#note: this is an early draft and my thoughts have changed in some ways since the time i wrote these tags

[sovereignjojoz]

Syzoth vs human pregnancy

Summary: he’s dealt with zaterran pregnancy so how will he fare with human, it shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

Notes - this is my first time writing for syzoth so I hope it’s okay still getting used to his character!! Also some things could be wrong with the “zaterran” aspects I mostly based it on reptiles because “reptile” lol.

There was a certain human idiom that syzoth had found appreciation for recently, “get a second bite at the cherry”, as luck would have it he had been blessed with a second chance at fatherhood yet contrary to his first partner his second partner was human, leaving a lot of ambiguity surrounding the baby.

Each day that passed his mind was plagued with wether the baby would take more of the human aspects similar to you and his human form or aspects of his zaterran form, or perhaps even a combination of both! Irregardless of how the baby looked he’d still love them with his whole heart, it was just harmless curiosity.

As he had already had experience in catering to his zaterran wife’s need so he was confident he’d be able to cater to your needs during this time, he presumed zaterran and human pregnancy had many similarities.

Immediately he started preparing some of the minor things such as reducing the temperature down to the coldest setting and moving around the furniture for when his young hatched, since that wouldn’t be a long time from the present it was better to get the hassle out of the way now rather than when it’s too late.

The change stuck out like a sore thumb, the cool draft instantly hit your skin causing goosebumps to flare up on your skin while majority of your furniture was seemingly gone.

The sole item that remained in the living room was the couch, which your boyfriend was currently lounging on. You quickly made you way over to him and plopped down on his lap, giving him a small but sweet little kiss.

He used one hand to pull himself back so he was in an upwards position against the chair cushion so you were in a more comfortable position.

You smiled at him and put his hand to rest on your stomach, his touch was extremely calming.

“You changed some things around in here?” You asked snuggling up to his muscular form.

He stroked your slightly protruding stomach, “yes, I thought it was a necessity to make things easier as the babies will be here soon.”

You supposed he was right, time would move rather quickly so it would be better to be prepared.

“I suppose so, but soon is rather early don’t you think?” You questioned.

He raised a brow at you, innocently intrigued, “whatever do you mean my love? There is merely twenty days left before our babies are born, I’d even go as far as saying we were almost pushing it.”

You furrowed your brows in confusion, “syz, what do you mean there’s only twenty days left? I’m only like 9 weeks along?”

He nodded, “exactly, that is almost full term, correct?”

You opened your mouth to speak before closing it once more, thinking on his customs. “No…?” You said tentatively, “a human pregnancy lasts 9 months syzoth.”

His viridescent eyes widened as curiosity painted his face, “oh really? How interesting.”

“How long do Zaterran pregnancies last?”

“The babies are usually born after sixty days, it is honestly not a long process which is why learning of this lengthy time has left me speechless.” He rubbed his short hair as he thought about the complexity that came with humanity.

You squished his cheek, “wow, that’s amazing but can I ask you something?”

“Of course my sweetheart.”

You continue stroking the soft flesh of his cheek, “why do you keep saying babies, plural, instead of baby?”

He kissed the inside of your palm, “because it is natural? It is common to have up to 10 kids at once within my species, that’s why the furniture was moved so there will be space for the babies are born.”

Your jaw hung agape, “t-ten?” You cleared your throat, “Zaterran woman are strong, however I think we’re only having one child.”

“No I assure you that we are having more than one child.” He ruffled your hair and smiled as if he was bemused by your naivety.

You arched your brow, “well how many do you think?”

“Perhaps three, or four, or maybe even five-” before he could even finish his sentence your hand was on his mouth preventing him from speaking, five kids wasn’t something you wanted spoken into existence.

“On that note, I’m going to bed.” Syzoth nodded and released your hand so you could get up from his embrace, “are you coming?”

His soft lips placed a tender kiss on your own while you lingered at the doorway waiting for his answer, “I will be in bed shortly.”

You nodded then went to tuck yourself in.

But even though four hours had passed, there was still something missing…something besides you to be specific. And why was it so cold.

Quickly, you grabbed the fluffy pink blanket that laid atop of the bed and wrapped it tightly around your shivering frame. Normally you wouldn’t have to worry about such things as even though he was cold blooded syzoth provided an abnormal amount of warmth yet when you reached beside you for him all you felt was the untouched side of where he usually lay.

You shuffled out the bedroom with a small nightlight in your hand in sought of where your boyfriend could possibly be.

“Syz?” You peered from around the corner into the nursery, shivering with each step you took.

The taller male groggily rose up from the small confines of a plush stool he’d tucked himself onto.

“[name]?”

Honestly you had so much to say yet nothing at all at the same time, “I- what are you doing in that,” you made a gesture with your hands “tiny space, and why is it so cold?”

Syzoth rubbed his hands into his eyes, groaning a little as he stretched his lithe limbs. “I thought you would feel more comfortable.”

You walked over to him and grabbed his calloused hand, attempting to drag him back to bed however he broke your hold before you could even take two steps further.

He knew by the quizzical look on your face you were slightly confused about his actions, “I understand you might miss my presence, I miss yours tenfold, but it is probably for the best that we sleep separately.”

“Why though, it’s cold?”

He seemed hesitant to answer, “well isn’t it common knowledge that pregnancy makes people aggressive, my zetattan wife tried to kill me when she was pregnant with our son so I thought this would be easier? And my mother always used to tell me that coolness is good for a strong baby and the mother? Have I presumed wrong?”

You giggled and cupped his cheeks, “you’re so cute and thoughtful y’know but I want you in the bed.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “maybe sometimes I’ll have mood swings but I’m not going to eat you.” You glanced him once over, “well unless…”

He chuckled at that and pinched your cheek lightly, “let’s just go back to bed, I now understand zetarran customs are different from earth realm, but there’s plenty of time for me to learn.”

“Exactly.”

He extended his hand out for you to grasp, “wait actually now it’s been mentioned I am kinda hungry.”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

“Yeah!! I’d especially love to try a bowl of those insects you eat with milk and cookies right now. Ooo! Like some sort of sprinkled garnish!”

Nevermind, perhaps he’d never understand the complex ways of earth realm.

#mortal kombat x reader #syzoth x reader #mk1 x reader #this is just lowkey crack #giggling obsessed w him #the number of kids was 4 if u were curious

[snaccpopstudios]

Hi everyone! We're here with the long awaited post on our newest bachelor, Simoun. We know you've all been abuzz with questions about him so we hope to answer some of that in this deep dive into his creation. This post is in lieu of our usual Wednesday devlogs as we've been writing this over the span of several weeks, and was co-authored, edited, and reviewed by Tobias, Jude, ToyboxToonz, Primarvelous, and Sauce. The above image was drawn by @toyboxtoonz.

You can read the full post for free on Patreon, or click the readmore to see it all!

Personally speaking, some of my concerns since Simoun's debut are thoughts like "Do people think I'm making SnaccPop Studios push an agenda?" and "Do people think I'm going through a checklist while making new characters?" It's made it difficult for us to write this quickly because this is quite personal to myself and the rest of the sensitivity consultation team on the DachaBo team.

Concept to Creation

The story of DachaBo begins way before SnaccPop Studios itself was even a concept (that's Sauce's story to tell though). Early Patreon art of Simoun exists from November 2022, back before I was signed on to manage the Patreon and any other projects besides Sunny Day Jack. Sauce had some ideas laying around for several other characters in the DachaBo universe that didn't make it into the proof-of-concept demo:

I dug up an old draft for the DachaBo cat character we teased and it featured a story concept where the cat character was originally a female DachaBo character, referencing the original female design. And overtime he got tired of how he was being treated and decided to change his own self to reflect who he wanted to be, not the sycophants who collected the toys and whatnot ... It was shelved because I didnt have the means to sensitivity check it The designs are half cooked is all but he was supposed to be Indian ethnicity coded for no other reason than I've never seen a character like that

One thing that's important to note is that there definitely are Indian folks who are gender diverse (see Hijra on Wikipedia for a quick primer on one of the traditionally recognized nonbinary genders in South Asia) so it's not a novel concept by any means, but it's also not very common in media whatsoever.

Why The Long Wait?

One of the other contributing reasons as to why Sauce wasn't able to do much with the concept at the time is because we didn't have a VA for him confirmed yet, as I explained in May:

One thing that's rather unique to SnaccPop Studios in all of my experience as a game developer is the fact that all of our series involve coordinating with Voice Actors from the start, which means we need to take the VAs themselves into account when making characters. Adding another layer of complexity in hiring is the fact that SnaccPop Studios is a strictly Erotic Adult brand focusing on masculine love interests, and even if we focus more on the softcore, there's still the unfortunate stigma that any 18+ work has when attached to your name. All of these contributing factors make the potential talent pool that much smaller. This isn't to make excuses: I know SnaccPop Studios can do better on this front. While we can't make changes to some of the existing series' main cast (we don't want to put people out of a role they've been promised), we will do better moving forward to incorporate more diverse characters into our future titles, and that's a pledge

In the field of voice acting, it's best practice to cast actors with similar backgrounds to the character they're voicing, particularly for characters from marginalized populations (ethnicity, culture, gender, etc.), because it's a recurring issue in all professions where marginalized folks are regularly turned down for employment or career opportunities. You don't have to look far for instances where other voice directors failed to cast the proper talent for a character, even in the AAA sphere where they ought to have the resources to be able to find the proper talent; at SnaccPop, we wanted to avoid that situation at all costs.

Finding Simoun's Voice

So we had to confirm a VA first before we could do anything. Sauce, Reece, and I all tried to put private ads out for a trans masc POC (any ethnicity with dark skin) actor for a R18 game, which was largely met with silence at first, then responded to by folks who didn't fit the role in a full capacity (many only hit one or two of the criteria we laid out, some of them none at all). And it's not hard to imagine why: it's common knowledge that the majority of erotic works often fetishize marginalized people who are otherwise underrepresented in mainstream media. Things such as skin color, body type, hair color, age, etc. are treated as traits to be objectified, and on the off chance that queer folks or people of color might see themselves in porn… it's usually not for the most flattering or empowering of reasons. How could we, an exclusively Adults-only studio, convince someone who isn't familiar with us that we wanted to make something for people like them rather than something that turns them into mere masturbating material?

We were almost about to give up on the Catboy until I decided to take a chance on contacting a VA whom I hadn't had any formal and proper interactions with before. I'd been a fan of his work and knew him from an audition he sent in from a previous game I had worked on, but he knew me solely by name at best since we were following each other on Twitter. Still, it was a lead, and after chewing my nails for half a day, I shot off a message to Soren Viloria.

And what do you know? He said he'd give it a shot as his first NSFW role.

Naming the Lad

Soren is a Filipino VA, and despite the fact that I myself seem to be mistaken as Filipino by other Asians quite regularly, I'm actually not as well-versed in that culture as I ought to be.

There's actually a reason why we were so secretive with Simoun's name for a while: he didn't have one yet, so internally we just kept calling him "the Catboy." We wanted to pick a culture-appropriate name for him, something that was meaningful: Soren initially suggested "Siopao" as it was a common cat name (it's a type of Filipino Steamed Bun, so think of how many pets you've seen who have names like Cupcake or Nacho Supreme), but that didn't seem serious enough for a tsundere catboy like him. A few days later, Soren did a little research on a few well-known characters from Philippine media/culture that fit the bill a bit better:

Elías from the Philippine Revolution novel Noli Me Tángere (a required reading in the Philippines). Cat may like his radical tendencies for revolution and his deep, devoted connections.

