#playing on veteran too lol

[efingcod]

Stealth

[twink-between-worlds]

when the sun loves the moon

this ravioli fic is brought 2 u by chappell roan's "Hot To Go". the ao3 writer curse hit us btw. our hand is broken lol. this is so fucking long i dont know what happened it was supposed to be short.....

ao3 link; x

Legend hums, messing with the bracelet around his wrist. Not Ravio’s one—that one is far too thick for him to be able to fiddle with it easily—but a different, smaller one on the other wrist.

The second one—the one he’s playing with—is much smaller and simpler. It’s made of black rope, and has a small golden charm attached to it in the shape of a sun.

Ravio brought it back from Lorule after one of his visits. There was a moon-shaped one, too, but Ravio has that one. Legend doesn’t mind. He thinks the sun-bracelet is pretty.

He doesn’t really know why Ravio gave it to him, though. He just kind of showed up back home, gave Legend the bracelet, and never talked about it. It was a little weird, but this is Ravio. There is nothing about that man that isn’t weird.

That thought is nothing but fond.

He kinda misses him. He always does. Doesn’t matter how many times he’s had to travel and leave Ravio behind—he always misses him.

Deep down somewhere inside his chest is a part of him that’s scared that Ravio will be gone by the time he comes back.

He does his best to ignore it. Ravio wouldn’t leave without telling him—he knows that much.

“Your bracelet’s pretty,”Hyrule hums quietly, watching the veteran mess with it as they walk. “Where’d you get it?”

“Oh, uh. It was a gift.”Legend explains with a shrug. “Ravio brought it back from Lorule. He’s got the other one.”

“Other one?”

“It came in a set. The other one’s got a moon on it.”

“You and Ravio have fucking couple bracelets?”Four pipes up, and Legend goes a little quiet. A couple bracelet? No way, they’re not even together. Ravio doesn’t like Legend that way, and Legend doesn’t like Ravio that way either.

Or, well, he doesn’t think he does? It’s a little confusing and Legend doesn’t have time to unpack all that. He’ll probably never have the time to unpack that mess. It’s the emotional equivalent of moving all the things from his storage-shed around—lots of effort and very messy, best to just not do.

So he shakes his head with a snort. “No, Four, that’s not what they are. Rav’s literally just my roommate.”

Four doesn’t look convinced in the slightest. Honestly, Legend can’t even find it in him to be annoyed about that. He knows he and Ravio are a little weird, to the point that even his own sister thought they were dating for a while.

He wants to say she was just being hopeful and that she didn’t seriously think that he and Ravio were together.

“Don’t look at me like that,”Legend rolls his eyes. “It’s just a bracelet, Four. Nothing special.”

Four just snorts at him. “Sure.”

He decides that he isn’t going to respond to Four anymore. Why should he? Four’s just being dumb anyways.

“Why a sun?”Hyrule tilts his head, curious. 

“I think Rav just gave me this one cause the charm is gold. The moon one is silver.”Legend shrugs. He never gets explanations as to why Ravio does things, and the reasoning behind the specifics of the bracelet is no exception, so really he’s just guessing.

The healer nods along with the explanation. Pauses for a second, then, “How long’ve you been friends for?”

Wonderful question—Legend doesn’t know. He can’t remember when he’d started welcoming the other man’s presence, when he stopped getting annoyed by the other being there. He doesn’t know how, or when, Ravio became something akin to home.

That thought catches him off guard, just a bit. He thinks Ravio is home, now? That’s…definitely a new development.

“A while,”He starts with a shrug, ignoring his own mind as he regards the other hero. “Known him for about five years now.”He thinks so, anyway. How old is he, again? He thinks 19, might be 18 though. He’ll ask someone else when he can.

“Is he your best friend then?”

Legend could laugh at that idea. He doesn’t. Instead, he just shakes his head. “No. He isn’t my best friend. That title belongs to someone else, and she really is not willing to share it.”

He did bring it up to Styla once; not about Ravio, specifically, but just in general. She got all pouty and dramatic at the idea of sharing the best friend title, so he’s never really tried that since.

It’s not like it matters a whole lot. He never really had anyone in mind the first time he brought it up, and he doesn’t exactly have anyone in mind now either.

Or, well…okay. Maybe he does. But he’s taking it to his grave. Legend is never telling Four that they’re on the same level as his current best friend.

It’d probably go to their head.

The conversation dies, Legend thinks. Admittedly, he isn’t paying much attention anymore, so they could still be trying to talk to him and he’s just not listening enough to hear.

He wonders how Ravio’s doing. In his last letter, he mentioned that summer must bring out the hero aspiration in people, so business is probably good for the merchant right now. The other is likely ecstatic about it. 

Ravio said the orchard is looking good. He collected the honey from the beehive, too, but he hasn’t sold any of it. Didn’t want to in case Legend wanted to keep it. He’d told him to keep two jars, and that he can sell whatever was left. No point keeping all of it when the two can make a profit.

He knows for a fact that Ravio hasn’t actually touched the orchard, either—he never does. He knows better. Ravio just…doesn’t do it right, it drives Legend a little bit insane, so he learned to just not do it.

Maybe it’s a little mean, and a little weird, but Ravio hasn’t directly complained about it, so Legend guesses that it’s fine, since Ravio is often vocal about things he isn’t happy with. It’s surprisingly a good thing that Ravio likes to complain—it lets Legend know what’s wrong and what needs work.

Legend wonders if Ravio’s sneezing every five seconds now that it’s summer over there again. He always does it, so realistically he knows the answer is yes, but he doesn’t exactly have real proof of it happening right now.

He really just kinda wants to go home.

“You okay?”A voice snaps Legend out of his thoughts, and he turns slightly to see Sky walking with him. Four and Hyrule wandered off at some point, it seems.

“Mhmm,”The veteran hums in response, because what is there to say? He can’t tell Sky the whole truth cause he’ll get all weird and start thinking Legend is into Ravio or something too, like everyone else.

“You’re, um, playing with your bracelet a lot,”Sky notes gently, “Are you missing home?”

Legend doesn’t miss a beat as he nods, still toying with the bracelet’s charm. “It’s been way too fucking long,”He mumbles with a frown.

Sky doesn’t say anything about Legend’s previous claims of preferring life on the road. Hell, he probably knows that Legend’s home is a person rather than a place. He doesn’t say anything about that, though. Instead, he hums softly and places his arm around Legend’s shoulders. “I get it. I miss Skyloft a lot.”

Legend wants to make a comment about him really missing Sun, but he doesn’t say it for two reasons. The first, and most important, being because it would set Sky off on another ramble about her.

The second is more confusing. He’d feel hypocritical if he said anything, and Legend might be a lot of things but he doesn’t like being a hypocrite. He’s not 100% sure why he’d feel like one, but he has a vague idea that it’s because of his own current issue of missing Ravio.

It’s different, though. Legend doesn’t like Ravio the way Sky likes Sun. He doesn’t. 

“Is it new?”Sky hums, reaching over and gently holding Legend’s hand so he can look at the bracelet better. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

It’s not exactly new, not really, but…he guesses he hasn’t really let anyone see it, so the assumption isn’t baseless. Usually he just has it hidden under his sleeve. “Sorta. I mean, I’ve…had it for a while, but only started wearing it a little while ago,”Legend mumbles with a shrug. 

The chain never really needed to know about it. It isn’t magic—just a regular bracelet—so there was no reasoning for letting them know it exists. He isn’t gonna sit down and tell them every accessory he has—they’d be there forever just on his piercings alone.

Sky nods along with Legend’s words, a soft smile on his face. Legend’s not really sure what he’s smiling about. Then, “Wanna tell me about them?”

Legend shoots him a look.

Sky takes it like he has to elaborate. “The person who gave you the bracelet. What’re they like?”

“Dad.”Legend complains, rolling his eyes. “It’s just Ravio. You know him.”

“Oh! You and Ravio are—”

“Slow your roll,”Legend cuts him off with a huff. “No. Ravio is just my roommate.”

“Oh.”Sky pauses, then frowns. He looks genuinely confused. “Really? But you two are so cute together.”

“Ugh, dad, come on.”The veteran rolls his eyes, face tinting slightly pink. 

“What? You are!”Sky insists with a pout. “I think the nicknames are adorable,”

Legend wants the ground to swallow him whole. “They’re mortifying, actually.”

“He calls you honeybee. That’s so cute.”Sky ruffles Legend’s hair. “The whole ‘bunny and rabbit’ thing you two’ve got going on is adorable, too.”

Legend falls silent. Hm. So Sky’s heard that. Shit. Legend thought he was being careful enough.

“You weren’t…supposed to notice that…”Legend confesses after a brief moment, ears tilted downwards from the embarrassment. He didn’t think anyone was around when he called Ravio ‘rabbit’. 

Being wrong is not a great feeling.

Sky just giggles about it. Giggles, right in front of Legend. He notices that Legend goes even more red, and just smiles more. “Awh—hey! It’s okay, you don’t have to be embarrassed. You know, I have more embarrassing nicknames for my Zelda!”

That doesn’t really make anything better, but Legend appreciates the fact that Sky at least made an attempt at comfort.

“Whatever,”Legend mumbles after a moment, “It’s not the same as yours and mama's nicknames.”

Sky hums. Legend has the idea that Sky doesn’t believe him. That idea is only solidified as Sky responds with a simple, “I’m sure.”

Legend chooses to ignore him now, too. Seriously, what’s up with them? It’s just a bracelet. It isn’t even the first gift Ravio’s ever given him.

Ravio gives him a lot of gifts, actually. Legend can’t offer much in return — Ravio doesn’t exactly have any piercings, nor does he really wear that much jewellery. All Legend can do to show appreciation for the gifts is cooking for him whenever he’s home.

Ravio says that it’s enough. Legend doesn’t particularly agree, but he doesn’t have anything else, so he just sticks to what he knows. He’s started learning how to cook Lorulean dishes too, for when Ravio’s missing Lorule. The hero’s never actually tried making one of those yet, but he’s got a cookbook that he’s been reading. If he can memorise the recipes, he’ll have an easier time when it comes to making them.

He hasn’t told Ravio about that part yet. Doesn’t know how Ravio would even react to that. He wouldn’t be upset by it, he doesn’t think. He’d probably get too affectionate about it, though. Every time Legend does something that Ravio really likes, the merchant gets weird and doesn’t leave him alone for a little while. Always keeps close to him for at least a day or two afterwards.

Ravio never explained it ; Legend never asked.

It’s just one of those unwritten things about them. There’s a long, mental list that Legend has that’s just filled with unwritten things that Ravio does. Ravio has a written list about things Legend does. He knows because he found it while cleaning up their room. …he’s pretty observant, but Legend supposes that it’s hard to miss things when you share a space with them. Especially for so long.

It would probably be more concerning if Ravio knew nothing about him, to be honest. Legend being cagey doesn’t translate over to the little things — the stuff Ravio’s written down. The fact it’s all written down on physical paper does make him a little embarrassed though. Some of those habits are intended to be taken to the grave, thank you, and putting it into a physical form is not taking it to the grave, Ravio, that actually makes it harder to take to the grave.

He hates him sometimes and he really does mean that in the most affectionate way possible. He doesn’t actually know what he would do if Ravio left now — he’s gotten far too used to the other being around. The stupid part of his mind tells him that he would simply stop existing. The rational part tells him that he would go into isolation again. Neither is very helpful, actually. Or particularly great. Hell, at least the rational part usually tells him he’d be fine. Fucks up with that part today? Just because it’s true doesn’t mean he wanted to hear it.

Legend tries not to let the homesickness show on his face, fingers tracing over the small, golden charm. It’s a small comfort. Both bracelets are somewhat comforting — even if he still doesn’t like that the chunkier bracelet smells like Twilight. It’s something he, unfortunately, grew used to. Ravio did say that he’d probably get used to it eventually, so it isn’t like he wasn’t warned about it.

