#I am sure I have this video on this blog before but it is just that good that I need to repost it.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[felassan]

August 30th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length and spoilers.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for first Q&A (June 14th)] | [Link to video recording for first Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Please note before proceeding that the devs advised that this Q&A may contain minor spoilers!

Corinne Busche, John Epler and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

KFM: Community Manager Katey JE: John Epler CB: Corinne Busche

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KFM: We’re gonna be joined by John and Corinne here in a sec, just waiting for them to get on. Hey John, hey Corinne, thanks for joining - hey!

JE: Hello! Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure.

CB: Hey y’all. It's so good to see so many people, I see some familiar names here. Good to see you again.

KFM: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to, you know, bring us this second Q&A on the Discord server. Last time we were really, really happy, with the way it happened, y'know, it turned out and how everyone seemed to really enjoy it so we're back again. Thank you for submitting your questions on the ask-bioware channel. I am going to start and kick that off in just a second, but, for those of you who might be new here, I'm the Community Manager, and I'm going to let Corinne and John introduce themselves as well.

CB: Hey y'all, I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I just generally help people on the team do cool things and create this world.

JE: And I'm John Epler, the Creative Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Corinne picked probably the best way to describe what I do, too, so I'm just gonna steal that. I'm there to make sure the team can, is enabled to do their best work and I'm super excited to share all this with you.

KFM: Awesome. Yeah before we start I also wanna give a quick heads-up, you might have seen in Announcements, but there are a couple of questions in here that we have answers to that we would consider minor spoilers. I'll give a heads-up before that minor spoiler answer is given, or even the question is read, so you can go, y'know, grab some water, or y'know, go outside for a second, or just do anything, to decide if you want to listen to the answer or not. But, I promise, these spoilers are, y'know, we'll call them out before we say anything.  

CB: That is kinda the coolest part of this session, we're getting closer to launch now, so I think we can do a little bit deeper on some of the questions this time.

KFM: Yes, no this is so exciting! Okay, are you guys ready?

JE: Yes! Yes I am.

CB: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's start with a fun one. Do all Evanuris hate tea? Does Ghilly-Flower exclusively drink haunted bog water?

JE: Alright. That is a fun one. Y'know, it's funny because I think Solas is the only one of the elven gods that actually really has a tremendous aversion to tea. That said, we don't really get too into what they drink, I would say though, knowing what I know about Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, I think Elgar'nan probably drinks a combination of gas station coffee and the Thedas equivalent of an energy drink, at all times he's got a big Thermos with him. Whereas Ghilan'nain is all about the herbal concoctions that are supposed to be really good for like, your gut health, things like that - she really takes care of herself, so.

CB: John, I think you just described you, and then me. Interesting.

JE: Hurtful, Corinne, accurate but hurtful.

KFM: Okay, next one. So we know that we can hug Assan, but will we be able to hug any of our companions?

JE: So you can't hug your companions at all times. There's not an option to just walk up and give them a hug. They've got their boundaries, they've got their preferences. But there are opportunities in conversations, in dialogue, in scenes where you will, you know - a companion may ask you for a hug because they're having a rough time and you are able to give it to them.

KFM: And will there be a lot of politicking involved? And by politicking they mean quests like Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

JE: Yeah, so I mean, there's not gonna be a quest quite like the Halamshiral Ball, I mean that was very specific to the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was trying to gain favor with a bunch of different factions, they were trying to form an army. Rook's struggle and Rook's, honestly,  challenge is much more immediate and visceral. That said, it's Dragon Age. It wouldn't be Dragon Age if there weren't politics. You'll have influence on the, y'know, things that are happening, and the fate of nations, that are happening around the world, and Rook, I mean, throughout the game, across this adventure, Rook does become a fairly important figure, so it's natural that you’ll have some influence and some involvement with the affairs of the different factions and nations.

KFM: Gotcha. So this question, this next question comes from Onomatopoeia. I know this has been asked before, but they didn't see an answer for it - is there a way to toggle off nudity and sex scenes?

CB: Yeah, let me take this one. It's so funny, John, you get the fun questions and I get the thirsty nudity questions - I'm here for it. So, let me, let me answer and maybe elaborate. So, there is a toggle for on and off nudity. That is one of the settings we have. And we'll be going deeper into settings and accessibility and things like that as we get a little bit closer to launch. But let me also expand on this. So when you're in character creator, you'll actually be able to select what underclothes your Rook wears, and whether that exposes your chest or your breasts. So, by default nudity is on, chest or breast, that is up to you by your underclothing that you select, particularly as you get into, say, romance scenes, but, at any point you can toggle the setting to be non-nudity and it will override your undergarments. 

KFM: Gotcha. This question comes from DarkGoddessEris. What are the companions’ ages? That was a question that actually came up a bunch, so I'm excited for somebody to be able to answer this one.

JE: Yeah,  I can take this one. So the companions in The Veilguard range anywhere from kind of early-mid twenties with Taash at the youngest, all the way up to Emmrich who is in his early fifties. The rest of the companions tend to be in their late twenties, early thirties, again though, they're all experts in their field, they're all people who have been through a lot, so even the ones that are at the younger end of the age spectrum, their experience, they've been through a tremendous amount by this point by the time you meet them, so, yeah. So I mean, I guess, Taash is the closest to Sera at early twenties, but they’re all in kinda that age range, so.

KFM: This next question I'll pitch to Corinne. How linear is the quest experience? Are there going to be side quests that you can stumble upon and resolve within areas or are you locked into a golden path?

CB: This is such a good one. Yeah, a lot of people have been asking about this so thank you to whoever submitted it. So the content in the game is a mix of directed, kinda like story quest missions, and then explorable content. Or you might say optional content. I don't even like calling it side content because it's a lot of fun, it's really good content. So to give you an idea, a lot of the main story quests are critical path missions if we want to call it that. They're very highly crafted. They're more linear than some of the other parts of the game, because we feel that’s how we can tell the best stories, give you a very intentionally-paced experience, y'know, with lulls and climaxes, so it really hits you. But that's only part of it. You're also gonna explore, fully explore a bunch of the locations in The Veilguard, so like, let me just lay a few on you: Arlathan Forest, Hossberg Wetlands, those are probably two of the biggest ones, the Crossroads - now we've seen Crossroads before in Trespasser, but this, isn't necessarily the Crossroads as you remember it. So you'll be able to explore this, this part of the Crossroads, and as you're there, you're absolutely gonna be discovering new areas, new quests, mysteries and new challenges. So exploration in the game is absolutely about player agency in these larger, less linear levels, and it's really an important part of the overall experience and core to our design. Now, as a player - and I'm just speaking for me personally - I'm the kind of player that wants to 100% every area. I want to go find all the optional quests, all the treasures, I wanna see that big 100% completed on my map. That's gonna take you quite a bit of time. So hopefully that answers the question. It is both.

KFM: I think that's a great answer, thanks, Corinne. This next one is from a user named Benedictus: Will we ever get the Venatori gear?

CB: Yeah, I can take that one as well. Venatori gear - so like, I'm assuming what we mean is for to like, wear on Rooks or on companions. Gosh, y'all, I'm gonna be honest - we really, really tried on that one. Hopefully you've seen in the videos our cloth sim, our hair sim, I think it's quite beautiful. The Venatori gear, generally we couldn't make that work to the quality we'd expect within combat. So, no you can't get most of the Venatori gear, but I will say there is a unique Venatori-themed helmet. I, I don't want to spoil what that is exactly, but, so, you can get a helmet, it is unique, it's pretty interesting and ties into some of the events that can happen in the game but I'm just gonna leave it there.

KFM: Gotcha. So, now we're getting into our first real minor spoiler question, so - consider yourself warned, do whatever you need to do, either listen or don't for the next, like, I don't know, minute. So this question is from Kala: Will there be any romanceable NPCs outside of the companions?

JE: I'll take this one. So, no - not this time. This time the romances for Rook are strictly within the companions. We wanted to really focus on those relationships and make sure that they were as developed and as deep as we could make them. And yet honestly and part of it - the other side of it is - Harding was a great example in DA:I, that was a character that as we were building the game, it really struck us, stuck out to us, this is a character that, actually, y'know, you see a lot, you build this very specific rapport with, and the writer, Sheryl, wanted to create that light romance with Harding. None of the characters in The Veilguard really jumped out to us in that same way as, this is a character we really want to build a relationship with, for Rook, but again, y'know, really focusing down on making sure the companion romances were as deep and meaningful as we could make them.

KFM: And this question is just for fun. So we're passed a spoiler, we'll get back into other spoilers in a bit, but this one's just for fun. We have so many cute, silly bird videos on the internet - Lucanis' Ninth Dagger, by the way, says that birds are their favorite animal - if you could just snap your fingers and a bird Easter Egg would be added for Assan, what would it be?

JE: Oh, that's a good question. So actually I'm gonna cheat, because I am trying to think of bird memes, or bird videos specifically, and I'm having a hard time, but, y'know, the thing about griffons is that they're half bird and also half lion, so I'm gonna go with a cat meme, say my favorite meme, and this is one that still brings me joy years after it came out, is the video of the cat grooving to the guy playing Finnish polka on the drum. Again, years old, I've loved - that's one of my favorite videos on the internet, so y'know, if we were gonna give Assan any kind of Easter Egg it would be that one.

KFM: I love that one - 

CB: You know, don't judge me on this, you're putting me on the spot here, but, the only thing I can picture in my head - y'all remember that video a few years back where the kid unleashes the rabbit into the field and then immediately that hawk comes down and snatches it up?

JE: Yes!

CB: Don't judge me, y'all! Don't judge me. But that's where my head goes.

JE: Oh, man.

CB: Assan just getting a little treat.

JE: I love that.

KFM: I love that.

JE: That's a great, that’s a great answer, Corinne. Fantastic.

KFM: So this next one is from a user named Ash. So Taash breathes fire, Lucanis has wings, Harding is a dwarf who has magic. A lot of our companions have some strange abilities - is this because the Veil is compromised?

JE: Oh, I'd say it's, I mean partially yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how over the course of the time since Dragon Age: Inquisition, I mean, it started at the end of Trespasser. The Veil's not in great shape. Corypheus already did a number on it, and Solas has very clearly, as you saw, in the [inaudible] preview, not been making things better in the intervening times. So, there is to some degree, y'know, I'll use Bellara as an example - Bellara's someone who's seeing these artifacts turn on, and being able to interface with them because there's all this magic that's coming back to the world through the torn Veil. Other characters though, I mean, you are recruiting people to stop the end of the world. You're recruiting extraordinary people, they're gonna have extraordinary abilities, and you know, someone like Davrin, a lot of his abilities are focused around Assan and the fact that he's got this partnership, this, almost, you know, familial bond with Assan, his griffon, so.

KFM: Can we get some Assans in the chat?

JE: I think I'm seeing a lot of Assans in the chat, so I think we're well covered there.

KFM: Me too.

KFM: Alright. This next one is for both of you, and I will say, another quick little spoiler, minor spoiler warning, depending on the way that either of you might want to answer this question. This is, of all the companions, who's the team's favorite and what companion was the most difficult to design?

JE: Ooh. I'm gonna cheat, I wrote Bellara so, I’m definitely not gonna say the companion I wrote because that would be weird, but I will say I loved the companion interactions so I'm gonna go with two of my favorite relationships that Bellara has within the team, friendships that she has within the team. So, Bellara and Lucanis start off as two characters who feel like they're from completely different worlds, their experience growing up was very different, where they lived, what they do, and over the course of the game, they kinda build this friendship over all these things that despite again - very different upbringings - they have a lot of things in common. They're both the, y'know, characters who just believe family is deeply important and that shows up in a lot of their interactions, a lot of, y’know, the way they talk to each other, they interact with each other, both within the Lighthouse but also out in the field. The other one - and this was one that came up organically as we were building the game - is Neve and Bellara and they, y'know, Bellara is a character who, y’know, despite being out in Arlathan is very big on stories, very big on - she finds - gets all the newspapers from Tevinter and she has kind’ve learnt who Neve is through that, and they build this very sisterly relationship that I love and that over the course of the game, I mean, we started out without this kind of as the intention, we started finding all these places that this can show up and it turned into, again, one of my favorite friendships that exists between the companions, so.

CB: Oh, that was such a good answer. Yeah, I think I might cheat as well, John, because, first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of the entire team. So I'm gonna give you my two faves if that's alright. And I feel like y'all already know me on this. Every time we have a chance to talk about Taash and Emmrich I'm right there for it. I'd say they're probably my two favorites, but here's the thing y'all, here's why I love them so much. When you're out in the field like exploring, or on missions with them, their banter is so good, because they do not see eye-to-eye on necromancy, like, at all, and, it's really funny, it's really delightful, I love seeing how it evolves - so like, look - if you wanted a recommendation from me on like, banter in the field, you've got to hear Taash and Emmrich. Most difficult to design, let's touch on that really quickly. I, so, I'm gonna answer, but I don't want to say that like we put more effort into one versus another, but I would say the most challenging was probably Harding, just because you've probably seen if you saw some of the teaser footage, the pre-release trailer, we have teased some strange new powers for Harding, and when we do that we have to figure out how that layers into her combat kit, and when we onboard that, and, yeah it was an interesting challenge, it was a really fun one.

KFM: Awesome. Backing away from spoilers for a quick second, I'm going to ask this question to Corinne. With only two companions per party, as a Nightmare mode player, how can we balance not having a warrior in the team to tank? Will higher difficulty players be forced to bring Davrin or Taash for a melee instead of bringing the characters that we want?

CB: Oh super good - I was hoping this would come up, especially after we released the combat deep-dive for warrior trailer - hopefully y'all enjoyed that. So, let me start by telling you what's happening under the hood. Well, first of all, I'm not gonna bury the lede - you're not gonna have to bring a tank if you don't want to. But, let me first tell you what's happening under the hood, this is gonna be kind of high level, maybe we can go a little bit deeper when we have more time. Behind the scenes when you walk into an enemy encounter, we generally know how much pressure, or you could say intensity or aggression, we want to be putting on Rook to maintain that satisfying moment-to-moment experience. So to give you an idea of some of the levers we have for each encounter, that is the number of enemies that could be specifically focused on you versus your companions, how many enemies can be attacking at once, and even when you have multiple enemies coming at Rook, we have a ticketing system.

[text block character limit reached]

CB: And what that means is each enemy basically knows when it is allowed to attack or not. So, I tell you all that because basically when we're looking at the different types of classes and team compositions, those levers exist underneath the hood, so that we give you the most autonomy and flexibility, but also maintain that, that pressure, that engagement for you the player. So, a couple of other things on that. Now that you kinda get a sense of like what's happening under the hood, it is absolutely beneficial, but not required to have one of each class in your party. We did go into this with the goal of giving players more flexibility than perhaps we've seen in past entries. It's just a different approach. What we know is that players tend to get very attached to certain characters. If you've got your favorites, you oftentimes wanna bring them with you or if you're romancing a character, sometimes it's a feelbad to feel like you have to leave them behind because maybe they're the same class as you. So, the whole game is built and balanced around flexibility, and giving you the agency. So you can be successful, you can mix it up, but you gotta plan for it. So what, what do I mean by that? If you're not using teamwork, if you're not planning for your party composition for those synergies, it's definitely not gonna end super well. Right? Like, I've done no tank runs, but it takes some foresight in the strategy here. So I'll give you an example if you don't mind, I think I've been pretty out there that my favorite class and specialization right now - could change tomorrow - is the rogue Veil Ranger specialization. And this is very much a ranged archery-based specialization. So, I want to keep enemies at ranged, because I want to get those well-aimed critical hits, right, if those enemies are right up on top of me, I'm not gonna be able to do that. So if I don't have a tank in my party, a couple of the tools that I turn to - and I have done this, in fact, in my last playthrough I did this quite a bit - I might bring Bellara and use her Galvanic Tear, which pulls all the enemies towards like this really cool-looking gravity well and gets them off of me. I might instead use Neve's Time Slow. So the cool thing about this is it slows time for everything in the world except for you and your team, right? So I'm running away, I'm doing a Heavy Draw, getting those headshots, or making other tactical decisions. I could also turn to my rune loadout - hopefully y'all saw runes in the warrior combat deep-dive - that's an important part, especially if you're playing on Nightmare Mode, the strategic and tactical options that gives you, will allow you to overcome things like not having a tank. I think everyone may have saw the rune where you're doing a, basically an AoE freeze, and freezing everything in place. So it's kind of a long-winded answer, I'm sorry, it's complicated, but point is, is I think you're gonna have more flexibility in your build crafting and your synergies, but it's gonna depend on the strategy and composition that you feel works best for you and your own preferences. And then you did mention Nightmare, let me just finish with saying, and this is anecdotal, but in our own Nightmare playthroughs, we actually find that the most challenging aspect to plan around isn't necessarily aggro management, but making sure you have coverage on all the various elemental damage types. So, I just say this for anyone planning to go into Nightmare - plan well.

KFM: Staying on the topic of combat, it was noticed during the high-level combat videos that weapons and armor seem to be tied to different factions. Are there bonuses or something similar involved if Rook is a Grey Warden while using Grey Warden equipment? Are these removed if a Shadow Dragon Rook is using Grey Warden equipment? 

CB: Oh, interesting. You know, everyone went deep on that gameplay video, hey, I’m glad you noticed that. Yeah, so, to answer this, you're going to be working really closely with the factions in the game, right? Like the threat you’re up against is a world-ending threat so you’re going to interact with each of these factions. So that means that you’re gonna get a lot of the gear that that faction tends to use, and especially the stronger you help them become, the more gear you’ll have available from that faction. So when you see a piece of gear that has like the Veil Jumper icon on it, that signifies that it is aligned with that faction, but you can use it regardless of if that’s your faction background or not. All it means is that, you know, if I want to maybe improve it or get more gear in that vein, or that looks similar, I can see it’s from the Veil Jumpers, I’m going to go back to the Veil Jumper quartermaster, and that’s where I will find more items of that type or upgrade possibilities. But it also leans into the thematic identity. So, you know, I think in that video we were using the transmog system, but if I’m using a Veil Jumper gear like an armor, it’s gonna look like it was crafted by the Veil Jumpers, and it’s gonna lean into the mechanical themes of the Veil Jumpers as well, which, one of those themes tends to be lightning damage. Now, I will also say, and this is a little specific, but occasionally you will find gear, or even like skill nodes, that will occasionally be empowered, they’ll get stronger relative to your strength with that given faction. So like if you find a piece of gear that’s really core to your build, and it strengthens the stronger the Veil Jumpers are, like that gives you a pretty good signifier that maybe that’s a faction you wanna focus on.

CB: Katey, I don't know if you're still there.

JE: Yeah.

CB: Did we lose you?

[there is silence on KFM’s line]

JE: Ope.

CB: We may have lost Katey, y’all. 

JE: We can start, just, you know, let’s - 

CB: Yeah. Why don’t, why don’t, I do have the list of questions here so why don’t I ask the next one until Katey comes back. I hope everything’s okay on your side Katey. Alright. Next question I see, the Evoker description on the blog-post highlights ice-based magic. Does that mean we will not be able to have lightning- and fire-themed playstyles as the Evoker? No, no, absolutely not. The Evoker can lean into all of the elements, in fact, all mages can to a degree. You probably have seen the skill trees, you’re gonna pick up abilities, perks, traits, of all elemental types, and powering up those elements. So just because you’re an Evoker, doesn’t mean you’re like pigeon-holed into ice spells. What I will say is, if you’re heading towards that specialization, you’re gonna pass through the section of the skill tree where you’re more easily going to be able to naturally pick up those ice spells, right? So it might lean towards ice, but you can expand it. The name of the game is agency here.

JE: Corinne, why don’t I ask you the question so we can still kinda do a Q&A thing? CB: Yeah, that, that sounds good.

JE: Corinne, can I set the gear to look however I want without losing stats? And that is a question from YoCallMeRob.

CB: Alright, well, y’all know, fashion’s the true end game. So, we did confirm we have a full transmog system, so what I’m gonna do is spend some time going a little more in-depth for y’all, so that we’re getting new information. So yeah, if anyone’s not aware, transmog basically is, I have a piece of gear, but I apply an appearance to it that makes it look like something else that I like better so I can be fabulous. So, how this is gonna work is you’re of course gonna find gear as you adventure through the world, and you can equip that. But any piece of gear you find is also going to unlock the appearance for that gear. So you might find something that you really like, and you wanna look that way, and then you replace it, anything that you’ve already acquired, you can apply the appearance to whatever gear you want. Additionally, and this is one of my favorite parts, is, you’ll also find some appearance-only cosmetics that are specifically used just for transmog. So sometimes these are some of the fancier or more niche pieces of gear, maybe end up looking like a training dummy for instance. So you’ll get these appearance datas from opening treasure chests, exploring the world, and more frequently from vendors. So, look, if you’re in it for fashion, check out those vendor inventories because they got you. I would also say that you can transmog your casual wear, so field wear and casual wear, fully transmoggable. If you wanna be platemail while you’re hanging around the Lighthouse as a mage, more power to you. And then if I were just to give you a practical example of this, like on the Blood Dragon Armor, the pre-order bonus, those are cosmetics, those are just appearance datas, right, so they’re effectively evergreen, you can use them anytime you like without compromising your stats.

JE: I will say that I don’t think I’ve spent as much time in any other menu other than transmog, because as Corinne mentioned at the beginning of this, fashion is the true end-game, so. Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

JE: Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

KFM: Am I back? Can you hear me?

JE: Yay, you’re back. 

CB: Katey, we did our best Katey.

JE: Yeah.

CB: But I don’t think we were very impressive -

KFM: No, I think you both did a great job. It was one of those weird situations where Discord force-quit, but I could still hear everything everyone was saying. I don’t really know what that was about, but.

CB: I just assumed you didn’t like my answer.

KFM: Yeah, I rage-quit actually Corinne, it’s all your fault.

JE: Taken by the Fade.

KFM: No, thank you for taking over while I was figuring that out. There is a non-zero chance that that happens again, so just keep an eye out. 

JE: We’ll keep an eye out for it, we gotcha.

KFM: Thank you.

KFM: So I’ll just pick it up from the next question. The latest, latest - wow, I can’t even talk anymore - video series mentioned how each companion can set up or detonate specific combos. Are those always set in stone or would we get opportunities to change it up, through the skill-trees or otherwise? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. I eat up these really specific combat questions. So first, let me give you an overview of how the primer-detonator relationship works between the classes. Like, this is very nitty-gritty y’all, if this is your jam, get your pencils out. So here’s the overview. Mages, and this whether, this is true of companions and Rook, mages apply weakened and overwhelmed debuffs, and those are two of the debuffs we call primers. Magers detonate the sundered debuff. Then if we go to rogues, rogues apply weakened and sundered debuffs, and rogues detonate overwhelmed. Warriors apply sundered and overwhelmed, and warriors detonate weakened. So you can see, kinda the interesting rock-paper-scissors relationship there. And when I talk about it as beneficial to bring one of each class? It’s just the inherent nature of that rock-paper-scissors relationship that I’m really thinking of. But, to answer your question, that is just the baseline, that is the default if you don’t modify it. Throughout the game, you will find opportunities, whether it’s from gear, skill-tree nodes, even runes, that allow you to break this paradigm. So when it comes to your companion builds, again it all comes down to the abilities you choose, what gear you’re equipping them with, how you allocate your skill points. Yeah, does that answer the question? There’s quite a bit of flexibility but there is a baseline paradigm as well.

KFM: Yeah, I think that answers the question.

KFM: Let’s see. The next one is, will we see a bit more the Lighthouse before release, as well as non-combat gameplay?

