#who GOT DEVELOPMENT in this hypothetical

[puhpandas]

I keep thinking about how on earth they would canonize ggy bc like. at this point if they have to sacrifice Gregory screentime of just him to make something we already know actually canon, I would rather just take the screentime, but on the other hand they have to canonize it if they want to do anything at all with that plotline, and that makes me wonder if theyll stick with it as canon in the games at all or just leave it as background knowledge if u read the book 😭

[peachlit]

i’m talking to a new guy. on another note….. ethics of dating your mom’s employee??

[darlingdaisyfarm]

texting Stan and Ford headcanons

smut version

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Stan Pines

✧ Stan is the kinda guy who thinks emojis are a scam, but somehow, he figured out how to use the "thumbs up" and "money bag" emoji. so, expect a lot of those in your chats.

✧ his text tone is rough, a little misspelled, typed like he's yelling even when he isn’t. Half of his texts are in all caps, and he absolutely does not care about grammar. but he gets the point across, always.

✧ you’re getting messages at 3 am about some ‘brilliant’ scheme to make a quick buck. he’ll send, “LISTEN, doll, what if we made... GIANT… glitter-filled eggs for easter? Tourists'll go NUTS." you reply, half-asleep, with “Stan, ily but go to bed." and all you get back is a “🤬 YOU GOTTA THINK BIGGER!”

✧ Stan sends those weird chain messages he swears are from some “hotshot businessman” that’ll make you rich in a week. and when you don’t respond immediately, you get a: “Fine, Miss Doubtful, see you when I’m rolling in gold.”

✧ there are whole days where he just floods your phone with random, blurry photos of some new Mystery Shack "artifact" he found. It’s usually junk he picked up at a garage sale, like a “haunted” ashtray or some knock-off painting that’s “probably ancient.”

✧ If he’s feeling sappy (and tipsy): you might get a rare “thinking bout you, sweet thing” at 2 am. but if you try to call him on it the next day, he’ll just be like “Didn’t say that. You’re makin’ stuff up.”

✧ when he’s really riled up about something, though? then his messages are just. . . a stream of caps-lock curses, mixed with misspelled attempts to describe whatever nonsense he just got himself into. you just sit back and let him rant; he’ll cool off eventually.

✧ and the voice messages are something else. they sound like he’s talking through a fan half the time. one minute, he’s rambling about how tourists are “the dumbest suckers on the planet” and the next, he’s ranting about how “bigfoot definitely broke into the shack last night!"

types of messages Stan texts: 

"So… whatcha wearin’? 😏"

“Hey doll, I just found a penny on the ground! Maybe today’s my lucky day… hint hint ;)"

"I’d say somethin’ romantic, but I think my brain just shorted out. You’re a little too cute for a guy like me."

"Just tried that new café downtown. Ordered coffee… tastes like they filtered it through someone’s laundry. You’d hate it. Wanna come mock it with me?"

"Not gonna lie, I miss that face of yours. So what’re we doin’ about it, huh?"

“Again missin’ that cute little smile of yours… maybe you could send me a pic to remind me?”

"Wanna help me scam the tourists today? I’ll split the loot with ya… maybe ;)”

"You wouldn’t believe what I caught Ford muttering in his sleep. Man’s like a walking encyclopedia, even when he’s unconscious."

“Got any plans later? Thought maybe we could… y’know… not have plans together."

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Ford Pines 

✧ hehehehe he’s like an old-school emailer who’s just now getting the hang of messaging apps. texts in complete sentences, full punctuation, like he’s drafting a dissertation.

✧ He sends you whole paragraphs at random hours, talking about some discovery he’s made, like he’s reporting directly to NASA. you’re like, “Ford, it's just a weird-looking squirrel." and he's already typing another essay about its "possible interdimensional origins."

✧ once in a while, he’ll send you a message that says, “Are you awake?” at, like 3 am followed by a string of thoughtful yet completely bonkers hypotheses. you find it cute, though, his mind never stops, not even for a second.

✧ If he’s feeling bold, you might even get a “hypothetical” confession out of him: “Hypothetically, if one were to develop... strong emotional attachment to a certain person... how would one proceed?" You tease him about it the next day, and he gets flustered, “It was purely scientific curiosity."

✧ Ford isn’t big on emojis, but he likes the brain and alien ones, using them poetically. he’ll sign off texts with a single brain emoji, like it’s his version of a little goodbye wave.

✧ on really rare occasions, he’ll send a voice message. they’re always way too long, and it’s usually him whispering so he doesn’t wake Stan up. he goes on about cosmic rays or “gravity anomalies,” his voice dropping lower when he gets excited. you live for those moments

✧ and if he ever texts you a “good night,” you just know he’s been up thinking about it for hours, trying to figure out if it’s “appropriate.”

types of messages Ford texts: 

“It’s been approximately 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 23 seconds since our last conversation… not that I’m counting or anything. Just… miss you."

sends a meme about science nerds “Us. But mostly me.”

“My hands ache from writing… though perhaps if it were writing about you, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you think about me too, or am I the only one utterly ruined by this… whatever this is?”

“I’ve been thinking about that book you lent me... 🤔 It’s honestly so much more interesting than I expected, thank you for recommending it."

"I don’t know how to work this... But I managed to send a meme! It’s not the worst thing I’ve done, I suppose? 

“I did it. I fixed the telescope. Finally. Now we can actually look at the stars like we’ve talked about. :)"

"I hope you’re feeling okay today. I noticed you seemed a little stressed the other day. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. :) It’s important."

"If I could rearrange the periodic table, I’d put U and I together. :( Sorry, nerdy joke... :’D)”

ps - I CANT THEYRE SO CUTE BOTH I WANT TO SMASH THEM AGAINST THE WALL

lmao if someone wants, i can write some spicy types of chatting with them :)))

[cellophanejpeg]

im a mess (but im the mess that you wanted)

s.: you've been with nanami for few months, but he never stays the night. could he be lying to you? (or: the one where you find out about nanami's secret) (nanami kento x f!reader

w.c.: 5.6k (i got carried away srry)

t.: suggestive at the beginning, developing relationship, hurt/comfort, smut at the end! see spoiler tags on ao3

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

His lips trace your neck in gentle kisses, body still glued to yours, sweat glistening on his skin. The sheets on your bed are soaked, but you don’t mind as his body is on top of yours and he looks down at you with his beautiful brown eyes and smiles softly.

“You okay?” he asks, stroking his thumb on your cheek, looking into your eyes. You lean in and kiss him, the dizziness from your pleasure fading away.

“Yes,” you answer, smiling, “that was amazing, as always.”

Nanami laughs softly, a light shade of pink painting his cheekbones.

“Come on, let's clean up.”

It's been five months since you've been seeing your coworker, Kento Nanami.

It's easy to be with Nanami, you found out. He doesn't mind your unorganized self. He doesn't care if your makeup is smudged or if your hair is tangled. He even told you he liked it. Although you have to pretend nothing is happening between you and him at work, he often gives you rides back home at the end of the day. He invites you out often, and takes you to the fanciest restaurants in the city, usually at night.

“Will you stay the night?” You ask as he pulls you up by the wrists.

He looks at you and seems to think for a moment.

“I can't. Sorry.”

You can see his shoulders sag a little as your heart sinks.

“Okay.” You whisper and stand up, walking towards your bathroom. Then, he calls your name, making you turn around to face him. His brown eyes meet yours, almost taking your breath away.

Nanami opens his mouth, then closes it. It's clear that he's nervous, that he wants to say something, but he just sighs quietly.

“Are you okay?” He asks again.

A smile spreads across your lips, even though you want to cry. “Of course.”

You watch as he nods and then enters the bathroom.

He never stays the night. He never invites you to his apartment either. He never asks you out during the week, or on your days off.

I wouldn't be surprised if he had a wife.

The thought makes you gasp out loud, the sound covered by the water of the shower. But what if he had a wife and you're just his mistress? What if he had a family, someone waiting for him every night while he fucks you into oblivion in your bed?

You suddenly feel sick. You have to ask him, you have to know. It makes too much sense. It would explain why he never takes you to a picnic, or invites you to lunch.

When you leave the bathroom, hair up in a bun and a soft towel wrapped around you, you see that he changed the sheets and made your bed while you were in the shower. He's dressing his clothes in a hurry, phone in hand.

“You're not gonna shower?” you ask, watching as he hastily buttons his shirt.

“No, sorry. Something came up.” He says, looking up at you.

You look at the clock on your nightstand. It's two in the morning. What does he mean something came up? Your heart only sinks further. No words are exchanged while he finishes dressing and gives you a kiss, before leaving.

“I'll call you tomorrow, alright?” he says at your doorstep. Tomorrow is Saturday.

You nod, “Take care.”

After he leaves, you put on the massive t-shirt you call pajamas and hop into your bed.

It's only when you rest your head on the pillow, that the tears come.

…

He doesn't call you all weekend. And doesn't show up at work on Monday.

You resist the urge to text him. Part of you doesn't want him to be in trouble with his hypothetical wife, even though he's the one who's allegedly cheating. The thoughts drown you and you can’t focus on your work.

On Tuesday, he shows up looking like death. Dark, deep, bags are under his eyes and an exhausted look on his face. He doesn’t meet your eyes, not right away. It doesn’t soothe your anxieties when a coworker teases you about wearing mismatched shoes to work – your head was so jumbled in the morning that you didn’t realize you grabbed two similar shoes that belonged to different pairs – and he interrupts the interaction, telling them to go back to work. 

Later, near your usual smoke break, you get a text message from him.

You okay?

Swallowing, you take a deep breath, trying to push away all doubts and questions, you type an answer:

Yeah. Meet me at the roof in 10?

Of course.

When you push the door to the roof open, he’s already there. The sunlight momentarily blinds you, a contrast to the artificial lights of the office. You walk towards him, hands shaking. He looks at you, once you’re near enough, and smiles, letting out a relieved breath. His hands reach for you, pulling into a tight embrace. It’s like he’s relieved to finally get a moment alone with you. It warms your heart and it makes you forget about your worries for a second.

“You didn’t call,” you say, wrapping your arm around his neck.

“I’m sorry.” He buries his face on your neck, inhaling your scent. The scent of your deodorant and something he can’t describe, but it smells like you , “Had a family emergency. This weekend was crazy.”

“Oh.”

A family emergency.

That could mean anything. Maybe his brother was in an accident, or his grandmother tripped and fell, or his cousin got sick, or… Or he has a family, and you’re just a secret. Just a way for Nanami to release his stress from work and then go back to the family waiting for him, lie in bed with the woman he actually loves.

Your eyes sting with unshed tears and you hear your own voice asking,

“Are you married?”

Nanami’s body tenses before he releases you, searching your eyes.

“What?”

“Are you married?” You repeat, vision going blurry now. When he doesn't respond, you continue, “I mean, you– you never stay the night,” great, now you’re sobbing, “and you never invite me to come over, and– and–” your eyes are like an open faucet, “and you didn’t call me on Sunday and didn’t come yesterday, so, please, if I’m just your mistress, please tell me.” You sob, wiping your nose with the sleeve of your cardigan, “Please.”

Kento cups your cheek and wipes your tears, looking into your eyes.

“I’m not married,” he responds and then pulls you in a hug, kissing your hair and tucking your head under his chin, “I’m sorry my actions made you believe I was.”

You sniffle, feeling stupid now, “Okay.”

After a brief pause, he speaks again, “Would you like to come over tonight? For dinner?”

You look at him, pulling away from his embrace, “Kento, I didn’t mean–”

“I know.” He interrupts you, “I still want you to come.”

Nanami’s eyes are warm and he doesn’t care that you’re a snotty mess right now. So you nod, looking away from his perfect face. He pinches your chin gently, bringing your gaze back to him and then presses his lips against yours. Your heart leaps.

He’s never kissed you in the office before. Well, technically, you’re outside, but he never showed a sign of affection like this out of fear someone would catch the both of you. Somehow, you’re not worried about that.

“Meet me at the garage floor when you clock out.”

…

“I’d like you to meet someone,” Nanami says, as you click your seatbelt off.

The ride to his apartment was filled with soft conversation, but when you entered the apartment complex garage, he spoke with a careful voice, as if he was afraid of your reaction.

“Oh?” You wonder what's this about, since he said he wasn't married.

He leads you to the elevator and presses the button to the second to last floor, placing a hand on your lower back. Your heart is hammering inside your chest, as you get closer to his apartment. Then he guides you to the door, inserting a key and opening it.

“Papa!” a flash of pink hair runs towards Kento and hugs his legs.

“You're home early– oh.” A second voice makes you look up from the little boy attached to Nanami.

