us some pizza?”

Chris nods enthusiastically and is about to get up from the sofa when he stops. Eddie is going to ask what’s wrong, but the words get lodged in his throat when his son crawls into Eddie’s lap. He wraps his arms around his dad’s neck and plants a loud kiss on his cheek. 

“I love you, daddy.”

The show of affection is almost second nature for Chris, but Eddie knows a time will come when that stops being the case. It’s as depressing a thought as it is unavoidable. Chris will get older and doing things like cuddling with Eddie and randomly saying ‘I love you’ will become nothing more than a rare occurrence.

Until then, he plans to cherish every single one of these moments and then lock them away for safekeeping. 

Eddie wraps his arms around Chris, holding him as close as he can and kisses his son’s forehead. “I love you too.”

Eddie (5:45pm): ANOTHER bomb? How many are there?

May (8:32pm): keep reading and you’ll find out 

With Christopher at Abuela’s and no shifts scheduled for the day, Eddie decides to take advantage of the cool Sunday weather and go to the park to get some reading done. By the time he gets there, the park is bustling with energy from children and adults alike. It takes Eddie almost ten minutes to find an empty bench but it’s worth it when he settles into his spot. It’s far enough away from the playground that the sound of yelling is nothing but background noise and close enough to a tree that protects him from the sun in case it decides to peek out from behind the clouds. 

He leans back in the seat, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. Then he takes the book out of the bag he brought it in, always cautious of how he carries it since it’s a loaner, and dives in. 

Eddie’s eyes follow the words with anticipation, drinking in every sentence as he reads them, not wanting to miss a single detail. He’s nearing the end and is desperate to see how the author is planning to wrap everything up. He has a couple of guesses, but the only way to determine if they’re correct is to finish the book. 

“Excuse me?”

Eddie flips to the next page. 

A throat clears and then, “uhm, hello?”

Eddie barely refrains from growling at the intrusion. The point of coming to the park to read was being able to do so  without any interruptions. 

He is nothing if not polite though, a trait that he attributes to his abuela. His parents might’ve taught him how to behave himself, but it was Abuela who taught him how to go out into the world and greet people with a smile.

“Yes?” Eddie says, grin locking in place when he looks up and finds a man with bright blue eyes staring back at him with a hopeful smile of his own. The sun is only just making a home for itself in the sky and the glow from its rays reflects off of the man’s hair and gives him an angelic glow. It’s almost too much for Eddie to handle.

Almost.

“I was just wondering if I could sit with you?” He gestures to the small part of the bench that’s empty. It’s possible that Eddie spread his things out when he first sat down so that no one would be tempted to join him. “I’ve done two laps around the park, but there are no other open seats.” 

Eddie might’ve preemptively tried to keep strangers from intruding in his space, but he figures he can make an exception for this guy. That decision has nothing to do with how attractive he finds him and everything to do with the manners he picked up from Abuela. It’s what she would do as well, he’s sure.

“Yeah, of course.” 

He grabs his jacket and backpack and slides over to the left end of the bench instead of staying in the middle. The man sits on the opposite end. 

“I really appreciate this, thanks.”

The words have the potential to sound insincere or sarcastic, but coming from this man’s lips, they’re anything but. 

“You’re welcome.”

Eddie wants to say more, find a way to continue a conversation with this beautiful stranger, but he doesn’t know how. He’s very out of practice when it comes to conversing with anyone outside of his family. It’s not something that he thinks about until it inconveniences him, and this is definitely one of those times. It also acts as a reminder that he should try his hand at putting himself out there again. It might be scary, but he owes himself that much.

Next time. 

Next time he’ll be ready to actually engage in a conversation with someone who piques his interest. 

Until then, he’ll cut his losses for today and jump back into his book. Maybe if he finds the courage to do so, Eddie can sneak a couple of sideways glances at the guy. That’s not creepy, right? 

“Are you reading The Westing Game?”

The question catches Eddie off guard as he fumbles to hold up the book. “Yeah, I am.”

“Me too,” the blond says as he turns towards Eddie and pulls out a worn copy of the book out of his back pocket.

Eddie’s eyes are temporarily drawn to a red bookmark sticking out at the end of the book, before settling on the cover itself. The cover is different from his, but the title is the same. 

Eddie has no clue what the odds are of this happening, but he’s more thankful than ever to May. Not only has the book been the perfect option for him to turn to occupy his free time, it’s also acting as a way for him to continue talking to this guy. 

“How do you feel about it so far?”

It’s the perfect conversation starter and Eddie latches onto it right away. 

“I’m really enjoying it,” he begins before diving into a more in-depth explanation of his thoughts. 

He talks about everything from the characters to the storylines that took him by surprise to the theories he has for how the book will end. It all comes rushing out of him in a way that words usually don’t and he’s proud of himself up until the guy sitting across from him laughs.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, using his free hand to cover a smile. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise.”

Seeing as though there’s no one else around, it really  feels like Eddie is being laughed at. It picks and prods at a deep-seated sense of inadequacy that he’d really rather not be experiencing on his day off. 

“Was I rambling?” 

“No, it’s not that. It’s just, I never said how far into the book I was.”

Mortification seeps into Eddie’s veins in an instant, coursing through his body and making him warm all over. “I saw your bookmark placement and assumed...”

“I just put it in a random spot of the book so I wouldn’t forget it.”

“Oh.” 

This is what Eddie gets for assuming, isn’t it? How does that saying go again? When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you and me?

It’s safe to say that he has definitely made an ass out of himself.

“So, I just spoiled the entire book for you?” The guy doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. The answer is written all over his face. “Shit, I am  so sorry. You came here to enjoy your book and instead you got stuck next to an idiot who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.” 

“Hey, no it’s okay. Really. I liked hearing what your thoughts on the book are. Gives me a better idea of what I have in store for me when I start reading it myself.” 

The smile on the blond’s face makes it seem as though he’s not annoyed but Eddie’s not convinced. Had someone done the same thing to him, he would be less than impressed. It’s why he starts packing up his things to go, making sure to put his book away first. The guy has reserved the right to enjoy some quiet time without Eddie there to disturb him anymore.

“I still can’t believe I did that.” Eddie stands up, slings his backpack over his shoulder and twists the fabric of his jacket in his hands. He’ll finish his book at home. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

He gives an awkward wave and sets off in the direction of the car, all the while internally chastising himself for the foolish mistake.  

“Wait!” 

Eddie is tempted to ignore the command, but his still deeply ingrained army training makes it hard to do so. He stops walking and the guy is there, standing in front of him, only seconds later. He’s holding his book in his hands and Eddie tries not to cringe.

“You don’t have to leave.” Eddie is about to argue otherwise when the stranger adds, “I know you feel bad about the book. But what if you make it up to me another way instead?”

“And how would I do that?”

“You can take me out for coffee.”

Eddie can’t keep his jaw from falling open. Out of everything he was expecting the guy to say, this was the last thing he had in mind. “Huh?”

“Take me out for coffee,” he repeats, scratching the back of his neck. “Only if you want to.”

“I do,” Eddie answers, perhaps a little too quickly. “I’m Eddie by the way.”

“Buck.” It’s an odd name, but it’s something Eddie intends to comment on. “Now c’mon, that bench is big enough for the both of us and I know you’re dying to finish your book.” 

Eddie (3:42pm): met a cute guy at the park and accidentally spoiled the book for him

Eddie (3:43pm): and then he asked me out for coffee 

Eddie (3:43pm): also, i finished the book

May (5:02pm): we’re going out for lunch this weekend and you’re telling me everything (your thoughts about the book and this cute guy) 

Eddie (6:00pm): you got it

Eddie is half-asleep on the sofa when the front door opens. He shifts at the sound, body too heavy to move into a sitting position. 

“Eddie?”

“Hm?” 

Feet move carefully across the hardwood floor and then there’s a body sliding into the space right in front of Eddie’s. It’s a tight squeeze, but Eddie wouldn’t want it any other way.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” Buck murmurs, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s waist and kissing his forehead. 

Eddie melts into his boyfriend’s arms the way that he always does. Even after two years together, the novelty of being held by Buck has yet to wear off.

“I wanted to.”

Eddie nuzzles against Buck’s neck, drawing a small laugh out of the younger man. 

“Someone’s extra cuddly today.”

There was a time when a comment like that would’ve been enough to shame Eddie into pulling away and apologizing. This, being open with how much he craves affection, is something he’s worked hard towards since him and Buck officially became a couple though. Now that he’s allowed himself to have it, there’s no way he’s ever turning back. “I missed you.”

Another laugh. “I was only gone for a few hours.”

“A few hours too long.”

Buck starts running his hand up and down the length of Eddie’s back and that plus the silence around them lulls Eddie right back onto the verge of sleep. 

“I have a confession to make.”

“Mhm?”

“I lied to you.”

The words are like a bucket of cold water, effectively waking Eddie up. He presses his back against the couch, earning himself an inch or two of space away from Buck. He tilts his head up, sees the guilt in Buck’s eyes, and feels his breath hitch.

“About what?” Eddie asks, hating how his voice cracks.

He trusts Buck implicitly and knows he’d never do anything to hurt Eddie, but that can’t stop fear from making a home in his heart. 

Buck has to be able to feel how tense Eddie is but he stills his hand, keeping it pressed against Eddie’s back. It’s the anchor that grounds him, the only thing keeping him from running away from whatever it is Buck has to say like Eddie so desperately wants to.

“Remember that first day we met?”

Of course Eddie does. How can he forget the day that changed the course of his life forevermore? “Yes.” 

“And how you thought you spoiled The Westing Game for me?”

“Yes.” 

Years later, Eddie can still remember how mortified he was on that day when he realized what he had done. They’ve told the story many times whenever people ask them how they first met, and the story usually ends with a lot of laughter and Eddie hiding his face in his hands. 

“It’s maybe possible that I withheld the truth just a little that day.”

“Withheld it how?” 

Buck’s hand curls into a fist at Eddie’s back, a surefire sign that he’s nervous.

“You didn’t actually spoil it for me.”

Eddie must still be a little sleepy, that’s why Buck’s words don’t make sense. “What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t my first time reading The Westing Game.”

The admission takes a minute to register but, once it does, Eddie is left reeling. “Do you-does that-you mean I didn’t spoil it for you?” 

“Technically no.” 

“Technically?”

“That was my first time reading it in a couple of years, so I had forgotten a lot of the details you mentioned, but I did remember the way it ended.”

Eddie blames the late hour for his lack of filter and for saying what he does next.

“I want a divorce.”

Buck reels back like he’s been slapped and maybe, in a way, he has been. There’s hurt written in the lines of his face, but also understanding. It’s almost as if he was expecting this reaction. He opens his mouth to respond, to say what, Eddie isn’t sure. Because realization dawns on Buck and he says, “we’re not married.”

“Yeah I know.”

Buck uses the arm that is still slung over Eddie’s waist to do away with the small space between them and tuck Eddie against his chest. “You scared me for a second there.”

“You scared me too.”

“I’m sorry I lied.”

Eddie rests his hand right over Buck’s heart, feeling his accelerated heartbeat thrumming under his fingers. He closes his eyes again and lets it lull him back to sleep. “It’s fine. You can be the one to tell our family that you were so desperate to date me that you lied so you could ask me out.”

“I hate you.”

Eddie tilts his head up just enough to kiss Buck’s neck. “Love you too.” 

Eddie (1:02am): buck’s been lying to me this whole time 

May (10:02am): did he finally tell you about the westing game?

Eddie (10:55am): you knew??

May (11:02am): yeah he told me a year and a half ago

May (11:03am): i think it makes your meet cute even cuter

Eddie (12:02pm): i cannot believe this. deceived by my boyfriend and my pseudo-niece on the same day.

May (12:15pm): don’t be so dramatic

May (12:19pm): you, me, chris and maddie still going ring shopping this weekend?

May (12:20pm): i better not have interrogated your boyfriend about his taste in jewelry for nothing

Eddie (2:03pm): yeah, we’re still on for this weekend. I’ll see you then.

[atlas-the-worldbuilder]

Final thoughts on Pokemon Sword/Shield

So in case you weren’t aware (which is most of you, I’m sure), a few months ago I started a Pokemon Shield blind Nuzlocke Run.  And recently, I completed the main portion of the Nuzlocke by defeating the Champion.  Having played through the game, though, I thought I’d give my final thoughts on it as a Pokemon fan, a gamer, and as a storyteller.

The Story & Characters

In all honesty, I rather enjoyed the main story of this game.  The Pokemon League has always been presented like a professional sport (at least in the anime/cartoon), so it’s fun to see the games taking that perspective and rolling with it.  It felt like an actual tournament/championship, to compete for the title in an officially organized manner, rather than just running a gauntlet of preset combatants.

In addition, I liked how they incorporated both the gym leaders and our rivals into the league story as not only combatants, but also as individuals with their own lives and aspirations.  Marnie and Team Yell are adorable, Hop is... mostly tolerable, thus far, but by far my favorite rival character has been Bede, the Psychic/Fairy trainer.  His haughty and prideful demeanor make him a delight to defeat, and his arc is a wonderful story to see unfold.  I’m really curious to see what he gets up to in the after-story! The Gym Leaders are also fun to meet and battle; the Pokemon games as a whole have been gradually attempting to give more and more character to each of the Gym Leaders you meet, beyond just trials to overcome on your journey to victory.  And while I always have a soft spot for the Hoenn & Sinnoh gyms, I like that they opted to have the Gym Leaders return in place of having more Elite Four members to fight  I only wish I could get more opportunities to get to know them better, cuz there’s some standout leaders from this batch which I truly enjoy!

My biggest complaint with Sword/Shield’s story, though, has been the “Heroic Quest” plotline which has become increasingly common these days.  I like the character of Sonia the researcher, and Oleana is satisfying to watch lose, my biggest complaint has been the pacing of the plot; the first 2/3rd’s of the story are us teaming with Sonia to gradually get the backstory revealed to us, and then in the last half hour, right as the Tournament’s getting underway, all the villains suddenly crawl from beneath the floorboards and run amok while you have to chase them down!  There didn’t feel like there was a proper buildup explaining why the villain wanted to summon the legendary Pokémon, especially one which we heard next to nothing about! This brings about an interesting idea, however... what if instead, they had completely forgone any Legendary-Summoning stories until after the league?  Honestly, I was way more invested challenging the gyms and fighting the champion than I was stopping the literal POKEMON APOCALYPSE from happening... so what if for future games, they saved those for after you became champion?  As a sort of test of your skills, to prove your worth to bear the mantle you have taken!  Maybe it wouldn’t have meshed well, maybe they needed to show of the game mascot more, I dunno...  it’s just my thoughts.

