#anyway no idea how long this game is or how often we're going to get this much time to play it but it's good so far!!

[kingdomoftyto]

Anon from a few weeks ago will be happy to hear we're finally playing Process of Elimination, btw

I didn't even get all the way through the demo before I was compelled to buy the full game, it had me hooked so fast

[archaeren]

Hello!! I hope you're having a good day ^^ I came across your post about writing non-linearly on Notion and I'm excited to try it out because the advice resonated with me! Though, I'm really new to using the app and, if possible, need help with how to do this part: 'where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry.' ;v;

Hello! Thank you so much for messaging!!! Since that post about writing non-linearly (linked for context) blew up roughly ten thousand times as much as anything I've ever posted, I've been kind of meaning to make a followup post explaining more about how I use Notion for writing non-linearly, but, you know, ADHD, so I haven't done it yet. XD In the meantime, I'll post a couple screenshots of my current long fic with some explanations! I'd make this post shorter, but I'm unable to not be Chatty. XD (just ask my poor readers how long my author notes are...) (There is a phone app as well which syncs with the desktop/browser versions, but I work predominantly in the desktop app so that's what I'm gonna be showing)

(the table keeps going off the right side of the image but it's a bunch of unimportant stuff tbh) So this is more complicated than what you'll probably start with because I'm Normal and add a bunch of details that you might not need depending on what you're doing. For example, my fic switches POVs so I have a column for tracking that, and my fic follows a canon timeline so I have a column for dates so I can keep track of them, and I also made columns for things like if a scene had spoilers or certain content readers may want to avoid, which they can access in my spoiler and content guide for the fic. (As I said, I'm Normal.) I also do some complicated stuff using Status and estimated wordcount stuff to get an idea of how long I predict the content to be, but again, not necessary. Anyway, you don't need any of that. For the purposes of this explanation, we're just gonna look at the columns I have called Name, Order, and Status. (And one called Part, but we'll get into that later) Columns in Notion have different types, such as Text, Numbers, Select, Date, etc, so make sure to use the type that works best for the purpose of each column! For example, here I'm using Select for Character POVs, Number for Order and WC (wordcount), and Text for the In-Game Date. Okay let's get into it! Name is a column that comes in a Notion table by default, and you can't get rid of it (which drives me up the wall for some purposes but works totally fine for what we're doing here). As you can see on the scene I've labeled 'roll call', if you hover over a Name entry, a little button called 'Open' appears, which you click on to open the document that's inside the table. That's all default, you don't have to set anything up for it. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like when I click the one titled 'I will be anything for you' (I've scrolled down in the screenshot so you can see the text, but all the data fields also appear at the top of the page)

(This view is called 'side peek' meaning the document opens on one side and you can still see the table under it on the left, which is what mine defaults to. But you can set it to 'center peek' or 'full page' as well.) All my scenes have their own entry like this! Note that I've said scenes, not chapters. I decide the chapters later by combining the scenes in whatever combination feels right, which means I can often decide in advance where my chapter endings will be. This helps me consciously give most of my endings more impact than I was usually able to do when I tried to write linearly. So hopefully that gives you an idea of what I mean by writing inside the table and treating the table as a living outline. The 'Status' column is also pretty straightforward, and might require a little setup for whatever your needs are. This is another default column type Notion has which is similar to a Select but has a few more specialized features. This is how mine is set up:

(I don't actually use 'Done', idk why I left it there. Probably I should replace it with 'Posted' and use that instead of the checkmark on the far left? whatever, don't let anyone tell you I'm organized. XDD)

Pretty straightforward, it just lets me see easily what's complete and what still needs work. (You'll notice there's no status for editing, because like I mentioned in my other post, I don't ever sit down to consciously edit, I just let it happen as I reread) Obviously tailor this to your own needs! The Order column is sneakily important, because this is what makes it easy for me to keep the scenes organized. I set the Sort on the table to use the Order to keep the scene ordered chronologically. When I make the initial list of scenes I know the fic will have, I give all of them a whole number to put them in order of events. Then as I write and come up with new scene ideas, the new scenes get a number with a decimal point to put them in the spot they fit in the timeline. (you can't see it here, but some of them have a decimal three or four digits deep, lol). Technically you can drag them to the correct spot manually, but if you ever create another View in your table (you can see I have eight Views in this one, they're right under the title) it won't keep your sorting in the new View and you'll hate yourself when it jumbles all your scenes. XD (And if you get more comfortable with Notion, you probably will at some point desire to make more Views) The Part column isn't necessary, but I found that as the fic grew longer, I was naturally separating the scenes into different points along the timeline by changes in status quo, etc. (ex. "this is before they go overseas" "this is after they speak for the first time", stuff like that) in my mind. To make it easier to decide where to place new scenes in the timeline, I formalized this into Parts, which initially I named with short summaries of the current status quo, and later changed to actual titles because I decided it would be cool to actually use them in the fic itself. Since it's not in the screenshots above, here's what the dropdown for it looks like:

(I've blocked some of the titles out for spoiler reasons)

Basically I only mention the Parts thing because I found it was a useful organizational tool for me and I was naturally doing it in my head anyway. Anyway, I could keep talking about this for a really long time because I love Notion (don't get me started on how I use toggle blocks for hiding content I've edited out without deleting it) but that should be enough to get started and I should really, you know, not make this another insanely long post. XDD And if anybody is curious about how the final results look, the fic can be found here.

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Title: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: "Can you at least tell me where we're going?" Chrollo, in the driver's seat, says nothing. And you barely resist the urge to rip the blindfold off your head.

For Horrorfest request... Chrollo taking darling to a house & won't say the rest because the reveal is necessary for the catharsis.

notes: yandere, reader is kidnapped, emotional damage idk

“Can you please tell me where you’re taking me?” The edge in your voice makes it crack like glass, a tone just as fragile as your poor nerves. Your fingers curl tighter against your thighs. Just what the hell is going on?

Chrollo is beside you in the driver’s seat, as always. He’d never trust you with a car, even in the ordinary circumstance you find yourself in them--traveling from place to place, whisked to hotels and hideouts and sometimes less-than-hospitable abandoned places. 

You can hear the gentle acceleration of the engine, the hum of the road underneath you, the rush of wind when he opens the window a crack. The weight of his presence is there, that almost imperceptible sensation of strength from his pure existence. 

But. 

You can’t see a damn thing through the blindfold he tied around your forehead after getting you into the car earlier this evening.

“You’ll see soon enough, dearest,” he answers finally. You swear you can sense the way his head glances down at your clenched hands. “Do try to calm down. I promise it’s nothing bad.”

You bite your cheek.

“Your definition of bad is often different from mine, so you can see why that doesn’t exactly reassure me.” 

The swerve of the car when it turns, more frequently now, like you’ve gone off the main road and are now somewhere more complicated. Where is he taking you, and why? There’s a thud in your heart when you consider the possibilities.

If this was simply a matter of moving to a new hideout, he would have told you; you would have packed your things, few though they are, and been given at least a vague schedule. Driving times. Flight take-offs. Whatever.

But tonight, he’d asked you to follow him after dinner, led you out to the car, and gently urged you inside. He ignored your questions. Then he said it would be a surprise and tied a blindfold around your eyes. 

There’s only the vaguest sense of time passing--how long have you been driving anyway? Wherever he was taking you, would you stay there long? Would you be back at the hotel by nightfall? You’d hoped to catch a horror movie marathon the hotel was hosting on its own channel. It was the only Halloween activity Chrollo had agreed to, since he didn’t like the idea of taking you out to a party and it wasn’t like a hotel was going to get trick-or-treaters. Maybe you could have asked him to get some decorations, but somehow the thought of taping up paper bats on the walls of the luxury hotel room didn’t feel in the spirit of the season.

The car comes to a stop and you lurch slightly in your seat.

Chrollo turns off the engines. He leans over and unbuckles your seatbelt. 

“Just a moment,” he says, and you swear your hear warm mirth in his voice. Asshole. He enjoys playing with you, doesn’t he? And that’s what this must be, some sort of sick game.

The door opens and there’s a whoosh of pleasantly cool air that smells like leaves and bonfires. He grabs your arm and helps you out of the car. You shiver, not from the chill. You’re outside, that much is clear. But where? And why? And for what?

”Chrollo,” you say, pleading. Your fingers dig into your upper arms. How much trouble would you be in if you just ripped the damn thing off your head on your own?

He chuckles, and he’s close enough that you can almost feel it. Finally his fingers fiddle with the knot of the blindfold and you feel it drop away before your eyes register that you can see again.

It’s--

It’s--

A neighborhood. An ordinary neighborhood. The evening has not quite settled in, and the sky reflects brilliant orange and red against rows of homes, all flickering yellows and purples and greens from Halloween decorations tacked and staked and pinned outside. The glow of lit jack o’lanterns practically shimmers against the dutifully swept sidewalks.

It makes your heart hurt to see this sort of life. 

“Why… did you bring me here?” A thousand thoughts rattle off, most of them not staying long to catch. The idea that he’s taunting you or teasing you comes to mind. Or maybe he’s got some target inside that he’s going to kill and make you watch as revenge for telling him that if he loved the expensive lingerie that found its way into your suitcase so much, he could wear it himself.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he simply takes your arm and you can do nothing but follow. Helpless thing that you are. Sure, there are people outside. Children itching to trick or treat, parents forcing them to pose for photos. And they’d be dead in a second (if they were lucky) if you said something to them. 

The house is nice. A typical suburban house, you suppose. There are orange-and-black garlands strewn about, a giant witch stood up in the corner with a cauldron that has fake lights and an artificial bubbling sound. 

There’s even a jack o’ lantern in front of the doorway, glowing softly from a tealight placed inside. It’s a pretty thing. Maybe you should have asked Chrollo if you could carve a pumpkin in the hotel, after all. 

When he gets to the front door, he stops and shoves his hands into his jingling pockets. He… has a key to the house, which should perhaps surprise you. But your heart is pounding and your nerves are frayed, and all you can do is think in alternating thoughts: why are we here, and why can’t I live like this?

The door creaks open. You half-expect something to jump out. A corpse. A member of the Phantom Troupe. Both?

But instead there’s just… a house. Just an ordinary house. With some of the lights on in the kitchen and a fake fireplace and fairy lights with orange pumpkins strung up in the entryway. Next to the coat rack is a table with an immensely large bowl filled with an assortment of candy. Chocolates and sour sweets and licorice. 

A few feet in front of the entryway is a rack of--clothes? No, they’re colorful and strange looking. Costumes, you realize. Halloween costumes. But why…

Your heart thuds, once, twice, three times.

“I don’t understand.” Your mouth is dry. Something in your chest tightens as Chrollo gently pushes you forward until you’re in front of the costume rack.

His voice comes from next to you, but you don’t dare face him. You don’t know what expression he will wear and worse than that, you don’t know what expression is on your face right now. But you know that it’s something too vulnerable to share with him so openly.

“You said you’d never been able to hand out candy to trick or treaters, didn’t you?”

It takes a few moments to hit you, and when it does, your hands wring together.

“So you… this is…” Not some awful, nasty trick, but something kind and done for you? You don’t say it. You don’t need to say it. The disgusted, awful relief of it--the gently rising pleasant surprise--must be showing on your face.

He holds up a princess costume while your mind tries to process what’s happening, and you shake your head at it. Too sweet and colorful for your vision of Halloween.

“Don’t think too much about it, dear,” he says, thumbing through the hangers of costumes. “Just find something and get dressed. I’m sure there will be plenty of kids coming to the door soon enough.”

Kids. In costumes. Trick or treating. 

At your--no, not your house, but maybe your house? In some way. Just for now. For the moment. For one one night--Halloween night.

That has to be good enough.

--

The witch costume is just the right size, but that’s no surprise. Chrollo has a shockingly detailed knowledge about your body; he’s even, with trial and error, mastered the art of nabbing nearly perfectly sized underwear across different brands. Bastard.

But you don’t think about that now. All you think about is how… spooky you look. How fun. How pretty, in that dark and morbid and delightfully Halloweeny way. 

