#we haven’t even made it to the next gen and yet I’m already here posting screenshots of Amidala’s grandchild hehe

[the-royals-ts4]

Prince [Redacted] Of Stralia

@wa-royal-tea Nina here is the spoiler, what do you think x ?

[sugareey-makes-stuff]

I am stoked to wish @thebooktopus a very happy birthday with a nameplate and a rec list! Maddy deserves all the love in the world for being such an amazing person who lifts others up. It must have been late last year/early this year when I started seeing her pop in regularly via various Discord servers (and she also mods a few too!). When @anaxandria-writes recced a Maddy fic and invited her to the Wizarding Creators Den (where we were getting hyped about said fic being complete), I was super excited! Once Maddy and I got to know each other and realised we both loved Drarry AND so many rare pairs, the rest was history. Let’s be honest: Maddy is a true sport when it comes to cheerleading and supporting so many people. She’s sweet, passionate and easy-going as an alpha and a beta. Right off the bat, you can tell Maddy loves stories and ideas, and she wants to help fellow creators out. She’s engaged, and since she’s an avid reader of many things, that offers a wonder opportunity for new, beautiful friendships to form. If you want someone to scream about your work (WIP or finished), Maddy is your person! Her insights on everything are also optimistic and heartfelt. It’s all in the comments she leaves for people. She’s thoughtful in what she says, and you can feel the appreciation and enthusiasm she has for each work she reads/views. I'm sure folks who have gotten comments and tags from her know what I’m talking about. Her words truly mean a lot. Can we talk about Maddy’s gorgeous recs? YES, because there are sooo many good ones! These always brighten up my day when I see them on my dashboard. Her recs have been one way I’ve been able to find, read and add fics to my TBR list. I also think Maddy has a special superpower to read and absorb all the things, because the time and effort it takes to keep up and make monthly recs is impressive and labour-intensive. She’s currently killing it with Game of Drarry fic recs right now, and you can see ALL of her recs here. ALSO, her Mutuals March project. OMG. Maddy was a gem to go through so many creators’ works to shine a spotlight on each one of them. This must have been a beast of a project to take on, yet what a delight was it to see so many works I haven’t seen before! I thought it was a brilliant project when I first heard about, and little did I know that Maddy would surprise me by going through my works, showering them with comments AND giving me my own post. I have never had anyone do that for me before, and this just shows how kind Maddy is to make people feel like their work matters to fandom. Since then, Maddy has become one of my regular supporters, and I’m grateful and lucky to call her a friend. While I’ve been challenging myself to make and approach new projects in different ways (whether it be ships, mediums, formats, or even writing more one-shots and writing a bunch of microfics), Maddy’s encouragement has always been so uplifting. She has made me realise I am better than I give myself credit for, that my work is unique, and that I should run with that. So, that’s what I’m doing! If Maddy doesn’t have a full plate already, she made HP Next Gen Fest happen this year (which just finished posting) to spread the love for alll the next gen ships. Andddd of course, she’s a writer who has written some excellent Drarry fics and rare pair stories! Maddy has a way of embracing humour, flirting, fluff and sass all in on go, which makes character dynamics fun yet sexy! Quite of few of her fics have made me go down some rabbit holes and wanting more. Here are some of my fav Maddy fics: 🦑 >>> The Dragon Tamer & The Snake Slayer (Charlie/Neville, E, 17.7k)

Summary:  Professor Neville Longbottom has an unfortunate crush on his newest colleague, Charlie Weasley. Charlie, who is pure magic personified, even in a wizarding world. Whose scars and laughter make Neville come undone. Charlie, who could never be interested in Neville... right?

Remember that Maddy fic rec I mentioned above? THIS IS IT. I did not know I needed this fic until I read it, and gods, I love Herbtamer more now. There’s a wonderful acknowledgement to demisexuality, an excellent use of consent, and the energy between Neville and Charlie’s friendship is so warm. Also, these two mesh so well together that they fit like pieces of a puzzle, as they should. 🐙 >>> Let Me Count the Ways (Drarry, E, 3.6k)

Summary: Intimacy comes in many forms. Draco wants to explore them all with Harry.

OKAY. This is such a beautiful and well-written fic for sooo many reasons. What an amazing take on asexuality, and I adore how Draco wants to make everything so good for Harry. They’re both so soft, and full of sooo mannnyy feelings. All of their actions and words are enough to prove that they absolutely love each other. Seeing all the ways their relationship changes over time will make you melt into a puddle. If you want some sexy fluff, go read this!| 🦑 >>> Are Those Drugs in Your System, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?  (Drarry, T, 1.3k)

Summary: While Harry is out on patrol on New Year's Eve, he stumbles (literally) into Draco. When their eyes meet, Harry is immediately concerned - why are Draco's pupils so wide? Is he high? Nope. Turns out he's just in love.

What a sweet and fun read! If you want some classic Drarry banter, you’ve got it in here. Also, Draco is absolutely precious, blunt and sassy, just the way we like him. Such a wonderful take on a NYE fic. 🐙 >>> Life After Quidditch (Flintwood, E, 11k)

Summary: After a career-ending injury, Oliver Wood is forced to take an early retirement. And what does early retirement look like for famous Quidditch players? The charity circuit. Galas, bake sales, auctions—you name it, Oliver’s agent had signed him up for it. Oliver didn’t know what to expect from this new life, but it certainly wasn’t Marcus Flint popping up at every turn. Or for him to be friendly and welcoming, unwilling to let Oliver stew in his self-loathing. Or for him to look so good in yoga pants. Or to fall for the git.

The way Maddy writes Flintwood is outstanding, and this fic does not disappoint. She has such a way of bringing in teasing, humour and all the UST together when it comes to Oliver and Marcus. Their banter is spot on, and I also love how these two have changed as people since school. Of course, Oliver tries to figure out how the world still exists when Marcus isn’t antagonising him (aka Marcus has other ways to push Oliver’s buttons that doesn’t involve fist fights). And the charity events? Hilarious. 10000% worth the read to see how these two get together, and for all the clever lines and flirting. You can find more of Maddy’s work on AO3. Make sure to leave kudos and comments to show appreciation for her fandom contributions. Maddy, you are truly special and one of a kind. Thank you again for spreading so much love and for making so many people feel seen and cared for. I hope you have a wonderful day!

[recurring-polynya]

hi there! AMAZING blog and great bleach write-ups. u know the characters so well it rivals - if not surpasses - kubo himself. im just curious what ur thoughts were on the 20th anniversary special one-shot chapter? (i apologize if u already talked about this but im just living vicariously through some of ur old bleach posts and haven't caught up to the new ones yet. sorry!)

Hi, thank you so much! I *wish* I knew as much about the characters as Kubo... the only thing I don't like about the return of Bleach is that he keeps dropping info and ruining my headcanons/stuff I said in my fanfic. 😂

Here is my very personal and biased take on the one-shot: I loved it. To be honest, it was basically catered to my very specific interests: lore + my faves. Renji had more panel time than any other character (really, truly, someone on Twitter counted) and his DILF energy was off the charts. It was lieutenant-centric overall, my favorite group of characters. We got an Akon shikai tease, I love both the new lieutenants, Mayuri shot laser eyes at Hisagi, Shinji made a hilarious face. There is now canonically tv, Line, and videophones in Soul Society. Yumichika is a wine aunt. Rukia is a shitlord. It's perfect.

Beyond that, even, I actually like the new story arc that's being teased (I am working under the assumption it is going to continue, it just doesn't make sense otherwise). My primary complaint about late Bleach is that there are too many characters. Kubo feels the need to have all his mains get a fight and then he needs to let everyone they fight have a backstory and he tries to interleave things and it takes so long to come back around to the small subset of characters any given reader actually cares about.

Don't get me wrong: I really, really like Ukitake, Unohana and Kyouraku as characters, but part of what I like is that they are a) old as balls, b) have seen and done some gnarly shit, and c) enjoy the relative peacetime where they get to mentor young people and be kind and pretend like they haven't committed a ton of murders for the Good of Soul Society. Yamamoto is a special case because I don't believe he's remotely sorry for anything he ever did (see: that filler arc where he falls asleep while Amagai is screaming about how Yamamoto threw his dad under the bus). In any case, we never really got to see Ukitake go ham, and we only got glimpses of Unohana, and I'm honestly kinda into the idea of them becoming Lords of Hell, because they probably do deserve it. Also, I want to see Bankai Rukia vs Hell Yamamoto, that shit is gonna slap.

I do wish we'd gotten a little bit more of Orihime, Chad and Uryuu (and no one needs to tell me that was the back of Uryuu's head at the ramen shop-- I don't actually think it was and also the back of someone's head is not very exciting). As I said, I have every expectation that this story will continue and I am hoping they are all involved. I can't imagine that Orihime *wouldn't* be, but it is a strong possibility that Chad and Uryuu will get shafted. I am saving my rage for them. (Note: What if Chad got to fight Shrieker again?? That would slap!!) I'm not really concerned about other people not appearing much-- it was already an extra-sized one-shot, and it had a lot of cast members, it was enough for me.

Two last thoughts!

1) I liked the amount that the kids appeared. For a while, I was really concerned that they were gonna pull a Boruto and make some next-gen series (possibly with minimal involvement from Kubo) and it was literally going to make me hate Bleach the way the new Star Wars movies made me hate Star Wars, a thing I once deeply loved. Instead, the kids were there and they were relevant to the plot, but the action was carried by the adult characters. This is cool in my opinion because it lets use see our faves in their role as parents and it builds the kids' characters organically instead of asking me, the reader to care about them solely on the basis that I liked their parents.

2) I mentioned Kubo ruining my headcanons earlier, and probably the #1 thing I didn't like about the one-shot is that I had always assumed that Soul Society basically knew how Hell worked, and that they had some sort of treaty or natural division of responsibility between them. Tbh, that's on me, my expectations were far too high. From day 1, shinigami have consistently known jack-shit about how anything works and just blunder through the larger greater spiritual world, making stuff up as they go along. I used to assume that this was a Rukia thing-- she only had one year of shinigami school, she's a Kuchiki so she can just say things and no one disagrees with her, and she's Rukia. But, no, Kyouraku's out here performing insane rituals and sending his pals to Hell and he's like, "oh, man, I think I read something about this on Yahoo! Answers once but then I got distracted." Complete and utter buffoonery. I can't wait to see more.

[itsstrange]

Forelsket

Relationship: Jensen Ackles x Reader

A/N: Haven’t posted in a few days due to school work and other idiotic stuff that’s playing in my life right now, also because I’ve been working on another story that someone had requested which is taking me some time, But please enjoy this Short story of this dashing of a man! 💗✨

Summary: Jensen just can’t hide his feelings anymore during an interview, he finally decides to make a move, no matter the outcome at the end.

Word Count: 1,151

Warning: (None) Kissing, fluff,

Gif by: @justjensenanddean

————

Enjoy! 💚✨

————

While doing an interview you happened to crack a smile along with a soft giggle when the reporter asked a certain question, what you didn’t notice was your giggle and smile had attracted Jensen. Just like it always does.

“Oh man,” He slightly whispers as the corner of his lips begin to lift,

It was at that moment he realized, he was madly in love with you.

You were absolute breathtaking, your smile alone was enough for him, it has been, for five years now. When you first appeared on the show he was taken back by your talent and beauty, but never thought too much about it. It wasn’t until he got to know you well when his feelings began to develop fast. He’s shared his feelings with Jared, even if he knew he would get teased by the giant every time you’d walked by, but he never did share them with you. Fearing you wouldn’t see him the same and fearing in ruining your friendship, even if he had a feeling you did feel the same with all the flirtatious comments you both send each other, Jensen kept his hope to the side.

But now with five years passing and your friendship only growing stronger, along with his feelings, he was on edge of breaking. Only thing stopping him was his conscience. However, seeing you in your favorite AC/DC t-shirt, with your hair flowing perfectly down your shoulders and wide smile plastered on your face finally made the knot break loose in his chest. He was doing it. Officially.

Once all the interviews were taken care of and all the cameras have stopped rolling, Jensen made his way over to you, placing his hand on your waist as both your handlers escorted you both out of the room. You smile up at him and snake your own arm around his back as you two walk down the hallway and towards the elevators. While waiting you let your head lean against his shoulder, but soon feel fingers gently lifting your head up and then a pair of lips against your own. Immediately, you smile against his lips and kiss back.

“‘Bout time Ackles,” You whisper to him, a smile plastering on his own face before bending down once again,

You two pull away when the elevator stops on your floor, but don’t pull away from each other’s hold when you two get on. Riding hand in hand, you let your head rest on his shoulder once again, letting a happy sigh escape from your lips. Five years. Five long fucking years it has been of you keeping your feelings tucked away. Shielded from the world, well the only one who knew would be Gen, after three glasses of whine you had just spilled it all on her. She of course would do almost anything to tease you when the man was around, or would always invite the both of you whenever they had a barbecue going on and would always make sure the only available seats were right next to each other. Shoulder to shoulder.

The first time it happened you sent her a glare, which she only smirks in return, but after the fifth time you had gotten use to her games and would sit down without a fuss. You had gotten accustomed to sitting next to Jensen, why? Well before you would feel nervous and tense being too close to him, however, those feelings soon faded into the wind. Now, it was just a routine for the both of you. If one of you were not sitting next to each other for any event it just didn’t feel right for neither of you, especially during panels. Luckily, the both of you were actors to hide the disappointment in your faces whenever you two had to be sitting apart from each other.

Once off the elevator, both your handlers guided you two towards your next stop. Before walking through the doors, Jensen stops you by your waist and pulls you flushed against him as he bends down to place a gentle kiss on your lips. You pull away with a smile, feeling your cheeks grow hot when you hear wolf whistles.

“About Damn time!” Jared calls out as he walks towards you two with Misha right beside him,

Jensen only rolls his eyes with a small grin, pulling you tighter against him when he caught a glimpse of your shyness.

“Yeah I was actually debating whether or not to set up a parent trap in the closet or something,” Misha comments as he stood beside Jensen, slightly patting him on the shoulder,

“Eh technically we did once, but it backed fired immediately,” Jared reminds the other male who only chuckles at the memory,

“That’s right! The fire alarm went off! What a shame,” Jensen rolls his eyes with a shake of his head,

“Will you two clowns just get out there already?” He humorously tells both males,

Jared chuckles as he slaps Misha’s chest, “C’mon Mish, let love birds here get some alone time,”

As soon as Jared walks out the door, the roaring screams are heard, even when it shuts.

Patting Jensens arm with a smile he looks at the both of you, “I’m happy for you two,”

“Thank you Misha,” You smile up at him, snaking an arm around Jensen’s waist,

“Keep it PG-13 though, alright?”

“Fuck off,” Jensen gently shoves the mans shoulder, earning a soft chuckle before he walks out the door,

Once it was just you two behind the closed door, Jensen fully turns you to face him. Glancing into those apple green orbs of his, you let a smile spread on your face as you let a hand settle on his cheek.

“I’ll see you in a few, okay?” He whispers, lightly squeezing your waist,

You nod at him with a smile as you bring him down for a final peck on the lips. Before pulling away he places another quick peck on your head just as you walk out the doors with him following close behind. Glancing behind your shoulder you sent him a wink and watch as he grins at you. A firm hand settles on your lower back as you two continue walking towards the signing booth, not noticing how a few fans with cameras captures the moment when he places yet another peck on the side of your temple. News traveled rather fast, but you could have cared less, you knew it wouldn’t have stayed silent for long, the way you felt toward Jensen was obvious. You were just glad it was out there, you knew you wouldn’t be able to play the hidden game very well and you would lose every time.

But you also knew you would have lost purposely. Being without his touch was nearly impossible for you, so yeah, losing would definitely be on purpose.

—————

- Hope you enjoyed this!!

- Stay tuned for more!!!

- Make sure your turn on Notifications for more updates!! 🔔🔔

—————

[slashedthroughtheheart]

A night with the trapper

Hey hey, I’m cross posting on here from my Ao3 account! Hoping to build up a writing blog once again after The 2018 Incident happened and I lost my other one for overwatch.

This time, I’ve delved into the slasher fandom after picking up Dead by Daylight! This is just some good nice fun with Evan, focused on his pleasure! Enjoy!

He'd been so considerate of your needs when you approached him tentatively.

He'd just returned from a trial and was in the middle of cleaning the grime off of his hands and arms when you gingerly pulled on the side of his overalls, looking up at him with those big doe eyes he loved to see.

Barely above a whisper, the words left your lips in a rush. "Would you let me touch you?"

The words themselves weren't dirty, but the look you gave through those eyelashes of yours, a flush dusting your cheeks and the slight pout of your lower lip lent a lewd meaning behind the words.