The GamePlay

THEY FINALLY LET US TURN OF THE GODS-FORSAKENED TUTORIALS!!!  PRAISE THE ALL-FATHER!!!

Ahem... In all honesty, I think I’d grown a bit too used to the 2nd screen of the DS-series games, but after a couple days of getting used to the mono-screen style again, I am pleased to say I found it very easy to settle back into.  Though there are still some features I wish would make a return (the HM moves as opposed to public transportation, poison’s effect while walking, wild double battles, etc.), there are alot of fun mechanics introduced and remedies to older problems that have been introduced!

I think one feature which hasn’t had much said about it is the introduction of the Poke-Jobs system; this system allows you to send your Pokémon out on timed “away missions” to gain both experience and items.  In the old days, if you wanted to passively level your pokemon, the only real option you had without introducing a second player was the Daycare center, and they could only raise two pokemon at once... and you had to pay for it.  With Poke-Jobs, though, I can send anywhere from 5-10 teammates out for whatever amount of time I want them to be out for, and then come back later to see them lively and with goodies to show for their work! At first, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of this system; I, like many players out there I’m sure, prefer to guide my pokemon’s training personally, honing their movesets and guiding their levelling and points the way I want from them.  But as I progressed further in my Nuzlocke, and as my daily life became busier and busier, I found myself sending my backup teammates out on jobs to keep them on par with my main team.  Given that the Move Deleter/Tutor and Name Rater are now services that have been rolled into the Pokemon Center, yet another good thing this series has done, I found it much easier to keep my reserve Pokemon prepared in case I needed a substitution. Some Nuzlocke “Purists” may call that taking the easy way out, but... frankly, I don’t have the willpower to do that much grinding.  I’m here to play a game and have fun doing it, dammit.

The Wild Area is another thing I’ve wanted to see from Pokemon for a long time - taking more steps to make the regions seem like an open world, with vast sprawling environments full of pokemon and secrets to uncover.  I’ll admit, though, the execution is... not entirely perfect.  While open expanses are fun to explore, the Wild Area did seem a bit... flat to traverse.  And while the weather mechanics translating into battle are fun to deal with, the same sets of wild pokemon appearing did start to wear me down.  I think what the Wild Area really needed, in the long run, was a system similar to how Black/White/Black2/White2 did - having seasonal progression ingame, where different pokemon would show up during different seasons, making the different places unique and novel all over again throughout the year. And for the record, many of my gripes with the Wild Area were addressed in the Isle of Armor’s expansion island.  VASTLY superior, and much more fun to navigate and traverse.

...I’ll openly admit this: I was not a fan of Mega Evolution when it was first introduced in X/Y.  I felt it was fine enough to see Pokemon battling without power boosts or “digi-volving” or whatever you wanna call it.  When Sun/Moon Introduced Z-Moves, it felt like a step in the right direction, but at the same time, I ended up not using it very often.  If I had to have a power boost to my pokemon, I would want it something that couldn’t be used as a crutch when the going gets tough - something that has a limited usability, and offers benefits specific to the time it’s being used. I say this because I initially approached Dynamax the same way: as just another power boost to level the playing field and shake up the battle meta which I don’t keep track of.  However, after barely surviving all 8 gym leaders without using a single dynamax pokemon, I decided to give it a chance: after having completed the Isle of Armor’s subplot and gaining access to the Max Soup, I fed it to my Toxtricity Spike, and started running dynamax raids.  As I started using it more and more, I started gaining a certain appreciation for it that I hadn’t before; this was something written in to being a unique cultural effect!  This literally is imagining Pokemon as Kaiju!  And for the most part, it works! While I still feel mega-lvl-power-boosts in pokemon are a huge waste, at the very least I can say Dynamax didn’t leave me with too bad a taste in my mouth.  I do hope, however, that Dynamax stays a Sword/Shield exclusive power; given it’s cultural importance in Galar, and how Mega-Evolution was in the previous generation, I think having power boosts specific to regions works better than having the same stuff used across the board for every meta onwards,

What Do I hope for the Future?

I can’t say for sure if they’ll release a sequel game for Sword/Shield, but if they do... I would want them to make these minor changes:

Hold off the Heroic plot for after the League plot; devote the main first half of the game to just the gyms and league story like was done here, and then save meeting uber-god-tier Pokémon for after you’ve claimed the title of Champion.

Having said that, fix the pacing of how the Eternatus/Darkest Day subplot feels as it’s being played out.  Offer us more insight into Rose and Oleana’s mindsets as they go about their business, and give us more coherent exposition from our field trips with Prof. Sonia. 

Fix how the Wild Area looks - give it more variations for each sub-region and offer more varieties of habitats, like in the Isle of Armor.  Or, alternatively, try to implement a seasonal mechanic to make the same areas change over the year, opening new paths and new avenues to explore!

Let Bede defeat Oleana.  Give my boy some closure.

Allow us to see and interact with the Gym Leaders outside of the gyms more.  I had, like, barely 2 lines of dialogue with Nessa, and even less for Milo.  Not asking for a whole lot, just a bit more to tie us into who they are as people.  Piers is best big brother.  <3

That’s all I had written for now.  If y’all want a biography of my champion team for my Shield Nuzlocke, let me know, and I’ll scrap a post together! <3

[incorrectcatfacestudios]

Headcanons + Making this to replace my old headcanons post.

Disclaimer: JUST GOING TO SAY NOT EVERYTHING I GIVE THEM IS SOMETHING I AGREE WITH! like Some characters will have a headcanon that’s more because I can ACTUALLY SEE Them enjoying an activity but even if they do I DON’T their are things that these characters would do that I DON’T think anyone else should do EVER!

Asch

Has a safe space in his room where he can be himself. It’s a place where He gets to let his guard down. that is his earth room

Has a tendency to be more attracted to those with a darker tone then him. then again its not really hard to have a darker complexion then him. (Regardless of race someone could have a tan or something, or just be a bit darker than him.) He himself hasn’t noticed this and probably never will.

Mirage sleeps in his room

If Rhys somehow got really sad and mopey he’d locate that ice cream truck and angrily threaten the ice cream man to give him all of the ice cream or DIE. Or he’d just want the entire truck, & if no one stopped him then he’d throw it through Ava’s window into her apartment.  

Sometimes late at night when everyone’s sleeping & Asch can’t, he summons Rhys to his room and forces him to read him a bedtime story. Rhys used to do this when Asch was younger as well. He really likes Rhys’s voice. 

If he was a human he’d probably be some NEET gamer who spends all his time roleplaying on World of Warcraft or something and he’d always rage about bad plot points or game mechanics in Anime & Video games.

The most likely to dirty talk

He sneezes like a kitten and when he does fire comes out. 

Would be god awful at pole dancing

 He doesn’t know what to do when it comes to love and isn’t used to physical affection.   Its.....very pleasant whenever he gets it...but it also feels too comfortable for him. He’s scared of comfort, despite loving it.  

Later on once he embraces affection he becomes absolutely addicted to it and is by far the most passionate of them. Though that angry scowl never leaves unfortunately . His passion rages on like a burning flame, like....an intense RUSH of desire. It can be overwhelming at times. 

In fact he DEMANDS the affection. 

In battle he’s more brutish than the others by far. A giant barrage of flames being sent EVERYWHERE . 

One time he read a fanfiction & thought it was 100% Canon. & when anyone said otherwise He screamed angrily and shot fire balls at them; Even when they weren’t physically there. Of course since they weren’t there he just  ended up burning the phone Ava got for him, but you know, whatever.

Loves curry 

Really likes chocolate and caramel for whatever reason, but he can’t stand other sweets. he also likes strawberries 

He enjoys the video game Indivisible, & some war military tactic games. He also likes rage games for some reason too even though he hates them, its complicated but he can’t stop playing, he gets too into it and too angry. He also enjoys racing games & MARIO PARTY, Especially when he wins.   

His favorite animal is the bull  

Dhaur is his husbando 

His sin is wrath  

 Used to hate Steven Universe at first then grew....to like it. then love it. It seemed so dumb to him at first but as he watched it he came to understand it more. 

Asch trusts Rhys more than the other daemos. He’s known him the longest and believes in his judgement he doesn’t think Rhys would EVER lie to him or deceive him.  Because of this Rhys is the only person Asch is ever fully open with. He wouldn’t leave anyone else he was this open with back on daemos. He is quite FOOLISH to believe this however. :) after all Rhys is working with Lady Grandma. 

He once dared Leif to eat a cactus after getting particularly angry in a game of truth or dare 

 Him and Rhal never get along ever. They always yell it eachother, and get into arguments.

Rhal has far more Knights than Asch 

As for Lady Bish. Asch is completely indifferent towards her.  

He doesn’t know why but he keeps on sniffing Ava’s bra for reasons obvious to the rest of us. Regardless he destroys them just the same

Smell/sweat Kink bitches 

 Probably into S&M.  

 He sometimes rehearses villainous Dialogues with himself in the mirror when no one’s around. 

He also does this with Rhys on occasion...if he’s feeling particularly BRAVE that day

Holds up a lot of pent up emotions and hides it pretty well. He prefers to let them out as anger instead..but when he gets drunk it all just POURS out of him. He just sobs and cries and hugs and kisses and laughs. just...everything. ALL OF THE EMOTIONS BESIDES ANGER he expresses openly. He doesn’t become a completely different person he just becomes far more open. He compliments a lot as well.

He got drunk once and decided from that day NEVER AGAIN! 

 Though when he first got drunk he really liked it. Despite the flavor. and downed like 3. 

 That was a #Mistake 

His favorite Crystal gem is Garnet, or Sapphire? Its hard for him to choose between them. 

Rhys

 The thiccest of the daemos on earth. By that I mean he has the biggest butt 

 What I mean by that is he does a lot of squats, & Glute exercises. He also has a magic that makes all the fat he gains go to his butt but that’s not important. Its not always in affect only for emergencies.   

Would be VERY interested in science if he knew what it was

He would eat pizza with a fork

Gluttonous in any task he enjoys. When he eats he eats ALOT, sex would last a long time with him Though not many people know this about him because he takes his time. 

The  common one is Research, reading, observing, & ESPECIALLY LEARNING.

 He also adores validation give him it.. Wears a long trench coat to hide his big butt from the world well not hide but-. 

 specifically daemos since some uncultured daemos tend to be quite handsy.

 It doesn’t always work but whatever trench coats are cool. 

 has frequent discussions with Asch in his room. He’s the only one Asch is completely honest with. Asch trusts Rhys with EVERYTHING. 

If he was a human he would be a college student studying to be a scientist of some kind. 

He would also work volunteer jobs at the retirement homes. 

If he was a human he’d probably meet Asch by working as his grandmothers nanny. I don’t think Asch would live by himself.

has a tad bit more fat on him than the others. but his muscle can distract from that. Plus his fat isn’t even noticeable outside of his ass His lover would nickname him sunrise, because his smile can chase the night away, cause his face is what brightens their day, because he is the beginning of something new bright and beautiful. 

loves Rubix Cubes If he romanced Ava it wouldn’t be because he likes her it would be because he wants to use her. mostly for her nonexistent power ((magical and political)) 

Loves sweets more than the rest of them

I think I had enough for him last time. 

His mother and Asch’s were close.  

Spends waaayyyy too much time trying to over analyse tv shows he watches 

Is a big fan of Pheonix wright, Fran Bow, Gravity falls, Danganronpa, Dr. Stone, Dr. Who, Fnaf, & pretty much any other game or TV show that either gives you a lot to think about after the episodes/playthrough, is chock full of thousands of possibilities and theories, or requires a lot of thought and problem solving to play. He also likes strategy games like Fire Emblem, & Final Fantasy Tactics. OH! And Pokemon but not for the normal gameplay for the competitive scene. 

Due to having the element of water he is  usually cool calm and collected. but he also is able to flow with a situation if needed. He’s passive  

 Often reads to Asch because Asch has a harder time reading. Him and Asch went to school together when they were younger and thus have a closer bond than the others.  ((Lady grandma forced Asch to go)) 

Once asked Ava if she had any more of those porn magazines. Was pleased to find that Ava had an entire closets worth. Though not all of it was the fighting techniques he was looking for. 

He  has no fucking idea how a vagina works in the slightest. or what vagina’s even look like? Despite his extensive knowledge sex is one of the places where he knows the least. Because he has no idea what lesbian sex is he is completely oblivious to the fact that he’s been staring at 2 girls fucking it on in those magazines he’s found underneath Ava’s bed. 

 He once had to help Leif out with the creation of the Furby organ. It was incredibly difficult for him but also very insightful 

 The Furbies terrify him though.  That STARE its..just...ugh 

 The best at pole dancing. 

Is far more elegant on the battle field than the others. His attacks are more precise and careful than theirs are. 

He’s also the best at dancing...well fancy dancing. like ballet,  and slowdancing. 

Sleeps in Ava’s fridge sometimes. 

Starting teaching Noi how to read a bit more after they went to the mall. The shops are cataloged after all

 Is cold resistant to a point. I mean ice magic CAN still hurt him but like...less. I’d liken it to a Pokemon. 

His favorite crystal gem is garnet. If your talking singular gems then I’d say Ruby. But...like Garnets amazing why would you want to choose just ONE of them as your favorite when..

 Likes classical music, R & B, Soft...indie songs, Soft pop, Trap music & Bossa Nova 

If Ava did marry him she’d probably get locked into a loveless marriage for power that doesn’t exist 

If he found out about Ava’s lies he might have a fucking meltdown. :D like everything he was working towards EVERYTHING would have been for nothing. 

That is until the prospect of watching how the human world continues to function without magic...he’d realize they have TECHNOLOGY and how...amazing it is. 

Leif

The more he likes you the more he’ll want to stab you. Just how it is

The more he’s attracted to someone the more he’ll want to stab their guts out. he’s weird like that.

Big sadist I mean we already know this but like in all the ways? ya know?Like he literally gets an orgasmic feeling in his veins when he slices someone open kind of sadistic.  

If he was a human he would probably be a doctor or surgeon who only has his job because it allows him to legally cut people open.

would’ve probably been one of those school bullies who only bullies someone because he’s in love with them if he was a human

You could literally get him to do anything by being like “ I bet you couldn’t do that. “ or saying “ ____ go get the ____ for me” He makes everything into a competition.

Broke EVERYTHING when he was a child. 

Tried to eat a cactus, because Asch dared him to.  

Asch didn’t think he’d actually do it. 

 His sin is PRIDE of course, which is why he feels like he has to prove everything and lives to have his ego STROKED.

Later he tried to shove a cactus up his ass because a stranger on the internet said that only cowards don’t use cacti as dildo’s 

He had to go to the doctor many times. 

