#we’ve reached that point gamers

[objectshow-enjoyer]

Hating you won’t make you suck any less

lyrics: Kokopelli Face Tattoo - AJJ

[aspiringtrashpanda]

This is the dumbest thing I've ever written. Please familiarize yourself with this scene from the Little Mermaid for best reader experience.

Characters: Leviathan x MC Stupid musical fluff, first kiss, kiss the fish baybeeee No warnings apply

“First, we’ve got to create the mood…”

A ripple surged through the aquarium, light undulating in soft waves, permeating the wall and reaching the furthest corners of the room. You traced the movements of the tiny goldfish, the pad of your index finger catching on the tacky glass just as the orange scales disappeared from view. 

You thought you could hear the thump of a bass guitar. Was it coming from Mammon’s room?

You almost brushed it off. Almost. 

However, when you thought you saw the water in the tank slosh in time to the steady beat, you asked, “Did you hear that?” 

“Hm?” Leviathan looked up from his computer monitor. One of his many displays. He had been at the start of a popular ARPG from the human world, last time you checked. Now, he had almost completed the tutorial. Turns out, it was as easy to speed through the introduction as it was to purchase a game from another realm through Akuzon. Jeremiah Bezoar, right?

Despite the reluctance to support such a megalomaniac, Levi found his thumbs smashing buttons. Why was there always so much exposition at the beginning of the quest? He frowned, “Hear what?”

“Percussion. Strings. Winds. Words…” 

You shuddered, a chill trickling down your spine. You were voicing your discomfort before you could even place the source. 

“Voices? But… They don’t sound familiar.” Though you were reluctant to tear your eyes away from the seascape stretched before you, you found yourself stepping backwards. One heel after the other, until you nudged against the back of Leviathan’s gaming chair. 

“Gah!” He startled, his headphones falling around his neck as wide, amber eyes turned to meet your gaze. The flex of his fingers seemed anxious, his knuckles popping in time with the rhythmic thud of the bass.  “Erm, you’re probably just hearing things…”

You were so close to believing him, to accepting his words as truth. Perhaps you would have, if it wasn’t for the smooth baritone that spilled into your ears.

“There, you see him. Sitting there across the way. He don’t got a lot to say. ‘Cause he’s playing Skyrim.”

The flit of your eyes confirmed the voice’s dulcet tones. Levi was, indeed, playing the classic fantasy game by Bethesda. There was no arguing the claim, not with the way the dragon attacked the site of his execution. 

Another glance at the aquarium revealed swaying kelp among the decorating stone structures within the tank. A flash of golden filaments forced the question from your mouth, “Can Henry speak?”

���Henry?” Levi paused the game, pulling up the main menu. He squished up his nose in amusement. “LOL. Not to you.”

Though, regardless of his claims, the melody bounced about the room.

“And the arrows fly, your knee’s been nullified. Go on and kiss the boy. ” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” And whether you were asking the fish - you noticed multiple fins fluttering from the hydra anemone to the sweeping greenery within the freshwater - or Levi, you weren’t entirely sure. Regardless, Leviathan spun in his chair, rocking back and forth on the creaking hinge of his high-tech seat. It was probably sponsored. He was a prominent gamer in the Devildom, after all. 

The pause between your question and his answer would have felt deafening if it wasn’t for the consistent thump of the bass, the jingle of mallets on a seashell marimba. Perhaps you appeared confused, though the uncertainty fell in syncopated beats, along with a tune you weren’t sure Levi could hear. 

“Well, you know, you normies have inferior hearing to us dem- HEY!” His squawk managed to overwhelm the crooning from the water fixture. The shellfish had joined in with some lovely harmonies, at this point. However, you found yourself happy to be distracted by Levi’s large, clammy hands as his long fingers pried yours away from a figure on his shelf.  “Don’t touch that!”

“Ah, sorry. I was just wondering…” You couldn’t stop the rush of blood to your face, the heat searing your cheeks a pretty pink. “Is that the Lord of Shadow’s crimson banquet outfit?”

Leviathan froze, his frame somewhere between sitting and standing. With his hands on his thighs, just above his knees, it looked as though he had been about to stand, about to rush to your side and physically remove your touch from the figure you had been admiring. 

“Yes, you want him. Look at him, you know you do. It’s possible he wants you too, and there’s one way to ask him.”

There was a flash of something in the indigo veins of his burning gaze. Did he hear it, too? Before you could ask, Levi narrowed his eyes, redirected your attention to his shelf of figurines. “Are you referring to the movies you marathoned with Mammon, or the books?”

You frowned, indignance igniting a roaring fire up your spine. With a sniff, you turned away from his incredulous glare. “I actually have started reading the books, you know. But… Well, I’m only on book two.”

The soothing accompaniment looped some sort of interlude. Minnows scurried from one rock to another. A toad lingering on a stone fixture breaching the surface croaked low and heavy, “It’s a list of words, by his fave character, go on and kiss the boy.”

And it was only then that you noticed the tension building in Levi’s blue seascape of a room. You felt the way his chapped lips parted, his tongue darting out to nervously wet the skin. He swallowed loudly, rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. His headphones rattled when he pushed them into the soft indigo strands brushing his nape, displaced and apparently forgotten. You smiled as a pretty pink flush spread across Levi’s cheeks, over the bridge of his nose. 

In an attempt to comfort him, you brought his attention back to the figure on his shelf. “Tell me about him, then.”

The prejudice dissolved from his gaze, replaced with a genuine excitement that nearly turned his orange eyes as bright as the sun that never touched the Devildom. He took a deep breath in, choosing his words carefully. “The… Um, the costume design department actually stuck really close to the canon source for the crimson banquet.”

A series of bubbles floated to the surface of the aquarium. As they burst, a note rang out through the room. There were so many instruments involved in the song now. How did a crayfish play a flute? It was past logic at this point. All you could do was pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. You offered Levi a shy smile, “Is this a special edition?”

“It is!” You loved the beam that stretched across his face, all crooked teeth and enthusiasm. “Oh! You’ll get it, then! See, Mammon tried to steal him and sell him for only 15,000 Grimm! Can you believe it? I mean, not only would it be unthinkable to sell Crimson Banquet Lord of Shadow, but to sell it for such a small amount?! It’s like he didn’t even know that the designer had actually researched the small nordic community off of Greenland to accurately represent the sort of clothing that…”

The sound of his voice was a sweeter melody than any fish could sing. You thought you caught the shimmer of a red scale, a rainbow shark swimming low to the colorful pebbles hidden in the soft silt at the base of the aquarium. You caught its eye. It winked. 

You weren’t sure how you felt about that. 

“Er, you’re probably not interested in all that…” Levi was still rambling. At the sight of his nervous expression, the way he twiddled his thumbs and averted his eyes like he thought you weren’t interested, you kicked it into high gear.

“I am.” Your heart thudded against your ribs. Really, you were. You were interested in anything Levi wanted to tell you. You found his passions fascinating. 

The moment his sunrise gaze slammed into yours, a swelling chorus rose from the aquarium. You felt your pulse thrum in time with the beat. Their voices appealed to the endorphins rushing through your veins.

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la my, oh my! The human is too shy! Ain’t gonna kiss the boy.”

A pair of koi flicked their tails, arcing past the aquarium glass with a loud, “Whoa, whoa!”

It was cute, you thought. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t entered Levi’s room with that very intention. You liked him. You had liked him for a while. Yet, you weren’t sure if he was ever going to get the hint. Hell, if even his fish knew of your soft spot for Leviathan, what did you have to lose? He had to know too, right?

So, there you were, the choir of aquarium life pushing you forward. However, as you took two steps closer to the Avatar of Envy, Levi deflated in his chair, covering his face with his hands. You could just make out his lips moving, a soft repetition, over and over again. 

Shuffling over to him, to his desk and his gaming setup, felt like walking a tight rope. “Hey,” You whispered, “Are you okay?”

He scowled, huffing a soft, “No!” 

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la ain’t that sad? The poor otaku lad. You’re gonna miss the boy.” This time, Henry the goldfish fluttered through the water, suspended in the light of the room. 

You thought he looked smug.

“Levi.” Your fingers gently grazed his knees, the soft fabric of his sweatpants encouraging you to curl your palm around the bone, to squeeze ever so slightly. 

“Yeah?” It squeaked out between the gaps in his fingers, splayed across his face. 

“I think your aquarium is serenading us.”

As if to confirm your claim, Henry - flanked by the two koi - swam in a shape too close to a heart to be anything else. You could hear the th-th-thump of your pulse in your ears. 

“Yeah…” It was cute, the way Levi’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. A crease formed in his brow, his ears burning bright as he winced, “They’ve threatened that a few times, but I didn’t think they actually would!”

“It’s kind of charming.”

“Is it?!”

Where the toad managed to find a saxophone, you weren’t sure. Nevertheless, the breezy tune paved the way for the second verse. And for what? Well… Perhaps your eyes were deceiving you, but was Levi leaning closer? 

There you were, slowly absorbed into Leviathan’s personal space, your frame falling between his knees as they trembled, parting carefully. His hand brushed his mouth, his teeth knocking his knuckles as he protested, “Y-you can just ignore it, really!”

Henry had other plans.

“Now’s your moment. Your room looks like a blue lagoon. Toggle off display #2, and offer your sweater.”

And despite his own advice, concern flashed in Levi’s eyes. “Are you cold?”

You shivered. “A little, yeah.”

“He won’t say a word. He’s just an awkward nerd, go on and kiss the boy.”

Levi’s hands - slick with nervous, cold sweat, rested on your biceps. He took a deep, shuddering breath in, and then, he steeled his resolve. “Y-you… could come closer?”

You shuffled further into his space. How you ended up edging your body between his knees as he sat in his gaming chair, you couldn’t quite recall. You supposed he had covered his face, and then you had crouched down to make eye contact, and well… Now you were wedged awfully close to his heaving chest, his eyes screwed tightly shut. 

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la don’t be scared, you’ve got the facts prepared. Go on and kiss the boy (Whoa, whoa). Sha-la-la-la-la-la don’t stop now, you’ve leveled up and wow, you’re gonna kiss the boy.” 

“Levi,” You sang, soft and sweet, drawing his name out in the same key of the song. His right eye fluttered open, peering at you with cautious optimism. 

Noses nudged together, breath mingling as the song faded into the routine bubble of the aquarium. Levi’s thumbs rubbed circles into your arms, and you found yourself near hypnotized by the steady pattern paired with the blazing heat in his fiery eyes. 

A shaky breath. A soft, “You, er, don’t have to! I mean, I’m just a yucky otaku! You… Um, if this is just a joke, it’s fine, and -”

Your lips met his. 

It was a quick kiss. Chaste and gentle. Simply the press of two mouths, both unwilling to cross any invisible line drawn in the aquarium sand. 

There was pure silence as you pulled away. The music had disappeared completely. Even the tank’s filter and the hum of Levi’s computer tower fizzled out. 

A beat, where it was only you and Leviathan.

You and Levi in the watery haze of his bedroom, your lips so very close, and yet…

It was Levi who surged forward, slotting his lips between yours once more. This time, he kissed you like he meant it, as if you were a crimson banquet-themed delicacy that he had been saving for a very special dessert. His fingers curling into your sleeves, you found yourself melting into his embrace, your heart pitter-pattering in time with the rattle from his own chest. Cupping the nape of his neck, you reveled in the soft indigo strands that brushed your palm, in the breezy scent of the sea that followed him wherever he went. 

It was a strange sensation - to feel as though you were burning alive while cocooned in the blue haze of the ocean. And yet, you never wished to experience anything else. The taste of his lips, the twist of his needy hands on your body all you could register as you scrambled into his lap, his chair creaking under your combined weight.

A quiet huff spilled from his wet lips, his bangs butting against your forehead. His jaw tensed, and you knew he was about to say something when…

A voice sounded. A voice from outside the walls of the House of Lamentation. A voice so low, it shook the very foundation beneath you.

“Oh, you wanna kiss the boy!”

Levi grimaced. You blinked. 

“Was… Was that Lotan?” You weren’t sure your ears had registered the melody correctly. 

“Can we…” Levi nuzzled his face into your neck. You could feel the humiliation radiating off him in waves. “Can we go to your room?”

*・゜・*:.。.*.。.:*・☆・゜・*:.。.*.。.:*・☆・゜

MY REQUESTS ARE OPEN! I've finished the first round, please give me more! This is a fun little writing exercise for me! Find out more HERE. i love you all so much, but shout out to @shootingstarrfish and @4laurus. Please check them out. 💕

[ten-quadrillion-blog]

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that Ubisoft is being racist?