Simoun from Noli's sequel, El filibusterismo. Holds revolutionary values similar to Elías, but far less noble and more of a loner. Violent at times, and will do what it takes to get his way.

Panday/Flavio, a very popular hero. Part of his charm is that he doesn't have special powers, but took matters into his own hands and forged a magical blade. Has been portrayed in both 'cool' and comedic ways.

Ricardo "Cardo" from the Philippines' longest-running TV drama Ang Probinsyano. Just a cool action hero dude who cares about family, but is also very ambitious and angy.

Seeing as how we already had an Elias Gallagher, Simoun seemed to be the perfect fit, and the name stuck pretty easily.

Simoun's Boundaries

Now that Simoun had a name, we were able to talk about him more seriously beyond the simple "tsundere cat" tropes. You've all already met Gil Finnegan, who we originally brought into SnaccPop Studios to handle the narrative design for DachaBo but was then onboarded to help with Sunny Day Jack, and those of you in the Patreon Discord server are familiar with our mods Tobias and Jude; along with me and Soren Viloria, that brought the grand total of openly trans masculine members on the team.

We all talked about our personal experiences as trans masc/AFAB people, what things we rarely saw reflected in both mainstream and indie media, things we wanted to see more of. Something we all agreed that was difficult to find was trans masculine folks in sexually dominant roles in erotic media, whether that was live video, audio, writing, art, or a combination thereof; there was only a handful of series we could count on our fingers as far as sexually explicit content that featured trans masculine people in roles that weren't exclusively submissive/bottoms, and the majority of us had already seen those or at least heard of them before (ie. Gummy and the Doctor and Sasha From The Gym were prominent ones). Either discovering this content was difficult due to Search Engine Optimization favoring depictions of trans feminine folks, or it simply didn't exist.

All of this, along with the backstory that Sauce had for Simoun, led us to determine that Simoun would be adverse to submissive roles in intimate situations. Simoun isn't the type to want to be penetrated either due to previous trauma surrounding his gender. Bear in mind that this isn't meant to imply or suggest that there is only one "acceptable" sexual preference for trans masculine folks, nor is Simoun meant to represent all of trans masculinity; he may be our first trans masculine character but certainly isn't the last, as we hope to feature more types of characters at SnaccPop Studios.

As an aside, it should be noted that the trend of erotic trans feminine content being more readily available doesn't necessarily mean that trans women have more positive representation per se; for every kinky piece of art created by trans feminine folks out there, there could be ten more works that fetishize and objectify their bodies. We probably don't need to tell you about the common derogatory slurs that have been used to refer to them; trans feminine and trans masculine people deal with varying levels and types of transphobia as well as situations that oversexualize (or even undersexualize) them, and it's important to focus on content that doesn't strip them of their autonomy.

There actually was a period of time between the release of his concept art after Soren was onboarded where the team observed comments both on Patreon and in the Discord regarding Simoun, and we discussed how we could avoid having people try to ship Bo and Simoun together; because Simoun hasn't had bottom surgery of any kind, we wanted to ensure that tokophobia (fear of pregnancy) or dysphoria wouldn't become a thing for any of us involved in the team or for our trans masculine Patrons. It was a bit of a chicken or the egg situation, trying to keep up with the evolving comments about Simoun to try and anticipate what people might accidentally say.

Debut Day Thoughts, & Moving Forward

We were quite happy with the general reception everyone had with Simoun, and we're excited to see so many people taking a liking to Simoun after his reveal. SnaccPop Studios has always strived to provide inclusive and diverse stories for those who don't often get represented in media, much less NSFW media, and the team was quite elated to see folks who were just as happy to see Simoun.

We hope that the love and care we put into building Simoun has shone through in this post and will continue to shine as we write more of him for DachaBo, because we're just getting started.

#dachabo #character design #trans masc #transmasculine #transgender #minors dni #gamedev

[jo-harrington]

Interview Prep (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: Reader is worried about making a change to some routines.

Previous Part: Standard Operating Procedures 1.03

Warnings/Themes: AU where the Upside Down doesn't terrorize Hawkins. Reader works at the Claire's at StarCourt. Eddie works at TapeWorld. Mutual Pining and Slow Burn, Meeting the Family, Anxiety, Fluff

Note: Special thanks to @chestylarouxx @fracturedarkness and @courtingchaos for reading my snippets, listening to my rambling, and easing my nerves with this one. It's been in my drafts since February! And it's always kind of eluded me, but it's very special so I appreciate the time you took to help me out. So so much.

You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager and all of my other writing.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

“…and I swear the sound is so much better than my Fender. Like a thousand times better. I’m gonna need a new amp, I think. She is way too good for that hunk of junk that Rick got from his buddy way back when.”

“Uh huh.”

“God, I wish you could come to a show to hear it. Maybe...maybe I can ask Tom at the Hideout if our set could be a little later one night so you could come out after the store closed?"

"Sure."

“And then we could get pickle and bologna milkshakes at Benny's afterwards."

"Sounds great."

"Am I boring you?” Eddie finally stopped as he hit the button on the bailer and put his hands on his hips. "You're not even listening."

“What?” You freed yourself from your thoughts and got a good look at him. "I...what? No."

It was break time, which meant cardboard got crushed and garbage tossed before you ventured into the food court for something to eat. And on a day like today when your schedules aligned, that also meant your break was spent with your closest friend--only friend--in Hawkins.

And on any other day, you would have happily listened to his story.

Hell, you actually had listened to him...for most of it at least--he boasted about his new guitar, how he named her Sweetheart, and her first actual performance outside of Gareth's garage that had occurred the night prior--before you got too caught up in your own head.

It had been a normal Wednesday when you got to the store for your opening shift. The registers were counted, gate pushed up, and you were about to confidently post the new schedule.

Then the mail was delivered.

And with it, a larger envelope from home office that contained a very hefty packet inside.

Normally a package like that would make you happy; it was a sign that one of your favorite weeks of the year was approaching: planogram week. It was, quite honestly, not only your favorite week but your favorite part of the job altogether. More than your team, more than your discount...certainly more than helping customers.

Summer was coming to an end, which meant all of the trendy accessories would make way for backpacks, water bottles, notebooks, and lunch boxes. Things that stayed hidden away for 75% of the year, but were suddenly at the forefront of every parent and pre-teen's mind as they got ready to look their best on the first day of school.

Today, however, you suddenly felt a sense of dread as you opened the package because a planogram meant that you would have to schedule an overnight shift on the one night of the week that the mall closed early.

Sunday Night.

Date Night with Eddie.

Eddie's favorite night. And yours.

Your favorite part of your job encroached on what was becoming an essential part of your life.

So you spiraled until your break because it was easier to worry and overthink than it was to just...communicate the fact that you might have to miss a Sunday and face the possibility that Eddie could be mad at you.

Unfortunately he seemed a little steamed right now because he thought you hadn't been listening to him.

His little grumpy face was cute though.

Why was this harder than having to call your team to ask if they were ok with an unexpected overnight shift? God damn it, you needed to get a grip.

“You weren’t listening to anything I said,” he repeated.

“Yes I was,” you insisted.

“What did I say then?”

“You nailed the solo.”

“And…”

“And you actually got a round of applause.”

“And?”

“And you need a new amp.”

“And?”

“Uhm… a-and…”

Shit…maybe you had delved a little bit too far.

Growing up with a big, loud family--including an overbearing mother and two annoying brothers--meant you had the innate ability to split your brain in half and listen to them while also worrying about your own shit.

However, thanks to the intensity of your worrying, that ability failed you.

You wracked your brain for a good 30 seconds until Eddie’s scowl turned into a wicked smile, and then you knew he was just being a jerk.

“You’re the worst,” you grumbled at him.

“Excuse me,” he placed a hand on his chest in fake affront and stumbled back a few steps to collapse against the side of the trash compactor. “I'm the worst? You agreed to Pickle and Bologna milkshakes and ignored your best friend. Not very metal, sweetheart."

"I just have a lot on my mind." You shook your head and sighed. "Sorry."

"Well it's a good thing that I am a great listener. Unlike someone."

Eddie pushed himself off the compactor, put his hand on your shoulder, and guided you back inside to the food court. You got your meals of choice and tucked yourselves into a table in the corner by the JCPenney entrance.

"Alright," he started with his mouth full of fries. "Tell dear old Eddie what's bothering you."

You swallowed a mouthful of food and took a deep breath.

It was now or never.

"Well...there's this big thing coming up at work...planogram...uh...floor set," you began. "And it's really important and after it's done...we'll get visitors from corporate and my boss will probably make a few visits to see how it's going. I just want to do really well."

"Well, you've been doing a good job so far right?" Eddie shrugged. "Why wouldn't they think so now?"

"I don't know, I don't wanna mess it up," you admitted. "I'm a new store manager. And a lot of the team never worked retail before. I literally cried my first floor set as a sales associate. It's tough."

"You're just giving yourself the yips. I do it all the time when we add a new song to the set list."

"Don't just say that to make me feel better."

"Last week I forgot how to do a G-chord," he crossed his heart. "Scouts honor."

"You were a Boy Scout?" you asked skeptically.

"Stop distracting me." He popped another French fry in his mouth in an exaggerated fashion. "What else?"

"Well...we have to schedule floor sets on a Sunday."

"Ok."

"After the store closes."

"...Oh."

"Yeah."

Eddie sipped his drink thoughtfully and stared at you with his abyss-like eyes; they didn't betray a single thought going through his head and it made you nervous.

And nervous meant that you didn't shut up.

"I mean I don't want to have to cancel our night out," you started with the word vomit. "It's just the way things are always done and you'll see one day if you still work at Tape World for long enough, that's one of those things that...I don't know, if you try to do things differently it always comes back to bite you in the ass.

"And I'm young and whenever we have a conference call to talk about sales...my DM doesn't let me forget that I'm a baby compared to everyone else and it's so frustrating because I feel like I can't even suggest anything new because it immediately is dismissed as naive. It's like they keep waiting for me to fail. So I wish...I wish I could make a change so we could keep our plans. Like if it was anything else I could make it work but I...this thing I just can't, you know?

"But...but...b-because I would have to work on Sunday overnight I would probably be off another day so if you're ok with it we can do something else? Maybe on...I don't think I could get Tuesday off because of everyone's availability...maybe Friday if your friends are cool with me crashing your club night. Or...you open on Saturdays. We could do Saturday night instead?"

The punctuation to the drawn out sentence was your labored breath and Eddie noisily sucking the dregs of his soda through the straw. Shithead that he was didn't even have the decency to do anything but continue watching you with his big dumb cute eyes.

"Weeellllll..." he started in a sing-song tone and then paused and sucked at the straw some more.

Could he just tell you to fuck off already so this wouldn't be as painful as it was?

"That really sucks you need to work overnight," he finished his thought with a grin and shoved his cup to the side. "Being in the mall after hours...sounds kinda creepy. Do you think there are ghosts?"

"Are you kidding me right now?" you deadpanned. "You let me go on and on like that for nothing?"

"It was funny."

"I hate you."

"You cherish me."

"It was painful." You groaned. "Like I think I'm sweating. My heart hurts Edward."

