#like certain casting and character decisions

[nouearth]

poolside banters.

dick grayson x male reader.

summary: it's your final day at the summer resort, and dick has a way to end it with a bang.

wc: 3.4k. warnings: resort!au, explicit smut, blowjob (r giving), handjob, frotting, thigh-fucking, public exhibition, humping, body worshipping, muscle worshipping, established relationship, playful bantering, daddy!kink, big dick!dick resort owner!dick, thwaites!dick.

a/n: finally done with my dick grayson smut! it's been so long, and this has been in my drafts for a while. i've been so busy, but i finally came around to it! ahhhh, i hope you guys like it! it's something new since i've been inspired by a certain video (ahem) on frotting.

Large palm trees sprouted beneath the clear sky and bristles danced in pursuit of the mellow jazz that played from stereos. The summer was cooled by the gentlest breeze, and you could hear the wealthy patrons collectively ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ when the flame of their bodies began to simmer from a hard boil.

Across from you was the vast beach that swallowed the rays of the sun, glistening every pulp while visitors joyfully soaked within the dewy radiance. It was a scene straight from a feel-good film, and you couldn’t help but reflect the smile of fond memories onto your own face as you kicked back onto the lounge chair by the pool. 

The crowd around you was sparse compared to the beach-goers. Most preferred the finite space of the pool to keep their children in close proximity, while others, like you, preferred the light the sun gave out when they read a novel.

Jesus, he’s messing with you! How many times are we going to get back together with this douche?! You scoffed and turned to the next page of your thriller novel after flushing the character’s irrational decision to return to their toxic partner with a soda. 

Upon noticing the orange hue cast over the paper, you figured the next chapter would be better saved for the airplane ride back home. You slotted your bookmark in between the printed pages and set it on the table at your side, finishing the rest of your drink with several fizzy gulps.

“Quick dip before we head in?” Dick’s voice startled you and you inhaled sweet bubbles that started a coughing fit. You turned towards him after catching your breath, laughing when you’ve become infected by the light sound of your boyfriend’s chuckle.

“Oh, so now you want to swim?” Your hand reached over to shackle his dangling fingertips with yours and then hopped off the lounge chair and onto your feet. Quick tugs pulled Dick up, freeing him from the slumber that had captured him hours prior.

“I told you I prefer swimming with no one around!” He was awakened to his senses with a yawn and an overhead stretch, pushing his broad chest out and capturing the cast of light in the process. “Peaceful and quiet, and it’s not like they—“

“—can kick out the owner of the resort, I know, I know!” Your teasing always put Dick in a jovial mood, and he thanked you, like always, with a kiss when you pulled him up. As if he read your mind, or rather scorched his hand against the beating warmth of your skin, Dick slid your button down off your body and tossed it onto the chair.

“But I have a feeling there are limits, y’know!” You continued, leading the short walk to the pool. He stuck behind you, following and listening close with his arms wrapped around your waist. “There has to be something they won’t tolerate.”

“Tolerate?” Dick hummed, letting hands roam around your shoulders and arms first, and squeezing at the firm skin to relieve you of the muscle tension you’ve been complaining about since the airplane ride. “We should test out to see how much they can tolerate then.” Then his hands cascaded towards your bottom, cupping a handful of clothed flesh, but with the way Dick had kneaded your ass, the swimming trunks mind as well had become part of your body.

“Hey, hey—“ You jolted at the sudden touch, then cowered back into his hands because with an arch more; you’d embarrassingly expose how easy and quick it was to turn you on. You could hear him snicker into the back of your neck, a grin spreading wide, and you reached back to swat at his hands. 

“Dick, there’s people…” Your voice trailed off as you looked around, because everyone had gone back in now. Was.

He persisted, the begs only made him curl his fingers deep into your mounds in a similar way he had done to his stress ball. Red; the color of his ball; the color of his frustration when shipments were delayed; the color of assault when he goes out on nightly patrols. His chest rose and pressed against your back and when you reached back to hold his forearm, affectionate and loving; the red burned a lovelier hue.  

Dusk was settling into the sky, and all that was left was you and your boyfriend, and the pool that greeted you in a harmony of gentle waves. He squeezed your bottom, then hips in response, hooking his chin over your shoulder to peer at the solitude.

“That never stopped us before,” The positioning of his hands circled to the front of your trunks, and then past the waistband when the tent seized his hand. He wrapped his large hand around your length, squeezing softly as it grew into his palm, and you sighed. 

It was always easy to give into Dick. 

“Restaurants, parking lots, public bathrooms,” He began listing, remembering the fond memories with his own tent aiding his memory, twitching and prodding your bottom. “…clothing racks, back of the bus, during my meetings—“ Your cock grew harder into the gentle motion of his hand, into the memories that was more so evidence that you and Dick should be banned from traveling in public, pumping you into the familiar stiffness until your trunks felt like they had shrunk when Dick pulled his hand out.

You bit back a groan at the loss of friction, the mesh net of your trunks merely providing sufficient builds to your pleasure when you squeezed and rubbed at your tent.

“Noticed how all of those times didn’t start with me? I don’t know how you get horny so quickly—“

“You’ve got to be kidding me! Look at yourself right now!” Dick defended with a playful sputter, grasping you from the front suddenly and giving your cock a tug.

“Yeah!” You gasped, then laughed when he pushed you back into him, and his throbbing bulge. “Once again, you started it!” Teasingly, your hips pushed back in nonchalant swirls, masking it as a sway of dance while his hands were still kept around you.

“And?” He pushed forward, burying a groan into your neck while you swayed. “I always finish it, too.”

“True…” While your head leaned back onto his shoulder, peacefully swaying under the approaching night, you reached back and snuck your hand down his trunks to feel the source of the constant prodding at your bottom. “I can attest to that.”

“Fuck…” His voice lowered into the side of your neck, clutching at your hips as some kind of control to keep him from fucking wildly into your fist, even if you had tempted him with the tightening of your palm.

Dick grew heavy into your hand. You stroked the weight until it sank deep into your skin, until your wrist exhausted itself, until you were frustrated by the confines of his trunks.

“Back to the chair?”

Dick catalogued the surrounding area. Palm trees barely obscured windows, columns of the thick material enforced onlookers to hide behind them. The risks abound with every scan across the vicinity, yet the feeling of adrenaline surged through his veins, turning back to you with a hankering smile.

“We’re here to test their limits, aren’t we?”

“Fuck.”

“Look at me,” Your eyes swept from corner to corner at every little sound that set an alarm of panic, overriding Dick’s voice. It was quite comical to him, watching the caution in your eyes ignite with every blink while your hand soldiered through, stroking his cock by the pool-side. “Baby.”

“Hm?” After foraging the area clear, you casted your gaze upwards to meet Dick’s doting eyes, and the pain on your knees was suddenly more tolerable. 

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Even though you were always more hesitant to the idea of public exhibition, and Dick’s constant teasings of being caught didn’t exactly help, it always ended smoothly. His hand fell down to the back of your head, petting slow to placate your worries. “I promise.”

“You never know! I just don’t want you to get fired, or worse… open a press conference with an apology, and I’m joined by your side or something.” The thought made him laugh, then a sigh replaced the echoing sound when your lips wrapped around the plump head of his cock, sucking and laving your tongue around the glans reminiscently to the rhythm of the gentle pool waves.

“I did warn you that we’d be together every moment in life.” Dick sucked in the cool air as you took more of him in, freezing a moan into the walls of his throat. You held the base, covering the first few inches of meaty girth with spit and love as you sucked the salt and musk off of him, cleansing Dick with your wandering tongue, and the heat of his groan was enough to melt the ice block.

“And I’m not turning back.” His cock hung over your face when you unfurled your hold around him, kissing the throbbing flesh from the tip to the sticky underside of his length, then to his balls, where you enveloped the heavy sack with sloppy sucks. 

“Mm.” His hips pushed forward and his palm on the back of your head gently applied forward in a silent want to bury his spit-covered sack onto your face. They rolled and dragged across your features with the help of his grasp, and you stuck your tongue out in case it needed a new glow from its endeavor.

Pulling away, you took him in again by inclination. His cock sank into your mouth deeper, and your hand wrapped around the girth that never had the fortunate to have met your tongue. You sucked, bobbing your head up and down while your fist swiveled in pursuit of your lips, coating Dick’s thick cock with the remnants of saliva that your tongue had left.

“Fuck, baby…”

Dick’s hand had left your head now in favor of supporting his habit of crossing his arms behind his head while you worked at his cock. You’d notice it when he felt overwhelmed, stressed, de-stressed, pleasured, or maybe all of the above. Either way, it made your heart jump ten-folds because it made him all the more alluring—pornographic, if you had to be lewd. 

His biceps caught onto the light, flexed when you began playing with his balls while you continued on shoving him down your throat. The light highllghted the muscles that you’d find always yourself latching onto when you crossed the street, when you slept together, when he was frustrated with work, when he’d fuck you into the couch, when you’d ride him on the patio; it was your comfort and seeing the muscles flex under the light, you’d wish you had appreciated it more. 

Him, more.

Several moments later, you pulled away to catch your breath, but before you could do so properly, Dick pulled you up onto your feet and into a kiss, where he whispered his gratification in between soft and doting swipes of his lips. “You suck me off so well, fuck.”

“Yeah? Am I a good boy, then?” One arm twined around his neck, while your other hand dropped to jerk your aching cock, playfully slapping it against his own cock in between sessions before pressing a chaste kiss to his full lips. “Daddy?”

His breath hitched, eyebrows cinched a wrinkle in between, and his face lit up when the words that had come out of your mouth had rendered properly.

You and Dick always liked to try something new every now and then, to add more heat to the flame of your endeavors together, and today was the day you’d let your fantasies come alive. Stemmed straight from one of the novels you’ve been reading during the trip, it was quite ludicrous but your boyfriend didn’t have to know that.

“You’re an extremely good boy, baby…” His forehead leaned onto yours and he stared into the light of your eyes, harboring it for himself as he took your cock into his hand and stroked it to the accelerating pace of his heart. “And since you were such a good boy, how do you think daddy should reward you?”

“Hm…” Your mind ran across many thoughts, but then fell silent upon realization, breaking character when you whispered as if there was an audience watching your performance. “Babe, we don’t have lube—“

“Oh shoot… what about the sunscreen—“

“Dude, did you not read that post about this guy going to the ER and having his dick numb because—“

“Okay, so no sunscreen…”

“Oh!” The lightbulb above your head flickered, and you grinned, pulling him close again as if there wasn’t a brief intermission prior. “Ahem, well… there was something I’ve been wanting to try…”

Dick pressed a laugh into your lips, half-kissing you while a grin remained as you had his curiosity piqued. “What’s that?” His hand maintained the blood flow to your erection, stroking and thumbing the head at times.

Your shoulders rolled back from the tender touch and in midst, took Dick’s cock into your palm and pressed it lower, to where you stepped closer to him, flushed against his chest and Dick held you stable now, and released once it cushioned snug in between your thighs. Your cock pressed up against Dick’s pelvis, and your arms twined back around his nest while his was anchored around your waist. 

“A good boy who’s able to suck cock well, and think on their feet. How did I get so lucky?” He softened another chuckle into your lips, where you inhaled him like oxygen, and fused your affection for each other into one when he began thrusting, slow and short to keep your cock confined against his pelvis. 

“I think you’re just rubbing off on me, if I’m being honest.” Your nose pressed into one another as you held each other impossibly close, buckling into each other’s bodies as Dick sandwiched his thick cock in between your pillowy thighs, your own cock throbbed and dripped with thick pre-cum as it pressed to his body.

“Well, I’m definitely rubbing something.” His hands dropped to your ass, where he began kneaded at the mounds as he stabilized his position into keeping a rhythm to his thrusts. His thick cock rubbed in between your thighs, and he’d groan when you clenched around him, restricting his movements to mere bumps. 

“Shut up—“ You could feel his pre-cum spreading thick along your flesh, and you squeezed once more to pull another delightful sound of him, another drip that layered on your sweaty skin.

In midst, you held his arms tight, admiring his muscles whenever they flexed as he fucked into your tight thighs until he breached through with several desperate plunges, moaning when the cold air met the slit of the sticky head. His body was your rock, your support, as you thrusted your cock over his pelvis. It slid and pressed into his skin as you thrusted, finding a rhythm of Dick’s own hips, and your bodies collectively move together like a dance. Humping each other like animals when you felt close, then slowed at an excruciating pace to a symphony of moans into the night air.

“Fuck me, daddy— fuck.” You begged into Dick’s lips, hissing because you felt your cock become swollen than before, beating red at the tip as if he was the cause of this pleasurable allergic reaction. You humped him desperately, rubbing your cock against him while allowing your thighs to stick to Dick’s large cock like glue. 