He hadn't even taken his mask off yet, but the candlelight in his workshop was just enough to give you a glimpse of the smug grin that donned his features.

Turning back to washing himself, he let you stew in your emotions for a bit before his voice filled the room. "Lemme get this right, doll. You wanna touch me...intimately?" Despite the words being a question, it sounded more like a pleasantly cocky statement. The low hum of his voice made you shiver, his knowing and almost teasing tone had the blush spreading further on your face.

The slight turn of his head was what prompted a meek but determined nod. You'd wanted this for a long time, and even if it was embarrassing having to ask like this, you knew you wouldn't get a chance to act it out unless you did.

Any time you'd been with him, it was always him on top of you, all around you, baring down on you like he was a hunter and you were the prey he'd caught.

And while you'd been enjoying that, you couldn't deny you wanted more. Something different.

You'd been so scared of everything at first, the pain from being hooked and sacrificed in trials was maddening. You barely talked to the other survivors for the first week, completely thrown through a loop and reeling from the shift in your new normal.

They'd tried to reach out, to be comforting and welcoming, but you had resisted. The fear gripping your heart at all times very real and palpable.

What if the killers came to find you after the trial too? What if the time you weren't being forced to fix gens and run for your life were also plagued by the terrifying monsters that hunted you in the trials?

No soothing from any of the other survivors helped. They feared you'd break before too long had passed, having seen it before in the ones that stopped appearing after they broke fully.

It was the leader, Dwight, who had tried one last ditch effort.

While the killers didn't hang around with any survivors often, it wasn't unheard of for companionable time to be spent together outside of the trials. Some were easier to approach than others, like Bubba. He didn't do much talking, but he was always happy to see anyone and would listen to people talk for as long as they wanted.

So Dwight had gone to their leaders domain, skittishly asking if one of the killers could show the newbie some kindness outside of the trials so they'd stop spiraling out. So she wouldn't be taken like some of the others had been.

Evan had stoically listened as the survivors leader talked about that new girl who'd been so very afraid during every trial he'd seen her in. She'd fueled all the killers instincts very well, looking so picture perfect with the fear readable in her eyes. Such big eyes that always had tears just threatening to fall, or falling already.

It had probably led to a bit more brutality than usual.

He remembered you, shaking like a leaf looking like you were about to wet yourself. Your hand over your heart as you stood like a deer in the headlights when he caught sight of you.

Then you turned tail and ran, your panting had excited him. It had been a while since they'd gotten someone new to chase.

You'd managed to outfox him that trial though, your fear keeping you from most of the generators so he never caught sight of you a second time after he lost you when someone blinded him with a flashlight. The other survivors worked double time to make up for the teammate they lacked, and since he'd been so fixated on finding you again, he'd mostly left them alone unless they got just a bit too close.

He hadn't managed to hook anyone that match, having been too focused on finding that doe-eyed survivor again and hearing them scream.

So he fully understood that maybe the welcoming had been rather hard for you. "What's 'er name?"

The skittish leader seemed to let out a breath he'd been holding in, worried that the Trapper wouldn't entertain the idea of trying to calm the newbie down.

"Y/n. She's real spooked, by everything." The almost derisive laugh that came from Evan at that moment startled Dwight.

"If you're saying that, she must really be a fraidy cat then." The grin on his face was visible through the opening of his masks own garish smile.

Dwight had the smarts to not say anything more to that, but his head dipped down as his ears tinged pink with embarrassment.

"So... will you have someone come out and say hi to her? Let her know we aren't ever hurt outside of trials? She won't listen to us about it." He was rubbing at the back of his neck now, willing the blush he could feel under his fingers to go away.

Evan's arms crossed, seemingly contemplating his response before he gave a single nod. "'spose we can't have the little thing losing it. Sure, I'll come say hi to her. Might be best it's from me anyways, never have managed to catch her in trials. She's never even stepped in my traps either."

He had already started moving to leave his home, lumbering through the trees with Dwight having to jog to keep up with his pace.

"R-really? You've never caught her?" the tone was awed disbelief. He knew how many trials they all went through each day, she'd had to have faced the Trapper at least 4 or 5 times by now, and to have never even stepped in a trap was quite the feat.

A grunt preceded a small hum. "M'nope. She's a small one, slips right through everything. Not particularly fast, but she's real sneaky. You haven't noticed that?"

The rest of the walk from his realm and to the camp was filled with little questions from both of them about the girl. How many times had the Trapper caught sight of her in a trial? How did she spend her time around the fire? Did they know anything other than her name?

Upon arriving, Evan wasn't surprised that she nearly bolted upon seeing him, but Claudette and Feng had each been by her side and gently held her in place.

"He's not here to hurt us. They never are when they come here. We're safe outside the trials." Claudette's hushed voice reached his ears, and he gave a slow nod.

He stopped a good distance from them, knowing his sheer size would be intimidating on it's own, but him being one of the killers made it that much scarier for the poor girl.

"Hey there, little fox. I ain't here to hurtcha, promise. I heard from our good buddy Dwight here you were having a hard time adjusting to life in the entity's realm." He kept his arms down, trying to appear as non-threatening as a metal-bedecked behemoth like him could.

While he enjoyed the chase in trials, he understood that outside of trials it was a grave mistake to hurt the survivors. Every killer learned that the hard way through punishment, and the survivor or survivors hurt would be given a reprieve for a day or two from doing trials.

His gaze swept over the group, taking in their little camp they'd eked out in the forest.

"Y'all mind if I...?" he made a gesture towards the fire and one of the logs that had been dragged near it.

It was Ace who spoke up next. "Go for it, big guy." He was the one sitting on the other end after all.

He nodded to him, wandering over slowly to take a seat and lean forward, resting his arms against his knees. "It really ain't that bad outside the trials. Y'all stay around here until you're called next, and we stay in our realms until called." He wondered if anyone had bothered explaining that to her, as she sat there still held to her seat by the girls on either side.

The fear had lessened a little in her face, but not much. She didn't look like she'd fight to get up and run anymore at least.

"Does that make sense, little fox?" his head tilted ever so slightly as he looked at her from across the fire.

She looked unsure, fear still gripping her limbs, before a very slight nod that he would have missed if he blinked.

He sat back up a bit, no leaning as far forward. "Good. We all want to work so as to not displease the entity. And hurting y'all outside of the trial displeases the entity. So it's in our best interests too that we leave you unharmed."

This bit of information seemed to be the thing that had her relax the most, the white knuckle grip of her hands lessening as she blinked owlishly at him.

If he hadn't been listening intently and looking right at her, he might've missed her whispered "Really?"

He chuckled, leaning to one side, resting his weight on his good arm. "'course. The entity is all about rules. Do this, don't do that. And one of those rules is no harm outside of trials. You think being sacrificed to it hurts? Punishment for disobeying is much worse." He kept his tone light, easy going.

At the mention of punishment, he saw her shoulders tense again. "Now don't go worrying that pretty little head a yours. Only people who've ever been punished is us killers. Y'all can't really do anything to displease the entity, considerin' your position." Another light laugh left him as he settled in to chat the night away.

Over the course of the night, she'd slowly warmed up to those around her, and to the big man who eventually introduced himself as Evan to the group. It had been when Dwight had referred to him as the Trapper, and he waved a hand. "That ain't my name, at least not outta the trials. 'm Evan, nice to meetcha little fox." He'd smirked a bit, that long dormant charm from his past life peeking through.

After that night spent around the fire, more of the survivors sought out forging friendships with some of the killers outside of the trials. If they had to mutually please the entity, then maybe they could find some understanding with one another.

So that's how simply trying to assuage one new survivors fears led to basically all of the killers and survivors having a much more easy going time outside of the trials.

It had been quite some time since then, and that initial bond between Evan and you had been the strongest. While you had sought out others, namely Sally and Bubba since they were genuinely really sweet outside of the trials, you stuck by Evan the most.

And as time went on, feelings blossomed. You'd taken a shine to him and his slightly dated charm. He liked to use names he knew would fluster you, calling you doll and sweet cheeks and the one time he'd said sweetheart had truly been your undoing.

The silence after he'd said it had made him worry maybe he had taken his teasing too far, and that you'd turn away from him.

Imagine his surprise when the next thing out of your mouth was "Do you really think I'm pretty?"

He'd been stunned silent by it, causing you to go through your own mortification, your hands coming up to wave in front of you quickly, trying to literally brush away the question you'd ask while verbally stumbling over yourself "I-I-I...nevermind!!" the squeaky tone your voice had taken on pulled a hearty chuckle from him.

He rested his hand on your shoulder, dwarfing you in size and reminding you just how much bigger and stronger than you he was. He leaned down just a bit, looking right into your eyes, seeing just how flustered you'd gotten by the hue of your face.

"I think you're damn beautiful, y/n." He was hoping he'd read your body language right, and that that question had been because you were as interested in him as he had been with you.

The little face you'd made after that, your lips forming the tiniest 'oh' as he loomed over you. He read no fear in your posture, but even while closely observing you, he'd never thought that the timid little fox of a survivor would ever have the gumption to lean into him, resting their hand so gently against his chest while they gazed up at him.

That had been the turning point in their relationship, and he had barely been able to keep his hands off ever since.

Something in your face now reminded him of that first time. Reminded him that you really did want him.

He let the rag he'd been wiping himself off with drop into the basin, turning to face you fully.

"Mmmm, well little fox, what'd you have in mind then?" his grin had turned almost wicked as his now clean hands reached forward to graze the bare skin on your arms.

The little breath you'd been holding didn't go unnoticed by him. You must've been waiting a while to ask him, working up your courage.

Instead of speaking, you pulled on his hand you'd taken with yours, leading him towards his bed.

Amusement flooded him, enjoying the sight of you turning to pull at his overalls with a pleading look at him. "Take these off, please." Even when you were in charge, you were so adorable to him. The politeness of your request had him huffing out a soft laugh while he undid the clasps, letting it fall to the floor and kicked it off and away.

"How d'you want me, doll?" The lascivious smile had your skin heating up once again, but a pleasant thrum was going through your body now. Excitement that he was going along with what you wanted.

"S-sit on the edge of the bed. No, not like that, further out. Yea, now just.. hold on." You had him sit on the bed, and had him readjust until just his backside was on the bed and his legs spread just enough to help him keep balance and for you to fit between them while standing.

He was gazing at your face, hand coming up to remove his mask while he watched you shuffle around, disrobing quickly and then kneeling between his legs, hands gingerly resting on his knees.

A single brow quirked up. "This is what you've been wanting all this time, little fox?" He couldn't deny the sight of you licking your lips for a moment before leaning forward to place yourself fully between his legs didn't do something for him, but he was a bit surprised that this is what you'd been wanting.

You gave such a cute little nod, determination on your face. You didn't want to be denied this now that you were so close to getting what you wanted.

He hummed out, hand finding itself on the side of your face, cradling your whole head tenderly. "Well, I ain't gonna stop you, but just hold on a moment." He leaned back, reaching for something behind him before leaning forward again with one of the pillows in his hands. "Here, get up just a moment and use this. The floor ain't exactly soft. Don't want ya hurting yourself sweetheart."

You melted at his thoughtfulness and the use of one of the more tender pet names he liked to call you.

Obediently you stood so he could put the pillow down to cushion your knees, hands held together in front of you while you waited for him to lean back up again.

Once he was satisfied with it's placement, he sat up, spreading his knees wide enough for you to slip between them comfortably.

He enjoyed the sight of you gracefully kneeling so close, your hands on either thigh, looking up at him with adoration and anticipation. It wasn't something he ever thought he'd get to see.

"Look at you, little fox. You look ready to downright devour me." The lazy grin that followed had your own slight smirk appearing.

A giddy bit of delight lit you up when you noticed him hungrily staring while you licked your lips once more, hands sliding up his thigh to brush against his half hard member laying against his stomach.

The texture had you marveling at the silky smooth feel as you barely caressed it with your fingertips, a reverent look on your face as you now devoted all your attention to the rapidly hardening cock just in front of your face.

He gave a very low murmur of praise, barely breathing out a low rumble of "That feels nice, doll." as he fought the urge to let his head hang back. He wanted to watch you, see just what you had planned for him, how far you would go.

He stared, eyes fixated on your lips as you leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss at the underside of the tip, staying still for a moment, eyes closed in what appeared to be pure bliss to him. You caught him off guard when you slipped your tongue out to give a little kitten lick to the tip, sliding up to his slit and getting the barest hint of a taste of salt mixed with his musk.

The groan that slipped from him at that as his eyes clenched shut for half a moment before opening again and searching your face for any idea at what you were going to do next.

He was half worried you were just going to drag out this torturously slow pace since you had barely gripped him enough to bring the tip closer to your mouth.

His half-lidded gaze met your own as you planted another kiss directly to his head this time, a shuddering breath when you stuck your tongue out to lick a slow stripe from tip down the side to his base, leaving a small trail of wetness behind.

At least he didn't have to worry about teasing it seemed.

When you nuzzled against his balls his breath hitched, hands tightening in the blanket underneath him.

He was too enthralled to speak at this point, waiting for whatever you wanted to give him.

You gave each testicle their own little kiss, all while making hungry eye contact with him, hand slowly, languidly pumping his now pulsing member.

He gripped tighter when you licked a stripe back up to the tip, flicking it at the end and enjoying the rumbling almost growl that left him.

He lost the battle with keeping his head up and eyes open when you finally slipped the head of his cock past those perfect lips of yours, tongue swirling slowly around, getting it nice and wet before slowly pushing your head down, never breaking what would be eye contact once he pulled his head back up and opened his eyes.

He drew in a sharp breath as he felt you sinking him into your mouth, head almost spinning from the sensation after you had so expertly teased him before.

He snapped his eyes back open when he felt you keep going, taking more than half of his length already and showing no signs of stopping.

He leaned back up a bit, finally seeing the heated look you had on your face, your mouth almost painfully stretched on his girth.

You rewarded his gaze with a low moan, the vibrations making him almost lose his cool and buck his hips, but he just barely held back, the strain showing in every muscle of his suddenly flexing to keep him in place.

His left hand left the crumpled blanket, finding its way to the side of your face and gently pushing a strand of hair that had fallen in front of your face behind your ear. He ghosted his hand over the side of your head, almost petting you as he watched you keep taking him in, inch by inch.

He almost closed his eyes again when he felt your throat flex momentarily as you swallowed around more than two thirds of his length. He just barely managed to keep watching, completely at your mercy and you pushed yourself those last few bits to nestle your nose against the short bush of pubic hair he had.

A low, throaty "Fuck, you're so good baby." left his mouth, hand now making full contact with the side of your face and partly into your hair, just holding your face, not pushing you down.

His whole body was trembling just a bit, the effort he was exerting so he didn't buck his hips and potentially hurt you was enormous. The choked sound that left him when you swallowed around his whole length this time was plenty reward for you, well worth the burning in your lungs and threaten of tears pricking at your eyes.

You slowly pulled back until just his tip was in your mouth, hand coming back up from where it had moved to his thigh to steady yourself, wrapping around the base and slowly pumping up to the tip and back down to the base.

The room filled with the sound of you working him with your mouth and hands, tongue always rolling up to work the underside of his cock, leaving him to let out low groans every once in a while while you felt him twitch in your mouth and hands.

He was enjoying the attention, basking in you touch and how focused you seemed on his pleasure.

During a particularly quick press of your mouth down his length, he lost a bit of control and pressed your head into his crotch, feeling your throat tighten instinctively around him had him grunting and hips flexing as he gave the shallowest of thrusts.

He had barely gritted out a "Sorry, sweetheart" before he registered the absolutely lewd moan you'd let out at his actions, mouth still full of his length.

He didn't know what he'd done to deserve you, but he was thanking every star he had, lucky or not.

A breathless "Y'like that, doll?" left him, sounding more confused than anything else.

He watched closely as you pulled up and off him, a bit breathless yourself as you nodded eagerly and almost whimpered out a "Yes, daddy."

He hadn't ever heard you call him that before, but the look you had on your face and the way you had sounded did wonders in spurring him on.

A lazy grin split his face, head tilting ever so slightly as his grip became very present on your head, guiding you back to the tip as he coaxed you to take him back into your mouth.

"Mmmmm, yea. Just like that little fox. Take it all in again, do it for daddy." It rolled off his tongue easier than he expected it to, feeling at home in the situation.

And the high pitched moan as you pressed your face right up against his pelvis with his entire length inside your mouth was definitely a worthwhile bonus.

He watched as you almost went cross-eyed with pleasure, feeling your tongue do what little it could while he was fully seated inside.

He tugged gently at your hair, bringing you back up for a breath before pushing your head back down, gently guiding you to fuck your mouth on his length.