"Don't act like you've never let me do that before," he scoffed and rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion. You threw a fry at him. "Don't start what you can't finish sweetheart. One fry can turn into a food fight and I would hate to find out the hard way why I'm Hawkins High's food fighting champion."

"Ok so...Saturday night?" you asked. "This Saturday...are you doing anything?"

"Uh..." Eddie hesitated and sat up a little straighter. "I mean...no hot dates or anything. What did you have in mind?"

"Maybe just what we normally do?" you suggested. "Drive around, eat a bunch of junk food. Or if you want to come over to my place and I--"

"So, I have a confession to make," he interrupted you. "I actually do have plans on Saturday. More like...standing plans than anything. My uncle Wayne is off on Saturdays and we've always watched reruns on TV and ordered pizza. Family night or whatever. My mom used to do the same thing so...Wayne thought it would be...I dunno, good for stability or something.

"It's silly but I don't want to just ditch him without asking," Eddie explained and your heart melted.

Of course you didn't want to take time away from his family; you knew how important his uncle was to him.

"Oh...well that's ok...we can rain check for another day then or--"

"Why don't you just come over?" Eddie asked. "He won't mind. I am opening this Saturday so I'll be done by 5; you can get there in time for Wheel of Fortune. That way he can't yell at me when I try to solve the puzzles with lewd words." He mimics, what you assume is, Wayne's voice.

Eddie looked so eager that you immediately agreed.

Your heart stopped in your chest though.

Come over? And meet his uncle?

Sure...you'd already met Benny a few weeks ago...and yeah you'd thought of it like meeting someone from Eddie's family but...this was his actual family. What if you insulted his uncle or...or made yourself look stupid.

You needed to put your best foot forward. Make a good impression.

"How about..." your mouth started moving before your brain could catch up. "...instead of ordering pizza, I cook for you guys instead? I'll be off Saturday since I'm doing the overnight on Sunday. I can just bring everything over."

Eddie's eyes lit up and as he teased you about the impressive cooking skills that you had supposedly boasted about previously, all you could think was...

How did this situation get even more stressful?

---

The rest of the week leading up to Saturday had been overwhelming to say the least.

To you, food was life. Cooking for someone was everything that you could do to show them that you cared. How many hours had you spent with your grandma making cookies for neighbors at Christmas, or freezer meals when a distant relative had a baby, or a tray of something after a friend of the family had passed.

Food was love and friendship, and as much as what you had done for Eddie with the guitar had been a show of friendship...this meant so much more.

So you needed to hit a home run...or a bullseye...or whatever sports terminology signified that you won.

Which meant you'd spent some down time flipping through your grandma's old recipes that she had gifted you once upon a time--a thin, pocket-sized spiral notebook with a purple cover that was filled with her illegible handwriting and personal shorthand--and thinking of ideas that would be both impressive and hearty. You'd already changed your mind twice, and had made just as many trips to Bradleys for extra ingredients.

You'd also pestered Eddie several times through the course of the week to get his input without giving anything away.

"Does your uncle like cheese?"

"Of course he does."

"Some people don't."

"Would we get pizza every Saturday if we didn't like cheese?"

"There's some pizza that doesn't have cheese."

"Why the questions? Are you nervous sweetheart?"

And that was when he started to tease you. Every chance he got. Lunches, breaks, passing you on the way to the employee lot as you started a shift and he ended one.

He asked if you wanted their phone number so you could call Wayne and make kissy noises at each other for hours, if you wanted him to bring love letters home to save on stamps, and if you were planning to dress really nice for your date with his uncle.

"I'll be sure to grab extra chapstick for him so his lips are ready for you tomorrow," he laughed and leaned closer to make the biggest, noisiest smacking kiss noise in your ear as you waited for your break time cookies.

"You're an idiot," you rolled your eyes after he uttered the last one. "I don't want him to hate me because...what if he doesn't want me to hang around you anymore. I'd kind of lose my mind."

"Oh, uh," Eddie backed away a little bit and rubbed the back of his neck, then shoved his hands in his back pockets. "Wayne wouldn't do that. He's...a little bit of a grump, but he's harmless."

"Guess we know where you got it from," you muttered.

"I didn't know you were...actually worried," Eddie continued. "I'm sorry. But it'll be ok. Even if you...wore a potato sack and brought canned beans that we had to heat on the stove for dinner. He'll think you're great. Because you are."

You were both a little silent after that, Eddie staring at his feet bashfully as you felt your heart race and your head spin.

You finalized your plans that night when you got home and immediately started on your dessert, sure that it was all gonna be a hit with both Munsons.

It was gonna be great. Because Eddie thought you were great.

And Saturday, the doubt didn't creep on you at all. Not while you cooked, not as you packed your casserole dish and Tupperware into a large cooler bag, and not even as you drove across town, following Eddie's directions to Forest Hills without getting lost once.

It wasn't until you stepped out of your car and stared at the front door that you felt your stomach drop a little.

Those four cement steps might as well have been a thousand.

But...your sneakers only needed to crunch on the gravel before the door was thrown open and a slightly-breathless Eddie smiled at you...and then all the worry disappeared.

"Hey," he greeted. "D-did you need any help?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind," you shrugged.

He jogged down the steps in socked-feet and crossed to the passenger's side door of your car, talking a mile a minute as he reached in to grab your things.

"I, uh, got home an hour ago," he rambled. "The A/C at the store conked out...and then Paulie had me make a trash run before I left. Had a big shipment today. So if I'm still a little sweaty...that's why."

"You're fine," you laughed.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry. I've been cooking so I'm probably a little sweaty too. Lasagna and July...sort of don't go together that well."

He raced up the steps and held the door open for you.

"Lasagna? Oh the old man is gonna love you," Eddie chuckled.

You entered the Munson abode and were immediately hit by the strongest sense of home that you'd felt since...well, since you'd still been at home. Not necessarily that it was a place where you belonged, but...it was a place of belonging.

Mugs and hats and other memorabilia lined the walls, reminiscent of the tchotchkes that your mother stacked to high heaven on every available surface. The couch was a little faded but looked comfortable and soft as though you could sink into the cushions and disappear into a soft nether-realm.

Your grandpa had a couch like that. His spot sunk to the shape of his body. It was still your favorite place to sit when he wasn't already there. It was like a hug.

That was when your eyes found the armchair, molded around the shape of the man seated in it. He was older, a little weathered and greying, hairline receding, and even though he isn't smiling right now, the lines around his mouth were indication enough that he smiled quite a bit.

Just like his nephew.

"Uh, Wayne this is my friend from the mall," Eddie introduced you as he juggled your cooler bag and your large Tupperware to the kitchen counter. "The one I told you about. Works at the jewelry store."

"Nice to meet you," you smiled and held a hand out to him to shake. He took your hand in a firm grasp and as you shook his the way your grandfather taught you--to command respect and trust--his eyes narrowed.

"I had to hear about you through Rick, who heard about you through Benny," Wayne started. "And I haven't the slightest idea why my nephew thought he needed to keep you a secret; not the first girlfriend he's brought around--"

Eddie groaned something unintelligible from the kitchen and you fought the urge to break eye contact with Wayne so you could look at him.

"--but I just watched him run around for the past hour tidying up. And he's never done that before. So if you can help him keep the habit, you're alright in my book." Wayne smiled widely and let your hand go.

"Thank you," you chuckled nervously, suddenly realizing how silly it had been that you were even worried in the first place.

Eddie had been right.

You could never admit that to him.

"Even did the dishes," Wayne looked past you at Eddie. "He never does the dishes."

"W-we're having dinner," Eddie whined. "Gotta have clean plates."

The two of them bantered back and forth comfortably and you joined Eddie in the kitchen to get everything plated. There was a salad, buttery mashed potatoes, and of course your still-warm and gooey lasagna.

Eddie explained that it was Wayne's favorite that he rarely got to have homemade--

"Stoffers will do in a pinch," Wayne explained.

--and that you were already more loved than he was simply for making it, to which Wayne agreed. And he even pointed out the well-loved Garfield mug that he had gotten Wayne for Father's Day one year for that fact alone.

Eddie tried to protest when you took the dessert bowl from him to stow it away in the fridge until it was the appropriate time.

"I didn't even get to have cookies with you today," he reasoned. "Or a soda. See? I suffer when you're not working. How am I--a growing boy--supposed to reach my fullest potential without proper sustenance?"

You snorted and brought the plates out to the living area while Eddie trailed behind you.

"He's just grumpy because you're making him eat vegetables," Wayne chuckled as he took his plate. "A feat I have yet to achieve in 8 years. So if you weren't already in my good books, you are now."

Dinner passed relatively uneventfully at first. You and Eddie sat on the couch--which was just as comfy as you thought it would be--as Wayne occupied the armchair. They inhaled their first helping and showered you with compliments. Eddie begrudgingly admitted that your cooking was as good as you had bragged, and even said the dressing on your salad "wasn't Ranch but was still pretty tasty."

As Eddie had told you days ago, Wheel of Fortune started promptly at 7:30 and he and Wayne tried to solve as many puzzles as possible around mouthfuls of food. They teased each other when their guesses were particularly ridiculous, and celebrated when they got one right.

You solved a long puzzle correctly--your only contribution to their little competition--before there were very many tiles revealed on the board and Eddie patted your thigh in praise when you got it right with a soft "that's my girl" that nearly had you drop your plate.

When Wheel ended, Wayne stood up to grab seconds for himself and Eddie and a couple of beers for you all. Before he sat back down he grabbed a tape from a basket beside the television and popped it into the VCR.

"I hope you don't mind," he said sheepishly. "I like the background noise and Love Boat doesn't start til 9."

As the static on the screen cleared, you were treated to a good look of a Map to Illustrate the Ponderosa in Nevada.

"Mind? I love Bonanza," you laughed, and Eddie groaned beside you.

"No I already have to endure Wayne and Rick and their western reruns, and now you too?"

Conversation then turned to you. Turned to the usual stuff that you talked about when you met someone new. And you really...didn't like talking about yourself. The middle child and the only girl with two strong-willed brothers and parents that liked to pick and pick and pick at every imperfection; it was ingrained in you.

Thankfully, Eddie seemed to really like to talk to you, at you, about you.

"I work at Claire's. We do like...ear piercing and cute accessories for kids."

"She works there? She's the store manager. And the youngest one in the company. Right? Is that...no...in the district. Anyway..."

And where you faltered, he picked up the reins.

"I mean it's just community college. Everyone graduates. I'm not smart or anything."

"Are you shitting me right now? Sweetheart I can't even graduate high school."

Eagerly.

"And there was this one time, I shit you not Wayne," Eddie's hands mimed as he tried to tell his story. "She literally balanced on one foot on the top rung of a ladder. Had to have been...20 feet high...to get this kitten that was stuck on top of the bailer. How it got there? I couldn't tell you."

"It was not the top rung."

"It was."

"It wasn't 20 feet!"

"Let me tell the story."

"I'm supposed to be telling the story," you laughed at him.

"Ok, you're right, but you weren't telling it good enough," Eddie argued. "You have to emphasize."

"He means fib," Wayne clarified.

"I mean...bend the truth for entertainment purposes only," Eddie explained rapidly.

Eventually dinner was done and it was time for dessert, which Eddie eagerly followed you into the kitchen for.

"How am I doing?" you asked nervously as you rummaged in the fridge.