“You want my cock so bad, don’t you…” He pressed into you, harder and deeper. It was unfulfilling at first. He wasn’t exactly fucking into anything, but he loved the control he had of your body in this position. Dick clutched into your ass, separating and squeezing the mounds as he maneuvered your body to his liking. “Taking my cock in any way you’d like…”

Back and forth, Dick pulled your body into his and met every plunge of his cock in between your thighs. Occasionally, he’d pull farther for a change of pace, rubbing his cock against you for a brief frot. The stimulation seized drips of pre-cum to layer upon your cock and Dick’s for a slimy friction, mutually gliding over one another. The two cocks mingled, caressed, and slid while you two held each other close until Dick took it upon himself to cushion his cock back in between your thighs and began fucking you again.

Breathless, Dick fucked into your thighs while desperately holding onto your body in fret of letting you, as if he wasn’t the one in control. His nails sunk deep into your ass, but you only took it as his love for you, wearing the indentation like battle scars while you humped into him. Your balls fit the curve of his cock, rolling over the ample shaft with pride, and you rubbed Dick’s chest. Broad, sweaty, and muscular, pinched at his nipples, and then tugged because you needed him close.

Closer than before because you were close. 

“Keep fucking me—“ He slapped your ass once, growling into the open-mouthed kiss, and you jolted into him, fucking your cock against his pelvis at a snappy rhythm. Your thigh clenched from your stance, providing Dick a confinement that was a nightmare to breach through, but when he did, it was incredibly fulfilling and eye-rolling, slipping completely out to repeat the cycle as the addiction for the brief catharsis had only been building.  

Moans deposited into another’s mouth, swallowing and taking each other in with complete rapture, and then withdrew when your chest swelled and stomach pumped with a familiar feeling that had been accumulated through dry-humps and desperate yet intimate endeavors.

“Dick—“ You choked out, clutching onto his shoulders, then his hair, then his arms, because your legs felt weak, wobbly like spaghetti noodles, like all the strength had been lost in your calves when you thrusted for the last time, and relieved yourself in heavy, thick ropes. “F-fuck, fuck!”

A shudder in midst of Dick’s eager and continuing thrusts, you shot cum all over his pelvis, stomach, and even aimed high enough to have stain his chest. Tremors surged, and Dick held you close to keep them confined, but to also selfishly reach his own heaven as he neared his climax within seconds of watching you in awe, emptying yourself all over him.

“Baby, I’m going to come—“ His lips collided into yours for a messy kiss. Tongues chased pink flesh after pink flesh in pursuit of the sweet taste of one another. Swiveled and swirled while Dick violated into you with his big cock, mingled with either sides of your thighs, bruised your ass with his hands, glued his chest to yours with your cum; all of the simultaneous friction built his stomach to bubble in a powerful acclamation. He was as breathless as you were, shaking the haziness in his vision as you fed into the fog with your touch and voice. You stroked his chest, squeezed them, then his biceps, and then his toned stomach, made him feel loved and worshipped as you moaned at the mere sight of his muscles flex and pulsate as his high approached.

“Oh fuck…” Dick delivered several more thrusts into your thighs, you held them close to prevent an opening, before spilling and shooting his thick seed all over your soft yet toned flesh. One load shamelessly came after another, pulling multiple moans out of Dick, and you swallowed them all as you felt yourself layered thick and warm with his cum from beneath, bathing in them as if it was the summer sun. Throughout his climax, your hands maintained its wander, easing the tremors that sent Dick’s body into subtle jolts and goosebumps with cascading warmth and affection, and then kissed him once more, like you always did towards the end.

“You always make such a mess.” Lethargy quickly crept over you, and you practically pushed all of his weight into Dick’s arms as your muscles almost gave out, yawning, but the sticky and thick cum uncomfortably dripping down your legs kept you alert. 

“You seriously cannot be complaining.” He scoffed, stepping back so you would get a view of how drenched his toned body was, kudos to your loads.

“That’s just sunscreen—“

“Oh my god, you’re so annoying.”

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like! feedback is also much appreciated!

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Slight 14DWY + Blog Changes! 💖

(16/12/23)

Leon will now move away from Corland Bay when he’s 10 years old. Originally, I never really put that much thought into it because it won't be explicitly mentioned in the game, but I figured I might as well make it more accurate now ^^;

Teo is now 26 (instead of 27). Again, zero thought went into this aside from wanting a wider range of ages for the cast — but now I want him to be closer to Jae and Violet’s age — especially considering they were all childhood friends and Violet was in the grade below them.

Elanor is now 30 and Kiara is 29. In the 2017 version, Elanor was originally the eldest sister, but it just didn't feel right to change it in the 2020 version. Day 3 will still be lore accurate, but everything on this blog will need to be retconned.

14DWY Purple (unofficial) will now be changing from #A14BF4 to #9D64FD.

Not a change, but adding more clarification: Angel will still attend university (and Jae and Teo will still be their university friend), but whether or not they enrolled will remain ambiguous! Day 1/2 kinda insinuates that they studied something ("Teo attended some of their classes"), but I wanted it to imply that they could've attended orientation and/or took "mock classes" after high school to see what it's like as well. I may change a few lines in the demo (in the future) to reflect that.

Egg

I'd like to (hopefully) try to remind everyone that whenever I write about Angel on this blog, they are gender neutral. Because if my ass had a dollar for every time someone assumed they were female because of the cutesy/pink themes or how "soft" I made the MC, I'd have enough money to fund voice actors, translators, custom soundtrack, and pay the $100 Steam fee /hj

Changed the crackpot theory tag into an actual tag!! About time sdghjdg

(07/01/24)

Also not a change, but to solidify Haruko's appearance + Ren's likeness a bit more... Haruko is supposed to be an anime character with pink/blue hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. He's a modern day "sorcerer" (a reference to JJK, not a literal fantasy wizard lmao) from an anime called "Attack on Giants" (another reference to "Attack on Titan"); and is very kind, ditzy, and empathetic. All Ren has copied is his hairstyle, vibe, and demeanour. Ren isn't outright cosplaying Haruko, and it'd take an avid anime enjoyer to notice that Ren is attempting to mimic Haruko.

I'll make a poll one day, but I might change Ren's left sleeve tattoo to the spoiler-free placeholder I used in this artwork. A lot of people seem to prefer it, but I'll wait until the poll to make any final decisions.

I might also make another poll to see if perhaps a new BGM theme would better suit the demo. Because in my mind, the "summer/beach location" = acoustic guitar (rather than piano) — and for some reason I get lo-fi vibes from 14DWY??

I don't think anyone has picked up on this subtle shift yet, but Ren will mainly use "he/him" over "he/they" now (since Haruko is a he/him enjoyer 👍). [REDACTED], however, will still greatly prefer "they/he", and will continue to use them interchangeably.

21/02/24 — or search through Obsidian. (Future Sai here.... I have no clue what this means???? What??? T_T)

I'm gonna cut down on the Teo and Ren bullying on this blog (and in general). I don't find it fun anymore, and it genuinely upsets me when people put down certain characters to make others look better (i.e. "Ren has no ass which makes Leon superior >:)" Just say you like Leon... I beg T_T). It also makes me doubt whether Ren is genuinely a good character or not, and it's gross seeing y'all tear down people who genuinely enjoy Teo. Be kind.

(11/01/24)

Eventually, I'd like to turn this meme into an event in the 14DWY Discord to help create an actual landlord for Day 3. The current landlord has always been a meme-y placeholder (I thought the idea would be funny), but looking at how the game is currently, I want 14DWY to be more "serious". The current landlord will eventually be turned into an easter egg!!

Whether or not Jae had bottom surgery will now remain ambiguous. Everyone is now free to headcanon whatever they'd like, so long as it's not offensive or too OOC.

From now on, I'll also try my best to remind everyone that Jae is gay and Kiara is lesbian. I tried not to bring it up frequently because I was afraid it'd come across like "being gay" was their only defining personality trait, but I'm tired of people sending in asks that don't apply to these characters ^^;

I might move all of the curiouscat questions to this blog and archive the account. It's becoming too much of a hassle for me to manage 3+ social media accounts sgkshjj

[night-market-if]

The Night Market Book Two

Welcome to the Night Market. May the Knowing show mercy on your soul.

After the conclusion of book 1, enter back into the world of the Night Market as your previous MC, dealing with the fallout of last book's ball. Meet an entirely new cast of characters, along with tracking down your previous RO's. With the lanterns out and the world plunged into darkness, can you turn it around and breathe life back into the world? Or like so many of the realms before is the Night Market doomed to the destruction of the Nothing.

Travel the world and explore new areas with your party members, experiencing romance fraught with angst and heavy decisions. Will you forgive a certain RO for what they have done? Will you be able to save an angel who has nothing left? Or will you choose to feed the addiction of a vampire. Or perhaps live out your cottage core life with your witch.

Or maybe, just maybe, you will dance with death.

The Night Market Book 2 is a rich interactive fiction that will be posted chapter by chapter. If you have not read book one, the links for the free demo or the full purchase of the game is down below.

🪷✨🪷✨ If you want to support me 🪷 ✨🪷✨ Demo 🌿Steam🌿Itch.io🌿 Patreon 🌿Discord🌿FAQS

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

Viktor Nikiforov is an adult character with adult problems and anxieties. However, unlike for Yuuri, whose struggles couldn't be more obvious to the audience, Viktor's issues are portrayed with subtlety. Which is ironic since, of the entire cast, Viktor is confronted with the most drastic life-changing choices and changes.

We meet Viktor as a competitive figure skater who has reached a point in his life many people eventually end up. The initial excitement for your profession has long since withered away and you're stuck in a life that is making you miserable. You're only staying out of convenience, the fear of change, the fear of taking a risk, or due to a lack of opportunity—or a combination thereof.

That's where Viktor is in episode 1. You can read the misery in his fake smiles and in his empty expression when he skates—an activity that once has been his passion (we know because creating your own programmes demands a creativity that is the result of passion). There are rumours that he might retire, and when being asked about his future plans, we see again the empty expression of a man who has lost his purpose. He has accumulated quite a fortune through sponsorships if his expensive clothes are any indication of that, but money can't buy happiness.

For twenty years, Viktor has lived for his sport and neglected his private life over it. His body might keep up for a couple of more seasons, but his mind is weary and his creativity is running dry. Twenty years is a long enough time to make even a decisive person think that that one thing is all you will ever be good at.

When you're stuck like that, maybe even to the point that it affects your mental health, it's hard to make it out of the slump on your own. Having someone showing you an alternative can work wonders to shift your perspective and enable you to take matters into your own hands again. For Viktor, this shift comes in form of a cute and utterly drunk fellow skater who not only seems to have a crush on him but very explicitly voices his wish that Viktor becomes his coach.

Viktor is a master of his craft. He choreographs his own programmes, he has music composed for these, and he has twenty years of experience in figure skating. Before that fateful banquet, Viktor already showed low-level coaching tendencies like when he gives (unsolicited) advice to his younger rinkmate...

or when he encourages him to become junior world champion without a quad jump and agrees to choreograph his first senior programmes.

These examples indicate that Viktor has a hidden skill he might not have been aware of during his active career as a skater. He could build on that if the sets his mind to it.

While it's true that Viktor only decided to become a coach when he saw that video (see Sayo Yamamoto's episode commentary), his feelings for Yuuri played a major role his decision because he felt a connection. That's important because feelings ignite passion and provide you with new purpose. It's tempting to assume that Viktor went to Japan for a booty call, but this totally disregards the complexity of his situation and the key role feelings play in igniting passion in someone and giving them new purpose.

"People shine brightest when they understand what kind of love sustains them."

Turning your life upside down and leaving behind the safety and convenience of a job you're good at but that you learned to hate, comes with fears and requires a certain readiness to take risks. Many people don't go to such lengths unless 1) their current situation is insufferable and 2) they have a very strong motivator to start all over. Like love or passion. As both stem from the same place, I'm equating them in the following.

Taking your first step into the uncharted territory of your new future IS scary. It can be one of the hardest things you have ever done. Especially if it means a complete reorientation. But burning for this future—be it out of love for your new subject/field, a specific person you will work with etc.—is a truly inspiring experience that fills you with the confidence that you can actually do it. So far, Viktor has been on the receiving end of coaching, but his feelings for Yuuri, his experience as a skater, and his resulting dedication to the task ultimately turn him into a good coach for Yuuri and help him succeed where Celestino failed. And it's obvious that Viktor really loves being Yuuri's coach.

Viktor Nikiforov is a true inspiration for everyone who faces the choice of staying on in a life or work situation that is making them miserable or going full risk by following one's heart. I cannot thank Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo enough for creating a show with so many mature characters that are dealing with realistic adult issues and I'm happy that one of my favourite YOI characters is one of them. I wish that Viktor would receive more appreciation for this.

