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animeniacss · 5 months ago

Note

hiiii are you taking requests? 🥹 i was wondering if you could write a fluffy second chance romance trope with mingyu x reader? 🫶🏻

I am so sorry this took a million years longer than I wanted! But it's all done and I hope you enjoy!! <3

Synopsis: Mingyu's job as an idol is very demanding, but you guys want to make it work.

Tags: Idol!Mingyu, Canon, Second Chances, Fluff, A bit of angst, Flashbacks

Length: approx. 3.2k words

Mingyu x Reader - The Good Easily Outweights the Bad

You were sitting on the couch, a book in your hand and a coffee on the end table. Your TV has been playing a shuffled mix of different songs, the ambiance changing from power ballads to Western indie pop, to whatever was the top-charting idol song in the past few weeks. You didn’t mind, though. It was a type of chaos you never minded, a type of chaos you preferred.

One that at times, you even missed.

A familiar rumbling of thunder came up on the television screen and you didn’t even need to look up from your book to feel your lips quirk up into a sad smile. When you did, however, it was just in time for the familiar piano sounds to click into view. A familiar chant was called into the screen, and the song began.

You set your book down, eyes focused solely on the song. MAESTRO by Seventeen was playing, their most recent comeback and it was one that frequently kept coming up in your song rotation. Mostly because you put it there.

Well, you and Kim Mingyu himself, that is.

“Have you seen it? Have you seen it?!” Mingyu was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he stood in front of your TV. You smiled up at him from the couch, lounged in your sweats and a large tee shirt - it was his - as he typed in the name of their newest video to the search bar.

“You told me to wait for you to come over, Gyu,” you said behind a giggle. Mingyu turned to you, laughing shyly as he remembered the request. Once the video was up, he walked to the couch, immediately plopping at your side and tugging you under his arm, resting his hand around your waist. Your eyes flickered up to him as the video began, amusement and fondness in your features as you turned back to the video.

Mingyu always liked playing his music when the two of you were together. Not because he was vain or expected praise, if anything it was the opposite. You would compliment his scenes and he’d blush; lopsided smile and all as he told you to ‘knock it off’. However, you never did, and he never protests under real stress. So, you assumed he played the videos because he liked being teased. And you liked to tease. It was good like that.

Mingyu hasn’t been to your apartment in a little over two weeks.

Not because you didn’t want him to be. You always wanted him to be. But it wasn’t possible, not the way it used to be. Mingyu’s job as an idol was demanding, especially with all of his success these past few years. From a brand ambassador who traveled the world, to a variety show participant, to a pop idol, Mingyu’s time was spread thin in his career. That meant little, if any, of that time was for you. And that killed you.

As the song came to an end, another was right on the horizon. It stayed like that for a good three or four songs, and you did not have the heart to change it. You made it louder. Maybe it was because it brought back good memories, of times when the two of you were still able to cuddle on the couch and watch music videos or TV until he had to go for the night. Or even better, until the two of you fell asleep on the couch and woke up in the middle of the night still cuddled up the way you had been.

You got up as the song changed once again, making your way into the kitchen. End tables and shelves were still littered with photos of the two of you, of you two with both his members and your friends. You knew after a month of not being involved with MIngyu anymore, you really should put them away. Not throw them out, but store them somewhere. But looking at them made you feel a bit of comfort, and you didn’t have enough time or money to go out knick-knack shopping for replacements. So there, the memories sat.

You opened the fridge, pulling out a tupperware of leftovers from the previous night. You popped open the plastic, the smell of leftover fried rice making your belly rumble and your mind race.

“Gyu, I’m starving, babe.” You whined, laying your head on the table. Mingyu chuckled from the counter, turning to look at the pan he was currently frying up rice in.

“I said we should order something in because it’s so late.” he reminded.

“But I haven’t seen you, and I missed your cooking.”

“And that is why I am currently in your kitchen, cooking.” He nodded. You sighed. “Ahh, don’t worry.” You heard footsteps crossing the little kitchen, and when you looked up from the table, Mingyu leaned down to plant a kiss on the top of your head. “It’ll be done in five minutes.”

“Alright, then I’ll set the table.” you said, getting up and heading over to your cabinets and grabbing two plates. You poked your head over at Mingyu as he returned to the cooking, smiling. “It smells good.”

Mingyu chuckled, almost shy at the compliment. “Thank you~.” he said.

Your fried rice wasn’t anything like his, but it was still good, and you popped it in the microwave to reheat. As you rested your hips on the counter, you scanned the empty apartment. It was usually empty, since you were the only one who lived there. But with Mingyu, it felt less empty. Not just because he was a towering gym rat who looked a bit beefier every time you saw him, but because his laugh echoed from the living room to the bedroom when he watched TV while you tried to sleep, or his shriek at the sight of a spider echoed from the balcony and most likely all the way back to HYBE.

Ready to Love started playing on the TV, and your eyes cast up to see the beginnings of the music video.

The beep of the microwave reclaimed your attention momentarily as you took out the food, grabbing a utensil and returning to the couch, nestling beside the book you left bent right down the middle as to not lose your place in it. The meal was quiet, minus the music playing on the TV. Most of them have been this past month when it was just you home for dinner. You popped the leftovers into your mouth, pursing your lips together.

“I have our first music show performance for maestro tomorrow.” Mingyu said, sliding his shoes on. “Why am I nervous?”

“You’re always nervous.” you chuckled, resting on the wall. “But you’ll do fine. I’ll be sure to vote, okay?” Mingyu turned to you and smiled.

“I’ll do my best if I know you’re watching.” He said. You nodded. “I’ll try to come by again soon, okay?”

“Don’t push yourself…” you said softly, and Mingyu’s smile dropped. Maybe it was because yours did as well, you could feel it in your face. He stepped closer, brushing some hair out of your face.

“I’ll try to come by again soon, okay?” he asked. “Our schedules are really packed but I will.”

“I know.” you said. Mingyu smiled, leaning down to offer a quick kiss. “I”ll text you when I get back home, and then go right back to sleep!” he pouted. “I don’t want to hear any of this nonsense that you were up all night gaming!”