"You're doing great. How many times do I have to tell you he would like you?" he huffed good-naturedly.

"I don't know, I just needed reassurance."

"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed. "You're doing great. I'm sure he'll be asking me when the next time you'll be over is so he can maybe get some more lasagna. He doesn't just let anyone watch A Rose for Lotta with him. You're special."

"Am I?"

"You're special to me."

You looked up at Eddie a little shocked and he smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

You couldn't get your hopes up. You just...couldn't.

"What's taking so long in there?" Wayne asked as he ejected the tape from the VCR so he could flip to ABC. You both looked over and found him watching you with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye.

"I dunno," Eddie replied petulantly. "Someone's withholding my reward."

You rolled your eyes and grabbed another set of plates from the drying rack by the sink. You opened your container to reveal the fluffy green mounds of pudding and whipped cream and marshmallows studded with bright maraschino cherries.

"Sweetheart, you didn't," Eddie grabbed you by the shoulders and leaned over to look into the Tupperware.

"I did," you beamed.

The perfect end to a great night.

Because you might not have known that lasagna was Wayne's favorite.

But you knew that Watergate salad was Eddie's.

---

It was late by the time Eddie walked you out to your car, way past your usual bedtime, and later than you should have been up especially considering that you would be doing the overnight tomorrow.

The dessert had been consumed in its entirety; once you and Wayne had your fill, Eddie ate the remainder out of the bowl looking, quite literally, like a kid in a candy store. And as Captain Stubing and Doc Bricker bickered aboard the Pacific Princess, you began dozing on Eddie's shoulder.

He shook you awake and you said your goodbyes to Wayne.

"You're welcome anytime," he insisted as you headed to the door. "Lasagna or no. Don't let Ed trick you into spoiling us. He's still young but my waistband can't handle it."

And now you were standing with Eddie, the driver's side door between you as you sort of refused to get in and drive away. It was a real Midwest Goodbye.

"I'll see you at work..." you fumbled over your words as you tried to think of the next time you'd actually get to see him. You had the overnight tomorrow, and you'd be off Monday. Eddie would be off Tuesday which meant... "Oh god, well...Wednesday? That seems so far away."

"It doesn't have to be Wednesday," Eddie shrugged. "What if I brought you breakfast on Monday? After your floor set is over?"

"God that's gonna be so early for you," you dismissed his idea.

"So? You just made us the best dinner and there's leftovers for a few days, which you didn't want. Let me get you breakfast."

"I don't want to put you out."

The two of you bickered back and forth for a minute before you put your foot down and told him to sleep in because he had to close on Monday night.

"Thanks though," you said. "This was nice. Family dinner at home. It was really nice. Makes me a little homesick but...I guess Hawkins is my home for now."

"Hey, of course, any time," Eddie replied. He looked pensive for a second and then turned so he didn't have to look at you. Like he was hesitant about what you would say or think. "We don't...I mean I guess what I mean is...I really enjoy hanging out on Sundays and I know this is sort of a one-off thing. But...you know we don't only have to hang out on Sundays. We can do...I mean...have dinner again sometimes or meet you after work even if I'm off...or see a movie again...get something from Family Video or..."

"You wanna hang out with me more?" you cut into his rambling.

"Yeah, why not?"

"Friends hang out all the time but..." You shrugged. "Don't...skip out on...I mean I guess I don't know what it is you do with the guys outside of band practice and DnD. Don't skip out on them just for me."

"No, hey now, wait," Eddie held his hand out to stop you. "Those turds already see me all the time and are gonna see me more once school's back in session. And...I'll probably work less so...I'll take any time with you now that I can get."

"Alright." You beamed.

"Alright." He mirrored you. "More non-Sunday hangouts."

You agreed and he held out his pinky. You immediately hooked yours into it.

“See you Wednesday sweetheart,” Eddie said his farewell. “Don’t dream of me too much.”

---

"Alright guys, it's almost 7am, time to clean up," you announced to your overnight crew with a clap of your hands.

It had been a fun but trying night, but ultimately successful.

Saturday had been perfect but your whole Sunday routine had already been thrown off and you spent a majority of your day sleeping and cleaning and wondering what Eddie was getting up to at work.

As you predicted, everyone was more than a little confused by the planogram booklet but you were a patient teacher. Everyone thought they had an eye for store layout until they were faced with twenty shipment boxes of pencil cases and locker decor. You had to talk a few of them down from near-panics several times throughout the night.

Over the course of the floorset, side ponytails became even more askew than normal, a few pairs of shoes got kicked into a pile by the gate, and everyone turned into tired, sweaty messes.

To keep morale up, you had insisted on everyone bringing a favorite tape that alternated in the shop radio and you had stocked up at Bradley's with an assortment of sugary snacks and drinks for the break room. Thankfully, the treats had prevented anyone from bursting into tears or threatening to quit, as you had witnessed countless times during your time working in retail.

You really channeled Eddie's sweet tooth when making your choices and it had paid off.

But after 12 hours of unpacking, stacking, dusting, shifting, and sliding, you were all ready to go home.

You ushered everyone out of the store and locked the gate behind you, and as the group walked toward the employee exit, excitement had returned. Pride for a seemingly-impossible task completed.

"The store looks so good! Mindy is gonna shit herself when she comes in to open."

"Oh my god, do you think we're gonna have a store visit? Can you let me know what they think of the hair wall?"

"We're gonna make so many sales! Who can say no to that unicorn backpack?"

You entertained their conversation but when you set foot outside and saw a familiar van parked next to your car, you lost all ability to speak.

He had said he was gonna surprise you with breakfast...but you told him not to. Of course he didn't listen; it had you rolling your eyes in annoyed amusement.

God you knew everyone was a gossip, this was gonna get to Mindy and then she was gonna give you an earful. She already let you have it when she heard about your invitation to dinner.

You quickly thanked your team and ushered them to their cars before you meandered towards yours. You ignored the questioning looks that they shot you as you hesitated to get into your car but you waved goodbye as they drove away.

When the last car left the lot, you immediately stormed over to the passenger's side door of the van and threw it open to find a McDonald's bag on the seat, two coffees in the cupholders, and a tired-eyed Eddie in the driver's seat. His fingers tapped on the steering wheel in time with Kiss's Beth.

"I'm always somewhere else," he turned his upper body towards you dramatically and began serenading you. "And you're always there alone."

"Unbelievable," you scoffed at him.

"Just a few more hours and I'll be right home to you. I think I hear them calling. Oh Beth what can I do?" He slapped his hands against the steering wheel dramatically. "Beth what can I do?"

You climbed into the passengers seat, closed the door behind you, and opened the McDonalds bag to the delightful smell of hot, fresh, crispy hash browns and egg McMuffins.

"If it's not obvious," Eddie announced as he reached across the van to shove his hand into the bag for a hash brown of his own. "I'm Beth in this scenario because you left me alone for hours and hours and hours last night."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah I got into all sorts of trouble."

“I told you not to bring breakfast.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

"You didn't need to come if you were tired."

"I wanted to and I pretty much do whatever I want anyways," he insisted, and then thankfully focused on his food as you felt your face heat up.

"Well, if you'd like to know, me and the boys were not actually playing all night," you remarked and dug the sandwiches out of the brown bag. You handed one to Eddie, whose mouth was already full of salty, potatoey goodness after he'd shoved the hash brown in one piece. His cheeks were all round and full like a chipmunks and you held back a giggle.

God he was too cute. And he brought you breakfast after a long overnight shift. And he had called you his girl and told you you were special. How were you supposed to stop yourself from having a crush on him if this was...just how he was?

The two of you got to talking about your night, about his Sunday shift, about what you did before work, about what he did after it. And it was nice.

And as you sat there watching him slurp the hot coffee and watch the sparse traffic around the mall dive, you finally found the right words and the strength not to make an absolute fool of yourself.

"This was really nice of you, Eddie. You're wonderful."

He put his hand on his chest and looked a little sheepish.

"I'm wonderful?"

"You're wonderful to me."

---

Next Part: Corrective Action

The tag list is currently suspended.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #store manager verse #stranger things fic #Eddie munson fic #stranger things Eddie munson

[tarochimochi]

Winner Gijinka redesign! I like to think they swap between the skirt and pants depending on the challenge.

Uh I don’t know why I thought their old design was ever okay to bestow on human eyes!

Cut below the entire design process (it’s gonna be long)

So I knew immediately after finishing my Loser design I wanted Winner to be the opposite of Loser. Which ment no warm colors, no vest sleeveless thing, no sunglasses, esc. I wanted them to be 80s inspired to match my Loser’s 70s Inspiration! I wanted them to parallel Loser by being so different but the same at the same time. So I wanted to do alot.

I think very clearly with the first ever winner draft (on the right) I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING LOL. I really don’t like it now looking back and it really doesn’t feel like Winner to me. I think just to show how old this is, this was before I even made established age headcanons so I also had no idea how older I wanted Winner to be.

That age headcanon list will probably be shown at another time, I think I showed it once on instagram after somebody asked.

The one on the left I did right after I finished my Loser design and oh my god I also really hate it looking back. I had this idea that Winner’s hair could be the opposite of Loser’s hair where instead of being from like brown to blond and lighter blond it would be the opposite and oh it looked horrible to me.😭

I think also at this point Winner was still just black and not biracial

Now here are what I would call my “Stuck in design hell”. Characters I struggle with immensely when creating a design I think fits/I personally also like for them. It doesn’t mean I have no ideas, some of them I know exactly what I want to do with them but can’t figure out how to emulate it. I ended up abandoning Winner for awhile because they were giving me so many problems because I set so many restrictions for myself which weren’t exactly working.

So then we got this.. I tried to force myself to finalize their design on the spot… bad idea.. worse idea I could ever fathom. I don’t like any of these designs and plus the way I draw now has changed since I made these designs. I had an idea that Winner’s arm could also be translated as one of those super cool arm grabber toys from the 80s which I don’t know, maybe I’ll bring back?? Depends on how I feel about it after focusing on writing more Winner central stories and exploring Winner more as a character and talking to people who really like Winner.

I should also note the inspo for Winner in the fluffy coat and overalls came from the fact that when I was in the movie theater, I saw a kid wearing black overalls and periwinkle jacket and went “HOLY SHIT WINNER TPOT.”

Somewhat unrelated but in this design Winner also became Biracial because @/exitstudent was like “Oh Winner feels afro-Latino to me” so I changed my headcanon almost immediately. This is why I probably shouldn’t have put my race hc chart out so early because my opinions get swayed so easily PLUS I changed a few things around. (Nothing to major, Snowball and Spongey are Wasian now, Donut is Dutch, put Bomby back in Blasian, Gaty is Finnish)

I also had the idea that instead of Winner having highlights (because I highly doubt Winner would go out of their way to highlight their hair) their greying really early on due to stress and poor genetics probably. Another cool parallel to Loser about how Loser’s hair is something he essentially paid for Winner in a way earned theirs. Loser also bleaching pretty much all their hair would also be a cool symbolism for how he’s not the truest to himself while Winner’s still having almost all their natural hair color is symbolism for them being way more true to themself. But that’s for another day to explore.

I tried to interpret Winner’s shape as being kind of like fuzzy fleece on their jacket and I tried to make this work so bad but I really shouldn’t have. I was just all over the place with the colors too.