CB: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ll keep it brief here because we are gonna be talking more about exploration and the Lighthouse next month, so forgive me, but I’ll say stay tuned on that one.

KFM: Alright. Then, this next one I believe is a little bit of a spoiler. I know that some people have, can’t hear me still for some reason, if you can’t, tell folks to quit Discord and rejoin it, but -

CB: Okay, minor spoiler y’all, if you can’t hear Katey, this one’s a minor spoiler.

KFM: Yes. Thanks Corinne. This one is, will we be able to give gifts to our companions, either generic or plot-specific?

CB: Yeah, you sure can! I actually wanna shout-out one of our lovely designers, Dusty. This was a passion project from him. He was advocating for this. So, the cool thing about this is, it’s not like a transactional thing, like where I’m gonna go farm a bunch of like nonsensical items and just like, mechanically turn them over. Out in the world, and there in various locations, so you kinda stumble upon them, you can buy a gift that is very personal to any one of the companions, and then you go, you turn that into them, you give it to them, they have a nice acknowledgement. And then, the thing that’s just like so sweet about it, we’ve talked about how the companion rooms evolve over time, but if you go and get them one of these, like, very personalized gifts, they’ll display it in their room. Like it doesn’t go into some stats void. It’s actually on display.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: This next question, I'll pitch it to John. Some of our companions like Neve, Emmrich and Lucanis have been in past short stories and comics and there's also a passing resemblance to some of the old concept art from years ago. What is the process like for making a character at some point and then planning to bring them back as a companion, or were they always written or designed and intended to be companions?

JE: Alright, that's a great question, and it's actually one I'm gonna go a little deep on. So, as we build the game, as we start writing companions we see how they fit in the story, see how they fit together. Some characters have been around, some character concepts have been around for quite some time, others come in a little bit later in development as we realise we have a gap, you know, something in the story that we need someone, who makes sense to fill that gap, to be that character. But part of it’s also just as the writers we want to make sure that the people who are writing these companions are passionate, and they're writing a character they want to write. We don't want to just say "we need X, Y and Z. Write a companion to fill these gaps", but it'll be "hey, in this story, it really doesn't make sense that we don't have somebody, ah, doing X, is there a character we can build for that?" And so, y'know, you'll see the old concept art and a lot of those concepts, y'know, a lot of those, kinda the core of those characters remains intact, we may have changed details of them, we may have decided "okay, they were going to be X but now Y makes a little bit more sense" - Or as a writer I'm a little bit more interested in why, y’know, what, this particular concept speaks to me more. In terms of comics, short stories and such, generally speaking - and this isn't universal - but generally speaking, writers are writing these short stories in particular, it’s a volunteer, we ask the team, like, "hey, does anyone - we've got this short story anthology, who wants to write something for it?”, so writers are going to pick characters that they're passionate about and in those cases they tend to be their companions, so for example. You know, Neve’s shown, is mentioned. Neve, Emmrich, Lucanis have all shown up. Those were written by people who are passionate about those characters and we had already intended for them to be companions. Other characters, though - I mean, and Harding is an excellent example - we create a character to fill a role. In the case of Harding, she was in Inquisition largely to be there to kind of connect those exploration spaces together and give you a sense of the Inquisition’s presence, and then we saw the fan reaction, but beyond that, Sheryl really wanted to explore Harding's arc more deeply, so she got promoted to be a companion as well, so, yeah, I mean, it's an organic process, and I mean again, it comes down to, we want to make sure the people who are building these characters, ah, not just the writers but also the artists, y'know, the cinematic designers, the editors, y'know, the gameplay people, are excited to build these characters. And you know, and actually, I'm gonna go a little bit side topic on that. Bellara's a great example where we knew what Bellara wanted to be, needed to be in the story, but gameplay-wise it took a bit to kinda land on how her gameplay and her character arc and who she was melded together. Y'know, Corinne’s talked earlier about the companions and how they show up in gameplay. A really big thing for us on this project is making sure that the gameplay reflects the characters, their arc and their personality as much as possible, so. Yeah, kind’ve a long answer to say, it depends, but yeah, generally if they show up, especially in something like a short story, we’ve already intended for them to be a companion because, those are the characters that people, the writers are most passionate about, so.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that, now that stuff seems more overall universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough. Are there choices presented freely - are there choices presented that are impactful, that wildly different outcomes will come from, while - wow, wow, wow, let me start that one again. I think it’s just, I’m reading it straight off the sheet. 

JE: No worries.

KFM: I'll start from the top. Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that stuff seems more universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough? Are there choices that are impactful and wildly different, and different outcomes and decision paths?

JE: So, I mean, there's a few incentives, one of which, is, and I mean, the most basic is, the three classes from a gameplay perspective do play differently and, you know, I’ve, it’s funny, Corinne was talking about how her favorite is the Veil Ranger but that might change. Mine literally changes every time I play, I start a new playthrough, I develop a new favorite class, which is the class I'm currently playing. But more generally, yeah there are choices in the game, there are different outcomes, there’s content that does, that you will see or won't see based on choices you make both within the critical path of the game but also with the followers themselves so, y'know. You're not going to see everything in a single playthrough, you're not even going to see everything necessarily in a couple of playthroughs, but, y'know, you want to see how your choices have different outcomes, that's the best way to do it. 

KFM: This question is - I understand mages having very magical-looking moves, but why do rogues and warriors also have very magical-looking moves? Was making every class look like a mage a purposeful choice? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. So it's a multi-part answer, but yes, everything we've done has been with intention towards supporting the overall player experience. So I guess the first place I'd go to answer this is from a game-tuning and balance perspective. We knew that supporting multiple damage types like physical, fire, electric etc, that was gonna be an important factor in the strategic depth of the combat system, particularly as it leans into builds and the strategies you'd use to take on various enemies. It’s not the extent of it, but it's an important part of it. So that meant that making sure the various classes in some capacity have access to some or all of these damage types. And that then means that we need to make them read visually as such on the battlefield. So the first part is about making sure you have those strategic options on the battlefield. But there is more to it than that I'd say, we also found - and I've heard this from a lot of you, that some of our magical hybrid classes have been amongst the favorites. My goodness the discourse around Knight Enchanter - 

JE: M-hm -

CB: - So this felt like a very thematic way for us to support that goal if that makes sense, the goal of game balance but also leaning into the things that seem to resonate the most. If I was to just focus on the Warriors out there for a minute though, because we just released the warrior deep dive, we've actually long had a goal within the team of making them more visually interesting and impactful. We know, and I’ve heard from a bunch of you that warrior, y'know, tends not to be peoples’ first choice, but hey, any of the warrior fans out there - big props to you, because I love them, too. So this was like our chance, really, to show what a warrior can do, to make them feel like they have a presence on the battlefield that could be as interesting as some of the other classes, but I will say, I absolutely recognize that there are those of you that like, if you're playing a melee class, you even want a pure, like, physical-based warrior aesthetic, maybe something that's a little more grounded, you can generally make a build that's more physical-focused if that’s more your taste.

KFM: In addition to playing the first three games, what comic books or novels do you recommend reading before playing The Veilguard?

JE: Oh, that's a great question. I mean, generally speaking, one of the things we wanted to make sure with The Veilguard was that players could get into the story, understand what was going on without needing to, y'know, get into the ancillary material. I love the comics, I love the novels, I love the short stories, but they are intended to be kinda side content. One of the things that we hear loud and clear is sometimes folks don't really want that to feel like I need to have read this, I need to have seen this comic, I need to have watched that show for it to make sense. That said, I’d say The Missing, the most recent comic series. is a very clear lead-up to the beginning of The Veilguard, it's setting up events, it’s kinda setting up, y'know, Varric and Harding's search for Solas, it sets up some of the characters that you'll see in the game. Tevinter Nights is another one, not - we mentioned earlier that some of the companions show up there. Beyond just the companions, there’s some thematic stuff that comes out of that as well, some things that we kinda wanted to set up when we wrote those short stories, like, giving you an idea of what the worldstate is, how things have changed over time, and then I’d say, you know, more very recently, we have the podcast, Vows & Vengeance, which is intended to give you a taste of the companions and also, again, talk about the worldstate of Thedas at this point, you know, giving you kind’ve the lead-up to weeks before the events of the Veilguard, so you do have that sense of what’s going on, who are these people, and how, you know, when I first meet them in The Veilguard, you kinda have an idea of who they are. Again, though, this is all stuff that I think enhances the experience, but it’s not required, there’s never going to be, we’re never gonna put you in a situation where a character shows up and, you know, everyone makes a big deal out of it, and you’re sitting there wondering like, who, who is this person? Because they were introduced in other media. We always wanna make sure that you understand, that the only thing that you need to have done to understand The Veilguard is play The Veilguard, so.

KFM: Awesome. Also, yes, Vows & Vengeance is so good, so definitely, you know, give it a chance. The first episode is out now. I think a lot of people in the Vows & Vengeance Discord server, Discord channel are, are really stoked about it.

KFM: This next question. Will we be able to adjust how much damage the companions do in the accessibility settings?

CB: Yeah, so our customized difficulty, and accessibility settings as well, they’re more focused on how you the player experience the game while in control of Rook. So, things like enemy health, timing, things of that nature. So not in the settings, no, but if you really wanna be that kind of player that wants to amp up your companions, like have them do a greater share of the overall damage, there’s a number of ways to accomplish this. You’ll get gear that just strictly says, your companions do more damage. And then there are some unique buffs we support like Rally Party, so you as Rook can trigger this surge in your companions’ ability. So, again, we know how diverse the motivations are within the player-base, so we wanted to make sure those tools were there for y’all.

KFM: So now we’re getting back into spoiler territory. There’s minor spoilers, but, you know, definitely, take heed, for the next couple of minutes if you don’t wanna hear them. Okay, we ready? Will we finally meet Maevaris Tevani in Tevinter?

CB: Oh my goodness, y’all. Alright, you got the spoiler warning, so when I talk about cameos and appearances, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay, this one’s very near and dear to my heart as a trans woman myself, I’m pretty open about that. Yeah, yeah, our dear Mae, she’s in the game, happy to confirm it, and I am, every time I see her I absolutely freak out. What I’m not gonna tell you though is what role or capacity she plays, so you’re just gonna have to wait and see. But Maevaris Tilani, she’s in.

KFM: I am living for chat right now. Like, I try not to look at it too much during these, because it’ll distract me, but I’m living for chat right now.

KFM: This next one is also a minor spoiler. Will we find out what happened to Lucanis' parents, for his grandmother to have had charge of him?

JE: Yeah, so I mean, Lucanis is an Antivan Crow. If you know anything about the Antivan Crows you know that they are, well, assassins, and assassins tend to have fairly deadly politics, and the daggers are a lot more literal than you would see somewhere like Orlais, so. That’s all I’m gonna say. You’ll find out, you’ll find out at some point for sure.

KFM: We’re doing a great job at not giving too much away.

KFM: Do we get any jealousy dialogues from any of the companions if you switch up your romance plans partway through? Are any of the romances hard-locked at any point?

JE: Yeah so, you can, I mean, once, there is an opportunity, or there is a place in a romance where you essentially commit to it being exclusive. And we really wanted to make sure that, A), we were very up front about the fact that you were committing to an exclusive romance at that point, and before that, it is portrayed as, you’re flirting, you’re kind’ve, you know, figuring out each other. So, not, there’s no jealousy dialogues, but there are - places where you commit, and we wanted to be very clear to fans. There’s also going to be a place, because I think I’m reading this right, where, there’s a point in the story where if you haven’t committed, if you haven’t said like, yeah, let’s, let’s, you know, I’m in for it, I’m up for this, let’s do this, where you no longer have that opportunity. We’re very clear about what that point is, because again, we don’t want people to be missing out on a romance, to think like, I’ve got some time, you know, I really wanna romance Neve, but, I’ve got a little, and then find out that no, in fact, you don’t have anymore time, so. 

KFM: Are class specializations locked to a particular faction, or can Rook only learn a specialization from a particular faction, like through a faction trainer?

JE: So, the specializations are a lot more thematically tied to the factions than they are a strict, you must be X faction, you must get it from this person. You know, for example, I’ll use the Veil Ranger is all themed, as Corinne said earlier, around electricity, around the use of the Veil, around the use of that kinda magic. So while they are thematically tied, there is no, you must be a Crow to be a Spellblade for example, and part of that is because, while we do like having that connection between gameplay and, you know, roleplay, we also don’t want you to feel like, well, I really wanted to be a Spellblade, but I also really want to be a Grey Warden. We don’t want those two things, sometimes we want gameplay to influence narrative, but we never want you to feel restricted by one against the other, if that makes sense.

KFM: Yeah, definitely

CB: Katey, can I go off-script really quickly?

KFM: Of course.

CB: Alright, so I saw someone post in chat, “okay, poly next time, though”. Let me just say, I cannot make promises, I cannot, but I’m with you. I’m with you. 

KFM: I love it. Anytime you wanna address anything that’s happening in chat, by all means.

JE: Oh, shit, copy that.

KFM: I mean, don’t go too crazy. Alright.

KFM: This next question is from Que Sera Sera. Will we be able to change the font size in the UI, subtitles etc?

CB: I can take that one. So, quick reminder, we are gonna do a deeper dive as we get closer to launch on accessibility settings, but let me just answer this one. Yeah, yeah you absolutely can. There are limits of course, but as a fellow person who often has to squint, I’m 42 y’all, my eyes are starting to go. I can play comfortably, I suspect most players will be able to play comfortably.

KFM: Will there be a way to save characters we make so we don't have to start from scratch each time?

CB: Heck yeah, you absolutely can. We, I mean, look, all of you playing Inquisition, you’re still sharing your OC and your characters ten years on. We know how much you love it, so yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do wanna have a, some caveats here though. So, it’s when you’re in the character creator, you can import the character appearance, it’s just gonna be the appearance data, from an existing save of yours. So when I say an existing save, just let me put a very fine point on it, that save has to be local to the machine. Remember, we’re an offline game, there’s no online character sharing built in. But for those of you that like, your OC, are very near and dear to your heart and every time you replay you like to have the same character, and you’ve spent hours and hours and hours working on it, yeah, you can import that.

JE: We saw how many of you were saving screenshots of sliders in DA:I, and that was not a great experience, as we’re well aware, so.

KFM: This next one is, are companion quests going to focus on internal factors or external personal events? Like will it be a growth in character and self-discovery, or are they firmly-rooted in their sense of self and will ask for/need help with their factions, interpersonal relationships, etc?

JE: So that’s a great, another great question. It’s a mix of both. I mean, each companion has their own personal arc over the course of the game. You know, you go on missions with them, you solve problems with them and the nature of those problems, you know, it’s, the problems are a lot, often-times very external in nature, you know, something’s happening that they need help with, but most of the time those problems are also tied to their own personal growth as a character. Again, you know, we really want to make sure that players feel invested in these characters, feel invested in their stories. And we also want to show that these characters do grow over the course of The Veilguard, this is, there aren’t characters that remain completely static from moment one to the end-game. These are characters who grow, and you help them grow. They’re still, their problems are still not going to like, they’re not sitting there saying, well, Rook, you need to do everything for me, but you are, you’re intended to be the leader of this group, but also, you can be their friend and help them with things that, their challenges, so. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a mix of both, we really just, it comes down to the individual character and there is a lot of nuance in that answer I think too.

KFM: This next question from XenoGabby is a minor spoiler, so you’ve been warned once again. The question is, is Lucanis possessed?

JE: So, again, spoilers, everyone has been warned, fairly warned. So Lucanis Dellamorte is also known as The Demon of Vyrantium. And, he has spent a lot of time killing Venatori, who are mages, and who do know a lot about demons, so. Yeah, somebody decided that it might be a good idea to make that nickname stick.

KFM: And this next one, from a user named Crom, is there reactivity towards the specialization that you chose? Like some people might trust more Champions, or maybe freak, others will freak out with Death Callers or Reapers? 

CB: Yeah, what a good question, so, in general the reactivity is reserved for things that aren’t necessarily likely to change, things that can create a throughline that we can keep building and building upon, so like your faction, your lineage, your class, your choices. So that keeps a consistent narrative thread with those elements, and then we can assume that thread continues from A to B. So the answer is no, they don’t react to your specialization, but in part that’s because you can full refund, you can respec at any time, you might a Death Caller one moment and another specialization on the next encounter.

KFM: And, this next question. You mentioned encountering companions on their own missions in the world. If I keep my party mostly the same, does that mean that I miss out on their side missions, or are they unavailable to be picked up during that time? 

CB: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re, you have all the tools that you’re not gonna miss out on quests based on who’s in your party. How would I answer this - so, there are certain plot elements that can change what quests are available to you, and in some cases, some quests that you might have in your journal can actually expire based on choices and how you advance the plot. So there are ways that quest content gets cut off, or alters. But in general you have the visibility and the tools so that you won’t miss out on it. I can give you a couple of examples, that might be helpful. So when you meet companions out in the world, there’s kinda like a couple of different ways that they can show up. In a recent playthrough, I was exploring Hossberg Wetlands. It was technically for a quest that should’ve been more oriented towards Davrin, but I didn’t have him in my party, and as I got close to the objective, he showed up with Assan and helped me clear the path forward. The other way this will happen, I was out in Arlathan, actually doing, on my way to do a main story mission, and I get to the far reaches of Arlathan Forest, and I already knew that Taash wanted to help me with some of the challenges of that arc. Well, Taash is right there waiting for me, so I actually chose to instead like, ah, Taash seems impatient, I’m gonna actually jump on that story arc right now instead of what I intended to do, so. Just some examples of the way that as you’re journeying through this world, opportunities are gonna show up, but they allow you just to express more agency, you’re generally not going to miss them.

KFM: Awesome. This next one is, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned. This next question is from Tazaba. What's the difference between the Veil Jumper faction and the Veil Ranger Specialization?

CB: Yeah, okay, so, yeah we just wanted to kinda flag this as a spoiler, just because there might be assumptions about how you take on specializations in this game. So John touched on this a little bit already, but specializations really represent the training and fighting styles used by a given faction. As John mentioned, you do not have to be a Veil Jumper to choose a specialization that’s associated with the Veil Jumpers. You’ve just been around them, you’re aware of their techniques, and you wanna take that on yourself. So, in this particular case, and I get the confusion because Veil Jumper and Veil Ranger sound very similar. If I’m playing as a rogue, using the Veil Ranger specialization, all that means is I’m fighting in the style of the Veil Jumpers, like they do, with bow and arrow, typically with electric damage, that sort’ve thing. So just, to be super clear, it’s not required that you have to play a Veil Jumper in order to be a Veil Ranger.

KFM: This next question is, where is the equator in Thedas, or the planet Thedas is on, relative to places we’ve explored?

JE: That is a great question. So, I will say that, you know, it’s funny until I saw this question, it’s not something I’d ever thought a lot about, but as I started thinking about it a little bit more deeply, based on how the climate changes across Thedas, you know, obviously, to the south are the Avvar and things get a little bit more wintry, and then up north is a lot more tropical, I’d say that Thedas is a southern continent on this world, so.

KFM: Are there any main story missions that require you to use a specific companion? Kinda similar to a previous question.

CB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there are a few, yes, again, in the warrior deep dive, I’m not gonna describe it, just in case anyone, you know, didn’t wanna have spoilers, you can see that a companion was required for that. However, that’s the exception rather than the rule. In general, we try to give players the agency to bring who they want for these moments. There are these times where a companion, either their faction or their story arc is so closely tied or intersects with the events of a main story mission that they do become required, but it’s not the standard. And then of course, in general, if you’re doing your companions’ arcs, those are the moments where they’re more than likely gonna be required.

KFM: Will we be - 

CB: It's pretty flexible, like if, if you’re worried about like, every mission I go through, like am I gonna have someone that is gonna be mandated? Generally not.

KFM: Sorry, I almost talked over you there Corinne, my bad.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to pause cutscenes? Will there be any kind of dialogue history to look back on if we miss what was said? 

JE: So, you can pause every cutscene in the game. Obviously, life happens, you know, somebody, maybe you’re cat’s, you know, just to use an example that definitely doesn’t happen to me regularly, my cat might be throwing up in the next room and I need to find a way to get her off the carpet and on to, you know, not the carpet, so you can pause any cutscene, and conversation. There is no dialogue history at the moment unfortunately, and that’s not something, we did look into it but it’s just based on how the dialogue is structured and how it’s built in this game, that’s not something that we are going to have unfortunately. 

KFM: I saw somebody say “cat vomiting is so real”, and I agree, sometimes when I’m playing games, my dog decides to do something insane.

KFM: So, this next question is, since companions can get into relationships with each other, is there a mechanic behind which companions get together? Can a companion leave due to your world decisions, and if so, will their partners leave with them?

JE: I’m gonna answer half this question, the other half is a spoiler that we’re not gonna get into right now. Companions, there is not actually a mechanic behind the companions getting together. We never wanted it to feel like a mechanical thing, and obviously, different companions are gonna have different attractions. One of the fun things is, as you’re going through, especially if you’re not flirting with one of the companions, you can see these relationships starting to develop, and the thing that actually allows them to, you know, completely develop is, generally committing to another relationship, or, you know, not being engaging, not engaging in a romance with those companions at all. So, yeah, I mean, there’s not a mechanic, it’s just what we felt made the most sense and, I think that’s honestly one of my favorite things about the companions is, they’re all written to feel like real people with real preferences and real, you know, attractions. So beyond just romances, they also develop friendships and even rivalries with each other, because of these, them feeling like these characters that exist outside of just the game, so. 

KFM: Awesome.

KFM: This question is all about Davrin. Hildrana would love to know more about Davrin. What’s his personality like, what kind of hobbies or things does he like, and what his relationship with Assan is like?

JE: So Davrin is one of my favorite, I mean, I say one of my favorite characters, honestly I love all seven companions so it’s challenging for me to say which. But Davrin is stern, thoughtful and considerate though, he has a soft side for sure. You see that develop over time as he starts to warm up to the other companions. He has, you know, a kindness to him that is brought out in particular by certain companions, and also a strong sense of pride and when he develops a rivalry with some of the companions. So there’s that sense of, he knows who he wants to be, he knows who he is, and a lot of his arc is making that journey. In terms of how he relates to Assan, you know, his relationship over, evolves over time, I’m not gonna get too deep into spoilers because there are spoilers for that in his quest. The other interesting thing about, about Davrin, and this shows up, we’ve talked about this before. He’s a monster hunter. He’s not just a Warden who sees fighting monsters as, you know, just part of the job. He believes in turning this into a skill-set that he alone, you know like, he has more than anyone else. Learning how to defeat monsters, learning their weaknesses, and that does show up a lot in his character arc, so.

KFM: This next question came through our askbox on Tumblr, so shoutout the BioWare Tumblr. Rosered is asking why do elves seem to not like wearing shoes? Is there a lore reason behind it? Are they not afraid of getting frostbite or stepping in something gross?

JE: So the shoeless elves thing is in part a, it’s a, Dalish are very close to nature, they walk, go around shoeless, in large part, to become closer to nature. It’s part of their culture, it’s part of who they are. But, you know, especially, and it’s not true of every Dalish clan, the Dalish are a tremendously widely-spread and widely-varied people, so. For example, Bellara does not go around shoeless. She wears boots. She’s climbing around on ancient ruins, walking through maybe a shattered eluvian, or a place where eluvian’s shattered, it’s a great way to get your feet sliced up on the hard rocks and on the hard glass. And in general Veil Jumpers are a little bit more, where they go and what they do really requires a lot more care and a lot more protection, so. I mean you’ll notice in Bellara’s visual design but also in the visual design of the other Veil Jumpers, they’re very practically minded, they know that what they’re doing is dangerous, and, you know, and, again, not every Dalish clan goes round shoeless, so.