Honestly, he couldn't believe that this was something you were getting off to, but he was happy to oblige you. Watching his thick cock pump in and out of your swollen lips while you looked like you were in heaven was quite the sight.

You hadn't even gagged once, or caught him with your teeth. It's almost like you'd been carefully practicing taking something as thick as he was, but he'd never caught you doing anything naughty on your own. You'd always come to him when you were feeling needy, and he'd happily pinned you under him, giving you the pounding of a lifetime every time.

Maybe this slower pace was what had you so over the moon. He'd have to try that out later, pay more attention to what had you crying out for him. After all, it was the least he could do after everything that was going on right now.

Even though it hadn't been very long since you'd started, barely 10 minutes, he was nearing his climax. There was just something about the plush heat of your mouth and the noises you were making and the sheer intimacy you two were sharing that was already pushing him to the edge.

"God, baby. Just like that. Mmmm, yea, you feel so good on daddy's cock. You're such a good girl, y'know that?" His heated gaze watched as you almost unraveled on his cock from his praise, delighting in the whines that left you as you desperately pressed more and more of him into your mouth, taking control of the pace once more, quickening it in your own excitement.

Another low groan left him, his legs flexing hard as he felt the last of his self restraint slip away, seeing stars behind his eyes as they squeezed shut, a growled out "Fuck yea, baby girl, just like that, right... right there, oh FUCK" as the first jerk of his cock and rope of cum filled your mouth and had you whimpering and greedily hollowing your cheeks around his tip, milking him for all he had.

He let out a prolonged moan as you kept sucking softly through his whole orgasm. His hips bucked once, twice, then he was pulled at your hair just slightly to get you to pop off his sensitive head, his breathing jagged as he barely managed to keep his eyes on you to savor the sight of you pulling off of him, face flushed from a mix of lack of air and desire, with his seed still staining your tongue before you closed your mouth for a moment, and he saw your throat move with the swallow.

"Fuck that's hot, y/n." His hand came down to cradle your face in his palm once more, thumb swiping over your cheek once before he leaned forward and down to press a soft kiss against the crown of your head.

When he pulled back to look at you, there was fondness in all his features, a genuine smile on his face for once. "I think I oughta return the favor, since you were such a good girl for daddy." And with that, his smile had turned devious, his hands moving from your face to under your arms and lifting you into his lap, pressing a hungry kiss against your mouth before trailing to your jaw as he laid back with you straddling his hips.

The cheeky grin you were met with when he lifted you easily, dragging you up his torso until you were sitting on his chest.

"Mmm... you know, you left a nice little wet trail all along me, babydoll. Did doing that to me get you that excited?"

You were too turned on to truly feel embarrassed by his words, merely rubbing yourself against the broad expanse of his chest, letting out a loud mewl at finally getting some friction on your sensitive clit after being left for so long without attention.

He let out his own moan at the feeling of your slick leaving a smear across his pecs, excited at just how wet you had gotten from servicing him.

"Well, looks like someone's having a good time." The mirth in his voice was lost on you as you moaned from the vibrations they sent out.

"You poor thing, here. Let daddy take care of you, little fox. I know just what you need." he shifted you one last time, his brute strength sending the butterflies alight in your stomach and he move your thigh to either side of his shoulders, sitting you right on his mouth as that devilishly sharp tongue went to work right away at your most intimate parts.

Now that he knew this was something the both of you liked, he'd be taking advantage of this information any chance he got. After all, you really were such a good girl for your daddy, you deserved to be rewarded~.

[rainbowpacifiers]

Twin Kingdoms (A3! Event story) - Chapter 1

I started translating this because I haven’t seen anyone posting their translations yet, but if there is or if someone’s already working on it, please let me know. Please also let me know if you spot any mistakes. 

Index | Chapter 2

Izumi: It should be starting soon. Tsumugi: Are the rest of the working adults not going to make it? Omi: We're back. Chikage: Are we on time? Itaru: Don't tell me we missed it after paying for a taxi... Taichi: You just about made it! Sakuya: 'Fervent Islands' [1] is starting! TV: "A brilliant stage---behind the scenes, extraordinary efforts are being made." TV: "The theatre troupe GOD Troupe that boasts popularity on Veludo Way was established 26 years ago with its own private theatre." TV: "It became a large-scale troupe with its actors and technical staff adding up to more than 100 members." TV: "The one who put all of it together is this man - the chairman who founded the troupe, Kamikizaka Reni." Kazunari: There he is! TV: "Standing at the top of numerous actors is the highly anticipated young ace, Arakawa Shift." TV: "A boy of great ability, he was the fastest ever to have climbed to the top after joining." Azami: Pff, how funny. Kumon: It's cool! TV: "On the other side, we have the man playing the role of the co-lead, the troupe's biggest drawing card with plenty of experience, Asuka Haruto." Banri: So they're showing their rehearsals too. Tsumugi: That will be helpful. Kazunari: Their practice room is huge~. Misumi: You could have an athletic meet there! Reni: "Start again from the 2nd act." Haruto: "Yes!" TV: "With opening day drawing close, the mercy in Kamikizaka's guidance is dwindling." Izumi: Incredible... everyone's working so hard. Reni: "We were nominated for a prospective Fleur Award last year, but failed to win." Reni: "And there was also our defeat in the act-off. If we keep following our usual way of doing things, we won't be able to aim for the top." Reni: "As of now, GOD Troupe is in the midst of searching for a way to be reborn." TV: "GOD Troupe, who has attempted a new challenge." TV: "Up until now, the objective was decided through Kamikizaka's top-down approach, but this has changed to letting each actor think of/up an acting plan." TV: "Also, their attempt to broadcast their rehearsals via Instablam live, which was started with Arakawa's suggestion, has been well met by their fans too." Tasuku: You've changed, Reni-san... Izumi: (As Tasuku-san has said, I feel like they're different than before - in a good way.) Reni: "For a new attempt, I am thinking of collaborating with another theatre troupe." Izumi: -- Kazunari: It's here, it's here! Reni: "For the first time, I am considering asking actors of another troupe to join the main cast of our next play." Reni: "That's not a rarity among other theatre troupes, but for GOD Troupe, who values its troupe's own colour, it is a first." Reni: "The theatre troupe that will be our collaboration partner is--MANKAI COMPANY." Reni: "MANKAI Company is the troupe that emerged victorious from the act-off against our troupe before. GOD Troupe is larger in scale, but we acknowledge their ability." Reni: "On top of aiming for a new GOD Troupe, this should serve as a good stimulus." TV: "GOD Troupe that never stops walking. What lies ahead of their line of sight is the Fleur Award, the greatest authority in acting awards in Japan."

Kazunari: Oooh! MANKAI Company on a national network! Sakyo: This will be even better publicity than expected. Taichi: His eyes turned into yen currency symbols ¥! Homare: What was it like, looking into your former home's present condition? Tasuku: There were lots of familiar faces. The behind the scenes staff has hardly changed. Kazunari: Wow! It's totally trending! Banri: Seriously? The trends are mostly related to "Fervent Islands". Kumon: Shift will become even more famous...! Itaru: MANKAI Company is provoking reactions too. Kazunari: We're being looked up because of the collab partner thing. Sakyo: Having our troupe's name dropped on national television was huge. Izumi: GOD Troupe has a lot of appearances in the media, so they're widely known throughout the country... Izumi: For us, something like being mentioned on a national network is rare. Izumi: (I'm honestly thankful...)

Izumi: You said you'd support us in our endeavour to win the Fleur Award, right? Izumi: Of course, we will give it our all to increase MANKAI Company's popularity too... Izumi: With your connections, won't you invite the board of directors to our play? [1] Reni: This shamelessness-- Yuzo: Just like Yukio-san, right? Reni: Exactly like him. Reni: I'll give it a try. But anything beyond that depends on you guys. Izumi: Thank you very much!

Izumi: (In the first place, he suggested the collaboration performance because it might be difficult to suddenly call them to MANKAI Company's play.) Izumi: (If it's a collaboration play with GOD Troupe, chances are high that the board of directors will come to watch.) Izumi: (And from that, we might be able to pique their interest in MANKAI Company...) Izumi: (Frankly, I'm a little scared of what kind of judgement they will pass, but we can't afford to let this chance go to waste.) Izumi: (We definitely have to make this a success and gain a foothold in the Fleur Awards!)

Narration: "GOD Troupe that never stops walking. What lies ahead of their line of sight is the Fleur Award, the greatest authority in acting awards in Japan." Haruto: ...Fuu. Haruto: (It was good publicity for GOD Troupe, and my treatment wasn't bad either. Not too bad.) Haruto: (Let's head to bed early today...) Haruto: ?

Shift: ‘Holy crap! My first TV appearance!’ Madoka: ‘You two came out really cool.’

Haruto: (Maybe I can just reply tomorrow...) Haruto: (How persistent...)

Sakochin: 'Gen-chan, saw ya on TV! Amazin'! Work hard!'

Haruto: Sakochin...

Haruto: 'Thanks! But 's not a big deal. Ain't the top yet.' Sakochin: 'It's plenty amazin'. Are ya comin' home this year?'

Haruto: -- Haruto: ...Ah can' go back yet. Haruto: (Since I moved to the capital, I haven't returned home even once. My home town must have changed quite a bit too.) Haruto: (Since I joined GOD Troupe, I endured practice like hell and somehow managed to go up the ladder and climbed to the top once, but...) Haruto: ..... Haruto: (I can't go home yet.) Haruto: (But it is for this reason that I will definitely make the collaboration play with those guys--)

_____________________

[1] I don’t know if that is a reference to an existing programme or something else...

[2] Possibly just 1 director. 

Index | Chapter 2

[yyxy-seph]

FF7 DEBATE CLUB : Part 1

Disclaimer: This was inspired by my “WHAT TYPE OF STUDENTS WOULD THE FFVII CHARACTERS BE IN SCHOOL??” Posts. For more context, you can go read those if you like! I hope you all enjoy and my inbox is always open! Feel free to request imagines and tell me your thoughts on things.

I hope you enjoy @birdblacksocialclub !! :)

_____________

The defensive members gradually collected in the empty, dry classroom that’d soon feature all types of dilly-dallying and possible throat-clutching arguments. The first attendant was a young and drowsy Sephiroth. He remained punctual with every meeting and never failed at being the first to enter the room. A quality Genesis truly despised, as he felt HE was the main event and Seph’s early-bird tendencies were outshining his presence. Thus, it was another reason for Sephiroth to stay on his game.

Non-Ironically, Genesis made his appearance with a raised chin and firm shoulders, the usual, confident stance.

“Well, hello there.” He began.

“Genesis...” Seph returned the greeting.

“It’s unfortunate that you’re here first, like always, but If it’s the Goddess’s will, I’ll live with it.”

“As you should.”

Genesis’s eyebrow twitched in slight irritation but he carried on, seating himself behind Sephiroth.

A tensioned silence resonated in the room for a while.

“Hmm, you’re quite soundless today.” Gen finally spoke again.

“Just as you are loveless.”

A tiny smirk flared from the red-head’s lips.

“You know me too well. It seems you’ve figured I’ve picked the topic for today’s discussion, hmm?”

“Again, the topic is not up to you. It’s up to our instructor. And Genesis, even a deaf man would know you’re up to no good.” He spoke, throwing his silver locks behind his shoulder.

“Dammit. What did I tell you about that!” Genesis yelled, moving Sephiroth’s hair off of his desk. “I might just cut it and leave you bald for school the next morning.”

A chuckle fell from Seph’s lips.

The door creaked with an ear-splitting noise, signaling the arrival of their teacher. He settled his books on the dumbapple-colored desk. And with a clear of the throat, he said

“Genesis and Sephiroth...man, am I glad to see you two. You two are my fiercest competitors, keeping this club alive. Like really, I’d call for the Shinra helicopters if you two were to resign.”

Slightly concerned gazes held the boys’ faces.

“Hah, Just kidding! You should’ve saw your guys’ faces!”

Sephiroth spoke to relieve the weird situation.

“Yeah...anyway, Reno, I was just gonna say....I’m not really-“

Just then, Cloud Strife appeared; another fierce competitor.

“-feeling it today- you know what. Nevermind!”

Cloud sat two seats away from Sephiroth in the same row.

Best believe, the Nibelheim boys are always going head-to-head in Debate Club. Outside of club, they’re quite peaceful and social. But when school work has already worn them out for the day and there is added passion for the premise of their arguments, things get pretty tense.

“Good Afternoon, Cloud.”

“Not today, Sephiroth.” He replied, not even looking over at him.

Genesis leaned over his desk to whisper in Sephiroth’s ear.

“If he’s a puppet, you’re the ventriloquist.”

The silver boy rolled his eyes with an attractive smile. “Very well.”

“That’s the spirit!” Gen said.

Truth is, Genesis loves the drama that comes with Debate club. That’s why he’s the self-proclaimed drama king. He only wanted to hype Seph up so he could push past his drowsiness and argue with him and Cloud.

More students began filling up the room, but not too much. There we only like 12 members that engaged in this weekly mess.

Zack, Angeal, and Aerith snuck in as well to get a taste of the tea for today.

Zack is actually in a language club. It was an impulse decision for what he described as “broadening his horizons”. He said it’d probably be a good thing for him to learn French in case of a future mission he’d have in his dream spot as a first-class SOLDIER.

Angeal was also in a Spanish learning club. And as expected, he exceeds at it. His intermediate level and sexy accent grabs everybody’s heart in a way they’ve never felt before. No, seriously, people have swooned and fainted before. But he joins occasionally to save himself from the after school bickering.

And in Aerith’s case, Yoga club was cancelled for the day so she just decided to join and sit with her friends.

Their (somehow hired) teacher Reno began class promptly.

“Alright, everybody. I have a gratifying topic for you all today. It’s so temper-inducing that your brain won’t be able to handle it.”

“My brain can’t take this shit as it is”. Cloud mumbled under his breath, earning a few laughs.

“What was that, Mr. Stife??” he questioned furiously.

“I see you’re living up to your last name. Save it for the subject!”

He carried on.

“The subject is-“

“I have the PERFECT topic!” Genesis interrupted.

“I- did I ask for your input, Genesis??”

The drama king fluttered his eyelashes. “No, yet you always receive it, don’t you?”

Reno sighed. “Look, is it LOVELESS again?

“No.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“Is Vincent Valentine, the former Turk, a hero or an Incompetent-

“Alright, we’ll have none of that. No shaming of the turks is permitted.” Reno cut him off.

“Anyways, my topic was “Should Shinra continue to experiment on future SOLDIERs to give them superhuman abilities or should they train them as natural human beings?””

“Sounds like a good topic to me.” Cloud responded.

“Same,” Angeal joined in “This seems like a topic where I won’t have too much trouble trying to pull these three from each other’s throats.

“Good, before we begin, don’t forget the rules! All weapons and devices should be in the weapon closet which I see most of you HAVEN’T DONE!”

At the mention of the said closet, everybody directed their attention to it. It had various scratches and dents, complimenting it’s dusty tone. And how could we forget the sizable hole on top of it. It emerged the moment Sephiroth tried shoving his masamune in the closet. Yeah, never again.

Everyone exited their desks, one by one, placing their weapons in the closet.

“Hey, what about your tasing rod, Reno?” Zack asked.

“I’m the teacher. I can do as I please, thank you.” He answered, classically.

“And don’t forget, we need an equal amount of girls and boys on each side. Too much testosterone on one side can cause hands being thrown as we’ve seen from previous experiences.”

“Umm I know I’m not really in this club and all but us girls can equally throw hands just for the fact that there are NO female SOLDIERs.” Aerith added.

“Fair point. You must join this conversation.” Sephiroth agreed.

“That’s my girl!” Zack praised while giving his girlfriend a quick peck on the cheek.

Reno let each of the students pick a side and then he split them into two groups.

“Everybody ready??”

“Yes!”

To Be Continued...

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

More Than Allies

Prompt: If you ever consider writing for the Sweetheart AU again (it's completely ok if not) I'd love love love to see a time where Frisk was the one to comfort Sans by being their pure, adorable self; there's just something lovely to me about the thought of Frisk realising Sans is sad and knowing exactly how to help him - anon

DISCLAIMER: This is part of a Flowerfell!AU I've got on my Ao3. I'm not posting the rest of them on here because that would take too much time and I ain't about to clog up y'all's dashes with that shit. SO imma link to this work AND the series on Ao3 so y'all know where this fits

Read THIS on Ao3

Sweetheart series

Warnings: this is a flowerfell!au, where Frisk has flowers growing out of them, so slight warning for body horror but nothing graphic

Pairings: all gen

Word Count: 1650

Patching up wounds is one thing. So is keeping someone alive.

