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thecuriousquest · 7 months

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Could you do a (kind of?) part two to this post?

Where their daughter has a crush on Shinsou? I feel like both Aizawa and Mic like Shinsou A lot, so what an interesting turn of events would it be for their little girl to have a crush on him?

(I think your writing is neat :) keep up the good stuff it's really good!)

Dating Rules

Tag List: @issamomma @repostingmyfavs @chickennugnugnug

Warnings: Platonic Yandere themes, some romantic thoughts, violent tendencies, punishment spanking reference from previous story, slight manipulations

Checkout my Master List here.

—————————————————————————

“Daddy?” You smile at your father with a note of curiosity in your tone.

“Yes, Pumpkin?” Your father turns to you as he wraps his scarf around his neck.

“Are you going out to train one of your students?” You watch your father tug his boots on.

“Yeah, I’ll be back-“

“Is it Shinso? Are you training Shinso?”

He doesn’t like the fact that you just cut him off, and he quirks his eyebrow at you sternly.

Your cheeks blush, and you take a step back, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“Sorry, sir. I was just wondering…”

“What’s your sudden interest in the boy? You’ve been asking about him ever since I trained him here a few weeks ago.”

“Nothing, Daddy! I swear. I just…well…” You don’t know what to say. You’ve never been able to open up to your fathers about boys. They’re the reason why you’re not allowed to date after all. You’re “too young” to be around boys in that way, so you have to keep all of your thoughts pent up secretively.

Hell, you can’t even write about it in your diary because they’ll probably just end up reading it.

“You just what?” He inquires impatiently.

You rub your arm, blushing even harder under his scrutiny.

Just then, your savior, Papa, appears in the doorway.

“Sho, you heading out? Don’t get too crazy with that kid now. You’re too mean with those students.”

“Have to be. It would be an injustice if I wasn’t.”

He turns back to look at you, waiting to hear your answer, but you’re nowhere to be found now. He sighs, kisses his husband on the cheek, and walks out the door.

———

At dinner, you fiddle with your bread roll. You smile as you think about running your hands through Shinso’s hair. You think about those muscles, oh God, his muscles. You bite your lip, wondering what it’s like to be held by him in those arms. You wonder if he’d pin you down and-

“Why aren’t you eating? Do you not like your food, honey bear?”

“No, Papa. I’m sorry. I just got distracted is all,” you tell him nervously.

“Well, what ya thinkin’ about?” Those sunglasses are trained on you.

Even indoors at night, he still refuses to take them off.

You shrug your shoulders and look at your Dad.

“Daddy, how was training Shinso today?”

“It was good. He’s progressing very well. You and I need to have a talk however after dinner.”

“Oh? Is someone in trouble?” Mic turns to look back at you.

“It depends on her answer.”

“Shouta, what’s happening?” His husband asks uncertainly. He doesn’t like being left out of the loop.

Aizawa sighs and looks directly at you with a serious gaze. “Have you been alone with Hitoshi? Answer me honestly. Is that why you keep asking about him? Did he do anything to you?”

“What?” Is all you can think of as a breathless response.

“Did he…touch you…down there?”

You stand up from the table with a disgusted look on your face. You can’t believe he just asked you such an uncomfortable question.

“What? No, he never touched me! I was never alone with him because you two never let me do anything. I just like him. I think he’s cute or whatever.”

Your Dad grabs your wrist and pulls you towards him. “If I find out you’re secret keeping from us again, you know what will happen.”

His belt crashing down on your sore bottom rings through your mind upon his unspoken threat. You gulp as you avert your eyes in submission.

“Yes, Daddy. I’m not secret keeping. I’ve never been alone with Shinso.”

Your jaw is grabbed, and eye contact with your father is forced.

“You promise me, young lady.”

Your face feels smushed in his calloused hand.

“I promise you and Papa that I’m not secret keeping. I promise that I’ve never been alone with Shinso. I promise that he’s never laid a finger on me.”

Oh, but how you so desperately wish he would lay both hands on you.

Your father deems your promise good enough. He can always tell when your lying, and right now, you’re not showing any signs of it. He releases you from his grasp and pushes you back towards your chair.

“Sit and finish your food.”

You look at Papa, and you really just want someone to hold you right now.

Preferably Hitoshi.

You’ll take your Papa instead though.

You go to walk over to him, and as you do, you open your mouth to say something.

However, he beats you to it. “Listen, honey, crushes pass. These things fade. You’ll get over him quickly, I promise. Boys this age are prone to breaking hearts and cheating. You don’t want that. Listen to your Papa and Daddy. We won’t let anyone hurt you ever. Okay?”

Fuck that. You definitely just want a hug from Hitoshi.

———

You hear Papa and Daddy arguing in the kitchen during the night. You’re supposed to be tucked into bed, fast asleep. As their voices carry on, you can’t help but patter to the top of the steps to hear what they’re saying.

“Well, what are we supposed to do? He’s my best student, and he’s a great kid. I don’t know what to do, Zashi.”

“Sho, I don’t know how I feel about her having a crush on him is all. Should we not let him train here anymore?”

“This is beyond me. I don’t want to let him be around her, but maybe…I have an idea.”

You sneak closer to the kitchen.

“What is it, Sho?”

“He can be around her if one or both of us are supervising. I don’t want her sneaking out again, and I really don’t want to cart the kid off to someone else for training. Not a lot of people stick by Shinso because of his quirk. Hell, his own parents treat him like a villain. He’s a good kid, and as much as I hate the idea of her dating, at least we know what kind of person Shinso is.”

“What if he breaks her heart?”

“Then I’ll break every bone in his body,” comes the quick response of your dark haired father.

He didn’t even hesitate in answering that way. It’s as if he’s done something like that before and he’s not afraid to do it again.

You put a hand over your mouth to stifle a gasp. Your father would never…would he? Having heard enough, you turn around and sneak back to your bedroom, closing the door.

You can’t stop thinking about how easy it was for him to threaten something like that. Every bone in his body if he were to hurt you? That’s so extreme, and you feel as though anyone wouldn’t deserve such treatment. You have to figure out a way to get them to let you see him, to prove to your fathers that Hitoshi wouldn’t mistreat you.

If they give him a chance, then they’ll see how much Hitoshi can make you happy.

———

Two days pass before you gain the courage to talk to your fathers about Hitoshi again.

“Daddy? Papa? Can I ask you something?”

Aizawa looks at you with loving eyes yet a tired smile. “Yeah, Pumpkin?”

“Could I…maybe if it’s okay with you…meet Hitoshi again?”

Mic sits up on the couch, regarding you and Shouta.

“Alright, you can meet with him, but there will be supervision. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Daddy! Thank you!” You lunge at your sleep deprived father, wrapping your arms around his shoulders in a tight hug.

He huffs and pats you on the back before enveloping you in a hug of his own. You’re so small, just his little girl.

He’s counting on Hitoshi to be a good kid and not break your heart. If he doesn’t, the kid gets to keep his bones intact.

If not, then your fathers will be there for you to lean on while you learn about the cruelty of boys while Hitoshi suffers in the hospital, and hopefully, they’ll never have to revisit this conversation again.

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larcenywrites · 11 months

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Tony (young and older) would probably have so much fun and would love seeing you interact with his bots! He loves that you treat them as more than just machines, just like he does. He loves seeing you play with them and whatnot. He always fondly rolls his eyes when he hears you whispering to DUM-E after he's scolded it and threatened to turn him into a coat rack "your daddy is a very silly man, don't worry I won't let him turn you into a coat rack". He absolutely loves seeing you talk to Jarvis and have like full on conversations with him. And of course he'll be asking Jarvis "has she ya know ever complimented me to you?" "does she still think I'm hot and handsome?" "has she ever said anything about marriage to you?" and JARVIS either says something like "I don't think I should answer because it will most definitely go to your head, sir" or he decides to mess with Tony and is like "oh, let me ask her, sir." and says extremely loudly so Tony can hear it "miss, Mr. Stark wants to know if you still find him hot and handsome. Do you?" And you can hear Tony screaming from the lab "SHUT UP JARVIS, I'LL BURN YOUR MOTHERBOARD!!!"

I didn’t wanna spam the tl too much so I was gonna wait until tomorrow to answer more of y’all, but I do love this one! Exploring the idea of all the bots and interacting with them is super cute and fun! But you brought up the “treats them like more than just machines." I have this weird hc that he, or young Tony at least, has sort of affinity for the inanimate things in his environment. Anything from keeping his tools clean to making sure he puts a scrap he doesn't need right back in its original spot. If I could, ya know, get to writing that series, I was gonna touch on it, even! After all, he probably spends more time with with 'em than people. And also touching on that, dum-e was a robotic arm, nothing more nothing less. Until he started developing AI chips and improving on them! And eventually JARVIS too. I think it would be really neat to be around for that development. And while one could argue that he’s simply just building onto better when he’s developing dum-e and U (of whom I don’t know much about other than they’re…the camera that follows and records his progress and stuff?), I like to think he was genuinely giving them life(?) because he saw more in them and wanted to give them more, and, well, they were kinda his only friends so maybe he needed more from them :,)

Kinda Off topic… I wrote a good portion of a fic months ago and gave up on it bc I didn’t know if there’d be interest and I had zig zagged it through so many things and started it over so many times and I just kinda left it alone lol. But! There was a sort of break up- boo hoo whatever! But JARVIS was gonna be a key player in getting them back together. Here are some dialogue exchanges just if you’re curious lol

“Welcome home, Miss (Y/L/N).”

“I see you haven’t wrote that one out yet,”

“I did.”

“But surely you still love him.”

“Who’s asking?”

“I am,” “In fact, I think it’s why you left.”

“JARVIS, you don’t even know what love is,”

“I know enough about it to know that this hurts you as much as it hurts him,” “And I don’t like seeing either of you hurt.” “Perhaps I love the two of you.”

“I don’t mean to pressure you or sound biased, miss (y/l/n),” “but I’m not sure I could stand to watch him break for a third time.” “But I will because I must.”

“I always expect Mr. Stark to be stubborn, but I expect better from you.”

“Don’t patronize me, JARVIS,”

“It’s part of my programming, miss (y/l/n).” “It is Mr. Stark’s preferred tone to convince him with when I need to intervene.”

“So that’s why he never listens to me,”

“He does listen to you,”

#anon #anonymous #answered #larstalks

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facelessfrey · 2 years

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Roswell New Mexico - Season 4 Episode 1

And we’re back! For one last season. And of course we’ve done a time jump so everything is vaguely confusing! Haha

I feel like the only one I’m really annoyed with is the Isobel/Anatsa jump because they’re just not established enough for them to be saying “I love you” yet. I mean I know Anatsa and Isobel are going to get sacrificed for Kybel at some point before this season/series ends so I get that they just have to get it in there while they can but still...they’re cute and all but I still can’t invest because they don’t put the time and the work into it.

It’s all there just for the Kyle angst. Poor Kyle, man. He’s just so miserable. He’d rather be hanging out with Jones’s corpse than watching Isobel be happy with Anatsa because he’s not gonna screw them up because he wants her to be happy but boy is he sad about it all. Give this man some happiness. He deserves it. Also I just don’t want him moping at fucking Deep Sky all season and being away from everyone else.

Speaking of being away from everyone else, is there some rule that says that Alex is not allowed to have scenes with other people? Because it annoyed the hell out of me last season and it’s annoying the hell out of me already this season too.

That said, I was at least very happy that everyone was acknowledging that Michael and Alex are a couple. Cause that drove me crazy last season too. I’m happy they’re moving in together even if it got a little angsty. But Alex making it clear that he can’t live without Michael is nice to hear some more. If only Michael would really hear it this time.

I do really like the Michael and Dallas friendship going on. Their similar backgrounds allow them to connect in ways that he can’t with Max. So that’s nice. And in general, I like how Dallas is fitting in with the group, especially as Heath seems to have completely disappeared. I mean...fine cause there were a few too many characters last season but it is weird that he didn’t even get a mention.

Dallas and Maria is...interesting. I mean it would be really neat and tidy if they ended up with Echo, Malex, Kybel and Dallas and Maria. Then everyone gets an alien. But Gregory is still clearly in the picture, albeit off screen for the moment. So that’s a whole thing. Then again, I’d rather see the progression of a relationship from chess buddies who offer the other umbrellas to actually being together. So...you know, if they go in that direction, cool. I’m here for it. Dallas is like...Spiritual Michael, which kind of works for Maria.

Maria’s cure maybe making her lose her powers is a whole thing I guess too. But I guess if we can be spared of any half baked vision plots that go nowhere, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Poor Max trying to propose. I mean, I get Liz waiting for the other shoe to drop but as long as it’s not dropping on their relationship, why not just get married before the next alien disaster threatens to destroy you. Why wait for a safe time. There’s never gonna be one girl. If they get married by the end of the season, can Michael or Alex catch the bouquet or something. Haha. Just as a nod.

Love seeing Jenna back. I enjoy her and Max’s friendship.

I missed Rosa. Not even a mention of her either. Is she just not in this season at all? I haven’t paid enough attention to filming things. I at least want an update at some point.

As for the actual plot, I am SHOCKED they actually remembered that the Alighting is a thing. I really thought they just forgot all about that. So I’m happy that they’re going to tie things back together. I hope it’s actually interesting. I still think it might apply to Michael though. Maybe? I don’t know.

We didn’t get much of the new triad’s personalities, so I hope they can at least be fun.

Side Note: I’m still annoyed that Deep Sky literally has no other employees besides Eduardo and Kyle and Alex. Anyway...I still just hate Deep Sky in general and the fact that it still makes no sense.

Ah...feels good to rant about this show again.

#roswell new mexico #roswell nm #roswell nm reviews #rnm s4e1

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munvermaniac · 2 years

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i am curious so i have to ask how do you think a secret relationship would come about between them? does jason buy from him on occasion so that secret slowly builds into another one? do they fight and end up making out which leads into them realizing they've been pulling each other's pigtails this whole time? have they always known each other but drifted apart because of the different paths they took in high school? i have to know

Tbh didn’t really have a plan for how exactly a secret relationship would come about when I answered the other asks, I just thought it’d be cute, but I do have a few ways I think it could play out based on some of my own headcanons.

This is gonna be kind of a long one, so buckle up.