I’m a long-time fan of Assassin’s Creed. It’s a part of me at this point: a reason I got interested in history, a reason I opted to take French classes in Highschool. I remember counting the days until the movie came out, going to theaters on release weekend with a friend. It wasn’t a good movie, but it remains a fond memory to this day.

As I played Ghost of Tsushima, I kept thinking about how cool it would be if the protagonist were a Ninja. Sure, there was a skill tree focused on stealth, but the storyline was very much about honor and the internal conflict of being a warrior. I wanted more subversion, loyalty and shady dealings- in short, I wanted to see the Assassin’s creed take on it. Templars funding corrupt kirishitan daimyo, lone assassin shinobi becoming nukenin, that sort of thing.

When I first heard that there would be an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan, I was excited for it. Then, they revealed the protagonists to be a Japanese kunoichi and …a samurai foreigner. Was it a marketing decision? Because we’ve had Italian assassins in Italy and American Assassins in North America and Egyptian Assassins in Egypt. It’s obviously a conscious choice, then. Ubisoft stating that no, having a Japanese woman as the sole protagonist just won’t do. The Japanese Ubisoft statement that has since been deleted spoke of the creative team finding “our” samurai. Are the Asian, much less Japanese, constituents of the AC fandom not “theirs” enough?

If that were all, then it would’ve been business as usual; I wouldn’t have posted anything, albeit with lingering disappointment towards Ubisoft. However, there’ve been claims that the allegations of cultural appropriation and historical fabrication are all racist reactionary backlash to having a black protagonist, which I felt was actively harmful to my continued existence so here I am.

First of all, the fact that Assassin’s Creed is a work of fiction and that there are many works of historical fiction that do outright silly things in Japan is not the center of discourse anymore in Japanese circles so arguing that Ubisoft has artistic license is rather a moot point. Yes there’s feminized Oda Nobunaga in FGO, made by a Japanese company, move on from that please. Most people aren’t concerned about the player base being stupid enough that they can’t tell that AC is a fictional game. We aren’t stupid, neither are you.

The issue about historical fabrication lies in the concern that players will enjoy the game and decide to search about the historical Yasuke and come across Lockley’s book, African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, which is utter bullsh*t. He is alleged to have edited Wikipedia in small increments over the course of ten years to authenticate his speculations as fact. After being outed on Twitter by Japanese AC fans he deleted his socials. And although I believe gamers aren’t stupid enough to believe AC is completely factual, I can’t believe that people won’t trust a printed book written by a scholar since even Encyclopedia Brittanica believed him. An article in ScreenRant even cites this book; while Japanese fans have been exposing one falsification after another these past few weeks, none of that information is reaching across the waters, where it would actually be relevant to target misinformation. If you think I’m lying, go to the Japanese language version of Wikipedia and click on ‘translate page’ for a quick overview of the problem (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%88%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AD%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC). It’s not in the English version. We are rightfully concerned that people will read the book because they like the game and come to believe that Japan participated in the transatlantic slave trade. We are rightfully concerned because we know there’s been wars fought over who has enslaved who and punishing those deemed morally degenerate. We are actually scared because Assassin’s Creed is a big title series god*amn it.

This is honestly my first time coming face to face with racism to this degree. Posts on Tumblr, English Twitter, and gaming media have made it out to be that the only people complaining are white men, as if the backlash is only from gamergate. I enjoy reading articles from IGN and Polygon and whatnot on a normal day, but now I’m faced with articles saying there’s been “some criticisms” (emphasis not mine) being raised in Japan and even claims that Japanese people are overwhelmingly looking forwards to the game while white bigots are the only ones complaining, completely minimizing the issue. There’s 90k+ signatures to cancel the game in a Japanese language petition, and sure, there may be a few thousand racists who took the time to translate the page and sign, but it’s insane to state that it’s composed of mostly white men. Like c’mon. There’s been boatloads of Japanese language tweets about the AC Shadows controversy getting tens of thousands of likes and quotes on Twitter. There were only two English articles that I could find that cut into the issue and one was written by a Japanese writer translated from Japanese media. COME ON. “Ubisoft didn’t need to release an apology since they’re only angering internet trolls” is not the point media should be making. Can someone have the guts to write “Ubisoft needs to release an actual apology instead of dancing around the problem?” And why do we need to say that we want a Japanese Assassin’s creed game to be about Japanese people in the first place? Shouldn’t it have been the obvious choice? I’m looking forwards to playing an African Assassin cutting the throats of colonial traders in Capetown, whenever that might happen, and my non-Asian friends have been looking forwards to playing a Japanese Assassin in feudal Japan, and I think Ubisoft is just giving all of us the finger. A nice, nonthreatening, manicured finger.

I really hope Ubisoft and/or HarperCollins denounces Lockley’s book before the release date for at least some semblance of damage control.

And before anybody says anything stupid, I am in fact not a white dude, I am a Japanese American Female studying Anthropology. So thank you, Ubisoft, for influencing my life decisions. I hope my disappointment reaches you.

[just-antithings]

AOT anon has returned with a gift!

TL; DR: Antis’ moral condemnation of AOT fans has functionally created a perfect environment for gamergate but anime, and worse.

First off, i want to state that I agree that there is a lot of very thinly veiled antisemitism within AOT’s canon, and no number of screencaps about people saying genocide is bad is going to avoid that—be it titans and blood libel, the ghettos and the armbands, the tacit implication that genocide against the Eladians—despite being morally reprehensible—would be a necessary measure to stop them from destroying humanity, i’m sure you all are at least somewhat familiar with these talking points. This is not a condemnation of AOT’s fans, I certainly don’t think you’re all secret nazis or someshit, I’m just highlighting that there is miles of ground to cover for a critical analysis of AOT for anyone who’s willing to approach it in good faith.

However, as many people have pointed out, a lot of these references are allegorical and/or subtextual in a way that means that the only people who would really pick up on them are either already deeply antisemitic themselves or make a concerted effort to keep track of antisemitic tropes and talking-points. My point is the people who would be best targeted by a propagandistic anime/manga like what AOT is claimed to be won’t pick up the message it’s supposedly trying to spread. To a lot of people it’s just a good story with lots of gory monster killing, a gritty conspiracy and some juicy emotional arcs. And, from their view, the Antis who treat their affection for a story as something morally condemnable are being completely unreasonable; they’re reaching, they hate morally and emotionally complex media, and they’re out to kill everyone’s fun. And, this is a reaction that can be very easily exploited by any remotely fandom-savvy far right recruiter: Antis are snowflakes becomes SJWs are snowflakes, criticisms of the status quo is overly sensitive whiners trying to take away the things you love, the SJWs are thought police, harassing marginalised groups is good and necessary because of The Culture War, and actually all even slightly left-leaning critique of something popular must have been engineered by The Communist Jews Who Wanna Take Over The World, so on and so on. We’ve literally already seen this with gamergate. A Feminist™️ took issue with misogyny in the gaming scene became The Left Wants To Steal Our Video Games and the only way to protect them is by calling Anita Sarkisian the k-slur and sending people death threats—except that time, most people weren’t actually accusing The Average Gamer of being a bad and terrible person for playing WoW. Antis turning criticism of a piece of media into a moral condemnation of anyone who consumes it makes the process of media criticism entirely too personal in a way that plays right into the hands of fascist reddit and 4chan types, and antis should, by all respects, be the types of people to pick up on that faster than most—but they seem to care more about their larping as the Last Bastion Of Morality than actually engaging thoughtfully with media and good faith discussion around it, and i kinda really hate that. I know this is long, but in my defence I dod warn you that I have a Lot Of Opinions on Antis’ reactions to AOT.

.

[messiahzzz]

So I came across your post for Wyll. And even though you did an update it really did shake me to see the silencing black voices and how they come off as “hostile.” As a black gamer myself and black character is treated (usually) like a subhuman. On pages where people calm them slurs and other vile things. And we’re told to essentially “get over it.” And in this regard when it comes to Wyll, we see that he has less content than the other 5 origin characters. Which is odd since he’s been around from the very beginning. Yes, he did have a rewrite due to white people saying “he’s not trustworthy/he’s to mean” like black people as a whole are supposed to fit into a nice little mold that suits them. Do I think Larian should have stood on business and kept EA Wyll as he was? Absolutely. Do I enjoy the Wyll we got at release? Absolutely. But hearing takes like yours when you, in the past, said that Wyll needs more content. It’s like you’re backpedaling to fit a narrative or be more palatable for a certain audience.

I don’t know man. It was just hurtful to read really.

“But hearing takes like yours when you, in the past, said that Wyll needs more content. It’s like you’re backpedaling to fit a narrative or be more palatable for a certain audience.”

this is going to be a long reply, but let me start it off by saying: i have always said so and i’ve never claimed anything different, even on the exact post you are currently referring to. i fully and wholeheartedly believe that wyll deserves more content until he has the exact same amount of scenes like everyone else. this includes the quality and any other aspect of his story that is in thorough need of improvement. this is something that won’t ever change.

for the sake of full transparency, these are all of the posts i’ve written that vaguely address this entire topic. [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

the original post is — like i’ve said many, many times by now — a mere scene tally. meant to compare the amount of content (not the quality or substance thereof) wyll currently has in the game, taken in strict comparison to the other companions. not addressing the racial stereotypes and tropes present in wyll’s story in this specific post was a conscious choice i made.

i didn’t want this specific post to turn into a discussion about racism in media/fandom in the first place, because i fully believe that it is a complex and crucial topic that deserves to be addressed separately and with just as much consideration, respect, and care. as well as with actual, coherent references to back it up. however, i also recognize that these topics are inherently and inevitably interlinked. which is why i felt it unfair to refuse dialogue. i considered it my responsibility to explain my approach and also reiterate what the original purpose of said post was. …until it got out of hand.

i do think we’ve reached a point where a certain (loud minority) of the fandom is vehemently insistent on misunderstanding and misinterpreting anything i will say henceforth, no matter how many times i will repeat myself and explain my intentions. this is unfortunate, but ultimately how fandom as a whole works. branding a single person as “the problem”, while goading and egging each other on, on their respective discord servers until the next discourse pops up. and before anyone even goes in that direction: no, this is not me playing the victim, but merely an observation.

people that have been following my blog for a while now likely know that my posts are almost always accompanied by strict data & examples. i rarely derail from the topic at hand and prefer to make separate posts for each issue i want to address — not a justification, but an explanation. another example, to further illustrate what i’m referring to: if i made a post about the number of scenes gale has in comparison to the other characters and someone else asked me: why "i am not addressing the grooming and abuse he suffered through mystra as well?”. i would also tell them that: yes, while this is a crucial theme that stretches throughout his entire story and ultimately shaped his character, this is not the purpose of this specific post.

i genuinely love wyll as a character, he is one of my favorite companions in the entire game and it saddens me that there is so very little fan content of him. however, i do feel like that by effectively shutting down every discussion around him that isn’t centered on his personality and/or his romance it will inevitably leave fans burned out and even more discouraged from creating more content with him than they were in the first place. policing others on the topics that are acceptable/unacceptable to talk about (and in which manner they should be addressed) is only putting further restrictions on the little content wyll already has within fandom. it is counterproductive.

i can assure you that it was never my intention to be hurtful. neither to make poc players feel like i am silencing them nor urging them to “be quiet and get over it.” quite the contrary, in fact. i believe correction is necessary to ensure that the data (we give larian for review) is detailed, comprehensive, and factually correct. so it will be taken seriously and consistent, elaborate changes will be made. instead of merely receiving a few measly bug fixes to appease the masses.

i do hope you’ll respect my decision to remove myself from this discussion entirely and not send me any more asks regarding said topic in the future, nor reply to this post. respectful and civil dialogue is something i will never reject, but i’d also really like to let it rest and have us all focus on the aspects of fandom that genuinely bring us joy & allow for the pleasant kind of escapism.

now, since this was a lot of text, allow me to sum it up once more:

i fully believe that wyll deserves more content. until the quality, as well as the amount of his scene are exactly on par with the rest of the companions.

i have never urged anyone towards inaction or claimed that the fandom should simply “shut up and be content” with what they’re given.

what i have criticized is the methods of action that were taken by a small amount of fandom (i.e. petitions and demands directed at larian) my personal opinion being that it is not a long-term effective approach that will bring about the desired results (said petitions not even entering larian’s peripheral vision or being consciously ignored entirely). as well as being rather disrespectful to the developers and the people that continuously work on the game.

i have never claimed that you shouldn’t critique larian. in fact, i do this often myself. there are maaaaanyyyyy aspects to be critical of.

i personally believe that it is a much more efficacious approach to provide larian with direct feedback via their form. i have provided instructions, as well as examples of reports you could write on my posts (upon specific request) and also repeatedly linked to their website.

last but not least: please let it rest ✨

[govindhtech]

Hogwarts Legacy 2 Sequel in Development, Says Movie Insider

Fans of The Hogwarts Legacy, be on the lookout: it was only recently disclosed that a sequel is presently in the process of being produced, and when it is published, it will take the series to greater heights than it has ever reached before.