But making them happy?

Whoever invented the concept of snow seriously needed their head dunked in a bucket of the stuff. For at least a day. When they could deal with having cold shit shoved into places it shouldn’t be shoved for hours on end, then they could say that they made a good decision.

Sans continues to grumble to himself as he trudges back through Snowdin. Grillby’s place isn’t inconspicuous enough right now, seeing as he just spent most of the night there looking after the child.

“…you better be keeping ‘em alive in there,” Sans mutters, turning the corner to make it to the edge of the town, “or else i swear, grillbz…”

He doesn’t bother finishing the threat. He knows the fire monster would burn the entire fucking town to the ground before letting harm come to someone under his protection. Hell, Sans has seen that explosive rage once or twice. He’s not very keen on seeing it again, especially not if he’s on the wrong side of it.

As he walks, his hand finds its way into his pocket, absentmindedly fiddling with one of the bandaid wrappers.

Shit.

He swerves around one of the icebergs—flipping off the wolf as he did so, he received a threatening snarl for his troubles—and hustles down the path in the bottom of Waterfall. The mushrooms blink innocently as he tromps down the path, finally making it to Temmie Village.

One of the Temmies looks up at him and snarls.

“yeah, yeah,” Sans grumbles, “i just got business with the shop. keep your temmie flakes in order.”

Luckily the Temmies still seem to hate the red glow of his eye. The rest of them part easily as he strides into the shop. The cardboard box hiding the real shop front is still soggy and mold-eaten, much like the Temmie behind it. It glowers at him as he pulls out the payment.

“wouldn’t kill you to keep it a little less decrepit.” He glances around at the artfully arranged trophies on the walls. “though it might make it harder to excuse not cleaning your shit.”

The Temmie just glares at him. Sans shrugs, the absence of the child cold at his side.

“just sayin’.”

The Temmie grumbles something Sans doesn’t understand as it puts the package on the counter. Sans nods and turns to go, thanks forgone. He’d paid. And the Temmies tended to get word after dark anyway, so he’s better off just hurrying back to the child.

‘Child.’ Yeesh, he sounds so fucking formal.

Well, Sans thinks as he scrambles into the cave and restocks the first-aid kit, death does have a way of making things sound really fucking formal.

The kid could’ve died.

Yeah, yeah, he fucking knows, they’ve died too many fucking times already. The flowers aren’t going away any time soon and they’re hurting. But that’s different. It’s different watching them die.

Sans growls as he forces one of the long gauze strips into the plastic box. The hinges wheeze and groan in protest as he finally jams the thing shut again and stuffs it under his coat. He��s been away too long. He’s out of practice.

Not at killing motherfuckers, no, he’s got that down pat. But caring.

Shit, is he even doing this right? The kid’s practically glued to his side day in and day out, partially at his bidding but mostly because the kid just decided his hoodie is perfect to cling to. It’s no different than that damn stick they won’t fucking leave behind. It’s like another limb or something.

…and he would be lying if he said the kid didn’t feel like another limb too.

Sans grits his teeth as he makes it to the shortcut chamber. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps out a quick message.

me: package in tow

hothead: Too many customers wait for 22h00

Sans sighs and slumps back down. There are just not enough hours in the goddamn day, apparently. He’s got a bone to pick with whoever invented time keeping the way it is too. Seriously. Sometimes it really got under his non-existent skin.

“time is fake,” he grumbles to himself, hand going to his pocket again, “so fake.”

He has to stifle a wince when the expected tug on his sleeve doesn’t come.

When did he get so fucking attached?

…okay, listen, when a kid growing fucking flowers out of them decides they’re your friend now, they’re your friend now. Sans doesn’t make the fucking rules, he just follows them.

That doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

The kid seems to remember what happens when they die. They always come back looking a little different—more flowers—but they seem to know what’s going on. Of course, that doesn’t mean Sans always knows what’s going on, but he knows enough to recognize the way they seem a little more sure of themselves. Which is good; that means they won’t be walking defenseless into any big shit storm, but that also means that if he fucks up, they’ll remember.

That’s the part he’s worried about.

He’s been doing okay…hasn’t he? He remembers they like Echo Flowers, they like the quiet burble of Waterfall, he always keeps an extra blanket at his Sentry stations, he keeps them the fuck away from his brother, and they…they like his voice.

He talks to them when he can. They seem to like being able to hold onto him—which, okay, he gets. He can’t imagine not being able to see anything, much less be a kid and have to rely completely on someone who might just kill you.

Unbidden, a bone forms in his hand. He growls and puts it away.

No. Never.

A buzz from his pocket startles him out of his thoughts. Grillby informs him he’s good to come over and he doesn’t waste another second before teleporting straight to the fire monster’s backdoor.

“Good,” Grillby mutters, already striding upstairs, “they’re almost awake.”

“any changes in their condition?”

“They’re almost healed. They’ll make a full recovery. Well…” Grillby trails off as he sits back down in the chair. “Except for…”

Grillby doesn’t need to finish. Sans’s SOUL clenches as he looks at the kid lying on the couch. They look so…so…

…fragile.

The flowers haven’t grown anymore, at least not that he can see. As he watches, a few of the petals catch the very edge of Grillby’s flames and the purple light makes them look almost white.

“how long’ve they been asleep now,” he mutters, “twelve hours?”

“Nearly.”

Sans mutters a curse and scratches the back of his skull. If they don’t wake up soon…

No sooner does the thought cross his mind—and get swatted away with the force of a blaster—the kid starts to shift on the couch.

“easy, sweetheart,” he says, worry growing in the pit of his chest as he watches them shift, “hey, kid. kid.”

“They’re having a nightmare?”

Sans bites back another curse and rushes forward. “hey, hey, sweetheart, it’s alright, i’m here.”

As soon as he gets closer, his chest starts to glow a soft white. Grillby stifles a noise of surprise as the kid reaches up for him, wrapping their hands around the lapels of his hoodie and pulling. Sans eases himself down onto the floor next to the couch and lets them bury their face in the fluffy lining of the hood.

“Shh, shh, sweetheart,” he rumbles, his hand coming up to steady them, ��it’s okay, nothing’s gonna hurt you, ’s just me and grillbz here, we ain’t going anywhere.”

There’s a soft sigh against his clavicle and then clumsy signs appear in front of his sockets.

“you want me to talk to you, sweetheart?” A little nod. “uh, okay. there’s a, uh, a new cave in waterfall we should check out.”

Their little hands settle in his hoodie as he murmurs to them, their head starting to loll against his shoulder. He hears Grillby stand up and come over as well, hushing the kid’s confusion with a quick explanation that it’s okay, they won’t be hurt, Grillby just needs to check their wound.

The kid just tugs on their sleeve. They butt their head lightly against Sans’s and slowly reach out.

“what, you wanna hold my hand, kid?” Fingers twine with his. “okay, then.”

Grillby chuckles over his shoulder only for it to choke off when the kid grabs for his hand too.

Sans laughs. “guess you’re stuck now too.”

“…worse fates I can imagine.”

There’s another little tug on his SOUL. He frowns, looking back at the kid’s face, only to see their head aimed at the spot on his chest where his SOUL would appear. Then they lean forward and—

“Wow,” Grillby chuckles again, “you’re in this bad.”

Sans, cheeks still warm and bright red from the kiss pressed to his forehead, just stares. The kid seems to be satisfied with the light mortification they’ve just caused. Nodding proudly to themselves, they settle back on the couch. One hand firmly in Sans’s, one hand in Grillby’s. Without being prompted, Sans cards his free hand through their hair, smiling as they let out a hushed sigh, head flopping back onto the pillow.

“They trust you,” Grillby says, something like awe in his voice, “they really trust you.”

“…seems so.”

And yet, even though Sans will readily admit he has no idea what he’s doing still, he wouldn’t give it up for all the hot dogs in the multiverse.

[wincestisasincest]

The Green Book (Thorin’s Company x Reader, Part 3)

Hey gang! Wow, it has been a long time. I actually had the draft on my desk top for a really long time and just never got around to post it, because my life has been really crazy, but she’s back! I’ve already started the draft for the fourth chapter, so ready yourselves! Thanks so much for your patience : ). 

Summary: (Y/n) falls into Middle Earth. Shocker. Somehow, she gets recruited to join a party of dwarves on their kinda crazy mission to reclaim their home of Erebor.

Part: 1, 2, 3

Tags (let me know if you want to be added to the list!): @stuckupstucky, @dianaarelyfernandezgarza97, @alexloveskili

Words: 2188

Warnings: None I think...? I mean (y/n) is kinda a pussy in this chapter and Thorin is... himself so just be aware of that

Finally gaining my footing, I drew myself to my feet and regained my surroundings in the middle of the hazy afternoon. 

I used the reflection on the phone to observe myself. My (h/c) hair was an absolute tangled mess, with leaves, small twigs, and even a few pebbles here and there. I mussed it with my hand before lightly parting it, like I would do every morning. Of course, I still looked terrible, but something about fixing hair always makes people feel better.

I looked at my chin, where a massive bruise had planted itself, no doubt from the rather aggressive pushing and shoving from the trolls. Additionally, my legs and arms had been littered with small cuts and bruises that had just now begun to sting and make themselves noticed. Great. 

The next order of business was to find the Company. Admittedly, I was highly uncomfortable with the idea of meddling in a familiar tale. I touched on it earlier, but, reader, the tales of Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Gray, and all of their adventures in reclaiming Erebor were, in fact, very common tales from where I come from. So common that they are read aloud to children every night. However, no one actually believed them to be true, for dwarves, hobbits, and wizards, along with every race except human, do not exist in the world where I come from. 

I would expand on this further, but I imagine that whoever reading this has many of the same questions as my dwarf companions will ask later in these many tales, so do be patient. 

While we are taught as children that it is bad practice to mess around with things that are already set in stone, we are also taught that cops are good and that “because” is a valid reason for anything, so I ignored that advice. 

They may be my only chance to ever see civilization again. 

Catching up with them was very easy, as, while they are quite business oriented, they travel very slowly. They had spent a long time searching in the caves of the trolls that had been killed earlier, and even longer packing and preparing for the journey ahead. Dwarves are tough, that’s for sure, but they are also very methodical, and do not like to be interrupted when they have already begun something. 

Like a stalker (which I guess I technically was), I peaked out at their company from behind a tree, wondering when exactly my entrance should be made. They were apparently wondering something similar. 

“I say we should look for ‘er.” Fili posited.

“I second the lad.” Dwalin piped up. Oh dear, that dwarf was so intimidating up close. Even though I was noticeably taller than him, he could take me out with a single swing of his axe, no questions axed asked. 

“If she wanted our help, she would’ve come back and gotten it by now.” Nori remarked, to which Thorin sternly nodded. He was right. I did need their help, and I was back to get it. Gold digger life. (A/N I’m so sorry for removing the immersion, I would just like to apologize for all of the Gen Z shitposting in this. Feel free to tell me to knock it off.) 

Gandalf and Bilbo were there. It was a moment I recognized, when Gandalf introduced Bilbo to his now famous blade, Sting. I realized in that moment that literally any point in which I decided to emerge would be interrupting something. I quickly swallowed my pride and decided to reveal myself. 

“Uh, hi! I’m back.” I had absolutely no idea what to say. They all turned to face me, though at this point I was used to being gawked at. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel a little bit dizzy, though. 

I waved awkwardly, supporting my red canvas backpack over my shoulder. No one was saying anything. 

Gandalf lifted his every curious head up and eagle-eyed me from across the clearing. 

“Miss (Y/n)! So you have decided to join us.” It felt supremely unnatural to have him say my name. He crossed the way to approach me, leaving a rather disconcerted hobbit in the dust. 

“Uh… yeah. I guess I have.” 

“Wonderful! However, I’m afraid that I only offer my acquaintanceship to ladies whom I know more than their name. After all, it is only fair, since I’m sure you know mine?” No one bothered to interrupt the wizard, who, if I wasn’t mistaken, was doing the same thing to me that he did when he first met Bilbo outside of his hobbit hole. 

“Ummm, yeah, you’re Gandalf the Gray. And I guess, uh,” I breathed in deeply, realizing that, whether I tell the truth or lie, I’m going to sound extremely pathetic, “I’m (f/n) (l/n), but you can just call me (f/n). Uh, I’m human, I guess, and um, I don’t really know where I am right now. I’m kinda lost, I guess.”  

“Where do you hail from?” Damnit, damnit, I had no idea how to answer this.

“Ummm… really not from here. Like, so far that you probably haven’t heard of it.” His expression deepened a little bit. He was not playing as much as he pretended to. A somewhat scary reminder of the actual investment in the protection of his friends that it was easy to forget that he had.

“Try me.” 

“(Hometown name).” I answered back, with a fair amount of fake confidence. He furrowed his brow and pondered slightly, while everyone else remained completely puzzled. Of course, they had never heard of my hometown either, but the were far less travelled then Gandalf, and simply resolved to not seem outwardly ignorant. 

“You’re right, I suppose. I never have been there,” he paused, and no one surrounding him, myself included, was exactly sure what that pause meant, “But, how does one from the mysterious land of (hometown name) get so far from it?” 

“I’m not sure. I truly have no idea how I got to this place. One day it was life like any other, and the next thing I know I had woken up about to be eaten by a troll. I swear, I don’t know.” I added that last part, because I was serious, even if it sounded like I was completely making it up as I went a long, and doing a very poor job at that. 

“No need for swearing, I believe you.” 

“Well, I do not.” Thorin Oakenshield entered the ring.

“She wasn’t talking to you, dear Thorin.” Gandalf may appear spacy at times, but his sharp wit never left his side. 

“No, that is true, though perhaps she should’ve been, considering that I am the leader of this company.” I found it strange that, though he was arguing about me, Thorin had not yet dared to look me in the eye. 

“A leader who was too afraid to approach a frightened young girl alone in the forest?” My face twisted into a bit of a displeased expression. I thought I had hidden my fright well enough, and I was practically an adult. 

“She appeared far from frightened. While you were not there to see it, she was the one who confronted the troll head on, even when he was threatening her. And that thing that she can do with her eyes! I do not believe that she is as innocent as she appears.”

“Perhaps then, dear Thorin, all the more reason to have her accompany us for some time being. Perhaps,” he turned to me briefly before returning to the conversation, “we shall discover some more hidden skills that may be of surprising use.” 

I’d never felt so painfully passive in my entire life, just watching two people argue about what was to happen to me while pretending like I wasn’t even there. Did I even want to accompany them? To this point, I just wanted to go with them to Elrond’s house and then see if there is any aid there. Of course, it helped that Elrond’s house is basically an all-expenses-paid vacation, and particularly accommodating to lost souls. 

It became frighteningly clear that whatever separate visions they had of what was to become of me in their mind, neither of them were what I wanted.

“Are ye hungry, lass?” A finger poked my side. It was Bofur, a slightly more comforting sight. Though the two continued their bickering in the background, I diverted myself from the conversation slightly to face him.  

“Um, no, I think I’m okay, I-“ my stomach growled. 

Bofur smiled understandingly. 

“Well, we got lots o’ food if y’ever change your mind.” 

“Mahal, where did you get that?!” Kili yelled from the side. It appeared that I was now up for grabs by anyone who wanted to talk to me, as Thorin and Gandalf walked off. 

“What?” 

“That!” Kili pointed a finger at my chin, which I stroked thoughtfully, realizing that he was taking note of my large, now splotchy bruise that almost appeared to be a poorly shaved five o’clock shadow. 

“Oh, this? It was from the troll, I think. It wasn’t there before.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully again before giving him something of a lopsided smile. He appeared quite amused at the concept of large bruises. 

“Lad, it’s considered polite to introduce yerself before askin’ a lass about ‘er wounds.” Balin remarked from the side, winking at me thoughtfully.

“Ah, yeah. Apologies. I’m Kili, at your service, miss!” He playfully bowed. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I already knew all of their names, so I just passively watched as the introduction ritual took place, feigning mental notes as though it would be a struggle for me to recall them later. 

I “met” Fili next, as he always tried to one up Kili with the showmanship, then Bofur, who introduced his family, Bifur and Bombur. Dwalin and Balin respectfully bowed, which felt way more gratifying than it should. Dori, Nori, and Ori introduced themselves together, followed by Oin and Gloin. Finally, the smallest member, Bilbo, appeared to have the most practiced bow, and politely introduced himself. I nodded. 

“(F/n) (l/n) at yours.” I recalled the response to the standard greeting from the book, while doing a mock curtsey. I was still wearing jeans. 

“I have to admit, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a lass, or anyone for that matter, in these woods.” Balin chatted curiously. 

“I can only guess as to why.” The sarcasm was the first thing that I had felt natural saying in a while. 

