#but it's honestly just bad writing and it bugs me so much. my number 1 pet peeve in fantasy is overexplaining especially when it doesn't fit

[mokeonn]

I think that the 2010's media landscape of Buzzfeed articles about plotholes in disney movies, Cinemasins critiques, and Watchmojo Top Ten scenes in movies that make no sense has truely ruined a lot of media. People are afraid that their work will be torn down if they dare leave a single thing up in the air, if they dare ask their audience to suspend their disbelief.

All too often nowadays I see stories (especially fantasy), take the time to explain how every small aspect of the world works and how it all logically makes sense. The constant time stopped to explain why an event happened, how this object works, or why this is important to the characters. It's just really not needed and it honestly makes a lot of stories worse.

I am of the opinion that the best stories truly just drop you into their world and explain nothing. They just take you through the story of this world and you just have to accept it and continue on. "When he became king, the land became barren." I don't want the story to stop and explain why this is, or how it happened, I want us to move on so we can just assume that the king has such rancid vibes that everything died.

[mochiwrites]

Guess who's back? Back again? Anons back! Tell a friend.

Lol sorry I'm once again back. The same anon who sent a bunch of questions about night life a while ago since I was rereading songbirds blood au. Soo uhm here's more

1. Mochi why does scar say in villainous thing that he has put his head in a werewolfs mouth??!?!?!?!?!? Scar mah dude u ok???? (Lowkey would wanna try it but I probably would leave the werewolfs mouth with a head 😊)

2. Grian.Trans.Canon? (Or scar? Or maybe both???)

3. With the glyphs is there only one way to use them or could you possible make them a tattoo and still you them. Since they are then constantly touching the glyphs they could possible do the magic of a mage. If they had multiple glyphs he could mix the glyphs somehow.(like how Luz mixes the glyphs by drawing them with eachother but instead they do it with their ✨️MIND✨️)

4. Also I love the idea of papapulse. Like I imagine Pearl or grian (most likely grian:^P) and Impulse going full demon mode tl protect them. (I saw that you tagged "Parent impulseSV (Video Blogging RPF)" in troubke in the dead of night🥺👏😍) Also is there different types of demons and what type of powers do they have?

5. In the fic "sitting in the garden at your feet" they have a whole picnic and all the adorableness. Do they go on more picnics frequently? (I really hope soo) I would guess they do since in villainous things they were also on their way to a picnic...but then yeah...poor birb tbh and poor scar

6. Have Ren and Martyn already have their wedding or are they still waiting? I wanna see treebark and I want to see mumbo ask grian go with him as his plus one to the wedding<3

(Though treebark owns my heart, Grumbo will always win) Don't talk about scarian I've never left the desert and don't plan to either😘

7. Okay soo in the fic "weight of living" there was this one scene where etho stared at grian. Here's the quote: "Etho eyes him for a moment, his gaze unreadable as he does so. It leaves Grian with chills. Weird."

Is it possible that etho is a Watcher? I'm mean   he is definitely not human(or maybe he is an immortal human?)  Etho may recognize grian, either as an old Watcher or a new Watcher to be made. Or maybe etho just thinks it is weird to see scar with grian(A HUMAN) The last one is more logical <:^)

8. On that note with Etho. You never confirm nor deny if grian is the "lost watcher" but what if I were to ask you if EFFO is the lost Watcher. I don't have proof but-...yeah idk

Wait wait just had another thought what if Pearl is the Watcher???? When the dream bugs ate her dreams there was a purple mist! Huh huh gotcha!/silly this is purely a joke🤣

9. Will we see a bad boy grian phase or possibly a drag queen phase🥺👉👈. Since it often mention that grian was a dare devil(still is:^P) or did grian have such phases. One of my friends is kinda a dare devil and he did drag once and I feel since grian might be the same there...

10. What did Scott do with the shard? Did he just entirely get rid of it? Also is Scott pure evil or broken. Maybe with the lost of his brother(Xornoth) did he turn evil or was evil just in his genes?

Those are all the questions and theories for now thank you for listing to my literal brain rot<3

This time it was numbered

(There will possible be more to come>:^] )

YIPPEE WELCOME BACK NONNIE :D

see me rubbing my paws together with a big grin >:3c no apologies needed !!!! I love questions hehe. as always, I can't answer everything clearly, because of spoilers but I'll certainly answer as much as I can!

1- WHEEZE scar just feels like the kinda guy to me to stick his head into the mouth of a werewolf for fun, y'know? he'd try it once just to see what would happen (and I mean, he's got no reason to fear dying, all things considered LOL)

2- GRIAN TRANS CANON !! honestly, just operate under the assumption that any grian I write is trans JFGDHFKKJDFG it's my comfort character and I get to project on him /silly (no trans scar though </3)

3- WAUG OKAY -- I've answered this kind of question before but for the life of me I can't find it D: I'm gonna keep searching for it, and when I find it I'll reblog this with that information mjfdhkfghfjg I don't wanna contradict myself LMAO

4- PAPAPULSE MY BELOVED 🥺I really wanna write more with him ueueue. I actually haven't done much world building for sb!demons but I'm going to say that yes, there are different types of demons! and they all have a wide range of different abilities :3

5- they def go on picnics yeah!!! I think it becomes one of grian's default methods to drag mumbo out of the manor when he can <33

6- ren and martyn haven't had their wedding yet :3 I actually hadn't thought about when their wedding would take place but ;w; oh that gives me some ideas....

7- etho isn't a watcher! the current lore is well. no one really knows what etho is. except maybe bdubs and joel. but their lips are Sealed (he's not the lost watcher either I'm afraid </3)

9- so currently I don't have any plans for a bad boy or drag queen phase to pop up in the story (though that could change, if any ideas come up) but they were certainly things he did when he was wayyy younger

10- what scott did with the shard hm? he broke it :) and I'm afraid evil is just in his genes unfortunately </3

hehe thank you for your questions!! :D

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 16: Last Update About Me Feeling Bad!

I'm definitely doing better. I was supposed to leave work at 1:30 but I ended up leaving at 11:30 because I was afraid it was going to start thundering. We did get some storms, but not at the expected times, so like... Whatever. I have the leave time, I did what I had to at work, and I got home a little early, can't complain about that. I wanted to do my grocery shopping before I had time to start feeling sick or full of indigestion or even just tired. This week has been so fucking brutal, I need to be extra nice to myself. There were a surprisingly large number of people shopping at noon on Friday! Getting in my way, being annoying. Don't you have JOBS? Lol. But I found pretty much everything I wanted to find and got this weird smoothie thing that may be good or may be disgusting, and more berries, and some meds I don't even really need anymore. But I'll have them for next time!

I had an acai bowl for lunch and then took a nap, and for dinner some tomato soup and toast with butter, which actually tasted really good. That's a noticeable benchmark because my last attempts at toast went poorly.

Anyway, this weekend is 3 days long and I want to let it be a reset for me. I want to care about other things than just carefully monitoring my own innards. Get back to some kind of writing work. Get back to cleaning. Get back to writing posts that aren't just a careful record of my physical feelings.... because this is boring. I do know that. I'm bored. But I'm also feeling more normal, which is very good. This has been kind of a scary experience for me because I don't have indigestion type problems or stomach bugs very often so I haven't really known what I'm doing. But I do seem to be healing. And honestly even if you consider this as starting on Thursday, which is when I started feeling a little off, it's still only been about a week, which isn't so long all told.

[jtmarx]

Finally getting around to putting up my top 5 BL (boys love) series that I’ve watched.  I’ll get into the specifics with each entry and if you want to discuss my picks or let me know yours, go for it I guess.

This is largely an opinion piece, obviously, so no point in getting offended by anything.  It’s going under a read more because I’m not an asshole

5. Love Sick (Thailand) Obviously, this includes Love Sick 2 as well.  They say you never forget your first and that is so true for me and Love Sick.  I just really love Phun and Noh and just how wholesome and fun the progression in their relationship was.  And this is coming from someone who generally loathes the trope of a mlm relationship starting while one partner is already in a relationship.  That part did bug me, but I just love Phun and Noh more.  Plus, what I really enjoyed about this series that I have yet to see again is the supporting cast.  First off, Jeed’s transition into villainy is perhaps one of the best character arcs I’ve seen.  Secondly, the oodles of side characters and side stories just made the whole series feel so organic and natural.

4. HIStory3: MODC (Taiwan) Yeah, I know this is a cop-out.  Honestly, if it wasn’t for the last two episodes (19 and 20, which idk if I even watched), MODC probably would have been number 2. Watching Xi Gu slowly start to open up and come out of his shell around Hao Ting and similarly watching Hao Ting slowly start to realize that there are more important things in life than simply being the cool kid was so beautiful to watch.  The B couple is something I could have done without. Yeah, they were sweet and all, but that doesn’t change that one was (I’m really hoping) an 18-year-old kid and the other was a grown-ass man (I think he was mid-20′s tops, but still).  Honestly, I just kinda pretended they didn’t exist.  But yeah, the character development from and between Xi Gu and Hao was just so phenomenal and I really wish they had ended it better.  Fun fact, this is the only show in the top 5 I don’t have a song from on Spotify.

3. Gaya Sa Pelikula (Philippines) I really wish this series could have been longer.  That’s it, that’s my only complaint.  The whole fake dating premise was what caught my attention, but the ensuing friendship was what really did it for me.  I love how organically the relationship came about.  But what I truly love the most about this series is the end with Vlad telling Karl “Hey, you don’t have to come out if you don’t want to.  That’s your right and you deserve it.  But I deserve to be out and not have to hide who I am.  And they’re both valid.” That was paraphrased obviously, but I was just floored by it and it hurts my soul knowing I’ll never be able to write that as well as the GSP writers did. And also, that fucking ending was so !!!!!  Like, on one hand, I love that they found each other, but also was that open-endedness necessary?  The answer, of course, is no.

2. Until We Meet Again (Thailand) This show and Dean and Pharm’s relationship was all so pure and sweet.  One thing I love about it is that there really wasn’t any actual conflict in Dean and Pharm’s story.  I loved how easy it was for them to just be together.  Of course, that makes it so tragic when compared to In and Korn, who just wanted to be happy and really never got the chance.  I’m not gonna lie, this show made me cry.  A lot.  Possibly more than Pharm, but it’s hard to say.  Also, this show was just a really unique concept I think. I really enjoyed Dean and Pharm being able to get to know each other and being able to say “Hey, maybe we should take a step back and make sure we actually know each other.”  And Pharm getting possessed by In towards the end was a really cool twist I think was pretty blatantly foreshadowed throughout the series, but was still really cool to actually see happen.  Whenever I read or watch a reincarnation story, I’m going to compare it to UWMA.

1. HIStory3: Trapped (Taiwan) Honestly, this show is so good.  Period.  It has literally everything you could possibly want with the sole exception of an explicit sex thing.  And even then, Tang Yi and Shao Fei do get a lot of pretty nice scenes.  There’s honestly not much more for me to say.  Literally the only thing bad I can say about this show is that it will never get added on to.  Everything else was spot on: the characterization, the romance, the action, the mystery and plot, the supporting cast was all top-notch.  I will say one of the reasons I like this show was because of how lowkey the romance is.  Like yes, it is a romantic show and Tang Yi and Shao Fei do like each other, but they also have important things they’re trying to get done, so the romance really has a slow-burn kind of feel I think really adds to the story as a whole.  I could honestly watch this show a thousand more times and not grow bored with it.  It’s just so good.

And now for some honorable mentions: Gameboys (PH)

SOTUS/SOTUS S (TH)

TharnType (TH)

2Gether/Still 2Gether (TH)

I Told Sunset About You (TH)

Where Your Eyes Linger (SK) -

[quirkwizard]

Spoiled Sushi

For a while, a certain article has been vexing me. One that seems to have a great misunderstanding of the series it was writing about, missing obvious points and core parts of the worldbuilding. No, it wasn’t by CBR, nor was it by Screenrant. But it was by Cruchyroll of all places. They decided to make an article about the Top 5 Misused Quirks in My Hero Academia. It was not good and has been bugging me. So I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. I mean they try to shut down whoever even attempts to do what they do, so why not make fun of them for trying to do what I do? Plus you guys seem to like it when I’m snarky, so this could be fun for everyone.

For clarity’s sake, this was written at the beginning of 2019, when the most recent chapter was Chapter 214 and the the anime had only reached Season 3. I’m keeping that in mind as I write. I will also be skipping around some of the parts of the article as I am talking about it. If its not worth mentioning, I won’t bring it up, simple as that. For instance, I’m skipping the intro because it is completely superfluous and would only serve to make a completely different fanbase mad. Might as well, most of what I am passing up are just dumb jokes. But if you are curious... don’t waste your time reading this. Your time is valuable and you have better things to do then read this article.

5. Kurogiri Can Create Free, Renewable Energy

“In all seriousness, though, Kurogiri is probably one of the most powerful characters in the anime, with their being virtually no limit to how far he can extend his Warp Gate portals.”

I mean there are certainly limits for his Quirk. Besides the need to know the coordinates or see where he is moving, there’s obviously a limit to how much he can spread out his body.

“Why then doesn’t he use them to create near-infinite energy? Open two portals one above another, throw in a heavy object inside and watch it fall endlessly. Devise a way to hook a dynamo or something to it and, bam, you have free power that would make Kurogiri a billionaire overnight and a hero to the entire planet.”

This idea has so many problems that I don’t even know where to begin.

One, if this could work, it likely wouldn’t make a lot of energy. Besides the various physics problems involved in this, Kurogiri would just be one guy doing this, meaning that it’s unlikely he’d be able to make enough power to matter.

Two, Kurogiri would still need rest as he is a living being, meaning he wouldn’t to keep up this theoretical contraption forever and you’d get even less energy relying on him. At most, it would work best in a small bunker as a last resort.

Three, that sounds like it would be a lot more dangerous then it would be worth for the energy made. If Kurogiri would to lose focus for a moment, the portals fall apart and there would just be a lot of damage from this heavy object moving at high speeds.

“Even if Kurogiri only cares about taking down All Might, it would still be much easier to do if he had a literal mountain of money/public goodwill at his side.”

What kind of bizzaro universe are you living in where the guy who makes energy could possibly turn public option about the very well liked Number 1 Hero that saves lives every day? That’s literally what Lex Luthor does and people hate him for it.

4. Koji Koda Could Help Feed Billions Of People

“Koji is the resident Class 1-A stoner (get it? he's made of rock? come on) with the power to control ANY creature in the animal kingdom. This would logically also include spiders, meaning that Koji could literally end all street crime in, like, 5 minutes tops by swallowing all the criminals up in a giant arachno-tsunami.”

While this article is infuriating in many ways, it did give us the mental image of an “arachno-tsunami”. Which is totally worth sitting through this jumbled mess of words and ignorance.

“But, you see, Koji is just too shy and nice to be an effective hero. He wants to do good but he just doesn’t have that fighter instinct in him. Which is why he should instead use his Anivoice Quirk to revolutionize agriculture all around the world.”