KFM: ZJ wants to know, do all companions have aesthetic changes when in the Lighthouse and outside of the Lighthouse?

CB: Amazing. Yeah, yeah, they absolutely do. So, just like Rook, each of the companions has what we refer to as their casual wear. This is how they look in their downtime, their more relaxed moments. It’s definitely different from how they look headed into battle. And I’ll tell you this. If Emmrich’s casual wear doesn’t send you, I just don’t know what to tell you.

KFM: I’ve got a fun one coming up. Do they companions have favorite foods, and if so, what are they?

JE: Oh I love this one, so they do. Each of them does have favorite foods. It’s funny, I’d say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is probably the most we’ve talked about food in a context of Dragon Age, ever. But yeah, I mean, you know, some of them are a little bit more, you know, they have simpler tastes, and in large part that’s because that’s what they’re used to or what they can cook. We talked, I’m gonna actually give a little bit of a, I don’t know if I consider this a spoiler, but maybe if you’re really sensitive to spoilers you don’t wanna listen to this last part. We’ve talked about how there’s people on the team who are better cooks and people on the team who maybe don’t have necessarily the skill-set, who could burn water. So one of the things I really love is, you know, Bellara and Lucanis actually end up being, essentially, the team cooks. Bellara, you know, spending a lot of time out in nature, learning a lot about, you know, different types of cooking, is really big on experimentation, she likes to, you know, try different things. Lucanis comes from the Crows, Lucanis is very big on the finer things, so between the two of them, there’s a point in the story where they basically decide, if we don’t do this, the entire team is going to starve, so let’s just call ourselves the cook, cooks, and make sure that nobody dies of food poisoning, so.

KFM: This next one, I believe we actually might’ve even touched on this in the first Q&A, but, Trev has noticed a lack of dwarves in our promotional material concerning Rook. Inquisition had them sharing facial hair options with humans. So their question is, will dwarves return to more braided, grander beards, or will the facial hair options be shared like previously?

CB: Yeah, we did touch on this briefly, so let me go a little bit deeper. Yeah, there are some grander dwarven beards, like braids, beads woven in, it’s really lovely and really thematic. And y’all have seen our Strand hair, how great that looks, I think it looks just as great for the beards. And I do know, we’re gonna, at some point leading up to launch, we are gonna be showing some dwarf Rooks. So, let’s see if we can’t get some beard options on display there. It actually really was quite the challenge to get the physics to work with all the armor variance we have on those beards. So I’ll tell you what y’all. The team loves hearing from you. Would it be okay if I just asked in chat, could we get some love for our character art and tech anim teams because they put their heart and soul into make sure this would work for y’all. 

JE: It is, it is incredible how good the beards look, like, it just, they did, the work that they’ve done is just spectacular.

CB: Aw y'all are too kind. And then I guess just to finish up this question, we try and let you use as many options as the character creator has for any character you wanna create. So we definitely created bears in mind that are more dwarven in nature. You can use that on a qunari if you want, or you can use a more traditional human beard on a dwarf if you want, but your options are there. Aw, y’all are lovely, thank you so much.

KFM: So we didn't tag this next one as a minor spoiler. I don’t think that it is. But, definitely want to flag it anyway. Will the Solavellans have a chance at a happy ending?

JE: Corinne, I’m gonna let you do this one. 

CB: Oh my goodness, this is the question. Look! I mean, I thought y’all wanted the pain? Didn’t you tell me you wanted the pain, that tortured romance that rips your heart out? Honestly though, I just wouldn’t feel right about spoiling anything there. I’ll just say this, I’ll just say this. Trick has done a fantastic job with Solas, they always do, this is some of ther best work I think. And then I’ll also say, as, for myself as the resident shipper on the leadership team, I’m repping y’all, but that’s all I’m gonna say.

KFM: That’s definitely what I meant by, not really a spoiler, but some people might’ve thought that in the beginning.  

KFM: Okay, next question is, since you can choose to be part of the same faction for most of the companions, will that give you an advantage when trying to befriend them?

JE: So you will get some unique dialogue with the companions that are part of your own faction. The first time you meet them, they may not all know you by face, but they’ve at least heard of you, I’ve heard of who you are, maybe even heard of you leaving the faction to go help Varric to track down Solas. But that said, you know the faction, you don’t necessarily as people. So they will know you but you still have to work to earn their trust and learn, you know, get them, help them with their problems.

KFM: Next question is, will there be more connections between the Veilguard? Like will we see them hanging out together without out us?

JE: Oh, I love this one. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I’ve said this twice already, but my favorite thing is how much the companions feel like a, end up feeling like a found family. They’re invested in each others problems, you know they’re, invested in each others’ success and failures, and this manifests through a bunch of different ways. Scenes, banter, even interactions in the Lighthouse itself. Because one of the things that I think is important, I know Corinne also thinks is super important, these worlds, these games feel the best when they don’t feel like they’re there as a theme-park just for you, just to exist for Rook as a protagonist. These are characters that have relationships, have, you know, things going on that don’t necessarily directly involve Rook all the time. They have their own relationships, their own feelings, and we really want them to feel like their own people, and feel like they do exist outside of just the sphere of Rook. So, you know, they’ll follow, you’re the one leading this fight, but the companions don’t just exist for you.

KFM: So this next one is a real minor spoiler warning. Will the companions have interactions with Solas? I imagine the companions will comment on Rook’s decisions regarding Solas, but was wondering if the potential relationship between Solas and the companions will play any part?

JE: Oh, this is a good question. So a lot of Solas’ relationship is with Rook. Rook and Solas have a connection, they have a bond, and part of that is, and I’ve said this before, but Solas sees a lot of himself in Rook. He sees, you know, the person, you know the person he was before, the person he thinks he is, in Rook, and becomes, you know, again, we, they develop a connection. You get to flavor how it is, you can make it more antagonistic, make it friendlier, but ultimately it is a connection between the two of you. Now, that said, the companions are much a part of Rook’s story as Solas is, and sometimes those relationships can cross over, as well as, there are followers who, you know, are going to have a more complicated connection and complicated relationship with just, Solas as an entity, you know, Bellara, for example, is an elf, she’s Dalish, and this a person from her pantheon, so. There’s going to be a lot more of a, I guess, like I said, complex relationship between the two of them. Davrin is another example, someone else who is Dalish, so, you know, their views on the gods in general are going to be a little bit different. And then on the other side,you have someone like Emmrich who is very big on magic and the Fade, so they’ll have their own [inaudible] and their own thoughts. 

KFM: Before I get to this next question I do wanna say we’ve got about a fifteen minute warning, we’ve got about fifteen minutes left, so we’ll get through as many questions as we can in that time. And with that said, our next one is, and, I feel like we might have actually touched on this one earlier, but, keep me honest. Would it be possible to hide some of the combat UI, such as companion trackers and enemy HP bars, for even more immersion? 

CB: Yeah, good question. It’s actually, it’s reasonably robust what you can do with your UI. So let me give you some examples. If, normally when you hit an enemy you’ll see damage floaties come off of it. If you wanna turn those off, you can. If you want to play without, say, the minimap or the wayfinding markers, have a more organic experience, you can. I challenged myself to do a, it was really difficult to do a really difficult run where I turned off my own health bar, you can do that too. And then, I know one of them that a lot of people have been asking about is, we do have the incoming attack indicators, that just help you react. But, if you’re the kind’ve player that wants to turn those off, cut down on the noise, yeah, you can do that too, so. You know, I can’t say that we support every single option that you might have in mind, but it’s reasonably robust. 

KFM: And then, another, just small, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned yet again, is there lock-picking in the game?

CB: Oh gosh lock-picking, notorious lock-picking. Well let me answer it this way. I think the approach we took in The Veilguard is that each companion has a unique, what we’re calling, exploration ability, or abilities, that you can use to solve puzzle, access new areas and find treasure. So, like in that regard it’s not actually dissimilar to lockpicking, it’s just that it is more thematic to the companions and their unique skill-sets within The Veilguard. It’s very specialized, I guess you could say. And, look, I’ve been there when you’re playing and you feel like you have to take a rogue, otherwise you’re not gonna be open the lockpick chests. Some players like that, some players dislike it, but the option that we wanted to give to y’all is that, you know, we did say this is a spoiler right? We did, yeah. So Rook does find a certain dagger and through it a method to channel these exploration abilities of their companions, even when the companion is not in your party. So like, look, if I’m exploring Hossberg, and there’s a puzzle and I know how to solve it, like I’m not running all the way back to like a party swap-point, you can just use the dagger.

KFM: This is not a spoiler, and it is actually something we confirmed a little bit earlier in the Q&A, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear. Can we freely reallocate or refund skillpoints?

CB: Yeah, so we’ve confirmed this, I’m just gonna keep it brief, yes, absolutely. Refund all, refund last, no cost. It’s an entirely friendly refund system. Go experiment, and then let me know what you do.

KFM: Will the acts be broken down into acts or stages at all? Mainly wondering for like spoiler discussion purposes, while they’re all playing and wanting to talk to one another about it?

JE: So while we don’t officially within the game say this is this act, this is the next act, there are some pretty obvious narrative breakpoints where the context changes, or there is, you know, events that make it clear that things are now advancing into a different stage. That’s now, to be clear, that’s largely around the critical path. Other content can largely be done at any time, but even there we do unlock certain things over the course of time, because, again, it makes, it maybe doesn’t make narrative sense in the context of, say, an earlier act, but now, you know, you’re into act two, it feels a lot more meaningful and makes a lot more sense in the world. You can do a lot of content in any order, but the critical path is largely broken into acts.

KFM: Now, I think this next question might be the most important question we can answer. A user by the name of doggiesnores says, would you please tell me happy birthday? 

JE: Happy birthday doggiesnores.

CB: Aww, happy birthday doggie - I feel weird saying doggiesnores. I mean, listen -

JE: You gotta roll with it Corinne.

CB: John, Katey, do we wanna sing? Do we wanna sing?

JE: No!

KFM: Oh we can - oh, okay.

JE: You can sing.

CB: Alright. [sings] Happy birthday to you -

KFM: - [sings] to you - [stops singing] are we gonna stop now? Okay.

CB: We’ll stop, we’ll stop. 

JE: Yeah, I think, yeah. 

CB: We gotta get back to the questions.

KFM: Yeah, we do have a time limit now.

KFM: Alright, next question, alright. This is from Guapa. Okay. I wanna know the helmet situation. Back in Inquisition, there were helmets exclusive to races, and to be honest, most helmets were exclusive to humans. Will elves and humans share helmets since their head shape seems to be more similar now, and will there be qunari helmets rather than just facepaints?

CB: Love this described as “the helmet situation”. I love it. Yeah, so let me describe this to you. All the helmets can be worn by all the lineages with one big exception. The qunari still use the vitaar face paint. So each helmet has a unique look, and if you’re using the vitaar variant of that instead, that too has a unique look, so you’ll wear that facepaint instead of the helmet. And we, we felt that this was just generally a good precedent following Inquisition and, really what led us to this decision is that, when you see horn customization, and hair customization with the horns in character creator, we didn’t want to sacrifice that aspect of it in character creator. It’s just effing cool, that’s all I can say about it. So, yeah, the qunari will use vitaar. All the other helmets can be worn by all lineages. We’ve talked a lot about transmog, so of course you can transmog them, you can hide your helmet, you can hide your helmet in certain situations. So I’d say, as a “situation”, we’re pretty happy with it.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to tint and change the color of our armours, or have they, or do they have their default colors only?

CB: Oh cool, yeah, that kinda gets to transmog in a way. Gosh, what’s the, the best way to answer this I think is that each armor piece, like gear piece you have, will have bespoke colors, but for almost every single armor piece, while you can’t dye them, we have created color-variant cosmetics and they’re very often aligned with the various factions in the world, right? So like, there’s one, for instance, that has this like, incredible, like flowing cape, I use it all the time. There’s a variant of it for each faction with different faction, with different colors and logos and things of that nature. So you can’t dye, but it really is flexible and very thematic. And then I guess, going back to the Venatori armor question we had way at the beginning, while I wouldn’t say they’re explicitly Venatori, there are some very Venatori-like color schemes in some of the armors you’ll find.

KFM: I think this might be our last minor spoiler question, so once again, you’ve been warned. AelaFireheart asks, will we be seeing other griffons from The Last Flight? 

JE: So, again, just to be clear, spoilers, but yeah, Assan has brothers and sisters, so Assan is not the only griffon that shows up in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 

CB: Hey, I just gotta respond to something in comment, that somebody says, wait, does that mean I can’t be pink? And I’m assuming we’re talking about armors. There are some pink armors. Don’t worry -

KFM: Confirmed.

CB: - there’s some pink.

KFM: As some of the companions come from media outside of the games, were they already chosen as companions for the game and then integrated into the additional media, or were they characters outside of the game, and the team wanted to bring them in?

JE: I think this is pretty similar to a question we answered earlier, so I mean, again, it depends, but if they showed up, especially in Tevinter Nights, they were already intended to be companions at that point, so.

KFM: Are there any lineage-based surnames or is it just based on the background?

JE: So surnames in this game are entirely based on your background choice. The reason for this is we do reference your surname in dialogue, a not inconsiderable amount, and we didn’t, at a certain point it becomes unsustainable in terms of how many different variations, so. We reference it based on your surnames, sorry, your background.

KFM: Is there any chance that we will be getting any audio snippets of some of the companions and Rook’s voicelines before release?

JE: Well that’s the great news about the, Vows & Vengeance, is that, each companion will show up in one of the episodes, and you’ll be able to hear their voice in there, so. First episode yesterday, and there’s more to come.  

KFM: Remember when I said that was the last, or we had already read the last minor spoiler, I was wrong, there is one more. So, once again, you’ve been warned, minor spoiler upcoming. This question is from SammyCherryLee. Considering Varric’s timeskip, looks are a direct, Varric’s timeskip looks are a direct translation of how he looked in the comics. What thought process went into Morrigan’s new design, and what do you usually consider when bringing in old beloved characters back, but also make sure to adapt them to the years that have passed within the game?

JE: So, in every case, any time we’re bringing back a character, we want to think about, what would, what’s changed for that character in the time since you’ve last saw them, so, Varric, Morrigan, any other characters we bring back, there is this thought of, okay, it’s been, in this case, you know, almost ten years, what’s changed for these characters in that intervening time? In the case of Morrigan, she’s coming to terms with a lot of truths about both herself but also her mother, you know, you see her with Flemeth’s crown, or a variation of it, and that’s speaking to her personal journey of, what I would call, kind’ve acceptance of who she is and how she connects to Flemeth, because ultimately we want this to feel like a real world. It’s, they’re not the same person they are ten years ago, none of us are, and we don’t want characters to feel like, either ten years have passed, and hey, I’m exactly the same, because that’s stagnation for the character, and it’s just not believable or, honestly, fun, for you. And it doesn’t do justice to those characters.

KFM: Can we clarify - ooh, fuck, I think my Discord just went down again.

JE: Yep, I can still hear you.

CB: We can, we can hear you Katey, so.

KFM: Oh, good!

CB: Yeah.

KFM: I’ll just keep talking!

CB: Great, let’s do it!

KFM: I’m so sorry for the f-bomb, I didn’t know you could still hear me. 

CB: Hey, we’ve all been there.

JE: Cursing, in our Discord, my goodness!

CB: How very human of you.

KFM: Ban me, ban me. This next question is, can you clarify if Spellblade will be forced to use a dagger, or can we still use staff as a melee combat weapon?

CB: Oh, heck yeah, let’s go. You know, I was wondering if this was gonna be clear in the combat video we put out, so I’ll speak about mage, but this is generally true of all the classes. So they each have two weapon sets, if you’ve seen the character sheet. So for mage, you’re gonna have your staff slot and then you’re gonna have the orb-and-dagger slot. So, at any point, like even between weapon swings, you can swap to your class alternate weapon set by hitting down on the D-pad. So you’re not locked down into one weapon set or the other, even if you’re in a given class or specialization. Now, like what I would say is that the Spellblade specialization has a lot of extra functionality and depth that like is augmented when using the orb-and-dagger, but, like if I give you an anecdote of how I play, the staff heavy-attack armor, I take this, or, the staff heavy attack charge, I take a trait where when I’m doing damage and playing, it’s building up that heavy attack charge on my staff. Even when I’m playing as my Spellblade. So I’ll be, just going to down with orb and dagger, I’ll notice that my staff is fully-charged, I’ll swap at a convenient moment, use my heavy staff attack, blast the enemies down, I was telling y’all, like, these Nightmare players, like planning around your elemental damage types, it’s really great to have weapons of multiple elemental types, right? So I go up against something that’s resistant to fire, I’m gonna hit down and maybe swap to my necrotic weapon.

KFM: I'm back, in record time. 

JE: Welcome back! 

KFM: Okay, did we get to the next one, or was that just the Spellblade question?

CB: Oh that was, sorry I was geeking out too much Katey.

KFM: Oh that’s okay, no, it’s great!

CB: We hit upon a favorite topic of mine.

KFM: That’s okay. Do we think we have time for one more, or do we think it’s time to wrap up?

JE: I can go a little late, we’ve got, I think we can do a couple more, for sure.

KFM: Okay, we do only have three left, so.

JE: Let’s finish the list!

KFM: Let’s do it.

KFM: Alright, next question. Since it was mentioned that playing as an elf in the Veil Jumpers will see you more of a, see you as more of a Dalish elf, and a City elf if you play as a Shadow Dragon, what kind of elf would you be in the other factions?

JE: So this is actually a really interesting question for me because I think one of the things I’d say is, while City Elf versus Dalish Elf is a lot more of a useful distinction in, you know, Ferelden, Orlais, we’re in northern Thedas, things are different up here. And a great example is Rivain. Dalish settlements, you know, they have Dalish settlements within cities, integrated into the cities, because, again, they don’t have that same bias, that same distinction. So it’s not really a City Elf versus Dalish Elf thing in a lot of those cases. It’s a lot more about, how you play into the faction, you know, and, in some cases it matters more that you’re an elf, in other cases it doesn’t actually matter to the people of that faction, they’re just looking for someone who could do the work. A great example, and I’ll just, very, very light spoilers, Mourn Watch is a great example where, they just care that you are capable of, you know, executing the duties that you’re given, so.

KFM: This next question, we’ve definitely confirmed a few times today already, but I’m sure there’s been a couple of people who cycled in and out. Will, when will we be releasing detailed information on the full list of accessibility features in the game?

JE: So yeah, so I mean, we mentioned, we’re not quite ready to talk about them, but we will be diving into them before launch. We wanna make sure as many people as possible can enjoy and play the game, so.

CB: Yeah, I think we’re doing a feature, some kind of blogpost on that, but, that’ll be a good format where we can be a little bit more in-depth.

JE: Yeah.

KFM: Alright, and the final question that I have on my list. It’s about localization. WoodenSmith says, I’d like to hear more about how localization works. What sorts of things have to be changed or adjusted so they make sense in different regions? Do localization teams have to be super careful when they translate to make sure they’re not accidentally revealing more than was intended in other versions? I’ve also always been very curious about accents in other versions. For example, do the, I’m gonna butcher this, do the Orl - Orlesian -

JE: Orlesian.

KFM: Orlesian, thank you, John. Character voice -

CB: That was really good, Katey!

KFM: I tried!

JE: Yeah, you tried, you got most of the way there, yeah!

KFM: For example, do the Orlesian character voice actors speak in a French accent in the Japanese version, or dwarf characters speak with an American accent in the French version?

JE: So I’m going to talk broadly about localization, and I’ll get a little bit into the accent question. So, localization is a thing that we’re doing constantly. We’re almost working with the teams, we have regular syncs with them, and a lot of that is because localization is not just, a lot of people think of it like, yeah, you’re just translating. Well, you’re not, you’re, you know, you’re, again, there’s different things to understand about different languages, they have different rules around grammar and, I will say, I think every writer has at least one story where they wrote, kind’ve, a fun double-entendre into a conversation, and then they got a ping from some of the localization teams saying, hey, can you very thoroughly explain what you meant there? And that’s what I like to describe as being hoist on your own petard because, sometimes, you’re like, oh I said this, it was really ribald, and now I don’t want to talk to this person who is very seriously and very concernedly, looking, it’s just like, ‘can you please tell us what that means?’ But yeah, I mean, in general, it’s an art-form of its own. You know, different sayings translate differently into different languages, different metaphors translate differently to different languages, and we always wanna make sure that other people, you know, people are playing this game in every language have an experience that feels authentic and meaningful, and doesn’t feel like it’s just kind’ve, you know, phoned in, we just, we just ran it through Google Translate or something, so. Again, localization is a huge part of what we do, the localization team we have is amazing, they do fantastic work, I love working with them. As far as accents, yeah, we do try to keep some consistency, it’s not always going to be a one to one, but we do try to say like, okay, so, this character, this group of characters needs to sound similar, and they’ll find an accent that works with the language that they’re trying, because, again, different accents work differently with different languages, and we wanna make sure that there’s that consistency, so, yeah.

KFM: We did it!

JE: Yeah!

KFM: That’s all of our questions that we’re able to get to you today. Wanna just say a quick thanks again to the community for submitting all of these really questions, it was a lot of fun going through them and, you know, making sure that we were able to give you some new stuff this time around. Yeah, anything you guys wanna say before we hop off?

CB: Yeah, can I just say, look, we love here, being here answering questions for you but the support, the interest you all show, it really fuels us in the team.

JE: Mhm.

CB: You all are a big part of us being able to make this game what it is, and I really hope we do you proud, so just, sincere thank you to everyone. 

JE: Yeah, just, I just wanna echo that. I’ve been on this project for a while, and it’s been a lot of, not getting to talk about it, and quietly saying I don’t know, are we making more new Dragon Age? So being able to actually have these conversations and give you the details that you want without spoiling the game, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. This is genuinely the funnest part of my week, so thank you everyone.

KFM: Awesome, well thank you both so much for your time, Corinne and John. And, yeah, we have recorded the audio for this, so we’re going to turn that into a transcription, and put that in the Q&A archive channel, which lives underneath ask-bioware. That will be coming, you know, in the next couple of days to a week or so, you know, we’ll, we’ll be working away at it as soon as possible, so just let, let me know if you have any questions.

JE: Awesome. Thank you so much everyone, have a good Friday, good weekend, and I’m gonna go eat a sandwich, so.

CB: Happy Friday!

KFM: Happy Friday, and happy sandwich day!

CB: Bye bye.

JE: Thank you.

KFM: Bye.

JE: Bye.

[source: the official BioWare Discord server, August 30th dev Q&A]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

[neroushalvaus]

Okay I am going to use the Somerton situation to talk about something that is very important to me. Following the discussion I have seen former Somerton fans being disappointed in themselves and questioning how they can ever trust another video essayist again. I have also seen some people being smug because to them Somerton was obviously unreliable from the start. As a person who also saw the "red flags" in Somerton, I would like to skip the smugness and talk a bit about what the red flags were to me.

Someone else has probably posted something similar and Hbomberguy's & Todd in the Shadows's videos touched a few of these points, but they didn't focus on them or how to spot these things. I think it is a good thing: I think it would have reinforced the idea that Somerton's fans were to blame for being lied to, and these youtubers didn't want to pin any blame on the fans. Also, some of the things I'm going to talk about were not by any means proof of him being unreliable, they were common tropes I personally associate with people who are bullshitting on internet. Think of it as something like spotting terfs: If you consider following a tumblr user and find out they have at some point posted "males will always be a danger to females no matter what they say", it is very possible that they are not a terf. Maybe they were having a bad day and were just wording their post badly – But you should probably search "trans" from their blog before following them, just to be sure.

