#that fits the politics of most of these people im pretty sure

[wisheslost]

A most delightful first day.

Wherein you, a new nurse for the Fortress of Meropide, have quite the interesting meeting with the flirtatious Duke and Prison Warden, Wriothesley, only you find out much later he's the duke, and the interesting meeting unravels quickly into much more.

cws : fastburn? like the opposite of slowburn basically bc im impatient. violence, not described in detail but wriothesley gets injured pretty bad . if you find i should add more warnings please tell me

a/n : not beta read im sorry i abandoned this in the middle of writing then had the urge to come back. please tell me if theres any mistakes

wc : 3.2k

Now that all the trivial paperwork was out of the way and you were finally recognized as a nurse affiliated with the Fortress of Meropide, it was just the meeting with the Duke that was left. roaming around searching for him wasn't the best option— hell, it was probably the worst out of all of them. but what else were you supposed to do? ask someone? ...surely the Duke would send for you if you lingered here long enough no? but then again, you don't know what the duke was like, maybe he'd reprimand you for arriving late instead, so you thought to not take any risks, and simply ask the next person you see. it's your first day of work anyway, so it wouldn't be too bad to engage with people you'll be seeing on the daily now either.

Not soon after spotting a young man who seemed to have quite the height, a somewhat tan skin tone and seemed to be in possession of woah? a vision? in a place like this, was kind of a surprise to you. Nevertheless, you approached that man to ask of the duke's office, only for him to be the one to start conversation.

"Hey, you must be the new nurse, right? It's a pleasure to have you, I'm Wriothesley, D-"

"Could you please take me to the Duke 's office, wriothesley?" you didn't realise until it was too late that he was going to say something after,but since he didn't seem to mention it either, how about just move on?

A little chuckle managed to escape his lips, followed by a "Sure I can." to your question. On the way there to his office, he asked you an array of questions, like why you were here, what made you work here, yada yada, but most importantly, he said, "The Duke's honestly a menace. I wouldn't get too close to him if I were you." now, you won't lie to yourself, that did make you much more interested in that duke than you previously were.

And in no time did you reach the Duke's office. Wriothesley lead the way up the stairs of what seemed to be the most grand part of the fortress, asking if you want to have tea with him later after you're done talking to the duke, which you politely declined, not because you didn't like the man—he was quite fun, yes, but tea? that awfully bitter liquid isn't entering your body anytime soon. not with wriothesley, not even with the duke.

now here we are, up the stairs and finally near the, what you assumed to be, the Duke's desk. But the duke isn't there. on the desk nor anywhere near. up until Wriothesley sits down on his chair and speaks,

"Here is the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide,Wriothesley. Though i prefer if you called me 'Your Grace' instead, people here usually refer to me as such. Please, feel free to ask any questions you have, I have already asked mine."

Oh, OH—

"Oh sir i- Your Grace i am so very sorry!! Really i- That time.. I shouldn't have cut you off.. Again, im really sorry!"

While you're worried sick, Mister Wriothesley here, or rather His Grace, is laughing his ass off. Does he find joy seeing you like this? well, whatever. When his laughing fit finally ends, and he sighs "Oh dear", and hes now looking at you, waiting earnestly for you to speak and break the silence. Unfortunately for him.. you're far too indulged staring at that pretty face of his, not remembering you were just asked if you had any inquiries by him. and so his voice beams once more,

"So....? Any questions?"

"Oh. Sorry, I got distracted, wri- Your grace, I don't." you knew it was best to call him by what everyone else calls him by, but 'Wriothesley', though you spoke for very little time, just came out easier.

"Really? well, okay" his answer was quite non chalant, because obviously, why would he want to be asked questions anyway, but it didn't seem like him— "I'm honestly surprised you have nothing to ask about." and there it is.

"No really, I don't want to bother you anymore. I shall take my leave, Please, Have a good day your grace." you excused yourself out that awkward situation somehow, and soon after heard a faint "You're not a bother y'know!~" from his side.

Cut to 2 a.m. in the morning next day, and you're in the infirmary cleaning glass jars, while the Head Nurse is probably sleeping her time away in the overworld. Not that you were jealous, but really, no soul here gets injured that seriously *ever*,yet this one garde told you you still need to stay awake the whole night. However odd that was, it was definitely not odder than— you stopped thinking the instant you felt a pair of hands creeping up to your waist, scaring you into dropping that poor glass jar and shrieking for your life, only for the owner of those hands to shut you up with one of the very hands that was on your waist just a moment ago.

"Oh c'mon.. You're in a prison of all places. Should you not be the least bit aware of your surroundings? who knows what might happen any moment... I wouldn't like to lose my new nurse so quick." and detaching his hand from your mouth, not that that could garner a response from you... what did he mean by "his nurse" anyway ? was this an attempt at flirting ? whatever it was, it was not much of your concern right now, it was the fact his voice wasn't like the one you heard before on your way to the Duke's office, or even in there, instead now it had a fatigued intonation to it, a voice that practically screamed "i want to sleep.", almost... sultry in a way.

And so he sat down on one of the beds, taking you by the waist to sit down as well on the same while he made himself more comfortable and laid almost completely down, and spoke, "First day on the job and you're already breaking things and screaming in the middle of the night.. are you really fit for a prison?"

Obviously, you were not fully capable, definitely not as capable as Sigewinne, but still,having someone say something like that directly is quite discouraging. and so you retorted, "Your Grace, it is actually my 2nd day on the job. And also, i feel anyone, prison premise or not, would be scared to be suddenly caressed by cold hands at 2 in the night. Though mayhaps that's just my opinion."

"Ahh dear, you're so smart .. it's a shame i was merely joking, I know the fortress is not such a prison-ly place anyway, and most if not everyone is just trying to get by and make it to the end of their sentence peacefully. I was merely testing you." to which you only nodded, and spoke "Sure. Well.. why are you in here at such a late time anyway? From the looks of it you're not sick, and i dont see any injuries..."

"You want me sick and injured? aw c'mooon, dear, im not even that bad of a duke, am i?"

"Your grace, please don't be silly. Are you here because you feel sick or just to bother me?"

"Ha! after i said you weren't a bother! how disheartening... I was just curious why you were awake this time of the night, though. What's keeping you up so late? or should i say Who?"

"Am i not supposed to be?"

"Of course not dear, did someone tell you you do?"

"Ah.. uhm. Not really, just a mistake on my part.."

"Hm? One of the gardes didn't tell you your duty requires you to stay up all night?"

How he came to know about that was none of your concern right now, what he'd do about it mattered more. You didn't want some helpless garde to be scolded off by The Duke because you were stupid enough to believe him. Surely that's not going to make the people of meropide have a good impression of you? Amidst your train of thought, his voice interrupted—

"What? Don't want a garde scolded off because you believe it'll harm that reputation of yours? awh dear, how cute. just like your face." this nuisance of a man and his attempt at flirting was somehow worse than his constant teasing, and the fact he accurately guessed what you were thinking was completely overshadowed by that "dear" and "cute" he threw in in his sentence.