You can be an effective hero and not beat people up. Sure, it certainly can come up in the job description, but that isn’t all of what a hero is meant to do. Koda’s Quirk makes him great at information gathering and rescue work, two very important aspects of hero work that suit his personality perfectly.

“Give him a megaphone and fly him over American fields, telling feral pigs to stop causing $1.5 billion worth of damage a year in destroyed crops. Fly him to Australia to tell the invasive cane toads and rabbits to kindly lemming themselves off a cliff. Have him tell the aggressive lionfish the get the hell out of the Atlantic. FORCE HIM TO GET OVER HIS FEAR OF BUGS AND MAKE AGRICULTURAL PESTS A THING OF THE PAST. “

There is no possible way Koda could be everywhere at once to pull that off. And considering that the average human voice can only carry for about a mile, IE, about the average size of a single farm. You know, because animals need to hear his voice in order to receive his commands. So even if it was limited to a single farm, its unlikely to do much to help. But by far the biggest issue with this entire plan is that what Koda does to an animal is not permanent. The second his control is interrupted, the animals return to normal, bound to just go back to whatever they were doing before. 

So if Koda tries to change anything, its just going to end up undone by the time he leaves, just delaying the inevitable problem that comes from these animals. So even if Koda told the pigs to go away, they’d likely be back by the next day, destroying farmland like nothing happened. Even then, because of the previous limitations, he’d still have to go farm by farm to pull it off. That’s not even mentioning all of the other suggestions. Honestly, if you wanted to do something with Quirk, you should just convince all the animals to line up during hunting season. Dark, yes, but it least it would offer a more permanent solution then what the writer is suggesting.

“If Koji was utilized properly, he could travel the world undoing mankind’s mistakes and creating organic, pesticide-free crops instead of doing what he does now, which is largely sitting around on his ass roleplaying Snow White.”

Which, in spite of many fans joking about his Quirk, has shown to be very helpful quite a few times.

3. Inko Midoriya Would Have Made A Great Nurse

“Izuku’s mother in My Hero Academia has mainly done two things so far: jack and squat.”

I mean she did design Izuku’s costume, even if it got replaced, its is still a corner stone of his design, and she offered a good amount of drama after the fight with All Might and All For One. 

“She did try to be a good mother but kind of failed at that when she tearfully apologized to her son because he was born without a Quirk, essentially telling him: “I’m so sorry I gave birth to such a loser.””

Would you believe that this one line was what really prompted me to talk about this? Because that is probably one of the worst takes I have ever in relation to this series. If you honestly believed that is what Inko was doing, the woman who practically raised her child by herself and constantly talks about much she cares for him, you must be watching the wrong series. That’s the only way I could explain why that is.

“So, she doesn’t really have much going on in her life. That’s why she should try nursing instead. I realize that becoming a nurse takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but Inko would be a natural fit for it. Despite her initial shortcomings, she is a very caring person with loads of empathy.” 

Inko’s empathic? Could have fooled me. I mean she did feel the need to apologize to her son for giving birth to a loser. No, I am not over that, how could you have possibly gotten that from the scene?!

“She also has the power of limited telekinesis. Inko can move small objects over short distances, and while that would not be helpful for stopping crime, it would be great for, say, removing kidney stones. Or things stuck in people’s throats. Or coins from children’s stomachs.”

Trying to use a Quirk like this in any kind of medical procedure is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Imagine if Inko had to remove a bullet from someone. From what we see, the process of her moving objects is slow and need several pulls from her to attract the object to her. So if she’s going to try to pull it out and its going to get caught on something, causing more damage to the person she is trying to save. She’s basically going to be keying the insides of whoever she is trying to operate on.

The entire reasons doctors, especially surgeons, train for so long is because the human body can be extremely delicate. It needs a lot of care and time so the doctors don’t make things worse for the patients. It’s why surgeons need to have such steady hands and a lot of time even to due minor procedures. But trying to do that with a Quirk is just going to cause more problems then it can solve. Doing that with a Quirk like Inko’s just lacks a lot of the precision and dexterity necessary to pull this off.

2. Uraraka Should Go Work For A Shipping Company

“Ochaco Uraraka has one of the most well-rounded Quirks out of all the main characters: Zero Gravity. With it, she can make objects and people float, which is great for offense, defense, and rescue operations. As a superheroine, she is doing everything right with her Quirk.”

I mean “Zero Gravity” can kind of be used offensively, but not effectively as other Quirks. Its why she did all of that training with Gun Head to make up for her lack of an offensive presence. Eh, two of three ain’t bad. I’ll take what I can get.

“I just think Uraraka should never have become a superheroine in the first place. Uraraka has actually always been honest about her motivation: she wants dem YEN YEN BILLS YO (for her struggling family.)”

That’s because hero work is an extremely frugal business even super minor heroes can still seem to make a decent living out of it.

“But regular jobs also exist in that world, and that must include shipping companies that would instantly hire Uraraka to Zero-G their freighters, trucks, and planes. Even if she cannot make them float, she can still remove enough gravity from them to save the company tons of fuel. Company profit margins are razor thin.”

First off, its mentioned several times that if you want to use a Quirk for a job, you need to have a hero license. Its to make sure you know how to use your Quirk properly so you don’t end up hurting someone with your powers. So for her to even try this, she needs to go through hero school anyway. Might as well get the most out of it. Second, Uraraka cannot lower the gravity of her target. Either the object is floating or it isn’t floating. There is no in between for Uraraka. 

Third, given what we’ve seen from Uraraka, there is no possible way that she could ever lift that much. She’s barely able to lift three lower numbered robots and that was only for a few seconds. So, at the most, she can lift a few tons. How exactly do you expect her to work with something like a cargo plane, which, on its own, can weight over forty five tons, not including fuel or any extra cargo?

Which is another thing I noticed throughout the article: the writer seems to severely overestimate how effective Quirks actually are. The range and scope of Quirks is much smaller then other power systems, even when compared to similar “low level” series like HunterxHunter. Like every kind of application listed goes far beyond what most Quirks are capable of, such as forgetting certain drawbacks. And that is most notable with the last suggestion.

1. Momo Could Solve Literally All The World’s Problems

I bet Kohei Horikoshi was really proud of himself when he came up with Momo Yaoyorozu’s design: No, see, she HAS to dress scantily because her Quirk is Creation, i.e. the ability to create any object she wants through her skin, which must be constantly exposed. Peachy.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without beating that long dead horse. What’s next? Bakugou angry? Izuku cry? 

“Momo can apparently create anything as long as she understands its composition, and seeing as she’s made an ethanol spray can, infrared goggles, a lighter, and a tracker, it seems like there’s nothing she cannot make.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without a grievous misunderstanding of how her Quirk works either. Maybe they are in the fandom. As I have mentioned in my Momo Misconceptions post, Momo needs fat to make what she does. She’s not an alchemist where she can just clap her hands and make whatever she wants. If she doesn’t have enough fat, she cannot make items. By those very rules, some things are just out of her reach because it would just take too much fat. It’s why she limits herself to simpler items.

“Cool. MAKE US SOME HELIUM THEN. The world is running out of the gas and we need it for MRI scanners and the like. Momo could make more of it.”

Actually, we don’t even know for sure if Momo is capable of making gases. All we have seen her make is solids and a few liquids. There is the lighter she made, but that could easily run on lighter fluid.

“Or thorium. She could make thorium that we could use to make thorium-based reactors that are apparently way safer than uranium ones.”

Thorium isn’t even that rare, just as about as common as lead and three times as common as uranium. Even if it was a problem, it would likely kill her, either from burning through all of her fat or from the exposure to radiation.

“Medicine, fresh water, cheap electronics that we could send to developing countries: Momo could crank all of those out in an afternoon.“

Yes, in theory, Momo could do that, but not the extent that she would make a major difference in the world like they are suggesting. There are just more practical and better long term solutions then trying to force a single person to do all of that. It’s almost as if Momo is a regular human being who has limitations you need to keep in mind when making these ill informed suggestions.

“And while spending your life as a walking Everything Faucet might not seem that glamorous, it actually has the potential to change the entire planet for the better.”

Given the kind of set up and effort that would be required to even attempt that, I think “horrific” would be a more appropriate descriptor since it would be done to a living, thinking person.

Honestly, I think that most of these people are doing more with their Quirks now then with any of these suggestions. At least, when you actually think about the rules and limits of the characters. Sure, Inko isn’t doing much, but she is a civilian with a fairly weak Quirk. Kurogiri acts as a major player within the League, getting them around quickly and evading capture. I mean he is using his power to help out a bunch of villains, but my point still stands that he is not “misusing” his Quirk.

In fact, a majority of the people on this list are doing more to help people and save lives by being heroes. Given the limitations of their abilities, using them to stop superpowered criminals who risking damaging the people around and helping victims of these crimes is doing then any of those roles in spite of the fact that the article tries its best to downplay that these people are already saving lives. So, in reality, they are doing far more to help people then doing any of these ideas, you damp sock of a writer.

[tenshindon]

Hi :)

just some quick stuff ‘bout Yamcha and Bulma’s relationship in the manga under the cut

So I was going to save this for until after I watched the anime too but I mean that’s not going to be for a while- plus I just wanted to share what little things I ended up finding.

And when I say little things I’m not exaggerating the slightest; Yamcha and Bulma seldom appear together in the same scene, let alone even talk to or about each other. When I was getting ready to start my note taking, I actually had a number of colored tabs I wanted to attribute to specific things I found:

Blue tabs would be for anytime Bulma did or said something questionable

Green tabs would be for anytime Bulma did or said something nice/sweet

Orange tabs would be for anytime Yamcha did or said something questionable

Yellow tabs would be for anytime Yamcha did or said something nice/sweet

And throughout five-and-a-half 3-1 volumes? I only used 8, which is definitely foreshadowing how much different the anime is going to be from the manga as I can already think of at least three more scenarios involving these two.

Nevertheless, on to what I actually found. I’m going to elaborate on my thought process on all the scenes afterwards. Points with asterisks next to them mean I’m relatively indecisive as whether what they did was good, bad, or neutral.

*The first yellow tab goes to Yamcha when he reunites with Krillin and Goku at the first tournament of the series. In the specific manga I have, Yamcha mentions that Bulma was “bugging” him about how long hair was no longer in fashion in the city, so he either cut his hair himself or let Bulma cut it so it would be short.

The second tab is a blue tab about a chapter or two later when Yamcha and Jackie Chun are about to start their match, to which Bulma’s already wondering if Chun is attractive. Oolong makes a point to bring up her relationship with Yamcha, to which she retorts with “I can look, can’t I?” After Jackie Chun steps out and it’s discovered he’s an old man, Bulma is immediately disappointed and decides to cheer for Yamcha instead.

The third tab is a blue tab again; when Goku visits Bulma to have the dragon radar repaired, Panchy comments on Bulma and Yamcha’s tumultuous relationship and how Bulma was jealous of Yamcha’s popularity with girls. At that, Bulma gets upset and pledges to accompany Goku on his quest to find the Dragon Balls- either to wish for a better boyfriend, or to coincidentally find a new boyfriend while hunting for them

The fourth tab is- again, a blue tab, where Bulma openly (and honestly aggressively) flirts with General Blue as he and the Red Ribbon army pursue them for the Dragon Ball. When Blue rejects her, she doesn’t persist but rather remarks that he’s probably not attracted to girls if he wasn’t attracted to her. Later on, in an attempt to save her life, she again tries to seduce him- more so for strategic purposes this time.

Tab number five and blue tab number four happens after Yamcha just barely escapes death from fighting Bandages. While Krillin, Goku, Upa, and Puar fret over Yamcha’s safety, Bulma remarks that the fight was pathetic and Bandages was already damaged (though Krillin’s quick to point out his wrappings weren’t because he was hurt).

Things start to turn up on Bulma’s part with a couple of green tabs; as Yamcha is prepared to fight Tien, Bulma’s fairly excited to see him come out on stage. *The next tab I decided to note was Bulma covering her eyes right before Tien breaks Yamcha’s leg, and the final tab goes to her being the first person to exclaim that she would be following Yamcha to the hospital.

I actually used a purple tab for this next one since it didn’t fit either yellow or orange. It’s a small thing too as neither character actively does anything to warrant it, as for the first time in the character biographies at the beginning of the books, Yamcha is described as “Bulma’s on-and-off boyfriend.”

The last tab is one more blue tab that comes as a result of Bulma fawning over Goku’s growth and how much he had changed. Oolong solidifies that she’s head-over-heels for him by calling her a “fickle wench.”

OK discussion time class :)

1.) I put this act as questionable because I wasn’t sure if Yamcha cut his hair for Bulma’s sake or because he wanted to fit in to the aesthetic of city life and just followed Bulma’s advice. But considering he generally preferred to have longer hair for the majority of Dragon Ball/Z/Super, I’m going to wager and say he was willing to change his appearance for Bulma.

2.) So far, Bulma and Yamcha had been dating for around one year and at this point Bulma’s already prepared to ogle other men. I have a couple points I want to make on Bulma and her perception of men but I’m going to save that for The Bigger Analysis.

3.) We have no idea how Yamcha behaves around these other girls as there’s never an indication he reciprocates their affection or just ignores them, but either way trying to replace your boyfriend like he’s a used-up car is pretty bad. We can assume Yamcha doesn’t react positively to the attention considering he never positively comments on any woman in the series- Bulma included.

4.) This one’s pretty self explanatory; I don’t really need to explain this. I’ll try to give Bulma some leeway and say she and Yamcha were on a break as Panchy points out they were fighting, but “fighting” is not the same as “being on break,” never mind it is actually never explicitly stated or implied that the two go on a mutual break. The most prominent existence of a break exists in Yamcha leaving to train at Korin Tower and to train alone.

5.) Bulma doesn’t offer an ounce of care at the fact Yamcha was literally hanging over death and even insults his capability as a fighter while his friends do all the worrying for her. For someone who’s supposed to be your lover and partner, Bulma doesn’t really show any concern for Yamcha’s safety.

6.) Bulma’s actually being a supportive girlfriend during the Tien saga which was a nice relief from seeing her being so dismissive- this is the first time she’s actually cheered for Yamcha in any fight since the first tournament too (every other time, she would collectively congratulate and root for her friends). 

I put an asterisk next to Bulma covering her eyes before Yamcha’s leg is snapped in half because she could have just been scared to see it, but I want to be nice to her and say she didn’t want to see Yamcha get hurt. 

As for Bulma being prepared to go to the hospital with Yamcha, she’s the absolute first one: whether she’s grown since the Bandages fight or it just dawned on her just how much danger Yamcha was in, she now starts to show care and worry over him. This is further shown after Krillin is killed and Yamcha offers to take revenge for him, to which Bulma scolds him- both for the fact he was still recovering from his injury and reminding him of his inability to be able to do anything, and because he was willing to easily add himself to the growing body count started by Piccolo and his children.

7.) Again, no explanation needed. This change in Yamcha’s biography gives clarity on the fact Yamcha and Bulma have taken enough breaks from each other for him to be considered an “on-and-off boyfriend.”

