#considering they're both also in 1 and while yeah 1 is half the story it becomes without 2

[storytellering]

I am so grateful for your existence. Nobody does Morston like you

🥺🥺🥺 thank you so much anon, that's so sweet! I wouldn't necessarily say I'm the only one (or even the best out of those out there), but I really do appreciate the sentiment a lot, haha. 🫶💕

[kpopsexstories]

NCT 127 Dating Ban #4: Johnny Pt. 2

NCT 127 can’t date girls. As their gay friend you help them out with their sexual needs.

This is a 100% gay smut story. Check out this post for my straight smut and this post for more gay smut.

Pairing: NCT Johnny x Male Reader

Story: Johnny has been winking at you since you arrived. You’ll finally discover what he wants, and learn that the men know a lot more about you than you think.

Type of Sex: WILD

Word Count: 3.4k (9.2k incl. Part 1)

<- Read Story #4: Johnny Part 1

<- Start from the beginning: Story #1: Haechan

Want more stories like these? Also read the NCT Dream Dating Ban series which takes place before the 127 series.

Johnny is huge. And with the NCT 127 dorm all to yourselves you're free to do what you want. This is when you get to experience the wild side of the surprisingly hung man who's been winking at you for days.

You start in his room, where it takes you a while to get comfortable with the impressive but daunting size. While he doesn't show it, Johnny is so sexually frustrated he has to work hard to stretch you slowly and not just shove it in there. Now that you know that, it's nice to know that he cares and is considerate.

For a while, because it's taking so long to make your hole able to handle the thick head and shaft, he considers giving up. It would be easier to just tell you to suck it.

But it doesn't come to that. And once he’s in, it feels amazing to the both of you. This is when you really get to see that wild side for the first time, as a big shift happens to the otherwise poker-faced and so far direct but relatively gentle man's attitude.

In his bed, Johnny is plowing you hard from behind. You're on your knees and elbows, the stranger with whom you now live thrusting behind you with a firm grip around your hips, and his cock gliding back and forth, in and out of your wide-open hole.

You feel a hand move up your back. It grabs your shoulder and pulls, pressing your ass harder against the groin.

“Ahhhh,” Johnny grunts behind you. “Ahhh, ahhh, uh-uh-uh-uh!”

It's obvious to you that he's either been craving this for very long – starved for sex due to the frustrating dating ban that has been hard on the men who are in their prime – or the opposite, that he's very experienced and does this all the time.

Johnny looks down at your ass with lust in his eyes. He watches the shaft move, tightly gripped by your hole. He's already added more lube, and the slippery, smooth sensation is amazing.

None of the others have ever fucked you quite like this. You've never had a dick this big before.

The man may not have access to pussy, but a hot ass is apparently just as good. You've often wondered if – to some of the men, even those who aren't gay – your ass might even be better than a female counterpart.

It certainly seems that way, by how eager and passionate they are when they're with you.

Johnny pulls harder and your body gives in. Your hands raise from the bed and you push to stand up on your knees, or you'll break in half from Johnny's strong pull. Meanwhile Johnny leans forward and puts an arm around your stomach, holding you tight while he keeps thrusting repeatedly into your ass.

“Mm, yeah, you like this?” he asks. “Have you ever had a cock this big?”

He knows he's massive and proud of it. “Mm, mm, yeah,” you pant. “No. You're- fucking- huge.”

Johnny plants his lips on your neck and smirks. You can feel his satisfied grin on your skin and hear his lustful panting so close to your ear.

“Mm, mm, fuck you're hot,” he says and not for the first time. “You're fucking amazing.”

You like to hearing him say it. You thoroughly enjoy his strong arms around your waist and mouth on your neck. And the dick, it may be massive but your hole is well used. With his impressive length and the passion in his movements, Johnny makes you feel things you've never felt before. This is hot sex on the next level, and the size is only part of it.

“I wanna see you,” you say, but Johnny won't have it. He holds you harder and bites your ear, also not for the first time.

“Ahhh,” you exhale “Ahhh, yeah.”

“Mm, mm, your ass is so tight. Fuck. Haechan is so lucky.”

This makes you open your eyes wide. But Johnny quickly interrupts your thoughts.

“Ahhh, you enjoy this don't you? Tell me the others can't fuck you like I can.”

“Yeah, yeah, you're fucking good,” you say, because you know it's what he wants to hear. “Mm-mm-mm-mm, yeah, fuck my ass Johnny. Fuck my ass, fuck my ass, mmm, you're so big!”

Johnny's hand moves down your side. The mental image of his muscles and toned abs appear in your head. He takes a firm grip on your hip and push and pull repeatedly. He pulls his head back to glance down between you, and watch the hot ass that brings him so much pleasure.

“Got a girlfriend?” you ask out of the blue. You know he doesn't but your intent is to tease and make a joke about how much better an ass is than a pussy.

Johnny chuckles behind you. “Yeah,” he says slowly and temporarily slows his pace.

“What?” you ask and turn your head.

“Well, not a girlfriend really. I'll tell you later.”

You decide to let it go, because the last thing you want in this moment is for a relationship to get in the way of the best sex you've had so far on this trip.

Johnny seems unbothered by your question, but he too wants to move on from the subject and decides to give you what you asked for. He suddenly pushes you forward and pulls back, and you grunt when the dick abruptly falls out and the thick, firm head is released. It's painful, but best to rip the band aid off quick.

He pushes you again, sideways this time. You quickly comply, turn and roll on your back. Your head is suddenly hanging out over the foot of the bed.

Johnny quickly comes down on you. He grabs your dick and pulls himself up to kiss your lips, then lets go to reach for his own powerful boner.

You make out while he skillfully gets into position. You raise your knees and lift your ass to give him access, and soon the head is pressing against the opening of the hole again.

“Lube,” you rush to say.

“Wait, I've got something better.”

Johnny suddenly disappears out of your reach. He goes for the drawer where he once got the lube from, but this time he reappears quickly.

The item he's now showing you makes you smile. He puts it to his nose and inhales.

“Will this work?” he asks.

You look at him sideways and smile. “Where the hell did you get that?” How he got it is perhaps not the real question. That he has it at all is the real surprise.

“Winwin,” Johnny says.

You decide not to ask any questions. The man hands you the item and you half way sit up when you take it, before inhaling the fumes just like he did.

“Lube too though, please. I have a feeling I'm gonna need it.”

*****

Your neck is on the floor and legs in the air at the foot of the bed. Johnny’s knees and feet are still on it, but his hands are firmly planted on the ground on either side of you. You're both basically upside down.

He's laying flat and stiff above you, churning your ass with his massive cock. Your lower back is pressed against the side of the mattress, and the bed repeatedly hits the wall at the opposite end each time Johnny lowers his himself on top of you.

He's given you a pillow for support, and the sex you're engaged in is quite something. And while you're going at it, Taeyong in another room is taking off his headphones.

The air is cold down here on the floor. You feel dizzy when blood rushes to your head, and your body works hard to pump it to your dick. The poppers worked though. The lube too. This is already the most fun sex you've had in this house. But maybe it's time to change positions again, as this isn't the most comfortable place to be in.

Taeyong is very confused. He's seated by a screen in a dimly lit and well equipped room, the one they call the office. This is where he gets a lot of his work done when he's not at the actual office and studio. More than one NCT track has been produced here.

The headphones hang around his neck. He swirls the swivel chair around and listens intently. The sound is coming from Johnny's room.

It's obvious to Taeyong that his friend is having sex. But there's something about the way it sounds that has him baffled. What the hell kind of position are Johnny and his lover in?

He listens for several minutes. He thoroughly enjoys it and it turns him on. But eventually he gets up, and when he leaves the room he finds the apartment silent.

No one appears to be home. But the noises from Johnny's room continue. Either the man has a girl over which Taeyong knows can't be true, or he's gotten to you, the friend Haechan brought home.

Surely that must be the case. It wouldn't surprise him. And there's no way he won't take a look to find out.

Taeyong moves swiftly but silently through the hall. Johnny's door is slightly open. He looks through the crack and sees you bent over a desk, and Johnny's firm ass he stands tall behind you.

Taeyong was hard before he got here. But when Johnny pulls out and you stand up straight in the middle of the room he panics, and quickly rushes back to the hiding hole he came from.

He makes it just in time before you open the door fully and look outside. You're about to take this party to the rest of the house, because Johnny said it would be fun and you agree.

*****

You're standing in the middle of Haechan's room when Johnny finally erupts. Or rather, you're hanging around his neck, arms holding on for dear life and legs wrapped around his sides.

He's the one standing, wide-legged and with his palms firmly planted on your butt cheeks.

Your body jumps up and down in his arms. Your feet glide along his lower back and ass. You're amazed that he can hold your weight, and that he's lasted this long. Considering how horny and desperate you think he's been, it's a wonder he didn't come the first time he stuck his big dick in you.

You've been to the kitchen already, and the living room couch. You've agreed to shower together once all this is over, and considering how long it's been that makes you worried. You once got cornered in a bathroom with Mark, the others being right outside, and it might very well happen again.

But having sex so openly, in a living space you share with strangers, is a liberating thrill. And even if you were to be interrupted right now and the party is over, Johnny is likely to be number one if you're ever asked again which one of the men is the best.

If not the best, at least the most varied and fun. He's had you in all kinds of positions in every shared room in the apartment and proven to be quite adventurous.

To go to Haechan's room was your idea though. You've already done it in his bed which is also yours. And now that Johnny is finally getting the release he's been after, it feels like your mission is complete.

“Ahh, ahh, mmpfh!” he grunts while pressing his lips against yours and grimacing. “Mm, mmm, you're such a slut.”

He's been talking dirty to you all day, using your body for his pleasure and degrading you. Jisung would never do that, nor Haechan. But perhaps that's why Johnny feels more entertaining.

Your body jumps gradually slower in his arms. His biceps are big and hard but now they're getting weak. You slowly begin to slide down, until Johnny drops you completely and the dick falls out.

You land on your feet. You hug the man and kiss. Johnny looks strained and spent but totally satisfied.

“Slutty enough for you?” you ask and smirk.

“You're such a whore,” Johnny says and laughs. You certainly didn't expect to hear such words coming from his mouth but they no longer surprise you, and you kind of like this harsh, rude side of him.

You grab his arm and lead him. You're both still hard when you leave the room. You walk past the office and giggle, where Taeyong holds his breath behind a closed door. He's already jerked off for a long time and finished half an hour ago.

