#which i doubt he does considering i can never finds the things i need bc theyre just set down randomly

[erythristicbones]

usually at work all of the coffee bagging is split between two ppl, i do all the retail and the other guy does all the wholesale. but he's going home for a month on july 14th, which means for that month i will be the only one doing all the bagging

so like on one hand i feel "sweet more money/shifts, maybe i can actually afford that new phone soon" but on the other hand........yeah, it does mean that im gonna have a lot more responsibility on my shoulders alone huh

[winwintea]

winwintea's super SEXY and COOL rec-list

author’s note ↬ i really need to start saving and liking half of the fics i read bc i end up not being able to find them again... a lot of these are smut (bc i am a whore sometimes) so mdni with those tagged with s!

last updated ↬ september 11th, 2024

𝐊𝐄𝐘 ↬

f — 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟

a — 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭

h — 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞/𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫 

s— 𝗌𝗆𝗎𝗍/𝗆𝖺𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾

𝖭𝖢𝖳 𝖣𝖱𝖤𝖠𝖬

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐋𝐄𝐄 ↬

𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐞 𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭 by @sehunniepotwrites ↳ disneyland au | f | 11.9k words 

There are so many ways your friend group could have chosen to celebrate your graduation from university but they chose the one way that fit their childlike antics most of all–going to Disneyland. With all the screams of joy and laughter filing the atmosphere, you see why people call it The Happiest Place on Earth. It’s where magic comes alive, hearts soar to the skies, and where dreams come true. With your dream job already lined up for you once you get back from this vacation, you wonder if your last and wildest fantasy–the one that carries Mark Lee endearingly close to your heart–will take flight. (But don’t worry; your best friends, with a little help of pixie dust, are determined to make it come alive by the end of night.)

perfection like literally. i love disney. so so so much.

𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞 by @yojeongin ↳ husband au | s | 19.5k words 

all mark ever does is use weaponized incompetence to get out of small tasks you ask of him. when he finally realizes you resort to his close friends to do what he can’t— nothing can prepare him for what’s in your pandora box; now karma is set in motion.

toxic as hell... i didn't know what to think of myself after this. but it's extremely well written.

𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨 by @hazyhae ↳ plug + stoner au | a, f, s | 14.4k words 

a high slip up cost you mark lee years ago, and you’ve spent years burying your memories of him ever since. the universe has other plans for you when your old friend starts a new career, smoking his way back into your life.

love love their work, even has a whole post dedicated to explaining weed basics 101 which i appreciate. A LOT

𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 by @spiderm444rk↳ smau | f | ongoing

you, as the promising journalism student of NCUT, were more than willing to join the school magazine when you got offered. to your disappointment, the only section they let you have is the anonymous confessions one - which is mostly really, really boring. i mean, who even posts any cool confessions nowadays ? especially in a damn college magazine ? they only offered you the job no one else wanted. on the other hand, mark, a business student, was never more annoyed with the choice of his major. sure, business is cool and hopefully it’ll earn him money, but it’s not something he could really get into. he always wanted to do music. but after long considering, he chose business instead, to make sure he gets a real job in the future. and he doubts that choice was correct more and more every day. once the school band announces they’re looking for a new guitarist, he’s absolutely ready to apply until he reads the ‘music students only’ part. pissed off, he starts typing a message to the gc, but it ends up going to a different number - and you finally get to help some poor random stranger who confessed with something interesting.

sucker for mark lee and bands 😋😋

𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬 by @https-lvesick ↳ spiderman smau | a, f | ongoing

toronto has never been so chaotic, but things are working out since the spiders appeared to save the citizens. spiderman and silk are the city's biggest saviours and they count on them to keep them safe, even the police. but, aside from their big responsibilities, they’re just teenagers, trying to be themselves and keep their grades good, trying to have a social life and maybe a love life as successful as their superhero life. but… what’s easier to tell? that you have a crush on your best friend or that you’re a mutant superhero?

so so so so hyped for this since it started and excited for it still... a spiderman smau is just so good especially for mark <33

𝐇𝐔𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐔𝐍 ↬

𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 by @strrykais ↳ fantasy au + smau | f, a | ongoing

did you know that angels walk the earth before they get accepted into heaven, being tasked to watch over a human and complete their assignment. renjun was excited to finally have the chance to earn his wings, until he finds out his task is getting you to love life. a very depressed girl meets a very desperate boy, can they learn that maybe staying on earth isn't such a bad thing after all.

so hyped for this one actually even though it's the newest one on this list i think.

𝐨𝐧𝐞. 𝐭𝐰𝐨. 𝐭𝐞𝐧. by @zchl ↳ angsty little drabble | a | 1k words

(doesnt have a summary) renjun in the hospital, you're waiting for news.

literally broke me.

𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 by @hwanchaesong ↳ exes to lovers | a, f | 1.1k words

[part of the after hours series] Y'all bring gravity to shame because even with its constant pull of 9.81 m/s^2, it still can't put your drunken pieces back together.

the series is so good check it out. this one is my fav though, it's just honestly a scenario i've never thought about before.

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐉𝐄𝐍𝐎 ↬

𝐢 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 by @hazyhae ↳ fwb to lovers + plug!jeno | f, a, s | 4.7k words

jeno doesn't think he's ever felt this restless in his life. maybe he's been smoking a bad batch of flower, or maybe it's the fact that you haven't knocked on his door in over a month.

oh god. jeno isn't even one of my ults or wreckers but damn this hits the spot actually?

8 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 by @nanaxwii ↳ friends to lovers | f, a, | 1.3k words

Why do all good stories come to an end? Why don’t we try to make it work? It just takes 8 letters to fix it all, or does it…?

loving this one... it's filled with tooth rotting fluff that's so cute omg... i love them.

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐂𝐊 ↬

𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫 by @lyvhie ↳ established relationship | f | 2k words

you just want to show your boyfriend how important he is to you.

like the title it's literally so sweet... tooth-rotting fluff

𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 by @lqfiles ↳ smau | f | ongoing

after getting evicted out of your old place, you're left with no other choice but to look for a cheaper alternative. which is how you end up becoming neighbors with lee haechan, who has a passion for music and disturbing whatever peace and quiet there is. or in which you found yourself a very nice apartment, the only issue? your neighbor is your friend's somewhat ex-situationship who won't stop playing his guitar at 2 am in the night.

you will absolutely shit yourself reading this (in a good way dare i say?)

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐧 by @diorcities ↳ ballet au | s, h | 20.9k words

docile bodies loaded with lethal venom and betrayals are commonplace in the prestigious academy, and you happen to be their new prey when you're given the starring role with the smooth seducer with the devil's carved grin that everyone desperately desires: haechan

probably the filthiest one on this list? read the tags before reading, might be too much. it's just extremely poetic...

𝐍𝐀 𝐉𝐀𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐍 ↬

𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 by @polarisjisung ↳ fighter au | a, f | 2.7k words

it's routine— you patch up his wounds and watch them heal, he salts your wounds but doesn't stick around long enough to watch them grow.

i hate you for this hua (esp part 2) but i also love to drown in angst

𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 by @markiemelon ↳ friends to lovers(?) au | f | idk lol

going over to jaem's house to crash a couple of times leads to something...

this was so sweet omg

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 by @polarisjisung ↳ enemies to lovers smau | f, a | ongoing

going ovevery college student has their struggles, but raising her younger brother has Y/N top of the list, struggling her way through college whilst balancing her academics and basketball captaincy is difficult no doubt and with Jaemin, her ex best friend and captain of the guys basketball team, and his growing one sided hatred towards her, it doesn't seem to be getting any easierer to jaem's house to crash a couple of times leads to something...

unfortunately i cannot put cherry flavored, but this is just as good. check it out!!!

𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐋𝐄 ↬

𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧 by @lowkeychenle ↳ friends to lovers(?) au | s, f, a | 9k words

Chenle is everything you want--everything you need. Somehow, the thought of him manages to pull you back in even after you were free. Messy kisses, late night trysts, and him tracing the word 'mine' on your thigh--barely anything, so how could you possibly be guilty as sin? (based on Guilty As Sin? by Taylor Swift)

fucked me over so badly.

𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭! by @wonbin-truther ↳ idol smau | f | smau

idol chenle x idol reader try to avoid dating rumors

this was SOO FUNNY

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 by @lyvhie ↳ established relationship | s | 2.5k words

a stupid little game seems to be enough to make you speak with recklessness and throw reason out of the window in the heat of the moment. but since you were unwilling to be so easily placated, chenle was decided to talk some sense into you.

i fully choked the day i read this. had to take a breather omg 😵😵

𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐞 by @mins-fins ↳ royalty au | f, a | 22.7k words

where crown prince zhong chenle, forced into a marriage with a woman he doesn't like and riddled with complicated feelings, finds solace in the palace's very own medic, you.

actually such a sucker for royalty fics... and chenle is so prince coded

𝐝𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐮𝐭𝐲 by @aehyei ↳ parallel universe + time traveling au | f, a | 6.4k words

After a long day of stressful practice, Chenle finds himself in deep sleep on his bed and wakes up when a strange child that came from nowhere jumped on him—scaring him in the progress. To add to everything, the young idol learns that he just traveled to the future and is able to meet his future daughter. But will Chenle be able to be that great husband and father when he doesn’t even have a single clue on what’s going on?

one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITES I HAVE EVER READ. if you're gonna read any of these read this.

𝐒𝐄𝐑Á 𝐔𝐍𝐀 𝐍𝐎𝐂𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐋𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 by @galacticseonghwa ↳ biker smau | f, a, s | ongoing

your friends were all you needed, they were your brothers from another mother they loved to say. but that all went to shit after ricky dragged you to one of his motorbike sprints. who are you to say no when ricky's opponent claws his way into your inner circle and present himself as your dream man?

really really good and underrated... i love chenle can you tell...

𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 by @chenlesfavorite ↳ motorcyclist smau | f, a | ongoing

working night shifts 24/7 at the convenience store while also supporting your boyfriend’s obsession with watching motorcyclists race is not easy, but little did you know that one of the bikers that he loves soon gets involved with you.

wdym this is ending soon... no way.... im gonna cry wtf

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆 ↬

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐮𝐫 𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 by @aehyei ↳ high school au | f | 7.2k words

You love stories. If anyone would ask, you’d rather live in it then wake up another day in a world where everyone’s having the love story you’ve been daydreaming about. Of course falling in love with your best friend never came across your mind so it was a bit of a mess when you realized Jisung didn’t only view you as a ‘friend’. 

so so so so sos sos cute omfghsdjsah

𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐦 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝 by @jirsungs ↳ college smau | f | completed

a story about a college student enjoying her life in school perfectly fine, until one of her friends drags the group along to watch their school's band perform. little did she know that day would be marked as the day her whole world turned upside down because of a particular, nonchalant, and difficult drummer boy. a drummer boy who spilled his entire drink on her brand new outfit at a party and never came back.

i actually binged this in a day bc it was so good

𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 by @babbymochiiii ↳ discord call au (if you know where this is going...) | s | ??? words

you and jisung have discord date night, where things take a turn.

sorry guys im.. a little shameless sometimes...

𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 ↬

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 by @jaysng ↳ friends to lovers | f | idk lol

jay and mute reader both seem to like each other, just when he thinks that his confession was a pure failure the reader does something surprising.

this was just so sweet i literally fell in love with him all over again

𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞 by @yeonzzzn ↳ zombie apocalypse au | f, h, a, s | 26.2k words

in the middle of the apocalypse, you and jay find each other in a situation of life and death, using the protection of each other to get to the next safe zone. unfortunately for the both of you, things take a turn once secrets get revealed and the fight for survival becomes greater.

probably one of my personal favorites on this list teehee. i love jay park.

𝐖𝐄𝐍 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐔𝐈 ↬

𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨 by @wheeboo ↳ dark + psychiatric facility au | f, a, h | 12.8k words

in which a new patient is assigned for treatment under your care, and you begin to put the puzzles and pieces together to a past case that you thought to have ceased away from your mind.

literally had me gripping the edge of my seat as i read this

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐇𝐄𝐄 ↬

𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨 by @wonbin-truther ↳ influencers smau | f, a | ongoing

sohee was a well known streamer, having grown his fanbase over covid with the game minecraft and slowly branched into other games along with sponsorships and modeling offers. he was also well known for being your number one twitter fanboy, never missing one of your posts even if fashion wasn't his greatest interest. what happens when a modeling gig brings him face to face with you?

this was a really sweet smau omfg... and sohee streamer just makes so much sense...

𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐀𝐄𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐍 ↬

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 by @sehunniepot ↳ disneyland cast member au | f, a, h | 12.8k words

in which a new patient is assigned for treatment under your care, and you begin to put the puzzles and pieces together to a past case that you thought to have ceased away from your mind.

if y'all have anything disney related send my way cause i'll literally eat it all up. JUST LIKE THIS ONE.

