#but do you really have to be that condescending about it all

[woso-dreamzzz]

Outburst IV

Leah Williamson x Child!Reader

Summary: You go on a podcast

"And you know, as well as being a footballer and playing with Less and Tooney, you're also a mother to a little girl."

Any mention of you makes Leah smile and she glances off camera to where you're sitting with a crayon and a sheet of paper.

"Yeah," She says, that same dopey smile on her face as she tears her gaze away from you," She's four."

"And she's here today."

"Yeah, I almost didn't bring her because we're recording this so early but my mum had to cancel so she's just behind the camera. I think she's-"

"I'm drawin', Mum!" You call out and Leah grins.

"Are you, bug?"

"Uh-huh! Is it my turn yet?"

Leah glances at Vick Hope. "She loves a microphone. I may have promised her a turn on one of the mics in return for waking up so early today."

"Oh, yeah," Tooney says," We've got to have Bug on here."

"If you're okay with that?" Vick checks.

"Yeah. Honestly, I thought she would have interrupted more. She's very excited. Lovebug, do you want to come over here and you can have your turn?"

You're up like a shot, practically tripping over yourself to get to Leah.

The others have to hold in a coo as you come into view.

You'd arrived today in a big puffy coat and was immediately set up behind the camera, blocked by all the staff and the equipment.

Now they can see you clearly, in a pair of old Arsenal kit shorts but a white t-shirt instead of a jersey, black cardigan and a silly black hat just like Leah's, looking every bit her mini apart from the old Jordan shorts you're wearing.

"Alright." Leah lifts you up onto her lap and lowers her mic so it's more your size. "You happy now?"

You frown. "It's not like Auntie Alex's mic."

"Auntie Alex?" The strange woman that's not Less or Tooney asks.

"My auntie Alex always lets me use her mic at games because I have important things to say and mics help people hear me!"

"Alex Scott," Leah puts in, bouncing you on her lap slightly," Bug really loves her."

"Almost as much as I love Mummy!" You turn to look at the strange woman again. "My Mummy plays for Villa in Berm-ham."

"Birmingham," Leah interrupts again and you tilt your head back to look at her, patting her cheek.

"It's my turn now, mum," You tell her," You have to wait your turn to speak again."

Tooney sputters slightly and Alessia has to bite her lip to stop the laughter threatening to come out at Leah's affronted face as you land another condescending pat on her cheek.

"Mummy plays in Berm-ham," You say again," So I see her every other week. She plays for Villa but I like Arsenal more." You puff out your chest. "When I'm older, I'm gonna play for Arsenal."

"Bug already trains with us," Alessia says and you let her talk because she doesn't have to wait her turn because she doesn't share her microphone like you and Leah do," She's very good."

"And I go on camp! Sarina calls me up every time because I'm so good!"

"You must be," The strange but nice lady says," Because you've got two mummies who play football and you must work super hard."

"I do," You say, bobbing your head up and down," Mummy says one day I'm going to be scoring every game because I'm that good."

"We're very proud of our Bug," Leah says and you only let her have a little turn because she's being nice," She always does her very best."

"Enough for a puppy?"

Leah's face drops. "You've got Blu at Jordan's," She reminds you and you perk up suddenly, turning back to your new microphone again.

"Blu's my birthday buddy!" You announce gleefully," We're the same age! And we share a birthday!"

"Wow, that sounds really cool. You must really love your dog."

"I do! I do!"

"Do you miss him when you're on camp?"

You think for a moment. You've never really thought about if you miss Blu on camp before.

Camp is fun because you're got the other girls and auntie Keira and auntie Lucy and Mum and Bear. You've never really stopped to think about Blu when there's already so much to do at camp.

You shake your head. "I miss Bear more."

"Bear's Keira and Lucy's kid," Leah explains," They're best friends but they don't see each other too often because she lives in Barcelona."

"Bear's kind of funny," Tooney says," She's always nappin'."

"Don't be mean!" You snap suddenly, leaning all the way over to smack Tooney on the arm.

"Bug!" Leah groans," We've talk about using our nice hands. We don't hit."

You huff, sitting more firmly on Leah's lap again and crossing your arms over your chest. "No being mean about Bear! She naps because she's tired! Mum says napping is good, right?"

"That is right, Bug. I do say that."

You nod, turning back to the strange but nice lady. "Bear is my best friend and I love her."

Leah grins down at you, adjusting your hat slightly.