“Perhaps the giant trolls?” Ah, yes. Sarcasm was something that the dwarves were not yet used to. I nodded at let it pass. 

The group held their breath and Gandalf and Thorin returned, a tacit agreement among them to let Thorin do the talking. He stepped forward.

“Very well, (y/n) of (hometown name). You will be permitted to travel with our Company until you may be returned to some area of safety, though I must warn you against doing anything that may inhibit our quest.” 

I nodded, silently agreeing to the terms that had been placed before me. He grunted, and returned to packing for the journey ahead. 

“You must tell me more about this (hometown name) when you get the chance, Miss (y/n).” Gandalf added. 

“I’d be glad to.” I smiled, lying through my teeth. Part of me wanted to begin planning for when I would eventually have to lie about where I came from, but the other part of me simply had no idea what to anticipate. 

I recalled my red canvas backpack, knowing that it was filled with things so far from this time that it would be disastrous if they got in the hands of any of my travelling companions, even someone as wise as Gandalf. I recalled my familiarity with their tales, knowing that, no matter how honest I was, I could not reveal to them that I knew the end. I recalled the death of Thorin, Fili, and Kili, the abuse of Bilbo, the psychological torture of Thranduil, and everything unfortunate in between. 

Perhaps I was better off dying in the forest alone. 

“Miss (y/n), you may walk with me if you like? We are both quite out of place in this company.” Bilbo cautiously approached me, his small voice easier to focus on as the rest of the Company began to leave me alone to pack for the time being.

“I would be honored, though I’m afraid I am not a terribly experienced traveler.”  

“Then we shall make fine company, Miss (y/n).” 

“Oh, you can just call me (y/n), no ‘Miss’ needed.” 

He appeared somewhat startled, and on the verge of insulted. 

“Oh, no, no, it’s just that the ‘Miss’ isn’t very common where I come from. I didn’t mean anything by it.” I hastily added, trying to fix whatever mess I had started. 

“You really do come from far, don’t you?” Now he seemed to be observing me. I nodded. 

“Yes. It’s going to be a long way back.”

***********

So we finally start the shenanigans, though I must warn you that this is only getting started. As always, feel free to shoot me ideas as to what (y/n) has, or perhaps even a pairing. I’m considering also making this one a choose-your-own-adventure in terms of pairings, but that would take a lot more work, so if y’all have a specific one let me know and I can just write that!

[princessjungeun]

Overnight Sensation: Chungha x Reader

hii! can i request a chungha scenario where her s/o debuts as a soloist that blows up over night?

Your debut stage was in a few hours and you couldn’t believe it. The nerves were getting to you more than ever, you couldn’t eat anything and you only got sleep because your girlfriend forced you to take a sleep aid. As excited as you were, you were also scared something would happen last minute. As every idol knows, nothing is final until you’re on that debut stage. It doesn’t matter if the song is recorded, music video filmed, or social media announcements made. Absolutely nothing means your debut is secured until you are onstage performing.

You felt a hand on your back, “come on babe, get dressed we have to go.” Chungha stood in front of you, dressed like a lazy college student. An oversized t shirt that was definitely yours, a pair of sweatpants, and sneakers. Her hair was in a messy bun with her glasses were sliding off her nose, and a mask covering half her face.

You asked her “why so early? My manager said she’d come get me at 9...it’s 7.” She responded “just trust me, let’s go let’s go!” You sighed and gave in knowing she was probably right. After all she’d already debuted, two times at that.

Sure enough, Chungha was right. Leaving earlier was better because the venue of your debut stage was farther than your manager though. You ended up getting there around 10 am, your managers were just going to meet you there.

You debut stage started at 7 pm but you had to run through multiple dance rehearsals, a sound check, interview prep, photo prep, makeup, hair, and your own personal vocal and dance warm ups. In addition to this you also wanted to check in with your dancers making sure they were fine as well. They were all trainees as well as a few professionals mixed in, but more importantly they were your friends too.

Your girlfriend walked with you to your large dressing room. She set down the gigantic bag that was in her hand. You asked “Jagi what is all of this?” She responded “your weighted heated blanket, your favorite snacks, a lot of water, extra clothes for when you’re done, your massage ball, slides, and pain killers.” You sat down and put on your slides as she handed them over, taking your sneakers in return.

•

•

•

As soon as your team got to the venue, all hell broke loose. You had people running around left and right shouting in Korean, Japanese, and English. You’d already done three dance rehearsals without your costume on, and two with it on. Your feet were killing you and your body ached, and it was only 11 am.

The first sound check was terrible, and you just wanted to go home and go back to sleep. As you danced your IEMs flew out and you couldn’t hear anything, making it hard to perform. You tried your best but had to redo it two more times.

Coming back to the room Chungha saw your discouraged face. She waved off your team who immediately were ready to point you to another task. “Baby whats wrong?” She asked you, her voice full of concern.

In that moment everything just became too much and you broke down in tears. Chungha immediately pulled you into a corner and shooed everyone else away. Holding you in her arms she did her best to calm you down. “Shhh baby it’s ok just breathe and tell me what’s wrong. It’s ok I’m right here. I’ll fix it just tell me the problem” She calmly spoke to you while running circles on your back.

Once your tears subsided you told her “this is too much...I can’t. My custom in ears haven’t come yet so i’m using ones that are too big and they keep coming out while i’m dancing. I’m so tired and my body hurts so much. I don’t even know what i’m doing...why did I want this?”

Your girlfriend’s heart broke upon hearing you, but she knew exactly what to say. “Jagiya look at me” She pushed your head up with her thumb. “You have worked so hard for this. Day and night, for years. You’ve watched your friends debut and you want the same thing, it’s right here all you have to do is just go through with it. I know you can do it ok?” You nodded and she kissed you gently on the lips.

She continued “and I’ll get you time to sleep ok? I just need you to get through about ten more minutes then you can sleep. And i’ll have them tape your in ears so they don’t fall out ok? Every problem has a solution Jagi, it’s gonna be fine.” She kissed you again and got up to talk to your managers.

When she csme back she told you “ok you have 90 minutes to yourself ok? Now lay down and let me massage your legs and back ok?” You let her do as she said and you definitely were starting to feel better. She gave you a few pain killers as well to help with your body aches. Then she laid down with you and pulled you into her arms. You tugged the blanket out of the gigantic bag she brought you earlier, and laid it over you. Within minutes you were sleeping soundly against your girlfriend.

When you woke up Chungha’s arms were still wrapped around you. She kissed the top of your head and said “feel better my love?” You nodded and she said “ok good, you have to get changed again and your makeup done.”

Your stylist gave you your outfit and helped you change into it quickly. The hair stylist didn’t take long with your hair but makeup was different. Your makeup artist was in fact a perfectionist so she took a little extra time paying attention to details.

After preparing for interview questions and pictures, you were able to sit down and relax for a few minutes before you had to go onstage. Chungha attached your mic pack onto your back and made sure your IEMs were securely taped so they couldn’t fall out.

Before heading to perform she pulled you aside, she knew you were nervous and trying to cover it up. “Hey don’t be nervous jagi, you’ll do amazing ok?” She could still read doubt all over your face “Y/N. You have worked so hard for this. Go and enjoy it ok? Smile for me, you’re prettiest when you smile.” She kissed you lips softly before pushing you away towards the stage.

•

•

•

After several hours your debut showcase was finally over. It went extremely well and you were really happy with how everything turned out. As you ran off stage your entire team applauded you and cheered. You felt relieved but you knew this was just the beginning of a new chapter of your life.

You thanked your team and took pictures with your dancers so you could post on SNS later, but right now all you wanted to do was sleep

You ran into Chungha’s arms and she held you close. She kissed you all over your face, telling you how well you did and how beautiful you look. She went to help you change and pack up so you two could go home.

•

•

•

As soon as you make it to your bedroom you collapse onto your bed. Chungha helped you get undressed and into the shower, while she set up the bed so you can sleep. She also took time to scroll through SNS to see what people are saying, so far it’s overwhelmingly positive.

When you came back from the shower she patted the bed and you didn’t hesitate to climb in. She kissed you softly before getting up to quickly brush her teeth and do skincare. When she returned you sleepily smiled to her.

“Whats gotten into you?” She poked you playfully. You responded “i have the most beautiful girlfriend ever...” She laughed and pushed your shoulder lightly “oh stop it you big cheeseball. You’re tired and goofy.”

This time she was the one curling into your body. She whispered “i’m so proud of you Y/N, just wait until tomorrow. Your name will be everywhere.” You replied “goodnight baby i love you, thank you for everything today.” She responded “always.”

•

•

•

When you woke up the next morning Chungha was still asleep, her soft snores filling the room. You picked up your phone and saw you had over 100 notifications. Your manager had been texting you for a few hours, friends, family, everyone you knew was telling you to look up your name online.

You hoped to dear god that it was nothing bad but upon reading the first headline you were relieved. Headline after headline, article after article, post after post, everything was extremely positive.

You woke up your girlfriend and she sleepily looked at your phone. She grabbed her glasses from the nightstand on her side and looked again. Her eyes widened and she threw herself on top of you.

“Oh baby i’m so proud of you! Wow oh my gosh!” She happily shouted. You couldn’t believe your music video had millions of views already, your debut showcase was one of the most watched in soloist history, let alone 4th gen history.

Chungha let you lay back in her arms as she played with your hair. “So...hows it feel to be an overnight sensation?” She asked you curiously with a smile. You felt your cheeks warm up and you laughed “really good...it feels amazing.”

[jackdawyt]

We’ve finally reached the moment my channel was created for, BioWare officially revealed a brand-new behind the scenes trailer that showcased many gameplay prototypes, concept artwork pieces and next-gen footage that each demonstrate Dragon Age 4’s current production stages, building an overall mood of the game’s vision and direction. And it’s just the best thing to come out of this year.  

Saria and myself have already broken down the trailer’s concept art, and gameplay shots in an incredible 45-minute video, that you need to check out if you’re remotely interested in the next Dragon Age game.

However, today I’m delving into every single piece of information that surrounds this new trailer, as we’ve got plenty of news, tweets and tidbits to delve into!  

First up though, before the trailer’s release we had a few related tweets from the team regarding the current production of the game.  

Production Updates:

In late July, Mark Darrah tweeted some updates about Dragon Age 4’s development. He said: “I realize that most of you are here for Dragon Age news and there hasn't been a lot of that lately...

Let me just run down some things I can say:

1. We are working on the next Dragon Age

2. Yes we are working from home

3. Working from home is harder  

4. We are making progress”

Continuing from that, John Epler retweeted Darrah’s post and said: “WFH is hard! But we're figuring it out, a little better every day. I miss lunches with my team, though.”

And, Patrick Weekes tweeted: “An exhausting but productive week, with a bunch of folks across the Narrative team coming together for Writer Voltron to look at some stuff and figure out how to make it better. Harder over Zoom, but worth it nevertheless.”

@stoner_gordon asked Patrick: “Writer Voltron? Maybe I’m slow today but what do you mean by that?”

Patrick Weekes replied: “There are things writers can work on for awhile by ourselves. Followers, or individual quests. But some stuff is owned by multiple writers, so we set aside time for all of us (plus non-writers involved with Narrative) to get together and hash things out. That’s Writer Voltron.

It is mostly a TON of meetings. We go over content and see what works and what doesn’t. It’s also the time where we make big narrative decisions as a team (or make big proposals we then bring to other affected departments).

Examples of stuff we decide at things like this:

- Hey, this big story element doesn’t work

- How should we do romances?

- Hey, this big huge thing is unclear

- Does it feel like we’re all making the same game?

We have a great team. It’s positive. We’re all exhausted by Friday.”

This was a very interesting look at how the writing team are pushing forward during the current world situation, ensuring that each writer can push on with individual work, while tasks that are assigned to many writers are slightly trickier, the team are working it out, while staying as safe as possible. And, I’m always eager to hear how certain things like individual quests, followers and romances are being developed.

Dragon Age Website Update:  

With the new trailer’s release, the Dragon Age website was updated. The trailer itself ended on the notion of visiting DragonAge.com.  

Upon impact to the site, there’s a red lyrium wallpaper with a slogan that says:

The world needs a new hero. Will you answer the call?

“Journey into the world of Thedas in Dragon Age™. Discover new adventures full of striking characters, powerful magic, and rich storytelling. Meet an incredible number of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Qunari in a realm where every decision you make echoes across history.”

New protagonist, new adventures, striking characters, powerful magic, rich storytelling, a roster of races with every decision having rippling effects in the world. Each quality that truly define a Dragon Age game. Very exciting to see this!  

Behind The Scenes Trailer:

Onwards to the trailer, we have many of the amazing developers sharing plenty of insights into the next Dragon Age game’s vision and development.

Casey Hudson stated their using next generation technology, which will be Anthem’s codebase and tools of the Frostbite engine, to bring the world and characters of Dragon Age to life. And the team are still in early production, I’ve estimated that they’ve been in production stages for around 15 months, since May 2019.  

Casey Hudson (General Manager): “We’ve been using next generation technology to bring the world and characters of Dragon Age to life. We’re still in early production.”  

Gameplay Designer Melissa Janowicz spoke about creating bosses and how she helps with many of the creature designs, mostly doing the big threats we’ll go up against. This trailer’s concept art certainly paints a picture of many dark, evil monsters to defeat.  

Melissa Janowicz (Gameplay Designer): “We’re very experimental here at BioWare, so we’re always coming up with new stuff.”  

“I actually design bosses; I help with the creature design team as well. So, I do all of the big threats you have to go up against.”  

The Creative Director, and previous Art Director, Matthew Goldman shared that Dragon Age is all about mystery, and hard-boiled detective stories, which is an egg-cellent pun. All wrapped up in a fantasy setting, with an original world.

Matthew Goldman (Creative Director): “The world of Dragon Age has really got it all, it’s got frontier stories, it’s got mystery, it’s got hard-boiled detective stories. And of course, it’s all wrapped up in kind of a fantasy setting.”

“This is an original world, original flora, original wildlife, original architecture, that makes it fun to explore and discover.”

Executive Producer, and proficient teaser, Mark Darrah shared that in the next Dragon Age, we get an opportunity to see new things, new places, and interact with people who lived and grew up in these spaces as well.  

There’s a huge emphasis on characters we haven’t met yet, because of course, the Inquisition declared it would look for new people to deal with Solas. We’re going to Northern Thedas, we should expect brand new characters to fall in love with.  

Mark Darrah (Executive Producer): “In the next Dragon Age, we get an opportunity to see new things, new places, and interact with people who lived and grew up in these spaces as well.”  

Mastermind, and Lead Writer Patrick Weekes shared about the game that currently working on, and how they want to tell a very different story about what happens when you don’t have power, what happens when the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues.  

This time around, we’re playing as a new hero, with not nearly as enough power like the Inquisitor, but instead someone who most likely comes from humble tidings, at a guess, someone like a spy, Antivan Crow, or Lord of Fortune.  

No matter the role, our main character will have many conflicts with the predominate people in charge, as they aren’t willing to tackle the issues at stake. I can assume many ideas of course, perhaps the Tevinter Magisterium, The Qunari Invasion, or the Dread Wolf’s scheme.  

Whatever powerful force that may ignore the ongoing issues, there’s going to be a lot of conflict from what can assume is going forward thanks to Tevinter Nights. 

Patrick Weekes (Lead Writer): “For the game we’re working on now, we want to tell a story – what happens when you don’t have power, what happens when the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues.”

Arby’s Enthusiast, and Narrative Director John Epler spoke on the things we can expect in the next instalment, there are going to be stories that focus on the people around you, and the friends and family you make.  

Every Dragon Age game is about the family we create along the way, expecting more of that, lightens my heart!  

John Epler (Narrative Director): “The things you can expect in the next instalment are going to be stories that focus on the people around you, and the friends and family you make.”

“I just love the possibilities that Dragon Age offers us, and I’m excited to explore a lot more of them.”

Associate Producer Jen Cheverie shared that something we’ll be able to look forward to in the next Dragon Age are really close relationships with game characters who really become real for you. I’m so excited to see how relationships and friendships develop in the next game.  

Jen Cheverie (Assoc. Producer): “Something we’ll be able to look forward to in Dragon Age is a really close relationship with game characters who really become real for you.”

Foundation Technical Director, Jon Renish, with an amazing beard, spoke on how BioWare want characters to either be loved or hated, the best examples of that is Solas. Half of the community wants to kill him, half the people want to marry him, then another part want to do both.

The fact that the devs can stir these reactions, proves that BioWare can and will create characters that move, and shape us.  