𝐌𝐀𝐄𝐃𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐔 ↬

𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐝 by @slytherinshua ↳ established relationship | f | ~500 words

jealous riku over seiji from whisper of the heart

i need more riku content omfg. ALSO THIS IS PERFECT? ITS JUST A DRABBLE BUT I LOVE IT SO MUCH?

SEND ME UR FICS SO I CAN READ THEM BTW !!!! i'll try to update this as often as i can... or maybe make more depending on the amount on here, but thank you all so much for the wonderful stories <33

[mamaclownhunter]

Genuinely tho- if there was a third Transmigrator: Liu Mingyan- would be the funniest.

Like she pulls a Jason Mendoza from the good place and just stays quiet. She isn’t expected to win her first fight and is over all left alone.

HECK her story has already changed because her brother- who is a pretty boy omg- is over all left alone from the plot and the story doesn’t actually require her to be openly affectionate.

So here you have whatever orientation Liu Mingyan- just living her best life in SVSSS. She is trying to figure out where the plot is going- and Luo Binghe and the Scum Villian are having a cute 180 on their relationship.

Liu Mingyan is a shameless Danmei lover. THE SCUM VILLAIN TOOK DEADLY POISON FOR THE IMMUNE HALF DEMON WHO CAN CURE HIM WITH PAPAPA she is *viberating* with ideas of this wasn’t actually kinda scary in real life.

She kinda can sit back, quietly learn the ropes be the bad ass this character is with the added bonus of getting the war god as a brother. Who again- is alive. So her whole romance plot either needs to be changed or is void now. Either way she is more invested in the Shen Quingqui and Luo Binghe situation- and then SAID BROTHER is now a RIVAL. (Be still her Danmei heart).

Luo Binghe and her are assigned to do a night hunt (organized by Shen Quingqui- this is his otp)- she is kinda not wanting to be a creep and feeling out the waters bc she doesn’t want to ship someone like a platonic found family thing. But when she is like baiting and asking what he finds ideal in a partner he one hundred percent is like “someone who is peerlessly beautiful and a master in their craft, someone who is kind and will give wisdom to everyone around them, someone who is self sacrificing even to lowly ones who don’t deserve it-.” “Like Shen-Shishu?” Cue the biggest blush and she is just nodding. “I see…. Well since you are still young you probably can’t do too much in romance.” “…. No?” (She doesn’t want to say he was accused of grooming a child in the original but she is also reading inbetween the lines and has snuck around and sees how he treats both her and Yingying- he has doting older brother vibes hard core and openly is pushing Binghe to girls his age. So she doubts that is an actual claim)

“No…. BUT if you make a foundation showing him you will grow up to be a dutiful partner in the future! You can always make him rely on you so when you are old enough to court him he really CAN’T consider anyone else because who else can do all the things he needs but you?” And Binghe is labeling her as his new best friend in his head and she internally is like (‘though if he throws you into the abyss and you come back angry and yearning that is also a fun Danmei’ which goes into her note book for future ideas)

She never interacts with Peerless Cucumber or Master Airplane. She doesn’t have to. She is making friends, playing her own brand new story- writing so much fanfiction with people who are kinda characters to her. She kinda is hella vibing though.

Binghe is chill to her even post blackening- scolding Sha Hualing for kidnapping her. Liu Mingyan only sticks around long enough to ask him how he has been. The ‘hey man, yeah I am got caught again but only so I can get these people home, how are you holding up?, still trying to revive Shen Shishu?’ She knows her Brother’s side of the story and knows he will only get worst if she also hangs around to comfort her friend so she does the return people home side for him. (She still shamelessly writes her fanfiction. Even if she knows that isn’t what is going on she is trying to keep sane here)

Listen how funny if post Mushroom Shizun getting snatched and after Shang Quinghua’s advice Binghe ALSO kinda goes to her when his spies tell him she leaves CQM, he comes out of a portal walks up to her tells her the advice he was given and she is like “shockingly- I am not against Shang Quinghua’s advice- I do need to know more about him and Mobei-Jun’s relationship now thank you- and honestly? You should for now Pin Shen-Shishu down to show him you are serious about what you want.” (Internally she is chanting freak4freak Shen Quingqui DIED came back and willingly left with Binghe swept in his arms like a damsel with her YA angry love interest)

(If she is also gay and kinda was super gay after fighting Sha Hualing- that is for whoever me ships that)

It is like really post plot and she is part of the Human partners of the general club does she connect that Shen Quingqui and Shang Quinghua are transmigrators too and she just breaks character. Shen Quingqui was low key doting on her as usual- Shang Quinghua was complaining. It got dropped she was always the favorite out of all of them- and she was like “of wives?? Sure but like I am so gay and this is better then proud immortal demon way not going to lie my guy”

Cue freak out.

Cue her learning who they are and who she is.

She has been here the whole time it is so funny.

Cue demon partners wondering if this “meme” thing is contagious bc now Liu Mingyan is laughing with them about it.

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

saw ur vents abt dungeon meishi and while I haven’t read the series yet or watched the anime I have seen bits and pieces and already saw the blowup scene where Toshiro attacks Laois and like. even I with zero context didn’t totally hate him. It sucks majorly that it had to happen but like. Toshiro is going through his own shit and plenty of other characters ALSO don’t like Laois! I think people just see that scene and project the amount of times that’s happened to them with someone in real life, which like. I get it. I’m autistic and reading that scene hit like a gut punch bc it was something I had experienced directly in real life: trying to be friends with someone, thinking you are friends, only for them to reveal one day that they couldn’t stand you and hated your guts from day one. You wonder why the fuck they pretended and let you hurt even worse than outright initial rejection. You wonder why they’d put themselves through enduring you. It makes you feel like you can’t trust anyone, makes you feel like utter shit. I 100% get why it bothers people. But you can’t project real life people you experienced onto this character that does not align at all except for this one moment. Also knowing about the author, she probably put that in on purpose as commentary for how autistics in Japan generally have to go through shit like this bc of the way their social culture is. She’s made plenty of autistic commentaries before, I doubt she stuck that scene in there for no good reason. The fact that Toshiro kept quiet and didn’t say anything until he couldn’t take it anymore is VERY indicative to me of the ways Japan’s typical social system is a struggle on all sides. Not to say these are problems unique to Japan, but the nuance needs to be understood. Toshiro isn’t being a dick just for the sake of it. I want to read it sometime so I can better understand the guy, but I don’t want to hate him based on one scene where he was an asshole. Laois is an asshole plenty of times himself, being very overtly written as autistic doesn’t absolve him from the responsibilities of being an adult.

TLDR: People tend to infantilize Laois and demonize Toshiro, which comes down to the prejudices preconceived for both of them: people see Laois, as an autistic man, as an innocent sweet guy who needs to be protected. They see Toshiro, as an Asian man, as someone who should be “polite and honorable” or whatever and are appalled when he acts like a fallible human being and not some appropriation of a fictional romanticized samurai. I understand feeling betrayed and angry seeing a character be a genuine asshole about something (social expectation does not completely absolve Toshiro of his own antagonizations however much of a reason he had) but when it’s so damn one sided, and especially in a series where almost NO one is without complete asshole qualities that round them out, I find it kind of gross that people hate on him for that. Anyway. Just wanted to send a message of support and understanding. Hopefully after I read more I can offer more analysis to corroborate with you on.

100% CORRECT thank you anon

i also understand the people who are sympathizing with laios bc that scene is very easy to relate to for many autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people (i also got a cold sweat when i was watching it bc. like. having someone you thought was a friend straight up tell you there are parts of your behavior that they can't stand is one of the worst things to experience of all time, ESPECIALLY if you were only showing that behavior around them bc you thought they were your friend and you trusted them) but it's so frustrating seeing so many people have such shallow opinions about toshiro bc of it. im on hands and knees begging people to consider the characters in three dimensions and/or develop better reading comprehension because like!! toshiro's official meeting with laios's new group literally leads with 'oh his name is actually toshiro and we never knew bc our leader had a misunderstanding and microaggressed him and he was too polite to correct him' laios is not an innocent party here!! he is not an innocent uwu autistic baby he's a grown adult man with responsibilities, in that whole time he was partied with toshiro he never learned his real name!! plus using toshiro's crush on falin as a reason to hate him, falin's adolescence was spent in a school and a social setting where she was expected to mask + her being a girl also means she is expected to mask by default -> she is better at masking than laios so why are people saying that toshiro hates laios for the same traits in falin bc clearly not?? also saw one person saying 'he only likes falin because she's hot' NO HE DOES NOT HE WOULD NOT RISK HIS LIFE HEALTH AND RETAINERS IN A DUNGEON ON A FOREIGN CONTINENT FOR THE SAKE OF A WOMAN HE ONLY THOUGHT WAS SEXY!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DUNMESHI FANS THINK WITH YOUR BRAAIN

the whole fight he had with laios where laios points out that their party is more serious about finding falin and resolving everything also drives me nuts because i've seen at least one take saying that toshiro doesn't care about falin as much as team laios because of this. which yes the fact that team laios understands the importance of health in pursuit of a goal is very very important but for many cases in east asian culture (and actually any culture with emphasis on capitalism and economic growth) productivity will get valued above all else which leads to neglect of personal health, i.e: what toshiro was doing. so this is just a clown take to begin with

also interesting to me that almost every character in dunmeshi thus far has demonstrated some kind of racial bias/misconceptions (i.e: chilchuck about elves, senshi about half-foots, etcetera etcetera) and laios and falin are no exception. race and racial differences and conflict and coexistence is also one of the underlying themes in dungeon meshi, with the elves of the west being considered a major issue to many dungeon-goers and the mayor hating dwarves and having to contend with those elves, and then marcille's motive for studying black magic and even thistle's motive for being the dungeon keeper. so it's real fucking ironic that the fans are really quick and happy to demote toshiro to 'asshole side character who is bullying our autistic rep' instead of, you know, using nuance and thinking about it

tldr; dungeon meshi has great commentary on what it's like as an autistic person in society. but dungeon meshi fans are too quick to write off toshiro as an asshole japanese guy who is ableist and getting in the way of their white woman yuri, therefore helping to promote this website's enduring legacy as the piss-poor reading comprehension website

[daipeanutsaiban]

Hello! Um I know it's been a few months since you said people could ask you more questions on your tgaa thoughts, but I was hoping to ask about your baskerzieks and genshinxwife ones. Like how they met, or what their last in person convos went like before each couple separated/died, etc, bc I really adore your Lady B & Mrs. Asougi designs! They deserved first names 😭

Also I'd love to hear your genklint/ville thoughts too if you care to share those!

ALSO I wanted to say you're 100% correct that if Kazuma & Klint ever actually met good ending au Kazuma would think he's the most annoying person alive. It's funny if genklint is platonic or romantic too, it's like Herlock Sholmes is right there and instead Kazuma thinks his dad's bf (best friend OR boyfriend lol) is significantly worse. Something something hating your parallel

Anyway no pressure, and sorry if you aren't looking to answer more questions at this time!