8.) It’s been a while at this point since Bulma’s looked at another man affectionately- both manga duration wise and in-universe time. Still, it reminds the reader that Bulma’s fairly fickle when it comes to men.

Couple extra things I just want to talk about:

Like I said before, Yamcha never looks twice at another woman- he even points out that Chun’s behavior was lecherous towards Ranfan (though this could have just been portrayed so Yamcha could put the pieces together that Roshi and Chun were the same person). Meanwhile Bulma seems to be poised to pick up another man in case things don’t work out between them. I would attribute this to Bulma being young, but she maintains this behavior for years- even into DBZ where she’s in her late-twenties.

As far as we know, Bulma and Yamcha never kiss. At least they don’t kiss for as long as the General Blue saga, as Bulma points out she’s going to die before having her first kiss. Of course, you don’t have to kiss to be dating someone. I just found it a little interesting.

Yamcha attends school by the time he moves to the city with Bulma, and possibly lives with her and her family at Capsule Corp, as Bulma’s easily able to get a hold of him when she calls her dad and asks him to put him on the phone.

The majority of this list comes in the form of Bulma’s flirtatious nature with other men. Aside from that, she and Yamcha are pretty casual with each other, her only other fault being her apathy towards Yamcha against Bandages.

Toriyama’s stated in a Q&A that Bulma was a “harsh and selfish” person.

I’m fairly certain Toriyama’s pointed out he isn’t sure how to write romance and I personally can’t blame him for that: love’s a complicated thing that I don’t even know how to portray.

That’s all I have now. I’ll be back with more notes about the anime’s portrayal of these two. I think I’ll make a post like this one for the anime, then I’ll gather everything I’ve collected and write a big piece about it.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to talk about this with me feel free to shoot me a message :)

[wesimpforxiao]

My Backstory (IRL)

Before I begin, if you want nothing to do with hearing about abusive relationships, possible eating disorder, anxiety disorders/depression/suicide, sexual assualt, manipulation, gaslighting, sexual harassment, etc, SKIP THIS POST.

So, I would like to start off by saying the NSFW content I *try* to write always falls stale, 1. being because I get embarrassed or ashamed by my writing my own thoughts, and 2. because of the rest of this post.  So the Albedo NSFW may not happen, but I asked just in case (i have some of it written out, but it is very stale).  And also because I may or may not have accidentally triggered a trauma response as I was writing the Albedo post (oops...)

To begin, freshman year of high school, 14 yrs old, (I’m 20 and in college now), I started dating this guy that was in my grade.  I have an anxiety disorder, so when we started going out, I immediately stopped eating because I constantly felt sick to my stomach.  It wasn’t because I thought I was fat or anything, I just felt sick.  Think butterflies in your stomach times 10 and ALL the time.  We dated for a month before he broke up with me.  During that time, he had suddenly brought up the idea of me sending nude or bra/undie pics to him.  Him and his friend (who was in the call with us) tag-teamed and said that it was normal and asked when I would be ready to send pictures.  Both of them asked that.  Red flag number one.  I said 3 months just to please them, not that I was actually going to do it.

Once he broke up with me, I was DEVASTATED. I feel A LOT, and it was my first ‘relationship.’ Exactly a month later, he texted me, saying he wanted to be friends.  I said okay.  He never acknowledged my presence at school, often avoiding my eyes.  Sometime into that he had asked me what I would do if he had asked me out again, and when I said I’d say yes, he immediately texted back and said “i am so sorry, my friend [insert name] was texting you on my phone and I didn’t know until now.”  Red flag number two.

Then, after we had stopped being friends, a month passes.  He texts me again, this time saying “It’s been 3 months.”  Yeah.  Did you read the part where I said I’d consider sending pictures at 3 months? That only applied if we were dating for that long (and I still wouldnt do that), so where is his logic?  Now, I don’t know why I even got back together with him, but I did.  For a week.  And just like the first time, I felt sick to my stomach.  I always look back on this as a warning from God.  And this time, he wasn’t hiding his intentions.  He was CONSTANTLY making sexual jokes, sending inappropriate emoji ‘jokes,’ and asking for nudes.  He did not stop asking even when I told him to, and even when I told him it made my stomachache worsen.  I did not trust him, but I stayed for a full week of hell.  Eventually I slightly caved, showing him on facetime me in my bra and underwear (My thinking: he couldn’t save pictures that way).  He covered his camera.  Did he take screenshots or something? I don’t know.  It was awful.  I kicked him to the curb the next day, still feeling like *I* should be the one apologizing.  He eventually “tried” to apologize thru text, but was too much of a coward to apologize in person when i requested that.  He says he had cancer or something, I honestly don’t care. His actions were inexcusable and it was pathetic that he used it as an excuse.

I hated him so strongly for the next 3-4 years, but the story doesn’t end there.  A new guy, senior, 17 yrs old.  End of my freshman year.  We get together.  He didn’t properly ask me out, just assumed we were dating after we confessed our feelings EVEN THOUGH I told him my dad said to wait 3 months.  Red flag number three.  So, by the bf’s standards, 6 months into the relationship, I stay over at his place for New year’s.  I will admit that we did stuff over the phone prior to then, but I consider to be fine with that timeline.  At some point while we were planning to do stuff (if ya know what I mean but NOT full on hoo-ha stuff okay) for New year’s, he said “Who knows, maybe we’ll get carried away ;)” Red flag number four.  This immediately made me uncomfortable, and I was not fully comfortable when the day came either.

We were making out (consensual, but I feel like i was forcing myself a bit), I let him touch me down *there* (which he sucked at lemme tell ya) (also it was fine when he touched me before this day), and then he asked to touch my chest.  *Previously, he had stated if i wasnt sure, hed touch over my bra first and go slow.  He did not do either, instead immediately slipping his hand under my bra.* That is when something inside me snapped, and I felt number than I already was. Red flag number five.

I didn’t stop him because I wanted to feel something, anything.  I got nothing.  And then came the time when he decided to say “Now its your turn,” grabbed my hand, and put it down his pants, ignoring me, who was saying “I don’t know how to, I’m not sure I want to.”  

I felt nothing for a few days, and then depression set in.  It didn’t feel connected to that incident, and i didn’t connect the dots until later.  It got so bad I had almost decided to kill myself three months later.  My anxiety was through the roof, and every day my trauma manifested itself in the question “Do I actually love him?”  It was a living hell to be inside my head all the time.  He at one point asked me “Are you sure you were okay with what happened on new year’s? You’re acting like you’ve been raped.”  When I said I wasn’t, he said “oh.” and we never talked about it again.

The relationship continued for another year despite my obvious depression and anxiety that revolved around him. He lied to me on several occasions, disregarded my boundaries (i.e. continued to make sexual jokes even though they clearly bugged me after the assault), and refused to get a job so he could smoke weed all day.  My parents urged him to prove himself (he was out of high school by this time), and when I eventually took their side and gently nudged him along, he said “You are in a relationship with me, not your parents.  Its either me or them.”  Red flags six through ten right there.

When I managed to break it off with him, a ‘friend’ apparently took his side.  This is the girlfriend in the “His Reaction to Your Ex(es)” post(s).  This friend was actually an adopted cousin of mine, and we were not on speaking terms at this point because she had taken my first bf’s side, saying that *I* had to forgive him and that I was in the wrong for not wanting to talk to him or accept his half-assed apologies. (She was not at our school during the time me and that guy dated so she literally knew nothing).  I cut her off because of that.  Turns out she had a massive crush on the dude and he was already taken by someone else.  

So, this same chick sides with the second bf, telling people that I’m the one who hurt him and whatnot.  I come to find out that him and her are now dating and honestly, it is hilarious.  Even I think she deserves better.  He has no future, and I came to realize that, knowing that if i stayed with him longer I would have 100% actually killed myself, or died spiritually.

So yeah, that’s my story, hopelessly in love with fictional characters now because I am too traumatized by what they have done.  I cannot be touched sexually without reverting to a depression or an anxious mess.  Even if I did manage to be in a relationship after that, I don’t think I’d ever be able to have sex with someone. And finally I cannot have a healthy relationship, because what is that, really?  I’m just gonna live alone with some goats LOL.

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: The Flowers That Had Torn Them Apart

Author: @gravestone-monarch (Grave)

For: @creepioz

Pairings/Characters: Established Hinanami, Komahina

Ratings/Warnings: Major character death, blood, angst, unrequited love

Prompt: 1) Coffee Shop AU 2) Any Angst 3) Hanahaki’s Disease

Author’s Notes: So, hello there! I’ve never written Komahina or hanahaki before, so I’m sorry if some things seem out of place! (It also doesn’t help I haven’t played SDR2) (this probably isn’t very reassuring huh)

I know I was probably just supposed to pick one prompt, but I looked at the list and the story just clicked in my head

So now you have this!

I really hope you enjoy it! I did *shudders*

rEseArCh

For this so hopefully it’s up to standard!

Also I know it says Hinanami in the tags, it makes sense in the story (this isn’t a hinanami centered story I swear)

Once more, enjoy!! ^^

Komaeda had been getting his lunches at the Jabberwock for as long as he could remember. He practically lived in it at this point. Each day he’d come in, order, sit for an hour and leave. Day in, day out. He was lucky the little coffee shop hadn’t closed yet. Usually he has rotten luck.

But one day, something changed.

The something that would inevitably be the death of him.

He walked in one day and noticed someone new at the counter. Short brown hair, heterochromia, well toned…

Well, he was certainly attractive, Nagito would give him that.

He walked up and stood in the queue, checking his phone for the time. He was here a bit earlier than usual.

“Next!”

His head snapped up as he realised the relatively short queue had depleted.

“Ah, so sorry!” He said to the man.

“No problem. What can we get you today?” The person said.

“Mm… I’ll have the usual.” He said. The cashier raised an eyebrow, then sighed.

“Sir, this is my first day. What’s ‘the usual’?”

“Oh!” Nagito chuckled nervously. “Sorry about that…” he looked down at the person’s nametag. “…Hajime.”

“Mhm, it’s fine. Honestly, it’s already happened three times this morning.”

“Really? That’s almost impressive.”

“Almost, yeah.” Hajime grinned slightly. “Now, what’d you say you wanted?”

“Oh, right! Well…"

He gave Hajime his order, and seeing as there was nobody in the queue behind him, he stood talking to him for a few minutes.

He learned a lot about Hajime in the time he had. He was the same age as Nagito, and actually went to the same college, despite being in different courses. Nagito told him he wasn’t sure what he was planning on doing with his future. Hajime agreed.

"Yeah, not sure either, really. It’s a writing course, so it could really go anywhere. Journalist, author, scriptwriter… you get the point.” Hajime said, Nagito nodding.

“I see! Sure does give a lot of hope, doesn’t it? Knowing you’re not stuck on one path… it’s great!”

Hajime looked at him. “Yeah, probably. Oh, your order’s ready.” Hajime told him, writing Nagito’s name on the cup.

“Oh! Thank you so much, Hajime.”

“No problem. That’ll be ¥360.”

Nagito passed over the money as Hajime passed him his coffee. Their fingers brushed for just a moment. Neither said anything, but Nagito felt his pale cheeks flush slightly.

“Well, I’ll be sitting over there now. Bye, Hajime.” Nagito said, waving. Why was he waving? Was he on waving terms with this guy?

He was being awkward.

Hajime laughed, shaking his head. “See ya, Nagito.”

Nagito smiled back at him, almost a bit too wide, as he sat down, taking a sip out of his coffee. It tasted slightly different today, but… not in a bad way. It almost tasted better, actually.

“Huh…”

He didn’t pay it much mind, just enjoying the taste as he pulled out his laptop. He had decided to get a bit of work done while he was at the Jabberwock today. His next paper was supposed to be about lesser known or folklore diseases. After a bit of research, he had decided on a certain disease that had caught his attention.

“Now, how do I start this..?” He wondered to himself. After a moment, he opened his document and started typing.

The hanahaki (ha-na-ha-ki) is a fictional disease that affects people with unrequited love.

As he finished his coffee, he saved his work, closing his laptop. As he was about to throw out the cup, something caught his eye. Where he thought his name was, a series of numbers had been scribbled.

You seem cool. Call me, if you want

xxx-xxxx-xxxx

-Hajime

Nagito’s breath hitched. That was Hajime’s number, right? He couldn’t believe it. Hajime gave someone like him his number?

Woah.

He looked back over at the counter, where Hajime had started serving another customer. As he turned around to start his customer’s order, he caught Nagito’s eye. He gave one last smile before turning away.

Nagito smiled, putting the empty cup in his bag. With one last glance back, he left. Until the next day, at least.

Hajime and Nagito got to talking over the next few weeks. Hajime told Nagito his schedule (Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) and Nagito made sure to come in on those days, if he couldn’t make it on the others.

They learned a bit more about each other over the weeks. Hajime was born on New Year’s, leading to parties doubling as New Year’s and birthday parties (despite him not always enjoying them.) Nagito was born on April 28; his birth month representing death, sorrow and horrid luck, but his birth date representing increased luck and fortune. As such, he’s always had a weird mix of luck, which Hajime just found kinda funny.

Nagito started getting staff discounts, which was great. Both were born into rich families though, so it didn’t make much difference to either.

Nagito did end up asking why he started working at the Jabberwock if he already had enough money to last him a lifetime. Hajime responded with I’m not really sure. I suppose I just… had a feeling. Besides, what harm could a bit of extra pocket change do?

Nagito got his paper submitted on time. Hajime helped him out at parts, knowing a surprising amount about the disease. Once he finished, Hajime congratulated him with a free meal.

Honestly, Nagito didn’t feel like he deserved it. Hajime’s friendship, he means. Sure, he was kind of frank at times, almost vaguely rude to people he doesn’t like, but he was able to put up with Nagito’s rants about whatever was on his mind, which wasn’t easy, considering his random theories and such.

He was nice.

Nagito knew he was falling for the man. He’d be a fool not to. The man was attractive, nice, understanding… yeah, Nagito definitely had a crush.

The days when Hajime wasn’t in work were the lonely days, as Nagito called them. They just felt emptier, since he started talking to Hajime.

Nagito wasn’t entirely sure what to do about his feelings. Becuase, let’s be honest here. 'Why would Hajime ever like someone like me? Besides, he’s probably straight.’

But he knew he couldn’t keep it in forever. It’d get too much to handle at some point. He was getting distracted in his classes for thoughts of Hajime. So one day, he decided.

He’d just tell Hajime so he could reject him. Get it over with. If he was lucky, maybe Hajime wouldn’t be totally repulsed. Maybe he’d still want to maintain a friendship! Wouldn’t that be great?

So that Saturday, he decided he’d say it.

Now, he was just counting down the days.

Saturday rolled around, and Nagito made his way to the Jabberwock. He probably wouldn’t stay too long today; he’d just say it and leave. But when he walked in, he noticed something.

Hajime wasn’t there.

“Huh..?”

Wasn’t that just his luck?

The day he finally decides to be honest, the object of his affections isn’t even there.

Well, that’s fine too. He can just come back in a few weeks. Maybe a year. Perhaps a century or two. Not too long, right?

