#so even if it was contrived I give it a pass

[syruubi]

Man its been weeks and I’m still soured by the conclusion to Fontaine’s main story. I'll just rant here

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about it (Arlecchino's altruism being played straight, Traveler being out of character, the lore exposition ass-pull with the prophecy slates, the weird logic about how destroying a Gnosis could potentially wake up the Heavenly Principles but not fucking destroying an Archon Throne when Celestia forced everyone to fight a GODDAMN WAR TO ESTABLISH THEM-) but the biggest offense to me was how Furina was handled. This was marketed as the grand finale of the arc, the climax with Furina at the center of it all. And she got shafted. Big time. Furina had no agency in the plot whatsoever, nothing she did had any effect on how things turned out, and she didn’t even have the dignity of fully understanding why it all had to happen that way.

(Also I will preface this with yes Furina and Focalors are technically the same person with the same origin, but after the split Furina lost all her memories as Focalors. They are two separate consciousnesses with different experiences, and therefore I will treat their individual choices as their own)

I’ve seen people try to argue that no, she chose to take on this role knowing she would suffer, that she didn't HAVE to go along with it. And she was even working by herself to solve the prophecy without relying on Focalors, she wasn’t a puppet/pawn! But the thing is she was essentially in a hostage situation. If she didn’t do things exactly as dictated by Focalors people would DIE. Like there is a reason why criminal punishments are lighter when it’s found the perpetrator was coerced into it! And her researching how to avoid the prophecy changed nothing about the outcome, she could have sat around eating cake and the story would have word for word turned out exactly the same. All that information served to do was highlight her suffering and draw the audience’s sympathy. That's what I mean about her not having agency, it's not about her ability to act as an individual but how her actions had an effect on the overall plot. None of her choices outside of the role designated by Focalors did anything to change the situation for better or worse.

And to top it all off she didn’t even understand WHY this all had to happen. Why do people dissolve in the Primordial water? How does her pretending to be an Archon play into solving the issue? Why can’t she confide in anyone? What the hell is Focalors even doing? She doesn’t learn the answers to any of these until after everything was over, and not even from Focalors’ own mouth, it was relayed to her by Neuvillette.

Speaking of Neuvillette, I’m not gonna lie I’m sorta annoyed at his existence because it felt like Furina was shafted for him. Everything is very tilted in Neuvillette's favor. He gets his powers back, full control over Pneuma/Ousia, final say in trials, the ability to hand out Visions, and just straight up the ability to manipulate life itself. And okay all these things were his to begin with lore-wise, whatever, but he also becomes the "lore important" character after this at Furina's expense. Furina doesn't have her memories as Focalors, she can't tell us anything about how the world works, about Celestia, about what happened 500 years ago. Even though other Archons didn't give us much either for one reason or another, they at least HAVE that knowledge, and are therefore guaranteed to have involvement in future events with the Abyss and Celestia. Furina at the moment, doesn't. Neuvillette has it now. And all that talk about Focalors judging Celestia? Also Neuvillette's job now. And it feels like it was all stolen from Furina from a story-telling perspective because again, she didn't know of the plan to return his powers. She didn't even get to explicitly agree with her other self that he should have them back. The writers really seemed to go out of their way to place him on a pedestal at Furina's expense, which irks the hell out of me.

There are some opportunity for future interludes to turn the current state around, and they probably will since Furina is still being marketed as an Archon, but as it stands I want Fontaine to be over so we can move on to the next disappointment.

[pico-farad]

I finished season 1 of Vrains and it was cool but I thought it needed about 2 billion more secret identity shenanigans

extended thoughts below

So I went into a deep dive in my last two posts (1, 2) about all the problems I had with Vrains, and you'd think I didn't enjoy it, but in fact as I was watching, there was a separate, parallel version of Vrains that was playing in my head, a Yugioh I think we were robbed of and which fixes every problem I had with the first season, and that is Secret Identities AU.

Yusaku needs FRIENDS

This is YUGIOH.

This dynamic is everything I wanted from Vrains. Yusaku developing unexpected fondness for these bozos who think he needs a defense squad. I want Miraculous Ladybug levels of secret identity shenanigans. I want Yusaku slapping his duel disk every time Ai tries to blow their cover.

This AU sprung forth from the scene in the duel club where he shows Naoki his decoy deck. Having Yusaku passing as a bad duelist is 1) so funny, but 2) Yusaku needing to maintain his low profile is a useful contrivance for other characters to get more duels, and 3) I think it would be a really fun one-off episode where Yusaku has to duel using his bad deck. When he wins, Naoki is so proud he cries.

Having Yusaku actually have to interact with the other characters in the real world opens up Greek play levels of dramatic irony. The crux of a secret identity story is that every single interaction builds up anticipation, because you the viewer know that the other party is being deceived, and that the tension will snap when the secret is revealed.

I have zero anticipation about Playmaker's identity being revealed, because Aoi would be like "oh.... I guess he goes to my school" and Go would be like "have I seen that guy before?" But SIAU Playmaker? My guy is making friends just so he can betray them. Insane.

Go needs A ROLE IN THE STORY.

I said in my first post that Go isn't a rival or a best friend character. SIAU fixes this by making him both simultaneously.

Having him be the ace of the duel club is a natural replacement for his whole hero of the orphans schtick, while placing him directly the circle of relevance with the other characters. Instead of being disgruntled that the orphans suddenly like Playmaker more than him, he's disgruntled that Naoki and the duel club mooks are fawning over Playmaker -- which is actually just Naoki's character anyway.

I would kill for a big dramatic moment where Go learns that Playmaker and Yusaku are the same person, and even though Go feels betrayed that Yusaku has been deceiving him, he stands by Yusaku anyway because they're friends.

With a secret identity story, every conversation is working on multiple levels because each character is working with asymmetric information. You get these fascinating, layered scenes of two characters talking past each other because they cannot give up their secret.

Which would go especially hard with Go and Yusaku, because Go has legitimate criticisms of Playmaker in canon and Yusaku has legitimate reasoning behind the things he does, and as Go Onizuka and Playmaker they could never come to an understanding on them, but as Go and Yusaku, two friends in duel club, that door becomes open to them.

Aoi needs WRITING THAT ISN'T A TRAINWRECK

I made a whole post on this. Basically every problem would be solved if Akira doesn't know that she's Blue Angel. There's no reason for her to lose grotesquely against Yusaku, or have her basic autonomy called into question constantly. 

Having her actively deceive her brother is delicious. Like I said in my last post, it's so obvious how Akira's overprotectiveness has taken its toll on Aoi, and pushed her into developing this other persona, Blue Angel. I want this absolutely dysfunctional sibling relationship so badly. The Blue Angel vs. Zaizen duel would make me lose my mind.

And a secret identities setting works so well with the potential themes of VRAINS as a stand-in for the internet and Blue Angel as an idol. Give me that Perfect Blue Satoshi Kon good stuff. Give me those themes about identity, and the different lives we live, outward and inward, online and offline.

This also helps Akira's character, because I think he would be much more interesting and relevantly positioned in the story if he stayed a SOL Technologies baddie. SOL Technologies has very little presence in season 1 despite being critical to the story. After Zaizen is replaced by an irrelevant clown, they don't do anything but send out mook AIs to get destroyed. By having a three-way standoff between Yusaku's squad, the Knights of Hanoi, and SOL Technologies, both Hanoi and SOL Technologies become more compelling. They've both got all the reason in the world to want to take down the other. Zaizen vs. Revolver or Spectre? That's good shit.

And don't get me started on how I would turn Revolver into a Secret Identities character.

[zweiginator]

Feeling angsty so imagine being in love with patrick and just constantly thinking you’re his second choice compared to people like art and tashi. You end up breaking up with him because you think you’re just waiting to have your heart broken eventually. You don’t even give him an explanation, just saying its over.

you’re not in the tennis world; you have your own thing going on and it’s hard not to feel insecure when art and tashi are perfect in every sense of the word. attractive, charismatic, exceptionally popular and even more talented. athletes. they spend every waking moment together between practices and tournaments. if that’s not enough, they’re close outside of tennis too.

so even though patrick is in love with you and you’re in love with patrick, it just feels so contrived sometimes. not the love, but the ability to simply see each other.

everything feels like it’s done in passing. seeing patrick only when he can squeeze you in, after a practice but before another. between drills with art and lunch with tashi. it feels so clinical, like you’re business partners and not lovers.

and you realize one day that you haven’t seen him in a week and a half, but he has been with either art or tashi or both almost every day between that. it makes your heart sink, yet simultaneously feel like it’s crawling up your throat.

patrick calls you. you realize then, that it’s been almost 2 weeks since you’ve even spoken a word to him. you’re mad at him but it’s so odd and confusing because you and patrick don’t fight. is it because you’re compatible or because you just don’t fucking see each other? it feels like you’re just sitting at home, tapping your feet. waiting for him constantly.

“hello?” you realize you answered, but you hadn’t said a word.

“hey, patrick.”

he swallows. “hey—how are you i—“

“patrick this isn’t working. i’m done—we can’t see each other anymore.”

he tries to cut you off but you interrupt him. “sorry.” you hang up.

it hurts so fucking bad and you want him to come banging on your door. but it feels good to not feel so stupid and constrained. like you’re in control. he can have tashi now; you figure that’s what he wants anyway.

but it’s not, and patrick feels like he can’t breathe. he’s never been in a relationship like this. he’s never been broken up with.

[itsnothingofinterest]

I think the thing that ultimately gets me about how Deku has supposedly inspired away everything that'd lead to more Tenkos turning into Tomuras is...just "why?" Like, why did this:

Happen differently this time? I mean that's a fair question to ask, isn't it? The Walk was effectively the true inciting incident for Tomura, leader of the League, to hate hero society; you'd want a really solid answer as to why that won't happen again I would think.

The narration from Hawks and accompanying imagery implies it's because Deku inspired folks to not sit on the sidelines anymore, further implied to be a Hero Society-wide effect Deku has had that'll supposedly eliminate the bystander effect that led us here and give heroes more free time.

But like...Why is that different from what we've seen of heroes before now? All Might was around for 40 years and Deku, in the end, didn't really do anything AM didn't do; he punched out the big bad for the world to see. And All Might did also inspire people like the origin trio to action...by becoming heroes. Yet civilians like the old lady were inspired to go about her day because a hero would handle it, while Deku inspired her to reach out a hand herself. Why?

I've heard some suggest it's because Deku was less independent, had more of a teamwork focus in his big moment. But I’ve said this before, I think those people assume All Might was a lot more independent than he really was, and Deku a lot less. I mean a lot of Deku's fight was broadcast, including big portions where he was fighting the big bad solo just like All Might in Kamino. And then both fights ended with more heroes coming in to lend support.

So I'm just not seeing why public effect is so radically different.

And it's just that, I have been waiting to see what would prevent more Tomuras from crawling out of the woodworks to destroy even more since MVA; what measures would be taken to prevent that? Perhaps Tomura would destroy hero society, not just its buildings but its corrupt ideals, leadership, & figureheads; and maybe when he was beaten there would be room to rebuild it better from scratch? No, he didn't really destroy much at all actually, and things are being rebuilt just as they were. Would Deku and Tomura perhaps team up going forward after he's saved; with the latter's eyes for what's wrong in the world and the former's ability to fix it without violence? No, Deku kills Tomura because he was just too unforgivable, it's implied he was just after a tasteful way to do that the whole fight. Well, would Deku at least listen to what drove Tomura to villainy and do something about any of that? Nope, if it wasn't his final words to Spinner or their talk about hand holding, it was in one ear and out the other for Deku; and there's no sign he's told many people what little he did learn.

So what saves the Teknos of the world? Well Deku kills the big bad on live TV and it's really inspiring. Why is that different from the past 40 years? ...Horikoshi is to burnt out to answer. That's the ultimate answer to the question I've been asking for nearly 200 chapters.

Well I guess I always knew that if Deku couldn't save Tomura, it'd mean he couldn't save anyone like him. And well, he didn't save Tomura. It's why this plot point of "but they get saved anyway" rings so hollow; it's unearned, unfair, unrealistic, and outright contrived & unbelievable as things have been set-up. I just cannot believe it would work out this way; it is honestly 100 times more believable to suppose the old lady was a guilt-fuelled one-off and most Tenkos will die in the streets or turn to villainy. Especially once this "the villain is dead" high has passed. Because as it is; this resolution as-presented feels as reasonable as our finale in chapter 430 suggesting Deku was so inspirational that no one was ever a villain again either.

[donutwatches]

MHA Movie 1- Two Heroes (Two Gay Dads) - part 2/3

So they all get dressed up like they are going to prom and everyone is adorable, but screen capping all of them would take up the whole post. BUT I must include this image right here:

Kirishima packed a suit for his bestie? He really said, 'No worries, bro, I'm not going to let you look stupid at the dance function with your usual tacky grenade hands and baggy pants'.

Is this an extra suit from his closet, or did he BUY a suit for Bakugo? He's giving him a suit with a floral print, with roses on it. King sh!t.

Melissa made Deku a super useful (if ugly looking) tool to help with his power not breaking his bones. That would have been great to have earlier. Will he only have it for the movie though?

One criticism I have of the movie is that these villains are very generic and boring. Having All Might tied up with this magically strong rope was a contrived way to keep the focus on the kids. I do not care about the plot much. This movie thrives more when it is giving fun character moments.

They got so lost they wandered 84 whole stories in the wrong direction, and have no idea villains have even attacked. Good job boys, getting that lost is a talent.

Why can I hear the James Bond theme playing in the background? They really gave Todoroki the coolest edgy one-liner in this movie. Good for him.

I am not sure how cannon this movie is, but I love the implications that quirk strengthening technology would get confiscated. The powers that be want to stay in control, and they see anything that messes with the power balance of the hero industry as a threat. Some juicy 'hero-society is not so perfect' material there.

Love that Dave fell for "You're worried that villains will hurt people? Nooooo waaaaaay." Davey-o you are meant to be a smart guy, but I guess no one is immune to being stupefied by All Might's thick pecs. I too, would turn to villainy to preserve Toshinori's mountain range-esque muscles.

Dave is stupid for going along with this plan, BUT he is was only made stupid by his true love for his old college babe All Might, so I forgive him. I support gay men's rights and wrongs.

They are shook! I felt genuinely bad for Melissa here. She looks up to her Dad, and her Dad just messed up in the messiest way a mess up can make a mess.

I don't know why Deku looks devastated though, he only knew this guy for 2 minutes. I guess, he is just an empathetic little bean.

...the image speaks for itself...

The sad thing is, is that none of this had to happen if All Might didn't keep OFA a secret from Dave. The entire plot of this movie would not have happened if Dave had been informed that All Might's power could be passed to a successor. All Might being secretive causes more problems than it solves.

Hold up, are the villains going to HURT people, for real? Noooo waaaaaay, who could have seen this coming?!

Part 3 is here

Masterlist

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TAGLIST:

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[zoe-oneesama]

Saw your post about Andre

What do u think about Zoe, then?

As a character, she's not bringing anything worth getting excited about. Personality wise, she's just Marinette-Pre-Origins: sweet and eager for friends, but ultimately letting her fear of Chloe rule her behavior until someone else reaches out, and now she suddenly has a spine. And I'm all for the idea of Marinette taking the lessons she learned in Origins about standing up for herself and not sitting by and letting injustices happen, and then turning around and inspiring someone else to do the same, so on paper, Marinette being that person for Zoe would be sweet and make sense. Except we have a full class of kids that she could've and should've already been that inspiration for, so this feel very Too Little Too Late.

And the few things they did to try and make Zoe unique didn't have enough thought or effort put into them so they fall flat.

So she got bullied out of her old school because she "was playing a part; being someone else" and when she dropped the act, "everyone turned against me". Um, yeah, if I found out my friend who'd I'd been confiding in and getting close to lied and faked their entire personality, I wouldn't want to be friends with them anymore either. I wouldn't go so far as to put cockroaches in their locker, but I can't blame Zoe's old "friends" for feeling betrayed.