Some Basics

What I see in the canon of the show is less that Jason’s bullying Eddie and more that they have equal power, just in different places. Jason’s their moral king during the day, but Eddie’s the one you go to for sin.

Jason gives rousing inspirational speeches about the importance of purity and honor, Eddie knows the best places to smoke up and is the one you go to for weed or others. Equal power, different places.

ALSO! For all of these “au”s I’m kind of pushing Chrissy to the side for now. I don’t think Jason would ever knowingly cheat on Chrissy because I think he really did try his best in the show. I’m kind of slotting her as Jason’s best friend who everyone assumes he’s dating, but it’s up to interpretation. Maybe she’s dead? Maybe she doesn’t exist? Maybe they’re each other’s beards? (chrissy/robin ftw) Who knows.

1. Enemies with Benefits:

They’re probably in the gym after school fighting and Jason shoves Eddie against a wall and they just kind of stay there for a second, then they’re kissing. Then, they’re going back to Eddie’s trailer and doing... more.

They kind of keep that agreement for a while, and both of them are slowly falling for each other. Obviously, both of these lovestruck dumbfucks aren’t going to ever admit that to each other, so they keep making excuses to see each other, like the Jacket Debacle.

Eventually, the truth comes out that they both want more from the relationship, and they start actually dating. Only outside of school, of course. If Hellfire saw Eddie fraternizing with the enemy after everything he said about them, they’d probably skin him, and Jason’s situation would be about five times worse lol.

2. Smoke Buddies:

I didn’t actually think of this one before reading your ask and honestly I kind of like it. Jason, due to some stressful situation, has to go to Eddie for some weed to calm himself down. I see Jason as the kind of person to want nothing to do with any drugs except in really bad situations.

So, like Chrissy, Jason goes to Eddie to get drugs, and also like Chrissy, Eddie can tell something’s wrong. Eddie would probably be very suspicious at first and Jason would definitely hate having to buy from him, but I think they’d get closer over time.

To be completely honest, most of this idea is from Coping by Vanemis, but I think it’s such a neat idea to have a kind of role reversal like that. Whether Jason experiences trauma like in Vanemis’ fic (personally, I’m a bit of an angst fan, so that’s my choice) or he just really needs to de-stress is up to interpretation. Hell, maybe Chrissy pushes Jason to go to Eddie.

3. The BlueMond4y Method:

This is a fairly straightforward one that comes directly from BlueMond4y’s Straight to Hell, Boys on ao3 (ps: the sequel’s in progress rn and it’s pretty heckin’ good). Basically, the fic follows canon except Eddie survives and Jason never has the fight with Lucas (I’m pretty sure).

They get a few week’s detention with each other after an argument in school and slowly become friends and fall in love! So I guess this method is that after Chrissy dies, they’re kind of “forced” to become friends by being essentially thrown together. It’s fun.

This is less an exact au and more a structure for an au, though. Like, this could apply to both Smoke Buddies and Enemies with Benefits, but I see this route being much more Chrissy-centric. Jason definitely loved Chrissy, and it’s up to yall whether or not Eddie loved Chrissy too, or was childhood friends with her, etc.

4. Childhood Friends:

My personal fave. I’m a sucker for fluff okay??? In this “universe” Eddie and Jason are the same age and Eddie doesn’t get held back (because Jason helps him study). They met probably in kindergarten or elementary school, and became really good friends who are totally crushing on each other.

They definitely play fight and needle each other a ton, and by the time they’re all in high school, everyone thinks it’s serious because of how different they are. Jock and freak, couldn’t possibly be friends. They both have their own friend groups, but hang out with each other outside of school.

So, they decide just to go along with it. Half because they think it’s funny, but half so that they can keep being friends with each other while not being ostracized by their groups. After that, it can go two ways. On an au of it’s own (which I really like) the lines between playful and actual fighting get blurred until they’re not sure if they’re really friends any more for peak drama.

For the Jacket Debacle they’d probably just be thinking that the whole situation is hilarious. Jason takes it a bit more seriously, but they definitely value their relationship more than the groups at school.

So... uh, thanks for coming to my ted talk. This was a hella big post but it was honestly super fun to write!

#munver #munver prompts #eddie x jason #jason x eddie #jason carver #eddie munson #now time for the au tags lol #jacket debacle au #childhood friends au #hope you enjoyed!!!#smoke buddies au

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dizzybelle · 1 year

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Fire Emblem Engage Thoughts

I’m getting close to the end of Fire Emblem: Engage and I have thoughts and feelings about it. I’m putting it under a read more so I don’t spoil things/clog up your timeline (its long)

I think this is probably the weakest Fire Emblem game in decades. It’s such a step backwards in so many ways compared to a lot of the previous games. Yes, including Fates. That game’s plot sucked, but the game at least had engaging (heh) mechanics and stuff. The Emblem system is a cute tool at first. Being able to equip different characters with boosted abilities and whatever feels like an expansion of the passive items in 3H and Echoes, and the super moves are a flashy toy that makes combat a little more “cinematic.” Unfortunately after you start unlocking more of them it becomes an Incredibles situation of “when everyone’s super, nobody is.” When everyone on your team has super powered abilities and whatever, it just becomes more management getting everyone equipped before combat, and the stat boosts stop mattering. What I don’t like most about the Emblem system is how stunted and drained it made basically everything else. All of the skills that normal people classes unlock are basic at best and useless at worst. The only advanced classes with traditionally good skills (Sol, Luna, Ignis, etc) are locked to the royal characters unique classes. So which class you pick for any given unit barely matters. And whats worse is that changing classes... does nothing! It resets your level, but you don’t keep any of the skills you unlock from your old class. “Oh Emblems let you unlock new proficiencies that unlock new classes! :)” but then changing classes at all does nothing. There’s no longer an incentive to exploring different options. All of the skill related flexability is shoved entirely into the Emblem system which is just frustrating to level up. Your options are: Level up 4 levels at a time in battle, then get your progress halted until you go can go back to base and watch a two sentence long cutscene between the character and the Emblem OR go to the arena and very slowly 5 levels at a time with unskippable intros and effects by dumping fragments into people which is arguably even slower. Only then you have the right to dump skill points (a vague and slowly generating resource) into a character so they can learn an Emblem’s skill permanently. Of which they can only equip two of. Some of these skills are actually useful, like Canter, Dual Assist and Resolve, while others are either useless or just minor stat boosts. I think the special moves are neat. Thats about the extent of my enjoying Emblems. Being able to attack multiple enemies at once, manipulate the terrain to give you an advantage, or just super kill one unit are all neat things that you can do! It gives a bit more impact to what you can do in a turn. Kinda wish it was a class skill thing rather than a fancy bauble with a fanservice FE face stapled two it though. There are so many chores between levels. They all feel unnecessary and just contrived ways of making numbers that normally go up in combat go up slightly more. The food items are pointless, why are they here, they’re only used for the cooking “minigame” that could just has easily functioned without them (because they’re not even necessary for it!!), and only serve to clog up the map with item drops. The animals system is basically nothing but just generating more resource drops. 99% of them drop food items which, as I said, are useless, and a handful drop very small amounts of metals for the “weapon crafting” system. The workout minigame sucks. “Hey after every mission come spend five minutes here mashing buttons so your character has a stat boost for the next mission!!” yeah no thanks. The wyvern riding minigame, while an actual minigame instead of just menu options, is entirely pointless and feels like its added on just as a ‘look at the fun minigames we have’ addition. Gift giving returns from 3H but is mostly just fluff and with how limited money is in the game, going and buying the specific gifts (which is the only way to get specific ones) is just a waster of money. The arena actually has a good payoff to it, but it takes so long every time sitting through each character’s intro dialogue for the four hundredth time before you can skip to results. And coming back to it every time after a map just feels like doing vacuuming or laundry. A necessary action thats time consuming and not fun for anybody. Not all of the Somnium bullshit is bad, though. The weapon upgrade system is somewhat nice. It’s a solid improvement to the old FE system of “dump all the gold you have into a single weapon, boosting all its stats to the maximum” and makes it more of an incremental improvement. I could do without the ‘needing materials’ thing, since all the materials are just an unnecessary addition entirely. “Oooh after a level you walk around the map and find 200x Iron Ingots in this bush! congrats!” I like the ‘post game patch’ addition of the friendship events. Not only does it give you an easy outlet to boost unit’s support levels that don’t involve you, it also just lets you skip straight to results. No sitting through unskippable cutscenes or dialogue, just straight results. Thats nice, now add that to the arena. Substories in this game suck. There’s like a total of two sidequests that are actual sidequests and the rest are just “hey remember this old level from fire emblem games that were good and also Fates? do them again!!” I feel like they backed themselves into a corner design wise of going ‘each emblem has to has its own side story’ and then having to do twelve of them. Didn’t leave a lot of room for other side missions without bloating out the game. It’s a shame, really. The plot is... The plot is. It’s pretty lackluster across the board. The characters are one dimensional, the twists are obvious and blatant, the entire plot just boils down to “we gotta gather the mcguffins to save the world” which is just as generic as JRPG plots go. Basically nothing that happened the whole way through has had me invested at all. It’s just going through the motions. The cutscene engine that they used in 3H returns, of characters just all standing in a blurry room doing the same generic animations over and over. The actually animated cutscenes are nice, but they’re few and far between and the game mostly takes place in those blurry rooms. The protagonist is a return to the Corrin style goody twoshoes white bread character archetype, which isn’t very interesting but it at least beats out the plank of wood that was Byleth. The world itself serves entirely as a backdrop to the ‘gather then mcguffins, stop the big evil dragon’ and the relationships between the various nations and stuff aren’t touched on much. They’re just different locales that exist to house the mcguffins and provide different map gimmicks for the gameplay. They don’t matter for more than the max three chapters you spend in each of them, then they fade into the background. God I wish Nintendo would cool it with the Expansion Pass bullshit. I’m sick of paying $45 on top of a regular full video game price of $80 just for some dregs of content before in like a year they actually add something vaguely worthwhile. And at that point, 99% of the time I’m so done with the game that I don’t even bother coming back to it. All of this stuff could have just as easily been optional content in the normal game!! Please!! You even released like 50% of the crumbs within like two weeks of the game coming out. C’mon man. I’m sorry for posting so much about this I just have strong feelings about this franchise and while they game is decent, so much of it is so bad and reminds me so much of how far the game series has fallen. It feels like the exact opposite problem to Pokemon, another series that’s going through rough shit but I’ve loved my whole life. FE’s production value is high, things are polished and flashy but they’re entirely soulless and devoid of sparks of joy. Pokemon’s production value is rough, buggy and unpolished, but its full of soul and has the heart at it’s core that makes it worth it. It sucks and it makes me sad that the state of two franchises I love are just crumbling to dust.

#dizzy shush #fire emblem #my brain is full of words #and feelings that i struggle to put into things succinctly #bweh

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streaming-yn · 3 years

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(☁️)

HIIII it's 3 am and i'm trying to sleep but brain went brr with ideas n shit and oh well- thing is ; i was wondering if i could make my first request? (smth simple if u want to, no need to be very long or anything + pls don't rush nd take ur time AND don't feel pressured to actually do my request :] ! ) maybe smth ab faceless art streamer! y/n [they/them]?? (if u could add that the reader is like an indie game dev or works for smth like that u'd be sosososososo cool omg) with maybe quackity, tommy, dream, ranboo, niki and/or jack?? idk brain did the storming and its all messy hsdnshhfjsjz (btw! i know it's a lot of CCs so feel free to remove some or do the ones ur only comfy with !!! take care nd stay safe !!! luv ya <3 (/p))

AS SOMEONE WHO LIKES TO GAME DESIGN, CHARACTER, AND PLOT DESIGN YOU BET I CAN MAKE THE READER AND INDIE GAME DEV (and aaaa ty for adding jack!!! I think he's really neat and not enough people acknowledge him :))!!)

Multiple x indie game dev!artist!y/n

pairings: quackity, tommy, dream, ranboo, niki, jack manifold (separate) x indie game dev!artist!y/n

pronouns: they/them

other information on the reader:

. faceless

. knows how to code

. artist

. streams them drawing video game characters

. minor

. makes indie / horror games

form: headcanons

genre: platonic, fluff(??)

warnings: horror games / horror mods, ranboo enderwalk lore in his section

abbreviations: y/n -> your name

quackity

okay let's get the obvious out of the way; definitely going to be the type of person that's like "I'm going to play this game first after you're finished" yk? playfully ofc, n playfully fight with anyone who says the same thing (*cough* Wilbur, tommy, dream *cough*)

he probably wouldn't be on your art streams often – he doesn't really enjoy watching people draw, but he would want to see the finished pics

he would happily be on voice chat with you while you're drawing though!! :D

would be proud to answer any questions you have about character / scene / etc designs!!

"quackity!! so for this character – check your dms for a current picture – would red or purple antenna be better? also, two or four antenna?"