"Keira and I aren't huggers but those two certainly are. Always having a little cuddle those two are."

You frown, a little furrow in your brow. "But you are a hugger, Mum. You always give me cuddles."

"Well, yeah, Bug but I was talking-"

"You don't like my cuddles?"

"No, Bug that's not what I'm saying. I just meant-"

Your bottom lips wobbles and you move to slip off Leah's lap. "I'm sorry, mum. I won't have cuddles anymore if it makes you feel better. No more Bug Hugs. Promise!"

"No, Bug," Leah says firmly, pulling you closer into her body, arms curling around your body," I love Bug Hugs. I always want Bug Hugs from you."

[sencrose]

— READING BETWEEN THE LINES

pairing: suguru geto x f!reader

tags: dc, noncon, fingering, forced orgasm, pwp, use of pet names (sweetheart), suguru being condescending lol

wc: 1.4k

summary: Breaking up with Suguru doesn't go as well as you had hoped.

a/n: idk what possessed me ngl! writing warmup that got out of hand ig lol. dividers by @/adornedwithlight! ao3 link here.

This is always the worst part, the anticipation of the unknown. You dragged Suguru into a private corner of the monastery, stating that you needed to talk to him about something important. Part of you hopes he won’t notice that something is clouding your mind, but another part of you knows how perceptive he can be – of shifting eyes, a nervous shake of the leg. Anything he sees can be interpreted and used against you. It’s just too much for you, to constantly live under his judgment and surveillance.

Once inside the room, you ask Suguru to sit down in an armchair in the corner, because when he’s at a lower height you can convince yourself he’s not nearly as intimidating as he actually is. He almost looks normal when you look down at him. But then his amber eyes catch yours, and you feel like a deer in headlights.

Breath, hold, let it out slowly.

“I think we should see other people,” you say, nearly hushed.

Suguru takes a moment to pause, before looking up at you with a smile. It’s not the reaction you wanted.

“You think?” he asks, a teasing lilt to his voice, “you wouldn’t do all of this to tell me you’re thinking of doing something.”

He’s right; you don’t like that. It only makes you uneasier, inhale shakily and exhale just as unstable.

“We should see other people,” you sigh, a knot tightening in your chest. You can’t bring yourself to look at him, opting to stare down at the ornate patterns on the carpet, anywhere but him.

“Where’s your spirit?” he asks, pouting and high-pitched, as if he’s talking down to a child, “you sound horribly unconvincing.”

You were foolish to ever think you would have an advantage against Suguru in a war of words. He’s always a few steps ahead of you, quick to retort any thought that takes days for you to mold and craft. Still, you do your best. This would be the last time anyways.

“W-we should see other people,” you repeat, attempting to sound resolute only for your voice to betray you, wavering like a tree branch in a windstorm.

“We both see plenty of people here,” he says, leaning back into the chair to sink into the fabric, his posture even more relaxed than before, “I don’t see why you dragged me in here to say this.”

For the first time, frustration overwhelms your nerves, swirls in your chest and manifests into something loud and impulsive.

“Suguru, I’m breaking up with you,” you blurt out. 

An uneasy silence permeates through the room, and you feel the need to smother it. Unfortunately, any semblance of a coherent thought, much less a sentence, eludes you.

“Tell me what you really want.” Suguru says, the first to break it. You start to think the silence was better.

“I am.”

“No, you aren’t. I know you aren’t,” he says so matter-of-factly you’re close to believing him, “say it again.” Suguru shifts in the seat until he’s leaning forward, hands intertwined and planted in his lap.

“N-No, you’re just messing with me,” you say, backing away from him.

“That should be my line,” he sighs, standing from his seat. He takes a step towards you and your heart trembles. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I just-”

“Nothing’s wrong but you want to break up?” he interrupts, crossing his arms as he glares at you.

“No, I mean-” you fumble your words, unsure how to mitigate the situation. Suguru takes another step towards you, and you take another one back.

“Mean what?” The corners of his lips upturn, and you both know he has you cornered.

You stand there, finally at a loss for words. Even if you were able to articulate your thoughts, you know that Suguru would twist them in his favor. 

“See? You don’t even know what you want,” he says, condescension dripping from his words before he softens his tone into something gentler. The way you would speak to a wounded animal. “But it’s okay, because I do.”