He sighed, turning to leave. As he turned though, he slammed right into someone.

“Ah, sorry! I- Nagito?”

Nagito looked up at Hajime, who he had just slammed into.

“Oh, hello Hajime! I’m so sorry about that, I had no right to touch you like that, I-”

“Hey, hey Ko. What’d we say about the self-deprication?” Hajime said, raising an eyebrow.

“R-right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. I wanted you to meet someone.”

“Ah, has Hajime made a new friend? How wonderful!”

“Haha, you could… yeah, you could say that.” He gestured to the girl beside him, who Nagito hadn’t even registered until now. She had pale pink hair and was wearing a navy hoodie, holding her phone. He could hear faint Tetris music coming from it.

“Nagito, I’d like you to meet Chiaki Nanami, my… my girlfriend.”

Nagito could’ve swore his world just broke.

The floor felt like it was crumbling apart, the walls falling beneath their own weight.

“Hey.” The girl greeted. Both smiled at him like they hadn’t just broken his heart.

Well, they didn’t know, did they?

“A-ah… n-nice to meet you, Nanami… I’m- I’m so sorry, but I really must go. I- I don’t feel the best.” Nagito spit out that lame excuse as he advanced to the door.

“Oh, you need a lift? I could-”

“No-! ahem, I mean… no thanks, Hinata. Thanks for the offer. Bye.”

He pushed the glass door open and walked out, quicker than he had ever walked before. He didn’t live too far away, luckily enough, so he walked home quick enough, just desperate to get away from it all.

“Hm.” Hajime hummed.

“What’s up with him?”

“Not sure… a-anyways, what would you like?”

That night, the flowers started.

It was only a petal at first. He was sitting at his desk, booting up his laptop to take another look at his paper. Something had been bugging him about it, he just wasn’t sure what.

This wasn’t the first thing he’d done when he got home. His pillow was definitely tear-stained and he’d run his box of tissues dry. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, though.

He had finally gotten over the throbbing in his head the crying had given him and sat down to re-read it when he felt a tickle in his throat. He tried clearing his throat, which turned to a full on coughing fit. At the end of it, he finally coughed it up.

A small daffodil petal, a bit smaller than his thumb.

Nagito froze, staring at the petal.

He just coughed that up, didn’t he..?

He looked from the petal to the computer screen in horror, not taking long to put it all together.

He thought the disease was fictional… but he had most definitely just coughed this up.

Nagito had the hanahaki disease.

He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Lucky for him, he’d already done his research, so he knew the deal. Flowers blossom in the victim’s lungs, eventually rendering them unable to breathe and suffocating them. The only cure was for the victim’s feelings to be romantically requited. You could also get surgery, but that results in you being incapable of romantic love, and Nagito couldn’t bear that. Despite knowing he didn’t have a chance with most anyone, especially Hajime, he’d like to make himself believe he still has.

Now, here was the kicker.

In most of the stories he’d read, the victim simply believed their love interest didn’t like them. But not in his story, oh no. Hajime was already romantically involved. That meant he most certainly didn’t feel how Nagito did. And if Nagito was going to avoid the surgery…

“I’m going to die.” He concluded, putting his head in his hands. He didn’t have enough energy or tears to cry anymore, so he just sat there, letting the cold truth set in.

It already felt harder to breathe.

It only got worse over the next few weeks.

After only three days a full daffodil head had come up, while he was in the Jabberwock, no less. It was getting increasingly harder to hide it in front of others.

Especially Hajime.

Hajime was usually very observant. He usually knew when someone was lying or hiding something from him, so he had to pull out his best acting skills.

Which, admittedly, were those of a teenager.

While he sat there, he was constantly clearing his throat, trying to force down the seemingly harmless flowers clawing their way up.

Luckily for him, the same person that put him in this situation was his unaware cover.

Chiaki.

As much as Nagito hated it, Hajime was now a lot more preoccupied with his girlfriend, which meant if Nagito needed to slip away to choke up a flower or two, he could do just that.

He didn’t know how to feel about Nanami. Sure, on one hand, she was basically the reason he was walking up Death’s driveway. But on the other hand, it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own for having these feelings

How does that one song go?

How could I hate her? She’s such an angel.

But then again, kinda wish she were dead.

Not to that extent, but that basically sums up his feelings about her.

Feelings very unlike those for Hajime.

He did a bit of research when he could. Why daffodils? Turns out, a meaning for daffodils was unrequited love.

And wasn’t that fitting?

He was marking the days. Appreciating each day he still got to wake up, not having been smothered in his sleep. In all honesty, though?

He’d rather be killed in his sleep than choked to death at a coffee shop table.

He was also trying to appreciate his time with Hajime. He knew he would never have that sort of relationship with him, not now. So he tried to make the most of their friendship with him.

It was nice, for a while.

But all good things come to an end, as they say.

He was coughing up flowers multiple times a day, now. He’d noted to himself that when he saw blood, his time was almost up.

Terrifying, right?

It really was.

He’d just come home from a walk. He’d started going on them a while ago, when he’d just got it. He hoped the fresh air would do him some sort of good.

It’s funny, really. A while ago, Nagito wouldn’t have cared if he was killed. We practically would have welcomed it.

But now? Now he’d met someone. And because he’d met someone, he was dying. Because he’d met someone, he didn’t want to die.

But it’s not like he got a say in the matter, did he?

His lungs were being overgrown by weeds that call themselves flowers. Horrid things that were worming their way up his throat every. Single. Day.

And eventually, blood would come with them.

So here he was, sitting down after his walk. He sat down at his desk, his throat wheezing as he did. It had been three weeks and four days, and each day suffocated him just that bit more. And right now, he was dizzy. Probably from the lack of oxygen.

Right on cue, his next coughing fit started. It lasted as long as all the others, felt like all the others… but afterwards, it didn’t look like all the others.

He opened his eyes to see what he’d been dreading. A horrible stain of blood splattered across his desk, almost looking pink in the lamp light. He saw two daffodils laying in the midst. Some would call this poetic.

What would Nagito call it?

A death sentence.

He could barely breathe. The flowers crushed his lungs as he scrambled to get his phone out.

Logically, he should call an ambulance. Emergency services, anything that would help.

However, Nagito wasn’t thinking logically.

And that’s not what he did.

He looked over at the old cup, tapping in the number scribbled on it.

He’d never see that handwriting again.

He’d never see him again.

His hands shook as he pressed dial, holding it up to his ear. He also pulled up his paper on his laptop, scanning over it.

Now he knew what he was going to add.

“Hello?”

“Ah, h-hello, Hajime! S-so sorry to bother you th-this late.”

“Mm, no problem. Something up?”

“N-no, nothing at all..!” He scrolled to the bottom of the document, typing quickly. “I just wanted to ch-chat, is all… you g-got a minute?”

“Ahh, sorry Ko. I’m with Chiaki right now. Mind if I call you back tomorrow?”

“…sure. That’s no problem, Hajime. Hajime Hinata…”

“Huh? Ko, you ok?”

He saved the document, plugging in the laptop to charge shakily. He wanted to say his usual; Yep, I’m fine! No need to worry yourself, Hajime. See you tomorrow, hm?

That’s what he would’ve said had his throat not closed up.

Instead, he fought for his breath. He fought a battle that he’d inevitably lose. Hands shaking, chest wheezing, he spoke into the phone.

One last time.

“H-Hajime…”

“Yeah Ko?”

“I-I think I’m dying.”

He dropped his phone to the table, his head following suit not long after. In his last moments of consciousness, he heard Hajime yelling through the phone.

“What?! Nagito, did you say you’re dying?!”

“Nagito, answer me!”

“Nagito Komaede, talk to me!”

“C'mon, c'mon! Answer already!”

“I- Chiaki, call emergency services to this address. I’m sending help, Nagito. Just… just hang in there, please.”

A pool of blood drying on the table.

A final call ended.

A bleach white head of hair stained.

A final message on his computer.

In conclusion, the hanahaki disease is a very terrifying prospect, and now that I have experienced its effects first hand, I can confirm.

The hanahaki is deadly. I, Nagito Komaeda, have been killed at its hands.

March 11th.

They just didn’t get there quick enough.

Emergency services got there moments after Hajime did, who had sprinted up the stairs to where Nagito once resided.

He was shocked to find the scene in front of him.

He ran over to Nagito, trying to shake him awake. But no amount of shaking could uproot the flowers that had torn them apart.

He was brought off to a hospital, but he was already dead when they arrived. It didn’t take long to put together what had happened, despite nobody quite believing it. With the document Nagito had left, the blood and flowers and the tangle in his lungs, it was determined he most definitely had the disease, and just managed to keep it a secret.

Hajime.

He just couldn’t believe it.

Nagito was just… gone.

That phone call was the last time he’d ever hear the poor man’s voice. See him smile or laugh, despite how unnerving it could be at times.

All of that… gone.

Just because he loved someone.

Nagito had never talked about having a crush on anyone. But only people with unrequited feelings got the disease, right?

So whoever he liked just didn’t like him back.

And there was just the smallest, miniscule part of Hajime that had a feeling he knew who it was.

He prayed to whatever gods were up there that he was wrong.

Years later, Hajime still can’t look at daffodils.

For all they mean respect, chivalry… rebirth, eternal life, new beginnings, all of which Komaeda didn’t receive…

They also meant unrequited love. The cruel mistress that took his life.

He used to like Spring. Now he can’t stand it. That’s when daffodils bloom.

That’s when Nagito died.

He still lays awake some nights, thinking about the man he used to know. What would have happened had they not met? Had Hajime never taken that job, would Nagito still be alive?

A question that would never be answered.

He quit his job right after, not wanting to be reminded of the man. Despite that, he wouldn’t let him be forgotten.

So now, all he could do was heal. Mourn him, and heal.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever like daffodils again. After all, they’re the flowers that tore them apart.

-End-

[vergilthelibrarian]

In Due Time.

Serial Killer/Yandere!Jeno x FTM!Reader

You woke up, the summer heat making your body sticky from sweat. You slowly sat up, grimacing.

You hated the summer with a passion but you were happy that you were able to show off your new chest since you got top surgery the beginning of this year.

Getting up, you took off your tank top and boxers and went to take a shower. Once you got out, you got dress for work.

You worked at a small bookstore and you loved working there. You got to read all the books you wanted to and for free at that while also getting discounts whenever you did decide to buy a book or two.

You threw on your book bag and headed out the door, making sure it was locked.

As you walked, you thought about the killings that were happening in your city. There was a serial killer on the loose and you would be lying if you didn’t say you weren’t scared. Knowing that the killings were in your city didn’t really help with your mental health and as you were already mentally ill to begin with, let’s just say it fucked with your already bad paranoia and anxiety.

Most of the victims were women though but that still didn’t stop you from being scared. It still didn’t stop the bad scenarios that would enter your mind before you fell asleep.

One wrong turn in an alley and you could wind up dead…

Oh how you hated your mind.

You yawned, covering your mouth as you made it to the bookstore.

You opened the door and was greeted with a rush of cool air, thankful that the air conditioner was on.

Heading to the back of the store, you put your items away and your ears twitched as it heard the bell to the front door ring.

A customer.

You dusted off your shirt and walked out of the back and into the front of the store, taking your spot at the register.

There was a young man with dyed blonde hair walking around, just checking the books out. Taking one out and reading a bit of it or the back of it and repeating this process.

You took out your phone, scrolling on twitter, laughing at memes when you felt a presence before you.

You looked up and gulped.

It was the young man and my god was he handsome.

“I like to buy these books.” he smiled, his eyes turning to crescents and you smiled back, nodding as you took the books to ring them up.

It was 3 books, 2 about psychology and 1 on hypnosis and you didn’t really think much about it.

“And here’s your change!” you chirped and the blonde boy smiled once more at you.

“Thank you.” he said before headed out the door.

You couldn’t help what you did next.

You squealed on twitter about the handsome customer.

~~ The next day at work the handsome young man came in again, looking around the store once more.

You sat at the register reading a book when you felt his presence again.

Looking up, you were met with a bright smile.

“Um, I wanted to ask you a question.” You closed the book and nodded at him.

“Ask away.” you smiled.

“I um… I was wondering if you would like to go out for coffee sometime?” he asked bashfully and you were shocked.

This couldn’t be happening.

This handsome man could not be asking you out.

“W-what?” “Coffee. Would you like to go for coffee sometime?” he repeated and still in a daze, you nodded.

“Sure.” you responded and the smile that was already on his lips grew.

“I’m Jeno.” “Y/n.”

You 2 exchanged numbers and after talking for a bit longer, Jeno left the store.

~~ As you waited at the booth for Jeno, your eyes were glued to the television in the cafe.

“And in breaking news, the dismembered body of a 23 year old graduate student was found in the river today. Luna Kim was has said to have been missing for 2 days. Friends say that during the night of her disappearance, she went home with an unidentified man at a night club. Detectives say this seems to be the work of the Hatchet Killer. If you have any details on this case, please call your local police.”

You felt a chill go down your spine.

Poor girl, you thought.

It was always sad when someone died but to be murdered? That was way that you never wanted to go.

Lost in your thoughts, you jumped as you heard a deep, “Hey.” Looking up, you saw Jeno smiling as he took a seat at the booth.

“Hey.” “I didn’t mean to scare you.” he laughed.

“No, it’s fine. I was just thinking about the Hatchet killings. They found another body today.” Jeno’s face fell.

“Really? Damn...” “I know. God, I hate it here. People can be so evil when they want to be, taking someone’s life in cold blood is just so… inhumane. It’s so wrong like how can anyone even do that?” you rambled and Jeno nodded, agreeing with you.

“Yeah. It’s terrible how evil this world can be sometimes...”

A small smile come on face.

“Do you want to order now?” and you nodded, wanting to get this date started.

You both got up and stood in line, talking to each other.

Jeno was a student in psychology and sociology. He liked studying about the topics on his off time which is why he came in the other day and bought those 2 books about psychology.

You on the other hand was a graduated student, going to school to become a librarian.

“If I could, I would live in a library. Seriously, I’m not joking!” which made Jeno laugh.

You 2 ordered your meals and sat back down, talking more.

You talked about what your hobbies were, how you had a pat cat named Catkitty and how you were teaching yourself the bass guitar out of boredom.

Jeno told you about his hobbies as well, how he liked conducting psychological experiments sometimes and that sparked your interest.

“What do you do exactly?” “I can’t really say anything or my professor will get mad at me.” he rubbed the back of his neck and you backed off.

“Wait. If you study psychology, why did you buy a book on hypnosis?” and Jeno shrugged.

“It looked interesting.” he answered, taking a sip of his ice coffee.

“Oh. Okay.” You 2 ate and chat for a long time and eventually the sun started to set.

“Wow, we’ve been in here for 3 hours...” you commented. “I should go. I hate going home in the dark.” you said, getting up to leave. “Let me walk you home then.” Jeno got up as well.

You agreed and seeing as you 2 already paid for your meals, you both left the cafe.

As the sun set and the sky became dark, the air around you became cool and as you 2 walked backed to your apartment, you talked and laughed away, enjoying each others company.