Having it on just gives him a false sense of security — he feels safe with it, even though it realistically can’t do much in terms of protection. Neither of the bracelets can…he doesn’t think? The matching one has a strange aura that Legend can’t figure out. It’s magic, that much he knows. He’s just not really sure what type of magic it is, or what it does.

Little frustrating, but of course it is. Ravio, one of the most frustrating men that Legend has ever met, gave the thing to him, of course it’s frustrating. He’d ask about it but he wouldn’t get an answer. Hell, Ravio never answers questions half of the time. Thinks he’s really funny, and he’s only right about that one every so often. Most of the time, he’s just a little annoying.

“Fuck,”He mumbles under his breath. Doesn’t bother to even fully distract himself from his thoughts, can’t even tell if anyone heard him. He’s a little busy with his inner turmoil, with the fact his brain is yelling at him and he kind of wants to scream but he can’t because it would be concerning and nobody would have the context but —

Four and Sky were right. They were right about him and that’s never a sentence that Legend likes to say. 

He likes Ravio. How did he miss that? It’s so fucking obvious. Fable noticed it, and he’d laughed at her for it. Four noticed. Sky noticed it, even compared it to his own relationship with Sun.

This is so dumb. Also a little mortifying. But mostly dumb. How can he be that stupid to not even notice he was into Ravio before it was essentially spelled out for him?

It’s been years since he’s ever liked someone that way. Years. He damn near swore off that emotion entirely. Maybe he did notice it, then. Maybe he just ignored it til he forgot about it. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d dealt with things that way. It’s not healthy, but it’s efficient, and he’s taking efficiency over health any day.

He should probably tell Ravio. It kinda scares him to think about. Is this the type of conversation you have to have in-person? Or is it acceptable to just put it in a letter and hope for the best? He’s not really sure. He could ask, but he knows better than to think that the rest of the chain won’t figure it out. Four or Sky would know. They’d probably mention it.

God, this sucks. He might just write a letter and call it a day. Future Legend problems are not Current Legend’s problems. Who knows, he might not even send the letter! Might just write it and chicken out! It’s very plausible! It has happened before, and it will continue to happen throughout his life!

When they all stop for the night, Legend tries to keep his mind off of it all. Helps set up camp, and he knows that they’ve noticed him trying to distract himself by helping out, but nobody mentions it so it’s fine, he’s fine. Honestly, he could just ask one of them about the whole…like…etiquette of love confessions, or whatever it is, but they’d get weird about it, and Legend would rather do it wrong than be teased for it.

How should he know how it’s done? He never had the chance to confess the first time he liked someone this way, and that was years ago now. He’s about on the same level as the actual child of the group when it comes to this kinda thing, and it’s only partially his fault. It’s not like it’s ever come up often — sure, he’s had people try to date him ; has been technically engaged, but they all did the work of the whole…confession business. Legend’s never done it himself. He waited too long with Marin. Doesn’t know, even now, if he would have managed to do it at all, even if the circumstances were different.

He’s starting to think he doesn’t know anything at all. Maybe that’s a little dramatic. He isn’t surprised that he’s started being dramatic too. Legend’s picked up a lot of Ravio’s other habits — talking with his hands, clicking his tongue when annoyed, he’s even picked up on Ravio’s awful habit of chewing on whatever’s available when he’s nervous or thinking — so it was just a matter of time before he picked up the dramatics. 

Legend chooses to ignore that he was dramatic without Ravio’s influence, was dramatic about things ever since he was a kid. One of the many things he never grew out of, the many habits he never had time to get rid of. His uncle used to say that he was the most dramatic girl in the entire kingdom. Now he’s the second most dramatic man. Ravio’s always going to be the most dramatic, he thinks.

He wonders if he and Ravio had a kid, would that child be extra dramatic, on account of having two dramatic parents? And then he shoves that thought away, embarrassed at the idea and the thought of having a kid with the merchant. He’s got it bad, huh? He didn’t even notice it before. Legend is really hoping his face isn’t betraying him, because he doesn’t know how to explain why he’s embarrassed. What would he even say? ‘I thought about having a kid with a guy I just denied having a thing for’? Not a chance in hell.

Legend can’t even remember how long he’s been ignoring this. Can’t even tell if this is going to cause Ravio to finally decide he wants to move out, to ‘expand his business’ as he would explain it. He doesn’t think Ravio even thinks of him as more than the guy that saved his life and kingdom. Sure, they live together, but…Legend still kinda thinks Ravio’s only still around just because Legend doesn’t charge him rent. He wouldn’t really blame him — it’s a good deal. Legend can admit that he’s being very nice letting Ravio do what he does, and that anyone rational — anyone not stupidly in love with the man — wouldn’t put up with it.

Yeah, honestly, he’s not sure how he didn’t notice the signs of him liking the guy. The signs seem really obvious now that he’s caught up to himself enough to read them. He’ll blame it on not having time for it. That’s usually the only answer he can give — he never has enough time. It’s not a very peaceful existence, but it’s his, and isn’t that enough? Who cares if he doesn’t like it all that much. He has to work with it, he doesn’t get a choice.

Of all things to catch up on, did this really have to be the first? He feels a little cheated. Is there nothing else that he can get? Does he have to deal with this one right now? This one is all stressful and scary, could end with him losing the comfort of sharing a home with someone. He doesn’t like being alone, and Ravio being around helped with that. What if this makes him leave? Legend doesn’t really know what he’d do. Fable always says he can move into the castle when he wants to, that she would like to see her brother more, but he doesn’t like how big it is and he doesn’t feel safe around the knights, so even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t move in there. He doesn’t want to leave his house either — his uncle left it for him. It’s all he’s really got left, and he likes the orchard. 

If Ravio left, maybe he would just…stop existing, or something. He’s never had to think about it before. He’s worried about it before, sure, but he always has the confidence that Ravio would tell him before he left and he wouldn’t just go — Ravio’d told him so. But this? He’s never thought about it in this circumstance. This could really fuck things up and make the merchant never want to even look at the hero again.

He hopes that, if the goddesses can hear his thoughts, they hear him when he begs for his life to stop getting complicated. The goddesses have never listened to his pleas before, so he doesn’t bother having high expectations, but it would really be great if his life could stop getting complicated and weird. His life hasn’t stopped getting complicated since the moment he stepped out of that house and was given the burden of ‘Hero’. It’s just kept getting worse, actually. He prayed, at first, for it to all stop and go away. He gave up on that a long time ago.

Maybe if he asks really nicely, Hylia can make this problem go away for him. Maybe he can finally get some use out of being her favourite? Probably not. The thought’s nice, though. He probably wouldn’t do it anyways. Being her favourite has just made him really tired and he thinks that if he tried to use it to get her to help him out, she’d just make him keep working. He does kinda want to retire without having to die to do it.

The letters are usually reserved for Fable. He doesn’t tend to send them to anyone else — Ravio sends a few, but Legend just replies on that paper and sends it back. He’s never actually written to the other first. — but he guesses he can’t just ignore this. If it all goes wrong, at least…at least he won’t have to see Ravio leave, if he does. It’ll still hurt but it would hurt more if he had to watch it happen. This is safer. He has the safety of it being on paper, of not having to watch as Ravio puts on that fake little smile, the one he puts on when he’s uncomfortable but doesn’t want to hurt feelings. Legend’s seen him put it on around knights and particularly annoying customers. He never wants it directed at him.

Legend doesn’t eat a lot of his dinner that night. Mostly just pokes at it, eats whenever Sky gives him a look, but doesn’t finish it. Passes it off to Four, when he’s sure nobody else is paying much attention. He just tells Four that he isn’t hungry. Doesn’t know, or care, if they believe him or not. They don’t question him, which is good enough. He kinda likes that about the smithy — they barely ever question him on things. They love questioning everyone else, just to make them annoyed or upset, but they never seem to do it to Legend anymore. The two have got their own little dynamic going on, anyways, so the cycle of questions and annoyance wouldn’t work with them for long.

It’s especially helpful now, because Legend hates telling Four that they’re right about anything. They’re a cocky little shit about it and Legend has enough going on, he doesn’t think he could convince himself to not throttle the smithy this time. That’s hard enough to do when he isn’t distracted. He loves the other like a little sibling, but it’s very hard to not want them dead sometimes. He supposes that might just be a sibling thing, though, because he and his sister have wanted each other dead every so often too and they’re literally twins.

He takes first watch. Manages to convince Time to let him take watch on his own. He doesn’t tell him why, just manages to make up some bullshit excuse about how it’ll be better so that the later watch doesn’t have to only be one person. It’s convincing enough to work, and that’s good enough for him. It gives him time to work on writing that letter that he has to write, and it means nobody will be bugging him while he does it.

His handwriting isn’t the best anyways. He doesn’t like to write around other people due to that. It’s messy and it’s just not something he’s proud of. Honestly, it’s bad enough that he can’t figure out how to say the things he wants to, it’s even worse when his terrible handwriting is thrown into the mix. This whole thing is making him feel ten times dumber than he is.

They head to bed not long after sorting out the watch system for the night. This is somewhat comforting. Means he isn’t sitting around with anxiety for even longer than he wants to, and gives him extra time to figure out what the hell he’s doing. Does he put filler in the letter? Talk about something for a while before getting to the point? Should he just confess and leave the letter as nothing more than a shitty confessional? He thinks the former, but he knows Ravio’s attention span isn’t great. Would he get bored of the letter if he talks too much, miss the point of it completely?

Damnit. Why isn’t anything ever easy? Everything has to be a difficult task for him, even when it’s something stupid, small and trivial. It’s so unfair. Legend thinks he deserves a raise, but then remembers that he doesn’t get paid for any of it, and just gets a little annoyed at how he doesn’t get paid. He wishes he did. He doesn’t really need it, he and Ravio make enough from their own business ventures, but it’d sure be nice to be paid for his efforts.

Is that selfish? Maybe a little bit. He’ll probably forget about it in the morning anyways, he’s just upset and has a lot going on at the moment. It’ll pass. It always does. This is not the first time he’s gotten annoyed about this topic and it certainly will not be the last time, either. Seems to come up whenever he’s stressed. Maybe he should talk to someone about that.

Nah. He’s got more important shit goin on. Such as this stupid letter. He hasn’t actually managed to write anything yet — he has the paper out, and has a pencil in his hand, but he doesn’t have any words. Not even one. This is a lot harder than it looks, alright? He’s never done this before and it’s definitely showing. Who knew something as simple as a letter could cause so much difficulty? 

It’s just Ravio. He shouldn’t be worried. Ravio’s never given him reason to be afraid to tell him things. He briefly glances at the bracelet on his wrist, watches the sun-shaped charm reflect the firelight. It really is a pretty bracelet. The veteran hasn’t been able to stop looking at it, today. Maybe it’s because it helps with homesickness, or maybe it’s just because Ravio gave it to him, but he doesn’t ever really want to take the thing off. There’s something about it. He still doesn’t know what kind of magic this thing is coated with. Maybe he should ask about it. Ravio knows him better than to think he wouldn’t be able to tell it’s magic, maybe he’s just waiting to be asked about it.

Wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest. The other hasn’t ever been very forthcoming about things until he’s directly asked about it.

As he just sits there and looks at the charm, Legend realises that he just feels so out of his depth. This isn’t something he’s good at — the whole…expressing emotions thing. He always feels awkward and embarrassed about what he feels, so he just never really talks about that kinda stuff. He’s not sure why he gets so embarrassed about it, really ; nobody else seems to struggle with it. Maybe this is just another thing he never learned to do. Like reading. He didn’t learn to read until he was twelve, after all. Maybe he just needs to learn how to do it when he has time.