After design a bunch of the other characters and finding and discovering new ways i like drawing i quickly figured out why I was hating Winner so badly.

It was everything 😭

So after actually after researching 80s fashion instead of half assing it to make it obvious. I drew up these two concepts.

My first realization was “Wow that fleece is ugly as shit.” So I realized I had to stop trying making the fleece work, kudos to anyone who can. But away from the negatives, I really did love the big black Jacket and the legwarmers (I am a sucker for leg warmers so once I put them in them, it was over for me) Something about the headband also struck me because previously I out a strict “no head accessories rule” but honestly? It really just had to be not sunglasses so the headband stayed.

With some color rework and some help from my qpp (Shout out to her, she doesn’t use social media.) We were finally able to get the current design shown!

I guess if I learned anything from this, people should make gijinkas also based off people they know and see in day to day life. Some of my favorite gijinkas are based off people I know. Like Match being an Afro-Chilean Jew is because my friend who actually introduced me to BFDI was a huge match fan, and an Afro-Chilean Jew so I was inspired to make Match look almost identical to them. With Winner I pulled inspiration from alot of popular Black celebrities in the 80s and Chile again because of said friend 80s.

Thanks for reading this whole kuffuffle here’s some bonus doodles!

Yes Winner is going to crush Loser and Clock, stop them.

The last winclock one may or may not be a reference to something.

Now who’s next? Honestly just whoever people want a ref of next, I think I’m a little burnt out from doing now 59 characters and drafting more currently I think I need a break. Although I’m definitely gonna redesign Clock’s outfit, I’m really starting to dislike it. Until next time bye bye!!

#bfb #bfdi #tpot #battle for dream island #battle for bfdi #battle for bfb #the power of two #my art #tpot winner #winner tpot #bfdi winner #winner bfdi #neps.pawprints #bfdi gijinka #gijinka #humanization

[bellebridgerton]

His Diamond: Chapter 1 (Anthony Bridgerton x plus size!fem!reader)

✨Masterlist✨

The sunlight seeped through the perfectly white, sheer curtains. Y/n groaned and rolled over in the bed in one of the many guest rooms of the Bridgerton estate. She spent the night after a long, exciting and gorgeous ball that the Bridgerton's hosted. They had the pleasure of hosting the opening ball of the courting season of 1814.

The night before, Y/n had the coveted pleasure of being named the Diamond of the season. Eloise had quickly teased her, Y/n wasn't surprised at all, and Penelope had a look on her face that told Y/n that she'd be reading about it in the morning.

Y/n knew about Penelope being Lady Whistledown, and she felt privileged that Penelope trusted her to keep the secret.

She had stumbled across drafts while in Penelope's bedroom. They had a long talk about it, Penelope warned Y/n that she couldn't give Y/n special treatment, as to avoid being found out. Y/n understood, Whistledown must remain impartial.

Reluctantly, Y/n rose from the bed, she changed back into the gown she arrived in the night before. She decided to leave her hair down, she knew she couldn't recreate the hairstyle by herself.

The home was quiet, Y/n assumed she must be the first one awake. She quite enjoyed moments like this, where it felt as though she could be the only person in the world, there was a certain peace to it.

Y/n thought she might leave a note for Violet and slip out quietly, she didn't want to impose any longer for the time being. She collided with Hyacinth. "Oh, good morning, Y/n!," Hyacinth chirped.

Y/n smiled softly, "Good morning, Hyacinth. You're up early."

Hyacinth grinned, she gently grabbed Y/n's hand, "Are you staying for breakfast?"

With a loving squeeze of the little girl's hand, Y/n knew she couldn't say no to Hyacinth, "Of course, I'll stay."

Hyacinth grinned and placed a kiss on Y/n's cheek, before skipping off.

Y/n strolled down the hallway and descended the main staircase, finding herself in front of Anthony's study. The door was slightly ajar, prompting Y/n to knock on the door of Anthony's study, She heard shifting and a soft groan, Anthony spoke, "Come in."

Y/n entered the study to the sight of Anthony waking up, doing her best to stifle a giggle in her throat. He heard her giggle despite her attempt to hide it, "Good morning, Y/n. What's so amusing?"

Moving around the desk, Y/n approached Anthony and lightly wiped some smudged ink from Anthony's cheekbone and nose with her handkerchief, "You fell asleep while working again, didn't you?"

Anthony avoided meeting Y/n's gaze, embarrassed with the state of his appearance. He grumbled, "Yes, after the ball I had some work to attend to. I trust you slept well."

Y/n nodded, continuing her gentle ministrations on his face, " I did, thank you. As your friend, I must say I'm surprised you're finally serious about finding your viscountess."

He carefully encompassed her hand with his, halting her care of his ink stained skin. Anthony gently took the handkerchief from her, attempting to clean his face on his own, "It is my duty, Y/n. My duty to my family comes before all else, and that means I must find a wife. A woman with a pleasing face, an acceptable wit, and genteel manner. She need not win my heart, that is not what this family needs." He stood up and straightened out his clothes, "Congratulations by the way, on being named the Diamond of the season. You do make a lovely diamond."

If Y/n didn't know any better, she would have thought Anthony was flirting. Blushing, she smiled, "Thank you, it is an honor, especially since it's my first season." Y/n looked up at Anthony, "We should go to the dining room, Hyacinth said she wants me to stay for breakfast, if that's alright with you."

Anthony nodded and gave her a sincere smile, "You know you're always welcome here, bunny." He used a nickname he and his siblings had given her when they were all children. Y/n had caught a bunny in the backyard of Aubrey Hall, and she was heartbroken when it hopped away a few hours later.

Pressing a soft kiss to Anthony's cheek, Y/n left the study for the dining room.

As Anthony watched her gliding form disappear down the hallway, he decided then and there, he would have his diamond.

✨Next Chapter✨

#anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader smut #anthony bridgerton x reader #bridgerton

[russellsppttemplates]

Idk if my request came through but I thought about a fic where any driver enters airplane dad mode when he and the reader and their kids go on vacation? 🥰

(Hii! I'm so happy to see that you still follow me, and I say this because I have your dad!driver idea in my inbox still because I wanted to do a series but realistically I don't think I'll do it, but I kept it just in case! I swear I wasn't ignoring it! (And sometimes I looked at it and thought "yep, this person is no longer here for it!". Also, the other one did come through, I just had it in my draft and I was so sure I had posted it already, my apologies!)

"Do you have everything?", Charles asked, "yes, the bags are in the car, the kids are ready, but are you sure you should leave now?", you questioned, "I agree that we need to be in the airport earlier, but maybe not his early", you tried to reason, "the airport is not that far way either".

"Better safe than sorry, we might get traffic", your husband reasoned back, grabbing his wallet, "C'mon, off we go so I can close the water in case something goes wrong and we get a flood when we come back", Charles urged, "mama, is everything alright? Papa is a bit... rushed today", Hervé pointed out, grabbing his backpack, "yes, he's worried we won't make it on time to the airport, but I think we're fine", you noted, "but we will do as he says, yes? No need to rush him some more", you smiled at his attentiveness.

Arriving at the airport, it wasn't busy so checking the luggage in was fine and rather quick, Charles ushering you to the lounge so everyone could use the toilet once again, "Amélie, don't you need the bathroom?", her father asked her, "I already went at home, papa. I don't need it yet", she simply said, carrying on and playing with her notebook, "okay. Where are all the passports?", he asked for what felt like the millionth time, making you open your small bag and show them, "let me keep them, okay? Maybe it's better since we have these grabby hands here and we don't know what his curiosity might get out of him", your husband playfully teased Thomas, who you were holding on your hip, kissing his head before looking at the other two kids, "Papa seems to have forgotten that I usually travel to race weekends with you kids on my own, and we do just fine", you to your youngest tapping his nose and getting a sweet giggle out of him.

"C'mon, guys, the gate is opening now! Here, I'll take this", your husband announced the second the number appeared on the screen, grabbing the small piece of luggage you kept with you in case something happened to your bags and you couldn't get to them right away when you got to your destination, so it contained a change of clothes for everyone, basic toiletries and chargers.

"Papa, wait! My legs can't keep up with you!", Amélie yelped, seeing her father walking faster than what she could, "mine too!", Hervé complained, "it's not like the plane is leaving without us", your eldest said, breaking you out of your serious expression and giggle, "your papa is in airport mode, my loves, I'm afraid we can't do much", you said, walking alongside them so they felt secure enough.

"Is everyone strapped in okay?", Charles checked once you were all on the plane, "yes, papa. Now sit here next to me, you don't need to be worried. We're on the plane, see?", Amélie said, cuddling up to him as soon as he sat down, "I know amour, I just wanted to make sure we got here on time", he smiled, kissing the top of her head and smiling when he saw that Thomas was napping on your chest, "papa, you were running through the airport, it would be impossible to not be here on time", Hervé forwarded. Looking at you for some back up, you shrugged your shoulders, "they're right, you're an airport dad, mon amour".

(Thank you for submitting an ask 🤍)

#charles leclerc blurb #in��s writes blurbs #f1 blurb

[hpowellsmith]

You mentioned that we can choose for things to go slower in relationships. I actually thought things were going pretty slowly already, but maybe I've missed stuff. I've been actively trying to get into FWB scenarios and keep getting rejected and/or nothing happens. Maybe I just don't have enough points with those characters? Or they don't want FWB? The latter would be weird for Denario though since I already chose the option that we were FWB before.

(this ask is referring to this post where I mentioned some of the different relationship dynamics/pacing for the Honor Bound romances)

This is interesting! Basically I made that note on the post because of a comment or two I had saying that it felt early to have early romantic talks with characters - but those talks are responsive to the PC showing they're interested in the characters, so if a PC wants to play it more slowly, the way to do it is to hold off the outward flirting.

But if people want to fast-play it a bit more, spoilers below:

Fiore and Savarel can get into relationships with an aromantic PC, but are not interested in a purely casual/no-strings relationship and want to build some sort of emotional bond. So far, that comes up in conversation with Savarel.

Raffi and Matia are into FWB and/or no-strings if the PC is (or more romantic relationships too): you can sleep with them in Chapter 3* as and keep things casual. That can continue for as long as the player wants, as they're happy with that kind of relationship. You can have some makeouts in Chapter 5 with Raffi or Matia too**. With Denario you can also sleep with them in Chapter 3***; you need to kiss him in Chapter 3 to open that up. At the moment there isn't a point where you can precisely define a Denario relationship because it's all a bit spontaneous-snatched-moments and Denario isn't really thinking any of it through.

Korzha will do FWB - or colleagues-with-benefits - but they don't go for anything non-professional early on in the game because they need to overcome some internal stuff around it first.

You may have been rejected/asked to wait by Fiore or Korzha, but that's not related to relationship types or points, it's just where they're at in this point of the game. Denario doesn't reject you unless you reject him via telling him that you argued against him getting help at the town meeting. Savarel also breaks things off if you do that (which as of March 10, I've tweaked to make clearer when making that choice). Later on, other things will come up that are dealbreakers for some characters even for casual relationships.

The conversations about aromantic and/or casual relationships are something I'm going to go over again, probably more than once, when I've got the full draft down to make sure I'm writing it in a way that matches my intentions and that there are multiple opportunities to have them. Similarly, the way aromantic relationships are framed in the game is very much in-progress, especially later in the game where there may be more trust/closeness in various ways that aren't necessarily romantic. At the moment the Denario kisses etc are behind a [Start Denario Romance] tag which I'm not totally happy with because it may not feel quite right for an aromantic PC... but I do want to tag those options with something to show "this is an option opening up something other than/in addition to friendship" and it's a bit hard to accurately summarise in such a small number of words.