So, the tropes in James Somerton's content that I consider red flags:

Lack of sources. This one may seem obvious and Hbomb talked about this in his video, but the lack of sources in his videos was outrageous. Video essays are called essays for a reason, they are not supposed to be just a guy talking about whatever comes to his mind, they should be well researched essays. Obviously video essays should contain one's own thoughts and interpretations and those do not need citations. But James Somerton didn't come out of the womb knowing everything about LGBT history, Disney and film theory, if he actually knew something about all this stuff, he should have learnt it from somewhere. There should be sources he could point to. It is very common that even when a video essayist doesn't tell you where they got all their information, they open their video by saying stuff like "when I prepared for this video I read the book Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche and this one thrilling blog post about lesbian cruising in 1960s Sweden". From what I've seen, James does not really do this. From watching his videos you could arrive to the conclusion that James Somerton does not read any books, he just knows everything. There are situations where people don't feel the need to add sources, like when the information is considered common knowledge or when the topic relates heavily to the essayist's actual academic field or profession. This is okay and very understandable, but can sometimes be dangerous, since if the video essayist markets himself as a marketing specialist, people are more likely to take his word for stuff that has to do with marketing, even without sources. It is understandable that in many situations an essayist may think "why should I cite a source? I know this thing!", but doing your research well is partly about checking if the information you are certain of is actually true. Also, as Hbomb pointed out, if you can cite a source, your audience can go learn more about the subject. It's not about anyone doubting you know your stuff, it's about learning. That's why well-respected video essayists usually cite their sources very clearly.

Lack of pictures and screenshots. This is about different kinds of sources again, many things on this list are kind of about sources. An example: When James Somerton made a video about JKR, he mentioned something about Rowling at one time saying that trans students in 30-50Feralhogs (or whatever the wizard school is called) could use magic to present as their gender. If this was any other video essayist, you'd expect a tweet to pop up, or something else confirming Rowling ever said this. Nothing pops up, obviously because Rowling didn't say this, but you can't see anything fishy in that because things rarely pop up in Somerton's videos. He doesn't show you court documents when speaking about a court case, he doesn't show you the comments apparently mad at him for implying the gay anime is gay when he is complaining about people being mad at him. There is a reason people show screenshots and tweets in video essays. When a good video essayist says JK Rowling has tweeted that all people who menstruate should be referred to as women, the video essayist shows the tweet so people know they are not making it up. If there were hoards of annoying bitc-- I mean, angry white women whining about gay sex in HuffPost articles or Somerton's youtube comments, he should have no trouble showing you those. Remember that you should not trust someone just because they show you pictures or screenshots. Pictures can be photoshopped, screenshots can be doctored. Many youtubers are aware that you listen to their videos while cleaning or while walking your dog and don't actually see the screen all the time, and some may take advantage of that by saying something like "and here she threatened to kill me" while showing a text message where someone said "die mad about it". A screenshot alone isn't much but you should demand to see the screenshot.

Passive voice. I am once again bitching about this. Somerton repeatedly says things like "it's been said that" or "it was common knowledge that" or "a legend says that" or "according to most interpretations". He doesn't say who says it, making it very hard to fact check and that seems to be his goal in some cases.

Relying heavily on anecdotes. Writing a dense, analytical video about film theory or history can be exhausting and you may want to pepper in little fun facts. However Somerton seemed to rely on these heavily; he can't just talk about how he has totally bought every lie told by The Pink Swastika, he also needs to tell a cute little anecdote about SS men forcing sexual favours out of men. He can't just tell a story about a court case, he needs to add in ridiculous stuff about the jury booing. This is what I mean by not all the things on this list being necessarily proof of someone being unreliable. Many people use anecdotes and little stories in their storytelling, it makes the videos flow better and it's hard to decide which anecdotes are valid and which are not. A source obviously makes an anecdote a bit more believable, but here are some things that instantly make me fact check an anecdote:

It's a bit too convenient, poetic or ironic. Sometimes real life is weirder than fiction but if an anecdote is "perfect" and has an amazing punchline and you could write twelve poems about it, there is a possibility it was invented by pop science books.

It assumes your political enemies are stupid. Dunking on conservatives, MRAs and transphobes is always fun and after you've seen a lot of this kind of content it's easy to believe anything about these people. You must resist the impulse to believe everything that may make your opponents look stupid.

The person telling the anecdote implies it is an example of a larger, systemic problem. You know what's worse than taking a random happenstance from human history or internet and basing an entire political theory on it? The said random happenstance being made up. You should in general be wary of people telling one story and explaining why it's an example of everything that's wrong in the world. We live in a huge world. You can always find a white woman who loves cute gays but hates the idea of Nick Heartstopper and Charlie Heartstopper getting nasty but that doesn't mean it's an indicator of a larger issue.

Simplifying complex issues. We all know that "only the boring gays survived the AIDS crisis, and that's why gays started to only care about marriage equality and military" is a horrible, insensitive thing to say, but you also have to think about it for like two seconds to realize that it can't be correct. It kind of reminds me of the "roe v wade caused the crime drop of 1990s" claim in Freakonomics. It sounds logical and simple, like a basic math calculation. Societal issues rarely are like that, though. You should never believe anyone who tells you about a huge societal shift and says it happened because of one thing and one thing only.

These were some of the things I noticed in Somerton's content that caused me to distrust him. I hope these were helpful to you and feel free to add your own "red flags" if you feel like it!

[daytaker]

The Gang React to You Breaking Your Ankle

Lucifer

"This was bound to happen sooner or later."

I mean, really, with all the stunts you play with his brothers and that sorcerer, it's more surprising that you didn't break anything before now. Thank goodness your room is on the ground floor. Now, here is a schedule of where you need to be and when, along with the brother who is your designated companion at all times to ensure you don't get stuck somewhere or fall over and break something else. This is a rotating position so stop fighting all of you!

Mammon

"Holy shit, humans break easy, huh?"

Assuming for the moment that Mammon didn't accidentally get your ankle broken by pulling some stupid stunt for Devilgram clout and involving you in it, he'll be extra careful with you for a little bit. People keep jostling you in the hall! Don't they realize you're basically made of glass and paper?! He'll clear the halls for you to hobble by with your crutches. Yep, you're earning all sorts of new friends.

Leviathan

"E-sports are the best activity when you're injured."

What a convenient excuse to drag you to his room more often than usual for anime marathons and all-night gaming sessions. Like Mammon, he's a little uneasy about this revelation about just how delicate you are, but nobody gets injured playing video games. He's basically protecting you from your next inevitable accident.

Satan

"Stop trying to do so much on your own."

Satan acts extremely annoyed when he sees you trying to hop somewhere without your crutches or lifting anything more than fifteen pounds unaided. Of course, he's just worried about you and expressing that in the most practical way he can. He repeatedly reminds you of advice on improving your recovery rate he found in medical books and the blogs of reputable physical therapists (he always checks into their credentials).

Asmodeus

"Poor thing! Let me spoil you!"

And that's basically what he does, whenever he gets the opportunity. This is a great excuse to get some much needed R&R, in his opinion, so the two of you will be visiting spas and getting massages and you aren't walking anywhere anymore, he is one of the Rulers of the Underworld and you are going to be carried on a litter, so help him Gardonus.

Beelzebub

"You need to eat well to get your strength back."

Prepare yourself for Beel's version of "eating well". You only had three eggs for breakfast? You'll never heal at that rate. Have another six and some bacon. Here's a protein shake. It's designed for demons so it's probably a little grittier than the soft stuff from the human world but it's exactly what you need. No, he doesn't have any science to back this up. Yes, he expects you to clean your plate.

Belphegor

"Of course you got hurt, running around all the time. You should just relax with me."

Little did you know this was all part of Belphegor's master plan...

What a perfect opportunity to spend every second of the day with you. Now that you're forced to sit around and avoid being too active, he has you right where he wants you (specifically, under the blankets with him while he sleeps). He'll remind you at every opportunity that you normally run yourself ragged, and you've earned some time to laze around. And now that you're injured, you have the perfect excuse!

Diavolo

"Your poor human bones... My home is always open to you if you need somewhere more convenient to stay. Please take care of yourself, in the meantime."

Rest assured, he will provide you with all transportation necessary to and from RAD. Or perhaps you would like to try remote classes? Leviathan finds them productive! And if you need anything, please let him know. He'll be in touch about five times a day just to make sure you remember that.

Barbatos

"I am only a phone call away should you require my assistance."

And he will be on call at all hours of the day and night, just in case. You'll be treated like royalty when you visit the castle too, of course. (Even more like royalty than usual, that is.)

Solomon

"Oh, that? Here."

He just magics your ankle better. There, there, little apprentice. He's surprised you didn't do that yourself.

Simeon

"What are you carrying? I'll take it for you. No, I insist!"

Simeon will be a perfect gentleman, helping you up and down stairs and carrying your books and shopping for you. He's very concerned about you somehow re-injuring yourself, and even when you're alright to walk without crutches anymore, he still *really wishes* you'd use them for an extra week or two, just to be on the safe side.

Luke

"You did what to your ankle?! Ankles can do that?!

Congratulations, you've introduced Luke to the concept of broken bones, and he will find the human skeleton creepy and gross for the rest of his life.

--------

@thefandomthings I know this isn't exactly what your ask was, but it's similar, so I hope you like this!

[hazelfoureyes]

before i never really interacted with blogs(cuz anxiety and very toxic friends had my tumblr, who ive gotten rid of now) but now i literally interact with every post bc of you, you are god and i will worship you, your smut is poetic af and has my legs SHAKING(.literally.)

i am ON MY KNEES❗

also, alastor and his rivals(vox or lucifer) x reader smut? like i know alastor would be petty asf and have them watch as he fucks the living out of their beloved, im curious, do you have any ideas regarding that?(cuz your ideas are delicious and im hungry for that)

You’ve left me speechless which is quite the accomplishment, Darling. I am just a little goblin! Or like the tooth fairy, but instead of teeth I take praise and instead of money I leave filthy smut 🥺 I am so glad you removed the toxic friends and are interacting more. 💖 you deserve better and your interactions are a joy. Thank you for brightening my day! I am so far away and yet you’ve got me blushing like a fool.

oooh yes okay so! Here’s some ideas 👀

•───⋅⋆⁺‧₊👑₊‧⁺⋆⋅───•

Energy for me is Lucifer: Here to please. Alastor: Here to win. I imagine Luci brings you to the hotel for Charlie’s Birthday party, already having a precious casual fling once or twice before. All the guests are there, everyone is dancing and drinking and having a good time. Alastor notices how you call him Luci, how Lucifer cant keep his cool when you lean closer to him when you speak. Naturally, Alastor sees an opportunity to fuck with Lucifer so he asks for a dance. He is uncharacteristically sweet and loving, willing to do anything to get under the king of hell’s skin. He changes the music to something slow, holding you close he whispers in your ear during your dance, “How can any man maintain composure around you? I feel my manners slipping through my fingers every time you look my way.” When you leave the party to cool down, Alastor follows, finding you in an empty room trying to decompress. “Would you hate me if I kissed you? Be forewarned, once I start, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop…”

Lucifer walks in to see you absolutely melting under Alastor, lipstick smeared and face flushed. But Luci adores you, your pleasure is his pleasure and he’s compelled to stay and watch, even as Alastor makes you moan and scream his name. “Who do you belong to, sweetheart?” “Whose cock are you made for?” You’re reduced to incoherent babbling by the time Alastor is finished toying with Lucifer. Lucifer can’t take it anymore and finds himself crawling onto the bed to swallow your moans and shower you in praise.

•───⋅⋆⁺‧₊🖥️₊‧⁺⋆⋅───•

I can see Vox bringing his beloved personal assistant to an overlord meeting for note taking, and Alastor notices your glances to him. Vox adores you, and is always on his best behavior around you to impress you. Alastor waits for you outside of Vee Tower that night for a “chance run in”. “What luck! Allow me to buy you a drink, as a welcome to hell.” Charms you as any good southern boy could, and suggests you both go back to your office for privacy. Knowing full well Vox has cameras all over the office, Alastor fucks Vox’s assistant on his desk while maintaining eye contact with the massive collection of screens there. Vox catches sight of this while skimming through the feeds but can’t break away from the video. Alastor keeps your back to the displays while bouncing you on his cock, smirking at Vox the entire time as he leans back on his desk chair. Vox is seething and finally rushes to his office to find Alastor gone and you lying on your back, still out of breath and cum dripping onto the desk.

Vox keeps you, but gets rid of the desk. He can’t let Alastor have the satisfaction of making him lose his prized employee. For weeks after, while zoning out in board meetings, his screen flashes images of Alastor smirking from over your shoulder as you ride him. He’s entirely unaware that it’s happening and everyone is too scared to tell him.

[donotpush]

Daily vlog

CW: mpreg, sort of magic pregnancy, birth denial, car birth

"So..." Adam smiled, holding the camera over his head, to get his best angle. "Are we filming Baby #3 birth?"

Adam asked, turning to look at his wife, and at the camera again with another smile without waiting for Alissa’s reply.

His hand traveled to spank Alisa's tight, bare belly, leaving the mark of his palm over the sensitive skin and making her groan slightly. Adam nodded enthusiastically before talking to the camera again. "Of course we are! What do you think, huh? It's a tradition at this point, right, honey?"

Alisa took a deep breath, putting herself together before looking at the camera and giving her best smile. She had been up since 5 am this morning, with a crying baby hanging from her hip and a sick toddler throwing up all day long, and honestly, the last thing she wanted to do right now was to expose herself to the camera.

But Adam insisted. How could they let their followers down without a daily vlog today?

He couldn't, and he was gonna post that vlog. Of course, who wouldn't have the energy to produce, film, edit, and post a vlog when you wake up at 10 am and do exclusively nothing all day?

Alisa knew that it was their job, that the moment they signed up for the influencer life, their whole purpose (and not like she was complaining, there were moms out there that had real jobs and still had to deal with way worse than her) but she did expect some empathy from her husband.

She was about to pop, literally, this baby out. Everything was crazy, from her hormones to the altered routine in the house, but as always, Adam was blissfully unaware of the chaos that surrounded their lives right now.

“So, there you go” Adam winked at the camera, “Actually, our next blog will probably be Baby’s #3 birth, right honey?”

Yes, it was gonna be another birth vlog. This morning when she looked at herself in the mirror, Alissa realized that her stomach had dropped, tight and bloated past her hips, the taut skin stretching to its limits today seemed like it was about to burst.

So, yes, the next video on their channel Alissa was almost 100% sure it was gonna be a birth vlog.

“...maybe.”

She really wished that this time they could’ve done something a bit more… conventional. Private, away from all the cameras and views. With their last baby, Adam had the fucking camera in her face the whole process. From the moment she woke up to contractions to the moment she popped out the kid in the birthing tub. This time, she wasn’t in the mood for all that, no matter how many views it would give them.

Adam went on, ranting about something and talking about their sponsor they got earlier in the month, a really bad marketing job for a really bad product, but Alisa didn’t hear him because Ryatt was getting something she shouldn’t have inside her mouth. The blonde groaned as she clumsily tried to kneel down, reaching over her huge stomach to take the toy out of the baby’s sticky hand.

“Adam, help me here” she breathed, pointing to the baby with her hand.

Adam gave her a look, and outside of the camera frame, signaled her to wait. He talked about another one of their sponsors, said goodbye to their subscribers and their classic outro line (family always first, and y’all are family) to their subscribers, and just then walked over to help her after he turned the camera off.

“God, fuck…!” she groaned, holding onto her stomach as she struggled to stand up straight.

“Language” Adam raised an eyebrow, pointing at Ryatt with his head.

“Bullspit, I’m so darn over with this”, pointing to herself, Alisa looked down at her gravid stomach. “I’m so fucking done. I can’t wait to get this baby out of me and… And I told you I would prefer to keep his birth private, Adam”

The tone wasn’t stern or accusative, just done— deep down, Alisa knew her husband was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. Little choice she had.

“I know, I know…” Adam shrugged, his eyebrows raising and his mouth scrunching up.

He knew, of course, he did, but to be honest, he didn’t care enough. His wife was being dramatic as if she hadn’t gone over with this two times already. But he knew that he had to add something to fill the silence that followed, he always did have something to say.

“If I could, babe, I would carry our baby for you” he sighed dramatically, turning around and away from his wife. “Actually, I wish I could be pregnant instead of you right now, honey…”

His words were left hanging in the air as Adam disappeared into the hallway to the kitchen, ready to grab a beer and sit down on the couch to relax for a while before getting to edit.

Actually, I wish I could be pregnant instead of you right now.

Alisa stared at his back as he disappeared into the kitchen. His nice legs and his toned arms, his perfect back and she couldn’t see the six-pack, but it was there. Because Adam didn’t have to carry two kids, to gain weight and to lose weight, to lose his six-pack or to see his whole body change in a matter of months.

It wasn't him who had to endure the contractions, the labor, or the long hospital nights while waiting to be able to spread his legs open and push.

He didn’t wish he could be pregnant. Oh, but Alisa did.

***

Alisa made breakfast, did laundry, got through the morning with two kids under 5 and all while dealing with those awful cramps that kept interrupting her. They weren't contractions, she knew those pretty well, but they were the foreword of a long story.

Adam? He edited their latest video and went to take a nap on the couch.

Without opening his eyes, Adam let out a small groan and tilted his head to hide his face against one of the cushions. Something had interrupted his sleep, but he didn’t hear Ryatt's cries or Bobby playing loudly somewhere in the house, nor his wife complaining about something.

So he did what everyone would do, he didn’t even bother fully opening his eyes and tried to go fall back into a deep slumber.

But something was off. His head was feeling dizzy and his whole body was… acting funny. An overall feeling of being sick, something he ate, probably.

He shifted, moving his hips to turn to his side, and he frowned when he felt something in his stomach move. With a groan, the hand that rested between his thighs slid off from there to move to his abs, rubbing the soft spot trying to ease whatever was grumbling inside his tummy.

Soft, a bit harder if he pressed down. But it didn’t have to be soft, he hit the gym 6 days a week and had washboard abs, he was the envy of all the suburban dads in their neighborhood. Suddenly, his stomach fussed again, and this time it came accompanied by a cold free of air brushing against his skin, making him shiver.

Half asleep, fighting to pull a strand of consciousness and get himself up fully, Adam’s features turned into a confused grimace as his mind finished coming back to this reality. When he finally opened his blue eyes, covering his face with his hands to dismiss the headache that the sunlight from the windows gave him, he immediately knew something wasn’t right.

His free hand was still rubbing over his stomach, and it was still… It was round. Round and firm, the protuberance that rested under the palm of his hand.

“What…?” Adam mumbled, confusion slowly taking over his sleepiness and pulling him back to reality.

He was wide awake now, his body and mind alert. When he looked down at himself, the scream of horror that left his lips almost deafened him, leaving his eardrums ringing loudly and his heart hammering against his chest.

It felt cold. The cold breeze brushing against his skin because his white shirt was now all lifted over to his chest, exposing his warm skin to the air. His shirt was lifted because where it was supposed to be a flat, toned stomach, now there was a fat, round belly, nothing like what he had ever seen before.

He must have eaten something bad, something that made him bloat and just feel weird overall, but bloat like this?

In front of him, his stomach wasn't just bloated, it felt tight and hot at the touch and the skin was itchy, stretched to the limit in what seemed to be the few hours he was asleep. His abs were gone, and now a gravid mount of flesh sat there, huge and tender.

From confusion, Adam's mind raced to fear, because there was no logical or reasonable explanation to any of this. If it was something he ate, then it was something that made him terribly wrong and he probably should head to the doctor ASAP.

But, deep down, Adam knew it wasn't something he ate. Under a thinning layer of denial, he knew.

His chest wrenched with his agitated breaths, and Adam tried to lift himself up from the couch. He failed, not used to the weight that he carried now on his middle (God, he was heavier now) and the only thing he could do was to lay there for a few seconds, staring down.

At his belly.

He felt like he needed to puke when unexpectedly something inside him squirmed.

He closed his eyes tightly to avoid nausea rising up in his throat, and the deprivation of one of his senses seemed to whip up the other ones. He could feel how hot the skin that covered his now rounded stomach was, how hot his body was, how heavy he felt and how something was squirming inside him.

His left hand moved over his stomach, right under his left rib, and he swallowed. As soon as his hand pressed down against the tense flesh, another tiny hand pressed back from the inside.

"Fuck, fuck fuck..." gripping at the couch's back, a loud moan escaped from his lips as he curled his fingers around the fabric above the couch, holding onto it desperately, lifting himself up.

It was, to say at least, weird to carry himself around now. The few seconds that he ran, well, more like waddled, towards the bathroom were something. So this was what it was like?

The image in the mirror proved what Adam already knew.

I wish I could be pregnant.

He stared at his reflection, turning to the side to let his eyes travel from the top of his head to his middle, then turned to his other side and to the front again. His hand moved to rest on top of his stomach as if he needed another confirmation that it was there and it was real.

He thought about it for a moment, before he pinched the tight skin of his belly. He hoped he would wake up, there was a small part of him that still hoped this was just a bad dream and his mind was doing some crazy tricks while his real body was still asleep on the couch. But he was awake.

The waistband of his sweatpants moved down a centimeter. He looked down, his eyes wide open as he witnessed right in front of him how his stomach swelled, the skin extended and shifting as his stomach grew in size.

***

The front door opened, and Bobby rushed in, throwing his frog backpack next to the door before Alisa followed him with Ryatt clinging to her hip. Adam made his way to her as quickly as he could.

“Oh! Mommy, look!” Bobby shouted as soon as he saw him, his little finger pointing to Adam’s gravid stomach. “Daddy has Little brother now! Look!”

But Adam couldn't even stop to look at him, because he could only focus on the fact that where Alisa was supposed to have a nine-month overdue belly, there was just a flat stomach. Fuck.

They stood in front of each other, Alisa looked at him, then down at his belly, and then up at him again.

“Well, I guess wishes do come true, honey!” The tone was so cheerful that it made Adam’s blood boil.

Probably…his hormones messing with him? As if that was the least of his problems. A cramp took over him, painful enough to bring a frown to his face and make him rub the side of his belly.

“We need to go to the hospital!”

“Why the rush?”

A dark spot started to spread all over Adam’s grey sweatpants as a gush of amniotic fluid came out of him.

“My…your…my water just broke!”

“You need to change, and we need to take the kids to my mom’s house…”

“Why are you so calm?”

“Relax, honey” she sighed “I have done this two times already! It’s gonna be just fine. You have to change, go get the hospital bag, oh, and of course get the camera!”

“We are not… fuck… filming this” he breathed, gripping the table next to him when another sharp pain took over him.

“What do you mean?” Alisa frowned as she picked up Bobby's backpack again “It's a tradition at this point. Of course, we're filming. It’s going to be a hit.”

Besides the fact that all of this escaped all logic and reason, there was a tangible reality. Something that was happening right here, right now, and it was the fact that Adam was in labor. Didn't matter how much he tried to deny what was going on, to say he was still dreaming, because the pains that were shooting through his middle, contracting the muscles and making him whine felt very real and were happening, quicker and faster every minute.

He took a deep breath, moving his hand under his belly to lift it slightly, hoping to ease the pain or the pressure that was starting to build up on his hips, but it didn’t work. He wasn't sure how much time he had before it got actually serious, but he did know that after his water broke, it was little.

**

“Turn that off…” Adam titled the camera that rested on the car seat cup holder away, his free hand flying to wipe sweat from his forehead. “Oh, fuck…”

Alisa tilted the camera back to its original position. Her husband shifted on the passenger's seats, his both hands now busy rubbing the contracting bump that rested between his open thighs.

Well, at least now he knew that contractions were more painful than a kick in the balls.