"*gasp* you're asking me?? 🥺" /j

"y'know what, nevermind, chat wh-"

"NO WAIT WAIT"

"so what do you think?"

also, if you do end up sending him the finished pics of the art he will hype you tf up !!!!

would try to get you make joke games – not like actually, it's just an ongoing bit between you two!

if you make a game for him – or give him a sneak peek of a game before anyone else he's going to freak out!! and he won't really know what to say bc putting feelings into words is hard

if y'all ever meet up and you're fine w hugs he's gonna give you a huge hug, hoping that makes up for the lack of words to describe how just,, proud of you he is bc he really really is!!

you're not even in your 20s yet and you can make video games, or help with them?? not to mention how creative you are with the characters and story line??? he's amazed by you

might actually cry /pos if you base a character off of him

like let's say a part of a puzzle is to get a rubber duck and place it into a pond to get the next hint or thing you need – only when he plays it on stream, he doesn't know anything about the game, so you're watching and waiting for him to get there

when he does get there – he finds out the duck has a beanie and has a white ring appear around it that flashes to life before fading out after picking it up, signifying it was the right thing to get

at first he doesn't really notice the ring, "oh! that animation is different than normal" he notes, but mainly focuses on the beanie, comparing it to himself before he glances at chat to see them freaking out over the planet duck reference

then he's just talking about it, shocked of course but flattered, and then you type in chat "you helped me a ton with things I couldn't decide during this game, I couldn't not add you! :)" everyone's just :(((( !!! /pos

overall supportive n proud, maybe a bit loud about games in progress, but just a really nice guy in general :)

tommy

he is ABSOLUTELY loud about your games in progress!! if you don't want something said you have to tell that to him before telling him or else he's going to brag about how cool it is the next time he streams

"chat!! chat, y/n is making this new game and they told me that one of the outfits you can collect for the player is going to be based off me!- right!! that sounds pog!!"

if he ever accidentally let's anything slip on stream that he was supposed to say, everyone who's a fan of you is just like "wow! suddenly! I cannot hear anymore!", sometimes they're like that even if it was okay to say

the just like being surprised :)

as for art streams, he'll try his best to tune in but obviously won't be there all the time! he's usually very active in chat too! likes being on call with you while you do art streams if you let him!

he once convinced you to make a texture pack and a shader (meant for both to be active at the same time), the fans loved it and a lot of them use it more often than the original!!

tommy however, not to much, proud of you bc that must've been a ton of work!! but at some time it slipped his mind that you make indie and horror games; I think we all know he doesn't do well with horror games

so you liking horror and such made the textures look more ominous and just make it look like and area you don't want to be in, and the spook goes up even more with the shader!! it's darker than usual, there's unusual fog, the portals look too dangerous now, so on and so forth yk

so,, tommy didn't use the texture pack for long;;

if you ever raid him after you're done streaming and he has a question, he's literally just gonna ask you on stream

"y/n raid? oh! are they still here?" when you confirm you're in chat, he continues "great! okay I had a question about your new game that's going to be available soon and how to download it-"

fans love how casual you guys are about game information, like you had to teach him how to export a game character he made on the website you usually make yours on (it was for a fun stream) and it was just a simple back and forth but everyone's like omg :((( omg them :((

also if you're the type of person to go insane over tiny details in other games, he will absolutely tease you for it

like you can just be going on and on about how this game had a sentence at the start that had a backhanded meaning by the end and he's just gonna call you a nerd (genuinely thinks is cool how much of the small things you notice in games though)

dream

COMPLAINING ABOUT CODING AND HOW HARD IT IS 🤝🤝

and if you took other coding classes hoping that I'd help with video game coding he'd just listen to you talk about it

"I actually took robotics for a while before because the school didn't have any video game coding classes and I was hoping it'd help either way" "oh?" "it,, it didn't help, it's so hard to code robots and considering how fast I caught onto video game code you think it'd be easier to understand the robot code" "yeah, that sounds reasonable" "NOPE,, WHY R THEY SO DIFFERENT I ALMOST FAILED" "D:"

fanartists like those moments, if one of those talks happen expect a bit of fanart of just dream and you chilling while you talk and he listens, the art always gives off comfy vibes n it's just cute :)

offering him to play a semi-rough draft of the demo so that he could see if it's good or what you needed to do to make it more enticing for the player

power duo fr fr o/

people like comparing y'all to hackers sometimes bc y'all know how to code???

you play into the bit with the fans though and honestly it's so fun !!!

fans: omg,, hackers (affectionate),,,

you next time you stream: hacker voice; I'm in

AND THEY GOT SHOCKED??? LIKE THEY FORGOT YOU CAN SEE THE STUFF THEY POST????

wouldn't be able to watch your art streams for long because he would get side tracked, the streams are just too under stimulating for his brain to focus on, but he'd hang around as long as he could though :)

would be glad to be on call with you while you're doing an art stream – though if he has is game sounds on you may occasionally have to repeat a question that was aimed at him

you're also in his streams when you can :)

also, you like sending donations to communicate rather than chat

one stream dream turned off his donos because you wouldn't stop giving him money 💀

being friends with such a popular creator and being a game creator yourself has it's downs as well

nothing thats too hard to deal with – the most common one is actually kinda funny – some people will slide in your dms acting like they're dream and just got locked out of his account, trying to get you to make them a game

like ??? do they think that dream would mssg you over Twitter or insta?? he has your phone number bro ,😭

also!!! when dream plays through new games you made he complements the small things and complements how hard something must've been to code :)

and I'm ngl, he kinda sucks with every game he plays at first but he's a quick learner so dw :)

would be glad to help if you're having a difficult time choosing between things too! except he'll answer right away without any teasing

"dreammm" "y/nnnn" "for this area should I do like shattered stone walls or mossy stone walls like with vines n stuff?" "depends on the vibe you want, shattered stone would give it a dangerous and uneasy undertone and mossy stone would be more of ominous, if that makes sense?" "oh! okay, thank youuu!!"

ofc if you didn't have a specific vibe or couldn't choose which was better he would just give a straight up answer so you didn't stress out trying to choose one \o/

would absolutely like being a guest in a drawing stream, he isn't the best at art or character design but it's fun to see him try

maybe you both plus some friends do a "drawing Minecraft mobs from memory" stream? ,, with that the thing is; his would mostly be relatively accurate if you could understand wtf he was drawing 😭

dream may or may or have some of your art as his phone homescreen, he loves your style so much :(( /pos

ranboo

first off; he's incredibly impressed!! like!!! you made this game?? this playable game, completely from scratch??? how??

also you may or may not have made a small Minecraft mod for him to tryout on stream,, little gift from you to both chat n ranboo 🤲

its literally all based off his lore,, if you get close to obsidian and crying obsidian fallen down from Undertale starts playing, if you splash water on yourself 1) you get hurt 2) your screen blacks out and when it comes back, your in a different place than before, some things art taken, maybe a few extra things are added

and there's a 50% chance that when you go into your "enderwalk" state (the blackout) you blow something up, so there may or may not be an explosion somewhere nearby, you also have a 20% chance of building something small in you enderwalk state :)

he found it so incredibly cool!!! chat was crying while complementing you while ranboo thanked you and complemented you over n over again

he won't shut up about how cool the mod is for several weeks, maybe even a few months, it's just so cool!!

will absolutely use it as a comeback if you let him; "oh? you got first place? well y/n made me a really really cool mod, so who's the actual winner here?"

will absolutely play every single game you come out with – it doesn't matter if it's his style or not – and he thoroughly enjoys all of the games as well

as for art streams, he will absolutely try to tune in every time he can!! active in chat and donos!!

doesn't really like being in art streams – like in call is fine but actually drawing? not really, he just doesn't love drawing in front of a ton of people

but will join an art stream if you ask

will listen to you rant about whatever, even if he doesn't understand it! like will listen to you go on and on about how well a game set up the atmosphere or maybe talking about how difficult coding is, and he'll converse back with you but won't really understand yk?

"ranboo I just played a really cool game do you wanna hear about it?" "yeah yeah- of course!!" "ok so like, the atmosphere was so well put together- like it was a horror game and I didn't even see the monster but the vibe was so well put together that it was still unnerving!!" "that's awesome! how did the atmosphere get set up the best and when you saw the monster, was it scarier?"

yk what I mean? like engages in convo so you don't feel bad about talking so much, plus shows his interest without the constant "hm?" "cool" etc a lot of people do and even though he does talk more than the acknowledgment sounds many people make he also manages to almost never sidetrack you and when he does it's on accident :)

if your way of learning is teaching then he'll gladly be the person you teach it to if you want! most likely won't use the information therefore his brain won't retain it but that's not on you, and the whole reason is so you can learn, not him, so! ^^

will make sure to take care of yourself, and he has a through way of telling if you have or not bc he's known you for long enough to know that even if you try to hide it a little bit of your tired voice shows so he knows if you've been sleeping like you should

also friends with you on discord, where you have your Spotify attached,, you like listening to music while you work on things that aren't sound related and if it's active later than it should be he's going to confront you

overall wholesome mixed in with a little pain bc both of you are like "ah yes, lore <3" and like to see fans cry /lh

niki

I feel like this is expected but if you need to get extra motivation she would probably be your go-to

she hypes you up but like, in a sweet and quiet kinda way, where as everyone else here would probably be relatively loud ;;

honored to be on an art stream if you invite her :')

and would absolutely watch your art streams when she can :D hypes you up in chat

also compliments, tons of compliments!

might call you a prodigy? bc you're so young but can already make games?? and make income off of them?? and do really good art??? and so much more??? like tell me that's not prodigy energy,

if you make a video game character based off her she might cry,, like in a positive way obviously but like at the same time :(( no don't cry!!

I say might bc it's dependant on how she feels that day yk? like she might just have the almost-cry wobble to her voice or she might actually, if that makes sense?

she genuinely loves your art style!! even if it's pointy and kinda creepy she really likes it!!

yk the "awww (name) :(" /pos she does sometimes? 100% does that with you

there are a few compilations of just "aww y/nnn" on YouTube and all the comments on those videos are just crying over y'all /pos

would be happy to help if you're stuck between some options in a game, but would feel kinda bad bc it's your game, you're supposed to be the one choosing the stuff

assure her that it's okay n stuff n she'll be ok tho !

I can't decide if she would play your games or not

bc on one hand she's a huge supporter of you and your work and would like to experience it first hand

but on the other hand she isn't the best with scry games,,

so maybe she'd do both? maybe she'd react on stream to a playthrough, maybe your playthrough? or maybe she would only play some of your games? I haven't decided so up to you I suppose!

jack manifold

genuinely amazed by your talent and will make it quite clear!!

can and will go on tangents about you on stream if someone brings it up

everyone is so :(( <333 /pos bc of it

will play the games you've made as soon as he can

if there are different games that line up in a story he'll make sure to play them in order :)

people also sometimes compare you two to hackers bc you code a ton and he kinda looks like a hacker

difference here is that both of you play into the bit, it's tons of fun!!

listen, I know he doesn't draw much but I am a firm believer that he will doodle his favorite character(s) from your games after he's done playing them

like after he plays a game of yours then expect a small doodle in your texts :)

you compiled a bunch of these doodles into one picture and made it you phone background and he only found out after y'all met irl and it caught the corner of his eye and he registered "oh hey wait that looks familiar"

he found out while recording the vlog n when editing, the editor was like "hey let's leave this in, it'd be funny if the fans knew right?" ,, the fans were crying for two weeks,, /pos

and speaking of drawings; he would like to be on a drawing stream with you, thinks it's be tons of fun!! :D

and he's usually free to call while your streaming and doesn't mind so if you wanna talk to him while drawing just call :)

and he will watch the streams he can make it to!! he may leave a bit early but he stays for the majority of it

if you make a character based off of him he's going to constantly thank you and brag about how cool you are anywhere he can

"hello manifolders, if you haven't done it already go download (game name)! I'm there!" with a ss of his character from the game and he'll reply to the tweet on his alt to talk more about the game and how much he really liked it :)

another that'll help you were you need it! he'll make it into a joke before anything else, but he'll get to the point

taglist (sorry i forgot to do it on the past two): @cvsmixplant // @l0ver0fj0y // @youngstarfishdinosaur

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yuckydraws · 2 years

Text

Here’s the Underswap boys;)

Again, these are not my au’s, just my take on the characters and how I characterize them in my writing/drawing. This au was created by Popcorn Pr1nce.

Characterizations and headcannons under the cut :]

(CW: Brief mentions of an unhealthy relationship)

Blue:

4’11

Charismatic

Charming

Clever

Excitable

Social

Flirty, yet has only been in one serious relationship in his life. It was an unhealthy one, and lasted longer than he would like to admit. It’s part of the reason he’s so emotionally communicative and wants his S/O to be the same - he never wants to be in a relationship like that again.

A bit sensitive, but he never lets anyone see him cry unless he’s close to them. He also will never let the person who made him cry see it. He won’t give them the satisfaction and he has an amazing poker face.

A freaking adult. Please treat him as such.

They were one of the three pairs of brothers that had made it to the surface in their universe before being pulled into the Undertale universe.

Blue had made it into the royal guard and became lieutenant. The royal guard was still in place even though they were on the surface. The royal family needed protection from anti-monster groups and other monsters needed a force they could turn to when the human police force was less than helpful.

They were there for years and really made progress for monster rights. Blue had a life there, and a good one. It’s why he was so upset when Bear destroyed the machine. He still hasn’t forgiven Bear and him and Blue are on bad terms. They don’t go after each other or anything but Blue avoids him and isn’t above passive aggressive comments and Bear just stopped trying with Blue. Blue misses his old life and Bear is the reason he can’t ever go back to it.

When they got sucked into the Undertale universe, Blue was insanely protective of Bee, who was having a panic attack. Blue wasn’t above summoning some attack magic as a threat to Sans and Papyrus to stay back. They were the first pair of brothers to arrive, so it took some calming down and figuring out what the fuck was happening on both sides before everyone was able to settle in even a little bit.

When they eventually got settled in and accepted the fact that they were probably going to be here for awhile, Blue and Papyrus became good friends, and Blue warmed up to Sans. He apologized for his actions when they first came, and the tale brothers were very forgiving. It was a stressful situation and no one handled it how it should’ve been. But to be fair, no one knew what was happening, even Sans.

Blue got a job as a fire fighter. It was a way for him to still help out people in the way that he misses doing back in his universe. He works hard and he’s amazing at his job. Having a skeleton on the team is a plus because he can’t get burned and smoke inhalation doesn’t affect him like it does humans.

He’s a sucker for space and stars. He just thinks they’re neat. It’s what he and Sans bonded over as they nerd out together over cool space stuff.

He hates being babied for his cute appearance. He ended up getting a nose piercing so that strangers would stop thinking he’s a little kid because of his height. He also has a tattoo of a cluster of stars on his right shoulder blade and he has a tongue piercing.

Don’t ever call him cute, he hates that word when used for him. He’s fine with feminine compliments like pretty and beautiful, but if you really want to flatter him, call him strong or handsome. Just don’t ever call him cute.

He likes his new name, but he would like to be called Sans in private.

He wears his bandanna when he’s not at work, it’s a comfort for him.

He’s friends with pretty much everyone in the house except for Bear and Wine.

He enjoys reading, working out, and playing video games in his free time.

He calls his S/O “lovely” or “my star”

Bee:

5’10” - on the shorter side for the Papyrus’

A bit shy, but he tries to act confident.

Socially anxious

Funny

Kind

Understanding

Honest

Creative

A hermit. Man barely leaves the house, it’s why his shoes are so pristinely white.

He hadn’t made much of a life for himself in their universe. He was working a stocking job and was battling with depression and insomnia. When he got home he would just write. He created so many stories. Fantasy, romance, silly little drabbles, he even tried out fanfiction. He never pursued writing seriously until he settled into the Undertale universe.