He really liked the large amount of sharp objects in the hospital room 

He may or may not be banned from that hospital

The nurse had to file a restraining order it was a sad day.  But they got the pricks out!! and that’s all that matters! PLUS Leif got a new thumb to add to his collection!

He really likes it because its a special decorated one. With PAINT on the tips. its weird and shiny. The nurse probably won’t need it anyways. 

He has a rotting placenta in his bedroom no one knows where he got it!(AND NOBODY ASKS) but it still has the umbilical cord attached no baby though :(   

He isn’t allowed outside anymore for obvious reasons

He found out what Furbies where and fell in love with them instantly . He stole 20 

He made a Furby organ. why? Because its infinitely stupider and more terrifying than a regular one. He forced Rhys to help cause Rhys is smart. It still took like 90 tries and costed Ava alot of money, and Furbies.

He keeps it in his room and he plays it constantly. Mostly to annoy Asch, Ava, and everyone else around him. He also loves the fact that its called an organ. 

He was dared to eat a jar of nails and he fucking did it. 

He obviously had to use healing magic on himself 

He’s really hot for Noi. Like...a bit too much no one notices though.

 A bit hotter for Ava than Noi though, That’s why he keeps wanting to penetrate her with his knife. The more he threatens to do this the more he likes you. 

His element is Life, or earth. Mostly life which is why he’s so vigorous and excited. 

This is also the reason why he’s so obsessed with killing things. when you live your ALWAYS killing, every move you make you end thousands of lives just like that!  Daemos of the life element seem to want to enjoy life to the fullest and never look back. EVER 

As such he’s also good at cultivating life, weather it be a plant or an animal. Everyones always surprised by this

Back on Daemos before his snap he’d actually be alot kinder to Noi, ((IN the first 4 episodes whenever Noi got hurt he was the only one to ever show any concern. I find that interesting in contrast to how he threw that out in some of the later ones. )) He’d often be the one that consoles noi or talks things out with him. 

Leif is more aggressive, energetic and far more cruel in more docile environments. He becomes much more empathetic, & Calm in hostile ones. ((Like that time where he actually got on Rhys’s case for being too hard on Asch, or the times when he was like “Hey are we actually going to let Noi die” and offering to heal Noi when he was writhing in pain when they came to earth.  ))  

He’s actually more perceptive then he seems, he cares about those around him NORMALLY its just going this long without killing anything is maddening for him. HE NEEDS TO KILL. to let it all out, once he does he’ll act as he normally does.  

He was the only one even remotely kind to Noi back on daemos, that changed when they got to earth. (besides Pierce. ) 

 Though due to his normal lack of empathy in a world where he’s human he’d probably be one of those people who just don’t care about how what they say affects those around them. Doing and saying whatever he wants regardless of how others may interpret that. 

He LOVES Skullgirls. He really likes the character designs and the fact that double always has organs or something hanging out. 

 He also loves all horror movies and video games where he gets to cause mayhem; Like Saints Row, or Grand Theft Auto!  

 He’d be the only one of the daemos that is fully accepting of the weird side of the internet. You know the WEIRD side. He’d be into all of the bizar kinky fetishes you’d find on Furraffinity you just know it.  

 He doesn’t actually like Ava he more-so see’s her as a trophy? I mean well he DOES but he’s mostly in the whole fight for her thing to win a prize. And she’s the prize.   ((Well at least before the newest episode)) 

Pierce

The most Physically affectionate of the daemos even more so than Noi

Big buff bara man. LIKE BY FAR THE BUFFEST 

Would probably run an animal shelter or something if he could

Would be running an animal shelter or something if he was human

Likes….fluffy. waayyy too much 

He’s by far the most empathetic of the daemos. Yes even Noi then again Noi isn’t very empathetic. 

 Very tired 24/7 needs coffee to sustain himself. 

 Often by himself in the quiet. sometimes while alone with his thoughts they spiral out of control, Regret, Doubt, Despair, Uncertainty, Fear, Insecurity.  All at once. Does he cry not at all. He suffers as he stands Silent. ultimately its impossible to tell when he’s having one of these moments as he doesn’t show it on his face.    

 Big PP 

He is very loyal but his loyalty isn’t...friendship. He doesn’t really like Asch very much, but he does trust his judgement and follow his orders. He’s a knight after all, besides he appears to have some connection to one of Asches family members ((The daemos in that Flashback had a crown on their horn)

He likes standing because when he stands theirs no threat of getting too comfortable, no chance of falling asleep and drifting away, no chance of drifting into sleep and deciding to never wake up again, no chance of getting lost in the comforts of the object beneath him. 

He is the one that cares for Ava the most  

 Doesn’t really care about the cultural norms on daemos. he flows free like the wind and accepts any new and sudden changes. 

Heavyish sleeper, gets grumpy when woken up.  Like if your trying to kill him his instincts will kick in and he will wake up but otherwise he’ll just stay asleep. LIKE THROUGH EVERYTHING 

Though while he is the most empathetic of the Daemos he’s also prone to intense levels of apathy, where he just shuts down silent lost in his thoughts unable to be disturbed. these are only momentary  

His element is air. Because of this he’s mostly just free and flowing.  

 Sometimes gives Ava Piggy Back rides to make her feel tall 

 Potentially one of the only one of the Daemos that genuinely care about Ava. 

But also potentially only see’s Ava as a cute pet to love on rather than a person in and of herself. But ultimately he does also care about her feelings, and her opinion on things.

 I prefer to think the latter rather than the former. 

one time he accidentally befriended a large swarm of bee’s and they followed him to Ava’s house. 

 Gives Ava piggy back rides 

Out of the Daemos he’s the one who Ava is closest to. The others have yet to even notice this. 

 One time the boys found porn on the phone and just gathered around the phone looking at it confused all bug eyed. Pierce saw the filth on the screen and made the executive decision to yeet it out the window. 

Ava had to buy a new phone 

 Has a rough yet gentle touch. he takes care and caution when dealing with life. 

because of the above him and Leif have an impossibly hard time cooperating when its just them. 

The best with animals. 

 When not caught up in apathy he is the exact opposite. He becomes far too 

Noi

He would enjoy fortnight if he played it

Would thrive off of old memes 

If he was human he would be that one friend you wouldn’t want to hang out with because he fortnight dances, dabs, uses outdated memes, rick rolls people, and everything unironically.

 The least muscular & Thicc by far. he doesn’t have any meat on his bones, unlike the other 4. Flat boney ass. 

He’d probably be some sort of social media icon or a street performer if he was human. He thrives off of validation. Though because he’s a clumsy fuck street preforming wouldn’t be the best gig for him.

Likes music the most

Would probably be the first of the Daemos to watch and enjoy Steven Universe. ((Though I’d bet the others would come around. They always come around))

 He Rick Rolled Rhys one time. 

 His sin is Envy, he often feels insecure about himself, and he looks up to everyone else seeing how “Cool” or great they are. ALWAYS saying “GOOD JOB ____” whenever they do something cool, he’s always excited but with that excitement comes the thoughts...Why can’t I do things like that? I wish I COULD BE STRONG LIKE PIERCE, I wish I COULD BE SMART LIKE RHYS, I wish I could be PAMPERED LIKE ASCH, I wish I COULD BE HANDSOME LIKE LEIF. That’s why he’s so focused on being better than everyone else. I wanna try! Let me see it! LET ME TRY FOR ONCE. that comes from not only desire but ENVY. he just channels this envy in a much healthier way than most would. *Cough* Leif *Cough* 

 He has EXTREME insecurity problems and longs more than anything to be better than the others. 

After he found out what breakdancing was he dedicated SO MUCH of his time trying to learn how to do it. 

He may or may not be obsessed with that 

 He also really likes Ava. But he’s moreso in love with the idea of her? He doesn’t really listen to much of what she says due to the fact that he’s so scatterbrained and spacey. He just likes when she talks. He mostly fell in love with Ava because she was the first person to present themselves towards him as an option. back on Daemos he was relatively low class. Thus he was viewed as unmarriageable, worthless, dumb, WEAK, & Poor, So trying to enter a relationship with ANYONE was out of the question. The boy thought he would die without finding love.

 He thought Ava was actually GENUINELY interested in romancing him and because of that it excited him. NO ONE HAD EVER actually wanted to romance him. Back at home NO ONE liked him, no one was ever kind to him. Well Leif sometimes was pierce would show some kind of a...paternal affection rarely. But Leif also treated him cruelly and insulted him like the others.

Due to how loving and compassionate he is he was kicked  out of his household. 

 Despite this Noi isn’t exactly empathetic. He doesn’t pay attention to the emotions of others he’s far too caught up in himself.  

In the first 2 days on Earth He & Leif would shit talk Asch behind his back. Mostly talking about how they didn’t really like this plan and just vent their frustrations out at eachother 

Starting on episode 5 him and Leif just kinda. He became too scared of Leif to even approach him as much and thus he kinda grew apart from him. thus causing him to latch more onto Ava. AVA likes him, unlike them. HE HAS PROOF after all. 

 He’s also far too stuck up in the idea of a powerful princess loving him a lowly peasant a low ranking knight someone who.....who wouldn’t be worth anything to her.

If they were to find out about ALL of Ava’s lies he’d take it the 2nd hardest. Asch would be the first, Rhys the 3rd. Leif the 4th, & Pierce the 5th. 

 Mostly because the only reason why she chose him, the only reason why they went on a date wasn’t because she was interested in him but because she didn’t want her cover blown. He thought she actually loved him not to say she doesn’t care for him but-...he thought she WANTED him you know? 

She wouldn’t be a powerful princess, she wouldn’t be a cool sorceress, she wouldn’t be this big thing that he wanted so much she’d just be herself and then Noi’s fantasy would crumble. 

Its the dream the fantasy that someone so powerful so strong would set aside their time and pay attention to him take him out in hopes of COURTING him that he fell in love with. Not ava herself. 

That being said he does like Ava and even prefer spending time with her to half of the main cast.   

Ava

Has to take Prescription drugs

Ate cat food once when she was five

Probably into pet play

Really likes collars

One time she went to some bitch in her high schools  Quinceañera to release a box of 4000 angry bees upon it and run

Greedy  

 Spends alot of her time watching Anime when not with the Daemos

 Her favorite Crystal Gem is Amethyst because god damn

 No where NEAR as thick as Aphmau is. She’s alot more twiggy. 

Would totally do the WEED if her dads weren’t hovering around her 24/7 

 Has a lot of Girl on girl porn in her room. Specif under her bed and in her closet.

[dakotacrisis]

Transferred (5)

Miraculous Whine and Cheese Club

---

After a couple days Marinette was finding herself well accommodated to her new school. She kinda knew where she was going from class to class, and had some nice new friends. Nanette and Quinn had basically adopted her and Kagami was always there with an open seat in classes. She had a routine which made everything easier to digest.

Wake up, go to school, hang out with friends, go home, have dinner, do homework, text Adrien, go to sleep.

That was another thing. Adrien and Marinette hadn’t seen one another since she transferred schools but they texted every night now. Usually about how their day had been. Small talk and dumb jokes. It was nice. Talking to him before she fell asleep was a perfect way to end her night.

This night was no exception. Marinette’s phone pinged with a new message from Adrien.

Do you wanna grab lunch tomorrow?

Her heart sped a little at the thought of seeing him again after so long apart.

Sounds great!

Marinette responded.

Great! Where do you wanna go?

My friend Nanette’s parents own a cute little cafe halfway between the schools. The Winking Violet. Sound good?

Sounds perfect! See you there!

Goodnight, Adrien

Goodnight, Marinette

Marinette let herself a small squee of joy before plugging her phone in to charge and going to sleep.

The next day Marinette headed over to the cafe. Nanette’s moms, whom Marinette had gotten to see a lot of these past couple days, saved a nice table inside. It was raining so the outdoor seating was closed which was a shame since it was great for people watching.

“Marinette?” Marinette looked up to see Aurore. “Hi, I thought that was you.”

“Hi, Aurore, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Looking for a part-time job. No one is hiring weather girls so I thought I’d try my hand at waitressing.” Aurore shrugged, “What are you doing here?”

“Getting lunch with Adrien. Did you want to join us?” Marinette offered.

“I don’t want to intrude on your date.”

“It’s not a date. We’re just catching up.” Marinette’s face lit up with the mention of the word ‘date’. “I haven’t seen him since I transferred. I haven’t really talked to you either so I’d rather like it if you stayed.”

“Well…” Aurore looked out at the downpour before pulling up a chair at the little glass table. “I have missed you.”

The girls got to talking and were sipping some warm tea when Adrien finally showed up. “Sorry I’m late. It took me forever to convince father to let me come out for lunch.”

“No problem, Aurore’s been keeping me company.” Marientte nodded to their companion.

“Hey Adrien, I know I wasn’t invited--”

“You’re fine. It’s nice to see you outside of school.” Adrien assured her before sitting down and ordering a hot chocolate. This was turning out to be a better afternoon than Marinette pictured. Good company and a warm drink to sip while the rain pattered outside. It was so cozy.

After they exchanged the usual pleasantries and ordered their food they started to get into the real meat of the afternoon.

“How is your new school?” Aurore asked Marinette.

“Great. The people I’ve met are really nice and the teachers are first rate. Also, no Lila. It’s probably one of the best things to ever happen to me.” Marinette responded through bites of her sandwich.

“UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!” Adrien threw his head back as he let out a long groan. It would have been funny if not for the multiple heads that swiveled their way.

“What’s going on with him?” Marinette whispered to Aurore.

“Oh, Lila has been dogging his heels ever since you left.” Aurore frowned, “He’s not too happy about it.”

“Oof.” Marinette looked back at Adrien, “How bad has it been?”

“I am trying to be the better person but I cannot keep it up.” Adrien grumbled. “It’s like since you left she thinks she has free reins to do as she pleases. She has practically taken over the school with her lies. She got the seating chart rearranged in class and now I’m stuck next to her in the front row because she convinced Nino to sit behind me with Alya.”

“I am so sorry for you.” Marinette couldn’t imagine the horror going on back at Dupont if Lila was uninhibited. “What else has she done?”

The next half hour was a well needed venting session from Adrien about all the crap Lila had been getting up to since Marinette’s departure. Her lies had somehow gotten even more ludicrous but everyone was stilling buying into them. With some help from Alya, and a lie about being Prince Ali’s go to for second opinions on political decisions, she had taken Marinette’s former position as class president. Not only was she gluing herself to Adrien’s side at every chance she was also furthering her efforts to paint Marinette as a monster. Even after she left she wasn’t done. She wanted to make sure that absolutely no one at Francoise Dupont had any sympathy for Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

First it was that Marinette was using subtle cheats and glitches to make herself a better gamer and not playing fairly in the school gaming tournament months prior. Then it was that she had stolen her derby hat design from a sketch of Lila’s. None of which Lila would even be able to justify because she hadn’t even joined the school at that point! She was just looking for documented cases of Marinette’s accomplishments and trying to debunk them. And the class apparently will just take her word for it because who else would be a good judge of those accomplishments? People who were actually there? Ha!