HI i love to yap and to yap about dgs especially so you're good haha <3 i'm the kind of person who needs to be asked tbh bc i tend to be self conscious/doubt myself so questions are always super appreciated 🥹💗 this post got LONG so i'm going to put it under a break to spare anyone who's just here for art or trying to look at memes during their lunch break

TL;DR: klint and primrose were engaged as kids but it was broken off upon his parents' death, it was renewed when he earned prestige as a prosecutor; their last conversation was when primrose forced him to confess his crimes to her but she'd started having doubts months ago; in my favorite hc, gkv never pursued one another beyond dropping hints here and there but because i am bisexual i also want them to have fun; genshin and yukari met by chance as teens and genshin had to convince his father to let them marry each other after finding out she was pregnant; he could never say his last words to her because writing about the professor's identity could've endangered her and kazuma.

first of all thank you so much, it makes me so happy when people enjoy my designs and characterizations for lady baskerville and mrs asougi!! for clarity, i'll be calling them by the names i gave them in this post, primrose and yukari respectively.

klint and primrose's engagement was decided by their parents and they met as children- i think they were probably feeling awkward around each other for a while since children don't really care about such things (right..?) and primrose actually chose to spend her time reading when her father would take her to visit, and she might've even been more interested in talking/playing with barok because there wouldn't be the daunting idea of an engagement looming on the horizon lol. eventually, she and klint do grow closer and come to consider each other friends thanks to him putting in a lot of effort to make her feel welcome and also have more fun (she finds him boring- i characterize klint as having been a very serious and dutiful child, though he does play with and dote on his brother).

when the van zieks parents die in my hc, losing their life in a fire specifically, primrose's father chooses to cancel their engagement because he doubts klint can suitably provide for his daughter- a cruel but logical decision as klint is just fourteen years old with no backing or achievements. as an aside, the fire is declared to be an unfortunate accident but klint silently believes it was premeditated- this incident contributes to him considering prosecution as a career. out of care for his brother, he never brings up this idea to barok.

still, primrose is a very clever child who's acutely aware that her father's doting is a form of control (such as making her wear beautiful, white clothes to easily find out if she's been sneaking out, which i think i talked about before), and she insists on meeting klint either at his estate or in the city while they both (and occasionally barok) wear disguises/common clothes. the latter option allows them to meet people outside of their social caste, and to develop a sympathy for them from an early age which also contributes to klint's growing bitterness towards other nobles. throughout his struggle to be taken seriously by these men in spite of his age, primrose continuously encourages him and even spies on her father's meetings with other gentlemen to then report to him, and this continues in their adult life with her reporting rumors and "gossip" from other ladies about their own husbands (with perhaps dire consequences in the long run, haha...)

primrose has ambitions of her own, though, many of which are philanthropic in nature and stem from guilt at being born in a wealthy household to a father who does not care about people other than his own. they are difficult to achieve as an unmarried woman (or even as a woman in general), as her father would never greenlight her ideas, and as such she becomes enraged with klint when he allows the engagement to be dispelled due to believing she would ultimately "be happier with someone else" when it would effectively condemn any ounce of freedom she could have. from primrose's perspective, klint is the only candidate for marriage because he actually respects her and understands her as a person.

their engagement was eventually reinstated following klint's multiple achievements, chiefly when he made a name for himself as an extremely prolific prosecutor and primrose's father couldn't really object to it (ha) anymore. when i researched, i learned that men in the victorian era would commonly get married in their thirties once their careers were established, and i especially like that for this couple because it means that genshin could've attended their wedding. (it's also amusing to picture klint pitching him as the best man while primrose is firmly in barok's camp and they have a silly spat about that, haha. but ngl i prefer genshin as their best man because it was tradition that the best man would drive the married couple to their month long honeymoon directly after the ceremony so. he could stay behind a little while if you catch my meaning. teehee)

on the topic of genklintville, my ultimate preference/personal "canon" is that they never outright acted upon their romantic or sexual interests in one another although the tension was clearly there. but like any bisexual on the internet, i like to indulge a little bit, as shown in my previous paragraph hehe. i like to imagine a kind of kinship between genshin and primrose as they are interested in similar literature and share a similar sense of humor as well (chiefly teasing klint- in a deadpan manner for genshin). klint and primrose tend to dote on genshin in a way they think is discreet, because they can sense his loneliness at being apart from his family even though he generally doesn't voice it, but as we all know genshin isn't a fool and it leaves him quite flustered haha. genshin also relates to klint in the way that they are both heirs to something "greater than them" (the asogi clan/the van zieks heritage) and sometimes yearn to break away from it which might contribute to why genshin left for london if the first place. i'd like to add that if i draw genklint without primrose present, it's taking place with her knowledge and consent, though them being pushed to cheating due to increasing stress or suchlike circumstances is an interesting angle- it's just not something i see myself making at present. though now saying that has made me think about the ways it could be fun to explore the way klint's lying and gaslighting keeps piling up, so what's one more lie? so i'd be interested in reading a story that would attest to his guilt from committing the act and his gaslighting towards not only his wife but also to himself, hmm. the best way that i can put it is that if i'm to explore gk without the v, she must be a relevant character because i'm not about to discard a canon female love interest to focus solely on the yaoi lmao.

now for genshin and yukari, or genyu for short as i like to call it in my head (lol)... there's a lot to cover here too 😵‍💫 some of this, particularly the stuff concerning ayame, is still undecided on but i thought the more context the better!

to understand their dynamic, it feels important to state/repeat my headcanons about the asogi clan aka genshin's immediate family beyond her and kazuma, which were mentioned here. but to summarize, they are very patriarchal, strict, and the type to suppress their emotions. genshin is his father's illegitimate child, and his real mother is... hm, well, she won't ever appear in my art because it's suitable for her character, but she's a high ranking courtesan, aka "oiran", and therefore pregnancy/being a mother could bring shame to her and likely ruin her livelihood, because they are meant to project the image of being unattainable both in appearance.. and price. her disappearing for some months to a year wouldn't be all that suspicious as few men can even afford to meet her.

because the oiran brings the House where she works good money, they help her cover up her pregnancy and her son's existence by sending him to live with his father as soon as possible. once, genshin tries to visit his mother, but he is turned away. in short, his first experience was to be abandoned by someone who was supposed to love him. i think this backstory also serves to give reason to his name (written with the kanji 'shadow' and 'truth') because he is a truth meant to be hidden by the government. if you think about his father giving him that name, it becomes quite sad and implies shame for bringing his son into the world. i think it would also justify the personality i like for him, which is more reserved and serious than how i portray the rest of the visiting trio (with a boisterous but ambitious seishiro and a downtrodden but shy and earnest yuujin), and with a greater disposition for being suspicious... which is naturally a good thing for a detective.

genshin's father's wife lost her life to an illness some years prior to genshin integrating into the asogi clan, which is why he sought comfort from the oiran. to avoid unsavory rumors and to preserve both women's reputation, syoma (genshin's father) forbids his son from venturing outside of the house - paralleling primrose's childhood, which they could bond over later in life - until he turns a certain age. he's the dark sheep of the clan, to make it short. it's by sneaking out as a child that he meets seishiro, and then yukari who is accompanying ayame.

as an aside, i want to add that while syoma holds misogynistic beliefs, he still feels a sense of responsibility so he does eventually pay off the oiran's debt in the end- not that she's particularly grateful since he led her on and made her promise not to abort his child without ever planning to marry her. not a great guy, but def a fun character to write. those are things genshin deduces in his teenage years, and he swears to never become like his father.

as for yukari, her family history is also nebulous, and i don't know if i even want to establish her circumstances before meeting ayame and genshin because i like the meta irony of those details remaining unknown to us just as they were unknown to those around her outside of how she is tied to other people. ayame's friend, genshin's wife, kazuma's mother- never her own person. she reaches a breaking point during genshin's absence, but i won't go into detail about that for now because it's part of a long project of mine. what i can say about her is that she does housework for ayame's family in exchange for room and board, but she's not categorized as a servant because ayame cherishes her, a privilege that makes her feel awkward at times.

genshin fell for her due to her frank and joyful approach to life which was so different from the outlook he was raised on, and she piqued his curiosity with her unusual and often "silly", but free, behavior. he has the utmost respect for her, which is why as much as i like gkv and think it could work in a modern au with yukari's inclusion/approval + rapid methods of communication, i think realistically genshin wouldn't have the heart to start anything with someone else when she is waiting for his every letter so far away. he wouldn't be able to read the expression on her face, and she could easily lie about being okay with it.

in this wikipedia article about marriage in japan in the edo period (1600-1868), it reads: "Members of the household were expected to subordinate all their own interests to that of the [household], with respect for an ideal of filial piety and social hierarchy. [...] Marriages were duly arranged by the head of the household, who represented it publicly and was legally responsible for its members, and any preference by either principal in a marital arrangement was considered improper."

you might've guessed where i'm going with this, but genshin's father had already chosen a wife for him, and that person was ayame, who is from a 'good' family. obviously that marriage didn't go through with yukari becoming pregnant at 18 or 19 (!!), and syoma capitulated to genshin's request that he be given permission to marry his girlfriend which only further strained his relationship with his father further. as for ayame, she was fortunate that the man she was interested in was studying medicine, and therefore struggled less for her family to accept yuujin as her husband. but for yukari, although she knows genshin doesn't love ayame, there's always that nagging feeling that she was the "wrong" choice. after all, she has to witness the interactions between genshin and his family every day, and her presence is often the source of tension. her only rock after ayame's death and genshin's departure is her son, who starts rejecting spending time with her as he grows older because, well, he's a teenager (something i want to expand on in that project i mentioned).

in yukari's case, she was never able to read her husband's last words as even writing about the professor's identity could endanger hers and kazuma's lives, but perhaps genshin had promised he would briefly return at the half-way point of his stay overseas and then ended up having to break that promise by choosing to investigate the professor killings before eventually losing his life. yukari's feelings of helplessness were confirmed as the truth in her eyes then.

as for primrose and klint's last conversation, it's been sitting in my wips for a while LOL. i def think she had her suspicions, and when she finally gathered her courage to confront him, he broke down and told her the truth. i've revised this comic and especially its dialogue so many times that i don't even know if i like it anymore, please pray for me 😅

It's funny if genklint is platonic or romantic too, it's like Herlock Sholmes is right there and instead Kazuma thinks his dad's bf (best friend OR boyfriend lol) is significantly worse.

this made me laugh LMAO honestly kazuma would be so petty about it meanwhile i feel like he'd get along super well with the man's own wife 😂 i also think that as an adult kazuma would admire his father less and even be a bit of a tsundere lol, but yeah in a No One Dies/Good Ending AU(tm) he'd probably resent genshin a little for leaving him and his mother, whose struggles he witnessed firsthand for ten years. hell, maybe he does resent him in the current circumstances even if it's not the dominant emotion when it comes to his father, it of course being grief... still. lord van zieks get your paws off my dad!! 🙄💢 also if genshin starts reciprocating the attention kazuma might start killing LOL

...this answer is now well over 2000 words and i still feel like i'm leaving things out i feel CRAZY omg. autism diagnosis unnecessary atp lmfao.

also just found this in my #yukanotes i should've just copy pasted all this augh. i love yukari very much she is extremely dear to me. 😊💗

thanks again for your questions I'M SORRY IT'S SO LONG....... i DO love to yap 🥹🥹💗

[tinukis]

(OKAY. I KINDA GOT CARRIED AWAY (i got REALLY carried away.) AND NOW I WILL PROVIDE VERY FEW INFO ON SABOSAN HISTORY AS EARLY AS 2014.)

sabosan existing on here since at least 2017 is crazy

(it's ask blogs and im lazy to know the lore but all ik is that sabo and sanji have kids while sanji is in extreme denial abt being gay)

i wanna know how far back sabosan goes... like at leasT 2015 or 2016??? (anime timeline) and maybe 2014 (manga timeline) idk im just guessing bc i dont know what year sabo returned so

OK BUT THE SLIM CHANCE THAT SABOSAN BECAME A THING LIKE ALMOST A DECADE AGO DRIVES ME INSANE I NEED TO INVESTIGATE WAIT

on pixiv in the sabosan tag (サボサン) the oldest works on there is from 2015. (i mean when u look up サボサン you get this cactus mascot which is p hilarious)

i theorize that sabosan became recognized because of zou/wci. bc thats when we learn about sanji's history. i notice that it seem to be more recognized by a few fans as early as 2016 (when wci started)

so those big brained individuals were onto something then. they saw two blonde characters that shared similar histories and went. "wait a minute. i can cook something with this"

and you know what sanji's good at? taking any ingredients and making something amazing out of it. thats what early sabosan fans did

there are Very Little content of them/i cant read japanese and i just mostly find the cactus mascot, but they were there. at Least as early as sabo's return. and at that time, fans did not receive sanji's past. they just took these guys like barbie dolls and made them kiss... anyway i need them to meet and i want to see the longtime fans react as theyve waited nearly a decade for that very moment

(kinda doubtful but let me dream!!!)