He was a complete mess when they got sucked into the tale universe. He was panicking and just wanting to go back. Sure, he didn’t have much of a life there, but he had friends… and he doesn’t do well with change at all.

Once things settled down, he made the decision to try to publish one of his romance stories, and it was a hit. He’s never considered being anything but an author since, and it gave him a sense of purpose. He still struggles with depression, but his highs last longer than his lows, and his lows aren’t nearly as bad anymore. He still really struggles with insomnia.

He was rightfully upset too when the machine was destroyed… but he never blamed Bear. He could see it. Bear wasn’t all there and he was panicked. Obviously the last pair of brothers came from a rough fucking place, and Bee was the first to reach out to Bear and forgive him. He wants to be friends with Bear but he distances himself and Bee doesn’t know how to start that friendship. He joins Bear outside sometimes when he’s taking a smoke break. He doesn’t like how rude Blue can be to Bear sometimes, but he’s not going to get in the middle of it.

Bee is a smoker, but he doesn’t smoke inside, and he wouldn’t do it around his S/O either - especially if they’re human. He doesn’t want anything happening to them due to secondhand smoke inhalation. They’re magical cigarettes specifically for monsters, but he doesn’t trust that they’re completely harmless to humans.

He dresses comfy for the most part, but he does get dressed for the day. He’s not one to lounge around in sweats. He does sometimes, but not as often as you’d think.

He genuinely loves his new name. He would like to be called it even in private.

He’s friends with Coffee, Sans, Papyrus, Red, and Pup.

He enjoys writing, playing video games, and practicing guitar in his free time.

He calls his S/O “honey” or “babe”

#yucky draws #yucky writes #art #my art shit #my art #yucky yaks #headcannons #honestly not in love with Bee’s design but I’ve been staring at it for too long 💀💀#undertale #underswap #underswap sans #us sans #blue #underswap papyrus #us papyrus #bee #doodles #digital art

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characteroulette · 3 years

Text

well all rightie then, it’s time to analyse how DGS1 handles grief really well in my opinion

(once again, spoilers for all of DGS1)

(also some spoilers for the original trilogy games) (and a little of DGS2)

okay So my thesis statement here is that Asougi’s character in DGS1 is the vessel through which Ryuunosuke and Susato’s grief is explained. Everything about how they relate to Asougi is their dealing with their grief in a simple message: Loss hits hard, but you have to continue to live and love. Life Goes On, shaping that grief into yourself if you allow it.

We start off with Case 1 as our baseline. The set-up. It’s a routine to show what life is like for Ryuunosuke before tragedy. (Fitting for an AA protagonist to have their baseline of normal being accused of murder.) This case does a really, really good job of setting up Asougi as our friend, our partner, whom we might spend the rest of the game with.

(I mean, the death flag’s kinda obvious if you’re genre-savvy; the mentor must die so that the student may grow into their own. But Asougi’s so likeable! He’s confident, genuine with Ryuunosuke, comfortably teasing, and looks at you with the same eyes as Klavier. What’s not to love? Also that small hint of something deeper is so tantalising that for it to go unresolved is pretty unthinkable.)

It’s important for us to see how much Asougi means to Ryuunosuke, how much the two really are best friends. This set-up is pivotal to what happens next in Case 2: the drop.

The way Ryuunosuke reacts to learning about Asougi’s death is real. He tries to deny it at first, can’t bring himself to believe it. Especially since he’s been accused of the crime! But the moment he sees that photo of Asougi that Sherlock took, that’s where the truth of it hits and he can’t run from it anymore. All he can do is try to push past that biting grief to at least solve his friend’s murder and set things right.

Susato’s own grief is portrayed really well here, too. She’s so angered and clouded by it that she totally ignores the fact that Asougi and Ryuunosuke are best friends and believes Ryuunosuke to be the murderer. Really, she just blames Ryuunosuke because it’s easier that way, since the wound cuts just as deep for her.

What really strikes me, though, is how the whole case isn’t just a one-note misery. Like real life, the two slip into sadness when they remember their dear friend, but they’re still able to joke around. They still get upset or sarcastic or excited. Because, though their grief affects them immensely, the message is that life continues. It can’t just stop for them like it did for their friend; life goes on. Not out of malice, but out of necessity.

Also, the way Sherlock acknowledges their grief is pretty great. That felt hugely validating to me, how he tells them that their mourning is important and how his jovial, joking tone was never properly taking that into account. The way he continues breaking in at the end to lighten the mood, too, is his own genuine way of trying to help, exhausting though he may be. It’s appreciated, at the least, to keep us the players from breaking down into tears as the conclusion rolls with no real satisfaction at the mystery being solved.

That final conversation between Susato and Ryuunosuke, at least, is hugely cathartic to make up for that. It sounds like it should feel rushed, honestly, dealing with the majority of the grieving process in just Case 2, but it doesn’t at all. It seems properly healthy, like the two are doing their best by confiding and taking comfort in one another in order to celebrate Asougi’s goals, to keep going where he can’t. Ryuunosuke and Susato both form their resolve here to continue to live, not just for Asougi, but for themselves as well. For life’s sake.

Because, again, life goes on.

(A brief tangent: Seeing the contrast of this story versus the original trilogy is also a really neat sort of view into Shu Takumi’s growth as a writer. Or the AA series’ growth as a whole. How Edgeworth handled his grief by never really acknowledging it in AA1, how he basically ran away from it by refusing to live as a sort of punishment against himself, is really sad. Then Phoenix handling his grief in JFA by turning to anger and resentment is just as heartbreaking. Phoenix disavows himself from it, trying to spare himself the pain by denying it, which only hurt him more and he had to have everyone around him break him out of that awful mindset. Then in T&T it’s Godot’s grief which drives the plot, as he turns his anger on Phoenix unjustly. He blames Phoenix for Mia’s death and lashes out at everyone instead of allowing himself the time to properly grieve.

And then DGS1 comes along to say that maybe the answer is just that life goes on and we have healthier ways to reconcile with our grief and it’s just real neat to see!)

In Case 3 and 4, we can see through Ryuunosuke’s discussion with Lord Vortex (/Stronghart) the continuation of his handling this grief. It’s a burden, one Ryuunosuke doesn’t fully understand, but he fervently takes upon himself because we want to live for those we’ve lost. (It is the Wright way, the Naruhodou way, to take on the aspirations of the friends you’ve lost. To mimic their mannerisms, their ambitions, in order to keep them close to your heart.)

(That’s a whole other can of worms I could dive into, honestly, how their decision to give Ryuunosuke all of Phoenix’s poses for the whole ancestor vibe while ALSO making it clear that Ryuunosuke took them from Asougi to begin with, it’s just. It’s good, it’s perfect, it’s the same brand of gay the series is known for and I’m love it.)

You also see, as the trial of Case 3 progresses, how Ryuunosuke is basically just living off of ‘what would Asougi do?’ as Susato coaches him along and it’s fun and bittersweet all the way through. Case 4 is where he gains more confidence in himself, but he still defaults to thinking of Asougi’s unwavering trust in him to help him and every time it’s handled with tenderness and shows just how much Ryuunosuke loved his friend.

And, if you’re like me and take every opportunity to examine Asougi’s badge and present it to Susato (/others), you see how they continue to grow with their grief. It starts off with both of them being unable to say much, still weighed down heavily by Asougi’s loss. Though they are continuing and life goes on, it’s still a wound too fresh to approach and hard for them to properly explain.

By Case 5, though, the two of them are more conversational. They’ve found their words, they’ve mended that wound as much as possible so that life won’t leave without them. It still hurts, of course, but it’s easier to think about. It’s easier to reconcile when they’ve been working hard and making friends and continuing to live. It’s small, but the progression is there and I really appreciate it.

Speaking of Case 5, though, everything about this one, in regards to Asougi, is pure catharsis. It really is like they’re looking their grief right in the face and accepting it as a part of themselves. Ryuunosuke looks back on his friend not just with fondness, but with gratefulness that Asougi could make such a big impact on his life.

(This is similar to the whole Phoenix and Mia thing, I feel, since Phoenix often thought of his mentor with the same sort of tone. At least, I think so. Remarkable how Phoenix’s grief can mirror the finalised version of Ryuunosuke’s with the help of spirit channeling! /joke)

Ryuunosuke and Susato have etched Asougi into their hearts and their persons and it’s just really, very good I like it a lot.

(okay time for a few paragraphs on DGS2 and Asougi)

Case 1 one DGS2 is a neat look into Susato’s mind and thought process. You can definitely tell she’s still just a 16-year-old with the mistakes she makes and how she tries to handle her own arguments, which is very cute. We also get to see her actually talking to Asougi’s grave and then see how her own relationship with Asougi has influenced her style (/poses) and aspirations. (Ryuunosuke, too. It’s cute to see how she’s ended up a mixture of both of them.) And it’s a great rug pull moment for the player, since the way that the grief is handled in DGS1 is so good and (almost) final that hearing Asougi might not actually be dead is a bit like digging up old wounds. I mean, we went the entirety of the first game coming to terms with his death, what do you mean his body went missing??

(Case 2 serves as a reminder. Like haha remember how Susato and Ryuunosuke both love Asougi and are sad about his death? Here’s the baseline again, get ready to have it wrecked!)

And Case 3 is phenomenal, too. The way Van Zieks is so understanding in his response to showing him Asougi’s badge is just. It’s perfect, he’s so gentle and empathetic that it shocks Ryuunosuke (even though Ryuunosuke did the same understanding and concern for Van Ziek’s situation Ryuunosuke please). Then the way that Ryuunosuke sees Asougi, disguised in a cloak and mask, and immediately recognises him. To me, that really shows how much he loved his friend. He knew Asougi for about a year and it’s been about nine months since Asougi’s death, yet Ryuunosuke recognises him just by the way he carries himself.

But, to him, Asougi is dead. He’s made peace with that. So, even if it plays on his mind, he can’t allow himself to think that. He puts it out of his mind completely and doesn’t think on it again.

At least, until Susato (who reacted very realistically by shutting down the possibility that Asougi might still be alive because that means Sherlock lied and she couldn’t take having that hope break her worse than before) sees the exact same thing just as immediately and shouts after him. The fact that they both see this disguised man and know it can be no one besides Asougi is insane. It’s love. It makes me cry, I wish they could’ve hugged him during the big reveal (though I know Japanese culture’s just not like that).

Anyway, DGS2 diatribe over. Back to the conclusion.

The whole of DGS1 is just a masterful example of how grief doesn’t have to destroy you, of how life can go on and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and how channeling that grief into motivation to keep their memories alive can be powerful. That it’s okay to still feel grief even as you heal, that it’s okay to have fun and keep living even as you mourn. Life is a mixture of levity and tragedy and, to me, DGS1 nails that mixture with perfection.

Absolutely legendary. Join me next time when I dive into the main theme of DGS2, which is literally ‘the dead will come back to life to haunt you’ thanks for coming to my essay talk

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rostovs-lover · 3 years

Text

dalí on tuesday

charlie dalton x reader | cursing, smoking, brief mentions of sexual things, charlie (probably) has daddy issues, cameron | she/her pronouns | fluff | wc.2562

i am in love with charlie, this is now a charlie dalton centric blog, also ignore how terrible the title is please

anon : Hi!! I love your blog! can I request a charlie Dalton x reader fluff where reader is an artist and he visits them while they're painting? (maybe they end up wiping paint on his face?) I don't know, something really sweet at cute <33333

Charlie Dalton had been resigned to relish in small pleasures to keep himself sane at school, never did he think the library would be one of those. More specifically, the painter tucked into the basement of the library.

───☮︎───

Charlie Dalton was a connoisseur of many things. Pretty girls, expensive wine, shitty poetry, and hand rolled cigarettes - to name a few. His imprisonment at Wellington made only one of those things readily available. So he settled - boxes of cheap smokes bought through upperclassmen, bottles of grocery store wine someone would sneak in from a party, and the two girls that occasionally came with Knox. The shitty poetry was always on deck, he had that at least. It was a tragedy to be resigned to such a bland life, there was absolutely no carpe diem-ing happening in a school that held adolescent boys to uniforms.

It was miserable, truly, but Charlie scrapped by on the thought that soon enough there would be no more stuffy Catholic school and he could finally have a taste of freedom. In the meantime, he would have what little fun he could. The meets in the cave were always the highlight of the week. A place where he could talk and people would listen, and not because they had to but because they enjoyed it. They enjoyed his words and thoughts and presence. No one else had ever really seemed to enjoy Charlie’s presence. They could tolerate it, handle it, but they always had more pressing matters. A business meeting to attend, a bill to pay, a dinner to go to. Always something just a little bit more important and never quite enough time for Charlie. But the other Dead Poets, they valued him. He wasn’t just a kid, a college tuition to pay and a life to layout. He was a person, with interests and hobbies.

It had been there, in the safe haven of the cave, that the idea for the library first came up. Meeks had already talked Pitts into coming, Neil didn’t take much convincing at all, Todd was also easy to lure, Cameron groaned about leaving school grounds but refused to be left out, and Knox agreed to go but only if Nuwanda came too. Charlie had already started to cover what there was to do at a library, read?

Meeks dove into the technical manuals and Pitts followed tentatively, cradling their science project in his arms. Todd had followed Neil to the S authors, Cameron was trying to chat up the woman at the register, and God only knew what Knox was doing. He had been stranded with few options. He could find the geniuses and be talked over for the next hour or third wheel Neil but that guaranteed intruding on something he probably shouldn’t. The polite thing to do would be to rescue Cameron from making a complete fool of himself, throwing bad pick up lines at a clearly uninterested college student, but it was amusing to watch.

Charlie settled on trying to find Knox, at least then he could have some company. Said company was absolutely nowhere to be found. The rows of shelves wound in a confusing maze and Charlie was lost before he could even begin to look. Weaving around he did come face-to-face with a rather large picture of Charles Dickens that made him recoil. It was perched just at eye level above a short staircase and it seemed to judge his every movement. Charlie followed the carpeted stairs down to escape Mister Dickens’ strange little beard and beady black eyes.

The further down the steps Charlie descended the brighter it appeared. The lower level was the children’s section. Considerably more fun than science books or Shakespeare. The big oak counter was abandoned but the lights were still on. He was alone, still.