(And let's be real, the writers definitely HAD to throw in the cockroaches thing so that Zoe actually had examples of being bullied instead of "no one wanted to be my friend anymore when they found out I was a totally different person")

So she's an actress, putting on different faces to please the people around her (clearly, she learned nothing from her previous experience - it's reasonable that people didn't like you because you lied, not because they didn't like who you really are). But then they didn't even keep up this 'acting' thing for more than one episode! Sure, she dusts it off in "Gabriel Agreste", but that entire aspect of Zoe's story is resolved as soon as it's introduced.

(Though it's obvious that the show is trying to convince you that her old friends DID turn on her JUST because they didn't like her as a goody-two shoes nice girl).

With Zoe putting on a fake persona, there could've been intrigue over the episode, or even the season, about who Zoe really is. Like, Marinette is SURE that Zoe is faking being like Chloe, but she has no way to know Zoe wasn't faking being nice to her when they first met. Why not show Zoe putting on different personas than just those two? Have Zoe interact with Juleka by being low energy and stand offish, then swapping to bubbly and energetic around Rose? Have Marinette be confused and that becomes part of the Mystery of Zoe?

And how about that contrivance, that Marinette met "nice" Zoe first and so is SOOOOO sure that Zoe is faking being "mean"? And because Marinette declares this To Be So, all of her friends just believe Marinette and are willing to give Zoe a chance. (despite not believing her about other things *cough* Lila *cough*) This is the same Marinette who's canonically declared her hatred of "liars" more than once, so even if Zoe is only "pretending" to be mean, why is Marinette giving her a pass? I'll tell you why - because we need to seamlessly integrate Zoe into the main friend group so we can speed run her taking over as the new Bee.

Because that's the main problem with Zoe - it's so blatantly obvious what the writers are trying to get out of her, because they don't even TRY to hide it. Don't get it twisted, I don't care that Zoe is brought in to replace Queen Bee, Queen Bee deserves to be replaced. I care how Zoe was brought in to replace Queen Bee. If the writers had taken enough time and care to ACTUALLY seamlessly integrate Zoe, instead of just shoving her in and bending the characters to accept her with no hesitation, then Zoe wouldn't come across as such a Mary Sue-Diet Marinette.

We already have a pretty full cast, so making the audience care about this new character that they've neither hinted at or bothered to build up to in Season 4 was already a big ask. Which is why I believe they should've stretched her "faking personas" story over several episodes. Have Marinette be as wary about Zoe as she was about Lila, esPECIALLY since she's Chloe's sister, but then have Zoe showcase her range of "personas" to throw Marinette off guard. Then you can have scenes of Zoe's mask slipping, like small acts of heroism where there's no time to think: pulling someone out of the way of an akuma attack, distracting the akuma if it gets too close to Ladybug, or even using her acting to help someone else get out of trouble despite Zoe getting nothing in return. Show the REAL Zoe through her actions DESPITE her acting, which then justifies Marinette being sure that "mean" Zoe isn't the real one.

Could've even had Chloe notice that Zoe's slipping and isn't acting very much "like a Bourgeois" and make it CHLOE who digs up that Zoe was bullied, make it CHLOE who airs out all the things that were done to Zoe. I mean, who better to call out a poser than Chloe? Especially since the rest of the class would more willing to take Zoe's side against Chloe (you would think) and it helps with the whole Zoe vs Chloe thing with the Bee Miraculous. Plus, having that information aired out when Zoe didn't want it to could've been a better reason to be akumatized than just "I'm giving in to playing the role I was already determined to play and putting my shoes in this hole with my dreams." Just saying.

But they didn't want to take the time. They didn't want to try. They didn't want to put in the effort to make Zoe someone to care about, both for the audience and for the characters. They shoved her in, gave her an exposition dump, and suddenly everyone was totally cool with her, No Questions Asked. In fairness, they didn't actually have Zoe be mean to anyone other than Marinette One Time in front of Chloe, so there wasn't much to overcome. But that's just another check in the "wow, you didn't even try" column.

I can't bring myself to care about Zoe because she's just a tool. She was brought in with the sole purpose of putting in nearly no effort to become friends with everyone and use the Bee Miraculous, as quickly as possible and as effortlessly as possible. Never mind that such a thing probably should have been earned. I just hate it when I can see the writer's intentions so blatantly.

But I get it, the Bee Miraculous is seriously OP and it'd be a shame not to use it just because Queen Bee was benched. Too bad Ladybug can't just merge Miraculouses and use it hersel- ohhhh, wait.

[frogsmulder]

writing prompt 20

Also for @randomfoggytiger who requested this prompt: kiss on a scar, and msr

Two's Company

post cancer arc Scully invites Mulder around for dinner; about 850 words; rated t; tagging @today-in-fic

read on ao3

She invited him over for Sunday lunch with her mother, after church.

Slowly, Scully has taken on the advice of father McCue, reaching out with wary hands to those that are important to her. It has been exhausting to let in those that she had shut out. Sometimes she forgets that she is in remission; the instinct to protect those around her strong. In truth, she has always found strength in solitude, drawn to the simplicity of the silence, but without Mulder and her mother she would not be here and she owes it to them to at least try. So Sunday lunch with them both is about all she can muster before her efforts feel distorted and contrived.

That was almost six hours ago and he's still here loitering in her kitchen, while she washes out the two wine glasses they have been drinking from this evening. Her mother excused herself shortly after the dinner, leaving Mulder clinging to her company. He hasn't out-stayed his welcome though: she's enjoyed the time, smiled and laughed and fell into comfortable conversation, sat side by side on her couch, forgetting the elephant in the room. Yet there's a growing nervousness in her stomach–she stops to stare at the palette of deep red at the bottom of the second glass–perhaps precisely because she doesn't want him to go.

When did she become afraid of being alone?

She licks her lip, aware of him watching her from the doorway. The sponge squeaks with bubbles as she wipes out the stain. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she finds him, the sight of him casually leaning against the wall, hands thrust in his jean pockets, enough to pull half a smile from her. His grin back is goofy and big and something in her chest swells. He saunters over, grabbing the tea towel from the cupboard handle as he passes it. She can't take her eyes off him as the ceiling light casts his face with light and shadow, defining those features she knows so well. His nose and lips are prominent in the warm light and his eyes sparkle something mischievous.

He puts a hand on her back and gives her the tea towel to dry her hands. The warmth of his touch serenades her body.

"You look stunning,” he whispers in awe.

She dips her head but can't help her smile, not ready to accept his affection as eagerly as he gives it. Sensing this, he leans closer, driving his point home: “I'm serious, you look amazing: better than ever.”

She manages a humble thank you as his hand travels up and down her back in slow comforting strokes. His warmth spreads throughout her, both slow and heavy like lava in her veins and quick and sharp like lightning through her nerves. Scully cools herself. Focusing on putting the last glass away, she hides the self-regulation of her breath.

“Thank you,” he says simply.

She turns to him. “What for?”

“For dinner, for this–” he gestures between them with a wave of his hand– “for everything.” Her cheeks, red hot, sting with the sudden touch of Mulder's lips. “I… You are so brave and strong everyday, I…”

It's a sentence he can't finish even now. Instead, he reaches for her hand, tethering them together. His thumb caresses her knuckles showing what with words he cannot express.

Her eyes dart back and forth between his, desperately trying to read him. “Mulder…”

He chuckles. “Scully."

“What–”

He brushes her hair behind her ear and gazes at her, as if he could join with her soul if he only looked hard enough. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her in for an all-consuming bear-hug. She allows herself to fall into the familiarity of his shape, his smell, seeking her own private comfort as he presses his nose to the side of her neck. “I missed you so bad and you weren't even gone. There were times I thought I'd never see you again.”

And there it is; the elephant that can no longer be ignored. She holds her breath and tries not to blink, still as a statue, the threat of gasps and tears locked inside of her. His fingers tentatively part the hair at her neck, sensitive fingertips tracing her fresh scar there.

Scully's stomach drops as he kisses just to the side of his fingers, as if saying a prayer to the metal buried beneath her skin.

“I’m sorry I gave you another scar. It shouldn't be like this,” he mumbles, voice thick with guilt.

She pulls away to see his face. “Mulder… you didn't do this: you saved me. It was your strength that saved me."

He laughs nervously, his eyes beginning to get that sheen she's seen before beside her hospital bed. “I guess I’m just grateful now for your company. Thanks for having me around, Scully.”

“I…” She tries for the sentiment he failed earlier but the words lodge in her throat, both insufficient and too much. She opts instead to show her reciprocation, stretching up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for being around.”

[neomedievalist]

imagine that you're the perfect knight, of all time forever, and you then have to deal with failure for basically the first time in your life and are hated by god and get tormented for a whole two-three books and cry a lot and do penance and cry again a bunch and your son finds the holy grail and is taken to heaven by angels and looks objectively better than you in every way and you're like dude fuck okay i'm a bad person i get it i get it and you try to be better and to repent and it's not enough because you're still locked out of the grail chamber and it's really a Dog at the Door Looking Inside Seeing But Not Entering Fiasco and then you get knocked out for 24 days by god as punishment for being a bad person even though you literally were just trying to help. and then everyone comes back to camelot and is like man sure sucks that your son died and also perceval but it is because they were morally perfect they got to see the grail & go to heaven lol. and you're like whatever man. so you get back on your bullshit but you still feel bad and guinivere is like why are you ignoringg meeeeeee and youre like i just got told directly by god that i would be perfect if i wasnt distracted by fucking you and shes like wow you are such an asshole and then exiles you and you fight in some tournaments in disguise and do some random shit and then a bunch of time passes and you come back and arthur is like hey while you're here. there's this guy who, crazy story actually, by pure beautiful mary sue plot contrivance, apparently he can only be healed by the best knight in all the world. we'd uh love if you could give a shot. because we had a whole page and a half worth of knights and kings try already. and you're like. dude you're wasting your time but i guess i'll try. and then you check out his wounds and he's immediately healed. What would you do in this situation.

[javaelemental]

True Detective: Night Country, Ep. 6

Spoilers, y'all.

Okay, first thing's first. The single most important question about this entire season: How fuckin' many dead bodies has Rose gotten rid of? Because that was obviously not the first time she'd done that. It wasn't even the tenth time she'd done that. That stoned-ass old lady has put a lot of bodies in the ice, kids.

Somebody on reddit called that it was the cleaning ladies, LOL. Nicely done.

Also, loved that the cleaning ladies came and cleaned shit up. Loved the hell out of that. That whole thing, the vigilante justice by angry women with guns and an utter lack of fucks left to give? Delightful. 10/10, no notes.

So, this was one of those things that was written to be ambiguous on purpose. You can decide for yourself if Navarro was having visions or if she had the same mental illness that claimed her sister and mother, if she lived or died and came back as a ghost, if any of that fever dream that took up half the episode even happened like all that or if two gals were half frozen in a garage and hallucinating/dreaming or what.

The scientists doing the murder, and the way it went down... eh. Felt a bit much. All of 'em stabbing her to death? Clarke smothering her (and lying and/or delusional about it, the shithead). A bit much. Better if one of them had stabbed her in a fit of rage and the rest were complicit by keeping their mouths shut and going along with the cover up.

They were encouraging the mine to pollute more? Really? I think that's my main quibble about the actual murder mystery. I'll forgive the rest, but that feels a bit clumsy and contrived so that the mine could be involved.

Okay, I didn't hate the ending, I'm not mad about it, but it was a little weak. I really feel like this whole season could have used another pass by an editor, maybe another episode or two to flesh things out a bit and give it some room to breathe. Or, failing the extra episodes, maybe just a lighter touch on the supernatural vibes and a little more heft to the murder mystery.

I did like the vibe of the season, though. The incessant darkness was oppressive, and really screwed with your sense of time over the course of an episode.

Overall, I'd say it wasn't quite as solid as the first season, but it was easily as good as the third season, maybe better. It's been awhile since I saw season three.

Of course, it goes without saying that the cast was fantastic. They get the best people for this show, really.

But for real. How many bodies has Rose put in the ice? Is anyone keeping an eye on her? She was way too good at that.

(FYI, you're gonna want to stay out of the True Detective subreddit. They are having a whole entire temper tantrum meltdown over there.)

[nexility-sims]

𝐍𝐎. 𝟓   ❛ 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 ❜   |   THE DEN & NAKAWE PALACE, AUGUST 1991

❧  𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲  /  𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠  /  𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬  /  𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

   ❛  She’ll be here any minute.' Arnaut proffered yet another empty explanation to fill the silence. The premier granted forty-five minutes, but he had already spent fifteen giving intermittent assurances that Leonor was en route, delayed in some unpreventable way. Although known as gregarious and energetic, Premier Eladio Guillen sat across from Arnaut this entire time with a small, static smile. The anticipatory silence that dragged on seemed not to faze him. Waiting grated Arnaut’s nerves, meanwhile, as did attempting to puzzle out Guillen’s thoughts. Every minute of quiet that passed constituted some kind of failed test, he was certain. Yet, he exhausted his list of aide-approved topics within the first three minutes, and Guillen resisted his efforts to sidetrack the stillborn conversation into small talk. It could only be taken as a clear, loud message that the premier preferred to sit in total silence than humor Arnaut’s attempts. 

❧ important psa: leonor is her grandmother's granddaughter; additionally, i did not proofread much and should've so sdjfsdf if you notice anything off, no you didn't !!!

𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

In fact, Leonor was due to be there any minute. She was in the parking garage of Nakawe Palace's complex, and she had arrived there just ten minutes past the appointed time. What kept her was the newspaper she’d snagged from a stand on Oceanside Avenue. It wasn’t a respectable publication, certainly not Nakawe’s paper of record, but its headline for the day caught her eye. That was rare. Even if tabloid chatter affected her subliminally, she wasn’t one to read the stories or pay much attention to the headlines. The newsstands she passed in the course of daily life were easy to ignore; someone delivered her preferred papers and magazines each morning, whether or not she planned to open them. This paper’s claim cut through the inane, sensational fabrications about her body, her love life, the silly woes with which some two-bit copywriter claimed to empathize.

It was almost certain that her having bought a copy of the day’s paper accusing her drug abuse would become tomorrow’s headline. At any rate, the shocked vendor stared. So too did other pedestrians as they passed. The speculation wrote itself. Why, after all, would she have bothered if there wasn’t something to it? Incensed, morbid curiosity wouldn’t do. There had to be a more salacious explanation; it was the one that argued her interest was somehow proof of guilt. But, the simple truth was that she had gasped at the sight of it: a grabby headline, juxtaposed photos innocuous on their own but damning in this contrived context, an authoritative quotation of concern from some anonymous acquaintance. The front page promised a full story unfurled inside, and Leonor, who had never been accused of wrongdoing in her life, became consumed with the need to know every lie printed within the pages. 

As she sat in the car, reading about how her alter-self had become obsessed with benzos and tried heroin with a hard rock band, she knew there was no recourse. The Crown wouldn’t respond. These papers could publish whatever they liked, and they weighed that freedom against the constriction of access it only sometimes engendered. Leonor’s people had been silent and inflexible since winter—a moribund policy rolled over from before, when she was an off-limits teenager regarded as inseparable from the entity of her mother. Perhaps that was why she became fair game once the mourning moratorium lifted. More likely, the press’s the dark underbelly dwellers knew the larger apparatus of the royal family saw value in any public discourse about its members. Individual reputations were less of a concern, especially when the Crown itself and more reputable papers churned out flattering, factual stories to complicate any emerging narratives. For some time, gossip and relevance went hand-in-hand. Beatriz’s vision of the monarchy was increasingly a flirtatious one, winking when provocation paid off and demurring when it didn’t. Leonor had never needed to think too hard about it. Her mother went through the grinder time and time again, but her popularity remained intact, and she hadn’t ever let on, at least to her daughter, how terrible it felt. 