A teenage boy with dark hair stares at you. Then, Nanami calls your name.

“This is Yuuji, my son,” he says, “and that's Choso, his brother.”

You don't know where to look. To the little boy in Kento’s arms, or to the grumpy teenager that's staring with suspicious eyes at you. Nanami then introduces you to the boys. Yuuji smiles politely, but you can tell he's a bit shy.

“Um… hi,” you say, looking at them.

Choso scoffs, “That explains a lot.”

“Choso–” Nanami starts but the boy just waves a hand at him.

“Yeah,  I know. I have to go, though. Got too much homework to do and this little devil kept me busy.” He ruffles his brother's hair who giggles. Then he looks at you, “Nice to meet you. Your shoes are mismatched.”

You look down at your feet, even though you know you have different shoes.

“Choso.” Nanami sighs, “Be nice to your mother.”

The boy just waves a hand at him. You look back at Nanami and Yuuji.

“Do you want to come in?” He asks, smiling. Yuuji looks at you curiously, but still apprehensive, clinging to his dad's shirt and tilting his head until it rests on Nanami’s shoulder.

Oh, fuck.

You feel so stupid right now. He clearly has a family, but he doesn't have… a wife? Choso has a mother, so he’s only Nanami’s? Then why is he leaving?

Sensing your confusion, Nanami touches your arm. “I'll explain everything. Come inside.”

For some reason, you oblige. His apartment is big as you enter the foyer and observe the living room.

“You have to take your shoes off.” Yuuji’s voice stops you from taking another step into the apartment. You look at him, surprised.

“Of course,” you answer, toeing off your – mismatched – heels, revealing the chipped black nail polish on your toenails.

Should you have dressed better for this? Maybe if he told you beforehand…

No, this isn't fair on him. You're the one who cornered him and asked about his personal life.

“Are you feeling better?” Nanami's voice is soft as he talks to his son, walking inside the apartment. It hardly seems like the man who talks obscenities to you in bed.

Suddenly, you feel like an intruder. His home is clean, neat, save from a few toys on the living room floor. The open kitchen is pristine, it seems like the counters and stove were cleaned with one of those expensive products your mom used to use at home. The massive TV is turned on, on some children's program.

Panic sets in your throat. He has a son, a family. And you’ve… you've never wanted kids. You're not good with them, they don't smile at you when you talk to them, always hiding behind their parents. You're too serious, too stiff, for them.

Kento calls your name and you look up at him, blurry vision. He's got a concerned look on his face.

“Yuuji, why don't you go get your new shoes to show our guest?” He sets the kid down, who nods and runs to another room – his bedroom, you suppose. Kento approaches you, gently taking your hand and maintaining eye contact with you.

“I'm sorry,” he says, “I should've told you.”

“No, no!” You're quick to say, “I– I shouldn't have…”

“Asked?” he finishes the sentence for you, “Sweet girl, it’s perfectly understandable why you asked.”

Your heart skips a beat at the endearing name. He cups your cheek, pressing his lips on your forehead.

“Kento��� I’m not good with kids…”

He smiles at you, “Don’t worry. You’ll find out that Yuuji is easy to impress.”

As if on cue, Yuuji runs back to the living room and ends up tripping on his own feet, falling to the ground. You gasp, expecting tears, but he just stands up and resumes his run to you.

“Look!” He stomps on the floor and his shoes light up, colorful lights blinking.

You raise your brows, actually impressed by them.

“Oh, wow. That's… actually kinda cool.” 

Nanami smiles softly at you, even though you're not looking. You didn't force a baby voice, or crouched down to meet Yuuji's eyes, but the sincerity in your voice is real.

“What do you want to eat?” Kento asks you, carefully.

“Ramen!” Yuuji says, giving you a toothy grin.

Nanami snorts, scooping him up quickly. “I didn't ask you !”

Yuuji giggles loudly as his father holds him upside down, Nanami smiling at the sound. You've never seen him smile like that.

“Ramen is fine, actually,” you say and they stop, looking at you for a second before Kento puts Yuuji down.

“Go put your toys away, Yuuji.” He commands, voice soft and calm. Looking back at you, the man approaches, hesitantly takes your hands, and pulls you further inside the apartment, “He got sick on the weekend. I had Choso take care of him, but he got worse on Saturday night and we had to rush him to urgent care.”

You feel your eyes widening, eyeing the kid gathering his toys in the living room.

“His fever broke yesterday morning, but I decided to take the day off just to be sure.” Nanami continued.

“Oh.” If you felt stupid before, now you feel like an idiot. The guilt blooms inside your chest, making you swallow hard and look away. And, with a tiny voice, one you don’t expect him to hear, you say, “I’m such an idiot.”

To your surprise, he laughs softly, cupping your cheeks and kissing your eyebrow.

“You aren’t.” He pulls you in an embrace, “You couldn’t have known.”

“I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, though.” Your voice is muffled against the fabric of his suit. Nanami’s fingers intertwine in your hair, so, so gently. So different from what you’ve experienced with him. The action makes a soft, fuzzy feeling jump inside you.

“It’s alright.” He then pulls away from you and smiles. “I would’ve too.”

You blink at him as he turns around and enters the open kitchen, leaving you to think about his words. If the situation was reversed, if you had a kid that the man you were hooking up with didn’t know about it, you’d be sure he wouldn’t bat an eyelash about it.

But you’re talking about Kento Nanami here.

The stoic, cold faced, man that is your coworker. The man who always focuses on the tasks that need to be done. The man that’s showing you he cares, that he’s soft, a totally different side of him, and, little by little, tearing down the walls around your heart, making you feel… special.

A little hand pulling on yours interrupts your train of thought and you look down to see Yuuji pulling you to the living room.

“Do you want to see my new toys?” He asks, already urging you to sit down in front of the coffee table.

“S-sure.” You look back at Nanami, but his back is turned to the living room.

There are a bunch of plastic toys scattered on the table: little trucks and cars, plastic bugs and dinosaurs and a few superhero figurines. He looks very proud of his collection, smiling and looking at your reaction as he shows you the things his dad and big brother gave to him.

Then, he hands you a toy phone. You reluctantly pick it up.

“Nanamis’ office, how can I help you?” You say into the fake phone, making Yuuji laugh, “oh, he’s not available right now, his schedule is pretty tight– Sir, please calm down, no need to yell.” Yuuji laughs more, but your face is so serious that Kento wonders how you do it, “Alright, sir, I’ll ask, just a moment.” You place a hand on the ‘receiver’ and look back at Yuuji, “Sorry, Yuuji, but Mark from sales wants to speak with you, do you have time?” he has a toothy grin plastered on his face. You resume your fake conversation, “Uh, he’s really busy, doing important things, you’ll have to call later. Would you like to leave a message?”

A deep laugh interrupts your play and you look up to see Kento smiling at you. Your cheeks burn as you put the fake phone down.

“You’re funny.” Yuuji says, leaning on your side. You look back at him.

“Thank you.”

Kento, then, places a sousplat on the coffee table, following with a bowl of ramen in front of you. He does the same for him and Yuuji, warning the boy about the temperature. The little boy sits between you and Kento, happily grabbing the spoon and scooping the warm liquid. You watch as he brings the spoon to Kento and waits for him to blow on the food.

Your heart does that funny thing again.

Deciding to ignore it, you take the spoon and bring the soup from the ramen to your lips. The high temperature burns your mouth, making you drop the spoon, clattering on the ceramic bowl.

“Shit” You mumble, bringing your hand to your lips.

“Shit!” Yuuji exclaims, with a toothy grin.

Widening your eyes and looking at him, then at Nanami, you feel your heart drop. You did not just teach a little kid to curse, did you?

“Shit!” The boy repeats. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“Oh, no.” As your heart beats faster, Nanami smiles at you, laughing softly.

“Choso taught him how to curse last week.” He explains, reaching to the jar of water on the center of the table and pouring you a glass.

“Shit, fuck!” Yuuji continues.

Surprised, you let out a nervous laugh.

“Yuuji.” Nanami scolds, gently. “We have a guest tonight. Be polite.”

Yuuji giggles and takes a bite of his food, like nothing had happened. Nanami is still smiling softly at you, lingering his stare. His brown eyes are soft, as if he holds a certain admiration for you. 

The rest of the night goes with conversations with a kid, helping Kento to tie up the kitchen and putting Yuuji to bed.

Nanami sighs as he closes his son's bedroom door and walks over to you, back in the living room. You stare at each other with soft smiles for a moment, prolonging the time; you avoid saying that you have to leave, wanting to stay longer in his company, in his home.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” He asks, and your heart warms.

“It's a weekday,” you argue.

“I know.”

Then you nod, feeling the heat creep on your cheekbones. Nanami pours you a glass of red wine and guides you back to the couch. He crosses his leg, supporting an ankle on a knee, and stretching his arm on the top of the couch. He turns to face you, taking a sip of his red wine. Accepting his invitation, you approach him and snuggle on his body, his warmth radiates to you.

“How old is he?” You ask, after a moment of silence.

“Four,” he answers, rubbing circles with his thumb on your shoulder. When you don't say anything, he continues, “his… his mother is not in the picture.”

“Oh.” Your heart breaks a little to think of him and Yuuji abandoned by a faceless woman.

You feel him swallow hard and pull away to look into his eyes, “You don't have to tell me if you don't want…”

Nanami smiles softly, brushing a strand of your hair away from your face.

“It's alright.” He whispers. “I want to.”

You sit with your legs crossed on the couch as he tells you all about it. He tells you how he met Yuuji's mother at a bar and had a one night stand that resulted in her getting pregnant. He tells you how she wanted to get rid of it, and how he even drove her to the clinic, but felt an urge to convince her to keep it.

“I told her it was her choice, and hers only,” he says, “but if she wanted to, I'd support her in any way possible. She already had Choso and being a single mother is very hard. In the end, we decided I'd get the baby and she'd pay for child support. I told her it wasn't necessary, but she insisted.”

A valid reason, you think. Maybe this woman was so hurt in the past that another kid wouldn't do well for her.

“It's been Yuuji and I, ever since. At least until Choso found us last month.”

A smile creeps on your face, “He seems… nice.”

Nanami almost barks a laugh, holding himself to not wake Yuuji up.

“He’s a teenager. But he's very protective of Yuuji. I guess he's always wanted a brother, that's why he looked for us.”

You nod, reflecting on what he said. You can't help but feel compassion for Nanami, imagining it must have been hard for him in the first moments. Taking care of a newborn, on his own, and still going to work… you feel your heart squeeze.

“I know it's a bit overwhelming,” he says, interrupting your thoughts, “I-I… I won't blame you if you don't want this anymore…”

There. The insecurity is clear in his eyes, that avoid yours, in his stuttered words – have you ever heard him stutter before? –, in the way he leans his elbows on his knees. You can't help but feel sorry for him, but a deeper feeling takes over you.

Something strange, unfamiliar, but comforting. You don't know what it is yet, but you'll soon find out.

But it's something that drives you to uncross your legs and lean forward, against him. Gently, you take his chin and guide him to look at you. Without saying a word, you bring your lips to his, in a soft kiss.

“I don’t know how to deal with children,” you say, touching your forehead with his and closing your eyes, “but you can teach me. I know I’m clumsy and I have problems paying attention to what I wear to work, but if you… if you both give me a chance to let me in, I’ll do my best.”

Nanami cups your cheeks and leans forward to kiss you, before murmuring on your lips,

“You’re already in, sweet girl.”

Tears pool in your eyes as you kiss him back, not paying attention to the half empty glass of wine in your hands, only when it spills all over your blouse and on the couch.

“Fuck,” you whisper, quickly catching the – now empty – glass and standing up, “I’m so sorry!”

He stands up as well, never minding the stain on the couch, “I think that’s on me this time, darling.” Looking at your blouse, wet and stained, he inhales deeply. “You uh… That’s gonna stain if you don’t wash it soon.”

You look at him, knowing damn well the blouse is gone, the white fabric forever stained red. There’s a blush on Nanami’s cheekbones that makes you snicker.

“Should I take it off, then?” You ask, feigning innocence.

“Yes.” He answers too fast and you know what’s to come.

Untucking the blouse from your skirt, you cross your arms at your front and pull it over your head. Nanami’s breath hitches and he closes his hands in fists when he sees your black bra. It’s simple, not even lacy or anything, but the sight of your breasts in them makes him want to lose control.

You hand him the blouse with a smirk on your face. He says something under his breath that you can’t understand and takes it from you, “This will probably take all night.”

“I can stay as long as it takes,” you reply, “if that’s okay–”

“It’s okay.” Again with the quick answers, “There’s a shirt in my bedroom. It’s at the end of the hallway. I’ll throw this in the washing machine and be right there.”