Charlie sighed, sitting down in one of the bright red wooden chairs. He was much too big for it but it held well under his weight. A sad stuffed bear stared dully into him from the green glossy table.

“Well hello,” He mumbled, picking it up under the arms, “And you must be?” He cleared his throat to take on a gruff baritone, “Mister... Bearington,” Charlie sighed, that was bad. He dropped the bear into his lap, “This is so stupid,”

“Bearington?”

Charlie shot around in the chair, tipping himself off center and stumbling to his feet, bear still clutched in his arms, “Where the hell did you come from?”

“A few blocks over, walked here actually.” You turned back to your work. A painting. Not just a painting, Charlie realized, a mural. It stretched the length of the wall, roughly sketched in pencil and waiting to be finished.

He blinked, “That’s good. The wall I mean,”

“Thank you,” Your face flustered and Charlie took notice, “It’s not much of anything yet, just an outline. It’ll look better painted.”

He took a few steps closer, sidling up to you, “What’s it supposed to be?”

“A forest,” You pointed to a rotund blob perched on a long line, “That’s an owl, and there’s going to be a fox somewhere down in the grass,”

Charlie grinned, “That’s an owl?”

“That-” you tapped the blob, “Is a shape, objectively. Subjectively, it’s an owl.”

His brow creased, “Subjectively it’s an owl? That's like saying Mister Bearington is a rabbit, subjectively,”

You stared at him, baffled. It was almost irritating that he could so casually come down to your domain and invade your creative bubble. And it was even worse that he talked to himself as a stuffed bear but now he was challenging your judgment on what was and was not subjectively an owl. But he had a wonderful smile and it lessened the intrusion. Plus, you had never seen a teenage boy develop an attachment to a stuffed bear as quickly as he had, “What’s your name?”

“Nuwanda,” He grinned, setting his chin atop his bear’s plush head.

“Nuwanda?” You blinked at him, “That’s… neat. I’ve never heard that before.”

“What can I say? The only Nuwanda this side of Vermont. What’s your name?”

As you opened your mouth to answer several sets of footsteps thundered down the stairs. Knox spun around the corner first, closely followed by Pitts and Meeks.

“Charlie!” Knox called, “We gotta go before Cameron proposes to the clerk.”

You looked at the boy in front of you, “Is Charlie short for Nuwanda, or just a nickname?”

He shrugged, “I’m Nuwanda, subjectively. It was truly a pleasure meeting you. Can’t wait to see your thing DaVinci!” He set the stuffed bear back on the table as he made his way out of the room. With Charlie’s energy gone it became much quieter and you were plunged back into the impressionistic outline of your artwork.

The next time a library trip was suggested Charlie didn’t completely dread it. Yes, it was still numbingly boring because it was a library and he didn’t have clerks to fall in love with, people to write love letters to, anyone to kiss in the aisles, or a spaceship to build, but he did have his own personal Van Gough to torment.

The lower level was the first place he went, not even hanging his coat on the rack inside the big double doors. He made his way past Cameron’s preoccupied receptionist and under Dickens’ hard glower. Halfway down the steps, the smell hit Charlie. Wet paint.

You had just picked out a brush when he pulled one of the wooden chairs next to your station. He sat in it backwards, holding Mister Bearington out in front of him, “Never got your name Monet,”

“Well, it's not that. Or Da Vinci.” You stroked the brush up the grassy outline.

“Do you want me to guess?”

You had yet to look at him, “Nope,”

“Are you gonna tell me?”

“Should I?”

“Obviously, I told you my name.”

You set the brush down and turned to face him, “(Name).”

“Pretty,”

Charlie Dalton liked many things and the musty old library uptown had never been one of them. It had ancient red carpets and gaudy gold ceilings and it was trying too hard to look regal. So it was a sheer shock when he began to leap at the suggestion of going and even more so when he chose to go by himself one afternoon. Naturally, the other poets followed him, they had to.

Charlie didn’t dally upstairs, waving hi to the clerk and rushing down to the children’s section. A sign was posted outside the entrance warning of wet paint but he stepped around it.

“You’re making progress Picasso!” He set his hands on his hips and took in the wall.

You turned back to look at him, “Did you not see the caution: wet paint, do not enter sign?”

“Oh no I saw it,” He pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head, “It's bright orange, hard to miss, really,”

“So you just chose to ignore it?”

He nodded, making his way over to sit by you on the ground, “I choose to ignore lots of things, it really makes life easier,”

You shook your head, “Are you just going to sit here and bother me?”

“Yes, that's actually the whole reason I came today, believe it or not.”

You blubbered in vague disbelief, “Please tell me you’re not serious,”

“Dead serious,” Charlie grinned, leaning closer, “I had to see how your weird owl was going. And also make sure you hadn’t gone mad and cut your own ear off yet,”

“You’ve already used the Van Gogh joke, Charles,”

“Maybe I want your ear,”

You paused, “You… what?”

Charlie’s confidence cracked, “That was bad. Shit, that wasn’t supposed to sound that way. It was like, a bad pickup line? Because Van Gogh cut his ear off to send to his girlfriend,” He sighed, shaking his head, “Sorry,”

“I mean if I had to pick someone to give my ear too I guess you would be my first choice?”

Charlie looked at you, eyebrows pinched together, “Why?”

You shrugged, “No one else has asked, first come first serve.” You dipped your brush back into the blue paint and went to work on a patch of flowers.

“Huh, well I do appreciate it,” Charlie scooted closer, leaning over your shoulder. He was close, very close. When you took a breath you could smell his cologne and whatever it was he used in his hair and you could feel the edge of his sunglasses brush your ear. He brought an arm around to dip his finger into the soft sky colour on your palette. And then he wiped it on your nose.

You gasped sharply at the foreign feeling, snapping your head to the side to glare at him, “Why?!”

Charlie snickered, leaning back, “The opportunity presented itself, how could I just let that pass?”

You reached back, squirting a touch of purple paint over the palm of your hand, “That was truly a horrible idea,”

Charlie shot up just as you did, stumbling backwards, “I’m sorry-” He stuck his hands up in surrender, “I regret my actions and if I could take them back I would,”

“Hmm, but you can’t” You took a step closer, “Surrender now and it doesn’t have to get any messier than this,”

He pointed towards your paint coated hand, “Do not,”

You grinned, “I might,”

“I’m begging,”

“Fine-” You offered him your other hand, “Truce?”

Charlie mulled it over for a moment, “Fine, truce,” He grabbed your clean hand and you used it to pull him towards you.

“Why on earth would you trust me?” You tugged him even closer as he shrieked and smeared your hand down his cheek, “There, now we’re even,”

Getting distracted by your triumph gave Charlie the upper hand. He pulled you to him the same you had done to him and pressed his cheek flush to yours. The paint was cold against your skin and you jolted back, away from him.

“Vile,” You hissed, “You are vile and evil. That's so cold. You will pay, I hope you know that.”

Charlie snorted, “Oh please, what’re you gonna do?”

“You underestimate me, you ass, I’ll figure something out,”

“Will you?” Charlie grinned, “I will be waiting in anticipation,”

“You better be,”

Meeks elbowed back into Cameron’s ribs, “You’re going to knock me over,”

Cameron craned his neck further to peek around the corner into the children’s section, “I just want to see, let me look,”

“Nothing is happening-” Meeks snipped, “They’re just talking now and I might be able to hear if you could can it!”

Cameron rolled his eyes, “Of course, whatever you say,”

“Will you shut up?” Knox batted at Cameron’s shoulder, “They’ll see us, we’re not super well hidden,”

“If you don’t stop talking they’ll realize we’re here,” Pitts mumbled, rolling his eyes. Cameron started to rebuttal, turning to look at Gerard but the motion knocked Meeks out of place and he gasped, stumbling forwards. This did indeed draw Charlie’s attention.

“Meeks, what the hell?” Charlie snapped. He was in a state, sunglasses askew in his hair, paint smeared from his cheekbone down to the corner of his mouth, and his shirt was wrinkled away from his collarbone.

Meeks stared, “Hi Charlie. Are there any textbooks down here, uh… the science ones?”

Knox groaned, stepping out from behind the wall as well, “We wanted to see why you came here on a Tuesday afternoon by yourself,”

Charlie blubbered, “Did you all come? Is Keating there too?”

“He could be,” Meeks shrugged.

Charlie rolled his eyes, “Will you leave, I’ll be upstairs in a second,” The other poets nodded, scampering up the steps to the first level.

“Assholes, should have known they’d come,” Charlie sighed, adjusting the sunglasses atop his head, “I need to go before they decide to intrude again. I’ll see you soon though, anxiously anticipating payback,”

He was almost out the door when you bucked up the courage to call out to him, “Charlie, wait.” You let him turn back to you before continuing, “Could I have your phone number?”

He clicked his teeth, “Don’t have one, private school. But I’ll find the library number in the books and try to shoot you a call sometime,” He winked and started back up to his friends.

Knox was waiting at the landing with a handful of tissues, which he shoved into Charlie’s hands, “So you’re gonna read your stupid poem about tits at a Dead Poets meet and then not tell us you’ve got a girlfriend?”

Charlie grabbed the tissues, “Not my girlfriend, I meet her like two weeks ago,”

“Didn’t stop Knox,” Neil elbowed him.

Charlie wiped at his face, “Well I’m not Knox. I like her painting, she's good.”

“It looks like she was painting you,” Cameron slapped at Charlie’s chest and he threw the tissues at him in retaliation.

“Shut up, at least my library worker actually talks to me,”

Cameron fumbled with the dirty material, batting it away from his chest, “You dick!”

Charlie grinned, pulling his glasses down and starting towards the door. Something about it was thrilling, having this to himself. A little secret that he and you shared. His personal Salvador Dalí, something to look forwards to besides bad tobacco and Keating’s eccentric lectures. It was bright and exciting and he felt seen. He felt important. The blue paint he had stolen from your tray was still on the tip of his pointer finger and he wondered how long it would be until he could see you again.

( @interwebseriesfan24 )

#dead poets society #charlie dalton #charlie dalton x reader #charlie dalton imagine #dead poets society x reader #dead poets society imagine #its the way this tried to crash my computer #also peep the new format #dedicated to everyone who said theyd read if i posted dps #enjoy!#dps #lennie writes

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xskyll · 3 years

Text

@shoutingdeku

Midoriya & Shinsou & Jirou bandmates tddk AU

I probably won't write a full story but these were my ideas!

Midoriya and Shinsou met at the hero entrance exam, where they both failed. They both got hurt and Midoriya started talking while they were waiting their turn to see Recovery Girl, asking Shinsou about what he plans to do. Of course he's going to gen ed and plans on transferring to the hero course. Midoriya says he's going to try for support and is giving up on the hero course; he realized last year that he never stood a chance anyway. He really just took the exam so he wouldn't dwell on what ifs and maybes. He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. Making support gear for heroes would be nice but he's not confident in his abilities. He veeery shyly admits that he sings and plays guitar and would love to start a band and make a career out of that but he's sure no one would want to be in a band with a quirkless loser. But using what he learns in support to make special effects for concerts and music videos would be really neat!

Shinsou knows how to play the drums and is a little curious. He knows he'll need support gear to be a hero so making a friend in the support course could be useful. He suggests they get together sometime and play something. He doesn't actually think he'll be friends with Midoriya—the plan is more to make a connection and use him to help himself—but Midoriya ends up being the best friend he's ever had. They become ride or die pretty fast.

After the first couple of weeks of school (so after USJ) there's an event for clubs to recruit members. Aizawa tells his class they can join but they have to be mindful. The hero course is rigorous, so committing to a club that requires a lot of time would be irresponsible. Jirou has no intentions of joining any clubs but the entire class checks out the event, just to snoop. Midoriya and Shinsou have a table but no one seems interested. They're freaking bc you need a minimum of four members to count as a club and get a club room and NO ONE is interested.

Jirou has no plans to join but is curious to hear them play. They aren't allowed to play at the event but they knew this beforehand so they shot a video of them playing. It's nothing fancy—Midoriya just hands her his phone—but Jirou hears them and is blown away. They're good and Midoriya's voice is amazing. Right now I wanna say the song they're playing is Favorite Liar from The Wrecks.

She doesn't commit but agrees to come see one practice. She probably won't join though. She'll bring her bass, bc they don't have a bassist, but she definitely isn't going to join.

One song together and she joins.

They need a fourth person though and the deadline is looming! Jirou ends up asking the rest of 1A if anyone can play an instrument or sing. Bakugou plays drums but he isn't about to do her any favors. But Yaoyorozu plays piano! Jirou begs her to join—she doesn't even have to come to practice. She can just be in the band in name and play a little keyboard at a few club events so the teachers don't realize she doesn't actually participate.

What Jirou doesn't know is Yaoyorozu has a crush on her. So yes she'll join and yes, she will come to practice, actually. Maybe. Probably. She's very nervous bc Jirou is talented and cool and pretty and maybe this was a bad idea after all, oh no.

She agrees to come see them practice and brings her bff Todoroki with her for emotional support. He agrees mostly bc being with the Yaoyorozu's daughter is always an acceptable excuse for not going home.

They go to a practice just to watch and Todoroki feels just a little awkward bc no one told him the lead singer of Jirou's band was the cutest guy Todoroki has or ever will see in his life. The band plays and Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are both in love. Yaoyorozu joins the band immediately. Todoroki doesn't but maybe he could come by just to hang out sometimes? Maybe he can just help out? He can lift heavy equipment. So can Shinsou and Yaoyorozu? Well, he can help with other stuff! Anything! Costumes! Makeup! Anything to support his bff Momo, who is definitely why he's here, not bc of the cute boy, no siree.

As the story progresses, Todoroki is having makeup and nail polish application sessions with Fuyumi. He's watching YouTube makeup tutorials. Midoriya doesn't need to know he spent an hour every day for two weeks practicing eyeliner wings. Whenever they get a chance to play for a crowd or they make a video Todoroki gets to do Midoriya's makeup and help him with his clothes (and also the rest of the band but who cares about them?). It's the most wonderful torture. How is he supposed to check how Midoriya's makeup looks without getting lost in his eyes?

Little does he know, Midoriya is having constant internal meltdowns because the hottest guy he's ever met is touching is face. Whenever he wears a choker or necklace Todoroki gets the clasp for him (he doesn't realize everyone else has to do their own clasps). His fingers touch the back of his neck and it takes every once of his willpower not to run away because it seems so intimate and if he isn't careful he'll start hoping bc Todoroki is so nice to him and sometimes it seems like he gives him special attention but that's probably just his imagination, but maybe...? No! Or...aaahhh, he can't handle it!