All your clothes are in Johnny's room and you return to them. But not before you sit back down on your rear and pull the man in. His big dick waves in your face and you grab it, and he grunts and twitches when you put it in your mouth and lick up his cum.

“Ugh!” he exclaims and pulls away. I wish I saw him come, you think and imagine what a powerful display that must have been, coming from such a big dick.

Johnny can't take any more though. To redirect your attention he gives you a push on the shoulder and bends his knees.

He lowers himself between your legs. Your eyes meet and he smiles. He grabs your shaft and looks at it, then puts it in to suck.

“No,” you say and push him on the forehead. “Save some for the others.”

Johnny stops and looks up. He seems confused at first but accepts your wishes. “Come here,” you say and pull him in, while moving your ass and legs up on the bed.

You lie down on it. Johnny lifts the duvet and crawls in under it. You cozy up in each other's arms and kiss, as this is the kind of intimacy you're currently craving.

You've had more hot sex than you need already, and you've spotted an opportunity. Alone in the dorm with a stranger with insights, maybe Johnny will be willing to answer a couple of questions. But you'll need to hurry if you want to ask them before the others return, and careful because you really don't know the man who just used you as a pocket pussy.

*****

You didn't mean to fall asleep. Johnny's body is just too damn comfortable. You're snoozing on his shoulder, his arm behind your back, your head gently moving with his slow breaths.

When you wake up you're surprised you're still there in his bed, and that he still is too. You watch his nipples up close and wonder if he's awake.

He is, but only barely. He really likes this moment too, and especially the silence and uncommon break from everyone he lives with.

They're not back, at least you don't think so. You hope not. You have no idea how long you were out for – probably not that long – but you can't wait to tell Haechan all about what happened when he was gone. You're sure he'll be okay with it, but you also don't want this moment to end.

Johnny moves his arm and scratches his pumped chest. You hear him yawn above your head. “Morning,” he says in a coarse voice, even though it's not morning at all.

“Morning,” you say and chuckle. You lift your head and look at him, and wonder how often he's been in this position with a man.

“Not gay huh?” you say and chuckle again.

Johnny adjusts the position of his big, cozy body, and you reach down to correct your dick when it gets squeezed between you.

“I never said I wasn't,” he says.

“Ehm, yes you did.”

“No. Did I? Hmm, maybe.”

Clearly he doesn't want to talk about it. You decide to let that particular question go, but you've got more. “Jungwoo told me Yuta and Taeyong used to date. What happened?”

“Life I guess,” Johnny says which makes you chuckle a third time.

“What, they went in separate directions and the distance became too much?”

You meant the physical distance and it was a joke. Johnny chooses to interpret it in a deeper context. “Something like that,” he says.

“Any… others?”

Johnny looks at you sideways. “Others who are dating? No.”

“Sex?”

“Sure.”

“Who?”

Johnny laughs. “I'm not gonna tell you that.” You have no idea how close to home you just hit.

Okay, you think and accept his silence. Fair enough, but, “Do you know who I am?” you suddenly ask, and the question sounds much ruder than you intended it to. “I mean, has Haechan told you anything about me?”

Now this makes Johnny smile wide. You look up again to meet his eyes when he doesn't immediately respond, and you can tell from the look on his face that he knows a lot more about you than you might have thought.

Maybe Haechan never explained to them that the friend he invited over for a week was the friend of the dreamers whom they had heard so much about. But now, several days in, there can be no doubt a out it.

It's suddenly Johnny's turns to ask questions. “Is it true that you spent new year's eve in the dream dorm and that you had a massive orgie?”

The idea seems to excite him. It's far-fetched and he doesn't quite believe it's true, but he hopes so.

“Yeah,” you say with a naughty smirk. “Jisung is my best friend.” As if that somehow makes it normal.

Johnny seems to contemplate your answer. He stares at the ceiling and adjusts his position again, reaching in for his dick to keep it comfortable.

“Yeah, we know,” he finally says and looks down at you. “Why do you think I asked you in here?”

“Because you're a bunch of horny fuckers with a dating ban.”

Johnny laughs out loud. “Mm, sounds about right.”

There's more you want to ask him, about Yuta and Taeyong – whose lube you stole – and Jungwoo's revelation that others have slept together too. About what he's heard about you and from who, whether it's Haechan who's been talking or Jisung or any of the others from downstairs and what they might have said. About the sexuality of everyone in the apartment and whether or not he thinks you'll get to have sex with the rest too.

And, of course, about life as an idol and their fame. Let's not forget that even though you're their friend, you're living with and fucking a bunch of super stars you've always admired. It takes a lot to get you star struck these days, but 127 is a part of NCT that's still new to you.

Half of the many questions you have are ones you feel you can't ask though, not even Haechan. But even if you could, your cozy time in bed with Johnny – after a crazy afternoon of hot sex in every shared room in the apartment – is up when the front door opens. The others are back, and the shower you agreed to take together will have to wait.

You hear voices in the living room. Johnny becomes alert but seems relaxed. You remain on his comfortable shoulder for a few seconds longer, before you finally get up to get dressed.

“This was fun,” you say and look at the man on the bed under the covers.

“Yeah,” he says and smiles at you. If only you knew just how fun, and what Johnny has experienced in the past.

Meanwhile, in another room, Taeyong is relieved to hear the noise of his housemates. Finally he can get out of the office where he's been trapped. After masturbating to the sound of you and Johnny working your way through the apartment he's been trying to work on new music again, but he was done for the day several hours ago and can't focus.

He takes off the headphones and gets up from his chair. He won't tell a soul about this afternoon unless they ask, but one thing is clear in his mind: now that Johnny has had you and it's clear that you're not limited to Haechan, he wants in on the action too.

He's desperate, deprived of sex for so long, and he's already deviced a plan in his mind. Tomorrow he's next, if you're up for it.

[fraudulent-cheese]

Consider talking about the parallel lines of roti. PLEASE this is literally my roman empire and I'd love to hear your take

Oh geez, hope i can do them justice then!

So generally when people talk about the parallel lines plot in roti, it's to criticize it in various ways - and it deserves it, mind you - but a common pattern i see in those critiques is trying to find someone who's in the categorical 'wrong'. While i have entertained discussions related to that sort of thing with the other love triangle, im not sure it really applies here if you try to look at it from the character's perspectives themselves.

This isn't to say they're all innocent, they still make mistakes and aren't good at communicating (they're teenagers. duh.) Yes, Zoey's overly possessive of a guy she isn't even dating. Yes, Anne Maria gushing about Vito to Mike's discomfort during one elimination ceremony isn't great. Yes, Mike trying to actually talk it out would've helped resolve their issues quicker.

However... You can't really pin the full blame on anyone involved here. Yeah Zoey and Anne Maria fighting over a guy was dumb, but it makes sense in character; Zoey's both judgemental and was previously isolated, so i can see Anne Maria affirming she knows the "real Mike" really getting under her skin and overriding her people pleasing tendencies, while the other girl doesn't take any shit and especially won't take it from a girl who seems to think she's dating the guy she's currently seeing.

in my mind, they've ALL been screwed over in this situation in some way and it somewhat makes sense! Vito's being screwed over because he's an alter in a system with a host who's determined to pretending he's a singlet and doesn't remember what Mike does with Zoey. On top of that, no alter in the system is actually communicating at this point, so there's no real way Vito would know or care about it. Mike's being screwed over because of past experiences of telling the ones closest to him about being a system and rejecting him for it (it's heavily implied in one of his confessionals), a lack of memory for what Vito does and not wanting to screw up his friendship with/crush on Zoey. Anne Maria and Zoey are being screwed over because from the former's perspective she's in the right and trying to romance a guy who only seems to be truly himself around her, while from the latter's perspective it's almost like she's been lead on since both parts of Zoke are not subtle about their mutual crushes. Neither girl knows what's truly going on either since Mike won't tell them.

And of course, there was probably already going to be friction between Zoey and Anne Maria due to Zoey's own issues with making connections and projecting at least some of her baggage on the other girl and Anne Maria (reasonnably might i add) not wanting to take that. And also because the roti writters wouldn't allow the girls to be friends despite the things they could've bonded over but that's a seperate tangent and a half-

NOW i haven't been very critical of this plotline so far, and that's for a veryyyy specific reason; my biggest issue with it is how the narrative treats it. IE, by desperately trying to place Anne Maria as being in the wrong and siding very obviously with Zoke as the end point; they're already set up by episode fucking 1, Anne Maria doesn't get an arc or story outside of being the romantic rival, the alters in general aren't focused on as individuals throughout their short time on screen, zoke is literally the canon ship AND the campfire couple TWO SEASONS IN A ROW... It results in a plotline that is both predictable and boring to watch (for me at least.) and it's the origin point for most of the things wrong with it, at least the parts of it that aren't linked with writing issues that already plague huge parts of the show (cough cough the misogyny)

The saddest part for me though is that half the parallel lines don't get closure in the end. Vito and Anne Maria never talk again after Anne Maria's elimination, they never clear things up (on screen) between eachother, or even have Mike clear things up with Anne Maria! It's just never resolved, and it's never brought up again.

I'd like to think, even if it's post canon or whatever, that Mike/Vito went to talk with Anne Maria alone and tried their best to explain what was going on. It would take some adjustment and good communication to work-out, but i'd like to believe that it could! In my little brainhole i think that Anne Maria and Vito could just end up as friends who kiss sometimes for fun or are just close in general. Hell i could even picture Anne Maria and Mike + Zoey and Vito being friendly after the show's over and they've actually had a conversation about things. But alas, this is Total Drama, so the best we have to deal with these things is fanfiction and spinning the characters in our heads like microwave. Sad! Or joyous? Depending on your perspective.

[riddleredcoats]

I just finished my first playthrough of Veilguard and boy oh boy, do i have thoughts.

but, TLDR:

Bros, this game is so fucking strange.

It literally giving me everything I wanted; every theory for the past 10 years I've had to speculate is bang on, they bring niche characters in a way that makes sense, they give us nice romances, they give us cool combat, EPIC set pieces and then [gestures].

Anyway, this is more for posterity than any real, coherent thoughts.

The Good:

I don't know what sort of wizardry the devs at Bioware made for this game, but this game runs smooth AF. Actually insane in the year of our lord 2024 that a AAA viddy game manages to do it. Kudos must be given.