You can tell he’s holding himself by the strain on his voice, but you put that aside, because now you’re excited to see his room. Walking through the corridor, you pass Yuuji’s bedroom and what looks to be Nanami’s office. His bedroom is neat, organized, which reflects on the kind of person he is. It’s bigger than yours, with floor to ceiling windows, and a king sized bed – that looks so soft you’re afraid to sit on it–, a walk-in closet, and a big mirror leaned on the wall.

The windows are what catches your attention. You’ve never seen a city like that, lit up in the dark, you can only see the lights of other buildings and the cars down there. It’s beautiful.

Two hands snake on your waist, making you jump. Nanami’s lips brush on your shoulders from behind as he pulls you closer, your back against his chest. Relaxing your muscles, you lean back on him, touching his arms. 

“The view is beautiful.” You tell him as he peppers wet kisses from your shoulders to your neck.

“Hmm, this one too.” he says softly and you smile.

He starts to run his hands on your body, squeezing the flesh of your hips, cupping your breasts and hiking your skirt up to caress your inner thighs. Nanami moans in your ear.

“These damn lacy thigh highs.”

“Kento…” You sigh, leaning your head on his shoulder, “What about Yuuji…”

“I guess you’ll have to be quiet tonight.” He caresses your back and your neck until his hands are in your hair, giving it a tug that makes you whine quietly, desire coursing in your veins.

His mouth finds yours in a desperate kiss, all teeth and tongue, and it’s like he doesn’t kiss you in years . Nanami unzips your skirt from behind and pulls it down, turning your head, making you look at your reflection on the window.

“Do you know how hot you are?” He whispers, a feral look on his face. You don’t have to look into his eyes to know his pupils are dilated with lust.

“No…” You sigh. “Tell me… Show me.”

A hand dips between your thighs, pulling your underwear to the side, and wasting no time in coating his fingers with your wetness. You hear him groan and say something, but your mind goes blank when he messily rubs your clit. A moan escapes your lips and he lets go of your hair to cover them.

“Shh…” Nanami says, “Be a good girl and I’ll let you come tonight.”

Oh, god. You love when he takes control like this. It’s how you know he’s going to fuck you good.

Without warning, Nanami sinks two fingers inside you. You’re so wet that they glide in easily, making him chuckle.

“Kento…” you mumble, voice muffled by his hand. “Please…”

He moves his hand from your lip to your neck, “What’s that, sweet girl?”

“Please…” you repeat.

“Please what? Use your words, princess.”

Your breath hitches at the endearing name, “Please, fuck me.”

Nanami smiles and it takes a second until he guides you to bed.

“Take these off,” he says while unbuttoning his shirt, “keep the thighs on.”

You know he loves when you wear high thighs, especially the lacy ones. Reaching behind you, and unclasping your bra, a smile graces your features when he takes his shirt and pants off. 

It never gets boring.

Nanami grows impatient and helps you pull down your underwear, spreading your legs after. The anticipation and excitement make you lose your breath, as he softly runs the back of his fingers on your inner thighs, tracing the lace and the soft skin of your upper thigh, getting closer and closer to where you want him to touch you the most.

“Kento…” your breath hitches when one of his fingers barely touches your center, “don’t tease.”

He laughs, smiling at you. “Now you want to tell me what to do?”

“No!” You shake your head, closing your eyes, “I just… Need you.”

Without warning, he kneels between your legs and latches at you. You whine, falling on the mattress and tangling your fingers on his soft hair. Nanami eats you like a starved man, like if you're someone he’s been missing for a long time. Your breath gets heavier by the second and, particularly, when he inserts two fingers inside you again, using his thumb to circle the most sensitive part of you.

“Love the way you taste,” he says, eyes hooded and cheeks flushed. You don’t answer as you feel your orgasm building up slowly on your lower stomach.

“Hmm, don’t stop.” You manage to say.

“Anything for my good girl.” He mumbles, putting his mouth on you one more time.

The compliment is what makes you come, your hand over your lips to muffle your moans and whimpers. Eye rolling to the back of your head, you try to close your legs but Nanami doesn’t stop, riding out your orgasm like he does so many times.

When he’s done, he leaves a trail of kisses up on your stomach until he reaches your face, hoovering above you.

“You look so pretty when you come.”

Laughing, you try to hide your face, but when Nanami pries your fingers apart, he kisses you softly. Your moans, muffled by his lips, are quiet when he sinks in you, starting a slow pace; he buries his face on your shoulder and you wrap your legs around his hips, hugging him closer – as if it was possible – to you.

It’s not enough.

“Kento,” you whisper in his ear, “fuck me harder.”

Nanami grunts and pulls away from you, slipping out and roughly flipping you on your stomach.

“Ass up.” His voice is commanding and you oblige, moving to stay on all fours, “you asked for this, sweet girl,” he thrusts into you hard, “now take it like the good girl you are.”

He hits a spot inside you that makes you see stars; you can’t help to think how full you are, how complete you feel with him inside.

“ Shit .” Nanami’s voice is a hoarse, breathy, mumble. His fingers dig on the skin of your hips. You can feel the pressure of his blunt nails and it only makes you shudder. Your eyes rolling back, a strangled moan leaves your lips.

“I-” you try to speak, but Nanami grabs your hair by the roots, pulling you up so your sweaty back meets his hard chest. “Fuck, Kento!”

His mouth finds your ear, breathing hard as his hips meet your behind, “You like it when I pull your hair like this?”

Words escape you when he hits that spot inside you again, taking your breath away. It only makes Nanami pull harder on your hair, your scalp stinging pleasantly. The all too familiar sensation on your lower stomach starts to emerge.

“Do you?” he insists, his pace becoming slower, teasing you.

“Yes, fuck-” you gasp.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Mr. Nanami ! I love it when you pull my hair!”

He hums satisfied, “Good girl.”

Nanami lets go of your hair too soon, pushing your face against the mattress, but you don't have time to whine as he starts thrusting faster and harder inside you. Your knees almost give in and your legs shake. Trying to warn him, mumbling as he pistols his hips with no mercy. It’s only when the pad of his thumb presses against the tight ring of muscles behind you that you let out a raspy moan, letting it all out.

“Fuck, you little slut ,” he groans, coming together with you, releasing his spill inside you, “look at the fucking mess you’d made.”

Your senses are out of control, you’re seeing double and you barely register the soaked sheets as Nanami rides your and his orgasms out. When he finally stops his pace, you let out a shaky breath. You feel him pull out of you with a groan, leaning against your back once more, planting kisses on your face. The sigh that leaves your lips in relief is replaced by a yelp when he turns you on your back, pressing his lips on yours.

“Make up your mind, am I a good girl or am I a slut?” you smile on his lips.

He lets out a laugh, his smile making his eyes wrinkle at the corners.

“You’re wonderful,” he replies, out of breath, “You okay?”

“Yes.” you nod. “Sorry about the mess.”

Nanami shakes his head, “I love your mess.”

Lips parted, you pause at his words and absorb its meaning.

“Do you want to shower?” He asks, as if nothing has happened.

“Yes, please.”

Nanami guides you to the bathroom and gives you toiletries, kissing you one last time before you enter the shower. You use his soap, so uniquely him , and the extra toothbrush he gave you to brush your teeth. Then, when you leave the bathroom, he’s wearing his previous boxers and has already changed the sheets. As usual.

When he looks up at you, he smiles, “Will you stay the night?”

Warmth blooms in your heart. You nod quickly, not saying a word, afraid you’ll tear up.

Then he hands you a pair of pajamas. “Sorry, I only have men’s pajamas.”

“It’s okay.” You whisper. “Thank you.”

Nanami presses his lips against yours in a short sweet kiss, “You go ahead and lie down. I’ll take a quick shower.”

Nodding again, you smile to yourself as you dress the blue pajama he gave you and get on bed. Everything about this night was perfect. Meeting Yuuji and having dinner with both of them. Learning more about Nanami’s life, him showing an important part of him.

And you can’t wait to wake up next to him tomorrow.

[hms-no-fun]

Hi! I just read your post about your opinion on "AI" and I really liked it. If it's no bother, what's your opinion on people who use it for studying? Like writing essays, solving problems and stuff like that?

I haven't been a fan of AI from the beginning and I've heard that you shouldn't ask it for anything because then you help it develop. But I don't know how to explain that to friends and classmates or even if it's true anymore. Because I've seen some of the prompts it can come up with and they're not bad and I've heard people say that the summaries AI makes are really good and I just... I dunno. I'm at a loss

Sorry if this is a lot or something you simply don't want to reply to. You made really good points when talking about AI and I really liked it and this has been weighing on me for a while :)

on a base level, i don't really have a strongly articulated opinion on the subject because i don't use AI, and i'm 35 so i'm not in school anymore and i don't have a ton of college-aged friends either. i have little exposure to the people who use AI in this way nor to the people who have to deal with AI being used in this way, so my perspective here is totally hypothetical and unscientific.

what i was getting at in my original AI post was a general macroeconomic point about how all of the supposed efficiency gains of AI are an extension of the tech CEO's dislike of paying and/or giving credit to anyone they deem less skilled or intelligent than them. that it's conspicuous how AI conveniently falls into place after many decades of devaluing and deskilling creative/artistic labor industries. historically, for a lot of artists the most frequently available & highest paying gigs were in advertising. i can't speak to the specifics when it comes to visual art or written copy, but i *can* say that when i worked in the oklahoma film industry, the most coveted jobs were always the commercials. great pay for relatively less work, with none of the complications that often arise working on amateur productions. not to mention they were union gigs, a rare enough thing in a right to work state, so anyone trying to make a career out of film work wanting to bank their union hours to qualify for IATSE membership always had their ears to the ground for an opening. which didn't come often because, as you might expect, anyone who *got* one of those jobs aimed to keep it as long as possible. who could blame em, either? one person i met who managed to get consistent ad work said they could afford to work all of two or three months a year, so they could spend the rest of their time doing low-budget productions and (occasionally) student films.

there was a time when this was the standard for the film industry, even in LA; you expected to work 3 to 5 shows a year (exact number's hard to estimate because production schedules vary wildly between ads, films, and tv shows) for six to eight months if not less, so you'd have your bills well covered through the lean periods and be able to recover from what is an enormously taxing job both physically and emotionally. this was never true for EVERYONE, film work's always been a hustle and making a career of it is often a luck-based crapshoot, but generally that was the model and for a lot of folks it worked. it meant more time to practice their skills on the job, sustainably building expertise and domain knowledge that they could then pass down to future newcomers. anything that removes such opportunities decreases the amount of practice workers get, and any increased demand on their time makes them significantly more likely to burn out of the industry early. lower pay, shorter shoots, busier schedules, these aren't just bad for individual workers but for the entire industry, and that includes the robust and well-funded advertising industry.

well, anyway, this year's coca-cola christmas ad was made with AI. they had maybe one person on quality control using an adobe aftereffects mask to add in the coke branding. this is the ultimate intended use-case for AI. it required the expertise of zero unionized labor, and worst of all the end result is largely indistinguishable from the alternative. you'll often see folks despair at this verisimilitude, particularly when a study comes out that shows (for instance) people can't tell the difference between real poetry and chat gpt generated poetry. i despair as well, but for different reasons. i despair that production of ads is a better source of income and experience for film workers than traditional movies or television. i despair that this technology is fulfilling an age-old promise about the disposability of artistic labor. poetry is not particularly valued by our society, is rarely taught to people beyond a beginner's gloss on meter and rhyme. "my name is sarah zedig and i'm here to say, i'm sick of this AI in a major way" type shit. end a post with the line "i so just wish that it would go away and never come back again!" and then the haiku bot swoops in and says, oh, 5/7/5 you say? that is technically a haiku! and then you put a haiku-making minigame in your crowd-pleasing japanese nationalist open world chanbara simulator, because making a haiku is basically a matter of selecting one from 27 possible phrase combinations. wait, what do you mean the actual rules of haiku are more elastic and subjective than that? that's not what my english teacher said in sixth grade!