If they can make you love or hate a character, they’ve successfully made you care for this world, even if hate is that motivator. However, if you felt nothing for a character, then you wouldn’t have these strong reactions, and wouldn’t feel as connected to the world, or that character.  

Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director): “We want characters to either be loved or hated, one of the best examples of that is Solas. Half of the community wants to kill him, half the people want to marry him, then another part want to do both.”

Lead Creature Animator, Esther Ko confirmed that Dragon Age 4 is being created using motion-matching technology, that will ensure characters will be as realistic as possible, from the way they walk, move and interact.  

We saw a sneak peak of Solas’s facial animations, and we can already see the improvement of graphical fidelity and animation quality.  

Esther Ko (Lead Creature Animator): “BioWare and EA have been one of the forerunners in using motion matching technology, and that makes it way more realistic for when you're looking at the characters, the way the walk and move, and interact in the world.”

Writer Slyvia Feketekuty spoke on how players want suspension of their disbelief, to believe that the bunch of pixels that make up these characters are actually a living, breathing soul.  

Slyvia Feketekuty (Writer): “Players want that suspension of disbelief that this wonderful collection of digital pixels is actually a living breathing soul.”

Gameplay Director Andre Garcia said that choice is a big part of what Dragon Age is as a franchise, the decisions you make can affect change in the world. Reiterating that the next Dragon Age will most certainly surround our choices, with consequences for each.

Andre Garcia (Gameplay Director): “Choice is a big part of what Dragon Age is as a franchise, the decisions you make can affect change in the world.”

Adding more fuel to the fire for choices and consequences, RPG Programmer Katrina Barkwell spoke on decision-making meaning that a party member lives, or a party member dies. Ultimately, choice making means owning your outcome and reactivity to the choices that you do make.

Katrina Barkwell (RPG Programmer): “Decision-making can mean that a party member lives, or a party member dies. And it means owning your outcome and reactivity to the choices that you do make.”

I said in my breakdown, and I’ll say it again here, it was very nice to see a few of the developers that we love and support in this trailer, sharing vital information on the next game. The story about Dragon Age 4’s development is all about the people creating it, and I am so glad that BioWare have an amazing, tremendously talented bunch of people who know what Dragon Age is.

Adding to that, it was so wholesome to see many of the other developers on a zoom call, showing how despite the current world situation, they’re doing all they can to push the development of the next Dragon Age.  

Key Trailer Features:

Moving on, throughout the trailer, we had many key features highlighted.  

The in-engine shots showcase the next-gen improved fidelity and quality of the Frostbite engine. The reveal of Solas’s facial animations indicate more realistic and life-like animations and scenes, just look at his pearly white teeth, and how his face folds.

And the Gameplay shots reveal a character playing as a warrior, with a sword and shield, wearing Grey Warden armour. Most certainly, the character is a champion specialization, indicated by the “Line in the Sand” ability.  

We see them evading, blocking, shield bashing, and preparing to strike. The camera placement is solid, I really like the angle it currently has, I’m hoping it stays like this.  

The spider with hands is incredibly frightening, however, beautifully animated. I just hope it’s not going to grab items like the barrel, and throw them at us, when approaching combat.  

Two brand-new voice actors were revealed: Jee Young Han & Ike Amadi

Jee Young Han previously appeared in Anthem, as the character Sentinel Dax. In Dragon Age 4, conceptually, she’s playing a character called “Bellara”, whom I’d suspect is a dwarf, given that Qunari and Dwarves generally have American voice actors. Not to mention her dialogue line of something being “the good kind of rumble.”

Ike Amadi, also appeared in a previous BioWare title, being Mass Effect 3, as he played Javik! It seems he’s playing a character by the name of Davrin. Who is most certainly a Grey Warden, indicated by his dialogue? Perhaps he’s the Grey Warden in Tevinter Nights’ cover, considering none of the characters on the book’s cover appeared in the actual book?

Concept Art:

Moving on, the majority of the trailer features amazing conceptual artwork that reflects the mood, tone, story threads and narrative beats that the developers would like the final game to take inspiration from.  

Equally, that means the concepts may or may not appear in the finished project, it’s too early to tell. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn't pass on dissecting and inspecting the art pieces, because we get a sense of BioWare’s vision, scope and direction for Dragon Age 4.  

Adding to this, Patrick Weekes tweeted about how concept art is used to create a mood, not to outrightly confirm things, but for a framework. While some concepts may excite you, like “Harley Qun”, don’t get attached just yet because they may, and will change.  

To quote Weekes: “We can't answer questions right now about who is or isn't a follower or what story choices we're making. Beyond giving away too much too early, we could also give you the wrong impression and leave you disappointed later. Or we might need to change things between now and ship.  

What I can say is that I personally am proud and excited about the game we're making. I hope that came through in the video. I also hope you have fun speculating, even if we can't answer questions right now. You all made a lot of devs' days yesterday. Thanks.”

So, while it’s absolutely fun, and amazing to speculate about what these concepts may relate to, and the direction of the next game, don’t get too attached just in case certain plot threads or characters are cut or changed.  

Needless to say, me and Saria still have plenty of speculation videos coming up following the trailer, because we find enjoyment in speculation, and seeing how far off from the truth we were when the game actually does ship, I think that’s a good mindset to have.

Regarding the trailer as a whole, I think it’s fair to say it was created as a reaction to what was shown at EA Play. A lot of the fanbase, and people in general were upset with what was shown, however, BioWare listened to us, and delivered this behind the scenes trailer, two months after.  

We can tell it was recently filmed too, not to get too stalker-ry, but Patrick Weekes dyed their hair on the 19th, June, which was a day after EA Play.  

If they had done so before, Weekes’ would’ve had their natural hair-colour in the trailer.  

So, even with the current world situation, the developers took the time to film and create this amazing BTS trailer. Speaking on behalf of the entire DA fandom, thank you so much BioWare for giving us a trailer while in very early-production stages. It has been the saving grace of 2020.  

Romance Teases:

In other news, we have a few Weekes Tweets that regard romance in the future.

Patrick Weekes retweeted @nevarran-novice saying: “This is my formal request that BioWare give us at least one emotionally damaging romance for every Dragon Age game. Like, literally scoop my soul out and throw it at the wall with the angst. Please.”  

Patrick replied with: “I mean I like happy romances with fun positive endings, but the customer is always right!”

It really is true; we all love pain and tragedy in this fandom, as we play Lost Elf theme at 1 am, sobbing in the night. I’m not the only one, right?

Patrick Weekes tweeted: “Hi, sorry, stumbled across this while looking for something else. Just wanted to say:

- Disliking a character or ship is totally valid and does not hurt my feelings

- Coming into someone’s space to say that what they like or dislike is wrong is bad, sorry that happened to you.

And in games with romances, I believe that the same-sex romances should offer the same spectrum of sweet-to-spicy that the straight options do. If all our m/m romances feel dirty while our m/f romances range from romantic to raunchy, then we need to do better.

This clearly hints to BioWare making their future romances more tasteful for every type of romance, which is always good, more inclusivity for everyone! In my honest opinion, I don’t need sex scenes to drive romances, while I’m sure I’d love one for a potential Qunari female wife, I don’t need, or desire them for every single character. Sex and romance in moderation; while being tasteful, sounds perfect in my opinion.  

In the concept artwork, we saw a sexy, Qunari female, that many of us have dubbed the nickname “Harley Qun”, while it’s really hard not to get attached, it’s nice to see BioWare making this character idea more of a reality.  

In 2017, a fan asked Weekes about the idea of a strong female Qunari companion. Weekes replied: “definitely a chance. We like doing character types we haven’t down before, and that would be a biggie in hypothetical future game.”

 So, while Harley is still just a concept design, there’s much potential for her in the future. I wonder if Patrick is writing her too, not that I’m basing my news on retweets, but Patrick has been retweeting a lot of her fanart. But that could just be because we’re already obsessed with her.  

Final romance related tweet, because I didn’t know where else to put this one... Patrick Weekes tweeted: “Is "Dick in a Box" formally a Lonely Island song, or is it technically SNL? It's for work.”

So, erm. Yep, there’s that.  

Mark....:

Mark Darrah tweeted: “No release date to share at this time…” Obviously as a joke, for those who don’t know, the next Dragon Age is at least 2-3 years away, according to EA’s 2019 earnings call.  

Next Comic:

As a final, very exciting news update, Nunzio DeFillipis, the amazing Dragon Age comic writer, alongside with his wife, Christian Weir posted on Tumblr about the potential of a new comic mini-series:  

They replied to autopotion asking about the future of the comics, saying:

“We have another miniseries planned - and it would have come out this year if not for the current world situation shutting down the industry.  We don’t want to promise anything, because everything is so up in the air with the entire world right now.  But what we can say is that if and when there is another miniseries, it will wrap up the story we’ve been telling since Knight Errant.  We will then aim to tell more stories, but one thing at a time.”  

“Wish we could say more.  Because we have a LOT to say, we promise.  Hopefully we can talk about things soon.”

As an absolute fan of each of the Dragon Age comics, the fact that most certainly another one is on its way, and it will end the narrative since Knight Errant excites the crap out of me. Originally, it seems we would’ve had two comic launches this year, Blue Wratih to start year, and one following from that, ending 2020.  

I imagine we’ll see this project back on track soon. It sounds as if this one may be a conclusion to the current comic roster, and after that, we may get brand new stories explored in other comics. While that’s quite far off, I adore this team behind the comics, and eagerly await an update to their stories.  

With all that said, that’s a wrap for this most exciting news update, I’m honestly so excited to be creating Dragon Age content at the moment, making videos that I’ve dreamed about creating for so long. Check out my latest breakdown, and if you’re new, why not follow me, you’re in the best place to be informed on all things Dragon Age related. From the lore to speculation and news, I have it all here.  

[sunflowereveryday]

NCT Hollywood

TL:DR: I’m neutral about this new potential sub-unit.

I’m pretty sure a lot of Kpop fans read the news about SM x MGM to create a survival programme to debut NCT Hollywood. I know some of you guys want to burn SM because of that. On the other hand, we’re in the age of globalisation. SM creating a US-based group was going to happen regardless. Honestly, you just have to view NCT like the Avengers, they all have their own stories but when the time is right, they will join forces. Although I’m just a casual listener, seeing NCT grow as a brand is rather interesting and it was really cool to see how NCT 2020 connected the dots between 127, Dream and WayV. Don’t you think it will be interesting to see how SM will market their Japanese unit and USA unit? 127 is literally a Seoul based group whereas, Dream is living in a dreamland and, WayV are time/space travelers.

NCT Hollywood, I think it’s probably connected to their Youtube post, when they were scouting for new trainees. This new show is still in discussion and I doubt it’s going to take place within this year. By the time NCT Hollywood debut, some of the current member’s contracts would probably have expired or some of members would have already enlisted. SM mentioned at start of 2020, SM will debut another boy group by end of 2020, don’t worry about Shotaro and Sungchan. Let’s be honest, NCT Hollywood doesn’t mean NCT or SM will spoon feed them success. They would still need to fight for their success. Similarly when WayV debuted, was WayV spoon fed their success from 127 and Dream? No. They still had to appear on shows, host concerts and fanmeetings to get to where they are at. Sure SM can improve their management with WayV but 1) COVID is still around and 2) I personally don’t think putting them on a Korean TV show would be suitable since they are not K-pop group and the general Korean public are most likely not interested in a Chinese group. Furthermore, the fact that a Korean drama got cancelled due to using Chinese props. Do you think the general public in Korea will be open minded enough to watch a TV show with a Chinese group guest on it? Also, let’s not forget that Kick Back sold 200k+ albums (and trended on various digital platforms) with almost zero promotions during COVID - Not many groups can achieve such sales before COVID.

As a fan from 2nd gen, I do want to highlight the hypocrisy I see within the K-pop fandom. Whenever SM announce a new group, there will always be disagreements and repeating the same narrative ‘SM doesn’t need a new group, they need to focus on xx’ When Red Velvet debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on f(x), when NCT debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on EXO and when Aepsa debuted, fans said SM better not forget Red Velvet. The same narrative is being repeated years after years. Now NCT Hollywood was announced, they haven’t even finalised the line up or finish any form of training, some of you act as if they’re going to drop a debut single next month. Some of you say that SM needs to focus on their current groups, however when WayV debuted, did anyone hate that idea? No, instead we just wanted to see Kun, Lucas and Ten leave SM’s trainee basement. When SM obviously hinted NCT Japan line, did anyone hate that idea? No, we just want to see Shotaro and Sungchan debut in a fix unit. So why is it with NCT Hollywood, you all want SM to only focus on NCT’s current sub-unit and stop their expansion now? WayV debuted 3 years after NCT 127 and Dream, NCT 127 just began touring and Dream went on radio and TV shows here and there, 127 and Dream’s popularity was starting to pick up around 2018-2019 however, we still wanted to see SM debut WayV. And with the current Japan line, I’m sure many of you are still anticipating this sub-unit. So I do think it’s unfair to gun down NCT Hollywood, a sub-unit that’s in works and have yet to debut.

I’m not trying to defend SM’s business decisions or tactics but wanting to suggest another perspective. Because at the end of day, we don’t work for SM, I don’t think it’s fair to always blame everything on SM’s management team. However, please do take this post with a grain of salt. I just staying neutral since 1) I don’t work for SM, 2) how SM runs their business is not something for me to be concerned about and 3) I don’t blame SM for wanting to explore to different markets. You can’t always stay within your comfort zone, from time to to time, you have to challenge yourself.

Lee Soo Man World Domination Fantasy & Politics

I know people are always laughing at Lee Soo Man’s world domination views. But I don’t get what’s there to laugh about. Yes USA is big but I doubt he wants to dominate the entire music industry in USA. He just wants to create a realm where he can generate profit from. If you want to earn more money, you have to source it from other countries. Whilst I understand SM is a small cooperation compared to other global companies but what’s wrong with a small company trying to make it big? I don’t think it’s wrong for Lee Soo Man for wanting to expand their market and push themselves into different regions and territories. As a business, you have to take risk in order to grow. If NCT Hollywood fails, then tough luck. Better luck next time.

In addition, I always wanted to point this out. Why do people always laugh at SM trying to break into the US market? If you see US’s market as an unbreakable and untouchable market, don’t you think this is somehow succumbing to the notion of ‘white supremacy?’ Western companies constantly profit from Asian countries but when Asian countries wants to enter the Western market, it’s automatically viewed as a ‘flop’ or ‘embarrassing.’ I don’t see anyone stopping Sephora from opening stores across China. I don’t see anyone laughing when Pixie Lott made her Japanese debut (Dancing on my own ft GD&TOP). And I don’t see anyone judging Little Mix for collaborating with a J-pop group (Flower). So why is it especially funny that SM wants to debut a USA group? Alternatively, if it’s not succumbing to ‘white supremacy’, don’t you think it’s reiterating idea of ‘white fragility’? To be honest, no one is Asia loses their mind when a Western brands enters the Asian market. - On the contrary, this could be due to the normalisation of Western countries self-inserting themselves into Asia, aka colonisation...- But when an Asian brand approaches the Western market, some of you guys tend to lose your mind and try to protect and reserve the Western market. Are you scared that SM will take over the USA music industry, leaving people jobless? Are you trying to reserve the USA market for white owned companies? Globalisation isn’t about opening McDonald and KFC stores around the world, learning English and making people conform to Western standards and lifestyle. It’s having the world connected despite the geographical distance.

I understand that K-pop fans who listen to K-pop is for its East-Asian aesthetics. On the other hand, there are many people out there who aren’t interested in East-Asian culture and don’t listen to K-pop. For example, when SM debuted WayV, it was to create Chinese pop music for the Chinese market since not everyone in China listens to K-pop. Same goes for NCT Hollywood, it’s SM’s strategy to create pop music for the mass USA market than target a niche audience. I personally do think pop culture in general can easily be adapted and localised. So don’t think of it as LSM destroying K-pop, it’s not like he’s disbanding all his groups for this one USA group. But hey, if everything goes well, this could be an opportunity for some of you to work for SM and fulfill that fantasy of working with Kpop idols. In all honesty, this could be a good social experiment of trying to bridge the cultural differences between the West and the East. 

The only thing that bugs me is the survival show, I personally don’t like watching shows where I see a group of aspiring youths completing for one position.

Not gonna lie, I do find the word ‘Hollywood’ extremely cringe worthy.

[shiredded]

A white animation student’s take on Soul and POC cartoons

This got long but there’s lots of pretty pictures to go with it.

Hi, I’m Shire and I’m as white as a ripped-off Pegasus prancing on a stolen van. Feel free to add to my post, especially if you are poc. The next generation of animators needs your voice now more than ever.

My opinion doesn’t matter as much here because I’m not part of the people being represented. 