OKAY ANOTHER UPDATE (YES IM TYPING EVERYTHING IN ONE POST) i learned how to search dates on the bird app once more and. im seeing posts from jpn about sabosan !!!

one of my favorite ones:

the people understanding since 2016... that sanji goes well with ASL brothers :'D

ok found another tweet (and the users are still active !!) and translation seems butchered so im not gonna share but from what i could understand, this other user also likes sanji with ASL... this is amazing. LIKE im aware of the impact acesan had, especially bc of the anime including ace in alabasta (i understand deeply. i mean have you SEEN the way ace acted around sanji⁉️⁉️ lighting his cigarette... smirking at him when sanji turns his back... i know what you are. they Definitely spent an entire night (or more) alone together <3) but for sabo to be included to since this long ago, esp considering the two never met?!?? and the one connection is being royal blood...

again i cannot include everything, esp long posts bc the translation gets butchered but aaahh just ppl talk about the pairing, any potentials about it makes me happy... and gives me hope for the agenda to spread wider lol. what looks like that has been said is that a couple of people really like pairing sanji with multiple characters, esp ASL... and i understand so well. theres just something about sanji being so shippable

there are also fans speaking to other sanji ships fans, and they ask/say "i want to see your sabosan !!" it's great...

ahahhaa AHAHAHA FOUND ANOTHER POST I CAN SHARE:

sabo POP figure from 2016 (aaah i want it so bad...)

and the suit he wears in this figure, it does look like sanji's fit now that the user mentioned it 👀👀

okay i dug a little more and found another sabosan fan! at first i was unsure as they could be talking about another user or a cactus or something. but as it turns out, they are indeed a sabosan fan! they've said things like "i wish sabosan was more popular"/"i wish for sabosan" and this is dated back in 2016! plus one of my favorite posts (translated into deepL as i had a feeling that twt had butchered the translation and...)

they get it. they got it. as i mentioned earlier, the fans definitely knew what was up when wci happened. THEY WERE COOKING BACK IN 2016!!! which... i believe i should now start digging as early as i can. maybe for zou or dressrosa years!! bc certainly, this pairing was actually talked about during 2016-2017. it was wonderful to see!

oh my goodness... i decided to look from start of 2015 to the end, and so far in late 2015, the same user from the above translation, has been talking about them still! they mentioned sabosan fanworks, and how they read a heartbreaking fic⁉️⁉️ i cant tell you how happy i was to read that. sabosan being a thing and having angst works, even if i can't read them. (never mess with one piece fans, especially if they are fujoshi !! they'll find their ways. im honestly fascinated. i love fandom history if you couldnt tell by this post!)

plus, some fans calling themselves delusional for thinking of this pairing... if only i could be there with you, longtime fan.

and i'll be real here, i dont know of the popularities back then but the comparison of sanji and sabo being nobles are great :] (maybe bc i've just seen ppl being mean to sabo recently 😔)

okay im sure this post is getting wayyy too long so i'll try to wrap up my investigations. bc there are many posts to look through but sabosan being talked about as early as 2015 (as i write this) is just... very joyous news to me ;w;

im sure i will be missing lots of good posts (despite the horrible machine translations) but i am shaking hands with 2015-2017 fans in solidarity... at most 9 years later

!!! GREAT NEWS. 2014 posting!!

original tweet and deepL translation... dated mid december 2014. nearly a whole decade ago. i swear sabosan will go viral, way more than when zou/wci was in progress. im sure of it

i really cant put into words how im feeling or what im really thinking. just know im happy to find fans from 2014 !!

OH MY GOD.

⁉️⁉️⁉️ AUGUST 2014 BTW. and im assuming its supposed to be "sabo started with" or something but... the content. sabosan content. 2014. it's out there. SHAKES YOU. THE CRUMBS (also this user is a sabosan fan and i think acesan fan too as i did see mentjons of them... so this just...)

THEYVE BEEN HERE FOR A LONG TIME AAAAAHHHH 😭😭😭😭😭

NOW IM CURIOUS WITH HOW MANY POSTS IVE BEEN MISSING⁉️⁉️ yall the agenda must spread farther

ASL/sanji mentioned! august 2014

omg again from the same user

shaking your hand in spirit (april 2014!!!)

there have been fans of this pairing as early as april 2014!!!! and have been manifesting for their popularity for awhile 😭😭😭 (plus this user is still active! im not sure if theyre still into one piece but... i hope for the longtime/past fans to see it all soon)

i think my investigation into sabosan history ends here after a long post and hours of searching... unless i somehow find something earlier than april 2014, the earliest moment that sabosan was first talked about was in the year 2014. Q2 2014. back when dressrosa was still ongoing. do you know how insane that is? before wci.

i think we can come to a conclusion that sabosan was a concept as early as 2014 was all becaude of acesan. thats the pattern i noticed. ace/acesan was often mentioned. and i believe it's bc not only are ace and sabo brothers, but bc sabo aimed to eat the mera mera no mi. and if sanji were to meet sabo, sanji would be reminded of his late lover, ace. and the angst potential is so real... sanji looking at sabo... just as a replacement for ace? ouch

i know the fans were having a field day when they learned about sanji's blood family :']

side note: there are likely things lost due to users deactivating or whatnot... and i doubt i'd be able to search via wayback machine. and as much as i dont like pinterest for reposting art, there are pieces of the two ive never seen before

[bucksdaffy]

this is a genuine question, sorry! (i ship bucktommy! i just also ship buddie and i wanted to ask) but you said here https://www.tumblr.com/bucksdaffy/750558811283144704/what-that-buck-was-jealous-of-this-superhot-guy?source=share that we've seen the way buck acts when he has a crush on a man, how he gets flirty, and i feel like there are quite a few times in canon where buck and eddie get flirty i know an example that gets thrown around a lot is the "do you want to go for the title?" which reads as flirty to me, esp bc of the bucktommy moment in buck's kitchen. i hope its okay to ask you this, i just wanted to get your take on it :)

of course it's okay to ask! i'm happy to give my thoughts on various topics, especially when you ask in such a respectful manner!

beware, though, this is a long one.

i feel like i need to preface this by saying that i don't think shipping buddie is wrong. i'm committed to the principle that as long as a person doesn't twist canon, it's not really my business what they enjoy, even if i personally don't share that view. so if you choose to view certain buddie moments as romantic but at the same time acknowledge that your view is not really canon (yet, with a huge possibility that it never will be), i'm totally fine with that. and if you don't need your ship to become canon in order for you to enjoy it, i'll probably develop a little crush on you because, damn, that's hot! what pisses me off, though, is claiming that something IS canon because YOU interpret it that way, whereas the actual canon often states otherwise. this is where i draw the line, and this is why i might seem to talk in such definitive terms when bobs send me asks.

okay, now back to your question.

i think your interpretation is valid, but at the moment, i do consider it fanon.

shorter explanation: i don't really see it as flirting (and canonically as of right now it was not).

longer explanation: it might sound funny, but there is this strange idea in a lot of fandoms that friends can't be... friends with each other. now, don't lose me just yet – let me explain!

so i think it's a common view that a friend is someone who you can trust; someone who supports you and is always there for you when you need them. and that is absolutely true, there is no doubt about that. this is basically the foundation of a friendship.

but for some reason, there are people who don't see beyond that.

when a friend jokingly insults the other in a tiktok video, for example, chances are you'll find a number of comments on how the insulted friend deserves better. and yeah, sometimes that's true. not everyone we consider our friend is truly a friend. but people seem to forget, or simply ignore, the fact that this is how a lot of people actually show affection too.

and it doesn't end with insults, of course. there are a number of ways people show affection to those they love. one of them can also be flirting with each other in a joking manner. tbf, i do that with my friends fairly often. does it mean i'm attracted to them or they are to me? no. we just feel comfortable with each other enough to make such comments, and we just like to spice up our conversations a bit so they're not boring. that's it.

the thing is, friendships differ from person to person. there is no rule that dictates what is and what isn't considered a friendship. saying that someone insulting their friend definitely means they don't care about them is a reach, just as saying that someone flirting with their friend definitely means they are in love with them is a reach. people can engage in these behaviours without romantic feelings underlying them.

you mentioned the "wanna go for the title" scene and how you interpret it as buck and eddie being flirty with each other, and that is your right to interpret that scene that way.

however, personally, i have never seen it as them flirting with each other (even in the platonic way i "flirt" with my friends). i have always viewed this exchange between them as just a friendly banter, which, again, is something that a lot of friends do. being playful with each other isn't exclusive to romance; people can do so in all sorts of relationships – romantic, friendships, familial. so, it doesn't indicate what type of relationship one has with another human being; rather, it just shows that they are comfortable with them.

bucktommy's kitchen scene is different in that the exchange ended with a kiss. buddie's kitchen scene ended with them playing a video game.

with the assumption that buck's crush on eddie (if there ever was one) was gone by the start of s3, that scene reads completely platonic to me. however, if i believed the crush lasted longer than that, i think i could perceive it as genuine flirting on buck's part. the problem is, though, i really don't think that's the case, and i don't think anything in canon indicates it was that as well.

[maruyaaya]

hihi ^^ i just read your oikawa and noya fanfic and can i ask how you thought of them together? i have never thought of them but now i think that they are cute!

YESSIR!!! if i am to be so very completely honest and real with you, anon, i came to the idea of shipping oinoya because they are my top two favourite characters in haikyuu 💀 (akaashi is third <3). idk one of my fav things ever is just to take my two fav characters in a media and ship them together. hence mizuan (pjsekai), donjay (dc), ranaya (bandori), etc etc. so i will be honest i was entirely selfish in my idea for my oinoya ff. BUT i am nothing if not devoted to my rarepairs (i make up 21.4% of the ranaya tag on ao3 LMFAO some poor ranaya fan just trying to find content and they keep coming across my annoying gay ass 💀💀) so before i devoted myself to writing 17k words about oinoya, i needed to think about if this actually made sense to me.

and boy it did.

so the first thing i’m thinking is “dude do oinoya even interact in canon???” and they do! well, sort of. they have indirect interactions if that makes sense. oikawa aims his serve at nishinoya and nishinoya remarks on multiple occasions that he thinks oikawa’s serves are so cool. there’s this little bonus sketch where noya even wishes that oikawa would always be the one serving.

like guys i think it might be a little gay to be so obsessed with another players serves.

and that’s where the concept for my fic came from. the idea was literally just “what if oikawa’s practicing his serves and nishinoya finds him and they just start practicing together?” and then they slowly fell in love doing that. the main driving force was how much they both respect the other as a player. i feel like they both respect each other’s skills, but (at least, in the beginning of the fic) don’t quite like the other as a person. like they’re on opposite teams, oikawa’s dramatic ass considers it a principle to hate everyone on karasuno, noya doesn’t like oikawa’s “pretty boy attitude”, and they just don’t really like each other. however, they both think the other is a really fucking good volleyball player so they both resign themselves to practicing volleyball together; you don’t need to like someone to acknowledge that they’re good at volleyball (as said by noya himself in the fic)

the very first time i came up with the concept of them practicing volleyball together, the first person who heard about it was, of course, oli (akur000 on tumblr) because they are always the first to hear my fic ideas. then the idea slightly evolved in the tiktok dms of one of my irl friends, s (who does not have a tumblr but i love her just the same (she also proofread my google translate spanish in the fic with her four years of high school spanish)), and honestly the fic just grew from there. i started writing, the title came to me while i was listening to the crane wives song allies or enemies bc it just immediately struck me as a song that fit them esp in the context of my fic. “now listen close // you owe me ears for dropping eaves // forget it all // you caught me in a moment weak” and “what happens now? // do we have another go? // do we bow out, and take our separate roads? // i’ll admit i’ve had my doubts // but i want to be let in, not out” and “all is fair in love and war // but i can't fight with you anymore” which fun fact! i almost made the title of the ff be that last line of “all is fair in love and war” but then decided that i didn’t make oinoya antagonistic enough for that title so we ended up with are we allies or enemies? (this will be the death of me)

so let’s talk canon basis. there isn’t really much of one, but there is a little bit! so as mentioned, nishinoya often talks about how cool he thinks oikawa’s serves are. he’s eager to receive them. example below. he even mentions that when he was in middle school, his team went up against kitagawa daiichi and there was a guy who “could serve really well”; i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he is very likely referring to oikawa.

so we know nishinoya respects oikawa but what about oikawa? what does he think about noya? well we get considerably less from his side, but that’s not to say that we get enough! while watching the shiratorizawa v karasuno match with iwaizumi, oikawa refers to nishinoya by his name. this is notable only because oikawa doesn’t do it for other members of karasuno. you can see in the below image that he calls tsukishima “four eyes” and even refers to hinata as “chibi-chan”. (kageyama is, of course, mentioned by name but honestly he’s a whole other basket of worms). nishinoya is mentioned by his name. not by a nickname, his number, or a describing feature. what this means to me is that noya stood out enough as a player to catch oikawa’s attention and he made note of it; he remembered nishinoya. oikawa doesn’t learn the name of every member of every rival time he plays (why would he?) but he does remember nishinoya’s and i think it’s likely because he admires nishinoya’s skills. noya stands out to him as a particularly skilled player. oikawa’s petty, but he recognizes when someone is good at volleyball.

so what we get is a mutual respect between oikawa and nishinoya. they both think the other is good at volleyball. another thing from canon that pulled me into them is the way they are the members of their respective teams with the biggest reputation (though i’d say noya is second on karasuno reputation wise bc obviously kageyama has the biggest reputation on karasuno). i don’t think anyone will debate me on oikawa having the biggest reputation of any seijoh member. he’s feared by other miyagi schools and for good reason. i think nishinoya’s reputation is clearer in the manga than it is the anime, but there are so many occasions where karasuno is about to start a match and someone in the crowd goes “lol who tf is karasuno?” and someone replies “idk but they have kitagawa daiichi’s kageyama tobio and chidoriyama’s nishinoya!!” like i’m not even joking that the phrase “chidoriyama’s nishinoya” is uttered so many times when spectators are trying to figure out who karasuno is. i only have two examples that i can pull from the manga off the top of my head, but trust me that it happens a fair few times. oikawa and noya are both known to be really good players.