“I won’t!”

“Wonwoo lives in my apartment, I will hear him.” he said. You laughed behind a hand, and Mingyu’s grin widened.

“Okay, okay. Goodnight, Gyu.” you said, watching as he grabbed the last of his things and headed out the door, offering one more glance and smile as he headed out the door.

His schedule really did pack up after that, from music shows to runways to modeling shoots. Everyone wanted a piece of Kim Mingyu, it seemed. Everyone including you. But you told yourself never to be selfish when it came to his career, it was in his life long before you. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Closing the tupperware, you returned to the kitchen and discarded it. Washing it would be a tomorrow you problem. You felt tired all of a sudden. You pressed your back onto the couch, finally clicking off the TV and really dropping the apartment into silence. Your book fell to the floor, but you left it, eyes cast up to the ceiling. Your felt your chest tighten, knowing tomorrow would be another day that Mingyu would be anywhere except here with you. You tried not to let it hurt, but God you just couldn’t help it.

“Think of something positive, something good.” You mumbled to yourself in the dim lighting of your apartment. You closed your eyes, rolling through the endless cavern of positive memories.

“It’s nice out tonight.” you said, leaning over the railing of your balcony and admiring the view. Mingyu had a few consecutive days off, and immediately rushed to spend them with you. You turned to him as he sipped a beer, resting comfortably on one of your outdoor chairs. He looked up at you and smiled.

“It is.” he said. After a second, he pulled out his phone, reaching up to angle it towards the sky. You stepped out of the way, allowing him uninterrupted access to the sky and stars above.

“Is this for Instagram?” you asked curiously. Mingyu laughed, his shoulder shaking a bit.

“Maybe.” he said. A few more taps on his phone, and without looking up, he moved his hand in your direction. You watched him motion for you to take a few steps towards him. “I want one of you.”

“What?” you asked. “You can’t post that.” Despite your protest, you were already shifting yourself.

“I won’t.” he assured. You tilted your head, but Mingyu only grinned. “Smile.”

“Gyu-.”

“I’ll be in Europe for a while…I want something to look at when I miss you.”

You felt your heart swell, a smile forming on your face as Mingyu snapped the picture. He turned it around to examine the results, nodding. “Perfect..”

When you took your next breath, it was shaky. Not the best memory to recall it seemed. They had just gone on their Europe trip, making appearances in both Paris for UNESCO and London for Glastonbury. Both of which were big opportunities, wonderful opportunities that Mingyu talked about endlessly with you when he and the other members found out. However, with rehearsals and travel preparations, your limited time with Mingyu decreased even more.

And then you had to do it.

“A break?” Mingyu asked. “Wh-why?”

“I just think it’s best.” you said softly. “You have a lot going on and I don’t want to tie you down.” You leaned back in your chair, sighing. “Just while your schedule is full. I want you to focus on that, and when-.” you paused. “If things calm down, then-.”

“When has that ever happened successfully?” Mingyu asked. There was no malice in his words, not even all that much hurt. He just genuinely sounded like he wanted to know when ‘a break’ has worked, as if knowing it has worked will make a difference in if it will this time.

“Gyu…” you sighed. “I just want you to do your job without anything tying you down…”

Mingyu didn’t put up much of a fight after that, finally agreeing that, for now, his focus should be on his upcoming intense schedules. He slipped on his shoes, turned to you with a smile and kiss goodbye as usual, and left the apartment. Neither of you have spoken since.

You felt your throat close up, wiping your eyes. Mingyu would be home from that schedule, if he wasn’t already. Usually, he’d fly directly to your apartment and cling to you for hours, maybe even all night.

“I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Gyu! Tell me everything!!”

That wouldn’t happen this time.

Just as you regained yourself, closing your eyes to try and get some sleep, there was a knock at your door. Your head snapped over, breath stilling. A second passed, and there was another knock, followed by a deep familiar voice calling out your name.

“M-mingyu?!” You called, sitting up. You swung your legs over the side of the couch, getting up and padding over to the door. In one swift motion the door was unlocked and flung open, Mingyu standing there out of breath. “What are you doing? Did…did you run here?”

“I had to.” he said. “I… we got back yesterday, I would have come then if I didn’t crash on the couch as soon as I got home and-.”

“Gyu, wait.” You said, reaching out to take his hand. “C-come in…come in…” Mingyu sighed, walking in and closing the door behind him. “You look so out of breath. Do you want water?”

“Ah, yes. Please…” he said. You spun to head into the kitchen, motioning him into the living room as he trudged in, plopping himself down. “Yeesh! I forgot how far your apartment is from me.” A chuckle escaped your lips as you grabbed a water bottle, walking over to the couch and passing it to him. “Thanks…” he cracked it open and took a long sip.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, not intending for it to come out as harsh at it did. Mingyu looked up at you, and that was when you saw a plastic bag at his side. Your features softened almost immediately at the familiar convenient store logo. His lips quirked up into a smile.

“It’s only been a few weeks. You know I bring our favorite convenient store meal every time I come back from a long trip.” He leaned over, opening the bag and pulling out chips, ice creams, rice balls, and ramen. You opened your mouth to speak, but Mingyu was already a step ahead. “I know what you said before I left…” he said. “I tried to stay away, or at least call and ask if I could come by. But…it just didn’t feel right to not come here right away.” he looked at you.

“Oh…”

He motioned the ramen cups to you. “I won’t stay long. But at least humor me and eat some, hm?”

With only a bit of leftover fried rice in your system, you were weak to refuse. Taking the cups, you returned to the kitchen one final time, Mingyu following behind the store the ice cream for later.

The kitchen was quiet as the two of you sat at the table, waiting for your ramen cups to cook. Mingyu drummed his finger along the table.

“I saw the photos.” you said quickly. “And the performances. You guys were amazing.”

MIngyu looked almost shocked. “You actually watched them?”

“Of course,” you chuckled. “I told you I would.”

“Yeah, but that was before…” Mingyu trailed off. You sighed, looking down at your hands.

“I know.” you said. “But I still promised.” Mingyu chuckled a bit. Another long silence, and you sighed.