Jeno seemed like the perfect man to you. He was charming, funny, handsome. He was the total package and you couldn’t believe he asked you out and that you were having a great time with him.

Sighing as you made it to your apartment, you turned around, deciding to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Um.” you started, looking down at the floor. “I had a great time today.” your cheeks heated up as you looked up at him.

You was always so shy, you really couldn’t help it at times.

Jeno’s crescent eye smile came into view as he said, “Well, thank you for agreeing to go out with me. I hope we can go out again?” he asked and you nodded.

“I would like that.”

~~ Some months has passed since you and Jeno started dating. Everything seemed perfect. A little too perfect and for these pass 2 weeks, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

You couldn’t tell if it was your paranoia messing with you or your instincts warning you but you just had a feeling something was about to happen.

Jeno had been acting… strange as of late.

His usually calm but bright personality was being replaced by a more irritable and stressed personality.

He was snap at you for no reason these days and even manipulated you into not seeing your friends when you wanted to go out last Friday.

It was weird and something was off with the man you loved.

At the same time, the Hatchet killings seemed to have stopped at the moment and that made you sleep a bit easier at night.

But even with that one good thing, you still couldn’t shake the feeling of dread you felt whenever you saw your boyfriend now.

Sitting on your couch and writing a story, you heard a knock on your door.

Looking up, you got up and went to the door, looking through the peephole to see your boyfriend.

You opened the door, a small smile on your lips and you stepped to the side to let him in.

Jeno took off his jacket and shoes, kissed you on the lips and went to take a seat on your couch.

You sat back down, grabbing your laptop and continued writing again.

“Whatcha writing?” he asked and you grinned.

“It’s a story about a this girl trapped in another dimension of reality where some of the inhabitants are zombie like monsters while the other are a cult that sacrifices other people to the “God” of their reality so they won’t turn into the monsters but that “God” is actually a bug like alien from space. I’m still thinking of the details of the story though but I’m calling it Siren.” “That’s really ambitious. I love that about you.” “Why thank you.” you said and continued where you left off on your story.

You were so use to Jeno coming over to your house that you didn’t think about why he was here, only loving that he wasn’t snappy today.

Everything seemed normal, that is until he brought up the Hatchet killings out of the blue.

“So, Hatchet Killer seems to be taking a bit of a break huh?”

You stopped typing and looked up at him.

“I guess so. Honestly, I’ve been able to sleep well knowing that the killings haven’t happened in about a month or so. It’s nice to be able to run to a 7/11 at 2 in the morning to get a slushie again haha!” you laughed and Jeno laughed with you.

“Yeah. I’ve been looking into his case, well, more like I’ve been looking through my dad’s files since he’s a detective working on the case and it seems really interesting. They think he’s a student since all of the victims are college age and that he stalks his victims before kidnapping and killing them.” “Hmm. Is that so?” “Yeah.” “Why do you bring this up?” “I’m just… I don’t know, stressed? I haven’t been able to do my experiments since we started dating and I got bored so decided to look into the case since I know you’re pretty interested in it too.” which you were but still… with you gut feelings and him bringing the case up out of the blue, something just felt… off.

“Well, why can’t you do your experiments?” you asked him and he sighed.

“Mostly because I’ve been spending my days with you. You always occupy my thoughts you know. I wake up thinking of you and I go to sleep thinking of you. I dream about you every night too.” and you frowned slightly, that unshakable feeling gripping you.

“Really.” “Mhm.” he hummed sliding closer to you, so close that your noses were touching.

“Come on Y/n… I know you’re smarter than this.” he said, his face blank and an unreadable emotion in his eyes.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Jeno took you laptop, closed and placed it behind him. One of his hands rubbed your exposed thigh as he said.

“I know that you’ve notice that I’ve been on edge lately. I also know that you’ve been snooping around my room because of it.” you gulped.

You have been curious as to why he’s been acting strange lately so you did look around his room a couple of times to find anything out of the ordinary. The only thing you found were a pair of handcuffs and that was it.

“H-how do you know that?” and Jeno smirked.

“I have cameras around my house, including my room. You remember that bear I gave you?” you nodded, becoming scared as he talked. Jeno had an intimidating side to him and it scared you deeply.

“The eyes have a cameras in the. My friend Renjun made it for me.” “What?! Why would you do that?!” you asked in shock, your voice rising.

“To always keep an eye on my love. I’ve always had kept an eye on you and you letting me into your life just made it easier.”

You tried to get up but was forced back down back Jeno, his hands at your side.

“I know that you think I’m the Hatchet Killer. And you know what? You’re right. I am the Hatchet Killer and I’ve been so stressed because I haven’t been to kill anyone since dating you.” Jeno closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out and tighten his grip on you, opening his eyes back up. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that baby boy. I’ll admit though, my acting got worse the more I got stressed but I did had you fool for a while didn’t I?” he grinned and you began struggling in his grasp. You wanted to get out of there or to at least have this all be a dream.

“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna kill you. I can never go that far with you. But I will have to give you some rules, just so I can continue doing my experiments without you running off with someone else.

“1. Ditch all of your friends and family. I’m the only man that should ever be in your life now, the only man you should care and worry about. 2. If you talk about your friend Mark, I’ll torture right in front of you. 3. You should love me and only me. Think of only me. Do you understand?”

You had stop struggling by then and nodded your head, tears forming in your eyes.

Jeno smiled.

“Good boy. Now, these rules are simple and easy to follow but if you break any of them, I will have to punish you. You don’t want to be punished now don’t you baby boy?” he cooed and you choked out a yes.

“Good. Now pack your things. You’re gonna live with me for now on. Plus, it’ll be easier to train you if you lived with me.”

Jeno wasn’t going to train you.

He was going to break you. Break your mind and turn you into a docile pet that depended on him and only him. He’s been watching you for so long, for 3 years now and planned this meretriciously while also running his little “psychology experiments”. What he didn’t expect to happen, was to become more obsessed with you than he already was.

He knew he was obsessed, it was just he didn’t think he was so obsessed that he stopped one of the few hobbies that gave him joy in his life just to spend time with you, but no matter. You’ll learn to love this life and him in due time.

You were his new joy.

[write-it-good-imagines]

Mine - Jackson Wang

So, @aggrocat121 said “If I could request a Jackson writing with your prompts ! and 25, I’m just a sucker for a jealous Jackson scenario!” and you know what I said? Mood hun, tbvh.

~2k words, fluff, if one squints, one can see the angst but honestly I think it’s just cute ok, 

Prompts: 1. “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.”

25: “You’re mine. I don’t share.”

Summary: One would think jealousy only leads to dreadful things; and while it is true, it is also undeniable that, once in a blue moon, jealousy gives birth to even greater things.

It was not a date, per se. You did not phrase it like that. It was more of a meeting between two very close friends. Except you could have dialed anyone else’s phone number and request the presence of anyone else to accompany you in an afternoon shopping session. This meant that, with you explicitly calling him to join you and, subsequently, to spend quality time with you, it was more than just a meeting between two close friends. So Jackson settled for a date; in his mind anyway.

Jackson fantasized about confessing his feelings for you in an incalculable number of ways, his fictional plans leading to the same happy conclusion. Nevertheless, there’s a common saying that, although applicable, Jackson loathed: ‘it was never the right time’. And it truly never was. Not because he was unsure of his feelings, or because he didn’t suspect there was something on your part too, but because he discovered he was too much of a coward to take the reins.

And now he was stuck waiting for you to finish your conversation with an affable man who kept on repeatedly touching your upper arm as he grinned a tad too excessively at your words.

Jackson checked his watch and observed an excruciating five minutes had passed since he had met you outside your favorite shopping center and the only words you bothered to throw his way were a mere request to wait for a little bit, the rest of them undeniably flowing the stranger’s way. And boy, was he getting mad.

After your interminable conversation finally met its end, the man luckily went his way, refraining himself from doing an audacious thing such as hugging you, and Jackson let out a heavy sigh. You turned your body to him and were surprised you weren’t greeted with the usual bear hug and blinding smile. 

“Seunie, hello! Sorry about that, it was one of my co-workers.”

Jackson could figure as much. “Yeah, don’t mind. Shall we go?”

You blinked at the coldness of his words. Jackson started walking ahead, neglecting the usual pace he settled for when the two of you would walk together. You lifted a brow but chose to say nothing. He would ordinarily speak his mind on his own whenever something bugged him so you opted to wait for him to find his words.

However, it was a lie to say you were not intimidated by his icy silhouette.

“Thanks for coming. I know you must be busy with everything but I really need to buy some new jeans and office trousers. And we both know you’re more stylish than I am.”

Jackson glanced at you briefly and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. The brown trench coat you wore over a simple white shirt, tugged in the flared jeans and the low-heeled ankle boots were forming a look that Jackson planned on commenting about. Of course, you were beautiful regardless of the clothes you wore but that was positively his favorite look on you. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No need to get all modest now, Wang.” You chuckled and entered the first store for a quick scan. Jackson extended his arm to take your handbag so you could better look around. He kept a small distance from you, fiddling with his phone, giving minimal response to any of the questions you asked.

At first, you thought that he genuinely did not like anything that you showed him so you simply shrugged your shoulders and went on your way to the next store. It was the same irritating process in the next couple of stores you walked in. You’d show him an article of clothing, often picking ones that you truly liked, and he’d either nod his head or say you should buy it if you liked it. Jackson was slowly but surely stepping on your every nerve. If you wanted to randomly purchase something just for the sake of it, you would have sent your brother. 

His attitude was peculiar in itself. He had an annoying glimmer in his eyes and a pouty expression that you had never seen on him when he just wanted an ounce of attention. During all those memorable times you spent with Jackson, both good and bad, you fell for every antic he’d do, from jutting out his lower lip in a silent cry for hugs to the serene smile he only offered you when you were around him. It was, still, a bit far-fetched since he was friendly with every breathing creature. This time, his indifference toward you was a harrowing prospect.

As you were browsing through Zara, your eyes fell on some beautiful jeans that you were determined to try on, with or without Jackson’s help.

“Are you coming?” you asked shortly and walked to the fitting rooms without waiting for an actual response. Jackson followed you silently and folded your coat over his forearm, seating himself on an outer chair. It wasn’t long before he noticed the curtain opening. 

You were checking for the fitting when you called him over. “Jackson.”

Jackson stood up and walked over to you, almost chocking on thin air at the sight. He had shamelessly examined your curves before, occasionally informing you even, yet your ass looked splendid in that particular pair of jeans. He remembered he was upset, though, and he had to act accordingly. 

“These are okay.”

You could feel your eyes rolling out of their respective orbits. You pulled the curtain to change back into your clothes and stormed out by Jackson when you were done to pay for the jeans. You offered a small smile to the employee and offered your credit card; scarcely had you reacted when Jackson took the shopping bag in his hand and walked on ahead with that, along with your coat and handbag. That was the last straw.

“Okay, I am done receiving the silent treatment.” You declared and settled yourself by his side. “Can you please tell me what is going on with you?”

Jackson peeked at you, then turned his face forward. “Nothing.”

“Jackson Wang, I am going to ask this only once before I turn around and go home. What is going on?”

Jackson closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “How long have you known that guy?”

So that was the problem.

You scoffed in amusement. “Who, my colleague? Dang, Jackson, we’ve been working since I joined the company. If I think about it now, he is my senior by a year.”

Jackson did not find what he was looking for in your answer. The air in his lungs evacuated all at once in an excessive sigh. You did not know what to do with that side of Jackson’s. Well, one could always presume, but you didn’t know if he was simply dramatic for the sake of it, or was genuinely bothered. You looked up at him, a small smile plastered on your lips. 

“Jackson, we are only friends—“

“We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.”

Jackson mirrored your confused expression, although his was sprinkled with a mixture of fear and uneasiness. Your eyes were visibly widened.

“What?”

“What?”

“I was referring to my colleague, Jackson.”

He clicked his tongue. “Oh.”

You opened your mouth a couple of times, trying to form a coherent sentence, but failed each time. Out of all the things Jackson could have said, his last sentence astonished you. Or more accurately, it shook you down to your core. There was no turning back.

“Wait a second, are you acting like a brat right now because you are jealous?” you mumbled, your eyebrows knitted together. “I can’t believe it.”

Jackson scoffed. “I’m not jealous.”

“I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but I am going to give you a moment to reconsider your answer.”

Jackson turned his body completely to you, moving all the articles to one hand so he could gesture his argument freely. “I don’t like it. How come a random guy out in the street gets to be all mushy-mushy with you?”

You chuckled and folded your arms over his chest. His face was priceless at that moment. “A random guy? I just told you he’s my senior!”

“Oh, so in this modern age all seniors get to run their filthy hands up and down your arm, thinking it comes as a motivational bonus?”

You felt your blood beginning to boil. You were not happy with the mixed signals he was giving you so faithfully, confidently traversing back and forth between platonic friendship and romantic interest, and yet you did not run to him to rub them in his face. “What’s it to you, Jackson? How come you’re suddenly interested in who gets to run their hand up and down my body?”

“You’re mine. I don’t share.”

You would have actually felt the heart skipping a beat in your ribcage had it not been for the veil of anger clouding your senses. You would have also realized you developed a weak spot for that assertive side of Jackson. Especially now as it was exclusively yours. “Oh? Since when?”

He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “Since now.”

Jackson lost no time in cupping your cheek with his free hand and crashing his lips against yours. The air hitched in your throat as he pressed the lingering and otherwise addicting kiss to your lips. You froze in your spot, all the awareness exiting your body at once. He pulled back, his earnest eyes piercing through your soul. You could not remember a single moment when Jackson was that serious.

“I like you, hell, I like you so much that I simply don’t know what to do with myself in your presence. I don’t think there is anyone in this galaxy who adores another person as much as I adore you. You see all these people around here?” Jackson stopped succinctly to gesture to the crowded corridors of the mall. 

“Jackson, I don’t know what--”

“I know you must think I am exaggerating, or that I am crazy, or that I am a mess and God knows I truly am a mess, but trust me when I say there’s no one alive who can take care of you the way I can. I am horrified to lay a single finger on your beautiful skin, so who are they to think they even deserve such a blessing?”

There was no tremble in his voice, no hesitation in his eyes, not any snippet of insecurity in the words he spoke. To say you were petrified was an understatement. At least your blazing cheeks hinted you were alive.

“That and your ass looks majestic in those new jeans.”

Jackson lowered his hand to pat your ass playfully. He then straightened his body and cleared his throat, still studying your features carefully. A sly smirk was sketched on his lips as soon as he noticed your bright complexion and turned happily to skip away.

“Hey, Wang Jackson!” he heard you calling out his name and snickered to himself, wiggling his fingers at you. You were in a conspicuous state of denial as you dashed over to him. “Did you just brazenly flirt with me?”

Jackson intertwined his fingers with yours effortlessly. “Have been for the past century, but thanks for noticing.”

“No, no.” you shook your head and your now tangled hands. “Did you just confess to me?”

Jackson opted to wink at you, taking advantage of your perplexed stance. Out of all the countless scenarios he outlined in his mind, he had to admit that, with a little bit of outside help, that was probably the best existing way to break it to you. With much-desired success, too. 