and honestly? that’s kinda the extent of the canon basis of their relationship. so then what can we discuss next? well, we can discuss what exactly about that makes such a good dynamic and why i think they would genuinely work as a ship/couple.

oikawa and nishinoya both love volleyball. they're both incredibly skilled and they love playing, but i think that out of the two of them, nishinoya is the only one who actually likes volleyball (at least, as of 2012/2013 canon). this is part of a longer oikawa character analysis i could write, but i think that though he loves volleyball more than anything and no world exists where he would allow himself to quit, during high school (and middle school too), he stopped enjoying it and focused more on "becoming great" rather than "having fun". it's not until the brazil trip where he meets up with hinata and remembers that volleyball is fun that he regains that like for volleyball. i think a very strong theme in haikyuu is the loving vs liking of volleyball as evident in characters like hirugami. volleyball is everything to oikawa.

oikawa is willing to sacrifice everything to succeed. he wants to be the best, he wants to win. volleyball is absolutely everything to him. he goes pro because he cannot fathom a life where he isn't putting absolutely everything he has into volleyball. he'll bleed and he'll bleed and he'll give everything. that's why he loses his enjoyment for volleyball. he loves it, of course he loves it, but he doesn't like it because it's so painful to him. and yet, he can't understand ever giving it up.

nishinoya, on the other hand, does love volleyball, but it isn't everything to him. he quits volleyball because his friend quit. he likes volleyball, but he can give it up. he doesn't go pro because he likes volleyball as a hobby. he would never want to do it as a job because i think it would rob him of the enjoyment he has for it. nishinoya likes volleyball because he gets to play with his friends. he doesn't have that all-encompassing obsession with volleyball that oikawa has. for him, volleyball is about the game, not the result. he just wants to play.

so the idea of putting oikawa and nishinoya face to face is really interesting to me because you have two players, both extremely talented and with the ability to go pro, but only one of them wants it. you have oikawa, who doesn't think he has a future if it isn't to do with volleyball and then you have nishinoya, who could never professionally pursue volleyball because it would destroy everything he loves about the game. i didn't have the opportunity to explore this in my ff, but something i was really thinking about oikawa looking at nishinoya and seeing someone who could go pro, but doesn't want to and he just doesn't understand it; a part of him is convinced that nishinoya is throwing away his talent. he just doesn't get it and this could be such a big point of contention between them.

(i will be potentially writing another oinoya fic where i can explore this specific concept more bc frankly, i'm obsessed with it 🤞🤞)

both oikawa and noya are very passionate about volleyball. they're both also very passionate people in general. they're very overdramatic. like out of their entire teams, they're probably the only people who would care about "fraternizing with the enemy" or whatever tf they get so dramatic about in the fic (tanaka would probs have an intense reaction at first but i think that would just be his general distaste for oikawa). like you cannot tell me that if some other member of seijoh was dating a member of karasuno, oikawa wouldn't throw the biggest temper tantrum ever.

i think that oikawa is a character who isn't used to playing the "straight man" in his dynamics. because he's around iwaizumi so much, he's often the one who gets to be the silly one while iwaizumi tells him to shut the fuck up. around nishinoya, he has to occasionally be the straight man which i think is a new role for oikawa and one that i found kinda fun to explore. like you get oikawa, now faced with someone who has so much energy that it looks exhausting and he starts thinking that maybe he finally gets why iwaizumi always seems so fed up. it's a fun dynamic to explore and it's not one that's very prevalent in most oikawa ships so it's something a little different.

and i think oikawa really likes that about nishinoya. i think he absolutely loves watching noya be so exhilarating and full of energy off the court and then immediately becoming silent and focused when he stops onto the court. i think he would find noya's serious demeanour while playing to be very attractive (taking volleyball seriously is a major green flag for him).

another part of their dynamic i like to explore is the confidence levels. oikawa appears to be very externally confident, but internally, he doesn't really believe any of that; he's actually very insecure. nishinoya, on the other hand, is externally confident and it's true. he has confidence in his abilities and though he is always willing to learn more, he, at least, knows that he is good. i think that noya would be able to help oikawa a lot with that part of his insecurities because nishinoya admires oikawa so much. i think they work together in that sense.

they’re both also always so eager to learn! they always want to improve, they always want to get better. yaku says that that’s what makes nishinoya such a terrifying opponent. they both have a very intense drive to improve. and that’s something they could do together; they can practice together and teach each other. you can’t tell me that noya wouldn’t absolutely love showing oikawa how to do his rolling thunder move and oikawa would get such an ego boost when noya would ask him to show him how to better his libero sets.

and ugh i absolutely love the idea of oikawa moving to argentina and then noya, who is in the process of travelling the world, visits him in argentina. noya would absolutely go watch oikawa’s games and whenever noya comes to visit, oikawa has to bring him onto a court to play some volleyball. the whole argentina team knows noya by name and i think they’d love to bring noya in for a little practice game from time to time. noya, while travelling, sends oikawa pictures of him doing obscure shit in the countries he’s in (eg: the one that noya sends asahi of him fishing in italy LMFAO) and oikawa’s team thinks that they’re the funniest things ever. it’s like “tooru, where is your boyfriend now?” and oikawa points his phone at them to show them a picture of nishinoya hugging a penguin in fucking antarctica or some shit.

also guys can we talk about how the ship name for oikawa/nishinoya might be oinoya, but they could also be called noyaoi which guys… that’s the funniest fucking thing ever. like are u kidding me?? this ship is called no yaoi and you don’t ship it??

i’m so sorry i rambled for so fucking long 😭😭😭 i could talk for longer on oinoya but i fear i have written far too much on this post. basically tl;dr oinoya is a good ship with a really good dynamic and i think more people should consider it seriously.

[quetzalpapalotl]

From everything you've said about IDW Megatron's relationship to violence and how readily IDW Optimus can be made to indulge him, it does kind of make me wonder how he'd square up with an Optimus who has more restraint and is more centered, like Prime Optimus. Like, even as Orion, Prime OP was extremely wilful, and he only got worse once he got the Matrix :'D

Oh, Optimus would kill him, like, no doubt, he would kill IDW1 Megatron. Ok, no, it would come down to skill if we take them as they are in the show, I think this would be a very impersonal rivalry. Under the cut bc it got long

Ok, so TFP Optimus has a weak spot for Megatron because he was his friend. While OP always gives things a chance to end up peacefully first on principle, he wants that with Megatron as a personal wish of his. It's one of the few things he still allows himsefl to want, really. Until the events of the show force him to admit to himself he cannot endanger more lives by holding onto that hope and changes his tune and is actively trying to kill Megatron for the sake of all, going to show him less mercy than other characters (he says harming an injured Starscream would be wrong right before trying to kill an injured Megatron).

Meanwhile, the IDW1 megops were never friends. Megatron inspired Orion, but Orion really didn't have much of an imprint in who Megatron. OP only became someone of notice to Optimus after Megatron had fully embraced his warlord self. Megatron is someone who only finds meaning in battle and violence and whatever excuses he has to fight are just that, excuses to fight. He forced OP to become like him, because OP couldn't not stand up and try to stop him and then Optimus also stopped understanding himself outside of battle because sadly, he's really good at it and now they're in the same position and developed a weird intimacy and understanding. The ideal partner to Megatron's perpetual conflict.

TPF OP wouldn't have a weak spot for Megatron and so he would give up on him far quicker. Not to mention that while TFP Megatron doesn't care about other lifeforms, he doesn't activelly hate them the way IDW Megatron does, because TFP Megs is far more honest with himself and the reasons he's fighting, so he doesn't need that kind of excuse. IDW Megs would still enjoy getting under TFP OP's skin and fighting him as someone who can go toe-to-toe with Megs, just like TFP Megatron does. But because TFP OP is more impassionate and wilful like you said, he wouldn't get as much fun of it as TFP Megs does or as IDW1 Megatron gets out of IDW1 Optimus. Honeslty, TFP Optimus would make it harder for him to pretend that he has any sort of noble cause.

But if we adapt their backstories so that they were present in each other's lives, uh... I mean it's hard to say, because we would need to define which universe's rules we're playing with.

For example, if it's like IDW1 and they were never friends, I think Optimus would still hold onto some hope for Megatron as the person who inspired him but he would get over that more easily in which case the previous scenario applies. If they were friends, I mean, it's hard not to just summarize thr fic Turn Of A Switch here, but I think the key to that fic is more that Megatron had Orion what would be his "fall from grace" period from canon and that's more important than which Orion it was.

But there are other things to consider like, how both IDW1 and TFP OP IDW Optimus take their role as Prime very seriously, but IDW1 understands it as a fabrication, as something he makes with his actions, while TFP does think of it as something divine outside himself that he has to live up to. The later would annoy and bore IDW1 Megatron, TFP's utter belief is stupid not as interesting as the fact that IDW OP is full of shit. But also in TFP things like Unicron and Primus are real and knowable, not just myth like in IDW1 where it then turns out Primus was real but not actually divine and anyone can carry the Matrix so.

So yeah, unless you put in the work of shuffle their backstories, which is beyond the scope of this ask, I think they would have a really cool battle were they try to kill each other to the best of their abilities but it wouldn't be like horny.

[bylertruther]

thinking out loud here so don't mind me ok prepare for ur regular serving of a wall of rambles with no punctuation just me typing my every thought as i think it<3

bUT OKAY so . i think it's good sometimes to be ur own devil's advocate abt ur beliefs to see if they still hold up for u n stuff right so i was thinking of how i believe tht will is the one tht shaped the upside down into hawkins and i was like hm. well. what if el did tht when she opened the gate? but then i was like mmmmm press x to doubt bc her thing is that she's the gate opener n closer. she's a seeker. she finds people n makes that connection. and when henry takes her power he says tht he does it because he wants to be able to open gates himself. so... i don't think that's her thing. just like him, she can only move what is already there—she can't change its form.

henry talks all the time abt wanting to Reshape and Remake the world, so... clearly... he's interested in Creation! he specifically uses these words repeatedly. n brenner tells el when she opens the gate that "it's" reaching out to her bc it wants her. so if henry reached out to will time n time again.... n took him.... n didn't want to kill him but DID want to kill eleven as well as everyone else.... then it has to be for a reason. if the upside down is stuck on the day he went missing & didn't look like that before AND the duffers keep pointing to Will, Will, Will, who's henry's perfect foil and also a wizard and a creator himself bc he's an artist.... and the duffers got scared for a second when jamie showed them his pin board with will at the center bc they thought he knew something... and will and henry are STILL connected somehow despite there being no more particles within will and henry had to wait for mike to leave for him to strike.... and will's disappearance is the outlier bc the "monster" had telekinesis, teleported from outside the shed to behind will inside of it, messed with the phone lines, stalked him patiently, followed him from mike's house which isn't near the lab at all, targeted him despite will not bleeding from anywhere, and then never hurt or ate him in the upside down only sought to keep him trapped there n later took him to the library where he was found in a position much like the victims we see in s4 in henry's mindscape.... i mean...

and that's not even mentioning how will used the lights to communicate bc there's no way he touched all of them at once that fast and at that height unless he's the flash or something lmao, or how he appeared in joyce's mind once, or the lights tht lit up in a circle in his room, or how he was able to remain hidden at the house n survive despite the monsters knowing he was there and even being there just seconds after him in his exact place, etc etc....

so like. unless this is all just an extensive series of red herrings there is just. i mean. i just do not see how he Wouldn't have the power of creation... or whatever other power besides just true sight... because henry doesn't like humanity, so what other reason would he have to make will the ONE human that's worthy to stand by his side?

and how did he even know will? how did he find him at mike's house? what's at the library that that's where will was taken to and that's where the rifts in s4 connect? there's something there and it's not just that will was at the wrong place at the wrong time bc none of it adds up. that wasn't a regular wild demogorgon that took him, because the "monster" did not act like every other demogorgon we've seen. and then later on, he was targeted AGAIN. he was CHOSEN not once, but twice. and there has to be a reason! and considering henry's motives... i don't see how it could be anything other than will being the missing piece: his way of reshaping and remaking the world in his image. he needed eleven so he could open gates himself. he needed the mind flayer because it gave him unimaginable power and the ability to overtake and control others. now, he needs someone to be able to Create and all signs seem to point in will's direction.... hm.

but i could be missing something. thoughts, anyone? 🤔📝

[spookyrobbins]

ok so let’s consider no plane crash and arizona doesn’t cheat but she does reach a breaking point with playing second fiddle to mark. what happens? does it open callie’s eyes or does she blow it off at first like she normally does anytime arizona complains about mark.