The art-style grows on you really fast, actually. And considering what happens in the game, especially in the back half, I think making it more stylised was necessary to also compliment the aforementioned point of it running smoothly.

There is in fact, a lot of dark themes in this game. I don't know what game some reviewers played, but to say its basically a clean version of a DA game is... just wrong. I have a theory, in the Bad section, about why they believe that is the case, but Veilguard is filled with Dark Themes.

The set pieces of this game are fucking insane. Like, there is no comparison to any other Bioware game. Even ME3 with its bombastic set pieces isn't a match to Veilguard in the prologue. The Siege at Weisshaupt? Gagged the whole way through. That last 2-4hrs of game were amazing and while I have beef with it - further down - for what it is and what it is trying to be? They succeeded. Some of the best viddy game I have ever viddy gamed, frankly.

The lore drops are also insane. I basically watched all of Solas regrets back to back to back and basically it was confirmation upon confirmation upon confirmation. I'm still in the high of the Solas/Mythal confirmation and that happened like 3 days ago, lmao. And if you know me, you know why - it goes wayyy beyond Solas and Mythal for me, personally.

Morrigan's place in the narrative. Keeping it vague, but just [gestures to all of it].

Issenya... Just... Issenya, man.

The companions. Yeah, they're all great, I don't think there's really a dud one. Sure, I connected more with some than others, but man- these companion quests are involved and meaningful and progress the story. You do get to know them very well. Harding, Neve, Davrin and Emmerich will always have a place in my heart for their questlines, even though I love all the other companions too - but those really resonated with me.

Combat. Holy shit, a DA game with a fun combat system. That's all really.

The Middling

The music. I don't love it but I don't hate it. I can count on one hand the amount of times the music made me feel something - basically the last scene of the Harding questline and when The Main Theme came in during the final quests. Trevor Morris reigns supreme; I teared up more for The Lost Elf theme return than any other musical moment in the game.

The pacing of this game is... baffling. I'm not sure if its my own fault for basically trying to do everything in the first act, but Act 1 took me like 40 hours, while the remaining two acts took me 20. Weird. Will need to experiment because it might absolutely be on me, but yeah.

The Bad

It's basically one thing but honestly, every time it was brough up it was like a dagger piercing my heart while my stomach was stepped on by a bronto.

The lack of geopolitical talk both past and present.

Much as been said from the infamous 3 choices that Veilguard imports - and I will say, that even those 3 are laughably implemented imo - but never is it more felt than in this aspect. The past straight up does not matter. Worse; they actively disregard it imo. There is no difference between world states, no world leader talk, no nothing. It is just... nothing. And listen, the specifics deserve their own post eventually, but im just processing shit still.

The game is really fun, and the themes and characters that are there and the lore is fantastic and when im locked in, I'm REALLY locked in, but then when I try to put it in the context of the past games, what I loved about it - the politics, the disagreements, the sheer brutal way that history and prejudice can just fuck up a country, Veilguard just... it feels hollow, without any bite or flavour.

And this is the crux of all the problems, really, in the present in Veilguard.

The way people talked about the dark tone being gone? Yeah, I can see it here considering that there is no distinction between Dalish and City Elves anymore basically. The discrimination against elves is just... gone, apparently? Which is insane - because we are in Tevinter and it's just... abandoned? The way Rivain is all cool and shit about Magic and Spirits with like zero nuance or, more imporantly, any real consequences when [gestures to the past games] - it just makes the South Really Dumb because of course they are now ig. The Crows - these assassins that bought children to train, in what amounted to a sponsored slavery ring - are now freedom fighters and all the nuance of the assassinations is gone? The Wardens are fine mostly, really, but they are suddenly very above board all of the sudden.

And that's the whole thing here.

They have tried to make everyone stay so above board, to make everyone The Perfect Ally That No One In The Real World Can Criticise, that it retroactively sucked all the nuance and Flavour For Thedas At Large out of the story. It made the story worse because everyone is just so gosh dang nice and A Super Ally when in past games the conflict, the flavour of the Whatever Big Struggle was that everyone hated each other and was constantly in-fighting. Which made it fun and interesting to play.

Okay, sorry i forgot I had another one:

the fuck is that ending credit scene? with the executors implying they have been behind everything since DAO? Oh man, Bioware you can't do those types of stories - you tried in ME3 and [gestures]. Why can't Loghain just be a dude traumatized by Orlais which led to All The Things in DAO? Why can't Bartrand just be a greedy bastard whose actions bring about DA2 and DAI and basically informs Varric's character from then on?

What the hell.

Anyway.

Yeah, initial Veilguard thoughts.

Oh yeah, and Neve is hot and I love her.

[1d1195]

bestie Ive missed you lots these two weeks (crazy it’s been this long😭)!! It’s been so busy for me! Aside from it being the first week, I had two birthday dinners to attend that week! which is a lot for my social battery lol it was fine though! And getting back into my routine has been rough and aside from that getting prepared for graduation stuff has been so much!

But the book that I got is going good! I really enjoy the concept considering it’s really interesting and I’m half way there! I fear that it may take me awhile to finish it only because I fear I just have way too much much to read for my classes :(

I kinda was confused for a second about the pun and then I remembered it’s a 1D song😭 Anyways lol im so sad you sliced your nail!!! Omg I hope it’s healing well and fast! I do think it’s best to let it fully healed before getting a manicure! Depending on the type you get the risk for complications is high so just take it as easy as possible! Also brittle nails is such a real struggle and tbh it’s takes a while for your nails to strengthen! It’s so many factors like health, genetics and like how much you actually use your hands can affect it! I’ve struggled with it too and for the past few months I’ve learned that in order to protect my nails is to never have them bare. Meaning even just a simple base coat on my nails is enough protection!

Oh trust me bestie if it weren’t for financial reasons I would NOT be living at home!! It’s a lot rn in general so yeah i totally get where you’re coming from especially when you say it can be exhausting! A Shameless reference to describe someone’s family is actually so insane omg😭 (but I get it lol) that’s show is crazy but dare I say I kinda want to rewatch again lol

I will seriously be so surprised if basketball bf ever gets kicked out of the #1 spot! Football bf does seem like he would make the whole story so stressful yet I do think it would be good for the plot lol

I hope you get more time to read though! It does sucks that other tasks get more attention or there just isn’t enough time to read though! Hoping you can find some time to do that soon💕

Oh i completely UNDERSTAND why you would feel that way towards Harry because I do too tbh! I just saw those recent pics of him in those red shorts… yeah that was crazy of him 😵‍💫 and omg I would gladly give you full creative rights to my delusional fantasy!

I think it was so easy for me to compare because his characters are really similar to each other! And both shows deal with like family dynamics/dysfunction so it was interesting his interpretations! And yeah I get not being able to dive into the whole show, it’s truly a lot and if bad parenting makes you exhausted them omg Sam you will never find peace with this show 😭

Last quarter of classes is alright! I avoided the horrors of the math department a bit too much when I first started college so now I’m taking one math class 😔 BUT my other classes are fun! I’m taking psychology course, an anthology course and a sociology course! Most excited for the sociology one since we are analyzing films in there!

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN??? How was deep cleaning your apartment? Has meal prep gotten easier these past few weeks?? Have you read any new books yet??

Hope these past few weeks have been good to you my love💕💕 I’ve missed you so much😭💕-💜

HI I'VE MISSED YOU TOO!!!!! I was just about to send the SOS flag to make sure you were good 💕

Two bday dinners is a lot!!! I hope they were fun though, even if they were a bit draining and I love that you had time to read half your book! That's such a win!!! I get the putting off the rest of it, but at least you have something to look forward to! Graduation will be here before you know it!

I bought this nail strengthening base coat (OPI $20 🙃). I used it consistently for a while but I stopped. Right now they feel pretty strong (they are short) but they're bare. I've been chatting with Miss Monica (@monicaalexandraaa) and we were just discussing this, and we decided I may need to venture into the dip nail world. BUT. I ALWAYS tell my sister and bf that I use my hands a lot so they just chip and break easily. I'm like "sorry y'all have cushy jobs??? Like I write 90% of the day under a doc cam. and ya'll don't do chores??? Like the fuck?" Boyfriend has like the BEST cuticles (men are the worst) like he doesn't even care. So annoying.

I have not gotten more time to read but I'm VERY close to April Vacation here in MA and while I am PACKING my schedule with a lot of work/chores/writing, I'm determined to read at least one book. We'll see how I do. As such it will come as no surprise I haven't read anything since football bf.

Idk how my sister watched it. She gets SUCH bad second hand embarrassment. It used to take us 10 times as long to watch a show because she ALWAYS paused it to freak out and hide under a blanket 🙄

TELL ME ABOUT THE MATH CLASS 😍 (I'm sorry you have to take it!) Analyzing films is so fun! I love that for you. I hope it remains "easy" if you will and you have time for yourself and all those good things 💕

I don't have much to report on my end. Same humdrum of life right now. I have been consistently doing pilates (Monica and I are holding each other accountable by referencing Callie from Pucking Rookie and how he would want us to follow through 🤭). I have to clean my apartment again, but tbh I might wait until April break. I forgot we get Friday off so I could do it then. Last week I made a crock pot meal and it lasted a few days. I get a little sick of it though (especially because it didn't reheat as perfectly as I would have liked, ya know?) But we're doing a soup this week so hopefully that will work out. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many books I've read when I have like 0 hope of reading them 😭 I'm looking forward to quite a few of them, but some have been on my shelf for years and I know they're like "you're delulu" but still.

SO happy to hear from you bestie 💕💕 glad the quarter is okay thus far. I hope it goes by quick and painlessly. You deserve a break!!!

xoxo

[arogoldpika123]

So, I started playing Kingdom hearts 3 a couple days ago(courtesy of my college basement once again) And since I had some emotions about stuff, I'm gonna record my thoughts on a day by day basis!

This is the second day, so I'll be doing both!

First, I'll give context to what kingdom hearts i've played before. Which is most of them actually. My dad had a Ps3 back in my middle school days, and I got both the 1.5 and 2.5 collections, meaning I got to play Kingdom hearts 1, 2, and birth by sleep. I also read the novelization of 358/2 days before any of that, and I cried every time I read the final parahraphs of those, so I have a fondness for the sea salt trio. I like nobodies, they're cool. I should replay kh2 some day, but the opening is way to darn long for me to consider doing it briefly.