I want to thank the reader of Thousand Spotlights whose comment about my portrayal of Viktor inspired me to finally write this post 🩷 Also many thanks to @cecebeanie for reading over it in advance 🩷

Please note:

In some cultures, changing your job frequently is normal and thus not a big thing for people, but the concept I've discussed is the universal.

This meta doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive analysis of Viktor's situation as this would have gone beyond the cope of this post (I have written other metas that discuss some of these). Viktor shows signs of depression and/or creative burnout that might or might not have to do with focusing on skating for most of his life. Depression can manifest itself differently in different people and no one's experience is less valid than someone else's.

If you enjoyed this meta, please consider giving me a follow or checking out my works on AO3 (link in bio), which build upon my analyses.

[gettinshiggywithit]

!The BSD Cast With A Reader Who Has A Stalker!

Scenario:- what the bsd characters would do if their s/o had a stalker

Characters included:- dazai,chuuya,kunikida,atsushi,yosano,ranpo,akutagawa (romantic pairings) kenji,kyouka and the tanizakis(platonic pairings)

Genre:-fluff/comfort?

Tw:- mentions of bein stalked and well,a stalker,Teeny bit of cussing

W/C:-2.4k

A/N:-yes this is inspired by my real life no i will not elaborate~

↪️Osamu Dazai

If you tell dazai that you have a stalker,he’d probably joke about it at first.

But when you tell him how serious it had gotten and how stressed and scared it makes you,

He takes it way more seriously.

He obviously has a plan,our little manipulator.

And soon enough he’s threatened the stalker with an entire stack of private and compromising information.

They stop after that.and youre finally at peace.

When you thank dazai he first brushes it off as it havin been nothing at all,but ends it with a serious statement of how no one messes with the people he cares about.

As we know,the worst decision dazai’s enemies could make is making themselves his enemies.

And That stalker realized that the hard way.

↪️Chuuya Nakahara

Chuuya,unlike dazai is a little less calculated.

He has absolutely no issue with using force to make his point clear when he’s pissed(or not.) and you having to live in a constant state of fear because of this asshole is WAY more than enough to piss him off.

He finds the bastard(being a port mafia exec. Really did have its fair share of perks) and pays them a visit himself~

He comes home later that day looking rather pleased with himself and when you ask what he did,

He just says that he took care of it.

You know chuuya like the back of your hand,so you also know that he definitely has no problem with defending what matters to him,no matter what the cost.

So to protect your subconscious,you don’t question him further.

But he sees that youre a little uneasy so,he clarifies that the person isn’t dead.

Theyre just… permanently out of commission and chuuya’s slight look of annoyance tells you that he really didn’t kill the stalker.

You run into his arms and thank him and he hugs you back while pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

You unwind with wine and dinner and enjoy your first carefree night in quite a while.

↪️Doppo Kunikida

Kunikida is outraged!

How dare these delinquents disrupt your daily life schedule like this!

He MUST do something about it.

Kunikida obviously doesn’t want it to turn into anything too confrontational(not because he wouldn’t fight for you,but because the clean up would require more energy and time than this bastard deserves)

So he calls up katai and has him dig up anything about this stalker of yours.

Soon kunikida has more than enough information to come up with the perfect plan of action.

Blackmail really isn’t his style so he goes for a little something different.

He calls up the stalker and while the bitch is scared shitless,he drops little bits of the info he’s gathered in conversation.(okay yh I lied.blackmail it is.we stan petty kunikida in this house~)

At this point he’s having a conversation with himself so he knows the stalker is definitely shaking with fear.

So he ends the call with a final statement,

“I suggest you leave y/n alone  if you know whats good for you.you wouldn’t want to ruin your entire life now would you?not that you haven’t already by sinking to the level you are already at, of course.”

And he’s met with a shakey “yes,sir…” before the line goes silent permanently.

He let you know you can stop living in fear and you two go over your next days routine.(mans had only allocated a certain amount of time to solve that entire thing okay :’))

↪️Atsushi Nakajima

Atsushi is a gentle soul,bless him,really.

But he was worried af when you told him about your stalker.

He’s determined to keep his s/o safe!

He asks ranpo for help,and is turned away(‘not botheredddd’ ßRanpo’s reply)

So he goes to dazai next.

Dazai obviously suggests blackmail.

Atsushi doesn’t wanna pull a dazai on this one.

So he just calls the number(dazai has it tapped and is using ranpo{he was bribed with candy} to track it) you’d blocked and when he gets a rude response tauting him;daring him to ‘actually do something about it’ he loses it!

Who does this asshole think he is?!

Atsushi fires back saying that he really will and when the stalker cuts the line laughing and repeating that atsushi wouldn’t do shit, he really is ready to go deal some damage.

He walks out into the main area of the ADA to see dazai sitting at his desk with a shit eating grin oh his face,a piece of paper with an address scrawled across it between his middle and pointer fingers.

“here you gooo atsuuushiiiii~~~” he says

Atsushi thanks him and takes off to take care of it.

He comes back in about 2 hours and when you ask him what he did,he simply says that he taught the asshat a lesson on respect!

You get a letter the next day from your stalker and to your surprise,it’s an apology letter which specifies that they’ll never bother you again.

You thank atsushi with a little peck to the lips and hes a complete blushing mess.

We love this fluffy puddy tat(that’s tweety for pussy cat {wan atsushi in the background :- IM A TIGER!})

↪️Ranpo Edogawa

Absolutely obliterates the stalker.

He was bored anyway and you bein in distress was definitely enough to get him to try something.

He too calls up the stalker,but instead of airing out current or recent dirty laundry , he goes straight for their most sensitive and embarrassing childhood and adolescent memories.

How he knows all of this baffles you

But such is the wonder that is ranpo edogawa.

And finally he ends his call with.

“oh and say hi to all the people I put in jail! You’ll be goin there in 3….2….1” and sure enough the police were at the stalker’s door.and they were taken away.

Your praise and thanks have ranpo beaming because as we know,he lives for the applause :”)

Serves em right for not knowing who they were messing with tbh.

↪️Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Akutagawa is peeved to say the least.

Why were such vermin even allowed to live on the same earth as him??

he definitely takes care of it.

Swiftly and elegantly might I add~

Rashoumon leaves the stalker permanently disabled once aku pays them a little visit.

What a waste of space.

He totally roasts the stalker on how useless and pathetic they are.

And finally leaves them with a last threat for initiative “leave y/n alone,or else ill come back and finish what I started.i cannot guarantee that you will survive.but it will certainly be painful.am I making myself clear?”

He’s met with a very petrified piece of shit and he finally kicks said piece of shit away from himself before leaving  swaggering away with his hands in his pockets and a bored look in his eyes.

When he arrives back at your apartment he tells you that you’ll be fine. And if they dare inconvenience you again,to let him know.

You really are grateful for your Mafioso boyfriend

↪️Akiko Yosano

Yosano is pissed

But also delighted!

She’s not delighted cos you have a stalker btw!

Shes delighted cos now she can use her ability on someone….or not ;3

Whatever it is,she gets to play mad scientist with someone she has absolutely no remorse for

Comes back home covered in blood and reassures you that she took care of it,with a shit eating(and slightly concerning ) grin on her face.

You know akiko wouldn’t have killed the stalker…but um youre not totally sure.

When you ask her she sadly says that theyre alive,but when she turns to walk away she whispers a muffles “barely” under her breath.

Either way,shes satisfied with herself~

Very slay of her tbh ;3

↪️Michizou Tachihara

Goes after em.

Buddy grabs his pistols and goes to take care of business himself!

He doesnt care abt protocol in that moment,but he also knows that mori wont give a shit cos its a personal matter

So he’s technically in the clear.

Once at the stalkers door,he knocks twice to get their attention and when her hears the sound of a hand landing on the handle,he shoots and gets em right in the hand!

And in the process of doing so,hes shot through the lock,so he kicks the door open{effortlessly} and confronts the stalker who recognises him immediately (i mean obvs)

Tachihara is a part of the port mafias elite kill squad so he’s no stranger to a messy job,but for the sake of your subconscious, he keeps it comparatively clean,shooting through the stalker’s limbs and beating the shit outta them too!

He cleans up into new clothes at gin and ryunosuke’s before comin back home to you(he knows that if you see him all bloodied up the questions will start)

And let me clarify that mans did this without your knowledge so while you’re watchin a movie that night,you do not know what he did but you find out the next day and immediately know it was him

His thank you was a little kiss on the lips that somehow managed to convey your total appreciation for him in only 3 seconds~

↪️Higuchi Ichiyou

With the way she is when it comes to akutagawa,we know that higuchi would be protective of the ones she loves

So when her s/o is bein terrorised by a stalker,you bet your ass shes gonna take action

Step one: identify the stalker

She covertly follows you around and when she sees the person you’d described to her,she begins to tail them.

When they get home she calmly and quietly walks upto their door and knocks

She then winds back her arm and waits until-

BAM the stalker is met with a face full of fist!

She then takes advantage of their confused state and tackles them to the ground

She bends one arm behind their back and when they try harder to resist,a sickening crunch and a howl of pain is let out

And now that she has their attention,she makes her threat: “leave y/n alone or else you’ll have to deal with the entirety of the port mafia next!”

Ofc this threat doesnt mean anything~

like I mentioned earlier,mori doesn’t give a shit about personal matters so theres no way anyone (else) from the pm would be knocking on ur stalkers door.

But they didnt know that~

So they beg and promise not to bother you anymore.they promise to leave you alone forever.

Higuchi knows that they’re being honest,the fear in their voice is a dead giveaway

So she gets up but then shoots two bullets On either side of the stalkers face,barely missing.

“I hope ive made myself clear” are the last words she mutters before disappearing into the night

And just like that,you were never bothered again.

↪️Yukichi Fukuzawa

President fukuzawa isnt really confrontational unless he has to be

So when you tell him that you have a stalker terrorising you,

He knows what to do

He asks ranpo to deduce the location of said stalker and withink seconds,he does

Then,fukuzawa writes a letter.

A very threatening letter

Your stalker knows all about him

Ofc they would he’s your significant other !

So when they see the letter addressed to them from fukuzawa,they are immediately intrigued

And after reading the letter,theyre fuckin FILLED with fear

They know how powerful and skilled the president of the GODDAM armed detective agency is

So they immediately decide to leave you alone

Death by katana wasnt something they wanted to experience.

So when you tell him how the stalker wasn’t bothering you anymore and how you knew he had to have done something about it,he just replied with

“All i did,

Was write a letter.”

↪️Kenji and kyouka(platonic.i aint writin romantic stuff for them yall.)

↪️Kyouka Izumi

Demon snow to the rescue.

One visit from kyouka’s ability and you’re sure to be okay for the remainder of your life.

The threat of being cut up by a katana wielding demon really does deter people from being creeps~

↪️Kenji Miyazawa

Finds them by using his many connections around town and beats em shitless.

They cant even tell which way’s up when he’s done with em.

Remember, his family motto is "If a cow defies you, strike it with something handy."

Suffice to say you were NEVER bothered by that stalker ,or any other stalker, after that!

↪️Tanizaki Naomi and Tanizaki Junichirou

You were best friends with naomi and thereby junichirou,and while their relationship weired out a lot of new people at the agency,you’d really never cared much abt it

So when you told them abt your stalker issue they were both worried.

This wasnt good for you or your mental health

So junichirou took it upon himself to take care of the situation

Naomi had you distracted the entire day with a whole day out of shopping and just FUN

Meanwhile junichirou had found the stalkers address and confronted them himself

As we all know,a pissed off junichirou is a SCARY junichirou

So you can bet the stalker tried to run

But as usual,

LIGHT SNOW TO THE RESCUEE

After the stalker thinks they’ve gotten away he appears behind them,with a gun pointed straight at their temple.

He threatens to pull the trigger (he wouldn’t)

And when the stalkers begs him not to,promising to leave you alone.

He scoffs and fires a bullet that just manages to graze their cheek.

He then lets the illusion break away as he disappears himself

After that,youre happy and you feel so FREE

You’re back to your old self again and the tanizakis fist bump to their success!

please dont repost my work here as your own on any platform all rights belong to me except that of the characters used,their right belong to their respective owners.but these stories? mine.

feedback,likes,reblogs and comments are so very appreciated tbh :’)i hope you enjoyed and ill catch ya next time!

Comments & Reblogs w/ tags >>>>>>>>>>>likes please

Taglist open for anyone interested!

[floylia]

ELYSIAN ♫

Jean’s Basement

Characters:

Scaramouche — Owns the title of “wildest casting story.” During an interview, Scara stated that he threatened the scouting agent of filing a restraining order if they kept chasing him. Scara declined multiple times after interrogating the scouting agent why he should audition in the first place, but they were persistent. He finally agreed but the audition date overlapped with his exam day. So, the casting agents adjusted their audition schedule for him.