Suguru takes the opportunity to close the distance, taking your hand into his and pulling you into a kiss. His lips crash into yours and you writhe under his touch, desperately pushing him away. But all you get is an arm latched around your waist, the sensation of your bodies pressed together in a suffocating heat. His lips finally part from yours, and you rush to turn your face away from his.

“Suguru, please stop,” you whimper.

“Why? You’ll just lie again,” he answers, his hand reaching for your chin to turn you towards him, “don’t you know how much that hurts me?” he asks, voice too sweet to be genuine.

You do your best to keep your eyes away from him, the only form of protest you can afford right now. He’s unphased by it, releasing his grip on your chin to lift the hem of your skirt and trace the undeniable wet spot on your underwear.

“And it seems like your body is more honest than your words,” he whispers dangerously low in your ear, as if it’s a dirty secret he had the privilege of uncovering. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction but you don’t have much of a choice. 

He pulls your underwear down, lets it fall unceremoniously onto the floor. Before long, his fingers find your clit and you wince at the contact. You bite down on your lips when he starts drawing lazy circles, not wanting to give him any more ammunition to use against you. 

“You don’t actually want to leave, do you?” he whispers sweetly, and it makes your breath catch for all the wrong reasons. His fingers slowly but surely pick up the pace, and it gets harder to choke back your moans. You attempt to maneuver yourself away from his touch, but that only makes him press himself harder against you, tightening his grip against your waist. 

“You’re just misbehaving because I haven’t given you enough attention, right? Then I’ll give you all the attention you want.”

“Suguru, please, I don’t want this,” you cry, and it’s nowhere close to convincing, too high-pitched and whiny.

“We’ve got to work on your communication skills, sweetheart. They’re a hallmark of a good relationship, you know. And I only want the best with you,” he coos, almost songlike. His fingers build up to a steady pace and you feel your muscles involuntarily tighten, prepare yourself for the climax to come. 

“We can even try it now. Tell me, how does this feel?” He slips a finger in and you writhe under his grip.

“Suguru, stop!” you squeal, tears forming in your eyes, making the colors of the room blend and blur together. 

“Don’t think that’s the right answer,” he says in that patronizing tone again, and you can hear the pout in his voice. As punishment he slips in another finger, and within moments he’s bullying the spot that has you crying from pleasure like he’s done so many times before. Your fingers grip around his arm, nails digging into his skin and leaving crescent indents in his skin, but Suguru is nothing if not determined.

“I just don’t see why you’d want to leave when I do all of this for you.” The arm around your waist finally releases, only for his other hand to trace the curves of your body until it reaches your clit. He starts building the pressure again, slow circles to contrast against the rapid pace of his fingers.

Your breathing destabilizes as your muscles tense up again against your will. You know you’re getting close, which means Suguru knows as well. 

“Let it all out for me, sweetheart,” And you do, body shivering and walls clamping around his finger like a vice. The rush of heat and pleasure running through you is too much, and you fall back onto old habits, closing your eyes and moaning his name like a mantra as he guides you through your climax. Suguru only pulls himself out of you once your breathing stabilizes, when you finally come out of your postorgasmic daze and the tears start running down your cheeks.

He gently holds your face, rubbing the tears with his thumb before laying a soft kiss on your cheek.

“If this is what you wanted, you should’ve told me. Spare me the theatrics next time, okay?”

[everyonewooeverywhere]

Hard hours are open and I'm ready!!

Size training with yunho and how it takes a few times for you to adjust to his thick cock whilst he's fucking you.

He'd be so gentle and so fucking proud at the same time.

heyyyyy so i know this ask is over a month old....but i got really obsessed with it all of the sudden 😭

and this ended up a lot longer than i meant for it to...

but anyway-

size training and yunho just go together so well. it’s like a match made in heaven.

because he takes so much pride in it. pride in the training that is. (though he is also incredibly proud of how massive he is and how much prep it usually requires for someone to take him…🙂‍↕️)

and i just can’t help but feel like he’d enjoy size training as foreplay. like of course he wants to make sure you’re comfortable and safe, but FUCK if he doesn’t love how you beg for him to fuck you probably.

i get the feeling that he’d take at least a couple…sessions…before actually having you try to take his whole length. 

he’s a patient man. and you know how big he is. you can feel it every time you sit on his lap while you watch a movie. you’ve had your fair share of tired nights when you’ve jerked him off in his pants while he plays with you through your underwear. 