Hogwarts Legacy sequel

MyTimeToShineHello, a well-known movie insider who is also recognized for their amazing track record when it comes to exposing facts about the film industry, is the one who leaked the information. In spite of the fact that the leaker did not reveal a lot of data, it is fair to infer that the leaker has sources within Warner Bros. given that he has previously exposed a variety of pieces of content that came from the studio. In other words, it is acceptable to think that the leaker has sources inside Warner Bros.

Because this is the first time we’ve heard of a prospective sequel, we aren’t very familiar with the intricacies of it. However, we do know that it would be set in the future. Despite this, a second installment of the Hogwarts Legacy series was certain to be developed at some time in the future since the first game in the series was such a huge commercial success.

This game had its best year ever in terms of sales, bringing in a grand total of $1.3 billion in revenue as a result of its popularity. When we evaluated the game, we were impressed by what Warner Bros. brought to the table, especially when it came to developing an engaging and interesting game that was set in a well-known fantasy setting.

Since the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, has already made a remark about the company’s devotion to develop a “perfect” game, even if doing so would come with a tradeoff in terms of production time, one should not think that a release date will be revealed in the near future. Instead, one should not anticipate that an announcement about the release date will be made in the far future.

If we do not think that a certain movie or video game is the culmination of our best efforts, then we will not make it available to the general public. Even if we are successful fifty or seventy percent of the time, it is not going to be worth our effort to continue with this plan.

However, the company has recently embraced this point of view as the foundation of its new cultural philosophy. The recounting of tales is what our company does for a living. The members of our team with the most original ideas are constantly toiling away to enhance our content and make it the very best that it can be.

Taking into consideration the average development cycle for a triple-A video game, it is conceivable that we will not be able to purchase Hogwarts Legacy 2 for at least three to four years

While we wait for the second edition, you may play the original one on a number of different consoles and devices, such as personal computers, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One. The game’s original release date of July 25 has been moved back by four months, and it won’t be available for purchase on the Nintendo Switch device until the month of November.

Quidditch, the sport that is featured in Harry Potter, is going to be the focus of a new video game that is now in development for both personal computers and gaming consoles. This is sure to excite fans of the Harry Potter series. On the other hand, mobile gamers may already participate in the collectible card role-playing game Harry Potter: Magic Awakened, which was released at the end of July for both Android and iOS.

[nat20marketing]

Hello fellow marketers. Welcome to our FINAL session of the Nat 20 Marketing journey!

I just want to ask. How are you? How are we feeling for having come so far? I will be honest here, it is a little touching that we’re seeing the end of this wild adventure on IMC. We’ve covered so many points regarding how to conduct a successful IMC campaign.

When I first started taking business in college, I wasn’t sure what the program would be able to inspire me. I thought business was plain and boring, and had to do with lots of numbers. Sure, as marketers, we still have to deal with numbers every day, but I would like to think that a successful marketing campaign consists of both refreshing creativity and data-supported numbers and statistics. In the realm of business and reality, money (and budgeting) is just far too critical to ignore. This is where we as marketers have to stay grounded when we come up with all sorts of fascinating ideas.

For this final blog post, we’ll look into the aspects of how to deliver a good pitch presentation. At the end of the day, marketers will have to present their BIG IDEAS to people with the capital to invest in these ideas. We are going to cover two major tips I figured out myself when I was preparing for my presentation the other week, hopefully, they’ll prove to be useful for everyone in the future.

First and foremost, you must know your target market inside out.

Research and data collection are sure to bring us insight into how our target markets behave and act. It is the most basic and the very first step to understanding our target market. I am going to take the pitch presentation I recently did for my marketing class as an example. 

My group discussed heavily on the idea beforehand to make sure everyone was on the same page. I think this is extremely important because it can genuinely help each teammate prepare their individual parts at a better level of understanding. I think it is completely fair that each teammate focuses on different parts of the presentation since there are just so many points we have to talk about during the whole pitch. However, having everyone know what is happening exactly opens room for new perspectives, ensuring no stone is left unturned. It helps the team refine the BIG IDEA and allows the team to dive deeper in case there are any unreasonable concepts or objectives. 

I think it is understandable that sometimes we are not completely certain with numbers and we are often left to make educated estimations. On one hand, we want to be logical with our budgeting and projected returns. On the other hand, we also want to be realistically optimistic about the BIG IDEA. If one is unsure of the BIG IDEA in the first place, how is one going to confidently sell the concept to investors and prospectors? How is one going to convince others that their idea is a good one?

Okay, we talked about being confident and thorough with the preparation and brainstorming stage. What about understanding the target market? How does it actually help?

When we reach the stage of complete understanding of our target market, we can shape the tone and energy of the pitch presentation to match the target market. It goes to show that those who come up with the BIG IDEA truly know the wants and needs of the target market well enough to think from their perspective; to consider what they care for; and to provide tailor-made solutions with their best interest in mind. 

Taking the same example, the pitch presentation for my team is for the McDelivery app targeting GenZ gamers. When we think of GenZ, we think of adolescents and young adults. We think of middle schoolers, high schoolers, and university students. We think of young adults who are just kick-starting their career paths. They are a vibrant group with all sorts of interests and personalities. They care about individuality and societal issues. They are attuned to rapid technological advancements and are open to solutions that make their lives easier and more convenient, so they can make time for their hobbies and personal projects. When we think of gamers, we think of video games and entertainment. We think of action games, roleplaying games, puzzle games, horror games, comedy games, cooperative games, competitive games, cozy games, etc. There are so many genres in the market, and it is not a simple task to target all gamers. With a budget in mind, our team narrowed it down to a popular battle royale game in the market for a collaboration campaign. It is competitive and well-known across North America with a stable and large player base. Our team spent time researching the psychology and behavior of gamers who play competitive video games. We finally decided on the tone to be upbeat, energetic, and casual. This leads me to my next big tip.

Knowing the target market and the client should be the key to formulating the delivery format of the pitch presentation. We as marketers want to be close to our target market. We want to be a part of them and make them feel that we do understand their needs and wants. We want them to know that we have just the perfect solutions to their problems. For my team, we brought props to the presentation. We had headsets and console controllers. We had a TikTok video and a live demonstration to reflect how our target audience acts and thinks. We showed that we knew the target market’s priorities and passions. 

I would like to humbly point out that roleplaying in a presentation takes quite some confidence and it may not be for everyone. Rehearsing with the whole team helps, but individual practicing is critical. The more we practice and the more hands-on we are with the group’s whole research and brainstorming process can be very helpful. It can get us to the point where cue cards are not necessary. We can freely move around the stage instead of rigidly standing next to the slides and reciting the script. (If it can be helped, I do suggest memorizing key ideas and terms in place of the script itself. It gives room for improvising on the spot and reduces stammering when we forget the next exact line.)

I do not think there is any standardized answer to how to prepare the perfect pitch presentation, but I think the two tips I leave here with you all today are worth considering and adopting for anyone who is planning for some kind of pitch presentation.

It’s been a wild journey finally practicing what I’ve learned in class in the past few years. Thank you for joining in on this ride fellow adventurers. I hope all your future marketing campaigns run smoothly and successfully. The rocks and bumps on the way are lessons to be learned, and for my final tip of this blog:

NEVER STOP LEARNING.

Thank you, and goodbye!

[44gamez]

Our 100 most popular Xbox games of 2023 list shows the power of Game Pass

In any case our weekly charts, this this is the massive one: the highest 100 Xbox Gameplay Chart for the entire 12 months of 2023.By some means, regardless of being in first place for almost each chart of the 12 months, Fortnite is not prime of the chart for the preferred video games of 2023. Minecraft has that honor (it was first for final 12 months's prime 100 chart too), adopted by GTA V in second, after which Fortnite in third. Name of Responsibility is in fourth, with Starfield managing to interrupt in at fifth. Starfield was undoubtedly one in every of 2023's largest launches, so regardless of solely releasing on the finish of the 12 months (and to blended opinions) it isn't an excessive amount of of a shock to see it shoot so excessive. It is received extra deliberate for 2024, too, so it'd handle to carry onto its spectacular participant numbers. Halo Infinite was fourth in final 12 months's chart for the highest 100 hottest Xbox video games however has slipped right down to ninth this 12 months regardless of common updates and new Seasons, whereas Rocket League has raced as much as tenth. FIFA 23 has made a large leap up from fiftieth final 12 months to eleventh this 12 months. 2023 noticed it be part of Xbox Sport Move Final and EA Play, earlier than being delisted forward of EA Sports activities FC 24's launch. The subsequent huge change is Atomic Coronary heart, which is at 18th after launching into Sport Move early this 12 months. One other of this 12 months's huge launches is Hogwarts Legacy, which has made it to twentieth after launching just a few weeks or so sooner than Atomic Coronary heart. Payday 3, a September 2023 launch, has made it to twenty second regardless of all its launch points and patch delays. Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare has fallen from fifth place in final 12 months's chart to twenty third this 12 months, whereas just under, The Texas Chain Noticed Bloodbath (one other 2023 Sport Move launch) has reached twenty fifth of the 100 hottest video games. We then have a spate of different 2023 releases: Wo Lengthy Fallen Dynasty at twenty seventh, GoldenEye 007 at twenty eighth, and Forza Motorsport at twenty ninth. All launched on day one into Sport Move. Black Ops 2, in the meantime, has managed to leap up 40 locations from final 12 months's spot at 72nd. Earlier this 12 months, Xbox 360 Name of Responsibility video games noticed an enormous spike in gamers after server fixes, which could assist to clarify this enhance. The remainder of the chart is riddled with 2023's releases, though they may not all be the place you'd count on. At thirty fifth we've got Occasion Animals (a day-one Sport Move launch), adopted by Stranded Deep at thirty sixth, Monster Hunter Rise at thirty seventh, and Redfall (one other day-one Sport Move addition) at thirty eighth. Redfall was stricken by bugs and lacklustre opinions at launch, prompting Phil Spencer to apologize and focus on his disappointment at letting down Xbox followers. Nonetheless, Bethesda's Pete Hines says the crew will maintain engaged on Redfall as a result of it is in Sport Move, saying, "we all know, as a first-party studio, Sport Move lives ceaselessly."Madden NFL 23 launched in 2022 however makes its first look on the highest 100 chart for 2023 at fortieth, most definitely because of becoming a member of Sport Move Final by way of EA Play. Loads of huge Sport Move day-one launches present up all through the chart, akin to Lies of P at forty first, Minecraft Legends at forty seventh, and Hello-Fi Rush at fiftieth. Then we've got main releases like Diablo IV, which exhibits up at forty sixth. Some huge releases, like Murderer's Creed Mirage, do not store up on this prime 100, however the older Murderer's Creed video games are all falling quick: Odyssey is down from 51st to sixty fifth, whereas Valhalla is down from forty seventh to 82nd, and Origins is down from forty first to 89th. The much-updated No Man's Sky is down from 2022's spot at 58th to 73rd, however Good day Video games introduced a brand new multiplayer sport known as Mild No Hearth, which already seems to be to be vastly formidable. In the meantime, it is fascinating to see Vampire Survivors has solely made it into the highest 100 this 12 months, and at 91st, because it joined Sport Move final 12 months. Nonetheless, it is had plenty of huge updates, which could clarify its sudden look. Rounding out the chart at a hundredth is Remnant 2, which launched earlier this 12 months however joined Sport Move solely not too long ago. Chart compiled utilizing gameplay knowledge from over 2.4 million lively Xbox accounts. Chart info is copyright GameInsights. For particulars on how the chart is calculated, click on right here. Source link Read the full article

[thestreamdreampony]

Look, I don't post on this website. I lurk. But I do want to say smth for once.