He is never going to stop giggling about anything relating to the word ‘time’ now. Every time he just thinks of Time himself and it gives him the funniest mental images in the world. He is very glad that there’s only one person in the world that can hear his thoughts and that she finds it as funny as he does.

This is just stalling. He’s absolutely stalling by thinking about anything and everything except the task at hand. Maybe he should just get it over with — throw some words on the paper, shove it in an envelope and seal it up so he doesn’t have to look at what he wrote before he sends it off. But, then, he worries that he’d throw the wrong words on there, or that he wouldn’t even get to the point. No matter what he does, he’s going to be anxious about it. It’s eating at him, a little bit. The worry. It wants to swallow him whole and leave not a single thing behind.

Legend chooses to stop thinking about it so much. He tries to write as neatly as he can, though it takes more effort than it would take anyone else. He just wants it to be legible. If he was so nervous about it only for Ravio to not be able to read his handwriting, he would actually die. He asks what magic the bracelet has. Tells Ravio that he noticed it a while ago and felt awkward asking about it. Talks a little about different things that’ve happened since they last spoke. He leaves the confession until last. Puts it at the end, and he notices that his handwriting is shakier when he writes it. No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t stop his nerves from getting the best of him when it got to the point.

He signs it off with a small doodle of a bee and folds the letter in half to go into the envelope. Seals it with a small, blue wax seal that he stamps with a small bunny-shaped stamp. He has the one with the royal crest on it, but he’s never actually used that one. He just has it in-case it’s needed.

There. Done. He bit the bullet and now whatever happens after he sends this is in the goddesses hands until he gets home to find out if Ravio left or not. No big deal. Not terrifying at all, no sir. Not at all.

He doesn’t have to wait for the postman. He can just get Sheerow to deliver it — she’s been the one taking the letters back and forth between himself and the others back home anyways. She wouldn’t mind. But he doesn’t actually know how she would feel about it. She’s a smart bird, she would know this isn’t a normal letter.

What to do.

If he waits, he has to hold onto this thing for longer. If he just calls Sheerow, she could investigate the letter herself. …she can’t read, can she? He genuinely isn’t sure. He can read when he’s an animal, and Twilight can. Is that only because they’re really Hylian? Or can all animals read, to an extent? Has Sheerow been reading their letters this whole time? 

He really didn’t think he’d be questioning if birds can read. Maybe Sky knows. Surely he wouldn’t mind being woken up for one question? Legend glances over to where Sky is sleeping. He’s got Four tucked under his arm, the other laying across his own stomach. He’ll never say it out loud, but he kinda wishes he was tucked into Sky’s other side.

Legend heads over anyways. Pokes Sky’s face a little. “Dad. Dad, wake up.”He whispers, rolling his eyes when Sky makes a vague noise in response. “Daaaaaaad.”

“Whuh?”Sky blinks his eyes open sleepily, looking a little more awake the second he sees Legend next to him. “S’mthing wrong?”

“I need to know if birds can read.”

Sky stares at him for a minute. Legend just stares right back. After a moment, Sky lets out a tired sigh. “Baby, it’s late.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But can birds read? It’s important.”

He clicks his tongue slightly, but smiles softly anyways. “Birds can be taught to read a little, yes.”

“Oh. Okay.”Legend nods. Ravio wouldn’t have taught Sheerow how to read, so he’s in the clear. “Thank you.”

“You’re…welcome? I think?”Sky blinks rapidly, confusion written on his face.

“Night dad,”Legend hums before heading back to the fire. He’ll just call Sheerow to give Ravio the letter, in that case. What reason would Ravio have to teach her to read?

…apart from just because he thought it would be funny. He would do it for that reason. But it doesn’t matter — Legend doesn’t understand a damn thing about that bird anyways. He’s not sure how she even gets here when he needs her, but it’s efficient. He’s still taking efficiency over all else.

Who cares if the little jelly bean shaped bird is somehow a tiny time-traveller? She’s cool. Legend likes her. She sometimes just hangs out in his hair. Fun times all around. He likes Sheerow a lot. If Ravio leaves him, he would actually mourn the loss of Sheerow, too. If anything bad ever happened to Sheerow he would commit a crime. Maybe he just likes small animals. Another thing to add to the list of weird things about himself. 

She doesn’t take long to arrive when he calls for her. She sits on his knee patiently, nudges his hand a few times until he pets her. He never does give her the letter right away, always gives her affection first. Come on, how can he not? Sheerow deserves it. She chirps a few times, turns her attention to the letter after a while. 

“Yeah, um.”Legend sighs when she does, frowning. “I, um. Need ya to take that to Rav. Okay?”

She confirms and takes it with little convincing. She stopped being stubborn about things a little while ago, when Legend started giving her attention first. It’s a decent way of dealing with things, and it’s not like he minds much. She gets one final pet before she takes off with the letter.

Legend lets out a heavy sigh. Well. That letter is Future Legend’s problem now, not his. Whatever happens…well, it happens, he supposes. He just hopes Ravio won’t hate him now. The merchant likes to say he doesn’t have a single hating bone in his body, but Sky said that too, and Sky hates some of the people in his and Four’s eras just because of how they speak to them. So his worry isn’t really placated by the statement.

He wakes Warriors and Wild up when it’s time to switch shifts. He’s tired and stressed at the same time, which is a really fun combination. Will he succumb to the tiredness, or will the stress keep him awake? He has absolutely no idea! He hopes he gets to sleep. Really, he does, because if he doesn’t sleep he’ll just think, and thinking is way worse than sleep sometimes.

Legend ends up giving into what he wanted to do earlier. Heads over to Sky and tucks himself into the man's other side, more for the comfort of it than anything else. Maybe it’ll calm his mind down and let him sleep? It does the trick. He isn’t sure when he falls asleep, but he manages it eventually, curled up into Sky’s side.

Morning comes and Legend’s anxiety hasn’t gone away like he thought it would have. It’s still there eating away at him, which is total bullshit. It should have left. The letter was sent, he doesn’t have to stress about it anymore. 

He wonders if Ravio’s read it yet. Immediately after, he lets out a tired sigh. He’s still worrying about it. He can’t even get a break — fuck, he isn’t going to relax until he knows what Ravio’s reaction is, will he?

This is so lame. 

“You alright over there?”He hears Four, but doesn’t actually answer. Just lets out a heavy sigh and tucks his knees up to his chest so he can hide his face. He's not ready to exist as a functioning person. Won’t be until he gets an answer.

He hates this, actually. This was supposed to be Future Legend’s problem, not Current Legend’s problem! He feels a little bit robbed, honestly. So not cool.

He doesn’t express his anxiety. Just gets up for the day. Doesn’t eat his breakfast, passes it off to Four again. They give him a look this time — Red’s worried about him, going off that eye colour. He feels a little bad about worrying her — but don't speak. Good enough. He can ignore looks much easier. Even if he does feel a tiny bit bad about it.

At least it’s not Vio today. Vio would hold him at knifepoint until he told them what was wrong. A little intimidating, but it gets the job done, so Legend can’t blame Vio for using a method that’s never failed them.

He just would like to never experience it. Ever. Vio honestly scares him a little. But thankfully, it’s too early for Vio to be fully functioning, so he isn’t getting threatened today.

He hopes Ravio replies to the letter. Even if it’s just to make an excuse about why he has to go back to Lorule. Even if it’s just to tell Legend that he hates him and doesn’t want to see him again in their entire lives. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t be new. Legend wouldn’t blame him.

They don’t linger around long, and it doesn’t take a long time to get all their shit together either. Legend ends up helping Four out with their things ; he thinks they have a headache. They aren’t focusing very well this morning. Legend wouldn’t be surprised if they have an argument going on up there right now.

He sticks to the back of the group when they set off. He ends up having to walk beside Twilight, and he has to do his very best to hide any of his negative emotions right fucking now because Twilight can read emotions far too easily. He doesn’t need Twilight asking him about it.

The worry is still eating at him. It hasn’t stopped.

“I hope we get a portal soon,”He hears Wind whistle, “We’ve been in this era for a while.”

“Yeah, I hope we get to go somewhere else. Who’s era do you think we’ll end up in?”

“Hyrule, nobody’s keeping track of it,”

“I think we’ll end up in Legend’s era next,”Four speaks up, “We haven’t been there in a long time. It would make sense if it was his next.”

Oh he hopes not. He would take anyone else’s era right now, not his own. His own era is exactly where he doesn’t want to be. Like, there is nowhere he wants to be less right now.

“Oh, fun!”Sky laughs a little. “You might get to be home soon, bun!”

“I really, really do not know how to express how much I do not want that.”Legend snaps out, too busy trying to ignore his nerves to even remember he’s supposed to be pretending to be fine. 

“...you don’t want to be home?”Warriors blinks slowly. Legend can feel the confusion from the rest of the group.

“I don’t want to be home,”He repeats back simply. “Can we drop it?”

He watches Sky’s confusion turn into concern, as the other slows to walk beside him. “Okay, baby, we don’t have to talk about it.”

Legend nods once. Doesn’t open his mouth again. He’s not sure what Sky or the others are thinking about what he said. Really, he isn’t convinced that he wants to know their thoughts.

They run into a portal, eventually. Legend really hopes Four is wrong. He doesn’t want to be in his era. He’ll take Wild’s era over his, and he fucking hates the champions era because of how much walking you have to do. He hopes this isn’t his era, he isn’t ready.

It’s his era. He knows it the second he walks through that damn portal. He feels his connection with Fable strengthens back up, smells the familiar scent that his era has.

He lets out a long, pained sigh. Sits on the ground with his head in his hands. He does not want to be here — really, he doesn’t. He can’t avoid his problems forever when the person he’s avoiding knows all of his hiding spots. The goddesses must really enjoy laughing at him.

“Um.”Four kneels down and pokes Legend. Wind copies Four’s actions and pokes Legend a second time. “Are you good down there?”

“Let me rot and die.”

“Um, I don’t think I want to do that,”

Legend flips them off. Four just hums. 

He isn’t ready for this. He doesn’t really know if he was ever going to be, but he definitely isn’t ready right now. This is such a cruel joke. He knows he hasn’t been very into religion, despite Impa’s best efforts, but is that really bad enough to warrant being turned into the goddesses personal jester?

If they think he’s going to start praying because of this, they are sorely mistaken.

“Apple, come on, we need to get moving, if that’s okay?”Sky tries to nudge him gently to get up.

“Why are none of you willing to let me just sit here and die?”

“Because we need you. Now get up.”Warriors is much less gentle about it. He gets glared at by Sky for it, which is a little bit funny.

He gets up, eventually. He’s not going to be addressing any of his problems right now, not when he has a much bigger one to address when he gets home. He was hoping he had a little more time, but really, why did he expect to get what he wanted? Never does. Probably never will. He exists to suffer. Yes, he’s probably being dramatic again, but it feels perfectly reasonable to him right now.

“I need you guys to fuck off for a little while so I can deal with the consequences of my own actions.”Legend states once they reach the village. He can just head home, deal with his problems, and then promptly die. If Ravio isn’t there, he will be letting the earth reclaim him, though.

He doesn’t wait for a response. Just leaves them behind and heads to his house. He can feel his heart pounding as he walks, the nerves eating his insides and his brain screaming at him.

The shop signs are still up. Usually, Legend hates those things, but he can’t help but be a tiny bit relieved to see them. Ravio wouldn’t leave without those — “It’s way too expensive to replace them, Mr. Hero.” — and so it’s good to know that, at least, the merchant is still here.

He doesn’t think he’s ever opened that front door with more hesitation in his entire life. “Rav?”His voice sounds way too quiet but he can’t even care about it at the minute. He sees the envelope open, discarded on the top of a sales cabinet. Ravio read the letter, then. Legend takes a breath. 