“Mingyu, I’m sorry.” you said. His eyes shot up as the words tumbled out of your mouth a bit faster than you had intended, if you had intended at all. But they were out now. “I…was so stupid.”

“Stupid? No, come on now.” he said. “Don’t say that.”

“No, I was.” you said. “You make every effort to keep me in your life, even when you’re busy and I toss it all away for no reason.” you sighed. “The minute I said that we needed a break I wanted to take it back but I didn’t know if I could at that point.”

Mingyu was silent for a second, opening his ramen cup. The steam rose and hit his cheeks, and he smiled. Grabbing his chopsticks, he stirred, leaning back in his chair to talk. “I talked to Jeonghan and Shua about it while we were away.” he said. “And I had time to think about it myself, too.”

“Oh?” You frowned. Jeonghan and Joshua were his best friends, not yours. You knew if it was appropriate, they’d side with him in a heartbeat. And it was definitely appropriate. “What did they say?”

“Well.” he took a bite of his food and chewed, processing his thoughts before he said. “They told me that it made sense why you felt that way. And that neither of us are in the wrong, but both of us were stressed with my schedules.” He shrugged. “So, I told myself I’d give you space when I came back.” he smiled. “Wait until my schedules calmed a bit and then go from there.”

“So-.” you motioned to the ramen and snacks in the fridge. “Why didn’t you?”

He chuckled, a bit of pink on his cheeks as he replied: “I just missed you too much.”

You felt yoru breath catch in your throat at hose words, inhaling a deep breath. “I missed you too. Even though it’s only been a few weeks.” Mingyu chuckled.

“I know.” he said. “We’ve been apart longer, but for some reason these few weeks felt unbearable.” he set his chopsticks down, licking his lips. “Maybe because I’m usually so used to knowing that you’d be here when I got back.” You chuckled. “I was worried you’d slam the door in my face.”

“Oh, come on, what do you take me for?” you pouted, and Mingyu threw his head back to laugh.

“I know.” he assured. A deep breath. “I’d…like to try again, though.” he said. “I don’t want to be on a break.” he said. “If you really feel strongly about it…I won’t dare push you.” he shook his head. “But, regardless, I hope that until we figure everything out, I can still come by from time to time.”

“Ah, Gyu…” you sighed, finally reaching out to mix your own ramen. “I want to try again too.” His eyes sparkled a bit from across the table as he took another bite into his mouth. “Like I said, the minute I suggested it…I wanted to take it back. I’m sorry…”

Mingyu got up, ramen up and all, pulling him chair to your side and sitting beside you. When you looked up, he leaned forward and kissed your forehead.

“Just don’t let your ramen get cold, and I’ll forgive you.” he teased. “Or at the very least, give it to me.” You chuckled, resting against his shoulder.

“...So, tell me everything that happened in Europe.” you said, putting a bite of food in your mouth. “I heard your pants ripped.” He groaned.

“Do we have to start with that?” he asked, and you covered your mouth to laugh.

“I got these for you!!” Mingyu outstretched a convenient store bag in your direction. When you looked down, you saw ramen, chips, and ice cream inside. He had just gotten home from the Be the Sun tour the day before, and since you couldn’t meet him at the dorms or the airport, he promised to come to you once he was fully unpacked. “I thought we could snack and I’ll tell you all about the tour!”

You smiled, reaching out and taking the bag, setting it aside before pulling Mingyu into a tight hug. He immediately returned it, hands squeezing around your waist as he nestled into your hair. “I missed you so much.” he said.

“I missed you too, Gyu.” you said. Pulling back, you looked up at him. “Tell me everything!”

If you want to make a request you can read any little rules/notes in my request blog

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aroaceleovaldez · 17 days ago

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you're like the first blog i thought about ranting on this to but it drives me up the wall that some people treat any criticism aimed at tsats2 as being anti-ship or avoidable via just "not reading it". i dont think they realize that we're talking about a bigger issue of soulless commercialization and heavy quality downgrade of a franchise, not like. about an indie author publishing a fan book lmao

'i'll read it anyways haters gonna hate' crowd likely largely funding richard's mediocrity is sad.

I think part of it may have to do with a.) a lack of distinction in recent fandom culture between "Fandom" and "Audience" (alongside other recent fandom culture attitudes as well) and b.) so much of Rick's brand is built up exactly on parasocial behavior that a lot of fans get caught up in it. [under cut cause this got long:]

Re: The first, more recent fandom culture tends to treat "Fandom" and "General audience" as wholly equivocal. Because of this, the concepts tend to bleed into each other in a way we haven't quite seen before fandom became mainstream, and as a result we get a kind of Worst Of Both Worlds situation - a bunch of very passionate fans who have no community, create little to no fanworks themselves (only consume), and only engage at a surface level with the source material. Their only "fandom" community hub is the source material and official social media and they don't have a concept of how to exist outside it, unlike folks who are more used to older fandom culture and are self-sufficient. They have the passion and identity of classic fandom, but none of the depth, and so threats to the source material feel like threats to their community as a whole. They also just don't seem to understand that different subsections of the deeper fandom community are engaging with the material on an entirely different level, or they don't understand why they're doing that. They see no need to because they're never actually engaging with the community or source material beyond a surface level. Functionally they don't have a community. And mainstream media is actively encouraging this because it's profitable for them - they're reaping all of the rewards of fandom, minus the fact that because of the lack of actually community and support structures the entire "fandom" will only have a shelf life the same length of the source material. But at the same time this means they don't have to worry about quality or etc, because this extremely passionate side of their audience will just take anything thrown at them and it'll phase out almost immediately. It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to elicit some kind of reaction on social media. Any publicity is good publicity type stuff.