Venti — Looks like a cinnamon roll, will murder you. Venti is the scariest member of 5WIRL. No one messes with his group without paying for it. Once argued with the company over having creative reign for their future albums. The meeting went on for 5 hours. In the end, the company never questioned Venti’s decisions ever again.

Heizou — When he was young, his mother explained how she had a dream of watching him perform on stage with 4 other boys. But, Heizou was naughty and obnoxious growing up, who never fancied other people unless they had stories to tell. He brushed his mother’s words off, before running outside to play with his TCG cards. Little did he know, that adult Heizou would be playing those same cards with the 4 boys his mother saw in her dream at his hotel room after a successful concert.

Kazuha — Since debut, Kazuha has always been the mature member of 5WIRL. He has always maintained a relaxed demeanor during stressful situations. Fans have speculated where his supply of patience comes from especially when living with 4 bickering men. When asked, he always responded with, “Noise canceling headphones, yoga equipment, a locked door, and when times are hard, 🍃 works best — it’s a whole new world.”

Xiao — Looks scary, is a cinnamon roll. He never intended to be a part of 5WIRL. In fact he was promised to only become their dance choreographer. But the CEO insisted he train with the others to better “enhance” his dancing. Then, they trained him to sing to “better feel” the music when dancing. After 2 years of training, he made the official line-up. He swore he was scammed into joining.

Aether — Was supposed to be in the final line-up for 5WIRL, but decided to step-down from the group before debut to work as their producer instead. The 5WIRL members respected his decision.

Notes:

Synopsis: After 7 years of enduring the media’s relentless pursuit of painting you as a villain, you’re forced to go through an indefinite hiatus with a tainted reputation on your head. However, just when you thought your career was over, a certain 5WIRL member wants you to feature on his solo album. Surely, this won’t affect your reputation once more, would it?

scaramouche x fem!reader

masterlist | next

[vanishingcherry]

hi! would you be able to do the “ now you want me like i wanted you” prompt with lando? thanks <3

MEMORIES

send in a prompt from this list with a character/driver and ill write a blurb!

masterlist

๑ ⋆˚₊⋆────ʚ˚ɞ────⋆˚₊⋆ ๑

You had always been involved in the world of racing, specifically Formula 1. From a young age you would watch the races, cheering for your favourite team and favourite driver, something that changed almost everyday depending on your mood.

When you found out that Lando, a boy from your school was interested in the sport, you immediately became best friends, spending all day, every day talking about racing. You stayed best friends for years, but nothing could stop your growing affection for the boy.

Your confession had been, admittedly, poorly timed. It was right before, arguably, the most important season of his life thus far. He had finally made it into F2, and needed to spend all his time on racing. But his tone and his words were something you were never able to forgive, you'd think being best friends with someone for years would at least guarantee a certain degree of respect.

"Y/N I can't! This is important to me and I need to put all my focus towards racing, I don't have time for your feelings."

"I get that Lando, I'm not saying you have to ignore the championship. I just wanted you to know how I feel, its not like I expected you to act on it immediately."

"Look. I don't want you, not now not ever. Get the thought of us out of your mind, the thought of me out of your mind. You're a distraction, thats all."

The memory of that fight was always unwelcome, but you weren't going to let a boy, especially Lando, ruin your love for racing. From that day forth, you cast him out of your mind, separating your love for the sport from the memory of him.

You had been invited to a Grand Prix by Alex, who you had met when you were younger and attended races with Lando as support. The two of you had stayed good friends, and you were excited to watch a race in person.

You were stood in a corner of the garage, watching the mechanics finish up last minute preparations when you felt a hand tap your shoulder.

"Lando." you said, spotting the bright orange suit after turning around.

"Um hey Y/N. Alex said that you were here, and I was wondering if we could talk?" He stutters through the question.

"We don't have anything to talk about."

"Darling I- I'm sorry, about what I said. I've missed you every day since then and I just want you back in my life. I was hoping we could talk and figure things out?"

"And thats why you waited 3 years to talk to me again?" Your voice is cold, not wanting to let any emotions slip past. Your feelings for Lando had long since disappeared, and all you felt for him now was contempt.

"I didn't know what to say or how to say it, love. But when I found out you were here I knew I had to talk to you."

You sigh. "Lando, I was your best friend and you treated me like shit. Its fine that you didn't feel the same way I did, but you didn't have to call me a fucking distraction and stop talking to me."

"I know and I'm so sorry. I swear i'll make it up to you I promise, I just- I have to tell you something. I love you, I love you so, so much and I need you in my life. Darling I- its killing me that I hurt you and I need a chance to fix this. Please, just one chance." The desperation is visible in his voice, eyes pleading.

"Now you want me, like I wanted you?" You could almost laugh at the irony, saying the first words that came to mind at his confession.

"Yes." Lando replied instantaneously, knowing what you were thinking, and knowing that he deserved it.

He had messed up, and he had spent hours thinking of things he could do to get you to forgive him. But as years passed, he grew more and more scared of talking to you, regretting his decision more than anything in the world when he realised just how much of an impact you had on his life. Just how much he missed you and just how much he loved you.

"I know I fucked up, and I'm willing to do anything to fix this. Anything, I swear."

"I think its best if you go back to your garage now."

His face fell at your suggestion. Some part of him had stayed optimistic, and he could feel that warmth slipping through his fingers. "Wait! Please, please Y/N. I'm so sorry, you aren't a distraction, you're the only thing I want, the only thing I care about."

"Lando, maybe at some point in the future, we can be friends again. But I don't think I could trust you to that level again." Your voice has a sense of finality to it, and Lando knew it was the best deal he could get. He did mean it when he said he wanted you to be in his life. If this was the way you wanted, then so be it.

He nodded. "Okay. Whatever you find comfortable. I- Just please know that I'm sorry, and that I do really love you."

He left the garage after saying that, silently walking back to his own. It was his fault, he knew that. He would just have to make do with the memories.

[nihilnovisubsole]

something i've been thinking about as GDC comes around again: it's amazing to sit in the same room with Real Industry People and hear the truth of why certain story decisions happened the way they did. studio games are odd group projects that take a really long time to make, and there are many irons in the fire and many interests at play. sometimes the stars align and a team gets a laser vision, creative freedom, and the budget they need, and they ship the thing they meant to ship.

but not always. if a character you love got killed off, it's entirely possible that their original writer left or they couldn't bring the voice actor back. or leadership wanted to close down old story arcs and tie up loose ends, or someone felt new characters would bring in a new audience. if a series seemed to drop a plot thread in a sequel, it's possible that the narrative team wanted to include it and it got cut for scope. or shareholders wanted to appeal to a different part of the playerbase. or the team had internal creative conflict, or any number of reasons as simple as "it got lost in the shuffle because we did so many rewrites". [important disclosure: i'm not vagueposting about specific games here. i'm just rattling possibilities off. resemblance, unintentional, etc.]

and of course that's not a phenomenon unique to video games. tv shows make snap decisions when they get canceled before the planned end of the story or a cast member wants to leave. movies' plots can change when a new director comes on board, or they bring in a script doctor, or an actor's problems interfere with the shoot. even louisa may alcott changed little women's ending over concerns that if jo remained unmarried, the book wouldn't sell. i'm not sure whether it was her publisher or she worried about it herself, but the point is, something got altered, and it can happen anywhere.

as a fan, i found these developers' stories both comforting and vindicating. for a long time, i've felt like someone riding two horses at once: the fanfic-and-OC girl playing on other writers' playgrounds, and now also the staff writer who sees how the sausage gets made. i've been affected - probably overmuch - by a character's sad end, only to learn that some third party or outside motive influenced it. i've met writers who also didn't like where a plot was going, but didn't have enough seniority on the team to protest it. i've heard stories along the lines of, "we were trying to make lemonade, man," and what shocked me more than the revelation is the peace i gained from it. it's a miracle the games shipped at all. the things that got made, got made. between professionals, it's neither heretical nor some wild flight of irrationality to ask, "what if things had gone a different way?"

and, i mean, it would be both cynical and incorrect to wave it all off and say that no storytelling motives are ever wholesome. some characters die because it's the logical conclusion to their arc. some universes with complicated worldbuilding benefit from narrowing their focus and shaving off a few subplots. i'm just saying many things are possible. when you only sit on the fan side, it's easy to feel like Canon™ looms above you, inviolable, when you're really in conversation with it. there's a lot of power in saying "i respect the team's accomplishments, but i would've made different choices." you'd be surprised how often the team agrees with you.

[chemzee]

Alright! Tier list of how likely are hpma characters of becoming dateable ( if we ever get the romance option)

Ok so here´s the list in question and my absolutely undenyable scientific reasonings behind each placement. ( /j, I understand my logic ain´t perfect so feel free to disagree)

IT´S GONNA BE VERY LONG SO BEWARE

Very likely tier

aka these characters are pretty much guaranteed to become an option or at least have a really high chance (85-100%)

Daniel: I think this one is like,,,out of question lmao. It´s pretty obvious that if you could date somebody in this game, he would be an option. First and foremost, he´s the only male companion available in the game rn, making him the most fitting male character for this role and you can´t make a romance option with no boys like cmon. Second, he´s one of the most prominent characters in a storyline and is pretty much considered to be one of mc´s closest friends along with Ivy and y´know how it goes. Also, we can take into consideration the "favoritism advantage", as in it´s pretty obvious he along with Cass is the most beloved character by the fandom and I believe it is something you as a dev should take into consideration when making a romance option.

Ivy: pretty much many of the same logic used for Daniel is applied here. She´s tecnically our first friend in the game, she´s one of mc´s closest friends and she is one of the more prominent characters in the story (she, mc and Daniel are at this point the "main trio" of the game), making her the most likely female character to be available as an option. I would say she doesn´t have a really strong "favoritism advantage" as there are less fans liking her than Daniel and Cassandra, but there are some people who seem to like and favor her and tbh I feel like it wouldn´t really affect the decision behind making her an option.

Cassandra: as much as she is supposed to be our "rival" in the game, first of all, Merula from HPHM exists. Second, we still have like, 5 more years (well, 4 tecnically, but you get the point), so there could be a possible chance of her either redeeming herself to some degree or just becoming less antagonistic towards mc. And it´s not like she hates the mc either, I feel like she actually kinda enjoys their company, just has troubles admitting her liking to us. Plus it´s not like dating a "rival character" is something new. But even if we forget about the whole "she´s supposed to be our rival" shtick, she is just a really good option for the romance. AS MUCH AS I HATE GOING OFF VIBES, she really does give of the dateable vibe, sorry. Not to mention the "favoritism advantage" not only from the fans but the developers as well. I would say that given everything, she most likely would be a lot harder to rizz up than Daniel and Ivy, in a sense that it would probably be more time consuming to get her to date us, but I feel like it would be a rather rewarding in the end of a day.

Pretty likely

aka there´s a possibility they won´t be available as an option, but given everything they have a high chance of actually being one (60-84%)

Lottie: I feel like out of the rest of the cast we have, Lottie is the most likely to be dateable, although she´s only availbale as a dancing companion at this moment (hope they fix that fr). The chances are a lot less than the three characters from above, with her not being a very prominent character in the story besides Year 2 and her not having a lot of fans but I feel like she does have a certain probability of being chosen for the role, especially since the more option there are the better. Right??? (she deserves more love btw)

Uhh

aka I have no idea at this point, it really depends (50%)

Colby and Fischer aka Frey twins: I´m gonna be real with you, when I first made this tier list, I had put them in a "unlikely" tier, below Kevin and Robyn, because I felt like given everything the chances were very low. They are not available as companions, they are highly implied to have some of crush on Cassandra and they don´t have a strong "favoritism advantage" even from the devs themselves (this mostly applies to japanese and korean twitter accounts for the game, which "forgot" to post their character cards (you probably know which ones I´m talking about) which contained character description, concept art and voice actors listed (as I do know that along with character from "very likely" tier they were the only ones who had their character description uploaded to the official site, at least in english,so perhaps this point is sorta weak in that regard). But the more I though about it, the more I realised they do have certain probability. Or shall I say, one of them. Yes, I feel like there´s a chance that we could potentially date one of the twins,as in only one of them. Which one is most likely to be dateable? At this point I have no idea, but my bet´s on Colby. That being said, the only possible logical explanation I could give is "we need more than one male option available" and Kevin isn´t likely to be one, so the Freys, especially Colby are the most likely contendants for it. But other than that, it´s just a vibe and gut feeling thing, which is not a very good argument material.

Most likely not

aka the chances are below 50%. It´s not completely out of the question, but I´d say the chances are very low albeit not non existent.