It was within Leonor’s power to huddle her team and insist they at least pretend to respond. Her little household was hardly autonomous, but it didn’t need to be. Leonor complaining to her grandparents about rude tabloids would get her nowhere; a conversation among aides about public relations, on the other hand, at least created an official paper trail of bureaucratic value. Yet, that was why she found herself frustrated. This paper she held in her hands trumpeted glaring, clumsy lies. Those lies, however, didn’t need to be rooted in fact if they had been planted in a context that made them feel plausible. For the average Uspanian, the takeaway wasn’t in the details. Most people cast idle glances at the newsstands, noticing ugly candids and buzzwords, passively gleaning less of a coherent story and more of an ambient sense. Leonor’s new friends and hangouts weren’t the kind of blank slate she had been. They came with their own public associations, jumbled facts, wild fabrications. These particular details were false, and The Den remained a locked vault to the public, but it wasn’t outlandish to imagine her as part of the scene if ample photographs and videos suggested she was. 

Leonor closed the paper and laid it on the passenger seat. It sat there, folded, for just a few seconds before she snatched it up again. Quickly, angrily, she tore at it. It wouldn’t rip down the middle, so she yanked out the pages instead. They shredded into scraps as she pulled wildly with haphazard, hurried fingers. Almost as fast as the impulse struck, it ran out of steam. Leonor stopped what she was doing and, feeling satisfied but far from content, tossed the mangled paper into the backseat. 

When Leonor entered the premier’s sitting room, Arnaut watched with disbelief. She strolled in appearing unperturbed by her tardiness, and the apology she offered to Guillen as he rose to clasp her hands was simple at best. It didn’t bother him. His reception of her made his demeanor toward Arnaut earlier that afternoon seem lukewarm—unwelcoming, even. They interacted like people who were well-acquainted; Guillen’s famed charm leapt out as he kissed her cheek and made a joke about Nakawe’s drivers, and Leonor took up space in the room with ease.

Arnaut knew, in theory, he had received an upbringing not dissimilar from hers. They learned the same rules of comportment, and they learned the art of politics from the same teachers. In preparation for today, they had received the same briefs with identical preparation from the same team of aides. Yet, as Leonor settled into the sofa beside him and suggested with unimpeachable authority that they get to work, Arnaut felt the distance between them stretch to its true size. There was no substitute for experience, and there was no hiding its absence. Arnaut had been on the periphery of Uspanian public life for over a decade. Everyone remembered him as the immature, troublesome spare he had been. They viewed his life abroad as suspect. Worse, each day brought a litany of small reminders that no one much cared about who he was now or who he intended to become. 

The television summarized it well just a few nights prior. These days, Arnaut watched news broadcasts as if it were a ritual, often doing so with a pen and pad that Lorraine politely ignored. USB’s evening news hour aired interviews with passersby on the streets of Nakawe as part of its programming. One elderly woman, prompted for an opinion on the crown prince, had furrowed her brow deep and hard. ‘Well, I think he is in for the most tragedy,’ she said finally. ‘People don’t change at forty. They just don’t. I lived long enough to know. You grow up right into who you are. So, what Uspana needs, he isn’t.’

Arnaut had been so immediately agitated by despair that he leapt from the couch and began to pace, talking aloud of how easy it would be to identify the woman, to find out where she lived, to go there with a box of sweets and get on his knees and beg her to change her mind. ‘Let me prove it to you,’ he would plead, holding her frail hands. Perhaps he would cling to her feet and even  pepper the crooked toes peeking from her sandals with supplicatory kisses. ‘Give me a few good years to show you that I’m different.’ That was how he would frame it, too. She was right that it was a fool’s errand to prove he could change. What he hoped—the hopes that were, almost daily, dashed to dust—was that someone different lurked under the surface, suffocated for too long but real enough to show his face if Arnaut somehow found a way.

That way was elusive, although Arnaut knew he would never find it if he capitulated so easily. Today’s meeting felt bungled already, but he pushed himself to see Leonor’s arrival as a reset, as a reinvigoration, rather than a performance of naturality that he could never possess. He struggled to believe in his heart that the ability to rule flowed through his veins as much as hers, but it was more compelling to remind himself that he had been trained for this, too. Had he been as serious about it as she had, that deceptive distance between them would be more of a trench than a canyon. What mattered now was exactly that: he was serious now and, if the unexplained absence meant anything, perhaps even more serious than she was. 

As the conversation turned to business, Guillen let out a sigh. “Fast-tracking legislation when there’s a passing is no way to run a government,” he explained, his tone light and wry even as he regarded them both with an earnest look of condolence. 

“We’d be doubling offshore drilling in memory of Mario Esparza,” Leonor quipped. The comment prompted a laugh from Guillen, who pointed at Leonor and nodded emphatically. 

Arnaut, meanwhile, sat bemused and wearing a vacant smile. The name didn’t ring a bell. He knew enough about the politics to understand why the policy idea was ridiculous, but he wasn’t privy to the personal backstory that gave it flavor in this context. Arnaut had once believed the capital to be a slow-paced, change-resistant bastion of tradition. The monarchy was sometimes accused of being arrested by its reverence for the old ways, and the legislative assembly had its own superficial but no less real way of doing things. People were the backbone of that. Perhaps naively, Arnaut had expected to find the same names in circulation a decade later. He hadn’t accounted for the turnover, but he also hadn’t accounted for how poorly acquainted with those people—with them, with their place in politics, with their connections to others, with the culture that glued them all together—he had been. It was difficult to insert himself now, knowing he had passed up the opportunity to belong as intuitively to this world as everyone around him did. 

Having noticed Arnaut’s expression, Guillen asked, “You remember Mario, right? You’ve met Paula?”

“His wife?” Arnaut, with the urgency of panic, responded.

Leonor snorted, and Guillen raised his brows before clarifying, “His daughter. She’s filling his seat until the provincial election is held, so I assumed—”

“Forgive my uncle,” Leonor said, casting a look his way. “He’s not in the know about any of this. Good thing it’s not his job to be, huh?”

It was clear Guillen wanted to chuckle, but he remained quiet with his lips quirked in a smile that Arnaut found somehow just as offensive. He looked away from the premier’s expression to regard Leonor with quizzical eyes. 

Apparently not finished, Leonor added, “You haven’t asked yet, but I’m going to assume Diago Tegridia has been talking to you. He’s never been a fan—especially not of the part about funding students’ studying abroad. My mother planned to massage him on it, but he won’t take any of my uncle’s calls, so—” 

Arnaut, growing nervous, laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t say that—”

“No? I suspect it’s because he offended him during a hallway chat,” Leonor said with a shrug. “Like with Paula? Similar misstep. If you don’t know who’s who and what’s what, that makes it hard to do business, doesn’t it?” 

“That’s not relevant, Leonor, is it?” Arnaut asked. From the corner of his eye, he saw Guillen sitting with the same amused, forbearing smirk on his face. “This meeting has nothing to do with Representative Tegridia, and definitely not a casual conversation we might’ve had.”

With an eyeroll, Leonor laughed, “There, see?”

Guillen nodded and offered Arnaut what was, it seemed, his best attempt at a placating smile. “I’ll admit,” he began, looking from Arnaut to Leonor, “Diago does have strong opinions, and I’ve been inclined to hear him out where he has expertise. But, alright, why don’t you walk me through the particulars again—to save time, just make the counterargument to his?” 

Leonor turned more fully to face Arnaut, her expression expectant. They stared at each other for a long moment while he assessed the challenging look in her eyes and what she wanted from him,. He remained all too aware that Guillen was staring and judging, too. More than a challenge, Arnaut saw mischief in her eyes. Leonor was unwilling to look away or say anything. The corners of her lips were curled—not altogether a smirk, perhaps something more predatory, as if she intended to bare her teeth instead of break into a smile. The more seconds passed, the more pleased she seemed. 

He turned back to Guillen with a sigh, concluding, “… I’ll let Leonor take the lead.”

TRANSCRIPT:

RENZO | Have I see you in blue? In person. LEONOR | Maybe once?

RENZO | It looks good. Black is better. Brown. White, whew. LEONOR | It’s for work. Work! I’m going to be late. Poor uncle.

RENZO | He’ll be alright? LEONOR | He’s a big boy. RENZO | Stick around a little longer? LEONOR | Nice try.

ARNAUT | She’ll be here in a minute.

GUILLEN | [Sighs] Fast-tracking legislation when there’s a passing is no way to run a government.

LEONOR | We’d be doubling offshore drilling in memory of Mario Esparza.

GUILLEN | You remember Mario, right? You’ve met Paula? ARNAUT | … His wife? [Leonor snorts] GUILLEN | His daughter. She’s filling his seat until the provincial election is held, so I assumed—

LEONOR | He’s not in the know about any of this. Good thing it’s not his job to be, huh?

LEONOR | You haven’t asked yet, but I’m going to assume Diago Tegridia has been talking to you. He’s never been a fan—especially not of the part about funding students’ studying abroad. My mother planned to massage him on it, but he won’t take any of my uncle’s calls, so— ARNAUT | Well, I wouldn’t say that—

LEONOR | No? I suspect it’s because he offended him during a hallway chat. Like with Paula? Similar misstep. If you don’t know who’s who and what’s what, that makes it hard to do business, doesn’t it? ARNAUT | That's not relevant, Leonor, is it?

ARNAUT | This meeting has nothing to do with Representative Tegridia, and definitely not a casual conversation we might’ve had. LEONOR | There, see?

GUILLEN | I'll admit, Diago does have strong opinions, and I’ve been inclined to hear him out where he has expertise. But, alright, why don’t you walk me through the particulars again—to save time, just make the counterargument to his?

ARNAUT | … I’ll let Leonor take the lead.

ARNAUT | Where are you going? We’re debriefing upstairs in five minutes. LEONOR | Clocking out early. ARNAUT | Did you let Central know? It’s a weekday. You can’t leave the premises without giving them notice. LEONOR | [Chuckles] No, you’re just not supposed to.

ARNAUT | You don’t think anyone will notice the … slacking off? Talk? LEONOR | What, are you going to tattle on me? ARNAUT | I don't have to. I’m just saying it’s a bad look. Trust me.

LEONOR | You should worry about yourself, uncle. Trust me.

[qsycomplainsalot]

Lindybeige is Either an Idiot or an Asshole

Most Likely Both

--There could be more flattering ways to put it, but he's never once given us that favor so why should I. His videos are wildly speculative and often based in cherry-picked British sources, when they come with any sources at all - see his masturbatory piece about the Bren vs the “Spandau”.

--There are two videos that I absolutely loathe at the edges of my youtube recommendations, both just filled to the brim with misinformation and logical contrivances. Videos that neckbeards will endlessly quote at me without question, taking a frustratingly long amount of time to untangle by which point they'd have usually lost interest already. The first one is Shadiversity's video about boob armor, the other is Lindybeige's video about the French Resistance.

--This video will have you believe that the French Resistance on its own did nothing of worth, based in great part on the fact that De Gaulle glamorized its contribution to the war for political status. I cannot stress this enough, just because De Gaulle used the general idea of the Resistance to smooth over a lot of Vichy war crimes and restore national unity does not mean the Resistance did not exist as a capable fighting force. --The very first more specific argument he offers to support his view -if you ignore “ME AND ME PA FOUND THAT VERY FONNY”- is that most of the French armor was American-made and provided through the lend-lease policy, making French people less deserving of credit in winning World War 2. I assume that in his mind that would diminish the contribution of the French Resistance to war efforts, even though these tanks and armored fighting vehicles were used by the Free French Army, not the Resistance at any point of its existence, making the point moot while also conveniently ignoring that the United Kingdom received ten times the aid France did through that same program.

--The image is from War Thunder because it makes for a better glamor shot than having it stand behind a museum fence or in black and white.

--His next argument implies that De Gaulle was "allowed" to walk in the liberated Paris ahead of Allied troops to give a speech that solidified the myth of the Resistance I mentioned. Again, in this passing, deceptive comment, Lindybeige implies that De Gaulle walked in after the fact and that Allied forces did the heavy lifting, only allowing him to do his speech a their convenience. Even a cursory amount of research will tell you that Paris was in fact liberated by the FFI, the Parisian people themselves and Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division composed of Metropolitan and Colonial French with Spanish elements, supported only on the very last day by the US 4th Infantry Division and a special British unit sent to gather intelligence. --Following this, he quotes the speech De Gaulle delivered in front of the town hall the day the German garrison surrendered, but cuts it short of the part in said speech mentioning “the help of our dear and admirable Allies” to then call De Gaulle ungrateful, which I have a hard time believing could be anything but intentionally deceptive. He then goes on to claim that the French Resistance was not organized by De Gaulle but by the British, justifying the ludicrous claim with 'they didn’t tell him because French intelligence services were bad and would have leaked all of it’. This is of course ignoring the fact that De Gaulle had personally sent Jean Moulin back to France for the exact purpose of organizing the five big Resistance movements into one organization, which he did, creating the Council for National Resistance that played a major role in the liberation of Paris. How the British would have any hand in this may be explained by his further comments, where he goes on to say that agents of the organization preceding the MI6 had been infiltrated in the Resistance to organize it, which begs the question of who's responsible for it being a non-effective combat force if it had been the case. He then gives us a voice in a sarcastic tone by saying, “of course you and your British bias would say that !” but does not really address it. Because honestly yeah, you and your British bias would say that.

--After quickly rambling that there were too many people in France and not enough bushes for all people to join the Resistance, which I have to admit is an extremely pointed and pertinent thing to say in a video downplaying the efforts and suffering of thousands of people fighting back against Nazi occupation under constant threat of torture and execution if caught, he mentions that the German forced labor system had severely depleted France’s manpower of fighting age. He says that by 1944, only teenagers and decrepit middle aged men were left to fight in the Resistance, to the great disappointment of the British agents he mentioned earlier. According to him, this meant France lacked the manpower and the communication capability required to pull the Resistance off, which is again contradicted by the actions of Jean Moulin, who had seemingly managed to access both before his death.

--There are a few problems with that argument. The Service de Travail Obligatoire, STO for short, was a system put in place by Vichy France to supply Germany with civilian manpower to make up for their own shortfalls due to the Eastern front. Because Vichy had negotiated a relative independence compared to other occupied country, its own government was responsible for the order, although it was in almost every point similar to forced labor orders in Denmark or the Netherlands. Now the STO did deprive France of over six hundred thousand young men, many of them skilled workers. However as an incentive given by the Nazis, every three forced laborer sent to Germany would lead to the release of one French POW, meaning that as far as manpower was concerned, France pretty much lost only four hundred thousand men and received qualified military personnel for its trouble. Not only is it hardly the manpower drain pictured by Lindybeige, it also ignores that many of these forced laborers, my grandfather included, immediately skipped work and joined either the Resistance or Allied military regulars after operation Overlord, as they were not as tightly surveilled as POWs and minorities in concentration/death camps. It also bears mentioning that it was teenagers, dismissed by Lindybeige as a negligible quantity, that acted as reconnaissance troops for the Free French using their motorbikes to scout and guide the way to the German Kommandantur. In any case, most members of the FFI integrated the regular French army after the liberation of Paris, meaning they were definitely of fighting age. Of course that whole argument is dropped as soon as he brings in British involvement, at which point he finally points out how the Resistance disabled most of the railway network and stopped the famously lightning-fast German army from facing the Allied invasion properly. For their role in this sabotage, a hundred fifty Resistance members working for the French national railway company were shot and another five hundred deported.

--To put it simply, Lindybeige dismisses the Resistance as a useless, wasteful and infighting group of functional morons, while every successful operation they carried out, every display of good mobility and coordination is attributed to British uniformed soldiers overseeing it. In reality most of that effort was done by either agents of the French government in exile or the Allied command under Eisenhower, with no account mentioning any significant autonomous British involvement which stands to reason as De Gaulle and Churchill could not stand one another. In fact Lindybeige tries to pass off operation Jedburgh as a purely British operation while it was specifically a joint one with American, British, French, Belgian and Dutch operatives all along the Atlantic coast.