Btw until Chapter 8 onwards, relationship scores are used to flavour interactions and occasionally branch things rather than blocking things off; there is some stuff with Denario which changes based on scores, and to be in a more serious relationship with Fiore (as opposed to lighter dating) you need a decent relationship score with Catarina by Chapter 9. But usually scores will affect things like how successful you are at persuading someone to do something plotty, asking for help, convincing them that someone they trusted before is up to no good, etc.

*To do this, you need to have signalled in some way that you're interested in them either before or during the Chapter 3 campfire scene

**To do this, you need to have signalled that you're into them before or during Chapter 5, though you don't have to have kissed or slept with them before that point

***To do this, you need to kiss him in Chapter 3 and progress things further from there

#asks #honor bound #honor bound spoilers

[gimme-a-man-after-midnight]

my royal roomie (part 2) *sneak peek*

Fandom: Aquaman

Pairing: Orm Marius x Reader

part 1:

https://www.tumblr.com/gimme-a-man-after-midnight/693273500438429696/my-royal-roomie-pt-1?source=share

Summary: After a few days of living under your roof, Orm gets to know the little surface dweller he's been stuck with. With time, a stormy night, and a bottle of wine, the prince learns that he has more in common with you than he may think.

Warnings: female reader, slow burn, cursing, mentions of past emotional abuse, divorced parents!reader, dead parent, comic lore inaccuracies

Author's Note:

Hi y'all! I know I'm just about 1.5 years late in making this part 2...but I really do appreciate the support being shown for this fic! I want to make note now that my writing style has changed a bit in the time I've been away, but I hope the story is still to your liking! I'm already drafting up ideas for part 3 and hopefully more parts in the future once I watch the second movie. Look forward to more work in the future, but for now here's a first look at the next chapter!

Arthur was done - so done.

The newly crowned Atlantean king had so much on his plate already, what with his upcoming engagement underway and him having an entire kingdom to look after. While he did appreciate his little brother feeling comfortable enough to call him at such an ungodly hour, the words the blond uttered made him want to pull his hair out. 

“I think I broke her - your human.”

“Bro, what?”

It was too fucking early for this. 

“Don’t call me - agh, nevermind - something’s wrong with your human and I’m not sure how to approach the situation. Is this really an environment you believe me to find enrichment from? My host is clearly on the brink of some sort of breakdown and I-”

“Wow, I never took you for someone that was so easily shaken, brother.”

Arthur’s poorly timed quip makes Orm stare back at the projection call with a blank face.

“First off, she’s not my human, she’s her own person. Second, what did you even do? She’s not one to just collapse on her own - although she is a serial overthinker and could definitely talk herself to an early grave...”

Orm, frustrated with his half-brother’s lack of support, rolls his eyes over the call.

“Okay, okay, but seriously. Something must’ve set her off or triggered her to react in a way. You sure you didn’t do anything?” 

“All I did was answer the door when she knocked. When she saw me at the entrance, she saw the sweater I was wearing and was overcome with emotion. That’s hardly my fault.”

Orm can see Arthur’s brows furrow in thought at the information, almost as if he’s assessing whether he’s been given the whole story or not.

“Well…where’d you get the sweater?”

“I hardly think that matters-”

“Just answer the question, bro-”

An exasperated grunt leaves Orm as he grips at the sheets beneath him in an attempt to contain himself. A part of him regretted bringing up the matter at all, communication with his half-brother being much too awkward to bear. 

“I got it from the wooden wardrobe inside of my chambers! It was much more practical to wear than the flimsy garb-”

“Shit,” Arthur cuts him off, the hologram shifting as the man rubs at his eyes. “The wooden wardrobe with vines on the sides?”

It was Orm’s turn to be taken aback, unsure of how he knew the detail from off the top of his head.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

A muffled sigh comes from Arthur’s end, the image changing again as the king shuffles out of bed quietly to not disturb a sleeping Mera.

“Listen, dude. It’s not my place to speak on her business like this, but all I can say is that the wardrobe - that room - holds a lot of memories that are painful for her. I know you didn’t mean to bring them up, but that wardrobe is off limits. Just try and apologize for now, but don’t pry.”

“But why should I-”

“Orm, seriously! I get it, you don’t like being there - that you’ve spent every day in your room ever since I dropped you off, but she’s been trying. She’s been doing everything she can to get you out of your shell and you’re not giving back anything. There has to be some give here, and that can start with you saying sorry.” 

Orm was surprised by the fact that Arthur knew of his daily whereabouts already, undoubtedly asking you for updates in him. However, what surprised him the most was that even though you have seemingly complained to his half brother, you never once suggested kicking him out - never demanded he leave your house and have Atlantis deal with him. You truly were a peculiar little thing. 

“...fine. But don’t expect me to continue such niceties with her.”

A belly laugh could be heard from the over the call, surely out of amusement for the prince's unwavering coldness.

“Good. Now hang up, you disrupted my beauty sleep.”

With a scoff, Orm presses on the green gem of his wristlet and heads off to the direction of your bedroom.

#orm marius x reader #aquaman #aquaman imagine #orm marius x you #orm marius #arthur curry #arthur curry x reader #dceu

[astonmartingf]

Hello, Hello! Really big fan of your works. I'm obssessed with the YBOM series, everytime you upload an update I consumed it right away. sorry for the long message I just wanna praise you for your amazing skills

but anyway, I wanna ask whats your writing flows? like, how do you start writting your stories - especially the series one. Do you make an outline of the story until finish, do you just go with the flow or ? I'm starting to write as hobby but I'm not very consistent with it... Like how do you manage to be so consistent with writing while studying at the same time it blows my mind. again, sorry for the long ask 😭😭😭😭 im quite the yapper

first of all thank you so much for sending this, it's making me emotional. i'm glad you're enjoying YBOM <3

second i love asks like this!!!!! i'm very open and like to share my writing process and i have compiled a few examples of how my personal writing flows— and hopefully i can answer all your questions, the response is also fairly lengthy because i too am a yapper 🫡 and like the milestone name suggests there's a lot of personal lore here, anyways enjoy 👍

first how or where do i start? honestly despite me writing regularly i'm a mix of a vibe or mood writer and song titles!!! the ideas usually come early in the morning when i wake up or a thought before i go to sleep. most of the time these come to me during class hours and i write them instead whether it be in my phone or a notebook, or when i'm studying and i listen to a song and it randomly inspires me.

for the series, let's take doab since it's completed, the inspiration came from listening to the same some from patd! and it reignited something in my head and went from there

here are some original notes from drafting the series:

some things go and some things stay. the first two ideas at the start usually stay, and as the story goes i take liberties in changing the plot depending on how i think the driver or how i characterized the reader will react or respond to the situation in hand, so their decisions play a good part.

in greedy for example it was supposed to be a fwb to lovers with seb, but i scrapped the initial draft because it wasn't giving the way i envisioned. another factor is how i characterize the reader / yn because i struggle writing mean characters, and greedy was hard because i didn't want to write a mean character, i'd like to think i tried.

for my ongoing dilf series, it's definitely better because i've learned to pace myself (i definitely have not, but we're getting there)

for the case of ybom i thought of the initial plot and tbh ybom was just supposed to be a co-parenting fluff with reconciliation fic but as i wrote it, i began thinking of the reason as to why alonso and reader did what they did and we begin seeing the flesh of their characters

like the cliffhangers are on purpose, because i too have to stop and think what would be appropriate to push the plot forward, i realized that the ybom plot is all in my head

surprisingly it's shocking how i haven't forgotten about some ideas because i just write them directly and i haven't really written anything premeditated about it, except for the ending. here is the only page i wrote about ybom and it's mixed with other wips

one thing i realized while writing YBOM is to focus on a chapter at a time, but also to ensure that the small things the characters are doing will lead to a bigger picture. i have written a lot in the past and for different fandoms and even some original work, but i have never finished a single series in my name

the first series i finished writing ever was doab, and it was an epiphany for me, because i proved to myself that i could do it, and i could dedicate the amount of time i did, ever since i started writing in third grade, to have completed doab was a big feat for me

there's really only one story wherein i thought hard for the plot which is rlr, which is also why the updates are slow because this is my baby, and i have thought about this for so long, even though i'm not updating or talking about it, it's usually the one i keep making changes to

for the consistency— instead of focusing on consistently writing, my go-to is to take breaks consistently. writing to me is my break from studies and when i have time i usually write in my notes, a lot of the written parts in doab and ybom are written while waiting for the teachers, and in between lab work

also reading! when i'm in a slump i usually read other fics here, atm i'm reading: let me be your lighter @/nostappen and pancakes @/saintescuderia at idk if it's good to read when you're in a writing slump but i get inspired reading and think about what i will write next when i get the time.

being patient to yourself— some times you write a lot and some times you're barely writing and that's fine. it took me a while to learn that so now i'd like to think i'm better at managing my own expectations and choosing to stop when i no longer have the capacity to write.

and lastly to enjoy the process of it all— write what you want to write and have fun with it. not just writing but find a supportive community, i enjoy writing and sharing my silly little posts and talking to people here.

hopefully this has some semblance of understanding, and i made my point across with how i thought it would be conveyed? uhmm yeah, i hope you enjoy, this is vv lengthy actually now....

#★ the inbox #amgf ★ lore milestone #this is a quite long answer i hope you find the answers and what works best for you #hopefully this doesn't sound too egotistical of me but honestly i don't know anymore #i hope you enjoy reading and writing fics!!! #thank tou for sending and participating in my party hehehe 🫡 #also!!! prompts!!! vvv helpful #and listening to music is one as well #okay that's really it all

[doevademe]

I originally had planned for this prompt to be about Percy and Nico remembering they were lovers in a previous life and trying to work through that, but the characters (especially Nico) resisted that plot. Oh well, maybe some other time.

Some other time has come. You can’t just tell us about this magnificent idea and not elaborate!

(It’s the notes from Mixing up the Routine)

Oh, now that takes me back.

Okay, so quick background on my WIPs: I have a lot of them. Some of them transform over and over until they become unrecognizable when I finally publish them. Some barely change and get published with just a few minor changes from their early stages, and some never see the light of day due to plot or characterization problems (or because I know fans would hunt me for sport with some of my more controversial ideas).

My fic about Percico as reincarnated lovers belongs to the latter category. Whenever I try to develop it, I hit a roadblock in either the plot department or the characters remaining in character means the story grinds to a halt. I've tried to rework it multiple times, but I've never been able to get it right. However, if you want, I can give out the latest outline for the story under the Read More, especially since I'm sure I'll never actually write it out.

The conflict starts with Percy and Nico having dreams about their past lives, where they see a person they are in love with (who they are changes a lot each attempt, sometimes they're both men, sometimes a man and a woman, once they were even two women). At first, they think this dreams are random and unimportant, but they are persistent, and once they realize it's their past lives, they become obsessed with finding the other.

Nico theorizes that he's getting these memories now because he's nearing the age when his past life met their lover, and thinks that him having those dreams means they can find each other again. He goes on an underworld adventure, trying to find some way to track his past lover.