As someone who just turned 22, I'm older than a lot of people in this fandom. A pretty significant part of this fandom is much, much younger than me, often somewhere between 10-15 years old, and a huge part of this fandom is lgbtqia and a lot of them are just now figuring themselves out.

So when the ccs they look up to, use their platform to loudly and openly declare their support to the community then absolutely no one has a right to criticise these kids, or anyone else for feeling reassured, validated, or just happy about it.

Is it the height of allyship? No. Is it basic human decency? Ideally, yes.

But what a lot of this fandom is just too young to remember (and tbh, I'm almost too young too) is how utterly shit the gaming space was just 5-7 years ago.

Gamergate harassed female and lgbt people to the point of actually endangering their lives purely because they dared to be visible and loud in a male cishet dominated space.

Hell, switch to a different fandom and you'll still see people complaining how female protagonists aren't sexualized enough and how PC culture is ruining games.

The fact that this fandom, which, just a few days ago, reached almost 1 million concurrent live viewers for mcc and which is large enough to get "Dogboy" trending just because a creator tweeted "bark" on twitter, is so agressively lgbtqia friendly is honestly a miracle.

You have streamers actively educating themselves everytime they learn smth new, you have others donating thousands to lgbt charities and others curating their audience by banning homophobes and racists with prejucide, so that their audience is comfortable, you have them creating an smp that basically functions as a homonormative society and male streamers unafraid to treat their male friends with love and affection, etc..

Are they perfect? Hell no. Are they largely white (presumably) cishet guys? Yes. (Though I don't want to diminish the contribution of streamers like Eret, Antfrost, Niki, Puffy, Velvet, Scott, etc. (for lgbt) and skeppy, TapL, Quackity, Ponk, etc. (for poc)). Are their tweets basic human decency? Also yes.

But can you take it for granted? Sadly no.

So if you saw Dream, Tommy, Tubbo, Phil's, Ranboo's, etc. Pride month tweets earlier and felt happy about them? You are within your complete right to feel that way.

In an ideal world we wouldn't need to celebrate these occurances, but we don't live in that ideal world, so if a cc's words bring you comfort while you're figuring things out, good for you.

I think it's important to occasinally put this fandom in a gamer fandom history perspective and see how insanely far we've come in just the last 5 years. If you'd told me 5 years ago that one of the biggest and most active fandoms on the internet 2020 and 2021 would be an agressively lgbt friendly minecraft community, where support comes both from the bottom up as well as from up top, I would not have believed you.

I don't think we have to or should put cc's on a pedastal for this, but I do think it's sometimes worth remembering where we came from and where we are now and how goddamn lucky we are for it.

Edit: excuse my punctuation. It's 4am and I'm typing this on my phone /lh

[soft--dragon]

Blueshells and Belly Laughs

Based off of this prompt here

Word Count: 1,390

Warnings: None

This is a SFW tickle fic, if you don’t like that then don’t read :)

“Aaaaaand WINNER!” Dream whooped loudly, throwing his arms up into the air in glee.

“You bastard!” Came Wilbur’s yell of annoyance, his character on the screen passing the finish line seconds after Dream’s. He rounded on the hoodie donned man who was grinning madly and pointed an accusing finger. “Cheated. You bloody cheated.”

Dream gave a snort, lightly slapping away Wilbur’s hand and clicking the buttons on his controller to set up the next race. “You’re just a sore loser, my god. No wonder you and George get along so well.”

“You haven’t lost a single game, what the fuck,” Wilbur grouched. “Do you just never go outside and waste your time playing this shitty game?”

“Firstly rude, I do go out, I’ll have you know,” Dream rolled his eyes. “And it’s not shitty, you just suck at it.” Dream selected a new racetrack and gave Wilbur a side eye. “You done bitching so you can get your ass kicked again?”

Wilbur hunched his shoulders inwards and snatched his discarded controller off the cushions once more. “I regret meeting up with you.”

Dream wheezed loudly, clicking on the track and settling into his Gamer Pose™ on his side of the couch. “Uh huh, and you call Tommy a child.”

“At least Tommy doesn’t throw blue shells at me and call me an old bitch,” Wilbur reached over on instinct and jabbed Dream’s side like he did with his little brother. 

Dream instantly flinched with a muffled noise, kicking Wilbur’s foot in response. “T-That sounds like something he would do,” he shot back, eyes forward on the screen. The slight wobble in his voice peaked Wilbur’s interest, drawing the brunette’s eye back to him.

Dream’s gaze was solely on the screen, a small smile on his face and brows scrunched to his eyes. Wilbur noted there was a faint pinkness in his face. Odd. 

Dream suddenly flicked his eyes over and rolled them with a smug grin. “Oi, I know I’m pretty but get your eyes forward, we’ve started.” 

Wilbur jolted and quickly scrambled to hit the right buttons, his kart boosting forwards on the track. “Fuck fuck- why didn't you say anything?!” He yelped, trying to catch up to Dream who was a natural speed demon and had climbed to first in seconds. 

Dream cackled. “Snooze you lose Wil,” he taunted, “maybe if you didn’t try to spy on how I play, then you’ll know when it actually begins.”

Wilbur shot him a glare, button smashing and hurling the green shells he picked up forwards in hopes they’d throw the other characters off. “Shut up you green motherfucker.” 

“Ooooo, someone’s getting sassy~” A blue shell suddenly swung by and smashed Wilbur’s kart to the side, an instinctual yell of outrage bursting from the British man. Dream cackled, his character speeding past his own destruction. “Take that you old bitch!”

“I’M THREE YEARS OLDER THAN YOU!”

“AND YET YOU DRIVE LIKE YOU’RE SIXTY!” 

Wilbur reached out instinctively again and jabbed Dream’s exposed side, freezing a bit at Dream’s yelp and what sounded to be a muffled giggle.

“Hey! Hands to yourself,” Dream smacked away his fingers, quickly returning back to his controller when a Blooper swung in front of him and sprayed ink all over his screen.

Wilbur, however, couldn’t care less about the ink blinding his character as well. All his attention was now on the new found weakness to his friend. He grinned wide and mischievous, throwing caution to the wind as his fingers were already lunging back into Dream’s sensitive midsection. 

“HEHEhehey! Wil! Whahat the fuck ahAre you dohoing?!” Dream spluttered, instantly letting one hand go off his controller to try and shove Wilbur’s wiggling digits away, his character veering off course as a result. 

“Aw c’mon Dream,” Wilbur spoke sweetly though his eyes had become playfully dark. “What happened to that winning streak? Look, baby Bowser has pulled ahead of you now!”

Dream gasped and laughed harder as Wilbur’s hand scoped out the weak spot on his lower back, pinching and scribbling mercilessly. “Wihihihil! Lehehet gohoho fohohor fuhuhucks sahahake!” 

“Aww noooo, you’ve dropped to fourth Dream! You’re never gonna win at this rate,” Wilbur cooed in faux sadness, “And you’re so good at this game too, imagine how sad it would be to lose.”

Dream wheezed, managing to grab onto Wilbur’s wrist and went to shove him away. “Okahahay! Okahahay Ihihihi gehehet ihihit! Stohohopihihit!” He pleaded, giggling so much it was almost incoherent. 

“You get it? Get what? I’m not even doing anything,” Wilbur dropped his controller, ignoring the game to fully scribble into Dream’s belly.

Dream shrieked at the top of his lungs at that, his own controller dropping to the carpet as he scrambled back to get away. “WIHIHIHIL!”

Wilbur cackled, leaping for the man and tackling him down to the cushions, his hands plunging into the fabric of his hoodie to squeeze, scribble and spider into sensitive skin. Dream arched his back high in wild squeals of laughter, his face fully red now with a large smile spread across his lips. 

“Oh, are you ticklish Dream? Is that what’s wrong?” He teased meanly, poking along the man’s ribs and worming nimble fingers into the grooves in-between. 

Dream squirmed into the couch cushions madly, wheezes breaking between each fit of giggles at the rush of ticklish sensations. “WihiHIHIHIlbuhuhur! Ihihit- Ihihi cahahan’t stahahand thihihis!” He whined, pressing his hands to Wilbur’s chest and trying to shove him off only for his armpits to be drilled into, making him throw his head back in laughter.

Wilbur clicked his tongue mockingly, not the least bit sympathetic. “Aw, well you shouldn’t have gotten so cocky Dweam, I’m afraid you did this to yourself.”

“FUHUHUCK OHOHOFF YOHOHOU DIHIHICKHEHEAD!”

Wilbur rolled his eyes. “Such a nasty mouth too, golly, it’s a wonder no one’s done this sooner.” 

He yanked up Dream’s hoodie so he could claw his fingers straight onto bare skin, and the scream the sounded out made it sound like Dream was getting murdered. 

“OHOHO NOHOHOHO- WIHIHIL! PLEHEHEASE NOHOHOT THAHAHAT!” The man howled, flailing wildly in hysterics at the sensations. 

Wilbur’s eyes lit up and he giggled a bit himself. “Awww, the Manhunt King’s got a ticklish tummy? A sensitive stomach? A buzzy belly?”

The teasing sent a rush of warmth up Dream’s neck and he buried his face into his hands, snorts peppering between his laughter. “YOHOHOU’RE SUHUHUCH AHAHA PRIHIHICK!” 

The tickling lasted a few minutes longer, Wilbur finding all the sensitive spots quickly and making Dream just about scream with laughter, the man reduced to a puddle of giggles by the time Wilbur had settled to just tracing his nails over his trembling belly. 

The brunette then placed his hands on Dream’s lower belly, feeling the muscles quiver instinctively and let out a laugh. “Relax Dream, I’m done for now,” he snickered. 

Dream visibly slumped into the cushions, his hands planted on his face as he calmed down from the attack. He heard Wilbur chuckle quietly and felt a gentle pat to his stomach, subconsciously flinching at the contact with a squeak.

“You know, I’m glad we met up. I get to see you like this,” Wilbur settled beside Dream, grinning down at him. “It’s kinda cute, King.”

Dream whined, the tickling had stopped but the small giggles tumbling out of him hadn’t. He shifted his hands so he could clamp them over his mouth, his eyes squinting with how big his smile was. “Shuhut up, it’s embaharrassing,” he grumbled. 

Wilbur shook his head, smiling genuinely. “Well I found it quite sweet. And I’ll make sure to tell George when I go back.”

Dream immediately flinched and shot up, staring at Wilbur intensely. “No- no you can’t, he’ll actually murder me when he gets over here.”

Wilbur snickered, looking at his nails. “Ah well, I’ll give a nice eulogy then.”

The strawberry blonde spluttered in outrage. “Like hell you will-!”

Wilbur’s own cackles rang through the house as Dream enacted his revenge, yelling at the brunette to not tell George, while Wilbur yelled about him trying to silence the truth. Mario Kart lay abandoned at the side, the characters tied for last place while their players tussled on the couch. The race wasn’t going to continue for a while, but there were more important things at hand.

[redorich]

"Hello, Mr. Blade," Quackity says.

Techno inwardly groans. He knows that tone of voice; it usually precedes some awful joke, or indicates that Quackity's about to take off all his clothes and attempt to sell cocaine to people again. Possibly both. In a desperate attempt to avoid whatever shitstorm is coming his way, Technoblade resolutely reads his book and pretends he does not hear Quackity. He holds out for a whole five minutes, until Quackity starts autotune-singing about how much he and Techno love doing exceedingly nasty things with each other. When Quackity breaks out the guitar, Techno snaps his book shut.

"What do you want?" the piglin grunts.

Quackity shapeshifts into a cute little yellow duckling, presumably to persuade Techno with the power of cuteness. "Break into MCC with me," he says.

That is such a bad idea on so many levels. Challenging, sure, and very interesting...

"What's in it for me?" he says.

"I want to put a whoopie cushion on Scott's chair," the duckling quacks. "That means we've got to break into the admin room, and you can mess with the admin control panel."

Techno raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You want to break into the most secure room in the most secure event in recent history.”

Quackity nods. “Exactly!”

“To put a whoopie cushion on Scott’s chair.”

Technoblade puts his face in his hand and mourns the collective IQ of the Dream SMP, because surely Quackity lowers it just by breathing. The shapeshifter, still in duck form, hops up into Technoblade’s lap, then turns into a human so he can risk death by daring to suggestively straddle the piglin. He immediately gets shoved onto the ground.

“I’m going to regret this...” Technoblade says. “Let’s do it.”