But I am part of the people to whom this film is marketed, and as the market, I think I should be Very Aware of what media does to me. 

And as the future of animation, I need to do something with what I know.

I am very white. I have blue eyes and long blond hair. I’ve seen countless protagonists, love interests, moms, and daughters that look like me. If I saw an animated character that looks like me turn into a creature for the majority of a movie, I would cheer. Bring it on! I have plenty of other representation that tells me I’m great just the way I am, and I don’t need to change to be likable. 

The moment Soul’s premise was released, many people of color expressed mistrust and disappointment on social media. Let me catch you up on the plot according to the new (march 2020) trailer. (It’s one of those dumb modern trailers that tells you the entire plot of the movie including the climax; so I recommend only watching half of it)

Our protagonist, Joe Gardner, has a rich (not in the monetary sense) and beautiful life. He has dreams! He wants to join a jazz band! So far his life looks, to me, comforting, amazing, heartfelt, and real. I’m excited to learn about his family and his music. 

Some Whoknowswhat happens, and he enters a dimension where everyone, himself included, is represented by glowing, blue, vaguely humanoid creatures. They’re adorable! But they sure as heck aren’t brown. The most common response seems to be dread at the idea of the brown human protagonist spending the majority of his screen time as a not-brown, not-human creature. 

The latest trailer definitely makes that look pretty darn true. He does spend most of the narrative - chronologically - as a blob. 

but

That isn’t the same as his screen time. 

From the look of the trailer, Joe and his not-yet-born-but-already-tired-of-life soul companion tour Joe’s story in all of its brown-skinned, human-shaped, life-loving glory. The movie is about life, not about magic beans that sing and dance about burping (though I won’t be surprised if that happens too.)

Basically! My conclusion is “it’s not as bad as it looked at first, and it looks like a wonderful story.”

but

That doesn’t mean it’s ok. 

Yes, Soul is probably going to be a really important and heartfelt story about life, the goods, the bads, the dreams, and the bonds. That story uses a fun medium to view that life; using bright, candy-bowl colors and a made-up world to draw kids in with their parents trailing behind. 

It’s a great story and there’s no reason to not create a black man for the lead role. There’s no reason not to give this story to people of color. It’s not a white story. This is great!

Except...

we’ve kind of

done this

a lot

The Book of Life and Coco also trade in their brown-skinned cast for a no-skinned cast, but I don’t know enough about Mexican culture to say those are bad and I haven't picked up on much pushback to those. There’s more nuance there, I think. 

I cut the above pics together to show how the entire ensemble changes along with the protagonist. We can lose entire casts of poc. Emperor's New Groove keeps its cast as mostly human so at least we have Pacha

And while the animals they interact with might be poc-coded, there’s nothing very special or affirming about “animals of color.” 

So, Soul.

Are we looking at the same thing here?

It’s no secret by now that this is an emerging pattern in animation. But not all poc-starring animated films have this same problem. We have Moana! With deuteragonists (basically co-protagonists) of color, heck yeah.

 Aladdin... Pocahontas... The respect those films have for their depicted culture is... an essay for another time. Mulan fits here too. the titular characters’ costars are either white, or blue, and/or straight up animals. But hey, they don’t turn into animals, and neither do the supporting cast/love interests.

Dreamworks’ Home (2015) is also worth mentioning as a poc-led film where the  deuteragonist is kind of a purple blob. But the thing I like a lot about Home is that it’s A Nice Story, where there’s no reason for the protagonist to not be poc, so she is poc. Spiderverse has a black lead with a white (or masked, or animal) supporting cast. But, spiderverse also has Miles’ dad, mom, uncle, and Penny Parker.

I’d like to see more of that.

And less of this

if you’re still having trouble seeing why this is a big deal, let’s try a little what-if scenario. 

This goes out to my fellow white girls (including LGBTA white girls, we are not immune to propaganda racism)

imagine for a second you live in a world where animation is dominated to the point of almost total saturation by protagonist after protagonist who are boys/men. You do get the occasional woman-led film, but maybe pretend that 30 to 40 percent of those films are like

(We’re pretending for a second that Queen Eleanor was the protagonist, because I couldn’t think of any animated movies where the white lady protagonist turns into and stays an animal for the majority of the film)

Or, white boys and men, how would you feel if your most popular and marketable representation was this?

Speaking of gender representation, binary trans and especially nonbinary trans people are hard pressed to find representation of who they are without the added twist of Lizard tails or horns and the hand-waving explanation of “this species doesn’t do gender” But again, that’s a different essay.

Let’s look at what we do have. In reality, we (white people) have so much representation that having a fun twist where we spend most of the movie seeing that person in glimpses between colorful, glittering felt characters that reflect our inner selves is ok. 

Wait, that aesthetic sounds kind of familiar...

But I digress. Inside Out was a successful and honestly helpful and important movie.  I have no doubt in my mind that Soul will meet and surpass it in quality and and in message. 

There is nothing wrong with turning your protagonist of color into an animal or blob for most of their own movie. 

But it’s part of a larger pattern, and that pattern tells people of color that their skin would be more fun if it was blue, or hairy, or slimy, or something. It’s fine to have films like that because heck yeah it would be fun to be a llama. But it’s also fun to not be a llama. It’s fun to be a human. It’s fun to be yourself. I don’t think children of color are told that enough. 

At least, not by mainstream studios. (The Breadwinner, produced by Cartoon Saloon)

It’s not like all these mainstream poc movies are the result of racist white producers who want us to equate people of color with animals. In fact, most of those movies these days have people of color very high up, as directors, writers, or at the very least, a pool of consultants of color.

These movies aren’t evil. They aren’t even that intrinsically racist (Pocahontas can go take a hike and rethink its life, but we knew that.) It’s that we need more than just the shape-shifting narratives of our non-white protagonists. 

It’s not like there isn’t an enormous pool of ideas, talent, visions and scripts already written and waiting to be produced. There is.

But they somehow don’t make it past the head executives, way above any creative team, who make the decisions, aiming not for top-of-the-line stories, but for the Bottom line of sales.

When Disney acquired Pixar, their main takeover was in the merchandising department. The main target for their merchandise are, honestly, white children.

So is it much of a surprise

that they are more often greenlighting things palatable for as many “discerning” mothers as possible?

I saw just as many Tiana dolls as frog toys on the front page of google, so don’t worry too much about The Princess And The Frog. Kids love her. But I didn’t find any human figures of Kenai from Brother Bear, except for dolls wearing a bear suit. 

So. What do I think of Soul? 

I think it’s going to be beautiful. I think it’s going to be a great movie.

But I also think people of color deserve more. 

Let’s take one more look at the top people who went into making this movie.

Of the six people listed here, five are white. Kemp Powers, one of the screenplay writers, is black. 

It’s cool to see women reaching power within the animation industry, but this post isn’t about us.

We need to replace the top execs and get more projects greenlit that send the message that african, asian, latinix, middle eastern, and every other non-white ethnicity is perfect and relatable as the humans they were meant to be. 

Disney is big enough that they can - and therefore should - take risks and produce movies that aren’t as “marketable” simply because art needs to be made. People need to be loved.

Come on, millennials and Gen Z. We can do better.

We Will do better.

TLDR: A lot of mainstream animation turns its protagonists of color into animals or other creatures. I (white) don’t think that’s a bad thing, except for the fact that we don’t get enough poc movies that AREN’T weird. Support Soul; it’s not going to be as bad as you think. It’s probably gonna be really good. Let’s make more good movies about people of color that stay PEOPLE of color.

[r0botarmsapts]

Title: Two Cents Cross-posted to Ao3, dA and Fanfiction.net. Characters/Pairings: Flynn and Estelle friendship, FureYuri, Fluri, FlynnYuri  Words: 1,800 +. Disclaimer: I own this fanfiction but not the characters or game they’re from.Notes: This contains spoilers for Zaude and post-Zaude. Extra: Male/Female friendship, Shipping Gen, Gen, friendship, Flynn is overworked and very tired. Summary: “You love him, don’t you?” “I do.” For Flynn, time stops once he’s spoken what he cannot take back into hiding. He stiffens, expression changing to one of surprise on how easily she had asked and he responded with only one clear answer to her question. Composing himself, in silence he turns to face Lady Estellise, her smile soft, green eyes kind, posture relaxed- a picture of someone that knew and held no judgment for it. “I didn’t have to say his name.” Flynn wants to look anywhere but her eyes right now yet holds her gentle stare with his own conflicted one. It feels too much like she can see into his mind, seeking confirmation for what she already knew. Lady Estellise’s words sounded like a simple fact when there was so much more beneath the surface. An unsinking ship on tumultuous waters. “How did you know?”

Estelle had been deeply concerned about Flynn since he took that nearly fatal blow at Zaude. The scene went by all too quickly, only replaying slowly in her mind, being able to see Flynn shove Yuri aside(the look of fear and determination in his eyes), almost giving his life without the slightest hesitation then. If Estelle had not been there, had not had her powers, then Flynn would have been...

Given the late hour, she knocked softly on his office door, quickly receiving tired permission to enter. She was fast to come inside, shutting the heavy door behind her, finding Flynn staring into the late night sky.

“Lady Estellise, what brings you here at such an hour?”

“I came to see you. I know you have been so busy with everything, and I’ve heard you were stuck in here when not in the field.” In reality, since Yuri fell with no answers, since Flynn had acted in ways she had never seen from him before in his worry and grief. “I’m worried about you, Flynn.” Her eyes were then drawn to his desk, multiple candles lit, one nearly out, others having signs of burning for a long while, leaving a mess of a wax trail downwards. Maps, notes and documents were neatly placed, locations searched marked off. The Captain had been so busy and all for one person.

“I appreciate your concern, but I am not the one to be worried about.” His words were firm, denying his own poor state, fueled further by his want to spend off hours along with any spare time continuing his searching, taking a break something that could come later on. It had taken a bit of work, but Flynn had made use of his newer authority to get two extra ships that were to be sent out the next morning.

It figured the Captain would want the concern going to a special someone else right now. This was only pushing another feeling she had been suspicious of for a long time, complete with Brave Vesperia’s knowing instead of guessing based on their previous, even recent, conversations. The young royal does not move from her spot, the question slipping past her lips before she can stop it while her heart felt tight, but she had to know for sure as well.

“You love him, don’t you?”

“I do.”

For Flynn, time stops once he’s spoken what he cannot take back into hiding. He stiffens, expression changing to one of surprise on how easily she had asked and he responded with only one clear answer to her question. Composing himself, in silence he turns to face Lady Estellise, her smile soft, green eyes kind, posture relaxed- a picture of someone that knew and held no judgment for it.

“I didn’t have to say his name.”

Flynn wants to look anywhere but her eyes right now yet holds her gentle stare with his own conflicted one. It feels too much like she can see into his mind, seeking confirmation for what she already knew. Lady Estellise’s words sounded like a simple fact when there was so much more beneath the surface. An unsinking ship on tumultuous waters. “How did you know?”

For something to do with her hands, Estellise smooths her skirt, going to stand beside Flynn, looking out into the starry night herself, sharing some of the same thoughts he did without having to speak a word of them, the pair both wanting to know where in the world Yuri exactly was. “Almost every time you spoke about Yuri, your eyes took on a strong warmth, and whenever you were worried about him, you always had something good to say,” she pauses there to look at Flynn, a still knowing smile on her lips as she takes in the familiar expression she had come to know over the years on the Captain’s face. “Even now, there’s a fond smile you only have when it’s about him.”

“I see,” Flynn replied turning over this new information, unaware how open to the world his feelings were. “I had no idea it was so obvious.”

Estelle hums an affirmative, her voice suddenly a little chipper when she informs him “we all know.”

Once again, Flynn is forced to pause, gauging the seriousness of her words, finding no signs of a lie, not even close to one. “All of you?” Flynn wants to know if she means only the entirety of Brave Vesperia, but with the amount of times he has talked about Yuri to her and others, the blond suspects she means more, but would that also mean...

“Yes." The young royal then clasps her hands together in front of her chest, eyes sparkling with a sudden bout of happiness for the two. “That’s great though, isn’t it? You love Yuri, and we are certain he feels the same.”

There’s where Flynn’s smile falters, the uncertainty of more with Yuri coming to the front of his mind. “I am not so sure he does-”

“Yuri thinks of you often. Even back when we were trying to catch up to you, we were on Ehmead Hill, Yuri wondered if you had seen the beautiful view too, then he was the one to fix your door after Zagi broke it. He talks about you in ways you speak of him.” Her voice taking a determined tone, not about to let Flynn’s doubts cloud what was clear for everyone else.

Flynn wants to truly believe her, unable to quell the tiniest hope sparking to life at the chance Yuri returned his feelings, that there was some hope for them to be together. Happy together. Therein the problem rose, Yuri needing to be back with him, alive. Suddenly, a hand is on his arm, squeezing gently, snapping him from the thoughts of Yuri possibly being gone.

“We will find him, Flynn. None of us have given up hope he’s alive out there. I know you haven’t either.” Estelle can see it better now once she’s so close to him; how tired Flynn truly appeared, the young royal unknowing of how many long, sleepless nights the Captain endured while carefully attending to his duties and charting new areas to search. “Get some rest Flynn. I don’t think you want Yuri to see you like this, you know better than anyone how he can get.”

All at once with mention of the swordsman, Flynn feels the weight of the days gone by since their forced separation, the exhaustion threatening to claim him where he stood. Still, Flynn found an old smile to wear. “Yuri can say I badger him a lot, but he worries more than he lets on.” Anytime Flynn let work take over, Yuri would be there to pull him from it, keeping him from doing exactly as he was now. Yuri somehow knew the right things to say even if they hurt, kept him grounded. Flynn would give anything to have Yuri back in front of him now, to hear him go off about how Flynn should not have been overworking like this... although this time it was for Yuri.

Yuri was always the exception.

“Let’s go. I am not letting you sleep in your office.” Her grip remains on his arm, almost worried to let go in concern he would fall over. She would once he was back to his own room, not going to leave him alone here knowing Flynn would just nap at his desk then get back to work in his search.

“I guess I cannot persuade you otherwise.” On hearing the softer determination in her tone directed at him, the Captain knew it was a fight he could not win, especially not against her. “I do need to at least lock up first.”

While Lady Estellise put out two of the other candles only lit more recently, he stared at one he had recalled lighting earlier as darkness began to fall, the thing close enough to new then was already almost burnt out. In a distant way, he felt too much like that candle then, blinking to clear his bleary sight.

Estelle stayed with him while the door was locked up tightly, his new marked areas to have searches beginning tomorrow, along with carefully crafted notes and places to check again, just in-case. If someone had caught of someone that so much as looked like Yuri, Flynn wanted to know.

In a time that was too long and short leaving him almost dizzy, Flynn was in front of his own room, turning to face the young woman that had been a close friend for years now. His smile was tired, grateful. “Lady Estellise, thank you, for everything.”

Estelle returns with a warm look of her own, wanting to say he did not have to thank her for any of this tonight. Somehow, it did not feel right, instead she speaks with confidence, “we’re going to find him. You’re not looking alone, Yuri is important to us too.”

“Once Yuri is back to us, it seems as though he and I have a long talk waiting.” At his words, Lady Estellise’s eyes shone with a bright happiness that was for them and what could be. “Good night, Lady Estellise.”

Flynn’s mind in work mode still, it was pointless to tell him he did not have to be so formal, especially in his exhausted state. “Sleep well, Flynn.” The young royal waits until he goes into his room, hearing the door lock. Satisfied he would not return to his office, she turns to leave, retiring to her own room for the night.

Mirroring how she found Flynn in his office, Estelle took time to gaze out at the stars, wondering if Yuri was able to see them as well, steeling her faith he was alive, for not only returning to friends that missed and worried for him greatly, but also for a love so strong and genuine it put her ideas of it into a new light, something to think over.

Their group had been split apart across the sky, lands, waters, keeping eyes and ears out for Yuri, Flynn sending out two more ships tomorrow while continuing looking elsewhere personally. The efforts were exhaustive with fewer places remaining. The outcome leaving more than a few whispering of Yuri’s death, they so certain of it as Brave Vesperia was of him being alive. She had not known Yuri as long as Flynn, yet knew enough to believe this would not have killed him. He seemed the type to be too stubborn to be taken from them over something like that.

“Come back to us soon, Yuri.”

[radramblog]

Nuz Report- X Water/Poison

God I feel like shit both mentally and physically right now, and I cant put a button on why. This might be an issue, considering I’ve got like half an hour or so to get this bad boy done.

Hmm. Let’s talk about the nuzlocke I finished yesterday, that’ll work, I can vomit words on that.

I finished a Pokemon X Duolocke with 1 death yesterday, but the fuckers made me fight for it.