Anyway! onto the main stuff

Day 1 started with the intro, and being utterly confused by what the heck the opening means? And chuckling at the contrast of the current graphics to the very playstation flashbacks. Really, kh3 feels to have the most obtuse opening stat selector out of the main games. The previous 2 at least had fairly obvious role symbols, but this just has memories and a name, anyone not familiar with the games will have no idea these mean anything.

Darkside looks very watery this time around! Neat.

I like how we finally get to step out of just the collesium this time, experiencing the actual city, and later mount olympus. Sometimes these disney worlds make you wonder, like, does Hades want to take over the Hercules(tm) cosmos, or would he go on to conquer all of the worlds beyond after he takes down olympus?

So, I never played ddd(despite owning a 3ds and all that) so flowmotion is very new to me. And its quite fun! Simply hopping onto a pole for a extra spin attack, or just being able to run up walls is a great mobility addition. Combat itself, feels like pretty standard kh combat, though yeah, you do feel like gravity is pretty weak sometimes, but thats okay! The air is better anyway, if spiderman combat is to be believed. Around this point, I read the abillities menu, and wow, sora has a lot of junk in there, like 15 different abillities just for flowmotion. Like, you can turn off each different slash, you could make it so you only slash off poles, you can remove the abillity to poles. Which is nice customization, but honestly I feel like making the flowmotion natural would've been fine too? Makes the starting abillity screen more clogged then it really needs to I feel like.

Most of olympus goes by pretty smoothly, so I'll just cover the main highlights i wanna talk about, which is really just the titans, I was skipping most the cutscenes, cuz I have watched a lot of the story via videos and the sort. I slowed down this skippage in the next world, but yeah.

So first, the Earth titan is a pretty cool setpiece to show off the wallrunning, as you race up a few cliffs to take him down. Then you have to take him down, which took a while, mostly cuz I fucked up the attraction. So you're supposed to take a train to shoot at him, but at the end I fell down, and ended up having to redo the whole sequence, so I took him down normally after that.

And then we get to olympus, and are introduced to some new combat mechanics! The shotlock, and the keyblade form changes! Shot lock was in birth by sleep, and the keyblade forms are new! I think? Shotlocks are a pretty good extra attack, though I tend to use their movement more then the attack itself. As for keyblade transformations, I really like them! They give a lot of more unique aspects to each keyblade aside from just being basic upgrades. Also, I recently realized each phase of the transformation has like, induviudal skills? like the shooting star keyblade turns you into wisdom form basically, with increases magic stuff, and a double jump. Cool stuff!

Finally, at the end of the olympus world, we've got the rest of the titans!

A bit clunky. The first half isn't too bad, the shotloocks quick step sometimes feels like its not going where its supposed to, but its fine. But the tornado phase, really feels like its just not working right. I get through it, but not the best boss so far. Fun set piece, even though the gameplay didn't hit perfect for me.

So olympus ends, and yeah, pretty good prologue!

Then, we've got twilight town, which I skipped basically all but the last cutscene.

-Demon tide fight was annoying, i actually died once or twice

-I love seeing nobodies again

-Got lost in the sewers a couple times

Hm, this got quite long, I think I'll go into the second day later tonight.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok, I'm going to be right up front with the biggest problem with this one: the translation for Noctuary is good enough to finish and enjoy the game, but it's kinda rough. Considering it's like 3/4 visual novel and 1/4 action game, that's a lot of text you have to be ok with reading that's frequently awkwardly worded and very occasionally completely wrong. It would benefit strongly from another proofreading/editing pass from a native English speaker, but I know that's expensive and time consuming when you're working with that much text.

Anyway aside from that it was pretty good and better than I expected.

It has a moderately large cast, and pretty much all of them grew on me by the end. I don't think any of them reach blorbo status, but I enjoyed spending time with them and seeing them interact and how they developed. A whole bunch of them have their own side quest chains that let you get to know them better while also revealing a lot more about the world and what's going on in it, which is good that they generally manage to be interesting and satisfy both of those things, because they're required for the final true ending.

I do think they probably could've shortened the first half of the game significantly though. I get what they were doing with it, but it goes on a bit long before the midpoint where they start gradually revealing more of what's actually going on. I feel like they could've still pulled it off and given you plenty of time to get to know the characters and get used to the status quo before flipping everything upside down in like ten hours instead of the 15 it took me for the first half.

Can't not mention the combat too, since even though the majority of the game is just dialogue, a decent chunk of it isn't.

It's surprisingly decent, and it could be great with a few tweaks. I enjoyed most of the different playstyles available to the two main playable characters and used maybe half of them somewhat regularly. They feel pretty good and are useful in different situations, and the way you can modify them gives you even more options.

Unfortunately nothing feels like it has any impact. I don't know if it needs more liberal use of stuff like hitstop or screenshake or just better audio would help, but it hardly feels like it's doing anything when you hit stuff because the feedback for it is pretty weak. Some things also sometimes don't read as well as they could visually, which makes avoiding some attacks harder than it should be. I also just found it got kind of tedious eventually with how much health stuff has, so I dropped the difficulty to easy somewhere around the end of chapter five (out of six) just to speed things up.

Aside from that the art and music are pretty good too, and it's nice that they were able to have an entire all female (technically, sort of...see below) cast with unique designs without getting weirdly horny about it like so many games do. I also don't get to play games with voice acting in Cantonese very often, so that's nice too. Not that I speak it or anything, but I got used to hearing it from friends' families and in movies and stuff when I was younger.

Ok and about that technically sort of all female cast, they all have feminine features and clothing, and the only pronouns ever used for anyone are she/her, but they exist in a world where sex (both meanings of the word) and gender don't exist. Like it's an actual feature of the world the story takes place in that's part of the worldbuilding and has consequences for the plot, not just someone decided no boys allowed (or the even more common no girls allowed). I had no idea about that before I started playing, so that was an interesting surprise for someone who's also opted out of sex and gender and sexuality.

So yeah, it's pretty good. It's probably better in the original Chinese version, but if it's successful I imagine they'll improve on stuff like translation in future games. I suspect the other stuff will also get better too with what they've learned from this one, so I'm curious what they'll do next after this. In the meantime maybe I'll check out their previous game.

[luc1d-dr34m5]

Oh man I wasn’t expecting a response so quickly! And thank you for putting it in the main tags lol.

But I really like the idea of dreadful harmony! Those two really are the toxic yaoi/yuri of all time (though I don’t find them to be all that toxic lol)

I def have more questions but I’m worried about flooding your inbox a little sorry. Like how did DH lose their humanity? (I know that HC lost it due to the UW fusing him with half of I-no but I’m curious what the UW could have done to DH)

Im also curious about Lethargy too. Does HC/DH consider them their kid? Or what do they think of lethargy and vice versa?

Or hell I’m curious what other people think of HC and DH’s unique dynamic. (Especially Asuka damn. )

Sorry if this is long!

I only call them toxic YaoiYuri depending on the current roles they're playing, these two are so versatile in vibe cuz one drawing they could be having the most toxic moment ever and the next drawing theyre like sleeping on a couch after watching movies together and both situations fit them a lot atleast to me

And dw dw pls flood my inbox with more questions im going to explode about them in a good way

DH lost their humanity bc of the information flow from the Backyard being far too concentrated, while HC got the luxury of basically becoming fused with a god's powers, DH did not and their own abilities stem from the fact theyre basically a walking Tome of Origin that haw a super genius mind that can constantly revise and create new spells all the time. In this way Both DH and HC are equal in power. Also why would The Universal Will throw and trap DH into concentrated Backyard info area is cuz it was a desperate decision and they assumed DH would die but... like... thats, thats the one who weaves the spells. Universal Will had a dumb moment but hey it threw the Original off. To esplain Further DH had managed to make a way that they can survive by taking in the information influx from the Backyard but it came at the cost of their humanity, they managed to keep their memories and biases tho.

And YEAH DH ans HC lovingly(and annoyingly to Lethargy) consider them their child.

HC to Lethary - is like that annoying kind of parent who likes to poke their nose into ur bussiness but they genuine love and care abt you, Hes probs taken to the role as the Overprotective Parent just to stir drama every once in a while, i like to think during the earlier parts of Lethargy's story when theyre their panicky and terrified of their own strength self Happy Chaos just teleports sweets to them, Regional sweets, they both got sweet tooths. Havent got a full concrete thing on how he thinks of Lethargy cuz he has too many thoughts in his head but the basis of it all is fondness and horror, the closest he could feel to it cuz Lethargy is stronger than both HC n DH combined but Lethargy prefers being human than to become anything else. But the fondness overpowers the horror tbh he cares for the kid

Lethargy to HC - Basically think of someone in their rebellious phase, Lethargy loathes the fact they and HC have similarities, Easy to rile up n all. They tend to start bickering with HC on random topics HC started rambling abt. They think hes annoying n all, but when they do get along oh boy, Oh Boy. Prepare ur popcorn besties this boutta be the best show of ur life.

DH to Lethargy - Bias exists here, though they cant feel emotion they do try to show Lethargy that they care for em. They take on the role of 'Damage control' parent, this family has 1 braincell and DH has it half the time, the other half is when HC and Lethargy cause joint chaos together. Theyre the type of parent to be chill and such but WILL put their foot down if needed. They're the one who mainly teaches Lethargy how to use their own abilities since Lethargy can grasp Circle theory. Same case with HC there is both fondness n horror in their own unique way but as always the fondness overpowers the horror. Theyre the favorite parent and they know it.

Lethargy to DH - Favorite parent. No he will not let HC fight DH for the spot of favorite parent. DH is the favorite parent and Lethargy will forever shove that fact into HC's face. Lethargy is thankful to DH for being so goddamn patient with them bc Lethargy can be so clumsy and dumb. Lethargy wonders where DH got all this patience from (DH got it from knowing and dealing with HC for years lmaoo)

Regardless thought the two like to be embarrassing parents, always like, bragging abt Lethargy's accomplishments and they of course inherited DH and HC's immeasurable IQ's they just have a morality to hold back themselves.

I dont know that much about the Conclave members individually yet so i cant say for them, Asuka on the other hand... he's semi used to it, he was clueless they used to date eachother tho lmaoo.

Like, as their student he had no idea The Original and The Architect were dating, he had suspicions but he didnt wanna ask them. To picture how ridiculously oblivious Asuka was during this time, The Original and The Architect could be smooching out in the open and he'd be like "Something fruity going on here... But probs isnt" /J/J those two were a bit more subtle but yeah Asuka truly is bad with relationships, even seeing em.