“Oh, oh, ah!” He cried out, his body tightening up, and a low groan leaving him as he leaned forward pressing his palms against the dashboard and panting heavily. “Fuck, I need you to… ugh… I need you to drive faster, honey.”

“Babe, I’m going as fast as I can,” Alisa replied, looking at him through the corner of her eye. “Just breathe, okay?”

Looking outside the window, Adam tried to find a distraction. Anything, really, that made him not think about the increasing pressure that was building between his legs and about how low the baby was.

He shifted in his seat, his hips swinging back and front trying to find a spot that didn't make him feel so miserable. Placing a hand on the side of the seat and another on the grab handle, Adam leaned forward and spread his legs as another loud grunt escaped his lips, his eyes closing tight and his breath picking up again when another tight contraction hit him.

He tried breathing, in and out just as he would tell Alisa to do, but it wasn’t doing shit.

The heavy weight on his hips and pelvis was getting closer and closer to coming out. Adam didn’t want it to come out. At least not here, in the fucking car in the middle of the road.

“We’re five minutes away from the hospital” Alisa reassured, her hand patting his tense thigh. “Just breathe”

“I don’t… ughn, fuck! I don’t know if I can… oh… hold it in that much longer” Adam panted, moving to unclasp the seatbelt that now pressed uncomfortably against his stomach. “Fuck, there’s pressure. It feels like… I have to push!”

“How do you even know that you have to push?” Stopping at a red light, Alissa raised both eyebrows before tilting to face him.

“Because it’s coming out!” Adam cried, moving back on his seat to prop up both feet against the dashboard, throwing his head back as he moaned.

“Just breathe. We’re almost there”

Just breathe. We’re almost there. The words were an echo, and Adam was sure that he said those exact phrases before, before the births of their two kids, in this exact same car. But he didn’t realize how useless, how annoying having someone repeating just calm down was.

God, fuck, he wondered how Alissa didn’t just slap him those times. If anyone was going to tell him to calm the fuck down again, he was going to kill someone.

His murder instincts were quickly dismissed when he closed his eyes, his hands moving to slide under his belly and lifting it slightly, as if it could help to ease the pressure on his pelvis. With a cry, he shifted forward, now moving his hands to slide under his thighs, lifting his hips from the car seat.

It was coming. Now. And out.

He could feel his own body pushing against his wishes, and the more he tried to avoid it, the worse it was, the baby helpless making its way down his pelvis and towards his hole. It felt as if at the first bump Alisa hit on the road the baby would just pop out of him.

He didn’t notice when he pushed back in the seat, breathing heavily through his nose as he pressed himself down against the seat, trying to prevent anything from coming out.

But it was useless because his commitment lasted little when his brain was overwhelmed by the urge to just allow his body to do what it had to do. To push.

The baby’s head was right there. Adam’s hand slid between his legs, the palm of his hand pressing against his bulging hole, the head sitting behind his entrance and almost ready to start crowning. Almost out of him.

“…fuck!” he writhed, gritting his teeth as he kicked against the car floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The fingers of his free hand gripped at the grab handle, knuckles turning white, and his other hand was busy pressing against his hole, trying to keep the head from coming any further. It was useless because the head was still pushing its way down, out of him on its own.

He could feel the bulge against his palm, growing ever so slowly as Alissa pressed her foot on the pedals. Adam threw his head back, closing his eyes shut and trying to focus on his breath. The same advice he always gave: breathe.

His chest rose slowly as he inhaled, then shakily exhaled through his closed lips. It should be fine, he just had to breathe —in and out and counting to five— focus on remaining calm, and he could just make it to the hospital. They were just a few minutes away, all he had to do was… push.

“Oh, fuck, it’s coming!” he screamed, kicking his feet in the air, his hips shifting forwards and to the seat edge. “Honey, Alissa, it’s right there”

Alissa tilted her head, looking away from the road for a brief moment to face her husband. She found herself contemplating an image that, deep down in her stomach, in a very hidden spot and a very small dose, made her happy: she got exactly what she wanted. Her husband going through all of the wonderful miracles of birth.

Adam panted, the tense orb his stomach had become contracting and tensing in front of him, his hands gripping at the taunt red skin, furiously trying to relieve the pain or the pressure, his body almost shaking by the urge of pushing the baby that was starting to crown. His face was red and sweaty, hands and all of his body straining and tense.

Alissa, rightfully, stopped at a red light, a bunch of cars passing in front of them.

“Don’t stop, fuck, it’s…!” Adam shouted, but then his words became a muffled groan as he gritted his teeth, pushing his chin to his chest. “I can’t hold it in, I’m pushing!”

Even against his wishes, his body was pushing. Adam found himself trying to hold the baby in, to not give in to the urge, but his body was pushing. His stomach contracted and he found himself tensing, chin to chest, and gripping at the grab handle as he pushed. He counted to three and pushed again when another cramp took over him.

“Fuck!” he shouted, feeling the head stretching him open, making its way out. Adam reached with a free hand to press his hand over his wet, birth-fluid-stained shorts, only to feel the start of a bulge in his pants.

The pressure of the head right about to crown was hell. It only made him want to push to get over it, to push more to get the head to a full crown and get rid of the uncomfortable feeling, but god fuck he didn’t want to give birth to this baby in the car.

“It’s crowning, the head’s-... nhgn, what am I supposed to do!?” it was more a whimper than a question, and Adam found himself kicking in the air, biting his lower lips until he almost drew blood. “Shit, shit, shit…! Ughn!”

“I don’t know!” Alissa stepped on the gas and accelerated. “Don’t push! Just… wait! We’re almost there, just five minutes away from the hospital.”

Adam nodded, then shook his head, both hands moving to cup the underside of his belly, trying to relieve the pressure that was weighing him down. It didn’t work, and he found himself trying to contain a moan when another contraction rippled through his body, a gush of amniotic fluid rushing from between his legs and dripping to the car floor.

His hips jerked frantically as he rocked forth and back slightly, trying to find any angle that was comfortable for him to keep this baby in, but it was terribly useless because, with every movement of his body, the baby's head seemed to come closer and closer to a full crown.

“Ughn…!” he moaned, his fingers gracelessly trying to slide under the hem of his pants in order to pull them down. The baby was coming. “Fuck, it’s coming, I’m pushing….!”

His finger’s ministrations were interrupted when he interrupted when another contraction took over him, all of his focus on pushing. He gripped the sides of his belly, leaving white marks on the red skin, as he closed his eyes and whimpered.

“Oh, oh– it’s out, the head’s out!”

It wasn’t necessary for him to say it out loud because Alissa’s attention was dangerously divided between looking at the road and staring down between her husband's legs. His pants were dark and wet, stained by amniotic fluid, and the baby’s head bulged out of them almost obscenely -–god, it was huge—, only contained from coming further by the fabric of the pants.

“Fuck— I need to push, I need to push, I’m pushing!” he moaned, throwing his head back against the car seat and jerking his hips forward, his hands desperately trying to undo his shorts. “Ughn…the…mhgm…pants! Help me!”

“I can’t, hands at 9 and 3!”

With a loud whimper, Adam finally managed to pull his shorts down enough to allow the baby’s head to pop out of him free, a gush of fluid dampening his seat as the head dangled between his legs. His body shook at the feeling of the head stretching him open on its biggest point, and then the relief when it was finally out. Alissa stared in horror as her husband held the baby’s head in hand with one hand between his legs.

Alissa reached a hand to help Adam slide his pants down more, his body contorting as he pulled forward, pushing his hips towards the free space of whatever was left in the car. Now with his pants to his ankles, his body tensed once again, and he squirmed on his seat as he focused on the next contraction that rippled through his body.

“...fuck, nhgn!” his face became red as his feet kicked the car floor, kicking and screaming as he pushed. “Nhgn!”

With his next push, the baby’s body almost came shooting out of him. He screamed in pain as he felt the body coming out of him, the shoulders being even worse than the head. But before he could realize, it was over. A second later he heard a heavy cry, and the newborn resting against his chest.

His body slumped against the seat. He looked outside the windows, seeing the well known entrance of the hospital as Alissa parked the car, parking it at the nearest spot available. Before unclasping her seatbelt, Alissa reached to grab the videocamera. Adam stared at it before he spoke.

"You filmed it, right?”

[therealcocoshady]

Coco!! Just wanted to say THANK YOU for indulging another one of my requests and so QUICKLY too. I know you’re busy, busy and I really appreciate it! This was everything I ASKED for and more! Love me some sweet and sexy Marsh 🤍💪🏼🧘🏻‍♀️💦💋🌶️🥵🧸

Hope you enjoy a ☕️ or 2 on me! 😉

A/N : Hi bestie 🌟. Thank YOU for supporting me and being my first ever commission ❤️.

For those of you who didn’t know, you can support my writing by giving tips on my Ko-Fi account and I am now open for commissions as well 😏.

@shady-577 kindly allowed me to post the commission on this blog, too, to I hope y’all enjoy 🌟

Sweat Session

Marshall was a very healthy person and it showed. On your very first date, he’d told you about him trying to lead a healthy lifestyle by maintaining his sobriety, eating well and exercising and, two years into your relationship, he was more than consistent. You had recently moved in together and you got to see just how seriously he took it. And as he was getting ready to drop a new album, perform regularly again and do some promo, he started exercising even more. Not only it kept him fit, but it also helped him deal with his stress. He got up even earlier in the morning to hit the gym and, even though you enjoy the fruits of his labor (what with him being even more buff than before), you were a little grumpy not to have your man in bed with you when you woke up. And since he spent even more time at work, polishing the album and working on the promo, you didn’t see him as much as you liked, which made you a little frustrated.

- You know, you could hit the gym with me, he suggested with a smile when you told him about your annoyance. Might do some good.

- Is this a sneaky way of telling me I’ve gained weight ? You asked as you side-eyed him.

- What ? No ! He immediately said. I’m just saying it’s healthy to exercise. You could wake up a little earlier and join me in the gym.

- Or you could skip a day and stay in bed with me tomorrow morning, you suggested with a charming grin.

- Not happening, doll, he said with a smile. Need to be consistent.

- Fine, you groaned.

With the public appearances and photo shoots he had planned, as well as music videos to shoot, he wanted to look buff. At 51 years old, he didn’t want to be seen as some « aging rapper who let himself go ». And sure enough, the results were there. His chest was chesting and he had Twitter go feral over the outline of his pecs, clearly visible on the latest pics of him at Dre’s Walk of Fame ceremony.

The next day, you woke up to the sound of his alarm going off and let out a groan. He whispered an apology and kissed your forehead before going to the home gym in the basement. You tried to fall back to sleep but without your man by your side, the bed felt cold and empty. That’s when you decided enough was enough. You got up and put on a cute working out outfit, which looked more like underwear than clothes you could actually work out in, consisting of a bra and the tiniest shorts ever. Just enough fabric to highlight your figure and make your ass and breast pop out. When you got downstairs, you saw him working out on an incline bench, absorbed on what he was doing. He was wearing simple sweatpants and sneakers, not even bothering with a teeshirt. The view reminded you of how lucky you were. You looked at him from afar for a good while, him so focused that he didn’t even notice you standing there, practically drooling.

- Hi handsome, you said seductively. Mind if I join you ?

- You decided to get up after- he began. Jesus Christ…

- Yes ? You said innocently.

- You’re gonna work out in these ? He asked with a raised eyebrow.

- You don’t like it ? You asked.

- I don’t think that’s enough fabric for me to critique, he hummed.

- Far be it from me to distract you, you said with a smile. Unless…

- I have to work out, babe, he said with a frown. But you’re welcome to join.

You shrugged. You’d been dating for a while but, clearly, he should know better than to assume you didn’t have more tricks up your sleeve. You kicked off your sneakers and grabbed a yoga mat, strategically placing it so that he’d have a good view. You started stretching, going from pose to pose. He kept on working out next to you, though you could see his gaze.

- Like what you see ? You hummed.

- Making sure you’re doing it right, he said with a grin.

- Sure, you giggled.

He got up while you were in downward facing dog and put a hand on your hip, helping you stretch your back a little.

- You know, these tiny shorts don’t hide much, he whispered in your ear. Especially not in this pose.

- Oh yeah ? You asked as you switched to a three-legged down dog that gave him an even better view.

- Fuck, he muttered under his breath.

You kept your flow going under his watchful eye, looking at you as if you were a snack.

- I think my flexibility is not too bad, you remarked.

- It’s really good, he mumbled. Really good.

- Thank you for correcting my posture, my love, you said innocently. Let me repay the favor and spot you.

He hummed and laid back on the inclined bench, grabbing some halters, working on his arms. You gently ran your hand on his biceps, feeling how much bigger they had gotten in the past weeks.

- So muscular, you said seductively. You are so strong…

- Am I ? He mused.

- And that chest, you continued. It’s all for the « Stan » shirt lift for your upcoming tour, isn’t it ?

He looked at you with a grin, knowing this particular move drove you absolutely crazy. You watched him exercise. He clearly didn’t need you to spot him, and you knew it, but this allowed you to stare. He sat back up and grabbed his water bottle, taking a big gulp. You were staring at each other with « fuck me eyes » and you could tell he was trying hard not to give in to the temptation.

- You’re awfully distracting, woman, he said.

- Maybe you need to take a little break, you suggested. I think it’s time you were shown some appreciation for all this hard work…

He smiled and playfully shook his head before taking another gulp of water. Some of it missed his mouth and trailed down his neck and chest. You stepped closer and ran your tongue on his neck, catching the iced liquid. He let out a groan, letting you know how pleasurable it was.

- Let’s not be wasteful with water, now, you said seductively. Oh, I think I missed some…

You proceeded to kiss his chest, catching the water with your mouth. You took advantage of the moment and placed a kiss on one of his pecs. He chuckled and pulled you to him so that you’d sit in his lap before kissing you passionately.

- You’re impossible, he hummed between kissed. I can’t focus.

- And you’re a fucking tease, you retorted as you kissed him back. I’m only human, you know ?

- I’ll give you teasing, he grinned.

With one movement of his knee, he had you spread your legs for him, before running his fingers on the inside of your thigh. You hummed in pleasure as his hand got dangerously close to your pussy, eventually cupping it over the thin fabric of your shorts, making you sigh in pleasure.

- Is this what you wanted ? He asked playfully.

- Yes, you whined.

There was nothing more you loved than to sit in his lap, his arms around you, free to run his hands across your body. He knew it and he happily obliged, keeping on teasing you over your clothes, cupping your breasts and grazing your nipples with his fingers. He freed one of your boobs from your sports bra and pinched the nipple, making you moan in pleasure. You automatically started grinding against his thigh, your body desperate for some release.

- Look at this, he chuckled. You don’t need me to take care of you. Looks like you’re doing it on your own.

- Please, you asked breathily. Marshall.

- Patience, love, he whispered in your ear before letting his hand go back to your pussy.

He played with you over the fabric, no doubt feeling how wet you were. His head was buried in your neck and you could feel his smile against your skin. You kept on moaning, desperate for more. Eventually, you took matters in your own hands and knelt between his legs. You decided to put him through the same misery and stroked his high through his sweatpants, going higher and higher with each motion. Even through the fabric, you could see his growing bulge. You looked up to him and saw that he was looking in the mirror across the room, admiring the view of you, kneeling for him.

- You’re so beautiful in this position,he said as he ran a hand through your hair.

- Keep enjoying the view, then, you suggested with a smirk.

You tugged at his sweats and he lifted his hips to allow you to lower them, eventually kicking his sneakers so that you’d remove the whole thing, along with his boxers. There was something about him, naked on the bench, his massive erection showing you how excited he was. You stroked his cock and gave it a few pumps before approaching your face.

- I could leave you like this, you mused. Like you’ve left me alone in our bed…

- Babe, no, he pleaded. Please.

You thoroughly enjoyed reversing the power dynamic. By the look he was giving you, you could tell that he was wrapped around your finger, eating in the palm of your hand. You gave him a mischievous grin and started licking the tip of his cock, earning sighs of pleasure in the process. You kept on stroking the length while kitten licking the head, knowing it drove him crazy, that he wanted nothing more than for you to take all of him in your mouth. Eventually, you did and he moaned loudly, still holding on to your hair. You kept on sucking him, hollowing your cheeks to pleasure him even more. You took as much as you could, making you drool all over his cock. You stared at him from below and saw he was bemused by the reflection of you sucking him in the mirror. You could feel him twitch inside of your mouth, a sign that he was about to come.

- Stop, he warned.

- You can come, you said as you kept on stroking him.

- Don’t want to, he said. Not yet.

He helped you get up and kissed you hungrily before undressing you. He sat back and pulled you so that you’d straddle his lap, giving him an opportunity to suck on your tits while grabbing a handful of your ass. He lined himself at your entrance and inserted himself, making you whimper. There it was. What you’d been craving. The sole sensation of him inside you was heavenly. His mouth traveled between your nipple and your neck, proving that he knew your sweet spots all too well.

- is this what you wanted ? He asked breathily.

- Yes, you whispered.

He started thrusting his hips slowly, making sure to bottom into you and hit your sweet spot. You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him sloppily, dying to be close to him as ever. The making out was hotter than ever and you always wanted more, desperate for some release, knowing this man could make you come like no one else before him.

- Faster, you begged. Harder. Please.

He gave you a smirk and carried you to another bench that was slightly higher. He had you on your knees, ass up and face down and penetrated you roughly, making you scream before thrusting violently. He was going so fast that you had trouble catching your breath. But at the same time, it was so good, so hot to have him use you. His thrusts became slower again and he put your hair in a makeshift ponytail, forcing you to look in a mirror in front of you. You could see your faces twisting in pleasure. His gaze met yours and he gave you a smirk before quickening his pace. He closed his eyes and all hell broke loose. His hips moved faster than ever, hitting you deep. There was no doubt that you’d be sore for the following days but, in the instant, neither of you cared, lost in the pleasure. You moved your hips in sync, trying to keep up with him. You didn’t want it to end and, yet, you could feel you were both so close to climax. The coup de grâce came when he looped a hand around you to reach and rub your swollen clit, making you cry in ecstasy. You could feel your juices flowing, forming a puddle underneath you, in which you inevitably collapsed, Marshall on top of you.

The both of you stayed still and silent for a minute, taking the time to catch your breath. Marshall buried his head in the crook of your neck, placing a chaste kiss there that made you shiver.

- Are you alright, love ? He asked as he got up.

- Y-yes, you replied as you were still struggling to breathe properly.

He chuckled and got up with a grunt, grabbing a towel to clean you and a water bottle to help you hydrate. You let him clean you and sat up on the bench, taking a good look at his naked form. In spite of rocking a buzz cut, he still looked disheveled and insanely sexy.

- You’re so hot, you said lovingly.

- Is that why you jumped on me ? He asked with a smirk.

- Maybe, you giggled. Been missing you, lately.

He gave you a smile and wrapped you in his strong arms before kissing you.

- Missed you too, he said. But you do realize you’re the main reason I’m doing all of this for, don’t you ?

- Am I ? You mused.

- Of course, he hummed. When I’m making music, I think of how much I want you to be proud. And when I’m here… my main motivation is you. I want to look good for you. You’re always on my mind.

You cooed and kissed him tenderly. He was too adorable.

- Well, I am proud of you. And I do think you look incredible me you complimented. I’m proud to be yours.

- I love you, he said. How about a shower before you need to go to work ?

- Ok, you said with a pout.

You got up and he grabbed you by the waist before leading you out of the home gym.

- I like fucking you in here, he hummed. I can’t believe we waited so long for this, though.

- We’ll have to do it again, you said with a smile. I can think of a few creative ways to use that gym equipment.

- Oh believe me, next time I’m putting those resistance bands to good use, he chuckled. I guess it completes the tour of the house. We’ve officially done it in every room of the house.

- Does that make me a permanent resident ? You grinned.

- It does, he chortled.

- Oh no, there’s one room missing, though, you said.

He looked at you with a frown, knowing exactly where you were going with this. He sternly shook his head as he led you to the stairs.

- Nope, he said. Don’t even thing about it. We’re not doing it in the hope studio. I have rules.

- We’ll see, you grinned.

- I’m not going to cave in, he warned.

- You know I like a challenge, you said innocently. Besides… you love me. You wouldn’t be able to refuse.

He chuckled, failing to keep the annoyed look on his face. You knew he loved you being all needy, and that there was only so much charm offensive he could resist.

- We’ll see, he hummed before bringing your hand to his lips and then placing a loving kiss on your ring finger.

[binniesbooks]

heyyy!! congratulations on your first fic! loved every bit of it. so i have a request and it’s a bit of a long one so be prepared:

beomgyu has basically been hitting the gym recently and you can evidently tell that he’s been bulking up a bit. while he’s a the gym one time, the reader is taking a nap but ends up having a wet dream on riding beomgyu’s newly formed abs and whilst she’s dreaming of this she’s humping the bed irl and ends up cumming just from this which wakes her up to see beomgyu staring at her from the doorway. beomgyu then fucks the reader real hard and he also lets her ride he abs lost workout as if he had seen her dream where she cums/squirts in his abs (if you’re comfortable writing it if not that’s okay too).

hope you made it to the end cos this one is quite long and specific :)

can’t wait to read more of your fics!

• RIPPED AND READY

BG 001 .F23 2024

wc 2.6k

pairings bff!beomgyu x fem!reader

warnings unprotected sex, lot of curses again, squirting, abs riding

faye's note First of all thank you so much for reading and enjoying my first ever fic. ㅠㅠ To be honest, I wasn't expecting anything that much when I started this blog, but now? I'm loving the hell out of it! Please enjoy this too, thank you again! And oh, please do not worry if you are dropping specific elements on your request, it'll help me come up with a brighter idea I guess. And also, I'm apologizing at this very moment for not being able to expand it more >_<

"Hey, I'll hit the gym with Taehyun again later, but I think we will be going earlier than usual. We planned to drag Soobin hyung along with us." Beomgyu announced after knocking on your open door.

You turned around from your seat to face your best friend as you pulled your earphones out. "Hmm, is that so? Then I'll just hoard the snacks in the kitchen to myself." You answered, chuckling as you turned off the video playing on your computer which he responded with a playful roll in his eyes.

"You should be the one being dragged to the hell pit of the gym, not your cousin." He joked, accusingly. You frown as you pull your shirt to your back for it to hug your waist showing him the perfect curve of your body. "Excuse me but, I may not be hitting the gym, I am more than good than my lanky cousin." You bite back. "Consider yourself lucky that I am not going to the gym or you might be head over heels for me." You added as you stuck out your tongue.

"This girl really." he shook his head, smiling.

"Anyway, are you sure you can drag Soobin along with you?" you chuckled remembering how your cousin, Soobin, hates physical activities so much.

"We will try. Soobin hyung is lazy but we will try to persuade him." Beomgyu sighed and massaged his temple thinking about ways how to persuade the older guy. "Anyway, is there something you want me to buy later before going home?" He asked, leaning on your door frame.

"Hmm, can you buy some pasta? 'll make us Mac and Cheese when you are back." You answered, turning your swivel chair on both sides continuously.

Beomgyu glanced at your digital clock. It shows it is already 2 in the afternoon. He spoke once again. "You should take a rest for now. If you do it any later, you won't be able to sleep tonight again. You are being too engrossed on your latest K-pop obsession." You just simply nodded at him as he slipped out of your room and closed the door behind you.

Beomgyu has been your friend for a while now. You and him share the same apartment. It started when you two were still in your freshmen year, both looking for an apartment to stay in when you accidentally bumped into him on the corner of the street, the reason why you too became friends. Turns out that your cousin, Soobin, is also a long-time friend of his.