Robyn: in spite of her being a companion character for every game mode except dancing and having certain favoritism advantage, let´s be real here, the affection system behind her is probably only designed to buff her specific character desks. But yeah, girl´s got a crush on Kevin, pretty obvious one at that, so she probably won´t be a dating option. Also a gut feeling moment, I feel like at some point in the story Robyn and Kevin will date eventually, but again, it is a gut feeling, so it´s not an argument material, but yeah.

Kevin: same logic as behind Robyn except he´s not even a companion character so the chances are even lower kfdvjhkfdvjkhl

and that´s the list and my reasons behind each placement

IF YOU REACHED IT THIS FAR THANK U SM FOR READING THIS LIKE FOR REAL YOU GUYS R AWESOME FOR MANAGING TO READ ALL OF THIS!!!

[curseanon]

The Issue with Eden Polycule

So I wanted to articulate my thoughts on a relationship that ive seen in fandom spaces and lots of fan art or fanfiction. I don’t have any opinions or problems with Adam/Eve/Lucifer/Lilith, but I feel like there are some implications and tropes that we should be more careful about when it comes to Eve/Lucifer/Lilith or even just Eve/Lucifer. Before getting into it though, just a disclaimer: this post is not about polycules in general. It’s not my cup of tea personally, but ship whatever you please! This post is just me rambling about my own thoughts. Feel free to have your own interpretations. ALSO! None of this justifies Adam’s behavior. He is responsible for his decisions, including his cruelty towards people, language, and his decision to essentially wage mass genocide each year. And this post isn’t to say that this relationship drama is the sole reason why he ended up doing exterminations.

1. I don’t really like portrayals that have Lucifer/Lilith (L/L) sleeping with Eve and having her cheat on Adam, especially when it takes place in Eden. I’m afraid Vivzie might have this narrative take place in HH, but doing so does a real disservice to Eve’s (and Lucifer’s if he acted alone) character by having her be willing to cheat, and also does a disservice to Adam by having him be cheated on for reasons that are probably not entirely his fault. Not to mention a lot of media where this happens often has the tone of just “haha let’s cuck Adam twice,” which comes off to me as petty and unfair. Not only is it not a funny joke, but it essentially reinforces and justifies Adam’s misogynistic tendencies later. Especially the ideas that women are promiscuous, always willing to cheat and be unfaithful. The narrative would do nothing to disprove this if BOTH of Adam’s wives did in fact cheat on him.

2. Another thing about Eden. Lilith was Adam’s first wife, literally created for the purpose of being his partner. This is also pre-Apple, meaning that Adam has no concept of right vs wrong. The way he acts, if he truly was controlling and mean and the story book wasn’t exaggerating (which I doubt), is entirely the programming of the angels and the way they tolerate or enable his behavior. Assuming we went with the theory that Adam never ate the apple, it’s the same situation with Eve if she left him and/or cheated with L/L. The way I see it, Lilith’s cheating on Adam is not justified, even if she disagreed with Adam on certain things.

3. I also want to note that cheating on one’s partner is not a justifiable punishment for Adam’s behavior. Whether pre or post apple (now assuming he did eat it), I see it as fighting fire with fire, and all it usually does is create even more hostility and problems than if the person just clearly broke off the relationship first. L/L/E runs the risk of inadvertently encouraging unfaithfulness in relationships and marriages as solutions to a problem, but this is rarely the case. As stated earlier, it only makes Adam justified in acting the way he does. And with that justification, is he really in the wrong for how he treats women? What reason does he have to change his behavior if he is right about them? I could probably accept both wives leaving him if the purpose is to justify Adam’s behavior and not just mock him, to show how morality is not just black and white and the villains sometimes have justifiable reasons for thinking the way they do. But it still seems very shallow on Lilith and Eve’s parts.

4. This part is just my opinion on L/L/E, but I don’t find the idea of Eve getting with the people who caused her to lose Eden very convincing. L/L are the reasons her and Adam were cast out of the garden and made to live for centuries laboring to survive, farming cursed ground and painfully delivering several children. Not to mention the bringing of sin and death into the world, losing Abel at the hands of his brother and Cain being cast away to wander the Earth. All the suffering she faced in life and the suffering of all of her descendants, all of humanity. Her sleeping with Lucifer makes no sense to me unless he seduced her (when she was more naive, maybe even pre-apple) intentionally, either for the purpose of hurting Adam or if he did just love her also, which makes him complicit in ruining someone’s marriage. None of this fits with Lucifer’s character, a malewife who adores his Tall Queen and comes off to me as being very loyal. The idea of open marriage is better, but Adam does not seem like the type of guy who likes to share anything, and his marriage is very clearly between Adam and Eve. That controlling personality indicated by the story book leads me to see him as likely having some jealousy and possessiveness (though not in extreme ways).

5. The only other option is Lucifer sleeping with Eve after her death and if she goes to hell, since we know Adam and Eve lived a thousand years married together on Earth, starting humanity. But I don’t see any reason for this. We need much much more information about Adam and Eve’s relationship and all four of their relationships’ to each other in general first before we can talk more about this. But until then, I don’t see any reason to break up Adam and Eve unless there’s some importance to it in the narrative. For me, I see Adam’s womanizing in heaven as a sign that Eve is probably not in heaven. And thinking that he’ll never see her again because “Hell is forever,” he eventually becomes bitter and jaded over thousands of years and decides that his relationship with Eve must be over then. Possibly the same case with Eve in hell, somehow leading up to sleeping with Lucifer. But considering she’s no where to be found with L/L and Lucifer only references her once, there seems to be zero indication of anything between them.

6. To briefly touch on the idea that once in heaven, Eve eventually left Adam because of his horrible personality and womanizing. This is still possible, but it seems like WAY too big of a personality shift to go from married and raising a family for a thousand years to suddenly being a massive asshole and a philanderer. Something must have happened that magnified all the worst aspects of his personality. There’s no way he is the same today as he was in Eden or on Earth. If he is, that’s just shitty lazy writing on Vivzie’s part and Adam is nothing but a one dimensional villain with no depth at all. Massive waste of a character with huge potential.

Tl;dr This post is already too long so I’ll just summarize everything. Although I agree that Adam is definitely an arrogant and annoying villain, Lilith and Eve cheating on adam is unjustified imo, there is no reason for Eve to cheat on Adam or leave him at all from what we can tell now, and her having any relationship with Lucifer also makes no sense considering what his choices turned her life into. But let me know your thoughts on all this, if there’s some point you want to make or a disagreement on something else!

[thevelaryons]

Finally someone talking about the characterization of Corlys, Laena and every Velaryon in the show. It is like they wrote them for the purpose of serving Targaryens/being Rhaenyra and her uncle’s fans. Meanwhile Vaemond who has concerns regarding his house inheritance was killed in a brutal way just so Daemon can have a badass moment. Truly disappointing.

Absolutely Corlys and other Velaryons had changes made to their characterization in order to prop up characters like Rhaenyra.

Me and several others have actually written previously about the terrible way house Velaryon has been characterized in the show. In my experience though, it just gets dismissed with people claiming that since Fire & Blood is a historical retelling, such changes aren’t a big deal. They’ll claim we don’t know the real truth about what actually happened so the show must be correct in its portrayal or that adaptations can’t be expected to be entirely accurate. Then you’ve got certain people claiming that the show gave characters like Corlys and Laenor “more screentime than in the book” without considering that said screentime actually screws them over because of the racist manner in how they’re characterized.

It’s actually noticeable from the very first episode. The other nobles, like Otto and Viserys, behave rather condescendingly towards Corlys, as if they look down on him. In the bts material, Corlys is described as a lesser person in the eyes of the rest of the nobility because of his background, whatever the hell that means. The showrunners have the actors parroting this nonsense about the changes they’ve made. This is such a huge contrast with book!Corlys, who even at the time of his potential execution for treason, is explicitly described as a respectable man such that even his enemies see his worth.

With Vaemond, though his actions are primarily for his own ambition, the show did invent him being misogynistic to Rhaenyra in order to make his death seem justified. Whereas in the book, it’s her own family, like Aemond, who were trying to slut shame her. In these instances, the racist writing has more real world implications too: Daemon, who served in the Gold Cloaks (police coded), kills an unarmed black man and the death is just brushed under the rug while the characters go to dinner. Against that, you have book!Vaemond whose death actually had serious consequences. That instance in the book is changed to a father/daughter bonding moment for Rhaenyra and Viserys in the show.

If a minor plot device character like Vaemond isn’t spared from these writing decisions, then obviously more prominent characters like Corlys/Laena/Laenor (most likely Addam & Alyn too next season if those casting choices of grown men instead of children is any indication) will be affected as well.

[thelesbianluthor]

Saw people talk about the fact that the trio knows every single threat they have to face before they have to confront them in the show vs in the books they actually fall into traps and then have to find a way to escape it.

This is one of the main issues i have too honestly. I understand the choice of making annabeth pick up on the statues and the name of the place and obviously guess "oh that is medusa". It works bc medusa is important and connected to her mother and like the context clues are staggering.

But comparing that moment to the start of episode 7 (which i actually really enjoyed especially compared to ep6) makes the show lose most of the tension they could have.

Like why make it an immediate exposition dump on "oh you are this and you do that and we are here for this and that" i don't mind the change of making the shop the entrance of hell but why can't they just for once fall into a trap like? They are 12 years old trying to avoid a war and fix a situation way bigger than them, they are smart and quick witted but let them make mistakes and NOT KNOW some things.

I feel like a lot of the potential of the first scene went out of the window and it just became a "here's an exposition of a scene that happened in the book" and that way even if you cut it you don't lose anything really.

Changes are a GOOD thing and that is not my issue with the show at all! I have already said that I mostly enjoy the changes that were made and I am not expecting nor want a scene for scene copy but it does make it a lot less interesting imo if they go into EVERY SINGLE SITUATION knowing what they are up against for no real reason.

You can have them know some things and guess who they are up against but like if it happens every time the tension of the danger gets lost a lot and it becomes repetitive imo.

On the good side of things tho I think you can see in general that the trio has gotten a lot more comfortable in the characters and the improvement it's very visible. I already said how I really love the casting and I only expect them to get better at portraying the characters that is a no brainer.

The flash backs were probably my favorite part of the episode along with the way they decided to visually represent Hell.

I love that we get to see a peak of Sally and Poseidon's dynamic and how hard it was for Sally to raise Percy, not only bc of the risks his godly heritage brings but also bc she was a single mother and society in general tends to give up on people that don't fit the mold.

Small Percy thinking his mom wanted to get rid of him and saying "I would never do that to you" even tho she has spent every moment doing her best to protect him vs an older Percy having to choose to leave his mom behind so he can do the right thing even tho everything he has done has been fueled by the desire to save her. That was beautiful and tragic.

Casting in general is incredible bc even with the little we saw of Poseidon (I knew the actor from black sails so I knew he would be great) I think he really nailed it.

Hades is maybe a BIT too silly but I can live with it honestly. Like we'll have time to explore and make other characters deeper later on so i don't see this as an issue.

The decision to make them aware of Kronos and tell Hades is interesting and I do like that he offered to protect Percy if he believed to be at risk.

I understand that with how things are now you never know if a show will be renewed and if you'll get to actually finish your story so I don't mind them making certain stuff known sooner and sprinkling references to future events or call backs (MOA percabeth reference I am talking abt you).

Overall I think that the strongest suit of the show right now is the cast and the way they show characters dynamics and their potential.

Like I have said before my criticism stems from my love for the material and my wish for it to do well. I have opinions that maybe will not match with others and it's okay! Not everyone has to like something! I WANT the show to keep going and grow and evolve into a better adaptation with each step because I really love the basis they laid down, the story and the characters and I see the potential most of all. I can't wait for the last episode.

[thenukacolachallenge]

In defense of the One Piece Live Action Adaptation’s stylistic choices: A Cosmetologist’s Perspective

Hello! My name is Dia, and I’ve been a licensed cosmetologist since 2015(almost a decade now!). For those unaware of what exactly that entails, cosmetology is traditionally defined as ‘the professional skill or practice of beautifying the face, hair, and skin’. For me specifically, I have worked in the fields of hairstyling/haircutting/hair coloring, skincare, nail care, and makeup application(both traditional makeup and FX makeup) in my eight years of being licensed to work in these industries.

The reason I’m making this post today is to talk about the Netflix adaptation of the hit manga/anime One Piece, and specifically to address a lot of complaints I’ve seen about the wardrobe, makeup, and hair choices of the main cast thus far. I’ve seen quite a bit in the way of complaints, and a lot of it seems to be, to put it as politely as I can, not based in reality of how makeup, hair, and acting in general works, and I’d like to address some of it to possibly explain why certain choices were made, to maybe help people come to a better understanding of the why and how of these sorts of decisions.