“Ah! Mr. Hero!”Ravio jumps a little. “You’re back!”

A hum. “Yeah. Um. Hi.”

Silence.

Ravio tilts his head at Legend, but Legend doesn’t know if he can even look at him, so he looks at the ground and kicks his feet a little. It’s so quiet, it might actually drive him insane. 

“If you hate me can you just tell me?”He blurts out after the silence dragged out for too long. It was too much, he couldn’t take it. He’d rather Ravio just yell at him or insult him or something, anything is better than silence.

“Mr. Hero…”Ravio hums, and Legend hears him walking over. “I don’t hate you! I could never!”

He doesn’t know if he believes him.

“Your letter was nice,”He continues, voice quiet. Legend can’t tell if he’s just trying to match Legend’s own quiet energy with it. “I’m afraid that the magic on that bracelet is a trade secret though, honeybunny,”He laughs a little and pokes Legend’s nose. Legend bites his finger for it. “Ow—meanie!”

“Deserved it.”

“I thought you loved me,”Ravio teases with a grin, and Legend falls quiet. Shrinks in on himself a bit, takes a step back. He’s scared of this whole thing and he wants to run and hide and never show his face ever again — “Hey, hey. Breathe. I’m sorry, Link, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Yeah right. Legend doesn’t believe that for a second. “So you read the whole thing, then…”

Ravio sighs. “Yep. Did you not want me to?”

“I don’t know.”

Ravio goes quiet. Legend hears him tapping his fingers against his arms like he does when he thinks. All that’s running through the hero’s mind is “He’s trying to figure out how to let me down easy”. He really regrets sending the letter, this shit is way more terrifying than any of the monsters he’s ever fought.

“I’m glad you were the one to say something. I thought you were going to kick me out if I told you I wanted to kiss you.”Ravio shrugs, eventually, and Legend genuinely thinks his brain just stopped working. He just kinda looks at the other for a while.

What.

“Don’t look at me like that!”He laughs nervously. “I did! I thought you would kick me out for it!”

Why did Legend’s type in men have to be ‘stupid’.

“Oh.”The hero sighs, shaking his head a little. “You don’t hate me for it?”

Ravio shakes his head again. “The opposite, actually! See, if you didn’t say anything, I was going to have to. We’ve been at this for months now, Mr. Hero. Honestly, I’m glad we can get past that whole deal now.”

He lets out another breath. Oh, hey, the anxiety’s stopped eating his guts out. Hooray!

“Though, you never asked me to date you in that lovely little letter of yours,”

“I will actually kill you.”

Ravio just laughs. Legend cannot believe that this is the man he’s decided he wants to live for.

That thought is still fond, though, because of course it is. Legend hasn’t had a single thought about Ravio that hasn’t been affectionate in the past twenty four hours.

“I guess you did do half of the work,”Ravio speaks again with a shrug. “Okay. So. You did the confession stuff, can we date now, or do I need to wait for your next emotional breakthrough for that one?”

“Just for that, you have to wait.”

“What—hey! No!”

Legend heads out to go and fetch the others, laughing at Ravio’s minor distress as he leaves.

[just-a-lil-leafy]

Playing Sky as a veteran of three and a half years makes me feel like an old, grizzled adventurer whose friends have all passed on, whose name has been lost to time, offering brief advice to young travelers before disappearing into the dark recesses of the world, watching the times speed past me and wondering when I too will finally rest. Forever wandering because it's all I know.

But haha pretty game, fun times lol

[lovefrombegonia]

Thinking about Yuder Aile's looks

I did think before that Yuder must be quite plain looking. Not ugly but not extraordinary either. Atleast, that's how he always thought of himself. But then I realised Yuder Aile is a freaking unreliable narrator. And that got me thinking even more of how he looked like. Of course, we have a great manhwa and many novel illustrations of how Yuder looks.

And they are all so cute! I just tend to visualise them a bit differently than whatever official arts make them out to be. That's to be expected, after all, we all imagine things differently when it comes to looks. Btw this is not me criticizing the manhwa or the illustrations. They are all so beautiful and I love them all 🥰🥹

TBH I think Yuder is actually...quite an unconventional beauty (lol ik so original). You know there are some people who, at first glance, look pretty but not extraordinary...but then the more you look at them, the prettier they become??? It's like some kind of magic happening. I had a senior in my college who was like that. The more I look, the prettier she becomes. I think of actors like Rekha and Tabu who become prettier the longer you look at them.

Also, in the world of Turning, it seems the beauty standard is bright hair and bright eyes, pastel colours and all. And Yuder is full on a goth gf. No pastels. Stark and contrasting. Black hair, dark eyes, pale af, stoic, and intimidating. He is not all sharp tho. He has chubby cheeks, according to Kiolle Diarca, so, I think Yuder has baby fats on his cheeks. That's insanely adorable to me. I can see why Enon wants to pinch those cheeks. I keep thinking of actor Yin Zheng, he has the most adorable cheeks. He makes me go insane. BTW check out his masterpiece of a drama called "Winter Begonia" ❤️ it's a cdrama based on a danmei novel.

Yuder thinks he is tall. And HE IS. He is 5'11". That's tall, ok. From the QnA, Kuyu did say he has a thin body type, so, I imagine him as a lean muscled body type. Not lanky at all. Like, Bruce Lee. A powerful house of a man, with defined biceps and core. Yuder from manhwa does remind of Bruce Lee a lot tbh. I really like that, Bruce Lee is my childhood!

(NB: I love his expressions)

So, that's how I think Yuder looks like. I am bad at the visualising part tho, so, Yuder keeps on shifting in my mind. I imagine a youthful face carrying the expression of a war veteran, and that makes people around him intimidated but also intrigued. All the descriptions in the novel remind me of the most is actually a very famous character, known as, the motherfucking Moon Dong-Eun from "Glory"! Played by Song Hye-Kyo. The eyes...look at her EYES!! That's Yuder Aile staring into your soul!!!!

You can even feel the eerie glare from behind the shades!

I think Lady Snowblood, played by Meiko Kaji, is also a good reference for Yuder's eyes. Look at her! I think this one is more suited for Yudrain Aile tho.

Ok. That is where I end my ramblings LOL

Wanted to say this for a long time. I would love to hear what others think Yuder looks like too. What other actors or even fan casting do you think of? Yuder Aile is such an interesting character. He is such a blorbo. I love him so much, and I am so happy I stumbled onto this treasure of a novel 💕

[beyondtheglowingstars]

This dumbass idea has been stuck in my brain for a while, it is so dumb and I also pushed it out kinda quickly lol

Don't forget to dry yourself first

Pairing: Four x GN reader Word count: 1.3k WARNING(S): Kinda suggestive? General info: Poor Four just wanted to enjoy his day off but the pranksters of the group chose him as a victim that day. In an act of kindness you did to improve his day, some of his bad luck struck both of you.

These boys never fail to surprise you with how much trouble they can either get themselves into or cause for others, sometimes both. And turns out that this time, Four would be the unfortunate victim of a prank; right on the day that was meant to be a short break on the road so they could all enjoy a day at the river. Some of Smithy’s clothing articles had been stolen by Hylia knows who while he had been relaxing in the water, and only did he realize about the prank until he caught a glimpse of the purple fabric from his tunic sticking out from under a bush.

Fortunately for the unsuspecting hero, whoever had hidden his clothes was kind of a lousy hider and as a result, he’d been able to find almost everything in a short amount of time, and was only missing one more item to get back into his hands.

Four cursed and groaned in frustration once he spotted his beloved green headband stuck on a branch much too tall for him to reach. A mix of laughs and giggles echoed around you as Wild, Wind and Legend took delight in the scene playing out in front of their eyes; your bets were placed on either Wind or Wild being responsible for the blacksmith’s misfortune. And although he was the one laughing the loudest, your mind had cleared the Veteran off of the list of possible culprits. Only for this time. It didn’t really look like something the Vet would do. But you couldn’t really blame him for enjoying the current situation unfolding before his own eyes; the image of Four dressed in just his underwear, attempting to climb a rock with all the precision in the world to avoid slipping and falling since he was still wet from previous contact with water, only to still not be able to reach his headband with the added height was quite amusing.

The blacksmith’s face was covered in red, be it from embarrassment or anger you did not know which, but it had to be a combination between the two. More curses were heard, except louder this time as Four stretched his arm as much as he could while trying to not lose his balance and fall from the rock, the other heroes present in the river with you howled with laughter again.

Taking pity on the shortest one of the group, you emerge from your comfy spot in the calm waters and make your way to where Four was located. The rock adjacent to the tree provided enough room for you to support your feet on it and reach where the accessory had gotten stuck, retrieving the item with far more ease than the blacksmith could without the use of tools. With your feet off the rock and back on solid ground, you offer the headband to Four; the trio still in the water jokingly boo’d at you in disapproval.

The young man accepts his item back with a ‘thanks’ and a bashful smile, placing the piece of cloth back on his head and beginning to make his way down the rock. And it would have been the end of it, but either Hylia or some other external force decided that Four wasn’t destined to have a break that day; he slipped once his foot touched the ground and was sent tumbling forward as he flailed his arms around to regain balance, but it was to no avail.

You could not have expected it, and could not have stopped it from happening even if you wanted to. The best you could do was close your eyes after Four let out a sound of surprise and crashed against your body with enough force to send you falling backwards, his face on your chest and the next time you opened your eyes you were already on the forest floor. The fall was a little rough and you heard the blacksmith voicing an ‘oof!’ as he came down with you; your butt took most of the fall and it hurt, part of your lower back also hurt, but more in the form of tiny scratches rather than possible bruises.

But nevermind your sore ass and scratched skin anywhere else on your body when you considered the way Four had landed. His weight firmly planted over your pelvis, hands positioned on the ground on either side of your head, his body almost pressed to yours and his blond locks cascaded freely around his face; the honesty hidden deep within you had to admit how there was a certain type of beauty and attractiveness to be admired about the way Four currently looked.

A gasp was heard in the direction of the three others still in the river and you could almost picture in your head how each of them reacted. The blacksmith’s cheeks bloomed with even more red than before and his eyes widened as much as plates and you had a good guess that everything was finally sinking in for him, and you were in a similar situation as him, feeling your face heat up until it truly clicked how compromising everything looked.

Neither of you seemed to be able to move; Four’s eyes darted around in refusal to hold eye contact with you, and you weren’t gonna shove him off of you to the side and accidentally hurt him because of something that happened due to very bad luck (or perhaps good luck?). You could almost swear that you heard the same noise Wild’s sheikah slate makes when taking a picture.

Really wanting to get some of the eyes off of you, you called for the man that had you trapped beneath him.

“Four, do you think you could let me go?”

And it’s as if something inside him finally settled, he looked at you apologetically and quickly scrambled back to his feet in the least awkward way he could, then offering his hand for you to take. You allow yourself to be helped onto your feet and the blacksmith didn’t do as much as directing a glance your way and simply muttered panicked apologies repeatedly, and it is until now that you finally noticed how the color on his face spread all the way to the tip of his ears. He quickly made his way back to the chilly water after that, and you followed suit, back to the comfy spot you had been relaxing in prior to helping Four and made your best effort to avoid looking at Wild, Legend and Wind on your way there.

The other three were red in the face as well, but for the reason that they were nearly about to pass out from laughing to themselves at the whole exchange. How they didn’t outright burst out laughing right there was a mystery to you, but one that you weren’t about to question as things could have easily gone worse.

But curiosity won and you couldn’t help shooting a nervous peek at everyone around you, catching Four giving the other three heroes the most intimidating glare you had seen in your entire life, and just in time before you heard the crunch of leaves and branches announce the arrival of Time and the rest of the remaining members of the group. Your blush had not let up yet and neither had The Smith’s, best you could do was act as normal as you could in your little spot and pray that not a single word would spread to those unaware.