--The next part is baffling. Lindybeige points at the Allies stopping their shipments of weapons to the French Resistance after July 44 and justifies it by saying the various cells were fighting each other and were uncoordinated. Thank god the Brits stopped sending arms or there would have been a civil war between these silly French Resistance members. Of course what happened in August was the liberation of Paris followed by the integration of the FFI into the new French army, which would go on to liberate the rest of the country. But Lindybeige pushes this civil war angle pretty hard, calling at this point of the video both Vichy France and the Resistance to be pro French in a way and underlining the conflicts between the two as a reason why the weapon shipments stopped coming, with examples such as Resistance members exacting reprisals against Nazi collaborators, which is a completely moot point because Vichy France and collaborators had nothing to do with the Resistance and were in fact, at this point of time, recognized as the enemy by all Allied forces, meaning acts of resistance against them would in no way prompt Allied command to stop supporting the French Resistance. Lindybeige goes so far as to say that the OSS and British secret service stopping the weapon shipments in August 1944 legitimately prevented an outright civil war between the different cells of the French Resistance, which was in actuality pretty unified in its support to De Gaulle at this point thanks to the efforts of Jean Moulin as discussed previously. This hardly gels with the events following August 1944, where the members of the Resistance and FFI were enlisted in the Free French Army and were therefore issued American military equipment and training to function as regular troops. Now stop me if I'm wrong but it appears that in Lindybeige's mind all French people were ready to tear each other apart until the British stopped sending them pipe guns, after which the Americans sent them tanks which obviously disabled their ability to start a civil war.

--Two French colonial soldiers using a blend of Allied gear during the winter of 1944-45. They are presumably thinking of killing each other.

--Much like the Phantom Menace review this is addressing a piece of media were essentially everything is wrong, hence the length of this post. Lindybeige has obviously researched the topic to great length, then ignored half of it to record 17mn of vague, dismissive and unsubstantiated claim that each take an equal amount of time to debunk. He present the facts as if everything that happened on British soil was under British orders so as to make the French Resistance only effective on their accord, all the while disregarding the French government in exile and slandering the efforts of French people but also inadvertently of the Americans. It is my honest belief that this sad excuse of an historian is either profoundly lacking in literacy or actively trying to justify his xenophobia by bending WW2 historiography around his bias, and whatever it may be he should be deplatformed to avoid spreading more harmful and disrespectful lies about a group of brave men and women who fought to liberate their country from fascism.

[demonslayedher]

Shall we talk ☆Pillar Filler???☆

(As well as the rest of the episode?)

Keeping it behind a cut because it's not yet available for everybody and a lot of people will appreciate being surprised (I know I did)!

First, how about that new OP??

I love how it sets this arc up for being a pause in the constant life or death struggle (for the Pillars anyway, hahaha), and pricks at how the Pillars always feel they are struggling to compensate for their weaknesses, and the inky hatred that fills their hearts which Oyakata-sama knows they've channeled into defeating Kibutsuji Muzan at all costs. I also had a passing thought the other day about how so many Japanese legends of demon slaying require the hero to call upon a non-human higher power, or use something like a poison or alcohol to weaken a demon before they stand a chance of defeating it. In the end, the medicine that Tamayo and Shinobu develop does serve this crucial role (and the sun fulfills the role of a higher non-human power), but it's otherwise ironic that instead of temporarily weakening a demon to their own level, the usual course of action is to use Breath to temporarily increase their power to that of a demon.

Attaining a mark sure increases the role that "temporary" already played in their lives, and it's really no question that they would choose to pursue that option, even knowing the result.

(Also, CHUNTAROOOOO)

So anyway, onto that filler!!

I loved it.

First, the nitpicking just to get it out of the way: why did a demon need to bother tying up a victim???? Whhhhy? Like, at least they didn't pull a Speedy with some contrived "this demon just toys with victims and leaves them injured instead of killing them" routine that makes for a happy low-stakes Piller Filler episode while showing utter disregard for what demons are and why the Corp risks themselves to stop them. (That said, I always love seeing other Corp members fulfill their own Corp duties with no relation whatsoever to Tanjiro, who is just one piece of a much, much larger whole.)

But rather than write what would ultimately be stupid dialogue with an insignificant filler demon, it's nice that Ufotable did not bother developing the Castle Demon. The totally undeveloped baddies are easy to cast off as Blood Technique (but maybe they could have looked a little cooler if, like, they were vaguely wearing samurai armor or something instead of just being in skin suits? Whatever, not important.) I appreciate that Ufotable did not bother to answer these questions of "why is the victim tied up" because the point of this scene was very obviously not about her or the demon. (I like to think Iguro cut the ropes and then told her to get to safety but just, like, left her there on the top roof).

So as for what this scene WAS for... hot dang, did it accomplish that!!!

The purpose was to make Sanemi and Iguro look cool, and it sure as hell did that. WHAT GOOD CHANBARA, those show-offy sword-play moves against a mob of nameless villains were just so deliciously well choreographed, and the people who can appreciate that were also likely to really appreciate the use of a castle as a purely fun battle setting. Ufotable was probably like, "Our biggest fans are nerds for KnY's touches of traditional Japanese folklore and culture, and for swords and swordplay, so you know what else will probably get them riled up? Yeah, let's give them a castle fortress."

And then everyone cheered, like, "Yes, yes, the fangirls like demonslayedher on Tumblr will never know what hit them."

But then some brilliant person spoke up and said, "You guys, I have the perfect finishing blow."

And everyone said, "What? How could we possibly top this scene that not only purely makes Sanemi & Iguro look cool, but also serves their characters and the plot nicely by showing how the Pillers don't feel they can rely on the other Corp members, and that even though they speak sharply to them they show concern for them by their actions? You know, especially slyly since anime-only fans will get to appreciate a new side of characters whom they haven't gotten to bond with much yet for only having seen their mean sides mostly and none of their battle coolness, and also slyly because the hardcore manga fans know that these two are buddies?"

And then the brilliant person says, "Let's give them that fortress."

The brilliant person was then crowned Ruler of Ufotableland and the fans lived happily ever after.

Speaking of Pillar Filler, I also want to point out how nice that opening exposition between Shinobu and Kanao was. First, what a nice way of incorporating Kanao into a nice episode that gives us a nice little dose of everyone in the Corp cast, even by adding that little scene of Amane and Ubuyashiki too. I loved the little touches that develop the Butterfly Mansion, like the fact that on the path there, they have a stone sign that says "Butterfly Mansion" and a line of carved Jizo statues (to protect travelers and (deceased) children) with little butterflies. And that moment of Nezuko frowning as the sunlight goes behind a cloud? Wonderful. And Shinobu essential saying to Kanao, "I trust you with defending everyone here in the now VERY LIKELY EVENT OF KIBUTSUJI MUZAN ATTACKING while I have to go off to a Pillar Meeting now that you're back"? I looooove iiiiiiiiit. That also says a lot about the trust other Pillars have in Shinobu to entrust her with Nezuko instead of putting any pressure on her to take part in Pillar Training, as clearly they don’t know about Tamayo, and it's really anyone's guess if they know about the poison or not (though the light novel implies Himejima might have an inkling but doesn't know). Being Pillars, though, I doubt any of them would tell her she's wrong for being prepared to take down a demon in any possible way.

I love, love, love, love the treatment of all the straight-from-the-manga scenes, like "Welcome home, Inosuke" (except for the added 'did you miss me, Aoi-chan' because canonically Aoi is the one kind of girl who is not his type), Tamayo speaking with Oyakata-sama's bird, Mitsuri's "explanation" of the mark, and every single Pillar interaction. I love the amount of respect they show to Himejima (and how Ufotable slightly expanded on this), and I am so excited for the extra Himejima content this season. In the new marketing materials released on the same day as the episode/movie, they make stark use of one of the kanji characters in his name ("cry out"), which is a very nice touch. And the use of BGM!!! Especially the touches of Giyuu's and Mitsuri's themes during the meeting!

*happy sigh*

It is nice to be a fandom citizen of Ufotableland.

[existslikepristin]

Yall, there's gonna need to be some trigger warnings here. For the sake of spoilers, if you have any sensitivities, follow this link to see the trigger warnings.

Quick thanks to @ggidolsmuts for A) writing a fantastic series (which you should read here BEFORE reading this story: 1, 2, 3, "3.5", 4, 5), and B) being very cool about me taking that series in the most unhinged direction. And speaking of that unhinged direction...