You forgot how this felt, actually: wearing a real costume. Not the mask you put on every day to survive co-existence with Chrollo Lucilfer, but a real Halloween costume. Something shiny and cheap, not meant to be worn more than a few times before you find a broken seam, sigh, and chuck it out. 

In the end, you look like anyone else might, living in this house, dressed up on Halloween. A witch costume, complete with a hat and fake wart that you are sure is going to fall off your face within about 15 minutes thanks to some questionable quality sticker glue. 

When you step out to show Chrollo, you find not Chrollo, but a vampire in his place. Okay, okay. It’s Chrollo, wearing his normal outfit with a thin black cape lined in red over everything. He slicked back his hair--admittedly you prefer it loose, not that you’d ever tell him so--and it looks like he applied a thin layer of white powder to dilute his pallor even more. 

A vampire. Dracula. A bloodsucker. How appropriate for him. Not that you’d ever ruin this night by vocalizing that thought, so you bury it like a fake skeleton underneath the house of your mind. 

“You look marvelous,” he says, when you come out into full view. And you laugh immediately. Because he’s stuck fake fangs in his mouth. The cheap kind that looks like dentures. They make him sound absolutely ridiculous. 

He doesn’t take offense, or at least he hides it well. He pops the fangs out, a line of drool trailing after them and holds them in his hand. They glow a little green in the dimness of the house. 

“Too much?” You only smile in response, and he drops them in the trash. “They were uncomfortable, so it’s no loss. I’ll pretend that I keep my fangs hidden until I’m ready to bite.” The last words were spoken almost too lasciviously, and hIs gaze seems to lighten then. Because of course he’d feel better about looking like a fool as long as he could turn it around on you.

You don’t have time to let this bother you, though, because--

The doorbell rings. A quaint thing. Ding-dong.

Is it possible for your heart to stop while you’re still alive? Suddenly your legs feel heavy. Suddenly your whole body feels heavy. Suddenly you can’t possibly answer the door.

Ding-dong.

“Go on, love.”

Chrollo’s hand is on your shoulder and for once it feels reassuring rather than terrifying. You let him guide you to the door, which you open with trembling hands.

You’re greeted by a group of small children dressed up, holding out pillowcases and candy buckets.

“TRICK OR TREAT!!” 

You can’t speak. You forgot how to interact with normal people, normal things. No, no, it’s not just that. You want to cry. You’re going to cry. Because this is the first time you’ve ever opened a door to find smiling children waiting for candy on this most special of fall nights, a night when people can be anything, when the air itself feels magical.

You feel like you’re moments away from whirling around and running deep into the safety of the house when Chrollo touches your shoulder again. And his touch grounds you. Shakes you up. Snaps you out of it.

“O-Oh, I’m sorry!” You say, half-laughing, to the children who have begun to stare at you like a particularly curious bird in a tree. “Your costumes are just so cool, I was speechless!”

You begin to scoop handfuls of candy into their waiting bags and buckets. Most of them look eagerly at their growing haul and run away without another word.

One kid dressed like an oversized turtle yells out “THANKS!” before he, too, runs away. You look down the driveway and see that some of them have parents waiting, but most are traveling with friends. The turtle kid almost bowls over his mother, who looks back at the doorway. You expect her to wave and smile, but she only quirks her head a little at you before her son grabs her arm and drags her away.

You pay her little mind--it’s the trick or treaters that interest you, the way they happily shout to one another about what houses are giving out what, the shrieks you can hear when they are scared by electronic dolls that pop out when they pass a threshold. 

What a lovely thing, that freedom.

What a lovelier thing, right now, for you to play your part in it.

There are no other kids running up the sidewalk towards the house, so Chrollo shuts the door for you. There’s a silence between you, until Chrollo reaches up and wipes away at tears that had just begun to make themselves known in the corner of your eye.

“Are you all right?” His voice is low, soothing. He doesn’t usually tease you when you cry. Maybe he knows it would push you even further away. You wonder, briefly, if your tears or his touch smeared your carefully applied witchy eyeshadow.

“Yes,” you say, when you realize he actually wants an answer. “I’m just…” How to explain the feeling in your chest? This warm, fuzzy feeling that only comes on Halloween and that feels amplified by the role you’re playing right now. “It feels weird,” you decide on. “To be finally doing this.” 

Chrollo looks at you quietly. He nods, but says nothing more. 

A few moments later, that beautiful sound returns.

Ding-dong.

Ding-dong.

And--

”Trick or treat!”

--

The night goes on wonderfully. You stay more or less by the door, though you occasionally wander into the living room to admire the decorations. You wonder how long it took Chrollo to put them up. Maybe this was why he was gone for the better part of the previous day, setting everything up so it was just right for you. The thought makes you feel… pleasantly tingly. 

He thought of everything, actually. He even puts on a Halloween movie with the volume low, perfect for watching in between trick-or-treaters or peeking at from the entryway. While you’re handing out candy, you hear the microwave buzzing in the kitchen, and when you shut the door he hands you a plate with warm pizza on it.

It’s not the kind you usually get--you’re a pineapple on your pizza person, even if it might just condemn you to hell--but you suppose the options for pizza around here were different than in the city. It’s a little stale, too, but since it seems likely that Chrollo got it yesterday to avoid having to stop there on the way, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like some mediocre pizza was going to break the spell that the night was casting over you.

It was just… perfect. The air was cool but not terribly cold, and you felt like you could smell the leaves, the bonfires, the hint of apples and plastic pumpkin pails that seemed to rush through the door every time you opened it. 

Chrollo makes light conversation. Not the exhausting philosophical discussions that he likes to pull from you, usually in the late hours of the morning, but light, fun, casual. He asks about horror movies, horror books. He asks what you typically dressed up as when you were young, and chuckles when you rattle off the exact list of your costumes age 4 to 12 in sequential order.

It feels, heaven help you, domestic. Like the kind of life you might  have had, if Chrollo didn’t enter your life. Or if he wasn’t who he is, because he didn’t have to be out of the fantasy entirely. If he was the type to settle in the suburbs and buy a house with you and work 9 to 5 and come home tired but eager to see you, this could be your life. You would ask him to hang up the Halloween lights and he’d sigh but do it for you, because he knows you love it.

In return you’d promise to roast pumpkin seeds later that evening, and maybe even give him a kiss. The two of you could spend the night cozying up by the fire (a real one, not a fake one, perhaps you are too used to that luxury now--) drinking hot chocolate and making idle chit-chat. 

His arms wrap around you suddenly, and you almost flinch as the cobweb of your fantasy is unknowingly stepped through. This close, you can smell the powder on his face, see the little dots of it that have caked on his skin. 

“What are you thinking, dear?” 

You look at him and for once don’t feel like telling him to shove it. For some reason, hurting his feelings right now would actually make you feel worse, not better. Maybe it’s because you feel like you’re on high; maybe it’s because he did all this for you. 

“Just… that this is nice,” you admit. You smile at him, and it’s not forced. It really isn’t. “Thank you.” 

Chrollo presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“I must say, my reward was well worth all this effort.”

You quirk your head, the gesture reminding you briefly of the mom from earlier before you return your focus to Chrollo. “What reward?’

Chrollo, surprisingly, pushes you a little bit away from him. A finger goes up to your chin and your cheeks feel heated at the sudden intimate touch.

“Seeing you light up like this all night. I don’t believe I’ve seen you like this before, not really.”

You feel silly. Not humiliated, but silly. This is the first time that he’s seen you happy, isn’t it? And you suppose, for someone like him, it must be some kind of treat for you to be happy. To be open. To not be hissing, metaphorically and otherwise, at his attempts to be around you.

It’s a little too much to confront right now. 

You grab a slice of the pizza he left sitting on the side table, and take a bite. You chew through the cold dough. “It’s hard not to have a good time on Halloween,” you mumble, averting your gaze. 

Chrollo chuckles at you, but lets you eat your pizza in peace. He takes up his own slice and chews, watching you look out the window, eager to see if more children come scampering down the walk.

--

You flick the porch light off with a sigh. The last trick or treaters have fizzled away, and the only people on the streets are tipsy people stumbling home from parties and the occasional person that you assume must be returning from a late night shift at work. 

There’s a certain magic to this, too, but it’s different from the tingling atmosphere of Halloween evening. Now it is a fading feeling, the last whimpers of the night as life returns to normal in the morning. 

“Shall we finish the movie?” Chrollo asks, and you nod. You may as well hold onto Halloween for as long as possible. 

There’s still some candy left in the bowl, and you grab the whole bowl as you head into the living room. Chrollo follows you, turning off the kitchen light as he goes. That leaves only the dim lighting in the living room from the fake fireplace and the glow of the TV, which is playing the last few minutes of a schlocky B-horror movie.

When he takes a seat on the couch and pats the spot next to him, you don’t hesitate. You don’t feel the need to, though you’d normally try to make a bargain for agreeing to sit next to him so readily. Now, though, you slide into the seat with the bowl in your hands and set it next to you. 

There’s only one chocolate bar left, and you impulsively grab it and hand the bar to Chrollo, who raises his eyebrows briefly before accepting it. 

“These are your favorite,” he says. “You eat it. I don’t mind.”

Your fingers curl on  your thighs, but this time you don’t dig into your skin. Instead you merely look at a bit of pizza grease shining from the reflective TV light. “I know, but… it’s…” The words come out slow and sticky, like candy stuck to your teeth. “It’s a thank you. For this, I mean. Tonight.” 

“Ah,” he says. After a moment, he unwraps the bar. Suddenly half a chocolate bar is shoved into your line of sight, and you look at Chrollo before letting out a little snort and taking it. 

Sharing food with Chrollo didn’t feel so awful tonight.

Lots of things didn’t feel so awful tonight, actually. Like being in the same room as him. Talking with him. Laughing with him.

And maybe, maybe it wouldn’t feel so bad if you scooted closer to him, either. Just because the movie was actually a little scary, a side-effect of the new environment and too much greasy pizza on  your nerves, probably. 

So you do. And he doesn’t say a thing about it and that feels amazing, because if this was your life, it wouldn’t be so extraordinary to sit thigh-to-thigh with your lover on Halloween night. It wouldn’t be so extraordinary to turn slowly towards him and feel a flush of heat in your cheeks, your chest. Heat that was accompanied by gratitude for the way he found this abandoned house and decorated it so fully for Halloween and got you dinner and let you be normal, so perfectly normal, for one single night.

It wouldn’t be strange at all, really, for you to lean in close and kiss him on the mouth.

Chrollo’s breath mingles with your own and it feels like your first kiss, though your logical mind knows it’s far from it. But it’s the first kiss you’ve given him. Your hidden kiss, then, special and secret.

When it’s over, you lean your head against his chest and let him wrap his arms around you. The sofa creaks and you wonder, abruptly, why there was a sofa in a house where no one lived. Why a house with no one in it would have a fridge stocked with food or a manicured lawn or toiletries scattered in the bathroom. Why some of the parents looked at you funny, even after your fake wart had fallen off.

“Chrollo?” 

“Mm?” He strokes your hair, keeping your head against him. 

“How… did you come across this house? Did someone move out? Or--”

You don’t vocalize it. And with Chrollo, you don’t need to. He knows how your mind works better than you do, sometimes.

You hear him intake a breath, formulating an answer, and suddenly shake your head. 

“No. Don’t,” you murmur, feeling yourself beginning to slide into sleep. An easy sleep. A completely ordinary Halloween-night sleep, brought on by the excitement of the holiday, the thrill of the goblins and ghouls who roamed the night and were satisfied with fistful after fistful of candy from your hands and nothing else.

“Never mind.” You whisper against his chest, and let your eyelids close. “Please, whatever happened, don’t ever tell me.” 

[jeansllvr]

— Show Me Off

+ streamer!kenma x fem!reader

summary: after keeping your relationship with kenma a secret for over 3 years, you both think it's time to announce the news.

notes: this was longer than I intended to be my bad 💀, I only know a few games MAX so I'm tryna work on that, this was my first time writing/publishing my writing works so please bear with me on that 🙏🏾

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

When you first started dating Kenma you had absolutely no idea he was a famous streamer. His first time bringing it up was 7 months into your relationship.

"Kenma what do you want to eat?" You said making your way from the kitchen to the master bedroom, pausing in the door frame. "I was thinking alfredo pasta with baked chicken but I'm done for whatever."