At some point Ashido wants to see what Jirou, Yaoyorozu, and Todoroki are up to so she stops by. She's super impressed but Midoriya is too stiff! She doesn't officially join but she starts stopping by when she can to teach Midoriya some dance moves and help him with his stage presence and sex appeal. In exchange Midoriya tutors her bc he's basically a genius and she's bad at pretty much all her non-hero classes, like Math and English. Kaminari starts getting curious about what Ashido is doing so he stops by one day and hoo boy is that drummer so super cool! He starts talking to Shinsou and sparks fly (Sparks? Kaminari?? Get it?? Lolol, wow, I am so funny!) Kaminari helps with lighting for videos and shows and also gets tutoring in return (and now Shinsou is also joining these study sessions because...reasons. Certainly not the cute blond guy. He just likes studying...)

Ashido and Kaminari's grades improve! Yay!

And that's all I got. I have no clue how anyone would actually get together, which is why I'll probably never write a proper fic.

As far as the band's genre, they're really all over the place because they want to experiment a lot. So you got some alt rock, grunge, pop, love ballads, power ballads...they definitely do at least one video that is a super upbeat love song with bright 80s clothing and one video where they're all dressed like punks.

So yeah! That's what I got! Midoriya's guitar is probably either red or the same bluish-green his hero costume would have been, in another life. I feel like for the first half his hair is cute and poofy and maybe halfway through the story he gets an undercut. Sometimes he pushes his bangs up with a clip or a band.

#skyll rambles #sorry this is so long #i've had these ideas in my mind for a long time #but never actually wrote them down before #i want to read it ;_;#curse you me!#bnha #tddk #tododeku #tododeku au #momojirou #kamishin #shinkami #todoroki x midoriya #shouto x izuku #jirou x yaoyorozu #kaminari x shinsou #bnha band au #singer midoriya izuku

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violetsoju · 3 years

Text

overdrive

iwaizumi hajime · fluff · 1.7k

summary: iwaizumi seriously needs to get work done, without his mind going into overdrive

a/n: the product of spending too many nights in the library because i can't get work done back in my room

The reason why Iwaizumi doesn’t like studying in the library open space is because there’s too many people.

High school students hogging seats that are evidently not enough to cater for the university’s own students. Half-zombified students surviving on energy drinks sprawled on the table, escaping reality by taking a catnap. Students with earbuds stuck into their ears, tapping away on their phones or watching videos under the cool air-conditioning instead of the scorching heat outside. Or those who Iwaizumi wonders how they even got accepted into university because they’re clearly illiterate, making sure everyone around them knows what’s on their mind despite the big red ‘quiet please’ sign hanging on the wall next to them.

“It’s distracting.” he grumbles. “How am I supposed to focus with so many people roaming around, not to mention the background noise I didn’t ask for.” The endless flow of people rolling before his eyes has him rubbing his temples in distress.

“It just means that you’re not focused enough, Iwa.” Your eyes never leave the laptop before you, fingers swiftly tapping on your keyboard.

He shoots a glare to your direction. “Why don’t you try sitting in my position and see if you’ll say the same.”

A scoff sounds in the air. “As if it’s not the same on my end.”

Iwaizumi should be used to squeaking noises on the polished concrete surface, given the years of spending most of his youth living in the school gym. But the shuffles and squeaks behind him now has his jaw clenched tight, fingers coiled together.

“Admit it. You’re just distracted by me.”

Two pairs of eyes lock. One with a glint of tease and mischief, one with a glint of exasperation and fatigue.

“As if.” You smirk at his response, clicking your tongue knowingly as you trail your eyes back on the bright laptop screen.

As if you’re the reason why he’s distracted. What absolute nonsense.

But if you’re not, why did he reply so hastily, mouth working faster than his brain, as if he was trying to hide something? As if someone broke the passcode to his closely-guarded safe that safeguards his hidden stash of valuables and treasures?

Is that why he firmly insists on studying in the quiet area, all the way in the deep end of the library, where one is confined to a study pod each? No random humans lurking in sight, just a laptop screen, and three mounted walls enclosing the small yet breathable space. The cries of help from keyboards being murdered mercilessly by the rapid finger smashing filling the air.

A space where everyone has their minds shackled to the device before them, head swimming in overloaded information too much for poor brains. A space where the only distraction is the faint cries only audible to oneself screaming this is too much.

That’s the space Iwaizumi needs to be in. And that’s the only distraction he needs.

Or the only distraction he can afford to have.

Because the rest are definitely too much.

One, in particular, is definitely too much.

His eyes act on their own will, something he can’t hold rein of.

It captures every small detail of the figure seated opposite him. You, to be specific.

The way your brows furrow together in complete concentration. He’s sure that you’ll be the one having wrinkles earlier than him, despite your constant nagging of how he shouldn’t crumple up his face in disgust at the sight of couples making out on campus in broad daylight.

The way you heave out heavy, long sighs every half an hour, like a fire-breathing dragon spouting flames from its mouth. Not as scary as Godzilla though.

The way you rest your temple against your knuckles, gradually tilting sideways like the Leaning Tower of Pisa as your elbows slip further. It’s a miracle you don’t lose balance at that angle.

The way your hand travels downwards towards the side of your neck, knuckles planted behind your ears to keep the weight of your head in place. Sometimes they’re curled together in a straight neat line. Sometimes they trek little lower, tucked under your jaw near to your ear. Sometimes just a finger is all you need to support the mass above your shoulders. Iwaizumi has honestly lost count of the number of poses you can make, which he has to admit, are better than those watch or jewellery models plastered on glossy magazine pages.

When your fingers wrap the side of your neck, or when your fingers splay across your neck and collarbone, he wonders if he can cradle your neck with his hand like a snug pillow. He knows how small your hands are compared to his large ones, how soft your palms are compared to his calloused ones, worn from years of practice. He wonders how it’ll feel against your smooth bare skin.

He wonders if he has his fingers wrapped around the nape of your neck, closing the gap by pulling you towards his chest to feel your heartbeat thumping against his, would your breath hitch, shudder under his touch from the sparks ignited from the sudden difference in skin texture, or would you melt into his touch, into the warmth of his palm that’s just a quarter of the fire in his burning heart that’s set ablaze by you?

When you part your lips to apply lip balm onto your dried lips caused by the low humidity, he wonders which lip balm you’re using today. Is it the normal original one? The peach flavoured one? Or the manuka honey one?

He licks his own dehydrated lips although he knows it would make it worse. When you smack your lips to even out the wax-like substance, he wonders how it feels like, how it tastes like. Does it really taste like peaches? Or like sweet honey dripping from your eyes at the sight of food?

He could find out by reaching out his hand to borrow it from you. But he wonders how it would feel like from your lips, how it would taste directly from your lips.

It’s a childish thought, but using a lip balm that has touched your lips on his is like an indirect kiss. High-school Iwaizumi would be a blushing mess at the thought. But Iwaizumi is all grown up now. If he were to want a kiss, he would want a direct kiss. Lips on lips. Flesh on flesh. Nothing in between.

But he remembers that his lips are slightly dry and chapped, which would be such a turnoff to mould it with your moist plump ones. But what better way to moisturise one’s lips with another?

When you tap your lips, deep in thought – as if taunting his previous thoughts – he wonders if he’s ever met anyone who does that instead of tapping their chin. And when you jab your thumb on your lower lip, knuckles brushing your upper lip, he wonders how your lips feel like. He has wiped away food stains from the side of your lips numerous times, but it was always the napkins that had the honour of gracing your skin. Are they as soft and plush as they seem?

Are they as dreamy and kissable as they seem?

He wants to find out for himself, to feel for himself. He wants to trace the curves of your lips with his fingertips, to feel each line carved on your lips, to memorise each slope and dip of your lips. If he can’t use his sense of taste to recognise your lips, at least he’ll know it’s you with his sense of touch.

Oh, just when he thinks that you look good in a certain lipstick colour, you prove him otherwise when you appear with a different shade the next day. It’s funny how all the shades of red and coral displayed look disturbingly identical in the shops you drag him into, but he can tell at first sight that they’re a different shade when it’s on your lips. He always finds it amazing how you blend different tones together to make your already desirable lips more alluring. It isn’t the colour that brings out the extra shine in you; it’s you who brings the pop of colour alive.

And he wonders how that pop of colour would look like on his bronze skin tone.

When you run your fingers through your hair in frustration, he wonders how it’ll feel like if those were his fingers. He’d run through them gently, soothing them out affectionately. He’d comb through each strand of hair with his fingers delicately.

He wonders how it’ll feel like with your fingers running through his hair, featherlike fingers caressing his scalp tenderly. It’s such a soft gesture that melts even the toughest of hearts. He wonders if you would tug his hair, if you would curl your fingers over his short cut. Would it be in playful manner? Or a desperate manner? Most importantly, when, why and where you would do that.

Let’s not get started on how your tongue peeks out the side of your mouth, running along your sharp yet cute fang teeth that could shred one into pieces. Or when you stick out your tongue teasingly at him when you catch him staring.

What’cha looking at? Eyes on the laptop, not me.

It’s a cute harmless gesture for you, but god knows how it’s a gesture drives his mind into overdrive. Something you're not ready to know about, yet.

There are too many wondering thoughts, thoughts deemed unnecessary and distracting when he’s with you. That’s why he insists on having a barrier wedged between the both of you, especially when he needs to get actual shit done. All he can see now is the crown of your head, and your sneakers beneath the table that are a few inches away from his. That’s all he needs and can handle on his plate right now.

Right now, there’s more important things to be done. Not that you’re not important. If you’re not important, you wouldn’t be driving him up the wall with such subtle movements and gestures.

Important things that require his attention right here, right now are things like the two thousand essay that’s due tomorrow. The e-mail from his professor regarding the group assignment progress that he has yet to reply. The mini army of tabs armed with journal articles waiting to be read.

Like any other day, Iwaizumi hopes and prays that his mind will cooperate with him to set gear into the right direction. If he could put off pouring his heart out for so many years, then these crazy yet valid thoughts could wait too.

He knows they’ll be worth the wait too.

#iwaizumi hajime x you #iwaizumi hajime x y/n #iwaizumi hajime x reader #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi x y/n #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime fluff #iwaizumi fluff #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu scenarios #iwaizumi scenarios #hq imagines #hq scenarios #haikyuu fluff #iwaizumi headcanons #iwaizumi hcs #iwaizumi oneshot

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the-edge-of-great · 4 years

Note

can you do 14 with alex finding out that gay marriage is legal maybe learning about other wholesome lgbt+ progress since '95

(there’s a weird glitch or something on my feed where the ask isn’t showing, so just in case, this is for @lemonwilford)

so after finishing this, I have four tabs open for formal dresses, wedding venues, and lesbian wedding aesthetics on Pinterest AND I have an article from 1993 about gay rights (started as a reference but then it got interesting so really, it’s my fourth article)

in other words I kinda get obsessed and distracted with researching and referencing for anything that I write, so, TL;DR enjoy :)

also juke is totally established in this cause I said so

14. “That’s legal now?”

-------

“Ready?”

“Ready!” the guys call back to Julie. They’re in the studio, patiently waiting for the surprise she wanted to show them. She was eager about something when she came home from school and told them she couldn’t practice on Saturday. They might’ve been bummed had she not been bouncing with excitement. Alex had smiled fondly at her; excited Julie was his favorite Julie.

She promised to show them what was happening Saturday before leaving, and now they’re eager themselves.

Julie throws open both studio doors with a type of dramatic flare that Alex can respect. She saunters in wearing a gorgeous golden dress with lace shoulders, a sweetheart neckline, and a hem stops just above her knee, matching heels clicking across the floor. Her hair bounces against her shoulders: big and curly and gorgeous, like always. She’s wearing red lipstick, and her eyeliner is sharp and precise; Alex thinks it’s called a cat eye. There’s so much lingo he still needs to catch up on.

He meets her halfway with a grin and offers his hand. “You look beautiful,” he says, spinning her in a circle. She twists on the toe of her heel, and her dress flares. There are sparkles in the intricate design across her chest that glisten under the studio lights. Alex catches her around the waist when she stumbles to a stop.

“Yeah,” Reggie agrees. “You look amazing.”

Alex joins Reggie as Luke approaches. They share a knowing smile.

“Where are you going looking so good?” he asks, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close.

Julie beams at him. “A wedding for one of my friends from music class. Her moms are getting married.”

Alex blinks. “Moms?”

Luke frowns. “You mean… two women?”

Like a switch, Julie’s bright demeanor falters. She pushes against Luke’s arms, frowning as she breaks away from him. “Yeah,” she answers, eyeing each of them carefully. “Are you guys… okay with that?”

Alex makes a noise—somewhere between a scoff and a snicker. Okay with that? Of course he is. But confused? Yes. Very.

Reggie nods, chewing on his lip. He’s trying not to smile—Alex can see the corners of his mouth twitching. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course we are, we just—”

“That’s legal now?” Alex blurts.

A second passes, but Julie’s eyes widen with realization. “Ninety-five,” she mutters to herself, nodding slowly. “Right.” Louder, she explains, “Yeah, gay marriage was legalized, like, five years ago. Actually, a lot’s changed since the 90s.”

Luke snickers. “No kidding.”

“Oh my gosh, wait until you see Pride in June! LA has the best celebrations.” She shifts her weight, smiling sheepishly. “Not that I have experienced any outside of here to compare, but, you know what I mean. It’s so much fun! Flynn and I went with Sarah and her moms last year—Sarah’s moms are the ones getting married today.”

Julie is looking at him more than she usually looks at Luke—and she catches herself every time, quickly averting her eyes back to him and Reggie—which is really saying something. She can’t possibly know though, right? He certainly didn’t tell her. He knows neither Luke nor Reggie told her. Is it really so obvious, or could she perhaps… actually be a witch? Was Reggie on to something?

Alex rolls his eyes; he must be having an off day or something to really consider Julie being a witch and Reggie to be right.

“… Or not,” Julie says, rocking on her heels and twisting the ring on her finger. She’s looking at him again, much less sure of herself than before. Reggie and Luke are staring too; Luke elbows him in the side and glares.