“Wow.” Marinette sat back and stared at the boy across from her, “You really needed that didn’t you?”

“It has been a long week, Marinette,” Adrien laid his head down on the table, “I am so tired.”

“There there,” Aurore gave his head a pat, “Rest easy sweet prince.”

“It sounds like Lila is on cloud nine.” Marinette muttered into her tea.

“She’s the only one,” Adrien said, his head still on the table, “The rest of the school has been really subdued lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve noticed it too.” Aurore said, “Everyone looks like they’re running on auto-pilot. There’s no life or excitement in anything they do anymore. Even when they’re talking about something fun.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Aurore pushed her salad around in her bowl, “It’s kinda sad really.”

“It’s because Lila drove out our purveyor of optimism and happiness.” Adrien flashed Marinette his big, sad, green eyes. “You can really feel your absence at school.”

“You’re saying that to make me feel better.” Marinette told him.

“I’m serious. Ever since you left everyone has been either on edge or too tired to care about anything. Just the other day Kim and Max got into a yelling match in the main hall. Ivan and Mylene have practically turned into the couple that stand next to one another but never speak. Marc stopped coming to art class and hasn’t said a word to Nathaneal either. It is the saddest kind of surrealism.”

“You can’t blame all of that on me leaving. It’s getting colder, weather is getting worse, people fall into seasonal funks.” Marinette tried to explain it away.

“Really? You think it is a coincidence that everyone suddenly got worse when you weren’t there? I always said you were our everyday Ladybug and now I’m sure of it. You bring happiness and luck wherever you go. We were lucky to have you in our class. Now that you’re gone it’s like a year’s worth of karma is coming back to haunt us.” Adrien shuddered. “I think it can only get worse.”

“Aurore, tell him he’s being overdramatic.” Marinette rolled her eyes but she was secretly pleased the with the praise.

“No can do. The boy is right.” Aurore said, “You left and you took the class’ morale with you.”

“What about Chloe?” Marinette asked.

“What about her?”

“Chloe knows that Lila is a liar and we all know Chloe isn’t one to take things lying down. I refuse to believe Lila has gotten complete control over the school with Chloe there to butt heads with. What has she been doing?” Adrien and Aurore looked at one another. They hadn’t thought about this. Chloe fought everyone at pretty much every opportunity. Now that she had a new opponent, and Marinette’s blessing to be ruthless with said opponent, why had things gotten so out of control?

“She’s your friend, Agreste.” Aurore leaned back in her chair, “What’s Queen Bee been up to?”

“Chloe…” Adrien sat back and thought about it, “She’s been quiet, actually.”

“Seriously?”

“I mean she’s just been going about the day like everyone else. Not challenging Lila or getting into petty fights with the others. It’s really weird now that I think about it.” Adrien pulled out his phone and scrolled through his messages. “The last time she messaged me was three days ago. I get texts from her everyday. That’s not right.”

“Do you think she’s fallen into that depression you say the rest of the class is in?” Marinette couldn’t believe her ears. Chloe ‘I’m-the-daughter-of-the-mayor-so-you-must-obey-me’ Bourgeois, was being an amicable classmate?

“No, I think she’s the only one that looks like she’s there for a reason. Everyone else has that aura of, have to be there, surrounding them. Chloe...has energy in her deference. I can’t explain it. It’s like she’s flying under the radar for no reason.”

“Huh,” The three teenagers decided to stop moping about Lila and how much of a bummer Francois Dupont had become and moved onto happier conversation. Mainly it centered around Marinette regaling them with her time at her new school and funny moments from her new friends.

All in all it was a pretty good afternoon.

“I gotta get going,” Aurore stood up, “it was great seeing you again, Marinette.”

“You too, we should find a day to get together again.” Marinette smiled.

“Totally. See you at school, Adrien.” With that Aurore was gone.

“I should be heading back too. I have some catch up work I need to get done.” Marinette pushed her chair in.

“I’ll walk you home.” Adrien opened the door for her.

Thankfully the rain had stopped. The streets had that fresh rain smell and little puddles dotting the pavement that Marinette had to resist the urge to jump in.

"We should do this again." Adrien said, "I miss seeing you every day."

"Yeah?" Marinette felt herself blush once more.

"Yeah," was she delusional or was Adrien blushing too? "I--"

"MARINETTE!"

The next moment a blur of bright pink had tackled her to the ground.

"Oof," Marinette wheezed, "Nanette, I can't breathe."

"Sorry." Nanette stood up, "My mom told me you were in the cafe but I was in the middle of a painting and by the time I found a stopping point you were gone and--holy crap Adrien Agreste!"

"Are you okay?" Adrien helped Marinette up.

"Yep. I've taken harder falls than that." She brushed herself off, "Adrien this is Nanette. Nanette this Adrien."

"Nice to meet you." Adrien smiled at Nanette. 

"You too. Marinette wasn't kidding when she said she knew you."

"Um, Nani," Marinette poked her, "You have paint all over you."

"And?"

Marinette pointed to her blouse now stained with green and blue streaks. "It's still wet."

"Oh no! I'm so sorry!" Nanette blanched, “I didn’t even think of that!”

“It’s okay. It’s just a little paint.” Marinette assured her. “Actually, I think this is a good excuse to try my hand at hand painting clothing. Maybe give it a water flower design.”

“I’ve done that before.” Nanette said, “I made Quinn a scarf for their birthday once and they loved it. If you want you can come back to my place and work there. I have every color of the rainbow in paint and a killer sound system we can jam to while working.”

“I would love to but I really do need to get home. Tomorrow maybe?” Marinette hated to disappoint her.

“No problem.” She shrugged, “I should let you two continue on your way. It was nice meeting you, Adrien. Marinette talks a lot about you.”

“Nanette!” shrieked through clenched teeth.

“She likes you a lot.”

“That’s good to hear. It would be awkward if she didn’t.” Adrien said placing a hand on Marinette’s shoulder.

Marinette didn’t hold out too much hope for his words to mean anything more than liking her as a friend. She loves Adrien but if she was being honest the boy is either too infatuated with Kagami to consider anyone else an option or he’s is really that dense about picking up hints. The only way she could be more blatant about her crush was if she told him she dreamed about marrying him one day.

“AWE!” Nanette gushed, “You two are so cute. Okay, I’ll let you go. Sorry for tackling your girlfriend, Adrien.”

“NANETTE!” Marinette was going to collapse into a puddle of anxiety, “He’s not my--”

“I’ll text you later!” Nanette shouted over her shoulder as she hustled back down the street.

“One of your new friends?” Adrien chuckled unperturbed by Nanette’s comment.

“Yeah, she’s...eccentric.”

“I like her hair. If I was a braver sort I would dye my hair something crazy like that.” Adrien ruffled his golden locks, “You think I could pull off pink hair?”

“I think you could pull off anything.” Marinette answered honestly.

“Even crocs?” he raised an eyebrow at her.

She imagined a pink haired Adrien wearing matching bright pink crocs. Amusing but not great. She shook her head. “Hair? Yes. Crocs? No. No one can. Nope.”

“You said--”

“I don’t care if you are Aphrodite incarnate, no one can pull off crocs! It is a comfort shoe meant to not see the light of day!”

“I’m getting you a pair for Christmas now.”

“I think if you were to spend those big boy model checks on something as abhorrent as crocs your dad would disown you on behalf of the fashion world.”

“Still failing to see a downside.”

“You little,” Marinette smacked his arm and they continued on their way to her house. “At the very least Lila may stop bothering you if you wore them to school.”

“Now I have to get a pair and test that theory.”

“She’s really gotten that bad?”

“You are super lucky that you got out when you did. Homeschooling is looking like the better option nowadays.”

“It’ll get better. For your sake I hope it does.”

“Thanks. I hope so too.” they made it to Marinette’s house and said their goodbyes. Marinette said hello to her parents before shutting herself in her room and changing out of her stained shirt. She set it aside to work on later and went to check her instagram. She scrolled through some pictures of her old friends hanging out. She hadn’t the heart to unfollow any of them yet.

Curious about Adrien’s past statement she went to Chloe’s page. Wow. Adrien wasn’t kidding. Chloe hasn’t posted anything on her social media in days. As someone who flooded her timeline with selfies and designer endorsements this was really weird. The last selfie she posted was her wearing a trilby and holding a magnifying glass up to her eye. The caption read: Detective Bourgeois and the case of Dolos and Aletheia.

What is up with her?

---

(1) (2) (3) (4) (6)

[thethousandyearwitch]

The Show Must Go On! - A Youtuber AU you didn’t want and didn’t need

Hisoka Morrow, italian Makeup Youtuber, enjoys his life in the comfort and occasional drama of his profession. But nothing brings more drama into his life than the eldest son of the Zoldyck fashion magazine empire.

Meanwhile, aspiring australian Twitch Streamer Gon Freecs forms a special bond to a Speedrunner commonly going by "Kil".

Chapter 2

FF.net link - AO3 link

Gon Freecs had started his twitch account mostly for fun. After he had saved enough of his money from summer jobs to afford a computer for himself, the young boy had discovered the vast world of video games, diving headfirst into whatever flash games or free steam games he could (Until Mito caved and gave him some redeemable online gift cards as a present). Pretty quickly he started making connections over some of those games, getting invited to discord groupchats, and developing friendships with people he’d frequently play with.

One Day, his friend Leorio, a medical student from France who Gon had met through one of those groupchats, asked if he wanted to join his Sunday Stream. He explained that they’d just team up for a couple of rounds of Fortnite, and Gon could leave whenever he wanted to if he ended up not liking the Twitch experience. Leorio did not admit to the fact that he only asked Gon because his usual partner bailed due to a bad hangover, and he himself was too hungover to manage a stream by himself. This resulted in a lively evening filled with banter, excited yelling, and only minor technical difficulties considering Gons location further out in the country. Leorio ended the stream, thanking his viewers, signing off, but he stayed on call with Gon.

“Thanks so much for jumping in today, I owe you!” His French accent wasn’t too thick, but it still curled around his words.  

“Its no problem! It was actually pretty fun, so if you ever need another stream-pal...” The young boy trailed off as he started to feel faint traces of sleepiness creeping up on him. His computer screen was the only light on in the room, and it wasn’t exactly gentle on his eyes.

“About that actually; Have you thought about trying to stream for yourself?”

“Huh?” Gon could hear the tell-tale creaking of Leorios chair as he reclined back. “I mean, you’ve definitely got the energy for it, you’re not half bad at playing video games; Though that’s not really a requirement...Point is, I think you’d have fun with it.” Gon let the thought of it roll around his mind like a marble. He did have a lot of fun livestreaming this once, and there wasn’t anything that exactly spoke against it, except maybe that his sleep schedule could suffer under it. But that may as well be expected of a boy his age.

“Do you think people would really come to watch me play video games?” He finally asked, voice lined more with curiosity rather than insecurity. “Are you kidding? My chat loved you! Everyone loves a cute kid whose always one victory royale away from changing his legal name into his gamer tag and develop an addiction to monster energy.” Gon giggled in reply, “I’m not even allowed to drink those.” “Thank God you aren’t, if you had any more energy than you already have, you’d probably explode on the spot. Those things are loaded with junk anyways.” Gon decided not to bring up the infamous Redbull-pyramid that always lingered in the corner of Leorios videos. He could always use that another time if Leorio tried to lecture him about healthy living habits.

“Well, I guess I could try it out this week…But I think I’d need a guide to help me set the whole thing up…” Gon grinned to himself, hearing the familiar creaking again as Leorio sat up straight on the other end.

“I mean, I did say I owe you, and who would I be to leave a kid struggling with modern technology. And since my chat seemed to love you, I may even host your first stream, get you some exposure, y’know?” Mission success, Gon fed into Leorios ego and ensured that he wouldn’t have to struggle with stream setup by himself. He was quite thankful for the older mans (by stretch of that word) help and friendship, almost like an older brother, switching between caring protectiveness and friendly torment.

“Now, isn’t it time for you to get some shut-eye?” Busted. Gon glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen, 12:13 am. They said their Goodbyes, and the young boy settled into bed almost as quickly as he fell asleep.

The coming week, as promised, Leorio had helped Gon figure out his stream setup, settling for his channel name ‘Foxbeargaming’. With each passing day and conversation about the topic, Gon felt the static inside him build up, excitement and anticipation mixing in his bloodstream, until that long-awaited Friday.

And it was worth that wait. Gon spend a good 3 hours that day streaming Fortnite, at first in Teams with Leorio and his usual stream-pal Zepile, and later a few single matches. He hadn’t even realized how easy it came to him to interact with chat, leisurely talking about what came to mind, joking about events in the game, and just basking in this new way of releasing his bubbly energy. Leorio had warned him that he may feel exhausted after the first stream, but that’s not at all what the young boy experienced; After turning everything off, he was still beaming with joy. When he nestled into bed, he curled to his side, trying to repress his smile, though it would still take a good hour before he had calmed down enough to drift to sleep.

That joy he had experienced was enough to drive him to continue to stream at least once every 5 days, not consistent enough to build a schedule, but often enough to slowly gather a fanbase, loyal viewers who started tuning in whenever he announced a stream. It took a couple of months before people started posting his stream highlights to YouTube, and after that only a few weeks before someone offered to do official edits for him, on his own YouTube channel. A YouTube channel ended up drawing even more attention to him, people in Twitch-chat mentioning they found him through compilations and highlights.

Of the people whose attention was caught by the bright faced boy, one appeared for the first time in chat while he was streaming Super Mario 64, a palate cleanser from his usual Fortnite streams. The first message had been inconspicuous enough, provoking, but not too much out of the ordinary.

“KilCat666: try a BLJ lol”  

This however prompted Gon's entire chat to egg him on to try various speedrun tactics, until the rest of the stream was spent attempting (and failing) a “Lobby Backwards Long Jump”. Gon took it well and promised chat that if they wanted to he’d try to practice again on the next stream, asking for tips in his Discord chat. Speedrunning wasn’t really his way of playing games, he was too impatient and would rather experience the game as intended, but it shook things up, and was a surprisingly great way to regain focus after playing a different game for too long. Soon enough, the Server started bubbling with tutorials, tips, and heated discussions about optimal routes. Gon read through the chat, enjoying how everyone seemed to get into the topic, while also mourning his dwindling attention span as more and more messages came in. With the overflow of information, his brain felt like it was thrown into a deep fryer (Though maybe he was just hungry). Defeated, he dropped his head on his desk. Maybe he bit off more than he could chew. How was he supposed to take all this information in and actually learn it in time for the next stream? This was worse than school. Maybe he should ju-

Bloop.