"Too flattered?" was his response to your speechlessness. Being honest, you were too flattered. I doubt even archons know why this man was so coyly talking to you, did he do this to everyone?

"I... am not sure how to respond to that." was all you could manage to put together in your flustered, confused, but flustered state.

"I can stop it, y'know. If you're not feeling comfortable, just tell me. Whether that be with my way of talking, or someone else's."

"No it's fine.. really- I don't have any problems."

"Oh? So you're enjoying this? Haha, didn't know i had such charm." saying this, he rose up he was laying on, to come face to face with you, still sitting on the bed, but now, his face a bit too close to yours.

"I'll stop bothering you now. Go to sleep, you're gonna need to stay awake tomorrow."

You didn't make much of that statement, and you simply bid him sweet dreams as he went off to, what you presume, to be his office. That is, until, tomorrow actually came by, and near evening, you were greeted by none other than The Duke himself leaning on the doorframe of the infirmary, who, instead of his usual state, was now in a much more... uh, ragged? state. His vest not even present, and half his shirt ripped away, with his fresh wounds on display along with his old scars. Ah.... and you thought the Pankration Ring didn't allow such incidents to take place. So that's why he told you you need to stay awake.

"Dear, I'm here again to bother you." came in his voice from the door, and you stood up in concern. As far as you were aware of, Pankration ring fights were not supposed to get this serious. So it was either outside of the ring, or maybe the duke was allowed to get more serious in the Pankration ring? That became less of your concern as you saw a drop of blood drip down his cheek from a fresh wound. Gods, he was in such a pathetic state, blood everywhere, vest barely intact.. "Hey, its not appropriate to stare at someone in this state, is it?" he said, making you suddenly aware to what you should be doing. You're a nurse here, you should be patching him up, not staring into his soul while he's standing there in pain. "Your grace- I- Please, come with me to the bed. Do you want help walking? Oh lord why am i asking- Forgive me, I'm so sorry-" and a chain of sorries followed as you wrapped your arm around his waist in your best attempt to provide support to his frame, as you walked over to the nearest bed in the infirmary with Wriothesley's arm on your shoulder, grabbing it for support, though maybe a bit too hard, you were sure, this would at the least leave a bruise.

Arriving to the bed, you sat him down and knelt down to take a few things out from a nearby drawer, bandage, antiseptic disinfectant and a pair of scissors. And Wriothesley had his eyes set on your figure the entire time, not that you had noticed.

When you came back to him, you had to get him to undress in order for you to wash away his wounds, and before you could think to form an appropriate sentence regarding that- your tongue had already mumbled out "Please undress." to that poor duke. Oh lord, this was going to be a long, looong day.

A smirk crept up Wriothesley's face as he looked up at you, "Dear, I'm not sure I can... 'tleast not in this state. Would you help me?" and so his sly little smile shifted to a more puppy eyed face, glancing at you oh so sweetly. "Yes, Your grace." and you started by first taking his tie off, "I'm being honest here, I'm not sure why i said that earlier. I apologise. It was definitely very.. stupid of me." were the words you spoke as you were unbuttoning his shirt— the last piece of clothing left. His vest was mostly torn apart, so you didn't need to unbutton it or even put much effort in taking it off. Wriothesley didn't respond to that. You knew, it was because you were right, he didn't say anything because it would make you feel worse, but silently, surely, he agreed. Or atleast that's what you thought. Now here he sat, his upper body completely rid of any clothing, the cold air hitting his wounds.

"I'll wash your wounds now." as you went back and forth between the infirmary's bathroom to get water, the process was a bit slower than should be.

"Shouldn't you take me to the bathroom? Would be faster, no?"

"It would, yes. But it would mean you would have to go there, you wouldn't like sitting on that tiny ass- I mean, very small stool in the bathroom, trust me. Would just be uncomfortable."

"Awh. Didn't know my nurse was so, so nice. Thank you dear."

You finally washed what seemed to be the last wound, and god was it big. On your way back to him from the bathroom, you thought you would finally ask, "By the way, Your grace... I've been meaning to ask— What's with the 'my nurse' ? I'm not only your nurse, you know. I am to tend to any person in this fortress." was the best you could express your curiosity as you applied antiseptic on his wounds, recieving a little wince from him along with the answer to your question, "Well- I said that only because you were taking care of me at that moment, so you'd be my nurse then, no?"

"That is true, yes, but then what about before that? Last night? And also, the use of 'dear', to my knowledge, you don't seem to use that language or rather i should say- that word for anyone around here. Unless of course I'd be wrong and would stand corrected."

"Oh you... I'll stop, if you wish. You could have told me before‐"

"No, no. I don't mind it at all. Just want to know. Do those words hold any weight to you or are you simply throwing them around?" you said as you took the bandage out it's paper packaging, rolling it around his wound, making him wince once more, this time squeezing your right thigh out of the urge to hold on to something.

"Fuck, Sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-" was all he could manage to put together, and when you took his hand in yours to put it back on your right thigh, Lord, his expression was something to see. The way he looked at you so surprised yet so... lovingly? surely, not loving. But whatever it was, it was nice, to see him so in awe. You continued dressing his wounds as he stared at your face the whole time, and, from time to time, squeezed your thigh a bit. Not sure if it was from the pain, or just because he wanted to and could.

Done with dressing the last wound on his cheek, you got up and headed to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room. "That's all. I'll get you some pain relief medication for the internal bruising, just wait a bit. it's.. it's in here somewhere.." as you searched around the cabinet. "Ah! Here!"

You took the medication to Wriothesley, who was currently sitting upright on the bed, carrying along a glass of water. As you had poured the water in the glass, you heard him say something along the lines of "Don't break it again." with a light chuckle.

As you gave him his medicine and he swallowed it down, that was the last of your duties for now. "Anything else you want me to do?"

"Sit. Here" he said, patting on the space near him as he laid down on the bed. And so you sat, who were you to deny such a simple request?

It was pin drop silence for a while after that. Just you and him looking at each other. Well, up until he averted his gaze to your thigh, where you noticed his hand hovering over it. "May i .....?" and so you took his hand in yours, and it rested on your thigh.

Then you realized, he was on his side to face you, though he shouldn't be, one of his injuries was there, quite the big one at that, and it probably hurt like hell. "I don't think you should lie on your side. Your wound.. is it not paining?" He got up then, sitting upright, though now, your faces were a bit too close, and your noses touching slightly."Then, dear, do you want me to sit like this?" You were too flustered to manage a response for that. Both of your faces were so close– too close, actually that you could feel his warm breath, that, by the way, smelled of Earl Grey Tea, and that scent seemed to mix with the antiseptic's.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" You somehow couldn't reply to that either, and only stared into his eyes, and occasionally catch a glance at his lips.

"Can't speak already huh? I haven't even kissed you yet."

"K-kiss me??"

"Sure." and so he leans in, planting in a peck on your lips and caressing your chin with, what was currently, his good hand, as in it had way less injuries than the other.