---

Getting into the MCC server is the easy part. They’re both whitelisted, and it would be a hassle to remove everyone on the whitelist only to add them back later each time there’s another championship, so they have indefinite access. The moderators would surely come up with a way to keep everyone out if they knew about the two Dream SMP men’s plan.

“Do you even know where we’re going?” Quackity complains loudly.

Technoblade slaps a hand over Quackity’s mouth and looks around quickly. The shapeshifter responds by licking Techno’s palm, and Techno retaliates by removing his slobbery hand from Quackity’s face and swatting him upside the head for the childish behavior.

“Be quiet, we don’t know who’s here,” Techno says. “And yes, I know where we’re going. The admin room is below the map. There’s a secret passageway around here somewhere...”

The two sneak underneath the bridge to the arena, locating a lever that opens a hallway inside the main gate. The inside of the hallway is mostly quartz and concrete. Obviously, the map-makers put more effort into the bits that were supposed to be seen.

They reach a fork in the hallway: they can either go left or right. Techno points to the left. When they turn the corner, they come face-to-face with another person. Quackity and Technoblade both freeze in place at the sight of Grian leaning on the door to the admin room, fiddling with his phone. When he hears the two intruders, he looks up, squinting at them from behind the thin frame of his glasses.

Why is he here?! Techno thinks. We’re gonna get in so much trouble!

“I didn’t know either of you was an admin,” Grian says casually.

Technoblade sweats. How does he pretend to be an admin?

"Uh, yeah," he says, wrapping his arm around Quackity in a gesture that's supposed to look friendly but is a bit too tight. "My friend's code is, uh, glitching really hard right now."

On cue, Quackity shapeshifts into a moaning pile of limbs, then a duck, and then his normal state again, flickering between human and limb-pile.

"It's time sensitive, so if you could please let us through," Technoblade continues.

Grian raises a singular eyebrow, totally unimpressed. "Is it, now."

Quackity begins to foam at the mouth. Technoblade hopes that that's a shapeshifting trick and not some weird disease Quackity's picked up. Grian steps to the side, allowing the other two men to pass through the door to the admin control panel room.

As soon as they’re on the other side of the door, Technoblade leans heavily against it, pressing a hand to his his chest and exhaling. “He actually bought it,” the piglin says incredulously. Meanwhile, Quackity waltzes over to Scott’s spinny gamer chair without a care in the world, placing a whoopie cushion on the seat. For good measure, he also duct tapes an air horn to the bottom of the chair, so that when Scott sits down it’ll go off.

“We don’t have all day, man,” Quackity chides. “Go do whatever admin thing it is you’ve got planned.”

Right. He’d forgotten about that. Technoblade boots up the admin control panel. The text glows brightly, most of it in Galactic Standard. It would take too long to bother deciphering it all, not to mention it would overtax Techno’s attention span. The piglin skims the characters on the screen just enough to the point where he can locate “automated_messages.txt”. This file, if he is correct, should be the one that the main script references. If he just alters this one bit right here, then heads over to “display_messages.cpp” to alter a few corresponding lines of code... There!

“I’m done,” he says.

Quackity, who’s been climbing the wall as a hot pink lizard, drops to the floor and comes back up as a human again. “Nice, now we should probably get out of here before that Grian guy realizes we’ve done something. What’d you put in the code, by the way?”

Technoblade stuffs his hands in his pockets and shrugs. He can’t suppress his smirk, though. “Oh, nothing much-- every time a game is chosen, instead of saying the name of the game, the system will say ‘subscribe to Technoblade’.”

Quackity groans, heading to the door. He’s about to say something, but when he opens the door, the two see exactly what they don’t want to see.

Grian is still waiting for them when they exit the room, arms crossed and leaning against the wall casual as you please.

He tilts his head. "You two got that issue sorted out?"

Quackity beams, nodding rapidly and speaking even faster. "Oh yes, I'm completely better now! Technoblade fixed me up; it was difficult and scary but it worked perfectly, I feel so much better now! All he had to do was give me a true love's kiss--"

The shapeshifter is cut off by Techno's elbow digging into his ribs.

Grian nods. "That's good, that's good." A pause. "For the record, code isn't glitchy. It's either buggy or it's corrupted, usually corrupted. You're a really bad liar, Technoblade."

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Techno deadpans. When in doubt, deny all knowledge of the evidence!

“Team with me,” Grian demands. “I want to win the next MCC.”

Quackity immediately agrees, “Deal.” At the Look that Techno strikes him with, he simply shrugs. “Hey, I want in on this too.”

---

Grian, Technoblade, and Quackity team with Philza. They win in a landslide and Technoblade gets banned from MCC for a month. It’s worth it.

[codenamesazanka]

Spinaraki is sublime indeed, but I admit a lot of it is from Spinner’s end of things: it’s Spinner who becomes captivated, it’s Spinner who’s shown to care about Shigaraki a lot, and it’s Spinner who revealed the little detail that they talked about gaming and stuff. With Shigaraki, we’re much more unclear on his exact feelings.

Doubtless he likes the League - they’re exempt from his dream to destroy everything, he wants them to join him on the fun, and he’s shown he cares in much more subtle but still telling ways: accommodating members when they need it, getting revenge when his team has been wronged, allowing the League whatever they want.

But I do think that the particular friendship Spinner and Shigaraki has struck up is reciprocal, even though we haven’t seen it on the page, images for our eyes.

There are things we can infer like how Shigaraki seemed to have paid enough attention to Spinner’s grievances to reference the ‘hollowness’ Spinner spoke of, sharing that he was the same. He had to have noticed that Spinner stopped talking about Stain and started paying attention to him more during Gigantomachia month; or if Mr. Compress notes that Spinner is the one most loyal to Shigaraki, the rest of the League - including the leader - probably would’ve too. That Spinner had been there to help find and return Shigaraki’s last Hand to him after Deika, or found a moment to ask Shigaraki about it, to know how one survived.

The biggest evidence we have is Spinner’s revelation that they bonded over video games, that they were able to get along well enough for Spinner to look absolutely devastated when he realized Shigaraki wasn’t himself. This could’ve been just Spinner’s take on the situation, but Spinner himself said he found the connection unexpected, that it surprised him. That sort of implies he wasn’t looking to become best friends, initiating from his end. It either was Shigaraki who started the conversation, or they fell into it naturally and both had fun enough for it to have become a positive memorable experience for Spinner.

The gaming connection had been foreshadowed when Spinner used GRAND THEFT AUTO as his driving instructions and as a battle cry, and one of Shigaraki Tomura’s most memorable trait up to that point was his use of gaming metaphors. The League had two gamers in its ranks and it was inevitable that people wondered if they might talk to each other about it.

That we actually got an answer would’ve been satisfying enough, but the manga went further to used it to create a particularly heartbreaking moment in a situation that was already dour. Suddenly we’ve been made aware of a bond that, of all people, Shigaraki ‘I Hate Everything’ Tomura had, and it’s been forcefully severed (for now) by someone who wants Shigaraki to keep hating everything, to make his emptiness even more hollow than before. In context of this, any degree of friendship, connection, fun Shigaraki might have had becomes actually quite significant; that for Shigaraki Tomura, it might have been a sort of Big Deal, especially if he was the one who initiated it.

All we have are faint wisps of clues that could be counted on the fingers of Shigaraki’s left half-hand; and beyond that, it’s all guesses. On a meta level, it seems to be a set up for something important, that there just might be an affirmation of Shigaraki’s mutual feelings towards Spinner - but that is also just a guess.

Yet something is there, and it feels nearly within reach. It hinges on something that’s not much at all, a small thing: all we need is just one word, one action from Shigaraki.

What a way to fuel a ship.

[salt-volk]

I considered creating a new thread on DV. But seeing as community morale's already so low & users saying they're crushed by onsite toxicity, I don't know if this will simply add fuel to the fire. So I'm posting this here instead. You can weigh in with your opinions if there are any, idk. I just feel like talking with you guys.

In the beginning, high tension existed between casual players and speedrunners:

https://dappervolk.com/forum/topic/18317-dont-punish-casuals-for-speedrunners

(Feels like a lifetime ago.)

A lot, if not all, of the frustration was directed at the site rather than the players themselves. Many of us feared that DV was catering to the wrong demographic or that we were the ones who shouldn't be here.

Eventually, we reached a point where most of the remaining players finished what's available of the main story/questline, and the speedrunner & casual gamer tension became a thing of the past. Much of the proceeding complaints revolved around the overall lack of content, staff's failure to deliver promises, and DV's game mechanic flaws.

One year later, the custom queue finally opens. The discourse evolves into "rich players vs the general userbase." And that's what rules the conversation today.

It just seems that DV tends to give off the uncomfortable impression that they "cater" to the smallest group of players, leaving the rest of us dissatisfied and seemingly deserted. Whether they're really catering to any specific group is arguable. Fact remains that we've seen this before when it was about speedrunners in 2020.

And like, it's frustrating. It's frustrating because DV created this.

That's why I don't think the term "rich users" should necessarily belong in the heading or opening paragraph of these complaints. The discussion will inevitably derail as people zone in on those two words: Rich. Users.

The focus should be on DV's questionable decision-making: what the heck were you guys thinking when you created this system?

Customs have no business consuming so much of the community's energy, time, and attention, and honestly I don't think staff intended this either. Maybe this distraction is convenient. Because without the customs debacle, we'd all circle back to: the overall lack of content, staff's failure to deliver promises, and DV's game mechanic flaws.

I wish they'd first and foremost push out that roadmap thread that's been on the "what we're working on" list since July 2021:

"While working on our balancing roadmap, we decided that it might be beneficial to set up a general roadmap thread. It would be updated periodically with adjustments and additions as time goes on. It would contain an itemized list of each future update we'll be focusing on in succession."

That sounds great. Communication. Exactly what we've been pleading for. Why is this thread taking 8 months (so far) to develop...?

You know what I want? I want housing. I want guild duels. Additionally: I want restrictionless guilds with no member caps. I want normal shops. I want towns that are not fetch-quest galore. I want a streakless Ad Theater. I want true adventuring, not riddles in the goddang dark.

I don't give a damn about customs unless that custom is a fully furnished single story house with a cute frontyard garden and backyard pond & armored chicken guards in Louise friggin Hill!!!!!!

(This ended up as a long rant 💀 Sorry. Also mod egg please help me with the tags, this mobile app is not cooperating)

[bloodpacks-archive]

HOMES OF THE RFA (+V AND SAERAN) HEADCANONS

alright we’ve got zen’s bachelor pad first - generally zen tends to be a pretty minimalist guy with his house. part of it is honestly because he couldn’t really afford to completely deck out his house for a while, and now he’s just grown used to the look of it so he really likes having spaces that are a little less cluttered. the one exception to this, unfortunately, is his kitchen. he doesn’t use his kitchen often, and as a result, he often forgets to do his dishes until the end of the week. monday? that shit is spotless. his kitchen is cleaner than anything has ever been and the dishes are neatly put away. do not even look at that kitchen on wednesday. it’s become a disaster zone and he’s embarrassed. but once the mc starts to come by more, i think he ends up cooking for himself a lot more because he starts to realize that he actually really enjoys it. he loves being healthy, and now that he has the motivation to cook for himself (and her, of course), he starts to realize how much he likes control over what he eats. so now his kitchen is a lot cleaner bc it just has to be.

two different places for yoosung !! - the one on the left is yoosung’s dorm :) it’s actually really cool in there. he spends a lot of time in that little room, so he decides to invest a little bit and make sure that he’s happy with the place he lives. he likes alternative lighting (mainly because it helps his eyes a bit when he’s playing lolol) but also because overhead lights can be a little harsh for him, especially after a long day of school. when the mc’s there, he always makes sure that the lights are just right. it’s very common for both of them to fall asleep while the LEDS are still on, a movie playing on the projector he bought a while back. when he moves out of college, though, his house is a bit of a different story. he still keeps some LEDS and neon signs in a little gamer/office space, and for the most part he’s actually pretty neat, but his house can definitely get messy. surprisingly enough, the mattress on the floor is not for him. in fact, it’s for zen. he comes over so often that yoosung ends up setting up a little mattress for him so that he can stay over whenever he has drinks with him. the mess honestly isn’t terrible though, and he and the mc are both good about making it an organized disaster.