I’d like to also, before I dive in, note that I am not in any way, shape, or form affiliated with this production! These are merely my personal thoughts and speculation as someone with some experience in this field. None of this is set in stone unless I provide evidence from the cast and crew to back my claims up. As well, I’d like to point out that I have next to no experience working on film sets(I have worked on VERY small productions in the past, for things that go up on sites like Youtube and not Netflix lmao), but I am married to a person who has a degree in film and has worked on live production sets before, and I did defer to them for a lot of the knowledge that I lack with live action production specifically.

I’d also like to point out that while I’m not mad at anyone who has the critiques I cover in this post, I may come across as a bit exasperated. I promise this isn’t me being angry at anyone, but more of just.... I’ve seen the same critiques over and over again, and to me, a lot of the choices seem fairly obvious as to why they were made, and some of the critiques come across as extremely silly to me. This is of course due to my own background related to these sorts of things. I promise I mean no offense or disrespect to anyone saying these things! I just want to make this to be able to help others understand why production may have made the choices they did.

Now, under the cut, I’ll be discussing some common complaints I’ve heard with regards to this production, and provide some potential explanation as to why these changes were made. On to the post! It is quite hefty, so please bear with me.

~

First and foremost, the most common complaint I’ve seen thus far is some variation of the phrase “I’ve seen cosplayers that look more accurate to the characters than this show does,” and I’d like to address this one first, as I think it’s the one that probably frustrates me the most. It specifically frustrates me because comparing cosplayers to actors feels like an apples to oranges situation. The two groups are designed to do entirely different things! Cosplayers do typically look more like the characters they portray than a live action actor will, and that’s a very common occurrence, but there’s a reason for that: the two groups are not doing the same thing. 

Both cosplayers and actors put a huge amount of time and effort into their work, and I love cosplay personally. However, cosplayers are typically in their outfits for 8-10 hour days at most for a weekend, doing things like photoshoots where they have to pose, walking around conventions, and maybe filming a small amount of video(Not to say that this takes no effort! Please do not take this as such, I have helped friends with cosplays and I fully understand and appreciate the level of dedication and hard work that goes into it!). Actors, on the other hand, are in hair and makeup on set for 10-12 hours a day(if not longer) for weeks to months on end, and have to be fully in character while filming, as well as(specifically for a show like One Piece) doing things like stunt work, being submerged in water, and being on boats with lots of wind and ocean spray. There are certain things you simply cannot do, hair/makeup/costume-wise as an actor that you can as a cosplayer, so I really don’t think this comparison in specific is being very fair to the actors and the crew who are in charge of makeup, hair, and wardrobe in this case.

I’ll be getting into a lot more specifics below, but I will be deferring to my main point here very often, which is this: The safety and comfort of the actors is far more important than 1-to-1 accuracy in the way cosplayers can do, especially for minor changes in appearance.

Now that I’ve addressed that specifically, I’d like to move onto some common complaints I’ve heard for each specific main cast member, and my opinion on these complaints, as well as listing potential reasons as to why these things may have been changed!

~

We’ll start with everyone’s favorite funky little pirate king, Monkey D. Luffy:

For Luffy, the number one complaint I’ve seen is the live action’s choice in shoes. in the manga/anime, Luffy wears and fights in flip-flops, but this was changed in the live action. This was changed for a very simple reason, and Emily Rudd, the actor that portrays Nami, actually addressed this on Instagram while being asked by a fan:

Simply put, trying to do the kind of stunt work that Luffy has to do is not safe in a shoe like a flip flop. This is something that falls very completely under my original point of the comfort and safety of the actors being more important than 100% accuracy. It would be entirely too easy for Iñaki or someone he’s in a scene with to get hurt if he weren’t wearing the proper footwear. Fairly simple explanation there!

This is really the only gripe with Luffy costume-wise I could find, to be honest! I have seen a few people saying that he doesn’t have his signature undereye scar, but he does, although it’s not as visible as it is in the original work:

They kept him fairly true to the spirit of his original character, and although I don’t know why they chose to give him this specific potato shoe footwear, it is what they went with, and the main takeaway is that it was for safety reasons.

~

Onto our favorite wayward booze-loving swordsman, Roronoa Zoro:

Similarly to Luffy, I’ve only seen one main complaint regarding Zoro, and it involves his use of swords. In the anime/manga, Zoro has pioneered a specific fighting style called “Santoryu”, known in English as “Three Sword Style”: one sword in each hand, and a third in his mouth.

I’ve seen several people wondering where his third sword(the one that goes in the mouth) is from the trailers, and I was initially wondering this as well, since in most of his action scenes that have been revealed so far, he seems to only be holding either one sword or two. However, there was a brief clip(I’m talking, like, maybe one second) of him utilizing his three-swords style in the teaser trailer released in mid-June:

Now, as to potential reasons as to why this seems to be the only clip of him thus far using all three of his swords:

1. Again, this could be for the safety of the cast. Obviously being a cartoon character, Zoro wouldn’t have to worry about potential damage to his jaws and teeth, but Mackenyu, Zoro’s actor, is a real person who does have to worry about such things, especially as an actor who relies on(among other things) his facial expressions to earn a living. Carrying something like a sword, even a prop sword, in your mouth for long periods of time cannot be good for the health of your jaw and teeth, and I could understand if they chose not to film him with a sword in his mouth very often for this reason alone. 2. It could also be he uses all three swords less often so he can still deliver lines while fighting. In an SBS(”Shitsumon o Boshū Suru”, when translated means “I’m Taking Questions”, essentially an AMA for mangaka to answer questions their readers may have), Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, once answered a question about how Zoro was able to talk with a sword in his mouth with quite a funny answer:

Sadly, in real life, Mackenyu cannot speak through his heart as Zoro does, so it’s possible that some of the scenes have been changed for ease of dialogue. 3. It’s also entirely possible that he uses his three-sword style as often as he does in the anime and manga, and the small amount of what we’ve seen in the trailers isn’t necessarily the full picture. I imagine this is something we’ll have to wait for the full series to drop to find out definitively one way or another!

~

Now, onto our lovely citrus-fruit-loving navigator, Nami!

I have seen two main complaints with Nami’s looks, and I’ll start with her hair, as it’s the more common one I’ve been seeing. I have seen a large number of people saying that her hair looks like(and I am slightly paraphrasing here) “a bad cosplay wig”, and honestly? I think this is just not true, and either comes from unrealistic expectations or just plain being mean-spirited.

First and foremost, this is very obviously human hair:

Now, I don’t know what kind of bad cosplays y’all have been seeing, but the ones I’ve seen start with synthetic hair wigs, not human hair ones(This is not to say synthetic wigs are inherently bad for cosplay! Simply that they are much harder to work with, though they are cheaper than human hair wigs). As well, I know for a fact Emily Rudd got her hair done similarly to this, to the point where I wasn’t actually sure that this WAS a wig at first(this picture comes directly from her Instagram account):

This is very obviously almost the exact same haircut as the wig chosen for Nami, save with more layers, and even the color choices are similar. To say that this wig looks like a “bad cosplay” is honestly just flat-out wrong in my professional opinion, and moreover, it’s quite rude. In addition, to me at least, it really looks like the wig was styled to resemble anime-esque hair, which is actually quite common among cosplayers. If anything, I have the same complaint on Nami’s wig that I also have with Sanji’s(which I’ll definitely be touching on later): it’s not thick enough. Both Nami and Sanji’s wigs just seem like they could use more hair attached to the cap in general, but especially for Nami’s, I really don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying.

I think this “bad cosplay wig” complaint specifically is mainly coming from people who only see the tail end of cosplay productions, which tends to be photos that are often times edited to look a certain way, which can often include doctoring the hair. There’s nothing wrong with a cosplayer editing their photos, for the record, but it can absolutely give unrealistic expectations to those who aren’t familiar with this practice, and I personally think this may be where these comments are coming from. Obviously you cannot photoshop every frame of a live action production, at least not without a lot of time and effort on the behalf of the post-production team, and I highly doubt Netflix would have greenlit something like that for such a small detail. It’s simply not realistic.

As well, I do find it quite interesting that I have seen far less complaints about the wigs of characters such as Zoro or Sanji(played by Taz Skylar(as stated previously, I have seen complaints about Sanji’s wig and I will be speaking on that later)) than I have about Nami’s. I’m not saying it’s outwardly misogynistic, but it does make one consider such things.

The only other complaint I’ve seen directed towards Nami’s live action look(and truth be told, I’ve seen this one far less than the comments on the hair) is the discrepancy between Emily Rudd’s eye color and Nami’s. As you can see from the above photos, Emily Rudd does not have brown eyes, which are the color of Nami’s eyes:

Now, I didn’t actually see this complaint until after the first full trailer dropped on July 21st. Specifically, I saw someone saying that it seemed strange that Steven John Ward, who portrays Dracule Mihawk in the series, is wearing colored contacts to better resemble his character, while Emily is not.

Now, there could be a lot of potential reasons for this, including that Emily may simply be not wearing colored contacts because they irritate her eyes(going back to my original point of the comfort and safety of the cast). But more importantly, I think, is that Mihawk’s unique eyes are directly related to his character, specifically through his epithet: Hawkeye. This is a seemingly important enough part of his character, to the point where it’s directly mentioned in his title. Nami has no such distinctions with her eye color, so I really don’t think it’s as important, and at the end of the day, it takes nothing away from her character to have a different eye color. So, while I don’t know the particular reason she doesn’t have brown contacts, I also don’t think it’s nearly as important for that detail to be as canonically correct as it is for Mihawk. To me, this particular comparison is another apples to oranges situation.

~

Onto our beloved liar, God Usopp himself:

Of course, the number one talking point I’ve seen about the live action Usopp is that Jacob Romero Gibson, Usopp’s actor, is missing his trademark long nose.

As One Piece fans know, one of Usopp’s characteristic traits is his tendency to lie. His name, Usopp, comes from a portmanteau of the Japanese word “uso”, which means lie, and Aesop, the famous Greek storyteller and the namesake for Aesop’s Fables. Because of his propensity towards tall tales, Usopp’s anime and manga character designs also added a reference to another character who’s known for lying, Pinocchio, whose nose grows when he lies. Thus, Usopp in his cartoon form has a long nose!

Considering how many gags in the story involve Usopp’s nose, a lot of fans were surprised to see that aspect of him not carried over into the live action. After the drop of the official trailer, seeing that the character Arlong had his signature sawshark-esque long nose in prosthetic form, there was even more confusion about this choice.

(As an aside, Arlong’s costuming choices will not be discussed in this post, as it’s long enough with just the main cast, but believe me, I do have Opinions on it lmao)

Now, as to why the show chose to not give Jacob a prosthetic long nose to better match Usopp’s appearance, I don’t know the specifics. I can only speculate, and really, the only things I could feasibly come up with are the following:

1. It’s entirely possible that for whatever reason, Jacob is unable to wear a prosthetic nose. This could be due to several things, including allergies to either the prosthetic material itself or the adhesive used to attach it, or the makeup required to blend the prosthetic into his skin. If this is the case, then it of course goes back to my main point here that the comfort of the cast takes precedence over accuracy to the source material. 2. The only other explanation that really makes sense to me is that they did in fact attempt the nose in costume fitting, and either the absurdity of it was just either too distracting to audiences/the crew/Netflix execs/possibly even Oda himself, or it could have potentially been a problem during stunt work. Usopp primarily fights with a slingshot, and I have no experience with slingshots so this is just me taking a stab in the dark, but it’s possible that the extra length on the nose could have possibly messed with the actor’s depth perception while attempting to act out Usopp’s fight scenes.

Overall, I genuinely don’t know why they decided to axe Usopp’s long nose. But at the end of the day, I know that for me specifically, this is a minor detail, and not something I see as a genuine problem, nor will it ruin the immersion for me. That being said, I can definitely understand the criticisms here. I’m hoping that a lot of these changes will eventually be answered, perhaps in some behind-the-scenes footage that comes out after the show’s release.

The only other comment on Usopp’s costuming that I’ve seen is much more easily explainable, and I also haven’t seen nearly as much in the way of commenting on it: Usopp’s hair is not in dreads in the anime and manga, and instead is kept natural, especially before the timeskip.

As we can see in the above picture, Usopp seems to keep his hair fairly natural, whereas Jacob, Usopp’s actor, sports dreads in his portrayal of Usopp, as seen in the above photo.

Luckily, I haven’t seen very many comments on this, and I think that’s a good thing, since the explanation seems fairly simple to me. Usopp in canon is based off of (mostly unused in this day and age, for good reason: a lot of the design is highly based off racist blackface caricatures) old-school anime portrayals of Black/African people. As well, in an SBS, a fan asked where the Straw Hats would be based out of if One Piece was set in the real world:

As stated above, Usopp would come from Africa! As well, if I recall correctly, Oda had a hand in casting the live action adaptation, which all points to the undeniable proof that Usopp is and has always been intended to read as Black/African in some form.