“So what if I did? You have yet to give me an answer.”

You had had enough of his smug expression. Without letting go of his hand, you pulled him by the collar with your other one and returned the favor by attaching your lips to his in a heartbeat. He smiled into the kiss and you figured he got the message. That was until he slid his hand out of yours and into the back pocket of your jeans and gave your butt a light squeeze.

“What are you doing right now?” you cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I have to assert dominance.”

You burst out in laughter and decided to play along. You also stuffed your hand into the back pocket of his jeans. “What an eloquent way to say you just needed and excuse to grab my ass in public.”

Jackson let out one of his irresistible laughs and leaned over to you to peck your cheek. It was more comfortable than he thought it would be, walking like that. “Don’t act like you’re any better, Y/n.”

[bookdorp]

Getting back into reading!!!!

For about two years now reading has been hard for me. Even though for most of my life, ever since I learned to read as a kid, I have devoured book after book after book, usually several per month. But for some reason for the past two years I could bearely get through one book every two months.

But two months ago I finally got my reading fire back. Huzzaah! And the book that got me fired up again was (to my utmust and complete surprise and even a little frustration and dissapointment) A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. One of my best friends was doing a re-read and ofcourse the re-read bug bit me too.

When I read this book for the first time 4 years ago, I read it like a masterpiece and loved it so much that I immediatly ordered the second; A Court of Mist and Fury. Which at the time also felt like a masterpiece to me. The second time I read these books was right before the third came out; A court of Wings and Ruin, a book I’d been waiting for and marked in my dairy and even pre-ordered. 

So the second time I read ACOTAR, I was slightly dissapointed because I no longer got the rush from it like I did the first time I read it. And to my memory it felt bland next to how I remembered how ACOMAF made me feel, which read like a train the second time I read it, even though I started noticing some small things that bothered me. So eventually I got to the third book; A Court of Wings and Ruin. Which was definitly disapointing to me, even reading it for the first time. I was expecting to love it.

Now, we are a few years later and I’ve just read ACOTAR and ACOMAF all over again. And I’m grateul to these books for getting me into reading again. And to my surprise, this time I preferred ACOTAR over ACOMAF. (MINDBLOWN!)

I no longer think this series is a masterpiece (anything but) but it’s an easy read, you don’t need to think too hard, the writing is pretty simple and sometimes even pretty. The plot is never complicated and, honestly, I do love myself some good smut. 

ACOTAR

So ACOTAR Round 3: I really liked it best this time. Especially because the plot is so much smoother than ACOMAF and ACOWAR, and most important, it’s THERE, it’s visible, it’s noticable. Every little thing the characters do, especially Lucien and Tamlin, make sense at some point. Things just click once you get to Under The Mountain. And I love that in books! Books that leave hints for you to pick up on (or not), so nothing seems like its a sudden *gasp* suprise! I mean, plot twists are fantastic, but only if they’re executed well. When you feel something coming or you pick up the bread-crumbs left througout the story, and even though you don’t know how to put them together yet, you know they mean something and it will make sense in the end. And ACOTAR gave me this! It all made sense in the end:

-The mention of Tamlin’s heart of stone several times

- The vague mentions of a plague or blight on the land

- Lucien and Tamlin purposely letting her spy and figure things out on her own

 You know, those little things, that all become more logical at the end. I really appreciate that in a book. 

The Love story between Tamlin and Feyre was also nice. It’s wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either. I’m still not sure if Tamlin truly loves her but I do believe he cares about her a lot in this book. After all, he is being nice to her on purpose and that purpose is to save his people and ending a curse. So does he love Feyre or does he love what she could represent for the future of his people? But I am convinced he cares about her lot, otherwise he wouldn’t have send her away before UTM to save her and so condemn his own people. So maybe there was some love in the end.

The ending itself was great. I loved that Feyre ended up solving the riddel, I only thought the riddle was a little obvious? I mean, I figured it out before Feyre did (even at the first read), but being good or bad at riddles isn’t something I can judge a person for. I think it was amazing Feyre died before being Made Fae, even if, secretely, I would have loved for her to have stayed human. That would have been an interesting story too.

There were definitly consequences for the main characters to work through at the end of the book. Something I looked forward too in book 2. And each character has their good parts and bad parts and the writing accepts that and doesn’t apolagize for it. No one loves perfect characters (looking at you ACOMAF Rhys and Feyre!). 

So I finished ACOTAR with a happy feeling.

ACOMAF

On to ACOMAF, knowing that I loved it in Round 1, was dissapointed in Round 2. And in Round 3 I found myself somewhere in between love and disapointment.

Things I loved (because you always start with the positive:

- The slowburn romance building. Was it eye-rolling at times? Definitly. it’s not my favorite romance couple of all books (Phèdre and Jocelin from Kushiel’s Dart *chef’s kiss*) but I liked how it build slowly and how both of them were given the time to get to know eachother. 

- The Inner Circle. Always nice to welcome new characters into a story. I love their love and friendship, their banter in amusing, and I’m a sucker for found family.

- Learning more about Prythian. We go to so many more places then in ACOTAR. In ACOTAR we only got the human realm, Tamlin’s Mansion and Under The Mountain. In ACOMAF we get Spring Court, Human Realm, Night Court, Velaris, The Prison, Weaver’s Hut, Illyrian places, and (most importantly!) Adriata. So many Courts out there and we are now on Court 3! So much more to explore!

- Lucien. I just really like his character. He’s both a good guy and a bad one. He tries. He wants to be loyal to his only friend, support him and help him, and that is so admirable, but at the cost of Feyre. Which is bad. He is just so conflicted. The right thing to do is not so easy from his point of view. For Feyre it’s easy: yes, he should just help her and stand up for her. But from his own point of view he sees a Court, his Court, that has been devastated for 50 years, his friend comes back broken and in pieces, and in the end he’s only known Feyre for 6 months or so? I understand him chosing the Spring Court and Tamlin before anything else. Even if it’s terrible for Feyre. And it does makes him something of a coward. But he tries to the best of his abilities, even if it’s not enough. I love the duality of Lucien. This is what makes a character interesting: the good AND the bad. Because he did, UTM, help Feyre as much as Rhys did. He healed her, warned her during the Myddengard Wyrm thing. He tried. But he’s not al all powerful High Lord who has somewhat gained the trust of Amarantha.

And in ACOMAF he still tries though it’s obvious he’s chosen Tamlin. He’s allowed to do that, even if it makes him an awefull friend towards Feyre. It doesn’t make him a terrible villain monster. 

The only thing agree with does make him the worst, is him trying to force Feyre to go back with him in the woods. And yet he did that for Tamlin. All of it, all of what he does, is (in his mind) in the name of friendship and protecting his Court. The goal is good, the means are wrong. 

Anyway I like Lucien, even if we didn’t get much of him in ACOMAF.

The things I was dissapointed in (because hate is too strong a word):

- The drama of everything. Everyone gets a sob story, a horrible painful sobstory, because that’s the only way to know if you can like and trust someone I guess? Rhys’s father, mother and sister are murdered, Mor was tortured and brutalized by her own family, Cassian is a bastard that had to fend for himself nearly to starvation, Azriel is a bastard brutalized by his borthers and ignored by his family, and Feyre fits right in I guess. I know it’s fantasy, but please, does no one get a happy childhood in this book? I’d like to include Amren but we really don’t know much about her at this point and we don’t learn much more either.

- Taking away Rhys’s bad boy points??? It made him as interesting as Lucien in my book, the bad he’s done. Why does everything that he did Under The Mountain have to because a ‘Mask’ now. What made him so interesting was because he did all those things thinking he maybe liked them. Now we need to find out he was suffering all along and didn’t want to do it. He just had to to protect his people. I mean, make some things a ‘Mask’ but maybe leave us some bad things because he enjoys them?

- Which leads me to the third things that I disliked: the constant comparison to Tamlin. Suddely, all the good things about Tamlin in ACOTAR disapeared, and Tamlin becomes monster villain number 1 with no good qualities whatsoever. I totally agreed with Feyre staying away from Tamlin for awhile, but to just never go back again? Once she felt like she was strong enough to talk to him, she should have. Was Tamlin in the wrong with how he treated Feyre, YES ABSOLUTELY. But she could have gone back, with Rhys and the Innder Circle for back-up, and sat down with him to talk to him about it. I wish an attempt was made. But I think we all know that Sarah just needed us to hate Tamlin to make Rhys look more perfect. Feyre shouldn’t go back to Tamlin, after Under The Mountain, they’rr not good for eachother. But Tamlin doesn’t know Rhys is secretly a good guy. Feyre got to know him but no one else in Prythian knows Rhys is just pretending. So it’s incredibly ridiculous to assume that Tamlin knows Rhys is good? Rhys behaved like a villain in public on purpose and it worked. And now they are surprised eveyron thinks Rhys is a villain? Of course Tamlin and Lucien believe Feyre is being controlled or manipulated. It’s why I can understand why they want to force her to come back. they truly don’t know any better.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY. Feyre complains how Tamlin never asked her how she felt or how he never wanted to talk abou what happened UTM, but she never asked him either. So this shit goes both ways. I feel for Tamlin and I feel for her. They BOTH couldn’t talk about it but everything gets blamed on Tamlin because his behaviour is more outrageous. She should have gone back (WITH BACK-UP) and talked to him. Would have prevented the weird ending

- And that leads me to the ending. Did anyone really think it would be that simple? Just sneak in and out and that’s that? Like. I love clues in books, but this really screamed TRAP AHEAD *Leliane voice is DA Origins*. Also, Rhys is supposed to be the most powerful High Lord ever, but he’s really easy to subdue and trick. I mean, the King of Hybern is supposedly a warlord of masterful cunning....

 And the fact they left Amren in Velaris. Everyone seems to agree she’s even more powerful than Rhys. They should have left Mor and Cassian in Velaris and taken Amren and the King of Hybern would have died then and there. Making stupid decisions to further the plot is not fun to read. Write better! But then again, ACOMAF was never really about the plot so if you read this book accepting it’s all about romance building and some smut, it’ll be easier. It’s what I did :P

And some minor annoyances:

- I feel liked everyone’s going to find love in these books. Because being single is BAD I guess. It’s too convenient.

- I would have loved for one weaker character to be in the Inner Circle. Not everyone can be overpowered. Where are my bookworms that make plans and don’t have flashy powers that can make mountains tremble when they orgasm?

- Velaris was too modern? I miss a more fae place? Less with bars and dancings and stores selling lacey underwear? Feyre in leggings and an over-sized sweater annoyed me. Seriously.

And that’s that.

I’m so happy to be reading again! And writing about reading ><

Next is A Court of Wings and Ruin. 

[bnha-scenarios]

☕️ Special Thanks ☕️ 

As always, thank you so much for the coffee! Your kindness are very much appreciated! ♡

Emilija | Regan | Nela Kovaříková | 1 Anon

Onwards to the progress update.

I had. So. Many. Things. That I actually wanted to complete.

… Alas, work decided to be a bitch and swamp me with things to take care of. To put it simply, there were a lot of issues that caused a lot of overtime work even on weekends, so I had to step away from coding most of the time so I won’t burn myself out.

So yeah, I didn’t manage to complete a lot of features, though I did dabble on some stuff here and there. I’m not happy with the rather small progress either. But life happens, and there are just other things that are more important sometimes. So we just have to let it go and look forward to the next month!

I’d say that this month I was quite productive in terms of organization and planning instead of the actual coding. I have at least identified what I need to write for the ‘free activity’ time of the game, which makes about 30-40% of the gameplay itself. However, actually writing the scenes and executing it is a different effort altogether, which I have only started to embark on.

Still, it’s crazy to think that the development for the full game has been actively going for around three and a half months now. Whew. Knowing that I have a tendency to hyperfocus and then get tired of something after a short time frame, I’m going to at the very least give myself a pat on the back for still keeping this project up and running until now.

More details below ↓

Added Route: Kirishima

Let me preface this first with a declaration: I won’t be adding any more love interest after this. Please please please don’t make me do it 😅 Going through all the plans and re-setting up things to figure out how to add him in was such a painful experience…

But anyway. I will be adding this boy’s route to the full game, because a lot of people seem to want to have him in the game. He does seem like a fun character to write, so I thought I’ll give him a chance.

Gameplay

Places, Schedules, and Hanging Out with the Boys

I think you would have noticed from the last two devlogs, but there are several activities you can do in-game. One of them is to visit a place of your choice at a certain time in a day.

Some places can be unlocked when you reach a certain threshold in a specific stat, and there are others which will be unlocked when you reach a specific threshold in a character’s affection meter. Nai will message you whenever you manage to unlock a new place to visit, so keep a lookout for that!

But what happens when you visit a place?

Well, each character has their own schedules -- which you should be able to figure out either by coincidence or by talking to them at school when prompted to do so. Your Quirk will allow you to see the unlocked schedule of each of the characters, so my advice would be to check it out before deciding where to go! If you manage to come to a specific place at the correct time, you will bump into them. Normally, this will trigger a set of actions you can perform: Talk, Action, and Skinship.

Talking is a safe way to increase your love interest’s affection meter, especially in the first half of the game. More topics can be unlocked under some requirements. Generally, it doesn’t matter where you are, the topics you can talk about will be the same. There are topics which might trigger different reactions depending on how high your love interest’s affection is, so have fun finding them! However, be warned that most topics can be selected only once!

Action is another safe way to further increase your love interest’s affection meter. Unlike talking, different places have a different set of actions you could select from. More actions can also be unlocked under some requirements. Responses to this doesn’t exactly change based on the character’s current affection level, and it’s not limited to one time only.

Skinship is a riskier way to boost the affection meter: simply put, it’s a high gain with a high risk. Consider the character’s current affection level when you’re selecting from this list! He might not like it if you go touchy-feely when you’re not that close yet.

On the other hand, when his affection is high enough, you’ll find that you can have a lot of fun choosing the various options here. So be smart, bide your time, and have fun ;)

And that’s not all! Interaction is a two-way street, so depending on how your love interest views the main character, he will initiate Talk, Action, or even Skinship. There’s a lot of variations in here, and I hope you’ll have fun with this mechanic! I certainly am having fun while also pulling out my hair out of frustration designing this and trying to put the mechanism to control this into code…

Progress-wise, I think at the very least the functions for controlling this specific mechanic have been 80% completed. The actual writing however, is another story. There are still hundreds that I still haven’t had the time to write yet, and most of them are not yet coded in. Those who have been coded in still don't have sprites and music, so really, I’ll just say that the writing progress for this part is less than 1% completed….

On the left is the currently WIP full game project, with what I would say around 2-4% dialogue scripted in. And on the right side is the completed demo project.

…. Can you see how much effort the whole game is going to take me now? I did say to strap in and relax, cause this is going to be a long ride. And I wasn’t kidding lol

"Nai"

Although throughout the first week, the story will flow as your environment / characters around you teaches you on how the game works, I’m aware that the game mechanics might be hard to understand for casual players who aren’t too used to playing otome games (or games in general). Which is pretty much why I’m giving you a ‘helpline’ of some sort, in the form of another character.