jaehee’s cozy little apartment - rather than art posters, jaehee actually has a lot of framed broadway and other musical posters on her walls. she branches out a bit from zen’s musicals over time, and she actually really loves decorating her home with something that she loves so much. she likes her small apartment, and it means that she and the mc are never really that far away from each other. she places her hand on the mc’s back whenever she squeezes past her in the kitchen, and when they have their coffee in the morning she can lean over and grab her hand during conversation. she always has candles lit, and she prefers really earthy and woody scents. tobacco is a common scent, but as is sandalwood. even with the candles, their apartment constantly smells like fresh coffee beans and sourdough bread. it is a very rare day if there isn’t dough rising in the window somewhere, and even rarer if there isn’t a baked loaf hidden away in the kitchen.

two homes for jumin as well !! - the first picture is of his penthouse when the mc moves in with him. she adds little throw pillows, some rugs, and some plants to his stupid penthouse and makes it feel much more like a home. he gets rid of that stupid circular bed the second he realizes that she feels a little cramped in it and upgrades to a beautiful king sized mattress. there’s about a million and one windows, and that’s actually something he really loves about the penthouse. so it’s really no surprise when he and the mc move a bit out of the city and they keep the big windows and the big open spaces, but make it feel like something that’s meant to be lived in. jumin discovers his love of wood and tall bookshelves with a mix of occult novels and old classics, and the mc convinces him to add a little more color into his interior. their new house has a big garden out back so he can still visit the roses (though they aren’t the same ones from his old rooftop garden, but he’d argue that he planted them with her, so they’re so much better). they built the house themselves so it’s perfect for them, and elizabeth the third has her own little space for playing.

hmmmm. saeyoung choi’s new home <3 - saeyoung eventually leaves the bunker. it’s a hard move, and it’s definitely not one he takes lightly (he’s used to moving, but not away from a place with so many good memories). but, he builds this new home from the ground up with the mc. he makes the plans and hires architects to help him, and he starts to fall in love with this new home even while it’s still a blueprint. he never gives up his complicated security system (the arabic dictionary really starts to feel heavy sometimes), but he does start to realize how much he loves windows. he still ends up getting them reinforced, but he loves the natural light and he actually really likes being able to see outside so easily. it’s a stupid thing, but sometimes the mc will catch him sitting on their couch and just looking out at the secluded little forest they ended up moving to, and he seems really happy. similar to yoosung, saeyoung cannot stand overhead lighting. at first, his solution was to just have no lighting at all, but one day he came into his office and there were these little lamps everywhere and they actually made his office feel a lot less daunting. ever since then, he’s started using lamps more often than the lights installed into his ceiling. he also says they help to reduce any sensory issues he might have from the light, which also means a lot less headaches for him. he starts to really love thunderstorms while he lives there, and so he and the mc always curl up whenever it starts to rain and they sit on the couch, watching as lightning cracks across the sky and counting the seconds until the thunder together. whenever it rains, saeyoung knows he can take a break from everything for a while.

jihyun kim’s beautiful little apartment - his apartment is tiny except for his studio. similarly to jaehee, he likes the small spaces because one, he loves how cozy is feels, but two, because it means he can reach out to his mc a lot more often. his studio, however, is the biggest and brightest space imaginable. all of his apartment is big on natural light, but he loves having a huge window in his studio because it means he’s able to see actual life even when he’s wrapped up in his work. it’s also big enough that the mc can sit in and watch him work without ever feeling like she’s in the way, which he absolutely loves. it’s really common for her to be sitting on one of his extra stools, flipping through some of the drawing drafts he’s made with delicate fingers. he’ll turn then, half-dried paint on his fingertips and go to kiss her. she’ll laugh when she feels the coolness of the wet paint on her cheek, and he’ll feel terrible about it, but there’s not many worries that can be had when you’re standing in the shine of the afternoon sun, surrounded by art that you’re proud of and standing in front of the girl who brought you back to artistry. as far as the rest of his apartment goes, jihyun is very particular about color. he likes things to look nice and he appreciates things to be very calming in nature. the green kitchen is perfect for him because of this, and everything is always spotless. the only part of his home that’s ever a mess is his studio, but he knows where everything is.

and lastly we have saeran’s little getaway :) - of course, saeran stays close to saeyoung. they both end up moving to a really nice, secluded area where they feel safe. even after the issue with their father has been resolved, both of them feel safer if they’re away from the public. this actually ends up being great for saeran though, because it means that he has access to so many plants. so many. he can walk though his pretty summer garden outside to get to his greenhouse, and he loves being able to tend to all of the flowers there. it really is something that’s calming for him. plus, whenever he walks outside he can see saeyoung’s house and he can be reminded that he’s only a few steps away, so he’d make the trip often even without the flowers. his house is pretty small, but he can’t imagine wanting anything too big. it always smells really fresh in his house, like clean linens and citrus, but not the artificial kind. he just always has oranges somewhere in his house so fresh citrus is always there in the kitchen. he and the mc enjoy a really quiet life together in their house, and it’s honestly at this point that he feels the happiest. he likes being able to wake up in the morning and sit at their kitchen island together, a homemade breakfast in front of them and her head leaning on his shoulder.

[rosiehunterwolf]

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow

Prompts: Chores and Video Games

Word Count: 4,850

Characters: The squad + Pixal

Timeline: between seasons 11 and 12

Trigger Warnings: None

Summary: …what can be done today, yada, yada, yada, we all know the saying. So do the ninja- when Master Wu is drilling it into their heads every minute of every day, it’s kind of hard to forget.

Naturally, it only takes them a week (and the biggest new video game in Ninjago) to do so.

Read on FFN.net

Read on Ao3

Tumblr work under the cut

“Get that gun out of his hand! Without it, he’ll be defenseless and we can take him down easily!” “I’m trying, Jay!” Lloyd said through gritted teeth. “One wrong move and he’ll get me with that thing!”

“Use your powers!” Jay raised his sword and dove at the enemy, forcing him to turn and face him. As their swords clashed with a loud clang of metal, Jay quickly pulled back as Lloyd shot a blast of power at the attacker, who promptly collapsed to the ground.

“Alright! Way to go, green ma- look out!”

Lloyd shrieked as someone suddenly jumped on him from behind, skewering a sword through his skull. The green ninja fell to the ground and vanished in a puff of smoke.

The ninja blinked at the scene before them, speechless.

Jay suddenly let out a whoop, leaning over to high-five Kai. “Way to go, bro! You’re so good at this game!” “He came out of nowhere,” Lloyd huffed, tossing his control to the ground. “He didn’t even give me a chance to fight back.”

Kai reclined, putting his hands behind his head. “Work smarter, not harder, green machine.”

Lloyd scowled, and Nya shot him a sympathetic glance. “Hey, Lloyd, you lasted a whole ten minutes longer than last time! You’ve drastically improved.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Kai winked. “Even Jay couldn’t beat me, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Cole shook his head. “Dude, you’re unchecked! We’ve only had this game for a week and already, you’re insane. Let’s just say I’m very glad you’re on our team.”

“I’ll say,” Zane agreed. “The Critical Conquest Gaming Tournament is going to have some of the best gamers in Ninjago. You’re good, Kai- we all are- but we all need to be at the top of our game if we want a chance at winning.”

“We got this, guys,” Nya assured. “We’ve fought off serpentine, ghosts, the Overlord, Oni- winning a city-wide video game tournament should be a piece of cake.”

“Speaking of cake-”

“No cake,” Jay snapped at Cole. “Not until we’ve won this thing. I need you to practice.”

“Dude, chill, I’ve been practicing!”

“Then can you show me your double twist dash-melee maneuver?”

Cole blinked at him. “My what?”

“That’s what I thought. Here, let me show you. We’ll try until you’ve got it down.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“You did. Literally. You guys chose me to be the team captain for the competition.”

“Whatever.”

“Lloyd, come here, so he has someone to practice on.”

“Why me?” “Because you need to work on your stealth. Kai got that jump on you surprisingly easily. You’re a good fighter, Lloyd, but fighting doesn’t matter if your enemy kills you before you have the chance. Practice your stealth and dodging on Cole.”

“Ready to get your butt kicked, bud?” Cole reached his hands out, cracking his knuckles before picking up the controller.

“Ha! You wish. The only one who will be getting their butt kicked is-”

The sharp rapping of something against the floor interrupted him, and they turned to see Master Wu standing behind them, his gaze disapproving as he clutched his staff firmly in hand.

“Students, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Uhh, practicing for the Critical Conquest tournament?” Nya said. “I thought that was pretty obvious!”

Wu glared at her. “I know what you’re doing. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut all this short. The six of you have many chores to do.”

“Chores?” they cried in unison.

“The past week since you bought that game, you have done nothing but sit around on that couch and play it. In all that time, your chores have piled up. Now, I’m cutting you off. They need to be done, now.”

“But Master!” Jay pleaded. “The tournament starts in only a few hours!”

Master Wu smirked. “Well, I guess you better be fast, then.”

---

The ninja stared down at the alarmingly long list Master Wu had given them, no one speaking a word for nearly a solid minute.

“Why,” Kai groaned, “did we ever put all of these off?”

“Why didn’t Master Wu just let us wait one more day to do the chores?” Jay complained. “The tournament would be all over then!”

“Well, he didn’t,” Cole said. “So there’s no use in complaining. We might as well get started.”

“Alright, guys, if we’re going to get through all of this before the tournament starts, we’re gonna have to divide and conquer,” Nya said. “Let’s see. Zane, Lloyd, you guys take the kitchen. Jay, Cole, you can check the vehicles to make sure they’re operating properly- wait, scratch that, Cole doesn’t know shit about mechanics. Besides, putting you two alone together is never a good idea.”

“Hey!”

“Zane, you go with Jay on the machines. Cole, you’re with Lloyd. Kai and I will work outside on raking and fixing the training course.”

“Hey, no fair, you just gave yourself the easiest job!” Cole grumbled.

“I’ll inform you that raking leaves is very mundane!”

“Yeah!” Kai snapped. “Especially when it’s cold out like this. I’m gonna freeze my fingers off!”

“You’re the fire ninja, you’ll figure something out,” Nya snapped. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Hey, Cole? You think this is so easy? We can trade places! You wanna trade places?”

“Actually, I’ve decided to be nice and let you take this one.”

Kai glared at him. “You’re only saying that because you know I hate it!” Cole leaned back against the table, smirking. “Maybe.”

“Come on, Kai, we’re going.” Nya grabbed his hand and yanked him out the door.

“I guess we better get working,” Cole sighed. “Jay, Zane, you guys need a copy of your tasks?” Zane shook his head. “I’ve got the list committed to memory. And there’s a lot to do, so we better go.”

As they left the room, Cole turned to Lloyd. “Put a check mark or something by the things the others are doing, so we can see what’s left for us.”

Lloyd made little marks next to the tasks, his pencil slowing as it reached the end. His frown deepened. “I swear, this list is getting longer. Some of these are just ridiculous! Polish the counters? Clean out the oven? Dust the tops of the cabinets? Who does these things?”

“Normal people, Lloyd. It’s not my fault that we’re so busy saving the city that you’ve never done anything more than the most basic chores in your life.”

“I’ve done chores!” “Darkley’s doesn’t count, bud. I bet the only thing you did there was clean spiders out of your bed.”

“They were fire ants,” Lloyd grumbled.

Cole turned on him with wide eyes. “What?”

Lloyd stiffened, suddenly seeming to realize what he had just said. “Uh… I mean… don’t tell Kai, okay?”

Cole stared at him for a moment, before sighing. “I’ll let it go, this once. But only because you’ve had a lot worse things than fire ants since then. Those kids are jerks, though.”

“I know.”

“... They really did that?”

“Yes, Cole! Do I need to show the scars to prove it?”

“No! I was just- you know what, forget I even said anything. Let’s get to work. First up, doing the dishes.” They turned towards the sink, where dozens of dirty plates and cups had accumulated.

“Seriously? Doesn’t anyone ever clean off their dishes after eating?”

Cole shot him a look. “Name one time you did that.”

“Okay, so never, but we’re ninja, not dishwashers! What do you expect?”

“Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today, Lloyd.”

Lloyd groaned. “I can’t believe I’m missing Critical Conquest for this.”

---

“Jay! You’re supposed to be repairing the sentry cannons on the Land Bounty!” “Chill out, Zane, I’ll get to it in a minute-”

Zane suddenly snatched the remote control out of his hand. “Jay! We’re never going to finish in time for the tournament if you don’t focus! Stop playing with toys!” “It’s not a toy!” He gestured towards the small remote-controlled robot. “This thing is going to be a major distraction! It could make it or break it for us in battle!”