“What?” Alex whines, pushing him away. “What are you—Oh! Oh, I wasn’t—I didn’t—” He shakes his head at Julie. “I wasn’t rolling my eyes at you! I just… had a dumb idea… Anyway, I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“She said we could go with her,” Reggie explains. “To the wedding, if we want to.” He raises his eyebrows knowingly. How come everyone is so knowing toward him all of a sudden?

“You should,” Julie persists. “Sarah showed us pictures of the venue today at school. It looks gorgeous in the daylight—I can’t wait to see it tonight.”

Luke grins. “Of course we’ll go.” He chuckles at the guys. “I mean, what else do we have to do?”

So, that’s how they end up in the outdoors of Orange County. The guys ride in the back of Ray’s car—apparently, ghosts can ride in cars. Flynn doesn’t carpool with Julie; when the girls reunite, she explains how her mom decided last minute that Flynn’s hair would look better in a bun rather than her regular braids.

They pose for pictures from Ray and the wedding photographer. Then Sarah, Alex thinks—a teenage girl with fair skin and copper red hair in a neat plait against her shoulder—rushes over with the biggest grin on her face. The girls gush over their outfits, the night, the decorations, etc etc. They’re cute; Alex shares a fond smile with Luke and Reggie.

“This place is pretty,” Reggie admits, turning in a slow circle to take in the scenery. They’re in a forest, surrounded by towering pine trees, and there are lights everywhere. Streams of globe bulbs are strung up from tree to tree, creating an arch in the center where a long, white rug leads to a stage filled with golden flowers. The sun was already setting when they left Julie’s house, so by now, the reception is a warm glow in an otherwise dark forest.

“Alex,” Luke mutters, as if anyone could actually hear them, and nudges his elbow into Alex’s side, “look around dude. Most of these couples aren’t straight.”

He noticed when they first arrived that men mostly stayed with men and women mostly stayed with women, but now that Luke has pointed it out, Alex is noticing that the guests are actually couples. A couple to their left is discussing the food. One man feeds the other a bite of a sandwich and gloats when his partner admits it’s actually not bad. To their right, two women are posing in front of the wedding photographer. One is kissing the other’s cheek.

“I think this is the most…” Alex pauses, trying to both find the right word and take it all in because, really, this is a lot. It’s a good amount of a lot, of course, but… These people are openly showing off their partners. They’re happy. They’re proud of themselves. And the straight people aren’t saying anything rude? No one is cursing at them? Claiming they’ve damned themselves?

“Alex?” Reggie asks softly.

“I know a lot is different from, you know,” Alex begins, “but I think this is the biggest change I’ve seen. I mean—” He gestures wildly at the scene before them. “This is legal! This is legal. It’s accepted. They’re just—Everyone is just—themselves! They’re themselves, and it’s okay.”

“I was gonna ask how you feel about it, but—” Luke shares a laugh with Reggie— “I think I have my answer.”

“I feel…” Alex rocks on his heels, considering his answer. He chews on his lip. “You guys will probably think it’s dumb, but—”

“You know we won’t think it’s dumb,” Reggie argues immediately. Alex glances at him. He’s giving Alex this look with a raised eyebrow, like he can’t believe he would even think that. Which is valid, you know, because they’ve never been anything less than supportive of Alex. Of course they haven’t; he really lucked out in the friend department.

“I feel safe here.” He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. “Like when I could finally leave my house to go to practice, and I knew none of you guys would judge me if I told you about a guy that I thought was cute.” He finds Julie in the crowd, chatting with the lesbian couple he saw earlier, posing for pictures—selfies—with them and laughing when the woman’s partner hid bunny ears behind her head.

Alex rubs the back of his neck. “I just… don’t think I could’ve imagined feeling safe around people who aren’t my friends.” He finally turns to Luke and Reggie, who are watching him with wide grins. Alex huffs a laugh. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Reggie chuckles. He slings an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “We’re just happy for you, man.”

“Yeah,” Luke agrees. He hums. “Can’t wait to see what the whole thing with June is about.”

“Yeah!” Reggie exclaims. “D’ya think it’s a few days? A week?”

“We can ask Julie later,” Alex suggests.

Reggie snickers. “If she doesn’t stay with Flynn.”

Luke hums. “Yeah, I’m gonna… go convince her to stay home tonight.” He pauses to squeeze Alex’s shoulder before leaving them for the dance floor.

Alex suddenly steps away from Reggie. “I, uh… I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I just—I want to find Willie. I want to talk to him about something.”

“You’re really going to leave me third wheeling with jukebox over there?”

Alex snorts. “Jukebox? Have they approved of that name?”

“… They don’t know about it.” Reggie pauses, then adds, “And you’re not going to tell them.”

“I promise.”

Reggie chuckles. “You better. Now go, find your boy.”

He’s at the museum, the first place Alex looks. He’s just leaving actually—as soon as Alex arrives at the building, Willie is phasing through the door, about to skate down the street.

“Willie!” Alex calls.

Willie steps off his board. He turns to him, and instantly, a smile spreads across his face. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”

“So,” Alex says, stopping in front of him, grinning, “tell me about Pride.”

Willie’s eyes shine at the request, just as beautiful as the lights from the wedding.

“I’d love to.”

#Julie and the phantoms #JATP #JATPprompts #willex #willie jatp #willie x alex #Alex jatp

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marshmallowprotection · 3 years

Text

By no popular demand, let’s talk about the Children’s Day Title Screen which is the first time that we’ve seen everyone together at the RFA party. I think we’re all crying about it but I’ve definitely had the time to sit down and think about all of the little details for Saeran. We’ve all met me. We know that I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that I see to rationalize and explain in some kind of meta way.

There’s going to be spoiler CG in this for Another Story, like, all of it, so you have that warning now.

My apologies in advanced because we know that I don’t know how to shut up when it comes to Saeran. Look at him. Look at him. I swear to God, you have to look at him. Okay, now that we’ve established that you have to look at it so I can cover this:

Finally, we’ve got a canon party outfit for Saeran to talk about and cry about, frankly. I knew that he would have something pink because you will never see this man far from something pink, black, or red. That’s just what his assigned colors are. I’m not surprised that it’s pink. I love seeing Saeran in pink.

He really can’t be separated from the color pink because we’ve all given it to him tenfold at this point.

I’m just assuming this is GE Saeran, to be clear with you, because that seems to be the most possible option. Now, they gave him a blue rose, which could mean that they’re covering their bases so it’s not a spoiler for people who haven’t had the chance to play Ray Route and see what plays out, so they may think it’s just Ray, but we who have already played know that it’s GE Saeran.

His eyes in this style are very light and they’ve styled them to look a though he’s truly happy and not masking with a false smile.

You can usually tell them apart by the way their eyes are drawn in this game, honestly, but I have a post about that if you need to glance at that for more of my info-dumping for no reason at all.

Anyways! Saeran has seemingly styled his hair differently, or had a haircut. It’s definitely shorter than what it is in the route, which is, quite reasonable, honestly. He’s had to take care of his own hair for the most part.

He carries around a brush at all times according to his diary, and Ray mentions that he often takes care of Rika’s hair for her as well, so he’s got his own knowledge of how to at the very least, take care of his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

It’s quite possible that he’s been able to get a haircut for the first time after the events of the good ending. That’s a positive sign of progress. It’s a small trim of course, since it’s just a bit shorter than what we’ve seen in some of the ending CG for the route.

It could just be the art style, but I have the tendency to look at style choices as something reasonably meaningful for what happens in the life of a character.

I’ll slap a CG for comparison if you want to check that out for yourself. It can be a style choice. It can be a healthy step in him living a normal life. Because that’s seemingly a very casual thing that all of us contend with, but that’s a move for him that seems like he’s comfortable with it.

I just think that’s a neat touch, no matter if it’s just a style choice.

His little suit is a lot more detailed here than the suit that we see VAE Ray wear. That is a pink suit as well, but that one is much lighter in tone than the one that we see here. I sat here comparing the two for a little bit because I wasn’t sure if it was the same suit top or if it was two different outfits entirely.

At the end of the day, I’m definitely sure that it’s not the same outfit. They’re both pink but it’s not the same shade.

However, it’s close enough that you could frankly assume that they’re the same in the long run, but I think I’ll leave that up to you guys to figure that out because the CG with his suit in VAE doesn’t show the front of his outfit.

So, we can’t see for sure if it’s the same. Artists can have had to take some liberties to draw it in their own way because of the reference that we received! It appears as though the VAE suit is lighter and the suit in this title screen is a little bit warmer.

What do you guys think? Either way, I’m in love with the little bowtie. Frankly, he always chooses bowties. We’ve seen Saeran use them, Ray use them, and if we count the Christmas DLC, Unknown. The only one that we haven’t seen use the bowties is Suit Saeran, who wears an actual tie instead. Bowties are a bit more slender and pop more. You tend to see them on more boyish characters.

I tend to think that Suit Saeran wears a tie because he feels like it adds maturity and makes him look stronger, but they all just generally prefer bowties. I do think they’re really cute myself. I tend to draw him wearing bowties myself. It could just be a style choice, rather than him deciding between if a tie is mature or a bowtie is youthful.

Speaking of that, I think the buttons are really cute. There’s no purpose for those buttons on the chest of his jacket but they’re neat. The pockets are asymmetrical for some reason that I can’t discern. I think that’s an interesting choice to have in the outfit but I’m not sure why he’d pick something like that.

He tends to be the kind of person that makes style choices because, “I think it looks cool,” or “I kind of think this reflects my emotions.” Which is why all of them, if they had a say, would’ve picked something dark and edgy looking as that reflects “power from being sharp” and “I feel dreary and I feel like I should dress that way.”

Pink is a color that often means hopefulness, light and care, and innocence. It’s a love for others and for yourself. So, by him choosing this, it’s reflective of the fact that he’s learning how to love himself and we love to see that. Saeran’s love for the world and his growth is... honestly, something that helps me feel like I can wake up in the morning.

The funny part about this is I think his favorite color is blue. It has to be blue. Because the sky is blue.

That, my friends, is a carnation. That is a pink carnation. Pink carnations tend to mean I'll Never Forget You, that’s one of the more popular meanings that comes to my mind. I think one of the other meanings is gratitude.

It’s the official flower for Mother’s Day, as well, in America, anyway, if you didn’t know that fact! I think they gave him carnations because it’s about his faith and love for his MC that has shown him how to have strong gratitude and how to be thankful for every breath in his body. So, I think we should go ahead and cry on this one.

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voiceless-terror · 3 years

Text

Ink (TMA Fanfic)

For TMA Gerry Week 2021 Day One

Pairings: Jonathan Sims/Gerry Keay/Martin Blackwood

Rating: T

Summary: Art’s how Gerry shows his love- a few snippets where he does exactly that. No powers-au, Gerry and Martin own a bookstore. Takes place in this universe but can be read alone!

He’s getting used to having people who want him around.

Gerry’s had friends, sure. Once he left the institute and began working odd jobs, he realized how much he genuinely enjoyed having company. He still isn’t the most social of creatures, but he does enjoy a night out with old coworkers who enjoy his stories and laugh at his jokes. But now, with Jon and Martin, they want him around all the time. Even after they started dating, even after he moved in, he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never does, though. And Gerry, in spite of himself, begins to relax. Begins to feel at home.

He’s laying on the couch, scribbling in his notebook when Martin surprises him with a peck to the top of his head. “Whatcha drawing this time?” He was very excited when he heard Gerry liked to draw, immediately asking to see his notebook or anything he’d done. He’d only recently shown him some of his work; he knows Martin would never make him feel embarrassed, but, well. It’s another part of himself no one’s ever been interested in. Until now.

“Jon,” Gerry responds, leaning into the touch. It’s an amateurish attempt in his opinion, just a rough sketch. But he’s got the proportions down and he never forgets a face. Couldn’t forget, in Jon’s case.

“That’s…” Martin trails off, peering closer at the page. “That’s really good. You’ve even got him smiling!” It’s not that Jon never smiles; he smirks and laughs and snarks. But he’s managed to capture that rare, bright grin that makes Gerry’s heart skip a beat.

“Mhm.” Gerry nods slightly, pen tapping against his sketchpad. He turns around, seeing the naked fondness in Martin’s eyes and has a particularly wicked thought. “Y’know, this is how he looks when he’s watching you.”

Martin sputters, turns a lovely shade of red. “W-What? Really?”

“No,” Gerry smirks. “It’s the way he looks at the Admiral.” A groan and a light smack to the shoulder prove his joke is unappreciated. “Sorry, sorry! I’m sure he also looks at you that way-”

“You’re an ass.” Martin rolls his eyes but oh-so-gently picks up his hand, pausing to inspect the ink-stained fingers. “A very talented ass.” His mind blanks as Martin kisses them one by one.

Thoroughly distracted, he never gets around to finishing that sketch.

_______

Painting, as it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. Still quite fun, though.

They’ve just found the perfect space- a little out of their price range, but Gerry’s got savings and Jon was willing to part with a bit himself. Martin fretted over his ‘meager contribution,’ as his savings were depleted in the final months of his mother’s care. Ridiculous that he would ever think his contribution meager, considering he’s the one who scouted for locations and did all of the paperwork and stayed up late, agonizing over their finances. Some days, Martin’s the only one keeping them sane. Gerry and Jon are due to remind him of that.

Which is why they’re handling the decorating. Jon claims to have no artistic talent, but he does have a knack for making places seem like home. There are boxes filled with knick knacks and rugs and pictures, all waiting to be hung somewhere once Jon’s finally settled on a layout. Gerry’s left with painting the walls, labeling the different sections in whatever way he sees fit. He’s currently at work on the horror section, painting a stylized eye above the tarp-covered bookshelf when he hears the sound of the bell; Martin must be back from the store. They’d run out of appropriately-sized nails and after a minor freak out, he’d been on his way.

“Find what you were looking for?” he calls, listening as Martin’s footsteps grow closer, the crinkle of bags in his hand. “Here to save the day?”

“I wouldn’t call it saving,” Martin snorted, setting them down on the ground with a thump. “But it’ll certainly help. That looks nice.”

Gerry pauses, considering his work. He really needs a darker green for this. “Thanks. It’s a work in progress.”