Adding sum tidbits here on The Architect/DH and Asuka's own dynamic. DH and Asuka were much closer actually, DH even when human was stoic and rarely showed visible emotion even verbally. Only diff betwene them is that DH isnt clueless on emotions, they acknowledge the importance of feelings even as who they are now. Its why betwen DH and HC, DH causes less casualties and suffering due to this. tbh DH would be scolding Asuka for not taking how he himself felt into account even in a scientific way. Emotions are a variable regardless, why ignore such a vital thing?

and i like to think that as a parallel to HC's "Asuka Asuka Asuka Asuka... You're a natural born lunatic" and the response of "Quiet down, Teacher."

DH's line is "Asuka Asuka Asuka Asuka. You're an unnaturally oblivious person." In a more scolding manner, response is "Louder please, Tutor?" in a sheepish tone

If u have more questions u can send em in i will be very happy to answer wjdnw sorry if im a lil late i had things to do

[thousand-winters]

Exactly!!! This is why Dadrius has my whole heart, there is a good number of parallels and reasons why Darius could make a good parent, it helps a lot he would be able to understand and relate to Hunter in a good number of matters. I wouldn't be half as upset as I am with people being rude about Dadrius if they didn't claim Darius is abusive and such, honestly, you could even headcanon Hunter is adopted by someone else without having to dismiss the obvious bond they both have! It upsets me when it's obvious a lot of bad things gets made up about Darius because of the one instance (canon that it was ONE time, I'm begging people to stop making shit up) he was mean to Hunter. This isn't even the first time a character gets treated badly because of how they acted towards Hunter (Amity in Eclipse Lake, for example, despite her not actually treating him badly? She was super understanding and merely defended herself when it came down to it).

And yeah!!! The whole Camila thing... it's SO bad because there were signs she loved Luz and Luz loved her and for some reason people decided to act as if she was abusive and horrible so Eda would adopt her and mmmm. Once Thanks to them came out that view couldn't be justified because of her amount of screentime, and it honestly feels like they moved on to hate Darius instead and Camila now is the perfect mother that can take care of everything, nevermind that it's a whole plot point that she was having trouble understanding Luz (not to say she's a bad mom, she's great! But people act as if she would be perfect with Hunter despite the amount of problems there would be there, while Darius would be a disaster despite having more points of understanding, apparently). Something that also irks me is that Camila then gets reduced a lot of the time too as the white boy's mom™️ as if 1) Luz and Vee didn't exist (who are also terribly traumatized and need support) and 2) Camila wasn't anything other than just... a mom.

Hunter definitely could have a very interesting exploration with Vee and King, but true! Luz doesn't have to be there for that! Which means Hunter can have those revelations and understanding with Vee as a friend, which they clearly are, and with King, as a sort of friend or "friend's little brother". There's no reason why they would have to be family in the nuclear sense for that. Because that's something else I don't get, Luz says "we are family now" but obviously she doesn't mean he's legally her brother now, this is the Found Family show, guys, please... it's obvious Willow, Gus and Amity are also family to her and it's not really in a "we're gonna be legally related" kind of sense.

We can explore all kind of dynamics without having to make them all family! And in my mind the whole core group we have does consider each other family but again, in that sort of nebulous way that tends to exist in found families, not in the literal sense. I feel like people are especially weird about this when it comes to Hunter, yeah. It takes a village and I firmly think the other adults will help Darius and Eber out when they need, but they don't NEED to all be his parents. What's this obsession with making everyone parent him when he has a canon ending in that sense? Plus he's not the only one who needs a lot of parental attention, we have Vee, we have Amity and the twins... at least let's make this equal, idk.

Gods, yeah :( Gus kinda got thrown out by the story itself which sucks. I really want to know how Gus and Amity get along bc they both have been part of the group for a long time and we don't... really see them interact? Vee and King would be SO fun together!!! King is a bit more obviously chaotic, but they both are and they're also both very sweet. King tends to go and try to relate a lot to people, so I think he would immediately attach to Vee because of their similarities on the... "we are part of an extinct species AND also Luz is our sister" whole thing.

sorry this is just like a little rant i guess but the fandom's treatment of hunter as a character really feels so infuriating to me. like them involving him in literally everything like hes super special.

and i get it! hes a grimwalker. hes cool and like its super neat the entire idea of him but just the way people glorify him really bothers me. its like yall really lost the point of the owl house. you see a potential/canon lgbtq guy and yall zoom to him. the show is literally about a weird girl not fitting in. what about luz??? and the entire idea that people downplay king and luz's sibling bond for hunter.... i dont know.

i just am starting to not like hunter anymore honestly. i get him being a favorite character but just how people treat him as putting him on such a pedestal and high standing- like prioritizing him as a "sibling" over KING-

KING whom literally- did we not watch the same show??? did you not hear what he told luz in king's tide??? hes literally her brother and you want to put hunter in that position when HE LITERALLY WAS NEVER HER BROTHER. IM SORRY BUT LIKE THAT WAS FANDOM'S DOING.

and like yeah!! the noceda siblings are cool and like omg siblings! but you guys... stop forgetting king. i just hate like how hunter is treated. i cant stand how people act in certain spaces.

im not saying your wrong for liking him. not wrong for liking the noceda siblings- i just wish fandom wasnt so... forgetful of king as a character. of everything of the sorts. of the bond he and luz have. theres so much character potential there and i feel like everyone just focuses on the idea of hunter and luz as siblings instead. :(

sometimes i just wish we could go back to pre 2 hiatus where he didnt even exist. where people were ragging on lilith and talking so fondly of hooty and king. now its like all i see is hunter. and YEAH hes neat but i feel like fandom forgot the entire premise of toh.

[rabbiteclair]

lobotomy corp update:

oh sure in addition to time loop fuckery and sad robots, this game also has soldiers in rabbit gas masks who make rabbit puns as they murder people. and nobody even told me, I had to stumble onto it myself. demerits for everyone

I've only had Evangeline for twelve days, but if anything happened to them I'd kill everyone in this facility and then myself.

speaking of murdering everyone though, I have in fact hit the point of 'ah, the start of the day. [readies pistol] let's kill all the clerks while they're still bunched up.' listen, I've got Mountain, CENSORED, Blue Star, two abnormalities I can't necessarily prevent from breaching, and a few more that are gonna kill a dozen clerks when they breach. I leave exactly enough clerks alive that if CENSORED or Nothing There breach, they'll linger for a while killing clerks and give me time to gather my forces. at that point, even if Mountain does breach, it doesn't have enough victims/bodies around to become a problem.

core suppression complete up through Tiphereth, at which point I rewound because I'd hit day 46. I really did not expect Tiphereth(s) of all people to have just a downright painful conclusion to their main arc, but here we are. every minute that A spends doing literally anything except groveling on his knees sobbing 'OH MY GOD I AM SO SO SORRY' is a moment wasted. I do however find it really funny that the Tiphereth meltdown was a one-girl show. Tiphereth, it's time for your character growth. Not you, boy half, you're already perfect and I love you. Go watch cartoons for a while.

I just finished Gebura's missions, and goddamn. if the game asks me to do another fucking Midnight I am going to blow up the entire goddamn planet. if I have to put up with that I'm taking you fuckers with me. I know this is kinda Arbitrary Deaths: The Game, but every Midnight I've done so far has been some real bullshit in that department. at best they are tedious right up until I make a mistake for two seconds and somebody gets vivisected. the 'suppress 3 unique Alephs in one day' one was a pain in the ass too, but Mountain and Nothing There are fairly easy to pummel as long as I prepare beforehand, so the only real challenge was CENSORED. and getting them to breach without killing someone in the first place.

every sentence out of Binah's mouth is more concerning than the previous one, which is pretty impressive considering that she starts out fairly concerning to begin with. Hokma would probably be just as concerning if I didn't spend every conversation with him going 'wait what. what the hell is he implying??' Instead he's just concerning because he likes A. nobody who likes A can be trusted. Except post-suppression Tiphereth, but she's a kid.

the time fuckery though. THE TIME FUCKERY. practically every line of Angela's takes on about three different meanings as you progress through the game. there's stuff early on that seems perfectly innocuous until you loop back around. the straight linear path through the story is incomplete because there are parts that only really make sense when you're reading them a second time. it's the kind of narrative trick I don't think you could pull off in any medium but a video game. hell yeah. this is the content I'm here for.

although, gameplay-wise... I respect the conviction to go 'this is a game where all the characters are trapped in tedious and painful cycles, so let's get the player in on that,' but actually i would like to be done with the tedious and painful cycles now thanks. I have 119 hours logged in this game and, judging by a friend's comments, I probably have another full loop through the main plot ahead of me, since apparently it's very hard to do both Binah and Hokma's suppressions in a single iteration. At least days 1-30 are downright trivial at this point, and I'm far enough into the game that I can afford to go 'eh, that dead agent was only a level 4 wearing Waw gear, I can let it ride.'

plot-wise, we have reached the point where I've started taking notes, because thanks to all the looping, things not necessarily being told in order to begin with (especially with the weird route I took through the first half of the game), and occasionally clicking through cutscenes at top speed when I should've been in bed 5 minutes ago but the day just kept going and I didn't want to lose the progress, there are a lot of parts I've had to go back and reference anyway. I still feel like I've got a fairly decent overview of what's going on here, although there are some clear intentional holes in the information they've given so far. I think I'm also a single critter short of 100% codex completion, and I've been assured that will help a lot with making sense of things.

[ursaspecter]

Here's something a little different: My ocs! These are characters for a visual novel I'm working on. In a few words, it's a sort of supernatural, found family, coming of age story. Y'know when it's actually done and who knows how long that'll take.

From left to right: Ash (They/Them), Ollie (He/Him), Ivy (She/Her), Luna (She/Her), Joey (He/Him). They're all 15 except Ash who is 14 at the start of the story but turns 15 at the end of Part 1, and Joey who turns 16 in Part 4. The top image is of their Summer looks, and the bottom image is of their Fall looks. I also have variations for rainy weather in both seasons as well as formal clothes for the Epilogue at their school's winter formal, but I'll upload those later.

Under the cut, I'll put brief character descriptions and a loose summary of the story.