Percy, meanwhile, is having an identity crisis. He's falling in love with a memory, while being days away from his wedding with whom he thought until just recently was his one true love, but how he feels for his past live lover... it makes this whole thing feel shallow and petty. He's also sad because Nico has been acting weird, and he knows he won't make it to his wedding, and that just hurts.

Nico appears before Percy the very day he calls off the wedding, and they are both confused. Percy was sure Nico would be away for longer, and Nico believed he was shadow traveling to his past life lover. Nico finally explains his absence and Percy realizes who they are to each other but... he doesn't feel for Nico the same as he did for past life lover, so what gives? Why is that?

Cue an investigation about what's happening, ending up with Percy and Nico realizing this isn't their second life. It's their third. Both times, they have found each other, and their love has made them as miserable as they have been happy. They always end up in tragedy and Percy had decided enough was enough.

It's revealed that before their last life began, Percy lied and said they'll go together like last time, but when Nico jumped into the Lethe to be reborn, and Percy didn't follow. Nico was born decades before Percy because of that. Then, he asked Aphrodite (in some drafts his mother, in other drafts through his father Hermes) to make sure he didn't fall in love with Nico in this life. To block out the feelings.

Once they learn this, Percy is convinced he did the right thing, because what happened to Nico while he was in love with him? Just pain and tragedy. Maybe it's for the best that they remain separated this life, give Nico a full life for once.

And here's where I hit a roadblock, because continuing from this to a happy ending requires Nico to fight to convince Percy they can be together, that this time will be different, but the thing is... why? Why would Nico want to fight for them when he feels like he's the only one with feelings in this life? What argument could be strong enough to compel Percy to undo the block? Only he can unlock his heart. Nico could ask Aphrodite, but that would be no different from forcing Percy to love him. The characters resist this plot having a happy ending, and I want this plot to have one.

So yeah, this is where I'm stuck, and any iteration of the reincarnation has been met with similar issues. I still like this plot a lot, but I really can't make it work, no matter how much I try.

#about my writing #my writing #story outline #ask #anonymous #percico #long post #I hope you enjoy this small what could have been #I'm sorry I can't finish it properly

[dizzy-izzy-in-a-tizzy]

[Note: I drafted this up before Thursday. Didn't edit my thoughts but they have CHANGED since 2x7. Left the opinions untouched.]

Day before episodes 2x6 and 2x7! My thoughts on the main trio ships.

These are all my personal (and rather unhinged) opinions. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong! 😁

Crackpot ship theory after the cut:

Ed x Stede: They're very cute but they kinda make each other worse in an unfun way. Ed's kinda getting enabled by Stede; I'm thinking of that early 2x5 scene involving Ed's awful speech. Stede is kinda ignoring the crew's safety needs for Ed's sake, although simply exiling Ed isn't really the answer either. They both need to grow up if their endgame is going to be satisfying.

Ed x Izzy: Oh god, they make each other so much worse, but in a way that you can't tear your eyes from. Something about this ship makes some dark, angry thing in my psyche absolutely feral. However, it would be a hugely unsatisfying regression for Izzy, not to mention—what the hell would have had to happen to break up Ed and Stede? Thankfully, this will never become canon—although I adore it in fic.

Stede x Izzy: Are you a person of culture? Do you want to see your enemies to lovers slow burn come to life? Are you unsatisfied with Edward's growth? The cult of stizzy welcomes you with open arms. After 2x2, I already wanted Izzy and Stede to get as far away from Edward as possible. After 2x5, I want Izzy to have someone who looks at him the way Stede looks at him—and not just the happy moments! I want Izzy to get as good as he gives.

this has approximately 0% chance of becoming canon.

Stede x Izzy x Edward: Now, I know what you're saying. "Steddyhands??? After all your Edward trash talk???" Yes. Did logic get you to Buttons becoming a bird?? Now hush.

For better or for worse, OFMD is a show about change—painful, difficult, necessary change. It's also a show about love, and how every person is worthy of love. It would send a cruel message for Edward to be truly irredeemable. They have to square the circle of him doing some truly heinous shit, and coming back from it.

Izzy is at the core of that. Edward cannot succeed on his journey without making amends to Izzy. Likewise, Izzy has to find a way to accept what happened to him. Not to forgive Edward, but to accept his new life after what was done to him.

I also think Edward and Izzy's love for each other was possessive and unhealthy, but it probably wasn't always that way—and it doesn't have to stay that way. But they were missing a piece of the puzzle, because they were both trapped in survival mode for so long.

Stede has shown them that there's a different way, and both of them are changing for it. In some ways, each of them has something the other two need. Edward is their spontaneity, Izzy is their pragmatism and Stede is their kindness.

Notes: I considered these ships as an endgame to the exclusion of the rest of the ships. Color and shape coded green-bold, orange-italics and red-subscript for how much I wanna see them, green-bold being high and red-subscript being low.

These are all personal opinions and I respect everyone's right to choose the ships they want to see canon.

#ofmd #ofmd spoilers #izzy hands #stede bonnet #edward teach

[periodically-puzzled]

[tap out]2, 4, 5, 11, 14, 15

If anyone else had asked me about tap out I’d have ignored it. But you… you I can answer.

2: What scene did you first put down?

I wrote this one in order and with no planning whatsoever, which is not true of the vast majority of my writing, but in a PWP there is very little organization required.

I should note that in early drafts, the story lacked an introductory character-study section where Peter gives you a glimpse into his frame of mind. We started right on the rooftop at two in the morning, and right away we were off to the races. Once I got to writing, though, I realized which themes I wanted to focus on and what energy I wanted Peter’s POV to have, so I went back and let Peter sort of defend his own valor before it was ever challenged.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Wade has to explain the concept of a safe word to Peter, and Peter indignantly responds:

“You want me to cry uncle?”

5: What part was hardest to write?

Specifically this section, because it fucked with me then and it fucks with me now:

Peter really didn’t want to imagine the next few nights right now, couldn’t conceive of a world where right now had any kind of ripple effect out onto the future. There was no future, there was just him and whatever fresh circle of hell Deadpool thought to put him through next.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

It reminds me of Jen. I was going to make up some garbage to say about the actual writing (which I am proud of), but the real reason is I wrote it for my friend and it made her happy. I’m very grateful to have had her friendship and her mentorship for as long as I did, but she’s been on indefinite hiatus from fandom since February, and unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with her in that time. I think of her often and pray that she’s doing well.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Anyone who would view tap out as a cautionary tale is already informed enough by their own experience not to need further education.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Authorial intent and audience experience often have little to do with one another. By handing ownership of a story to an audience, you give them the creative freedom to interpret it in radically different ways than you intended. You cannot get in their minds and change their perspectives to match your own. Your options are to let them have the story or to not let them have it.

Read the fic here!

#tap out whenever #ask game #thank you for the ask!

[coldranger]

I've been thinking about this, while many of the trial two songs reflect the choices we made; the innocent vs guilty verdict and the reasoning for that verdict (be it Es or the "voices"). Haruka's song doesn't really do that. Most of these songs are trying to flip our current expectation of the characters while directly acknowledging us, the audience, see Mu inno -> guilty or Fuuta guilty -> inno There are exceptions like Yuno and Shidou who have back to back innos, they still reference our choice in their songs. Not to mention Milgram's wide definition of murder regarding these situations but I digress. While yes, you can see everyone's opinion of Haruka leaning towards being guilty of his crime. Given what we have been presented that is a fair assessment. However, I often questioned myself that if Haruka had been voted guilty in trial one would this song put Haruka in a sympathetic light? I found my answer to be yes, All-Knowing And All-Agony makes me feel bad for Haruka. It feels oddly flexible, change up some lyrics and visuals and they could crank up that sympathetic factor to do something like I Love You did for Mahiru. In this hypothetical could it have turned Haruka's guilty verdict to a inno one? I don't know. I'm just saying how odd it could work either way.

But it doesn't have anything to say about WHY we chose Haruka to be innocent or any sort of thanks to "us/Es" for making the choice. There is no audience imput, while you could argue it was too early in Milgram's life as a project, Weakness and Umbilical were only released roughly a month apart. I can't find when their voting ended but if there's enough speculation for Yuno to have something surely there were reasonings for Haruka's innocence.

There is this line, but it could be read as: "I can't stop [killing small things] does that still make me a good person?" which would make it seem like Haruka is self reflecting Or "Hey, hey I can't stop. Am I still innocent to you?" In reference to "us/Es" I won't deny it could be a 4th wall break, I don't really see it as one since the other trials have been more overt with their message to the audience The voice drama itself also doesn't mention any reasons as to why we believed Haruka was innocent. He thanks Es for the innocent verdict but Es reminds him that there's still more to uncover, he may yet be guilty, instead of explaining their thought process or what they saw to Haruka. This edgier and rougher song could've been in response to Es basically mocking Haruka, he practically had a tantrum when Es told him he isn't out of the clear for his murder.

Tldr; All-Knowing And All-Agony sounds like a song that was prepared for either outcome of trial one. Noting how for someone who's innocent it sounds like someone who got a guilty verdict instead and a distinct lack of any explanation, from Es or the "voices," on why we voted him innocent.

In the end I just don't know how long ago All-knowing had been drafted up, so this is just speculation on my part.

#milgram haruka #milgram #holy shit that was long #just wanted to get my thoughts out there #I thought it was a neat idea and I wanted to see if I could back it up #gotta keep myself busy before Kotoko's 2nd trial #txt post #ramble

[joandfriedrich]

Hi! I was wondering what’s your top 3 favorite Jo and Friedrich moments?

Only 3? Hmm, that's tricky, I am going to have to break it down from book to adaptations. Let me just say it right now, the best scene ever regarding these two is the Under the Umbrella, that is just a given, (one day I'll rank the best Under the Umbrella scene on screen) but let's look at some other moments that deserve love.

Book:

3: Sometime after Beth's death, Jo finds an old note that Friedrich wrote that reads "Wait for me, my friend. I may be a little late, but I shall surely come." And the narration shares that the original meaning has changed into something more tender, and her wishing that he would be here. Chapter 42, “All Alone”

2: After coming to Concord and meeting Jo's family, Friedrich returns to his room, pulls out a picture of Jo and kissed it, and the narration saying how if Jo saw this moment, her doubts of whether Friedrich loved her back would be squashed. Chapter 43 “Surprises”

1: Jo defending Friedrich from Laurie's dashing, calling him old, and her, at first confused since she doesn't consider him old and thought he was speaking of Mr. Laurence, calls Friedrich her best friend next to Laurie, and warns him not to "abuse my professor" (not the professor, but my professor). The early signs of her feelings were so clear there, even Laurie saw it before she did. Chapter 35 "Heartache"

Adaptations:

3: 2017 miniseries has a small but really sweet moment. When Jo is returning home, Friedrich sneaks into Jo's hands violets, which is a moment in the book, but it just says "she began her solitary journey with a pleasant memory of a familiar face smiling its farewell, a bunch of violets to keep her company", it didn't specify if it was Friedrich that gave them to her, so I like they made it clear. Bonus: according to the Victorian flower language, violets mean "faithfulness".

2: Utterly underrated is the 2018 modern day film, and it is a gold mine for Jo and Friedrich shippers, but one that I enjoy greatly, and it is their version of the Under the Umbrella scene (I know, I am cheating), but what makes me need to mention it here is that it's different from the book in the best way possible. Freddy visits her home after receiving her draft, and he gets to see the attic that defined her childhood. It's intimate, tender and romantic, with wonderful acting and chemistry from their actors.