"Satisfactory?" was all he asked, that smirk back on his face, and "Not.. really" in a low voice was all you could manage after that.

"Then show me what would be more satisfactory."

"This." and what followed was by far the boldest you had ever been in your life, and good lord, it was infront of- not even infront of, to your new, and well, the only boss you've had.

But damn did his lips on yours feel so good, and his slight biting, his hand tugging at your nape made you feel like you were dreaming. Unfortunately though, even dreams come to end.

When your lips separated, he was a exhilarated but exhausted mess, his chest heaving as his fought to breathe, and so were you, and all you both could do was stare at each other, until he leaned in once again to kiss you. This time, in a satisfactory way.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, for you two, this was about to escalate much further than just that satisfaction.

[fairyhaos]

seventeen as seventeen songs

requested by @nishloves

notes: honestly this was hard to do 😭 i kept thinking about songs that are most iconic for that member rather than which song they fit, but hopefully it's still somewhat accurate <3

[the spotify playlist with these songs in too]

masterlist

seungcheol

clap. if there's any song that screams "i'm the leader of seventeen and we're better than any of your lazy asses", then it's clap. it's also such an iconic song, and the hypeness and brightness and the coolness and suaveness it radiates all at once is very very seungcheol, if you ask me. it also doesn't hurt that he looked so so good with his silver hair in the mv.

jeonghan

snap shoot. okay, this one sounds really unusual, but hear me out. snap shoot gives encore song vibes, goodbye song but not quite goodbye, "today was fun and i hope to see you soon" vibes. it's like standing back and watching everyone have fun because of something that you did. it's being happy n having fun by seeing that you made others have fun. and that's jeonghan.

joshua

falling for u. it's such a delicate song, all polite and sweet and delicate and therefore it's just very very much joshua. the youthful, almost playful edge to the melody reminds me of him, along with the kind of naive, "you're so pretty so i fell in love" kind of loving that the song feels like makes me think of josh. also a bonus that he has tons of lines in this song, since it's just a duet w him and jeonghan haha

junhui

my my. the hope!! the sweetness!! the little funky music in the intro that adorably reminds me of junhui's voice!! it's all just so him. the way this song just encapsulates feelings of youth and life and being forever young and forever going towards your dreams... that never-failing optimism is so junhui it almost hurts

hoshi

hit. if you don't think the constant "woah woah woah woah woah"s and "let me drop the 음악" aren't the most hoshi things ever then idk what you're on, man. it's hype, it's powerful, it's "im better than you and even you know it" and so cocky but also so True that you can't even refute it. it's about always doing better, always going further, and that's just so hoshi.

wonwoo

lean on me. jazzy, chill, dependable vibes are a very very wonwoo thing, actually, and that's what this entire song is about. it's laid back, and yet loving at the same time, caring and comfortable and ready to be by your side. it feels like a song you'd listen to while on a walk with him at night, his camera up to his eyes, his hand wrapped around yours.

woozi

247. it's romantic, but also a little wistful at the same time? elegant, yet nostalgic, thoughtful and sweet and like dancing across a glass lake. it's what woozi feels like, with his intelligence and how delicately he feels things. to be honest, a lot of the ballad-style, romantic earlier songs of svt fit him rlly well, but 247 even more so

minghao

hit song. it's a smooth feeling song, like running a cloth over a black marble countertop. honestly, finding a minghao vibe song is really hard for me, but some of their gentler songs seem to fit him, full of devoted, almost shy love that feels very minghao to me. that devotion, that softness and yet the determination also present feels like him

mingyu

boomboom. purely based on the vibes of the song tbh, and the prominent drums and chromaticism of the melody feel like mingyu, along with the brass accents and the confidence and coolness is just all so very very there that it makes me think of mingyu practically almost instantly.

dokyeom

kidult. not only because his vocals in this song are both iconic and utterly incredible, but even its message is very dokyeom. it encapsulates his innate urge to help people, to heal people, to make sure they smile and that they know they're loved. it's a precious song, and a song about letting others know they're precious, and has me crying and smiling, just like dokyeom does.

seungkwan

'bout you. it's a devastatingly romantic song, like a simple, easy love. it's like the type of love with zero complications, just full of two people laughing and running through fields hand in hand and hearts full of love for one another. the entire song feels so fresh, almost citrusy, and never ever fails to bring a smile to my face. just like seungkwan, actually.

vernon

crush. im gonna be real with u i have no idea how to explain this one but yeah. crush gives me vernon vibes and idk, maybe it's the funky vibes of the song with its mild chromaticism that give me a vernon feeling, but yeah. vernon is crush. (maybe it's because that's what i have on him-)

chan

domino. it's a light song, like floating but not quite. almost as if bouncing on your feet in midair, leaping across clouds which just gives me chan vibes. it also gives me movie ending credits song vibes after a bright, high school-set rom com learning-to-grow kind of movie which is very very chan in my opinion

request guidelines

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[godbirdart]

in what universe is someone going to see a DNI that applies to them and think "this person is definitely someone im going to enjoy following and get along with". do you go on twitter and see nazis saying they hate trans people and decide to follow them out of spite? of course not, and literally nobody else does that either, even on the other side. hell forget DNIs, I get less conservatives in my notifs than I used to just by having they/them pronouns in my bio because they see it and go "ew, I'm not following them". people dont typically follow people theyre clearly not going to feel welcome around, a DNI is just another way to communicate that.

1 - you don't have to Get Along with someone to follow them. people can and will hate-follow or follow to annoy you, block evade, etc out of spite. some people will interact with you just because you told them, or people like them, not to.

2 - your experiences are not universal. nazis, terfs, bigots in general, they can and will follow and harass people they don't like online. this is spoken from my own experience as someone who has seen his transfem friends be followed and harassed by alt-right nut jobs online.

3 - "forget DNIs, I get less conservatives in my notifs than I used to just by having they/them pronouns in my bio" ← you're right. this is effective because the vast majority of people regardless of political stance or belief will only ever read your bio. not many people are going to jump through hyperlinks to read your DNI. if they don't like what they read in your bio, they'll just leave [or possibly harass you, if they're particularly malicious]. ergo, making a DNI is largely just for yourself and not at all a real, useful barrier people must pass through in order to follow / engage with your posts.

no one is stopping you from making a DNI. you can write a terms-of-service length novel of a Do Not Interact list, put it on its own Carrd and make it aesthetic and pretty with flair. you're completely free to do so and tell people to read it. a few will, sure.

however. the post you're referencing is specifically addressing the glaring reality that most people, regardless if they fit your DNI criteria or not, are simply not going to go out of their way to find and read it. abusive people aren't going to see "DNI abusive assholes" and be deterred because they themselves don't consider themselves abusive. this post, particularly what OP wrote, is saying how it's much more proactive to curate your own space through utilizing the block button and tag filters when you see things and people you don't want to engage with instead of trying to impose your personal boundaries on strangers online.