Ash is a bit of a shut in for someone who's so naturally curious. Their curiosity lies in the things unexplained like ghosts and the paranormal. They're a hobbyist photographer, a decent writer (of mostly Ghostbusters slash fiction among other things), and a terrible coder. Seriously, their Geocities website is held together with duct tape and safety pins.

Ollie is a snarky little shit who likes to piss off his mom any way he can. He acts tough, but it's all a front to hide his more sensitive side. When he's feeling particularly angry at the world, he channels his frustrations into his paintings. He considers himself an artist but has hated every single art class he's ever had to take for school. His main influences are Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Jackson Pollock.

Ivy is really the heart of the group. She's the one most likely to call everyone up to plan an outing. She's also a big fan of fantasy books and movies from when her dad would read her The Hobbit as a bedtime story when she was a kid. She has a love of costume and film making and would often make little costumes for her friends to wear while they made short movies as kids. Most of them were reenactments of scenes from The Princess Bride.

Luna is a ball of rage only calmed by being around her friends. Her home life isn't the best, so she takes any opportunity she can to get away. When they're unavailable, she mostly stays up in her room listening to her dad's music collection he gave her or writing bad poetry to put to her decent guitar playing skills. Oh yeah and she also has metalbending powers.

Joey is as loyal as a golden retriever to his friends. He looks out for everyone and makes sure that no one does anything stupid while they're already doing something stupid like exploring an abandoned building or hanging out at the cemetery after dark. To pass the time when he's not playing video games, he likes to whittle small wooden sculptures or work on one of his woodworking projects in the shed.

In the Summer of 2001, Ash and their mother move to the town of Salt Flats, Texas. After meeting and being adopted into the friend group of the other teens, they spend their summer and half of their sophomore year uncovering the secrets of the town and the company that practically built it: Titan Industries.

[lambourngb]

I'm new to the Roswell fandom, and I have this burning question that might have already been discussed to death but I can't find the answer anywhere. So if this is something everyone has already dealt with, just let me know.

Max is genetically Michael's father. Yeah? The Dictator is Michael's father, and Max is the Dictator's clone, so genetically, Michael has half of Max's DNA. They're father and son. Which makes the fact that Max is always annoying Michael by trying to take care of him really funny, actually.

Are there fics where Max tries to get fatherly and Michael freaks out? What's the fandom consensus on this truly weird relationship these two now have? I know we're all super excited for lots of Malex in season four, but I'm hoping for some really awkward father/son issues too. Max will be totally sincere and Michael will be horrified and Alex will snort-laugh about how, out of the two of them, Michael ended up with the weirder father situation.

Would that make Liz like Michael's step-mom? And so Rosa is like Michael's step-aunt? And Arturo is his step-grandpa on his father's side the way Sanders is somehow his brother/grandpa on his mother's side? Michael always wanted a family, and now he's got loads of family.

(Also, I absolutely loved last year's wishes are this year's apologies)

First of all- welcome to the RNM fandom !

Secondly, wow, this question. You’re asking about season 3 plot points regarding genetics/hereditary, and while I’m a close watcher of the show, and did multiple rewatches of the last few episodes of season 3, the science of this show is just bad at times and overly dramatic for plot reasons.

While the Dictator - Jones- is Michael’s father, somehow, when Nora cloned Max from him, she changed a part of Jones’s DNA- creating this tether between Max and Jones that was very …Voldemort/HP. Somehow an Oasian alien like Jones has 3 strands of DNA? I don’t even know what’s that about, but apparently a biochem genius like Liz overlooked that in both Max’s and Noah’s samples from season 1? My guess, for my own sanity, when Nora created that tether, it added/changed some of the DNA expressed in Max- IE, he can’t jump into people’s heads or doesn’t seem to be fire resistant like Michael - which is just enough of a change to make him biologically related to Michael but not enough to be considered his father. Jones explained those traits were hereditary- passing from father to son, and as his clone, Max SHOULD HAVE THEM.

I wrote a 20,000 word story that basically bullshits my way through explaining why some powers are "hereditary" and why some aren't post-season 3- but that was connecting dots that I don't think the show meant us to do. Michael being able to body-walk someone like Noah and Jones for the last 13 years is a little hard to believe, because why wouldn't he have used that to send Jesse Manes away? Or just "body-walk" Jesse off a cliff after the shed. Anyway.

I haven’t seen any fanfics that are going after the Max/Michael relationship as father-son, but all I’ve seen instead has been exploring them as brothers who were intended on being raised together with Isobel by Nora and Louise on Earth. Those stories could be out there! (There was a truly funny gif-set that paired this reveal with the scene in 1x11 “I’m not your father, Michael”) I don’t know if fandom has had a consensus on Max being the genetic match to Michael’s biological father either and what it means in regard to Max & Liz being together, and what does that make Liz and Rosa. (I firmly believe, as an Arturo Ortecho stan- that he has adopted every lost soul in Roswell, including Michael during the Lost Decade, while he grieved Rosa and missed Liz).

I do hope we some good snarking/teasing between Max & Michael in season 4, I want more of that brief scene in 3x01 where they are drinking and teasing each other about picks ups. I’m particularly keen to see Max realize Isobel is dating his one-night-stand now. That’s gotta be fun for the Evans twins.

Thanks for the ask- I’m sorry I don’t have a clear answer for you. I’m so glad you enjoyed LYW! I wish I had the stamina to write another 175,000 explainer/fixer epic for season 3, because damn do I need it!! This show... it drives my logical brain crazy.

[vowled]

Kill Your Darlings: An Analysis of its Twists and Themes

A few days ago, I watched Kill Your Darlings, and needless to say, I became completely mesmerized by it. Naturally credible characters with well-crafted backstories portraying a true story of Love, Obsession and Murder, it's everything a person could ask for in a movie. The colour palette of the movie radiates comfort and the sound track takes you back in time when these two bright young men were falling in love. Right from the start it was apparent that there were many themes in the undercurrent of the movie, and these were such that required some amount of thoughtful contemplation. And I was incredibly sorry to not find any post or review which critically discussed the themes of the movie and did it justice- so after doing some reading and digging up as much as I could, here I am making an attempt to analyze the twists and themes of the story.

The Crucial Plot-twist

The Night In Question- why the movie's recounting of the events is fictitious:

When faced with the prospect of writing the deposition for Lucian, Allen tried his best to gather information about the events that led to David's murder. However, it proved to be a difficult feat as Lucien himself would not speak much about it clearly. So he pieced together what he could from the bits of information he got. However, we see Lucian vehemently opposing the deposition written by Allen and claiming it to be false. After some thought, I find that I believe Lucian's claims. Most of the following arguments are rooted in the fact that Lucien's relationship with David was an abusive one, where David basically groomed Lucian and was a sexual predator. I suggest reading my post here to gain more insight about how the abuse affected him.

"You weren't there, you don't know what happened." These words right here- they're the words of a victim. Being subjected to a form of sexual abuse myself, I found these words hitting me like a brick ton. These are words coming from a pained soul that refuses to recount traumatic incidents. He's practically saying that the abuse was so bad he had to kill his abuser to be free from it.

Even after Allen saw first-hand what a total creep David could be, even after knowing the man had stalked Lucian across multiple cities, he had to ask Lucian why the latter killed David when he "could have run". This tells me he couldn't exactly relate to Lucian's situation and wasn't very keen on believing him. Although he displayed a moment of intimate affection, there's still a lingering feeling of yeah but he broke my heart inside him. After learning how Lucian drowned David, he even begins questioning if he should help him at all. At this point, Allen doesn't trust Lucian enough to actually care how accurate the story is. So he wrote what he could, what he felt right. But even he couldn't condemn his friend/first love to such a fate as prison, so eventually he submitted it as his final paper. In all honesty, I thought that turning it in was a brilliant move, and one which also further proved that the "once you loved him too" version was mostly fanciful fiction.

Throughout the movie, sequences have been played in reverse frames (and I found this so pleasing) and from the nitrogen-inhaling scene, we know that these sequences designated memories playing out in Allen's head or his subconscious creating dreamscapes. And here's the catch- the entire scene of Lucian taking a walk with David and eventually killing him began with frames played in reverse order. This gives the absolute proof that the movie's depiction of the events were fictitious.

Allen's P.O.V. of the events mainly relied on the argument that at some point, Lucian genuinely loved and needed David. This couldn't be further away from the truth. When you're 14 and and being groomed and coaxed by an older guy, a lot many things could feel like love because you haven't experienced them before; but in reality, it's never love, it just is another form of violence.

Themes running through the movie

"There can be no Creation before Imitation"

We see Professor Steves saying this at the beginning of the movie, hinting that it would be a theme in the story. This statement is reflected throughout Allen's progression and development as a poet:

In the beginning, we see him being hugely influenced by his father's works and possibly trying to imitate him through poetic devices such as consonance.

Next, we see him imitating Professor Stevens' style of writing in his poem "the rose that scents the evening air, grows from by beloved's hair" which Lucian outright criticizes.

It is only with the poem Allen recites to Lucian on the boat that he starts developing some sort of originality. That poem in particular is directly drawn from his personal experiences and delivers splendidly.

This development continues as he proceeds to write "The Night In Question" wherein he brilliantly describes his opinion of how things went down. It was this streak that would eventually propel him to write his most celebrated poem, "Howl".

The Circle of Life and How Allen Breaks it

We see Lucian telling Allen how "Life is only interesting if it is wide" and about Yeats' "Circle of Life". As displayed by the linked document, turns out the circle of life is quite complex a thing, and the movie displays a lay-man's version of it. As Lucian tells about it to Allen, unbeknownst to them both, Allen also enters the circle and changes the turn of events:

It is obvious that at the party at David's, Allen was a misfit. David even goes so far as to literally call him out and point how unremarkable he was, but says how given the correct circumstances, even Allen could change things. And what's extraordinary is exactly this happens next: the liquor runs out in David's party and Allen suggests they should change the venue of the party- hence hijacking David's party!

We see Allen's life widen as he becomes closer to Lucian and starts doing things he'd never done before. At the same time, he also plays an important role in changing Lucian's life as well. It's Allen who suggests at first that Lucian should break up with David and stop taking his help. Later in the movie, after learning about David's obsessive behaviour, it's again Allen that said "we should get rid of him". Again, here we see some foreshadowing. Allen could have worded it in any probable way, and yet he suggested getting rid of David which subtly implied killing him. I do believe that this happened to become a subliminal suggestion to Lucian and furthered his murderous intent.