i’ve always loved the idea of maybe arizona getting fed up and saying she needs some time and she’s just gone one day when callie gets home from work. maybe she leaves seattle for a little while and goes home to visit her parents for an extended period of time. and callie who gets a rude awakening bc she never thought arizona would actually leave her and sofia. of course she’s pissed cause she doesn’t actually know where her wife went. only teddy and/or bailey know. callie finds a letter arizona wrote (and forgot about) while callie was pregnant about how much she was in and loved the baby but also writes about how insecure she feels with mark and callie.

and maybe callie tries contacting arizona’s parents at this point cause nobody will tell her where she is. the colonel answers the phone and is not happy his daughter is so miserable and expresses his disappointment in callie. meanwhile, teddy and bailey are sending arizona updates on sofia, cause she does love her very much, but she just can’t be around mark anymore.

love love love

i love the idea of arizona saying something about mark etc and callie blowing it off and arizona saying she needs some time away from this and callie takes that to mean she just is going to go to work or something, but instead, arizonas gone to see her parents. or maybe it’s even something where callie was supposed to go with her to see her parents and something came up with mark and callie didn’t feel like she could go anymore, idk. i think it’s better if callie doesn’t know where arizona is for a moment.

callie who actually made a special dinner as an apology for their earlier fight and wanted to talk to arizona bc it feels like things are untenable but then arizona never shows up. and callie thinks the worst and completely freaks out. all bailey says to her is that arizonas safe and maybe some dig about how callie can’t keep track of her wife but probably knows sloan’s exact location.

and arizona who just completely dejected and miserable at her parents house. (if we wanted to make this even more fun, arizona who finds out she pregnant at her parents house and that was part of the argument - mark being weird and trying to be overly involved in their trying for another baby) her mom is overly sympathetic and it’s driving arizona up the wall. and the colonel keeps mentioning how he never liked callie all that much, which just bothers arizona bc she loves callie and didn’t know her dad felt so strongly.

at some point, callie definitely finding a letter or a journal or something and there are all these things that she took for granted with arizona and didn’t realize how affected she was. and so much of arizonas worries and insecurities are wrapped up in mark and callie doesn’t know what to do. she just doesn’t know how to fix this.

she totally gets chewed out by the colonel and tries to argue with him to let her speak with arizona. and arizona has no idea callie called bc the colonel is sure she’ll just fold immediately and go back to seattle.

after however long, callie getting totally fed up with everything and especially mark who keeps making digs about arizona. and callie deciding she just needs to go in person and showing up unannounced at arizonas parents’ house. arizona answering the door and callie getting to do a whole speech about how she’s miserable without arizona and she’s the most important person in her life after sofia and she’s so sorry if she made her doubt that. and making all these promises about how she’ll have boundaries with mark and things are gonna change.

and arizona naturally tells her to come in and they can talk.

[browzerhistory]

rambling/info about ssh's local group (since refs aren't coming anytime soon but i want to talk about them)

Safe Ship, Harbored

- the only one w an actual ref shjfhdjsk

- she/they

- second youngest

- as i said on her ref sheet, her purpose was to figure out how to apply a solution to nonsentient/'lower' life forms (people wanted their pets to escape the cycle too, for example)

- hasn't talked to another iterator in hundreds of thousands of cycles

- doubts herself a lot

- doesn't like being alone with her thoughts

- little/no ability to modify organisms

- due to an internal breakdown, cannot safely detach from her can

Reincarnation Ascension

- he/they/it

- the other song title name that stuck

- exhaustively incapacitated

- middle child

- supposedly found + applied the solution before he could broadcast a triple affirmative

- when he was alive, he was stuck-up, prickly, and a bit of an asshole

-sent the harbinger, a modified scug(?) on a journey to deliver a pearl with the solution to each of the other members in the local group before he died

- can located on an island in the center of the ocean, connected to shore by underground tunnels

Scale of a Tamed Beast

-it/they

- local group senior

- furthest north

- doesn't have any modified scugs, but a small family does live in its can for warmth. it adores them but will never admit it

- awkward and bad at social interaction, but tries its best for the sake of keeping everyone together

Chime of Eight Bells

- he/she/they

- youngest in the group

- optimistic and adventurous

- explores + occasionally repairs their own can

- relatively fine, all things considered

- ra's closest neighbor. they didn't get along.

- loves vultures and has a bunch of modified vultures for can maintenance/general company

- likes puzzles and difficult math problems

Rainstorm Over Sea

- second oldest

- it/he/she

- one of the first models to be able to detach from its can but doesn't do it

- loved his city and citizens very much and was devastated when the global ascension happened

- sees no point in finding the solution (or living at all) now that she's alone

- has one (1) scug running around its can making sure he doesn't kill herself through negligence

- they say an iterator drinks a river but this one cries a river on the reg

- 2nd closest to ra but the first to be visited by the harbinger bc his tunnel was in a better state than coeb's

as for the modified organisms/friends of the group...

Eight Spoked Wheel, Necklace of Pearls

- unmodified scavenger

- it/they

- ssh's closest friend

- does favors for ssh by collecting pearls/valuable historical artifacts from her city

- not an elite/chieftain scav, but very respected among its colony due to its closeness with ssh, who they view as a sort of god

- very curious and kind

The Harbinger

- world's most fucked up cat

- it/its

- similar to spearmaster, has no mouth and must use a modified tail to feed. however, instead of growing needles, its tail hides a single sharp point. it peels back protective/disguising layers of skin whenever it needs to feed

- has a star-shaped patch of fur on its chest, underneath which the pearl it delivers is stored. the flesh here is thinner and weaker but heals much faster to allow for the pearl to be replaced inside and carried somewhere else

- normal scugs, scavs, and lizards all distrust and fear it. pole plants and monster kelp don't recognize it as prey

- much bigger than the average scug

The Helping Hand

- ros's one-scug repair crew

- it/its

- in exchange for shelter and food, it makes sure ros isn't in imminent danger from overheating/slag buildup/etc

- not getting paid enough for this nonsense

- ros talks to it a lot. it is very patient and listens

- also sort of an emotional support animal

- one missing ear/blind eye from a run-in with a red lizard

[ut-girl666]

also id like to think about a number of other facts.

now I haven’t actually read the comics yet (I SWEAR I HAVE BEEN MEANING TO) so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I do know an amount, and it gives me so many thoughts on this matter:

one, actually Ratchet kinda treats pharma like trash even before all this?? Like, who tf do you know that is a genuinely good friend and doesn’t even say goodbye at the bare minimum when they hear their friend is going to a separate place bc their superior organized it that way, and they may not even ever see each other again, and instead dips as they’re talking to you?? I’m sorry that is such icky behavior from Ratchet. (This is so minor and dumb to get hung up on but it is important to me, bc Pharma probably considered him a friend or the closest thing he had to one, and Ratchet really just went and did that. icky to me.)

two, considering the circumstances, likely Pharma has had multiple psychotic breaks under the duress and stress he was under, and I can only imagine poor Pharma must have been blaming himself, and thinking he deserved this fate, knowing full well how much danger he was in, and he likely had no escape from, so much, at least at some point, because he put himself here, he made the choice, he made that deal with Tarn. this is all his fault, and he deserved whatever happened to him. (Whoopsie, tangent-) so all in all the stress got to him bad, and he ended up shattering into psychosis. and idk if it’s ever said what they intend to do to handle Pharma after?? but I doubt it was putting him in a hospital like he needs, which is what he needs. he does not need jail, he needs to be put in a mental hospital and on meds, for both the safety of others and his own. I am almost certain if someone simply got him psychiatric treatment and meds like necessary, he could with time eventually be redeemed like Drift was. And the fact that (again I could be wrong, please correct me if I’m mistaken) Ratchet and First Aid never consider that?? also icky.

Then with the whole fucking hands thing?? THAT IS A NEXT LEVEL OF VIOLATION OF BODILY AUTONOMY, AND IT’S RATCHET DOING IT?? yeah um if I knew about that why the fuck would I wanna be in his care after that. AND HE WAS GONNA DONATE PHARMA’S FUCKING HANDS TO WHIRL. like awesome, you’re doing something great for Whirl, but those arEN’T YOUR GODDAMN HANDS, TO BE DONATING. So the fact that Pharma was immoral in trying to get them back, is rightfully deserved, because Ratchet was also immoral stealing them in the first place.

Next up, with all due respect, it is in fact awesome that Drift was redeemed, and I love it! But the only thing that saved him from persecution is making a deal with Prowl. Finding Jesus™️ does not exempt you from the law, and is not a valid defense by any means for massive amounts of serial murder. Again, it’s awesome he went through the whole arc, and repented and feels bad about what he’s done, all in all excellent character w/fantastic development. But I am saying, legally speaking at least and a little bit morally, Drift has no leg to stand on against his far worse crimes than Pharma’s.

Pharma in contrast only committed those crimes because of the duress he was under from his deal (WHICH AGAIN, he made with Tarn originally to PROTECT his patients, from the DJD slaughtering everyone on Delphi.)/his psychosis, and absolutely never would have otherwise. Meanwhile Drift? He did all of that completely aware, no psychosis, no duress, nothing. Pharma has a defense, at least enough to put him in a mental institution that can help him. And likely before trial he would in some form have to be medicated, and yknow what I think would happen?? He’d wake from the psychosis and knowing what he’d done absolutely hate himself beyond belief, quite possibly to the point of being suicidal. {Because he had betrayed his patients, he killed them, when he was the one that had tried so valiantly for so long to protect and save them. That was his job, and he failed, betrayed his oath, and killed them. Why hadn’t he tried a little harder? Why didn’t he just turn Tarn down? Their deaths are all his fault, he’s no better than the DJD for what he’s done. He deserves to be executed. (< imagining/emulating Pharma’s thoughts.)}

Apologize for the tangent again. But onward: In short, we know Drift still hates himself for his past, and he repented and was redeemed, the whole bit - who is to say that Pharma cannot also go through the same, just through the power of medicine?

And also Ratchet treating Pharma like the absolute worst person in history ever while literally being married to an ex-infamous Decepticon aligned serial killer is so hypocritical of him.

And the fact of the matter is that realistically either drift or pharma is the standard for redemption in these comics. and either they both count, or neither of them do.

OKAY THIS IS PROBABLY THE LEAST COHERENT OR ORGANIZED THING - AND ESPECIALLY AS POSSIBLY MY FIRST META (idk if you’d call it that) - I’VE EVER WROTE ON HERE, AND PROBABLY IM NOT AS ACCURATE OR RIGHT AS I THINK BC I HAVENT READ THE COMICS YET BUT MY POINT IS OP HERE IS RIGHT, PHARMA IS ABSOLUTELY TRAGIC. AND IN SHORT I AM HAVING SO MANY THOUGHTS MY HEAD IS PRACTICALLY GOING TO EXPLODE.

and that is why I am deciding to fix the narrative by doing exactly that - putting him in a hospital and on medication. because pharma is tragic, and what he needs is help, and desperately.

Also, Ratchet, Drift, and First Aid, are all great characters, god I love them, but it doesn’t change that they also acted not the best with pharma, and I just think we should think about that more, too.

*holds you tightly by the shoulders until you're bleeding* haha funny joke about pharma's chainsaw hands. but you understand that pharma is actually a really tragic character? you understand that he did not work with the DJD willingly and was forced to harvest organs for them under the threat of the entire delphi outpost getting destroyed if he didnt? you understand that while his "crazy doctor DJD" reputation in the fandom can be funny he actually suffered a lot and it only makes sense he ended up cracking under the pressure and the venomous scrutiny from the people he once called his comrades? you understand that his life was literally just a horrible mess of incredibly unlucky coincidences made worse by his bad decisions, which he was making out of fear and self-preservation instinct? you understand how deeply fucked up ratchet stealing his hands and adaptus possessing his body really was and how extremely damaged he must have been? can anyone hear me? are you going to let me out of here now? i swear i wont lick the electrical outlets again.