addendum // i don't really care if teens are making DNIs and being aggressively annoying about em. i remember the era of setting weird arbitrary rules in my developing years while i was forming Who I Was as a person. they're figuring out who they are and what their comfort levels are. i get it. it's the grownass adults that are hyper-virulent about DNIs that i worry about - and i'm not talking about when they're trying to establish an adults-only space with a stern "minors DNI".

note: what i'm talking about below, i am Not referring to literally illegal and harmful activities / content. just want to be clear.

now, i'm not saying you have to welcome and embrace the content you don't like, but it's important to challenge yourself and toe your comfort boundaries. if you over-prune yourself trying to be the bestest morally correct person, at some point you're going to start boxing yourself into this narrowed teeny tiny worldview. you may turn into the person you claim to have loathed, imposing personal beliefs and morals on others, and brandishing your DNI like it's a certificate of righteousness; not unlike how conservatives wave around religious scripture while pruning away LGBTQ+ rights because it goes against their morality. a few examples of this are topics such as: kink at pride, and the language discrepancies between the younger and older generations of the LGBTQ+ community - particularly in regards to self-identifying with words such as Queer and Dyke and Transsexual.

i probably derailed a bit here, i'm answering this before my caffeine's fully kicked in. if i vaguely worded something or yall want more elaboration on something, don't hesitate to ask

[w98pops]

TW: SUICIDE MENTION, VIOLENCE

i knew i said i would take a little break, but ive been mentally declining a lot and drawing my silly guys is my way of coping. I never actually properly drew Wendy from 2301, so im filling in the blanks.

I'd like to think of her as a person who never actually... grows up. She just kinda gets taller and more sad over time. Wendy was always very vulnerable but cheerful, and House kinda groomed her into a serious and politically aware person, still unbelievably vulnerable but a viable subject nonetheless. I always had this problem with writing her relationship with another canon character, no one realistically would give a fuck about her and her opinions. Sure, maybe Arcade will pity Wendy because she's "stupid" from a neurotypical point of view, but other than that, she doesn't have any weight in any political conversation that's going on in the Mojave. So I made her really fucking stubborn. Annoyingly so. Wendy just... gets the job done. She's resourceful, efficient and very easy to manipulate. A perfect fit for a House's courier, I think. She doesn't question his orders, she does not care for consequences as long as she has House as her cover (a trait she inherited from her step-father) and she's sometimes sociopathic and numb to voices of empathy. Not in a "edgelord murder killer girl" way but more like. She doesn't see people who hurt her as humans. A coping mechanism that would probably be the end of her, sometime in the future. I mean, she did confront Benny and got really physical. There was no way she could've win a fight against a grown ass man, and Benny did beat the shit out of her, but in the end he was the one with a cracked open skull. I just like to think that her pure madness and helplessness was enough to fuel her mind and overpower something she had no chance against in the first place. SPEAKING OF CHANCE. That's why I think she would totally get along with Chance, the Khan from the comic. I don't really put a thought about how he would've survived or joined her, but they're pretty much soulmates. They have very different backgrounds, personalities, literally anything, but Chance recognises her rage. Her inability to do what's right and the constant fight against unfightable (?) circumstances she's facing every day. I'd like to think he's autistic too. As a treat.

So yeah, she's super uncertain about anything in her life, and that makes her a very useful tool in the hands of a right man. Mr. House mastefully manipulated her personality in a conventional way, taught her the secret and mysterious knowledge of "masking" and sat her down for a few years to teach her ways of the capital and created this really sad but smart and charismatic politician with no real political voice whatsoever. She's also very cute and sweet looking so yeah. He made himself a Tandi. 😭😭 Also he scanned her brains, which would totally not be a big plot point for the future.

Almost perfect, but Sharky is here too, for some reason. He's the biggest pain in the House's ass since Benny. He has a certain emotional intellect, not easy to bribe or manipulate in mental or physical way, he really fucking cares for his sister, and is very aware of the things The Big Guy does to her. See, Sharky wasn't raised by his sister, she was a child herself at that time, and his mother didn't play much role either, too busy bickering with Aletus and then later too busy drinking and fucking in Gomorrah. Sharky was raised by the Strip and the rules of Wasteland. He might not be the smartest guy alive, but emotionally he's mature beyond belief. He's very observant, empathetic and cunning person. Even tho he was mute most of his childhood because of child neglect and untreated autism, he has incredible social skills and a Yes-man in his basement he found while renovating the Tops. He has a plan. Not a good one, but a plan nonetheless.

I have so much OC material I'm ought to write a fanfic. Or a comic, idk. In my dreams, sure, but it's still refreshing to talk about my ocs and draw them, and recieving feedback and praise for my storytelling skills 😭😭😭 it means a lot. Thank you all for reading this far!!!

[yuyusuyu]

omg hi i just stalked your entire profile, i love your writing so much!! and i look forward to seeing your future works as well~ i've noticed you interact with a lot of people, so i wanted to ask if you could maybe ship your moots with an atz and what their trope would be :>

hello anon ! thank you so much for enjoying what i write, it means a lot to me~~ <333 and hehehe, sure ! i thought about this a lot and decided to do it with the people i feel like i've talked to enough to get a feel of their personality !! also i am sosososo sorry that i took so long in answering !! uni is terrible and i just redid this multiple times because my lovely moots deserve the most detailed description of whatever i conjure up for them and who i ship them with 👿🤞🏼🙌🏼

@ad0rechuu and yunho — opposites attract ! zerooo is such a lovely person!! she's so supportive and she honestly reminds me of home! she reminds me of when i would wrap myself up in a blanket during winter tbhh hehehhehe since i've noticed zero is pretty calming and chill (but you have a goofy side as well! im always laughing whenever you send your memes HAHZHAJSJ). and yunho is such a goofball, not like absolutely crazy energetic/chaotic. but the two of you have differing personalities (but not like 100% different!) that would compliment each other so well like puzzle pieces!! (ZERO MY WIFEEEE ILYSM MWAH MWAH MWAH 😓🫶🏼)

@sanhwaism and seonghwa — childhood friends to lovers ! MY CUTIE PATOOTIE DEAREST AND LOVELIEST RIA 😓 i love ria smsmsmsmsm !! ria is such a sweet and lovely and caring person ughhh she is someone that you would want to protect and keep in your pocket at all times !! from the the times we've spoken, i felt like i had known her for a long time and that's why childhood friends to lovers trope would fit her and seonghwa ! seonghwa and ria would have those inside jokes that would make people go all like ?! what are they talking about ?! after seeing them start laughing,, and they'd be the type to suddenly appear at each other's door at one in the morning with takeout and be all like, "hey! i got us some breakfast!" so goofy and cute 😭

