#why did i play this fucking game on hardcore

[deadaccount301701]

alright actual final post

have artyom from metro 2033 you pikminors (hehe get it because most of you pikmin fans are minors)

bleugh

[placeholder-mcd]

(Obligatory "I sound like I'm speaking objectively from authority but this is just my opinion and it's okay for you to like media I dislike for whatever reasons you may have")

Okay so like. while "the minecraft move trailer is so bad that it makes minecraft story mode look good in comparison" is both true and funny, can we please not start pretending that story mode is a well-crafted piece of media. as someone who has played through it multiple times (first when it originally came out and I was 12 and thought it was awesome, then later as an interactive Netflix experience with friends for so-bad-it's-good reasons) I feel pretty qualified to say it blows

Like, yes. There are so many things that MCSM got right that the movie apparently got wrong. But, like, they're all extremely common-sense things to get right -- like having the whole thing be animated, and maintaining a visual style that feels consistent with minecraft, and spending time with individual aspects of the minecraft experience that have their own communities (like redstone contraptions). that sense seems a little less common now that the movie trailer exists, but still, these are all bare minimum expectations of a piece of narrative-driven media set in Minecraft.

MCSM still completely fails, however, to have any compelling characters (RIP Reuben you were just as annoying as everyone else) or non-grating dialogue. The universe they depict isn't even well thought out! Like, okay, example:

Right off the bat, they make a big decision about how they're going to handle MCSM: they are not telling a story about people playing Minecraft the video game, but are instead depicting a universe where Minecraft is inhabited by a civilization of NPCs that have identical abilities to a player (aside from like, pausing the game or changing settings or what have you). This, in itself, is not a bad decision, but it puts the writers in a position where they need to conceptualize what is effectively a Minecraft AU. You're not playing survival mode or creative mode, you're playing Story mode. In this AU, humans exist in the minecraft world and have for a long time (centuries, at least?), they've built cities, they have language, etc. Imagine you're Jesse. Imagine you've grown up inside of Minecraft. Everyone is playing on hardcore, there is no respawning, and you live in a world filled with strange and dangerous creatures that seem hell-bent on killing you. Why the Fuck does anyone go out at night. Why isn't literally everyone combat-trained. Why is Jesse acting like he's never seen a Creeper before. Why is Petra the only member of the main party who knows how to craft a pickaxe.

At the build competition, the party is surprised that the reigning building team has a beacon. But nobody takes a second to actually investigate what that means. Did their team intentionally spawn and defeat a Wither? Doesn't that make them more badass and legendary than the order of the stone? Is there a black market for nether stars? (I think Petra is probably the one who gave them the beacon since she also trades Ivan a Wither skull. But like. Why isn't literally anyone else just going and doing what Petra does. Why aren't they impressed)

Ivan having access to a Command Block is also insane. Like, it has potential to be an extremely cool choice -- did Ivan find a way to break the fourth wall? Did he find an exploit in Minecrafts code that allowed him to obtain this? The command block has the power to just generate resources out of thin air. Ivan could actually use it to become a god and give himself creative mode. But okay, we can assume that the command block is just... Different, in the AU. Fine. It's a computing center / power core for the Wither Storm. Sure

But, like. I, even as an 11 year old, knew everything there was to know about minecraft when I played story mode (and, unlike the Movie, MCSM was actually attempting to appeal to the existing fanbase), so watching these characters who have lived for DECADES within the Minecraft universe just. Be helpless and completely clueless as to how the universe works? It makes me hate like all of them. I don't care about Jesse or Gabriel and if I actually had the freedom to perform the basic actions I could perform in Minecraft -- mining, building, and crafting -- I could use my game knowledge to pretty swiftly end the entire conflict at like any point in the story. And I'm not very good at video games. But I would expect a character who's been LIVING IN THE MINECRAFT WORLD TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. BECAUSE THEY'D BE BETTER AT MINECRAFT THAN ANY OF US.

The whole thing is a contrived and buggy mess that feels like it was written by a Hollywood CEO who watched someone play the game for 30 minutes, looked up some basic information like how to beat the game and whether there's any in-game lore, and then riffed on that until a script outline was finished. The programmers, visual artists, and composers clearly did a ton of work to make MCSM feel like minecraft. And they did a good job -- clearly, a much better job than the Movie is going to do. But that doesn't change the fact that the Story -- the focal element advertised in the title -- completely misses the fucking mark and centers around a group of characters who are largely incompetent and stupid in an unfunny and uninteresting way. MCSM was a shitty cashgrab by telltale games and I am not apologizing to it.

[aicosu]

Hey, just saw your post about Veilguard - do you mind me asking what it is that put you off? Thanks!

I can start by saying I've not played it. I'm not going to at this point. But basically, every cutscene and dialogue option and plot point I've watched. And for those of you that don't remember I was hugely critical of Inquisition despite my love for it. And I downright hated Trespasser. So this shouldnt be shocking.

And its a lot of stuff I dont like. I can make a short list of major things below, obvious spoilers.

Please dont read this if it will make you angry okay? This is a lot of angry ranting.

1. I said this with inquisition and trespassers but veilguard seals my hatred for the decision to center the entire plot of ripping apart the dalish culture and religion. I'm sorry I just don't think this is compelling. It's icky to create an oppressed and marginalized race with parallels to most indigenous cultures in the real world, and basically call them wrong and stupid for clinging to their culture and history. I don't care that validating the Enuvanris existance means also invalidating the maker and the tevinter reiligions too, or even the dwarven: the game centers this narrative on the DALISH. The entire implication that its their fault all along or they sold themselves into a cult and slavery is gross. The game could have easily done this but centered it around the Maker. Andraste as the blight corrupted crazy deity or spirit whatever the fuck. Makes more sense with how much Chantry has been shoved down our throats since origins, and given how much wider spread it is after literal genocides of the dalish, qun, etc it would just mean a lot more to target the oppressors/majority religion directly. And look listen, I'm a pretty hardcore athiest and even anti thiest. I hate all religions, I find stories about dismantling religion compelling but to couch it histories of marginalized people like... its just not great. Not to mention twisting their gods into systematic greedy people or shoving their "bestest god" into a human woman and trying to make her prostheltize at me. I don't like it!

2. I get why old decisions dont matter. The world is too big, sure. I dont mind that at all, actually, even with all the problems, it gives people invested in those choices. Im happy to accept it. But then... make the actual plot less beholden to it. Why bring in cameos at all, then? Fuck man set it 50 or 80 years later. But if you cant cause everyone wants closure in the DA fandom then give us closure. If not personal closure with wardens and hawkes and etc cause its all too variant — lore closure. We arent going to talk about how darkspawn were thinking and talking? Blight was always just a random elvhen weapon? What apparent the tevinter magisters then? What about the architect? What about the idea of darkspawn becoming their own race and culture? What about the old gods themselves they were just always enuvanris? How do magisters actually feel about that? Why did those who worshipped corypheous or the black church follow Elvhen gods, their most oppressed and hated enemy aside from the qunari?

Speaking of, what about all of us who wanted to confront Minrathous and Tevine for the atrocities we've built up about it for 3 games. Slavery? Off screen solved before we get there? Dorian fixed it all? I had a heated debate with Dorian about him saying how slavery wasnt all that bad "They like being slaves!" And so many conversations with Fenris about how horrible it is. Rape and murder and submission? We don't as players get to finally confront that?

How about red lyrium being sentient. How about it being a tool the elvhen then used to murder titans, but not its alive and unstoppable? How can anything be unblighted? Because plot?

What of the calling? What of it really? What of those in The Calling who were unblighted? nothing?

Not even a deep conversation about the murky ethics of liberation/slavery when it comes to the Antivan crows stealing children? I'm to forget that?

How about anything all to do with the Qun? How about that burnt in memory I have of Saarabas immolating himself in service to not just the system of his culture but his belief in his faith. We're writing him off as a terrorist and not as an example of the Qun? Lets be really real; they have been retconning the Qun every game till now them being a fully gender and sexual accepting society.

How about the changes of mages vs templars if and maybe they walk free now? As if that entire conflict wasnt the brewing boiling point for three games?

What about the elvhen rebellion they so rightly started after centuries or murder and racism? Can we stop pretending that rebellion isnt an act of violence and has to be? Can we stop erasing the idea that systemical upheavel can be anything other than radical? Hello? Anders is one the phone asking for you?

How about that ending, the veil isn't even torn? Spirits don't walk the earth as intended. Why not solas' plan? Why not restore order. Why not join or dissuade him as he asked us to in trespasser?

It just all feels washed off, Thedas. I'm allowed to be angry and upset that they spanned all of these topics and asked me to engage with them on a deep ethical and moral grounds only to never mention them again. I dont think making your player base feel stupid for caring is great.

3. On personal levels, Solas has been ooc since trepasser. And frankly, the explanation of his relationship with Mythal is disgusting. Made the first slave and turned from his true nature into a tool of war—and reaffirming his subservance by making it that only Mythal could stop him? How is that not a toxic dynamic, and they fram it as loving and romantic? Imagine them trying that Fenris who can only be talked down by Danerous. Come on. It should have been Lavellan — or it really should have been not at all. Let him. The devs want to destory Thedas and start over? Let solas reset time and recreate the earth and tear is all down and erase most of the history. Do it you cowards. Give me an unrecognizable DA5 where spirits and mages rule and the elvhen thrive and war with each other. Give me slaved humans and a topsy turvy all that changes remains the same reality. Why not if you want to illuminti titan everything anyway.

4. I dont believe in the veilguard, I should have a choice not to. I should have a reason to care about it or my companions or fewl some sort of reason we must all work together aside from "theyre adorable". All the other games you had companion parties in organic and believable ways. Rook is leader cause.... ? What if I dont want to be? At least my Dalish inquisitor fought tooth and nail not to be called a christian messiah. Hawke had FRIENDS. And the warden found those who knew what a blight meant. And many of all of us disagreed. Vivianne got not sympathy from me. Why should Neve? Fenris will leave your party if you waste your time when the Magister comes to town. I dont want to coddle Harding about her stupid chantry. I do not to talk to Lucanis happily about the crows. Maybe I dont want to be friendly all the time. Maybe I hate everything Bellara is doing. Or taash.

5. The writing was on the wall in inquistion hoenestly. What with Iron bull letting me decide is he mass murders his found family or not. But jesus these new companions are like 10 yrs old. I don't know you decide. Your a fucking adult. I cant take a single one of them seriously. Even Sera screamed and yelled at me if I challenged her. Solas and I almost broke up mutiple times arguing about tradition and purpose or that damn Mythal well (again and no wonder he would object to doing anything akin to being emslaved by her, only to submit himself in this game. As if the well mattered at all. As if morrigan matters at all.) I just don't feel as though I'm bonding with anyone, I'm babysitting. Im being told what a great person I am that I can teach everyone elementary school behaviorial learning. I dont want to, I dont even want to be "good".

6. Petty stuff:

I hate the art style both in the UI and the models. I hate it. And the expressions are so poor compared even to Da2.

I hate all the armors. Everyone is bulky. Hate it.

Ugly combat.

Cant control or walk around as my companions and try out other classes.

CC cant change eyes or facial structure much so all rooks heads look the same and kinda... everyone looks like a dwarf. Sorry. Imo, imo, every rook I have seen looks like a dwarf.

Dont like the music.

Dragons are ugly.

Morrigans outfit makes it look like she has 4 titties.

I hate this elvhen "steampunk" tech when so much of their magic was shown to be earthen and mystic. Dumb. No explanation as why it would become this way it just is now.

Blood magic erasure cause the devs are scared of us being cool I guess.

I hate the humor. Every joke doesnt land for me. And there are simply too many.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[cinnamostar]

colors of you

pairing : felix x gn!reader

summary : skz, semi pro league of legends team, now has a new competitor to face in the scene in the upcoming regional tournament, but after a few practice matches, felix knew he hated you and thought you were a complete asshole.

wc : 5.8k

cw : not proofread (i am lazy), collegiate esports au, very competitive rivalry on one end, unrequited love, enemies to a secret third thing i won't disclose, cursing, some angst, sadness, fluffy feelings, and y/tn = your team name + y/ign = your ingame name/username.

a/n : this fic was inspired by league of legends worlds 2023, except not as hardcore. i didn't write tooo much on the gameplay so anyone who didn't play league would also be able to enjoy and follow the story well. likes, reblogs, and feedback is appreciated as always

⌲ SKZ - semi-pro league of legends team

member profile

⌲ channie - in game leader, mid laner, azir + zed main

⌲ dwaekki - adc, caitlyn main

⌲ hyune - supp, pretty girl supp main (everyone has to beg him to play anything else)

⌲ miniverse - top laner, sett main

⌲ sunlixie - jungler, diana main 

* currently undefeated in collegiate regional cup, three year streak

⌲ Y/TN - up and coming semi-pro team

member profile

⌲ y/ign - in game leader, jungler, briar + kindred main

⌲ nyangknow - adc, kaisa + jinx main

⌲ jone - mid laner, ahri main

⌲ bibibread - supp, renata + rell main

⌲ some guy - top laner, yone + aatrox main **

* has won smaller level tournaments, gained entry to collegiate regional cup through these wins

**(a/n: some guy is literally some guy lmao sorry i did not feel like adding some random idol to the story)

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･

Felix clenched his jaw as flames of anger flickered within him, the obnoxious, classic, yet familiar, league of legends red defeat screen only fanning the resentment that burned hot through his veins. He ripped his headset off as he swallowed down the third bitter loss his team faced that day, his face glaring down at your username that seemed to mock him in every post-game lobby chat. 

y/ign: GG! Thanks for the skrims :) Same time tomorrow?