Gon raised his head from his desk, greeted by a new private message. It wasn’t anyone from his friends-list, but that wasn’t too unusual, a lot of people from his Server would DM him, and he didn’t mind talking with anyone who had something to say to him.

“Kil: Yo.”

“Kil: do you need like help with SM64 lol”

The young boy adjusted his tired eyes to the screen, trying to find recognition into the profile picture of a white cat, but not finding it.

“GON: Hi!! :^D I’m taking tips right now if you have any!”

“Kil: your inputs were really sloppy lol”

Ouch, though true.

“Kil: but you’ve got morale at least”

“Kil: I made a short guide on my channel, if u wanna check it out?”

Attached to the last message was a link to a YouTube video, and just as announced, it was a eight minute tutorial on “LBLJ”, with text overlay explaining the various steps. What stood out more to Gon however, was the view and subscriber count to the Channel ‘Kilcat666’. After scrolling through the channel a bit more, and following another link to an adjacent Twitch channel with the same name, it dawned on him; This guy was a pro.

“GON: WOW :^O you are really good at this!!!!”

For a while, Gon thought that’s it. He browsed through a couple more of this kid’s videos. He was usually just referred to as ‘Kil’ or in rare instances ‘Killu’, and there wasn’t much on him as a person, just a short bio: “Kil, 14, him/his, Yorkshire area. SM64 0 Star contender.”. His streams of attempting to break the World record for any given game got a reasonable amount of viewers, with a steady fanbase that would spam inside jokes and cat emojis in chat. And in no single video did he ever show his face, or even speak. The only real communication he seemed to do with his audience was the occasional answer in chat, or text-overlays in his YouTube videos. Gon thought about how he was a little honoured to have another well known streamer actually give him advice and watch his stuff, though obviously it seemed that Kil wasn’t interested in keeping more in conta-

Bloop.

“Kil: Thanks uh, if you’d want to, we could like make a deal?”

“GON: What kind of deal? :^O”

“Kil: I could show you some tricks for casual speedrunning”

“Kil: And maybe if you want to you could show me how to get better at fortnite lol”

Gon was beaming. He wasn’t sure why, but he was grinning from ear to ear, and it didn’t even register to himself that he was already typing up a response until he hit the enter button.

“GON: Sure!!!!!! :^D!!!! Have you ever played before? We can team up with a friend of mine for the first couple rounds!”

  Killua was never a child with many friends. Or any friends. Growing up sheltered by his family, with the mindset of one day inheriting a multimillion-dollar company, it was taught to him that acquaintances were convenient, friends were distractions.

When he got pulled out of school and put into home-schooling, it was because his friends at school were distractions.

When he snuck out to play with other kids in the country, he was placed on supervised house arrest, because he had been too distracted.

When he noticed his brother appearing in some weirdos YouTube video, he had to be told “That man is not my friend, he is a work associate.”

And like a drop of water can gradually tear through stone, the constant echoing of this rule tore through Killuas head. He still didn’t want to overtake the family legacy, but he knew better than to endanger others with his efforts of finding friendship. Instead, he decided to find solitary distractions, and found those in video games he first borrowed (or rather, took without being noticed) from his older brother. Gradually, he got more and more invested in video games, how they work, and the cultures surrounding them. That is how he found out about Speedrunning and streaming. Speedrunning was fascinating to the young boy. The effort to clear a game as fast as possible, faster than anyone else, past all supposed limitations a game would present casual players with. Specific tricks would look messy and incoherent to untrained eyes, but the hidden inputs were mechanical and exact. This is a distraction worth investing in.

At first, he didn’t care much about streaming or even recording his attempts. However, as he was slowly approaching Regional and World Records, there was hardly a way around it if he wanted to get verified records published. So, he started a Twitch Account, opting to go for his shortened name “Kil”, a half-assed attempt at keeping his family off of his tail. And as his collection of Top-3 Records grew, so did his audience when he was streaming attempts. When he got used enough to a game, he learned how to read chat while playing, even occasionally taking the time to answer questions, followed by a wave of excited cat emotes.

These are not friends, they are fans.

If he could continue to justify this, keep these people at a distance from him, it would be fine. Minimal interaction. No attachment. Easy enough.

It should have been easy enough.

But when he went through active play sessions of Super Mario 64 on Twitch, and he chose to tune into the first stream that popped up, it stopped being easy. It stopped being easy when he found himself laughing along with the cheery voice of the young streamer.

He wasn’t sure what he expected when he sent that first discord message. A small part of him hoped that this Gon kid wouldn’t reply. That way he could have just written him off as some vain lowtier streamer who isn’t worth Killuas time.

But of course he replied. And of course he would reply so kindly despite being contacted by a random stranger. Killua could feel something pull in his chest writing back and forth with Gon. This was just friendly- no. This was normal banter between two streamers who were exchanging helpful information. Two young, up-and-coming professionals in video game streaming, who can communicate like professionals.

Like work associates.

Work associates help each other out. They make deals. So, it would be okay if Killua would make a deal with Gon. Maybe get to know him in the progress, just a little, just enough to get a sense of his personality.

The pull in Killuas chest subsided when Gon agreed to his deal. But it would come back the first time they were on a call together, the first time Killua let someone else online hear his voice, hushed through a shitty in-ear cable headset, careful that he wouldn’t draw attention if someone were to walk past his room. And it subsided again when he heard Gon laugh at every bad joke he’d tell, loosened even more when he let himself laugh with him. Gon would try his best to follow any instructions he’d been given to learn speedrun strategies, and in turn Killua would let himself be guided through fortnite battles and aim-lessons. They worked well together, as if they had known each other for years, falling into a natural rhythm of jokes and casual conversation. This rhythm would continue for weeks, always coordinating when to call, taking turns with the games they would play.

Slowly, they started branching out to more games to play with each other. Slowly, Gon introduced Killua to his friends. Slowly, Killua got used to speaking on stream, just so Gon and he could guest-star on each other’s streams.

Through this gradual process, Killua felt like he was trapped in a pot of water, and the heat was being turned up just slow enough that he wouldn’t notice until its too late. Until the pull in his chest would threaten to tear him apart.

And then it did, as his mother raised her voice at the breakfast table, “You’ve been spending an awful lot of time on your Computer, Killua.”

“So is Milluki.” He tried to keep his voice unwavering, desperately trying to keep all of these gathered secrets behind it.

“We are just concerned of what you are doing on there; The internet has a lot of dangerous sides..” Kikyo Zoldyck was awfully good at turning her voice into a wail at any given time. Killua could feel his phone in his pocket vibrate from what he was sure was a message from Gon.

“..Maybe we should put some restriction on your use of it. Before it can start distracting you.”

[chronicfangirling]

KDA In Excelsis: Ch3 (The King’s Avatar AU, CEO!Hakyeon, Gamer!Hongbin, VIXX x OCs ) Character Charts [x]

“I think the past couple of days has been enough to assess Choi Sooyeon’s battle sim,” Hongbin said, walking to the white board at the front of the training room.

“No, wait!” Jaehwan cried. “You should give Sooyeonie more days and more chances--”

“Is that really going to change anything?” Hongbin questioned. When Jaehwan pouted in his seat, Hongbin looked around. “Are we all in agreement that we grade this simulation a zero?”

Jaehwan and Wonshik broke into protests, while Mingyu, BamBam, and Yugyeom all cheered their approvals; Chansik physically reined them all to settle down. Sooyeon’s shoulders slumped. Am I really going to leave Cha Hakyeon’s team like this?

“Zero is a starting point,” Hongbin said. “If we develop the battle sim, then it could become something more.”

It was Mingyu’s turn to raise a protest: “Ehhh?”

BamBam and Yugyeom yelled with their friend; Jaehwan and Wonshik hugged each other and jumped in a circle; and Chansik simply shook his head and returned to his seat, giving up on restoring any sense of order.

“Wait!” Sooyeon cried. “Does that mean... I’ll stay in this team?”

Hongbin shrugged. “Don’t you want to?”

“I do!” she shrieked, throwing herself at him before she could realize what she was doing. He caught her in his arms on instinct and froze, eyes widened at her.

She felt her face burn. “I’m sor--eek!” She was launched backwards when he pushed her away, but her stumbling was stopped short by pressure against her back. She looked over her shoulder and saw Chansik, who folded his hands as soon as she had regained her footing.

There was the slightest scrunch upon Hongbin’s nose as he frowned at her, his fingers curled. “Anyway... if we could all volunteer more time to test the battle sim, then it will become better, faster.”

“I refuse,” Mingyu asserted. “I’m busy enough with school and endorsements--Boss already required us to use the sim in training, isn’t that enough?” Yugyeom and BamBam nodded in agreement.

"Point taken,” Hongbin accepted. “Since I’m the one who doesn’t have school nor any other work aside from being the captain, I’ll put in the time in the development until you yourselves feel like the battle sim is worth your time.”

“Hyung, you can’t!” Mingyu objected. “That’s a waste of your time! You should worry about regaining the MVP title...” He pressed his lips together even as BamBam and Yugyeom elbowed him. “Hyung, what i’m saying is--”

“I think I didn’t teach you well enough, that’s my fault.” Hongbin looked the youngster in the eye, even as the latter avoided him. “Glory isn’t a single player game. Of course we should always try to make our own individual selves better, but those titles aren’t as important as the team victories.

“Investing my time for the eventual benefit of the team isn’t a waste of my time.” Hongbin looked at her. “Programmer... Choi Sooyeon. Notify HR that you’ll be working overtime for the foreseeable future, as requested by Lee Hongbin.”

“Hongbin, I can help too,” Chansik said. “You don’t have to be the only one to do overtime for it.”

Hongbin shook his head. “You should focus on school until the sim gets better.” Before Jaehwan and Wonshik could say anything, he added: “And you both have some other jobs right now, right?”

Her friends nodded. “As soon as I’m done with that project, I’ll help out,” Wonshik promised.

BamBam was biting his lip, apprehensive. “Hongbin-hyung, maybe...”

Hongbin patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. The rest of you are free to go now, except you, Choi Sooyeon.”

As she followed Hongbin to his PC station, she could hear Mingyu muttering.

“Hana-noona is so not going to like this.”

[moonlitstories]

Gamers- Pt. 2

Platonic// Word Count: 1,494

Running into each other at a store or at the park was one thing but actually hanging out was very... awkward. Sanha was the only one who felt comfortable and excited while the others shied away from each other. Naturally, they went to their respective games. Though they were having fun playing alone, they also felt a sense of emptiness.

After beating the computer for the tenth time, Sanha got up to look for the others. Bin was just about done trying to beat the high score on the boxing game when Sanha came over, “Bin-hyung, come play against me! I’m tired of playing with a computer.”

Bin shrugged his shoulders, “Why not? Maybe I’ll actually beat you.” Sanha grabbed his hand while laughing at such thought and pulled him over towards the fighting game. On the way there, they ran into MJ who was at the color machine and on his last coin. A large pile of tickets by his feet.

“Where are you dragging Bin off to?” He asked not taking his eyes off of the wheel. He pressed the button for white (the smallest amount of space in the wheel) and watched the ball continue to go round and round. Bin and Sanha didn’t respond, too engrossed in watching the ball continue its course. Finally, the wheel stopped rotating and the ball continued to slow its pace. About to go to the color next to the white, the ball suddenly dropped back into the white section! Earning MJ another large amount of tickets.

Bin hit MJ’s shoulder, “Good job hyung!” MJ shook his head as he started to fold up his tickets. “Too close for comfort really. I guess I still haven’t lost my luck after all these years!” He laughed heartily, “You going to play against Sanha?” Sanha excitedly nodded his head as the machine stopped releasing tickets.

MJ pulled out the last ticket and began to grab the large amount he had accumulated. “Help me carry these tickets! I’ll fold them while I watch you two play!” Bin and Sanha gave out an exaggerated sigh and kneeled down to help MJ.

A basketball rolled past their feet as the three of them walked to the fighting game with tickets in hand. Bin stopped the basketball with his foot allowing the person chasing after it to catch up. Jinjin picked up the ball, “A lot of tickets you guys got there. I’m assuming that’s all Hyung’s?”

Sanha nodded, “Yup! MJ-hyung is gonna watch us play while he folds these up.” Jin Jin giggled and turned around back to the basketball game. He threw the ball and in it went back into it’s proper home. “I just finished beating the high score on all four of the machines so I might as well help you fold them.”

He looked at MJ who held the most tickets. Carrying them as if he were carrying a baby, he could barely see ahead of him. “And, maybe, help you carry them over there too...” MJ happily pushed the tickets onto Jinjin allowing him to stretch his arms, “It’ll be fun watching Bin get beat by Sanha like good old times!” He took some of the tickets back from Jinjin and they continued their walk to the machine as Bin spoke under his breath.

“Did you say something bad about me Bin?” MJ tried to kick Bin’s butt but missed. Bin furiously shook his head and began to walk faster, “Oh, look! There it is!”

Rocky wandered around the arcade after playing a round of DDR. In the distance he could hear the Bin, Sanha and MJ talking quite loudly and decided to go the other way- running into Dongmin who was playing a shooting game.

“Hi, hyung.” He patted Dongmin’s shoulder to let him know he was behind him as Dongmin focused on shooting the mutants.

Without turning around to look at Rocky, Dongmin motioned towards the second player gun, “Want to join me? It’s easier and more fun when there’s two players.” He smiled without looking at Rocky, while Rocky shrugged his shoulders and put in the coins for his credit.

He scoffed as he picked up the gun and began to shoot, “You realize I’m not any better at shooting games than I was as a kid right?” Dongmin gave a small laugh as Rocky kept missing the mutants and kept taking damage. 

“I know, but it’s still more fun playing with someone else... Especially if they make the game more fun.” He smiled innocently as Rocky realized his hyung was making fun of him. Rather than getting mad he chuckled and shook his head.

Dongmin glanced over to him while the cut scene was running. “Why don’t we go look for the others after we pass the game?” Rocky gave him a look, “More like run out of coins with the number of times I’m dying.” They both laughed and Dongmin nodded his head as they went back to shooting.

“What’cha guys doin’?” Rocky walked towards the others, Dongmin following close behind. Jinjin and Bin were sitting at the game machines about to start a new match.

“Bin got lucky and won against Sanha at the last second! So, now Jinjin is gonna go up against him.” MJ explained as he continued to fold the endless strand of tickets. Sanha stood beside him, folding his own strand of tickets.