@jaehunnyy and san — academic rivals to lovers ! CHIPPIE MY LOVE MY EVERYTHING 🤍 you and san give academic rivals to lovers ! i feel like you and san would have a healthy dynamic though, like you guys would try to one up the other, tease each other and whatnot ! you guys wouldn't hate each other, but you aren't exactly friends either~~~ until many study dates/hang outs later san confesses to you while you're about to fall asleep in the library (it happened, your honor. i saw it WITH MY OWN EYES) !! anyways. you and san give healthy academic rivals to lovers vibes and i approve of it. youre so cute and funny and cheerful, and san would just look at you with heart eyes whenever you talk. HEART EYES. CUTE CUTE CUTE 🤞🏼🫶🏼

@dairyminki and san — next door neighbors ! ELLE, THE APPLE OF MY EYE, HIII (i miss you sosososo much; i hope you're doing well my dear) !! you and san would be next neighbors for foreverrr ! to the point where each other's parents would make you walk next door to give them food that your family that day 😭 and you and san would be like polite to each other, walk to and from school each other (it's an unspoken agreement!), just super like... unofficial friends IJFIA and honestly it just naturally turns into more from just being neighbors to friends, friends to best friends and then best friends to lovers! all giggles and shy glances at each other, holding hands and talking and literally spending your time with each other because hello you guys are literally living next to each other

@seonghwaddict and yunho — second chance romance ! LILOOOO MY BAEEEE 🫶🏼🫶🏼 you and yunho are very second chance romance as in you two had a very nice relationship during high school but broke up because the two of you got into two different unis NAURR 💔 BUT DONT WORRY ! years later you visit your hometown and bump into yunho ?! and you keep bumping into him ?! it's like the universe wants you back together ?! and maybe you two never dated anyone after each other because you two still have feelings for one another ?! and then one day you find yunho at your parents' doorstep ?! and he's professing he's undying love to you ?! and then it's like you two never broke up in the first place

HELP ME I REALLY WROTE WHOLE ASS SCENARIOS FOR THIS 😭 the way i've had this in my drafts since august... AUGUST.... goodbye.

[film-score-simp]

OKAY FOOLS HOW YALL DOING IM BACK AFTER BEING DEAD FOR LIKE MONTHS-

See, I had a Thought which the Merlin fandom might be interested in. Especially the fanfic writers.

I was browsing Pinterest, as you do, and stumbled across a few tumblr posts instead of actually looking on the site… again, as you do.

And I came to a fun idea.

So y’know how with some pieces of fantasy media they go ‘oh with the amount of stupidity here this is totally a D&D game’?

Well… that, but Merlin.

Like we already have scenes that would totally fit the bill of a D&D game. The whole scene with old Merlin and the knights with the stepping stool onto the horse is just so unbelievably D&D, and I can imagine the scene with the “..reading poetry.” as just real bad persuasion/deception rolls from both Merlin AND Arthur.

Just imagine the chaos.

Here are my personal headcanons for their classes, but feel free to debate about it:

Merlin: Sorcerer. This man is too much of an idiot to be a wizard (though he DOES get hurt enough to be one), and I reckon being a wild magic sorcerer would totally fit the bill. He’s powerful, but hijinks must ensue- thus, the wild magic. Or perhaps not. People might assume it’s wild magic and turns out it’s just Merlin thinking he’s funny.

Arthur: Bard. Immediately. He’s got paladin energy as in like the ‘Chosen One’ and also he’s a knight, but he’s so stupid and also charismatic that he just gives bard to me. Like he’s so stupid and charismatic with literally everything, that Merlin ended up liking him. Like this man is a himbo that dresses brightly.

Morgana: Absolutely a warlock. She would have so much fun with eldritch blast, and being weird and spooky totally fits her vibe later in the series. She would probably be the one to sometimes have the braincell in the party and use her magic responsibly… but also eldritch blast. You gotta use eldritch blast-

Mordred: I don’t think he has chill enough vibes for the druid stereotype, but he definitely could be a druid. Giving funky nature powers to this kid would really be a hilarious idea. Like imagine Mordred with wild shape. I also think he has the possibility of being the Dionysus kind of druid… y’know, the greek god who turned people into dolphins just because? Yeah, him.

Gwaine: Barbarian. Or fighter. He may be a knight, sure, but with the amount of bar brawls he gets into? Absolutely. The fool definitely would fist fight someone in a dark alleyway at 2AM, it’s just what he’s like. He likes to hit people and drink alcohol- it just fits his whole MO.

Percival: Also a barbarian. His entire thing is strength, and the ‘little man’ comment just screams of a man with high intimidation. He may be a gentle giant and not going for the whole stereotype of angry rage beast, but this guy can totally scare without it.

Lancelot: Lancelot is a paladin. He’s the very epitome of ‘Good Boy.’ This guy is such a Righteous knight and just a generally cool person that I think that a god straight up WOULD get in contact to have him fight for the forces of good. I love this man so much. I also love paladins. Perfect combo.

Elyan: Elyan’s a cleric. He’s caring and loyal, as well as not bullying Merlin regularly. He’s also pretty cunning so possibly rogue there as well? I’d be more inclined to lean towards cleric the most though, cause he’s one of the most chill knights and also balances out the chaos of Gwaine and Percival as a duo… they’re nuts-

Leon: Also a paladin. Less of a ‘pure and true soul’ guy like Lancelot, but more of a ‘stands for what’s right and upholds the law’ kind of paladin. Like he’s totally a follower of chivalry with all the traditional ways of doing things- always respectful and polite but just kinda a little at arms length.

Guinevere: Stereotypical druid. Totally a tree-hugger and loves plants. Also she gets to be a Disney princess now and talk to animals in forests. Living out her best life in the forest with her whole cottagecore aesthetic. Even with her becoming queen, she’s totally still a druid. Albeit a royal one now.

Gaius: Oh he’s so gonna be an artificer. But specifically an alchemist artificer. He can make healing potions and mix weird medicines together, sure, but jesus christ the old man gets into just as many shenanigans as the main group. I mean, the whole possession fiasco with the goblin is enough proof for that-

(And before anyone tells me a character’s missing, it’s been a while since I watched the series, I’m trying my best hhhh-)

[diorkyeom]

‘✷’ : CHAPTER SIX “to be your own person”

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chapter word count: 5.6k+

chapter warnings: none

summary: "lately, seokmin had come to a realisation. joshua hong, he thought, was a little bit of an enigma." - in which seokmin has known joshua for years, but he's always been a bit of a mystery to him. and as the days go by, he finds himself wanting to know who the real Joshua Hong is under his polite smile and warm eyes and sweet words.

notes: aight gays im gonna be real i have no idea how this is gonna progress and any time i made u think i knew what was going on, i was basically lying to you bc i have no idea lmao

“Soonyoung hyung, I think I left my keys at Jeonghan hyung’s,” was the first thing Seokmin said as Soonyoung groggily emerged from his room the next morning.

“Good for you,” the elder croaked, rubbing at his half-closed eyes, before walking past Seokmin and into the kitchen.

Seokmin trailed after him. “I need to go over there and pick them up.”

Soonyoung just grunted, opening the fridge and squinting into its depths. “Okay. Have fun.”