[appreciatingtokrev]

thank you! i'm happy to be back <3

that is a long time when things are going downhill but it is better to get out rather than later. that's great, it does show personal growth for both of you and it is nicer for things to end on a more positive note or a positive development. it really doesn't, everything become a hot boiling cauldron of mess and that's true otherwise ill feelings may start to develop too if the attempts keep failing or misunderstandings occurs.

isn't the pc version only for windows users though? i don't think gi and the others were planned for the play stations but they did so well so the company was able to do that. i suppose they don't see the need? because there will be more pc users than switch users and i highly doubt the game would be free for the switch version.

oh, i'm assuming he wasn't allow to teach the classes that you were in then? that's good because it probably would been a problematic problem to have. that is more convenience and that does sound like a funny story 🤣 that was the only incident so it's never been too bad.

if it's from tiktok then we had seen it. it is hard to depart from a childhood friend but the association would only lead to trouble and another reason why koko might been more keen to do it too since inui life would probably been in danger if they still kept ties with each other.

it is a realistic version considering how vile bonten crimes were but maybe inui might had died instead? because the last timeline in s1 both inui and koko are members of the corrupt version of toman. but it is hard to figure it out considering koko was only show in one page during the whole arc 😭 also, have you ever tried cosplaying? i'm getting the outfit together for makima (chainsaw man) but it's only bc i REALLY like the outfit and it's normal clothes that i can wear afterwards. but finding the blazer was a pain in the ass though 😭

i’m glad <3

yeahh lol. i just really really wanted us to work out bc i didn’t wanna lose them as a friend but that ended up not going great until a few weeks ago adhjfhf. very true, yeah.

hm not sure but i thought you can run gi on other systems too... never tried it or know anyone who does tho so what do i know. but if that’s the case, it’d surprise me ngl. hm. so i googled if it would be free on switch, and the speculators mostly said probably yes. bc, after all, one of it’s big advertisements is that it’s free (though you can spend a shit ton of money on gacha if you want to). honestly i just think it’s funny that they confirmed that gi will come to switch one day and then never talked about it again lmao

nope he’s never teached me, we would asked the school not to make him teach me if it was ever a possibility. tho it’s not even really a possibility bc the school i’m going to has like. two types of switzerland’s highschool? the fms & the gymnasium (not a gym-). that probably doesn’t tell you anything adgjhdh but while my dad could teach in either it’s only ever been the gymnasium and i’m in the fms now so yeah lol.

yes, very true. hm.. possibly, he’s dead, yeah, definitely realistic. maybe i’m mixing things up but isn’t bonten the timeline in which inupi & draken run a bikeshop together? adhjfhf. ig the big difference going on between koko & inupi in the bad toman and the bonten timeline is that koko chose to stay before, and then chose to leave. plus i don’t think corrupt toman was a sudden thing, it just gradually went bad so a lot of the people stayed thinking it will get better until it was too late. they originally didn’t know what they’d signed up for. meanwhile koko knew what he was getting into with bonten from the start so he got inupi away from it earlier.

never tried cosplaying and it makes me wanna cry 😭 one day i’ll sew myself venti’s whole outfit and cosplay him, that’s been a dream for nearly two years now... generally i hope to start cosplaying sometime when i move out & make my own money, but that likely won’t be in less than... 7 years 😭 so maybe i will start earlier. anyways that said i’m pretty close to a not 100% accurate low cost cosplay for valhalla kazutora (which was kinda an accident, i just started making my own merch bc i can’t order it lol) bc i’ve made his earring and am working on the jacket.. inverted colors but still. i just gotta FINALLY paint the logo on. and i wear similar pants on the daily plus my boots are boot enough i think. so technically i have everything except a wig lol. also also makima :0 ngl she looks pretty hot plus true, her outfit is practical, so i def get why you’re cosplaying her. even if i don’t like her at all too... ah i can imagine the blazer being hard to find 😭 tho i’m happy you managed to do it eventually!!

[straighttohellbuddy]

pretty best friends {Dream}

Anon asked: hello!! i saw that requests are open (i think? if not ignore this!!) and i was wondering if u could write a cc!dream x reader where the reader is maybe a faceless streamer as well, or dream just hasn’t seen her face yet for another reason and the first time he does he like… gets all quiet or something and reader thinks it’s bc he thinks theyre ugly and then dream is like “no it’s not that! never that.” djsjsjfroeod i love ur writing tysm!! 😽😽

Summary: Sometimes it's hard to explain what popular, faceless streamers go through to anyone else, so when you find someone whose good, if chaotic, vibes match up with yours, you'll hold onto that friendship tight so long as they feel like the right person to be around. So you're delighted to find that you and Dream operate on the same wavelength. What started as an MCC team up turns into an unshakable bond that you're both hell bent on making everyone else's problem.

Need to Know: They/Them. Popular Faceless Streamer!Reader. Suggestive discussions about CGI characters.

A/N: 3472 words. is this any good? Someone let me know. Can be read as platonic ! 💖 Seriously it's 5am and I'm catching a train in 10 minutes I've been up all night writing is this good???

"Am I nervous about being on Dream's team?" In the few hours before Minecraft Championship began, your nerves had gotten the better of you, so instead of psyching yourself out, you'd gone live early on the training map, "now; no. A few days ago? God, absolutely," you admitted with a warm laugh, "but considering I was acting weird the first time I got to talk to him, and now he's still messaging me to chat, and not just about MCC things, I figure it's on him."

Despite your lack of a camera, your chat could clearly hear how wide you were smiling, already sounding fond despite the relative youth of the friendship you were discussing.

"I was running on not a lot of sleep, and like, I wanna say professional fear," you huffed with faint amusement, "because, like I wasn't starstruck because oh my god its Dream, but more like, I haven't had enough sleep and I'm talking to a man with more followers than there are people living in Australia, you know?"

[Dream: bold of you to assume I am ever well rested either 😂] flashed up in your chat for a moment for everyone to see, and though they couldn't see the surprise on your face, the silence is deafening.

"Shut up, he's here, everyone be cool," you began babbling, "Dream I swear I'm not usually this shit at To Get To The Other Side, I promise," you laughed awkwardly, right before you eat shit on the training map. Then, after a moment, you switch tactics; "also, hey Dream, call me and tell everyone that I'm not lying and we are becoming friends."

It takes a few long moments as you loiter on the training map, looking through comments, many of which were doubtful, before everyone hears the Discord call noise.

"Mods ban everyone who doubted me," you announce triumphantly before you even say hello, and everyone hears Dream's laughter echo across your stream.

"Hello to you too," he chuckles.

"Hi bestie," you play up your closeness, but still he plays along.

"Hey new bestie."

A long moment of silence follows, which you eventually break with a sigh.

"I'm sorry, you didn't need to actually call, I was just being a menace," you admitted sheepishly, starting a new game.

"What are friends for?" Dream responded with easily, and you immediately hit menu and left the server.

"Dude!" You crowed.

"Dude, what?"

"Dude, I was being a menace, you're so nice!" You sound a little muffled, as if covering your face with your hands. Again, Dream laughs, again, it's a kinder sound than you feel like you deserve considering the context.

"We were doing Smash or Pass with the CGI creatures in Spy Kids 2, which I suggested," Dream points out, putting you both on blast in an instant, "and not only were you cool with that, but we both want to smash the Spider-Monkey, so now we're friends. I don't make the rules."

"It's the objectively correct answer," you don't even hesitate before answering, mouth moving faster than your brain, and face still presumably in your hands, "look at that creature and tell me he doesn't; one, sling phenomenal dick, and two, both know and practice aftercare." As you're speaking, if only to provide context for your audience, you tab away from Minecraft to Google image search the Spy Kids 2 Spider-Monkey.

"Yeah, I read your messages, I agree on all fronts; the Spider-Monkey is a service top and would treat us right," Dream added sagely, "but what I'm saying is the fact that we had in depth discussions about our reasoning behind whether we would smash or pass these CGI creatures has forged a friendship that I refuse to back out of."

"That's why you agreed to be my friend?" Your tone was strangely fond at that revelation.

"No, I agreed to be your friend because I posted a Thumb-Thumb from the first movie in our team's chat and you answered 'smash' in all capitals three seconds after I posted it, followed by 'what that thumb do', again, all capitals -"

"I hadn't had a lot of sleep!" You cut in to defend yourself, still sounding vaguely embarrassed.

"I was impressed by your fucking conviction!" He shouts, but the bright affection in his voice keeps him from sounding too aggressive. A few seconds of silence followed, and you tabbed back to Minecraft.

"To those in chat wondering," Dream sounds more than a little amused as he broke the silence, "I hadn't asked Smash or Pass, I literally just posted a picture of the Thumb-Thumb in the group chat; they responded before I had a chance to follow up."

"I don't know what I was thinking," you mumbled, sounding all kinds of bashful.

"I want to study you," you could hear him smirking. It was easy to play up your embarrassment when your chat couldn't see you grinning, "for the record you were really quiet when we first all met in the VC, so it surprised me - in a good way, of course."

"A good way?" You asked dubiously.

"Hey, if it wasn't, I wouldn't have DMed you to follow up, I wouldn't have bothered to watch your stream to try and get to know you better, and I wouldn't have called when you asked," he points out with a strangely kind bluntness to his words. You're once again quietly, ruminating on his words as a warmth blooms in your chest.

"Okay now I am kind of starstruck," you mumble, flustered and fond, "you need me to fight someone for you I definitely will," which gets him to laugh, and begins your long, public history of being a Dream Stan on main.

After your group places 4th in MCC, you anticipate your fast-formed friendship with Dream to fade considerably. You tell yourself you don't mind, that that's what happens; you're friends now, sure, but you shouldn't expect to be especially close.

But he's still just as quick to answer you. He starts conversations. He calls you just because he's had a strange thought he wants to talk through with someone, and you're one of his first choices, so of course you start calling him in similar situations. It doesn't take long for a script to form, even if it's just between the two of you, neither live, even sometimes bleeding into your DMs; Bestie, I've had a thought. / Terrifying, continue.

While you don't interact live often anymore, you speak in private almost daily, and neither of you forgets the joke even when the other isn't around to hear it. Jokes about stanning turn to jokes about simping, made all the more amusing by neither of you knowing what the other even looks like.

While you begin to develop a solid friendship with George and Sapnap along the way, so too does Dream get to know your own housemate, an ASMR YouTuber who is kind but bemused by your burgeoning friendship with one of the biggest names on the platform. Still, she gets along well just as you do with the rest of the Dream Team.

And when your housemate moves out and you're by yourself in the little two-bedroom apartment, they make sure you never feel lonely.

While live interactions were limited, you never hesitated to defend one another, no matter the platform. Mods in your streams quickly learned that if vitriolic Dream-Antis weren't banned before they properly got your attention, you would put them on blast without a shred of mercy.

[the bit is dead. you and dream don't give a shit about each other we know this is for clout. let it go] pops up as a donation that slipped through the cracks, and you, who had been ranking notable Cyberpunk NPCs on a tier list, and had mentioned in an offhand way that you and Dream got into an argument about some of the A-Tier choices, go dead silent.

The mood drops.

"Can you please explain how?" Voice absolutely poisonous and calm, you let your mouse rest idle in the middle of the screen, "mods let them speak; can you bring up this proof that everyone knows about that insinuates that my friendship with Dream is a spiteful bit on my behalf?" And you wait.

[everyone knows. obviously. you guys aren't friends you don't ever talk]

"Obviously," you give a thin-lipped smile that no-one sees as you read a message from Dream himself, asking if you want him to call. You hit call and continue to address the troll, "not that I have anything to prove to you, or anyone," you drawled, feeling rather smug seeing that Dream had picked up, "hey bestie, sorry to interrupt your hot boy shit, but get a load of this clown," you snorted.

"You want me to ban them?" Dream asks with the kind of lazy, smug confidence that was rarely warranted in your shared discussions, but made a pleasant little shiver run down your spine every time you heard it. Chat was screaming.

"That's right, you have mod privileges on my streams, don't you?" Your tone is frankly catty, so full of smug confidence that even without a visual your audience is practically able to picture your smile.

"Yeah, you gave them to me months before we even talked about you joining the SMP -" Dream's own tone shifts as he stops matching your energy to menace you on your own stream. As anticipated, it broke you into disbelieving laughter as you shrieked for a moment.

"You're such a dick!" You laughed brightly, "I've been building up that will-they-wont-they-invite-me bit since MCC!"

"Okay, bye bestie, love you!" Dream announced cheerfully over the top of your dismay before immediately hanging up the call. While you're half-groaning, half-laughing at his sheer audacity, one of your other mods was quick to post that this is how people knew you were actually good friends, and for once your chat was in absolute agreement. At least when they weren't begging you for details on your SMP character and when you might finally join.

"I never said I accepted the invite," you tried to play coy, but it was futile, "he's so lucky he's cute."

Thankfully the overall reception to Dream's brief cameo was positive, and at least for a few days the people claiming you were a clout chaser quietened down. It's a brief reprieve but you're still glad for it.

In some ways you found it easier being faceless online; it's easier to disconnect yourself from a lot of the baseless hate. That being said, you found yourself, like many of your faceless fellow creators, to be a lightning rod for speculation and cruel potential comparisons. And more than anything, people went to horrifying lengths to try and discover your true identity behind the screen.

"Would you ever do a proper face reveal?" You hear yourself asking Dream at an hour that's arguably both too late and too early.