AI is able to slip in and surprise us with its ability to mimic human-produced art because we already treat most human-produced art like mechanical surplus of little to no value. ours is a culture of wikipedia-level knowledge, where you have every incentive to learn a lot of facts about something so that you can sufficiently pretend to have actually experienced it. but this is not to say that humans would be better able to tell the difference between human produced and AI produced poetry if they were more educated about poetry! the primary disconnect here is economic. Poets already couldn't make a fucking living making poetry, and now any old schmuck can plug a prompt into chatgpt and say they wrote a sonnet. even though they always had the ability to sit down and write a sonnet!

boosters love to make hay about "deskilling" and "democratizing" and "making accessible" these supposedly gatekept realms of supposedly bourgeois expression, but what they're really saying (whether they know it or not) is that skill and training have no value anymore. and they have been saying this since long before AI as we know it now existed! creative labor is the backbone of so much of our world, and yet it is commonly accepted as a poverty profession. i grew up reading books and watching movies based on books and hearing endless conversation about books and yet when i told my family "i want to be a writer" they said "that's a great way to die homeless." like, this is where the conversation about AI's impact starts. we already have a culture that simultaneously NEEDS the products of artistic labor, yet vilifies and denigrates the workers who perform that labor. folks see a comic panel or a corporate logo or a modern art piece and say "my kid could do that," because they don't perceive the decades of training, practice, networking, and experimentation that resulted in the finished product. these folks do not understand that just because the labor of art is often invisible doesn't mean it isn't work.

i think this entire conversation is backwards. in an ideal world, none of this matters. human labor should not be valued over machine labor because it inherently possesses an aura of human-ness. art made by humans isn't better than AI generated art on qualitative grounds. art is subjective. you're not wrong to find beauty in an AI image if the image is beautiful. to my mind, the value of human artistic labor comes down to the simple fact that the world is better when human beings make art. the world is better when we have the time and freedom to experiment, to play, to practice, to develop and refine our skills to no particular end except whatever arbitrary goal we set for ourselves. the world is better when people collaborate on a film set to solve problems that arise organically out of the conditions of shooting on a live location. what i see AI being used for is removing as many opportunities for human creativity as possible and replacing them with statistical averages of prior human creativity. this passes muster because art is a product that exists to turn a profit. because publicly traded companies have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to take every opportunity to turn a profit regardless of how obviously bad for people those opportunities might be.

that common sense says writing poetry, writing prose, writing anything is primarily about reaching the end of the line, about having written something, IS the problem. i've been going through the many unfinished novels i wrote in high school lately, literally hundreds of thousands of words that i shared with maybe a dozen people and probably never will again. what value do those words have? was writing them a waste of time since i never posted them, never finished them, never turned a profit off them? no! what i've learned going back through those old drafts is that i'm only the writer i am today BECAUSE i put so many hours into writing generic grimdark fantasy stories and bizarrely complicated werewolf mythologies.

you know i used to do open mics? we had a poetry group that met once a month at a local cafe in college. each night we'd start by asking five words from the audience, then inviting everyone to compose a poem using those words in 10 to 15 minutes. whoever wanted to could read their poem, and whoever got the most applause won a free drink from the cafe. then we'd spend the rest of the night having folks sign up to come and read whatever. sometimes you'd get heartfelt poems about personal experiences, sometimes you'd get ambitious soundcloud rappers, sometimes you'd get a frat guy taking the piss, sometimes you'd get a mousy autist just doing their best. i don't know that any of the poetry i wrote back then has particular value today, but i don't really care. the point of it was the experience in that moment. the experience of composing something on the fly, or having something you wrote a couple days ago, then standing up and reading it. the value was in the performance itself, in the momentary synthesis between me and the audience. i found out then that i was pretty good at making people cry, and i could not have had that experience in any other venue. i could not have felt it so viscerally had i just posted it online. and i cannot wrap up that experience and give it to you, because it only existed then.

i think more people would write poetry if they had more hours in a day to spare for frivolities, if there existed more spaces where small groups could organize open mics, if transit made those spaces more widely accessible, if everyone made enough money that they weren't burned the fuck out and not in the mood to go to an open mic tonight, if we saw poetry as a mode of personal reflection which was as much about the experience of having written it as anything else. this is the case for all the arts. right now, the only people who can afford to make a living doing art are already wealthy, because art doesn't pay well. this leads to brain drain and overall lowering quality standards, because the suburban petty bouge middle class largely do not experience the world as it materially exists for the rest of us. i often feel that many tech CEOs want to be remembered the way andy warhol is remembered. they want to be loved and worshipped not just for business acumen but for aesthetic value, they want to get the kind of credit that artists get-- because despite the fact that artists don't get paid shit, they also frequently get told by people "your work changed my life." how is it that a working class person with little to no education can write a story that isn't just liked but celebrated, that hundreds or thousands of people imprint on, that leaves a mark on culture you can't quantify or predict or recreate? this is AI's primary use-case, to "democratize" art in such a way that hacks no longer have to work as hard to pretend to be good at what they do. i mean, hell, i have to imagine every rich person with an autobiography in the works is absolutely THRILLED that they no longer have to pay a ghost writer!

so, circling back around to the meat of your question. as far as telling people not to use AI because "you're just helping to train it," that ship has long since sailed. getting mad at individuals for using AI right now is about as futile as getting mad at individuals for not masking-- yes, obviously they should wear a mask and write their own essays, but to say this is simply a matter of millions of individuals making the same bad but unrelated choice over and over is neoliberal hogwash. people stopped masking because they were told to stop masking by a government in league with corporate interests which had every incentive to break every avenue of solidarity that emerged in 2020. they politicized masks, calling them "the scarlet letter of [the] pandemic". biden himself insisted this was "a pandemic of the unvaccinated", helpfully communicating to the public that if you're vaccinated, you don't need to mask. all those high case numbers and death counts? those only happen to the bad people.

now you have CEOs and politicians and credulous media outlets and droves of grift-hungry influencers hard selling the benefits of AI in everything everywhere all the time. companies have bent over backwards to incorporate AI despite ethics and security worries because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, and everyone with money is calling this the next big thing. in short, companies are following the money, because that's what companies do. they, in turn, are telling their customers what tools to use and how. so of course lots of people are using AI for things they probably shouldn't. why wouldn't they? "the high school/college essay" as such has been quantized and stripmined by an education system dominated by test scores over comprehension. it is SUPPOSED to be an exercise in articulating ideas, to teach the student how to argue persuasively. the final work has little to no value, because the point is the process. but when you've got a system that lives and dies by its grades, within which teachers are given increasingly more work to do, less time to do it in, and a much worse paycheck for their trouble, the essay increasingly becomes a simple pass/fail gauntlet to match the expected pace set by the simple, clean, readily gradable multiple choice quiz. in an education system where the stakes for students are higher than they've ever been, within which you are increasingly expected to do more work in less time with lower-quality guidance from your overworked teachers, there is every incentive to get chatgpt to write your essay for you.

do you see what i'm saying? we can argue all day about the shoulds here. of course i think it's better when people write their own essays, do their own research, personally read the assigned readings. but cheating has always been a problem. a lot of these same fears were aired over the rising popularity of cliffs notes in the 90s and 2000s! the real problem here is systemic. it's economic. i would have very little issue with the output of AI if existing conditions were not already so precarious. but then, if the conditions were different, AI as we know it likely would not exist. it emerges today as the last gasp of a tech industry that has been floundering for a reason to exist ever since the smart phone dominated the market. they tried crypto. they tried the metaverse. now they're going all-in on AI because it's a perfect storm of shareholder-friendly buzzwords and the unscientific technomythology that's been sold to laymen by credulous press sycophants for decades. It slots right into this niche where the last of our vestigial respect for "the artist" once existed. it is the ultimate expression of capitalist realism, finally at long last doing away with the notion that the suits at disney could never in their wildest dreams come up with something half as cool as the average queer fanfic writer. now they've got a program that can plagiarize that fanfic (along with a dozen others) for them, laundering the theft through a layer of transformation which perhaps mirrors how the tech industry often exploits open source software to the detriment of the open source community. the catastrophe of AI is that it's the fulfillment of a promise that certainly predates computers at the very least.

so, i don't really know what to tell someone who uses AI for their work. if i was talking to a student, i'd say that relying chatgpt is really gonna screw you over when it comes time take the SAT or ACT, and you have to write an essay from scratch by hand in a monitored environment-- but like, i also think the ACT and SAT and probably all the other standardized tests shouldn't exist? or at the very least ought to be severely devalued, since prep for those tests often sabotages the integrity of actual classroom education. although, i guess at this point the only way forward for education (that isn't getting on both knees and deep-throating big tech) is more real-time in-class monitored essay writing, which honestly might be better for all parties anyway. of course that does nothing to address research essays you can't write in a single class session. to someone who uses AI for research, i'd probably say the same thing as i would to someone who uses wikipedia: it's a fine enough place to start, but don't cite it. click through links, find sources, make sure what you're reading is real, don't rely on someone else's generalization. know that chatgpt is likely not pulling information from a discrete database of individual files that it compartmentalizes the way you might expect, but rather is a statistical average of a broad dataset about which it cannot have an opinion or interpretation. sometimes it will link you to real information, but just as often it will invent information from whole cloth. honestly, the more i talk it out, the more i realize all this advice is basically identical to the advice adults were giving me in the early 2000s.

which really does cement for me that the crisis AI is causing in education isn't new and did not come from nowhere. before chatgpt, students were hiring freelancers on fiverr. i already mentioned cliffs notes. i never used any of these in college, but i'll also freely admit that i rarely did all my assigned reading. i was the "always raises her hand" bitch, and every once in a while i'd get other students who were always dead silent in class asking me how i found the time to get the reading done. i'd tell them, i don't. i read the beginning, i read the ending, and then i skim the middle. whenever a word or phrase jumps out at me, i make a note of it. that way, when the professor asks a question in class, i have exactly enough specific pieces of information at hand to give the impression of having done the reading. and then i told them that i learned how to do this from the very same professor that was teaching that class. the thing is, it's not like i learned nothing from this process. i retained quite a lot of information from those readings! this is, broadly, a skill that emerges from years of writing and reading essays. but then you take a step back and remember that for most college students (who are not pursuing any kind of arts degree), this skillset is relevant to an astonishingly minimal proportion of their overall course load. college as it exists right now is treated as a jobs training program, within which "the essay" is a relic of an outdated institution that highly valued a generalist liberal education where today absolute specialization seems more the norm. so AI comes in as the coup de gras to that old institution. artists like myself may not have the constitution for the kind of work that colleges now exist to funnel you into, but those folks who've never put a day's thought into the work of making art can now have a computer generate something at least as good at a glance as basically anything i could make. as far as the market is concerned, that's all that matters. the contents of an artwork, what it means to its creator, the historic currents it emerges out of, these are all technicalities that the broad public has been well trained not to give a shit about most of the time. what matters is the commodity and the economic activity it exists to generate.

but i think at the end of the day, folks largely want to pay for art made by human beings. that it's so hard for a human being to make a living creating and selling art is a question far older than AI, and whose answer hasn't changed. pay workers more. drastically lower rents. build more affordable housing. make healthcare free. make education free. massively expand public transit. it is simply impossible to overstate how much these things alone would change the conversation about AI, because it would change the conversation about everything. SO MUCH of the dominance of capital in our lives comes down to our reliance on cars for transit (time to get a loan and pay for insurance), our reliance on jobs for health insurance (can't quit for moral reasons if it's paying for your insulin), etc etc etc. many of AI's uses are borne out of economic precarity and a ruling class desperate to vacuum up every loose penny they can find. all those billionaires running around making awful choices for the rest of us? they stole those billions. that is where our security went. that is why everything is falling apart, because the only option remaining to *every* institutional element of society is to go all-in on the profit motive. tax these motherfuckers and re-institute public arts funding. hey, did you know the us government used to give out grants to artists? did you know we used to have public broadcast networks where you could make programs that were shown to your local community? why the hell aren't there public youtube clones? why aren't there public transit apps? why aren't we CONSTANTLY talking about nationalizing these abusive fucking industries that are falling over themselves to integrate AI because their entire modus operandi is increasing profits regardless of product quality?

these are the questions i ask myself when i think about solutions to the AI problem. tech needs to be regulated, the monopolies need breaking up, but that's not enough. AI is a symptom of a much deeper illness whose treatment requires systemic solutions. and while i'm frustrated when i see people rely on AI for their work, or otherwise denigrate artists who feel AI has devalued their field, on some level i can't blame them. they are only doing what they've been told to do. all of which merely strengthens my belief in the necessity of an equitable socialist future (itself barely step zero in the long path towards a communist future, and even that would only be a few steps on the even longer path to a properly anarchist future). improve the material conditions and you weaken the dominance of capitalist realism, however minutely. and while there are plenty of reasons to despair at the likelihood of such a future given a second trump presidency, i always try to remember that socialist policies are very popular and a *lot* of that popularity emerged during the first trump administration. the only wrong answer here is to assume that losing an election is the same thing as losing a war, that our inability to put the genie back in its bottle means we can't see our own wishes granted.

i dunno if i answered your question but i sure did say a lot of stuff, didn't i?