There was a brief pause, as Seokmin watched his roommate squint at the fridge a little longer before pulling out a container of cold chicken and walking to the table, letting the refrigerator door swing shut. 

“You’re coming with me, you know," he said. "Come on, hyung.”

“Hm.” Soonyoung looked up from the chicken, eyes still puffy with sleep, yet still managing to direct a mildly accusing stare at Seokmin. “Why am I getting a sense of deja vu?”

Seokmin just grinned as innocently as he could. Unlike most Saturdays after coming back from Game Night, his head was curiously clear. He supposed it was one of the upsides of not drinking as much. Soonyoung, however, was as thoroughly out of it as usual, and probably wasn't fit to leave the house for another four hours. But when Seokmin had come home last night, discovered his house keys were not in his back pocket as they usually were and had had to fish Soonyoung’s keys from somewhere off of his drunk body to open the door, he'd come to the conclusion he’d left them over at Jeonghan’s. He hadn't had the energy last night to go all the way back and pick them up, though, so Seokmin had made the decision to go fetch them the day after.

Not by himself, of course. He had to bring his lovely friend Soonyoung with him too.

“I’m not coming,” Soonyoung said, looking down at the chicken and then over at their stove, and then down at the chicken again before promptly beginning to eat the cold meat with his hands, evidently deciding it was too much effort to heat it up. “Go get your keys yourself.”

“Hyung! Come on. You’re coming with me.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, Seokmin, I’m not, and you cannot force me t—”

An hour later, Soonyoung stomped up the path to Jeonghan and Joshua’s front door, arms folded. Seokmin waited further along the steps, grinning widely as Soonyoung frowned and pouted and muttered annoyances under his breath.

“I can’t believe you dragged me out of the house to watch you get your keys,” he grumbled. “My head is still pounding.”

“Nonsense,” Seokmin replied cheerfully. “If it was, and if it was really that bad, then you would’ve put up more of a fight. You basically walked out of the front door hand-in-hand with me.”

He knocked on the door, and beamed wider as Soonyoung glared.

“I’m pretty sure I protested the entire time.”

Seokmin shrugged, as if Soonyoung protesting was a given. “But you walked out by yourself! I didn’t have to drag you kicking and screaming from the house.” He turned back to the door, knocking more insistently. “Why are they not answering? Hello, there are people outside your house!”

Soonyoung winced as Seokmin continued to hammer at the door. “Maybe Jeonghan’s asleep. I mean, he did spend a long time towards the end of the night doing, like, a million cartwheels.”

“Yeah, but he has my keys,” Seokmin whined. “I don’t even know how I left them there. And I want them back— Ah!”

The door suddenly swung open and Seokmin’s hand went sailing through mid-knock. By a sudden, miraculous bout of reflexes, Jeonghan managed to duck the fist, and then stared at him amusedly. “Well, good morning to you too.” His eyes were twinkling, and he looked far too awake for someone who had spent a good majority of the early hours of that morning doing drunken cartwheels around his own home. “What do you want?”

“What, can’t we just come over because we missed our lovely Jeonghan hyung?” Seokmin asked teasingly, as Jeonghan opened the door wider to let the two of them in.

Jeonghan laughed, walking further inside, picking his way through the mess. “You missed me?”

Seokmin nodded his head vigorously as he took off his shoes, before following Jeonghan while Soonyoung stayed in the doorway, cursing at his shoes which refused to be untied. “Of course! We’d only ever come here because we miss you dearly, you know?”

A head popped into view from the stairs as Jeonghan led them to the living room, and Seokmin narrowly managed to avoid bashing his forehead against a person’s chin. 

“Han?” the head asked. “Who’s here?” 

And then the head froze, making eye contact with Seokmin.

Seokmin blinked up at Joshua, who blinked back, startled. His hair was all messed up, eyes still a little heavy with sleep, and there were pillow marks on one side of his face.

Neither of them said anything, and there was silence save for Soonyoung’s continued curses at the front door. Jeonghan grinned at them from the living room doorway, cheeks pulled up, looking like he’d planned this encounter, but of course he didn’t, because no one could plan this, right?

Right?

“You only missed me, hm?” Jeonghan said, and his eyes were still twinkling. “Only me, Seokmin?”

Seokmin laughed. Nervously. With the distinct feeling that he was walking right into a trap. “Haha, not just you, of course. I missed our Joshua hyung as well!”

Someone made a squeaking noise, but when Seokmin turned to look at Joshua again, he was walking down the stairs, shaking his head, running a hand through his fluffed-up hair in an attempt to calm it down.

“Stop messing with him, Jeonghan,” Joshua said, sighing. His tone was long-suffering, annoyed, and yet with a smile to his voice that made Seokmin smile a little too. “He’s here for something. Let him get what he came here for instead of extorting words of affirmation from him.”

Jeonghan laughed. Soonyoung was still in the doorway. Joshua was rubbing his cheeks, glaring at his housemate, and Seokmin felt like he was missing something.

“What if I’m extorting them for you, hm?” Jeonghan grinned, before waving his hand, turning back to Seokmin. “Okay, okay. You’re here for your keys, aren’t you?”

Seokmin blinked. “How did you know?”

Jeonghan grinned, impossibly wider, and Seokmin was a chronic smiler himself but this looked like it was most definitely bordering on uncomfortable. He turned to Joshua, impish. 

Joshua stared at Jeonghan, in disbelief, looking more and more awake with every passing second. 

“I’ll go get them,” he said, after a long, long moment. “They’re upstairs in my room.” And with that, he turned on his heel and disappeared back up the stairs.

At that moment, Soonyoung seemed to materialise at Seokmin’s shoulder. “Alright, have you found your keys? Can we go now?”

Seokmin didn’t even register what he’d said. “Hyung,” he said to Jeonghan, “why are my keys in Joshua hyung’s room?”

Jeonghan pouted. “He messed it up. Joshuji wasn’t meant to get them himself.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Jeonghan waved a hand. “How are both of you doing, by the way? I don’t think I saw you drink a lot last night, Seokmin.”

“He didn’t,” Soonyoung said. “But I did. And my head hurts. Once we get Seokmin’s keys, we’re gonna go.”

“Go?” Jeonghan repeated. “Goodness, no, don’t go! We still have all this mess to clean up. You’re going to help, you know.” He gestured all around him, at the house which looked more like a dumping ground than a property in a suburban area. “I can’t do this by myself.”

At that moment, Joshua descended the stairs, Seokmin’s keys clattering in his hands. Seokmin’s eyes lit up as the elder handed him his keys, face breaking out into a grateful beam. 

“Oh, hyung, thank you so much!”

Joshua looked up from their hands to blink at Seokmin, before he smiled, all melty soft and gently golden. The gold was unfamiliar, but not extremely so: like Seokmin had seen it perhaps once before. All open and glowing and light. But… where?

“No worries. Jeonghan gave them to me, saying you’d dropped them somewhere in the house,” Joshua was saying. He shrugged. “Knowing Han, he probably just stole it from you while drunk.”