He rolled his eyes at your message, trusting Chan to coordinate with your team for the next matches as he closed out the client while reaching for his headset once more, letting out an exasperated groan. 

“Well… that went as well as it did last time, huh?” Chan’s lighthearted laugh rang through Felix’s ear which only irritated him more, unsure how he was able to remain so positive after three soul crushing defeats. “Overall, their team is really solid and versatile. I can see why they’ve been dominating the lower tier teams and why they’re in our division now, but those games definitely helped us understand the skill of each of their players and what champs we need to ban.”

Changbin hummed in agreement gloomily, “Man, I don’t wanna play against them more, that y/ign guy is fucking annoying to play against. I can’t even farm properly without them ganking my lane every few minutes.”

Felix scoffed, “Yeah, imagine being counterpicked by them and having them take your jungle camps every game,” frustration colored each of Felix’s word a bright and gaudy crimson as he spoke through gritted teeth, taking a swig of water hoping it would somehow cool down the unbearable rage he felt bubbling inside him.

“I’m sorry, man, I know those games were especially rough on you,” Chan mumbled apologetically, carefully choosing his words to avoid hitting a nerve, “But we now know what champs to ban for them, we know to ward your camps early game, and to change our approach.”

“Yeah, I guess we can try out a more dive heavy comps and try to get early picks so they can’t shut us out of the game so quickly,” Seungmin suggested with uncertainty as he weighed the options his team now had, “Or more tanky… Maybe we need more CC?”

“Ah, well, it’s hard to say because god knows what other champs they can play. Each game they had an entirely different comp, so I guess we can try to prepare for every scenario we have seen so far, but we will still have to stay wary during the champ select process,” muttered Chan as he reflected today’s matches, trying to formulate a game plan for the team, “All good though, let’s just rest up for today. Skrims at the same time tomorrow, but log on an hour before so we can review our vods and discuss what we wanna try out in our games, alright?”

With that, the team grumbled a disheartened goodbye as Felix exited the call, once more tossing his headset in annoyance while he rubbed his face, clicking his teeth as he replayed each death from today’s games and how it was always you flashing your mastery after each kill. 

Felix had no idea who you were, but your team had randomly emerged into the scene these past few months, quickly making themselves a well-respected and feared team as you dominated the lower tiered scene which now meant SKZ, a team well known within the semi-pro scene had no choice, but to take your team as a serious threat. Chan had reached out to you via discord, asking if your team was interested in a few practice sessions against his, which leads us to today.

There was no mistaking that your team was extremely well-versed and had done their research against SKZ, promptly banning each of their signature mains during the champ select process while picking characters that were either, quite frankly, annoying to deal with or countered their own. Felix should have known it was a bad omen when your team banned Chan’s Azir and Changbin’s Caitlyn, but once he saw you pick Briar against his own Diana, he knew he was in for a rough day.

You were perhaps the most annoying person Felix has ever had the misfortune to go against, somehow knowing just how to piss him off as you counter jungled him throughout the game and took every opportunity to gank his teammates, ultimately ruining their chances to catch up to your team’s gold. You even stole Baron from them, which ended up costing them the second game after your team immediately wiped his. He was filled with vengeful rage each time he saw your character on the screen, cursing internally whenever you made a good play, not even giving him the chance to trash you because you seemed to never make a mistake.

After today, Felix knew he hated you with all his being and made it his personal mission to give you a taste of your own medicine, swearing up and down that he would make sure that any games he played against you were absolute hell. He had a month to prepare for the next LAN tournament, where he would embarrass you on stage and disgrace the newly-founded prestige your team name had earned this past year. y/ign would no longer be the latest jungler breaking into the scene, you’d no longer be the new talent to keep an eye out. He wanted to make sure you were nothing but an utter disappointment to everyone who looked forward to your next performance.

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･

When the next day came, Felix was brimming with confidence after spending last night researching your team, but with extra attention focused on you and your playstyle. Felix looked through your team's past matches and if he was lucky enough to find an old broadcast of the games, he’d scrub through them to gain a better understanding of your jungle pathing and how it differed by each character you played. Today, he refused to be caught off guard by your skill and would not give you the chance to gain as much map control as you did yesterday. 

When logging onto his PC, Felix noticed a notification on his discord:

✩ y/ign sent you a friend request!

hey! wanted to thank you for the games yesterday and look forward to playing you guys again today :) 

While you probably had the best intentions in mind, Felix immediately felt the scorching, yet thrilling, heat of competitiveness settle into his body as he scowled at your message. “Fucking asshole,” he mumbled under his breath in disbelief, assuming you sent that as a way to get under his skin before today’s skrims. 

sunlixie accepted y/ign’s friend request! 

sunlixie reacted to y/ign’s message with a thumbs up!

Great, not only are you extremely talented at the game, but turns out you’re an incredibly cocky person! Anything Felix had ever learned about you, aside from his research last night, was completely against his will and it was only making him despise you even more. He hated how easily you ticked him off, how easily you filled him with unbridled rage by doing the absolute bare minimum, and he hated how sour the taste of anger was. He hated this feeling, as it always ended up clouding his perception and made him an absolute hellish person to be around, but it was also one of the most driving forces behind his competitive nature. 

Despite his huffing and puffing, Felix decided to close his eyes for a brief moment, as if he was meditating away all the negative emotions you so effortlessly planted within him with a simple message. After taking in a deep breath, Felix joined the discord call with the rest of his team, greeting them with a cheery ‘hello!’

“Felix! You sleep well? Sounds like you’re feeling better from yesterday,” asked Chan, the smile in his tone was impossible to miss.

Felix nodded before responding with a “Yup, got my eight hours and feeling a little more confident after some research.” 

“Good, good, that’s what I like to hear.”

Before Chan could continue with their pre-match meeting, Hyunjin piped up a question, “Did anyone else get a message from y/ign?”

Just hearing your username was enough for Felix’s entire mood to deflate as he sunk into his chair with furrowed eyebrows. He was about to open his mouth to tell everyone how rude you just are, but to his surprise, Changbin beat him to it, “Dude!! They are so nice!” a giggle escaped Changbin as he recalled the message, “They said my Draven was pretty good and that Hyunjin’s Lux had their bot lane nervous!”

Now that was not what Felix was expecting to hear from anyone as his jaw dropped, completely shocked to hear just how sweet your messages were to everyone else and how downright rude yours was to him. What the hell is your problem? Felix hadn’t realized how tight he was gripping his mouse til he felt the plastic material slip from under his fingers, landing on desk due to all the force applied.

“Right! It’s nice to know we had them sweating even though they looked so composed,” Hyunjin eagerly added.

“They’re super kind and humble, which is refreshing to see in this scene,” laughed Chan, “Maybe I gotta play a little better today to get my own compliment, but they did thank us for playing against them and for agreeing to not post the vods. What about you Felix? They say anything to you?”

Felix was still recovering from shock after processing the information he just learned, stammering in both surprise and upsetness, “Dude… I… I don’t know what to say because they were a straight up asshole to me.”

“What?! No way!” gasped Changbin, “Maybe it’s because you’re their match up in the game, but that doesn;t sound right…”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” Seungmin added, “What did they say?”

Felix then pulled up the message you sent, reading it out for the rest of his team to hear, adding an annoyed “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?” 

.

.

.

A few moments had passed by where no one had said anything, the call remained dead silent as everyone tried to figure out how to gently inform Felix that he was being an idiot and turning a very friendly message from you into an ill-intended one.

Chan cleared his throat, holding back a laugh as he realized your performance yesterday really struck something in Felix, “Bro, I hate to break it to you, but that was definitely a nice message… I don’t really see where they’re being rude at all.”

This time, it was Felix’s turn to stay quiet, a perplexed look overtaking his features after hearing the rest of his teammates agree with Chan. Maybe if he squinted really, really hard he’d be able to find a hint of kindness in your message, but Felix had already convinced himself you were his ultimate rival who was trying to throw him off a game. There is no way you’d ever send him a nice message just because, right? 

“Well, I don’t know… Maybe you guys are right,” mumbled Felix, not completely convinced by his friends, which prompted Hyunjin to chuckle.

“Lixie, I have never seen someone get to you so easily before! Those games yesterday must’ve done a number on ya, huh?” 

Felix rolled his eyes as he let out a peeved exhale through his nose, unable to deny any of what Hyunjin had said, “Yeah, yesterday was rough, but surely today will be different, yea?”

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･

Luckily for the SKZ boys, today was different from the day before. This time, the boys were able to secure a win in the first game, while the second game was a very close loss due to Changbin being caught out, but this just called for better positioning and map vision, all things that could be easily resolved by being more mindful. 

Despite the major improvements in the SKZ team’s gameplay, your performance did not fall short from yesterday’s as you still managed to be a threat SKZ couldn’t ignore. Although Felix was able to maintain control of his side of the map and trade some camps with you, you were still able to fill him with rage by somehow targeting him every fight, which made it nearly impossible for him to play the game. Luckily, Seungmin ended up using his Mordekaiser ultimate on you, which gave SKZ a chance to focus on the rest of your team while Seungmin did his best to tank your damage in his realm. This strategy definitely led them to their first win against your team, but as soon as the second match started, your team switched up to an entirely new comp, which SKZ struggled to answer.

Unfortunately, your team wasn’t able to stick around for a third game due to some prior commitments, so there was no decisive winner for the day.

y/ign: GGs! sunlixie, you really were sweating today on that diana jg kek

nyangknow: if i ever see you irl, its on sight, sunlixie… targeting a poor lil adc like me? 

nyangknow: lol but gg! y/ign slammed their desk when u stole elder last game kek

y/ign: shut up before i expose ur government name

nyangknow: …

channie: haha, sunlixie wasn’t gonna let u guys embarrass us again 

channie: GG! dm me on disc if you guys wanna set up some more skrims 

dwaekki: :3 gg!!! u guys did great, heh ty for games!

Once again, Felix found himself frowning at your message in the post-game lobby, irritation bubbling up in the pit of his stomach as his knuckles turned white from clenched fists. “Dude, I don’t get what their problem is with me,” whined Felix as he closed out the client once more, not even bothering to send a message in the chat.

Seungmin snickered over the mic, finding Felix’s one-sided rivalry hilarious, “That was definitely a compliment, don’t take it the wrong way.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled snarkily at Seungmin’s response, not being able to find any of the validity in his comments, “Just felt like they were poking fun at me.”

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟ

The weekend of the Regional Collegiate LAN tournament had finally arrived, and luckily for SKZ, they didn’t have to worry about traveling since their university was hosting the event. This event did hold some importance, but it mostly helped determine seeding for the next tournament with only a few teams at risk for elimination. Due to SKZ’s skill level, elimination was the least of their concern with them being favored to win first place. First place did receive a cash prize to help cover travel costs to nationals, but it also helped any team gain more support and made the pro scene more aware of potential candidates for their team. 

SKZ was getting set to prepare for their first match of the weekend, but had some time to kill so they settled on roaming around the venue to catch up with some friends from other teams and greet any fans that approached them. In this world, it wasn’t uncommon for any of the more popular teams to have fans, as some people were either fans of individual players, their skills, or they were a fan of the entire team. 

Today was no different as Felix walked through the venue on his own, chatting with friends from other teams and meeting any new recruits while he was at it. Frustratingly enough though, your team and you had been quite the topic amongst his friends, each of them expressing concern at how intimidating and difficult your team seemed. Everyone in the scene knew that SKZ and Y/TN had gone against each other in a few practice matches, meaning everyone was swarming to them like flies, trying to extract as much information as they could against your team. Although, you and SKZ had an agreement to not leak out any team comps or skrim information before playing, so Felix had to deal with a whole lot of begging while trying to skirt around the subject.

Felix had finally gotten a moment of peace as he excused himself from the last interrogation, deciding it was time to group up with the team seeing that their match was in about an hour from now. Before he was able to get far, he heard a voice behind him call out:

“Yo! Sunlixie, is that you?”