"That sounds fine my love, anything you make is gonna be delicious anyways." He said, looking up from his phone to shoot you a smile.

You smiled and made a 'hum' sound as you walked back out.

After you took out the ingredients you also took out your phone and made your way to youtube.

You had a habit of turning on one of your favorite streamers/artists whenever you needed to get work done because somehow, it always made working much faster.

As you were scrolling through the recommended page, you noticed Kenma in one of the videos thumbnail. Letting curiosity kill the cat, you pressed on the video to see what it was about.

And as much to your surprise, your boyfriend of 7 months, was streaming to over 1 million people. Even if this video was old it still blew your mind how you never noticed your boyfriend was a damn streamer.

Setting your phone down you head back into the master bedroom, to have your boyfriend confess to his sins.

"So... You just weren't gonna tell me about you being a famous influencer?"

Looking up from his phone, Kenma took a while to really understand what you meant. "What are you- Oh.. Yeah, my bad."

"My bad? You kept this little secret off yours for 7 months and all I get is a 'my bad'". Your voice getting a bit more high-pitched at the end to mock Kenma.

He chuckled a bit before saying, "I honestly forgot to tell you, my love. I didn't really think it mattered that much."

"I mean it doesn't.. but it would have been nice to know."

He got up from his side of the bed, making his way towards you. When he reached you, he snaked his hands around your waist before kissing you.

"Sorry, I'll let you know next time."

Even though your eyes rolled to appear annoyed, the smirk on your face said otherwise. "Yeah, yeah, whatever.

୨⎯ Present Day⎯୧

"I think I'm ready." Was the first thing that was said by you as you were on Kenma's lap.

Pausing the CoryxKenshin video playing on the tv, he looks down at you, "For what exactly?"

"To announce I'm your girlfriend to your followers."

That topic wasn't brought up so often, after you found out about Kenma's career, he made sure that nobody would know of you if that's what made you comfortable.

It wasn't that you were uncomfortable with the attention, it's just that you weren't really used to it and you decided you needed to warm up to it step by step.

Kenma, understanding it all too well, agreed with you that nobody had to know until you were 100% ready.

Guess that today was that day.

"You sure? Like 100% sure? Don't work yourself up if you're not ready, baby."

"Don't worry I'm not! I do think I'm ready and besides, it can't be a secret for long. We're already 3 years into our relationship and nobody but close friends and family know." You said, sitting up so you two could be eye to eye.

"True," He gave you a quick peck on the lips. "Then we'll do it tomorrow, since I was already planning on streaming that new game."

You simply nodded your head, going right back to resting position on his lap, as the video plays once more.

୨⎯ The Next Day⎯୧

"Stay off to the side until I announce you okay my love?"

"A demanding man today I see." Sarcasm lacing your voice, as you started poking him.

Even though he shook his head and rolled his eyes, you could still see the sly smirk spread across his face. "Oh whatever menace."

Your laughing started to cease as you saw he had started the stream, now it was time to get quiet.

It took a few minutes but eventually more and more people started joining the stream. You were still taken aback by just how many people there were watching him, watching you.

To get your mind off of that though, you decided to read the comments off screen.

@gloharchive: heyyy kenma!!

@plazafolres: watching this stream > studying

@kenmasear: HEYYY

@shoyosunshine: WHAT ARE WE PLAYING TODAY KENMA??

You hear light chuckling next to you, turning you see Kenma also reading the comments.

"Hey to you all. Donations already? Thank y'all so much."

You looked down towards his right hand, he must have taken your hand into his while you were lost reading the comments. You gently traced your thumb up and down his pointer finger before looking up again—as he began to talk once more.

"Yeah we're gonna be playing that new Amanda the Adventurer game. Alot of y'all on twitter have been bugging me about it since it came out." He used his left hand to go to the game's home-screen.

@kenmakozime: WE ALL CHEERED!

@cupipetals: y'all think he's gonna be scared shitless??

@ivanghw: @cuoipetals oh most deff

"But before that.. uh I have some news for y'all," He turned towards you, using his eyes to ask one final time 'are you sure?'

You thought about it for an amount before looking back up to face him and with a sharp nod pushing all those worries down to focus on the now, focus on the fact that people will finally know who Kenma Kozume belongs to.

He smiled once more before turning back to the camera, checking one more time before announcing it.

@kenmasoneandonly: announcement??? getting kinda nervous

@miyatwins_lover: TELL US TELL US TELL US TELL US!!!

@kenmaluvrr: are you filming with shoyo or kuroo???

@ivan: STOP READING AND TELL US? HELLO?

"Alright. Alright. I'll tell y'all now, you demons." Pulling your hand into the camera's view, he kisses it while maintaining eye contact.

You break it by going to read the comments again, noticing how fast they're going than before.

@kenmasoneandonly: WTF?? WTF WHO IS THAT???

@meg_megan: DAMN.

@ricooyat: HUH?? KENMA PULLS??

Before you could look at him again, he pulls you onto his lap so the stream can see your face. You weren't expecting it so you flash a quick and awkward smile.

"Hey.. y'all." Stiffly waving towards the camera.

"Go easy on her guys, she's a lil camera shy." Kenma says with a straight teasing tone as he pokes your back.

You manage to hit his shoulder. "Stop your dork, at least lemme introduce myself first." Playfully rolling your eyes, "So inconsiderate."

"Oh my apologies your highness."

"Thank you," Whipping your hair in his face, "Anyways, hello! I'm Y/n, nice to finally meet y'all."

You began to read the comments again.

@SCORPIOGEMS: AHHH OMG SHE'S SO PRETTY??

@kenmaslefttoe: congratulations! (I'm dying right now)

@hshramint: do y'all see the cute banter they do?? I can't.

@meganthestallionshorse: AWHH WHAT

@hannisdrops: stop she's actually so freaking cute I need her socials

@kenmaslove: Y/N I'M ON MY KNEES WAIT.

Kenma let you read as many as you wanted before starting the game, you gave the occasional 'thank you's and flirty replies back. You started to forget the worries you had about coming on stream.

You found the comments amusing and Kenma's reaction to the flirty ones made you bust into a fit of laughter.

After answering some questions about you and your relationship with Kenma, you made sure to give everybody your socials before deciding it was time to leave and let Kenma do his own thing.

"I'll be in the living room if you need me."

"Alright my love, I love you." He reached his hand out to your chin, guiding you to his lips and you shared a tender kiss.

"I love you more."

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

[xtreklx]

Bumpin' ~ Raphael x reader

One-shot: bayverse Raphael x reader

Word count: 1k

Warnings: SFW, fluff, slightly mature themes (rated 17+, see my masterlist for disclaimer)

A/N: a self-indulging one-shot I thought up for Raphie boy. thanks for reading!

__________

"Y/N, I'm boooooooored."

Michelangelo let out a long, drawn-out sigh and turned to look at you. You were both strewn about the living room of the lair, him on the floor and you on the couch. This time was normally used for your weekly Mortal Kombat sesh, but Donatello had shut off the lair's power to make a repair, so the two of you were forced to find an alternative activity. Which sounded like a simple task, but had since proven the opposite.

You mimicked your friend's long-drawn out sigh with a smirk on your face. "Yeah, I bet Don decided on purpose to do this right now," you replied. "Not that I blame him, we do get pretty loud when we game." You were laying on the couch as you spoke, scrolling absentmindedly through your phone's home screen and hoping that an app or notification would give you some sort of inspiration.

You thought for a moment as Mikey continued his mock sighs, which were rising in both volume and drama, before turning to him with an idea. "Hey Mikey, do you use Spotify to listen to music?" He looked to you again before pulling out his phone. "Yeah, team Spotify all the way! Why?"

You sat up with a new invigoration. "We should create a blended playlist!" You exclaimed, opening the app on your phone. "We can compare our music tastes and see what we have in common, it'll be fun!" Mikey sat up from his spot on the floor and handed you his phone with the Spotify app open. "Hell yeah, girl! I'm always in the mood to bump some tunes! Lemme go get my speaker." And with that, he took off to his room.

You got to work with both of your phones in your hand. When he returned, you hit shuffle on your blended playlist and the music started flowing from the speaker. You moved to sit next to him on the floor.

"When I look at the playlist story, it says we have a 56% music match." "Okaaaaaaay, that's not too bad," Mikey replied. "Where do we match up, dudette?" You tapped the screen again, showing him. "Our number one match is Tyler the Creator. That makes sense, I listen to him a lot!" "No way, me too!" Mikey exclaimed. "He's definitely one of my fave artists."

The two of you began chatting away and singing along to songs as they came up, while unknowingly summoning a third party.

"Poor Don'll never get the quiet time he wants," Raphael spoke, shaking his head as he walked into the living room from the dojo. His gruff voice startled you from behind and your heart rate increased, as it often did around the short-tempered brother. You had had a crush on him for a few months now, but were far too intimidated and nervous to make a move, so it went unaddressed. The turtle in question strolled over and plopped down on the couch, looking down at you both on the floor. "What're you two idiots doing, anyway?"

"We're just bumpin' some tunes, bro!" Mikey called, shaking his head to the beat of the song playing. "We're comparing our music tastes!" You excitedly said. "And actually, we're using a very technical algorithm, so this is in the name of science! Donnie couldn't argue with that," you grinned up to the turtle in red. Raph rolled his eyes but let a small smirk grace his features in return. Dork.

"Alright dollface. Since it's so impressive, show me how it works."

You explained the process to him as Mikey continued to jam to the music playing from his speaker. Raph listened and examined the blended playlist you had created. "Hmm... Y/N, see what ours would look like," he pondered, reaching for his phone. Again, your heart sped up, but you breathed out an "O-okay" and took his phone from him. As you tapped the screen, you ignored Mikey wiggling his brows at you in your peripheral vision, knowing about your feelings toward his brother.

When you finished, you gasped slightly, and turned the screen to Raph. "We're at 84%!!!" you squealed, showing him where your favorite artists intertwined. You scrolled through the playlist to see a mix of heavy metal, grunge, classic rock, R&B and rap. Tyler the Creator was also listed as one of your top matching artists.

"No way," the brute scoffed, leaning towards you so that he could look over your shoulder at your blended playlist. You both pointed out which songs were your favorite and why, and also chatted about the favorite artists you had in common. Your nerves eased as you connected with him, your heart thrumming at the realization that he was being... kind of vulnerable with you. You were getting to see a part of Raph that he had never shown you before.

All of the sudden, the song changed to 'Dogtooth' by Tyler the Creator, and Mikey jumped up, hollering. You gasped with joy, and you both looked to each other with excitement. "I love this song!!!" You both yelled, and then: "JINX!" You laughed hard as Mikey ran from the living room, yelling the lyrics at the top of his lungs, 100% looking to annoy his other older brothers.

As your laughing ceased and you turned back to Raph, you took in a quick breath as you realized how close you two were leaning in before the outburst. You were still on the floor, but had scooted towards his spot on the couch until you were practically leaning on his lap. You could feel his warm breath brush your face, and he got an amused look on his face as he gazed at you.

Your eyes widened naturally with the proximity, and after a moment of silence and staring at each other, you opened your mouth you speak. But before you could, Raph began rapping along to the song playing from Mikey's speaker, a growing smirk on his face and a unique glint in his hazel eyes as he watched you.

"She could ride my face, I don't want nothin' in return. Except for some her time and all her love, that's my concern. I'm tryna buy my neighbor's house..."

The eye contact he was giving you in this moment could only be described one way: heavy. And your face turned beet red. The closeness, his gaze, his smirk, the words- it was all too much for your poor heart to take.

"R-raph, w-what are you doing?"

"I'm just bumpin' some tunes, dollface."

[dodgeballstuckonthegymceiling]

Okay I just watch digital circus because of your post and it was a blast and I love the character and the idea of a scenario came to me

Caine, Pomni, Jax, Ragatha, with an actor reader who loves to play into the adventures and play NPCs to set up the immersion maybe even write up some ideas for Adventures to make things more fun

Anyways have a great day night whatever and thanks for the fun writings

Thank you! Hope I did your ask justice!