This lack of true community plus the parasocial emphasis the RR company has tends to make these types of fans double-down. Rick and co. are explicitly advertised as being both part of the "community" and integral to it. And when they've built Rick (and co) up as this moral paragon critical to both part of their identity they're very passionate about and what little of a community they have, any attack on him feels like an attack on themself. Particularly when so much of the publicity and marketing surrounding Rick right now is about his alleged activism when a lot of the criticism about him and the series is actively calling that into question with his unaddressed internalized bigotries. Acknowledging that what Rick is saying and promoting himself as versus his writing and actions don't always line up and pointing out the bigotry present in his work forces people to acknowledge and think about performative activism, which can make a lot of people very uncomfortable! It's forcing them to acknowledge "Oh, even if I'm saying all the right words and calling myself an ally, I am not immune to being bigoted if I don't address my internalized biases. My actual behavior matters." and that especially can feel like a personal attack. Especially in today's western landscape of media consumption being viewed as a moral act in itself.

I suspect this is why a lot of the retaliation against criticism of Rick and the franchise right now is "Why can't you just have FUN? You're just trying to hate for views. Don't take it so seriously! It's not that deep!" - they not only have no interest in engaging deeper in the material, but don't understand why others would, and doing so jeopardizes the foundations of what they consider the fandom. They can't fathom anybody legitimately having these criticisms (particularly not anybody who would ACTUALLY consider themself a "fan" - because their perception of "fan" is themself) because they're so resistant to digging deeper into the media/source material or the concept that anyone would for any legitimate reason (because as long as they keep it as "it's not that deep!!! it's just fun! just enjoy it you wet blanket!!!!" and take things at their word, they can feel secure in that performative aspect and not have to unpack it), and acknowledging that those criticisms exist and are valid means they have to acknowledge the franchise is flawed and imperfect, so they presume the claims are entirely superficial and the individual has ulterior motives rather than, yknow, doing what fandom does: diving deeper.

#pjo #riordanverse #long post //#rr crit #tsats crit #Anonymous #ask #this ended up more musings on the state of the fandom right now but in my defense i wrote this while i had covid #and im pretty sure like right after i finished this i blacked out and blacked back in from fever lmao #so if this is somewhat incoherent thats my excuse #its been sitting in my drafts for a couple weeks

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mourntomidnight · 1 year ago

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Fyi for anyone wanting to support Chinese indie sellers without potentially buying from fast fashion, I would highly recommend shopping from taobao through a shopping service as taobao is primarily consisted of small indie businesses who often do made to order items often times tailored to your measurements too and is often recommended in Lolita fashion communities as an alternative to buying from name brands due to affordability at a genuinely reasonable price for the quality.

At every chance I get with goths in my goth communities I will always recommend taobao if they want to support Chinese small businesses without resorting to fast fashion because while fast fashion is a genuine concern, there is a layer of racism to assume Chinese fashion businesses are all poor quality fast fashion made with slave labor, taobao sellers always make their products in their small studio of workers that work hard to make high quality products along with the fact that some western small businesses will also outsource to sweatshop—free studios.

Chinese indie sellers deserve to be supported instead of fast fashion giants that are products of either western outsourcing or exploitative capitalist chinese businessmen and fyi made in America items are most likely made with prison labor (Google that)!

Some taobao shopping services I would recommend:

—42 Lolita (great customer service)

—Lolitawardrobe

—My Lolita dress

Remember to SHOP SMALL even when shopping internationally!

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pinkprettycure · 1 month ago

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ESPECIALLY for plus size lolitas like they LOOOVEEE to bring up bodyline as if that bitch has ever been in stock above an L size or has uhh consistent sizing. or taobao shops which 1. aren't all that accessible please be serious navigating that place as a foreigner is a pain in the ass and 2. most shops still cater to thin people?? like you really have to dig around to find shops that have large sizes (and are also still stocking said large sizes?)

indie western brands and the handful of jp brands that do plus sizes are your best bet. they are also 200 dollar dresses.

I will never understand the lolitas being hung up on ppl saying the fashion is expensive. like sorry it makes you feel bad to admit you have a 200 dollar dress but like it IS a luxury item and you know it idk what you want me to say,

#my favorite dresses are indie western brands and theyre expensive. they weren't cheap #im not going to pretend they werent just to make ppl feel less elitist or whatever like stop lying to ppl they ARE expensive

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drowninginredink · 8 months ago

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Favorite Albums: choose 9 and then tag 9 people!

For my own sanity, I didn't include musicals because I could fill up a whole other 3x3 grid with them, and comparing musicals to non-musical theater albums is weird.

Those last 4 that you definitely don't recognize are by Old Earth who you should definitely listen to if you want artsy ambient indie folk with really intricate guitar. My absolute favorite artist by far, and also the most obscure artist I listen to by far.

Electric by The Pet Shop Boys — I think this is my favorite album period. I am still pissed off that Tom Scott called it "not that great" in the old Technical Difficulties podcast. Maybe I'm biased because it was my favorite album when I was 14 and because it's where I really fell in love with the Pet Shop Boys. God I love them. So much. I'm way too excited for the new album and I worship geowayne's website where he analyzes all their songs. I probably should have put another PSB album on here, but there isn't another where I'm in love with every track. Plus honestly so many of my favorite tracks of theirs are B sides. They still release B sides with their singles, and this album cycle, the B sides are honestly better than the actual singles. Anyway electric is pure synthy electropop and I adore it in that way you can only love something you first heard at 14.

Pure Heroine by Lorde — I read a quote somewhere where Lorde said she tried to really put all of being a teenager into the album, so much so that once she became an adult, she probably wouldn't understand or like it anymore. I can definitely say that I'm not nearly as attached to it anymore now that I'm an adult, but God, it was my life when I was 13. She really did capture the unique ennui of being a teenager. I wrote a novel in eighth grade, and I wrote at least half of it to tracks from this album. Also, hot take: Royals is my least favorite track by a lot. Buzzcut Season is my favorite.

My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men — God, this one was my life when I was like, 12. I fell in love with folk there, and I'm still in love nearly a decade later. Another album where I still love every track.

Strange Trails by Lord Huron — hey look, an album I actually discovered and came to love as an adult! The fact that I love Lord Huron's brand of folky horror/fantasy/western music that tell stories with characters should not surprise anyone. Also, if I had to describe my experience with schizophrenia in one song, I'd choose Meet Me in the Woods.