Well, he was wearing a jersey with his name on the back of it, so it wasn’t weird for fan interactions to go this way. He put a smile on his face and turned to greet the owner of the voice, who he honestly thought was a little too cute to be wandering around the convention center on their own, but nonetheless he pushed the thought away and decided it was best to maintain a level of professionality when interacting with fans. 

“Hi! Yup, that would be me!”

The mystery person had a smile stretching across their face reaching out to shake Felix’s hand, which he took politely. He had no idea who this person was and it didn’t look like they were part of any teams since they weren’t wearing a jersey, so it was safe to assume this was just another fan.

“Wow, it’s so great to finally meet you! I’m y/ign, or you can just call me Y/N if you prefer.”

Felix eyes widened in pure surprise when your username left your mouth, not expecting the human he was talking to was you of all people. He did his absolute best to maintain his composure, but the sound of your name dampened his mood in the blink of an eye, his shoulders visibly tensing as his smile fell into a more awkward version of it. 

“Oh, sorry! You aren’t wearing your jersey, so I didn’t realize it was you,” he forced an uncomfortable laugh, but you had already picked up on the stiffness Felix was now carrying in his shoulders, “But, uh, you can call me Felix.”

Ever since you became acquainted with SKZ through your skrims, you could tell that Felix definitely wasn’t your biggest fan. Maybe you had gotten off on the wrong foot, but other than playing the game, you weren’t sure what you had done to make him dislike you so much. You had quickly befriended everyone else on the SKZ teams, even going as far as playing other games outside of league with them or meeting up with them to get food, but Felix was the only member who was uninterested and incredibly dry towards you. 

You had done your best to reach out to him and try to get to know him a little better, thinking maybe he just needed time to warm up to strangers, but that theory was quickly disproved when you found out Jeongin and Jisung had played some ARAMs with him and even met him in real life. Apparently, he was the sweetest and most pleasant guy to be around, yet you never had the pleasure to be met with his warmth. Instead, all you knew was an icy and cold exterior that pushed you away at every corner. At some point, you had been discouraged to attempt to be his friend, but you still thought it would be best to remain as cordial as you could with him, which meant greeting him and inviting him to any events your team hosted.

Not everyone was going to like you, that was a lesson you had learned long ago and you weren’t going to let it get to you when you had other things to focus on. You didn’t need to be his friend, anyway. 

“Yeah, my team isn’t scheduled to play til way later, so didn’t really need to wear it,” you smiled at the boy, nervously playing with the hem of your shirt as you watched Felix’s expression slowly drop, “Well, uh, I’ll let you go back to your team. Good luck in your games!”

Felix raised an eyebrow as you hastily turned away, surprised at how different your demeanor was in person compared to his initial impression of you. 

Online and through your varied interactions, Felix had pinned you as some overconfident, cocky, and disrespectful asshole who was purposefully targeting him. While everyone around him insisted that was not the case, he couldn’t help but feel the burning flames of hatred burst in him every time he received a message from you, each seemingly mocking him for whatever play he made that day. 

However, this version of you was entirely different than what he had imagined this whole time. You didn’t ooze out that same confidence he had pictured you to have, but instead you seemed a lot more timid and welcoming in person. There was a gentle shyness that accompanied the warmth of your aura, golden and bright hues of yellow radiating off you as you smiled with not a single hint of malice in your eyes. When he met your gaze, he thought he would be staring right into the same sweltering, scarlet fury he had become so familiar with, but while searching your eyes, all he found was the brilliance of your tender-hearted benevolence, only rays of sunshine and light coloring the bright green meadows that expanded across your being.

What was this? This wasn’t the scorching, volcanic, blindingly red world he had been living in the past month, yet he still found himself melting under the comforting warmth, wanting nothing more to bask in your glow and forget the blistering one-sided rivalry he had imagined. For a moment of time, he felt the amber light you emanated was slowly turning his ugly red into a more placid orange, one akin to the sky’s palette during sunset. 

Maybe the boys were right, maybe you did mean well. Maybe he was the asshole, not you.

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･

The crowd cheered loudly as the announcer’s voice boomed over the intercom, officially declaring SKZ as the victors of the regional collegiate cup for the fourth year in the row. As soon as the blue victory screen popped up during their 5th game against Y/TN, the boys quickly stood up from their seats as they huddled into a group hug while gleefully jumping up and down, ecstatic screams and laughter leaving them as they celebrated their win. After an intense final match where SKZ and Y/TN had traded wins, in the very last game, SKZ was able to pull out with the third and final win needed to end the tournament. That was perhaps one of the most difficult finals SKZ had to play in a long time and for the first time in years, they were afraid that their reign was coming to an end, but luck was on their side today and all the skirms against your team had come to fruition. 

Across the stage, your team stood amongst the chaos erupting throughout the venue, you remaining still in your seat as you watched the defeat screen go through its animations, tears pricking the corner of your eyes in humiliation. Second place was nothing to be ashamed of, but you couldn’t stop the overwhelming rush of emotions that filled you, the blinding stage lights causing your vision to go blurry as the feeling of failure took hold of you. You enviously watched SKZ celebrate their win as you wiped away your tears, standing from your seat with the rest of your team as you headed to congratulate the opposing team.

As your team approached SKZ, Felix immediately noticed the shift in your emotions and saw through the fake smile you forced onto your face as you congratulated each of them. All he could see was the bleak tears that clouded the brightness that once occupied you, the golden aura of yours being overtaken by the blues of sorrow and disappointment. The sun that once gleamed through your entire being had been replaced by flooding waters from a relentless storm of emotion, the cerulean raindrops overtaking the shining yellow hues of your personality. 

As the colors of your emotions blended, Felix swore he saw the slightest tinge of an ugly green forming as the two aforementioned colors danced with one another. Was that jealousy? Although, as soon as he took note of it, the color instantly melted away as you shook his hand, a sincere ‘congratulations, you did amazing,’ leaving your mouth despite the tumultuous storm that dampened your conscience. Somehow, even as the bitter taste of failure lingered on your tongue, your genuinity never once faltered.

The vengeful, piercing, crimson rage Felix had felt for you weeks prior had dulled out as your sadness bleed all over him, guilt now washing over him as he had realized how sorely mistaken he was about you. The burning competitiveness and hatred that once fueled him had been put out by your misery, a deep violet now painting over him as the heavy hands of culpability dragged him down into numbing darkness of shame.

For some unknown reason, Felix felt the urge to run after you as he watched your figure shrink off the stage, wanting to apologize for his unwarranted attitude towards you this past month and bring you back to the warmness he had just learned about to revel under it once more. He remained unmoving as his teammates dragged him into another celebration hug, insisting to take a photo to remember this moment, yet Felix wanted nothing more to forget the sight he had just witnessed. Even though his wish had come true, he couldn’t bring himself to savor this victory against you.

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･

A few days had gone by since your team had lost the tournament, suffering from what you had considered a rather embarrassing loss. While the games were incredibly close, you were sorely disappointed in your own performance, as you felt that you made too many mistakes that had cost your team the game. After walking off the stage, you succumbed to all the emotions you felt in that moment, letting your body tremble as tears rushed down your cheeks, choked sobs escaping your mouth. You remember how hot your face grew as the rest of your team turned to console you, feeling self-conscious how you were supposed to be the leader, yet you allowed your emotions to get the best of you. 

Despite that, you had managed to get over the brunt of your emotions after a few days, but the message you found waiting for you today on discord had taken you by complete surprise:

✩ sunlixie sent you a message!

hi y/n! i wanted to reach out and apologize to you for how rude i’ve been to you. i’m really sorry, there’s no excuse for any of it. to be honest, i kinda just got rlly tilted from when we played our first skrims, and i guess i ended up taking anything you said the wrong way. again, there’s no excuse for this and i apologize for being that way, but i’d like to have a fresh start and be friends if you are ok w that!

oh, also, you did really great during the tournament! don’t beat yourself up for it, that was the first time we had to play all five games out in the finals, so you guys had us nervous!! 

Well, that was entirely unexpected, but as soon as you read the message, a smile broke out on your face while letting out a sigh of relief, happy to know that it had all been a rather strange misunderstanding and not something you had done. With that, you hastily wrote out a response to Felix, letting him know that all is forgiven and that you would love to be able to finally form a friendship with him. Well, maybe something good did come out of this loss.

･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･

After playing a few league games with Felix, you both began to develop a close friendship with each other. You finally began to understand what everyone else meant when they described Felix, you were beginning to see why his username was sunlixie. The coldness you had come to know him as melted away as the days past, only to reveal that under that hardened exterior was a boy filled with so much love and gentleness, that it’d blind anyone who stared into his soul for too long. The deep tone of his voice only added to this inviting warmth, adding a layer of comfort and safety that could lull anyone in a peaceful sleep, it was no longer a scary sound that reeked with hatred. 

Eventually, you and Felix had decided to go on small outings together, usually opting to grab a bite at your local coffee shop as either of you would ramble on about a new game to try out or discuss practice for nationals. On the occasion, one of the SKZ boys would tag along or Minho, a member on your team, would join you both, but every time this happened, Felix always felt disappointed that he would miss out time with just you alone. 

Truthfully, he wanted you to himself during these rare moments, wanting to be the only one who made you laugh and be the center of your attention. Jealousy would inevitably creep up behind him, pointing out each and everyone of his insecurities while he watched you interact with the others, it whispering in his ears that you’d never look at someone like him romantically, that he’d never have a chance with someone like you. He hated how much time he had missed out on getting to know you and being your friend due to this childish rivalry, feeling jealous over how much closer you were with everyone else, especially Minho.

Of course your bond with Minho was deeper than everyone else, you had known him longer than Felix and the other SKZ boys and were teammates. Yet, the pangs of insecurity would hit his heart directly each time he’d watch you laugh at a joke Minho made, always playfully slapping his arm in a fit of laughter. 

All Felix could ever think was how much he had wished that was him, how much he wished he’d be able to make you laugh to the point of tears as the unpleasant color of green slowly festered within him, becoming more vibrant as time passed. He was crushing hard on you and he needed to do something about it before it became unbearable to deal with because he hated the unsettling feeling of jealousy.

Thus, Felix decided to finally bite the bullet and asked you to come out for some coffee today, but letting you know he needed to talk about something personal, so he’d prefer if you came alone. 

As you approached the coffee shop, you wondered what Felix could have possibly needed to discuss with you, but you were honored to know that he felt comfortable enough to reach out to you and confide in you with something so personal, which only goes to show how much closer you two have gotten. Upon entering the building, your eyes searched for Felix, finding him seated in a more secluded corner with two coffees waiting on the table. Once his eyes met yours, you waved from the entrance with a smile on your face as you skipped over to the table.

Sliding into your seat, you caught onto Felix’s jittery energy as his legs bounced while his fingers anxiously tapped against the table. His body stiffened as he met your eyes with a nervous smile. Your eyebrows furrowed upward in concern, as you never seen the boy in this state before.

“Hey, is everything okay?”

Felix’s eyes widened at your question, his body completely stilling, not completely aware of how on edge he looked from the outside. He felt a familiar warmth rush to his face as a gentle pink dusted across his cheeks and ears, the rosy color of shyness making itself nestling itself in his stomach. The buzzing flutters he had felt in his stomach earlier sped up with the drumming of his heart, his head feeling like it was about to explode as he scrambled to find the script he rehearsed last night.

“Uhm, yeah, everything’s okay. I just wanted to talk to you about something,” his voice trembled meekly, cringing at the sound of his voice.

You nodded at his words, a panicked look overtaking your face, “Oh, no, did I do something wrong? Did I upset you?”

The blonde haired boy shook his head vigorously, finding your worriedness a bit charming, “Ah, no, not at all! It’s nothing like that!”

The tension in your body dissipated, as a caring smile returned to your face, “Oh, okay. Thank god, I was scared for a bit. Then what’s up? What did you need to talk about?”

“Well, I don’t really know how to say this…” he mumbled quietly, but just loud enough for you to hear. He felt himself shrink under the intensity of your gaze, surprised to see an overwhelming amount of concern etched on your features. 

“That’s okay. Sometimes, you just gotta say it.”

He exhaled nervously, nodding in agreement with your words because he was freaking out on the inside, unable to recall any of the words he had prepared for this moment. Right, at this point, he should just say it.

“I… I like you, Y/N. I really, really like you and-”

Oh, that isn’t the reaction he thought he’d get.

You were never good at hiding your facial expressions, and this moment was no exception as your face morphed into a surprise expression, your mouth dropping as the words left Felix as the warmth you once held paled into white cast of shock and confusion. As soon as you processed his words, you bit your lips while trying to find the words to respond to the sudden confession.

“Ah, wow, thank you, I’m really flattered, but…” you paused for a moment, confusion and uncertainty laced in your voice, “you do know I’m dating Minho, right?”

[thankskenpenders]

So I wrote a whole long thing about Amy's tarot cards, but what about, you know... the rest of the Sonic Frontiers DLC? The new alternate story route, the hours of new gameplay, all that?