[drakorn]

Rewriting Veilguard Part 1 - The World State

Disclaimer: I don't hate the game, I actually think it's quite great given the development hell Bioware went through in those 10 years. This is more of a hypothetical universe where there was less of that behind the scenes drama. Just a fun writing exercise.

Expanding Veilguard's World State Editor

Like many of us, I was disappointed with the total amount of choices carrying over from past games being only three, one of which dealt with romance, two with decisions made in the Trespasser DLC, and all of them being from Inquisition. This already set the precedent that we shouldn’t really be expecting the game to be as connected to our unique Thedas as we have come to be used to from previous titles—no more uniquely flavoured codex entries, no more small but sweet cameos here and there that make the world itself feel like a larger place that we had helped shape.

Given The Veilguard’s very troubled production history of multiple delays, staff layoffs, and all-around restarts of the entire project, it is honestly a surprise that we even got three choices, so credit where credit is due. They made with what they had. But what if The Veilguard had this vision from the start? What if there wasn’t any of this meddling? What if Bioware simply had more time and control? What if they could truly let us import the World State this game deserved?

Now, for this hypothetical rewritten playthrough, I’m going off from the fact that the Dragon Age Keep will not be used; I actually found it a neat idea to tick my three choices in the character creator, and it would have probably been better had Inquisition done something similar. Why do I think that? Because it means we are not running into any dangers of servers potentially shutting down, leaving us trapped in the canon we happened to have imported last. Converting the Keep into an offline editor was a good idea, but unfortunately not executed nearly enough as, let’s face it, we all expected. So we’re gonna have some fun for Veilguard.

Disclaimer: I’m going to refer to the game’s title as Veilguard from now on, not “the” Veilguard. I really don’t like the change of having a “the” in a series of otherwise one-word, or one-number, titles.

Of course, we have to be realistic about this. It is virtually impossible to implement every single decision from across all three games, and those that can be implanted can’t alter the main plot too much. Certainly, we like to imagine and picture things, but let’s approach this from an actually doable point of view.

Right, so imagine you just finalised your Rook, and then get a screen titled “Past Adventures”. Not just “The Inquisition”. And it would take up the entire screen instead of being shoved somewhere in the corner of the final CC page, which many people missed. I could have missed it too, had I not known beforehand that it was going to be there!

It would say something akin to “You can customise the protagonists and several events from the games Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. These choices will have both major and minor effects on the plot of Veilguard. If this is your first Dragon Age title, you would be advised to skip this section for now, as you may otherwise risk getting overwhelmed. A default World State has been pre-generated for the game.”

Why did I add this disclaimer? Because it would show us, right from the get-go, that we respect both new and old players. If you’re a new player, feel free to skip this part as it won’t matter to you anyway and, quite frankly, you wouldn’t want to spend an eternity in the character creator doing things you might not even be familiar with. But if you’re a returning player or someone who has read up on recaps and watched countless lore videos, come on right in, we’ve got you covered, don’t worry! We know how much time you spent meticulously crafting your World State for Inquisition, so join us and customise to your heart’s content.

If you choose to not skip ahead (honestly the only time I would click “skip” on that shit is if I was a new player), you will be presented with three tarot cards, one shows the griffon, the Grey Warden symbol, one shows Kirkwall’s heraldry, and one shows the Inquisition’s banner. Here’s your previous three games. And now we get to customise them a little. The little gremlin in me would be quite gleefully rubbing his hands at this prospect.

Past Adventures: The Blight

We open the first slide and are immediately hit with a crimson screen and an ambient reprise of several of Inon Zur’s themes from DAO. I loved this part in the game, when you click to customise your Inquisitor and are immediately hit with “Calling the Inquisition”. Really great stuff for early emotions. Now let’s actually customise things.

The Hero of Ferelden

I do not expect us to actually be able to recreate the Warden in the flesh, but I believe they should be at least brought up in conversation or mentioned in codex entries and letters. Here are the things we get to customise about them specifically:

The Hero: Here, we get to tick the race, gender, class, and background for our Warden. Again, no character creator, just fancy tarot cards. But guess what? That would already be more than enough for what we can do. At least we know the game acknowledges their continued existence.

The Warden’s fate: Did the Hero of Ferelden perform the ultimate sacrifice?

Romance: Who did your Warden romance, if at all?

The Companions

Now that our Warden is set, we jump over to DAO’s companions. Each companion has their own little mini-section. The first few questions will always be “Did you even recruit them? And if so, did they survive? If so, were you on good terms or not?” These questions, depending on the answers, will immediately lock or open the more specific ones. Which are, as follows:

Did the Warden have Morrigan perform the Dark Ritual?

What is Alistair’s ultimate fate?

Was Sten reunited with his sword?

What happened to Loghain?

What happened to Marjorlaine?

The Battle of Ostagar

What happened to the prisoner at Ostagar?

The Arl of Redcliffe

What is Connor’s fate?

Is Isolde alive?

Did you help Bevin and return his sword?

The Urn of Sacred Ashes

What happened to the Urn?

The Nature of the Beast

How was the situation between the Dalish and the werewolves resolved?

A Paragon of Her Kind

What happened to the Anvil of the Void?

Who rules Orzammar?

Did the Warden help Brother Burkel create a Chantry in Orzammar?

Did the Warden prove the Legion of the Dead was connected to a noble house?

Did Orta join the Assembly?

Warden’s Keep

What happened to Sophia and Avernus?

Denerim

Did the Warden complete Slim Couldry’s crime wave?

Who rules Ferelden?

Who killed Urthemiel?

Awakening

What happened to Nathaniel?

What happened to the Architect?

What happened to Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine?

As you can see, I have not included all the choices, just the ones I think can be carried over in both realistic and interesting manners. Not all of them will heavily feature in the game; in fact, many of them are for flavour and codex entries only, but there is still merit in those. We know there is a whole lot of stuff happening in the South thanks to the letters the Inquisitor regales us with. So let’s put some world-state uniqueness to those letters. But in this rewrite, some of these choices will, in fact, feature in a more substantial manner.

And that’s Dragon Age: Origins done! Moving on to the next one!

Past Adventures: The Tale of the Champion

When we enter this screen, the CC assumes Kirkwall’s orangey-yellow tone and we get a reprisal of the key DA2 themes by Inon Zur, the most prominent one being, of course, Hawke’s family theme. This one is not going to be as big as DAO, but there are a few important factors nevertheless, especially concerning possible deaths and survivals.

The Champion of Kirkwall

Unlike the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke will actually be customisable in this one. Because no matter whether or not they were sent to the Fade or Weisshaupt, there is always the potential for them to still be alive. So, here are the choices regarding Hawke:

The Champion: Here you can customise Hawke’s gender, class, and personality.

Who did Hawke romance, if at all?

The Party

Pretty much every companion’s card, aside from a few, will have the questions “Did you recruit them?”, “Are they still alive?”, and “Were they friend or rival to Hawke?” at the forefront. Most of it is gonna be flavour, but it’s still my flavour, dammit!

What happened to Bethany or Carver?

What happened to Isabela and the Tome of Koslun?

What happened to Fenris and Danarius?

What happened to Merrill, her eluvian, and Clan Sabrae?

What happened to Bartrand?

What happened to Anders when the Chantry exploded?

Did Hawke approve of Anders' actions?

Did Aveline marry Donnic?

The Tale of the Champion

Did Hawke protect the Bone Pit from all its dangers?

What happened to Feynriel?

Did Hawke let Zevran go?

Did Nathaniel survive?

Did Hawke side with the mages or the templars?

Fewer choices are carrying over here compared to DAO, but many of the events that occurred in DA2 are only relevant to Kirkwall’s immediate fate, which is already resolved by the time of DAI. Many of these will be flavour again, but some of them, I’m not going to say which, will definitely have a bigger impact.

Right, we’re done with DA2, let’s move on to the last one!

Past Adventures: The Inquisition

And here we get to the big one, the game that most directly impacts much of DAV’s story. We click on the last page and get the green shades and DAI’s ambience themes, a beautiful reprisal of Trevor Morris’ great hits. I would like to once again reiterate how emotional the CC music made me feel here when I was playing the game. Let us now customise our choices.

The Inquisitor

While the Hero of Ferelden will be a background figure in letters and codex entries, and Hawke more of a minor character with a significant role, the Inquisitor will have a much larger presence. Just how large, you’ll find out soon. But for now, let’s customise them:

The Inquisitor: Here you can customise your Inquisitor’s race, gender, class, and specialisation. Their personality as well, for while it wasn’t as apparent as with Hawke, the Inquisitor does still have a distinct range of dialogue choices. You can still be diplomatic, lighthearted, or even rough.

Who did the Inquisitor romance, if at all?

The Inner Circle

As with the other companion sections, pretty much all slides here will feature the “Did you actually recruit them?”, “Are they still around?”, and “Are you friends or not?” questions. Alongside a few specific ones that will definitely have more of an impact here.

Did Dorian resolve the issue with his father?

What happened to Blackwall?

Did the Iron Bull remain loyal to the Qun?

Did Cassandra rebuild the Seekers of Truth?

Did Cassandra discover the book of secrets and what did she do with it?

What happened to Harmond?

Which path did Cole choose?

What happened to Solas’ friend?

Did Varric track down the red lyrium source?

Did the Inquisitor give Vivienne the heart of a snow wyvern?

How was Cullen’s lyrium dilemma resolved?

How did the Inquisitor help Josephine resolve her family’s fortunes?

Was Leliana hardened or softened?

The Path of the Inquisitor

Did the Inquisitor embrace or denounce their title of Herald of Andraste?

Did the Inquisition side with the mages or the templars?

What was the general principle upon which the Inquisition was founded?

Who rules Orlais?

Who stayed behind in the Fade?

What happened to the Grey Wardens after Adamant Fortress?

What happened to Samson or Calpernia?

Who drank from the Well of Sorrows?

Did the Inquisitor respect the rituals at the Temple of Mythal?

Who became Divine Victoria?

The Inquisition’s Influence

Did the Inquisitor ally with the Hinterland cultists?

Was the rift in Crestwood closed?

Was Caer Bronach captured?

Did the Inquisitor make a deal with Imshael?

Was Suledin Keep captured?

Was Griffon Wing Keep captured?

Was Sutherland’s company formed?

What tone did the Inquisitor’s judgments take?

Jaws of Hakkon

Did the Inquisitor learn Ameridan’s fate?

Was Hakkon slain?

Did the Inquisitor share the truth about Ameridan?

The Descent

Did the Inquisitor stop the earthquakes from destroying the Deep Roads?

Trespasser

What is the ultimate fate of the Inquisition?

What is the Inquisitor’s final goal regarding Solas?

Again, this looks like a lot, and it is, but bear in mind that a lot of these will only have minor impacts on the story in the form of cameos and codex entries. However, there are several major DAI choices that will have significant impact.

For our hypothetical rewrite, I shall not list every single choice I made for my imaginary playthrough. Instead, I shall reveal them as we go along so as not to clutter the space too much. And it’s a bit more fun this way.

And that’s the World State editor finally done! I believe all of these choices are able to feature in some capacity, be it big or small. But no matter if it’s a big world-changing consequence or simple flavour texts and cameos, it will still be our Thedas, our own unique version of it that we helped shape.

Now that the past is dealt with, let’s look at the present. Next time we’ll talk about Rook, the six factions, and why a DAO-style origin story selection would have not only been beneficial but very doable.

Rewriting Veilguard Part 2 - The Shadow Dragons

[brucewaynehater101]

Okay so, saw you wonder “How does Space Emperor Tim handle war with his morals?” And I think that Tim doesn’t

More specifically I think he is able to accept that this is where he fails. He’s a master diplomat and great organization leader, and although he is great at tactics as a Robin, he’s not willing to lead a war. He’s not willing to sacrifice his moral compass in this way

And I think the empire respects this because, in spite of his personal objections to leading a war effort, he does not leave the planets stranded and defenseless…

He assigns Cassie as the many armies prime military commander

Each of the planets likely has their own military structure and command, as a mostly decentralized empire. But I think we also have a centralized mixed cultures/peoples/planets military to promote cross cultural exchange as well as the exchange of tactical knowledge

Cassie serves as the head of the military council responsible for overseeing both the centralized and decentralized military forces

Cassie has already been shown to be a capable leader with YJ and I think her Amazonian training has specifically well prepared her for commanding military forces (Idk her lore perfectly so correct me if wrong)

There’s obviously a lot of training and research needed to adjust Earth based tactics to space wars, but the JL and Batman likely already had some resources prepped for that. And as one of the Great Baby Emperors Glorious Consorts, the many leaders under her command are happy to assist in her training

Kon and Bart likely also help her, providing emotional support and serving as sound boards for her ideas, but she’s the military commander right now. And she’s gonna kick whatever alien equivalent of asses these attackers got

Tim probably also continues to help in his own way, managing logistics and supplies (really important for armies). He’s also probably assisting with developing new technologies to help in the battle given his skills in R&D (maybe it’s only medical advancements or maybe he feels okay developing ships or weapons, or maybe that’s where Bart gets to go to town making his fantastical sci-fi space lasers) Tim is not going to abandon his empire, they have stood by him through thick and thin, and he’ll give whatever he knows he is able to give them

So yeah, Tim might not be an Emperor who leads armies, but he doesn’t leave his worlds defenseless and gives Cassie the perfect opportunity to show the Timpire, and really the whole galaxy, just how badass she is !!!