Caine, Pomni, Jax and Ragatha x Reader who makes NPCs and writes

Caine

★ He really appreciates your help! It's hard work making up games for everyone to play while taking into account everyone's preferences. No matter how much you protest, he will use each and every idea you come up with.

★ Caine sets up a little studio for you to work in. It's filled with paper, multiple typewriterband all sorts of art supplies. Maybe some clay for you to build some models of a character you want to create?

★ You're NPCs are always great and often end up being a hit with the others. By that I mean the gang tolerates them more than his NPCs. You manage to give them more personally than he could have ever given.

★ If you somehow get Zooble to join in the fun he will congratulate you for doing a good job. His hat is off to you, you did something he thought was impossible. Now only if you could get Zooble to stop trying to swear...

★ I know the NPCs don't have any ai but Gooseworx confirmed that Bubble is a much simpler AI created by Caine. Therefore, he can theoretically make one of your characters come to life.

Pomni

★ At first she thought that the characters you make were real people. Once you told her that they were nothing but glorified puppets she had to question the sentience of everyone she's met so far.

★ You gotta make this girl a therapist. Aside from that it doesn't take her long to start asking questions about why you like to make different characters and stories.

★ She's not as creative as you, doesn't really understand the appeal of creating something like you do. The most she can do is come up with a few names.

★ Despite knowing that they aren't real people, Pomni still apologizes to the NPCs. It's force of habit. Maybe you could add some dialogue for if/when someone apologizes for something?

★ If we're being completely honest, she doesn't really like any of the NPCs. It just feels wrong when she needs to talk to them for something. It's like speaking to one of those robotic pre-recorded messages over the phone.

Jax

★ He's extra mean to the NPCs you make, just because he can. He knows that they can't get offended or upset but he doesn't care. They will be getting pushed into the mud.

★ When you decide to scrap an old character he gladly helps. The moment you say you need to get rid of it he's reaching for the nearest baseball bat. No need to worry about cleaning up 👍

Jax when the NPC starts to annoy him

★ Jax thinks it's funny when you get upset over him being mean to a NPC because you've grown attached to some of them.

★After that he asks you what you plan to make next. Can you blame him for being curious? Jax wants to know what you're planning before anyone else. Don't worry, he can keep a secret.

★ As a "joke" he told you to try and make a NPC that Caine would need to heavily censor. Just to see what the ringmaster would do. Whatever you made that day was thrown into the cellar.

Ragatha

★ She likes to watch you make different characters for certain situations. Caine wants to set up a fishing adventure? Best believe you are making an NPC who's a fisherman to set up the immersion.

★ You might overwork yourself while trying to come up with a game for everyone to play. Ragatha sometimes needs to step in to tell you to take a break. There's no use overworking yourself, go take a break!

★ She really wants everyone to have fun with the adventures you put together. There's no doubt that she loves them. Also she's the first person to yell at Jax for being mean to the NPCs.

[surplus-of-sarcasm]

Mind Games

New story who diiisss. Anyway, thank you to @hufflepuffwritingstuff2 for the whole idea of this story! Hero x detective for a twist.

TW: Blood, stabbing, knife, mentioned murder, kidnapping, restraints, blindfold, mentioned drugging, male whump

Waking up blindfolded and bound to a chair wasn't exactly a novelty for the hero, but that didn't make it any less irritating. There was something about the forced ignorance a blindfold subjected you to that got on the hero's nerves and blew fuses in his brain.

The patter of footsteps on a parquet floor rang in the hero's ears, and he could already sense his mystery assailant get near him and flick him on the head like a disobedient child.

"You up, sunshine?" Detective's sharp voice called out.

The rough grunt he gave seemed to be enough of a response, and the detective removed the blindfold from around his head.

The light seemed to assault his eyes, too bright and cold and violent, and the hero let out a soft cuss. "Do you make a habit out of kidnapping people and tying them up in your basement, detective?" he questioned irritably, his eyes half-screwed shut.

The detective, immaculate as ever, wearing a goddamn three-piece suit in his own house, gave out a soft, but unsettling laugh, leaving his lips in a tight smile that was all teeth. "No, Hero. But you already know why you're here, don't you? Because I know you think playing dumb might save you, but I'm here to tell you it won't," he growled, baring his teeth.

The detective was never a particularly pleasant human being, dryer than a desert more often than not, but he was always calm, like no problem in the world could even sour his mood. So to see him already lash out, even this slightly told the hero that even with him tied up and possibly drugged with how groggy he was feeling, the detective probably saw him as a threat.

Shame he'd have to play another set of cards to win the game.

"Alright," the hero said calmly, fixing the other man with a piercing look, "if we're agreeing neither of us is here to screw around, then how about you cut to the chase. You don't seem like the 'pace and around the room and monologue' type of guy," he reasoned, an easy smile on his face.

Maybe he wasn't feigning oblivion anymore, but he wasn't giving the detective the satisfaction of feeling like he was scaring him.

The detective made a scoffing noise, reaching into his pocket to pull out a switchblade. "Maybe you'll learn to smile less at the wrong times, asshole," he spat as he unfurled the blade, looking eerily calm, nothing behind the whirpools of black that were his eyes.

"You're going to talk. Answer all my questions properly. And if you don't, I think even you are not dumb enough to not be able to guess what's going to happen."

The knife really didn't faze the hero the way it should. Sure, it left him uneasy, sharp and disturbingly pristine. But he'd been roughed up before one too many times, so he knew to some extent how this stuff worked.

The hardest part was selling his act.

"How did you find out it was me?" the detective started, pulling up another chair and carelessly throwing one leg over the other.

"I'm good at what I do," the hero shrugged, his face blank. But he couldn't help wincing as the detective grazed his thigh with the knife, his body already tormented enough with his ridiculously cramped muscles.

Nothing he couldn't handle, anyway.

"The evidence. What lead you to me?" Detective tried again, the blade still in his hand with Hero's fresh blood snaking down it.

"Does it matter? I figured you out anyways," the hero supplied listlessly, his gaze languid and half-lidded.

The detective stabbed harder this time, twisting the knife in the hero's shoulder and forcing a snarl out of him. He truly wasn't sure for how long he could keep playing the defiant card, the pain blooming across his shoulder and even down to his arm as the detective snatched the knife out just as fast as he'd put it in.

If he could incinerate the detective by staring at him wrong, he seriously would've. Instead he grit his teeth and tried to ignore his throbbing shoulder, looking up at the detective, irritated.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't slit your throat right now." The detective's voice seemed a little too relaxed for comfort, the dirty switchblade now resting on the hero's jugular. The hero was no longer even slightly surprised the other man was a criminal.

It took an insurmountable amount of self-restraint to keep his lips from curving into a self-satisfied grin. Sure, it wasn't very believable if an agency-trained hero crumbled under a few stabs, but death was a reasonable enough fear for even someone as formidable as him. Nevermind that the wide eyes and the harsh bite of the lips were actually fake.

"W-wait. There's no point of you killing me. Not without finding out what you need to know. And do you really need anymore blood on your hands?" the hero breathed out, a little desperation sprinkled into his tone.

The detective looked almost lost in thought, until something wicked burned a fire in his eyes for just a moment. "You only get one chance, Hero. Don't waste it," he drawled lazily, pulling the knife away and twirling it elegantly with one hand.

The hero nodded gratefully, readying himself to lie through his teeth. "When you said the victim had died of asphyxiation, even before you were granted access to the autopsy report."

The detective's brow furrowed and his lips were pulled into a tight frown. "I never said he died of asphyxiation, he died of mercury poisoning."

"Bingo," the hero, his hands now free of their bonds, crooned, as he used the detective's momentary surprise as a distraction, pulling the knife out of his hand and using it to cut through the ropes around his legs.

Say something wrong about a subject and your target will rush to correct you. A surprisingly effective trick as the hero had come to learn.

The detective's face twisted into an expression of pure, unbridled fury as he tried to wrench the knife out of the hero's hand, but he dodged, quick on his feet much to the other man's chagrin.

Hero had to give him credit, the man was almost nearly impossible to stab, parrying the crime-fighter's attacks with calm, stable, maybe even clever moves, so much so that all he'd managed to do was lightly nick him with the blade.

But with all his focus on blocking, he hadn't even noticed that all the hero's fighting had backed him into a corner until too late, until thr crime-stopper's leg had slammed him into the wall with a painful kick, and the knife's cold edge had bit into his skin.

"Don't. Move."

The detective was breathing hard, practically paralysed by the knife and the glint of warning in his enemy's eyes. His face burned with the shame and humiliation of being frozen in place, his own weapon at his neck.

"How d-did. . .you find out it was me?" the detective panted, voice desperate.

It was the hero's turn to smile wickedly. "On the day of the victim's death, he got a visit from his doctor. I searched the trash and found a broken thermometer. It was pretty clear from the bruising on the poor bastard's face the killer was left-handed. The doctor you paid off that I interviewed was right-handed. To test out my theory, I told the doctor I was taking him to prison for the murder, and his tongue might've just slipped too much for your hush money to fix it."

And with that, the hero knocked him out with a punch to the jaw, dragging the other's body and praying desperately the adrenaline would keep the pain in his shoulder at bay until he got out of here at least.

Some trails are shadowy and unclear, obscuring the vision and playing tricks on the mind. But the smallest amount of resilience can very well go a long way, if only you learn to time your moves right. Because even if you only get a short string, you can still sew a mark on the tapestry of your fate.

Le Taglist: @larinzz @syberianjade @lateuplight @altu-interactions @enbious-prince @astr0-mj @thelazywitchphotographer @a-fucking-simp-00 @addictedsandwhichaki @justalittlecorrupted @quaggasus @adamswrongchild @vernilliom @mothmancommitsarson @starssabove @kurai-hono-blog @talkingsperm @muffinrebel44 @sunnynwanda @annablogsposts @cardboardarsonist @itsmyworld23 @onlywhump @m3rakii @crotchgoblin69 @wtfevenisausername @pendarling @avloki-pal @kaiwewi @those-damn-snippets @genuinelythioehat-is-whump @ghostofnorth @dragonmine-24 @detectivepetrichor @orangeduckweed @red-is-the-reputation4444 @alexii117 @prophecies-bestowed-upon-ye @alphabet-egg

Wanna be on the taglist? This'll take you there!

[damnfandomproblems]

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/758573258390077440/5479-im-going-to-take-the-opportunity-to-say

Yes, exactly this!!! As an ABDL, I see people say shit about ABDL/ageplay all the time that just... colossally miss the point of the kink.

A big part of kink and BDSM is power dynamics, particularly dom and sub dynamics. Ageplay is the same. Another large part is roleplay. In, lets say a vampire scene, you might have a dom who takes on the role of a vampire and the sub as their unfortunate victim. It's a fantasy scenario, the sub doesn't actually want to be kidnapped and tortured by a vampire, and the dom doesn't actually want to be a vampire that kidnaps and tortures someone. It's the same as someone playing an antagonist in a roleplay game, it's a fictional scenario that everyones on board for. BDSM is completely between consenting adults, who talk things out before hand and have safewords.

In an ageplay scene/relationship, one party typically takes on the dom role of caretaker, while the other takes on the sub role of child (theres exeptions, of course, but I'm generalizing). They roleplay within this power imbalance, often getting into a headspace like people do with any form of roleplay. Again, it's a fantasy scenario that everyone is on board for.

My partner isn't having sex with me in a onesie because he wants to have sex with a child, he's having sex with me because we're both turned on by the power dynamic between us (and also I'm hot and he'd have sex with me regardless). He likes taking on a caring, parental role, and I like taking on a naive, innocent role.

There's also other reasons that someone might be into ageplay/ABDL outside of the power dynamic. The might be aroused by the taboo incest idea of it, they might have a humiliation fetish for getting dressed up as a baby, or the might just have fetish for diapers themselves. Importantly, none of these involve actual children because, as stated, BDSM is between consenting adults. If its not, then it's assult.