Hence, although Lucian radically changes Allen's life, the latter does so too in unlikely and unexpected ways.

Sacrifices (and Rituals?)

Since the beginning of the movie, we know that the characters are all extraordinary men and that they are capable of something revolutionary. But it was apparent that all of them would need a catalyst to set things in motion- a sacrifice of some sort which would help them break their moulds and free their inner poet. Allen's love for Lucian and his wish to impress him did make him work toward become better at writing. It was the fear of completely losing Lucian to Jack that made Allen put all his effort into writing, and made him come up with his best work yet - here, the fear acted as the catalyst.

However, the most significant thing in connection to this happened in this scene where Lucian cuts both of their palms and holds them up together - this can be considered a Blood Ritual.

"A blood ritual is any ritual that involves the intentional release of blood. Blood rituals often involve a symbolic death and rebirth, as literal bodily birth involves bleeding. Basic to both animal and human sacrifice is the recognition of blood as the sacred life force in man and beast. The participants may regard the release of blood as producing energy useful as a sexual, healing, or mental stimulus. In other cases, blood is a primary component as the sacrifice, or material component for a spell."

The fact that this event took place inside Allen's head during a trippy session outlines how Allen had subconsciously taken a blood oath with Lucian to further The New Vision. This process of developing their revolutionary ideas would successfully progress for the rest of the movie; however, before its completion, the oath demanded a sacrifice- and the murder of David became this blood sacrifice.

"With Death comes Rebirth"

In the first half of the movie we see the initiation of this theme; after they've agreed upon to bring up something revolutionary, Allen talks about how rebirth comes only after death, and in their naivety, they play out a pseudo-suicide scene to imitate death. Little did they know greater sacrifices would have to be made. Eventually as events play out, we come to realise that it is David's death that became the cause and medium for their rebirth- both academic and intra-personal. Jack and Bill co-wrote the book "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" about the murder of David Kammerer, and eventually rose to fame, while Allen became popular with "Howl and Other Poems", none of which could have been initiated/inspired without David's death. As for their personal growth, none of them were the same as they were before the affair. I like to think all of them changed for the better. Lucian must have finally felt a sense of relief after getting rid of his abuser, while Allen finally took-off his rose-coloured glasses, saw Lucian under a more critical light, and developed a sense of self-esteem.

A Study in Violence (I was unsure whether to include this point in this analysis or not due to the violent nature of it. But I figure this analysis would remain incomplete should I leave it out. So here it goes..) The sequence from 1:10:00 to 1:12:00 was an in-depth survey of Violence and how it can occur in different forms. In particular, it focused on how any form of penetration is intimately violating.

We see a lonely Allen being so lost that he's about to have sex with a complete stranger. This itself is very unlike him, who in the beginning of the movie was shying away from Lucian kissing an unknown girl. A few sequences later we see how he wasn't very comfortable with this idea (he wanted to turn off the lights but the other guy turned them on) and yet he was made to shift into a position he did not prefer and hence was made to have rough sex.

We see Bill looking very solemn and injecting drugs into his hands.

We see the violent altercation between Lucian and David. We see David forcing himself on Lucian and eventually being stabbed by him.

We see Jack recieving the news of the death of his friend.

In this way, we see every member of the group being exposed to some form of violence, be it sex, drugs, physical altercations or death.

First Love and its aftermath First love is also an important theme of the movie as it shows how one's first love has the capacity to radically change a person from within:

Allen's first love changed him from the shy, people-pleasing always-upright persona to the bold, radical, critical and unafraid person he became at the end of the movie.

Allen's discovery of his own style of writing can also be majorly attributed to Lucian's criticism of his rhyme-schemes.

All in all, it was his love for Lucian that drove him to become a more out-going person and ignited the mischief in his spirit, while the heartbreak of realising Lucian didn't feel the same for him also lent him invaluable insight and allowed him to develop confidence and a sense of self-esteem, which would play a significant role in him eventually becoming his own person.

While Allen's first love furnished him with the overall better things in life, the same could not be said for Lucian, sadly. Lucian's first love reminded us how oppressive love can become if the other person isn't suited-well for us; it showed us how sometimes love and obsession are separated by a thin line, and how dangerous it becomes when the line is crossed.

Lucian's story also showed us how sometimes a relationship can be more abuse than love, and when that happened, how easy it became to confuse violence with love.

The most significant message that the theme of first-love portrays is that there will always be consequences.

With this, I bring my arguments and analyses to a close. I hope a future (or even past) lover of the movie happens to stumble upon this someday and learn something fascinating about the movie (or reignite their love for it). Thank you for reading this far!

[P.S. an uplifting fact: in real life, Lucian, Allen, Jack and Bill each got the type of life they wished for, and remained friends for the rest of their lives :) ]

[ga-yuu]

Is Ibuki like the current no. 1 powerful character in ikegen? Since between the three ayakashi he's the oldest? I would consider Tamamo too, but he's currently still recovering his full powers. And Kurama maybe the least? Since he's the youngest of them, and he's style is derived from Ibuki's teaching? Also, I haven't read any chapters of ikegen where Ibuki gets badly hurt.

In the Genjiden world, when a demon makes a deal with a human they share half of their powers with them. That also reduces their power by half. That's why seeing a demon making a deal with humans is very rare and they'll only make deals with the ones they really like. In the case of Ibuki, he made deal with Akihito just so he could see tragedies, unlike Kurama and Tamamo.

Ibuki is damn powerful. He has lived for 1200 years, and by that time I'm sure he has learned new fighting skills and also polished his old ones. With availability lot of vast knowledge and time, it shouldn't be a surprise.

But what makes him more powerful than the other two demons. It's not because he's the oldest. It's because he learned new fighting skills and polished his old ones. Also, his ability is thunder. Thunder is such a cool power, it's super fast and super powerful.

In the current timeline, Ibuki is not at his fullest potential because he shared it with Akihito. Even after that, he's still able to crush Kurama. In Kurama's route, we can clearly see him crushing Kurama without even breaking a sweat. Yeah, you could argue that Kurama was protecting Yoshino while fighting so he couldn't go all out. But still, I think Ibuki would win the fight. Later in the same route, Kurama, Yoshino, and Tamamo fight Ibuki. 3 vs 1 battle and they couldn't crush Ibuki like he did to Kurama. All they did was weaken Ibuki as much as possible and Kurama had to break his deal with Yoshitsune to finish Ibuki completely. Yeah. Kurama needs his 'full power' to defeat a 'half powered' Ibuki and he still doesn't die!

Later in the ending, Kurama also tells him that he will one day surpass Ibuki. So he himself knows. Ibuki harrassed taught Kurama how to fight and Kurama is still polishing his skills by fighting strong opponents day by day and one day promised that he'll kill Ibuki.

Tamamo is said to be as powerful as Kurama. They're on the same level. So he himself would also have no chance of winning a 1 on 1 battle with Ibuki.

Now can Ibuki defeat both the Shogunate and the Rebels? Maybe he could. Ibuki is shown to have a lot of confidence in his powers. In Benkei's birthday story event, he sneaks into the Rebel mansion to disrupt everyone's peace and kidnap Benkei. Yoshitsune, Yoichi, Benkei and Sueharu all fight him. But Ibuki was simply dodging their attacks and single-handedly wiping the floor with them. I'm not kidding, he held his greatsword with one hand and was defending 4 well-trained men and 4 out of the 5 strongest men in the Rebel army (one of them also using his demon powers) as if he is playing with a bunch of kids. Kurama was not there at that time and I don't think he would have been able to do much if he were there too. The icing on the cake is when Ibuki managed to stab Benkei in the stomach and voluntarily withdrew from the fight after seeing that Benkei had no intentions of going with him. But imagine if he didn't? Imagine if he went all out? Not even at his fullest potential. He would have literally annihilated the whole Rebel army.

In Morinaga's route, when Yoritomo states that he's arresting Yasuchika and taking him as a hostage, Ibuki casually asked Yasuchika if he wanted to be saved, which goes to show that he has full confidence that can destroy the Shogunate if he wanted to.

But in all of this....I don't think Ibuki is the most powerful character in the game. The most powerful character in the game without a doubt is......

*Drum rolls*

Yoshino. Yeah! Yoshino! No, I'm not trolling. She's actually the most powerful character. Imagine if she seduces Ibuki. Imagine if the world's most powerful and cruelest demon king is your boyfriend. Who is more powerful!? The demon or the person who seduced the demon king.

[echo-three-one]

The Bounty Hunter

Alex was one of the best bounty hunters in the country, but no one knows that. He used to work alone and had single-handedly caught every man with a reward on their heads. But this time, he needed help. Each day Barkov and Hadir's Bounty was increasing and none of the other bounty hunters had the guts to catch up to his sneaky schemes. This is his story on how he caught the most elusive criminal of his time.

I suck at summaries!

Western AU for Alex because why not. Thank you battle pass *kiss*

Part I - The Bounty Hunter, The Bartender and the Other Bounty Hunter

He groaned in frustration against the world's distractions that bothered his basic senses. The sun's rays on his eyes, which he attempted to cover with his arm, the loud annoying cheering of the crowd just below his room, the searing heat of the area making his skin sweat, the smell of gunpowder from downstairs and the taste of last night's drinks were still lingering on his tongue. It was going to be a tough day for him.

He turned to the woman who slept peacefully on the other side of his bed, wondering how she could sleep with all these things going on around. He just chuckled and made his way to the bathroom, washed his face and cleared off the taste of liquor in his mouth.

He grabbed his coat and hat by the door, holstered his gun, wore his boots and exited the room.

The inn was quiet and empty. Ever since the villainous Barkov and his right hand man Hadir were on the loose, tourists no longer visited the area, despite it usually booming with people given that this town was home to the best bazaars throughout the county.

He tipped his hat to the receptionist who eyed him differently ever since he entered the area. He was a new face to the town, so locals might just be suspicious. That or she's another one of those who gets attracted by his charms.

The Bounty Hunter pushed the double doors open to see the culmination of the high noon duel, people started going back to their places as the Sheriff, an old man with a signature moustache and his right hand man, a younger fellow with a skull mask, were already clearing up the area.

He didn't let this moment stop him from going to the bar, where he was advised by the lady he met last night that a certain bartender with an unmissable hairstyle would know a lot about the person he's looking for.