The Tragic Treasury by The Gothic Archies — Look. Hear me out. Is it a album based purely on A Series of Unfortunate Events? Yes. But. Is it also an album where I genuinely love every track and have genuinely been known to just throw it on shuffle? Yes. I mean I think of one lyric from this album, like, weekly. I swear it's not just ASOUE brainrot that makes me like it so much. If it'd ever gotten a vinyl release, I'd absolutely own it. I wish it had gotten one.

a low place at The Old Place by Old Earth — honestly this is probably only my favorite Old Earth album because it's the one that I was able to actually get on vinyl and being able to play that vinyl is so lovely. I mean, it's good, but so is everything by Old Earth. Then again, Less Words is my favorite single track by them and it is on this album. Look. All the Old Earth albums I've listed here are, at most, 20 minutes long. If you like ambient artsy indie folk with lyrics that are there more for the way they sound than their meaning, try one.

light shaped by Old Earth — god the lyrics to this one. Normally I don't like Old Earth for the lyrics but. "It gets old/then it's done" and "what if it's just some song that gets you home" and especially "I'm holding your arms/and you're holding my eyes/and I lie like the right thing to do" are all just so great. And so is the middle track with no lyrics.

... until they're called by Old Earth — have you ever heard an album so good that you a) just played the whole thing and danced to it in your basement nonstop for the full 12 minutes, and then b) wrote a poem about the experience? People talk about finding God, but dancing to that album was the moment I found athiesm. The beauty of us all being here for no reason, just feeling things and living and doing our best to make something beautiful out of it.

Two Torches, at a Place Where Three Roads Meet by Old Earth — I'll be honest, I don't have much to say about this one. They're just a really solid three tracks.

... Yeah okay I really like Old Earth. Don't judge me.

Thank you @cygninae and @thehistoryone for tagging me! I'll tag @ven10 (I'm surprised neither of the people who tagged me tagged you), @weirdthoughtsandideas (ditto), @70snasagay (hmmmm i wonder what you'll put), @cat-boy-tom, @thetreetzar, @buncoreclown, @notthatalex, @unfortunate-sapphic-disaster, and @roach-in-the-kitchen. No pressure, obviously!

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plasticsweets · 1 year ago

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Nurse medicine socks, Enchanted Dream Couture

#enchanted dream couture #western indie brand #socks #yamikawaii #sweet lolita #nursecore #menhera #nurse lolita #medcore #kawaii #fairy kei #harajuku fashion #jfashion

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arimiadev · 7 months ago

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Developer Interview — Making A Date with Death

6 months ago, a brand new self-insert romance visual novel hit the market called A Date with Death, created by visual novel veterans Two and a Half Studios. Coming off of the success of The Divine Speaker, they dived into the chat sim space in visual novels with a huge splash. A Date with Death is currently sitting at over 5,000 positive reviews on Steam with a Kickstarter for an after story launching this week.

Read the interview on my blog or read it below.

Arimia: Hi Gabby, thanks for sitting down to talk about A Date with Death! Both of us have been into visual novels for quite a while, but what got you into them?

Gabby: I feel like my introduction to visual novels was probably similar to a lot of people my age…. and that was being on Tumblr too much and being introduced to Dramatical Murder much too young, and installing the fantranslation for myself and all of my friends, hahaha. From there I played the rest of the N+C games, and then moved to things like No Thank You! since it had a translation. After that I moved further to Japanese games that didn’t have a translation. These were 95% BL as well – I’ve played one or two otome games in my time but never really been super into them.

Actually, when I first got into development, I hadn’t played any Western visual novels yet. It was only after I started in game development that I tried more indie visual novels in general.

As for my favorite VNs, I have a few favorites! My first favorite and it’ll always have my heart is Lamento. It was kind of the culmination of a lot of different things I love in media, and I still love the game. There’s another untranslated game I really like called Pigeon Blood. I actually helped with some editing of translations for some of the routes a looong, long time ago. A more recent favorite, and probably my favorite overall, is MAMIYA! MAMIYA is a Japanese indie visual novel by KENKOULAND which I will happily shill over my own games (LOL) about a group of people at the “end of the world”. The way the story is presented, I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like it, and I found it very inspiring. I was lucky enough to work with the creator Kokoroten on an animation for my own game Dreambound, which was fantastic.

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Arimia: Would you believe I’ve never played DMMD? Definitely cut from the same cloth though about being exposed from too much Tumblr time and hearing about all of these Japanese VNs that would never get localized over here, but now Fate/Stay Night is coming to Steam in a few months…. the visual novel landscape has changed so much.

You’ve worked on several boys love and girls love titles before A Date With Death that are more in the fantasy historical realm – how did you come up with the idea for ADWD?

Gabby: Well, we’d actually been wanting to try something more modern for awhile now, despite our love for fantasy settings, and we only happened across a screenshot from another developer’s chat sim and I kind of fell in love with the format. I’ve been really wanting to try my hand at something “cozy”, and though A Date with Death doesn’t really sound cozy on the box, we have a lot of features that I think set well with that crowd. I’m a very big fan of the informal aspect of the writing. I think even in my more serious games, I always lean into humor a little bit and I really enjoy writing banter, so the chat sim format was perfect for that.

(I styled my MC after my character Rose. he’d probably wind up in a shady chatroom like this)

Arimia: Having played some of A Date with Death, I can definitely see how it’s more “cozy” than some of your other games, and I think a lot of the player reactions I’ve seen have shown that too. The overall scope of the game is also on the smaller side, despite the player customization. How did you go about deciding the size of the game? Were there any parts/features you wanted to include but didn’t?

Gabby: Actually, the size is a lot BIGGER than we originally planned. Being our first free to play game, it’s always a little bit of a risk to put a lot of money into something when visual novel development is your livelihood, and obviously with a free game there’s no guarantee of a return. We originally planned for each “day” of the game to be only around 2000 words, for a grand total of 14,000 words for the game. Very short and sweet. Over the development we realized we had a lot more words than originally planned that we wanted to tell, and part of that is owing to just how many choices and options there are. There’s some conversations in the game which people are honestly surprised about because they’ve never managed to get them on any of their playthroughs. The game actually ended up being around 60,000 words, and this should be near doubled when Beyond the Bet releases.