For round 6 of the Nuzlocke Premier League, we did Duolocke Runs of Pokemon X and Y. Now I was hoping to take this month off, since only 3 of the team’s 4 members have to do each round, and I’ve done literally all of them previously without a break. But unfortunately, our 4th had to pull out for real life stuff- understandable, but still a pain. Kalos is probably my worst region for Nuz stuff (save Galar which I haven’t tried yet) and being locked to two types, after my allies had taken the starters I didn’t despise, was not exactly a thrilling prospect.

(these screenshots were taken post-E4. I was Lv.68 going in, same as Diantha’s ace.)

With my teammates taking Psychic/Normal and Fighting/Dark respectively, my only starter choice was Froakie. This is literally the first time I’ve used Froakie for anything, and it meant I had to reckon with the abyss that is its natural learnset. Chau (named after Knives from Scott Pilgrim) was an absolute mess until it hit Greninja, and even then took forever to be actually good. Pinch-hitting with U-turn was useful, but that TM comes frustratingly late.

With Froakie in mind, and Dark taken, one of my types had to be Water. I ended up choosing Poison for the natural synergy- Poison can take on the Grasses that scare my Water types, and Water can deal with Poison’s Ground weakness. Greninja, being also Dark, can scare off Poison’s Psychic weakness, with the Poisons taking the Fairies that Gren doesn’t like. It made sense to me.

The only other super earlygame mon that made it to the final team was Pikablu the Azumarill. Gen 6 introduced a thing where baby Pokemon get 3 perfect IVs by default, and Pikablu’s ended up in Attack, Defense, and Speed (with Huge Power of course), making it one of the best Azumarills you can possibly end up with. Funny rabbit didn’t get to abuse its powerful Fairy STAB until learning Play Rough very very late, but thwacking things with Return and Aqua Tail proved to be enough.

While I played around with a Beedrill and Panpour early, the next mainstay wouldn’t show up until Sycamore offers a Gen I starter in Lumiose, where I of course chose Bulbasaur. Rafflé was such a versatile, hard-hitting mon that did a patently absurd amount of work in the E4. Sleep Powder is a useful enough tool that access to it guaranteed him staying on the team, but being the first actually good Poison around (save Budew->Roserade, but I didn’t know where to get a Shiny Stone and it’s redundant anyway) meant a lot early on.

It was around here that I had the only death of the run. Outside of Connecting Cave lies a trainer with an Axew, which I completely forgot knows the frankly overpowering at that point Dragon Rage, one-shotting Anaesthesia the Croagunk. It was a real shame, I was kind of hoping she’d be able to redeem the line for me, but I guess it wasn’t to be. She was Modest anyway so she wouldn’t have been good regardless, I suppose.

Moving through gyms and the awful Kalosian pacing, I ended up picking up a few other temporary team-members- Vaporeon and Crobat. [bad meme] the Vaporeon, despite having an excellent nature, just didn’t have the stats to cut it, and I wasn’t comfortable with Flaps adding yet another Electric weakness to the team, especially with Clemont approaching.

[bad meme] would get replaced by Lagrange the Lapras, since Ice seemed like an extremely handy type to have around. Lapras is another one of those mons that’s just generally pretty solid, his bulk being much appreciated along with the coverage Ice Beam (and later, Thunderbolt) brought. Looking back, I ended up with a bit of a bulkier team than average, but I feel like that was fine to make up for the fragility of Chau and one of my later members.

Clemont was the first Gym that actually scared me, and it wasn’t because of his actually good Pokemon. My main answer to him was Venusaur, except, he has an Emolga….that bloody rodent gave me more trouble than anything else on the team, since it hit everything super-effectively if I didn’t grind something else up (and I didn’t).

Choices for the team ended up being pretty slim pickings. The lategame of XY has a lot less variety for my two types than the earlygame, with multiple repeated options, and a lot of them were less than appealing. Combine that with my lackluster luck with a lot of areas and my team felt a little stretched for playables. That Beedrill only left the team after Clemont.

It would be replaced by Quaaaaaaaaag. Despite having the worst of Quagsire’s two abilities, he pulled more than his weight, even if he just clicked Earthquake most of the time. An immune switch for Electric was absolutely essential for the run, letting Chau’s U-turn be extremely safe in certain scenarios.

The last team member was somewhat of a surprise. I was running around Frost Cavern for the only legal encounter, a 10% shot at Haunter. I’ve always been a lot less high on that line than most, gotta get that hipster cred in, but that does fly out the window when you get to legitimately use a Shiny one.

Unfortunately due to the rules of the NPL, I was not permitted to get Mega Akuta running, confining him to the shade shiny he was. But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance anyway. Akuta had huge utility being able to switch into Normal, Fighting, and Ground completely freely, and break just about anything with a variety of heavy Special attacks. His paper-thin defenses didn’t matter if he never got hit, though I was always loathe to switch him in just in case he got Crit to death on entry.

The final team paired up awkwardly against the Kalos E4, and I was a bit worried about having 4 waters and 2 poisons instead of 3/3 (my other options were like, not good) but we made it through without losing anyone. Malva and Drasna were, unsurprisingly, not hard, and Siebold’s Gyarados terrified me with Dragon Dance but didn’t actually get an attack off before Lagrange’s Thunderbolt took it out. I was extremely concerned about Wikstrom, but a rather silly strategy prevailed- using Rafflé to Sleep Powder and set up Growth (shoulda taught Swords Dance tbh) before rolling him with Bulldoze (I forgot to get the Earthquake TM). Diantha was similarly scary, seeing as her Mega Gardevoir had SE on everything except Quaaaaaaaaaag , and he wasn’t going to be able to take two. Chau was in when she came out, and I knew Night Slash wasn’t going to KO, so she had to get out of there- U-Turning into an already chipped Akuta was the only play and I had to hope she went for Moonblast instead of Thunderbolt. She did, but it got the Special Attack drop, which presented its own conundrum- does Akuta KO from here, or does he die? Because I can’t switch around forever, chip damage wasn’t going to get me far when she had healing items in reserve. I went for it, and it turns out Akuta did get the KO, but I was nailbiting the whole time.

I’m hoping next round, Crystal Superless, is less grating on my nerves, if I even have to do it at all. Because, fuck, I need a break.

What’s that, NWC is starting again? Oh, sign me up fam,

[marshmallowdonutsprinkles]

Guide to buying Pokémon Center JP merch

Hey guys,

So after getting an ask from an anon this morning, I decided to rush a guide to buying the trainer merch that released yesterday (or technically the 24th if you have a means to buy from the Japan-exclusive Pokémon Center’s online store), just in case there are others who don’t know what to do or where to go. Some of y’all have favs in this merchandise line called Pokémon Trainers 2 (Pokémon Trainers originally came out ~July 2019). Pokémon Trainers 2 contains merchandise of Leon, Raihan, Piers, Gloria (SWSH female protag, sorry Victor), Bea, Nessa, Erika, Serena, May, and some dudes from the subway? No idea who those are as the only gens I’ve played were 4 and 6-8. 

Merchandise includes (but is not limited to) pins, keychains, shirts, sketchbooks, plushies, phone cases (iPhone only, rip us android users), switch cases (rip switch lite users), towels, etc. So if you want to try and get something from the Japanese Pokémon center and have no way to do it, hopefully this can help you :) so you don’t overspend like I did 

TL;DR: It’s Amazon Japan and proxy services. Amazon Japan is more reliable (and cheaper) because you don’t have to pay for service fees and for someone to buy your item, and then turn around to pay international shipping like a proxy service. Amazon Japan is one payment and ships pretty fast. The only downside I would say is that by the time items appear on Amazon Japan, they’re being sold out in other places, like Pokémon center running out of preorders within hours of the merch release date (the site literally crashed for about 2 hours on the 24th. I’m blaming it on the fact they dropped Leon and Raihan merch the same day).

If your item can be bought on Amazon Japan and you don’t mind waiting, use Amazon Japan. If your item cannot be bought on Amazon Japan (explanation below) and/or you don’t want to wait Amazon Japan to have it up just to have it sold out within a day, use a proxy you’ve researched and know is reliable and ships to your country.

I first bought merchandise from the Japanese Pokémon center last year, when they released Leon’s cape as a blanket (it’s super soft btw). The Japanese Pokémon Center does not ship internationally, which is annoying to every person with a non-Japanese address. Luckily, there are pretty much two ways around it that can prevent you from booking a flight to Japan to get one (1) item. 

1. Amazon Japan

Amazon.co.jp is just that-Japanese Amazon. Japanese Pokémon Centers have their own section on Amazon Japan called the Pokémon Store (ポケモンストア ). My Japanese is basic at best, but with google translate and a little background knowledge, I can maneuver as much as I need to. I would put a link to it right here, but because tumblr eats post that have links in text, it would make this post meaningless. Therefore, I’ll just show you the search method

A. Type in amazon.co.jp Pokémon center into google search, This should pop up:

B. If this comes up, click on the second link titled “Amazon.co.jp: Pokémon Store: Toys & Games” as that’s where you want to go. Once there, you’ll be greeted by a bunch of Japanese text, which will either be a blessing or a nightmare

C. When you are on this page, click on the link titled “ポケモンセンターオリジナル” (translation: Pokémon center original). This basically takes you to the page that has items exclusive to Japanese Pokémon centers. As someone not fluent in Japanese, this is really the only link I need the worry about on Amazon Japan.

You’ll then be greeted by the merchandise available for sale:

As I am typing this, some items are already sold out. Plushies for Leon, Raihan, Piers, are gone (of course you are). In fact, some items are even straight up missing from Amazon Japan. Let’s say the item you want is sold out on Amazon Japan or, like the anon I answered earlier, the item you want isn’t here. Then what? TBH, your only choice is eBay or the Pokémon center online (which is all in Japanese. Godspeed)

If your item isn’t here, the search gets a bit tricky, but it doesn’t mean hope is lost (yet).

I don’t know how often Pokémon does this, but for some items on their online site, they have a message at the bottom. Let’s look at Leon’s plushie for example:

If you check the black box, it pretty much says “due to popular demand, we are accepting more preorders!”. JP Pokémon Center Online had preorders open the September 24 at 10AM JST, so you could’ve preordered your items before Amazon Japan put them up on the 26th JST. This time, they are accepting more preorders for specific items until: 1) they run out of stock (again) or 2) October 11, 2020 11:59 JST hits. Whichever comes first. Unfortunately though, because this is stock #2 for Japan’s Pokémon Center, your items won’t be shipping until February 2021. If you were lucky to get your item in stock 1 or Amazon Japan, that ships October 3 2020.

2021年2月 is February 2021. If you’re forgetful like me, it’ll be hilarious when you wake up ~5 months later after preordering and you get a random package you forgot you paid for😂.

So you’ve found another chance to get your item, but Pokémon Center doesn’t ship outside of Japan. You live in Not Japan. Now what?

2. Proxy service

Proxy services are..services (:P) that can either preorder the item for you, or physically go to the Pokémon center stores located across Japan to buy the item for you. They then ship it to your house. Japanese proxy services are able to do this because they are simply located in Japan, allowing them to have a Japanese address to place preorders or head to the stores themselves. Unsurprisingly, they are more expensive than just using Amazon because you have to pay someone to do this for you. TBH, expect to pay at least 2X the price of the item you want when using a proxy. (For example, Leon’s plush is 2200 yen which is equivalent to 20.83 USD as of 2020. I paid around 52 USD for mine, including international shipping. Now imagine buying for 2 people. Yeah.)

Let’s use anon’s desired item for an example of using proxy. The anon who sent me an ask today wanted the buttons/pins, which are these(I think lmao)

Like all things business, there is a catch.

Lucky for anon, Pokémon center is (currently) taking more preorders for this item (black box) up until October 11 JST, or until they run out of stock again. Unfortunately, these items will now ship in February of next year (dark blue box). However, there is one thing you really need to look at for:

The fine print.

It’s bad enough if you can’t read Japanese, but Japanese fine print? Even worse. Thankfully, all you need is google translate for that.

Some items being sold in this merchandise have a fine print. They have a limit as to how many you can buy, or, in some cases, you can’t get a specific design. I’ve noticed this with the T-shirts, keychains, and buttons (although it’s listed as Can badges rather than buttons). 

F-in-the-chat-for-fine-print message #1: 1 item per person:

F-in-the-chat-for-fine-print message #2: You cannot pick the design (in other words, if you buy this item, you get a random design/character):

It sucks for us, but from a business perspective, they most likely acknowledge the fact that everyone and their mom is going to buy a Leon/Raihan/Piers/Nessa/Bea T-shirt/keychain/badge vs. an Erika/Serena/May T-shirt/keychain/badge and as a result they’ll have a lot of left over items that have little to no demand. They sense a heavy bias, so they put down this limit that you can’t pick the design and it’s only random. In the case of the buttons/can badge, you either have the option of buying all 19 badges (which is why it’s priced at 6270 yen which is ~60USD) or you buy a single, random button/badge for 330 yen (3USD). Although I just checked, and those items are sold out with currently no chance of restocking. So anon, if you’re reading this far, it’s either you buy the entire package of 19 badges (and resell the rest) or you have to try your luck on eBay.

In the event your item isn’t sold out but is not on Amazon Japan, you want your proxy service. I only started using a couple for this merchandise only, as I was buying merch for 2 people and Pokémon center has a strict limit of 1 per person. Plus, items I wanted weren’t even on Amazon Japan. I have some proxy service ideas below:

A. White Rabbit Express. This is my first time using them. They managed to get my items, but because they were late in preordering, one item is coming this year, and another coming next year. This means I now have to pay international shipping twice since the items are too far apart in ship dates to put in one package to be shipped internationally. Hooray. Salt aside, their service fees are a bit expensive (12% of the price of your order) but they do their job, I suppose. They work M-F 10AM-7PM JST, so the time difference made it harder for me to communicate with them (we’re 13 hours apart). They do respond relatively quick though, and always update you on the current situation. They have cheap shipping options...which are not being used in some countries due to COVID-19. Because I live in the US, a lot of shipping businesses are not shipping to the United States. Therefore I’m stuck with spending 20-30USD on international shipping alone instead of the usual 6-10USD. Reviews say they are trustworthy, and I currently believe they are, albeit a bit slow when it comes to preordering a limited item. On the bright side, they allow refunds as long as they didn’t pay for the item yet. Make sure to read their FAQ. 

B. Zenmarket. Reviews say they are good. I haven’t use them so I don’t have personal experience. They have a flat service fee of 300 yen which is super cheap. They take forever to tell you how much an item costs so you can pay for it, though. A scary moment if the item you're looking for is limited and highly sought after. Again, COVID-19 knocked out some shipping services so always double check what services are shipping to your country despite the pandemic.

C. Sunyshore Store. A service specifically catered the Pokémon items. Their prices are expensive, and they said it was due to the high demand, which I just think is a bit..eh😒 I avoided them once I saw I would have to spend about 70 USD for a plush that’s not even that big. If I’m spending 70 dollars for a Leon plush, it might as well be the real Leon, tf.

D. Meccha Japan. They have a 5% off coupon (PKJ5) if you spend a certain amount (I think it’s 50 USD?) but I’m not sure. Prices are okay as it includes international shipping. They are currently out of stock for some Pokemon Trainers merch such as Leon and Raihan plushies, but they plan to restock in October 3-10. My only peeve is that their restocking period is like 3AM EST lol.

E. Hello Japan. hellojapan.shop is their website. I bought my Leon plush off of here literally the day before Amazon Japan had it, so I spent more money that I should’ve. Prices listed don’t include shipping, but that might depend on where you are in the world. They have a cancellation fee of 30% which is quite high, so I decided to take my L and not cancel my purchase to buy it on Amazon Japan. There is nowhere listed on their site what their office hours are. Their only form of contact seems to be just email.

F. Others. While checking around the internet I ran into other proxy services such as FromJapan, tenso.com, buyee.jp and remambo that help in buying things off the pokemon center. I didn’t look into them so I don’t have anything to say about them, other than buyee,jp has a million and one fees, and remambo at least allows you to cancel orders (before they buy them obviously)

G. Ebay. Ebay sucks due to the fact that resellers are shooting up the prices for these items. I literally saw a Leon plush being sold for 180 USD a couple days ago. I’d have to be out of my mind to buy any toy for that much money. If you shift through the overpriced resellers though, there are a couple decent ones. When you make an ebay account, you can message the seller and ask questions about the product before making your decision.

That’s pretty much it! There may be better, more informative guides on google if you search a bit but if this guide helps at least 1 person, I’d be totally content with that. Good luck with merchandise hunting! If you have questions you can reply to this post, message me on anon, or just shoot me a dm.