As people ran away from the sheriff, the saloon was now filled with rowdy people getting back to their businesses after the duel. Some tables were splitting bets while some resumed drinking and being loud.

Alex set his gaze on the counter where a man with a mohawk, donning a decent bartender attire, stood shaking a few bottles and wiping off the table. Most of the barmens eyes were already on Alex as he walked to the stool by the counter and was greeted by the bartender he was looking for.

"Howdy! Welcome to Saloon 141. What can I get ye?" He greeted the new face who sat in front of him. Alex stared at the man and placed a piece of paper on the table, a wanted sign with Barkov's face on it, along with a wealthy amount of reward.

The bartender looked down and looked around, suspiciously looking at everyone in the room.

"When I heard rumors of a new face in town, I half expected it to be another bounty hunter." He murmured, pouring a drink and sliding it to Alex.

"The name's Soap by the way. And judging on how you knew that I know stuff, you must be very good at this." He mused, shoving the paper back on his pocket.

"Barkov is a very stealthy son of a bitch. I once knew someone looking for him for three years now. She occasionally visits for more information, but as time passes by, I only know one thing." Soap said as quietly as possible.

"My friend works for him. He's always on the run, but every third Sunday of the month, he visits the abandoned mine on the edge of this town. He resupplies water there. Now please, if you intend to catch him, try your best not to compromise his location. This is the only thing constant in his schedule." Soap informed Alex and he gave him a wealthy tip. The bartender chuckled as he pocketed his reward for such information.

He stayed for a while as he ordered some grub to eat. It was still the second Sunday of this month so he still had time to devise his perfect plan to capture Barkov.

Alex observed everyone at the saloon. He could notice that he's being the center of gossip on most tables and didn't mind it. Maybe it's because of his flashy coat, or his foreignness, but he wasn't new to the feeling.

"Say, you got yourself some fancy clothing. Are those from the Capitol?" Soap asked as soon as he was free from customers. Alex wasn't a fan of small talk, but considering how this man helped him a lot today, he might as well share a few things.

"Yeah. Bought them after my hundredth catch." He said, not attempting to boast but Soap felt astonished.

"Damn. Hundred catches. Does that mean?" He quickly grabbed a pen and tissue, sliding it on Alex's front.

"My old man would love a signature from you. It's just miner rumors but he thinks you're the one who captured The Wolf." he said, pretty amused at his discovery.

Alex chuckled and signed the tissue. He didn't sign autographs but if some of the miners knew of him, they might as well deserve the recognition.

It was indeed him, who caught the wolf. It was also the last memory of his trusted steed, who got shot by his target. The bastard ran through the mines and threatened to kiss everyone just to evade capture. One way or another, he outsmarted the outlaw and saved the mines. That was one of his near death moments, where he realized that he'd better work alone.

~

He had nowhere else to go so he decided to stay at the saloon and get drunk. It was already three in the afternoon when the door opened and everyone fell quiet.

Curious as to who might be the cause of the disturbance, Alex slowly turned his head to the door, where a woman walked in. She had a green bandana on and matching wear that made her look like a bounty hunter too. Alex wondered who this woman was after and how she established quite the presence.

"You. New face. What is your deal here?" She asked, her tone was demanding and Alex wondered why she was mad.

"Just enjoying a drink." He lowered his cap and greeted. Her eyes stood out once their gazes met, there was something in there that Alex can't seem to forget.

"John. Is this man telling the truth?" Alex turned to Soap who was now referred to as John. Soap turned to him and back to the woman.

"Yes Karim. He also ate lunch here." He replied. Then what happened next was muttering between the two and the rest of the tables. Alex didn't mind as he resumed his drinking and classified this event as an awkward moment. Whoever this girl was had enough authority to quiet a rowdy crowd and Alex was to not take her lightly.

But he already had a feeling that they're both after the same person.

"A little competition couldn't hurt." He muttered with a smirk, downing his last drink, leaving his payment and exited the saloon.

[To be continued...]

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

[bestfrownsforever]

Heartache Arcade

Sorry for not having a proper cover again...hopefully these will do.

Also 1. my friend CLG is my co-editor now! Per's a master at finding grammar mistakes even I miss (ex. if you want the re-edited Dawn of a New Era then it's on Amino) so per'll be helping me from now on!

And 2. I'm hoping to keep a consistent schedule so expect a new Best Frowns Forever story every Tueaday! Starting with this story...

After having some brief fun as a Frown Lord, Puppycorn already hit a massive roadblock.

"Anyone else think this job doesn't make a whole lot of sense?" he asked while meeting with his co-workers around his bedroom table, "I mean yeah, it's fun to hurt people and stuff, but if we're so good at our jobs, then won't everyone be too scared to go outside anymore? Or maybe they'll leave the kingdom!? And if they do, should we want them to because it'd be bad if they did!? What should we DO!?!?"

Unikitty wrapped an arm around him from across the table. "Calm down, little bro," she assured him, "They're not going anywhere when the rest of the world sucks too."

"The solution's easy," Grandmaster Frown added, "Try luring them in with something fun and cutesy and make them almost want to suffer!"

"Oh come on," Hawkodile objected, "Something big pops up in the kingdom out of nowhere with us openly running it? They'll know it's a trap."

"Unless they're so desperate for a break that they'll take anything that looks happy and shiny," Dr. Fox suggested, "And Master Pain was the king of cringe before Frown's birthday."

"Hey!"

"I'm saying that as a compliment! You probably still like all that kiddie junk the citizens miss anyway, so why are you complaining about no ideas?"

Unikitty flew over to her brother. "I think she's trying to say that instead of using the things you like to try being cool, you can use them to actually prove your coolness as a Frown Lord!"

"Okay," Puppycorn considered, "But I already did accident-prone skateboards and roller skates...and that spiky ballpit."

"You mean I did them and you STOLE MY CREDIT!?" Dr. Fox reminded him before Brock pushed her away.

"Okay, someone needs a timeout...and if it helps, I've had the idea for a haunted arcade for a while now. But you're not wrong about the whole obvious trap thing, so from one gamer to another; how would you make it work?"

Puppycorn thought long and hard about the possibility until it hit him like his past self running into a brick wall.

"WAIT, I've been thinking into this job too hard! Grandmaster Frown did all this to be himself again, right? So maybe instead of haunted, the games can just be really hard to beat!?"

Everyone seemed interested except for the pouting Dr. Fox.

"But if they manage to win those games, wouldn't that be the best feeling ever?"

Puppycorn hummed until he lit up again like the lightbulb popping out of his head.

"They'll only get a few tickets and we'll make the prizes super expensive!!"

"Good enough."

Grandmaster Frown rose. "Then let's get to work, people! These games will need some Frown Lord-flare, and they sure aren't gonna make themselves!"

Puppycorn and Brock were the first to follow him to Dr. Fox's lab, dedicate many long days to porting the most difficult games they could find, and even more to making their own until after countless attempts at giving up, Puppycorn finally saw all his hard work pay off and open for business.

No one saw exactly when the new building appeared in the middle of town. It was just another rainy afternoon with nothing going on until people looked at their windows to see a massive, pale gray block of an exterior with a burgandy arching roof and neon colors everywhere from behind the windows. A tall sign next to it read "Heartache Arcade" with "& Casino" under it in smaller letters, both in some of the same bright neon colors.

Most closeby citizens came to the conclusion that their tyrants set it up, but some of them approached the arcade anyway, as if to say "How are they gonna break us this time?"

When they stepped in, they were greeted by giant rooms with arcade machines, gambling tables, and brighter lights everywhere, with a large prize counter and shelves for toys and other kinds of trinkets in one corner. They couldn't believe how everything seemed so...innocent.

They split up, each walking over to a different game or observing more of the retrospective dream around them, while Frown and Puppycorn spied on them from behind an "Employees Only" door.

"C'mon..." Puppycorn whispered, "Just play the games already!"

"Give 'em a bit more time," Grandmaster Frown replied, "They'll rip themselves in half before you know it."

Puppycorn turned to the nearest citizen, Theodore, stepping up to a slot machine, which hated having them there, but the others convinced him that gambling would make things all the more entertaining to watch.

"Supreme Slots, huh?" Theodore wondered before shrugging, "Well, guess it's worth a shot."

Puppycorn wasn't too surprised when Theodore bet the little money he had and won on his first try, only to get too cocky and lose it all too fast. Grandmaster Frown had a good laugh while Puppycorn looked the other way to spot Bim-Bom wrapping a hand around the joystick for the game he was most proud of; Furious Fetch.

Bim-Bom seemed happy at first, but just when Puppycorn worried even more, she got a a little confused as to what she was playing. Did she get to the lava pits yet?, he thought, Or the bugs? She's gotta know how hard running and jumping is by now though, right?

Then he heard the Game Over music.

"What!? There's no more lives!?"

Finally, a good reaction. Puppycorn was already holding back laughs and wagging his tail watching Bim-Bom pull out another token to play again. And then another. And another until she almost reached the end of the first level.

"WAIT, jumping on them doesn't kill them either!? What gives!?"

"That's the point!" Puppycorn snickered. She clearly wanted to give up but pulled out another out coin anyway. Maybe even keep going until she didn't have any left. But as if his silent prayers were answered, Bim-Bom slipped the token into the slot and lost almost as soon as the level started that time. Screaming, she stormed off to try something else as Puppycorn lost it.

"Cut it out!" Grandmaster Frown ordered, covering a hand over Puppycorn's mouth, "The evil laughing can wait, just don't blow this for us."

Puppycorn nodded, prompting his boss let go. They continued to look around, realizing more and more citizens were getting frustrated over what they were playing. And switching to other games or slots didn't help, it only strengthened the chorus of the most mixed reactions they'd ever heard in their lives.

"These games SUCK!"

"This was all the money I haaaaaaad!!"

"I can do this, I just need ONE more coin...anyone got some?"

"At least this isn't the other stuff we've had to put up with, calm down guys!"

"Are you nuts!? This is WAY WORSE!"

Puppycorn was too proud of himself to keep the door open. He shut it to chant and dance without a care until Grandmaster Frown laid a hand where his shoulder would be.

"Huh?"

"Not bad, Pain. Consider this your first

independent accomplishment."

"Really!? Aweso-"

They jumped at the sound of a sudden crash from the back room.

"Yeah," Frown ordered, "now take care of this place before the ragequitters can."

Puppycorn proudly nodded and saluted. "I'll do my best, boss sir!"