Zane eyed the robot skeptically. “This. Distract our enemies?”

“Well, I was going to make it into a smoke bomb, but someone kept pestering me!” “Look, Jay, this isn’t the time to work on your inventions. You can do that later. Right now, you need to fix the sentries.”

“I already looked at the sentries,” he whined. “They were completely fried in our last adventure. I have to rewire the whole thing.”

Zane blinked at him. “Isn’t… that kind of your job?”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard work! I don’t want to do it! I’ll take any other chore on your list.”

“Well, someone needs to do it, and you’re the only one who knows how.”

“Not true! Why don’t you ask Pixal?”

He gestured towards the nindriod, who was tinkering with what appeared to be a small metal box.

“Pixal,” he called, walking over to her, “do you know how to rewire the sentries?” “Yes, but I know for a fact that Jay does, too. I’m not doing it for you.”

“Aww, come on, Pix,” Jay groaned. “Why don’t you have to do anything while the rest of us are all working our butts off?”

She glanced wryly at Jay’s little robot, who was waving cheerfully at her. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that. But I’m not helping because I already did all my chores while the rest of you were playing video games.”

Jay went pink in the face, and even Zane felt himself avoiding Pixal’s gaze.

“Critical Conquest is very important,” Jay muttered.

“More important than making sure all our weapons are operational? Or restocking the medbay?”

“We can do those things any time! The competition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

“Actually, there is another one next month-”

“Shut up, Zane. With our luck, we’ll probably be fighting evil nindroids or will be locked inside a different realm by that point, anyway.”

“I’m not helping you,” Pixal sniffed. “So I don’t know why you’re still here.”

Not taking Pixal’s… not-so-subtle hints, Jay leaned in towards her. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

Pixal eyed him warily. “... It’s a jetpack. I wanted to make something more compact in case I was in a situation where I couldn’t use the Samurai X suit.”

“That’s cool! Although, it might work better if you recalibrated the engines to-”

“Jay,” Pixal said sharply. “I know what I’m doing. Please go work on your chores.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “No one ever lets me have any fun.”

Zane shook his head, wandering over to the Earth Driller where he was working on replacing the paneling that had been damaged in the Oni incident.

He couldn’t have been doing so for more than fifteen minutes when the sound of a small explosion interrupted him.

Zane jerked to his feet, dashing over to where the sound had come from.

Jay had jumped back from Pixal’s jetpack, which was now black and smoking.

Of course it was.

“What happened?”

Jay scratched his head nervously. “Well, you see… I really didn’t want to work on those sentries, so when I noticed Pixal stepping out of the room for a moment…”

Zane sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you alright?”

Jay grinned. “Right as rain. Not even a scar like last time!”

“Okay, that’s good, now I feel less bad for saying this- what were you thinking?”

“I couldn’t help myself, Zane! She calibrated it all wrong!”

“Well, evidently, you were the one who did it wrong, seeing as it exploded within five minutes of you getting your hands on it.”

Jay jumped nearly a foot in the air. “Pixal! You’re back! Ah… um, I’m really sorry about your jetpack, I was only trying to…”

Pixal marched forward, snatching it off the floor. “It doesn’t matter, it’s done now.”

“I can fix it-”

“You’ve done quite enough,” Pixal snapped. “Why don’t you just go finish your chores now?”

“But-”

Pixal held up the burnt jetpack, shaking it lightly. “You owe me.”

“Fine,” Jay groaned. “I’ll rewire the stupid sentries.”

---

“If I have to rake one more pile of leaves, something is going to end up on fire.”

“Well, luckily for you, that was the last of them.” Nya set down her rake, rubbing her hands together. “Now we just have to dispose of the leaf bags.”

She and Kai glanced over towards the towering pile of leaf bags, and Kai groaned.

“It’s going to take forever to throw these all away!”

“Kai, the dumpster is just on the other side of the Monastery wall!”

“Yeah, but we can only carry a few bags at a time, and we’re going to have to make so many trips!”

“Well, unless you’ve got a better idea, we don’t have a choice.”

Kai paused, his eyes lighting up. “Wait-”

“No, Kai, we are not burning the leaves.”

“I wasn’t going to say that! Although… it’s not a half-bad idea…”

“Kai!” “Okay, okay, no burning! What I was going to say was, why don’t we just toss the bags over the wall and into the dumpster?”

Nya frowned. “We’d miss half of them and then have to go over there anyway and pick them all up.”

“No, we could do it like in Critical Conquest! Remember? The ground-bash move? This is just like that!”

“Kai, that’s just a video game. This is real life!” “Yeah, but wouldn’t it still work?”

Nya frowned, stepping forward and eyeing up the roof of the Monastery. “I suppose if we got the right angle… we’d have to make sure an ample amount of newtons were applied with each hit to reach the correct velocity… and of course we’d have to take into consideration factors like density and wind acceleration per second and its tendency to carry-”

“Okay, okay, enough with your science-y nerd stuff!”

“It’s just basic physics, Kai. I mean, there are a lot of external factors to consider that wouldn’t be present in a lab setting, although I still think it would be quite simple-”

“Would it work or not?” Kai interrupted. “Yes or no, I want a one-word answer.”

“Yes. We just need to get the proper positioning-”

“Can I be the one bashing the bags?”

Nya sighed. “Only if you do exactly as I tell you-”

“Whoooooo!” Kai cried, running off to grab the rake as he swung it around fiercely. “Who’s ready to bash some leaf bags?”

“Kai! I said to do exactly as I say-”

---

Despite Nya’s initial trepidations, the process did not end up being a total disaster, and they actually ended up getting the chore done decently quickly. Now all they had left to do was to test and recalibrate the training course.

Nya glanced down at her watch. Only an hour and a half until the tournament started. Her chances of getting extra practice on those tricky combos were looking slimmer by the second. Hopefully, Kai’s mastery of the game, Jay’s high skill levels, and Cole’s advanced items and power-ups would be enough to help them beat-

“Nya!” Kai shrieked. “I said, turn it off!”

Nya snapped out of her thoughts, glancing up at her brother, who had been knocked to the ground by a whirring training dummy. “Oh, shit!” She spun towards the controls and shut them down, jogging over to Kai. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so, I just-” Kai reached for her extended hand, pulling back with a sharp cry as they made contact.

“What?” “My hand,” he grimaced. “It hurts like hell.”

---

“You can’t throw out the Eggo Waffles!” Lloyd insisted, grabbing at the box in Cole’s hands

“Lloyd, they expired three days ago.”

“So what, they’re still edible.”

“They’re going.” Cole gave the box a strong tug, jerking it out of Lloyd’s hands and dropping it in the garbage. Lloyd huffed, crossing his arms.

“Kai would’ve let me keep them.”

“No, he wouldn’t have, because he doesn’t want you to get food poisoning.”

Lloyd paused for a moment, before amending, “Jay would’ve let me keep them.”

Cole sighed. “Yeah, and then you guys would’ve eaten them, and we would’ve ended up with two sick ninja.”

“I wouldn’t get sick! I have these super cool powers that protect me-”

“We don’t have any proof of that. We still don’t know exactly what your powers do.”

“Which means we can’t rule that out yet!”

Cole rubbed his head. “Out of all the people I could’ve gotten stuck cleaning out the freezer with… it had to be you. The one who gets emotionally attached to frozen waffles.”

“I am not emotionally attached-”

“Are you kidding me? He can’t play with this on! This thing is stiff, it seriously restricts his movement!” “It���s not a question, Jay, he needs to keep it on!”

“Is it actually that bad, though? Couldn’t he skip it for one game?”

“Not unless you want it to get worse!” Cole and Lloyd exchanged a glance and stepped out into the hallway, where the other four ninja were gathered.

“What’s going on?”

Zane opened his mouth to speak. “There was-”

“Kai!” Lloyd interrupted suddenly, darting over to him. “What happened to your hand?”

Cole blinked, realizing for the first time that Kai had a swathe of bandages wrapped around his hand.

Kai yelped in pain as Lloyd touched it, and the green ninja recoiled, his eyes widening in guilt. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!”

Nya rolled her eyes. “Don’t apologize, Lloyd, he’s fine. He’s just being a big baby about all of this.”

“Am not. It hurts!”

Zane stifled a sigh. “Kai, it is only a bad pulled muscle. Apart from being painful and needing plenty of rest, it’s nothing serious.”

“Well, you don’t know what it feels like,” Kai snapped. “It’s a lot worse than ‘nothing serious.’”

“I scanned you. I am quite certain my diagnosis is correct.”

Nya snickered, and Kai shot her a look. “Shut up, you. You’re the one who did this to me.”

“You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention!” “Yeah, well, you’re the one who was supposed to be-”

“Guys!” Jay cried. “Can’t you see we have more pressing matters at hand? Severe injury or not, Kai can’t play Critical Conquest like this. And he’s our best player!”

“Alright,” Lloyd said. “So we don’t have our best player anymore. That’s bad. But Jay’s still a beast! And Cole, and Nya, and everyone except me, basically-”

“He could be the worst player in all of existence and it still wouldn’t matter,” Cole pointed out. “We need six players to compete or they will disqualify us.”

“But if Kai can’t play, we have no one else! There are no backups!” Nya huffed, turning on Jay. “You’re our team captain! Why didn’t you prepare any backups?”

“Because we know no one else! We live in an isolated monastery at the top of the tallest mountain for miles, what did you expect? Besides, I wasn’t anticipating this to happen!” Zane frowned. “Well, if Kai can’t play, and we have no backup, then our only choice is to drop out-”

“Wait!” Jay cried suddenly. “I think I might have an idea of someone.”

---

“Please please please please-”

Pixal raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you really think begging is going to change my mind?”

“Please, Pixal, we need a sixth player, and you’re the only person I can think of!”

“Why would I help you after you blew up my jetpack?” Kai gaped at him. “You what?”

Jay fought back the heat spreading across his face. “That’s not important right now! Pixal, I promise I’ll fix it, just please compete with us!”

Pixal frowned at him, which wasn’t the most reassuring answer.

“C’mon Pix- I’ll do anything.”

“I don’t know, Jay-”

“We’ll do all your chores for the next month.”

“What?” “We will?”

“Jay, what the heck! We never agreed to that!”

Pixal smiled at him. “I would’ve accepted it if you offered a week, but that’s very generous of you.”

The others shot him smoldering glares, and Jay groaned. “It doesn’t matter, we don’t have time for this.” Glancing down at his phone, he sucked in his breath. “We’ve only got an hour until the tournament! Zane, can you teach Pixal how to play?”

Zane blinked at him. “In an hour?”

“Just cover the basics. We don’t have time for perfection. Just teach her as much as you can before the tournament starts.”

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

As soon as they were out of the room, Jay wheeled around, moaning. “We are so hooped! She doesn’t know how to play! Kai, how could you be careless enough to injure yourself?”

“Oh, sure, blame the victim!” Kai snapped. “Would it kill you to show a little sympathy to your injured teammate?”

“You pulled a muscle, you baby!” Nya groaned. “Pixal’s a fast learner, hopefully, she’ll get the hang of it.”

“Fast learner or not, nothing can beat hours of experience,” Lloyd said. “Let’s just hope the other contestants aren’t as good.”

---

“These dudes are insane!”

Jay continued to scroll through the queued-up players, examining their stats, his jaw dropping. “How much have these people been grinding?”

“So much for an easy win,” Lloyd grumbled.

Zane and Pixal walked into the room, holding their controllers. “I think I’ve done everything I can with Pixal. The competition starts in five minutes, I suggest we get ready.”

“Alright.” Jay turned towards Pixal as Zane worked on setting up the game. “We’re going to need your help, but since you don’t have experience, I think the best move is to have you stay behind us and play defense.”

Pixal smirked. “I’ll do my best.”

“Guys, we have to queue up!” “Are the headsets working?”

“They’re ready, what about the controllers? All charged?”

“We really shouldn’t be checking these kinds of things literally three minutes before the tournament, but yes, they are.”

“Hurry, guys! It’s about to start!”

Zane blinked at the screen. “Jay… you named our team the Fast Chickens?”

“It’s a good name!” The others groaned, and Jay glared at them. “We’ll see who’s complaining when we win this thing!”