Just like your cousin, Beomgyu used to hate physical activities too. Hating on the simple thought of working out. But after your encounter with his other friend, Taehyun, he then started hitting the gym, claiming that you might change your best friend to Taehyun instead of him. It was because you were talking non-stop about how Taehyun had such a good body build even when he was a year younger than the both of you. He never heard the end of it until when he decided to give the gym a visit and started working out.

So these days, he became a gym buddy with his friend. You can tell that he's been bulking up a bit and it is evident. You can see how the sleeves of his shirt became a little bit tighter than usual, the material hugging the trained muscles of his arms. A few times, you also saw his newly formed abs whenever he uses white shirts. You were actually in awe of how he did this in a short period of time and also out of jealousy at your friend.

You already spent hours scrolling through social media, watching music videos, and reading fanfiction about your favorite K-pop group. It was almost four in the afternoon when you decided to take a nap to recharge, after being too immersed in the newly released episodes of your faves.

A picture of Beomgyu coming home from the gym flashed in your memory before you dozed off. Unable to figure out why he keeps popping up in your mind these days.

Beomgyu also left around that time. He usually leaves at 5 in the afternoon, but after the plan with Taehyun, they thought it might be better to go earlier to have an ample amount of time to persuade the lazy lanky guy.

Beomgyu was able to drag their friend along with them to the gym. On the other hand, you kept on squirming and whining in your sleep. Your body was burning hot and your breath hitched.

Your mind was full of Beomgyu's image. His body build and his mesmerizing gaze. He likes to stare at you most of the time, but you didn't pay any mind to it because you knew he was just teasing you.

You dreamt of holding him in person, of feeling his soft lips on yours and his strong arms around your body. If someone was near you right now, they could feel the heat radiating off your body. Your mind kept on circling on the idea of holding Beomgyu close to you. Where you can hear his breath against your ears and him speaking to you with his usual deep voice.

Half asleep, you felt a warmth spreading through your body, and you realized you were having a wet dream about Beomgyu, about your roommate slash best friend.

You continued squirming, thrashing, and moaning as you humped the bed, imagining that it was Beomgyu's hard abs that you were riding. You could feel your release building, as you called out Beomgyu's name as you came.

You were still whining, still coming down from your high. Your eyes fluttering and chest heaving. When you turned your gaze towards the other side of the room, you were startled to find Beomgyu standing in front of the door, watching you with a smoldering gaze, hands tightly gripping the door handle.

You felt embarrassed, as the memory of you humping on the bed replayed in your mind.

"H-how long were you standing t-there?" You stuttered, voice barely above a whisper. But Beomgyu just smiled and said, "I hope you don't mind if I join you." He walked towards you as he dropped his gym bag in the doorway.

Before you could respond, Beomgyu was on top of you already, kissing you deeply and making you forget all about your dream. You could feel his hard length pressing against you, and you wriggled with pleasure as he grind against you.

Beomgyu broke the kiss and looked down at you with a wicked smile. "I've meant to ask this for a while, do you want to ride my abs?" he asked, and you couldn't help but nod eagerly. Your cheeks heating up at the idea.

Beomgyu lifted you, removing your shorts and undies in one swift motion, and placed you on top of him, his hard abs rippling beneath yours. You can't help but moan as you felt Beomgyu's hardness rubbing against your cunt. He hiked his shirt up to his chest exposing his abs he's been working on. "Sit tight, hold on to me." He commanded as he held your waist and moved you up a bit to his abdomen.

You started to ride him, grinding your hips against his abs as he kissed and touched you. You can feel the vibrations from how he groans. You also did not hold yourself back, moaning in his mouth from the familiar yet new sensation you were feeling. The kiss you shared was hot and messy. You pulled away for a while as you looked down at him. He looks so hot and sexy biting his lips. You could feel yourself getting closer and closer to release, and Beomgyu's breath hitched as he felt the tightness of his sweats. With one final movement from you, you were squirting on his abs.

Your eyes widened as your body shuddered, totally surprised by what happened.

"Fuck." is the only thing Beomgyu was able to say as he watch it flow from his abdomen down to your sheets. He leans his head back on the pillow as he bites his lips once again. "S--sorry Beomgyu. I.. I did not mean to." he chuckled at your reaction. how you stutter as you apologize to him.

"I have no problem with this, angel. If anything, I fucking love this." he reached out to your sensitive nub as he moves his thumb in a circular motion. You yelped almost falling as you squirmed at his touch. He's been staring at you, smirking, loving your reaction to his touches and words.

"Have I ever told you you are so pretty?" he tilts his head looking up at you, his hand coming to a halt. With blown-out eyes, you tried to look at him in the eyes, "Y-you always d-do. B-but I know... I know you are just t-teasing me." your voice came out strained and breathing ragged.

He placed his hands on your waist again, rubbing it with his thumb. "Damn sexy. Has even the audacity to show off this morning." You covered your face with the back of your one hand as you held on to his thing, leaning back.

"Have you never realized that I am a man and you are a woman? What makes you brave enough to show me your curves like that?" He got up, leveling his face to yours, as he removed his shirt, discarding it on the side. Beomgyu gently tugged at the hem of your shirt, silently asking you to discard it, and you gladly obliged with shaky hands.

He pushed your hair back, getting a full exposure of your neck. His Adam's apple bobbed when he gulped at what it was in front of him.

He held your nape as he kissed your neck. Practically making out with your exposed skin. You can feel him bucking his hips up at you.

"You-you're just supposed to, ahh, w-wake me up, Gyu. I-i am s-supposed to cook something f-for y-you, hng." You whined as your slender fingers gripped on his dark locks.

"And you're also supposed to dream about me that it goes to the extent where you are humping your bed?" You swore you felt the edge of his lips turned up on your neck, picturing the smug look on it.

"I-i.." You have no words to say. No words escaping your mouth other than moans, whimpers, whines, and your best friend's name. You kept on chanting it as his kisses moved down to the valley of your breast. "I've been avoiding seeing you braless in your shirt in this goddamn apartment and here you are." He sighed. "Seeing your perked-up nipples poking out on your thin clothes makes me wanna pounce on you, countless times." He was practically confessing while devouring your chest, leaving love bites that ranged from small to big and dark ones.

You can't stop squirming on his words, grinding on his hard length. Beomgyu has been releasing soft groans and grunts as you grind above him. He wasted no more time when he flipped you back, pinning you below him. Being manhandled is one thing, but being manhandled by Beomgyu is another.

His big hand is able to hold both your wrist above your head. You bit your lip as your eyes traveled down to his abs. You've been wanting to touch it with your lips. Your dream about riding it became real, maybe a simple marking is nothing bad at all?

"Gyu, can I kiss your abdomen, please?" You pleased silently. He dips down his head for a while to plant a soft kiss on your lips before pulling away and kneeling. Both of his knees are supporting his upper body as he urges you to give it a shot. "Come, mark what's yours." The smirk plastered on his face is annoying yet you're loving it.

You crawled near him as you held on his waist. Planting soft kisses on his clenching abs. "Fuck.." he softly whispered, holding your head. "Your tongue is hot." Almost a complaint, yet he urged you more to bite and mark him. You continued on your ministration, leaving bite marks and dark red spots on his abdomen. He can't help himself but look up, gulping down the moans that wanted to come out of his mouth. "Baby. I can't take it anymore." His voice cracked. Your eyes were overwhelmed with tears for holding back so much.

Without warning, you moved up, licking his prominent Adam's apple. Sucking on it as if your life depends on how much you can take him. He's not liking it anymore. He does not like the fact that he is almost gonna burst with just your mouth and tongue roaming around his body.

This time, he did not hold back. He pushed you, flipping you around, lifting your ass. "Angel, I've been patient for a while now. I can't take it anymore." He said as he hovered above your back. "Please, Gyu" you whimpered as you move your ass back on his bulge. He winces. The sensation on his cock is too much. He needs to feel you now before he bursts. He cannot waste the moment.

He slips off of his sweats as he rubs his leaking tip on your wet cunt. Slowly sliding in, a few more curses can be heard from him, living the moment he is in. You were biting the sheets with how thick he is, stretching you. "Agh, you're so fucking tight!" He grunts near your red ears.

He stilled for a while when he was fully inside you. "Am I hurting you? Or I'm stretching you so good?" He smirked. "You feel so good, Gyu. Never thought you'd be this big." You forcefully shut your eyes, whimpering at his length and size. He peppered your back with kisses. Leaving hickeys on some parts. "You can move now. I'm okay." You assured him as you looked back at him. "How are you this sexy? I might cum just by the sight of you." He started to move slowly. Purposely doing it to make you feel every vein of his cock.

You were gripping so hard at the sheets, your eyes flowing with so many tears when he started to move at a faster pace. The slapping sound of your skin echoed through your room. The steam almost blurs the windows out. Grunts, high-pitched whines and whimpers, moans, and chanting of names are being mixed up as Beomgyu held a handful of your hair to take control, fucking your naughty dreams away.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum, can you give me one first?" Like a clockwork, you're gushing down once again, this time on his cock. He did not want to make you pregnant yet. As much as he wanted to cum inside you and fill you with babies, he mentally punched his head to wake himself up.

Few more thrusts, a sensitive action for you, and he pulled out, cumming instead at your ass. "Shit! Fucking hell!" He groans as he pumps himself a few times. You let your body fall on your bed, your legs shaking. Beomgyu pulled you closer, bodies shuddering with pleasure. He planted soft and gentle kisses on your forehead as he pulled you, flushed on his chest.

"I'm gonna keep going to the gym, only if you'd ride me forever like what you did." He whispered. You're just glad you buried your face on his chest or he might have noticed how red as a tomato you were.

As he lay you in his arms, both of you were smiling, riding could nine. Beomgyu knew you would never forget this moment, and he couldn't wait to see what other adventures he might have with you in the future. Maybe still as a friend? Or maybe... just maybe... more than friends.

[malusokay]

How to be like Jang Wonyoung

As many of you requested, part 2 of my it girls series is all about Jang Wonyeong, who's not only absolutely STUNNING, but also incredibly talented, hardworking, and of course successful. Let's get right into it!! <33

Wonyoungs Energy:

Wonyoung is incredibly charismatic, which makes her stand out without even trying!!

She has a bubbly and likeable Personality, Wonyoung appears happy and welcoming, she easily lights up a room with just her presence.

Aside from being cute and cheerful, Wonyoung is also known for being extremely hardworking!!

Confident and Unbothered. Despite receiving quite a bit of unnecessary hate, Wonyoung stays indifferent and true to herself!!

Elegant and feminine. No one does the ‘Elegant feminine self-love girly’ aesthetic like her, she is THE girly girl!! <3

Mindset:

Learn to deal with jealousy, Wonyoung gets plenty of hate, but let's be real for a second… we all know that is because of jealousy. Pretty, successful, smart, and popular? Of course, people will be jealous!!

“While practising self-love, you see good and pretty things about yourself. If I focus only on those things, I don't need to pay much attention to the criticism.”

Don't compare yourself to others “You are you, I am me”.

Keep to yourself. Stop telling people your ideas, your dreams and how you plan to archive them, your goals etc. Let your actions speak for themself!! <3

No more negative self-talk!!

Be your number 1 priority!! Take care of yourself, do what's good for you, eat well, care for your body, skincare, haircare, and your education!! PRIORITIES

Skincare

Skincare. Wonyoung has Flawless skin, finding a skincare routine that works for you can help you archive similar results!!

Wonyoungs skincare routine:

According to Google, Wonyoung only uses Innisfree products and starts by double cleansing her face, for that, she uses the Green Tea Cleansing Oil ($24), and the Green Tea Amino Acid Face Cleanser ($12)

To get the dewy class skin effect, hydration is key!! In the morning, Wonyoung likes using the Green Tea Hyaluronic Acid Serum ($30) and the Dewy Glow Tone-up Cream ($26)

Of course, you can't forget SPF. Wonyoung uses the Mild Cica Sunscreen Tone-Up SPF 50+ PA ++++, which is also great for acne-prone and sensitive skin types!! :)

For her night routine, she likes the Retinol Cica Moisture Recovery Serum ($37) and the Dewy Glow Jelly Cream ($26).

Elevate your daily life:

Healthy diet. Eating nutritious and healthy food is the first and most important step to clear skin and an overall good feeling!! Make sure to eat enough protein (ex. yoghurt, chicken, tofu or eggs), lots of fruits and veggies, and healthy fats (ex. Avocados, fish, nuts, olive oil)!!

Exercise daily. Besides dancing, Wonyoung loves pilates!! You can find lots of great Pilates videos on YouTube!!

Work on your posture!! Having good posture will not only make you feel better but also lets you appear more confident, elegant and put together. Try daily stretching and exercises to improve it <3

Try establishing a proper morning and night routine, this can help you stay structured and relaxed even on more messy and busy days.

Content that makes you feel better!! Start watching channels like thewizardliz, vogue beauty secrets, and read motivating blogs. (like mine lol <3)

Makeup:

Wonyoung is known for her iconic glittery and feminine make-up!!

Light pink blush, plump lips, glowy skin and a glittery but not too heavy eye look.

Foundation on the centre of your face and blend outwards for a naturally contoured look.

Always apply your matt products before your shimmers, that way, your makeup looks cleaner!! Also, apply your glitters from finest to chunkiest. :)

Don't apply your shimmers/glitters past the middle of your eyelid to avoid looking puffy.

If you have warm-toned skin, go for peachy glitters, for cool-toned skin, choose a champagne-coloured one.

If your struggle with dark under eyes, blend your concealer with your fingers!! This will give it a lot more coverage.

You can find lots of tutorials on Wonyoung-inspired make-up on YouTube, this one is my favourite.

I hope this little guide was helpful, I wasn't too familiar with Wonyoung, but I did some research since she was the number 1 most requested person for this!! :)

As always, please feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments and let me know who you want me to write about next! <3

✩‧₊*:・love ya ･:*₊‧✩

[ryndicate]

Double Down ⨳ Yoshida, Denji

“Didn’t know you were into that stuff.”

warnings: fem body/pronouns, nudes posted without permission, drug use, exhibition, creampie, videos taken with permission, stepcest, infidelity, masturbation, handjob, some spit mentions, premature ejac, implied fuckery, implied theft, if there's more i am just too wacked out to see it so lemme know!

event: @bastardblvd 's slimeball alley collab !! my first submission of who knows how many to come, im gonna try to not go crazy with it, promise

notes: didn't realize until it was done that I could've made it much more slimy but its okay. We'll get 'em next time babes 😩 this idea is expanding on a little blurb I put in cassie's inbox once, i included it in the fic itself with some itty bitty changes

By expanding, you are consenting to viewing adult/dark content, and all warnings listed above. 18+ Minors DNI

Blog Rules/DNI

Your fist slams on the bathroom door. “I swear to god, Denji! Where the fuck did you get those! Delete them now!”

“I already told you, Power found them online!” Your stepbrother yells back through the door, keeping his weight against the handle so that you can’t force your way in.

“You’re full of shit you fucking perv! You took them off my phone or something.”

“Wanna fucking bet? The real perv is that prettyboy bastard you call baby,” Denji sneers back, yelping as you get a good shove in on the creaking wood.

Your efforts to break the bathroom door pause. “The hell’re you talking about?”

“I told you he was trouble the day you two met. What—you think I was lying?”

You growl under your breath at the barenecked taunt in Denji’s voice. Yeah he told you, one time before he got high out of his mind. The only reason you even met Yoshida Hirofumi was because he hooked your stepbrother up a couple times, and you begged to tag along once. That situation ended with your brother counting stars on his buddy’s ceiling while you saw them on the backs of your eyelids with the guy’s lips wrapped around your clit. 

One thing led to another, and that “prettyboy bastard” became your boyfriend. He’s a bit of an ass, but Yoshida’s also sweet and funny, doesn’t roll his eyes at your music choices, doesn’t bat an eye when you want to go out with your friends, and is full of sexy, smirky sass that makes him so fun to be around. Sure, you sent him some photos, but he wouldn’t have put them out anywhere.

Your anger deflates, but your indignance does not. You step away from the bathroom door. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”

Denji throws the door open with a toothy grin, repeating himself. “You wanna bet?”

“You know what, yeah!” you snap at him, crossing your arms as he leans in the doorway, still looking smug. 

“Your boyfriend put your pics up on OnlyFans, and he’s using the money to pay for his xanny. If I’m right, you two gotta upload a video. Together,” Denji states, his eyebrows furrowed in twisted delight that makes you sneer at him.

“You’re disgusting!”

“Yeah? Tell me what you get if you win.”

Caught up in his childish bullshit, you push at his shoulder. “You gotta start an OnlyFans if you’re wrong, which you are. And you gotta wear lingerie.”

His smirk full drops at that, and he glares at you, cheeks darkerning. “Now who’s a perv.”

“This whole shit was your idea!”

“Lingerie?”

“How is wearing lingerie worse than telling your stepsister to fuck and post a video about it?!”

“Shut up!”

“And since we’re on the topic, I swear to god if you don’t stop taking my shit out of the laundry I’m gonna tell that redheaded lady at the DMV that she’s at the very top of your fap list.”

His blush deepens and he palms your face backwards in a light push. “The fuck she is. Shut up.”

“Yeah well, me and the thin fucking walls in this apartment would have to disagree.”

“Go find your boyfriend.”

“‘M gonna.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck him,” you hiss in barely supressed rage, gripping your boyfriend’s phone so tight you’re disappointed when it doesn’t crack. 

You’d waited for his high to hit him and let him drift off before going through his phone—what’s the point of asking him outright if it’s not true, right? No reason to stir the pot. But your stomach had dropped with unease when the account site was in his search history; you tried to brush it off as maybe he gets off to a set of camgirls, but the moment you saw the login info presaved—as in frequent entry—you began to forget the bet altogether.

Now your jaw is clenched, seething as you scroll through every racy picture you ever sent him. Each have thousands of views, hundreds of comments and jeez—so many subscribers. The heat of betrayal simmers through you. Your jaw drops at the total that’s set to drop into his account at the end of the week and resist the urge to slap Yoshida awake, but instead you set about trying to change the banking and login info, only to get halted by an infowall. Frustrated, you slip off the bed and call your stepbrother, edging into Yoshida’s bathroom so you don’t wake him up.

“You were right, and you fucking knew it, didn’t you? You set me up.” you hiss into the device as soon as he picks up with a mumbled ‘sup. You can hear voices and music in the background, paired with light explosions. You assume he’s out with his friends, probably gaming like usual. 

“You didn’t have to agree. Wait—” there’s the sound of the phone moving around and suddenly the music is gone. “Does that mean you’re gonna do it?”

“That’s besides the point, Denji!”

“Oh fuck, you are!”

“Chill your boner,” you snap, “‘m not gonna do it unless you help me!”

“Help you? What, like you want me to hold the camera or something?”

“Denji, I swear to god—”

“I’m kidding, jeez.”

“I can’t change the account info. They’re my pictures, and they’re already out there! He shouldn’t get to make money off of me.”

“Wait, so you want to keep the account?” He asks curiously. You hear a door slamming and wonder if he’s still moving, or if his friends are.

“Dude, we’ll have rent and anything else covered for the whole month with a single week’s drop from this thing. I don’t see a reason not to. I can quit Mcdonald’s!”

“Shit, for real? Lemme talk to Denki, ‘m pretty sure he knows a guy.”

“Thank you,” you coo into the phone.

“Yeah, yeah, just make sure you pay up.” You can hear his pervy smile, and you grumble a sulky fine at him.

“Ok. But he’s gotta do it soon. It pays out in a couple of days.”

“I’ll give him some cash to see if he can do it tonight. Don’t see why he’d say no—" Denji sounds a lot further away from the phone now, "—Oi! Don't bro! Give it back."

A familiar voice purrs into the receiver and you roll your eyes. "Heyyy, princess. You with that Yoshida guy still or are we allowed to hang now?"

"Byeee, Kiri. Tell Kat hi f'me." You hang up with a smile and leave the bathroom, glaring at your supposed boyfriend still sleeping. You never heard him say he was working and you always kinda wondered where he was getting his cash, but you always just thought he was dealing or something. Not the kind of think you ask about. You obviously should’ve asked.

You crawl into his lap and begin sucking on his exposed throat, admiring the sharp lines, the bob of his adam’s apple as thick lashes flutter open. 

“Mmm,” Yoshida moans. “Damn, was I out long?”

“Nah,” you hum, slipping your fingers up his shirt, smoothing over his waistline. “Got bored without you, that’s all.”

“Yeah, baby?” He grins up at you, dark eyes fuzzed out and sultry, and his hands come up to settle on your hips, easing you into a slow grind. “Wanna do something?”

“Mm. Maybe,” you tease softly, pushing his shirt up his chest and leaning down to wrap your lips around his nipples. He groans at the warm, slick suction, arching into your touch. 

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes out, his cock swelling beneath you. 

“Maybe I wanna do something…different.”

Yoshida grins up at you, half-lidded. “Yeah? Like what?”

Your nails make pink lines down his chest as you lean in to whisper in his ear. “What if you fucked me, and we let some people watch?”

His fingers dig into the fat of your waist, his dick thumping beneath you. “Anyone I know?”

Yoshida’s pupils have overtaken his coal irises, and you give him an inviting smile. “No one specific. I was thinking more like…a video or something. I wanna be able to see it later.”

“Holy fuck, baby. That’s sexy,” Yoshida grins up at you. “Didn’t know you were into that stuff.”

“Me either,” you breath softly, rocking yourself over his covered erection.

You’re left to yelp as he displaces you from your seat on his lap and pulls you out of the bed by your wrist with a wide smirk. “Come on.”

“Wait, where are we going?”

“Don’t worry baby, I just wanna pick something up at the Malmart first.”

“Fine, I guess,” you pout at him and his smirk only grows.

“‘S okay, baby. I’ll give you something too.”

“This is not what I meant when I said video, Hirofumi!” you gasp out. Your fingers are splayed out on the hood of his car as you try to stay upright. “Someone could actually see us!”

"If you don't wanna be seen, you gotta cum. Cause I'm not stopping til you cum."

"Fuck, fuck please, just hurry up!" You plead, half your words caught between whines and whimpers as he pounds into you from behind, your skirt flipped over your back.

"You think I'm not fucking you like I mean it?" There's so much smile in his voice that you want to call him on his bullshit for once, but the solid smacking of his hips into yours, the head of his dick pressing as deep as it can go with every thrust quickly makes you forget what you're snapping at him for.

"Just‐just, fucking make cum– ‘fumi!" You're desperately telling yourself you don't want to be seen. It's the middle of the night, so even here, parked under the one of the many lightposts that don’t work in grimetown's 24-hour walmart parking lot, the risk of anyone seeing is slim.

But not zero. Especially with the light from his phone camera shining down on your exposed lower half. You’re like a slutty beacon for whoever might be looking this way.

"I'm working on it baby, you gotta relax." His fingers slide around your waist, brushing past your clit and forcing a frustrated whimper past your lips at the neglect, to drag them through the slick dripping obscenely from your pussy lips. It's dripping to the rusted black hood, making it glisten. He aims the camera down at them before moving it back to the way your pussy clings to his cock. "You're so fucking wet for this, you'd think the whole thing was your idea. Well, most of it was."

You don't answer him, trying to work yourself back on him, chasing that fluttering heat twisting itself tighter and tigher with each passing second.

"Good girl, look at you. Fuck, look how bad you want—"

"Oi! Get the fuck out of here before I—"

Your whole body locks up at the tired but authoritative voice that rings across the lot.

Your boyfriend calls back. "C'mon man, have a heart. Let me finish her off and I'll give you a look." Except his last syllable staggers off with a groan, broken with a laugh as his grip on your hips tightens to a bruising pressure. The vice grip of your cunt has him looking down to sees your juices gush around the girth of his cock, dripping down your thighs to dirty the hood of his car even more. The sight pushes pushes him over and he calls out again, his voice tight but smug.