Having now played it, I'm not sure Sonic has ever had this specific combination of good ideas that make the future of the series look bright, and execution that I fucking hate.

(Full spoilers ahead.)

The good

There's a lot to like here, conceptually.

First and foremost, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are finally playable in a new mainline 3D Sonic game for the first time since 2006! Seventeen years! We've been begging for this for so very, very long. Nature is finally truly healing from the fallout of Sonic '06. Early on I hedged my bets and expected them to be locked to Cyber Space or something like that, assuming that there was no way they'd be fully playable in the Open Zone. But sure enough, while they're a bit limited compared to Sonic, they're still all full-blown characters with skill trees to unlock and lots of exploration to do.

We also got a more bombastic alternate final boss fight, after the first take on The End kind of underwhelmed. And it's obvious that Sonic Team has listened to our pleas to focus on the 3D platforming over the forced 2D sections, and to reduce the amount of automation in the level design. This update is chock full of Actual Platforming. Wow! I can only pray this means we never get an area as agonizing to explore as Chaos Island again.

Sure, there's still some jank - especially with Knuckles' movement, which is kinda rough. But if this is the stuff they're trying out so that they can refine it further for the next game, then I'm really excited.

On the other hand, good fucking lord is The Final Horizon tedious. And that tedium sapped most of the fun out of it for me.

The frustrating

The new scenario massively increases the difficulty over the base game, seemingly out of a desire to give the hardcore players who were posting speedrun videos and whatnot more of a challenge. It's the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of Sonic. This difficulty comes in many forms throughout your playtime, some worse than others, and continues to ramp up over time.

Rather than giving you a tutorial level, the new scenario dumps you directly into a remixed version of the final island and makes you do some fairly precise platforming with Amy, Knuckles, and Tails - new characters with new movesets that you won't have any experience with. You'll also need to find character-specific Koco that give you free levels, because Sonic's friends all start at level one and certain locked moves in their skill trees will be mandatory to progress. They don't even have Cyloop unlocked at the start. And because they're all low level, that means you'd better steer clear of the beefed-up bosses scattered around the map, which will absolutely annihilate Sonic's friends. (I honestly just avoided them and never bothered beating any of them, not even with my high-level Sonic. I have no idea if they're beatable with the others.)

None of this is explained to you particularly well. I spent my first few minutes with Amy wondering why the attack button did nothing, only to eventually think to check her skill tree and realize that I had to unlock her basic attack. If you don't bother to take the time to read through the skill trees, you'll very quickly find obstacles you have no way of getting past with no clues as to what exactly you're supposed to do.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that objective markers often tell you to go half a kilometer into the sky, and you'll have no idea how to get up there because all of the relevant platforms are out of your draw distance. Many objects seem to only pop in for me when I'm within about 60 meters of them, which isn't a long distance for a high-speed open world platformer like this. I was having this problem running the game with high graphics on PC, so I can only imagine how obnoxious it is on Switch. I'd frequently find myself poking around nearby clusters of platforming objects and praying that they'd lead me to a spring, rail, or cannon that would eventually point me in the direction of the floating objective marker.

There were always complaints about the art direction in Frontiers and the way it relies on floating rails and prefab platforms that are visually disconnected from the natural scenery of the islands, but it's even more dire here. The new platforming sections are dense and complex, but they seemingly didn't have the budget to change the topography of Ouranos Island at all, so it all takes the form of these prefabs. It very strongly gives the vibe of a Forge creation in Halo 3, back when there were no blank canvas maps and people just had to make "new maps" by jamming a bunch of shipping containers and barricades together in the sky above one of the default arenas.

I was still more or less having fun, though, despite the jank. It's a big creative swing, I told myself! They're trying stuff out! They're experimenting!

And then I hit the towers.

The towers are agonizing because they're SO close to being great. The logical part of my brain understands why some people love them, but god, I just fucking hate them. The platforming there IS cool! These layouts are cool! The individual challenges along the way are a bit tough, but totally doable. You know what's not cool? Making one mistake and slowly falling 800 meters all the way back down to the ground, forcing you to start over. Because none of these towers have checkpoints. For me, this one decision transforms what should have been a fun set of platforming challenges into a massive, unfun difficulty spike.

I enjoy some masocore platformers, but those are typically games with quick deaths and restarts like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV. Hell, the Mario games tend to get way more difficult than the average Sonic game, and those are obviously all great. Quite frankly, unlike those games, Sonic Frontiers is nowhere near tight or polished enough to make this difficulty feel fair. Bits of jank that I could ignore in the base game due to its lower difficulty are now matters of life or death. Missing a jump because I boosted off an incline in a way the game didn't like for reasons I don't understand is not fun. Falling off a tower because the camera was pointing in the wrong direction while I was in midair and I couldn't see the next thing I was expected to homing attack is not fun.

And it's such a jarring spike when moving from the base game to the DLC that it feels like the game is suddenly quizzing me on skills it never bothered to instill in me. Maybe if you've spent the last year labbing out the movement tech in this game this is all a no brainer, but for the average returning player it's a kick in the dick.

I'm sure I could've beaten these towers normally if I gave them enough tries. They aren't the hardest thing in the world. But I very quickly decided I had better things to do with my life and turned on easy mode, which adds tons of extra springs and homing attack balloons to make all of the platforming piss easy. I wish there was a middle option between Only Up: Sonic Edition and this extreme hand holding, but when given the choice between the two I gladly picked baby mode. I just wanted to see the story.

(The new Cyber Space levels are also long, challenging, and devoid of checkpoints, not unlike the towers. But I only ever found the entrances to two of them. So I only did two. They're theoretically required, because they give you "Lookout Koco" that you need for... some reason? But in a rare act of mercy, Sonic Team put Cyloop treasure spots that give you free Lookout Koco all over the map.)

As I continued, so many little things started adding up to piss me off. Why do you only reveal like five tiny squares of the map at a time? I would've loved to find all the new 1-on-1 dialogue scenes, but not if I had to do dozens of hard mode versions of the stupid little puzzles and challenges to reveal the whole map. Why does every character need their own unique collectibles? What is this, Donkey Kong 64? Why can't I just grab this EXP for Amy when I find it as Tails? Why can I only manually swap characters by talking to an out-of-the-way NPC unlocked right before the final boss? Why is fast travel disabled? Why are the new vocal themes you hear when playing as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so monotonous, with a single verse repeating over lo-fi beats ad nauseum? Why is the jukebox feature completely disabled throughout the DLC, even after rolling the credits? Why can't Tails homing attack? Why do I have to wrestle with the camera so much while also holding the jump button to fly as Knuckles and Tails? How many right thumbs do they think I have? Why is this animation for picking up animals in the Cyber Space levels so incredibly slow, and why can I still take damage while it's playing? Why does the stupid starfall event have to make it so hard to see what I'm doing when climbing these towers? Why does this shitty combat trial have a popup that makes it seem like I should be using the Cyloop when the actual strategy revolves around repeated parries? And on and on and on...

The story

What about the new story? Well, there sadly isn't much to chew on here. Most of the DLC has the cast running around and finding different macguffins for arbitrary reasons, as part of some sort of plan to divide up the work on the last island so that Sonic can go train with the spirits of the Ancients and harness the power of his cyber corruption. What the fuck is an Impact Form? I don't know, but Knuckles needs something to do, so go find one.

It's a thin excuse plot meant to make you do platforming challenges around Ouranos Island, with little room for Ian to add any real flavor of his own, even though he certainly tries. Having Sonic meet the spirits of the Ancients who controlled the Titans, who are revealed to directly parallel the personalities of him and his friends, is kinda neat, I guess? It's something. The optional conversations seem to have some fun bits, including both conversations between the supporting cast and additional lore. But again, I only found a few of those because of how tedious filling out the map was.

The writing is also let down by the voice acting - or I guess the voice direction, because I know this cast can do better. Roger's voice continues to be weirdly, distractingly deep as Sonic, which was clearly something that was requested of him just for this game. (For a recent example of him going back to his regular Sonic voice, see this LEGO trailer.) The performances of Sonic's friends are also WILDLY mismatched. This is most clear when they start feeling the effects of the cyber corruption. Knuckles seems to be barely affected at all, Tails sounds like he's moderately hurt and low on energy, and Amy starts completely overselling her pain out of nowhere. The extremely strained performance makes it sound like Cindy's literally being tortured in the fucking booth. I have no idea what's going on over there.

The final challenges

People have debated whether or not things like the towers and the new Cyber Space levels are fair challenges. What's not up for debate is the fact that Master King Koco's Trial is complete and utter bullshit, and I can't believe they shipped this.

Before you can fight the new final boss, the game forces you to do a boss rush of the first three Titans - INCLUDING the pre-Super Sonic climbing sections - with a hard limit of 400 rings. For all three lengthy, heavily scripted fights. Back to back. You can't even cheese it with the leveling system, because you're forced to do this at level 1. This all but forces you to look up speedrun strats for the Super Sonic fights so that you don't run out of rings and fail the trial.

And the real kicker? They changed the parry just for this trial! Originally, you could just hold down the bumpers endlessly and Sonic would ready himself to parry the next attack, whenever that may hit. Now it requires you to do a "Perfect Parry" with specific timing. And you HAVE to hit those parries if you wanna clear this trial and get to the new ending. Miss a few and you're probably fucked. You just have to reset. Time to go through all those fights, all those climbing sequences, all those QTEs, and all those unskippable mid-fight cutscenes all over again. This is by far the most egregious example of the DLC deciding to quiz you on new skills that the base game never required of you, and it's one of the most absurdly unfair things I have ever seen in a Sonic game.

Easy mode does make this trial easier by making the timing window for Perfect Parries much more generous, but that's all the help you get. It's still easy to lose time failing to parry Wyvern's hard-to-read animations, or to lose rings by getting hit on the climb sections, or for things to just fuck up because these fights were always kinda jank. I gave it a few shots. I looked up guide videos. I tried the Quick Cyloop and stomp combo strat that seems all but mandatory. But I quickly decided that, again, this wasn't a worthwhile use of my time. It just sucks. And I really, REALLY didn't want to overwrite all my fond memories of these Titan fights, some of my favorite setpiece moments in any Sonic game, with memories of this shit ass boss rush.

So I cheated! And if you're on PC, you should too.

With the worst hurdle out of the way, I turned cheats back off and moved on to the new final boss. It was pretty cool. It's much flashier than the original fight against The End, that's for sure. It's still kinda annoying, and it requires you to do very specific shit without properly telegraphing it, but it's nowhere near as bad as the preceding challenges. I was hoping for one last new metalcore song to go with the new fight, which we sadly didn't get, but at least the new version of I'm Here is good.

The ending is... mostly the same, with a couple altered scenes that don't really change anything in the long run. But overall the new finale was pretty good. I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to get there.

Closing thoughts

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon wants to be three things:

A patch that adds a new alternate ending that was probably supposed to be in the base game in the first place.

An experimental take on making Tails, Knuckles, and Amy playable again, presumably testing things for the next game. And...

An official Kaizo Sonic Frontiers mod for the sickos.

The thing is, the people showing up for #1 and #2, the main things that Sega hyped up about the update, are not necessarily going to be down for #3. If they had announced some uber-hard new Cyber Space levels for the arcade mode or whatever, I'd be like, neat! And then not play them. I would never touch Master King Koco's Trial if it was an optional challenge. I would leave that for the sickos. But instead, they made the hardest content mandatory for anyone who wants to see the new Good Ending where the final boss gets an actual budget.

I'm mostly left in a state of shock that it shipped like this. I cannot believe they playtested this and decided this was the state The Final Horizon should be released in. That this should be the note Frontiers ends on. That this should be how we remember those Titan fights. That this should be the lingering taste in our mouths as we wait however many years for the next 3D game.

Armchair devs always love to say that things would be "easy to fix," but like... there really would be easy fixes for the insane difficulty and general tedium here! Add a few more tutorial popups explaining what the game expects of you with Sonic's friends. Give the Cyber Space stages and the towers a couple checkpoints. Give the combat trials more generous time limits, especially on the lower difficulties. Remove half of the map puzzles, and make the ones that remain uncover twice as many squares. Skip the startup animation for Knuckles' glide. Let me turn on the goddamn jukebox. Since so much of this update was designed around fan feedback, I can only pray that Sonic Team is still listening, and that they tweak at least a few of these things with a balance patch.

But still, after those many, many paragraphs of complaining... this still somehow makes the future of 3D Sonic seem pretty promising?

Sonic's friends are FINALLY playable again, and the focus is back to proper 3D platforming, rather than railroading players into awkward forced 2D sections in what's otherwise an open world. These are the things that they hopefully want to carry over to the next game. The difficulty? Well, that's just because it's the postgame DLC that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game. It's just an unreasonably cruel one of those - an example of how designing and balancing for a vocal minority of your fanbase can really hurt your game. But Sonic Team is onto something here, and I hope that they can learn the right lessons from this expansion and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[mallardducksaysquack]

Aaaaaaaand the multifandom captor poll results are in!!!