Jay fidgeted through most of the opening speeches from the hosts of the competition as they went over rules and procedures. And, after what simultaneously felt like both a million years later and only the blink of an eye, the game was finally starting. They got lucky with their spawn point, and after a few minutes, were able to collect some good resources and get a good start. Cole, Zane, and Nya were able to take down some of the weaker groups before they collected supplies while Jay and the others continued collecting and building up defenses.

Checking the score count, he could see there were already twenty teams down in various parts of the map, and he knew his team had been responsible for felling three of them. Jay couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It seemed like nothing could be going better.

That is, until they suffered a major blow on the southwestern flank of their territory against a high-level team- the CrownViolets, they called themselves. (Which was nowhere near as cool sounding as the Fast Chickens, Jay totally wasn’t insecure about that at all.) After a fierce fight that ended up costing them several lives- and robbing Zane of his last, taking him out of the game- they realized they couldn’t win this fight and backed down, sacrificing a sizeable chunk of their turf.

While still monitoring that boundary, they decided to primarily focus on expanding in the other direction. Their tactic seemed to be working well, and although the CrownViolets kept on encroaching on them from the boundary, the other teams weren’t backing down, and although none managed to defeat the rival team, they were certainly taking their tolls on them. Jay hoped that the other teams would eventually take the Violets out for them, although he had to admit that would be extremely lucky.

They were getting down to the last few teams in the tournament. When the top ten were remaining, special, more deadly weapons were hidden around, and with them, teams began to fight back harder. The Fast Chickens held their own, but by the time they were down to two teams remaining- them and the CrownViolets- both Jay and Lloyd had been killed and eliminated. Only Cole, Nya, and Pixal remained. The CrownViolets still had four players left, but they were weak. If the ninja were strategic enough, they could still win this.

But Pixal was a major hindrance. She had been plenty good at holding back and defending them, but now, with so few left, she was going to have to start playing a more active role. If only Kai had still been there.

“Alright, they’re somewhere around here.” Nya’s character pulled up her radar. “There seems to be two of them right up ahead-”

“Alright, Pixal.” Jay leaned over her shoulder, coaching her. “You’re going to have to start getting offensive. Nya says there’s only two, so there shouldn’t be a problem, but there could be an ambush, or these two could have higher health. We don’t want to take any chances. While Nya and Cole rush them, you should stay back and shoot at them with your launchers. Your character has good accuracy scores.”

There was a flash of purple, and muffled shouting, and Nya froze. “There they are! Let’s get them, guys!”

The three plunged into the fight, and although it was a tough battle, their opponents were relatively low on health, and they ended up eliminating the two CrownViolets- unfortunately, with the loss of Nya before doing so.

“It’s just the two of us left, Pixal,” Cole said, “but there’s also only two of them, as well. We can do this. Just stick close to me. They’re around here somewhere.”

“And that somewhere is here!” Pixal shrieked suddenly, whirling around.

Cole’s eyes widened. “One of their teammates must’ve sent out a distress signal before they died!” He grappled for his weapon, but in his haste, his grip was sloppy.

Pixal, however, barely hesitated, diving at their opponent and attacking in a flurry of blows. Jay’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as she performed a complex combo it had taken him a full day to learn.

Zane smiled at all their gaping mouths. “I told you to have faith in her.”

Cole was evidently shocked too, and within a few moments, he was dead- although not before delivering a nearly fatal blow to his opponent. Pixal quickly finished him off before turning to face the last remaining player.

“Be careful, Pix,” Jay warned. “She still has pretty high health. Don’t get cocky, or take dumb risks.”

“Dumb risks are your thing,” Pixal corrected, not even batting an eye as she darted past her opponent, slashing her with her sword.

The CrownViolet wasn’t giving up, though. She pushed back, throwing down a smoke bomb and suddenly pushing Pixal down from behind. Pixal rolled out of the way, missing her sword by inches, and sprung up, taking the moment of surprise to her advantage to knock her opponent down. As the rival started crawling away, Pixal’s character took a potion, powering up a special move. The opponent knocked her down as she was waiting to power up, but before she could get a good attack in, Pixal was ready and was blasting her a beam of light.

The girl’s avatar fell to the ground, dead.

There was a beat of silence, then their living room erupted in cheers.

“Pixal! You did it! You won the game for us!”

“I can’t believe it! We actually won! Without Kai!”

“Hey,” Kai yelped. “That didn’t sound like it was meant to be a compliment.”

“What do you mean,” Lloyd said. “That was totally a super nice thing I just said about you.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “A bit backhanded, don’t you think?”

“Guys, none of that is important!” Cole cried. “We won! Out of all the gamers in the city! We actually won!”

“But I have to know,” Jay insisted. “How did you get so good at the game?”

Pixal shrugged. “I guess you pick up a thing or two watching your team play a game obsessively for the past week.”

Jay blinked. “You’ve been watching us?”

She scowled. “I’ve been doing the chores in here, lightning brain! Repairs, laundry, picking up after you- you’ve just been too obsessed by your game to even notice me!”

“Oh, really? Uh, that’s my bad…”

“Speaking of which, you promised to do my chores, and I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening off.”

“Did I?” Jay laughed nervously. “Hey, did I ever mention that the tournament winners get a cash prize-”

Pixal handed him a mop. “Nice try. Although I still expect my fair share of the earnings by the end of the week. Good luck.” The ninja just gazed at her in horror, and she laughed.

“You’re going to need it.”

[kuroopaisen]

12:54 am || kozume kenma

➵ some important introductions are finally made.

wc: 1496

warnings: gn!reader, kenma is a youtube g*mer

a/n: gracie dear, this one is for you! i remember you saying you were looking forward to it. you’re one of the loveliest people i’ve chatted to on here and you have such a kind and gentle heart. thank you for having such an accepting and calming vibe and you’re so so easy to talk to, it’s very relaxing! your blog is such a positive space you and you make me feel the big ❤️ bless your dear heart, and i hope that november is kind to you!

The sun is long gone, the sky above Tokyo draped with velvet midnight. It looks like the kind of night you’d want to go out and experience, to walk around the ever-bustling city centre, to watch the sky in the hope of seeing something that’ll make your heart stutter in your chest.

But you don’t have the energy for that this evening.

Your honours project is sucking all it can out of you. You’re not surprised, of course, but that doesn’t make the experience any less irritating. You’re at that point where you just need to push a little more and polish it off; but as always, that’s the hardest part. Trying to thread together every section into something that’s not only coherent, but also of passable quality is harder than you’d given it credit for.

It’s the time of night when your eyes feel like they’re about to dribble out of their sockets like candle wax, and you’re aware that you’re not going to get anything of substance done now. You sigh, squinting at your laptop screen.

12:54 AM.

You blink your sore eyes rapidly. Was it really that late?

You stretch your arms above your head, feeling the strain in your muscles. You want nothing more than to curl up in bed with your boyfriend, letting the stresses of the day fade away as you run your fingers through his hair. He usually lets you at this hour, melting into your touch in a way he wouldn’t usually during the day.

It’s much too late for you to get anything of worth down for this assignment.

As you stand up, you swear you can hear every bone in your body crack. You don’t just want to go to bed, you need to get some rest.

But there’s no way you’re going alone.

You totter down the hall as quietly as you can, balancing yourself on your tiptoes. Kenma’s gaming room sits at the end of the hall, chosen for its decent acoustics and spaciousness. You tease him for his set up all the time – ‘epic gamer’ is your favourite moniker, and currently crowns your LINE messages.

You and Kuroo had even made him a little sign for his birthday. It’s a plaque stuck to the door that reads, “WARNING! Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my Epic Gamer moment.”

You grin at it as the door creaks open.

Kenma’s clicking away on his computer as he sits at his desk, eyes narrowed and a little pout on his lips. You smile to yourself; he looks so cute like this, so focused and intense. He doesn’t tend to get like this about anything else, but gaming had a way of drawing the intensity out of him.

You can’t help but wonder if he was like this during his volleyball days in high school, analysing the court in the moment. You’ve never seen him play, and you doubt you ever will. He pays Hinata to do that, after all. You’re glad that such a bright boy is part of your boyfriend’s life. Between you, Kuroo, and Hinata, there’s no fear of Kenma going unloved.

You give him a small wave from the door.

Recognition flashes in his eyes as he catches sight of you, the smallest of smiles gracing his face. Someone outside of your relationship might assume that doesn’t count for much; a tiny, forgettable little gesture that isn’t worth taking note of. But you know how to read Kenma.

His gaze flicks back to his screen.

“You all want to know that bad, huh?” He teases, even though his voice is still monotone.

‘Know what?’ you mouth.

“They want to know what made me smile,” Kenma tilts his head at you, and you swear your heart is about to bloom into a kaleidoscope of light.

You nod, tottering over to him as he rolls his chair back. He’s left just enough space for you to sit. You settle yourself down on his lap like it’s second nature, and he loops his arms around your waist. Usually, that wouldn’t make you blush. But, knowing a significant portion of his viewership were watching this happen in real time brings a certain nervousness to mind.

He props his chin on your shoulder, as he always does. For once, he’s more casual than you; he’s in his element, immersed in a game and bolstered by people who adore him. It’s all you could want for him.

“Yeah, this is my partner,” he hums, small smile playing at his lips.

You see the chat rush by on the corner of his screen, but you opt not to look. Doing so would only make you more nervous.

“They want to know how long we’ve been together,” he says, conspicuously dropping the question in your lap.

You grin, fighting the urge to roll your eyes. “Officially, two years,” you smile. “But basically three.”

He chuckles lightly, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “They also want to know how we met.”

“I was Kuroo’s roommate in university,” you say, well-aware of Kuroo’s much-loved presence on Kenma’s channel. “He decided I’d be a good friend for Kenma so he wrestled me into their little duo. He likes to say that us getting together was part of his plan all along, but I have my doubts.”

In all honesty, you’re surprised by how relaxed your reveal is. You’ve been worried about it for the past year, fearing the backlash that romantic partners of youtubers – especially gaming Youtubers – tend to receive.

Kenma had told you it would be okay, that you won’t have anything to worry about.

It feels nice, just sitting in his lap, getting to be part of this little world of his.

You stay for the next fifteen minutes or so, answering a myriad of questions pinged your way; was Kenma the same as he is in his videos? Does he ever sleep? Do you game with him much? Does he go easy on you in 1-v-1’s or is he ruthless?

“Thanks everyone,” Kenma yawns, propping his chin on your shoulder. “We’ve run over time, but you guys did a great job today.”

You bite back a giggle as you listen to his ‘Youtuber Outro Voice,’ which was just a shade brighter than his normal cadence.

You sit patiently as he wraps up, mentioning something about his next upload and the charity this stream was for. You know it’s got something to do with ensuring that children with disabilities are offered opportunities to take part in sports, and to help schools accommodate for that. You’re pretty sure Kuroo’s the one who linked your boyfriend up with them; you often teased him for ‘exploiting’ kodzuken’s following for charity.

Kenma clicks off the stream, letting out a long sigh as his shoulders deflate.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, nestling his face in the crook of your neck.

You giggle, reaching a hand back to smooth his hair. The angle’s a little awkward and your fingers bump against his headset, but you don’t mind.

“Did you raise a lot of money?” You ask, shifting in his lap so you can see his face.

He nods. “Not as much as the collab with Shouyou and Kuroo, but a fair bit.”

“Good,” you smile. He looks exhausted; he often does after long charity streams. But you know he cares about them – he wouldn’t bother with them otherwise. You gently slip his headset off – you bought them for him as a one-year-anniversary present, a cute, high-tech thing with cat ears – and place it gently on his desk.

You run your fingers through his hair, gently grazing his scalp. He hums in response, letting his eyes flutter shut. It’s like all the tension is melting away under your fingers, as if you’ve brought him a moment of precious reprieve. He never complains about his work – not in any real capacity, anyway – but even he got tired of his job.

As you gaze at his face, you’re content in the knowledge that you don’t need to flit amongst the city or watch the sky to see something that’ll make your heart stutter. He’s right in front of you.

“Hey, Kenma?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

The words flutter between you, threading a proper smile across his face. He doesn’t need to say them back to know your feelings are reciprocated; Kenma isn’t a man of many words, and his affection doesn’t tend to come out in grand statements or confessions. His love is in the little gestures; in a gentle kiss to the nose, or his fingers laced through yours, or permission to be part of his little world.

His love is shy, gentle, purposeful. You know he struggles to let people in. To let himself be seen. But he opens his windows for you, lets you filter through like the sunrise.

It’s all he’s capable of giving; but he gives it all with a quiet thoughtfulness.

And that’s more than enough.