But that was merely wishful thinking on your part.

"Smithy’s got a stiffy!" rang out from across the other side of the river, followed by a loud smack-like sound and then the offender’s voice being muffled underwater.

You would not think about the validity of that statement for your own sanity, but having gotten a good look at the confused yet concerned expressions from the Links that had just arrived let you know that everything was far from over yet. You took a deep breath and prepared yourself for what was to come.

[aricr0cs]

It all started in 2022 when my girlfriend used pictures of qunari pectorals to shamelessly tempt me into being interested in dragon age. I’ve never been into rpg on console. I like racing games and shooters. Stuff like that. But in my defense…. The Arishok.

She convinced me to watch her play. And I did. All of it. She began with dragon age origins. A completionist, She played it all, recording it for me in 30 minute increments which I consumed with growing interest. Every game. The dlc. Every quest. No chest was left unlooted (giggity). I’m sure I saw more in the last two years than yall will ever see here thybyht.

And boy did I consume it. I fell in love with every character. I fell in love with her ocs. I fell more in love with her for giving me this wonderful little piece of her head. It felt like a very special gift. And I gobbled it up.

And naturally, being me, I crafted my own ocs inside my head that were there too. Developed my own ideas of what I would do. My considerations of the actions I would take. The choices I would make. I became very invested.

They dropped the veilguard trailer and it was a new experience for us I think. She has loved this game for so long. I have never played it. But we were both squealing with excitement and buzzing about what we think will happen.

And then the playthrough aired. The one where we see Varric lose his Bianca and here I am having never played and yet my heart still hurt with worry for this little fictional man.

And so the itch began. The desire to make those choices for myself. To see Thedas being shaped because of my actions.

I have been sucked in.

On June 30th 2024, in a discord call with my gf, I downloaded origins and began my first playthrough. There will be some catching up posts of how I felt and the choices I made and then once I’m caught up I’m going to consider this my online da diary lol.

There has already been shenanigans and NOTHING IS GOING THE WAY I THOUGHT IT WOULD AND IM SO EXCITED TO PLAY EVERY DAY.

It's a juxtaposition. I know what is going to happen. I know the story. I’m already spoiled. But this is still very much my first playthrough of these games. So if I post old news or theories I apologize ynynyh. But I figured I’d share my joy and idiocy with the world. And I thank you old dragon age veterans for putting up with newbies like me.

Also my girl. Thank you Leah for giving this old gay a new world to become a part of. As always I’m dragging your ass with me uwu.

[thewindbandit]

Happy Valentine's Day! I doodled some of my Sky COTL friends for gifts and pose practice haha. Apologies for the lined paper but I like drawing on lined paper 😔

User tags below the cut as well as some messages uwu

@hollypies Holly! I had seen Sky around a bit before but your Sky posts were what finally encouraged me to play the game. We don't play together very often but every time we do is special to me

(no tumblr) Jen! My Sky sibling!! You've accompanied me many times through every realm. You're always willing to tag along and help and your presence makes bad days better

@flamma-nocturna Vo! I believe you were my first friend I unlocked chat with! You were the veteran to my moth and you helped me get acquainted with the realms. While we don't play together as often nowadays I enjoy the times we do

@awkwardpossum0 Armin! My mothmate, among... other things lmaooo. We started playing Sky around the same time and you let me drag you around and show you all the neat stuff I found. We got into the habit of doing dailies together and still do uwu

(no tumblr) Moon! My moth!! You don't play too often but whenever you do I enjoy guiding you through the realms and helping you with previous seasonal quests

@thatonekidwind Wind! Another moth!! (Or, you were when we first played together lol) You've done a lot of stuff on your own but that makes it all the more exciting to show you things you haven't seen or done. You add a lot of excitement and chaos to my Sky sessions hehe

@raycatz Ray! I don't know you too well yet but I've been a fan of your art for a while and it was great to meet and play with you! Sorry that first session was so chaotic lol if we play again I'll (probably) be more chill

[ch6douin]

Hi hi! Recently I got into playing idv again and they have released a christmas map where you can play snowball and ice skate it's really fun and cute I am wondering how that would work out in the self aware au, I think most of the characters would be confused why the map is there and what it is even for but maybe some would use the map to play around for a bit? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Christmas in Oletus Manor was so eerie and gloomy in the first few years. None of the survivors or hunters could ever imagine celebrating in the state they were in, but of course, with more and more invitations sent and people coming in to participate in these games, the tradition changed drastically.

They were all used to organizing the event with no external help and trying to have some fun with what they had in their hands. The veterans were busy cooking large amounts of food and others were busy decorating the manor with handmade ornaments (props to Luca and Tracy for making the flashers). They would feast, some would pray, and then party!

So imagine their surprise when they receive a letter that one of the interdicted parts of the manor is now restored, giving them a chance to have more fun and distractions. At this point, some of them imagine that it was your influence as a player, while others think that it was you who restored the space, after all the only thing that was akin to that before you was Leo's Memory, but it was reserved for matches and they couldn't always enjoy knowing that they were being hunted. Fortunately, it didn't take too long for them to want to cease their curiosities.

What a magical sight it is to see the kids indulging in snowball fights, some survivors like Andrew and Ganji trying to get used to the slippery ice while others like Mike and Martha skated around naturally. On the other side, Anne, Galatea, and Emma trying to build as many snowmen as they can (there are at least 10 of them already, stop them before the whole snow terrain is filled 💀.) while the rest such as Norton, Michiko, Fiona and many others enjoy some hot chocolate and talk. Joseph of course doesn't waste his chance on taking pictures of basically everything.

I don't like how this went but I'm just trying to clarify my thoughts anyway lol

[arimiadev]

Developer Interview — Making A Date with Death

6 months ago, a brand new self-insert romance visual novel hit the market called A Date with Death, created by visual novel veterans Two and a Half Studios. Coming off of the success of The Divine Speaker, they dived into the chat sim space in visual novels with a huge splash. A Date with Death is currently sitting at over 5,000 positive reviews on Steam with a Kickstarter for an after story launching this week.

Read the interview on my blog or read it below.

Arimia: Hi Gabby, thanks for sitting down to talk about A Date with Death! Both of us have been into visual novels for quite a while, but what got you into them?

Gabby: I feel like my introduction to visual novels was probably similar to a lot of people my age…. and that was being on Tumblr too much and being introduced to Dramatical Murder much too young, and installing the fantranslation for myself and all of my friends, hahaha. From there I played the rest of the N+C games, and then moved to things like No Thank You! since it had a translation. After that I moved further to Japanese games that didn’t have a translation. These were 95% BL as well – I’ve played one or two otome games in my time but never really been super into them.

Actually, when I first got into development, I hadn’t played any Western visual novels yet. It was only after I started in game development that I tried more indie visual novels in general.

As for my favorite VNs, I have a few favorites! My first favorite and it’ll always have my heart is Lamento. It was kind of the culmination of a lot of different things I love in media, and I still love the game. There’s another untranslated game I really like called Pigeon Blood. I actually helped with some editing of translations for some of the routes a looong, long time ago. A more recent favorite, and probably my favorite overall, is MAMIYA! MAMIYA is a Japanese indie visual novel by KENKOULAND which I will happily shill over my own games (LOL) about a group of people at the “end of the world”. The way the story is presented, I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like it, and I found it very inspiring. I was lucky enough to work with the creator Kokoroten on an animation for my own game Dreambound, which was fantastic.

Arimia: Would you believe I’ve never played DMMD? Definitely cut from the same cloth though about being exposed from too much Tumblr time and hearing about all of these Japanese VNs that would never get localized over here, but now Fate/Stay Night is coming to Steam in a few months…. the visual novel landscape has changed so much.

You’ve worked on several boys love and girls love titles before A Date With Death that are more in the fantasy historical realm – how did you come up with the idea for ADWD?

Gabby: Well, we’d actually been wanting to try something more modern for awhile now, despite our love for fantasy settings, and we only happened across a screenshot from another developer’s chat sim and I kind of fell in love with the format. I’ve been really wanting to try my hand at something “cozy”, and though A Date with Death doesn’t really sound cozy on the box, we have a lot of features that I think set well with that crowd. I’m a very big fan of the informal aspect of the writing. I think even in my more serious games, I always lean into humor a little bit and I really enjoy writing banter, so the chat sim format was perfect for that.

(I styled my MC after my character Rose. he’d probably wind up in a shady chatroom like this)

Arimia: Having played some of A Date with Death, I can definitely see how it’s more “cozy” than some of your other games, and I think a lot of the player reactions I’ve seen have shown that too. The overall scope of the game is also on the smaller side, despite the player customization. How did you go about deciding the size of the game? Were there any parts/features you wanted to include but didn’t?

Gabby: Actually, the size is a lot BIGGER than we originally planned. Being our first free to play game, it’s always a little bit of a risk to put a lot of money into something when visual novel development is your livelihood, and obviously with a free game there’s no guarantee of a return. We originally planned for each “day” of the game to be only around 2000 words, for a grand total of 14,000 words for the game. Very short and sweet. Over the development we realized we had a lot more words than originally planned that we wanted to tell, and part of that is owing to just how many choices and options there are. There’s some conversations in the game which people are honestly surprised about because they’ve never managed to get them on any of their playthroughs. The game actually ended up being around 60,000 words, and this should be near doubled when Beyond the Bet releases.

We also included a lot of other things that weren’t originally planned when we concepted the game. We knew we wanted character creation and some degree of room decorating, but we also added a lot of small missable content – like interacting with your pet, watering your plant, reading books on your bookcase, minigames and websites on your computer, eavesdropping on your neighbor… the one thing we had originally planned but cut was voice acting. It’s something we really wanted to do, and we wrote Casper’s character with a very talented voice actor in mind, but it was a bit too much of a risk with the price of it and the unknown of releasing a free game but still making money on it. We don’t believe in having people work for us for free, even on free projects or jam games, so it wasn’t something we were prepared to have someone do for free even though I’m certain we could have.

Luckily, in the end we decided to hold a Kickstarter for the project, and that allows us the possibility of adding voice acting if it goes well!

Arimia: Yeah, it’s definitely a risk to spend so much time and effort on a free project, but I’m glad it worked out in the end. When announcing the game, what was your strategy? Did it differ any from how you announced and marketed your previous games?

Gabby: It was a little different! This is the first time we’ve had TikTok as one of our platforms when announcing a new project, and we knew we wanted to focus a lot of our attention there. Video content is very strong performing we’ve found, but it is definitely a skill in and of itself. We spent a lot of time honing down on our hook and how we could make people get it in a single line. On a platform like TikTok, you have a split second to catch someone’s attention.

We also had a much shorter amount of marketing time than our usual multi-year projects. We knew we wanted it out within a few months of announcing it, so we needed as much impact as possible in a short amount of time. We knew we wanted to get an animated opening since it can be a very powerful piece of marketing material, and I think that was a great idea and we’ll likely continue it going forward.

At the time of announcement, we had less than 10,000 followers on Twitter. Twitter is probably my favorite platform, but it was kind of falling off for us a little when we were ready to announce A Date with Death – but it just took off after we announced the game. We had a multi-month document with marketing beats and announcements we’d make over the few months we had, but with everything taking off much more than we expected we added to it a lot. I think you always have to be ready to adapt to change quickly in this field.

We actually never planned to market the game as “tease the babygirl”, but it’s something fans latched onto, and you can’t make that kind of marketing yourself, I think. We really leaned into our audience and what THEY thought of the game, and used that to our advantage in a way. I’m very thankful for whoever first asked if he was a babygirl.