Let’s analyse them one by one before we head out to our designated basements ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(obviously, major spoilers for Slow Damage, Sweet Pool, Togainu no Chi, Boyfriend to Death and Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru as well as descriptions of extreme violence)

(if you are a minor and somehow came across this post, please do NOT proceed)

I recalculated the percentages after excluding the “see answers” votes. Enjoy the MS Excel conditional formatting I had learnt for all the jobs I didn’t get.

Here's the sorted ranking with recalculated percentages:

Let’s now go through the ranking from last to first place.

8. Yuuko (Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru) - 0% (0 votes)

No one voted for Yuuko. Very good. FUCK YUUKO.

The snuff-to-necrophilia skullfucking scene might as well have been the vilest shit I have ever seen in my life. I literally had to look away from the screen while censoring this screenshot.

6/7. (tie) - Masami Toono (Slow Damage), Manami Kanzaki (Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru) - 2.6% (3 votes)

While I didn’t end up voting for Toono, I actually seriously considered choosing him (alongside Madarame and Taku).

To the three people who did vote for him – you got the ugliest waifu. But hey! You now live in a villa! All of your orifices are safe! Congrats!

Barely anyone has played Manakashi, so I'm positively surprised to see that a couple of Manami enjoyers have showed up.

She might seem very sadistic, but in fact she’s just a pure maiden who will do anything and everything in the name of love. And no matter whether you’ll get choked until you end up in a vegetative state or let her amputate all your limbs with a chainsaw, you’ll always have the pleasure to marry her in the end, or at least have her start planning your wedding. Long live the bride and bride!

4/5. (tie) - Strade (Boyfriend to Death), Zenya Okinaga (Sweet Pool) - 8.6% (10 votes)

Looks like the Strade voters want the hammer AND the drill.

I couldn’t understand why anyone would vote for him considering such a low chance of survival until I saw @pesikoshka reblog the poll with a tag saying “strade because he would kill me fast lmao”. Seems like the fast imminent death was in fact an effective selling point!

Genuinely trying to figure out whether the ten of you are such hardcore Zenya simps or just haven’t played the other games. Getting fucked and forced to give birth in a basement until the end of my life does not seem very appealing to me, but I mean, you do you, I guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Kei Madarame (Slow Damage) - 14.7% (17 votes)

My personal choice – at least at the time of voting. Sure, he’ll beat the shit out of me, but at least he’ll also grant me relative freedom? I swear I did not vote for Madarame just because I’m so horny for him. This is not a waifu contest. I just like the idea of not spending the rest of my life in a basement.

@mahnati I saw your tags

and let me just say… “as it should have been”. But the nation has spoken, and we have to accept the verdict.

2. Shiki (Togainu no Chi) - 19% (20 votes)

Voting for him has never once crossed my mind. I think I must have been blinded by the fact that I don’t like him. I played TnC about 13 years ago, so my memory is very fuzzy, but I guess you were right about him being a relatively safe option?

1. Taku Murase (Slow Damage) - 44% (51 votes)

What a landslide victory! While I did not end up voting for Taku myself, I truly approve of your choice. After all, he is the literal only character on this list who doesn’t want to hurt you. He’s keeping you imprisoned for your own good. It’s just his lil silly way to protect you ;> It’s time for you to become a guinea pig for his drug research. Enjoy spending the rest of your days in Taku's basement, making sweet love while picking at each other's skin, so that the hallucinatory bugs crawling underneath it can emerge as beautiful butterflies.

That's all for today. Assembly dissolved.

Now go to your basement.

See you never ~ヾ(＾∇＾)

(unless you've voted for Madarame or Shiki - in this case we might bump into each other while roaming around some dilapidated squats and maybe pick a fight)

[lovelyhan]

— underlying pretense (a teaser) ⟢

pairing: wonwoo x reader

summary: being two of the most popular streamers across the board, your subscribers often speculate if your constant bickering with wonwoo has some underlying pretense. little did they know, the two of you have everything on display on a single, unsuspecting twitter account. 

word count: 1k words

tags: fuck buddies, not quite enemies to lovers but it's the thought that counts, streamer!wonwoo, streamer!reader, smut

warnings: wonwoo n reader run a shared p0rn account bc they're fllthy like that, graphic sexual content (minors dni!!)

notes: no hardcore smut tags needed just yet, but do Not interact with this post if you're a minor, still.

Wonwoo doesn’t make it a habit to watch your streams for two reasons. 

The first is because you’re one of his tightest competitors in the streamer market. Giving you even a single view means that he’s contributing to your rise in popularity, which is very much detrimental to both Wonwoo’s pride and his career. 

Not that someone who only plays boring open-world games can easily dethrone one of the most renowned competitive players on the platform, but he learned the hard way to never underestimate the charms of a cute girl who knows her way around both technology and the wallets of her subscribers.  

The second reason is…somewhat related to the first.

They’re all hanging out in Seungcheol’s apartment when Vernon opens up a Twitch stream to watch. Wonwoo is in the middle of a petty but intense Fruit Ninja competition with Mingyu on their phones, so he doesn’t get to see which streamer he’s watching. Vernon is the type that likes to give newbies a chance, though, so at that moment, Wonwoo couldn’t really care less.

But when he hears a familiar, high-pitched voice dish out her opening tagline for every stream, even Mingyu notices the way Wonwoo's face scrunches up with distaste.

“Can’t believe you pulled a Koyahngi and Chill while Wonwoo’s in the same room,” Seungcheol laughs when he returns with some beer. “We all know he’s allergic to the sound of her voice.” 

“Hey, I think it’s cute,” Vernon says. “Her outfit is, too. Look.”

Wonwoo, still stewing in his annoyance, doesn't move an inch, while Mingyu scoots closer—glancing over Vernon’s shoulder before letting out a wolf whistle.

“I really don’t see the benefit to playing Stardew Valley in maid-cat girl fusion cosplay, but at least she’s still in theme—oh, shit.”

Seungcheol looks at him once he settles himself on the sofa as well. “What’s wrong?”

“My phone died while I was in the middle of a game,” Mingyu whines. “Wonwoo-hyung, lemme borrow yours. We still haven’t decided who’s buying takeout tonight.”

While Wonwoo would’ve normally responded by scoffing at Mingyu to just borrow a charger from Seungcheol, he completely ignores him—stern eyes glued to his phone as he types away at rapid speed. The moment he hits send, Wonwoo hears a soft chime ring over Koyahngi’s lo-fi background music. 

You pause for a moment from whatever introductory segment you have planned and tell your viewers you’re just going to answer a text. Wonwoo’s friends are none the wiser when he receives a reply the moment you put your phone back down and interact with the chat.

🐈‍⬛: What did I say about wearing that outfit?

🐈: hmm, can’t remember :P

Fucking brat.

“Hyung?” Mingyu calls out after emerging from Seungcheol’s room—presumably to hunt for a charger—when he spots Wonwoo already halfway to the door. “Where are you going?” 

“Friend’s having set-up problems. He texted me asking if I could come over and take a look,” he reasons calmly as he slips his shoes back on. “I’ll head back here once I’m done.” 

Seungcheol pouts at him. “You better! Mingyu over here told us you’ve been busy with some girl, that’s why you couldn't hang out with the boys anymore.”

Vernon glances behind him to shoot Wonwoo an incredulous stare. “Wonwoo-hyung? With a girl? You’re not just making stuff up, right?” 

Mingyu immediately springs into action, blabbering something about how Wonwoo isn’t the heartless prude people thought he was, but Wonwoo really doesn’t give two shits about how his friends perceived his sex life. In fact, he was more interested in what’s playing on the screen of Vernon’s iPad—the view now unobstructed because the youngest has deigned to move away.

Again, the second reason why Wonwoo doesn’t watch your streams is related to the first. 

You’re literally his tightest competitor, but when he sees you all dolled up in your stupid fucking catgirl outfits, he’s suddenly no different from the degenerates vying for your attention in the chat.

And there is nothing else that Wonwoo hates more than being thrown off his game like that.

Funnily enough, he’s reminded of the very thing that started this constant back-and-forth he’s been toeing around with you for a better part of the year when he slips into the driver’s seat of his car. Just before he can drop his phone into one of the cup holders on the middle console, a Twitter notification lights up on screen. 

Wonwoo would’ve thought it was from the account dedicated to interacting with his viewers outside of streams. He’s got a decent number of followers there after all. Except the notifications for his official Twitter account have long been muted because of the massive online traction his tweets gain everyday. 

No, this one’s from another account entirely.

He feels no shame, opening up the most recent video you put up. What he does feel is a sick sort of pride at the sheer amount of engagement that the video received overnight—those faceless Twitter accounts in the replies looking for other desperate fucks to recreate it with. 

This is one of Wonwoo’s favorites. Part of the select few that he actually deigned to keep hidden in the gallery of his phone for…future use. He can barely contain his own heady arousal as he watches the same clip he took with his own camera the previous night. 

Those desperate little noises you made. The way your body writhed while getting a good dicking down. And how you were so fucking eager to slide Wonwoo’s cock back inside your cunt after having him cum all over your tits. 

Seeing you wearing the same goddamn fishnet bodysuit beneath your stupid maid costume on the stream not only made him pop a hard-on in the middle of boys’ night, but also called for drastic interventions, so to speak.

🐈‍⬛: Finish up that stream asap. I’ll be there in 20. 

🐈: fuck you, i just started 5 minutes ago

🐈‍⬛: You know I don’t like it when you talk back, right?

🐈: fine

🐈‍⬛: What?

🐈: …yes, daddy

🐈‍⬛: That’s what I thought.

end notes: hehe i hope you like it so far! i think it will take me a While to finish this, and i didn't want the blog to go stagnant for too long, so i thought, eh, why not post a teaser? edit: thank you for giving the teaser some love! the full fic can now be found here!

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And��you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

[illmetkismet]

SH2R made me hate James as a person not as a character. Maybe hate is a strong word, dislike?

This game legit makes you experience things from their own head and perspective and it goes hardcore yet people seriously defend this guy's actions. Crazy

I told myself I was done talking about this game but you've gone and dragged me back in....

The thing is that I don't really care what ppl think about James, the character. What I care about is the story that the actual human beings who made this game chose to tell, and how that story is perceived by the actual human beings who play it.

There's a line that's been cut from the og 'leave' ending, where in the midst of his excuses for why he killed Mary, James says, "But you also said you didn't want to die." I wish they'd kept that line in - it makes it much clearer that Mary did NOT give James permission to kill her. Also, If you stick around in the hallway to hear Mary's whole speech (which I haven't seen a single person do, btw - no one waits for the person whose wishes they claim to care so much about to even finish speaking) she says, "Please... Tell me I'll be ok. Tell me I'm not going to die. Help me." They timed it so perfectly that if you run the whole length of the hallway, you only hear her be upset, telling him to get out. If you don't care enough to stop and listen to what she has to say, you don't hear her beg him to come back, tell him how scared she is...

It's just incredibly wild to me, that the story of this game is 'man kills terminally ill wife without even having a conversation with her about it' and a) the game gives you an ending where he forgives himself for it, and b) people digest this story and come out of it thinking they might do the same in his situation, or at least that they 'understand' why he did it, and that he's not an irredeemable sack of shit.

James is irrelevant - what fucks me up is that the people who made this game presented this situation as 'morally ambiguous' when it's very clearly not, and that people have no problem receiving it as such. And then everyone involved fails to see that it's because of ableism - it's because we don't value sick people or their wishes. What mattered to the people who made this game, and so many of the people who play it, is how Mary's disease made James feel. There's a murdered sick person at the heart of this game, and so few people give a shit about how she felt and what she wanted aside from how it affects James.

[alfiely-art]

FINISHED ACT 2!!!! I promise I'm taking my time

Act 1 live reaction here

Here are notes I took while reading!!!

Hi vagabond fella… you're cute

Huh. So the world ended. Okay

Happy birthday john, you fucked up!!!! My god!!!!

Oh interesting�� wonder if the kernel will come back later

I like this sprite lmaoooo silly guy

“It's a long way down” Hey. Hey wait a sec. Isn't that deltarune

HEY THE BUNNY WHERE DID IT GO

Bro Rose probably thinks you're dead lmfaooooo

House trapped. LIKE THE TITLE HOMESTUCK DO U GET IT

Am I supposed to ignore the Stop Scurrying button btw. He will scurry to my hearts content

HEY WHERES DAD.

“Would you like to play a game?” C…caliborn….? :3

We scurried until we couldn't scurry anymore

Aw he's scared :( WALK ACROSS IT ur fine…

A voice?? Is it the blue text. The sprite

OMG ITS THE VAGABOND!!!!