We also included a lot of other things that weren’t originally planned when we concepted the game. We knew we wanted character creation and some degree of room decorating, but we also added a lot of small missable content – like interacting with your pet, watering your plant, reading books on your bookcase, minigames and websites on your computer, eavesdropping on your neighbor… the one thing we had originally planned but cut was voice acting. It’s something we really wanted to do, and we wrote Casper’s character with a very talented voice actor in mind, but it was a bit too much of a risk with the price of it and the unknown of releasing a free game but still making money on it. We don’t believe in having people work for us for free, even on free projects or jam games, so it wasn’t something we were prepared to have someone do for free even though I’m certain we could have.

Luckily, in the end we decided to hold a Kickstarter for the project, and that allows us the possibility of adding voice acting if it goes well!

Arimia: Yeah, it’s definitely a risk to spend so much time and effort on a free project, but I’m glad it worked out in the end. When announcing the game, what was your strategy? Did it differ any from how you announced and marketed your previous games?

Gabby: It was a little different! This is the first time we’ve had TikTok as one of our platforms when announcing a new project, and we knew we wanted to focus a lot of our attention there. Video content is very strong performing we’ve found, but it is definitely a skill in and of itself. We spent a lot of time honing down on our hook and how we could make people get it in a single line. On a platform like TikTok, you have a split second to catch someone’s attention.

We also had a much shorter amount of marketing time than our usual multi-year projects. We knew we wanted it out within a few months of announcing it, so we needed as much impact as possible in a short amount of time. We knew we wanted to get an animated opening since it can be a very powerful piece of marketing material, and I think that was a great idea and we’ll likely continue it going forward.

At the time of announcement, we had less than 10,000 followers on Twitter. Twitter is probably my favorite platform, but it was kind of falling off for us a little when we were ready to announce A Date with Death – but it just took off after we announced the game. We had a multi-month document with marketing beats and announcements we’d make over the few months we had, but with everything taking off much more than we expected we added to it a lot. I think you always have to be ready to adapt to change quickly in this field.

We actually never planned to market the game as “tease the babygirl”, but it’s something fans latched onto, and you can’t make that kind of marketing yourself, I think. We really leaned into our audience and what THEY thought of the game, and used that to our advantage in a way. I’m very thankful for whoever first asked if he was a babygirl.

Arimia: Twitter (was) probably my favorite platform too, mainly because it’s so easy to just make a quick post or update. TikTok has so much reach but it’s just so much easier to tweet a meme out somedays.

A little side question- with the name having the word “death” in it, were you worried about SEO / being censored on social media, or did it affect you? When I was creating Drops of Death years ago, I was worried social media platforms would suppress posts about it but ultimately went with it because it fit with the serial killer theme.

Gabby: Actually we weren’t too worried about that – we’ve definitely used words like death, kill, murderer, etc. in relation to our other games before and haven’t have much trouble. There ARE certain words especially on TikTok that it’s best to censor, but I haven’t had any problem using the name anywhere and we were prepared to risk it to use the name we wanted.

Arimia: It’s definitely a catchy name that summarizes the experience well. Back to the part where when people were first getting exposed to the concept and came up with Grim being a babygirl— how would you advise other devs to understand what keywords and pitches work better for their games?

Gabby: My first suggestion is to look at similar games to yours and the words they use. Look at the concept of your story and try to boil it down to a paragraph, then a sentence. Look at what makes your game unique, or how you can lean into what fans will get out of your work. Give your players elements that they can recognize instantly without a lengthy explanation.

“A romance chat sim where you flirt with and/or bully the Grim Reaper”

“Compete against the Grim Reaper to keep your soul… or die trying”

“Create your custom MC and flirt with the man trying to take your soul”

I use all of these in our marketing, because even though there’s a lot more to the game we’re not talking about, this is a hook that can capture someone’s attention straight away and then you can funnel them to your game.

Arimia: Getting hooks down can be such a difficult part but it’s so, so important. What do you think helped you most marketing-wise?

Gabby: It’s a tough question. We did a lot, and had huge amount of attention from all over the place and it just snowballed more, and more, and more. I think honestly what started the snowball was TikTok. Once we had one video go big, we were having multiple a week go 30k-400k views. We were getting 500-1300 wishlists per day for months. A lot of people joined our Discord from there and went to follow us on Twitter. TikTok is hard and the format is a lot to handle when you’re new to the platform, but it was absolutely worthwhile for us. Another thing I’ll quickly note – reuse your content. I just repost my TikToks to Insta Reels and they get a similar, if not more views, for no extra effort.

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Arimia: Yeah, it’s wild how quickly TikTok can blow up for someone. I’ve had posts get 100k+ views and then a few posts later they’ll struggle to hit 1k.

Side note: Gabby has written about her experiences with TikTok on her blog. You can also read about my discussions on TikTok marketing for visual novels here.

What do you think was the least effective thing you did for marketing?

Gabby: I suppose Steam events this time around kind of paled in comparison to our own marketing efforts. They’re always worth doing though – any Steam events you can get into, participate in them! You’ll always see some kind of return. But for us, an event giving 200-300 wishlists was just a drop in the water. Not at all not worth doing, but certainly it wasn’t a huge focus for us this time around.

[A]ny Steam events you can get into, participate in them!

Apart from that, I posted also to some other social media sites like bluesky, but I didn’t find it very worthwhile and stopped rather quickly. There’s only so much time in a day, and as the only person handling all of the marketing, it just wasn’t worth it.

Arimia: For newbie devs, what would you recommend they focus on? TikTok, Twitter, or something else?

Gabby: I think TikTok is the easiest platform to hit it big on “fast”. I say “fast” because it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to hit it big, it really depends how well you adapt to the platform, but your content there has a chance of being seen, even without any followers at all. That’s probably why I recommend it as a platform for new and old visual novel devs alike.