Arimia: Twitter (was) probably my favorite platform too, mainly because it’s so easy to just make a quick post or update. TikTok has so much reach but it’s just so much easier to tweet a meme out somedays.

A little side question- with the name having the word “death” in it, were you worried about SEO / being censored on social media, or did it affect you? When I was creating Drops of Death years ago, I was worried social media platforms would suppress posts about it but ultimately went with it because it fit with the serial killer theme.

Gabby: Actually we weren’t too worried about that – we’ve definitely used words like death, kill, murderer, etc. in relation to our other games before and haven’t have much trouble. There ARE certain words especially on TikTok that it’s best to censor, but I haven’t had any problem using the name anywhere and we were prepared to risk it to use the name we wanted.

Arimia: It’s definitely a catchy name that summarizes the experience well. Back to the part where when people were first getting exposed to the concept and came up with Grim being a babygirl— how would you advise other devs to understand what keywords and pitches work better for their games?

Gabby: My first suggestion is to look at similar games to yours and the words they use. Look at the concept of your story and try to boil it down to a paragraph, then a sentence. Look at what makes your game unique, or how you can lean into what fans will get out of your work. Give your players elements that they can recognize instantly without a lengthy explanation.

“A romance chat sim where you flirt with and/or bully the Grim Reaper”

“Compete against the Grim Reaper to keep your soul… or die trying”

“Create your custom MC and flirt with the man trying to take your soul”

I use all of these in our marketing, because even though there’s a lot more to the game we’re not talking about, this is a hook that can capture someone’s attention straight away and then you can funnel them to your game.

Arimia: Getting hooks down can be such a difficult part but it’s so, so important. What do you think helped you most marketing-wise?

Gabby: It’s a tough question. We did a lot, and had huge amount of attention from all over the place and it just snowballed more, and more, and more. I think honestly what started the snowball was TikTok. Once we had one video go big, we were having multiple a week go 30k-400k views. We were getting 500-1300 wishlists per day for months. A lot of people joined our Discord from there and went to follow us on Twitter. TikTok is hard and the format is a lot to handle when you’re new to the platform, but it was absolutely worthwhile for us. Another thing I’ll quickly note – reuse your content. I just repost my TikToks to Insta Reels and they get a similar, if not more views, for no extra effort.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Two and a Half Studios (@twohalfstudios)

Arimia: Yeah, it’s wild how quickly TikTok can blow up for someone. I’ve had posts get 100k+ views and then a few posts later they’ll struggle to hit 1k.

Side note: Gabby has written about her experiences with TikTok on her blog. You can also read about my discussions on TikTok marketing for visual novels here.

What do you think was the least effective thing you did for marketing?

Gabby: I suppose Steam events this time around kind of paled in comparison to our own marketing efforts. They’re always worth doing though – any Steam events you can get into, participate in them! You’ll always see some kind of return. But for us, an event giving 200-300 wishlists was just a drop in the water. Not at all not worth doing, but certainly it wasn’t a huge focus for us this time around.

[A]ny Steam events you can get into, participate in them!

Apart from that, I posted also to some other social media sites like bluesky, but I didn’t find it very worthwhile and stopped rather quickly. There’s only so much time in a day, and as the only person handling all of the marketing, it just wasn’t worth it.

Arimia: For newbie devs, what would you recommend they focus on? TikTok, Twitter, or something else?

Gabby: I think TikTok is the easiest platform to hit it big on “fast”. I say “fast” because it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to hit it big, it really depends how well you adapt to the platform, but your content there has a chance of being seen, even without any followers at all. That’s probably why I recommend it as a platform for new and old visual novel devs alike.

I think you’ll also find that once you pick up the format, it can be pretty fun to make. I think platforms like Twitter are easier to use, but getting started on them is hard. VNs are so visual heavy so we already have so much content that works well on TikTok. Of course, there could be problems in the future with using TikTok in the US, so we’ll see how that goes.

It’s best to focus on a few places though, and not to put all of your eggs in one basket. When you’re putting your audience in places that can go away, it’s always a risk, so it’s good to spread them between places like TikTok, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

Arimia: Yeah, I think one thing devs forget is that these social media platforms are ran by big tech that don’t care about the little guys – if your account gets banned or falsely flagged, what are you going to do if you can’t get it back? Always best to have more than one site you’re posting on, but you don’t want to spread yourself too thin.

At what point in ADWD’s development cycle did you start marketing it? It was a pretty short development cycle to begin with.

Gabby: We started working on the concept of A Date with Death January of last year, and announced it on the 5th of July. This wasn’t really 6-7 months of dev time though – we were working on two of our other games at the time. By that point, we’d finished maybe half of the game and announced the game in time for the Steam Visual Novel Fest a month later.

This was actually pretty successful for us, and gave us a decent boost to start from. We then released the demo at the end of September in time for Steam Next Fest, which was a bit more meh for us despite going in with a high wishlist velocity. We then released the game at the start of December. But, like I said, we were working full time on Dreambound and The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon, so I think we could have made it in much less time if we didn’t have other games on our plate.

My suggestion is to announce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post. My strat is usually announce the game at the same time the Steam page is ready, so you can use the announcement to drive people straight to it. A trailer can be another marketing beat, and then lead up to the demo release. Going in with a solid marketing plan is a great idea, too.

Side note: despite the short amount of time to market the game, they were able to enter it into at least 2 different Steam-ran festivals! That’s a great boost to wishlists and they usually don’t require much work from yourself.

[A]nnounce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post.

Arimia: Once you’ve worked on a few games it’s a lot easier to gauge when that sweet spot is, but when you haven’t it’s definitely hard to figure out. I usually go with how much progress I have towards something playable like a demo. When ADWD was ready to release, how did you reach out to press?

Gabby: Actually, I didn’t sent out any press releases for the full game! I can’t tell you exactly if this was a good thing or not – but the way I’ve done it for all of my other games is that I send out a press release and streamer keys for the demo only. Especially for A Date with Death, we already had a lot of press and streamer interest naturally, so we decided to use our time for other forms of marketing and polishing up the game instead.

For the demo though, we curated a list of ~70 people to send out early keys to. I think this is quite worthwhile in hyping up the demo release, and it’s quite easy these days with tools like sullygnome.

Arimia: What lessons learnt from your previous games did you bring with you when making ADWD?

Gabby: We’ve been very lucky to work with our amazing artist Fuyuure for over six years now, so we came in with a great team who worked incredibly well together. I think that was a big bonus – working on something like a big character creator can be a difficult task for many artists, because of the sheer amount of assets you need. So, I would say coming in with a talented team who were ready for their tasks was a massive boon.

I think working on so many games beforehand prepared us to make the game in the time we did. We usually work on bigger, multi-year projects, and this was our first proper commercial endeavor into a smaller game. Our experience helped us to pinpoint exactly what we would need, which is a lot less than our other projects. The game actually only has 5 CGs, which is less than usual for us, but I think we managed to do it in a way where it doesn’t feel lacking, either. Getting scope right is a difficult thing and it’s easy to want to include anything and everything, but we were very particular about what we wanted and how long it would take.

Arimia: I can definitely see how that helped – working with people you’re already comfortable with can alleviate a lot of stress. For the A Date with Death: Beyond the Bet Kickstarter, how did you prepare the marketing campaign for it? How long did that pre-planning take you?

Gabby: We really started planning the new DLC the day A Date with Death launched last December. We knew we wanted to make more content, and with Dreambound nearly complete it was a good time to start thinking of running a new campaign. I would say the preplanning took a couple of months – working on a good date, working with lots of artists on new merch, setting up the page, getting the page to our graphic designer to make some images up for it… running a Kickstarter is definitely a lot of work! Even organizing the tiers takes some time.

We prepared mostly by getting the prelaunch page up as early as possible and getting the word out on all of our socials – Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, Reels, Steam itself, Discord, our email list, itch…. basically, did a big blast out everywhere and we had a huge amount of people come and prelaunch straight away. We also really enjoy doing countdown images the week before launching – it lets us work with a bunch of amazing artists, and we use the art for rewards during the campaign too (as prints). Being our third campaign, we came into it knowing what we had to do, which is a big timesaver. For new developers, I’ll say don’t sleep on the prelaunch time – it’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Honestly, the support so far has blown our mind. With a similar amount of prep, Dreambound launched with less than 300 followers on the page, but as of writing this we’re already over 4500 on A Date with Death.

[I]t’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Arimia: Even though I’ve helped run and advised several Kickstarters before, there’s always something I forget or push off until the last minute. Was there anything you learned from the Dreambound KS that you used/did differently for the ADWD KS?

Gabby: Oh, for sure. I learned a lot about my tiers and page organization from our past Kickstarters. We actually have a lot more tiers than usual on this Kickstarter and I don’t think we’d be able to manage that without our past experiences.

If I had to pick one thing from the Dreambound Kickstarter that I’ve changed for A Date with Death’s, we decided to have all of our stretch goals viewable from the get-go. I enjoyed the “unlocking” of stretch goals we had before, but with the amount of attention I think we’ll get, it’s just easier to lay everything out for everyone.

Arimia: Yeah, I imagine you’ll probably be hitting stretch goals pretty early on with how many people are excited for the KS. Aside from social media like TikTok and Twitter, how do you keep your audience interested?

Gabby: I think one of the things that mobile games have as an advantage is continuously adding more content and patches. That really keeps people interested and coming back to your game and characters. Obviously we don’t really have a big enough team or enough time to be adding more and more content, so keeping people interested can be quite tough. We were very conscious of this when deciding WHEN to hold a Kickstarter in the first place – if we wait too long, people will move on. It’s already been 6 months since the game released, after all.

There’s multiple ways we’ve kept people interested during these months. One is that we funneled a lot of people to our Patreon, where we have exclusive art every month from the game, as well as behind the scenes stuff about the new DLC. We then can tease these on social media too, and drip feeding content works pretty well to keep people interested.

Another is we now have near 8000 members in our Discord, and these people become some of your core audience. We encourage interaction with each other and the game by weekly game questions that players can answer. If you had enough time to organize it, I honestly think even doing daily questions would be a really great idea. Anything to kind of keep people chatting and thinking about the game.

Arimia: To wrap this up – what advice would you give to other visual novel devs?

Gabby: There’s so much I’d like to say, but I’ll just give a few pieces of advice that I think could help newer developers. Don’t think of marketing as a bad thing, or an annoying thing. I see a lot of new developers come in and say “I won’t market. I feel like a shill and my game will speak for itself”. I think this is a huge mistake, because people won’t play your game if they don’t know it exists. Marketing can be fun! Share your little stories with the world proudly, don’t feel bad about that.

If you want to do game dev as just a hobby, then that’s absolutely fine – but it’s totally possible to do this as a profession, too. My partner and I have been working on visual novels full time for over two years now. A lot of people tend to think that’s there’s no money in visual novels, but I would say that’s not true at all. It’s hard work – like all small businesses are – and not every game is going to be wildly profitable, but it’s totally possible with a good game and good marketing. Keep making the games you love, doing market research to see what other people love, and you might be able to find a good crossover.

-------------------

And there you have it, some insight into the development and creation of A Date with Death! If you haven’t already, check the game out – the base game is completely free to play on Steam and itch.io. You can check out their social media here:

Twitter – TikTok – Tumblr

Support their Kickstarter!

[shal]

LU UPDATE!!!

Twi's faces omg they were so amazing this update

Plus his little puppy dog head tilt is hilarious I love it

Hyrule did the pose!!!! So many memories of every time I've gotten a rupee and a little cut scene plays shot into my head all at once lol.

Look at this angle!!! Look at the little guy go!!!