Sorry rose I'm not reading allat

So wait. Did the game cause the meteors or is it just saving people from them. Why was there no warning

Betty crocker is born /j

Nvm sprite said No <3

NOT NANNAS ASHESSSSS LMAOOOO

“Hoo-hoo-hoo” HEY I SAW CALIBORN GIGGLE LIKE THAT IN A FIC. I know the Striders have more to do with Caliborn but let me reach

OH its the sprite

Dave. Honey. Nows not the time for your rap

Which admittedly has fun rhymes

AW FLUCK IT

Dave what are you yapping about

THE FUCKIHG CAR OH MY GOD

DAVE OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU STILL GOING

Fluthlu… I love you

I'm not even gonna try to spell that but I like the other squid octopus creature as well

Oglogoth… goth !!!!

Hey wait. The horror terrors are part of sburb. Is the game influenced by their lives and interests. Like. Deltarune

OH PSYCHE!!! hi Dave

Sword!!!!!!

Wow your room is really mHEY I KNOW THOSE GUYS. THATS THE FELT GUYS. SQUAREWAVE AND RHE OTHER ROBOT. I KNOW THOSE ONES!!!!! OHHHHHH

Bleat like a goat and piss on your turntable

Oh Dave. Oh Dave

Hey wait is this earlier in the day.

Okay this is definitely earlier in the day

Aw. He doesn't wanna make satire of the sburb review

FUCK IM FALLING DOWN ALL THESE STAIRS……

Is that. John's hand???? what the fuck is happening in midnight crew

Flagrant Homosexuality

YOU CANT BE SAYING THAT WHITE BABY (I was told that they use slurs, slur count 2!!!!)

Her life depends on you playing that game Dave

Ewwww what's the shit under the door

It's okay Dave piss probably isn't that bad. It's also probably Apple juice You're fine

HE GOT PISS/JUICE ON HIS TURNTABLES NOOOOOO

. They're gonna fly out the window

OH MY GOD BIRD NO

Wait. Davesprite is a bird with a sword in him. Omg is that bird the beginning of Davesprite omg!!!!

Wizard

Rose and her mom are fucking weird

MOM!!!!!

Hardcore parkour

Jade be telling the future…. Why can she do that

LIL CAL MENTION

NARRATOR YOU CANT BE SAYING THAT (slur count: 3)

Ironic Indulgence

Btw. Are you able to. Win the strifes. I'm so confused

“Fine, you'll interrupt your reading and turn around, but you don't see what could possibly be so oh my god it's a monster.” Hi this is absolute gold this is how I type

John died :(

Yay he's alive!!!

YOOOOO SICKKKK AFFFFF MOVE

John is such a nerd I love him

JASPERS NOOO

Hi Nanna harlequin sprite

Dave is very suddenly creeped out by the puppets, okay. Don't diss Lil cal bro

Baked good hater for Life!!! Also I am just like John I have absolutely no idea what Nannasprite was talking about. We r along for the ride

HUMAN ETIQUETTE WOOOO I NEED THAY BOOK

Jade why do you know all this stuff

Haha Dave's an emoji

IS THAT A DRIPPED OUT SLAPPY

HI CAL HI BABYGIRL !!!! I like Cal he's the man

Sweet Bro n Hella Jeff is. I

Cals eyes are so shiny

HAHAHAHAH JOHN MADE A SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF REFERENCE. I can't

U and me both Rose. We Are giggling

John died again

What the fuck is happening at Dave's house

ROSE RAP ROSE RAP

WHSJSHSJSH THE LITTLE IMP????

What the fuck is happening

I WANT TO PLAY A GAME is this a caliborn reference. Anyway uhhh Bro is kinda weird what's going on with him

Why does he have a camera in the saw guy figurine. Bro. What's uh up with you

BRO REALLY IS A NINJA…. Whys he jusy moving Cal around

Dave. I know you said your Bro is awesome but I think he's just really weird. He's silly

I do think it's interesting. John doesn't like his dad even though his dad is great (worst thing is he ignores that his kid doesn't like betty crocker goods). Rose hates her mom, but.. for like, the wrong reasons?? Like yeah her mom’s an alcoholic and seems neglectful but she doesn't seem to do the Irony shit Rose says she does. And then Dave seems to think Bro is the absolute best even though. This is not a great situation. I wonder what Jade's family is like

Also John and Rose avoid their parents but Dave's Bro seems to avoid Dave. interesting

Anyway POOR DAVE HE GOT SMOOSHED

Hey that letter is the same as the one in the trans dirk comic I saw :0

NOOO I WANTED TO SEE BRO

Yoooo John that's a cool weapon actually

That's a big boy right there what a big boy

ROSE THE FIRE ITS AT UR WINDOW

YO WAS THAT SILHOUETTE JADE?!?!?! JADE YAAA

Big boy!!!!!!

HEY I WAS INVESTED IN SEEING JOHN FIGHT. Oh at least we can see Bro. Wait how's Rose

??? JADE???

OOP NOPE. VAGABOND

What the fuck is happening I

vagabond is so silly I like him

Hey guys I think a king hurt vagabond. Just a guess. Probably reaching idk /j

VAGABOND PISS SCENE ?!?!?! YIPPEE!!!

Oh nvm. Btw can we get this guy a burger

HES SO HAPPY OVER THE. idk what that is DANGANRONPA BLOOD IN A CAN!!!!!!

HEY WHAT THE FUCK ARE ON THESE SCREENS BTW. Wait I'm shouting so much. But what the fuck. Dave has his sprite??? Yay???? I thought he was gonna fight Bro??? What happened to Lil Cal???

Hey isn't that Jade's symbol on the pumpkin

Yooo that's such a cool cutscene actuHUH HOW IS IT THE END OF THE ACT AGAIN

The frick….

Anyway. Thoughts: I like Vagabond. Jade is mysterious. Dave gay. Bro creepy. Someone pls save Rose. John you gotta put your big boy pants on and fight those ogres. Good act!!! idk why people say the pre-trolls stuff is boring I'm enjoying myself

[fairynisse]

Sinophobia affects all AAPI. Anyone who a racist thinks is Chinese is going to catch some of that. Or racists don't give a fuck what your ethnicity is and think we're all the same and will attack you anyways. This applies to all of Asia because not everyone fits a look that you think belongs to different parts of Asia & the Pacific. Even if someone is Chinese, they don't deserve it.

Y'alls sinophobia is showing by:

Bringing up the Chinese government every time someone is discussing anything related to China that has nothing to do with their government. Ex: Chinese language, culture, history, celebrities

Calling Asian people "Bing chilling" or commenting it under a video about China or with any Asian people in it just because John Cena said it. It's like calling Asian people "Squid Game" when that Korean show was popular.

"Ching chong" You know exactly what this is. Don't fucking play dumb.

Thinking "Made in China" is inferior despite the American companies being the one who made that decision and told the Chinese manufacturers to make it exactly to their specs. Prior to this, Americans thought Japanese products were inferior, but now y'all lap up Japanese products. Y'all are mad at the wrong people.

Rebranding Chinese beauty trends as Japanese or Korean.

Stealing beauty content from Chinese creators and labeling it as Japanese or Korean while leaving in whole ass Chinese characters. We can literally still see the Douyin or XiaoHongShu logo in the video you fucking stole. Bonus points if they're also speaking Chinese in the video.

Saying "You're so pretty, I thought you were Korean/Japanese." to a Chinese person.

Attacking literally any Asian person because you thought they were Chinese.

Attacking a Chinese person just because they're Chinese.

Bonus points if you attack an Asian person who is from a country you fetishize. *cough cough hardcore kpop/kdrama fans, koreaboos, weeboos*

Double the bonus points if you're a weeboo hating on China. Japan refuses to acknowledge their crimes against humanity to this day. If you want to look up what Japan did, I am warning you(HUGE TRIGGER WARNING), it will psychologically mess you up.

Triple the racist bonus points if you attack an Asian ethnic minority that was oppressed in the past or is currently being oppressed by the Chinese government.

This literally goes for any culture but hating on Chinese culture is not cute. There are beautiful parts of it. We can appreciate the beautiful parts of it.

Y'alls treatment of Chinese or any Asian restaurant/business. I have like a whole other post of this. We all know Asian food is fire. Don't complain about the food and then demand it to be free + request another serving. If you hate us and our food so much, why are you here asking for more?

Categorizing us into the "good" Asians and the "bad" Asians, like y'all could fucking tell the difference between us. This shows y'all are cool with discrimination too, which is just telling on yourselves.

Doing nothing as Congress mistreated the CEO of Tiktok, calling him "China man", saying China comes to Congress, despite him being from Singapore.

Getting mad at Asian people speaking out on sinophobia and all the anti-China propaganda. It's mostly just thinly veiled racism behind "I hate the Chinese government." You can hate the Chinese government, but you can also be racist at the same time. They can co-exist in you.

Nobody is stopping y'all from boycotting anything made in China, but I don't see anyone tossing out their iPhones.

[eff-plays]

Hi! so I'm pink-ivy-vines but that's not my main so i'm sending this anonymously (i reblogged and commented on that lords of fortune post) and since you've also played a lord i was wondering if it felt as isolating to you as it did for me? because i'm trying a mourn watcher now and seeing just how much was either 1) never included with a lord of fortune rook (or maybe emmrich is just more involved than taash? i dunno) or 2) just flat out cut since it seems like there's so much missing when you play that faction. there are times when rook's dialogue hints at them trying to change from being a no-fuck's-given pirate who did steal stuff all the time but there's no follow up? no conversations about it? not to mention the weirdness of taash talking to me like i'm a child when they've only been in the lords for six months at the MOST.

Hiii @pink-ivy-vines!! 😊😊😊

I gotta be honest, the reason I picked the Lords is mainly because I noticed from the start that they were 1) the only vaguely morally questionable background, because even the Crows are just cool guy assassins now 2) the newest/least integrated faction in terms of lore 3) the least popular pick among players, and I'm nothing if not a contrarian. The Veil Jumpers, Shadow Dragons, and Mourn Watch are also "new" afaik, but lbr the Veil Jumpers are just Dalish who accept diversity hires, while the Shadow Dragons have some justification for existing because there have been people fighting slavery in Tevinter since, idk DA2? And the Mourn Watch are just an extension of the Mortalitasi. So I figured they'd all be way more relevant to the world, and wanted to know what they'd cook up for the Lords, who are essentially unique to the game. How would they integrate a bunch of treasure-hungry pirates into this story?

Well. They wouldn't. I picked the least popular faction hoping for some new crunchy lore, or at least some fun interactions, maybe some interesting characterization options for Rook? But look what it got me. Nothing. Serves me right, I suppose? I can't say I didn't expect it, so I didn't feel as, uh, robbed? I'm sorta used to making up my own little dude either way, but it is a bummer in a Dragon Age game, where even Inquisition gave you something to chew on.

There are some scant Lords-specific dialogue options where you basically go "damn I sure did stealing once", and I liked Elgar'nan tempting you with gold and glory when he tickles your pickle in the Dalish rescue mission, but nobody really comments on your background, aside from Taash, who seems to have an entirely different understanding of the Lords. And you can't even correct them? Instead of "hey I've been around for longer and had a higher position than you", it's "umm things changed since you left, like a lot, so stfu" and you feel like a stranger in a faction that already has fuck-all to do with the plot. It's so baffling.

My impression was honestly less that there's content missing and more that they just didn't bother making any more of it? But then you get shit like "Oh yeah I used to be a slave before the Lords took me in" and Taash is just like "huh" and that's it. Like a Lord Rook potentially has the most hardcore/traumatic backstory but it's like whatever, I guess. Didn't even bother mentioning that in the faction slides.

Also what was the point of the arena. Why was it so easy. Didn't even have good loot at the end. What the fuck. I guess it's a leftover from the live service days but like. What.

[angelgoeslewd]

Angel, hello, as you may have noticed I'm a slit for Wren and Landry so if i could request something with Wren Landry and Mickey like maybe a mission that requires the three of them or just play cards or maybe both like playing cards will talking about a mission, sorry if it's too loose just tell me and I'll try to add to it, thank you!

I was FEELING this one!!! the new dol update has me thirstin for Landry + Wren hardcore (and Whitney….. and Kylar…. but SHUSH.)

Wasn’t sure if you wanted this to be lewd or not so made it suggestive but open for more endings ;3 still an 18+ rating because of the game itself tho

enjoy!