He pouted,  “Want to help us? I’m getting tired.” MJ laughed heartily as Rocky and Dongmin rolled their eyes and looked for the ends of other tickets.

The fight was actually quite intense. One to one and if either of them got hit they would die and it would be game over. MJ was so into the game that he dropped the tickets he had finished folding. Dongmin silently picked them up and began to refold them as he watched the game. Sanha long gave up on folding the tickets and gave his pile to Rocky. He stood behind Rocky grabbing his shoulders on the intensity of the game.

Bin jumped just as Jinjin’s character threw a punch. Jinjin ducked and jumped back avoiding the kick and punches. Bin pressed a whole bunch of random buttons and somehow made his character do its special move which Jinjin couldn't avoid. -Game Over-

They all yelled mixed reactions and congratulated Bin. “Good game, Bin!” Jinjin smiled and lightly hit Bin’s back.

“Why don’t I get you something using my tickets, Bin? Sorta like a prize for winning against Sanha and Jinjin.” MJ looked at the pile of folded tickets they put into a small container a worker had given them. “Or better yet! Why doesn’t everyone get something? Bin gets first pick though since he won!”

Jinjin shrugged, “Why not?” Bin, Rocky and Dongmin didn't bother to argue against MJ and they didn’t want to. It’s free stuff so might as well. Sanha hugged MJ and helped him carry the container- low-key hoping to get second pick.

“Wow, Hyung! You got A LOT of tickets.” Jinjin looked at the number on the scale in disbelief. MJ had won over ten thousand tickets from the various games he played.

MJ scratched the back of his neck and chuckled, “I think we have more than enough to get everyone something nice.” He slapped Bin’s back. “As long as you don’t get something worth ten thousand tickets~.” MJ smiled but Bin could feel the threat behind the innocent smile.

Bin chose a small waffle maker worth two thousand tickets. MJ chose next and picked a mini light up disco ball worth five hundred tickets. Dongmin offered to choose last, thus Jinjin, Rocky and Sanha had to do Rock, Paper, Scissors for the rest of their order.

Jinjin won followed by Sanha and then Rocky. Jinjin chose a large stuffed dog (of good quality) worth seven hundred-fifty; Sanha picked the nerf gun worth seven hundred-fifty as well; Rocky chose a bluetooth speak worth three hundred; and Dongmin picked a small blender worth four-hundred-fifty.

Since they still had six-thousand tickets left, MJ got candy worth a thousand tickets and asked to save the rest for another time. As the worker handed him the ticket stating how much tickets he has left, he looked at the group in disbelief. “You guys are amazing. Ten-thousand tickets in one day! Plus, you guys broke a whole bunch of records!... Who are you guys?

They looked at one another. Dongmin and Jinjin trying to hold in their laughter; Bin giggling; Rocky just rolled his eyes as he smiled; and Sanha and MJ laughed. Sanha spoke as MJ took the ticket from the man. “We’re just a couple of childhood friends.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Just ordinary childhood friends that get along through gaming.” 

The others looked at him sweetly as they all walked out the doors with their prizes and large smiles on their faces.

[jellojolteon]

Hi! I know you get a lot of asks on the grey long Ay but I was curious about something. How are some of the main characters supposed to get Akumatized. Eg. Nino wanted Adrien to have a birthday party but that didn't happen because Gabe was being a jerk, or Alya when she got Akumatized because she wanted to find out LB secret identity. I know this might be too much to ask but I'll ask anyway. Could you make a master list of how the Champions were made in this AU? (pt. 1)

No, no worries! Every ask I get makes my day! In fact you made my dreams from last night come true by filling my inbox haha ;u;

So as a basic pretense, the champions still come about the same way; the folks who get made into Champions are still upset about something when Greyling reaches them, but it’s the handling thereafter that makes the difference between what Hawkmoth does and what Greyling does. I can still make a master list for you of people who have been akumatized up to S1 (sorry if I miss anyone lol), but there are only a handful of changes. 

As for Chloe? An excellent question. I think it’s complicated because she’s still Adrien’s oldest friend and now she’s indirectly doing him a huge favor, but he is also much quicker to wake up to the bully she’d become since he see what she’s like when he “isn’t watching”. 

Unfortunately for this end of the story I’m more interested in the interactions between the main three, so it’s likely that a lot of this, if I can get this big ol thing off the ground, won’t make the actual cut.

(See below cut- numbering is not indicative of order, but if order is important I’ll mention it. Also note that this may change in the final go, if I get there.)

1. Stoneheart - This is LB’s first fight against Tux and while the theory of it is the same, Greyling does not exist yet to bring Stoneheart to life. Marinette encourages Ivan much the same way as she does in canon and he and Mylene still get together.

2.  Stormy Weather - We’ll go with this one as Greyling’s first Champion. Aurore loses the weathergirl competition, but Adrien tells her that if it’s recognition she’s looking for, he might be able to help. Help he does.

3. Mister Pigeon - Ramier gets chastised by the police for feeding the pigeons. Adrien consoles him (somewhat regrettably considering his allergy) and tells him that pigeons are not inherently bad, and that a good way to show how honorable and invaluable pigeons can be might be for Ramier to help enlist them to fight Tux. This champion marks the beginning of Mari’s internship.

4. Lady Wifi - Alya snoops in Chloe’s locker, she pitches a fit, gets suspended. Greyling comes to her explaining that he knows her intent was innocent, and that if she really wants to show everyone she’s the bigger person, perhaps she can help him fight Tux today. Alya is of course like “oh fuck, I’m communing with my homegirl’s crush” and wholeheartedly agrees. Things look dire, and hers is the first instance of possession we see. I’m going to (unoriginally) henceforth call this special “ability” the Butterfly Effect.

5. The Bubbler - Mari introduces Adrien to Nino and Alya via video chat. Adrien is super excited to have friends and both Nino and Alya want to meet him. Adrien’s birthday is soon and Nino suggests a party. Gabe never yells at him directly but Nino finds out from Adrien that it’s a no and gets upset on Adrien’s behalf. Greyling suggests later, when Tux attacks, that it’s no birthday but hoo boy would Adrien think it great if Nino helped fight one particularly nasty adult. It might help get all those negative vibes out.

6. Copycat - This one might ultimately not happen in the AU, just because the pretense is so intertwined with the canon dynamics.

7. Kung Food - This is the first time LB witnesses and must repair a cataclysm death. Mari is lucky that her Uncle is in town to help her through the experience. Greyling reasons with Kung Food in Chinese (which is much better pronounced than in the show) that the cooking competition isn’t the end of the world, and that he’ll help him get another chance to prove himself in a fair environment.

8. Darkblade - not sure where this one falls, but when D’Argencourt loses the mayoral election, Greyling explains that maybe he can help show Paris true nobility by standing up to another person who has usurped the peace.

9. Vanisher - Greyling catches Sabrina at a low point when Chloe is snubbing her. He points out that there are many many unsung heroes throughout history but if it would help her, he might be able to arrange something that would get her recognized in the form of assisting LB.

10. Antibug - Here’s a fun one! This one doesn’t go super hot but I think this is where Chloe develops a little bit. Greyling tells Chloe that if she really wants to make a good impression on LB, maybe getting in the way isn’t the answer. But what if she was a champion instead? Chloe is too bitter to be working alongside LB at the moment, but things eventually turn out ok, even if it involves Tux getting the upper hand for a bit there.

11. Horrificator - Mylene is scared and Greyling explains that sometimes it takes some help to face your fears. I’ll help you face down the scariest monster in all of Paris, and I assure you that you’ll always be able to face your fears after that. This one is also a bit of a shaky one but it works out ok because as she grows bigger, Tux gets more frightened by her.

12. Timebreaker - another that I’m not sure happens? I feel like time travel is a bit of a slippery slope in this AU for some reason.

13. Princess Fragrance - After Chloe belittles Rose, Greyling compliments her heart and says that helping him fight tux might be a good way to prove Chloe wrong. (Aside: I can’t imagine a lot of these kids would normally have the sense to take down a murderer. But Ladybug hasn’t lost anyone yet and the trust they put in her to keep them safe is immense)

14. Reflekta - You might see that showing Chloe what a good person looks like is a pretty common thread here. Greyling gets good at convincing people that Chloe is wrong and that fighting Tux with the things she demeans about them is a great way to prove it. She slowly learns.

15. Evillustrator - Nath wants a date with Mari, and also for Chloe to Not. This one doesn’t go well.

16. The Puppeteer - This is where Greyling figures out that Tux is his dad. In his rage, he makes a very bad decision to send out Manon after Tux. Granted she’s not doing anything directly but still. Ladybug deadpans him a look through Puppeteer and he has an ‘oh shit’ moment. He pulls her out and goes for Simon Says instead.

17. Simon Says - Adrien isn’t quite ready to let go of his petty yet and this is just as much for himself as it is for Simon. Nooroo and Adrien have an important talk about choosing champions after this battle is over.

18. Heartbreaker - Much of the same spiel about proving Chloe wrong, though I don’t know how his powers could be of threat to Tux. Not sure if this one makes the cut.

19. Rogercop - After getting fired, Greyling hits Roger with the whole “If you really want to serve and protect, boy could I really use your help.” After Roger’s proven bravery against Tux, he regains his job. There are probably more long-winded effects of this in the au but I’ll have to get there before I figure it all out.

20. Animan - When Kim insults Otis’s prized panther, Greyling suggests that maybe a catfight is exactly the kind of shakeup Tux needs, and it would certainly prove Kim’s ridiculous comments wrong. As for Alya and Nino getting together? I can still see them getting locked in the exhibit for their own safety.

21. The Gamer - Mari and Adrien kick ass in a gamer tournament, and Max gets upset because he’s overthrown by someone he’s never even met. Adrien just has a lot of time to play video games when he’s shut in, y’know? But Adrien realizes he may have gone a little too hard and requests Max’s help defeating Tux. He fluffs Max’s confidence by pointing out what a skilled and analytical fighter he is. Ladybug could use someone like that (instead of someone who sits from afar… hm…) in her fights against Tux.

22. Guitar Hero (pffff oops) - “Hey Jagged Stone, you know what would absolutely skyrocket your popularity? Riding around Paris on a DRAGON while blasting a cat man with SOUND WAVES. Does that sound like some killer album art to you? It sure does to me. Also I’ll throw in glowy tentacle hair as a bonus, I’m a big fan of your work actually.”

23. Pixelator - Greyling says, “Hey, man, maybe let the guy have some space, y’know? Being famous is stressful. Here, if you really want to be like him though, help me fight this guy.” Please don’t ask me how that works Greyling just gets real good at his job at some point.

24. The Mime - Fred’s meddling understudy tricks him into missing a performance, but Greyling sees an opportunity for the most kickass show of Fred’s career. He’s not wrong.

25. The Pharaoh - unfortunately, another one I’m not sure happens? Remnants of this ep might be involved though, with Jalil helping LB uncover some of the history of the miraculouses. Looks like the Kubdels get off easy in this story haha

26. Volpina - Lila’s compulsive lying gets her into a sticky situation (probably actually not with LB tho) and Greyling tells her that maybe he can give her a true story about herself worth telling. Greyling has been itching to get out for a few attacks now and this is where he finally gets the opportunity to go out. He just has a bad feeling about things and goes out to check. As I mention in the comic about their first “meeting”, Greyling’s intuition is correct and he saves LB from a nasty head injury as she passes out on top of a building from a previous wound. This also incidentally marks, for the most part, the end of Greyling’s use of others to fight. He still brings a few out (maybe I’ll get to integrate some from S2?) but this pretty neatly ties up most of the pre-outside timeline.

Sorry this got so long, but thanks again for the ask, @randomstar365! I hope this is a satisfactory answer. 

[foxaddict94]

The Phantom Thieves Came and Stole My Heart!

It’s been a while since I wrote a review here on Tumblr... I kinda lost interest in Tumblr for a good while, but I’m back because I want to talk about Persona 5. I have just finished my second run of the game and I feel like a review of this game would be too much to tweet about on Twitter so I thought it’s best to write here. Anyways lets start the review.

So I did a series of blogs reviewing all the Persona games from 1-4 in preparation for Persona 5. The game came out in September 2016 and we had to wait through a series of delays for the localized release of the game. Were the delays worth the wait for the game? I say yes because the game has exceeded all my expectations as I patiently waited for the game. The game was finally released April 4th 2017 world wide and everyone was excited, including me since I have been avoiding spoilers for half a year. I will discuss about those spoilers later in this review so this is your first warning here.

So Persona 5 starts off in a Casino where the protagonist and his friends are pulling a heist. Here you would be confused and ask the following questions: What’s going on? Why am I a thief? Why are the Police after me? Why did that guy turn into a monster? and What’s in the briefcase I’m carrying? All those questions will be answered later in the game. The opening scene ends with your character being caught by the police, interrogated after taking an overdose of truth serum and beaten up by the cops. A prosecutor named Sae Niijima enters the scene and asks you what happened from the very beginning. The whole story of the game from that point on is a flashback.

The flashback starts in April 20XX (yes no exact year but there are some theories when it takes place) with your character arriving in Shibuya searching for Sojiro Sakura who will be his caretaker for a year. Why is your character in Shibuya? You learn that your character was walking down the street in his hometown one night and finds a drunk guy yelling at a woman. Your character tries to play hero and stops the drunk but then he gets sued by the drunk. The result from that confrontation puts your character in probation from his hometown. So you start your new life living in the attic of a cafe that Sojiro works at. You get introduced to Shujin academy and start attending school there. On your first day of school you meet a blonde punk named Ryuji Sakamoto and they wind up at a castle instead of the school. This castle happens to be ruled by a king who has the appearance of the schools volleyball coach who you learn later is a major asshole. While trapped in the castle, your character awakens the power to summon personas summoning Arsene. They escape the castle with the help of a talking cat mascot named Morgana who also uses a persona named Zorro. After they escaped the castle they return to the streets of Shibuya confronted by police thinking they are 2 kids skipping school. They learn they missed half a day of school and your character wants to avoid as much trouble as possible since he is already on probation. Through the days in school you learn that the volleyball coach, Suguru Kamoshida, is an abusive coach who bruises his students with his spikes and sexually harasses the female students. His deeds have gone so far that a girl who he sexually harassed attempted suicide on school grounds. This all results in Ann Takamaki, a girl who happens to be your characters class, join you and Ryuji. Morgana finds our heroes in cat form and tells them that if they steal the treasure that lies in that castle, called a Palace, then Kamoshida will have a change of heart. Ann joins the group after awakening her persona Carmen, Ryuji also awakens his persona, Captain Kidd, before Ann. After the group succeeds in stealing the treasure, Kamoshida arrives school one day confessing all the crimes he did to everyone in a school assembly. The result of that success is the birth of the groups being known as the Phantom Thieves.