Also, Wild, I love your enthusiasm, but shrines and dungeons are not necessarily that similar. I haven't played a lot of the legend of Zelda games (mostly just twilight princess, breath of the wild, tears of the kingdom, and a little bit of ocarina of time and Majora's mask) but I know that, especially in twilight princess, the dungeons could take forever, and you had to remember what was in every room and where each room and puzzle piece/answer was, and shrines are very isolated with a pretty obvious goal. Also, most notably, a lack of monsters that are likely to jump out at you at any moment.

When I saw this I immediately thought of the ace attorney meme lol.

I also think legend is justified in his caution. He's gone through a lot of adventures (he's the Veteran for a reason) so he knows just how dangerous a dungeon can be. Doesn't mean he's the best at explaining himself, but I'm not either, so I can't judge.

I love Wind so much, he's ready to just jump in there and start, we stan. (Plus Sky's hilarious here and I love it)

THIS LAST PANEL KILLED ME THOUGH

I mean, Four's not wrong, and he would know out of everyone there (I remember a lot of fighting going on in the manga), but the way he said it just killed me. Plus his face in that last panel with the height difference, omg it's hilarious I love it.

Also I'm in love with how Jojo draws every character in so many different poses and angles, but there would be wayyyy too many photos to add to show that.

[skaruresonic]

I also forgot that one of the very first things we saw Flynnified Lanolin do was express her gratitude to Sonic. I think the idea was that he had inspired her to actually take action... but her approach is far more proactive than Sonic, who simply reacts to Eggman's wrongdoings.

If contained, this isn't a bad idea for a conflict. It fits with the general idea that she's high-strung and inexperienced, and doesn't want anyone to suffer like she did, while Sonic has been in the game (lol) for far longer and he's more relaxed.

But Lanolin has degenerated so much that it looks like she has legit spiralled into a breakdown. Now she is so rigid that she has become abusive, creating a climate of fear and control with her own companions - she has gaslighted Whisper in the real sense of the word! Her empathy for newbies makes her blind to Duo's obvious lies, while she holds veterans like Silver to such a high standard that any perceived failure deserves a verbal lashing out - but without the willingness to listen, to accept that maybe her assumptions were wrong, because she doesn't want to show any sign of vulnerability. And it feels like she holds so much resentment in her heart that she snaps at anyone vaguely irritating her, from Tangle playing to Sonic not moving out of the road fast enough (who cares about the possibility of them being hurt? Certainly not her! Everything has to flow smoothly and wounded people are simply a hindrance!)

And now we have ABT giving us a Lanolin who has been consumed so much by her own bitterness that she has gone from seeing Sonic as a hero to an irresponsible force of nature who simply doesn't care enough about anything. A danger. Something she cannot hold on a leash. Something to fear and look with suspicion. (and may have attempted to attack him, ABT's sketches are very confusing)

I would almost be impressed by this tragic villain arc, if I wasn't sure nothing I said is intentional.

I think the idea was that he had inspired her to actually take action... but her approach is far more proactive than Sonic, who simply reacts to Eggman's wrongdoings.

You know, I kind of think maybe we're even shortchanging Sonic by calling him "reactive." I know what you mean, but most people tend to exaggerate the whole "Sonic isn't proactive" thing to mean "Sonic isn't a perfect hero because he isn't surveilling Eggman 24/7."

We've seen this before with Flynn's "Eggman stormed Prison Island without knowing what Project Shadow was" argument. As if Eggman needs to be psychic and know what a classified top-secret military experiment is before he breaches the place and finds out for himself.

While it's true that Sonic doesn't take preemptive measures against Eggman, he also can't be expected to keep tabs on the guy all the time. (How ironic, then, that the one time he promises to check up on Tinker in issue 6, he actively neglects his duty.)

He does what he can with the knowledge he possesses. It's not like he can magically intuit that Eggman's going to go steal Ancient Document #3,487 and wake up another beast.

Plus, it doesn't mesh well with his freespirited nature. Superheroes are morally burdened by their self-imposed duties and obligations. Sonic just has awesome adventures because why not.

---

If contained, this isn't a bad idea for a conflict. It fits with the general idea that she's high-strung and inexperienced, and doesn't want anyone to suffer like she did, while Sonic has been in the game (lol) for far longer and he's more relaxed.

Not sure I agree. We've seen the "no one should suffer the way I have" thing from Shadow and the whole high-strung schtick from Blaze.

I don't really see what else Lanolin is bringing to the table other than that she's a normie. And frankly, her personality is too underwhelming to rely on relatability. We don't even know if the girl has any hobbies aside from ordering people around.

---

But Lanolin has degenerated so much that it looks like she has legit spiralled into a breakdown. Now she is so rigid that she has become abusive, creating a climate of fear and control with her own companions - she has gaslighted Whisper in the real sense of the word!

Nah man, she's peak because she's nasty and unpleasant. Let stronk women be bitches. Something something.

Kind of raises the brow how quick she is to resort to violence when she feels "threatened" by Whisper. You'd think she'd be more of a flighter instead of a fighter.

---

Her empathy for newbies makes her blind to Duo's obvious lies, while she holds veterans like Silver to such a high standard that any perceived failure deserves a verbal lashing out - but without the willingness to listen, to accept that maybe her assumptions were wrong, because she doesn't want to show any sign of vulnerability. And it feels like she holds so much resentment in her heart that she snaps at anyone vaguely irritating her, from Tangle playing to Sonic not moving out of the road fast enough (who cares about the possibility of them being hurt? Certainly not her! Everything has to flow smoothly and wounded people are simply a hindrance!)

Yep.

Control freak.

---

And now we have ABT giving us a Lanolin who has been consumed so much by her own bitterness that she has gone from seeing Sonic as a hero to an irresponsible force of nature who simply doesn't care enough about anything.

Which is dehumanizing towards Sonic, as well as belittling. Sonic does care. He demonstrates his care through his actions and the kindness he gives people.

Also, didn't Archie characterize Sonic as a living force of chaos? Hmm.

---

A danger.

Ironic, considering he bothered to save people from the mess she made.

---

Something she cannot hold on a leash.

The Sally Sheeples arguments are starting to look more and more convincing by the minute.

---

Something to fear and look with suspicion.

Again, though, why? She thanked him for saving her town in issue 57. Now all of a sudden she's afraid of Sonic?

And if that's the case, why is she sticking around? Why can't she do the sensible thing and ask Jewel to relocate her to go work somewhere else where she won't have to be around people she perceives as ticking time bombs? If she views Sonic and co. as a threat, then why doesn't SHE take any measures to protect herself? Clearly she can't feel that unsafe around them, otherwise she wouldn't even think to scold them.

That's the frustrating thing about Lanolin. She's supposed to be this no-nonsense drill sergeant, yet continuously expects the world to bend to her expectations rather than assume any agency herself. God forbid our stronk women make decisions! Heavens no.

The only logical explanation is that Lanolin is such a huge fucking control freak that even Sonic the Hedgehog must abide by her strict standards, his previous heroism be damned.

---

(and may have attempted to attack him, ABT's sketches are very confusing)

She reached into her cowbell to withdraw her Wisp. Doing that crossed the threshold from mere fantasy to premeditation, imo. It's one thing to fantasize about someone you hate dying - quite another to essentially reach for a knife hidden in your pocket while their back is turned.

[celestie0]

so out of the gojos who do u think is most likely to fall asleep between readers thighs like face still all up in there absolutely pussy drunk fucked out

yh maybe ihm daddy is the biggest munch cause by his old age he got that veteran experience

but like kickoff gojos such a big baby and ik he’s a reformed F boy but you did explain in chapter 7 I think that and he’s a no feels attached type guy and just a whore wanting to be layed 24/7 and we have every right to a call him an asshole

(LOVEEE THIS TROPE HE FELLLL SO HARD AAHH <3)

So I feel like it was just mutual pleasure and shi he was never big on the pillow princess treatment but maybe he gave head as pay back for a good bj

but with reader ofc he worships her and I feel like he’d be SO addicted and stuff his face in her any chance he gets a chance and then shed come down from her high and start stroking his hair and looks up to see him literally passed out with his face still snuggling near his sweet haven and she thinks its so cute and takes a picture

Anyway and option number 3 is retail au gojo bc I haven’t forgotten abt him and we already know he eats till his jaw is fucked

unless reader meant it when she said he’s not that good lol

-spinster anon 🤭

i think ihm gojo would bc he's an old man (i'm just kidding i don't think being in your 30s is old lmfaooo) and so he'd probs pass out after sex or after eatin her out or sumn lol. dude's exhausted tryna pay his mortgage. so reader running her fingers thru his hair while his head's still btwn her thighs wld get him knocked out in ten seconds flat loool.

but kickoff gojo? he's the robust age of 22. i remember when i was 22. i had all the energy in the world (jk i would rot in bed for hours) hahah so idk ab kickoff gojo passing out btwn reader's thighs. i feel like he the type to be energized asf after eating her out. like he'd make a habit of doin it before games just for the euphoria that he'd later channel into his plays on the field. some ego thing probably idk

HAHAH thanks for including retail au gojo in consideration. fuck ihm gojo and kickoff gojo cuz l&l gojo canonically ate l&l reader out for two hours in a storage closet LMFAODSFJDS. and no babe he's good at giving head, l&l reader just can't focus on cumming bc she's too worried ab getting caught n getting fired 💀💀

[incorrectsibunaquotes]

I have a theory that the reason we as an audience feel like Sibuna in Season 3b are making monumentally stupid choices is because the show doesn’t actually spell out for us that the kids don’t have all the information we have. In fact, they are operating with less than half of our knowledge. (This is gonna be a longgggg post, so read under the cut if you dare)

On my latest rewatch of S3 for fanfic purposes, i found myself really struggling to justify why the hell Eddie couldn’t put two and two together with his vision of Patricia and the “traitor” in Sibuna. I was frustrated with him because to me it was incredibly obvious! Like who else could it possibly be?? But then, I rewatched it again with a closer eye and everything suddenly clicked:

We, the audience, are watching the action from a completely zoomed out angle. We’re not just following Sibuna, but we’re also following Team Evil. We know Robert is capturing Sinners and what a Sinner actually is, before Sibuna is even fully aware that they failed to stop the eclipse ceremony. The kids metaphorically tripped at the starting line.

Furthermore, this is the first time in the show that the Sibunas have not had either the upper hand or were even on equal playing field with the adults. In Season 1, the Society was wholly unprepared for a bunch of adolescents to start foiling in their plans (bc why would they be prepared for that??), and Sibuna basically destroyed them due to adults underestimating their willingness to fuck around and find out. In Season 2, Victor/Vera and Sibuna were on equal ground; no one knew how to solve the tasks and it was a matter of a bunch of separate parties trying to figure it out before each other. They were all just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it stuck.

At the top of Season 3, we play a lot with both the S1 and S2 dynamics. At first, Sibuna is leagues and bounds ahead of the adults, and then they pretty quickly end up on the same footing. Then, in the second half of the season, that entire dynamic is flipped on its head, and it’s Sibuna who are wholly unprepared for the adults. I’ve talked about how the kids, especially our Sibuna veterans, got a little too comfortable with Victor and co’s ineptitude and cocky with their own intelligence… but that’s not even why they were so slow on the uptake.

None of the Sibunas even hear the word “Sinner” until they find that book in the secret room and read it while sitting on the stage. And the book does not explain at all what a Sinner actually is. It tells them that Ammut needs “the souls of five human sinners who embody the greatest flaws of mankind” and once she has five of them she can enter the human realm and cause lots of problems. Absolutely nowhere in the book does it ever say “Also, much like Robert, the soulless body of the Sinner is reawakened in service to the underworld.” The only other hint that could have possibly clued anyone in is “when your friends are not your friends”. But like, that clue was ages ago! Why would they even be thinking about that, when it had absolutely no bearing on their hunt for the secret room/answers up to that point? I cannot stress this enough, THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT A SINNER IS! (I’m gonna repeat this sentence about 400 times in case you don’t get it now lol) Mind you, that atp in the timeline, this is approximately fifteen or so minutes before Denby captures Patricia.