I see shit all the time about how ageplay/ABDL is still bad because it's "still a representation of a child" (ah yes, my favorite type of child, the one that looks like a grown woman with massive tits), which is just... such a stupid point. A baby doll is a representation of a child. If I throw a baby doll down the stairs does that mean I want to do that to an actual child? No, of course not! The reason throwing a baby down the stairs is bad is because you could kill it. A baby doll is plastic and stuffing, and can't be killed because it isn't alive. A representation of a child is not a child. If I draw a child getting mauled by a bear, no actual child has gotten mauled by a bear, (nor do I neccesarily want that to happen). If I dress up in a diaper and pacifier and take sexual photos, no actual child has had sexual photos taken of them. Trying to put "a representation of a child" on the same level as actual children really stupid, because it's not an actual child, and takes conversations away from the actual children that are getting hurt.

Also, even if people were only into ageplay because they want to have sex with children (which they've done science and found isn't the case), isn't it better that they're doing it with consenting adults as opposed to actual children? I've always found that argument kinda stupid because of that.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant that's only tangentially related. I'm just very passionate about this, and felt the need to come out of the woodworks to yell about it when someone brought it up. I hope everyone has a good day!

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[2-59-amwater]

Percy Jackson Analysis ep.1

(did that sound vaguely pretentious? I feel like a need a funny name for this)

SO SORRY it took me this long. To be truthful I put on My Happy Marriage to listen to while refining my notes, I'm not a huge romance lover so I didn't think I would get that invested but then I proceeded to binge the whole thing...

anyways go watch My Happy Marriage, it messed me up in the best ways

On to my children, the way I wrote these notes was chronological, including lines I thought were powerful and thoughts I had while watching, enjoy my sub-tier analysis

To start with I think the casting, as well as most of the acting in the show, is phenomenal. There are some acting scenes which aren't great, but the nice things about child actors is that they grow and improve

iconic opening line 10000000/10

blackjack cameo? *chefs kiss*

One thing that really stands out to me regarding young Percy in school is that the bullying is portrayed so well. Like, sure some kids get punched but more often it's whispers, snide comments, teachers not doing enough to stop it. Not to mention when you have mental health problems or neurodivergency on top of that it makes it even harder to fit in and gain help from authority figures. There's no way teachers weren't aware of how Percy was being treated (we even see this in the books with mortals that don't care about him getting picked on by other mortals, think sea of monsters)

GROVER!!! I know I already ranted about the casting but Aryan just does such a good job. I hope in later seasons we see him more than we did in the books.

I'm UNHEALTHILY OBSESSED at the idea that mythomagic cards are to help train halfbloods. It also gets me thinking about season 3 interactions between little Nico and Percy. But it's incredibly clever to have a game that would entice children to learn more about the monsters they're likely to face against. It's also a clever marketing move irl.

Once again great portrayal of bullying while still keeping the show appropriate for kids

UNREALISTIC their paper would never be printed with color ink /lh

I really enjoy how they displayed dyslexia, it seems very accurate to descriptions.

"how it makes you feeeeel"

The lines about not everyone who looks like a hero being a hero and not everyone who looks like a monster being a monster is some of the best foreshadowing I've ever seen. It perfectly foreshadows Luke, Medusa, and generally captures one of the major points of Uncle Ricks books.

the hold fast line being used through the series *chefs kiss*

One thing I stand by in both the books and series is that I was incredibly disappointed in how little Chiron directly stood up for Percy- even in regards to mortals. Like yeah ok he's gonna be a hero but he's also twelve, help the poor boy!

The bullying Dodds shows Percy is also very accurate to real life. I've had many teachers who straight up bully kids just like this and are never called out for it.

The utilization of the word 'Special' thought the series is a great example of how "PoLite EUpHEmiSm' and often weaponized and used as derogatory terms and serves as an example of why many push for using terms like disabled over differently abled.

"childhood trauma, feelings of inadequacy" DAMN GROVER just going for the jugular, pop off. love how the show incorporates realistic convos kids would have. This instance and other little side bars we see throughout the show add something that I often find missing in television throughout all generas. it's incredibly important to have realistic convos to help solidify characters as people.

"Never ever stand up to them" "that doesn't sound right" THIS LINE 10000000/10

"there you are" we're not fools Percy Jackson

I did feel like this should have been Perseus Jackson seeing as how it's pretty canonical that monsters and gods alike only refer to him using his full name, adding on the the names have power theme that permeates throughout the series.

trauma for days

"is he dead?"

Chiron low-key being the embodiment of gaslighting, girl boss, gatekeep

UNCLE RICK CAMEO!!!

realist portrayal of adults already having their mind made up and children being unable to do anything except tell their story over and over

(also does Kronos speak to Percy in his dreams as the school principal? I genuinely can't remember, if so Kronos sure knows how to embody nightmares)

I honestly wish they would have expanded more on both how guilty grover would have felt rating Percy out (even if it means protecting him) and also how betrayed Percy would have felt. his fatal flaw is loyalty, grover was his very first and very best friend, he only really has his mother, this would have been a huge punch in the gut.

anyone else feel like grover and Percy should have been interviewed separately?

I'm sorry, I have to complain about the lighting in this show. WHY IS IT SO DARK? THIS ISNT SHOWN IN THEATERS! MY EYES ARENT THIS GOOD. IM SQUINTING TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT IS ON THE TV!! WHYYYYY??!?!

"at least I know you think you didnt" -not helpful Chiron :/ shame on you

"you might have the most difficult journey" great foreshadowing

'SPeCiaL'

I know there was lots of discussion about how Gabe wasn't abusive 'enough' but often times abuse isn't easy to see or what TV leads you to believe. The show keeps it age appropriate while also showing how much of a leech and how controlling he is (answering Sally's phone, not wanting her to leave to the beach). Honestly I might make a separate post on this but at the moment I'm tired of seeing ignorant people claim that Gabe wasn't aggressive enough or that Sally wasn't meek enough to be abused.

I was disappointed that Eddie became a 'good' character instead of showing how abusive adults often have buddies backing them up

It's realistic Percy would talk to Gabe even though he's a dick, kids want to make connections

Sally in the rain- reference to Poseidon 10/10

Sally is just happy to see him :')

"all that matters is that your here, ok?" aww

BLUE FOOD!!!

"Is there something else you wanna talk about" mom knows

"I'm scared" damn does that resonate

once more just because Sally isn't portrayed as meek doesn't mean that that whole interaction wasn't unhealthy and abusive

di angelo reference! even if it's not our di angelo the name choice was incredibly purposeful

"it's getting angrier" personification of the storm lends well to Zeus and Poseidon

love PJO dream sequences

"who are you" does Kronos not know who Percy is? Gonna be real this confuses me, am I missing something obvious?

Sally was crying??!?!

the race from the car to the cabin is another example of the writers (and actors) creating realistic people you can connect to. the nostalgia that hit me in this scene was POTENT

It's so so so important to have a place to escape to as an abuse victim, and as a teen in general. Scratch that, just people in general need places to escape to which makes the cabin even more significant

Percy's self deprecating marshmallow talk :(

"I'm used to the world feeling weird to me" neurodivergency and mental health issues can create very isolating atmospheres making community important -camp is that community

Uncle Rick does a great job creating metaphores regarding discrimination and ableism

It's so hard to tell someone you trust and love that you think something is wrong, especially as a child. Walker did a fantastic job capturing all the mixed up emotions that occur.

"something that felt real to you but no one else could see" once again significant to neurodivergency and mental health

I don't personally like the choice to have Sally tell Percy that his father is a god. The acting in the scene also just rubs me really wrong - it feels fake. I think I enjoyed the book version better with him never receiving a clear answer until camp, and even then you can debate on how "clear" it was.

I would be freaking out so much more that Walker if my mom approached the subject like this. It would be incredibly frightening to think your mom was going insane alongside you.

"there is something wrong with my brain" once again, uncle Rick reaches out of the screen/pages to hit me where it hurts

"I don't want to see him" the betrayal he feels :(

grover pants scene (I feel no need to elaborate on this note, it was by far the funniest scene of the episode 1000000000+

"so the important thing is not to panic"

"who are you" nooo he's ur friend don't do this to me :(((

I love grover

very nice natural lead into explaining the mist

The show is unfortunately hit with the complex issue of trying to provide context to an audience who already knows and is eager to see the action. I know there were many criticisms about it but I will say my mother, who didn't read the books, felt she had a firm grasp on the lore of the show, so that counts for something?

"what else haven't we talked about, what else haven't you told me" broken trust :(((

"I'm actually 24" NOW IS NOT THE TIME GROVER

"won't all of us be safe" ha... about that

"swear it, SWEAR IT GROVER" damn, okay sally

again, WHY IS THE LIGHTING SO DARK?!?! I know it helps hide cgi but we know there's gonna be CGI in a show abt monsters and myths

"you are not broken, you are singular" amazing foreshadowing

Sally is bamf

trauma

the choice to make things silent after Sally 'dies' *chefs kiss once again

I just really love the shot of Percy surfing down the monster dust

"he must be the one" :)))

hope y'all enjoyed :)

[punsmaster69]

2/MAR/20XX

SUSPENSION OF DISTRACTIONS FOR:

HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES UNTIL THAT D̶

ROOM IS CLEAN, OR AT LEAST WALKABLE.

WALKABLE WITHOUT TRIPPING ON A SOCK LIKE YOU DID, AND ALMOST CRACKING YOUR SKULL OPEN ON YOUR OWN ATTACK, AND THEN NEARLY HAVING YOUR ENTIRE BOOK-PILE RAIN DOWN ON YOU.

HAD I NOT HEARD YOU FALL AND BEEN THERE TO CATCH MOST OF THOSE, YOU WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN BURIED!!

(NO, SANS, THAT IS DEFINITELY NOT WHAT THEY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY "BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK".)

(THAT MIGHT BE THE CASE HAD IT BEEN JUST ONE, BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE BOOK-AVALANCHES TO APPLY.)

(ALSO, STOP SAYING IT WOULD HAVE LEFT A BOOK𝘔𝘈𝘙𝘒 ON YOU IF I DIDN'T CATCH THEM.)

(ALSO ALSO, STOP SAYING IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE BOOK𝘌𝘕𝘋 OF YOU.)

(THIS IS SERIOUS!!!!)

YOU HAVE A SHELF! WHY WOULD YOU JUST PUT THEM IN A STACK?!

AND HOW DID YOU EVEN GET IT TO REACH THAT HIGH???

——

hhhh

i'm alive

i know, i know.

i'm just as shocked as you are that i survived any amount of cleaning.

and uh, no.

i didn't get to just kick it under my bed.

he actually looked.

but, he also ended up helping anyway since i was

"-DOING IT WRONG, YOU CAN'T JUST SHOVE BOOKS SIDEWAYS?! SANS, YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY KNOW THAT!!"

it was supposed to be cleaned by yesterday, but i didn't get caught until it was late enough to claim being tired as a get out of jail free card.

i had to sleep on the couch, but i 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘺 choose that pretty often anyway.

speaking of choosing it, do you want to say hello, papyrus?

HE'S TRAPPING ME HERE LIKE A

FELIN E ——

thisisa choi ce

HE'S INDOCTRINATING ME INTO THIS "RELAXING" THING AFTER CLEANING LIKE IT IS THE ONLY THING YOU CAN DO IN A DA Y—

hey you already did stuff like training and cooking and those meetings an—

THERE IS STILL MORE TIME—

shshshsh

just hang out with me

you need to chill

SANS.

.......IF I NEEDED TO "CHILL", I WOULD STICK MY HEAD IN THE FREEZER.

papyrus

M. MOVE. ???

no

it is chilling out time

what do you want to play

AARGHG THIS IS A HOSTA GE SIT UATION ? ?!

the option to shove me off is

WE BOTH KNOW

always there

THAT I AM NOT GOING TO DO THAT TO YOU.

-WAIT CAN WE PLAY THAT BUILDING GAME

yeah

I JUST GOT AN IDEA FOR A SLIDING DOOR ON THE DIAMOND HOUSE

the dark blue one?

YEAH!!!

sounds sick

kinda hard to do that if we're

still writing though

RIGHT.

GOODBYE!!!!!

seeya.

[spumonibones]

I've noticed that yandere corrupted Venti pics are aplenty, but ...