I think you’ll also find that once you pick up the format, it can be pretty fun to make. I think platforms like Twitter are easier to use, but getting started on them is hard. VNs are so visual heavy so we already have so much content that works well on TikTok. Of course, there could be problems in the future with using TikTok in the US, so we’ll see how that goes.

It’s best to focus on a few places though, and not to put all of your eggs in one basket. When you’re putting your audience in places that can go away, it’s always a risk, so it’s good to spread them between places like TikTok, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

Arimia: Yeah, I think one thing devs forget is that these social media platforms are ran by big tech that don’t care about the little guys – if your account gets banned or falsely flagged, what are you going to do if you can’t get it back? Always best to have more than one site you’re posting on, but you don’t want to spread yourself too thin.

At what point in ADWD’s development cycle did you start marketing it? It was a pretty short development cycle to begin with.

Gabby: We started working on the concept of A Date with Death January of last year, and announced it on the 5th of July. This wasn’t really 6-7 months of dev time though – we were working on two of our other games at the time. By that point, we’d finished maybe half of the game and announced the game in time for the Steam Visual Novel Fest a month later.

This was actually pretty successful for us, and gave us a decent boost to start from. We then released the demo at the end of September in time for Steam Next Fest, which was a bit more meh for us despite going in with a high wishlist velocity. We then released the game at the start of December. But, like I said, we were working full time on Dreambound and The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon, so I think we could have made it in much less time if we didn’t have other games on our plate.

My suggestion is to announce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post. My strat is usually announce the game at the same time the Steam page is ready, so you can use the announcement to drive people straight to it. A trailer can be another marketing beat, and then lead up to the demo release. Going in with a solid marketing plan is a great idea, too.

Side note: despite the short amount of time to market the game, they were able to enter it into at least 2 different Steam-ran festivals! That’s a great boost to wishlists and they usually don’t require much work from yourself.

[A]nnounce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post.

Arimia: Once you’ve worked on a few games it’s a lot easier to gauge when that sweet spot is, but when you haven’t it’s definitely hard to figure out. I usually go with how much progress I have towards something playable like a demo. When ADWD was ready to release, how did you reach out to press?

Gabby: Actually, I didn’t sent out any press releases for the full game! I can’t tell you exactly if this was a good thing or not – but the way I’ve done it for all of my other games is that I send out a press release and streamer keys for the demo only. Especially for A Date with Death, we already had a lot of press and streamer interest naturally, so we decided to use our time for other forms of marketing and polishing up the game instead.

For the demo though, we curated a list of ~70 people to send out early keys to. I think this is quite worthwhile in hyping up the demo release, and it’s quite easy these days with tools like sullygnome.

Arimia: What lessons learnt from your previous games did you bring with you when making ADWD?

Gabby: We’ve been very lucky to work with our amazing artist Fuyuure for over six years now, so we came in with a great team who worked incredibly well together. I think that was a big bonus – working on something like a big character creator can be a difficult task for many artists, because of the sheer amount of assets you need. So, I would say coming in with a talented team who were ready for their tasks was a massive boon.

I think working on so many games beforehand prepared us to make the game in the time we did. We usually work on bigger, multi-year projects, and this was our first proper commercial endeavor into a smaller game. Our experience helped us to pinpoint exactly what we would need, which is a lot less than our other projects. The game actually only has 5 CGs, which is less than usual for us, but I think we managed to do it in a way where it doesn’t feel lacking, either. Getting scope right is a difficult thing and it’s easy to want to include anything and everything, but we were very particular about what we wanted and how long it would take.

Arimia: I can definitely see how that helped – working with people you’re already comfortable with can alleviate a lot of stress. For the A Date with Death: Beyond the Bet Kickstarter, how did you prepare the marketing campaign for it? How long did that pre-planning take you?

Gabby: We really started planning the new DLC the day A Date with Death launched last December. We knew we wanted to make more content, and with Dreambound nearly complete it was a good time to start thinking of running a new campaign. I would say the preplanning took a couple of months – working on a good date, working with lots of artists on new merch, setting up the page, getting the page to our graphic designer to make some images up for it… running a Kickstarter is definitely a lot of work! Even organizing the tiers takes some time.

We prepared mostly by getting the prelaunch page up as early as possible and getting the word out on all of our socials – Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, Reels, Steam itself, Discord, our email list, itch…. basically, did a big blast out everywhere and we had a huge amount of people come and prelaunch straight away. We also really enjoy doing countdown images the week before launching – it lets us work with a bunch of amazing artists, and we use the art for rewards during the campaign too (as prints). Being our third campaign, we came into it knowing what we had to do, which is a big timesaver. For new developers, I’ll say don’t sleep on the prelaunch time – it’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Honestly, the support so far has blown our mind. With a similar amount of prep, Dreambound launched with less than 300 followers on the page, but as of writing this we’re already over 4500 on A Date with Death.

[I]t’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Arimia: Even though I’ve helped run and advised several Kickstarters before, there’s always something I forget or push off until the last minute. Was there anything you learned from the Dreambound KS that you used/did differently for the ADWD KS?

Gabby: Oh, for sure. I learned a lot about my tiers and page organization from our past Kickstarters. We actually have a lot more tiers than usual on this Kickstarter and I don’t think we’d be able to manage that without our past experiences.

If I had to pick one thing from the Dreambound Kickstarter that I’ve changed for A Date with Death’s, we decided to have all of our stretch goals viewable from the get-go. I enjoyed the “unlocking” of stretch goals we had before, but with the amount of attention I think we’ll get, it’s just easier to lay everything out for everyone.

Arimia: Yeah, I imagine you’ll probably be hitting stretch goals pretty early on with how many people are excited for the KS. Aside from social media like TikTok and Twitter, how do you keep your audience interested?

Gabby: I think one of the things that mobile games have as an advantage is continuously adding more content and patches. That really keeps people interested and coming back to your game and characters. Obviously we don’t really have a big enough team or enough time to be adding more and more content, so keeping people interested can be quite tough. We were very conscious of this when deciding WHEN to hold a Kickstarter in the first place – if we wait too long, people will move on. It’s already been 6 months since the game released, after all.