Why a character? Because I can and I want to. Shush 😆

If you’ve played the demo, chances are, you’ve encountered a name which you had no recollection of existing in the canon My Hero Academia universe. Well, you’re right. Like the player’s character, Nai (full name: Namae Nai / 名前 ない) doesn’t exactly exist in the canon universe, but she’s here to help you throughout the game. (She’s also there because if she wasn’t, 1-A class members becomes odd number in total and that just feels weird to me -- plus, the team exercise system in Heroics wouldn’t exactly make sense if the class has odd number of students)

For those of you who hate Original Characters with a passion (why tho), you don’t need to worry too much. She won’t be an intrusive character in the plot and will mainly not contact you unless she really has to (seriously, her full name literally means ‘no name’, so give her a break, ok?). And if, even then, you still hate her, well.... Too bad you won’t be able to enjoy the game, I guess.

For those of you who don't mind her existence: I hope you’ll take a liking to her dark sense of humor and appreciate her helping you get through the game!

Others

Fixed some bugs regarding unlocking Special Moves from certain activities and games.

Played around and customized the ‘input name’ for a little bit, so it wouldn’t awkwardly sit on the bottom of the screen. I have 0 talent in designing UI though, so the background still stays as a black screen -- but at least it looks more prominent now.

Added a little sign to indicate which route the player has entered. I think it’s pretty cute! Hopefully you’ll like it.

Assets

Those who follow me on Twitter would have seen this coming, but anyway, I’ll be using TMGS OSTs as the main character theme for the four love interests. Hush hush, okay?

Other than that, unfortunately I didn’t have time to do any assets gathering this month.

Writing

Nothing much to say here. I think I managed to script around 50% of the events in the first day, but honestly I’m not completely satisfied with it so I might go back and tweak them a bit. Still a lot of scenes to be written!

Plans for December

I'm not too sure whether there would be much progress for the next two months, since there are so many things happening and deadlines to be met at work, which is making me really unmotivated to do other side projects in my free time lately. I also feel like I haven't been taking care of my health enough ever since quarantine started, so I'm trying to get back into doing more exercises and looking for healthier food options, which also cuts into my free time and motivation I guess.

With that said, I'll still at least aim for getting some scripts coded in -- particularly for the events in day 1. Other than that, maybe hopefully some assets gathering for supporting Kirishima's newly added route, and finishing up the coding parts that I was unable to finish this month.

I'll see y'all again at the end of next month!

[autumnpleaves]

:00000 tis super duper pfirsichkuchen answering time!! :00 anyways once you have the time to get to it- questions from the most recent ask game except I just copied random questions so I don't know the numbers of them-

Notebooks or journals? Why?

Favorite obscure tumblr humor/joke/meme?

Favorite thing you learned about in science class?

If you were a vegetable which would you be?

What do you find "cute" that others do not?

Which fantasy race do you wish you were the most?

Top 3 favorite colors and bottom 5 most hated ones

IT IS le time for me to ~answer~ and ~cleanse~ the inbox and drafts from 2020 XD 

There are sooo many things I’ve been tagged in and I have yet to make a dent in the number of drafts XD 

1. Notebooks or Journals? 

Notebooks. Not a big fan of journals?  I’d rather do like journalling on my notes app on my phone XD 

I’m a sucker for notebooks though. I would love an endless supply where the paper is just nice and smooth to write on and the pencil and pens don’t stain on it, and highlighters don’t ruin the paper, it’s just a dream that will never be fulfilled :’) 

2. Favorite obscure tumblr humor/joke/meme? 

0-0

Uhh... I got loads, honestly... the very prominent one is the, do you love the color of the sky? and just random like tidbits around the dash where funny things happen, stick bug, the rick rolls, and just funny stuff XD 

Funny animal pictures is great as well 

The random puns? 

BEautiful. 

3. Favorite thing you learned about in science class? 

CURRENTLY, as of yesterday, I learnt about the s, p, d orbitals in the subquantum thingy thingy... Idk. It’s just... crazy how only Chromium and Copper are the exceptions to the s,p,d rule, and it’s messing with my brain. 

The bus analogy? For filling the quantum shells and orbitals is my favorite as of right now. 

4. If you were a vegetable which would you be? 

I wanted to say carrot... hmmm... 

Potato, as much as it make sense is kinda overused? 

Carrot because ironically my eyesight is really bad. Also I like to eat baby carrots :D So maybe that? 

Also carrots are kinda long/tall, so I like it (coz I like to feel tall?) 

5. What do you find "cute" that others do not?

Oo- 

That’s a hard one... 

HMMMMMM. 

I don’t know honestly... 

Oh intelligence? 

I mean other people might not find it cute, but I personally find being smart, really cute. Like afjakdlfadf cute. 

6. Which fantasy race do you wish you were the most?

OOh!

Definitely a mermaid :) 

I like the idea of just not having to be tired for gasping for air underwater and Idk, it just seems fun 

Would I have noses? Maybe. What’s the point though? I have gills! :D 

7. Top 3 favorite colors and bottom 5 most hated ones

HHHH

This is hard. 

Top 3: 

- Orange 

- Yellow 

- Dark Green 

Top 5: 

- Neon Pink 

- Neon Purple 

- Neon ORANGE 

- Magenta? (It’s not a real color. I refuse to like it) 

- Neon Blue

Yes they are all neon. I do not care if those aren’t actual colors? They hurt my eyes. The only neon I can tolerate is neon red XD 

[turqrambles]

The Five Worst Things About Digimon World

I did it.

It took 20 years but I did it.

I finally beat Digimon World for the Playstation 1, a game that has haunted me for most of my lifetime, and I did it with a Phoenixmon, the reason why I use “Turquoisephoenix” as a handle!

This is who I used to beat the game, named after an obscure Ratchet and Clank character because that’s just how I roll. The final boss battle involved a lot of Prominence Beam spamming and med recovery floppy spamming but I did it fair and square. 

Before I get into what I thought about this game as a whole - and I do have a lot of good things to say about this game since I obviously enjoyed it enough to get to the end - I gotta talk about my least favorite things about this game. In a concise, Buzzfeed-esque list because I like writing things in easy to digest chunks.

Because, like most charming yet difficult games of the late 90′s, this game is very flawed and the flaws are pretty annoying!

1. Care Mistakes

The three emojis - Smile, Cool, and Poop.

Okay. This one - my least favorite part in the game - is going to take a bit of explanation.

First off, I don’t actually hate care mistakes existing as a mechanic. I think it’s a cute, virtual pet-y way to add a different wrinkle to evolution requirements, even if I think it’s a bit counter-intuitive to have to suddenly abuse my little companion once they reach Champion just because I want them to evolve into a floating metallic ball with a chainsaw.

My problem with care mistakes is that there’s literally no way of telling many care mistakes you have on your given Digimon. 

Literally everything else in this game is concisely recorded and easily displayed on your Digimon’s stats screen. You can see how much your Digimon weighs. You can see their Happiness, their Discipline. How much Life they have left. Their Age. Even how many poops they need to make before they digivolve into a sentient pile of feces.

But Care Mistakes? Naaaaw, you just gotta remember every single thing that you did to your Digimon from the moment it evolves in your fallible human brain. What’s that? A good portion of this game involves grinding in the Green Gym and it’s really easy to make a Care Mistake there without knowing you did so because you mashed A too fast like the stat-grinding numskull that you are? Well, that’s just too fucking bad for you, then! Enjoy not getting some of the best evolutions, you piece of shit. You stooge. You moron!

This game, multiple times: You know who I hate? The player.

Care Mistakes are such an invisible mechanic that, to this day, there are many guides with misleading info about what counts as a Care Mistake and what doesn’t, which...really stinks for a game such as this where you will be using a guide pretty extensively to get the Digimon you deserve. And you know why that is? Because we don’t get any indication as to whether or not some random event counts against you when raising your Digimon.

And honestly, having one of your main mechanics of the game being entirely invisible to the player is a terrible idea. Just put a little number in my profile that says “Care Mistakes: 0″ in there. Let me know this information without guessing.

2. The Glitches

Pictured: Something that will CRASH YOUR GAME if you try it on a physical copy.

Let me start with a disclaimer that most of the glitches I’m going to complain about were added into the game when Digimon World was localized and therefore aren’t the original intent of the developers. There are certain versions of Digimon World that are more stable than others (The English PAL version is the best version to play because of this) and, if you play this game via “certain methods”, there are patches to circumvent some of the bigger problems.

That being said! Boy! Isn’t it ironic that a game where I’m exploring the digital world is plagued with so many annoying, game-ruining glitches? Especially if I’m playing this game on a physical 20-year old copy like a dunce?

“Ohhhh...so Agumon thinks that they can block the Digimon game with their big fat Digimon-blocking head, do they?!”

The NTSC version of this game has a jukebox that will crash the game if you try to use it, keeping you from ever using a bonus feature meant to be a fun little reward for completing a certain dungeon, but that’s not as heinous as the Spanish, French, German, and Italian PAL versions of this game locking a good portion of the game to players because they forgot to make the Agumon in front of Ogremon’s Fortress an object you can interact with.

So that means, if you happened to get this game in one of four lucky countries, you can’t complete the Ogremon mission, you can’t recruit Whamon, you can’t recruit Shellmon, you can’t recruit anything tied to Shellmon’s bulletin board (which means no Vademon or Skullgreymon), and you can’t go to Factorial Town and recruit Giromon, Andromon, or Numemon. Ogremon is a key part of the Digimon World storyline and causes so many different things in the game to change, meaning that it should’ve been imperative to make sure this part of the game works!

But no. Instead this one little bastard Agumon keeps most players from finishing the game, because it starves players of those PAL regions of a bunch of Prosperity points, the main source of progression in this game. That means that Mt. Infinity and the final boss is just that much harder to unlock. It’s doable, but it’s more grueling process.

This really is a problem with the translators and really highlights a lack of general care with testing this game. Why this game was allowed to be shipped with such glaring bugs is anyone’s guess, especially in an era where you couldn’t release any patches over the Internet to fix retail versions.

3. The Monochromon’s Shop Minigame

Ohhhh....this one was so close to getting the top spot. When I first wrote this draft, this was the top spot.

Monochromon was only spared of my true ire on account of the fact that it really only exists for one part of the game (rather than being a constant problem like the Care Mistakes and the Glitches are) and you can easily cheese it by sleeping in front of the store so that you can save scum your way to victory. Like a true Digital Champion!

At one point in the game, you gotta help a entrepreneur dinosaur rhino man make a profit, because he was stupid and put his convenience store in the middle of a giant canyon next to a gaping chasm. So you play a little game of haggling, where you try to ruthlessly oversell a bunch of random items to customers until you make enough of a profit that this talking dinosaur tells you that you passed his secret test of character, abandons his store, and moves into File City.

There’s just one problem with this minigame - everything is decided by RNG.

“Get the hell out of my shop”

This minigame hates you. It wants nothing but to see you fail and to waste your time. The difference in profit margins of the three items (Meat sells for 50g, Portable Potties sell for 300g, and Medicine sells for 1000g) are so stark that, if you get too many customers asking for Meat, you might as well just reset the game and start over because it will be literally impossible to meet the requirement even if you busted the customer’s proverbial balls and squeezed every last bit out of their cutesy penguin faces.

Oh! It’s also RNG as to whether or not your customers will take your asking price or storm out of the store without buying anything!

It’s all the fun of working at retail! In a video game!

4. Three on One Battles

What you see before you is a battle system that is really fun when it’s one vs. one, manageable at two vs. one, and downright unbearable at three vs. one.

The battle system works for the most part. You don’t have full control of your Digimon (and yes, you only have one Digimon with you at one time, so you can never stack the numbers in your favor) so you shout commands at it, commands that the Digimon’s AI are pretty good at following, and hope for the best as you chuck healing items at it.

It’s not the best battle system, but it’s fun. And it definitely reinforces the whole “this is a pet you’re taking care of with its own thoughts and feelings” atmosphere that this game is going for.

However, nothing can protect your Digimon from enemy fire concentrated on them, especially if you did the thing that most players do and equipped your Digimon with the most powerful attacks that also happen to have slower cast times than the faster, weaker attacks.

What then happens is your Digimon’s Health is slowly whittled away as you are powerless to stop it, watching as your digital friend is straight up bullied by enemy Digimon as they keep falling to the ground over and over and over and over again.

The one saving grace is that Friendly Fire exists in this game so that oftentimes the enemy Digimon will damage each other in their mad dash to ruin your day, but that seems more like a band-aid than an actual fix to this system.

5. Fishing Seadramon

“Hi, kid. Let me guess - you also thought you had to talk to the Tankmon in Factorial Town in order to unlock me, huh.”

This one is a lot less of a pain than the other four and it’s only a little annoying but boy...getting Seadramon kinda sucks in this game.

It took me almost a goddamn hour to catch Seadramon. One hour of gameplay devoted to catching one fish. Just like real fishing!

I will say, besides Seadramon, the fishing minigame in this game is pretty competent. It’s just that Seadramon is very elusive, showing up at only two hours in a 24 hour day, and is a very finicky fish that won’t take your bait even if you literally placed it in front of his dumb fish face.

Don’t be fooled by this screenshot. The heart just means you have the right bait. The heart means that you didn’t actually get within range of hooking him.

IT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!

Seadramon is also subject to almost as many gaming myths as the Care Mistakes are, due to how elusive he is, but that’s less to do with poor communication (the game does at least explain multiple times in multiple places how to find him) and more to do with the fact that catching him is just such a goddamn chore to do that players of this game always assume they’re doing something wrong.

When in reality, Seadramon is just a picky little bitch.

Next time I discuss Digimon World, I’ll talk about things I liked, don’t worry. I just had to get all of this negativity out before discussing the full game proper.

[henrikvanderswoon]

Double the Kill: A Nancy Drew Play Written by 12-year-old Yours Truly - Readthrough Reactions

Okay, guys, I went through two cups of super strong coffee reading through this thing and I think I can hear colors now so… Have fun reading this!

I sincerely haven’t read this thing in probably ten years and I legitimately forgot almost everything about this play I wrote for myself and my twin/two best friends to perform. We used to write plays for each other all the time, as well as play Nancy Drew games together, so… this was all very fitting.

Anyway, this is a super long one and I APOLOGIZE but also I hope you enjoy reading this thing as much as I enjoyed writing it 😂

Okay, for starters, this story is titled: “Double the Kill” for two reasons that I can remember: (1) someone actually gets murdered, and (2) someone beheaded the Lincoln Memorial statue. 

…

You know when you’re in middle school and you’re assigned some topic to research for a project and suddenly you have this stupid amount of knowledge about something you don’t know what to do with? 

That’s what happened here. 

Anyway.

So, apparently I didn’t know what the word “pervert” was when I was 12 (poor, sheltered creature) so I legitimately named a character Blake Pervey and I’m gonna fling myself into the sun. 

Oh my gosh, I wrote up a case profile for this, complete with character roles and everything. Incredible.  