Oh my gods, you are brilliant. Cassie would 100000% be the military commander (I don't know enough about her lore either, but that checks out).

Hmm... The only issue I can see is whether or not Cassie needs Tim's approval to go to war. She won't just do it for the hell of it, but Tim won't really approve of it either. Then again, maybe they should spend hours upon hours upon hours arguing about the necessity of going to war, considering how likely it will lead to casualties.

While Tim won't lead into war, I can see him going over "hypothetical" plans with Cassie. Maybe not in the middle of a war, but I could see Tim stealing GL/JL space war files and going over it with Cassie.

For angst reasons, YJ at first doesn't take going to war seriously. They're kids when this starts. Yeah, they've been through shit, but leading an empire to kill other people for whatever reason they deem is necessary? Probably not.

Instead, they train on space war strategy by making games out of it. Tim and Bart create a hallographic board game that incorporates various space war variables. It's a fun pass time of theirs with the excuse of "training" (not that they ever believe they'll need that kind of training).

After their first war, they never pick that game up again. They do provide it the generals of each planet, though, and have the planets compete against each other for friendly bonding.

Tim does help with the logistics and defense of the planets. None of it is lethal, but he does have extreme measures (I'm thinking about that one panel where he threatens to permanently deafen people).

Bart collaborates with the planets for space travel, war machines, and weapons for the military.

Kon may not lead, but he helps develop creative strategies and plans to assist Cassie.

Tim may be the emperor, but Cassie becomes the name feared among all enemy planets.

[heathersdesk]

When I was investigating the Church, I told the people around me I wanted to get baptized after I'd only been to services a few times. I hadn't read much of the Book of Mormon. There were many things I didn't know or understand. But I had felt the Spirit of God and knew that this was the place where I would find God. I knew I was supposed to be baptized.

What was the response?

"You can't do that."

They didn't have missionaries. They didn't have anyone to teach me the discussions. I was coming to Church in a different place from where I lived because of where my friends, who were members and who had invited me, were living.

It got bad enough that I set a date for myself to get baptized and told them they had that long to figure it out and deal with their scruples. And they did.

Then I found out about patriarchal blessings in one of the lessons I had in Young Women. I wanted mine. I went to my branch president and told him that.

"You can't do that."

I hadn't been to church long enough. Could I wait a year? Six months?

But that's not what the lesson I was taught said. It said that if I felt like I was ready, then I could have one. So I showed up outside of my branch president's office every week for over a month to ask again. Finally, he talked to the stake president, who told him there was no rule or timeline mandated in the Handbook of Instruction that prevented me from receiving my patriarchal blessing. I finally received it 4 months after I was baptized.

Then I went to BYU. I was in one of my favorite wards I've ever attended. Everyone around me was so kind and supportive. They helped me deepen my knowledge of the restored gospel and the scriptures. And when all the young men in my classes started receiving mission calls, I wanted to as well. I felt "called to the work," and the Doctrine and Covenants said that was enough.

"You can't do that."

They didn't let women serve at 19 at the time. I had to wait. Why? Because I might get married instead. The hypothetical possibility of reserving me for a man was more important than the calling I had received from God.

I had the opportunity to serve in the temple regularly for the first time in my life. I was from an area where the temple was two hours away, which meant I got to go only a couple times a year, at most. As the only member in my family, I had many names to do. And as the endowments started piling up, I could feel the weight of my responsibility to get the names done weighing on me. I didn't have a ward full of endowed people to rely on in my student wards. It was just me. And the more I went to the temple, the more I craved that divine closeness, the spiritual support for how much harder it was for me to be a member of the Church than it was for everyone else. I was totally on my own, no support from large extended families like they had. I needed more support to come from somewhere. So I started asking to receive my endowment.

"You can't do that."

I needed to be getting married (preferably, in their minds) or serving a mission to get endowed. That was the rule at the time. It didn't matter that I already wanted to serve a mission. It would be so much more special if I could go with my husband! Didn't I see that? My life was just supposed to stay on hold for him, whoever he was. The idea that I would have a spiritual development and progression separate from his was a totally foreign idea at the time, and wasn't reason enough for me to receive my own endowment. Meanwhile, as the ordinances in my own family backed up higher and higher because I was in student wards with no access to the endowment or other endowed people, I was just stuck and alone.

Then the identity of the mysterious young man I would eventually marry was revealed to me. Hurray! And we both went on missions. We were planning our wedding. And after years of alienating my family with all the milestones of my adult life they didn't get to witness because I was *IN UTAH* thousands of miles away, I wanted to have a ring ceremony so they could at least watch me get married.

"You can't do that."

And every reason I was given, especially the one that it took away from the validity and the sacredness of my temple sealing, was later disavowed when they did away with this rule.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY, I've been in the Church for almost 18 years. I have seen so many changes come into the Church and its culture in that time. The things that were impediments to me as a young believer and convert are no longer there, in part because I left so many bloody knuckle prints on heaven's door, pleading for these things to change. Heaven bore witness to how many times I was told "You can't do that" by my own community—with shallow, indefensible reasons for why my journey needed to be so much harder and lonelier than it needed to be.

Changes like these do not come about simply by waiting. They come because the faithful, especially those who are most affected by the lack of change, keep praying and pleading with heaven for change. The hurt goes on the altar because it never should've been mine to carry. Let God witness it. Let him see, feel, and know the burdens I bore in his name, solely at the behest of my community whose reasoning for it was poor and indefensible, because it all came down to a single failure: they couldn't begin to imagine the impacts their choices were having on me. And until they could begin to understand it, they could never conceive of why their status quo needed to change. Their ignorance and desire to remain in what was familiar and comfortable was a form of bondage to me. That was true.

But what was equally true was that there was nothing wrong or evil in pushing back against all of that, with all the strength I possessed. I would live to see so many of these stumbling blocks I encountered change for those who came behind me. Young people in my church community today don't have to make many of the same choices I did anymore—and thank God for that! I called down the powers of heaven to me to witness these burdens so no one else would ever have to carry them again! I have been witness to the power that these prayers—my prayers—have had to build the kingdom of God on the earth by affecting these changes.

And we're not done. There are many more such changes that need to come to fruition , including (but not limited to) making the Church fully accessible to everyone in our community. Our LGBTQIA+ and disabled people, our women and single Saints, our marginalized, abused, and forgotten in communities of color all over this world.

The kingdom of Heaven is not built, our work is not finished, until ALL are safely gathered in. That is, until they all CAN be safely gathered in. Until all that resists unity, diversity, equity, and inclusion that will define Heaven are removed by the Saints, whose job it is to build that kingdom. To never say again to someone who is trying to come to Christ "You can't do that."

Because with enough time, and effort from the Saints, you'll find they can, in fact, do that.

[sunshine-zenith]

On my daily rewatch of anw I'm thinking about how people thought Hazel and Dev should've swapped fairies because of how unfair the godparent system was and how Dev needed more experienced godparents or how Peri should've been assigned an easy case and while that may be true, I'm just thinking how that swap would have suited the kids' needs.

With Dev, yes, he was a hard case and probably should've had godparent who had more experience with children like him, but he is a child who is lacking in the parental department and needed someone to fill that role.

Same is true for Hazel. She would have been more suited for a first-time godparent, but what she needed and missed the most was her brother and who do we know who has experience with being someone's godbrother? Peri.

I'm probably just rephrasing stuff here so this probably didn't need to be said. Everything more or less worked out for everyone and eventually for others (hopefully).

Anon I have been rotating this ask around in my head since it popped up into my ask box

Confession: I and many others have thought about the similarities between Peri and Hazel, and pointed out that Dev was not a case for a beginner, but I haven’t seriously considered a full out fairy swap until now because I’m actually very fond of the Hazel-Cosmo-Wanda dynamic and the Dev-Peri tragedy dynamic

Still… yeah, you’re kinda right. Dev genuinely would’ve been better suited for experienced godparents, and he might actually benefit from Cosmo and Wanda specifically because A) there’s two of them and B) they’re very parental with their godkids. And Hazel — having Hazel, the kid who misses her brother so much it tipped over the Needs A Fairy edge, be paired up with the godparent who lost his older brother is kinda brilliant

It kinda makes me wonder about how things would be different if we got Hazel-Peri and Dev-Cosmo-Wanda…

Heads up, this gets long

The first thing I wonder about isn’t so much the dynamics, but rather who would be the protagonist? I adore Hazel as a main character, but Cosmo and Wanda are the FOP difacto mascots. They’re the ones who get the cameos and appear in the reboots/sequels. They can exist independently from Timmy/Hazel/Chloe/Viv. If they’re Dev’s fairies, then Dev would be the main POV character. And like. I love Dev, I do, but he’s an asshole. I understand why and I’m down to justify anything he does, but he’s a dick. Plus, well, he’s also super sad. It’d be very hard to make him a fun POV character, especially pre/mid-character development, at least without switching the genre from Heart Felt Comedy Aimed At Children/All Ages to something much darker and more mature. He’s a great side character/deuteragonist, but it would be a Commitment if we followed him 95% of the time

(And before anyone comes at me about Timmy also being The Worst, a lot of that was flanderization. By the time he gets that that point, let’s be real a lot of people stopped watching, and even then he at least had half a dozen I Love Yous and sweet moments with Cosmo and Wanda to make the commitment worth it to the audience.)

Hazel and Peri

So if we keep Hazel as the lead and Peri as her fairy, how’d that work, writing wise? Do we keep his introduction the same and hope the audience is fine with a Sequel Babies Series. Or (and this is just me having fun), do we hypothetically cut out the part where he Introduces Himself With His Deadname For The Audience’s Sake and just hint at him as being Poof from the original series. Then, after Founder’s Day, we introduce Cosmo and Wanda as Dev’s fairies, and the Peri Is Grown Up Poof thing is treated as a Big Reveal, a la Author Of The Journals from Gravity Falls

Now that out of the way, how do I think these dynamics would work, and how would it affect Dev and Hazel’s relationship?

Like you said, Hazel and Peri connecting over missing brothers is a great starting point, and Peri getting to be the big brother for once would be so much fun to watch. Plus, and I’ve pointed this out before, they’re both rule followers (I can totally see a gag of them bonding over Hazel’s DMV love), though Hazel is willing to play things by ear, while Peri gets majorly stressed/anxious/high strung when rule breaking is in question — in fact, that could be a fun angle to some potential conflicts. Hazel makes a wish, but she doesn’t know how to find the words for what she wants, and since Peri is so new, he doesn’t have the experience to confidently guess. He hesitates, both of them get caught in a mini Anxiety Loop, and escalating event happening in the background force them into action, and through hijinx, they both receive character development

I can also see the Antony thing leading to conflict for them — Hazel’s brother is gone, but he comes back. He visits. They reconnect. Meanwhile, Timmy’s gone gone. His memory is wiped. I can see Peri occasionally accidentally fumbling Hazel’s missing Antony with his own likely grief over Timmy. Maybe after another missed flight or phone call, Peri tries to be “supportive” in the same way he tried to cheer Dev up at his birthday, and he accidentally says something that makes Hazel not only miss her old life, but thing she’ll never have any sort of relationship with Antony again.

Or maybe Peri does handle it well until Antony comes back. Then, alongside Hazel trying to recreate the past, Peri gets overwhelmed with jealousy, like he was when Irep tried taking his place with Dev but dialed up by 10. He worries he’ll lose his first godkid AND be fumbling with reawakened grief

(Plus hey, I can actually see this scenario as a good way to justify bringing Timmy back. Maybe Hazel could even include Timmy’s memories as part of her Rule Free Wish in the finally)

Basically Hazel and Peri have so much in common that if they were the main duo, those similarities could lead to so many bonding moments AND dramatic moments where through being mirrors for each other they accidentally hurt each other and help each other to grow as people

(It makes me wonder how Peri would hide himself in Hazel’s day to day life. Peri becomes inanimate objects for Dev, sure, but he doesn’t have a consistent object he hides as. Maybe Peri could have a human disguise, pretending to be a recent college grad who moves into Hazel’s building? Or maybe he could be a “new pet rock”?)