but when you first got together, he let you know immediately that you might not be able to take him. especially not right away. and you were so horny out of your mind about this man that you had begged him to at least try. your desire had almost brought you to tears. but he stood his ground. cupping your face and kissing your forehead telling you that “you just need a little training, baby” and promising “i won’t leave your pretty pussy empty for long”

that first night is so important to him. he wants you to understand that he can make you feel good even without his dick inside you. his hands will 100% do the trick. they do it for him, too, to be honest. watching his fingers disappear inside you is almost enough to make him cum in his pants. and watching how your eyelids flutter when he adds a third finger.

he’ll use toys too to build you up to it. whether they’re your own or his, he loves to watch you go a little crazy every time it gets bigger and he loves to hear your gasps every time. toys aren’t his favorite though because it’s less skin on skin contact. if he could, he’d just use his fingers, but he understands the importance of buildup.

when you both finally decide that you’re ready to try and take him, he makes sure everything is perfect. he makes sure the sheets are fresh, the room is cool, and that no one even has the possibility of disturbing the two of you for the foreseeable future. and he sets the expectation that it might not happen tonight. but you’re determined.

he always starts in missionary. it’s easier for him to control that way, and he finds that’s usually where his partner is usually the most comfortable the first time. maybe he’ll even put a pillow under your lower back and make sure you’re as comfortable as possible. and he absolutely has lube on standby if it’s needed. he’s a big hand holder too, so he’ll grab your hand against your stomach and caress your knuckles as he lines himself up with your entrance. “we’ll start with just the tip, ok baby?” 

and he’ll push into you ever so slightly. the stretch is still a lot to take, so he’s so fucking gentle, he’s constantly reminding you to “breathe, baby” and he makes sure to ask you every time if you’re ok to go further. and he lets you gasp out your “yes” before trying to fit in another inch. he keeps the reassurance coming even if he can’t help himself from crossing the line into condescending

“good girl, taking my cock so well” “oh you fit me so perfectly, angel” “do you feel good, baby?” “yeah?” “oh you can’t even think straight anymore can you?”

when he’s about half an inch from bottoming out, you grab his hand, squeezing hard, “yunho…” you choke out. “are you ok, angel? what’s wrong?” you shake your head “no i…fuck…i can’t…i’m so close” and he feels you tighten around him at the admission. “fuck ok. hold on baby.” he presses his body up against yours and brings his lips to your ear, “we’re almost there, ok? just hold out for a couple more seconds” all you can do is just whimper and nod as he pushes himself in the last few centimeters.

“oh fuckkk baby” he brings a hand to your clit “you’re gonna cum” mhmm you nod frantically, burying your nails in his back 

“you’re so big” you barely gasp out. “i know. i know, baby.” he kisses your cheeks and lips as he plays with your clit. “can you come for me? please? come on my cock?” that’s all it takes for your warm walls to tighten around him and he holds you to his chest while you come. 

and part of me all of me feels like, as long as you’re okay with it, that yunho would want cockwarming to be heavily involved in the early stages of his aftercare. like he’ll flip you over so you’re seated in his lap. and he’ll stay inside you while he kisses your neck and shoulders. and making sure you get plenty of vocal affirmation “you did so good for me baby” “i’m so proud of you, pretty” “my good girl, you did so well” eventually, when he notices your discomfort at the constant stretch, he’ll pull you off of him and clean you properly. but at least for a little while he wants you to have a…physical reminder…of how good you did.

[colorful-bees]

One of the many parts of N's character that makes me a little unwell is the infantilization of him done by Ghetsis. I think about it so often.

N is twenty years old at the time of Black and White and he still uses his childhood bedroom; we know he still uses it in recent times because when interacting with the train set inside during the final stretch of the game, the flavor text say the trains look recently played with. There is no doubt that this is the room that adult N stays and lives in.

The first thing that really sticks out to you is that N is an adult and his room is clearly not fit for one. The second thing you might notice is that it doesn't really look like a bedroom, it looks like a playroom. You get a sense of discomfort from the room and that's partially due to knowing who it belongs to but I also think it has to do with the fact that it doesn't even look like a bedroom; it doesn't look suitable for a child to necessarily live in.

N's room ties back into the themes of "innocence" surrounding N; children and childhood often represent purity and innocence, things N is expected to be. It's like he's expected to remain in this state of childishness as a way of him "staying" pure.