Let’s provide that for you guys:

The Case: Billionaire Erving Nickels is holding a benefit concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., where the band “One Love” will be performing. Erv senses trouble, so he calls Nancy Drew and her best friend Bess Marvin to watch out for anything “suspicious.” But about an hour before the concert’s about to start, One Love’s lead singer Terri James is found dead near the Lincoln statue and the head of the statue is gone!

Contact: Erving Nickels - a billionaire who’d arranged the benefit concert. He asked Nancy to come and watch for anything “suspicious.” 

Suspects: 

Erving Nickels: Goes by Erv, for short. As it turns out, this man has actually gone bankrupt recently. Could he go to desperate measures to gain back his wealth?

Blake Pervey (I still want to die): One Love’s back-up singer. Terri had broken up with him recently because he’d attempted to cheat on her (huh, maybe he really is a pervert after all). Did he murder her to get revenge and take her place as the lead singer? 

Lyza Benton: The make-up artist. Lyza is always on the prowl for the next juicy gossip to spill to the press and gain publicity. Could she have killed Terri to create the ultimate story?

Myra “Ryan” Williams: One Love’s guitarist. She was the person Blake had attempted to cheat with, but she’d refused. Terri didn’t believe Ryan’s story and blamed her for everything, which caused the two women to hate each other.

Victim: Terry James

Okay. Already this is a little better than “Murder at Turquoise Inn,” because there are actual suspects with actual motives??? aMAZING. 

Wow, Nancy’s a bitch. She didn’t even tell Erving that Bess was coming along. 

Erv keeps saying that he thinks something bad is going to happen tonight, and Nancy and Bess are both like,“Can you please explain why?” And he’s like, “I just have a feeling.” Like boi, that’s sketch. 

Bess: “Sorry to change the subject, Mr. Nickels.” 

Erv: “Please, just call me Erv.” 

Bess: “No thank you.” 

Bess…I know Erv is a weird name, but…why? 

Mr. Nickels is taking Nancy and Bess on a tour, right? And I keep peppering in random facts about the Lincoln Memorial I learned for school and it’s SENDING ME. 

“I’ll watch and wait for our groovy band to arrive, while you girls split up and watch for suspicious activity. Now, let’s boogie!”

Asfbadka Erv, no one talks liKE That! 

I would just like to take a moment to preface the rest of this post with the fact that I wrote this for me and my friends, and we were always writing the stupidest dialogue for each other because we thought it was hilarious. Um…which hopefully explains lines like these: 

(1) No one calls Erv Nickels, the handsome billionaire, “Darling.” Except his mother.

(2) [We’re going to change.] No, don’t change. We like you guys just the way you are. *laughs obnoxiously* 

…

I hate myself. 

So Blake and Terri arrive in the limo and let me tell ya’ll Blake is definitely flirting with Erv right now and I’m so fucking confused. 

Terri: That man’s got problems. I guess money does that to people. 

Blake: But we have money and we don’t have problems. 

Terri: Maybe it only happens to men.” 

Blake: But… I am a man. 

Terri: Exactly.

Okay, you can tell my love for writing banter was here from the fuckin get-go. 

Oh god, now Blake is flirting with Nancy. Fuckin hell. I may not have known what the word “pervert” was when I was 12, but this man was aptly named. 

Suspicious, suspicious.*Mocking* ‘Can you girls watch for anything suspicious?’ Something suspicious, yeah right. Oh look! A BUG. Oh, soooo suspicious.

Bess…. I love you. 

Okay, as dumb as everything is in this thing, some of this dialogue is fucking cracking me up so hard.

Bess: No! Honestly. I swear, it’s almost like he’s trying to keep us busy so something bad can happen.

*A faraway scream cuts in from offstage*

*Nancy and Bess look off in the direction it came from, way too casual*

Bess: What was that?

Nancy: I dunno. 

*They pause, then their eyes widen in realization* 

Nancy: Oh crap.

Listen, I know I’m a comedic genius, but this is getting out of hand. Dsbfsjkdsjfbk

Bess: Mr. Nickels! What woman was screaming so high like that?

Erv: That was me. 

I CAN’T BREATHE. 

I saw Terri lying there on the floor, apparently dead. 

Erving… the woman is DEAD. What do you mean “apparently?” 

Nancy and Bess find a letter Terri was going to give to Erving to tell him she can’t do the concert because she also felt like something terrible was going to happen to her, and all Bess can do is repeatedly laugh at the word, “Flee.” 

Hey, too bad “Honest Abe” is missing his head, otherwise he could tell us whodunnit.

Wow, yall. Bess is my favorite. 

You know, the funniest thing about this is that you can definitely tell how many of the games I played between writing my horrible novel at the age of ten and writing this. If this thing had better dialogue and more fleshed out story/characterization, I could picture this as an actual game, not gonna lie. 

And… maybe if it didn’t involve removing the whole-ass head of the Lincoln statue…

Yanno, tiny details like that.

Lyza: *laughing* Scared you, didn’t I? 

Bess: Oh, “scared’"is such a strong word. I’d say more… "severely startled.”

So Erving reveals to Nancy that he’s actually not dumb as bricks, but puts up the facade because he’s broke and doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s not still super rich and air-headed. I’m crying. 

You sensed something bad was going to happen. You should have called the police to stand guard! Not some amatuer teenager who calls herself a detective and her little friend!

…. The pervert has a point. 

So Lyza likes to meddle in people’s business. Ryan had written about Blake’s advances in her journal and Lyza blackmailed her about it, Terri blamed Ryan for Blake’s attempted cheating. Blake tried to bribe Ryan into going out with him by telling her he’d discovered a way to get his hands on a fabulous collection of priceless jewels, and Terri broke it off with him. He’s upset, Ryan’s pissed that Terri thinks she went along with Blake, Erving borrowed money to organize the benefit concert (in order to benefit himself) and now he’s in even deeper debt because the concert has been cancelled and Lyza is having a fuckin field day. 

BOY AM I ON BOARD FOR THIS SHIT.

Before he came into wealth, Erving worked in a museum in Chicago, and Bess finds a piece of paper on the floor of Ryan’s trailer with the phone number to this exact museum. Nancy calls to see if there is any connection between that museum and the Lincoln Memorial and apparently there’s a theory that the head of the Lincoln statue contains jewels that the museum talks about in a part of their exhibit. 

*kronk’s face* Oh yeah. It’s all coming together.

Nancy: For all I know, you could be the murderer. 

Erv: Why would I do that? I needed the money from the concert!

Nancy: No you didn’t. You could’ve just–I dunno–stolen the head of Abe over there in search for the ALLEGED JEWELS INSIDE.

Ya’ll… please don’t ask me how the FUCK one person would get tools to remove that head without anyone noticing. Please. 

Blake: Hey, guys, have you seen Ryan anywhere? 

Nancy: Why? You gonna ask her out again?

Kjdbfisfdosidnf FUCKIN’ SAVAGE, NANCE. 

oH MY GOD THE CULPRIT SLIPPED UP SO EASILY I’M SCREAMING. 

oH my god, Nancy told Erving they needed something to pick the lock on one of the trailers and he’s all: “Like a bobby pin?” And just takes off his hat, removes a bobby pin, and “lets his long hair cascade down and over his shoulders like a waterfall” and I’m crying. I can’t fuckin’ breathe.

Oh shit, wait… the first culprit was actually covering for the real culprit all along I’m losing my mind. My twelve-year-old brain was so advanced I just threw a curveball at myself sjdbfshdbfagh

Okay, so I’m not gonna spoil anything because I think it’s hilarious to keep you all wondering what the fuck is going on and who the hell did it and why, but I would just like you all to know that this play literally ends with one of the characters singing Hannah Montana’s “The Best of Both Worlds” completely off key because I thought it would be hilarious and I think that really tells you a lot about who I am as a person.

[ranger-report]

Review (In Progress): THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT (2015)

The third and final (so far) game in The Witcher trilogy is big. Very big. Massive. Supermassive. Maybe I’m just a little intimidated by the depth and width and density of the game, but as of this writing, I’ve clocked in 62.4 hours on the game. That’s compared to the 48.1 hours of The Witcher and 31.5 hours of The Witcher 2. I’m closing in on the point where I’ve played Wild Hunt more than the first two games combined. From where I sit, there’s no end in sight, either; I have yet to complete the story, in addition to multiple sidequests, witcher contracts, and treasure hunts, not to mention the jawdropping expansion quests Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine, which combined supposedly equal the length of the main story quest itself. Throw everything in a blender and pour it out, and I’ll be surprised if I eventually finish everything I’ve a mind for in under 150 hours. This is a big game. This is a dense game, packed with content every couple of miles or so, in a world where you can’t walk into a town without stumbling onto someone -- or something -- in need, and that’s ignoring the contracts on notice boards. People walk, talk, argue, cough, stumble around drunk, and get into fights with you. Oh yes, run afoul of local gangs, and they will come for you. Meanwhile, the vast open world is teeming with monsters to battle and loot, from the continual presence of drowners to the new griffins and basilisks. An overwhelming amount of content in a series that already packs plenty of content into each game. It would be far, far too much and monotonous if it wasn’t for one thing: developers CD Projekt Red write compelling material, and they know how to write a damn good story.

When the game opened up, it looked just like any other open world game I’ve ever played, and immediately I felt a pang of disappointment. I’ve done Far Cry 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Grand Theft Auto V, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and like many of my gaming generation I get what to do. Seek out loot, checkpoints for fast travel, towns, fight things to get xp, ignore the “pressing” main story in favor of side quests for cool shit, yadda yadda yadda. Considering the first two Witcher games felt like original experiences in what they were trying to do, to walk into such a generic open-world framework was such a let down.

At first.

But then, something strange began to happen: I settled in. Two random quests twisted and convoluted into a connected thread, which was followed by a third main quest which circled back to this thread and elaborated on it. Suddenly a character who just seemed off her rocker was now a fearfully sympathetic human being, now seen in the light of someone else’s story. CD Projeckt Red hooked me, hooked me bad, and now this wide wide world was no longer a series of performances, it was the lives of people in this world and how Geralt affects them -- just like in the previous games. Only here, it’s bigger and wider and seemingly less connected, but it still all comes back together. Choices matter. People matter. The world itself twists and winds according to you, the witcher, and who you side with/fight for. Every other open world game I’ve played has had Things To Do, and this is no exception, but now suddenly it feels like everything matters. Before, everything I did felt like it was to further a progression percentage, to get trophies and upgrade items and simply arcade my way through a sandbox which promised “openness” but really was just all the levels of a video game laid out side-by-side so you could see them all at once instead of having to press through to get to the next one. This is the first time where I’ve really, honestly felt like I was walking through a living world, and to say that it’s captured me is an understatement. Where once I would have rolled my eyes at sidequesting in the face of a main quest where the point is to track someone down or save someone because it is incredibly important, now it feels like the most natural thing because the main quest requires you to go through some shit first. Every contract and quest met along the way furthers the main quest in some way or another, particularly when you open up new quests AFTER helping old friends, friends who now desperately need your help again, and what would happen if you weren’t there? Combine all of this with exceptional voice acting, talented writing, detailed animations, and we have compelling content literally around every corner. And that’s even when you’re just out searching for treasure or diagrams to make better witcher armor! Stories pop up everywhere, all of it interesting, even the slightest of things, and it truly crafts a distracting world to be enveloped by.

A living breathing world would be one thing all on its own, but thankfully Wild Hunt features the best-looking graphics in the series to date. I was genuinely worried that my old rig wouldn’t be able to handle a massive open-world game from 2015 without some tweaks (my desktop is old, shut up), but for the most part I’m running everything on high and it is breathtaking. Weather effects, god rays, BLOOM jesus christ I’m appreciating bloom in a video game for the very first time and I hate that I am but god fuck the first time you see the moon behind clouds in this game with bloom on, and I’m talking a full moon so it is BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL and just. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Detailed textures and character models, the best in the series so far, a wide palette of colors (which sometimes makes the game look like a living painting, in the best of ways), absolutely masterful work. There’s the odd object-poking-through-something-it-really-shouldn’t, or the glitchy human being moving/acting/dying in ways they shouldn’t be, but that’s also a staple of both open world games and this series in general. Jank happens, especially in a game this size. It’s not as breaking as it has been in certain aspects of the first two games, and it’s mostly Bethesda-level charming. What matters though is that it doesn’t kill the experience, nor does it happen so often that it feels like the game is bugged or broken.

Combat, meanwhile, is still not perfect but it’s the best it’s been in the trilogy. Fast and furious, yet rewarding for those who have more patient skills, swordplay is easy and comfortable and versatile. Similar to the second game, one needs only turn the camera towards whichever enemy they want to attack and Geralt automatically goes for whichever monster or human is highlighted. Sometimes this can be fraught as the game will erratically highlight a different character than the one you’re facing, or will transfer the highlight to a different enemy if the one you were facing dances out of sight due to a roll or dodge or other maneuver. But it’s only frustrating sometimes; this was a flaw far more prevalent in the second game than here, and the lock-on mechanic is a godsend when paired against high-level creatures. With patience and tactics I’ve been able to competently square with beasts far too high level for me to tackle, and actually come out the victor, an idea that would be absolute suicide in the first two games. But now strategy versus simple number rolls can prevail, provided you are prepared and/or willing to have the patience to chip away while dodging for your life.

Wild Hunt is one of the few game worlds I’ve entered that feels stunningly alive. Whenever I start up the game, I am transported. Taken away. Breathlessly in awe of how real and vibrant the physical presence of the visuals on screen are. What a strange gift to behold. And, yet, aggravatingly, it frustrates me that most opinions I have encountered are that players don’t need to play through Witcher 1 & 2 in order to play this game. You certainly can, but so much context is lost. Geralt’s relationships with Triss and Yennifer and the struggles between them (that is, should you decide to romance Triss); the nostalgia and heartache of coming back to Kaer Morhen and revisting the other witchers; the friends and former alliances who pop up under vastly different circumstances; the paths taken and decisions made which impact where and how you begin this story. Wild Hunt is the culmination of a near-decade’s worth of storytelling, and the rewards for having played through the previous two games are plentiful. Nilfgaard’s invasion has extra oomph knowing where they were before, and walking through Vizima’s capital now occupied by Emperor Emhyr is especially chilling and devastating. I have no doubt that someone could pick up this game and play it and get the jist of what’s going on without playing the first two games. But will it mean as much? I daresay no. It is absolutely essential to play the first two games to truly feel the depth of impact that this story -- this world -- has to offer.

At this point in time it seems I’m coming upon some kind of resolution to the story. I’m off in search of allies to help combat a vicious foe, meaning it’s time to wrap up any side quests I still have in my ledger. There’s a lot to do. Once I’ve reached the conclusion of this game, this story, I’ll provide a wrap-up review. For now, this deep and still ploughing through, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not only the best of the trilogy, it makes me want to go all the way back to the first game and play through the whole series again with different choices, for different outcomes, if only to see the roads I did not take and who was left behind. This is an amazing experience with literally hours of content to take in, and I am eager to devour the remainder.

Score (So Far): 9/10