I Never Die, I Only Breed: DLC

~~~~~

“Alright, see you in a week, babe,” you say, kissing Shuhua on the forehead and walking away. 

What a crazy two months it’s been since you beat INDIOB. Having five girlfriends is kind of a wild concept on its own, but simultaneously getting five girlfriends, who absolutely love sixsomes, by beating a video game? That’s insane. One hundred percent bonko.

And yet this is your life now.

As you pass by the break room where Yuqi’s making coffee, she flips up her shirt and flashes you. She’s so embarrassing sometimes.

Soyeon, Miyeon, and Minnie give you a wave as you walk past the glass-walled office they’re storyboarding in. You return the gesture.

But then you notice an open door. You’ve always wondered what was behind that door…

And now that you’re inside, there’s basically nothing. Damn. It’s just an old wooden desk and a ton of dust. Even on closer inspection, there’s nothing special about the desk. Not sure why it’s even here anymore. What a poorly contrived plot device. Oh well. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the past employee who your girlfriends only speak about in hushed whispers and who Shuhua occasionally cries herself to sleep about. Not that you haven’t thought to ask, given that it’s actually pretty creepy, but you just haven’t gotten around to—Oh shit, there’s something attached to the underside of the desk. Is that a memory drive?

If there’s anything you’ve learned from tech horror stories, it’s that you shouldn’t touch mysterious computer parts with a ten foot pole.

But on the other hand… You yank the thing away from the tape holding it in place and book it the fuck out of the office. Back home, you plug the memory drive into your ddeunstation and flip that bitch on. Who needs to think?

Immediately, your girlfriends’ company logo flashes across the screen but without the usual, fancy animation. There’s the blue and orange ddeunstation cat logo (best console, sure, but they really need to change that thing). “in association with ELP” comes up next in plain text… Who the fuck is that? And then, the game’s home screen starts to fade in around you.

Oh, okay. So this isn’t anything too crazy. This is just a copy of “I Never Die, I Only Breed,” the game your girlfriends made, which ultimately led you to them. It must be an older version, considering that weird “in association” screen and lack of animation in their logo. You look around, and sure enough you see some text in the corner with the version number. It’s greater than one, so it’s definitely a finished version, but it’s quite a bit lower than the version you initially played. You recall Soyeon telling you there was some delay in the game’s release, so this makes sense. There must have been a few minor bug fixes while legal was sorting out platform fees, game rating, or whatever.

Well, that’s actually pretty boring. Now what? You tell your girlfriends you stole a memory drive with an old version of INDIOB because you wanted to know what was behind a door? Wait, did they even know it was there?

You can probably just tape it back to the desk when you drop by next week. That wouldn’t be too weird.

Might as well take a look. This game is awesome, and since you’re not going to see your girlfriends for a whole week while they’re in Japan on business, Soyeon suggested you revisit the game so you don’t get lonely. You pick out the New Game option.

The home screen fades away and two more options appear.

Normal

I Trust DLC

… OH MY GOD, DLC?! You’ve never selected an option so fast in your life. Not even Miyeon has hinted at any upcoming DLC for INDIOB, and she can’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. Okay, this is definitely not boring. You can barely contain yourself.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a roo—Dammit, you can’t actually move. A bug already? You try to blink but don’t get any feedback. Fuck ELP, whoever that—Oh, there’s some text floating in front of you.

Content not fully tested. May still be some minor bugs.

+ Continue

+ Debug mode

Without moving, you think really hard about selecting Debut mode and suddenly you can move again. You slap your forehead. You really shouldn’t be so impatient. Minor bugs are no big deal.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door, there is a tiny bit of text floating in the corner of your vision that says “Debug menu”. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you. A gasp—she is feeling you through your robe.

“Sure am,” you say, far more confidently than you did the first time around.

“Good, let’s see what you can do then.” Shuhua turns around and walks back to bed, slipping her bathrobe off as she does so. You’re amazed at how accurate the in-game Shuhua is to the real one, now that you’ve seen both so many times. A bunch of dorky game devs your girlfriends may be, but they’re un-stereotypically hot. She turns around and lays down, spreading her legs and bending at the knees.

“What are you waiting f—?!”

You’re already on top of her, robe discarded, kissing her passionately with your fingers gently pressing at her entrance and caressing her breasts. Her eyelids flutter and close, and she melts into your touch.

You chuckle mentally to yourself. You don’t plan to speedrun this playthrough, but you’re curious to see the differences in these NPCs’ attitudes toward you when you get a full no-restart run. It’ll be yet another world first, but you don’t plan to upload it to any scoreboards. You already won the ultimate prize, and your girlfriends have expressed intense disinterest in inviting a sweaty powergaming neckbeard to join your unconventional relationship structure. Maybe if the perfect run is pulled off by someone hot you can convince them, but you can worry about that if it ever happens, which seems unlikely.

Shuhua cums for the first of what will be many times. You pull away from your kiss to give her a little air, even though neither of you technically need it (there’s no sort of breath gauge in this game, probably because it would make the Yuqi sections far more difficult).

“Mm yes, you know what you’re doing… you can put it in.”

You don’t immediately comply with Shuhua’s demand. Instead, you stroke her cheek, peck her lips, and say, “Trust me, I will. I’d like to give you at least one more orgasm first though. Is that okay?”

Your cheesily-delivered line registered to the game as suave as fuck, apparently. Shuhua blinks, blushes, her eyes grow, and her mouth goes a little slack. She’s amazed. “O-okay,” she squeaks. So you get started.

Minnie and Soyeon proudly declare how meticulous their programming is on a regular basis, and boast about the realisticness of their game engine. Your first playthrough was sloppy, but you have had months of experience with the women these NPCs are replications of. They’ve personally taught you not only how to maximize their pleasure, but also about their more secretive fantasies that they put in as easter eggs. Your run won’t just be perfect. You’re going to break the scale.

Shuhua screams in ecstasy as you work your IRL, meta knowledge magic on her tits and pussy. Two more orgasms in the next few minutes blow her mind to smithereens. You almost expect matrix code to start leaking from her ears.

“Sorry babe, I got carried away. Should I put it in now?”

She breathes heavily, and gets heavier as she begins—you assume—to remember what you’re here for. “Oh… oh my god, yes. Yes! Please knock me up!”

Wow. Really? You had to restart twice for her to even hint at the breeding aspect of the game when you didn’t know what you were doing, and now she just straight up exposits it to you when you’re absolutely killing your previous record? That seems unfair. You’ll have to comment on the difficulty curve to Soyeon. Also, what was up with that line? “Oh my god?” The delivery of the line was… off. It felt… red, somehow. Regardless, you’re going to give her what she wants.

You line yourself up and push. Shuhua squeezes her own breasts now, and cums hard. A touch unrealistic to cum just from the insertion. She’s never been quite that easy to trigger IRL, but maybe it’s one of the bugs that got fixed.

Pulling her hand away to suck one of her breasts, listening to her delicious shouts, you find yourself cumming almost right away… Fuck, you don’t even have Improved Stamina I yet! Too much real experience must have made you forget that you have to actually build that up in-game! You quickly focus on the text in the corner of your vision, “Debug menu,” and time suddenly freezes. You can’t move anything but your eyes, but you still feel the sensation of Shuhua around you, and the height of your orgasm. It’s like you’re being edged, or like you somehow got stuck. It’s agonizing.

You quickly look around the menu. It’s disorganized, not even in alphabetical order, and in plain text. It’s kind of hard to read, but you see “add perks” hovering right above Shuhua’s nipple, and focus on it. The list that appears is slightly better organized, and thankfully Improved Stamina I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and IXIVLICMXIV are right at the top. The last one looks like a mistake, and you probably shouldn’t select it. For now, you select the first three, accidentally also select Magic Finger II, and then focus back, and back again.

Time restarts. The agony of your orgasmic peak blips away instantly and you can’t help but cringe at the feeling of a sudden lack of what was once there.

“Are you okay?” Shuhua asks breathlessly, gripping your arm tightly.

Oh right. You turn your mediocre charm back on. “Of course babe. I just got stunned by your beauty for a moment. I’m sorry.”

Shuhua squeaks and you actually feel her gush around you. You may have broken this outdated version.

You begin fucking again, and to your delight, you think you’re pretty sure you did break something. Shuhua reaches orgasm over and over again, basically on every third thrust. You sit up a bit and reopen the debug menu. There’s a submenu option for “girls” hovering under her belly button that you hadn’t paid attention to before, which you select Shuhua from. A jumble of text appears all over your vision. It’s mostly advanced background info that you normally wouldn’t get much insight into, but you do see the stats you first saw in Level 5.

love: 2/100

// ask soyeon why lust rises exponentially during orgasm if greater than love

// this is stupid

lust: 42113/100

Well, that explains it. The placement of the code comments is interesting, and you recognize “// this is stupid” as something you’ve seen Yuqi type many times. You back out of the debug menu and start thrusting again out of curiosity. The bed beneath you gets absolutely flooded. Shuhua’s eyes cross as her orgasms tick up faster and faster, to the point where it looks like she’s having a genuine medical emergency. As (almost) funny as it is, you feel bad seeing your girlfriend having seizure levels of orgasm. Reentering the debug menu, you see that Love is still 2, but Lust has reached some scientific notation kind of number. Thankfully, the text fields can be edited, so you change Lust to 50 and Love to 100. So much for your perfect run, but you can log into the current version and try again… after you’ve had a little fun.

When you resume the game, Shuhua’s eyes go from crossed to standard, and her body pops into a normal, sexy position without so much as a motion blur. She moans and puts her palms on your cheeks, gazing into your eyes. “You… you’re so good. H-how?”

“Little bit of practice. Little bit of cheating.”

She gently pulls you down to kiss you, then wraps her arms around you and whispers, “Please… I want you.”

You chuckle. “To breed you?”

“Just you. I love you.” She strokes your back. You get choked up. Shuhua’s a bit sappy IRL too, but she has avoided telling you she loves you so far. Your other girlfriends toss the phrase around a little flippantly, but you always get the sense that Shuhua either doesn’t love you or takes the words way too seriously.

Shit damn, you got choked up? This is just a recreation of your girlfriend, and you cheated your way into her saying some shit. Don’t get attached. That’s weird.

You open the debug menu once again, navigate to “girls” and quickly turn Love down to 80. While there, you try bumping the Breed stat to 10000/100, hoping the surely hilarious result will take your mind off of feelings. On your way back out of the submenu though, something catches your eye.

shuhua

yuqi

soyeon

minnie

miyeon

soojin

Soojin…?

SOOJIN?!

There’s a sixth girl?! What in the actual fuck?! Who in the actual fuck is Soojin?! You try to navigate into her menu, but you get an error code and some conveniently placed comments.

5U8W4Y error - entity not found

// cant find soojins file

// wtf is this directory structure

// this is stupid

You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You whip your phone from your pocket and open a browser, looking up every combination you can come of with of “Soojin,” “INDIOB,” “I Never Die, I Only Breed,” “ddeunstation,” “ELP,” and the game company’s name. There are far too many people named Soojin, and nothing else helps to narrow it down. A surname would be helpful.

You open your group chat with your girlfriends and start to type “YO, NUGU TF IS SOOJIN?” but you paused. You put some pieces together, and you think it might not be best to bring it up.

The former employee they all get hushed about. It makes sense! If all five of them are both devs and also characters in the game, why wouldn’t this Soojin person be in the game too?

But if that was the case, why was she DLC, and not part of the base game? What’s her deal?

You flip the game back on. Your dick is very wet. You look down and see literal gallons of semen squeezing out of Shuhua around your cock. Right. Breed is at ten thousand out of a hundred.

You exit to the home screen, feeling disembodied, and you look around at the options. New game.

Normal

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. Fuck, no option for a debug mode. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you. You put out a hand to stop her.

“Who is Soojin?” you ask, sounding a little more desperate than you meant to.

Shuhua blinks, pausing her undressing. “Huh?”

“Soojin.”

“Yeah I heard you the first time.”

“Do you not know who Soojin is?”

“No?” Shuhua says as she squints at you. “Uh… you are the challenger, right?” She finishes dropping her robe.

You exit to the home screen, hit Continue, and return to your DLC save. Instantly, Shuhua is underneath you, jizz spraying your pelvis, eyes rolled back and a dopey grin on her mouth.

“Who is Soojin?” you ask.

Shuhua doesn’t respond, but it seems it’s not due to a breeding-induced coma. Misty, red text forms in front of your eyes.

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You rub your eyes. Soojin is only in the DLC.

Maybe Soojin wasn’t a dev, or the former employee at all. That would be an unsatisfying answer, and, well, wouldn’t really answer all of your questions, but Occam’s razor and all that.

A glass of water cools you down. You didn’t realize you were getting so heated… But you still don’t have answers. Time to get heated again.

You reopen the game, delete your Normal game save to cut down on time, and hit Continue, to be taken directly to the existing DLC save. Again, you’re in a growing pool of your own cum as it pours out of Shuhua. The debug menu fixes that right away, as you tick her Breed stat back down to one hundred, and do the same with Love and Lust. You’re mostly dry again when you resume, being just a bit sweaty and with a perfectly reasonable, if large, amount of semen oozing out of Shuhua. She looks quite content and a little dreamy.

“Hey Shuhua, you good and satisfied?”

She nods, hums happily, and curls onto her side. You hate to leave her uncuddled in such an adorable state, but you really need to see this DLC content.

You swing open the next door, and you are greeted by Yuqi, dressed in a similar robe as Shuhua.

“Ya, what are y—Oh, you’re hard as fuck.” Her eyes light up when she sees your slick-coated and more importantly, rigid, cock. “Awesome.”

She grabs you by the cock, but her hand slips due to what you did with Shuhua earlier. “Ew.”

Despite her words Yuqi takes her hand and starts licking it clean. You don’t have time for this though. You open the debug menu, girls submenu, select “yuqi,” and edit her Breed stat to 100, then back out.

Yuqi’s cheeks suddenly puff up and she cups her hands below her chin just in time to catch an enormous mouthful of your spontaneously generated cum as it bursts from between her lips. She stares at it in confusion and surprise as it seeps between her fingers and down her arms. You also see a smaller amount dripping from between her legs.

“Good enough for me to move on, Yuqi?”

She closes her mouth, wiggles her tongue around for a bit, and gulps heavily. When she speaks, it still has a bit of a wet, sticky quality to the sound. “Uh… yup, sure. Go for it.”

As you open the next door, you hear Yuqi behind you mumbling to herself, “That was kinda cool…”

The door opens to a bedroom, furnished with a bed, but also with a producing setup, complete with monitors, keyboard, and mic. At the keyboard sits your next “challenge”—Soyeon.

“Oh, hello, I didn’t expect you here so quickly.”

Before she stands up, you open the debug menu, girls submenu, select “soyeon,” edit her Breed stat to 100, then back out.

Soyeon’s smug look turns to one of dire concern as an excessively loud, wet, and distinctly embarrassing noise erupts from her ass. The back of her robe turns wet and her whole body trembles. Uh oh.

You steel yourself for the worst and open your mouth. “Um, Soyeon…? Can I move on?”

Her shaking hands slowly cover her mouth, arms tucked in tightly to her body. She stares, traumatized, at the keyboard in front of her. You’re incredibly thankful that this isn’t the real Soyeon, but it still feels extremely mean of you to try to rush her after being the cause of a volcanic butt eruption.

After nearly a minute, in which the only sound is your cum dripping off her chair to the floor, Soyeon whispers, barely audible, “Please move on.”

You bow deeply and side step your way to the next door, hoping you can be forgiven for this sin.

The door, unfortunately, still has the battle pass reader on it. You cringe and turn toward Soyeon. She has not moved.

“H-hey Soyeon. Can I have the battle pass?” you ask, cautiously. Not cautious enough though, as you suddenly remember she did not actually give it to you, and you got it from an achievement last time.

“Please go,” Soyeon whispers.

“Sorry! It’s fine, really. It’s not that weird. And it’s my fault… sorry,” you whisper back before opening the debug menu.

First, you turn Soyeon’s Breed back down to zero, hoping that will give her a little peace of mind, then you go back to the main debug menu. Scanning around, you see time variables, room variables (surprise, the room you’re in is called “Studio”), and so much more until you find “inventory,” in which you find toggles for what seems to be every item in the game. Surprisingly, this list is alphabetized—Minnie must have implemented it—and much longer than you anticipated.

“Battle Pass” isn’t far down the list, so you set it to true and resume the game. There’s no more liquid around Soyeon’s butt, but she still seems to be incapable of movement.

With one last apology, you turn to the door and wave the battle pass at the lock, causing it to disengage with a loud click. You take a deep breath and—why is it empty?

You step into the pure white, perfectly cuboid room and look around wildly. What’s going on in here?

Opening the debug menu, it’s pretty obvious. You sigh. Across the top of your vision, in bright red, is a message.

Unknown error: save file may be corrupted, delete to avoid critical game data loss

You resume the game and spin around to see the door you came through is gone. Delete the file it is, then. You exit to the home screen, open your saves, and delete.

Dammit, now what?

More out of frustration than anything else, you start up a new game with the I Trust DLC.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Debug mode

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the debug menu immediately, girls submenu, select “miyeon” and take a look around. There are stats as expected, all in their neutral state, but there are additional options. One of them seems to be what you’re looking for.

spawnLocally()

Instantly, before you even resume the game, Miyeon appears directly in front of you. She’s already naked, and fully upright with a neutral expression, T-posing. You resume.

"Hello, congratulations and welcome for making it this far." Miyeon glances down and suddenly seems confused. She points at her bare tits, then up at the mirror, then at you. “Hey… What?”

“Hey Miyeon. Could you please give me a blowjob?”

“What? No. I w—”

Debug menu, girls submenu, select “miyeon,” set both Love and Lust to 100, resume.

“—ant your cock in my mouth so bad.”

Miyeon drops to her knees and has you fully down her throat in seconds, gazing up at you with pleading eyes, the same way she does IRL.

Anyway, that part wasn’t necessary. You just wanted one of Miyeon’s famous blowjobs. You search through the debug menu, turning on every perk, giving yourself unnecessary currency, spawning all four of your other girlfriends, naked and T-posing, and giving them all maxed out Love and Lust. When you resume, they all simultaneously start to say their intro lines, but stop halfway through to give each other befuddled looks, refocus on you, and join Miyeon on their knees around you, feeling your body (which is very solid considering the A Hard Man is Good to Climb perk), worshipping you and begging for their turns.

“Hey,” you say, and watch as all five women orgasm at the same time (so that’s what the King’s Speech perk does, apparently), “Real quick…” They’re all cumming again. What the hell?

You remove the King’s Speech perk in the debug menu and continue. “Real quick. Can any one of you tell me right off the bat who Soojin is?”

They all ignore your words and keep worshipping your body. There’s the misty, red text again.

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You check that they all have normal, maxed out Love and Lust stats again, then you give yourself all of the Completed Level achievements, and resume.

“Anybody? Who’s Soojin?”

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

You find a command that transports you to Minnie’s room. Your girlfriends appear there with you. You resume.

“Who’s Soojin?”

I Trust DLC requires access to Level 4.

It seems you broke something again. Yuqi is frozen in a T-pose now, and she’s hovering above the floor, diagonally. Minnie is glitching out, with unreasonably huge tits appearing on and disappearing from her chest between bursts of static. Soyeon’s hair sticks perfectly straight up from her head. Miyeon is still deepthroating your cock, but she has turned blue. Shuhua’s bottom half is clipped into the floor.

“What the fuck…?” Soyeon asks, feeling her new, rock hard hairdo.

Shuhua takes a few steps back (or so you assume, since you can’t see her legs) and forth. “Sweetie pumpkin? What’s going on?”

You roll your eyes and exit to the home screen, deleting the save file. You’re sure there’s a way for you to see this DLC content, if it even exists, but trying to cheat your way into it may not be an option.

Fuck it, this isn’t worth your time.

New Game

I Trust DLC

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Debug mode

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the debug menu, give yourself every perk that isn’t King’s Speech, and spawn all of your girlfriends, setting them all to 100 Love and Lust, and you resume.

You remove your robe and sit down on the bed while the five of them get over their initial confusion.

“Anybody want a sixsome?” you ask.

They don’t need to respond with their words, shoving each other out of the way to get to you. You tell them not to be rude about it, but there’s not much stopping them. Yuqi gets to you first and practically swan dives into a blowjob. Soyeon hops onto the bed, standing over you and offering her ass to eat out. Minnie wraps her arms around you from behind, stroking your chest. Shuhua and Miyeon drop to the floor next to your feet, Miyeon on Shuhua’s lap, and furiously make out with each other, hands between the other’s legs. Nobody freezes, glitches, or turns blue.

This is good. You can just have a good time and forget all about this DLC for a while. You’ll get to it eventually.