“Joshua!” Jeonghan looked scandalised. “Why would you expose my secrets like that?”

Seokmin blinked, and then laughed, slapping Jeonghan on the shoulder. “You’re so mean, hyung! I can’t believe you’d do something like that!”

Jeonghan joined in with his fake laughs, slapping Seokmin in reciprocation. “It’s just part of my charm!”

Soonyoung blinked tiredly, and he and Joshua exchanged looks as the other two continued with their actions. “I think Jeonghan hyung’s still drunk,” Soonyoung said, and Joshua nodded.

“There’s a very good possibility.”

“Anyways,” Jeonghan said, poking Seokmin in the side before stepping back, “as an apology, I can have you help us clean up our house.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t,” Seokmin said, clasping his hands together dramatically. “I have other stuff to do.” He turned to Soonyoung, grinned, and rapidly turned on his heel. “Bye!”

Soonyoung frowned. “Wait, what? Seokmin, what stuff do you have to do?”

Jeonghan tilted his head, before beaming. “Well, Soonyoung, it seems you’ve been chosen to help clean up the mess!”

Joshua drifted down the hallway as Soonyoung vehemently protested, running his hand amusedly through his hair as Seokmin struggled to put on his shoes. “Do you actually have other stuff to do?”

“I do, actually,” Seokmin said, almost falling over as he tugged on his sneakers. “I have, uh. Something. With Jihoon hyung.”

“With Jihoon hyung.” Joshua crossed his arms, leaning against the wall as he watched Seokmin, the weak cries of Soonyoung echoing behind him. “You have plans with him?”

Seokmin finally won the battle over his shoes, and stood up. “Yeah, actually! I have to record a… thing. For him. He asked me last night.”

Joshua looked at Seokmin for a long moment, and Seokmin shifted uneasily. There was that whirring cogs look in Joshua’s eyes again, but it only lasted a second before he smiled, all fluffy cotton candy. 

“Sure,” he said, leaning away from the wall to step forwards, and Seokmin had no explanation for the way his heart suddenly jumped as Joshua leaned closer, before reaching past him and opening the front door for him. Joshua smiled again. “Have fun.”

Seokmin swallowed, smiling back. “Thanks, hyung.” He nodded to Soonyoung and Jeonghan, who were still arguing further inside the house. “Have fun too.”

Joshua grimaced, and his expression made Seokmin laugh. “I’ll try.”

And then he bid goodbye to Seokmin once more, with a wave that the younger made sure to return, and then Seokmin was walking back down the path, out onto the street, a smile still inexplicably on his face.

───────────── ‘✷,

“Ah, there he is,” Soonyoung said dramatically the moment Seokmin stepped into their apartment. “The traitor. The man who abandoned his hungover roommate who had to clean up last night’s mess with one Yoon Jeonghan nattering in his ear.”

Seokmin just laughed at the echo of Soonyoung’s voice from somewhere in the living room, taking off his shoes and wandering down the hallway. “Hyung, Jeonghan hyung texted me to say that he didn’t actually make you clean up when you were all hungover, and he actually just made you tea and fed you cookies instead.”

There was a pause, before Soonyoung’s voice floated down the hallway again. “Well, you’re still a traitor for abandoning me,” he said. Seokmin grinned, poked his head into the living room, and then upon seeing the other people in their apartment, beamed wider.

“Seungkwan! How’s your head doing, after those handstands last night? Oh, and Junhui hyung! You’re here too?”

Junhui waved from the floor. “Hi! Minghao kicked me out of our apartment. Said I was giving him a headache.”

“Aw, poor Junhui hyung,” Seokmin said, pouting, before sitting on the floor next to him. “What were you doing? Why did Minghao kick you out?”

“I was singing in his ear.”

“Oh.” Seokmin blinked. “Well, if I was Minghao, I would’ve kicked you out too.”

Junhui just grinned.

“Anyways, where were you, hyung?” Seungkwan asked curiously. He was all sprawled out on the sofa, looking like he owned it, while Soonyoung was bunched up in one corner. Seokmin was mildly surprised that Soonyoung had let that happen. “Hyung wouldn’t tell us anything about where you were.”

“That’s because he didn’t tell me anything,” Soonyoung grumped, before kicking Seungkwan’s shins. “Also, move over. You’re squishing me.”

“I was with Jihoon hyung,” Seokmin said, shrugging. “Just doing him a favour. Nothing big.”

Seungkwan squinted suspiciously, but he didn’t have time to push it before Soonyoung bodily shoved him back onto one half of the couch, already talking about something else.

“Speaking of Jihoon, though,” Soonyoung said, ignoring the younger’s squawks of indignation, “He’s recently sold a song to that new boy group. Did you know that?”

“Wait, you mean that boy group that went viral for their debut song?” Junhui asked, and when Soonyoung nodded, he grinned. “Wow, that’s amazing!”

Soonyoung grinned, and his cheeks looked almost rosy with pride. “I know right? Jihoon’s amazing.” He paused, and then somehow, managed to grin even wider. “And guess who was just asked to choreograph their dance for them?”

Junhui’s eyes widened, and when Seokmin finally clocked what Soonyoung meant, he let out a dramatic gasp and clasped his hands together.

“No way! Seriously? Hyung, you’re so incredible!” he cried, throwing his arms in the air in congratulations. “Are you gonna take it? You’re gonna take it, right? Imagine if this comeback goes crazy viral for them too! Imagine if you were able to come back as their permanent choreographer!”

Soonyoung grinned, shrugging. “Dunno. I might. A couple of indie companies have reached out to me, though, so I’m a little bit booked up.”

“No!” Seungkwan suddenly shot up and grabbed Soonyoung’s shoulders, looking like he’d completely forgotten his earlier disgruntled state. “You have to take this, hyung. I gotta show the music video to my colleagues when it comes out and brag about the fact that your name is in the credits!” He turned to Junhui. “Hyung, back me up here!”

Junhui laughed, leaning back on his hands. “Take the job, Soon-ah. You don’t want Seungkwan to not be able to brag to his colleagues, do you?”

That made Soonyoung laugh. “Okay, okay, maybe I will. They haven’t finalised payment just yet, but their offering price was a decent amount, so I might.” He fished out a bag of chips from somewhere amidst the mess, opening them and beginning to chomp really loudly. “I googled the company, and they’ve had, like, really good choreographers under them for a while. One of them left to start his own company though, and I think that’s why they offered a job to me.”

“That’s so cool,” Seokmin said sincerely, eyes wide. “You should take it, hyung. Is it only one song?”

“Both their title track and a b-side, I think,” Soonyoung said, and then smiled, looking utterly delighted. “If they’re going to be performed, normally those two songs are pretty different in style. They must like my work a lot if they think I can pull off two different choreos.”

“As they should,” Seungkwan said, nodding vigorously. “You’re incredible, hyung. You deserve to choreograph for every single song in the world.”

Junhui tilted his head. “Is that a compliment? ‘Cause it sounds more like an overworking curse than anything.”