The reason I bring this all up specifically, is because of the way African hair grows. Obviously not all Black/African people are a monolith, and even among curly haired people there are different curl tightness and growth patterns, but for a large portion of people of African descent, their hair would not grow similarly to the way Usopp’s is portrayed in his cartoon form. His hair is indeed curly, but it grows down, similar to most wavy or straight hair types. This is especially evident in his post-timeskip hair growth:

Usopp’s hair, which was once above his shoulders before the two year time skip, now extends down past his shoulders. This is not necessarily inaccurate to Black/African hair types, as, since stated previously, different curl patterns and tightness exist, and even with super tight curl patterns, if grown out long enough, the hair will eventually grow down, due to the weight of the hair strands. But for a lot of Black/African hair types, the natural hair tends to grow outwards, instead of downwards(or at the very least it grows outwards before it begins to grow downwards). This type of hair is typically referred to as afro-textured hair, and is the namesake for the afro, a hairstyle wherein someone with afro-textured hair combs out their natural hair growth in the shape it naturally grows.

Now, I’m not familiar with Jacob Romero Gibson’s work prior to One Piece, and I have never seen his hair without his dreads, therefore I can’t say with 100% certainty how his hair grows naturally. However, he does have an Instagram account, and on this account he has photos of himself. I looked through his account, and although he doesn’t seem to have any photos of himself without his dreads(indeed, they seem to be his signature hairstyle) as an adult, he does have a few photos of himself from his childhood. I don’t personally feel comfortable linking his baby photos to this post, so I’m not going to do so here. However, they are visible there, and from what I can see from those photos, he does indeed have afro-textured hair. This may not be 100% accurate to how his hair grows now as an adult, as lots of things can change hair growth types and curl patterns, including things such as hormones, medications, stress levels etc. In my professional opinion, I feel fairly confident in saying that Jacob most likely has afto-textured hair, and therefore his natural hair likely wouldn’t fully grow in the exact same way that Usopp’s does. 

Overall, I only bring all of this up to say that if Jacob did have his hair in a natural, non-protective style in his portrayal of Usopp, I feel that the same people who are complaining about the dreads now would likely complain that his natural hair doesn’t match Usopp’s exactly. Either way, Usopp’s hair is not a huge characteristic that defines who he is as a character(especially not in the way that his nose is), and therefore I don’t think that him having dreads in the live action takes away from the character in any way.

~

Finally, we’ll discuss the Straw Hat crew’s first-rate cook who attacks through kicks, Black Leg Sanji:

Sanji has the unfortunate position of being the character who’s had the most changes to his design from his cartoon to the live action, and there’s a lot of criticism that’s been lobbed his way. Some of it I think is fair, but there’s also quite a bit that I think is honestly quite silly. So without further ado, I’ll go through the four main critiques I’ve seen, and my opinions of each.

Let’s start with the one I’ve heard the most often, and the one that’s easily my least favorite to hear about at this point: the missing eyebrow swirl. Maybe it’s just because Sanji is personally my favorite on the crew and I’m just paying the most attention to him, but my god, the way some people are going on about the eyebrow, you’d think the showrunners made the decision to axe his signature curly eyebrow specifically to spite the Sanji fangirls. I think a lot of the complaining about the lack of eyebrow swirl would simply be changed to complaining about how bad the eyebrow swirl would look if they’d tried to keep it, and I’ll explain why below.

Like many of the costuming changes made to the live action adaptation, I don’t know the exact reasoning as to why they decided to get rid of the eyebrow swirl. As someone who has worked as a makeup artist, however, I do have a theory as to why they got rid of it, and my theory is fairly simple: it is just not really very possible to create a realistic-looking eyebrow swirl that reads well on a film camera.

Yes, the makeup team could have very easily drawn on a swirl with a brow pencil or some pomade and called it a day. However, it would have been fairly obvious that it was in fact drawn on, especially on a film shoot. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the missing swirl point to both cosplayers and stage actors as “proof” that it could be done, but again, this is an apples to oranges situation. Stage makeup(like that used for stage actors), photoshoot makeup(like what cosplayers would employ), and live action film makeup are three entirely different types of makeup application, and while they each have their own merits, that doesn’t inherently mean they translate into other mediums, and this is something that you have to learn fairly early on as a makeup artist if you want to continue getting work. If you are doing makeup professionally, you have to keep a lot of things in mind, one of the biggest things being how your work will read on camera, specifically the camera your canvas will be in front of. You have to keep in mind things like flash photography, shine versus matte, whether or not post-production editing will be involved, and the like. A fairly popular example of this is makeup influencer James Charles’ old meet-and-greet photo, which has become a meme since surfacing. Charles was used to only doing makeup and being photographed a certain way, leading to him using a setting powder that didn’t lend well to flash photography, and made him look like he was wearing makeup that was far too pale for his skin tone, when in reality it was just a makeup product that didn’t work for the kind of camera it was in front of:

Another example is basically the entire Cosmo Queens video series done for Cosmopolitan magazine’s youtube page, and I’ll use Kandy Muse’s video as a specific example, since she uses her natural brows in addition to her makeup. This series focused on the makeup of drag queens, and it’s very obvious when watching these videos that there’s a huge discrepancy between makeup meant for the stage and makeup meant for other avenues. Drag queens typically are live performers, and there is a common saying among drag artists, which is to “paint(apply makeup) for the back of the house(so that even those in the back row can see your makeup)”. On stage, Kandy Muse’s makeup is quite stunning, but it’s very clear that it’s not fully meant for the editorial style that Cosmo uses during these videos:

Even from a distance, you can very clearly see where Kandy’s real eyebrows sit versus her makeup. And while this is obviously an extreme example, it’s even more obvious when zoomed in, which film cameras have to do often in order to capture the expressions of their actors:

In a similar vein, film cameras, which are typically designed to catch a lot of definition and lend better to a more realistic look, likely would not be very kind to a drawn on part of an eyebrow. Without any hair growing there naturally to make the eyebrow makeup look more realistic, it would be very obvious that it was makeup, and would likely be more distracting to audiences(especially first-timers to the series; it’s important to keep in mind that Netflix would want to cater to those people as well as long-time One Piece fans) than omitting it entirely would. In addition, we have to take into account the actor, Taz Skylar, and his natural hair growth and the direction of his brows.

As is visible from the photo, Taz Skylar’s natural brow grows downwards at the end, whereas Sanji the fictional character’s brow grows upwards into his swirl at the end. In order to match the character 1-to-1 and change his own natural features, Taz would have to either shave/pluck/wax the entire outer half of his brow(which for an actor would be extremely inconvenient for other projects and would be an absolute pain to grow back out), or he would have to sit longer in the makeup chair to have his brow covered by FX makeup, which takes extra time and effort and could throw off the timing of the entire shoot. In addition, neither of these potential fixes would necessarily make the obviously-drawn-on swirl look good and read well on film. Add on the facts that Taz’s character is fully submerged in water in at least one scene, if not more, and has several fight scenes, and it’s not even a guarantee that the makeup swirl would even last throughout the shoot.

I’ve also seen people say that they could have added the swirl in post, but I think that’s it’s very unrealistic for Netflix to greenlight that for a minor detail such as a singular visible eyebrow.

While I am very sad that they weren’t able to translate Sanji’s signature brow to the live action adaptation, I think a lot of the complaints regarding him not having it and insistence that the production should have included it are entirely overblown, and are mainly being made by people who don’t have a lot of knowledge of what goes into film makeup versus other types of makeup. And while Sanji’s brows are fairly important to his character, this fact doesn’t actually come into the story until far after the timeskip, and we don’t even know if the live action will get another season outside of this one. I really hope this can help explain why they may have made the decision to nix the brow swirl for people who are still concerned about it, since from what I’ve seen, it seems to be the number one point of contention when it comes to live-action Sanji.

Next, I’d like to speak a bit about Sanji’s hair. Now, I have some complaints of my own about the wig used on Taz, but most of the criticism I’ve seen regarding the wig actually revolves around why it doesn’t cover his eye completely, as Sanji’s hair does. This is something that seems fairly obvious to me: Taz has to do a lot of stunt work, and he needs to be able to see! This is a potential safety issue more than anything else, and therefore goes back to my main original point. As well, there’s no real way to make the hair not move without completely overloading it with product, which, again, would be very obvious on a film camera, and likely wouldn’t read nearly as well as people think.

As for me, my personal critiques around the wig are just how sparse it is. Sanji has a lot more hair than is in the wig, and I really think a wig that had a little more hair attached to the base would have looked better. As well, I don’t know if the styling of the wig works for me personally.

I was actually really hoping that the live action adaptation would take cues on Sanji’s hair from the character who Sanji was modeled after. A lot of people still to this day think that Sanji’s appearance is based off Leonardo DiCaprio, specifically his role as Jack Dawson from the hit movie Titanic or his role as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, but Oda has actually explained in an SBS that this isn’t the case:

Sanji’s looks and his “vibes” are based off of Steve Buscemi’s character Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, and personally I would have loved to see his live-action hair more closely resemble that, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Another critique of live action Sanji is that he hasn’t been depicted with his trademark cigarette, and I kind of knew that this would happen from the moment I found out about the live action adaptation. This is not the fault of Tomorrow Studios(the production company), or even Netflix at large, but instead this is largely based off backlash from anti-smoking lobbies. 

(As a former smoker myself, I have a lot of opinions on the ridiculousness of anti-smoking groups going after smoking in fictional scenarios like films and shows, but that’s a gripe for a whole other post lol) 

Netflix notably caught a lot of flack for the depiction of commonplace cigarette smoking in other series, such as Stranger Things, even though the series takes place in the 1980′s, where smoking was incredibly commonplace. The major backlash even got to the point where you can actively see the drop in depictions of smoking between each season. I am hoping they at least give Taz one scene with Sanji’s iconic cigarette, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. I doubt Netflix wants to deal with that backlash again.

Finally, the last big complaint with Sanji’s wardrobe I’ve seen is his signature suit, specifically regarding the fitting of it. Sanji’s suits in the anime/manga tend to be fairly fitted in nature, while the live action once Taz wears, while still having a slightly tapered fit, is a bit baggier than what Sanji typically wears.

This is a fairly straightforward change, in my opinion: if the suit was as form-fitting as Sanji’s are, Taz(and his potential stunt double(I don’t know if he did all of his own stunt work or not)) simply would not be able to move the way Sanji does! This is an issue of cartoon versus reality: Oda is able to depict his characters doing whatever they want in whatever clothing they want. However, real life is sadly not as accommodating, and because of that, Taz’s suit has to be a bit less form-fitting so he can still do all of Sanji’s signature footwork. Going back to my original point, the sacrifice of the fitted suit had to be made so the production could actually work.

~

I tried to touch on all the biggest differences I’ve seen people talk about, and I hope this was helpful to anyone who may have been curious as to why some of these changes were made. Please let me know if I missed anything big or if you have any additional questions/need me to explain anything further, I love what I do and I love being able to have insight like this. Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, and please reblog if you found this post helpful or informative <3

[lakesbian]

ok Worm Bigotry Breakdown in more detail for @silverflyingpikachu

tl;dr: author is Cishet White Guy From Canada In 2011. he ostensibly thinks he is progressive. this does not change his proclivity for tossing his Cishet White Guy From Canada Biases into the books and then saying even more bigoted things in defense of those writing decisions on forums. wildbow is just some cunt on the forums with bad opinions on wildbow's writing. the book is 1.7 million words long but i believe in my ability 2 categorize this shit with decent accuracy. everyone who has ever said worm's CWs can't be categorized, including wildbow himself, is a lying ass bitch. this will include some vague spoilers, because i can't really go in-depth without a few examples, but i'll stay away from anything too plot-critical.

racism:

- worm is fundamentally a book abt systems of power and the ways in which they suck. some of the critiques worm issues--e.g, its depiction of how school systems enable bullying, inspired by wildbow's own experiences w/ the school systems as a deaf kid--are viscerally accurate and incredibly compelling. but wildbow fundamentally doesn't understand how certain systems of oppression work--e.g policing--and subsequently, his attempts at depicting them occasionally fall flat onto their face and land in racist territory. this gets particularly nasty when combined w/ the White Guy Author propensity for racist stereotypes--for example, his chosen face of police brutality is a black girl portrayed as predatory & animalistic.