"Nevermind, we're done here."

He gets one last shot of his cum dripping out of you before closing out the livefeed.

“It’s like four in the morning,” Denji grumbles, rubbing one of his eyes as he cracks his bedroom open further at the sight of you. “Thought you were Power or somethin’, jeez.”

Denji blinks the blur from his eyes, zeroing in on your screen, and you just about hear his pupils expanding. He pulls a shaky inhale and you roll your eyes.

“Done. Bet over, and here’s your damn proof,” you grumble right back, slamming your phone against his chest and shoving your way into his bedroom to flop down into his bed. It had taken over an hour to convince Yoshida back to his place and get him to fool around enough for him to pass out and you to sneak back home.

"Also Kiri wants you to call him back. He's mad you hung up on him."

A small grin curls your lips but you don't respond, wiggling deeper into his mattress until you're comfortable.

He throws himself down in the bed next to you. “Turn on my speakers.” 

“Or you could just wear headphones, you freak.”

“Nah. Turn ‘em on.”

With an exaggerated sigh, you stretch out to reach up to his desk, turning on the bluetooth speakers that he usually uses to be a nuisance when he’s smoking. “If your dad was home, I’d kill you for this.”

“You’re not even breaking up with him, are you?” Denji chortles, ignoring your bickering. His eyes are glued to the screen as he shoves a hand into his loosened shorts. “What the fuck, you guys were outside?”

You shrug. The video’s only been up for a couple hours and it already has triple the views and donations of all the photos Yoshida has put up so far. “Looks like he’s gonna be making me lots of money, so why not? It’s the least he could do to pay me back.”

Your stepbrother doesn’t answer you, his breathing getting heavier. You close your eyes and sigh as the sounds wet sounds and your own whiny moaning starts bouncing off the walls of his room, wondering to yourself if you really sound like that or if part of you was exaggerating because of the camera. The mattress creaks every now and then as his hips jump, his arm brushing your side as he grinds into his own fist. 

You roll to face him, taking in the sound of his stuttered breaths, the muted slick sound of his fist pumping in his shorts. “So what about this gets you so riled up?”

Denji groans, stomach rippling where his shirt is pulled up around his midsection. “I’nno, it’s hot, isn’t it?”

You keep prodding, “What is? Yoshida? Or me?”

He gives a small whine that has your pulse picking up in sick interest, so you continue. “Was Power really the one to find it? Or…you were subbed to the account, weren’t you Denji?”

“Mm- maybe?”

“Shit,” you whisper to yourself, listening to your own voice begging to cum, shifting your weight onto your arm so you can look at him. A strange curiosity has taken over your body. He looks wrecked but his eyes are still on the screen. “Denji, look at me.”

Your body tingles as his eyes tear towards you, but he’s still got a hand around himself, hidden from your eyes. “Can I touch it?”

“You wanna what?” he moans, just barely, teeth digging into his lip.

“Can I jerk you off?”

You’re a little surprised when he actually hesitates. You’ve tolerated it all this time; as much as he pervs out on you, and your stuff, yet somehow he’s got a little crumb of morality left in there somewhere. And right now…you wanna kill it.

“My panties, my pictures…is this really any different?” you ask softly, sweetly, as you run with this electric current, placing your hand over his covered groin. You grin as his hand immediately goes slack at your touch and slips out of his shorts, and you get to feel for the first time how hard he is, rubbing over the smooth fabric, feeling out the shape of him.

“I mean…I guess not.” He sucks in a breath as you grip him over his shorts and give a couple experimental strokes. “B-but what about—?”

Denji’s head drops back to the pillows with a groan, phone in a death grip as you tug his waistband down, his dick slapping free. It’s pretty and slender, flushed deep red.

“What about what?”

“What about prettyboy, huh?” He finally gets it out as you spit in your hand and take him up again, stroking him steadily from base to tip, squeezing at the top with a gentle twist of your wrist. Yoshida always seemed to like it, seems like he does too. 

“That’s what you’re worried about? Not the whole stepsister thing?” You shrug. You’re still stung about Yoshida’s betrayal, so this feels like a little bit of retribution. A little bit. You still need to find more ways to make him pay first, but this is a good start. “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend, but ‘s not like you and me are dating, Denji. It’s a handjob. What’re you gonna do, marry me?”

Denji splutters and his dick throbs in your hand. “Don- Don’t say stupid shit!”

You coo at him and his lips part, panting hard as you work him faster. 

“What– haa, what if it wasn’t just a handjob? What then?” Denji gives a low moan as you settle over his lower thighs so you can gently cup his balls. They seem to tighten under your touch, before he relaxes and he tries to look at you. 

“What, like my mouth or something?” you ask playfully, leaning over and showing him your tongue, letting a strand of spit drip down to his dick.

A litany of curses tumblr from his mouth as Denji squeezes his eyes shut, fingers twisting into the pillow beneath his head as his cock jerks and shoots a load of hot sticky white into your palm, getting smeared down his throbbing shaft as you slowly work him through his high until only a couple dribbles get pressed out by a final pass of your thumb over his slit.

“Wasn’t expecting you to finish already.” You wipe your hand off on his comforter and try to ignore the throbbing in your panties. You feel like you can still imagine the slick from earlier tonight seeping out of you, but it’s as if it’s no longer enough.

“Holy fuck,” he mumbles under his breath, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes as he calms his breathing enough to raise himself up on his forearms. He watches you as you take your phone and flop down next to him. “I didn’t even get to see the rest of the video.”

“It’s online now, freak. You can watch it whenever.”

“Yeah...” 

You’re too busy trying to go through the account settings to notice the way he’s eyeing up your thighs; he hasn’t even put his dick away yet. 

“Hey,” he mutters softly, ignoring your glare when he puts a hand on your thighs and pulls them open. “If you can touch me, does that mean I get to touch you?”

Your pulse jumps and you try to keep your true thoughts hidden as you hide back behind your phone. “I guess that’s fair. If you wanted to.”

You can hear the click of Denji’s throat as he swallows, and you can’t stop the low whimper as his calloused fingers brush your inner thigh, right at the edge of your panties. 

They’re warm as they brush over the seat of your panties, timid but curious as they explore the surface, stroking over the tempting warmth and wet seeping through the thin fabric. A bolt of pleasure bursts and has your gut clenching as he swirls over your clothed clit

“H-hey, wait,” you say suddenly, nerves getting the better of you as you try to make sense of Denji taking control of your body. “It got switch but this isn’t my banking info. Is it yours?” You flip the screen towards him, and his brown eyes squint in the pale blue light.

“Uh, nah, that’s not mine.”

You mewl as he pulls your panties to the side and traces a finger through your folds, delicate, hungry. “Who did you say– mm, h-hacked the account for me?”

“I told you. M’friend Denki, his buddy did it. That purple-haired guy who works at the smoke shop.”

“The one wi—” you suck in a breath as he sinks his index finger into you. “With the tattoos?”

“Yeah him,” Denji mumbles, hardly paying attention to your words. He’s grinding against the bed as he pushes his middle in alongside it, imagining the tight squeeze around his dick instead.

Your groan is part pleasure, part dismay as you realize just who he’s talking about. “Oh fuck me.”

Denji bullies his way between your thighs in an instant.

“N-no, Den– that’s not what I meant!”

[sgiandubh]

She saw, she was first, she scored, homerun

Heh. But Marple only tells you what is convenient for her, right?

This time, I do not have the clip, like she does, simply because as I said, I could not be arsed to watch it. But a trusted friend did, all five hours of it (thank you, dear 😘😘😘😘) and sent me very decent screencaps of S + June Brunette at that tennis event. She sent them a couple of hours ago, while I was busy having a life and lunch, you know (I can prove it anytime, but will always protect my Circle of Trust). Sorry for the delay.

As you know, this blog does not believe that hiding information is the best thing to do. I never did.

Following are the screencaps I have received, in order, and with very precise comments. If anything is wrong, let it be my and her sin. But it is not and you will immediately see why.

Context: S and June Brunette's juiciest appearance in that very exposed spot of the VIP area coincided with Mansour Bahrami's match. S came first, at around 03: 04:49.

Two other people who were seated on those seats before his arrival get up and leave (perhaps prompted? perhaps uninterested in Bahrami? we can only speculate) - all this perhaps about 20 to 30 seconds before S arrives, alone:

He takes a seat and quickly arranges his jacket on his knees, perhaps sends an SMS (I am not Mrs. Graham and, unlike many other people across the street, never pretended to have infrared surveillance material):

Meanwhile, she pops in, at around 03:05:10. Unmistakably Panikian - the yellow outfit was a dead giveaway and he practically pointed when, where and for what to look, in his post: 'and of course, the legend, @mansourbahramiofficial'.

Heh: he was far from surprised and she did not chitchat at all ('is this seat taken?' etc). She just sat down: it was a very natural thing to do:

Then, he takes her in a bear hug. Kinda, sorta. Making sure they are well exposed, unlike you know, that other time:

I am told it was a matter of seconds before he wrapped his arm around her neck. Well, that is the rebuke I have been waiting for about three weeks, right?

At about 04:03:41 and until 04:10:03, she goes out, for some reason (🚹? 💄? 📳? your guess is as good as mine):

My candid question is.. who is Light Green Arrow Woman? This is the first time I see her clearly in those screenshots I (one more time, for the people in the back) have been sent by a trusted friend. Could she be a chaperone of sorts? I am told that on the video edit Marple made a modo suo, she seems to be interacting with Mrs. Panikian, but I would have to see that:

A selfie is taken, to properly document the bullshit (after she helped herself with some more champagne):

Whatever Marple calls 'quite the hug' is a kiss on the cheek, and you can see it quite clearly on her edit, if you really are freaked out by this cheap arrangement:

Prompted by the impromptu (heh) 🔦 + 🍾cocktail, she took it very seriously. A pity she did, without having the slightest idea of the strange place she landed in.

That would be it, to be honest. The pics and stills of these two individuals where he does wear a jacket, that our side published first yesterday are from the first part of the program. I do have a couple of more stills from then, but you have it all on that edit. There is no need to add more pics to it, doesn't bring anything new to the table.

And now, onwards for some more context.

Such as this post on June 13, 2024:

With this very peculiar hidden comment:

From a very peculiar sock account:

Mmmhm. Joined in June 2024, follows nobody and is followed by nobody, and yet felt the need to change the username already once? I mean, what the fuck is this cheap game, right here?

So, for those of you naive (I am elegant) enough to think this Brief Encounter was organic, think twice. Somebody followed whatever the scheming was and that somebody tried to warn the woman. Whether about the Inglorious Pap Walk or about Kissgate (the message was posted around June 15th), is to be debated. But still...

And there is some more, of course : I may not be willing to fuck my (already complicated) eyesight with edits and frames and screenshots, but I am not yet dead and I still have all my brain faculties.

Around the same time Mrs. Panikian began to be followed by S on IG, she also began to be followed by a very decent (give or take a couple of details) physical alternative to My Personal Someone. Who would kill me if he could read this post, btw. That is, if you could kill someone with cold shoulder treatment and an icy gaze (Spanish style all the way):

Quick, let's see what his Personal Life insert tells us:

I mean, D'OH: in case you wondered who the fuck that warning sock account was. NEED I DRAW IT?

Nah, can't be Margot, what were we thinking?

🙄🙄🙄

He followed her not so long ago, but well, he wasn't active since March, LOL:

And look how cute, they are fresh (?) mutuals, as of very recently/now - I might be wrong, but I don't think I am:

Tattoos, fitness venues, filthy porn bots in his 'Tagged' section, rumored to be single since at least last year. Rings a bell? Oh, surely not. Especially when you find out that this guy is also a mildly hot topic on Data Lounge (hope dies last):

Similar profiles (but Eggold is apparently a staunch Catholic - the gay conspirators grin with glee), similar PR problems. Alice to the rescue?

At any rate, she is up for grabs, people: 'looking for a man with a decent sense of humor who doesn't troll women's IG pages' - LOOOOOL. Meet the bloody OL fandom, doll - how's that for trolling? Betcha didn't see what real trolling is, yet.

On a sidenote, in an effort to leave no stones unturned, I have even looked for the edits on her Wikipedia page, until I realized they were unsubstantial and made by a clearly obsessed fan of Miss Universe contests (yeah, such people exist):

Surely enough, that user was blocked for sockpuppetry, which means 'abusing multiple accounts'. But Panikian was not her main obsession and for once, this has nothing to do with the current cheapo story that they try to peddle us. Whoever 'they' are.

That's all for now, ladies. Thanks to all three of you who sent tips and raw info for me to connect. You are wonderful!

It's going to be an interesting summer, for sure.

Ship on, ladies, still the same old, tired, boring BS. But also an interestingly symmetrical rebuke to TS Kissgate - if only...

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

✨️1K Followers Celebration Day 2: NCT bias wrecker - Jaehyun✨️

In the a.m.

AN: I was originally planning to post another fic today but, it got too frustrating so, I scrapped it for another day. Fortunately, my brain seems to have plenty of ideas when it comes to Jaehyun. Also, yay to the first NCT fic on the blog :D

Synopsis: Some harmless scrolling on Instagram takes a turn you could've never seen coming.

Heads up: Jeong Jaehyun x Fem! Reader, friends to lovers, Reader going through it because of her feelings for Jaehyun, Reader mentions wanting Jaehyun to choke her one time, Jaehyun being a little shit, mentions of facesitting, dirty talk, video call sex, guided masturbation of sorts (f. receiving), mutual masturbation, praise kink (f. receiving) and Jaehyun calls Reader pet names a lot throughout this.

Word count: 2989

I will block you if you are a minor and/or have no easily visible indication of your age on your blog if you interact with me in any way.

You don't expect much when you open Instagram.

It's been a relatively uneventful Tuesday night, all things considered. Your laptop sits on your desk, reminding you that you very much have work you should be attending to, but you try your best not to pay it any mind.

Your mindless scrolling comes to a halt when you notice a post from Jaehyun.

It's honestly embarrassing how much just seeing him affects you. Your heart stuttering in your chest as you take in his carefully dishevelled, dark hair and his handsome, almost apathetic expression. You're probably reading more into a singular picture than strictly necessary, but the way his face is angled makes it look like he's looking down at you, and that only causes you to spiral further. Insides squirming violently.

It definitely doesn't help that you wish his hand was around your throat inside of his phone, too.

You're honestly just speechless. You knew you were really looking for ways to procrastinate if you resorted to Instagram of all platforms but, it's a blessing in disguise since you were graced with this.

However, because you're an idiot and you weren't careful, you like the post without thinking. A post he made months ago.

Would it be too much to hope for the Earth to open up right now and swallow you whole?

Panic takes over then. Maybe you could just uninstall Instagram, and he wouldn't notice or get the notification. Maybe you could just unlike it really quickly and he'd never even know-

Luck is not on your side, however, because you notice a message from Jaehyun, and you've never wanted to cease to exist more than right now.

Maybe you could just pretend you magically passed out seconds after liking his post. That wouldn't seem too suspicious, would it?

However, because you're still an idiot and a curious one at that, you open his message.

Jae💕: See something you like?

The fucking nerve of this man. You resent the way your body betrays you. Your face heating up considerably as you just try to comprehend what the fuck is happening. Is he...flirting with you? It wouldn't be the first time. Jaehyun enjoys flustering you, and it works more often than you care to admit. However, flirting with you when you're pretty sure it's around 3 a.m. in Tokyo seems like a little much, even for him.

You: Shouldn't you be asleep? Isn't it like 3.am. there?

Jae💕: Couldn't sleep. Then I got the notification that you liked my post. Isn't it pretty late over there too?

You groan into your pillow. Jaehyun doesn't need to know about you lusting after him so late at night.

You: Yeah, I was doing some work but, I'm pretty much finished for the night.

Jae💕: And you were thinking about me after finishing your work? I'm flattered, baby

Jaehyun has called you baby before. It's nothing new. Honestly, the pet name would make you cringe if anyone else was saying it, but, as you're coming to discover, apparently anything and everything he says and does renders you a flustered mess.

You: No! I was just scrolling, and I accidentally liked it. Don't flatter yourself

Jae💕: Sounds like denial to me~

You: You're so annoying 🙄

What you don't anticipate, on this already fever dream of a night, is for your phone screen to light up with his name. You only hesitate for a few moments before answering.

"I'm annoying, huh? That hurts my feelings," he teases. You can hear the smile in his voice, and the mental image of his dimples hits you like a truck. Though he said he couldn't sleep, his voice sounds gravelly and, you feel yourself squirm instinctively.

"Something tells me your feelings aren't all that hurt," you retort, hoping against hope he doesn't notice the breathy edge to your voice. Talking to Jaehyun always left you feeling a little lightheaded.

"Now you're calling me a liar too? I was being serious earlier. I am extremely flattered that I was running through that pretty mind of yours,"

Yeah, you're definitely going to uninstall Instagram after tonight. You don't even want to begin to unpack him calling anything about you pretty.

With a heavy sigh, you respond, "You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"

"Nope," and he has the nerve to chuckle.

"You really are so annoying. You're lucky I like you and you're cute,"

You were wrong. Now, you've never wanted to cease to exist more. Why in the fuck would you ever say that? Especially tonight? Yeah, sure, some harmless flirting isn't out of the norm between the two of you, but tonight feels decidedly...different. You can't help but feel you're treading a very dangerous line here.

You're half-tempted to just hang up before he responds, "You like me and think I'm cute, huh? If you wanted to ask me out, you could've just said that."

"That's not- I wasn't trying to- I didn't mean to say that,"

"You don't have to get all shy, baby. If anything, the feelings are very much mutual,"

That stops all your higher order functions all together momentarily. What. Jaehyun likes you? Is this actually happening?

"W-what?" Your brain intelligible supplies.

"You really think I just call everyone baby and flirt with them. I'm a little surprised it took you so long to catch on,"

Now that you think about it, he has always treated you...differently compared to your other friends. Johnny and Mark had teased you about it from time to time, but you always thought they were just being little shits. Guess you should learn to take your friends' word more seriously moving forward.

"You could've just been direct with me,"

"Where's the fun in that?" He laughs, but his tone shifts to a more serious one, "I wasn't sure if you felt the same way. I know I joke, and I tease, but you-you mean a lot to me, and I didn't want to jeopardise the friendship we had. I was content to have you in any way you wanted me, even if it was just as your friend."

You were reeling. You couldn't respond to him even if you wanted to for a few seconds. Your brain trying to pull itself together enough to say something.

"You know, this isn't how I was expecting my Tuesday night to go,"

His laugh is warm and throaty and quiet, and all the months of pining finally boil over.

"In case it's unclear, I like you too. Like a lot. Um, yeah,"

"Well that's a relief. I was worried there for a sec," god, you wish you could see his face. You know he's probably grinning ear to ear. Well, you could...

"Jae?"

"Hmm?"

"Could we video call instead?"

"Sure but, do you mind me asking why?"

"I want to see your face,"

You're sure that'll inflate his ego for weeks to come, but you can't bring yourself to care.

You're already proven correct when you see him with the world's largest shit-eating grin and the butterflies in your stomach flutter more violently.

His hair is even more dishevelled than in the picture, and you can see his sleeping shirt cling to his shoulders in a way that heats the blood in your veins.

"Here I am, baby. It's nice to see you too, if I'm being honest," it only hits you when his usually mischievous eyes are heavy with something else entirely as he takes in the sight of you on his screen what you're wearing.

"You're such a perv. I was trying to be sweet,"

"I'm being sweet too! I just have eyes. Also, I saw that look in your eyes. Don't play coy with me,"

"I have no idea what you're talking about,"

"Really?" His grin takes on a more sinister edge, "because I definitely noticed you looking like you wanted to sit on my face as soon as I popped up on your screen."

You're sure you look stupid with how you're gapping at him. Too stunned to speak and your body, once again, betrays you when you feel yourself clench at his words.

He's not wrong but, he doesn't need to just say it like that.

"You can't just say stuff like that, Jaehyun," you whine, and you see his eyes flash so briefly you're wondering if you imagined it.

"Why not? We both know it's true. It's just unfortunate that I'm not there right now to give you what you so obviously want," he drawls, lidded eyes dropping to take in as much of your generous cleavage as he can.

The butterflies shift lower.

"You'd let me sit on your face?" Maybe you're finally learning to just embrace the unexpectedness of this night. You two like and obviously want each other. Fuck it.

He chuckles again, but his voice is already a few octaves deeper, and you feel yourself growing slick. Thighs rubbing together in a way you hope is some level of unnoticeable.

"Happily. I'd do a lot of things to you if you'd let me,"

You're finding it really hard to think straight right now.

"Really? Like what?" You're too far gone for him to even feel ashamed how delicate your voice already sounds.

"And you were calling me a perv earlier," You're not sure if you want to punch him for attractive that arrogant, dimpled smirk of his is or kiss him. God, you really wish he was here too.

He continues before you can butt in, "Well, I'd take my time with you." Your blood feels molten as his lidded gaze takes in every detail of your face, stopping briefly to stare at your lips, "I'd kiss you until your lips were bruised and all you could think about was me."

This time, Jaehyun notices you squirming, and he pounces.

"Aw, is my poor baby already getting all hot and bothered just from me talking about kissing you and letting you sit on my face?"

A desperate whine tumbles out of your mouth before you can help yourself. Between him calling you his fucking baby constantly, what he'd do to you and the gravelly quality of his voice, it's no wonder you can feel yourself begin to leak onto your panties.

"Jaehyun,"

"I asked you a question, baby," his tone is still mostly playful, but you can hear the command clear as day.

"Yes,"

"That's a good girl. Why don't you show me just how hot you are for me?"

Honestly, you should probably feel some semblance of hesitance, but the exhilaration that comes with his praise would likely make you do anything.

You angle your phone as best as you can, the low light of your bedside lamp illuminating the visible wet spot on your panties.

"Fuck, baby," he groans and your pride swells at seeing him just as affected by all of this as you are.

"Can you show me how you touch yourself?"

Your unoccupied hand flies to your panties without much thought, ready to slip a few fingers past the waistband-

"Wait, don't touch yourself directly yet. Touch yourself over your panties,"

"But Jaehyun," you whine, sounding a little pathetic to your own ears, "I'm so wet, and it aches."

He shuts his eyes for a few moments, jaw clenching as he tries to find his words.

"I can't wait to get my hands on you," he mutters, but you don't think he meant to verbalise that particular thought. Either way, the feeling is very much mutual.

"I know, baby, but if you're good for me, I'll reward you, okay?"

You nod almost frantically, and he tuts in response, "Words, baby. Don't make me remind you again."

"O-Okay,"

"Good. Now I want you to touch yourself how you usually would, but over your panties,"

You do as he says. Drawing slow circles against your clit. The brushes of the fabric of your panties and the pressure from your fingers making your eyes flutter. More and more of your wetness drips out of you, making your panties stick to you. Your hips jolt up into your touch sporadically, quiet moans falling from your lips.

"You look so pretty playing with your pussy for me, princess," Jaehyun breathes, his own hand slinking down his body.

You keen at the praise. Adding more pressure to your ministrations against your sensitive clit, "Jae-Jaehyun ah please. I'm so - it's so -" you whimper, your train of thought leaving you with each brush.

"I know, baby. I know. You're doing so well," groans, his heavy gaze intently focused on the mess you're making between your thighs. His cock throbbing in the confines of his boxers with every twitch of your hips and quiver of your thighs.

"Can I see you too?" You ask, clamping down hard around nothing when you notice his arm moving. Putting two and two together and coming to the realisation that he's palming himself.