I think a corrupted yandere Xiao fic has potential

Oh very much so, especially with the karmic debt, and the theory that Abyssal Corruption actually enhances your negative ambitions!! (Good stuff for twisting love from afar into an obsession that results in abandoning his post) I can probably type up at least af fic idea for it! Unfortunately at the moment I'm not at a point I could write a fic like that - still looking over my shoulder thanks to some personal experiences. These two have been a sort of "safe, comfort" ship since. But! I'm pretty sure I saw some fic summaries with that! When I find them, I'll send those your way! :]

As for a fic idea... Hmm. I know there's a popular Time Loop theory for Genshin. But, I'm not a big fan of it? Far too often those storylines get fumbled hard, and it would feel too much like a cop-out to escape the growing retcons instead of accepting that the story has changed since the game's start. (Which is pretty normal for games of this nature) Ah. Sorry. Anyway. There could be a parallel timeline. Maybe in that one, the Sinner from the Abyss acted sooner, and Teyvat has been coated in Abyssal energy? Oh, Xiao's beta design would work well for an Abyss-infected variation! (More under cut because WOW this got long??)

If his Barbatos died trying to stop the Sinner, it would be motivation to find ways of different times in which Barbatos still lives. Given the Monstadt story prologue, we know that Venti can get "poisoned" from Abyssal energy. If our... Let's call him, "Void Xiao," to mitigate confusion. As players we're taught to associate the Abyss Realm with the Abyss Order, though we've learned in Fontaine these don't always go hand in hand. Another term for the Abyss Realm is the Void Realm, so it'll function for these needs.

I looked up the definition of yandere, and included it for anyone that may need it! (I actually like this because it notes that this incorrectly tries to attribute these actions to mental illness. Individuals with mental illness are significantly more likely to be victims! When looking at "real life" examples of yandere attitudes, it's often individuals with no respect for the boundaries of others, and a sense of entitlement. No one owes anyone else their time or affection - always place firm boundaries, and if you ever feel unsafe do what you must to get out of the situation to be safe!!)

Back to the story idea! Hmm. Maybe VoidXiao got access to Forbidden Knowledge and that's how he jumped timelines...? If the Sinner took over Teyvat, the Heavenly Principles/Primordial One wouldn't be there to enforce the Laws they created. The whole world would be infected with Forbidden Knowledge and Void energy, and access would be easy. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure the game describes karmic debt to be different from Abyssal Corruption? But it (karmic debt) does sound similar to Forbidden Knowledge in its affects.

And if we go that karmic debt and Forbidden Knowledge ARE connected, he might even just have access to it as the Abyssal Corruption enhances that ambition to possess, and in a way protects him from succumbing to karmic debt to instead control it? Hmm. Might be bit of a stretch, but there's potential, maybe?

But, it would allow for a corrupted yandere Xiao! Though I feel like someone already wrote this...? Ah, if this is a fic summary I read and am just regurgitating, please let know the fic! 😭 I'll link it and delete my text if this is the case!

I'm sorry if this isn't a good request fulfillment orz

I think the first thing Void Xiao would do, is try to kill the main timeline Xiao and dump him in the Chasm where no one can find the body. Xiao could get saved by the Black Serpent knights, of whom are on a loop of protecting people and with the Abyssal Corruption on our Xiao, might mistake him for a dying hilichurl. The Fatui underground could then further help him identifying what they believe is an injured person and as we learn from them while in there, they aren't inherently bad people. I think they would genuinely try to help him, even with their limited resources.

Anyway, Void Xiao would split his attentions between capturing the time he lost with Barbatos, never being close enough to risk hurting Venti with the Abyssal energy (in Monstadt prologue, we get confirmation it "poisons" Venti when he gets hurt by it when the Traveler+Paimon interrupt him attempting to heal Dvalin). But also that distance is so Venti *can't* identify that Void Xiao is compromised. Lots of bittersweet moments, with Venti happy that what he thinks is his Xiao finally wants to spend time with him. Void Xiao savoring each visit, the painful reminder it could be so easily taken away again, that this was something he once refused and now sees was for silly reasons.

The other would be him trying to empower Venti by gathering more believers. I know there's general agreement that Venti is much stronger than he let's on, and I won't get into that discussion too much. But in this story, if however strong he is wasn't enough to survive the Sinner, Void Xiao would see fit to give him more strength to maybe stand a better chance when the time comes in this world. (Perhaps there was never a Traveler in his timeline, and that's why the Sinner acted sooner?)

I can see him rescuing people from old habits, telling them that Barbaros sent him to save them. Venti would notice more people going to the church, worshiping the statue. Would get a bit confused, why are people getting more into... That? All the while, Void Xiao is feeling jealous. He understands WHY everyone wants to fawn over Venti when he sings, when he plays music. But do they have to get so close? And Monstadt citizens start getting hurt, going missing. Venti recognizes the pattern, and while he investigates Void Xiao goes with, pretending he doesn't know who did it either. All while adoring how "kind" Venti is, even to worry about his "stalkers" (none on the citizens ever were).

Our Xiao has strength to call for help, and Zhongli comes. Gives him the adeptal drink to help stave off the mix of karmic debt and Abyssal Corruption threatening to consume him, too. His only resistance is that he SAW what he becomes if he let it, and that if he doesn't resist Venti WILL get hurt and he'll be helping to hurt him instead of warning him. Once strong enough, he struggles towards Monstadt, hoping he isn't too late.

Back over, Venti is noticing the trend and speaks with Dilic, well aware the man has also been following closely. They make a plan. Diluc pretends to be tipsy and be "too friendly" with Venti, and Venti "leaves." On Diluc's way back to the Dawn Winery, he gets attacked and is READY.

Except he's face to face with a demon. Diluc struggles in the fight, recognize the Abyssal energy his opponent is using. Venti shows up to help (he was tailing Diluc with enough distance), and is horrified to see the state Void Xiao is in, that HE'S the one that had been hurting people. Void Xiao holds Diluc hostage, telling Venti that he's doing what he has to. Doesn't Venti enjoy time with him, too? Doesn't Venti want to be with him? Venti asks him to let Diluc go. Diluc is one of his children, and was just pretending because Venti asked him to so he could find the culprit. He tries to reach out to the last goodness on Void Xiao, not wanting to hurt him but also trying to save Diluc.

Diluc is not blinded by the love that Venti is. He can very well see that Void Xiao is ready to kill Diluc once Venti isn't there to force the corrupted one to save face. He uses his Delusion (in Canon he has the one that killed his father), and the Pyro distracts/hurts Void Xiao enough he can put some distance. Venti helps hold off Void Xiao, and tells Diluc to run. Diluc doesn't want to leave, but Venti goes Full Barbatos and gives that look parents give to their kids to know they can either willingly go to their room or get carried to it. So Diluc runs, but back to Monstadt for backup.

Void Xiao, now terrified he's going to lose Venti again, shifts to more desperate measures. If Venti is corrupted, maybe he'll be safe? Maybe he'll understand? Too far deep into the affects of the Abyssal Corruption to realize this would kill Venti. So Void Xiao pleads - please? Won't Venti hold his hand while he succumbs to karmic debt? Playing on that kindness Venti has. And why would Venti refuse? Warped as Void Xiao is, he still thinks this is his Xiao! Yes, he'll get poisoned, but he'll just go to Windrise again to get cleansed.

Except Void Xiao grabs him, claws in and bites down so Venti can't get away without hang to literally rip the other off. The energy immediately starts trying to seep in, Venti struggling to get away, trying to find how to do so without hurting Void Xiao too much. Void Xiao is whispering it'll be okay, giving the soft kisses he always wanted to give but until then couldn't.

And then Xiao shows up, cutting clean off both Void Xiao's arms to save Venti. It's slow-mo. Venti turning, eyes widening to see his Xiao there, full of exhaustion but there. Xiao glaring at Void Xiao through his mask, more angry that he was killing Venti with cruelty while whispering how much he loved him. Void Xiao, who's eyes never leave Venti even as the corruption forms monstrous arms so he can "save" himself and Venti "from" this timeline's Xiao.

Diluc arrives with Jean, Kaeya, Rosaria, and Lisa (Jean knew, Kaeya and Lisa figured it out, and Rosaria learned about it while tailing Venti when doing her own investigation of the injured/missing citizens). Xiao orders them to get Venti to Windrise, as their best option is Barbatos not dying? But Void Xiao tries to prevent that, and it becomes a battle to not get infected themselves, and getting Venti who's getting weaker to the tree.

It's difficult and long, but they do get to Windrise. Venti gets stronger, Void Xiao gets weaker. And at the end, the last of the Abyssal Corruption leaving a dying Void Xiao, Venti holds him. Gives him those last moments that he never got. Afterwards, he checks on his children, on his Xiao. Everyone is hurt, but not tainted. Before Xiao leaves Venti tells him, "he told me that he regretted never spending time with me, and then it was too late." And then he asks, "Are you the same?" Hopeful that maybe, maybe all that time he spent with Void Xiao wasn't just the influence of Abyssal Corruption. That this isn't one-sided on Venti's part in this time.

"...I would like that." Xiao admits. Because his biggest regret in the Chasm, where he thought he might die... Was that he never spent time with Venti. Never got to be the reason the other smiled, and all this time... Now? He's learning Venti felt the same.

And so they do.

[aeoneris]

for archival reasons, and because rise has officially ended, i'm coping by looking back at the past two years and thinking about the master utsushi rabbit hole. this is based on a long reply i sent to a mutual but i think it deserved to have its own post where others can read it and i can expand further on certain details. or something. i don't know. i have no idea who will read this but if you do, please enjoy...

the ballad of master utsushi.

he was there regardless.

always watching.

waiting.

i wound up getting attached to utsushi-kyokan (master/instructor utsushi), ウツハン/utsuhan (utsushi x hunter) ship, and finding his Japanese fan community late 2021, and i've been chatting with mutuals and friends i made there since. at that time, capcom had opened up pre-orders for his nui (plushie). this plush is lovingly referred to as "Unui-kun", and people love to take him around and bring him places. here's my Unui-kun in new york city lol

fans love to dress him up and make clothing and accessories for him. had i known just how attached i would become, i would not have set my Unui-kun to ship via surface mail delivery because it took about 2-3 months extra for him to arrive... ;;

but anyway, it seemed that his popularity was growing because they continued to make more merch of him. he seems to have more than any of the other characters.

many of these are limited print/pre-order only, or were from specific events like the capcom cafe features. trying to get his merchandise became crazy, because scalpers started to pick up on how badly people wanted goodies of him?!

just how popular is this guy?! what's with the character tax!!

and how did this even happen... we're playing monster hunter, not an idol game! but i think it really speaks a lot for itself how rise had such colorful characters that you could get attached to. it seems he really jives with many female and queer players, so good on capcom for that hehe. many of the japanese fans i've met are either older women, very often mothers, or gnc, which i found to be really cool. the english-speaking utsushi fans are usually the same, too. the solidarity is real...