And it's not only within the environment that N lives in that you see this, it's with Ghetsis' dialogue towards N as well. There are a few instances where Ghetsis refers to N when he's not around; saying he once "set up a certain man as king" but when he's talking to N after he loses at the end of Black and White? He's belittling him and only calls him "boy". He's being condescending, he's telling N exactly how he feels about him and while berating him, that's the choice of words he uses.

Ghetsis doesn't see N as a human being and he also doesn't see him as an adult. It draws to mind the kinds of adults who view children as lesser than, people who don't have thoughts or autonomy of their own. And at the end of the day, it all ties back into Ghetsis' manipulation of N. He needs him to remain naive and unquestioning; he wants him to be that same child he found in the forest. It doesn't do him any good if N is a free thinking adult. It's just easier to force him into the role of a stupid, malleable child instead. An adult gets to have their own thoughts and feelings, gets to be their own person and those are privileges N isn't afforded.

It fits in perfectly with all of N's themes of inhumanity and lack of autonomy. No one ever sees him as simply a person. He'll always be a stupid child, a glorious leader, a freak without a human heart, a traitor and people are always telling him what he needs to be or what he already is. Ghetsis refuses to let N be fully human, to have full autonomy over himself whether that's treating him like an inhuman freak or a stupid child who doesn't know any better; he'll never be a whole human being.

[delusion-mostly]

Regina George x Reader

Part 2/32

Warnings: suggestive flirting, reader gets injured, lots of cussing, mention of pain medication

Word count: approx. 1,805

The next day you see Regina at her lunch table. Even after last year she still sits with Cady, Karen, and Gretchen. She waves you over.

"What the fuck did I say about talking to me George? Especially after last nights words I REALLY am not interested in speaking with you." You whisper-yell at her.

"You didn't add me to that stupid group, I have no clue when things happen. Missed that detail didn't you sweetie." She gives you a condescending smile.

"Hm, call me sweetie one more damn time and your ass will be facedown in the ice. Got it George? When it comes to my sport you respect me or get the fuck out," you send a link to the group chat to her as you rant, and finally look up at her, "you know I was willing to be nice, and potentially be acquaintances this season, but after what you said? I was trying to help you and you had to be a bitch. Same old Regina."

You walk to your table with your teammates, Kendall and Mac, and slam your tray down. You don't know why, well, you do; but Regina filled you with a red hot hate. Worse than any other person you have ever met. Worse than the girls who took your state championship away from you, worse than your exes, worse than your bullies. Regina made you burn with anger, but damn did she look good with that condescending smile on her face.

She walks by your table, picking you up by the arm and drags you with her as she walks out of the room. You don't want to make a scene, so you don't fight it and instead walk next to her; besides, Regina on your arm made girls look at you. She pulls you into the nearest empty classroom and you yank yourself out of her arm.

"What the actual fuck." You swipe your letterman down.

"Y/N. I'm sorry. Okay? I lashed out. My back hurt, it was raining, I didn't like the way you treated me at practice. I have a lot on my plate. i didn't mean to yell at you," she sighs, you aren't convinced, "You were trying to be nice, I understand. I shouldn't have gotten so angry. I really am sorry."

"Oh it's never your fault, is it? The burn book was Cady's. Total bullshit by the way," you put your hands in the warm pockets of your wool letterman and pace, "and you lashing out was all your stress, and your pain, and I guess me?" You sarcastically laugh and throw your hands up, dragging the sides of your jacket up with you.

"Oh my god. No. I admit it. The burn book? Me. Me lashing out? Well, I should have kept that inside. I really didn't mean to. And I know why you were so mean, it's because I was mean first."

"Right on the money, Miss George. Now tell me, did we learn how to properly apologize in elementary school? Or do I need to teach you how to lace up skates AND apologize."

You sit on the teacher's desk, it squeaks under your weight. Regina turns bright red and looks like shes about to cry, she tilts her head down and fidgets with her sleeve. A tear streaks down her face, mascara rolling with it, and she swipes at it with her blue sleeve, leaving the spot a muddy blackish grey.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. For practically calling you a slut, saying you couldn't score points, AND for lashing out. I don't actually have that big of a problem with your sexuality." She gets out.

"Thank you. And I figured you didn't, it's just the first thing you notice to pick on me about. I'm not ready to accept your apology yet, or talk to you. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn to get along," the bell rings and you open the door to leave, "peace out George."