What I just wrote was all the first dungeon of the game. I’m not going in full detail about all the other chapters except for the end. I mainly wanted to write that just to show the buildup they made to show how much thought they put into creating corrupt characters in the game. The story goes on with the Phantom Thieves changing the heart of Ichiryusai Madarame, an artist who appears to be completely innocent at first, but actually plagiarizes the work of his pupils. The team recruit one of Madarames pupils, Yusuke Kitagawa after he learned about his masters corrupt nature in art. Yusuke awakens his persona Goemon and they changed the heart of Madarame. The next target was set by Shujins Student Council President, Makoto Niijima, since she’s been suspicious of the protagonist and his friends. Makoto wants them to change the heart of a mobster, after searching for information they learn about Junya Kaneshiro who runs a drug trafficking business with high school students involved. Makoto awakens her persona Johana and joins the Phantom Thieves in order to fight for what justice truly means to her. As the story goes on a student in the main characters class, Yuki Mishima, starts a fan site for the Phantom Thieves after they took down Kamoshida (There’s a legit fan site of this fan site online, it’s phansite.net) . After the Phantom Thieves changed the heart of a person, their fame increases. Due to their fame they received after changing Kaneshiro’s heart, a hacktivist group named MedJed threatens the Phantom Thieves to stop or else they’ll “cleanse” Tokyo. Instead of changing the heart of someone in that group of hacktivists, they change the heart of a girl who isolated herself from society for 2 whole years after her mother died. This girl was Futaba Sakura, adopted daughter under the care of Sojiro Sakura. After they changed her heart, she hacks into MedJed and saves the Phantom Thieves. She then joins the group after awaking her persona Necronomicon. Their next target was a request from... my favorite character in the game... my god I love her... Haru Okumura daughter to Kunizaku Okumura who is the CEO of Okumura foods who runs the equivalent to Burger King in the world of Persona, Big Bang Burger. Her father is a corrupt man who cares for personal gain, Haru requests the Phantom Thieves to change his heart since he put her into marrying an asshole who treats Haru like dirt than the softhearted person that she is. The wedding was mainly so her father can have a political connection in the company. Haru Awakens her persona, Milady and change her fathers heart... until you see his shadow get shot by a mysterious figure after the Phantom Thieves leave the scene. This results in Haru’s father confessing what he did, but then dying live on TV like a public execution. This results in the Phantom Thieves massive drop in fame and they get help from a detective who’s been onto the Phantom Thieves throughout the game, Goro Akechi. He tells them that they should change the heart of Makotos sister, Sae Niijima, the same Sae from the very beginning of the game, to help prove the Phantom Thieves innocent. Goro helps the team with his persona Robin Hood and they venture through what Sae sees a courthouse as a Casino. That’s right, we’re heading back to where the game started! The end results in what you saw from the very opening of the game bringing you back to the interrogation room with Sae.

That’s enough with the story, until I get to the heavy spoiler part. The game has wonderful presentation for it’s anime like story and characters. I love this group so much compared to other groups in the Persona series. Ryuji is an idiot who you’d like to butt heads with while he tries to do something right with his own actions. Ann isn’t bright but she’s caring and wants to learn how to be a strong. Yusuke is interested in finding many inspirations for his next art pieces wherever he goes, but is very bad with managing his money. Makoto is the most organized member of the group, but is tired of following the path others give her and wants to decide her life for herself. Futaba is characterized like a major gamer girl who is a mischievous hacker and is like the little sister character to the protagonist. Haru is an innocent rich girl who loves to garden and dreams of making her own coffee while trying to handle business with Okumura Foods after her father’s passing. Morgana wants to learn the truth behind his origins and teaches the main character how to be a Phantom Thief like a kickass sidekick. Goro is a dedicated detective who is willing to do anything it takes to solving a case.

The gameplay is fantastic, exploring Tokyo with the fast travel button is incredible and easy to use! Exploring town is similar to Persona 3 and 4 where you run around town talking to people and shopping at various stores. Social Links are now Confidants, but still work like Social Links. Confidants are incredibly useful in this game! Each Confidant gives you an ability to give the player a better gameplay experience in the game! Hanging out with your party members improves their combat performance. Outside your party members, the following characters have incredible improvements to gameplay. Yuki Mishima helps you get more experience in battle for both those fighting and on the sidelines. The main characters teacher, Sadayo Kawakami, does her job as a maid to do tasks that waste your characters time in the Cafe. Sojiro Sakura teaches you how to make coffee and curry which heals your party’s SP. The doctor who works at a clinic nearby the cafe, Tae Takemi, sells more healing items and accessories in the clinic. The ex-Yakuza who works at a model gun shop, Munehisa Iwai, helps you customize guns. The politician who wants to make up for his mistakes in the Diet Building, Toranosuke Yoshida, helps the character be better in negotiating with the enemy. A fortune teller who’s part of a cult, Chihaya Mifune, gives fortune telling sessions that tells you what abilities your party members will get in the future. A reporter who likes to drink, Ichiko Ohya, helps write articles about the Phantom Thieves and decreases the threat levels when the player is spotted by the enemy. A kid who’s raised to win everything in life, Shinya Oda, helps improves the main characters skills using a gun from playing a gun video game. A professional Shogi player, Hifumi Togo, gives the main character new strategies to use in battle. The last confidant outside of the party members are the twin Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine. Just like Margaret from Persona 4, they want you to create personas with certain skills. After completing each task, they’ll give you a new service to use in the Velvet Room. 

Dungeon crawling in the game is incredible! It’s like I’m playing an Anime version of Sly Cooper without the insane stunts Sly does. You sneak around the dungeon and do sneak attacks on the enemy to engage in battle. If you get spotted then the person who owns the dungeon will become aware of you. If you fill the meter to 100%, you’ll be kicked out of the dungeon. Now to talk about what is the best combat system in any game I have played in my life! The combat is simplified by simple button presses, not going through menus selecting a physical attack or a spell. The only menu you go through is for using items, and the spells a persona has. When you knock down all the enemies with either a critical hit or their weakness, you’ll put them into an interrogation stage. This phase is reminiscent to classic Shin Megami Tensei and Persona 1 and 2 games. You make a deal with the enemy on letting them give you an item, money or become the main characters next persona to use. If it fails the enemy can comeback and attack. Or if you want the battle to be done with, just press the all-out attack button to let everyone in the party attack the fallen enemy. Another nod to Persona 1 in this game is that the characters use guns again! Now they wield physical weapons and guns. Bullets are limited though and you don’t find ammo in dungeons. They reload when you leave the dungeon and return another day.

The music is phenomenal! I never felt like dancing to a song in a game so bad when I play it! Shoji Meguro has done an incredible job implementing jazzy songs into a game about a band of thieves. The battle theme is incredible, I love the guitar riff in the boss theme, the song that plays at night when you return to the cafe is so relaxing. There are so many great songs in the game that I’m pleased to have a CD of the soundtrack from preordering the Take Your Heart Collectors Edition! Seriously, look up the following songs that I love so much: “Last Surprise”, “Life Will Change”, “Blooming Villain”, “Beneath the Mask”, and “Whims of Fate.”

Ok from here on I’ll be discussing spoilers of the last 2 dungeons of the game, you have been warned.

So after the flashback ends, you learn that the traitor of the group was Goro. He planned the Phantom Thieves pull a heist on a certain date and bring cops to that Casino. It turns out he works for a corrupt politician named Masayoshi Shido who happens to be the same guy who sued the main character in his hometown. Shido has been using Goro’s powers to kill people in the Metaverse, the world where people’s Palaces are held, in order to improve his image while he runs for Prime Minister of Japan. Goro was also hired to kill the protagonist after capturing him in the Casino. The Phantom Thieves manage to pull a stunt that makes the main character fake his own death. Futaba hacked into Goro’s phone and triggered him into the Metaverse killing a fake protagonist while the real one sits quietly in the real world with a smirk on his face. After the protagonist returns to the cafe, they all target to change Shidos heart. Shido has been behind many events in the game. Not only did Goro kill people for the election, he also killed Futaba’s mother and hired government officials to read a fabricated suicide note telling Futaba how much her mom hated her and was always in the way of her research of cognitive psience. Shido ordered her killed so he can take her research and use it to his advantage for his campaign. Shido also planned on using the Phantom Thieves fame against themselves by letting Goro kill Haru’s father after they took his Palace’s treasure. While the team explores Shido’s dungeon, they encounter Goro and fight him. Turns out Goro uses another persona, Loki, who brings people into chaos. After the battle, Goro is killed by Shido’s vision of Goro who is a mindless puppet used for killing people. Goro’s backstory turns out that he was abandoned by his parents and Shido was his father, Shido used his son as his own personal assassin for his own political gain. After the thieves change his heart, Shido confesses all of his crimes during his victory in the election. However, his team wishes to defend him by running the government the way he envisions it. After the Phantom Thieves made their comeback, since the news reported about the leader committing suicide through Goro’s attempt on killing the protagonist, the reception from society on the fan site isn’t as big as they expect and Shido isn’t being put on trail from his crimes. The final solution to this issue is to steal the heart of the pubic, which is located at the base of a Palace that’s created by the public as a whole, Mementos. Mementos is like Tartarus from Persona 3 meets the Abandoned Factory/Bomb Shelter from Persona 2. You explore the area and fight enemies from previous dungeons while going deeper and deeper into the abandoned subway tunnels. At the very base of Mementos is a structure known as a Holy Grail that gains power from people in society who believes it is their true meaning of life. I love what they did here with Mementos where it’s the game straight up saying we are prisoners of society. The characters you changed the hearts of through the game are like the ex-cons of society. You learn that the figure behind that Holy Grail is a god who wishes to send the world to ruin by letting humans not think about their paths in life. The biggest twist out of it all was that Igor, the master of the Velvet Room, was that corrupt god the whole time and the attendants, Caroline and Justine, are 2 halves of one attendant named Lavenza. Morgana learns that he’s a Velvet Room attendant as well but was created from the last pieces of hope from humanity before that god took over. The last dungeon is the Phantom Thieves fighting Angels and other demons as they climb their way through a world where reality and Mementos has merged. At the very end they fight that Holy Grail one last time revealing it’s true form, a god of control known as Yaldabaoth. They go through one intense fight against the god where he uses abilities from other bosses against the party and they impress the corrupt god with their power. At the end society learns that the Phantom Thieves are alive and fighting a god and their support for them increases the fan site meter to 100% letting the main character summon the biggest, baddest of all ultimate personas in the series! A being known as a demon lord who defies god to make a fitting end for the Phantom Thieves adventure, Satanael! Sataneal uses his skill, Sinful Shell, on the corrupt god and lands a headshot on him ending his reign on society.

Our heroes have saved society from god and are ready to have a Christmas party for the celebration... however... feels attacks... Sae tells the protagonist that they need his help in order to prove Shido guilty from what he has done since the Phantom Thieves are the only one who can prove what the Metaverse is. In order to do that, the main character has to turn himself in which will result him to Juvenile in Solitary Confinement. After receiving the news... to make the scene worse, the girl who you put your character in a relationship texts you for a Christmas Eve date. You spend time with her one last time before going to Juvie. The next day, everyone in the Phantom Thieves is crying and freaking out about how they saved the world and their leader is treated like a criminal in the end. Time flies while the main character is in prison and you see all the Confidants you max out with try to help prove your innocence. At the end, you get released early after Shido confesses that he sued your character for assault that he didn’t do. The protagonist returns home to his friends and they all celebrate the wonderful reunion. The next day is Valentines so you spend with whoever you dated. Then at the very end, once you let the main character say his goodbyes to everyone he met, he takes a trip with the Phantom Thieves on a van to solve issues that are requested on the fan sites forum posts in reality.

This ending, has made me cry more than the ending of Persona 2 Innocent Sin. I cried in a roundabout way from sadness to happiness... I don’t think I’ll ever experience that feeling again after that game. I have enjoyed everything the game brought to use Persona fans, along with cameos to other characters in the Persona series you see on TV like in Persona 3. The DLC costumes are a lot of fun to use since they change the battle theme if you get sick and tired of “Last Surprise,” or just want to goof around with some costumes. The Confidants are really useful if you do a Max Confidant run cause they make you feel insanely powerful at times! After playing this game, it pains me to say this, but it’s true... Persona 5 just took over Persona 2 Innocent Sin as my number 1 favorite Persona game in the series. The ending was entirely better than Innocent Sin’s ending since it was mostly on a sad note while Persona 5 was sadness to happiness. I highly recommend you get this game, even if you are or are not a Persona fan, it’s a wonderful JRPG experience. This game has stolen my heart, and I like it.

That was a lot to write about, I wanted to share how much I enjoyed Persona 5 to everyone as best I can. Now that the review is pretty much done, I bid you all...

GOD I LOVE HARU!

[stardewvalley-imagines]

The reactions of the 12-bachelor/ettes when they find out that the farmer used to be a really popular Esports player (Part-1: bachelors)

Alex: “Hey, farmer.” Alex called you with his rugby ball on hand. You simply smiled at him as a greeting as you walked towards him. “What’s up, Alex?” You asked. “Not much. Wanna play catch?” Alex asked with you sheepishly shrugging. He threw the ball at your direction with relatively weak force, but you barely caught it while falling to the ground. “Come on, that’s basic sports.” The athlete said. “Sport?” You repeated and Alex nodded. “Well, I’m technically good at only one.” You added. “Really?! What is it?” You could only chuckle at Alex’s genuine interest. “Um… It’s E-Sports.” You admitted. As soon as you finished, you saw some disappointment mixed with confusion in Alex’s face. “What the hell is that? Is it like… Pixel football?” He asked. Seeing that he had no idea and interest, you decide to cast the conversation away.

Elliott: When you found Elliott in the corner of the library, you decided to walk to him. He greeted you with with a formal greeting like a gentleman he was. “What'cha reading?” You asked. Sitting down beside him. “Oh, I was looking through some newspapers that I’ve found in the library archives.” Elliott replied. “I thought you come here to get inspiration?” “Well, that is correct. But I believe that it is necessary for me to treat myself with some history.” “Never thought last year’s newspapers would help in history class.” You chuckled, and Elliott chuckled too. When the writer turned to the last page, he stared at a particular article and back to you. He repeated until you asked what was wrong. “Is this you?” Elliott asked, pointed at the article. You took a look at it, realizing that it indeed was you holding a trophy of the last year’s Dota 2 world tournament along with your team. “Well, yeah.” You replied. “Interested in E-Sports?” “Hmmm…” Elliott grunted, rubbing his chin. “So ‘E’ stands for Electronic, correct?” He asked and you nodded. “How impersonal.” He said as he folded the newspaper and picked up another.