I found out that a lot of ppl, including myself, shared a similar experience: they missed out on a majority of utsushi's flavor text in base rise bc they didn't talk to him or the other NPCs very much during village and high rank quests, and therefore didn't even think much of him until after the fact. people double-taking when going through the game again and actually catching on to his antics... I think what really got things going was when they released his DLC voice and learned about his, uh, extremely affectionate lines towards the hunter when it comes to mew mew and blowing a kiss LOL. (the "welcome back, master!" line?!?! there's so much art of him in a maid outfit... and the way he says ace/manadeshi in his sleep at the table?!?! scandalous?!?!) even for me, he got my attention only once i saw the official art of him (realizing "hey he's got a cute design actually") and eventually encountering utsushi x hunter fanart on pixiv. another thing that got me noticing him was brian david gilbert's now deleted tweet about how zac efron and utsushi are the same. thankfully, we have the internet archive to save the existence of this post and i have to make sure people experience this lost media.

once i realized how weirdly close he was to the hunter, the gears started turning

i confirmed that ppl really did notice that it was unusual for an instructor character to refer to his pupil as "manadeshi (beloved/dearest disciple)" in the manner that he does, being so close to them in a way that felt so familiar and warm. he was already popular enough that by valentine's day 2022, fans literally sent real chocolates to capcom addressed to utsushi. i knew about this for a while, but i was shook that they wound up officially addressing that this really happened during the last update video.

after they received his chocolates, they immediately got one of the (female) illustrators on board to quickly draw that really cute valentine's day art of utsushi. the japanese tweet for that artwork had even a little bit more text than the english one…

that "i'll always be watching over you" line…

(and while i'm here, i have to mention the valentine's day art we got for 2023- i made a separate post about THAT.)

we started to suspect capcom caught on to this niche community's love for utsushi, and they started to kind of... troll us??? LOL.

throughout the previews of sunbreak last year, they would start obsessively sneaking utsushi into those chibi artworks. and when npc followers were announced, people were scrambling to find out if he was going to be one of them, but there also was some weird radio silence about him for a bit...

in one of the earlier trailers that showed the elgado hub for the first time, there was a very short part of the clip where ppl could see someone standing in the distance at the corner of the screen. all the utsushi fans went nuts because they were taking a magnifying glass and zooming up at there wondering if it was really him, because everyone wanted him to be there in sunbreak LOL.

of course we'd eventually find out that would be his perch for most of the game! it was only during the final preview trailer before the release of sunbreak did they finally announce utsushi as a follower, as if they were saving the best for last. and sunbreak dropped, we got to see him in elgado and enjoy hunting with him. and it didn't end there. he wound up being featured in two of the short stories released last summer, and we would not forget this incident.

when i think about how easy it is to just play through the story and miss out on following specific out-of-the-way flavor texts, let alone know about all this outside of the game, i wonder if utsushi joining the hunter in the battle against amatsu in the penultimate battle was strange, because he has such a spotlight on him, even being the one who allows you to ride an apex which was normally impossible. if people didn't acknowledge him before, certainly people would love him now.

his final line after you defeat amatsu: it's cute and silly in english... but in japanese, his line and delivery was extremely, almost unabashedly... romantic. many people were shocked because it sounded like a fervent confession.

"I'll say it once more... You are my pride, my beloved disciple."

finally, during the last update video…

we got this line straight from the director LOL. utsushi wound up being his personal favorite character in rise, and perhaps why we wound up seeing more and more of him in sunbreak.

all in all, if you kept up with the flavor text of rise, and if you followed utsushi's dialogue throughout the base game and expansion, the emotional pay off at the end was even better! and it is a shame when this stuff is mostly optional or you have to go out of the way for it, with so much being missable with every bit of progression. but making a monhun where story and character interactions are pushed more… i think they were on to something. it's probably something that could be divisive, but personally I think they should go all in on it more in the future. Rise proved that they could make charming and memorable (not to mention, named) characters... if they lean into it more in a future entry, then i hope they do it in a way where everyone can enjoy it and not feel like they missed out. but I also hope they would make it so that people don't feel overwhelmed with flavor text... it comes down to taste, but i think i have faith that monhun can try making more character-driven stories while still keeping the core of the series in tact.

here are some more miscellaneous utsushi things that i didn't know how to fit in earlier:

he's been featured multiple times in capcom cafe entrees. here's his matcha latte dango drink:

and for the sunbreak stories: a cake based on his fight with rathalos together with the royal guard, and then a drink that represents his... uh, struggle across the ocean to chase the hunter to elgado. because they will never let him live that down. i won't either.

here's a t-shirt of utsushi and kagami you can pick up on amazon right now. kagami was a very interesting arc when he was first shown- he was introduced as a long time friend of utsushi, training together in the past, but eventually parting ways.

his seiyuu in japanese is a sentai actor who loves monster hunter, so essentially, kagami is lowkey like a self-insert for him lol. he's goofy in english because he's voiced by a certain youtuber, but in japanese he takes a different direction of silly because he has a "chuunibyou" edgelord cringe way of talking. it's such a shame that kagami wasn't really in the game itself besides being mentioned in a few mission descriptions because i would've loved to see him interact with utsushi and the hunter, and i wish the royal knights and many of the NPCs had more cutscenes or something. it makes me think, if it weren't for the pandemic, could rise's story and scenario have been something more because of the DLC voice characters like hibasa/monju/kagami? anyway, a popular headcanon is that utsushi and kagami are ex-boyfriends lol (i personally like this one and adapted it for my utsuhan fanfics). but there are even those who ship kagautsu too (although it is rare because people overseas are a little wary of shipping characters who are based on real people).

and lastly, one of my personal favorites... the diseased kyokan shirt. this is from an online capcom shop, and you can use a proxy service like fromjapan.com to order it.

if you read this all, thank you! happy hunting! with the instructor! we love that guy! the guy of all time!

[yolowritter]

Anybody order an Evil Emilie Au?

Hello there everyone, and welcome! I'm back on my bullshit and 99% sure I talked about this before, but who cares? This, this wonderful thing is the Games of Innocence Au! Did you ever want a world where Emilie is a psychopath? Did you ever imagine her being as morally grey as they come yet still trying to be a mother to her son? What about if it was Gabriel who used the Peacock instead? What if she's replaced him as Hawkmoth? Empress actually, but still! And what somewhere down the line, she tries to manipulate Nathalie into helping her?

What if Emilie accidentally falls in love with her best friend? This absolute masterpiece is one of my favorite show re-write ideas of all time, and I've got some sweet 9.5k words for you guys to enjoy right here! Thing is, since I already have an Au that's over 300k words long, and rapidly approaching 400k...not to mention the next huge project on my list (a conservative estimate of 500k words)...I will not be writing the Evil Emilie Au in it's entirety. Most of it is a show rewrite anyway, and I simply don't have the time go through each individual episode and change it so that psycho!Emilie is there instead of mr Mothballs. I'm currently trying to write the finale, since it is the single best part and my personal favorite scene, hopefully to post it both here and on the Archive when I'm done.

However! I can and will rant about it until the end of time, assuming someone asks! And since the voices in my head did, here's an entire analysis about this version of Emilie! It's right below the cutoff, but I'd highly recommend to first read the fic! So here's the Ao3 link, hope you enjoy!

Alright then, welcome back! I hope it was a good read! Now as a disclaimer, I am not a mental health specialist, and might be confusing the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath" here, but I did read that sociopaths often struggle to control their emotions and act erratically (which Emilie doesn't, she has great self-control), where psychopaths have difficultly forming any emotional connections, so I feel like the latter term describes this Au's Emilie much better. Let's get right down to business, and explore (this) Emilie Agreste's mind, shall we! Obvious spoiler warning for the above fic.

Firstly, I'd like to make sure we're all on the same page with what kind of person Emilie is! Whenever I refer to her I'm obviously talking about this Emilie, so don't confuse it with canon. I have another upcoming post abt that. Her main attribute is that life as a concept is permeated by a general sense of boredom. Wake up, do tasks that only matter because she's told they do, sleep, repeat. Emilie was born into a rich family, which immediately means expectations. I'm assuming that she was kept pretty isolated aside from eventually starting school, so the only emotional connection Emilie formed in her early life was her sister, Amelie. She does genuinely care about her sister in a way that Emilie just can't bring herself to for her parents or staff, though she is nice to the latter and appreciates the work they do for her. Her parents are just stuck-up snobs but who cares? And so, Emilie shows this care the only way she knows how. Being perfect. Excelling at everything she does, getting the top grades in class, you all know the drill. The only thing she doesn't have is friends, and hangs out mostly with her sister. But even with Amelie, who she feels very strongly for...Emilie has a hard time expressing these feelings. For an example, see this flashback when they are sitting together in the garden:

“Sister…do you love me?” Amelie asks in a soft tone, her voice barely loud enough not to be carried away by the wind. Emilie recalls that she must have been... ten, maybe closer to eleven? And in all her admittedly few years, she never felt her heart stop beating as suddenly as when she registered Amelie’s words. “It’s- it’s just- …m’ sorry, Em. I… I don’t know, but whenever you smile at me...” the girl lets out a tiny sigh, nervously fidgeting with a stray strand of platinum-blonde hair. “It’s the same smile mum has when people are coming over…”

Emilie remembers it as clear as day—the way that the soft blades of gray grass between her fingers felt as if they’d been sharpened enough to draw out blood. Why…why would Am ever think she didn’t love her? Emile had done everything she was expected to do! She kept up her good grades like father wanted, always smiled and politely socialized with mum’s friends and family whenever they came over, and- …and she’d been nice to Amelie. Her twin sister, the constant presence in her life that truly felt like family…did not seem to think so. Or, maybe, Emilie had messed up somehow and given her the same bland niceness that the world would present her with day in and day out. But what else could she do? Wasn’t this what family meant? Just... be nice to one another and keep up with what was asked?

And over here, notice the way Emilie thinks of herself as a corpse, as not alive, even at such a young age:

“I- I’m sorry, Am,” she manages to whisper, even as confusion washes over Emilie’s mind. But…this is her sister. The one person who might understand how she feels about all of this, how the world itself registers only in dull shades of gray, how she can barely tell cold and hot apart, or how her heart sometimes feels like it’s stopped beating for hours at a time. “It’s hard for me to feel,” Emilie says, in the same reserved tone that’s always marked her sister’s voice.

And yes, obviously I know I'm the writer of the whole Au. I'm not patting myself on the back with these scenes, I'm just trying to get the point across. Emilie's life has always been that same dull grey, and the only people who can make it go away are Amelie, Adrien, Nathalie, and (to a lesser extent) Gabriel. She's been wearings masks her whole life, trying to be accepted by others but knowing that nobody would ever like who she truly is. And when she's alone...the thoughts come back, she can't tell if she is alive to begin with. Quote from the fic:

"Oftentimes, Emilie isn’t even able to feel her own heartbeat, never mind registering the expanding and collapsing of her lungs with every breath. When left alone and with nothing to catch her eye, Emilie could easily fool herself into thinking she’s some kind of undead or a ghost haunting the manor’s halls with twisted, quickly-fading memories."

Just to be clear here, Emilie suffers from deep depression. She feels isolated and alone, depending on the very few people who are perceptive enough to see even a tiny bit under her many masks, and she gets extremely attached very quickly. She isn't unable to love, since she (at the timeframe of the fic) has started to fall for Nathalie despite actively trying to manipulate her, but it's an extremely difficult mental situation to even begin dealing with. Emilie has hyperfocused on her family, and especially Adrien, her son. She isn't possessive and does genuinely love him, but there are obvious complications with their relationship. I'll get to that in a bit, but let's backtrack to her childhood one last time.

Emilie has absolutely no moral qualms with murder. Wow, that is a special combination of sentences right there! But in all seriousness, she thinks in a purely black-and-white kind of way. Emilie's #1 priority are her people, and for them she would burn the world to cinders. If anybody even looks at Amelie wrong, they will be wiped off the map for no reason other than the fact that this person was percieved as a danger. Emilie is that level of extreme in her protective streak. To give a few examples related to her sister, right after that flashback between the two of them, Emily recalls finding out that a slightly older girl was bullying her sister at school. And in a move that would make Ashley Graves proud, she straight up murders that child. No hesitation, no grievances, no regret. That girl was a threat to Amelie, and got swiftly eliminated. No questions asked, even at the grand-old age of 11.

Furthermore, Colt Fathom is straight-up dead in this Au. Emilie killed him when she came to visit her sister and nephew, staging a company emergency and sabotaging both his car engine and breaks, just to make sure. Can't take any chances with Colt of all people. Again, another threat to her sister eliminated, with Amelie's (implied) knowledge and support. The only reason she didn't kill him before the wedding is because Amelie personally convinced Emilie that she was willing to take on the burden for their family's sake. And also to use Colt's connections behind his back. Who doesn't love a good scheme?