(Also I have a lot of thoughts on C&W being disguised as pets for Timmy and neighbors for Hazel, but that’s a ramble for another day.)

Dev, Cosmo, and Wanda

So the first question is how would Dev become Cosmo and Wanda’s godkid? They weren’t actually assigned to Hazel, they basically just adopted her. Maybe, Cosmo and Wanda could still be traveling and just end up in Dimmadelphia around Founder’s Day, and through their observations, they seen Dev is going through it and come out of retirement for him. This could also lead to a Cookie situation with Dev instead of Hazel (imagine Dev pretending to be a lawyer, there would 100% be a gag of him acting as every shady lawyer stereotype you know.)

I can see Dev still lashing out at them, probably still demanding perfection for hollow wishes since he can’t get what he really wants, BUT C&W would cause mischief as they misinterpret his wishes. I can also see him acting unimpressed/impatient when they take him on little side quests to meet with fairies that specialize in the things he wishes for. He’s have to defrost to them, and they (likely especially Cosmo) would push his buttons. Dev would also probably deny having fun during these adventures. I’m sure he’d eventually come to see them the same way he saw Irep)

A potential conflict could come from the fact that a lot of Dev’s wishes are by nature spiteful/fueled by pride. Again, major Dev apologist here, we’re talking about the kid who wished for a an evil ghost to come from the depths of hell after having a fairy for less than a week. C&W would still grant his wishes, but they wouldn’t approve of him being a bully, and would probably try really hard to get him to realize the error of his ways through these wishes

It’s likely that Dev wouldn’t even get involved with the anti-fairies here. If he did, I can only see this after Dev specifically makes a wish relating to his father loving him, which C&W can’t grant, or something similar — a breakdown after a big, direct moment instead of a breakdown after months of little, indirect moments

I can also see him both clinging to them as parental figures and resenting them as misplaced anger and sadness over his neglectful dad

I can also see him seeing Peri (and maybe even Timmy) as a threat here — Peri is their son, who they adore like Dev wishes Dale adored him. And since Peri isn’t Dev’s godparent here and therefore doesn’t feel the need to look out for/do right by him, Peri would like sass him harder or treat him as an annoyance, an extension of any tension that comes up when C&W their clingy thing. In a scenario where Dev still ended up under an anti-fairy’s influence, he might even wish Peri was Nothing, or still kidnap Peri here out of misplaced resentment

Dev and Hazel

I feel like swapping fairies would also affect their relationship. Part of their comes from Dev’s jealousy over Hazel’s relationship with C&W — she has two while he only has one, she has a positive relationship with her while his “can’t do anything right” (can’t cross the red tape of Da Rules, doesn’t have the experience/comfort level to go buckwild with wishes/has parents that love him/etc). Here, that wouldn’t be a problem— Hazel wouldn’t care that Dev has two fairies instead of one, and C&W would probably have an easier time getting through Dev’s defenses. It’s possible that a lot of their fights and negative interactions just wouldn’t happen here, and if they did, it would be related to Hazel wanting Dev to be nicer to C&W/Peri.

[lobautumny]

Alright, guess this toy's gonna talk about Palworld, because it's seen Discourse™️ start to crop up about how "supporting the game is immoral because it's stealing designs from Pokemon!"

Now look, this toy's not about to sit here and tell you that all of the monster designs in Palworld are completely original and the game isn't, on some level, a bootleg. Obviously a lot of the designs are bootleg pokemon. That's not the point it wants to get at. The point is that it doesn't really matter.

First of all, nobody is being hurt by Palworld having knockoff pokemon among the ranks of its monsters. Game Freak is not some tiny indie developer struggling to make ends meet having their work unfairly co-opted by a big, bad corporation. Pokemon is, in fact, the largest, most profitable media franchise of all time, and Palworld is an indie game. The reason that something like this would hypothetically be scummy/shitty is if someone were taking someone else's work, changing it slightly, claiming it as their own, and thus depriving the original creator of credit/visibility that they should've had. But that literally can't happen here, because everyone already knows what Pokemon is. So unless it gets found that they're stealing designs from fakemon artists or something (there was one alleged instance, but it seems to have just been a coincidence of two different people having the idea of "what if Chimecho but with big, bulky arms?"), Palworld is hurting nobody through having bootleg designs, so the moral argument against the game falls flat.

With that out of the way, there's a much more interesting topic to discuss here: Why is it that when someone's fangame gets C&D'd, everyone immediately jumps to the creator's support, accurately assessing that our copyright system is broken and primarily serves to hurt independent artists, but the moment a developer makes the changes necessary to make sure their fangame doesn't get hit with a C&D (and to allow them to make money off of it), it's suddenly bad and cringe and unoriginal?

The argument that "Palworld is lazy and unoriginal and therefore bad because the monster designs are too similar to Pokemon's designs" is something that this toy would be willing to hear out if Palworld were a turn-based singles-format RPG with similar systems/overall structure to those found in Pokemon games, but, uh. It isn't. It's a third-person shooter with monster-catching mechanics and, like, Factorio-ass automation and base-building, from what this toy can tell. And it doesn't know if the game is good, as someone who has not played it (or even really seen gameplay of it), but it can absolutely tell you that the game's not lazy.

Sure, they could have done more to make the monster designs feel more unique, and that's absolutely a valid criticism for the game. This toy doesn't want to come across like it's saying otherwise. It just wants people to recognize that that's kind of a nitpick when the game is, on a mechanical and genre level, something completely different from anything any Pokemon game ever has been or ever will be, and that nobody would be complaining about laziness or a lack of originality if this came out as a fangame literally just using actual pokemon. In that reality, people would've been popping off at how high-effort it is, actually. And like, even putting money aside, this game literally could not exist as a fangame. A while back, someone uploaded some videos on Youtube showcasing a fangame they were developing that was an FPS where the enemies were pokemon. They got hit with a C&D and their Youtube account was terminated within a couple days of the videos being uploaded. The game was not monetized, and in fact, never even had a download link, to this toy's recollection. Palworld would have suffered the same exact fate if it wasn't its own IP.

[oklotea]

I was rewatching eah season one, and I got to the Maddie-in-chief episode. And OH MY GOD did this single episode hold so much potential as a full-fledged special.

Just imagine with me for a second, before EAH asks huge questions about autonomy, the true reality of Ever Afterian society, or what secrets lie in Milton Grimm's head, they make a point to truly bring your attention to the underlying classism and favoritism in ever after.

It could have been the first crack that would eventually lead to them questioning Milton Grimm even further, and finding Giles, and eventually finding out the storybook of legends had been a fake.

AND OTHER SUCH IDEAS, I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!

We could have gotten the chance to develop Maddie's character further. They had strongly implied that Maddie was much more smarter than what you may first assume, what is it with that? How do those skills properly show themselves? Not just in debate, but on a daily basis? How is Maddie intellectual in a way only the wonderlandians can see? And better yet, how has the people in ever after high chose to neglect her and her skills?

THIS HYPOTHETICAL SPECIAL COULD HAVE BEEN AN AMAZING TIME TO ESTABLISH THE WONDERLAND CURSE AND HOW KITTY, MADDIE, AND LIZZIE HAVE BEEN DISPLACED FOR A GOOD HALF OF THEIR LIFE!!!!!!!

It could have been such a great moment to make the audience care about Maddie, and possibly the wonderlandians, even further.

We could have gotten Apple's first bit of character development, found in her earnestly looking at the non-royal characters as people equal to her, because let's be real, if we looked at the way she saw non-royals/commoners in the first book as something to build off of, it obviously comes off as disingenuous.

Maybe at the first half of the story, Apple is very sweetly and discreetly underestimating Maddie. Maybe going on behind her back about how, even though she admires Maddie's bravery, she doubts there'll even be any competition.

Only for as the special goes on, Apple watches how Maddie is actually a very talented, formidable and driven opponent

How will they show this?????? UHHHHH I HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT OUT YET

BUT COMPETENT, AND GENUINELY DEPENDABLE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT CANDIDATE MADDIE IS A CONCEPT THAT COULD BE SOOOO SO JUICY

Like.... She's the kind of person who could be handed over an entire pile of student council work, the likes of which even sends a shiver down Apple White's spine, but thanks to the effects of wonderland, and wonderlandian photographic memory (I have no idea if that's a thing that only Lizzie has in wonderlandiful world but...... BUT LET ME COOK!!!! AGRHEGRGSVD) MADDIE IS DEPENDABLE, SHE HAS SKILLS THAT SHOW HER POTENTIAL AS A STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT!!!!! And not only that, she's got a big heart, and she cares about her friends and fellow non-royals very deeply, and just, having a non-royal as a student council president would be a huge step forward before all the crazy shit that would eventually happen in the future webisodes and specials.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE OG WEBISODE WOULD HAPPEN ONLY WITH THE STAKES MUCH MORE HIGHER, AND A MUCH MORE SERIOUS TONE

And Maddie decides herself that she wants to work alongside Apple, because she can see just how genuinely dedicated and talented Apple is, and with that, Apple's character development for the special is wrapped into a neat bow, and from then on her and Maddie being student council presidents is an IMPORTANT THING that gets BROUGHT UP

Like in Dragon Games, we could have hypothetically gotten Maddie walking up to Apple, sadly asking her how she could allow the dragon games to happen, and better yet how her mom can allow the evil queen to walk free!

Maddie requests that, since she doesn't have as much leverage over Snow White, how about Apple takes some action to stop the games and convince her mom to take the evil queen hostage once again?

Only for Apple to visibly be racking her brain, and snapping at Maddie, telling her she can't do that, and the games must go on.

It would have really sucked and it would have hurt and it would have been amazing.

That's just ONE example I've got on Apple and Maddie being co-presidents being acknowledged.

Apple and Maddie could have had a more defined dynamic.... It would have been interesting seeing two characters who are so drastically different in how they function being in such close proximity to one another, and having to work closely with each other!

Alright, my final point in proving to you maddie-in-chief should have been it's own special issss.......

JUST IMAGINE THE DOLLS

Here's what I have in mind,

Pin striped suit Madeline Hatter

Pillbox hat, pencil skirt Apple White

VERY MUCH PRESIDENT ELECTION CODED

I jotted down some scrappy sketches to show you what I mean

It's not the best, I spent like, 5 minutes on it, but YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYINH

YOU DO

I TRUST THAT YOU DO

THEY'RE BOTH WEARING SASHES THAT HAVE EACH OF THEIR SLOGANS ON

Maddie obviously wearing a sash that says, "Hats over Crowns" Cause that's iconic

And Apple wears something more, idk royally conservative???!???? Something with the sentiment that, the Royal way is the better way, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. YOU GET IT.

And we're not stopping with just Maddie and Apple! Even though they are both the crown jewels of this student council president election doll line (someone come up with a better name, god bless), the rest of the line consists of a handful of Apple supporters, and a hatful of Maddie supporters. Their groupies, per se.

All of them in dresses or suits, whatever it is, very much business formal, or business casual, they all look quite prim!

That's all I got so far on the maddie-in-chief special concepts.

If anyone wants to build upon them, by all means do so!!!! I would love to see what you people come up with!!! :D

Alrighth, take care everyone. Thanks for making it this far

[windvexer]

Using Tarot to Identify: a Person From a Large Group [2/2]

This post is part 2 of a series. Read part 1 here.

As opposed to identifying someone in a small group of people, trying to identify someone out of a huge group makes it a heck of a lot harder to choose which meanings to discard.

Here is where you've got to let your questions and spreads do more of the work.

Try framing the identification through a series of readings, each one applying a filter over the nebulous figure until one defined person appears.

Since we have to cut through vast swaths of information, spreads can help us by providing more complex logical arguments to parse that information.

A simple 1 or 3 card spread is just defining is: the person is this way. Consider other options:

Is: This is true of them; they are like this; they are with this

Not: The person is not like this; they are inverse to this; they are without this

And: Two or more things must be true in order for any of them to be true

But: This is only true if it defies expectations in a specific way

If, Then, Else: If this is true, then something else will necessarily be true; otherwise only the third thing will be true

Someone would like to know how to identify their future husband. If you just drew a 3-card is spread, you'd end up with something that could doubtless apply to thousands of people in a 100 mile radius.

"He's responsible and take-charge at work, and very ambitious. He enjoys a comfortable home and emotional connections." A bit pointless, isn't it?