"Well, since you've been doing so well. I suppose you deserve some kind of reward," he says after some faux deliberation. Angling his phone downwards. Your thighs squeeze your hand hard, never feeling excruciatingly empty as you take in the way his cock strains against his boxers.

Considering the menace he's been all night, you expect him to tease you. Touch himself over his boxers until you're begging to see him properly. However, Jaehyun loves to keep you on your toes.

The air is knocked out of your lungs when he haphazardly tugs his boxers down. His cock smacks against his toned abdomen, flushed and hard and looking good enough to make saliva pool in your mouth.

"Too bad you're not here to sit on it but, I guess we'll have to make do for now, princess,"

Jaehyun is trying to kill you. That's what this is. An elaborate plot to stop your heart right here and now.

"Jaehyun, please. Can I touch myself pr-properly please? I've been so good. Please," you whimper. Slick walls throbbing incessantly when you notice his cock twitch in his grasp.

"I don't know, baby. How badly do you want to?"

"So badly. Please, please, please, I'll do whatever you say. Whatever you want,"

His eyes glint at that, and nervousness and anticipation course through your veins. Maybe he was more calculating than you gave him credit for.

"Since you ask so nicely, go ahead. Take your panties off for me, and let me see you play with yourself properly,"

In a likely incredibly ungraceful display, you impatiently tug your panties off with one hand. Tossing them aside and shoving your hand back between your thighs. Your eyes shutting when your fingers finally come into contact with your poor clit. Whimpers and curses and moans of his name falling from your lips with every circle.

"Fuck, you look so fucking pretty, princess," he groans and, you open your eyes to look at your screen. Fresh wetness gushes out of you when you realise that he's stroking himself. His tip now broaching into an angry red territory, and he's slick with pre-cum.

"I wish you were here," you whine out, increasing the pace of your fingers in time with each stroke of Jaehyun's hand. The obscene sounds emanating from your phone's speaker going straight to clit.

His chuckle is even more gravelly than before, "Me too, princess. Watching you like this...fuck. You're driving me insane," he mutters, hips jolting up to fuck into his fist. You've never envied a hand more than in this moment.

"Th-the feeling is mutual. I'm so-so ah,"

"Are you close, baby?"

"Ye-yes," you whimper, your toes beginning to curl, and the knot that's settled in your core tightening more and more and more.

The moan that falls from his lips is low and drawn out. His hand picking up its pace considerably as he watches you begin to fall apart on your hand.

"You're going to be a good girl and cum for me, right?" Oh god. The whine that's ripped from your throat is desperate and pitchy, your wetness drips down your thighs and begins to pool onto your sheets.

All your brain can manage is a jumbled mess of what you think is his name and 'please' and choked noises of pleasure. You're so close you can practically taste it.

You're distracted from your encroaching release when you hear Jaehyun's own sounds of pleasure. It takes a considerable amount of effort to open your eyes and, you're glad you do.

You open your eyes just in time to watch Jaehyun cum. His cum spurting onto his toned abdomen, parts of his thighs and all over his pretty hand. Strained, breathy gasps flooding your ears and the soft blush on his face, all combining to send you over the edge.

You try your best to muffle your cries as your hips twitch away from your hand. Insides spasming sporadically and even more wetness gushing out of you. Smearing your thighs and adding to the mess on your sheets.

It takes you both very long moments to regain your higher order functions. The stickiness underneath you and between your thighs quickly becoming uncomfortable but, you can't bring yourself to care right now.

"This is probably the most unconventional way anyone's ever confessed to me and asked me out,"

The laugh he gives you makes the butterflies roar once more. Considering you just watched each other cum, you suppose you have no real reason to be shy anymore.

"It's definitely the most unconventional way I've asked someone out. Luckily, the Japanese leg of our tour ends in about a week, so I can take you out properly then,"

"A whole week huh," you pout.

"Unfortunately, princess. Hey, I'm not opposed to more calls like this until we're able to meet in person," he responds with a wolfish grin.

You resent the way your still sensitive walls clench at the suggestion.

[sophieinwonderland]

Here's Ableist AspenFrostEN Trying To Pack as Much Misinformation and Ableism As She Can Into One Minute:

This sentence is, perhaps, the one and only true thing in this entire video.

Oh, please do enlighten me, Aspen!

I mean, sure, created systems are a thing. Tulpas are the main example of this and the ones that have been studied the most. But there are created systems that aren't tulpas, such as in daemonism.

Also, plenty of traumagenic DID systems have intentionally created alters too, so it's weird to make "people who believe that you can force yourself to have alters" an endogenic system thing.

ALSO, basically no tulpagenic system I know actually uses the word "alter" to describe their headmates.

While most endogenic systems are plural without a disorder, it's bizarre to use this as your definition instead of just "an endogenic systems is plural without trauma" as it's actually defined.

Founded entirely on Tumblr???

Aspen, dear...

Are you... capable of reading? Here's the paragraphs you're looking at. Notice how it says natural system predated the word endogenic?

Yes, the word endogenic was first used on Tumblr... as a replacement of "natural system" or "natural multiple" that dated back to the 90s, before you were even born!

Here's one site mentioning natural multiples in their glossary in 2003:

And here's the origin in a page dated for 1998:

You clearly know NOTHING about the plural history that you're rambling on about.

And how am I only 20 second into this???

What do you consider a medical consensus again?

The World Health Organization's ICD-11, the diagnostic handbook used around the world, explicitly states that you can experience multiple "distinct personality states," the characterizing feature of DID according to it, without having a mental disorder:

That's the World Health Organization's official handbook!!!

I'm not sure what more of a consensus you need.

But I'll add that Tulpamancy is acknowledged as a real psychological phenomenon by Dr. Samuel Veissiere, psychiatry professor at McGill University.

And Dr Eric Yarbough, Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association has stated that you can be plural without trauma or a disorder in a book reviewed and published by the American Psychiatric Association.

And these claims are undisputed. There is no peer reviewed paper by any psychiatrist that has claimed you need trauma or a mental disorder to be plural.

Now, onto the next round of misinformation!

I recognize that page! That's DID-research! A glorified blog that convinced an entire generation that OSDD-1a and OSDD-1b were actual medical terms for disorders they could be diagnosed with!

(Spoiler: The aren't!)

Is that so?

It would probably be really inconvenient for this narrative if the creators of the theory of structural dissociation ALSO have said it may be possible people to form self-conscious dissociative parts of the personality without trauma, huh?

I mean, something like that would just completely destroy everything you're trying to sell and make you look even more like a hack who has no idea what she's talking about, wouldn't it?

...

...

...

This paper is by two of the authors of the Haunted Self, which I probably shouldn't need to tell you since you're so knowledgeable about plurality, is the book that created the theory of structural dissociation of the personality.

Even the creators of the theory you're citing are saying plurality could have other causes.

Wouldn't that require you to actually know what endogenic systems actually believe? Or, you know, literally anything about plural history? Or anything at all? 🤔

Now we're back to ableist Aspen having no idea what Schizophrenia is and using it as an insult. 🙄

Aspen is not hiding her intent. Her goal is to spread hate, to come into our communities and bully us.

Aspen is a liar, a bully and an abuser.

But I hope I've also demonstrated pretty thoroughly that on top of that, she also incredibly ignorant.

She's ignorant of psychiatry. She's ignorant of plural history.

Every word out of her mouth on this topic is a lie she made up, and hopes her followers will be gullible enough to swallow, because while she may act confident in her misinformation, the fact is that she doesn't know anything about what she's talking about.

[kelseytheballerina]

woa kelsey what happened

2pretty -> kelseytheballerina, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. I’ve been over the 2pretty name for a while now and just ready for something that feels more ‘me’.

my YouTube channel name will match this one now too, so angelkels -> kelseytheballerina

I want to get a refresh on this blog so I’m going to private everything while I go through it all and make them public again as I decide what I want to keep. This account has been feeling pretty stale to me for a minute. Like we can do better than this!

I’ve decided to close down my patreon as well. As much as I sincerely appreciate everyone who has supported me there (like wow that’s so kind of you all???), I just don’t use it often enough and I dont feel comfortable charging you lovely people for something I barely log in to. I really do prefer having all of my content here as a one stop shop where everyone can view and enjoy it as normal, no payment required :) Again, I am so grateful to all of you who flocked to the patreon and supported me but I think it’s just not what I’m into right now. Your generosity has meant a lot to me and I hope no one is upset by my decision. I'm still doing pen pals though ♡

I had 27 (yes, TWENTY-SEVEN) videos made and ready to go but I accidentally lost them ALL. Hours and hours worth of content…gone. Just like that. When I tell you that I was in a depressed rage for the past 2 weeks…it doesn’t even begin to cover it. Like who wants to redo all that work? My maternity leave for ballet is ending so I was taking the time to batch film and now it’s just like…that was a waste of time. I couldn’t even open my computer for a while bc I was so upset. You don't understand, I've never felt this defeated before omg. I finally mustered up the morale to re-record but I kept leaving out shots, forgetting things I wanted to say, it just wasn’t as good as the original and that was sooo upsetting. Anyway I can’t stay upset about it forever so I have to force myself to get over it and just start remaking them as best as I can. Just know that even though I’m moving forward, inside I am the physical manifestation of gritted teeth, white knuckles and veins popping out 🙃. Did I buy a new external hard drive? Yes ma’am I did, with a swiftness!!

[1moreff-creator]

Extra DRDT CH2 Episode 12 Thoughts

Heya! After making my last post where I just live-blogged my immediate reaction to the episode, I had a few more thoughts that I figured I should write down somewhere. They’re all too small for their own posts, but I still think they’re worth sharing.

Spoilers for CH2 EP12

CW: Murder, hanging, suicide.

The Water Thing

This episode brought up two interesting points which had rarely, if ever, been discussed within the fandom: Arei’s body swinging, and her body temperature and its connection to water. And while I’m relatively sure I saw one or two people mention the swinging at some point, the temperature issue is certainly a new one.

The swinging was explained in the trial: Arei’s body was hung shortly before it was found. But J says something interesting; the corpse should have been warm, unless it was drenched in water and dried. Paraphrasing a bit, but you get the point.

However, I actually don’t think this is a big deal, just adds a slight addendum to previous murder theories. We know the killer dumped the fish in the playground to confuse time of death, so I believe the killer likely splashed Arei with the water to cool her down. This is assuming they even thought about the body temperature, but I don’t think this is a large assumption to make.

I have seen people claim that Arei’s hair looks somewhat wet in the BDA, which… maybe? Anyways, this idea would explain that as well.

This might even give us Possible Explanation Number I Lost Count for the damn missing glove. Maybe it got particularly wet and the culprit worried it wouldn’t dry quickly enough? If people discovered a dripping wet bowling glove, the whole “using fish to confuse the time of death” thing would kinda go straight out the window. I have no idea if that makes any amount of sense, I don’t see why the glove would dry any slower than the rest of her clothes, but oh well.

Arturo’s Talent, and his Recap Foil: Levi

(Here’s the link to the original Recap Foil Theory post by gleamingtempest, in case you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Kinda forgot this was a thing when first watching the episode, but now looking back on it, there’s some neat foiling going on. Levi and Arturo’s backstory already were somewhat opposites in some aspects: Arturo got away from home himself while Levi was disowned, though Levi seems to hold a higher degree of respect for his family in comparison to Arturo. Levi is (now confirmed!) a murderer with no remorse, while Arturo accidentally caused Felicity’s death to some extent and clearly feels guilty about it. Etcetera.

Well, we can add a new detail to this foil! Arturo’s been training his talent since he was twelve, while Levi has admitted since introduction that he’s “a novice to fashion.” Neat detail, and certainly adds to this theory.

Terumin VS Xanvid

Thanks to Haru for pointing this out, but Teruko’s “I’ll fix my mistake” echoes Min’s “I’ll fix your mistake” from her Argument Armament. As I mentioned in the linked post, it’s cool that Teruko is taking a sort of Min-like attitude to her mistakes while calling Xander out, while David is taking Xander’s side in the same trial he calls Min pathetic. Foils and all that.

(Doomed Yuri V Doomed Yaoi, fight!)

This makes me hopeful that Min will still have some importance later. But I’m probably just coping.

What Was David Cooking?

I am kinda sick of talking about this man, frankly. I blame the almost three hour video I made on his MV. But oh well, he’ll stop being center focus soon enough. For now, His Deal is still one of the most central aspects of the episodes, so discuss him I will.

There are two big points of contention with what he said this trial. First, what does he remember about Xander? Second, what was he actually trying to do by pretending to be Arei’s murderer?

The first is pretty simple to assume, I think. David remembers whatever Xander did to become the Ultimate Rebel, and respects him as a result. Especially since Xander’s numeral I in LGI, the Footnote 14 code solved by y-prime, is “I have always looked up to you.”

I don’t think David has Hope’s Peak memories, despite his weird wording with “even if you all lost a year of memories.” He specifically says he and Xander had never met in his Prologue introduction, before they had any real reason to believe they’d lost memories. The LGI video also doesn’t add anything, because… well, it’s not a Milgram MV. It doesn’t come from his memories, it exists purely in meta. This is evident from the comments referencing Byakuya, Nagito and Kokichi, characters these people should have no knowledge of as Veronika claims not to remember anything like the DRDT killing game happening before; certain references to conversations and details David shouldn’t be aware of (mainly in numeral placement), etc.

(While I was writing that, the dev seemingly clarified that David does not have Hope’s Peak memories, then deleted the tweet, so. Just in case, there’s the full reasoning)

The second one is trickier. David is following Xander’s ideals, but that’s all we know. We don’t have a concrete idea of what Xander’s ideals really were, and it’s even harder to know what David thinks Xander’s ideals were.

David: I’m sure he had a good reason. I believe that he did. Xander is not the kind of person to do anything for frivolous purposes.

He believes Xander had a good reason for trying to kill Teruko, he says he’s sure of it, but he never implies to know exactly what the reason was. And if he doesn’t know the exact reason, he can’t for sure say what ideal Xander was upholding by doing what he did.

But, he knows what Xander was trying to do; kill everyone. Because if it was just Teruko, he wouldn’t have tried to mislead people with the CD thing. Although, Xander was following that one note that said to “kill Teruko Tawaki,” so it could potentially be targeted.

So, taking credit for Arei’s murder to try and kill everyone is because Xander tried to do something similar. But the deeper reason he gave, about the nature of the killing game, is it true?

(Apologies in advance for the particularly horrible collage. I am without a reliable computer atm)

David [Annoyed]: Ugh, fucking fine. You want an answer so badly? Any answer?

[Face covered] …

I…

[Sweating] Ah… We’re… in a television show, after all. That’s… what MonoTV said, right?

“Entertainment” is an ongoing show.

If Min successfully got away with the very first murder and escaped while we all died, isn’t that way less interesting for a TV show?

What’s the point of roping 14 other people into one murder, only to kill them all off immediately?

The killer is supposed to fail and get executed. We’re all supposed to catch the killer, again and again, and participate in trial after trail. You’re *supposed* to try to survive.

All of you, who are trying to slice these class trials to continue living on are playing straight into MonoTV’s hands.

[Confident] As if I’ll accept that.

I don’t care how low I’ll sink, or how despicable I’ll have to become. I’ll do anything to carry on Xander’s ideals by ending this killing game, even if it means that I have to dirty my hands.

Oh, this man is lying out his ass.

This is not an answer you hesitate over if it’s true. The words David is saying are neutral; the show is meant for entertainment, and it’s not entertaining if people die early. There’s no controversy there, no reason to be nervous. Especially since Eden’s already come to the same conclusion.

Veronika: You know, Eden once thought of an interesting plan to end the killing game. Based on everything we know, it could theoretically work.

[…]

To make a television show so boring they have no choice but to shut it down.

All we have to do is nothing.

You’re not supposed to be sweating when you’re effectively repeating something Eden said, even if under a different context.

First, David says he’ll give ���any answer”, already making anything he says shady. Then, he seems to deliberate on what to say, which is already suspicious.

The most notable thing is that when he starts talking about the TV show, and what it means for it to be entertaining, he still hesitates. If his plan really was to make the TV show boring, once he decides to spill the beans, there’s nothing to hesitate about.

He only regains his confidence at the end, ironically when he’s saying the actually insane stuff. He finally finds the character he was trying to play and actually says something true; he wants to uphold Xander’s ideals and end the killing game. But I really don’t think it’s because he wants to make it boring.

In other words, he’s not lying about wanting to follow Xander and end the killing game, but his explanation about the entertainment has nothing to do with that. It’s way too simple of an explanation for the amount he hesitates. At least, that’s what I think, I may be wrong.

That brings us to the question; if he didn’t take the blame to make the game boring, why did he do it?

Well, currently and without too much confidence, I believe it has to do with Xander’s secondary goal; killing Teruko Tawaki.

One of the most well-accepted theories in the community is that David’s secret, “everything in your life is worth killing over [and] the killing game is all your fault,” isn’t Xander’s, but Teruko’s.

(In fact, side theory: I’m betting (on little evidence) that by the end of the trial, it will be David with his fanboy knowledge to point out that the “survivor’s guilt” secret that Min “received” was actually Xander’s, and reveal by process of elimination (since it’s likely going to be revealed in the trial that Hu has Veronika’s secret and Veronika has Hu’s, assuming those theories are true) that Min has the poison secret. It’s a bit of a wild prediction, but I think it’s a reasonable possibility to how the series would go about confirming the secrets of the dead)

That, combined with the fact that Xander followed a note that told him to kill Teruko, would certainly be enough for David to decide that Teruko’s gotta die. And killing everyone in the class trial is probably the best way to ensure that happens, since David probably doesn’t hunk attacking her directly is a good idea. If Xander, physically the strongest student in the cast, couldn’t get past Teruko’s luck, what the hell is David supposed to do? Especially now that she carries a knife, though I’m not sure David knows that.

It’s not even that out of nowhere; in the LGI video, Teruko’s numeral XIII appears next to a quote regarding the child of Omelas among other things. Very long story (skip to 1:22:22 in this video for the full explanation), but the child of Omelas is someone who must suffer so everyone else can live in a perfect world. It’s possible David thinks of Teruko, for one reason or another, as the Omelas child; she’s gotta die so everyone can be happy. She is someone “deeply unloved” after all.

Now, is this a stretch? Certainly. But I don’t think David’s telling the truth about his motivations, and I think this is one of the more likely options as to what exactly he was cooking here. I’m sure there’s better explanations out there, I just haven’t seen them :v

David VS Whit

I kinda skipped over the “Red Herring pun to David Freakout” line at first, but I think it’s pretty interesting that David gets so mad at Whit’s behavior. They are Recap Foils, so it makes sense they’d have strong emotions towards each other.

In particular, I’d like to point out how David gets mad at Whit for something similar to what he does as a motivational speaker.

I mentioned it in the previously mentioned section of my LGI analysis, but I believe part of the reason David hates Teruko is that he sees himself in her (pessimistic, thinks the world won’t change, etc), and this would be the other side of that. David constantly says things he doesn’t believe to make people happy, and he considers that to be pretty stupid, so it makes sense for him to get frustrated when seeing Whit doing something similar, trying to raise spirits by telling jokes. Looking at Whit is sorta like looking in a mirror, and David hates that. The mirror in LGI is labeled “reflection is due” for a reason.

I’m not fully sure this works 100%, but I think it’s at least worth considering.

Updates on Eden!Culprit Levi!Accomplice

In case you’re new here, here’s a link to my post detailing the Eden!Culprit Levi!Accomplice theory, which I came up with alongside some other theorists, and is what I currently believe the murder to be. My thoughts on possible character motivation and the such have shifted a bit since then, but the important part is the physical evidence. In particular, the combination of Lockdown Logic to determine Eden most likely took the tape from the gym and the Fish Timeline to determine someone else must have helped her get the fish, combined with the overly complicated murder method which I describe in detail, leads me to believe Eden is the blackened, and Levi helped her kill Arei.

I’m not going to talk about other theories, I’ll let the dedicated theorists perfect them with the new evidence in their own time. But, how does this theory change?

On the surface, uh, not much. We haven’t talked method much, after all.

(Side note, I know some people are bothered by how long that’s taking, and while I kinda get it, I’m not bothered by it. We’re in no rush; I prefer it if all the character conflict is addressed at some point, even if it delays talking about the actual method. Better than it going unaddressed, after all)

The only change is adding that they splashed Arei with water to hide her body temperature, but as discussed, that’s a minor change.

The big wrench thrown into this theory is the end, because… I’ll be honest, dear audience, I have no clue what Levi’s cooking here. Like, at all. Zero read on why he’s revealing his secret. I could try to speculate, but I can’t find any fully satisfactory answer even outside the Levi!Accomplice theory. Nothing makes sense to me, so I’ll just wait for the next episode before trying to read into it.

There is one unrelated thing I want to bring up, though, and it’s related to Levi’s possible motivation. I know this is one of the biggest sticking points in the theory (obviously), so I’d like to talk about it.

As a refresher: although alternate ideas have been offered, my current guess is that it has to do with his desire to be a good person, and the fact he considers Eden a good person. Cue the whole “A Good Person” hidden title behind “All That Glitters.”

Levi: Perhaps I messed up yesterday. But I want to move on. I want to keep trying to become ‘a good person,’ like you, Eden.

The idea goes like this. Levi thinks Eden is good, and so he wants to do good by her. Based on the secret quote in the code of his character page, we can tell he prefers to speak through actions. He’s a bold action man, and that can cause him to come off as heartless.

Levi: I always believed that a person is defined by their actions alone. But maybe that’s just a poor excuse for my heartlessness.

My personal theory (again, other Levi motives are possible) assumes that Levi believes someone will win the killing game eventually (and this is an assumption, I won’t deny it), and if only one persona can escape, he’d rather it be Eden than anyone else. Again, “good person.” Levi will die, sure, but unless he becomes a blackened himself, he’s going to die regardless whenever someone gets away with murder.

Now, this isn’t anything drastically different than what I said in the theory post, so why am I bringing it up?

Well, the thing is… Doing something horrible, throwing away your own life and those of most of your peers, all for the sake of the one you’ve deemed to be “a good person”…

Now where have I heard that before?

David: But doing “good” things requires sacrifice. Sometimes that sacrifice is being seen as a good person.

Even if doing something makes you hated, if that action is for a greater good, then it’s an action you have to take.

Xander is a good person. He’s the only good person I’ve ever known. I swear, I’ll follow in his footsteps and—

Huh. Funny how that works.

My point is that not only is “doing good by the only good person here” now a pre-established line of reasoning these characters can have, Levi doing such a thing for Eden would be a very interesting parallel to what David tried to do for Xander.

This isn’t evidence, to be clear. Just because one guy does it, doesn’t mean a completely unrelated dude is gonna do it too. But I’m calling it now as a potentially interesting parallel to explore, either in canon if I’m right or, like, an AU if I’m wrong :v

That said, I will point out that Hu’s capital G Girlboss Moment is directly after this, the one where she chews David out for deciding what’s best for all of them without consultation. And a little bit afterwards, Levi starts acting weird, apologizing for being useless, revealing his secret, etc. These two things could be connected, if Levi is, like, having second thoughts after that.

I could see a world where Levi’s trying to bring the conversation towards the right answer without fully committing to it, only for something or someone to somehow convince him back to accomplice-hood middway through it. I find that immensely unlikely, to be clear, but again, I genuinely have no idea what Levi’s trying to do right now, so.

All in all, a pretty neutral episode for this theory. Next one could completely break it, though, so I’m excited. I might have to come up with new theories! >:D

God I missed DRDT. And the only drawback of coming back is re-opening LGI trauma :D /silly

Anyways, thanks for reading! See you on the flipside!