⚠️ warnings: 18+ content, minors DNI!, the use of the c-slur, lots of suggestive flirting, open ending, GN!Reader, lots of swearing

🌟 this work is being REWRITTEN! check back for the completion check ✅ and a new story with extra content!

ever since the new laws came into effect, your petty thievery seemed to have less and less… appeal.

your repeat offenses from before had your fingers too quick for any cops to actually gather hard evidence against you. there was nothing like the threat of being caught. would they put you in the stocks? would they punish you off the table? even their degradations did something to you that you couldn’t explain. the risk was high, even if the prize was mediocre. but Quinn was cracking down on the corrupt officials and honestly? it bored the hell out of you.

no longer was there a risk of any… hard justice. what little morals you had prevented you from diving too far into a life of true hard crime and the small acts of terror you did manage no longer paid off in terms of satisfaction. even messing with Whitney seemed more appealing than any small acts of crime around town now.

so here you sat, utterly bored out of your mind and tipsy off your ass (you might even be drunk out of sheer spite of Quinn himself, but you’d never admit that to anyone), the only patron allowed into the pub this early into the day. your sharp wit and constant theft had made you good friends with Landry, enough so that he rewarded you with access to the pub even when it was technically closed. sometimes it felt like he was the only man you felt really understood you.

(Robin was too innocent, Kylar idolized you too much, Whitney’s retribution had a weird tinge of softness now, and Sydney nagged too much about how you needed to change your character- too much too much toomuch.)

of course, even Landry’s understanding of you and what you desired was only an arm’s length, only reached so far under the surface that it was impossible to tell what you really wanted.

and that was your need. that never ending desire. the heat that pooled low in your stomach when you lifted something. endorphins swirling. how shaky your hands felt when they rushed through you, despite knowing your fingers were as calm and still as always.

you wished to be caught.

you wished to held against your will as you struggled and punished.

you wanted to see how his eyes somehow managed to sparkle and darken with absolute delight at your newest prize. you wished to be rewarded.

but… how could you even bring that up? the man was almost a decade older than you, if only that. how could he ever get that dark part of you? to see you in that sort of light, when you were eternally shrouded the dark cloud that loomed over this town.

it was why you were even here, at his place of business. bitterly loitering around for some sort of thrill. a cat, pacing endlessly at the rat’s nest, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

but Landry was no rat, however. and you were more of a lap cat playing tiger. you know this.

your face soured at the thought. ridiculous. your need was going too far this time, maybe due to the fact you no longer had any outlet. and with that, you raised your finger for another shot — whiskey to damper the dullness of what your every day life had become thanks to fucking Quinn and his idealistic political agenda.

“Hey, kid.”

You heard Landry’s call, and despite the little worm in your brain aching to ignore it, you raised your messy head from the bar’s countertop and stared at him in response. his hazel eyes looked concerned as he ran them over your face, most likely catching on the dark circles under your eyes; it was nothing more than a slight wrinkle of the forehead to indicate such, but you knew him well enough at this point to know his tells. he was worried. “Don’t ya think that’s enough? I mean… it’s still so early.”

your brow raised at the man, a scoff erupting from your throat. you pointedly ran your own eyes over him. typical bartender, thinking they knew what ails you, polishing a pint glass, but you knew what those rough hands were capable of. you had seen what passed through them and goddamn, you were fucking jealous of those musty old jewels. “You’re complaining about me spending money…? At your place of business? Who are you and what have you done with Landry, ‘he who doesn’t ask questions’?”

despite his concern, he barks a laugh, his face relaxing at your humor. Landry sets down the glass behind the counter and picks up another. “No,” he states, very simply, quickly turning the wet crystal in his toweled hand. “I’m complaining about your appearance.”

“Not fit to be seen in your be- bar?” you hiccup, hoping your inebriation hides the slip of your tongue.

“Not in the slightest.” His eyes flicker back up to you, taking in your state once again. “You just seem… off, yeah?”

You don’t really know what to say to him then; like him, everything with you costs a price. You both stare at each other for a moment, silent.

It’s a challenge.

It’s a game.

It’s the most thrilling experience you’ve had all day.

and you hate it. emotionally held hostage by the man you want have a clean slate with. but without payment, you weren’t budging. Bailey had at least taught you that resolve.

so like any brat would do, you spit back, “I asked for fucking whiskey.”

Landry rolls his eyes.

you once again find yourself in an empty bar, late this time, after everyone has been kicked out by the owner himself. everyone except for you. it’s almost like deja vu. your head slumped against the counter, Landry washes glasses yet again (how boring being a bartender must be, you think, no wonder he’s gotta get his rocks off with fencing.)

“Bailey’s gonna be worried.”

your head shoots up this time, a look of incredulous disbelief smeared across your features. “Bailey?” you ask, huffing a laugh. “Please. The man could not give less of a shit about any of us.”

Landry himself seems as calm as ever, not even bothering to look your way. but you don’t base anything off of that. you yourself do it all the time.

he shrugs, “He’s called a couple times, looking for ya.”

“He’s making sure I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere so he can properly balance his ledger,” you say bluntly, picking up your glass and taking a swig. your voice is raspy when you begin again, “Besides, if he cares so much, he can come look for me himself.”

“Don’t say that.”

you’ve looked away from Landry when you feel it. the tension that lines the air. the shift of the mood to something dark and heavy. it’s so sudden that you turn your head back to him; the water is running, but his hands are still in the sink as he gazes down into it. “I don’t like you thinking like that,” he says softly. you blink a couple of times, wondering where the hell this is coming from, open your mouth to reply, but you don’t get anything out before he starts again, “Look, something’s the matter with ya, and if you don’t want to tell me, fine. But that’s no reason to do- this-!” he gestures at you, haphazardly. “It bothers me seeing ya like this. You used come in here with a spring in your step and pawn off whatever goodies you’ve gotten those pretty little hands on, throw a few punches, then disappear like you got somewhere to be. So what’s going on? Boyfriend dump ya? School stressing you out? Fuckin’- get it off your chest or something, stop acting like a wet cat and-”

“I thought you didn’t want me to tell you. Thought you didn’t care.” The smirk on your face is there to piss him off. If one of your skills was spitting back at any blessings thrown at you, you’d be a master at it. And it works. Landry looks downright offended at you when-

when he laugh? he’s laughing. at you. your smirk turns into a pout.

“‘m sorry, doll,” he manages, “I didn’t- I’m not laughing at you- I- I just love that about ya. Always trust ya to be a little brat.”

“Yeah… well.” Landry continues to bubble with laughter, wiping away fake tears from his eyes.

“And- and as a side note, never said I didn’t care- just knew I had to push you a bit to find out more.”

“You are such a fucking asshole.”

“No wonder we work so well together, huh?” he says, a toothy smile growing wider by the second, “The cunt and the asshole. A perfect system.” Landry turns off the water, drying his hands and making his way to stand in front of you. there’s so much about this conversation you don’t want to dissect. an uncomfortable feeling of standing on ground that you don’t know will hold. why is he doing this to you? playing with your goddamn emotions, like he knows. he can’t fucking know, you’re sure of it. there’s no possible way. but the way he’s looking at you now. proud. that look in his eyes the same you saw when you got your hands on that microchip, but now he’s looking at you.

isn’t this what you wanted?

you don’t know.

“So… you gonna tell me? Or do I gotta buy you another drink?”

“You own the place. That doesn’t count.”

“You askin’ me out?”

you choke on your drink. fucker.

“Hey.”

you stare at your phone. after last time, you expected things to go back to being a little more normal between you and Landry. he got what he wanted. finally able to pull out your disillusion with life. yeah, you knew he could feel you were hiding more than you let on, but he didn’t push any farther than that, nodding while you spoke, letting you vent your grievances with Quinn and his stupid fucking town. it was kinda nice, to get it off your chest. but you were positive nothing would come about it. Landry was just a friend, you reminded yourself. a good friend.

“Who the hell said you could call me on this phone?”

Always up to your level, a crackling laugh came through the speaker. “I did,” he said. “Now listen- I think I got a way to cure that little bug of yours.”

You were intrigued. “Uh huh.”

“Come by the bar tomorrow. 8am. You were probably already plannin’ to but I want you there sharp, ‘kay?”

you showed up at 8:15.

“There they are!” Landry’s voice seem to echo across the bartop, booming through the empty pub as if through a speaker. He stood to greet you, with arms open as if expecting a hug. You begrudgingly gave him one.

“Why am I here.”

“Aren’t you usually?” it’s a unfamiliar, bored tone that has you looking over Landry’s shoulder, landing on a thin boy, who looks not much older than you, black roots that melting into wild electric blue hair, choppy and chin length. he’s wearing a black and grey hoodie, slumped back in a bar chair, thin fingers clasped around an equally blue drink. he looks at you, expressionless, and his eyes surprise you. they’re bright yellow. cat-like and gleaming. those lithe fingers raise the glass to his lips, sipping it, and coughing just as quickly. “Fuck- Landry! I fucking hate this shit, you know that!”

“Hey now,” comes the smooth purr of a unrecognizable voice. the owner was a man who’s face was obscured by a dark cowboy hat, tipped just so that his eyes were hidden from your gaze, he was draped over the chair, like a sweater that had been forgotten and sat casually enough to feel like such, easily blending in to his surroundings despite the bar being empty. he held a highball glass filled with golden liquid, swirling it around, making the metal accents of his outfit clink with every arm movement. “You be nice. Ol’ Landry’s already putting out with these free drinks, the promise of a fair game, and…” His hat suddenly lifted, his eyes piercing as he finally met your own. You felt very naked as they trailed down your body. “—some very nice company.”

You immediately turn to your hospitable host, whose arm is slung over your shoulder and hiss, “What the hell is this-!”

He just smiles, a bit apologetically, his eyes shifted away from you as he answers. Not a wonderful sign. “Just a… little get together. Some old friends-” A scoff erupted from the blue-haired boy, who still sipped on that god-awful colored drink.

“We’re gambling, darl’,” the cowboy stated, gesturing loosely at a stack of chips on the table.

Your eyebrows knitted as you blinked, mouth parted, but for once in your bratty life, you felt… speechless. The bar owner’s arm is slightly tensing and relaxing around your neck and that’s when you realize —

That’s when you turn to him, letting his arm drop between you two, and lower your eyes to the floor shyly —

Your voice, a whisper, to ensure the other two don’t hear, because you’re sure Landry wouldn’t like them catching onto this —

“You did this… for me…?”

Landry won’t look at you, his own gaze fixed onto the table as the cowboy reaches for the blue drink and the smaller man smacks his hand away. But his head gives a small tilt downwards, before it just as quickly tilts back up.

You don’t know what to say. He doesn’t either, judging by the way he sets and unsets his jaw.

“Come onnn,” The smaller one says, “Are you guys done whispering over there?” He fixes on you, “Done having daddy issues? Ready to get your ass kicked?”

The effect is immediate. “Yeah fucking right,” you bite back, moving to take the seat next to him. “You’re going to regret saying that when I bust your bank-!”

“I think he would rather you bust something else of his-”

“Shut the absolute HELL up, Wren! Like you weren’t undressing them 2 fucking seconds ago!”

Landry figures he should start the game before Mickey starts throwing stuff at Wren…

Again.

(But you fit in so perfectly. You look so at peace, content with this thrill of adrenaline that he really couldn’t ask for much more. Even if it costs him another set of glassware.)

[thalassic-p4rk]

okay okay so some explanation:

kwazii: self explanatory really. it’s kwazii.

shellington: totally hc him as aroace and so oblivious and i love him sm for it

paani: might accidentally flirt or attempt occasionally, but most of the time is so completely oblivious. he’s got sm autistic rizz.

inkling: okay don’t come for me he has a really really nice voice okay?? i’m working through it still 😭😭

peso: okay unpopular opinion probably bc of this one wild 120k fic i read in one go but i totally think peso isn’t as naive and innocent as everyone thinks he is and he totally uses that to his advantage. like, not even with flirting, but in general like with cursing and stuff. but i feel like he’s not as oblivious as he pretends to be, and when he chooses to flirt holy shit this guy can flirt. 10/10 best twink 4ever <3

barnacles: i have. many thoughts about barnacles. but, all i will say is that he is so completely oblivious to how hot everyone thinks he is and he has sm unintentional rizz. he will accidentally flirt with like random people he helps or comes across and he has no idea why they keep swooning and calls peso over cuz he’s concerned and peso just is like *sigh*. also, i know fictives aren’t their sources but our barnacles is pretty damn close and when he first split me and peso spent weeks simping over him before another headmate forced us to sit down and explain this to him (which was one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life btw, fuck u eddie /lh)

dashi: i am a hardcore tweak/dashi shipper all the way, and while i think dashi is a very professional person (dog?), i think she’s also really good with people and knows how to use her skills to get what she wants. i think she totally worked in like customer service or something pre-octonauts and that she would charm her clients and customers almost instinctively. however, flirting for her, while common, is something she doesn’t really view as flirting flirting? like, it’s just something she does to steer the conversation in a more favorable direction. she very rarely actually means it, or genuinely tries to flirt, so that’s why she’s not where kwazii is. she was struggling with tweak though lol.

tweak: i think tweak is similar to dashi, she’s not naive and she certainly is good at flirting and probably did a lot of flirting and uh sleeping around in the past (who doesn’t love a butch lesbian mechanic), but i also think that she just. doesn’t really care. fhjffjjgdg like she likes having fun and stuff but generally outside of her video games and her inventions she does not give a shit about much lmao. not in like, a bad way or anything. she just never really saw the point of a social life yk? and the octonauts are an exception, that’s family it’s different. but she’s always had more important shit to do than playing social games.

anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk i am very eepy.