There’s multiple ways we’ve kept people interested during these months. One is that we funneled a lot of people to our Patreon, where we have exclusive art every month from the game, as well as behind the scenes stuff about the new DLC. We then can tease these on social media too, and drip feeding content works pretty well to keep people interested.

Another is we now have near 8000 members in our Discord, and these people become some of your core audience. We encourage interaction with each other and the game by weekly game questions that players can answer. If you had enough time to organize it, I honestly think even doing daily questions would be a really great idea. Anything to kind of keep people chatting and thinking about the game.

Arimia: To wrap this up – what advice would you give to other visual novel devs?

Gabby: There’s so much I’d like to say, but I’ll just give a few pieces of advice that I think could help newer developers. Don’t think of marketing as a bad thing, or an annoying thing. I see a lot of new developers come in and say “I won’t market. I feel like a shill and my game will speak for itself”. I think this is a huge mistake, because people won’t play your game if they don’t know it exists. Marketing can be fun! Share your little stories with the world proudly, don’t feel bad about that.

If you want to do game dev as just a hobby, then that’s absolutely fine – but it’s totally possible to do this as a profession, too. My partner and I have been working on visual novels full time for over two years now. A lot of people tend to think that’s there’s no money in visual novels, but I would say that’s not true at all. It’s hard work – like all small businesses are – and not every game is going to be wildly profitable, but it’s totally possible with a good game and good marketing. Keep making the games you love, doing market research to see what other people love, and you might be able to find a good crossover.

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And there you have it, some insight into the development and creation of A Date with Death! If you haven’t already, check the game out – the base game is completely free to play on Steam and itch.io. You can check out their social media here:

Twitter – TikTok – Tumblr

Support their Kickstarter!

#visual novel #visual novels #a date with death #two and a half studios #visual novel game #my articles #interview #Youtube #Instagram

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starrysharks · 5 months ago

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these questions are pretty similar so i'll answer both at once.

to buy from a chinese indie brand, you need two things: the brand's taobao link and a proxy site account. taobao is a chinese storefront (?) that most of these stores are hosted on. there are plenty of western stores online that also carry taobao brand clothing - like arcana archive, glitch cupids, and pixie rebels - but i would recommend just getting your stuff from a proxy as those stores often up the prices of the clothes.

note that it can be a bit of a struggle to get the taobao link of a store, especially if you don't have an account (which is notoriously difficult to get these days), but i did find some link lists! (mostly lolita stuff as that's what taobao is most popular for among alt fashionistas ^_^)

some other brands that i recommend -

eyeelike - y2k inspired, though their stock is usually very limited. sizes up to UK 10-12 (L) i believe

link (lemme know if it's broken):

frufru - bright, colorful, sorta harajuku-esque! i heavily recommend their star messenger bags, been wanting to get one of my own for a while ^_^

link

and hbreaker - a more visual kei sort of thing! more edgy than the other two stores, but i'm yet to check it out properly

link

so, now that you have the link, you need a proxy site. this is so that you can send the clothes over from china to your own country. in the past, i would've recommended pandabuy, but it died a few months ago due to illegal replica selling. for that, i'd recommend avoiding proxies that allow replicas, because they might go under while you're trying to get clothes shipped. (that happened to me T_T)

some that are reliable are:

sugargoo

superbuy

spreenow

now all you do is use the search bar (make sure it's on the "shop" mode rather than "product"), and plug in the link to the shop you want to buy from, and it should be the first result. get all your clothes, and now all you have to do is have them shipped out! shipping usually costs a lot (£20+ from my experience) and if you're buying a haul, it can be over £200 for just 4-6 items, so i'd recommend only buying stuff you KNOW you're going to wear often and enjoy. shipping should only take 2-3 weeks (at least in my experience - i live in the UK, it might take more time in the US.) and boom! now you can dress like those cool girls on xiaohongshu!

there are also two western stores i'd like to go over that have similar clothes - sixth dimension and minga london.

sixth dimension has many good qualities - they have more inclusive sizing (up to UK XL), reasonable prices based on their quality, and they restock and do sales often. i heavily recommend them if you can't afford the high shipping prices or if the sizing is too limited for you!

unfortunately, i have less nice things to say about minga london. they're highly extortionate in terms of pricing - i've seen shein quality cardigans sold for upwards of £70, for example. they do drops often, and have been accused of fast fashion but i'm not sure if that's legit or not. they've also stolen designs in the past. however, they do have inclusive sizing, up to XXXL. i'd recommend only buying from them if they're doing a sale, or if you literally have no other choice.

now regarding fruits mag - unfortunately, you can't buy from them. fruits mag is a japanese magazine that went over a variety of different street styles, so if you want to buy from fruits, you'd have to buy from the brands that the people in the magazines are wearing. as fruits was most popular in the 2000s, most of those brands are defunct...however, i do have some recommendations for japanese alternative brands!

alice and the pirates - popular lolita fashion. pretty good sizing i think, and they do worldwide shipping too iirc.

baby the stars shine bright - same as aatp, but more "cutesy".

acdc rag - yami kawaii type clothes with inclusive sizing.

dearmylove - jirai kei/dark girly clothing and beautiful shoes. inclusive sizing, i'm pretty sure they have a full plus size range! also collabed with needy streamer overdose lol

liz lisa - lolita/mori kei/girly styles and pretty coats. quite expensive tho...

moi-meme-moitie - the brand of malice mizer's guitarist mana-sama! gothic lolita. i'm not sure about sizing or prices.

6%dokidoki - yume kawaii and decora style. very colorful! i'm not sure about sizing.

angel blue - japanese kids clothing, usually worn in general kawaii and jojifuku styles. as it's for kids, the sizing is NOT inclusive at all, UK size S-M at the most from what i've seen. usually you can only find resellers on depop, but the pricing usually isn't horrible.

other than brands, i'd recommend looking for clothes thrifting on and offline (hit big city thrift stores for better chances of alt clothing), buying accessories from verified etsy sellers, and just looking around the house for anything you can turn into an accessory or part of an outfit! i hope this post helps you though!

#ask zeno #long post #chinese fashion #japanese fashion

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