- who is also one of the only black people in the book overall, alongside--for example--an addict portrayed as having less interiority & being less deserving of empathy than A Literal Fucking Nazi. also, the main characters have to team up with the nazis "for the greater good" (defeating the mean asian villains) at one point. it is a mercy to the readers when this part of the story ends. - there are two black characters in the main cast. for the first, wildbow just Straight Up Forgot to include the most compelling aspect of their background + characterization in the text (it was provided via WoG instead, which i provide to all wormreaders like a fuckin' DLC patch when they get to where it's relevant) & entirely forgets they exist towards where the end of their character arc should have been. the second is introduced w/ the most misogynoiristic description on the planet but blessedly has a largely compelling and well-written arc as the book goes on. - depiction of china is just like. fox news level sinophobic "it's all a brainwashed indistinguishable evil cult" shit. not relevant for very long relatively speaking but insufferable to read. asian characters are also like. we got Brutal Yet Honorable Asian Man. we got Fiery Asian Girl With Blue Eyes. it fucking blows it's not good

- oh yeah forgot this one someone mentioned in the tags. #it's an insignificant paragraph and nobody talks about it but the part where it goes #“yeah literally EVERY cape in South America is with a cartel and the heroes are barely distinguishable from the villains” #fuck you #not that the others aren't bad the fatphobia gets really gross but nobody mentions this and that one got me so yeah typical Insufferable Awful Imperial Core Author Understanding Of What Other Countries Are Like - i could make this section one million bulletpoints long but the gist is summarized i think--wildbow's varied racist biases leak fucking everywhere, into character design, into narrative assumptions about who's deserving of interiority/empathy or not, into attempts at Saying Anything About Society, into which characters he prioritizes, into who he offers validity via the narrative, etc etc etc.

homophobia: - theres a girl named amy dallon in it and she is the worst lesbophobic stereotype ever known to man. no other Problematic Lesbian™ you can think of has anything on this girl. the worst part is that she genuinely has a decently compelling character concept and arc, which her being awful is integral to, so you might accidentally find her interesting anyway and then she'll move into your brain - wildbow kept accidentally writing characters that scan as massive dykes and then got really mad about f/f ships for the book being popular in the fandom. he responded by making a deranged forum post involving the phrase "pandering is pandering" insisting everyone (but the bisexual "hedonist") is straight and writing a scene into the book where one of the characters literally turns to the camera and tells the readers "not to get the wrong idea" about her hugging her friend. - over the course of 1.7 million words he finds excuses to loudly inform you that all of the relevant female characters are straight and it's sooo shoehorned in you can always tell when he's doing it - basically worm is like if naruto was about homoerotic teenage girls who do violent terrible things, in terms of levels of unintentional homoeroticism, and the author responds to ppl going "lmao gay" about the unintentional homoeroticism with poorly restrained seething rage

fatphobia: - generic brand of fatphobia you'll see in p much all mainstream media where only side/bg characters are fat and it's obliquely used as a descriptor to indicate that someone has negative personality traits or should be viewed as sort of gross

anti-addict shit: - wildbow generally likes writing about how social circumstances--i.e neglect from society, oppression, failure on behalf of systems--causes crime. he generally likes demonstrating the ways in which the villainous main characters are traumatized teenagers failed by society fumbling to keep existing & holding each other up through The Horrors. unfortunately all of this intelligent writing flies out the nearest window when addicts are involved. there is a gang comprised entirely of addicts, all of whom are portrayed as disgusting, violent, dangerous, and of course often racially stereotyped. it is a mercy to the readers when they're no longer relevant to the story. - on a more subtle level, characters are every so often just like. a little more anti-drug than they would realistically be and you can tell it's wildbow's opinions leaking into their characterization. this is largely what the anti-addict writing is kept to after The Addict Villains leave the story iirc.

if youre wondering wellwhy does anyone read this book then. to that i would say that unfortunately despite it all it'sa fucking excellent book. so we all carry on reading the parts that suck and thinking about how they suck and then reading the parts that fuck and going "ouuugh my god" and rolling down 20 flights of stairs about how hard they fuck.

[general-cyno]

I finally got to thriller bark and of course I'm having many feelings about it, so long ramble ahead. what makes this kind of sacrifice have so much impact narrative-wise is precisely bc of which character does it and imo there was no better choice than zoro.

while his life was certainly in danger, zoro still joined luffy's crew in way less dire circumstances than most of the other straw hats and he's someone that luffy actively sought out to embark his journey with. zoro's dream of becoming of the world's greatest swordsman is one that matches luffy's own of becoming king of the pirates. this doesn't lessen the importance of the crew's dreams, but imo it's clear that there's a reason why zoro's the first to join. why luffy trusts him to take care of everyone and lead them when he's otherwise busy fighting the biggest bads, incapacitated or just not present for whatever reason and why zoro does exactly that. why, for example, he trusted zoro's judgment abt usopp coming back even though luffy was initially ready to accept him without even an apology needed.

another thing to note, which I don't think is a coincidence either, is that zoro's either been mistaken for the captain or has left ppl wondering why he isn't more than a few times already, throughout the manga. zoro's strong, a very independent guy, who already had quite the reputation before he decided to be part of luffy's crew. ppl still call him the pirate hunter. he's got a dream he's hellbent on achieving, and it's not only his, but also kuina's. he's not afraid of dying for it but it's not like he wants to, yknow? and he's never one to go down without a fight. zoro also admits during the davy back ordeal that there's no point to him being a pirate if he's not part of luffy's crew. all of these things make thriller bark so special.

this?

is zoro renouncing to his dream, his promise to kuina, to his own life - not in battle, and certainly not as a way to achieve the very dream he's forfeiting - and he's doing it to keep luffy safe. bc zoro's absolutely certain that luffy WILL become the pirate king and if zoro has to cast all that aside to make sure of it, he will. this is zoro taking all of luffy's pain as his own while protecting luffy's life and dream, putting them even above his. which, to an extent, also guarantees (from his pov, at least) the rest of the crew's safety. that's huge, so much that even kuma questions his decision.

and yeah he's protecting the crew, but it's very obvious that he's doing this for luffy. kuma points it out, as shown above, and he had already voiced out his intention to leave with luffy's head only, specifically. it's luffy's pain that zoro's willing to take on and die for.

also perhaps you'd think this seems a bit one-sided no? but if you ask me, zoro choosing to pretend nothing happened is proof that it isn't. sure, it's not like zoro's the type of character who'd boast or openly talk abt this kind of sacrifice, but this is what he said to luffy when he agreed to join him:

luffy adores his crew. he's willing to die for them, protecting and saving them always, and he takes their dreams very seriously. zoro has witnessed this from the very beginning, and also took it upon himself to remind luffy of how much they all relied on him back when usopp left the crew, so that luffy wouldn't doubt himself. imagine how luffy would've reacted or even felt knowing that zoro had done this. for him.

in hindsight, this panel from the beginning of the arc is a bit of a tragedy honestly. (still cute though!)

[lytters]

love, in silence (but silence speaks volumes) || b. katsuki

falling in love with bakugo katsuki was an easy decision. deciding how to love him is an even easier one.

to katsuki, being a hero comes first and foremost. becoming the best, reaching number one, it was his ultimate goal. love, a relationship, would only distract, delay him from reaching that. so you love him enough for him to feel it, enough for you to be happy, but never enough for him to realize.

it’s easy to love like this: a cold bottle of water waiting on the counter before his morning runs, his favorite, very expensive, spices constantly refilled, and his favorite seat in the common room always reserved for him.

who cares if he’ll never look at you that way? it’s worth all the pining and dreaming you do when he looks a little more content, a little more at home with every little gesture you can give. his happiness at the cost of yours is nothing but a small price to pay.

you resolve to love him in silence, to support him as he hurdles towards a future that only has you in the background. you’re the supporting character to his story, and you’re content with that.

it’s another one of those nights where you love him a little louder, a little brighter than usual. staying back after dinner to help him clean up, locking up the spice cabinet (denki and mina had a horrible habit of stealing spices to do stupid challenges), and following him up to the roof with a little bag of cookies you had baked for him earlier.

the sky is surprisingly clear tonight, the stars twinkling excitedly at you as you settle down next to katsuki, dropping the cookies on his stomach. he lets out a soft grunt, and you hear the rustling of plastic.

“what’s this?” he asks, dangling the bag over your face. “trynna poison me again?”

“that was one time!” you protest indignantly, sitting upright to glare at him. “and for the last time, i didn’t know that tenya put the liniment oil in the vanilla bottle. who does that?”

“four-eyes, evidently.” he sits up with you, moonlight casting his face in an ethereal glow. his hair is almost white, red eyes somehow sharper in the night. “when did you find the time to make this?”

you only shrug and turn away from him, willing the flush that threatens to creep past your neck to fade away. “sometime this afternoon.”

“during your nap time?” katsuki says incredulously.

“wasn’t sleepy,” you shrug again. heat creeps further up your neck, and the night doesn’t feel as cool anymore.

it’s unbearably quiet, the soft sigh of leaves swaying the only break in the silence. then the crinkling of plastic, the loud crunch of chewing. you glue your gaze to the sky all the while, fingers crossed that he likes the cookies.

“i appreciate you.” katsuki says. you look over at him, taken aback at the sudden gratitude. his eyes are bright under the moonlight, and he’s more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him be. the night brings about a certain calmness that seems to ease away the harsh lines on his face, gentling his features that leaves you a different kind of breathless.

“i-” you laugh fondly. “i appreciate you too?”

at the question in your voice, he scowls a little, and you can’t help reaching a hand out to smooth out the frown lines. he leans into your touch, and you flush once more, pulling away. but katsuki latches onto your hand with his calloused one, pressing his cheek into your palm.

“i mean it,” his voice is low, eyes trained on you. “i appreciate you. don’t think i don’t notice what you do for me.”

your heart skips a beat.

“what do you mean?” you ask lightly. his grip tightens and he shifts closer to you.

“don’t play dumb right now,” katsuki scoffs. swallowing hard, you watch as he edges closer and closer to you. “you’re always taking care of me, even though i don’t need-” he shakes his head as you open your mouth to interrupt- “no, listen to what i have to say first.”

“you wake up early on weekends to jog and eat breakfast with me, even though you hate cardio, and you’re not a morning person. whenever its your turn to cook dinner, you always make a separate portion for me, because you know i like the additional spices. and i know you’re the one who refills them, you’re not as slick as you think you are.” he shoots you a fond look. you’re pretty sure your palms are sweaty by now, not that katsuki seems to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. “you do a lot for me, and i see it.”

“katsuki…” you stare at him, eyes wide. “it’s nothing, i just-”

“don’t say it’s nothing.” he cuts you off. “don’t say it’s nothing, because if it’s truly nothing, then i wouldn’t have fallen for you.”

“you- what?” your heart races, and especially in the coolness of the night, you can feel the heat katsuki radiates. “do you- i- don’t joke about that.”

“i’m not.” he looks at you, really looks at you, and you can see the earnestness in his carmine eyes, feel it in the way he holds you so tenderly. “i’m in love with you, and i’m know you’re in love with me too.”

“don’t-” you begin breathlessly, but katsuki shakes his head.

“i don't want you think i'm saying this because i know you love me or that you do things for me. yes, part of it is because of the things you do for me, but i love you because you're you.” katsuki leans into your space, breaths mingling. you can smell the cookies he just ate, cinnamon and burnt caramel filling your senses. he’s deliciously warm pressed against you like this. “i see you, how you give and give without expecting anything in return. how you stand your ground for your friends. how you care for others without making them feel weak.”

the unspoken ‘me’ presses against your hand, still clutched to his cheek.

“i love you,” he says so quietly, so tenderly it makes your eyes burn. “and i want you. i want to be yours. if you’ll let me.”

a heartbeat. two.

“yes,” you gasp around the lump in your throat. “of course, yes, yes, yes.”

katsuki smiles and it’s like the sun rising – unbearably beautiful, refreshing in the way only beginnings can be, utterly devastating.

“i’m going to kiss you.” he promises, pausing only a hair’s breadth away. giving you a chance to pull away, you realize. silly boy, why would you? it’s a moment you’ve been dreaming about for ages, yearning for with an aching heart, resigned to it ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’. now all those moments spent wishing and dreaming have come true, culminated into a chance you’re most definitely not going to give up.

you close the distance and it’s nothing like you could have ever imagined. he’s sweet, tilting his head slightly to deepen the kiss and- oh.

he kisses you like you’re the first sip of water in the desert, cautiously and greedily all at once. your heart burns, sings, and you drink him in greedily, the lump in your throat giving way to two years of quiet love now demanding to be seen, poured out in sweet, warm kisses.

hearts are like homes, you muse, staring at katsuki fondly. they aren’t meant to be lived in alone, watching others through windows. homes are meant to be shared, where love and laughter coexist with hurt and sadness. and katsuki is here, knocking on your heart. you open the door and welcome him in – it’s a house made for him after all.