Now...Gabriel and Nathalie never realized who exactly they were dealing with. It's worth mentioning here that Nathalie was actually Emilie's college roomate, and Gabriel was studying in the same university. Little detail, but I wanted to add it because Emilie canonically went to France to further her education. And Amelie got to work making friends in high places while Colt was busy in the 'murican bars downtown or something. Listen, all my homies hate Colt Fathom, and all you need to know is that the police didn't find enough of him to put in a casket. Anyway, Nathalie was studying business and finance, Emilie and Gabriel studied creative arts, and they met during their college years. The thing is, Emilie did love Gabriel. Only...not exactly the way he loved her. Quote again:

"Ever since she’d met him, Gabriel had been downright lovely. Polite, bookish, and a little nerdy, but with a creative spark powerful enough to bring forth an inferno of passion for his work. And he was also very loyal, most of all to the pretty popular girl who’d taken an interest in him and decided to befriend him in their first few days of college. Gabriel Agreste had turned out to be far more than just an interesting critter, and he was admittedly one of the extremely few people in this world Emilie had ever felt for, even if she was not fully able to reciprocate his feelings. Well…not in the way that Gabriel wanted, at least. Of course she loved him, hence why she obviously married him later on in life, but the man was…more of a cute, adorable puppy than a husband. If she were to put it crudely, Gabriel was far too easy when it came to matters of the heart."

Yeah...poor guy didn't notice the Yandere even after he married her. Also, another detail is that the reason why Emilie even took interest in Gabriel is because he saw through almost all her masks, believe it or not. Aside from the rampant psychopathy and slightly murderous tendencies, Emilie Graham De Vanily was an open book to him. Oh well, sometimes she ends up being crazy! What can you do? But anyway, worth mentioning that this Gabriel is far closer to his Reverse!Gabriel counterpart in terms of personality, and never acts in the callous, cold way we see in canon. Granted, we don't see what he was like before Emilie's canonical demise, but I don't like leaving room for implications on this matter. So you get your Good Parent Gabriel Agreste tag and you'll like it too!

As for Nathalie...there's an entire four and half posts' worth of ranting to do, so I'll just leave you with what the fic already has for now. Suffice it to say, she's very much into Emilie but knows she shouldn't be. I'm sure that with Empress trying to emotionally manipulate her into keeping the basement fridge life support pod thing a secret, that's going to go very well! Especially when the villainess herself is accidentally falling in love with Mayura! The Eminath is extremely strong with this one...

But anyway, about Adrien! Considering that even in canon, Emilie still wore his Amok-ring inside her sleeping pod, it's obvious that this Emilie will be wearing it too, right? Absolutely! And guess what? Thanks to a little help from an Akumatized Nathalie (prior to Origins in this Au), she magically enchanted the ring to make it literally impossible to unwillingly remove from her finger for as long as she's alive. Control issues, much? Seriously though, she does love Adrien very deeply, and does her best to be a mother. Emilie knows that he loves her back, and absorbs that love the same way a starved wolf devours fresh meat. She isn't oppressive and does her best to give him certain freedoms...but Adrien also never went to school in this Au. In her defense, she'd have little issue with it normally, but Emilie also wants to start her supervillainess career on the same year...and the thought of Adrien being caught in the crossfire genuinely terrifies her. Plus, in canon he does get involved in several Akuma attacks because of Gabriel, so... He still manages to get out of the house long enough to bump into Fu, hence Chat Noir, but doesn't ever meet Marinette and co. Not even for the Gum Incident.

In that case...hello Marichat! But again, that's for another Games of Innocence post. Today we focus on our resident Yandere! Believe me, it will become extremely evident why I call Emilie that once I post about her relationship with Nathalie/Mayura. Just trust me on this one. Back to Adrien, his dearly beloved mother is very much that. Beloved. But he is slowly starting to understand that something might be wrong with his home life, and tries to talk to Emilie about it.

This, I think, is an excellent time to talk about the color-coding in this Au. In a lot of my works I incorporate color theory and those meanings into stuff like aura colors, presences, Luka Vision™ (listen my hc is he has Synesthesia), etc. Obviously Adrien is supposed to be a vibrant green. Fresh start, new life, we've heard this all before. And Emilie...as Empress, she is a dark purple, because she's embracing her mystic side, and going absolutely wild with any and all magic shenanigans involving the Miraculous. But like I said above...in those moments where she's alone, not clinging to Adrien's side, or talking to Nathalie, or spending time with Nooroo...she's a dull, dead grey. The same tone that's haunted her since childhood. As a side note, Emilie doesn't abuse her Kwami. Nooroo actually thinks they could be good friends. You know, if she'd drop the quest for ultimate power and all.

Speaking of that, as far as Nathalie knows, this is all for the sake of bringing Gabriel back to life. Which...is true, yes. He's Adrien's father and Emilie did marry him, even if as "just a friend". She did actually have feelings for him by the way, just supressed them to avoid hurting herself when she realized he wasn't seeing her psycho side and then convinced herself that said emotions were better off locked up in the back of her mind. Never again...until Nathalie. But anyway! Emilie's main goal is Unlimited Power!!! Why? Shits and giggles, of course! She can do it, it's really fun to play this game with Ladybug and Chat Noir, and Akumatizing people just feels so intimate!

Do not get me wrong here! The reason why Emilie is obsessed with Akumatizations is because she loves going into people's heads and manipulating them! It's not weird, just the only coping mechanism she had in her entire childhood! Bless Amelie for giving her at least that... But yeah, Emilie basically treats the whole Akuma Shenanigans™ is her personal reality tv show, coupled with as much drama and action as anyone could ask for! And she gets to control the narrative! Plus, there's times where Emilie lets the Akuma do their thing just to see what might happen. Evillustrator is a prime example here, but that's part of the Marichat post so I won't get into it here.

Okay, okay. This rant is getting way too long. TL;DR: Emilie Agreste is kinda insane but still a better parent that canon Gabriel! I am currently working on the finale for this fic, because the ending is the best part and I want to share it with you all! In the meantime, feel free to send me as many asks abt this Au as you want! I'll be more than happy to have an excuse for more ranting! Anyway, I'll be seeing you all soon, but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

[variousqueerthings]

@autistic-puffin Alright, one episode left of season 1 [insert screaming]

So, some of my favourite things about nine:

the way they're clearly relearning how to interact with any kind of person, only really good at conversation at the beginning if there's danger

doctor internal monologue: "what would be the best thing to show rose - a woman I've just met - to make her think I'm so cool? I know, I'll show her her planet exploding!"

the fact that they're really so fragile and learning to be again and scared of rose leaving them on the one hand, but on the other is so scared of getting too close (the "domestics") and opening up for fear of what will happen (and what happens... well, we know...)

but also will have a whole trauma response the second time they ever met ("we're falling through time, you and me, and if we let go...")

in retrospect with the war doctor, the way they interact with the dalek in the last sequence of that first episode almost feels like they can't access those memories, like there's that "version" of them locked in some part that could have been re-released if not for rose, but what's left is these half-spoken sentences that just trail off and into "oh rose. they're all dead." and that sense is there anyway, but as a metaphor with the later war doctor reveal, that performance hurts all the more

the way they smile when they say "fantastic" is like a new person being revealed

nine knew from early on in the episode "father's day" that the way to save everyone was for rose's dad to sacrifice himself, and never even had it as a consideration, never mentioned it to anyone, even said they had no idea what to do (until the tardis key), even though that was an option

"It's brilliant! I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."

(in reference to wwii) "Beat the Germans, save the world - don't forget the welfare state!"

this is reading into it, because I fully didn't realise all those dancing references in empty child/doctor dances were meant to be sexual (the bits about jack, sure, but all of them? and it doesn't even make sense, anyway) point being, I always read it as a way of showing the doctor coming back into themself, learning to hope and have fun and not always worry about the other shoe dropping. joie de vivre as it were. so I love the bit at the end where nine says they can dance and I will continue to read it as I always have done

nine's very direct way of inspiring people and seeing people once they've started coming out of their shell -- the way they talk to the bride-and-groom-to-be in father's day, to cathica in the long game, to jabe, to gwenyth, to harriet jones, to nancy, to lynda with a y (also so often it's women in RTD's stories). the journey nine goes on is so vast, from rebuffing rose several times in the first episode and thinking the worst of people, to remembering why people are amazing and inspiring better versions of them

I'm always somehow just. sad. and touched. by the way nine talks about the pig that was experimented on and then shot. they were so upset by the callousness of it. nine cares about peoples names as well. they're consciously making a point of life and death mattering

by contrast the conversation with blon in "boom town" about being a killer. nine is doing better, consciously. nine has seen violence on a massive scale and is choosing not to perpetuate that and is learning (also in contrast to "dalek")

by the time "lynda with a y" came into the picture it was like they were ready for a whole family -- rose, jack, the more the merrier

and coming up I know in the last episode: "Coward or killer?" "Coward." and "you were fantastic, you know that. absolutely fantastic. and you know what? so was I."

generally nine was so imbued with a sense of vulnerability that's begging to be seen and coming from being so raw and hurt and closed to the beauty of living because of the violence they've experienced, and then relearning it and re-embracing the classic ethos of dw, as well as that fair play for all idealism that feels quite inspired in some ways by eccleston's own socialism and rtd's ideals (did enjoy the "no third term for thatcher" socialist signposts to indicate the 80s, I feel like we need to bring that energy back into dw again)

[prismatoxic]

yo gimme 11 and 12 for the ask game for chilaios :3

11. What's your favourite piece of fanart for [ship]?

UHHHHHH

god. good question. ummm

there's several that i think have earned that distinction... i'll start with the very first chilaios fanart i ever saw:

nick and i had never so much as interacted before when i saw this, but like... i took one look and went ah, shit. that's My Kind Of Ship. and eventually this led to me getting into dunmeshi. (yeah, i keep telling this story--here's the art it's about!!) of course we went on to not interact beyond me resharing every chilaios it posted for a while, but we're mutuals now so!!! the chilaios cycle continues

past that, it probably goes without saying that every fanart i've ever gotten for my fic is my favorite. so i won't be including those. but here's a few that rattle around in my skull very often (you will have to click through to properly see them, sorry):

sorry for how long this list got. go reblog those

12. What's the funniest or craziest AU idea you've ever come up with?

does imposter syndrome count

or perhaps the one i want to write where chilchuck from the past shows up and they have a threesome?

sorry i don't think most of my AU ideas are that wild 😔

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

ymmv obviously this is just a take and half hc but i have to think abt how the wol fights or more specifically, who they fight with.

it always seems to transpire that for one reason or another, the wol fights a lot of their battles alone (in terms of npcs, obviously. you have other players but they're nebulously extant ingame). arr is a whole "throw the wol at the problem"-fest, it kind of doesn't even start to occur to people that "hey maybe sending them to fight this big bad alone isn't always a great idea" until like, stormblood. but even then, the scions and any other allies that are around are very often outright prevented from helping you for one reason or another.

frequently you're fighting a battle on multiple fronts, and there's no real option for them except to focus on their own fight and put their faith in the wol elsewhere. or they get taken away or left behind while you press on. then there's the fact that you're frequently fighting primals, which the majority of characters literally can't help you with for most of the game without jeopardizing their sanity. like, you have other people in the room with you when you fight a primal once, and it's actually a huge problem bc you and arenvald can't really focus on fighting when you're running back and forth trying to shield people from tempering. combined with the limited pool of people who are even on level with a primal in combat to start with, people who can actually assist you with those fights are few and far between.

but even beyond the material reasons! if there's a "canon" wol they're obviously someone who's almost comically obedient, but they do silently exercise agency on occasion... and it is almost exclusively to pick fights, usually alone. like, fucking zodiark. you get sent up to the moon, expecting to maybe fight, like, zenos, fandaniel, nope! the big guy himself. and the wol makes the active decision to not even phone home and say "hey, just so you know, i'm fighting the father of all primals, idk if there's time for you to get up here but. just so you're aware. just in case i cannot kill zodiark by my fucking self. that's what's going on on the moon right now." nah you just jump in there, no need to bother your friends, they're busy, you can take care of this one.

and then this obviously comes to a blatant head in ultima thule, where your friends all but say "we're prepared to sacrifice ourselves along with you if it means the world is safe" and the wol literally denies them that right. they pull the scions back from death and then send them away, and remain behind alone, fully aware they were facing a probably-unwinnable fight. (and i have a whole other fucking essay about the narrative ramifications of zenos' arrival in this context and others but. another time. this post is too long anyway) my point being that's one of the most blatant moments of pc agency and it's to remove others from a battle and stay behind alone.

idk i think a canon wol trait is a fixation on their own sacrifice, a desire to put themself in harm's way because otherwise someone else might do it and that's intolerable. and the narrative often conspires to validate them on this. and it's. interesting? i'm rotating it.