1: The opera scene in the 1994 film. This was the best idea of an addition I have ever seen, and it really shows just how it could be that she would fall for Friedrich, and the brilliant acting and chemistry between Winona Ryder and Gabriel Byrne really seals the deal. If you watched this scene and didn't swoon, then I truly think there is something wrong with you.

Thank you for this ask, it was fun!

#little women #jo march #friedrich bhaer #jo x friedrich #jo and friedrich #answered asks #little women 2017 #little women 2018 #little women 1994

[preseriesdean]

happy ww svenja! time to put sam and dean in more situations. if you could make them play the main characters in a different story, in which tv series/movie/book/whatever would you put them? any specific scene you’d love to see them do?

happy wincest wednesday suzy!!

i love this question 💗 and if anyone knows anything about me at all my answer will come as no surprise, because it’s star wars. maybe a bit uninspired (considering kripke literally called spn "star wars in truck stop america") but i am just... not an au person, have never really been, so for something like that to work for me it has to be as seamless as possible, which i think it could be, and it has to be something i love already anyway. (i may or may not have thought about this before, lengthily, in my notes app) it’s very self-indulgent and mainly an aesthetic (which is one of my main sources of enjoyment anyway) change, but hear me out.

and it’s not a crossover, which i fuck with even less than aus (criminal minds being the only acceptable option. maybe the x-files if i had watched it). i don’t want samdean to meet princess leia or fight palpatine or anything like that, and i don’t want dean to be han solo or sam to be luke (which-- sam is obviously anakin, but that’s a different post that is still half-finished in my drafts somewhere). i just want to pluck them from the highway and drop them in the star wars universe and have them roam around the galaxy in their old but perfectly-working ship and be the outlaws they are, in some indeterminate era. i need their backstory to be much of the same to keep the isolation and codependency of their childhood that is crucial to them and my interpretation of them.

they’d be something like bounty hunters? the backstory would still fit: mary is killed and john makes it his goal to find the ones responsible, and then sort of just branches out and becomes a hired gun, taking his sons with him. the grit and grime and rest- and homelessness that i love about the early seasons can be found in the outer rim, and i can so see how dean would feel right at home in that dark and messy underbelly of civilization. he takes care of their ship and has known like fifty evasion maneuvers since he was twelve and is notoriously good at sabacc. sam gets attached to certain planets until he makes himself stop; lived in the core worlds for a couple of years, but that didn’t work out, obviously.

there’s also something to be said i think about him being force-sensitive (again. hello anakin) and either fated to fulfill some sith destiny or somehow tempted by the dark side. i mean, sam full of rage and energy with yellow eyes and towering over dean, rocks and debris floating or whirling around him while smoke rises from flames licking at the ground around them, and dean just looking at him on his knees and going “come back to me, sammy” and sam actually managing to find his way down from that force-induced hysteria? or NOT finding his way back, killing the one he loves most (love that little padme moment for dean)? it’d work.

and since it’s wincest wednesday (because they would be allowed to be in love on this show that’s airing inside my head, obviously) and i love cheesy things sometimes: another scene i’d love to see is them running guns blazing from some sort of enemy to their ship, dean powering it up and sam shooting until the doors close, climbing into the cockpit as dean takes off into the air, entering hyperspace a little early but he knows what he’s doing so it all works out, and them looking at each other with the lights of a billion stars breezing past, leaning across the little gap between the pilot and co-pilot seats and grinning into a kiss all high on adrenaline, riding off into a bright blue-white sunset <3

#asks #horrorshow #this is me trying to unapologetically enjoy things sdajkfs #i love sw and samdean and my two pages of messy notes and headcanons :') #star wars /

[tenfoldtranslation]

Phew, first draft of volume 1 turned in!! I'm so looking forward to once this gets announced and I can actually talk about it!! Hopefully it'll have more readers than the last series I worked on ^^; Especially because we really need to make it to some of the later volumes, like people need to buy it so we can get to at least, like, volume 8!

To celebrate, here's a short list of translation quandaries/thought/notes that would be too stupid to put into print!

’Bowl’ is better but I think it says ’皿’ so we’ll go with ’dish’

When the original says "evolve" but that's not how evolution works

’shitsuke’ is hard to translate

(ahh now I see why my editor was complaining about the apostrophes, they only show up as pointed the wrong direction when I copy-paste them out)

Apparently lay is transitive and lie is intransitive, who knew??

Silly owner! -> Tricks are for kids! (changed it to Stupid owner!)

KIDDEN (I can explain once the series gets announced)

Looking up the difference between sardines and anchovies

"Thanks" with your mouth full: could be "Danks" but that looks too much like "dank" (went with "Fanks")

MC is really great but there are several lines the get borderline creepy if you look at them wrong ("SFXCreep", "Ahh. You smell so clean.")

you KICK Miette?! (but that’s anachronistic to when this first came out ;o;)

Translator’s notes I can’t include: this reminds me of the eromanga days ("I’ll make sure it’s not scary. So relax, okay?")

(Followed by "I’m not blushing. Not blushing!!" It do be like that sometimes)

This series has a lot of one-page gags which is way different than the ones I worked on before, it's kind of nice to have it all condensed like that!

(It took me like, a dozen reads to finally get all the tiny story threads with the art and the jokes I think)

Oh wait I forgot to send this!! "[Page 36: The joke was originally a play on ’hayaoki wa sanmon no toku’, meaning ’there’s benefit to getting up early’, and [character] heard ’sanmon’ as ’salmon’.]"

(Same character) ohhh, [redacted]-yuki, light snow fall; small snow flakes (like her tips)

へーい -> Mmkay.

It's kinda refreshing, I guess, that we see [main character] without a shirt on a lot...?

About さんきゅー: lol I’m gonna says ’thanks’ is okay since it’s in hiragana (and then I changed... and snuck in Purrfect, thanks; that'll probably get changed. There's actually a spot where it says "Perfect" later, but I think changing it would interfere with a joke there.)

Translator’s notes I can’t include: since it doesn’t actually say body horror ("Like body horror?" -> "Like a horror movie.")

Translator’s notes I can’t include: ("don't make up a man to get mad at" -> "Don’t judge what you don’t know!")

thank goodness for Katekyo Hitman Reborn so I know what a 仮定教師 is

There's a panel that just says マーキング that kinda squicks me out for some reason.

doesn’t specify which meal but, dinner? could be both…? ("今日のご飯なぁに？" -> "Yuya, what are we having today?")

SANMA SAURY

oh same problem here actually, it’s not necessarily rice… (ご飯)

[character name] is named after another character I like from Ajin and acts like another character from D.Gray-man, so those influenced my first draft, but I think I have a solid enough grasp on his own character now after reading up to volume 10

see ’picked you up’ really doesn’t work here (for 拾う, because it means 'took in', but it could get confused with 'lifted off the ground')

too sexy for his shirt

if boku is uke and 俺 is seme, is オレ switch? >>

[main character] really doesn’t strike me as someone who’d say ’Tch’??!! -> "Got me."

oh, cat fight, I hadn’t noticed (I get so focused on the words sometimes it takes me way longer than it should to notice the art)

meager? flimsy? sparse? skimpy? paltry? *scant?

Translator’s notes I can’t include: also now it’s a sneaky Ajin reference (right?) OH that's why I wanted 'play ball' and not 'play catch'... (it did get changed to 'play catch' as of now)

LOTR potato song

just realized [character's name] looks like [redacted] Street

"ass backwards" would be really funny too (went with "Do you two know the phrase ‘cart before the horse’?)

Things on Walmart are called ’senbei’ so that means I can use 'senbei' too right

we were just doing this to Panda (scaring my friend's cat and her tail puffed up)

OMg the jisho example sentence for gikuri… 圭はその問いにギクリとさせられたが、頭を何でもないといいたそうに横に振る。 [redacted] is startled by that question, but shakes her head as it to say that it’s nothing

two very conflicting purposes for this line: not revealing [redacted]'s gender, and also conveying what the line means >>

not to mention it's about おっぱい and this isn't that kind of manga

I mean I guess we could just say 'buns' (instead of dango) but since we're launching directly into Otsukimi that seems unfair to the reader

(It was really funny how frequently things I was doing irl overlapped with what was happening in the manga as I worked on it! Christmas, mochi, snow, cats being cute...)

hey their names all use different writing systems

もみもみ-> knead knead, directly followed by こねこね→knead knead

"Super" seems too girly for [redacted female character]?

"You know, in other countries, they say a lion lived there [on the moon]." I swear I searched for at least half an hour and I cannot figure out what this is talking about. Hopefully someone else can figure it out.

oh like the wood getting in the mochi?? (from the thing you pound the mochi in, we had just been talking about that)

"The moon’s so pretty." -> I love you?

"now I’m translating and I don’t want to get up bc of the cats…"

Staying with my host sister in Tokyo-Chiba gave me perspective on what really counts as ’inaka’ LOL

I probably posted about this already, but over the 2.5 months of translating this, I've become hyper-aware of dekopons. They're everywhere! Even in the U.S.! Trader Joe's just featured them in their latest flyer!!

Translator’s notes I can’t include: deception by orange: ("OK BUT THEY HAVEN’T EXPLAINED THIS YET… god am I going to be sucked into ANOTHER red herring about oranges XnX" -> after Code Geass many moons ago)

"ああしてるとやっぱ男の子だな" -> "Boys will be boys." I dislike this line but I feel like this is an okay solution…? except [main character] isn’t like that XD is that making a new point? I mean I guess what he said in JP would be making the same point… < ah that’s funny because [main character] is supposed to be (speaking?) more feminine

"やっぱユーヤはかっこいいね" -> "You're handsome." this feels like a huge stretch but also supremely in prince [redacted] character?? like she says it offhand. okay well the first word on jisho for kakko ii is ’attractive’, so maybe handsome works? I still think this is the right choice

Tara-> cod means you get poetry like "I think we’ll do hot pot with cod for dinner."

Translator’s notes I can’t include: moyashi (?) ! (like D.Gray-man) -> string bean

is that too SpyxFamily? -> Borf (from わふん) (Went with WORF) (I did borrow "shock" for ガン though)

I thought it sounded dumb but I’m getting attached to it… ("Alarm of cuteness blast")

uptight? careful? particular? mindful? cautious…

Translator’s notes I can’t include: Knitting doesn’t work that way. Also even if it does, the clothes would look more knitted...

仕事、おつかれさま -> "We know you worked hard today." is this what gets me cancelled

最高気温10度 well actually that one works both ways XD XD XD whether it's Celsius or Fahrenheit, 10 degrees is still cold!!!

I don't think the book they're reading about Santa is any existing book in particular

"I’m not a kind" oops -> "I'm not a kid" (silly typo)

"It’s no fun receiving without giving in return." "Prepare yourself!!" (this is about presents, but... is that too sexual or am I just a bad person? it’s fine. bad person confirmed)

lol that puts "Roger!" in two of my series too

Heh sounds too lecherous but hmph sounds too dispassionate…

I really should be writing this 100% in caps all the time huh (since manga is usually lettered in all caps, it might be better to have an idea of what it might look like)

#translation notes #too silly to print #thoughts #original #part 2 coming #apparently there's a character limit