But let’s rewind all the way back to when Team Evil devises a plan to kidnap Eddie. He’s in the crypt, right? It’s pretty evident to him that it was probably Denby, Victor, and/or Robert who trapped him here, but he’s got no real clue as to why. Of course, we all know that they’re planning on turning him into a Sinner, because we saw Victor get turned. But as far as Sibuna knows, Victor has never really been on their side, so all they think is that he’s being meaner than usual but of course he’s opposing them. That’s not strange.

Okay, so Eddie is stuck and distressed, but he’s not as panicked as he needs to be because nowhere in his mind does he think this could potentially end in what is essentially his death. Now, throw in the horrifying vision he has of Patricia getting dragged into a glowing sarcophagus. He still doesn’t know what a Sinner is, but he knows that whatever he just saw was really bad; it’s an incentive from the Osirian spirit (or the house, or the gods, or literally whatever) to actually try to get the hell out of there.

So we’re all sitting here watching going “Oh my god they’re gonna nab Patricia and make her evil! 😰” because we have context; Eddie has absolutely none. It’s also really important for later on that his vision ends when the sarcophagus door shuts. It’s framed as incredibly final, and for all Eddie knows, they’ve just stuffed Patricia in what he knows is a tiny cramped space and locked the door behind her. He thinks that at best they are going to kidnap her or, at worst, straight up kill her. Nothing in that vision indicates she’s walking out of there at all.

When Patricia ran off after the fake messages, Eddie is concerned for a lot of different reasons, but the two primary ones are the obvious “oh my god my girlfriend thinks I cheated on her what do I do???” and the other is “if she’s run off on her own, the adults could fulfill my vision!” But then she turns back up, which should be clear to us by now means that he thinks she’s safe. He’s waiting for her (for any of them) to disappear. But when none of them do, they think it’s fine. It’s not that Eddie doesn’t think Patricia is in danger of becoming a Sinner, he just doesn’t realize what that would actually look like.

Even when they’re all in the hallway morbidly joking about having to give up sinning, the language KT uses is telling of what they think being a Sinner means: “We don’t want to accidentally help out Team Evil [by sinning].” Of course, this statement works with the knowledge the audience has of everything, but if Sibuna actually knew what they were dealing with, KT would have said something more like “We don’t want to get captured/turned by Team Evil.” The jokes they’re making are still morbid, but because they think you just get put in the sarcophagus and that’s the end of it.

Let’s flash forward again to the phonograph getting smashed and Eddie’s second vision that prompts the witch hunt panic in the first place. The vision can be separated into three parts: 1) Eddie sees a hooded figure smash the phonograph (okay Sibuna already knows someone did it on purpose, not too crazy); 2) Robert approaches him creepily and has the mic-drop moment of “it was one of your little friends; you have a viper in your nest” (seriously what a raw line of dialogue… but also now Eddie is being told that there is a traitor. Pretty cut and dry); 3) he turns around and sees every other member of Sibuna mockingly throw up the Sibuna sign (uh oh!)

So here is where people (including me!) always got a little annoyed with Eddie for not doing the math. But upon several rewatches and actually listening to what everyone was saying, never once do any of the kids ever bring up the word “Sinner” during the entirety of this whodunnit arc. And that’s simply because it’s not even a thought that crosses their minds. The language they use is very telling: “traitor” and “betrayal” being the heavy hitters. If any of them actually had context for what was actually going on, the language they would be using would be more like “victim” or literally just “Sinner” as a noun. But they don’t, which is why they’re so hostile toward one another… and why KT was screwed from the moment Eddie had that vision.

Because the fact that they don’t know that a Sinner is an evil version of themselves (not just someone whose soul is being used as a power generator), means that on a subconscious level Fabian, Alfie, and even Eddie already assumed KT was guilty. And Sinner!Patricia knew that, and that’s why she was so easily able to pivot and pin it on her. KT was directly linked to Frobisher, and Fabian and Alfie had already been suspicious of her at the start of the season for other reasons. It’s why Fabian let Patricia help him with the finger printing in the first place: because he doesn’t believe it’s her. And Eddie would have no real reason to suspect Patricia for three reasons: 1) Because he’s in love with her; 2) Because he knows just how long Patricia (and Fabian, and Alfie) have been loyal to Sibuna and to each other; 3) Because he, like everyone else, was looking at this betrayal as a willing capitulation to the Team Evil.

The first time Sibuna becomes aware that a Sinner is an entity that they have to actually watch out for walking about (as opposed to just having to watch out becoming), is after KT and Harriet manage to escape Patricia in the Gatehouse. Harriet clearly knows what a Sinner is bc she has the presence of mind to actually explain (vaguely, of course, because she’s drugged to kingdom come) to KT what she’d just narrowly escaped.

And then when she confronts Sibuna and Patricia in the hallway after Miss Crocodile Tears is telling tales about KT trying to kidnap her, KT drops the bomb on the boys: “She was trying to make me a Sinner just like her!” Pause. Record scratch. Okay. Now everything they thought they knew about the situation is completely recontextualized as something much more sinister than what they initially thought. Because I’d always struggled with how cruel they were being to KT, especially if they thought it wasn’t her fault. But everything up until this point deeply suggests or rather expects us to understand that Sibuna only had two pieces of an 100 piece puzzle, and that them being mean to KT was because they thought she actually betrayed them.

With all of this in mind, Eddie is not stupid for not figuring it out right away. In fact, without knowing what a Sinner actually is, it would be an insane leap to assume Patricia had anything to do with the phonograph.

I’ve basically talked myself and all of you in several circles, but the bottom line is the show didn’t do a fabulous job of telling us that Sibuna had no clue what they were up against. It’s easy for us to sit back and go “what the hell is wrong with them are they stupid?” because we have all the knowledge of what’s going on eons before they do. This is a far more charitable read of the characters’ choices and thought process, and the only way any of their actions make any sense. In fact, this is less of a theory and more of what is… literally canon, I guess

[gachagon]

Anyways I think I've always wanted to write about why I like Kunigiri so much but tbh it's simply because they're partners who understand one another. And I am a sucker for the "Character A is acting all edgy and like a loner, but Character B knows they're full of shit" trope.

I eat it up every time idk something about it is kind of funny to me. And yeah I did write a oneshot where Chigiri pretty much tells Kunigami off for being all distant, but I also like that canonically when they have their little reunion Chigiri just continues to treat him like he's always treated him (because he knows Kunigami's full of shit lol)

Chigiri even looks a little annoyed that he really has to "play along" with Kunigami's new edgy persona. "Really? You're really about to try this with me now, too? You're not fooling me, dude." Everyone is treating Kunigami like he's a war veteran except for Chigiri and I find that to be so funny. Especially since Chigiri was the "mysterious loner with a dark past" in the first volume, and Kunigami was the one who was full of hope and happy ideals. Now their roles have completely reversed. I like to think Chigiri knows Kunigami is just acting this way out of a false sense of security because he used to act this way when he first got to Blue Lock.

[fourstarsoutofnine]

A/n:this is purely self indulgent lol. Wrote this as a vent bc legend, despite my whole blog being four themed, is a major comfort and I need that at the moment. This is titled slow dancing in the dark but really that’s the only reference to the song. The title just gave me the little idea. Also, I love to headcanon twi has a guitar bc it fits him. Cmon he’s a country boy. Ofc it does.

Slow dancing in the dark

Legend x reader.

You both could hear the laughter of the rest of the group, all sitting around the fire as they shared stories and sang songs, playing the instruments they had on them. Sky had a harp, the rancher had a guitar, the old man had his ocarina—it was a night of smiles and music…

Except for you and the vet. Well—mainly you. The vet just was so head over heels for you that seeing you upset ripped his heart out. You were the best of all of them—what made you look so sad? You don’t even have to say names—just point. He’ll make sure whatever did it never does it again. And if he can’t? Hylia knows he’ll do his best. You weren’t singing, you weren’t laughing, you were hardly even smiling. He didn’t want that to go on for any longer. He stood as the group was starting their next song and walked over to you, extending his hand. You looked up.

“Huh..?” You made a sound of confusion, eyebrows furrowing together as you squinted at the veteran. He was smiling softly.

“Dance with me.” He said as simple as a hello.

“What?” You couldn’t believe your ears. He shocked you right out of your own head—and for good reason, too, it was a little rough in there at the moment.

“You heard me, y/n. Dance with me.” His smile only grew, the faintest laugh accompanying it. You reached out and took his hand. He pulled you close and let his other hand rest on your waist. He rested his forehead against yours. “I don’t Know what’s been on your mind, sweetheart, but I don’t want you to think about it anymore right now, okay? You’re in your own head so much. Come out of it. Be with us.” He spoke softly as the two of you swayed. “Your problems May seem so big and bad now, but that’s because you up-play them. When you think about it constantly it makes it seem bigger…” he spun you around, making you gasp a bit then laugh quietly. He laughed with you. “But when you take a step back.” He stepped back with you following. “And open your eyes to what’s around you.” He spun you again, making you giggle. “You can go back in and think about the situation in a different light.” He kissed your forehead. “You won’t always feel this way, lovely. Bad things don’t last forever.”

He heard a hiccup and a sniffle from under him and he looked down. Tears were welling and began pouring down your face. He enveloped you in a tight and secure hug, warmth spreading across your body in a way that made you feel nothing but safe and loved. He pulled you gently down to the ground and let you rest in his lap as he rocked back and forth, letting you feel your emotions for however long you needed to. He hummed quietly to the music, the rest of your group none the wiser to your little feels session a little bit away from them. That rocking and humming, along with the exhaustion that always came after crying, put you to sleep. He looked down and smiled sadly, kissing your hairline. “Goodnight, y/n…” he looked up at the boys laughing and singing and his smile remained. “I hope your dreams are nice…”

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I know this is being presented as an Invictus related recce visit by the Sussexes. But let's be honest, there is no way that Nigeria would be able to host Invictus. Not now not in 2027.

Invictus involves participation of 23 different countries. The wounded vets of these 23 countries are treated as national assets. At least officially, on paper and in world stage they are. Nigeria being a security threat, level 4 in some places of the country, would be a big no no. Govt of these 23 countries would not allow their nationals, let alone decorated veterans, to go enmass to a country like that. The govt protocol would simply not allow that.

It's not about whether Nigeria can afford financially to host the event. It's not about how well this so-called tour goes. It's not about tourism and promoting it (which again, for the same reasons as above, becomes practically impossible).

A speculation is that this is probably about some behind the scenes deals. Since the military is involved we know this is true to some extent. We know the UK is not involved, but Harry has worked with the US military closely over the past 2 years. (For what purpose, God only knows). So maybe they are involved. And this tour is a good stage setting to take some meetings while everyone is focussed on Meghan's fashion. Lol

I would be interested in seeing who accompanies them. How big or small their entoury is. Who exactly is travelling with them. Or travel for this thing. All the names. Who meets them. How they travel to and from the country. What events they attend and where.

Since you are the national security anon I wouldn't need to spell this out for you, but you know how these would/could. I think this is a dummy visit, the real purpose is something else. And Harry and Meghan are just getting the money for Invictus and good PR in return so they are going along with it. I wouldn't go so far as to say H is a secret agent, he isn't smart enough for that. But he is a good patsy. A willing patsy. All he needs is his ego massaged. So he is a usable patsy.

Nigeria would be hosting the 2029 games. Plenty of time for them to turn it around if they wanted to but I think Nigeria is just playing chess, using the Sussexes to get more from the UK/Commonwealth while balancing offers from Russia and China too.