———

That night at practice Regina walks in almost the same time as you. You try to be civil by holding the door open, and she gives you a small smile as she walks through. You still hate her, but she has a nice smile. You walk down the steps leading into the locker room. You quickly change into your practice jersey, pants, and skates after putting on your gear, and you head on to the ice.

"Listen up ladies. We still have 2 months until our first game, but I am putting us on this ice early. Short practices for now, but it gives us more time to enhance our skills since we are playing the fall and spring season," you spoke, and the girls cheered, "so like yesterday, drills until 4:30 then everyone can go. Everyone knows Regina, she's our new manager. Leave your messes for her." You joke, and everyone starts skating laps.

For an hour you trade off teammates. 2/3 of the team will use half of the arena to skate down and backs, the left over 1/3 practices making shots while swapping out goalies. The clock lets out a loud buzz as it did last time, and everyone shoots their final shot and exits to the locker room, except you. You stay and keep skating around the pucks.

Regina laces her skates up and grabs the net that the pucks go in, then skates around the ice with the goal, collecting them all and stuffing them in. She leaves 5 pucks for you to keep shooting with. The click of the puck against the ice and walls as it bounces into the net made your brain happy, especially as Regina left you alone to go put away the others.

Regina suddenly hears a loud scream as she sets the puck bag into its spot and quickly hurries onto the ice to see you gripping your ankle tightly with your helmet thrown on the ground.

"Damnit I slid." You shout, ripping off your gloves and throwing them.

"What happened!?" Regina kneels beside you, concern laced in her voice.

"I was grabbing the net to collect the pucks, one wrong move and my skate got caught in the..." you started to yell, "damn net!"

"Where are your keys." Regina asked seriously.

"What do you mean 'where are my keys'? In my bag, why do you need my keys?" She begins to walk to the locker room, "Regina George, I may not like you but you better not leave me here!"

She rushes back up the steps, keys in hand, "I'm pulling your car up. You can't walk on this, let alone drive." And she exits

You set your head back on the ice, pain shooting through your leg. Maybe she really felt bad for what she had said, maybe this was her way of truly apologizing? Or had she actually changed and wanted to be helpful.

She rushes back in and helps you up to pull you off of the ice, you limp while putting most of your weight onto the blonde girl beside you. She puts you on a bench in the locker room, unlacing your skates and setting them in your locker. She reaches to pull down your pants.

"Woah! George this isn't what I thought you meant when you said you didn't have a big deal with my sexuality! Not the time!" You stop her.

"Don't flatter yourself captain. This is to get you into something more comfortable, and so you can fit in your own car. I don't have to but it would sure be easier." She looks at you sternly as you begrudgingly nod.

She pulls off the gaurds you have over your shins and then starts pulling off your pants, you look away and try to help as the awkwardness is unbearable. She opens up your locker and pulls out the grey sweats you had tucked away. She does the same with your jersey and a black tank top you had.

"I very easily could have gotten the jersey myself, George. Someone being nice today?" You playfully punch her arm.

"Don't be weird Y/N. Now get up. I'm taking you home." She helps lift you and wraps your arm around her, assisting you to your car.

She puts you in, gets in on the drivers side, and buckles herself, "where am I going, captain?"

"Where did that name come from?"

"Being captain of the hockey team is like, your one personality trait outside of being a massive player, Y/N." She chuckles.

You direct her to your house, which is nearly 20 minutes from the school. Aside from you telling her where to turn and the occasional groan in pain, the ride is rather quiet. It is incredibly awkward.

She pulls in to your driveway and helps you out, getting you to your front door and knocking. Your mom steps out, concerned, looking down at you holding your foot off of the ground.

"Y/N Y/L/N not again! Goodness. And you make this poor girl drive you home? Come in sweethearts come in!" She opens up the door and Regina guides you as you limp in, setting you on the couch and sitting beside you.

"This one is such a clutz. She did the exact same thing last year you know. Let me guess, skate in a net? We are still getting the prescription from that one! Oh goodness where are my manners," your mom holds out her hand to Regina, "I’m Patricia, but you can call me Pat. Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Oh no ma'am I have to start my walk home, thank you though!" Regina awkwardly declines.

"Oh nonsense! Y/N can't drive right now and I have to pick up her pain medication so why don't you just stay the night! It has been so long since she has had any friends over aside from Kendall." Your mom continues. You hope she shuts up.