“I’m sure it’ll turn out great,” he murmurs distractedly, and Gerry turns to look back at him. The lines of his face are more pronounced than usual, as are the shadows under his eyes. A sure sign that the stress is getting to him. Gerry understands, and he’s not much for being particularly sappy but he does what he can to help.

“Hey,” he calls down to him from his ladder. “C’mere. Need your opinion on something.”

Martin sighs, but heeds the call. “What is it? You know I’m rubbish with this art stuff-”

“It’ll only take a second. Come closer.”

“What am I supposed to be looking at-”

“Closer.”

As Martin huffs and leans towards him, Gerry darts his paintbrush out, drawing the quickest of hearts on Martin’s cheek before he can pull away.

“Gerry!” Martin startles and his hand reaches up to wipe at his cheek.

“Don’t smear it, it’s a heart.” He pauses, going for his gravest voice. “Because I love you so much. I’ll be devastated if you ruin it.”

“I don’t appreciate that.” Martin sighs but drops his hand, his face softening already. Exasperation has never been paired with fondness, not when it’s aimed at Gerry. Another thing he’s starting to get used to.

“Shame. It looks good.”

Martin goes home with a heart on his other cheek as well. He looks ridiculous. Gerry loves it.

_________

When Jon’s particularly stressed, Gerry leaves him post-it notes.

Often he leaves before Gerry even wakes, so he’s got to do them the night before. A little cat here, a little caricature of Bouchard there. He leaves a variety, depending on his mood. Jon always gives him a kiss when he gets home, a soft ‘thank you for the note,’ and that’s all he needs, really, to keep doing it. He likes making Jon smile.

Martin’s gone grocery shopping and Jon’s pulling a late night again, so Gerry’s alone in the flat looking for something to do. There’s nothing on Netflix worth watching (or at least, worth watching by himself) and he’s not in the mood for his latest novel, so he decides he’s going to be productive, make a list of all the things he has to do this week. Jon’s always going on about lists, though he leaves them everywhere and never seems to accomplish everything on them. Maybe it’s the act of making them that’s relaxing. It’s worth a try.

He makes his way over to the second bedroom they (mostly Jon) use as an office. He’s sure Jon’s got a little notepad here that he can use, and he wants it to look as official as possible. He opens the left hand drawer but only finds Martin’s receipts, and on the right he finds a plain-looking notebook, a little worn with use. Maybe that’s what he uses-

Gerry opens it. Pauses. Blinks. Feels something heavy and thick form in his throat.

It’s his notes- his stupid little sketches, his ‘have a good day at work’s, his smiley-faces and little hearts. Each carefully placed on page after page with an accompanying date, neat and tidy, like a little scrapbook. Mum used to throw out his ‘doodles,’ as she called them, told him his time was better spent on actual art, but Jon’s kept all of them. Like they mattered. Like they were important. He sets it back down on the desk and just stands there, heart beating hard in his chest.

Gerry’s tearing up like some sort of moron so he’s distracted and doesn’t hear Jon come home, doesn’t hear his usual grumblings and sighs. Doesn’t hear him until Jon’s right behind him, startling him with a hand on his arm. “Sorry, I was just- Gerry, are you alright?”

Alright. Alright. It’s a word that doesn’t encompass everything he’s feeling. Wanted, embarrassed, a little overwhelmed. And so, so happy.

He turns around and grabs Jon in a fierce hug, overcome with affection and eager to hide his stupid tears as he squeezes Jon to his chest. “You’re adorable, you know that?” he says, peppering kisses to the top of his head despite Jon’s weak protestations. “Real fuckin’ cute.”

Jon melts into his embrace, even as he complains. “I’ve got no idea what you’re on about, Gerry,” he says into his chest, the words muffled. “You’re being absurd.” Jon’s just about the only person he knows that uses ‘absurd’ on a daily basis. It’s insufferable. Gerry loves it.

“Just let me hug you, you little ogre.”

_________

Sometimes, Gerry’s the one who’s got to be up early. Doctors appointments are a bitch, and after a brief scare last year, it’s important that he keep up with them. Martin helps him schedule, marking the appointments on the calendar with a bold black marker that can’t be missed.

This morning’s particularly brutal, with an eight o’clock appointment an hour’s commute away. Jon went to sleep at a reasonable hour last night and he needs the rest; Gerry knows if he wakes Martin, he wakes them both. Jon’s never been good at sleeping alone.

He’s stumbling blearily around the kitchen, about to put the kettle on when he notices it. On the table is a post-it note; he doesn’t remember leaving one for Jon last night, but he’d been rather tired, so who knows? Gerry putters around, fixing his tea and nibbling at toast when he finally spares it a glance.

It’s not for Jon. It’s for him.

Good luck at your appointment! It reads in Martin’s familiar, neat script. Accompanying it is a small doodle that has to be Jon’s; it’s not particularly good, but it clearly shows a little Gerry, makeup and all, with a plaster on his cheek and a heart over his head. It looks like Jon spent time on it. Spent time on some stupid little post it note to make Gerry smile.

He puts it in his pocket. Takes it out a few times in the waiting room, stares at it. Everything looks fine, the doctor says at the end of the appointment. He’s so lucky.

He’s so lucky.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635833

#tma #the magnus archives #tmagerryweek2021 #gerry keay #gerard keay #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jongerrymartin #my writing

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symphonyofthewrite · 3 years

Note

Saw your post, getting stuff off your chest, I just wanted to say that I haven't seen the thing with the kids mentioned by anyone and it really stood out to me, I feel what you mean to some extent, because for me it was a stronger reaction, albeit you probably won't feel the same and that's, obviously, perfectly fine. I have an instant recoil these days whenever a character is around kids for like one second and everyone instantly goes "THEY LITERALLY ADOPTED THEM/THAT'S THEIR CHILD/THEY'RE A PARENT"... genuinely sick of it, and I went white as a sheet when I heard it, I wanted to pluck my eyes out. I don't know if it's an American thing but English speaking fandoms (well, those teeming with fancops that is) seem like they cannot process adult looking characters being in any near proximity to childlike characters without automatically imposing parenthood and family dynamics and it's becoming distressing to me. I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me.

Thank you so much for the ask!! I don’t get many asks so it makes me happy when I can talk meta with people 💛💛 (Sorry I’m a bit late in answering.)

Funnily enough I actually do agree with you. I didn’t have quite so strong a reaction, but I definitely had a very similar one when I first hear it.

My feelings were and are a bit mixed. I was saying in my other post that I would have preferred that I got to actually see this interaction; see the kids run by him and call him father, and him smile when no ones looking. I still think that would have been a better, more touching way to do the scene, and would have had more chance of me liking it (though I probably still would have felt very weird about it). (I think it especially would have been better because it would show that Alucard himself liked it, not that Greta was forcing the role on him.) I know that it was meant to be something touching, and pretty much everyone seems to like it (and I have seen some cute posts about it), so I just tried to like it too, and focus on the fact that all they were really trying to say was he was having a nice relationship with the kids, and that was indeed sweet.

But yeah, when I heard Greta say “I heard some of them calling you father” for me it was less a reaction of horror, and more a “HUH??!!”moment. When I heard it I was like “Alucard...you agree with this???!! This is how you see yourself??!!” I almost expected Alucard to refute it and say he didn’t see himself as a father to them. Like I seriously do not see Alucard as anything remotely close to a father figure, and it felt weird and wrong to me.

Like when I saw him interacting with the kids the first time, I didn’t think “oh he’s a father figure to them.” I just thought “yay, Alucard’s playing with some kids, and getting out of his bubble!!” I didn’t have any thoughts as to what his relationship role was with them, I just thought that first interaction was lovely.

And if I saw him interacting with the kids again, I still wouldn’t go “father figure” I’d just be like “yay, Alucard’s playing with the kids again, how sweet!!”

Sometimes the relationship doesn’t need a role or a label, ya know?

And I thought it was especially strange because…he literally just met them?? Like how can they possibly start calling him father when he’s played with them once or twice? Regardless of Alucard’s side or things, what group of kids would randomly call a nice man they just met ‘father’? Is...Is this a normal thing??

Anyways, back to Alucard’s side of things, Sypha’s line about Alucard being a teenager trapped an adults body has always been something that stuck with me and shaped how I view Alucard. I definitely view him as internally much younger than he looks. No matter how much I might hate them for what they did to him, I think Sumi and Take are about the age he actually is, and their relationship with him made sense to me. He’s still a kid—or at least young—he still needs his parents in his life, really. (That’s part of why I didn’t like that Drac and Lisa don’t go to him at the end. I personally don’t think Alucard really got closure, and in my mind I think he still very much needed them, and that would have been the perfect ending to his story in my mind, where everything comes full circle; He was forced to lose his parents and grow up too early, and only when he’s started to truly grow up does he get them back.) So yeah, I really don’t see him like a father at all. One of my main focuses in my Castlevania fanfiction is his relationship with Dracula, so I very much see him as the son, not as the dad, even when Drac isn’t around.

(Sidenote, come to think of it, I think this is another reason why Greta x Alucard is a nope from me. She’s very much an adult, so I just see a discrepancy between them that makes me feel weird about them being in a romantic relationship. If we need a label I feel like she fits as an older sister for him, guiding him and giving him support. Him unloading all his problems on her within just meeting her makes more sense if he’s like a younger brother who needs to cry to his sister. I felt weird about it in a romantic context when it was so fast. I mean I know he was desperate to talk to someone, and I probably would have done the same, but still).

“I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me”

^^ THIS. EXACTLY THIS.

I was honestly really hoping they’d go in depth into him dealing with his trauma, and how he’s still hurting from the wounds of it, and how he needs to heal. I thought that’s what his S4 arc would be about. I don’t think they gave him the chance to really process and work through everything that happened. (Again, I don’t think him just unloading all his problems on a nice stranger is truly working through his trauma. I would have much rather watched him struggle to trust her, and him telling her about his trauma happen later, and be difficult for him, and a deep, heartfelt moment).

Like I was saying in my other post, I think if they framed his arc in how he dealt with the town collectively, I think that would have fit better, and been more touching and satisfying. I would have liked to see him struggling to trust humans, and then see as time progressed how several different people in the town liked him and meant him no harm, and how he realized he could trust them, and that he liked them too. It wasn’t that he had a bad romantic partner and needed a new one. He believed he needed to be punished for killing his father, and in his deep loneliness he let these kids into his house and heart, and they turned on him because he was half vampire. That’s something pretty deeply ingrained, and not something a new romance just fixes by existing. He needed to work through that in a much deeper way.

I know this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion, and it's totally cool if you disagree, but in a weird way... I sort of disliked Alucard’s ending. Don’t get me wrong, Im glad he’s happy, and I’d certainly prefer it to him just getting more trauma like last season (*shudders*), and I don’t think him opening up his castle (and his heart) to humanity is a bad way to end his story, certainly not. I think that fits. And my heart did melt a bit at the "I'm weirdly happy" scene. But, where everyone else is like “*sobbing* happy endings for all our faves” ...I see the creators of the show trying to wrap everything up in a neat little bow, and while that’s certainly not all bad, I don’t love every aspect of that. Theres a time and place for that, but a show based on video games, for which there’s more content in these storylines isn’t one of them in my mind.

Sometimes some of the sadness needs to linger. At the very least, let it linger at the beginning of the season so you can work through it in a powerful way, you know? It may have been tough to see Alucard be more closed off, but I think it would have been more satisfying to see him open up his heart and go back to his old self if we saw his trauma leave lingering effects at the beginning.

To me it didn’t feel like a satisfying arc, it felt like the fairytale ending of “oh look he’s not apprehensive about humanity even after what happened! Oh look he got the girl! And the Castle’s a happy place now! Look he’s not sad anymore! He’s even a father figure to these kids! He’s totally moved on!” And all those things can be awesome when done properly, and when they have depth to them. But they didn’t work through the trauma to get there, so it felt surface level to me, and too fast. I really liked that first episode, and how we saw the two sides of him—one that's become more closed off, and the other that still buries the human despite his comments—and I also really liked the first interaction with the kids, and thought that was one of the few interactions that had depth to it and fit with his arc well. Having it go beyond “they’re helping him learn to like and trust humanity again, and displaying who he really is inside” ended up detracting from the power of his relationship with them in my mind.

Having played SOTN, I think an ingrained loneliness and sadness are, in a way, a key part of Alucard’s character. That sounds really sad and awful out loud but…there are some people that just have a sadness or a loneliness to them, and that's not entirely bad. Here’s the thing…it can make them that much more beautiful. The fact that they still fight for good, even when they see all the dark, those moments when they find true friends, despite how alone they are, those moments when they are happy, are so much more powerful. They just are always a bit…separate from other people. One of my favorite lines in anything is the line "We are connected by our darkness, not by our light" in Pandora Hearts. I think it's a line that fits Alucard well, and it’s always something that’s drawn me personally to him. Don't get me wrong, I don’t think Alucard’s all dark and sad and lonely, he’s definitely got a bright side to him too, of course he does. But I also don't think he ever is able to fully accept the vampire side of himself, and I find that interesting, and worth exploring. Personally I was honestly hoping for the show makers to come up with a bittersweet reason for why he went to sleep for 300 years, (and I thought that's why they set things up with Sumi and Taka that he’d have something against his vampire nature). Personally it felt like they were trying to say “oh he’s all better now, he’ll never be sad or lonely again” and while that’s nice I suppose…for me it sort of…stops feeling like Alucard, in a way? I don't know if I'm explaining it right, or if that sounds terrible...😅

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I do agree that’s very common of fandom that people are like “boom! Just add water! Instant father figure!” and I don’t love it either. Sometimes it can be cute if it truly fits, but it doesn’t fit every relationship between an adult-looking character and a kid character, and shouldn't be the first place people go to. In the same way every relationship doesn’t have to be romantic, not every relationship has to be parental/familial either. Sometimes it feels like fandom culture isn't really okay to have some characters just be good friends. A good friendship can be more wonderful than a romance sometimes.

If we have to put a label on it, I think he seemed like a nice older brother figure to them? I think that fits who he is in my mind. But father? Nope. Not for me. And again, I don’t think it needs a label.

Thanks again for sending me this ask!! It was nice to get the chance to work through some more of my feelings here too. Sorry if I went too overboard. And I hope I don’t sound too terribly negative, it really was a great season, and I definitely liked some parts of his arc, just not all of it.

If you or anyone else reading would like to discuss with me more, be my guest!! 💕

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