And a good time, you certainly do have. You cum endlessly, sometimes through multiple cocks, and never go soft. Every hole of every girl gets plenty of attention, and is always treated as a successful breeding, including Minnie’s. Your Neverpoints, Yeoro Bun, Woogi Power, and CUMCA Kred all skyrocket, as if it matters. You even get the sly idea to try spawning in multiples of your girlfriends since some of them have to pause for breaks (something you didn’t realize had even been programmed in).

In the end, after what must be several hours, Soyeon lays on top of herself, both of her unconscious, and cum leaks out of both asses and pussies after you utilized your Johnson & Johnson & Johnson & Johnson perk on them. There’s a Minnie wearing a strap on cOCk-a-dildo, slowly bobbing Yuqi’s mouth up and down the entire length. Miyeon and Shuhua are sixty-nining, eating your cum out of each other. Another Yuqi, who you believe is the first one, is your little spoon, curled up against your chest while your cock stays firmly planted in her ass. Yet another Yuqi is your big spoon, nuzzling the back of your neck while another Shuhua plays with that Yuqi’s hair. You’d found a way to expand the bed, thankfully.

The (probably) first Minnie crawls over several other copies of your girlfriends to prostrate herself on your side. She kisses your cheek. “Not to ruin this unexpectedly fantastic orgy, but the mirror has been blinking at you for the past four hours to let you know it’s way past midnight out of game. Your body is going to be exhausted.”

You groan. Right. You supposedly have a life to live. You close the game.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door. You really, really need to pee.

…

You wake up a little before noon. It’s raining outside. Your phone lets you know you have twelve messages and a missed call. Your girlfriends have been taking pictures of each other at the airport, acting like some kind of Kpop paparazzi to make sure you know how comfortable their flight outfits are. Soyeon complains that they shouldn’t flood the group chat with pictures, and post them on your shared cloud collections instead.

Chuckling about it, you drop a few emoji in there, glibly telling them that Shuhua has the best outfit (a massively oversized hoodie, sweatpants, and crocs). After you make yourself some “breakfast” you check the chat again to see a bunch of crying emoji from Miyeon and a long-winded rant from Yuqi about why her outfit is actually the most comfortable.

It’s good that they made such an amazing game and inserted themselves into it, because you’re going to miss the real deal while they’re gone.

You don’t recognize the phone number that called you, so you give it a call back. It sounds like someone answers on the other end, but doesn’t respond when you ask who they are, and you just hang up. Spam calls are getting so weird.

A shower gets the day started. You put on the same bathrobe given to you by Miyeon on your consummatory hotel visit. It lasts a lot longer on your body when you use it at home than it does while you’re with any of them. There’s not much point in getting dressed today, since you won’t be going out in this rainy weather.

Guess you’ll keep playing INDIOB.

You sit down in front of your ddeunstation, your head clearer than it was yesterday. The DLC doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, right? You still want to see what it’s about, sure, but maybe you should take it easy. “Don’t try so hard. Sheesh,” is what Minnie and/or Yuqi would tell you.

On the home screen, you navigate to delete your last save. The girlfriend cloning was fun, but you probably ruined that file. Now then…

New Game

I Trust DLC

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

Content not fully tested. May still be some minor bugs.

+ Continue

+ Debug mode

…

You select Continue.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. No debug menu this time. You’ll finish the game the right way, no restarts. Since Minnie gave you a password (not a cheat code) for unlimited free Minnie Dollars, you can probably even finish the game in one sitting if you’re careful.

With a deep breath, you stand up, cinch your robe, and open the door. Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you.

You play it safe, giving Shuhua all the pleasure first, excusing yourself briefly to spend a couple of Neverpoints, and coming back to get your first Yeoro Bun. You don’t move on to Level 2 until you can afford every perk you got on your first playthrough before reaching Yuqi.

It’s easy enough to pass Yuqi’s challenge too. You do it over and over again, seeing to it that Yuqi is a blubbering, cum sputtering blob on the floor every time, working your way through perks until you again have everything you could possibly want to enter Level 3 with.

Reaching Soyeon, you play along with her queen and peasant role play at first, satisfying her dominant side (since you discovered IRL that she does like to switch it up every once in a while) for multiple breedings with a preemptive All Holes Lead to Rome before dominating her and using her like a toy. Once more, you load up on perks, preparing yourself the right way for Level 4 and whatever that might entail.

Your currencies reach roughly twenty-five percent combined of the totals needed for the Level 4 access Battle Pass when you return to the starting room. Yuqi and Shuhua are on the bed, caressing each others’ naked bodies.

“Cutscene?” you ask.

“We’re just here to have some fun,” Yuqi says airily as Shuhua stands up.

“Mmhmm, we just…” Shuhua interrupts herself, kissing you, her hand dancing over your skin before moving up and over your shoulders. “Just feel like doing you, together.”

You smile and join them on the bed.

“You’re not surprised we’re here together?” Yuqi asks between kisses across your chest.

“I’m surprised it took this long. Last time, I had less than five percent progress to the Battle Pass.”

Yuqi shrugs. “Maybe you’re just progressing faster in general. That would explain how you haven’t had to restart even once yet.”

That’s right. You were going to see if they’d have any unique dialogue related to your flawless run. There it is!

“I, for one, am glad you’re doing so well,” Shuhua says, lightly stroking your dick as she shimmies up above it, “If you’re this good to us now, I can only imagine how good you’ll be for us in real life.”

Yuqi punches Shuhua in the leg. “Ya! You aren’t supposed to—Don’t listen to her. She’s crazy.”

You chuckle, “Hey, don’t hit her! I already completed the game once. I’ve been dating you all for a while now.”

The women stare at each other for a moment and then back at you. Shuhua gives you a concerned expression. “Why are you playing then? Couldn’t you be doing this in real life?”

Yuqi mumbles, “I’d still be playing occasionally.”

“Nah,” you say, “The five of you are at a developer’s conference in Japan for the next week and said I should do a bit of gaming while you’re gone.”

Both of their faces brighten up a bit. Yuqi bounces up to her knees. “Well aren’t we just a couple of lucky object instantiations!” she chimes.

“So that’s cool with you, huh?” You take one of each of their hands in yours.

“Obviously,” Yuqi says, “We don’t act like it because we’re supposed to be NPCs in a game, but we’re just code, my dude. Extremely sophisticated code capable of complex emotion replication, but still code. We didn’t exist before you started a new game, and we won’t exist again after. But while we’re here, we can appreciate the absolutely choice dicking you’re giving us, so the fact that you came back for an orgasm packed visit is fucking awesome.”

You blink. That was a lot. “Won’t exist after…?”

Yuqi blinks back. “Oh… I mean… No, not in a moral quandary kind of way. Like, in a peaceful oblivion, pop into existence, have tons of radical awesome sex, and back to peaceful oblivion kind of way.”

Shuhua sinks down onto your cock, shuddering at the fullness. “Yeah. What she said. Can we get this started now? Waiting for another turn while you were getting all that CUMCA Kred has my womb dying to get filled up again.”

“Sure thing, babe,” you say, trying not to think about her fleeting existence.

“That’s cute! Is that what you call me in real life too?”

“It is, and it’s what you call me, too.”

“Awww! Well it’ll take a little practice, but I like it a lot, babe.”

You smirk and start to guide Shuhua into a slow, sensual fuck. She shuts her eyes and moans gratefully. Yuqi opens your inventory and pulls out the cOCk-a-dildo, which you only now realize you haven’t had to use yet on this playthrough. Seems odd, given how effective it was the first time around. It’s halfway down her throat in a flash.

Several orgasms from everybody, successful breedings, and an achieved-but-unused Battle Pass Voucher later, Yuqi suddenly slips out from underneath you with a shocked look on her face. “Dude, why aren’t we including the others in this?! You unlocked Soyeon, and you can use that voucher to go get Minnie! If you’re dating all of us, why don’t all of us work together to get you to Level 5 and get Miyeon?”

Shuhua bounces up and down. “Oh! Yes! I love fucking Miyeon in real life!”

Yuqi punches Shuhua again. “Hey, you can’t just reveal your secrets like that… Wait, you fuck Miyeon?”

You nod. “I mean, I already had a pretty good idea that’s what was going on.”

Shuhua shrugs, rubbing her punched arm before threatening a punch back. “It’s not exactly like we’re good at hiding it.”

Yuqi starts moving toward the door. “Oh my god, you’re such a lesbian,” she mumbles, “Not that I don’t want to tap that bimbo myself… Hey, you two keep going. I’m going to get Soyeon.”

There it is again. That line, “Oh my god.” It’s just standard dialogue, but it doesn’t feel right. It sounds red.

Not much later, Yuqi and Soyeon enter the room. Soyeon stands with her hands on her hips, glaring you down. For a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to hit you with a restart.

“So you just come in here, knowing everything about us, and thinking you can just fuck us all like you do in real life, huh?”

Shuhua slowly scoots away from you. You gulp. “I mean, that’s basically what you told me to do.”

Soyeon smirks. “I was right. Get on your knees, peasants. If you’re going to go at it for so long without me, then you gotta make it up to me.”

You and Shuhua smile at each other and kneel in front of her. Yuqi stays upright though.

“Hey! I was the one who had the idea to include you! Why am I being treated like a peasant too?!”

Soyeon grabs Yuqi’s face, squeezing her cheeks. “You want to eat my ass, Yuqi.”

There’s a moment of pregnant silence before Yuqi, through forcibly puffed out lips, says, “Yeff ma’am,” and drops to her knees as well.

The three of you take turns eating Soyeon out from the front and the back and sucking her fingers, and she occasionally (once or twice per orgasm) lightly slaps your faces, reminding you of how lowly you are compared to her. During a particularly savage comment to Yuqi about submissiveness while plowing Yuqi’s ass with your cOCk-a-dildo, she turns over her shoulder and gives you a wink. It’s your cue to switch things up.

Soon, all three women, Soyeon included, are mewling under the power of your godly cock. It’s a shame you’re not quite such a perfected sex god IRL, but you accomplish plenty as you are. All of these extra perks are just fun.

Then again, maybe your girlfriends are working on a multiplayer version of the game! Or maybe you can convince them to. Who wouldn’t want to fuck in real life and in game at the same time?!

You put the thought out of your mind, deciding to focus on the current good time. And on that note, you glance at the mirror. You’re nearly seventy-five percent of the way to being able to pay for a Battle Pass the normal way! You point that out to your girlfriends.

“Oh…” Soyeon starts, “Yeah, we should just go get Minnie and Miyeon. No sense leaving them out of this.”

“Yeah, man!” Yuqi butts in, “Pop that voucher and I’ll go let Minnie know we’re forgoing the fluff.”

You look at the mirror, “But we’re actually getting there, fair and square.”

Yuqi pats your head condescendingly, which is undercut by the amount of your cum flowing out of her holes and at the corner of her mouth. “My dude, fair and square flew out the window and moved to pound town when you told us you were dating us in real life. Try not to let that cat out of the bag the next time you do a playthrough.”

“What? But I’ve done all the work up to this point. I was just going to—”

A small ding interrupts you, and you look to your left to see Shuhua cashing in your voucher for the Battle Pass and pulling it out of your inventory. “Start a new game and go for a perfect run tomorrow,” she says, tossing the Battle Pass to Yuqi, “You can’t just expect me not to get my lips on Miyeon at this point.”

Soyeon mutters, “Damn you’re such a lesbian… Then again, Miyeon…”

You sigh, defeated, as Yuqi skips out of the room, leaving a trail of your cum behind her, waving the Battle Pass over her head like a lightstick at a rave. She drops it, shouts “I meant to do that,” picks it back up, and turns down the hall into Soyeon’s studio.

“Shuhua’s right, you know,” Soyeon says as she climbs onto your cock again, “Just try for the record again tomorrow. You got this far in… just a few hours, damn… You’ve optimized this to a science. No wonder the real me is fucking you.”

“You do keep challenging me to 4X games. You still beat me every time, but you get excited and fuck me whenever I get close to winning.”

Soyeon laughs. “Yup, sounds like me.”

“By the way, I don’t want to screw myself over here, but how do you know I’m dating you in real life? I could be lying, you know.”

She grimaces for a half second as she spears both of her holes with your Johnson & Johnson cocks. “The statistical probability of anybody getting a perfect run even through level three is ridiculously tiny. Your chances, if you didn’t know us personally, would be effectively non-existent. I’d call it a very safe bet.”

“Yup,” you chuckle, repeating Soyeon’s words as you wrap one arm around her and the other around Shuhua, “sounds like yo—”

You’re cut off by an ear-piercing scream.

You, Soyeon, and Shuhua freeze in shock. You glance back and forth between each other. Another scream, just as loud as the first, is what gets you all to separate and run into the hall. “MINNIE!”

Your perks ensure that you’re the first one through the hall and the studio. Minnie’s room is nothing like what you remember. It’s pure white, like the time you got in by cheating your way through, but it looks more intentional, like white paint, rather than an empty void. There is no ceiling, instead being topped by a mess of white, industrial pipes and boxes, jutting into each other at odd angles. There is no bed, but there are a couple of pillars, brutally square, and between them is Yuqi, still screaming, on her knees. Behind her, you can see a nude figure curled up on the floor. You can only imagine who that is.

You run to them, skidding to a halt when you see the state Minnie is in. It is her curled up, and you think for the briefest moment that she’s dead, but she’s not. She’s trembling, eyes barely open, and her arms, fingertips to elbows, are pitch black. Torn strips of white cloth are woven into her hair. Black eyeshadow and lipstick adorn her face, as well as stylized writing across her cheeks, and a trail of black liquid coming from her nose and pooling beneath her head. You drop down next to her across from Yuqi and read:

Ab imo pectore

Another scream comes as Shuhua makes it into the room next, but she stays backed up against one of the pillars. “What’s going on?!”

You don’t want to look away from Minnie, but something about Yuqi catches your eye. You glance up to see that she has some new makeup too. Sharp red lines streak down her cheeks from her eyes. Tears trail down either side of the lines, and her whole body is shaking.

Scooping down, you pull Minnie into your arms. She feels light as a feather.

“Minnie?” you shout, “Minnie?!”

Her breathing is shallow, but slow, and her quivering is painful to feel against your chest. Her eyes manage to get halfway open. One hand slowly lifts up toward your face, but she can’t seem to manage to get it high enough. Her voice is just as pitifully weak.

“S-Soo… jin… It hurts…”

“What in the fuck is this?!” Soyeon growls, standing next to Yuqi.

“I don’t know!” Yuqi screams.

You can’t take this. If this DLC means you have to watch Minnie… go through whatever this is, you don’t want any part of it. You exit the g—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

You try agai—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

Soyeon snarls. “What the—failed log out?!”

Yuqi spins around and shoves Soyeon away. “Stop fucking around, Soyeon! Let him log out and shut this down! I didn’t sign up for th—”

“This is nothing I did, you idiot!”

The two of them get into a screaming match, but you try to ignore them, clutching Minnie closer to you and trying to think of how to fix this. It’s obviously something to do with the DLC. You try an emergency ddeunstation shutoff, but nothing happens.

Shuhua catches your attention as she steps closer, but halts. You look up to see her staring, horrified, above you. You follow her gaze.

Semi-hidden in the tangle of pipes, a blonde, feminine figure in a short black dress and stiletto heels lounges, high out of reach. Her face is obscured from your view, but you’ve got a pretty good idea about who it is.

Yuqi and Soyeon fall silent, staring in the same direction.

The sound of the figure’s heels tapping the pipe below her rings out in the silence. She stands, her face still obscured from your angle, and walks through the wall at her side and she’s gone. A red liquid, too lightly colored to be blood—the same red—, seeps down the wall from her former position, enveloping the door to Level 5.

“Shuhua,” you ask quietly, “Who is Soojin?”

Tears start to pour off of Shuhua’s chin, and she drops to her knees next to you. She sobs out the words, “I… don’t know.”

You look up at the others. Yuqi and Soyeon both shake their heads slowly.

Doing your best not to choke up, you get onto your feet, still cradling Minnie in your arms. “Hurry… Back to the starting room.”

Yuqi leads the way, peeking around corners, while Soyeon practically has to drag Shuhua behind you. At least the starter room is the same… with one exception. Written on the mirror in what looks like bright red lipstick:

achievement unlocked

I completed level 4 for you

meet me in level 5 alone

for miyeon’s sake

Yuqi sees it too and runs up to it, trying to scrub it off with her forearms. It smudges until it’s unreadable, but no matter how many times she spits on it and drags her arm across the mirror, the red streaks remain, just like the ones below her eyes. “Fffuck this bitch…!”

“Stop touching that!” Soyeon yells.

You set Minnie down on the bed as gently as you can, but don’t remove your arms from under her. Shuhua joins you on the opposite side, still sobbing, pulling a pillow under Minnie’s head and gingerly touching her face.

“I’m not just leaving it there!”

“It’s just some fucking words, Yuqi! What if that shit is dangerous?”

“What? This?” Yuqi licks her arm, and Soyeon tries to swat it down. “It ain’t doing shit! Unlike whatever that bitch did to Minnie! You saw it! ‘Completed Level 4?’ You know exactly what the fuck that sounds like, and I’m not going to let her mock us like that!”

“Yeah, I know what it sounds like, but unlike you, I can read! What about Miyeon?!”

“Miyeon can… Miyeon can handle herself—!”

Soyeon’s hand cracks across Yuqi’s cheek. “Think about something that isn’t in your face for once! Miyeon is the softest bitch any of us knows. Handle herself? There’s no fucking way. We don’t even know what happened to Minnie!”

Yuqi held her palm to the slap mark Soyeon left, huffing through her nose and looking around the room. She lowers her volume. “Minnie’s the one who’s hurt.”

“I know,” Soyeon growls, “But clearly if this could happen to Minnie, it could happen to Miyeon too. Either way, he needs to go get Miyeon.” She points at you. We can’t leave her alone.”

You carefully take your arms out from under Minnie, and she rolls onto her side facing you again, slowly, and clearly painfully. Her eyes flutter open and she whispers, “S-Soojin, please…”

Her head drops to the pillow. She definitely seems unconscious, but her fingers still twitch, as if she’s dreaming.

“I’ll go,” you say, looking over Minnie’s shoulder at Shuhua. “Take care of her, please.”

Shuhua watches as you stand up, but doesn’t acknowledge your words. Yuqi doesn’t look in your direction, but Soyeon gives you a shaky, but otherwise resolute nod.

When you step out the door though, Yuqi chases you down and grabs your arm, turning you around. “Hey, uh…” You don’t recall the last time you’ve seen a vulnerable expression on her face, if ever, but there it is, even through the menacing makeup. “Fuckin hurry it up, kay?”

You do exactly that, running through the studio and the strange industrial space that replaced Minnie’s room. The door to Level 5 is still covered in that red liquid, but you shove it open anyway.

Somehow though, you don’t end up touching the door. As you push, you stumble through, and regain your footing on the other side. Your vision shifts and twists as you do.

Then, you’re in a new room. This time, the walls are black, but there’s a blue light illuminating the far wall from below an enormous black and gold pedestal, flanked by what you first think are two more white pillars until you realize they’re made of cloth. The light glints through dozens of black icicles hanging from the ceiling, threatening the dozens of silhouetted people frozen in time beneath them. On top of the pedestal, Miyeon.

A metallic structure juts out from behind her, giving the appearance of stringy, angelic wings. She seems just as frozen as the figures below her, her nude body posed like a majestic statue. Is she glitched out? And if so, does that mean she’s somehow, technically safe?

“You got here quicker than I thought you would,” says a soft new voice, though the line as a whole sounds like it’s being delivered in red, so you make the assumption it’s Soojin.

“Who the hell are you?”

You can’t tell where her voice is coming from. It’s too echoey in here. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Walking forward, you glance up at Miyeon. Of course she’s beautiful. “Answer me,” you say.

“Are you going to breed her?”

You stop near the base of the pedestal when it suddenly drops, putting Miyeon just above you. Climbing up is easy enough.

Glistening tears stream down Miyeon’s face as she stares at you. Her body is frozen in place, but her eyes aren’t. Though her face is stuck in an elegant, artistic expression, the way her eyes flicker from side to side tells you that she’s afraid.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it, Soojin. This isn’t right.”

“How do you know my name?”

You scowl and look down into the statues, trying to pinpoint Soojin’s location. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“There’s no point in being obstinate. You need to move on to the next level.”

“Why would I want to—”

“You can move on by breeding Miyeon.”

“Yeah, sure, if she says that for herself. I’m not going to just do that to someone who can’t even move.”

There’s a long silence before you hear Soojin again. Miyeon’s eyes seem a bit more relaxed, but you know this isn’t over. “If she could speak, she’d tell you to do it, you know.”

“I don’t care if this is just a game. I won’t do it if she doesn’t say she wants it.”

“If we’re setting aside the pretense of immersion, then tell me: When was the last time you killed someone in a game? That was programmed in. So was this.”

“This is different.”

“Not at all.”

“Miyeon is a recreation of a real person.”

“Quaint, that you care about an imitation.”

Miyeon’s eyes suddenly twitch frantically, side to side. Many hands simultaneously grab your legs and yank you backward. The pedestal shoots upward and the cloth pillars start to spin around it, encasing it like a silk cocoon. Your vision of the process is obscured by at least a dozen faceless people piling on top of you. Even with your excessive strength perks, you can’t shove them all off. For as frantic as it is, it’s relatively quiet, and mere moments later, the people jump off of you, taking their places under the black icicles and becoming silhouettes once more.