"You know, Pat, that sounds wonderful," Regina smiles and looks over at you, her look growing more spiteful, "I will call my mother right now, you have a very safe drive to the pharmacy and I truly thank you for opening your home!" She gets up to call her mom.

Your mom kisses you on the forehead and exits into the garage. You hear the mechanical whir open, then shut. The couch dips beside you.

"Now you have to listen," Regina looks at you, "Can we please talk about my apology?"

You certainly did not want to accept the apology, but you couldn't run away from it now.

Well. Shit.

[puppyeared]

people who do STEM or administration as a career full time and continue to do art as a hobby, I am scared of you but like in a hot way. youre like if we were allowed to have cold drinks in winter. i look at you and think of miles morales with his two cakes. do you want to make out sometime

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[darkshrimpemotions]

Actually the implications of John also being bisexual are so fucking tasty to me because like. OG John has no support system and no protection against the world except his own perceived strength so he learns to ferret out anything that can possibly be seen as weakness to those around him and that includes any affection or attraction he might feel towards men because nothing screams "stay in your fucking closet" like spending all your time around a fringe subculture of serial killing doomsday preppers in the Midwest during the Reagan era.

By the time he notices Dean starting to look a little too long at boys his age, he's probably convinced himself that whatever he felt (still feels but ignores) was a temporary youthful indiscretion, and of course Dean can't afford those, doesn't get to have those, he's got to be a soldier. He's got to be a better soldier than John, even.

I dunno I've just had enough conversations with family members who are loudly but somehow also mildly homophobic and yet say or do things that make me *eyeballs emoji* not to think this is not only possible but arguably likely.

[laniidae-passerine]

see I am very disjointed from a lot of nine/ten fandom discourse because I genuinely believe that in a different world where space boy was not to be seen, had an older Rose gone to the hospital and bumped into a certain Doctor Jones by a vending machine or as she was taking Rose’s vitals, she would have instantly hit it off with Martha. and probably flirted with her a little on accident and then on purpose when Martha flirted back

[coquelicoq]

i have so many strategies and policies for writing work emails. and the thing is i used to think they were all super self-evident, until i started training people who did not do ANY of this and it all had to be explained. i was like, i don't know why clients love me, maybe because i'm adorable? but then i discovered i actually had to tell my coworkers to say "thank you" in emails and was like hmmm. maybe it's because i'm adorable AND i say thank you in emails. further research is needed.

[toytulini]

you know whats more annoying than dems calling vance and trump weird is all the condescending posts justifying it actually. like im a bit annoyed about "weird" being used this way but also like man if it fucking works i guess

but do i have to keep seeing daily posts exhaustively justifying how normie midwesterners use weird different or whatever the fuck man just shut up and call them weird then, stop justifying it to me

[fideidefenswhore]

they really did write an entirely different character for s3, huh?

[llycaons]

not to be anti-intellectual but there are some lit blogs on here that are so far up their own asses that they've completely lost the capability of interacting with people they deem intellectual inferiors in a way that isn't just condescendingly obnoxious. obviously I think literature and critical thinking and the arts are important but if you want to encourage people to engage with challenging themes I just don't think thats a very effective way to act. like idk. would it kill you to treat people online with respect

[itsahotsecondafter]

hdhdhdjd sorry if its feels like im being annoying or condescending. im not!! the "eclipse liking the cello" part was a reference to that one piece you did of solar playing the cello!! not surebif that was clear enough if so my bad sjhddj,,, but that solar piece lives in my head rent free for some reason idk why but i think about it!!! a lot!! no cluebwhy but yippeee!!!!

OH! NO SORRY THAT MAKES SENSE-I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT POST WHEN I READ IT (my brain caught the tone of the thing but I kept thinking it was in reference to a specific piece and not the instrument for some reason-) BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO ASSUME IT WAS ABOUT THAT CUZ YOU MENTIONED ECLIPSE (and I don't wanna assume stuff about people's aus cuz that doesn't usually end well...) BUT THANK YOU FOR THE REFERENCE! AND THE EXPLANATION (i'm chronically stupid sorry)

i kinda wanna redraw that one actually cuz it doesn't look the way i wanted it to-but-uh- thanks! for mentioning me! and for clarifying!

[marklikely]

i like using those "have you seen this movie" polls to pitch my unwatched faves as much as the next guy but its annoying how much of the response to these is like. really condescending at people for not hearing about movies. or saying things like "i hate you all whats wrong with you" etc. like. shut up omg you are embarrassing.