"I mean I want to," he admits, "I want to meet my friends and fans and make IRL content, you know?" Serious conversations were happening more and more often between you two. Maybe it's a sign of closeness, "but still the idea kind of freaks me out, like I'm losing a safety net. I love Sap and George but now that they're out there it's like they've kind of forgotten what it's like, and now my numbers are fucking astronomical, it's..." The way he signs betrays just how exhausted he was by certain aspects of his success.

"I know..." While your numbers may not be even close to Dream's, you've still got a few million subscribers of your own, and know all too well how the pressure aches. Still, you try to lighten the mood, "I'll make you my lock screen."

"What, now?" He laughs with confusion

"After your face reveal I'll make you my lock screen," you tell him with complete sincerity. You're not completely sure what reaction you're hoping for, but silence isn't it.

"Dream?"

"I've had an idea," he muses, sounding suddenly energetic, and you don't even have time to make an intrigued noise before he's continuing, "we should meet up."

"In person?"

"Yeah, you come to me or I'll come to you," enthusiasm is spilling from him, and you hear him begin to frantically type. You, however, are far more hesitant.

"Why? What would be the point?" And at your question, the tapping of the keys goes silent.

"I wanna hang out with you?" He says a little awkwardly, almost like it's a question, "I want to see you in person? You're one of my best friends? I think it'd be funny for two of the biggest faceless streamers to do a meet-up before either of us face reveal? Take your pick," he sounds a little defensive.

"I-" you find yourself touched by the sentiment, overwhelmed at his words, "I know we are friends, and I know it's kind of something we joke about, but I always figured, you know, you had George and Sap and..." you feel your chest swell with pride, "do you really think of me as one of your best friends?"

A long silence follows.

"Do you not?" He asks, sounding a little disappointed, which has you backpedaling almost immediately.

"Of course I do, but I don't -" you hesitate before admitting, "I don't really have any other best friends. I like my housemate but ours is a convenience thing more than anything else."

"You're a different kind of best friend to Sap or George, or you know, even different to Karl or Q," he tells you after a few moments of deliberation, but at least he seems to be in better spirits, "but yeah, I still consider you one of my best friends." The typing on his end of the call has tentatively resumed.

"What kind of different?" You ask gently, and are again met with hesitation.

"There's parts of how I..." He trails off and hums thoughtfully, trying to organise his thoughts, "the way we exist online- no... I mean yes but it's not quite..." Then, carefully, "you know me," and he lets it hang in the silence between you both, and you give him the time to elaborate, heart in your throat, "you know me in a way that's very hard to describe and so much harder to find, because I feel like you know me in the nichest way, you know? Since that random-ass call the day of MCC, I was like, sure about you in a way that I'd never been about another person. Like safe - I mean," and he splutters half sentences again for a few moments, like he hadn't quite meant to admit that last part, but you're glad he did. You knew exactly what feeling he was talking about, the one that burned deep in your chest, that you knew you could never dream to find the words for.

You tell him your address.

He goes quiet.

The typing continues.

"So this is it, I'm coming to visit," suddenly he sounds nervous, and despite feeling that too, you can't help but grin.

"How soon?"

"Two days?"

"Two days!" The way you cheer in confirmation is cathartic for you both; you hear him definitely hit enter to purchase the plane ticket, and he laughs like he can't believe it's really happening. Then, as the laughter dies down, your voice turns quiet and fond, "you make me feel safe too, Dream."

"Stop," he sounds plaintive but still somehow bright, "I already kind of feel like I'm about to cry, I can't believe I get to see you so soon."

"So soon," you echo the affirmation with a smile.

To celebrate you watch and movie together, ending up falling asleep on the call. All you feel when you wake is how giddy you are knowing how soon it would be until you saw your best friend in person, finally!

He insists on taking an Uber from the airport, wants your first time seeing each other to be somewhere your voices have no chance of getting recognised, so by the time you buzz him into your building your practically sick with anticipation. Pacing with your earbuds in, something about hearing the echo of his real voice at your front door just ahead of hearing him in the call, it makes it all feel so real.

"I'm gonna hang up and knock now," his tone is so gentle, like he can tell you're freaking out more than he is right now.

"Okay, love you," you blurt out on tense instinct. He hangs up but you can hear his fond laughter the moment before he starts to knock. He doesn't even get a third knock in before you've wrenched the door open, heartbeat in your ears, absolutely clueless on what to expect -

He's real. He's a real person and he's standing in front of you and your best friend Dream has kind eyes. Around the time you register that this isn't a trick, that he's got wavy hair and he's tall and pale as all fuck, you realise that you're definitely checking him out, which somehow feels weirder when it hits you that he's actually very handsome. He had a place in your heart pretty much since you met him, but this is a welcome surprise.

"Do you wanna come in?" You asked with a little laugh, stepping to the side and gesturing him in. His expression was unreadable as he stepped past you, "it's good to see you," you tried, but once you closed the door and turned around, you couldn't help but feel self conscious.

"Come on man, this is really me, I'd rather you not do a bit, I've been cleaning but I tried to -" you dip your gaze to avoid looking at him, scouring your outfit for any stains you made have noticed, hoping his reaction was to something you could fix -

"This isn't a bit, sorry, I promise," he says in a rush, stepping forward. When you finally look back up, he's smiling at you, hand hovering like he went to touch your cheek but he's not sure he's allowed, "I cannot believe you've been this pretty behind the screen this entire time, this is so unfair, I could have bought a plane ticket months ago."

Slowly, as his words sink in, you feel yourself beginning to grin and grow flustered.

"Okay, this bit I approve of -"

"Who says it's a bit?" He crowed, stepping closer to you, cupping your face with his hand, "look at your face, this isn't a bit, you're hot! Who let you be hot?" And you know that tone, have heard that smile in his words before; the fact that this smile was behind it every time?

"No, shut up, you're not allowed to simp over me, I'm meant to be simping over you; you just finished a plane and uber ride, how are you not a hot mess? Who let you be hot?" And immediately he's turning red, basking in your compliments with a wide grin.

"We're gonna be insufferable on stream, aren't we?"

"Without a doubt," you beam, and finally you pull each other into a tight hug.

After dinner you drag a second chair into what is now your office, making sure the space was set up for you both to be comfortable. Once your computer is booting up, he pulls out his phone and instructs you to make half a heart with your hand in front of the computer. He completes the heart with his own and snaps a photo, your aesthetic set up in the background.

[am I really in @Y/N's apartment IRL for the most convoluted meet up ever or am i very good at photoshop? idk you decide] is how he captions the photo, which you immediately retweet onto your main account with a link to your Twitch.

"I ain't ever seen two pretty best friends!" You quote loudly at your chat to start your stream, immediately causing Dream to laugh, leaning over to press his forehead against your shoulder while you continued on strong, "and neither will you! Welcome to the most confusing and least provable meet up! Special guest Dream, do you wanna say hello?"

"I do," he wheezed, "I'm special guest Dream, coming to you live from Y/N's office, believe it or not!"

"I'm seeing a lot of non believers here," you mumbled with faux disappointment.

"They don't have to believe," Dream points out, far less performative than he'd been a moment ago. When he smiles at you, something eases in your chest. There's no weird tension, or uncomfortable silences, or doubt. Your best friend is by your side; the only thing that matters in this moment is him.

[wowowwild]

I ended up writing a lot of thoughts so I put them under the cut.

Yes!!! I think Kristoph must have been able to have a lot of patience when it suited him, or maybe not patience, really, but putting on hi 'Coolest Defense in the West' persona at pretty much all times. You might see an eye twitch and hear something that is a thinly veiled insult. (Or not so thinly veiled, Apollo is clearly desperate to impress during that first case and Kristoph is lowkey roasting him under the guise of advice so...)

But like, I feel like Kristoph would have actually had to be a decent mentor, bc Phoenix doesn't do basically any mentoring for Apollo and Apollo can handle himself in court. He's there if needed I guess, but he's still in his overly cryptic era (as opposed to the rest of the time when he's only minorly cryptic) and tbh I don't think Apollo really likes him that much anyway. Cares about him after some time, maybe, but not really liking him. One thing I will say in defense of Phoenix here is that he does try to help Apollo be more confident, so maybe that's the only thing he thinks needs improving, which would pretty much be correct.

So I think Kristoph was decent, and I think he would have had to be decent with Klavier as well. Probably distant towards the end, but not anything you could clock as bad at first glance, other than 'wow that guy is kind of bitchy'. I think Kristoph was probably very manipulative, though. Apollo seems to be pretty susceptible to manipulation from the right people which would be a positive trait to a chronic manipulator, so if you subscribe to that, then that is plus number one.

I have to wonder if Kristoph picked up on Apollo's ability. Kristoph is definitely the type to play with fire as we can see with his relationship with Phoenix, so if he thought he could manipulate Apollo good enough, or if he thought he had mastered his own tics well enough, then Apollo would be a very useful tool, which could be plus number two.

And yes I am so upset about the wasted potential bc it was going somewhere but now we have to speculate about what was and what could have been bc the new writers didn't read the source material.

We can guess a little bit if we take any of the official art that doesn't contradict canon as canon that it was somewhat pleasant even, but if it information that doesn't come strictly from the games, I am hesitant to consider it as fact.

Of course, when the time came, Apollo told Kristoph to testify and then got him arrested, and there are a couple ways to interpret this. First is that he straight up did not care about Kristoph which is one I see a lot. I can understand that take, I don't think there's anyway to outright disprove it bc we see so little of them. I think if we had a proper Apollo Justice trilogy we would have seen flashbacks of them, maybe even entire flashback cases shortly before where Apollo is co-counsel or just at the bench with him. We definitely would have gotten more of something.

But really you can see when the doubt starts to plant itself. Apollo is still a huge fan boy of Phoenix Wright Turnabout Terror and when He leads Apollo to conclusion after conclusion... He is so nervous and it catches him off guard, but at this point he still really does trust Phoenix and so he really has to find out who is wright. He has to know or he'll never have peace. He begins to suspect, and even once he knows the truth he's still pleading in his head that Kristoph will say something to discredit all of it, something to make it all make sense. And he doesn't. This doesn't necessarily mean he cared about Kristoph at all, but it certainly would have been a betrayal. And also I do think he cared a little. This super top notch attorney who gave him a chance. You're going to feel some type of way about that.

I think we can get on to your Klav point now. Bc you're right, he knew nothing about Klavier at all. I'm not sure exactly how long Apollo was working for Kristoph, but it must have been a bit at least. I always hc it as a year or two while he was doing law school and then graduated and passed the bar while working there. It would be weird to me if it had only been a little while, but it's certainly possible it was only a month or two, I'm not really sure how becoming a lawyer works in Japan.

So Kristoph seems like kind of a private person in general, but he was ok with telling Apollo that Phoenix was a 'good friend' and not just an acquaintance or something, so he might be that type to bring personal stuff up if it's relevant? There's also the thought of personal effects in his office. Tbh he doesn't seem like a super personal effects kind of guy to me personally, except for things he likes maybe, like tea and his violin (also can we talk about how both brothers display their instruments, it's not a huge similarity, but idk anyone irl who sets up instruments just to be looked at other than people who are really passionate about music which makes me wonder about Kristoph's past with music, but this is not very relevant right now.)

So anyway, he definitely doesn't have any pictures of Klavier in the office and he doesn't talk about him and this would definitely make Klavier sad. I also think Klavier maybe kind of expected that? Just with what we see of Kristoph I think that's kind of his personality, but even then, the fact that you have a brother (especially a highly successful one) usually comes up at some point. It's a very common ice breaker question.

And I think Klavier must adore his brother. I think they probably disagreed all the time and fought but that is very much sibling behavior. We can see how much Kristoph's actions affect Klavier. Their relationship is definitely unbalanced, Kristoph has all of the power. I also think it's possible at this point Klavier has distanced himself from trying so hard to be what his brother wants, but would still care about him probably more than anyone. We don't really have time for my thoughts on the brothers bc they just go one forever and maybe I'll write something some day.

But, um, yeah. I'm not really sure if I stayed even remotely on topic or if I said everything I wanted, I am constantly putting them all in the salad spinner and have soooo many thoughts but I tried to keep it contained.

Man I'm thinking about Apollos and Kristophs relationship with each other again and there is so much missed potential. I feel like if you only take their personalities into account these two don't click. Considering what kinda name Kristoph made for himself before he got charged with murder I assume it would have been very hard to get accepted as his trainee if thats the right word here. So Apollo probably was able to have really impressed him. I just want to know more about the years these two worked together! Also another thing, Apollo didn't know about Klavier at all. So imagine a scene where Klavier wonders what Kristoph said about him before they actually met only for Apollo to go "he never talked about you at all" I can imagine Klavier to get really sad upon hearing that. So much missed potential y_y