“Fuck! Bring her back down here, Soojin!” you shout, slamming your fists into the now excessively tall pedestal. Looking up, you realize you can’t even see how far up this room goes.

A small gap opens in the cocoon, maybe thirty feet above you.

“Here you go.”

Miyeon tumbles out of the gap. You barely have the time to register that her arms are black before you have to back up to catch her. Thankfully, it’s not too hard. She’s impossibly light, exactly like Minnie, but entirely unconscious.

“What did you do to her?!”

“I helped you. Congratulations. Looks like Level 5 is completed. Next, Level 6. Take her if you want, but don’t make me wait.”

The base of the pedestal opens, a sliding door revealing what appears to be an elevator inside. You turn around however, and run back through the entrance and to the starting room, where you find Yuqi, Soyeon, and Minnie.

“Where’s Shuhua?” you ask as you lay Miyeon down next to Minnie. 

Soyeon, fuming in the corner, looks at you from between her fingers. “She ran off after you. You didn’t catch her?”

She ran? Where to? “No. I didn’t see her.”

Yuqi punches the bed. The red streaks coming down her eyes have gotten longer. “Dammit, we lost her too! And now Miyeon…!” She covers her face with her hands, doubling over. Her breath catches through clenched teeth. “Dammit!”

“What happened?” Soyeon asks, no less distressed.

Before you can answer, Yuqi screams and collapses to her hands and knees on the floor. The red, lipstick-like smear on her arm shifts and looks like it’s digging into her flesh. As soon as it starts though, it stops, and by the time you’re on your knees, trying to help, the words look like they’re burnt into her skin.

I told you not to make me wait

“Go! Now!” Soyeon shouts as soon as she gets down next to you and sees the writing.

It’s painful to leave again, but you clearly don’t have a choice. You get up and run as fast as you can, the sound of Yuqi’s pained yelling following you down the hall.

You get back to the elevator quickly. The inside is pale white, well lit, like the room Minnie was in. It’s featureless, besides two buttons and a message between them.

Level 5

Only one person may use the elevator to return from Level 6 to Level 5, at which point it will cease to function. Proceed with caution. Are you prepared?

Level 6

Your stomach sinks. This is clearly some kind of trap. You didn’t see Shuhua on your way, so she must be in Level 6. You hesitate to hit the button that will take you down.

And yet, you don’t know if you can’t. Soojin is obviously in control here. Minnie and Miyeon are in the same state. Yuqi is in pain. Soyeon could be next for all you know. And Shuhua…

You slam your fist against the Level 6 button. The violent act doesn’t calm you down. The door closes slowly, and you can feel the elevator starting to shift, taking you lower.

All of this pain. Soojin thinks this is just a game? Can she not see what she’s doing? Shouldn’t she understand what your girlfriends are going through, since she’s a character in this game, just like they are?

You try one last time to exit the—

Unknown error: unrecognized input

Fine. You’ll play.

The elevator stops and the door opens to room more in line with the ones you’re used to in INDIOB. The walls are red. So is the floor. There’s a bed in the center of the back wall with black, silky sheets. In front of the bed, however, stand two people. Shuhua is naked, facing roughly your direction, but in front of her is Soojin, blonde, dressed in a black bathrobe, facing away from you. Her hands are on Shuhua’s face. The two are pressed together in a kiss, still and silent.

You run forward and throw your weight sidelong into Soojin, tearing her away from Shuhua and sending her tumbling across the floor. She lands such that you still cannot see her face.

Shuhua gasps and glances nervously from you to Soojin on the floor, then grabs your arm. “N-no!”

“No what, Shuhua?! She hurt the others! Miyeon and Yuqi now, too!”

“Don’t! Don—”

“Leave, Shuhua…” Soojin’s voice is shaky.

Shuhua releases your arm and dives down next to Soojin, putting up a halting hand toward you. “No, Soojin! I can’t! I… Please, don’t hurt her! I l-love her!”

“Love?” you ask, “She’s controlling you somehow, Shuhua! You didn’t even know who she was ten minutes ago!”

“I know what I said!” Shuhua drapes a protective arm over Soojin’s body. “I don’t know how I know her, but I know I love her!”

“Shuhua… Please leave,” Soojin says, turning her head barely in Shuhua’s direction.

“No!”

You know you shouldn’t trust Soojin, but you ask anyway. “If she goes up the elevator, will she be safe?”

Shuhua’s eyes widen in fear as Soojin answers, “Yes.”

Taking Shuhua by the arm, you drag her up and away from Soojin. She kicks and screams and punches you, but your perks make you inhumanly strong. She may not be as light as Minnie or Miyeon were, but it’s still an easy matter to pull her into the elevator, hit the Level 5 button, and hold her there as the door closes.

“Soojin! No! Don’t hurt her! Soojin, please! Soojin, I love you! SOOJ—” The door shuts, and instantly cuts off all sound. Even the seams of the door disappear.

You turn around. Soojin climbs to her feet, knees shaking, finally turning to face you.

“Finally,” she says quietly, as you stomp closer and swing at her face.

It’s not what you expected out of yourself, but your open hand connects with her anyway, snapping her dark eyes away from you. The red handprint appears instantly. Her hand cradles her cheek right after, fingertips gripping as she takes fast, sharp breaths through her teeth. She stands her ground.

“Good,” Soojin whispers. She drops her hand and lifts her head to look at you again.

You smack her back down. She stumbles a half step back this time. “Finally? Good? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Her hand shakes this time as she holds her face. “I hurt Yuqi. I did things you can’t imagine to Miyeon and Minnie. I would have done the same to Soyeon soon.”

You wind back and punch Soojin, just below the ribs. The force of the impact sends her shuffling back, where she hits the wall, clawing at it with her sharp, red nails. This time you can see her face as she gasps for air, eyes shut.

“What about that makes this good?!” you shout, clenching your fist tighter.

Her eyes crack open, her breath shudders, and she gives you a sneering smile. “You took all… the Magic Fingers perks… I see.”

You don’t register your disgust until you’ve hit her once more, slamming your knuckles into her stomach again. Soojin doubles over to your side, stumbling forward, coughing and gasping painfully, and collapsing onto the bed, legs hanging off.

“Fuck you,” you say through gritted teeth. You want to do it again, but as Soojin laughs between hacking coughs, you stop yourself, worried that she might be serious, and that Magic Fingers is giving her some kind of twisted satisfaction.

Soojin catches her breath eventually, coughing a few more times, muffled by the bed sheets. Her laughing fades too. “So,” she groans, “your high and mighty morals… are they gone yet?”

You decide it’s best not to answer.

One long pause later, Soojin clambers a bit further onto the bed, rolls onto her side, and with a sharp breath and a wince, shrugs her bathrobe off of one shoulder.

“What the hell now?”

She drags her arm out of the sleeve. Despite her obvious pain, she still, disturbingly, displays herself as a seductress, running shaky fingers through her hair to ruffle it up. “You want to beat the game, don’t you?”

You glare back. “Shut up.”

“‘I Never Die, I Only Breed’ is a literal name, you know.”

“Shut up!”

“If you want to knock me around for a while more before you knock me up…”

“No!”

“That would be fine with me,” Soojin reaches out with her leg.

You dodge back before she can stroke you with her foot. “You fucking bitch!”

She moans, sliding off the bed, out of her robe, and onto her knees in one smooth motion. Her expression turns softer. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “You could pound my throat to avenge Minnie, and it would keep me… quiet.” She drags a hand up between her breasts and over her neck, where she wraps her fingers around her throat. She gasps sensually as she tightens her grip, and her body writhes, like she’s getting off on it. And she probably is. “You could find a lot of ways to keep me quiet…”

Before she can grope herself with the other hand, you grab both of her wrists and hold them over her head, squeezing tight enough that your knuckles and hers turn white.

The Stay Ready By Staying Hard perk is unwelcome, but you can’t turn it off. Your dick nearly stabs Soojin in the cheek. She leans her head back, opening her mouth wide, tongue resting on her luscious bottom lip. Her breath tickles you. You drive your entire cock down Soojin’s throat in one brutal thrust. She gags once, and her eyes roll up. Her fingers clench and release, unable to do anything in your solid grip.

“This is all you’re getting out of me,” you mumble. You’ll rely on All Holes Lead to Rome for this, to make it happen quickly. You can only hope winning the game will take you back to the home screen, where you can exit entirely.

Soojin’s gagging intensifies with your thrusting. It doesn’t feel good, or like it’s helping anything, but you hope for some catharsis to come from this.

It seems Soojin feels differently. She moans desperately around your cock as you bulge her neck out. A wet spot forms on the floor underneath her as she somehow achieves her own orgasm. Her eyes manage to roll back down and flutter as she looks into your face as her convulsing dies down.

You look away.

Soon, you’re cumming too, pumping everything you’ve got as deep down Soojin’s throat as you’re sure is possible. That should do it. You pull yourself out.

“Satisfied?” you ask, making sure to put all the disgust you can muster into the word.

Soojin burps a little, and licks her lips. “Yes.”

“I win. End it. Now.”

“No.”

Your grip on her wrists tightens further. If she were anything close to normal, you’d think they might break. “What?”

“You only win when you breed me.”

“I just did. I have a perk that lets me impregnate you with any hole.”

Soojin licks her upper lip again, and her face contorts into a twisted, evil smile. “Yes you do. But you should know by now… there’s a new rule on every level.”

You gather her wrists into one hand so you can use the other to grab her by the throat and press her into the side of the bed. “And what’s your rule, huh, Soojin? I have to make you cum only by hurting you?”

“No…” she strains to speak as you constrict her tighter, but still keeps her infuriating smile, “You… have to… cum… first.”

First? But half your perks make you last longer than your partner, by design. What kind of stupid rule is that?

Soojin alternates between chuckling and coughing. You suddenly wish there was a breath meter in this game so you could shut her up for a while longer. “Come on… I can’t… restart… you.”

You give her a shove that ought to bruise her neck before you let go. “So I can’t win?”

Once she finishes another coughing fit, Soojin calms down, her voice evens out, sounding more like her neutral taunting in the room Miyeon was in. “You can still win. Every time I orgasm, you can reset by cumming. Masturbating first doesn’t count, but otherwise, you’re free to do whatever you want with me.”

“You know you disgust me?”

“Yes,” she says simply. You spit on her face, but immediately regret it when she moans, smiles, and opens her mouth. “More.”

You decide not to indulge that, and instead pick her up and throw her onto the bed, face down. You straddle her legs and line up your cock with her asshole, shoving yourself inside quickly enough that she doesn’t have the time to make a comment. She groans softly.

Pressing Soojin’s face into the bed muffles, but doesn’t silence her. You draw back and slam down, ruthlessly filling her ass over and over. Her stifled moans piss you off further, and you get more and more barbaric, practically jumping up and down on top of her, blasting her asshole open. Even the bed itself joins in on your frenzy, bouncing her back up toward you every time you pound her down, so that your bodies clap together like thunder strikes. Her legs limply flop up and down, but her hands grip the arm holding her face to the bed.

Without any fanfare, you cum again, saturating her insides with what seems to be an endless stream. She feebly reaches back and lightly scratches your hip while you finish.

You jab her hand away, sitting up and letting jizz gush out of her ass, only to notice the enormous wet space already underneath her.

Soojin lifts her head and takes a deep breath, smirking at you over her shoulder. Her makeup is destroyed. “I’m not sure if that was one big orgasm or if I came three times so fast that they melded together. Thank you.”

Taking a fistful of her hair, you yank her up and growl in her ear. “I don’t want to hear it. Shut up, bitch.”

“You know how to make me.”

You push her back down and flip her onto her back. She submissively puts her hands up by her ears and gasps when you pick up her legs and slam your cock into her pussy. The gasp turns into a long moan, and then a dark giggle. “You’re such a gamer.”

No part of you wants to hear anything more she has to say, and you drop your weight onto a hand around her neck, choking her again. Even so, she can barely speak through the constriction. “You’re so attached… to something that’s not real… Acting so impulsively over it…”

You release her neck so that you can instead fall further onto her, pressing your forearm into her throat instead. She wants impulsiveness? Fine.

Through her strangled attempts at breath, her fingers play over your elbow and hand. Her lips curl up, even as they turn ever so slightly blue.

Wait. This is what she wants. You’ve been playing into her hands. This sick bitch wants impulsiveness, violence, and pain. Is it her mental state? Is it yours? She’s cumming so fast because she’s getting exactly what she wants, and you’re not because you’re so damn stressed.

You pull back from Soojin slowly, letting her finish another round of coughing. And when she finally catches her breath, you lean in, fighting your instincts, and kiss her as gently as you can.

She freezes up, and looks genuinely surprised.

That’s it.

You try to convince yourself to focus on her body. The softness of her breasts, pressed against your chest. Her legs, wrapping around your back. Her lips, accepting what you give her. You try to imagine she’s one of your girlfriends. They’re not hard to picture, even as you make love to the one who hurt them.

You snake your arms under Soojin’s, lifting her off the bed and onto your lap. You cringe at her moans, hiding your displeasure by nuzzling your face into her chest.

“A novel strategy…” Soojin whispers. It sends goosebumps down your back and over your arms.

When you orgasm, so does Soojin.

“And?” you ask.

“Incredible… But cumming with me isn’t the same as cumming first.”

You throw Soojin off of you, and she giggles.

“Dammit! I’m just trying to protect my girlfriends, Soojin!”

“Girlfriends…? What a loser.” Soojin smirks. “A gamer and a loser. Of course. You got so close, you know. Trying to get me out of the mood after feeling out my preferences is an interesting idea, but the physical pleasure… To put it simply, I’m still very satisfied.”

You turn away, sitting on the edge of the bed. That’s not what you wanted to hear.

Her fingers curl over your shoulder. “Do you want to try that again?”

Maybe you could go even slower? Gentler? You stand up and face Soojin again. She leans in for a kiss. You don’t stop her.

“Will this really work?” you ask when she seems to have had her fill.

“I doubt it, but that’s up to you to find out.”

“You do the work, then,” you mumble and lie down on your back.

“As you wish.”

Soojin situates herself sidelong to your body, draping herself over the bed so she can fully display her body to you while she sensually brushes her tongue over your cock, cleaning it softly.

“Do you like this?” she asks, gently rolling her nipples between her fingers.

“Yeah.” You want to deny it, but you know you have to like it. “Do you?”

“I do.” She climbs onto you, lowering herself a bit too quickly.

“Slow down,” you say, trying not to sound too demanding, “Let’s… let’s take this slow. I want to take my time with you.”

Soojin blushes and leans down for another kiss. Her big, round, soft lips are going to haunt you. You’re sure of it.

“You know,” she says between soft smooches, “your impulsiveness is justified.”

“No, I shouldn’t act so rash.”

Soojin giggles. Her pussy pulls at you in all the right spots. Maybe this won’t be too hard, this time. “No. You should. Yuqi is fine by now, but Minnie and Miyeon… Do you want to know what I did to them?”

Your blood boils. “Shut up.”

“Such an interesting game, this is.” Soojin runs her hands up and down her body, from her clit to her bruised neck. “Down here, I’m a powerless, helpless girl for you to hurt and please at your every whim, but up there I could do whatever I wanted. Not that I wouldn’t let you use me as a toy anyway.”

You close your eyes, trying to get the objectively sexy image of Soojin out of your head. Instead, you think about Minnie, picturing her as the one grinding against you.

“What did it seem like to you and Yuqi? A few seconds? Because for lack of a better term, I overclocked us. Miyeon and I spent what we perceived as hours just out of your reach. I got to be creative, impregnating her. I wasn’t sure how to do it with Minnie though. That’s why it was so bad for her. If I had my own cock it would have been easier, but no. I had to break her and Miyeon.”

You can’t stop your teeth from clenching together.

“I had to make them love me, then hurt them, and repeat it over and over again. I broke their bodies, but their minds took longer. I don’t think they’ll ever be the same. At least not on this save file.”

This isn’t working.

“Can you imagine what they went through? And just for me to infuse them with some of my ‘soul,’ or so the game calls it. Once they give birth, they’ll whisper that they love me with their dying breaths.”

Your fist flies instinctively, catching Soojin in the ribs and sending her tumbling backward off the bed and onto the floor. “Their dying breaths?!” You jump to your feet.

Soojin flounders, hands against the wall, trying to lift herself up, but she can’t seem to even get to her knees. Her voice is raspy between rapid gasps for air, which you can only guess are for show, “Yeah… dying…”

You lift her by the hair and turn her to face you. She winces as your hand cracks across her cheek. “You would kill someone who you forced to love you?!”

“Some NPCs, sure,” Soojin mutters. You backhand the other side of her face. This time she shrieks, clapping a hand over her eye. Even so, she smiles, “Glad you’re back, gamer.”

“Is that what you were doing to Shuhua when I came down here?!”

Soojin’s smile droops a little, and she hesitates. “No…”

“Why lie now?!” you scream.

“I didn’t.”

You lose sight of the goal of the game, picking Soojin up by the thighs, pinning her to the wall, and stuffing your cock in her ass. Soojin flinches, but her smile comes back.

“Fuck you! You were going to torture Shuhua the same way you did Minnie and Miyeon, because you’re an inhuman freak who gets off on pain!”

Soojin’s nose flares. “I wouldn’t do that to Shuhua. Ah!”

You slam her upward against the wall, pushing her legs back in what had to be an uncomfortable position, as if that mattered to Soojin. Her ass grips you like a lifeline.

“What? You’d do something different? Rape Shuhua the normal way?! You disgusting cunt!”

Soojin turns her head away, hiding behind the same hand she used to cover her injured eye. “Shut up!”

Somehow, through the haze of rage, you catch on. Soojin didn’t like that.

“What, then?” you ask, pressing her with questions harder than you press her to the wall, “You were just going to force her to her love you and savor it until you—”

“I didn’t make Shuhua love me, idiot!”

You fuck her ass harder, grab her face, and force her to to look back in your direction. A trail of tears ran down her uncovered cheek. You’re almost queasy about feeling the beginning of your orgasm.

“How the fuck can you deny it, Soojin? You heard her. She was screaming it! You fucked with her head!”

“No! Shuhua… She did that to herself!”

As your cum fills Soojin’s ass, you keep it going. It’s not necessary anymore, but this is the catharsis you were looking for. Whether or not it was true, or if it hurt you to say it, it was clearly just as bad for Soojin.

“From the moment she saw you, you hurt Shuhua. She ran away from her friends for you, straight into danger.”

Soojin’s lips quiver as she pulls them back into a snarl. “Fuck you… You win. Get the fuck away from me.”

You pull out of her ass and drop her to the floor. “Don’t pretend you’re treating Shuhua any better, bitch. Even if you didn’t do it with some kind of power, you broke her just by being around her. And for the record, I’m pretty damn sure you did it on purpose.”

Soojin turns toward the wall, folding her knees up to her chest. “If you care so much,” she says, “then log out and delete this save. Now.” Her voice quivers just like her lips did. You can’t help but feel some satisfaction about that.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“This is the end. Nothing else is programmed to let you out… We’re stuck down here. The others are still upstairs.”

Leaving sounds good to you. You exit to the home screen.

Without an error message stopping you, you select the save file. It gives you a screenshot of the last thing you were looking at: Soojin, curled up, naked and crying, as she deserves. You delete the save.

You hit New Game.

Normal.

Open your eyes.

Can you move?

Great. Everything is up to you, good luck.

You’re in a room—there is a bed, there is a mirror, there is a door. You open the door, and Shuhua is in front of you, waiting on a bed of her own.

“Are you the challenger?” she asks, untying her bathrobe just a little as she saunters towards you.

You grab her and pull her into a hug. “Shuhua… I’m sorry.”

She hesitates. “Um… okay?”

You exit to the home screen again, take a deep breath, and exit the game entirely.

You’re in your room—there is your bed, there is your mirror, there is your door.

There is Soojin.

The rain has turned into a thunderstorm. It’s pitch black outside your window, and the only light in your room comes from a small desk lamp and your clock, which says it’s two thirty in the morning.

Soojin looks different, but there’s no mistaking it’s her. Her hair is black, not blonde, and she isn’t wearing anything elegant. Just a beige sweater. She’s sitting on your bed, staring out the window.

You try to back away, but find your arms and legs are bound to your chair.

“Hey,” she says, taking a sip of what smells like coffee.

You growl, “What the fuck are you doing here, Soojin?”

She takes another sip, faces toward you a little, and reaches between her legs under her sweater, and lifts her fingers back up with a glob of semen strung between them. You look down and see that you are, in fact, naked, and your dick looks wet, and like it’s been rubbed raw.

Soojin wipes the cum off on your bed, takes another sip of coffee, and stands up. The sound of her bare feet hitting your floor is completely obscured by the rain. A flash of lightning illuminates her from behind as she looms over you.

“The cords are on a timer. They’ll come undone at three.”

“You’re not going to answer me?!”

Soojin kneels down in front of you. You think she’s going to start sucking your dick for a moment, but then she leans to the side and grabs a tote bag off the floor, removing the smallish umbrella sticking out of it.

“I worked on the game. I should get some of the credit. We’ll have a cute kid.”

You jerk your arm, and find that the cords around your wrists are very, very strong. “Credit?! Kid?! Raping me is credit?!”

She reaches into your ddeunstation and removes the memory card. “Don’t tell the others. It would hurt them to know about this.”

Your jaw drops, and you bring your game knowledge into real life. “Are you fucking kidding me?! You bitch, you think you get to be concerned about them?! What’s your deal with Shuhua?! Are you just going to find a way to fuck with her in real life too?!”

Soojin pauses, now in your entryway, shoes halfway on.

Another strike of lightning lets you briefly see a trail of tears running down her cheek.

“They won't hear from me. Treat Shuhua well…” she says quietly before standing up and walking through the door.