Develop spreads with specific logical arguments that define how the cards exist in relation to the truth. He's ambitious, not cutthroat. He's kind, and a pushover. He's generous, but only with emotional support. If he marries you, then he already has children; else this is not your match.

We might arrive at the following to help identify the potential spouse:

2-card and spread: He will always think he's right (King/Swords) and views his own intelligence as a heavy burden (10/Wands).

Above, if only one of these things is true of a person, then they are not the potential husband-to-be; both things must be true.

2-card but spread: He will love animals and creatures (Page/Pentacles), but only super creepy ones that give you anxiety (9/Swords).

Below, the if-then-else spread can be utilized to address specific questions. "Will he be rich?"

3-card is spread: His financial future is not set in stone (Wheel of Fortune), he has a stable career (8/Pentacles), he is closed-fisted when it comes to money (6/Pentacles Reversed). 2-card if, then, else spread: If he is rich, then it will be new money from a lucky break (9/Cups), or else he will be a bit of a miser who is always trying to get a lucky break (4/Pentacles).

Combining these two spreads together, we may perhaps surmise that this man could be self-employed or involved in contracts or speculation that could provide large windfalls.

The point is that these small spreads are not standalone, but should be stacked together to observe the commonalities between all of them, and to see how they affect and influence each other.

Linking spreads together in this fashion can make successive readings easier, as later spreads must cleave to standards already established by earlier spreads. This allows you to cut out more irrelevant meanings.

Practically speaking, your goal in identifying a person is not necessarily to paint a complete portrait of them, but rather to define a few specific circumstances or traits that makes them easily identifiable once you get there.

Our top-down view is identifying an individual out of perhaps thousands. But, in reality, your querent isn't going to be interviewing thousands of potential partners.

In reality, the pool of people your querent has to sort through is going to be limited to the people they meet. They don't have to compare their hypothetical spouse to everybody, just to other people they have met.

Hypothetically, out there around us, there could be hundreds of egotistical self-employed atheists who love snakes and spiders. But we don't need to identify only one of them as compared to the others.

We need to only identify egotistical self-employed snake atheists to, say, the single dad who volunteers at his church, the homesteader who raises donkeys, and the listless student who just wants to go backpacking for a while after college.

So when identifying people, ask yourself what kind of unique traits will be necessary to separate this person from the background noise.

Are you trying to identify one person in the entire tristate area herpetology society? Well, then we're back to the concepts of part 1 - drop meanings that apply to everyone in your target group, and focus on indicators that can only apply to some.

Stack readings to whittle down possibilities until you get to a set of unique circumstances or indicators that can only apply to a few people in that group.

[pianokantzart]

Do you think Mario's portrayal in the movie was a little too different from the games? I understand that they needed him to have a more well rounded personality, but I just can't help but wonder why they didn't make him more of a soul who is defined by having this sort of contagious positivity with a skip in every step. Think characters like Joy (Inside Out), Pinkie Pie (MLP), Steven Universe, Star Butterfly, Mabel Pines, Rapunzel (Tangled) and so on.

Mario of course still has a can-do determinator attitude about life, and he does still have his moments of excitement, but it's a lot more subdued. He spends a lot of the movie being rather irritable, somewhat impatient, and burnt out. Of course this can still happen to characters that are defined by being consistently upbeat and positive, but that's only when they hit very serious rock bottom moments.

Do you think the sequel should try and make Mario's personality a little more like his portrayal in the games or should they just stick with what they did for the first one?

I think a more happy-go-lucky Mario could work, hypothetically, but not with the backstory he was given in the movie, which leans pretty hard on him being an underdog in every sense.

The difference between Mario and all the characters you listed is Mario was neither sheltered, nor put in any position where he was encouraged to continually exhibit a bubbly, positive attitude.

Mario is a Brooklyn man who has just recently managed to work his way up from hard labor to blue collar, and has spent most of his life having his dreams and ambitions dismissed and put down.

He's by no means disillusioned with the world, but he's built up defenses to make sure everyone knows that neither he nor his brother are easy targets to be bullied or walked all over. He is optimistic, but he's swimming against the current, and it's worn him down. (Heck, judging by the concept art, it looks like there were plans to make him even more exhausted and despondent than he was in the final product.)

But now that Mario's in an environment that values his ambition and optimism, he's got room to develop into something closer to the Super Mario we're all familiar with. As much as I hope for some slight change in character between movies, I can't say I'd be too disappointed if he stays the same on account of how much I really really love Hothead Stressball McDaddyIssues Mario. But I'm banking on him being at least a good deal happier now that he's living in The Mushroom Kingdom.

It's a nice little mini-arc to give him in what was essentially Mario's origin story.

[cairavende]

My wonderful girlfriend got me Gideon the Ninth for Christmas and I realized why should I just give Worm recaps? Let's read some Locked Tomb! (We'll see how this format works, maybe I'll adjust it. Specifically might break stuff down into smaller segments instead of full acts, but I didn't think of doing this until after I had read all of act 1.)

Gideon the Ninth Act 1 (chapter 1 through 8) thoughts:

This book is so gay oh my god

Like, it's gay in ways I can't even explain. I love it.

Harrow beats the shit out of Gideon in chapter 2 and I don't know if I've ever seen someone get beat up in a more gay way.

"Oh Griddle! But I don't even remember about you most of the time." ROLL A FUCKING DECEPTION CHECK HARROW! You are saying this standing in the middle of the field you spent all night burying bones in just to foil her escape in the most dramatic way. You can't stop remembering her.

Gideon is the most herbo of herbos. I fucking love her. I love reading her PoV. She just knows punch and stab with sword and if those don't work than she'll just do them harder.

Also Gideon is SO fucking gay. Dear god. Dulcinea faints and Gideon turns off all though. HELP PRETTY GIRL. Nothing else.

Ok I could just make this whole thing "EVERYTHING IS GAY" but there is technically more than that.

I love how weird everything is and how little explanation is given. I don't want pages of exposition, I want to learn the world as it comes at me! This is perfect.

And just the very nature of things that seem weird not being given more than a passing thought in the book is information. Something may seem wild to the reader but it's so normalized to the characters that they wouldn't even think about the idea of it being different.

Lack of explanation also helps really show how much of a meathead Gideon is. Do the readers get to learn details about this thing? Only if it is a weapon, has tits, or Gideon is forced to listen while Harrow explains it. Otherwise no, why the fuck would Gideon spend her precious few brain cells on thinking?

And even if Gideon is forced to listen as Harrow explains it, the readers might not learn much cause Gideon might stop listening. I love her.

Aiglamene is wonderful. Crux is fine but I like her more.

Poor Gideon just wants a big sword that she can swing hard. It's not like she can't use a rapier. But why when she can go big sword?

SO MUCH CATHOLICISM

As someone who once was Catholic and then realized I was actually not a straight man, but instead a lesbian, I am in deep.

And the fucking slang used! Or whatever would be the right term. The shit they say! I love it. Just the weird sci-fi far future space necromancer universe and then suddenly "Are you asking me to . . . throw her a bone?", "Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.", "Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again, it never does any good.", "Lo! A destructed ass.", "Well we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.", "Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone."

House of the First appears to be Earth. I kinda assume the House of the Ninth is Pluto, even though things obviously aren't in order given that the Seventh and Sixth are closer to the sun. Of course, I'm kinda expecting this to not technically be this solar system at all.

Undying Emperor, King of Resurrection, I Have Ten-Thousand Titles, Boss First, etc etc hasn't been on "Earth" in over nine thousand years. I wanna know MORE.

And the fucking Ninth House has their own prayer! Everyone else has one that the Ninth didn't know and then the Ninth had one that no one else knows! GIMME MORE!!!!

Also again, so many Catholicism metaphors or comparisons or whatever!

I could go on forever but gonna end this one with OH MY GOD SHE FOUND SUNGLASSES I LOVE HER. Fucking "I came prepared, my sweet." and "But then you couldn't have admired . . . these!" as she whips on the sunglasses. God. I nearly died.

[tangledbea]

Do you think that HYPOTHETICALLY, if given the option (again as a hypothetical question to Rapunzel), she would rather never have had magic hair, never gotten kidnapped, and grew up in the home she was supposed to…but never met eugene

Absolutely not.

There's actually an episode that Ricky Roxburgh pitched that was ultimately rejected (for being "too good" (Chris' words, according to him), where Rapunzel gets sent to an alternate timeline where she grew up in the palace (with magic hair, mind you), and that Gothel had gotten herself hired as her governess, to be close to the magic flower.

So she grew up a princess and kind of a brat at that, because not only was she their miracle child, she was also magical and it got to her head. Because she hadn't been in the tower, Eugene never reformed, and the two of them were kind of... rivals. He was more hardened against the world, and resented the princess who everyone loved, and she hated the man who committed so much crime in her kingdom.

Except now, the alternate timeline Rapunzel has been replaced by our Rapunzel, and she doesn't know any of this. She calls him Eugene and he panics, because no one but him knows that name. They get closer, something something, and at the big climax of the episode, he gives up his life for her.

She gets sent to a kind of void where she can choose to either stay in a world where she was never kidnapped or abused, or go back to the one she knows, and she chooses to go back because it would mean having Eugene in her life.

And I 100% agree with the characterization in this hypothetical episode that I'm so sad was never developed further.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Alenoah AU, where Noah says this in London instead:

Owen: "Why don't you like Al? He's great!"

Noah: "I like Alejandro and I agree that he's great, but I still don't trust the guy."

Owen: "Why?"

Noah: "I have my personal reasons... One of them being that I don't like how he treats you, Owen... So, please be careful from now on..."

Owen: "Okay, Noah... You do have a point."

How would Alejandro react to Noah liking him, but not truly trusting him? 😲

See your first mistake is assuming Noah would ever give up an oppertunity to shit-talk someone. /j

But for real, if Noah did clarify that he doesn't dislike Alejandro but does distrust him, I can't see things playing out too differently from canon - save for Alejandro being a bit less openly hostile towards him post-challenge. Noah would still be eliminated, because having a teammate who distrusts him doesn't align with Alejandro's game plan.

Especially if Noah divulges why he doesn't trust Alejandro. If Noah tries to out the fact that Alejandro isn't as altruistic as he wants to appear, that makes Noah himself a direct threat to Alejandro's plans and schemes. Again, he'd be eliminated as soon as possible.

Regardless of any potential feelings between the two, Alejandro can and would always prioritise the competition over any budding relationship he has with Noah... at least in London. Further on in the competition, if/when the two of them have gotten to know each other better (and when mutual feelings have had time to grow and develop) it's a different story.

It would, however, mean there's a lot less bad blood between the two post series. At least on Alejandro's end. If anything, he'd probably have a smidge of respect for Noah, since he's one of the few people who had caught on to Alejandro's false geniality pre-merge and/or pre-elimination.

Meanwhile Noah would still be justifyably salty that Alejandro got him eliminated, but I imagine he'd pin most of the blame on himself. After all, it was his big mouth that once again dropped him into hot water with his team. Plus, in this scenario, Noah admits that he does like Alejandro, so even considering his elimination I doubt Noah would be too upset with Alejandro himself.

So, in the case of this hypothetical AU, I'd suggest that the main meat of the story here would be post-World Tour, which plays out canonically (or as close to canonically as you'd like). Alejandro gets Drama Machine'd, and Noah - as one of the few people in the cast who doesn't actively hate Alejandro - questions his whereabouts when he fails to show up on the cruise boat the Gen 1 cast are seen on at the beginning of RotI.

He's likely the only person to do so since, barring Heather, Noah's one of the select few who Alejandro didn't royally fuck over. Not directly, at least. And Heather's too preoccupied with the loss of her million to think about Alejandro's wellbeing. And Chris tells him straight; the robot on the cruise ship? Alejandro's chilling in there, healing from the lava burns in almost complete isolation.

Noah is understandably horrified. He's even more horrified when Chris reveals that the Burromuertos signed over custodial rights for Alejandro and disowned him, so Chris is full within his legal rights to keep Alejandro in the Drama Machine for however long he deems fit. Unfortunately, he's also sworn to secrecy about the whole deal; Chris can't have Alejandro's situation reaching the press, it'd be bad for the show's publicity. (Add some legal jargon here, or something about non-disclosure agreements being in the casts' contracts, or whatever.)

But he can't just leave alejandro to suffer in an indefinite mechanical imprisonment. So Noah bargains his way back into his old position as a PA, if only to keep tabs on Alejandro's wellbeing.

Something something you end up with one of those Assistant Noah x Drama Machine Alejandro AUs, which eventually evolves into a "Noah works as an assistant on All-stars" AU, or whatever.