[parti-poppers]

what are your fav fukalen headcannons that you have?

Oh lord you don’t even know

I have far too many and I physically can’t pick favorites, so I present you; Pop’s Fukalen Headcanon Masterlist (that hasn’t been updated in a good while)

-They get into dumb stupid trouble a lot, Len cuz he’s overly confident, stubborn and stupid, and Fukase because he’s an agent of chaos

-They casually bully (not really, just tease) each other a lot

-They don’t really need to communicate to cause havoc, they just sorta catch each others dumbass brain waves

-Though Luka is the main English tutor for the Kagamines, Fukase also helps Len with his English a lot

-After Fukase has helped Len with English so much, it became a habit for Fukase to speak English to Len so that he could hear it more and learn, so though it’s not actually necessary it has become natural for them to have conversations where Len speaks Japanese and Fukase speaks English

-Fukase’s kinda jealous of Len’s dance skills but refuses to admit it, instead just saying Len’s a show off (he’s not wrong)

-They’re both gamers and play together a lot, though Fukase leans more towards shooters and Len’s a bit of a rhythm game fanatic

-They played Portal 2 together which consisted of Fukase carrying and Len fucking around bc he wasn’t built for puzzle games

-Fukase says project diva is dumb and not even a good game because he generally doesn’t like rhythm games as he tends to suck at them, but he’s secretly a hardcore project diva fan and plays it a lot

-Similarly, he complains about Sekai being cashgrab trash and just another shitty gacha game but he’s mildly addicted

-Oh and his fave module is Len’s Trickster one because then they have a matching cane and hat vibe goin’ on

-Sometimes when they’re in group chat with friends Fukase and Len will argue, and Fukase will say something like “shut up bb”, earning something like a “lmao you calling him baby that’s kinda gay” from the others, and the response is usually something along the lines of “YOU ALL KNOW ITS SHORT FOR BANANA BOY SHUT THE HELL UP”

-Len makes fun of Fukase’s overly complicated design a lot but had an edgy phase where he thought it was the peek of fashion and secretly wanted to look like him

-Len really likes Fukase’s lower range (especially when paired with his softer voice), but keeps that secret locked up and kept away from everyone and anyone

-Len assumed for ages that Fukase wore eyeliner until he did his makeup once and told him to take it off and Fukase was like “what eyeliner” and Len was like “you’re not wearing eyeliner???”

-Fukase gets super easily cold which is why he wears so many layers, meanwhile Len is that kid that walks around in a t-shirt and shorts all year around, a bit of a living heater if you will. It can either be optimal for cuddling or make it impossible, depends

-They use a lot of different nicknames for each other depending on context- usually Fukase might call Len “Banana Boy”, “Blondie”, “Twink” or “Dumbass” and Len might call Fukase “Clown” “Fuckass” “Fuka” or “Kase”. You’ll probably never catch Fukase saying “Babe” (Banana Boy > BB > Baby/Babe)or Len saying “Fukafuka” (fluffy/soft) out in the open tho

-Fukase and Flower are best friends, and Flower has a habit of giving people nicknames based on flowers. Fukase sorta picked up on this, occasionally calling Len “Buttercup”

-Every time someone asks Fukase how his face got scarred he comes up with the most wild and shocking story he can think of on the spot to get a reaction out of whoever is asking, but none of these manage to shock Len anymore because he’s heard every single one Fukase has managed to conjure up

-Fukase has multiple sorted reference, meme, quote, and random picture folders so he can send whatever he deems perfect in any given situation at any given time. Depending on context Len will more often than not know “oh this person said this, so Fuka is gonna send/show this specific thing in three, two, one- there it is”

-Whenever Len comes over to Fukase he will prioritize saying hi to Point before Fukase. Fukase‘s kinda accepted that Len likes Point more than him

-The way Len treats Point compared to the way Fukase does is night and day- Len holds it like a newborn child talking to the it like it’s a puppy, while Fuka be out here dragging it by a limb sayin “ya stinky”

-Point is their unofficial child probably

-Len likes a lot of Fukase’s original English songs, but knows his own English isn’t the best, at least not compared to Fukase’s, so he only ever jams to them and sings along in private

-Though he makes fun of it a lot, Fukase thinks Len’s English is kinda endearing, but he keeps that to himself

-Fukase has the weird ability to making insults sound like compliments, and compliments sound like insults, and Len is sick of it cuz it makes him very confused and annoyed

-Fukase speaks fluent sarcasm, meanwhile Len’s brain sometimes just short circuits and he can’t pick up on sarcasm whatsoever

-Fukase is a smartass with dumbass energy and Len is a dumbass who tries to have smartass energy (in contrast to Rin, who fully embraces her dumbassness and dumbass energy and thinks Len should too. He insists he isn’t as dumb as her and she’s like “bro you’re literally my reflection”)

-Len legit has a big ego (some describe him as mildly narcissistic) while, Fukase is just great at faking confidence and actually doesn’t think very highly of himself, though Len insists he absolutely should

-Fukase likes cracking self deprecating jokes. He does that more than your average person due to his secretly low confidence

-Len, due to his higher than average confidence, usually doesn’t find self deprecating jokes funny cuz he doesn’t relate to them, and it often takes him a second to get them. Sometimes, if he notices his friends making a lot of them, he’ll get kinda worried and be like “damn you need therapy or smthn?”

-Len sometimes aggressively delivers compliments to Fukase, or whoever he thinks needs them

-Fukase’s terrible at accepting compliments

-Len straight up started giving Fukase self love classes to teach him real confidence

-He also gives Fukase dance lessons, but Fukase usually doesn’t learn much because Len’s too busy showing off. They have fun tho

-Fukase really like when Len has his hair down

-Len’s kind of a mess in the kitchen, so when they have to prepare something themselves Fukase usually does it for the both of them

-When they’re out together they like to get milkshakes/smoothies. If both are almost broke and they gotta share, they compromise and get the banana and strawberry drink. While their fave flavors in general are banana for Len and strawberry for Fukase, they both have come to enjoy the banana and strawberry combo. Sometimes they lie to each other abt being broke just to order it and share

-Len says Wi-Fi Imagination Wild Boy is “their song” but Fukase likes to pretend it doesn’t exist and never happened out of embarrassment

-Len likes having one hand on each side of Fukase’s face because the difference in skin texture on each side feels funny. Fukase says it’s weird that he likes doing that, but doesn’t stop him from squishing his face

-Fukase always ponders how the Cryptons have perfect skin, or well, at least he knows Len does- perfect nails too, great for head scratches

-While Fuka is normally not the biggest fan of surprise physical contact, it’s kinda become a habit of Len to just randomly scratch his head or run his hand through his hair. This is an exception. If you comment on it tho, Fukase will suddenly start acting annoyed by it and smack Len’s hand away. Len teases him a bit for liking it

-Len absolutely adores how fluffy and messy Fukase’s hair is

-Fukase has his reasons for keeping his arm bandages, maybe health, convenience, not wanting to freak people out- but one is because he has a habit of picking at the skin there, which Len is trying to get him to stop doing

-Fukase’s arm picking worries Len, so sometimes he changes Fukase’s bandages for him just to make sure he won’t do it

-Len’s a trans guy and Fukase is one of the few people Len’s comfortable not binding his chest in front of, other than the other Cryptons and Piko (bc Piko’s his best friend)

-Fuka barely needs any sleep getting like 4 hours on average, while is a professional honk mimimier who likes getting his 8 hours of beauty sleep

-Because of Len’s habit of sleeping like a baby and the fact that he’s usually busy as fuck, Fukase always lets him sleep in when they have sleepovers at his place, not having the heart to wake him up

-When they have sleepovers they always end up having an argument a little while after Len starts showing signs of being tired. These basically consist of Len saying “if I go to bed now I know you’re just gonna stay up all night, get your ass to bed now or I’m staying up and annoying you while sleep deprived” and Fukase saying “you look like you’re gonna pass out and you know damn well I won’t be able to sleep for a while, go to bed or I’m carrying your sleepy ass over there“. Which of them wins varies

-Though they both frequently tease each other and are okay with teasing/being teased about pretty much anything, they also know exactly when they’re crossing a line or pushing certain buttons. Sometimes they’ll push the others buttons just a little or see how far they can go, but they always know when to stop and when the other isn’t cool with it anymore

-Fukase adores the horror genre as a whole, while Len’s more easily freaked out but pretends like he has no fear- so, when they’re for example picking out a movie to watch, Fukase might wanna watch a horror movie and Len will be like “Pft of course no problem I’m not a wimp” but then later in the middle of the movie they’ll have to pause and chill together for a bit because Fukase’s like “dude you look like you’re gonna cry maybe let’s not, want some hot coco?”

-Fukase and Len once started talking about some English tv show and after it came up in conversation Len confessed that he had a hard time following without Japanese subtitles, especially when he wants to sing along to the songs. This lead Fuka to say he could help him if there was anything he needed clarified when watching it, which lead to them watching the show together. Now they’ve developed a habit of watching stuff together so Fukase can help translate and clarify, even though Len doesn’t need it much anymore

-While Len loves doing concerts and performances, he gets very homesick and missed his friends since he’s so social. He’ll text people non stop, though he’s sometimes worried that it gets a little annoying- but Fukase doesn’t mind at all. Len always somehow gives him the ability to watch them live from his home and tells him about how it is and that he misses him, and since Fukase doesn’t have a sleep schedule it usually works wherever Len is. Len also hooked him up with some real nice glowsticks that he furiously waved around when watching

-Since Fukase and especially Len are both pretty dang successful and feel like can’t really comfortably talk about their insecurities or negative feelings regarding their loid status in front of less successful loids, like Piko or Lui, they kinda just talk about it to each other. They bond over it- knowing Piko has it worse, Fuka isn’t as bothered much by his licensing, but is ashamed that his VP doesn’t care for him. And Len, tho almost always feeling like he’s the best he could be, sometimes feels inferior to Rin when remembering that he’s just kind of an add on to her

-Len has little to no insecurities regarding his looks, though he spent like his eye color very much, partially bc he’s often made to wear brighter green or blue contacts for promo stuff. Fukase thinks this is bullshit and Len’s eyes are pretty as hell

-Fukase is disabled, hence the cane, and doesn’t typically mind it too much because it lets him skip out on a lot of stuff in PE and other such things. His one complaint is that he can’t really carry Len bc of his balance, but Len insists it’s ok

-While being a bit of a twig and not a fan of exercise, but he does have a bit of upper body mass because he plays drums and has used crutches/wheelchairs at several points in life. Len’s the more athletic of the two tho and likes to brag about

-Len has dog energy and Fukase has cat energy

-Len bought Fukase a pair of those headphones with cat ears on them. Fukase said it was stupid, asked why he spent money on them and claimed he’d never wear them, but he often uses them at home

-They’ve faked a proposal for free food

-Len kinda doesn’t really know what exactly Fukase is or how he works but also doesn’t really care

-Fukase loves showing Len games that are actually horror games but don’t seem like it at first. Len always gets suspicion and Fukase always goes “nonono this ones’s fine it’s not scary at all I promise” and Len always falls for it

-After Len complained about it enough he finally manages to get Fukase to eat three meals a day (or at least try to). Fukase forgets to every now and again but Len’s usually there to remind him

-Despite the fact that nothing seems to make Len insecure ever, there was one time his perfect skin had a pimple and he refused to come out of his room for almost anything. Fukase had to sit outside his room and convince him it really wasn’t that bad on three separate occasions

-One time when Len and Rin were hanging out with Miku and some popular friends after a concert Fukase borrowed Flower’s motorbike to pick Len up so he’d seem cool. Was very effective on Len but the others were like “lmao you two are dorks” and “Wait is Fukase even allowed to drive that”

-Their friends were genuinely very surprised to find out that they liked each other because they both had this very tsundere-esque, mean, teasing and pulling no punches way of interacting so everyone figured they really disliked each other (both of them were surprised to find that the other liked them back too)

-When Fukase and Moke, who were the last members to join the friend group, first met Len, Fukase really disliked him while Moke adored him. This was in big part because Fukase knew Len’s celebrity image as an arrogant, self obsessed, annoying asshole, and Moke, being very into otaku culture, was a big fan who idolizes him and found his celebrity image to be talented and charming. However, when they actually got to know him, the script completely flipped and Fukase now finds him dumb, but charming, while Moke just finds him unbearable