Harvey: “…as I was saying, working in a farm means that you could be vulnerable to certain infections!” Harvey explained to you as you sat on the patient’s bed. Today was your vaccination day and you would have forgotten if it weren’t for his phone call. You were too busy on either working on the farm or playing videogames. “I get it, doc. I still need my vaccines, you know.” You replied. Soon enough, Harvey had already prepared the syringe. He rubbed a spot of your arm with an alcohol pad and pushed the needle through. You frowned by the pain, but it ended quickly as the doctor pulled the empty syringe out from your body. “Wow, that hurt pretty bad.” You whined. “Really? People normally just laugh it off.” Harvey said. “Well, if you used to work inside for almost 17 hours a day, maybe I would have.” “What did you work as before you came here?” Harvey asked worriedly. “A pro gamer.” You replied. “A pro gamer?” Harvey repeated with interest. “Well, yeah. I don’t like boasting, but I was considered as the best League of Legends player of our country. Won three world tournaments, too.” “You records are very impressive.” Harvey replied. “But I bet I could’ve out ganked you if I were in my college days.” “I’m glad that somebody appreciates my previous job.” You said. “I still play competitive at night after work.” “Well, don’t push yourself too hard, okay? I don’t want to hear news about you passing out in front of your computer.” Harvey reminded.

Sam: It was when Sebastian and Abigail left after their usual band practice. You were part of them as the bassist, but you decided to stay with Sam for a bit longer because you saw him turn on Overwatch. “What hero do you usually play with?” You asked. “Huh? Oh, it’s either Soldier 76 or Bastion.” Sam replied as he was taken into a quick match. You couldn’t wait how he played as those two heroes. If he only played with those two, he would be pretty good at it. However, as the match started, the opposite of what you thought was true as Sam barely got any kills and continuously died to the point where his team scolded him in the chat. “Damnit! I can’t impress anyone!” The blonde boy yelled, slamming the desk with his fists when the match ended in defeat. You were glad that it was over. You would have grown cancer if you watched more of his horrible gaming. “May I try?” You asked. “Go ahead. Do you have an account?” He stood from his chair and let you sit. You immediately logged off from his account and logged onto yours. Once the Overwatch main Manu popped up with your ID showing on the top right, Sam stopped you from the game. “Your account is familiar.” He said. “Really? How so?” You lied. Could he know your E-Sports account? “FlyToTheSky… I heard of this before… In youtube… No way.” Sam said behind his breath. “Now you know? The last year’s MVP of Overwatch world tournament held in France?” “Wait… Wait, that was YOU?!” You nodded. “No way! No freakin’ way! You’ve gotta be kidding!” Sam exclaimed, obviously excited. “I’m not.” You said. “…and you gave that up to be a farmer, what?!” Sam continued, looking like he was about to explode. “Whoa, Sam! SAM!!” You shouted and the blonde boy stopped. “Take a chill pill! I still livestream on Twitch every Friday at night, okay?” “Whew I thought you completely gave up gaming!” Sam replied. “I’m going to tell Seb and Abby about this!” That very night, you received a notification that three new people have subscribed to your channel.

Sebastian: “'Sup, Seb?” You said as you entered the raven-haired boy’s room. “Oh hey, farmer.” Sebastian greeted you while still staring at his computer screen. He gave you a high five at least. “What brought you here?” “I just wanted a happy-go-lucky hang out. Any problems?” “Well, I’m working.” Sebastian replied. Nodding, you decide that you should come back later and head for the room door. “Wait! Farmer! I just reached the last line of coding! I’m basically done for the day!” He shouted, making your turn back. “Now we’re talking.” You chuckled as you sat beside Sebastian. “So, how are you going to treat me?” You asked. “Uh… Do you mind if we watch some YouTube videos of StarCraft?” “Mind? StarCraft II is my favorite game!” You chirped! “Oh thank Yoba! I thought I was the only person to play that game here.” “I like it.” Sebastian replied with a smile. The two of you were watching a YouTube video of a pro gamer playing the said strategy game through Sebastian’s computer. The player was indeed good. It reminded you of the good memories back when you were like that player. The fans, the sponsors, the competition, the rapid mouse clicking, the cheering… you started to miss them. You snapped back to reality when the youtuber mentioned a E-Sports player that was familiar to both of you about how the mentioned player retired from the gaming industry. Worst of all, the player mentioned your name. “Farmer?” Sebastian asked. You sheepishly turned to him. “You’re Morten98?” “Well, yeah…” You admitted. “Wow… That… That’s really awesome.” Sebastian complimented. “You got your training from Korea, right?” You nodded. “You must know a lot of people from the industry then.” He added. “Well, yeah. I guess that adds to the Korean stereotype, huh?” You asked. Sebastian nodded a she laughed at the remark. “We should play together some day. I’m getting my house upgraded today and I need to sleep here. Wanna play a few matches tonight? I’m a Zerg player, by the way.” “Sure, sounds good. Terran player here.” Sebastian happily replied. You knew that he couldn’t wait to see how good you were.

Shane: “Ugh, life…” Shane grunted as he downed his beer mug in one shot. “You shouldn’t be drinking that heavily.” You said worriedly. This was his second mug and even Gus, who was watching you two behind the counter looked at him with worry. “I don’t care, farmer.” Shane murmured behind the empty mug. “I’m just a loser who works, drinks, sleeps, repeats… Hey, farmer?” “I’m here.” You replied, slowly sipping on your own drink. “Have you felt that before? Like, you’re stuck in an abyss where you’ll never get out? Like, when you’re stuck with a job that you hate?” A question worth thinking about. You think. Nodding, you opened your mouth. “Shane, nobody told you that Jojamart is the only choice.” You said. “But I dropped off from college.” “There are a plethora of jobs that don’t need a college degree, Shane. Should I be honest?” “Hmm?” “I dropped from high school for a job I wanted to chase.” You admitted. “High school, huh? Wow, you must be really stupid.” Shane joked. “What was it? The farm?” “Shane, I’m serious. I was a E-Sports player before coming here. Worked as such for about four years.” “E-Sports, huh? What game?” “Counter Strike.” You replied. “Wha…? What are your records?” Shane asked, still tormented by the effects of alcohol. “Well, won a few world tournaments and national leagues.” You said, blushing. “Watch me snipe your head off into next week.” Shane boasted. “Really? Wanna play competitive tomorrow?” You asked. You liked a challenge. “Bring it on.” Shane beamed. The next day, you annihilated Shane to the point where he didn’t receive any kills from you while Sam, Sebastian and Abigail observed.

[sleeplessscripts]

A conversational reactions of the 12 bachelor/ettes when they realize that the farmer used to be a really popular E-Sports player? (The extensions of this)

(Part 1: bachelors) Alex: "Hey, farmer." Alex called you with his rugby ball on hand. You simply smiled at him as a greeting as you walked towards him. "What's up, Alex?" You asked. "Not much. Wanna play catch?" Alex asked with you sheepishly shrugging. He threw the ball at your direction with relatively weak force, but you barely caught it while falling to the ground. "Come on, that's basic sports." The athlete said. "Sport?" You repeated and Alex nodded. "Well, I'm technically good at only one." You added. "Really?! What is it?" You could only chuckle at Alex's genuine interest. "Um... It's E-Sports." You admitted. As soon as you finished, you saw some disappointment mixed with confusion in Alex's face. "What the hell is that? Is it like... Pixel football?" He asked. Seeing that he had no idea and interest, you decide to cast the conversation away. Elliott: When you found Elliott in the corner of the library, you decided to walk to him. He greeted you with with a formal greeting like a gentleman he was. "What'cha reading?" You asked. Sitting down beside him. "Oh, I was looking through some newspapers that I've found in the library archives." Elliott replied. "I thought you come here to get inspiration?" "Well, that is correct. But I believe that it is necessary for me to treat myself with some history." "Never thought last year's newspapers would help in history class." You chuckled, and Elliott chuckled too. When the writer turned to the last page, he stared at a particular article and back to you. He repeated until you asked what was wrong. "Is this you?" Elliott asked, pointed at the article. You took a look at it, realizing that it indeed was you holding a trophy of the last year's Dota 2 world tournament along with your team. "Well, yeah." You replied. "Interested in E-Sports?" "Hmmm..." Elliott grunted, rubbing his chin. "So 'E' stands for Electronic, correct?" He asked and you nodded. "How impersonal." He said as he folded the newspaper and picked up another. Harvey: "...as I was saying, working in a farm means that you could be vulnerable to certain infections!" Harvey explained to you as you sat on the patient's bed. Today was your vaccination day and you would have forgotten if it weren't for his phone call. You were too busy on either working on the farm or playing videogames. "I get it, doc. I still need my vaccines, you know." You replied. Soon enough, Harvey had already prepared the syringe. He rubbed a spot of your arm with an alcohol pad and pushed the needle through. You frowned by the pain, but it ended quickly as the doctor pulled the empty syringe out from your body. "Wow, that hurt pretty bad." You whined. "Really? People normally just laugh it off." Harvey said. "Well, if you used to work inside for almost 17 hours a day, maybe I would have." "What did you work as before you came here?" Harvey asked worriedly. "A pro gamer." You replied. "A pro gamer?" Harvey repeated with interest. "Well, yeah. I don't like boasting, but I was considered as the best League of Legends player of our country. Won three world tournaments, too." "You records are very impressive." Harvey replied. "But I bet I could've out ganked you if I were in my college days." "I'm glad that somebody appreciates my previous job." You said. "I still play competitive at night after work." "Well, don't push yourself too hard, okay? I don't want to hear news about you passing out in front of your computer." Harvey reminded. Sam: It was when Sebastian and Abigail left after their usual band practice. You were part of them as the bassist, but you decided to stay with Sam for a bit longer because you saw him turn on Overwatch. "What hero do you usually play with?" You asked. "Huh? Oh, it's either Soldier 76 or Bastion." Sam replied as he was taken into a quick match. You couldn't wait how he played as those two heroes. If he only played with those two, he would be pretty good at it. However, as the match started, the opposite of what you thought was true as Sam barely got any kills and continuously died to the point where his team scolded him in the chat. "Damnit! I can't impress anyone!" The blonde boy yelled, slamming the desk with his fists when the match ended in defeat. You were glad that it was over. You would have grown cancer if you watched more of his horrible gaming. "May I try?" You asked. "Go ahead. Do you have an account?" He stood from his chair and let you sit. You immediately logged off from his account and logged onto yours. Once the Overwatch main Manu popped up with your ID showing on the top right, Sam stopped you from the game. "Your account is familiar." He said. "Really? How so?" You lied. Could he know your E-Sports account? "FlyToTheSky... I heard of this before... In youtube... No way." Sam said behind his breath. "Now you know? The last year's MVP of Overwatch world tournament held in France?" "Wait... Wait, that was YOU?!" You nodded. "No way! No freakin' way! You've gotta be kidding!" Sam exclaimed, obviously excited. "I'm not." You said. "...and you gave that up to be a farmer, what?!" Sam continued, looking like he was about to explode. "Whoa, Sam! SAM!!" You shouted and the blonde boy stopped. "Take a chill pill! I still livestream on Twitch every Friday at night, okay?" "Whew I thought you completely gave up gaming!" Sam replied. "I'm going to tell Seb and Abby about this!" That very night, you received a notification that three new people have subscribed to your channel. Sebastian: "'Sup, Seb?" You said as you entered the raven-haired boy's room. "Oh hey, farmer." Sebastian greeted you while still staring at his computer screen. He gave you a high five at least. "What brought you here?" "I just wanted a happy-go-lucky hang out. Any problems?" "Well, I'm working." Sebastian replied. Nodding, you decide that you should come back later and head for the room door. "Wait! Farmer! I just reached the last line of coding! I'm basically done for the day!" He shouted, making your turn back. "Now we're talking." You chuckled as you sat beside Sebastian. "So, how are you going to treat me?" You asked. "Uh... Do you mind if we watch some YouTube videos of StarCraft?" "Mind? StarCraft II is my favorite game!" You chirped! "Oh thank Yoba! I thought I was the only person to play that game here." "I like it." Sebastian replied with a smile. The two of you were watching a YouTube video of a pro gamer playing the said strategy game through Sebastian's computer. The player was indeed good. It reminded you of the good memories back when you were like that player. The fans, the sponsors, the competition, the rapid mouse clicking, the cheering... you started to miss them. You snapped back to reality when the youtuber mentioned a E-Sports player that was familiar to both of you about how the mentioned player retired from the gaming industry. Worst of all, the player mentioned your name. "Farmer?" Sebastian asked. You sheepishly turned to him. "You're Morten98?" "Well, yeah..." You admitted. "Wow... That... That's really awesome." Sebastian complimented. "You got your training from Korea, right?" You nodded. "You must know a lot of people from the industry then." He added. "Well, yeah. I guess that adds to the Korean stereotype, huh?" You asked. Sebastian nodded a she laughed at the remark. "We should play together some day. I'm getting my house upgraded today and I need to sleep here. Wanna play a few matches tonight? I'm a Zerg player, by the way." "Sure, sounds good. Terran player here." Sebastian happily replied. You knew that he couldn't wait to see how good you were. Shane: "Ugh, life..." Shane grunted as he downed his beer mug in one shot. "You shouldn't be drinking that heavily." You said worriedly. This was his second mug and even Gus, who was watching you two behind the counter looked at him with worry. "I don't care, farmer." Shane murmured behind the empty mug. "I'm just a loser who works, drinks, sleeps, repeats... Hey, farmer?" "I'm here." You replied, slowly sipping on your own drink. "Have you felt that before? Like, you're stuck in an abyss where you'll never get out? Like, when you're stuck with a job that you hate?" A question worth thinking about. You think. Nodding, you opened your mouth. "Shane, nobody told you that Jojamart is the only choice." You said. "But I dropped off from college." "There are a plethora of jobs that don't need a college degree, Shane. Should I be honest?" "Hmm?" "I dropped from high school for a job I wanted to chase." You admitted. "High school, huh? Wow, you must be really stupid." Shane joked. "What was it? The farm?" "Shane, I'm serious. I was a E-Sports player before coming here. Worked as such for about four years." "E-Sports, huh? What game?" "Counter Strike." You replied. "Wha...? What are your records?" Shane asked, still tormented by the effects of alcohol. "Well, won a few world tournaments and national leagues." You said, blushing. "Watch me snipe your head off into next week." Shane boasted. "Really? Wanna play competitive tomorrow?" You asked. You liked a challenge. "Bring it on." Shane beamed. The next day, you annihilated Shane to the point where he didn't receive any kills from you while Sam, Sebastian and Abigail observed.