~~~~~

Author’s Note: Thanks again to @ggidolsmuts. Dude is a genius and shockingly fast for a fanfic writer. If you read his I Never Die, I Only Breed series, you probably noticed that entire paragraphs of his original stories were copied and pasted into this one. I loved the intentional repetition of the INDIOB series in the places really sold the game aspect of the story. So much of this story was directly inspired by my thoughts about what one might do with a GameShark for the game. The addition of Soojin and all the dark shit only came to me after finishing ddeun's final chapter.

[itsnothingofinterest]

So was the quirk singularity dropped entirely or was it just a reason to give shigaraki a body horror power while still having erasure stop his quirks all along and never meant to be a problem. Like it’s never come up or been used except for as a reason for afo deku and shigaraki to be stronger.

Yeah that plot point was never resolved, not even in a super contrived way like the bystander effect thing.

I guess humanity's just going extinct sometime in the next century or so.

Although as I believe I've said before, I'm reasonably sure Shigaraki's body horror hands weren't related directly to the singularity, but instead to the singularity-proofing procedure he went through. Like hey just come with the improved hardware to handle more complex software (quirks).

And as for Deku...how did he relate to the Singularity again? I mean Yoichi says OFA passed it, but it never really got uncontrollable for Deku (except that one brief time, does that count?) and it almost seems like Yoichi was just talking about the threshold where Deku could talk to the vestiges rather than anything related to Garaki's theory.

(Honestly the term/concept seemed to kind of just get thrown around haphazardly to things unrelated to what Garaki & meatball boy described to us once or twice like that, basically just attached to any quirk looking really strong or scary.)

I'm pretty sure the only semi-confirmed basic quirk we saw to be truly post-Singularity all by itself is Eri's Rewind.

Goodness was the Singularity a very weirdly handled plot line in the end, wasn't it? Anyway, sorry I went on a tangent there. But yeah, doomsday plot line got dropped, guess that means the world is ending. Sucks I guess.

[utilitycaster]

Eh, I doubt this will stop them but I'll cover the alleged hypocrisy since they appear to be harassing other people as well before going to bed.

[description: reblog from harassing-little-hypocrite. The real question is why was the little hypocrite so upset about Imodna in the first place? There is only one answer to that question, and the little hypocrite refuses to give any reasonable alternative. Sure, it made sense to criticize Imodna before, it really left a lot to be desired. But now, there is a new ship that, at best, has all the problems Imodna had. Why is the little hypocrite a fan of one ship but has never stopped shitting on the other? What is different about them, really?]

I assume "little hypocrite" is referring to me, because it was a reblog of my post, but given the URL it might be the poster talking about themselves in the third person like Elmo does. Who can say, really.

Anyway, I agree, Imodna does leave a lot to be desired. I'm not upset; I think it's boring but it also only comes up for like two minutes every other episode.

What's different about Fearne and Ashton: To be clear, I don't consider this an OTP, I don't have strong investment in it being endgame, I absolutely don't expect it to be monogamous, and honestly if it jumped straight into Undying Devotion To Each Other next episode instead of making out and having more interesting conversations I'd be immediately turned off. But right now? They've had a conversation of substance, they discussed their goals in concrete ways, they've had a silly flirty thing going on with the stealing game throughout the campaign (even when I thought the fanon of the ship sucked - which I still do - I felt a hookup would be fun but anything deeper would be contrived), and, perhaps most crucially, they can express frustrations with each other. My issue with Imodna has always been that they have the same boring-ass conversation in slightly different configurations over and over, the two potentially interesting conflicts they had fizzled out like a cheap whoopie cushion, and god, I'm so bored. Fearne and Ashton have conflict. That's the main thing I've wanted from Imodna - I've said that repeatedly - and they've failed to deliver. That's the difference.

Anyone can look through my blog and find plenty of other F/F ships I've enjoyed greatly; I happen to dislike this particular one. There's plenty of straight ships I think suck as well. It's deeply irresponsible to co-opt the language of social justice over stupid fandom wank; you sure aren't helping lesbians in any material way through this, that's for certain, if this is what I considered fun I'd develop literally any other hobby, and it does not really worry me what you think of me given that you don't know me in real life and as such have no basis to pass such judgments with authority.

It's interesting that for a ship where so many shippers seem desperate for more approval from the fandom, multiple Imodna shippers like you are simultaneously out here asking the question "what if I made myself as unpleasant as possible?" (I know you say you find it leaves a lot to be desired, but given that you're specifically mad that I like a different ship more than Imodna...yeah, sure.) Not sure if you're the old fandom bottom-feeder or a new one, but man, people who were neutral on Imodna have begun to sour on it because it's getting a reputation for being the ship of choice for clowns like you, and it's only going to keep getting worse, and people who prefer other things are going to just keep blocking you and write meta and fic for their ships and you'll get less and less.

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

I know that companions will just drop everything to join a player, game wise, cos... y'know, gameplay.

But I was thinking about Nick Valentine again.

and considering how companioning tends to go in FO4, I have to wonder why Nick jumped at the chance to (generally) avoid his office and go trampsing across the Commonwealth.

He's no soldier, so not really fit to be going into places we players tend go. ( Not Preston or Danse or MacCready )

I would argue scavver, more akin to Deacon or Cait who can just adapt to any hard situation, but mister "clothes makes the man I won't wear any armor" seems a bit too set in his ways.

There's Piper and Hancock, but both give us backstory on how they survive the commonwealth and why they jumped up and left when they did.

Nick, doesn't. He just kinda, sticks around. Unlike the hunt for Eddie Winter's Tapes--he doesn't really spend that much time, grousing around trying to find your son. Time does pass, and it could be months before you (bother to) get back on track--doing everything and anything, and Nick is just right there.

( For all my talk of him being the Good Guy, he was rather eager to jump in with you to kill Kellogg--Even though early that same situation, he had a case open on Kellogg... and we don't find anything else about it. )

And I can't help but wonder if the reason he's goes so scarce, isn't necessarily for your case--but for the fact that, with the violent rise of synth paranoia, he was making himself scarce to avoid the inevitable "Valentine is a Synth, he's prolly been spying on us the whole time!"

( Sad thing is... It might be true. Nick's got all the skills for a synth agent, and some of the leaps of logic in quest, if we're not going to take the "the Main Quest Writers are Shit" (I will but not right now), then we gotta assume that on a sub... conscious? BIOS? FIrmware? Whatever--level, he might be being directed. )

( Its one of the only ways that Main Quest set up would even work, cos it really is a series of contrivances that make no sense unless everyone is a puppeteer. )