Seungkwan ignored him. “Do you know what the title track sounds like? Wait, how did you even know that it’s the same song as Jihoon hyung’s?”

“I told Hoon about the job offer, duh,” Soonyoung said simply. “And he said, yeah, he’s recently written a title track for that company, and turns out that it really is the same one."

"Oh!" Seokmin's eyes were wide with amazement. "What are the odds, huh? Does that mean Jihoon hyung let you listen to the demo?"

"He didn't have one," Soonyoung said, shrugging. "Which is weird, because he normally records the demos by himself as soon as he's finished composing a track. But he said he was looking for a different voice, 'cause he wanted someone else to do it."

"Huh, I wonder whose voice he was stealing," Junhui was in the middle of saying when Seokmin's eyes widened and he let out a tiny squeaking noise, making all of them pause and turn to look at him. 

"Seokmin?” Junhui said. “Was that you?”

"No," Seokmin lied, before remembering that he really was a terrible liar. "And I definitely don't know anything about the person that Jihoon hyung used for his demo."

"You're lying," Seungkwan observed, incredibly intelligently, as if Seokmin wasn't the most obvious liar in the world. 

“No shit,” Soonyoung said, narrowing his eyes. “What do you know, Seokmin? Is it something bad?”

Seokmin blinked rapidly. “No?”

Junhui narrowed his eyes. “Is the person whose voice Jihoon stole a really bad person?”

“What? No!” Seokmin shook his head, and then smiled awkwardly. “It’s just that, uh…” He paused, and then shrugged, all jerky movements and embarrassed grins. “Jihoon hyung… might’ve used my voice?”

A beat.

And then there was an explosion of noise, with Seungkwan crying out in disbelief and Soonyoung wailing and pretending to be hurt that he wasn’t told and Junhui just bursting into laughter and slapping Seokmin’s arm over and over again. 

“How?” Seungkwan demanded, before repeating himself thrice more when no one seemed to be listening to him. “Hyung, how? How did you even agree?”

Seokmin grinned again, sheepishly. “Jihoon hyung asked me yesterday,” he said. “Asked if it would be alright for me to sing the demo track. It’s nothing too big or fancy, so I said yeah. And then we recorded it today.”

“Can we listen?” Soonyoung asked, and both Seungkwan and Junhui nodded fervently. “Can we? You have it with you, right?”

Seokmin shook his head rapidly, so hard that his ears started ringing. “Oh, no no no. No. You can’t. It sounds really bad. You shouldn’t listen to it.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Seungkwan protested. “Hyung! I wanna hear it! I wanna be able to use it to prove to you that you could totally be a singer!”

“Nope, none of you guys will ever hear it,” Seokmin said, crossing his arms. “Jihoon hyung has heard it, and Soonyoung hyung might hear it too for his work, but that’s it. No one else. Not if I can help it.”

“Aw.” Junhui patted Seokmin’s shoulder, and then pinched his cheek. “Well, if you’re sure.” He smiled then, all sweet and lovely and Junhui-like. “But I bet you sound really, really good. We’re proud of you for doing that! Jihoon’s probably really thankful as well.” And then he turned back to the others, and abruptly said, “Do you think stars plan when they’re about to die?”

Instantly, the conversation topic changed as they all ranted animatedly about the random topic that Junhui had thrown at them, and Seokmin found himself eagerly participating too, grateful for how easily Junhui had switched their conversation around. Knowing Seungkwan and Soonyoung, they’d have probably wrangled the demo recording out of him, the brats all too aware of their collective ability to wear him down in five seconds flat.

But as it were, the demo and the fact that Seokmin was singing was something he was still a little self-conscious about, especially the idea of other people hearing him. It felt… weird, to have someone listen to his voice in that way. Especially when he wasn’t that confident in his singing.

Oh, well. Maybe he’d get there one day, he thought, as he laughed at Junhui’s earnest expression as the elder argued for the emotional intelligence of stars. Seungkwan would probably love to give him pointers on expression and projection and stuff.

───────────── ‘✷,

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, mister? It’s midnight!”

“Out!” Seokmin yelled back, putting on his coat. “I’m going on a walk.”

“No you’re not!”

“What do you have against me going on a walk?”

“Stay home and watch trashy TV with me!”

Seokmin shook his head as Soonyoung’s voice echoed down the hall from the living room, the small sounds of tinny sitcom laughter floating through the air. He put on his shoes, making sure his keys were in his pocket before opening the door.

“I’m going out, and you can’t stop me!”

“Well, I could go over there and steal your keys.”

“But are you going to?”

Soonyoung paused for a moment, and then came a petulant huff from the living room. “Fine. Go. I hope you get kidnapped!”

Seokmin just laughed before walking out of their apartment, closing the door behind him.

The week had passed by almost painfully slowly. Even more slowly than normal, and by the time Friday had rolled around again, Seokmin felt as if he’d lived through a whole entire month rather than just six days. 

It was why he was going out on a walk now, wandering down empty streets, kicking fallen leaves. He only went on nightly walks when he was truly exhausted, mentally, and the week had been so draining that he believed he definitely deserved to go on one tonight. Even though nothing had really happened, he was still so tired, his brain whirring and rattling so fast that all his thoughts were nothing but crackly clatters, bashing into each other and screeching like metal against metal, and he wanted nothing more than to escape his own head and go somewhere else. Somewhere quieter, gentler. Somewhere soft.

Cotton soft.

“Hello,” a voice said in his ear, and Seokmin felt oddly as if warm light had suddenly spilled over his shoulder as he turned to look over at the man coming to sit beside him.

Joshua smiled, a slight upturning of the lips that made Seokmin’s own lips tingle with the urge to smile too. “Tiring week?”

Seokmin gave in to the urge, and smiled, dimly registering his own lack of surprise at Joshua’s sudden appearance. It was as if it was completely normal, like Joshua blended in with the calm of the silent night, like Joshua wasn’t anything startling or out of place in Seokmin’s late night attempt to escape the mess in his head.

Almost as if, deep down, Seokmin had been expecting to see him. Or hoping to see him, at the very least.

“The most tiring,” he sighed, and Joshua nodded in understanding, sitting down under the streetlamp with him. “I don’t even know why. This was just a normal week.”

Joshua tilted his head. “That’s okay. A week can be normal and utterly exhausting at the same time.” 

Seokmin looked away. “Maybe.”

There was silence, then, calm and soft grey and filled only with the sound of them breathing. Seokmin wondered vaguely how Joshua had even managed to find him: he was sitting in some residential street near his apartment, after all, out of the way of main roads and normal paths that people took walks on. And yet Joshua had found him, found Seokmin at the time he’d hidden himself away, at the time he’d most wanted to be alone.

But Joshua’s presence radiated warmth beside him, shoulders pressed together, both of them sitting right underneath the glow of the streetlamp, and as Seokmin finally felt the tangled screams in his brain slowly unravel, he decided that this was most certainly better than being alone. 

“What have you been up to this week?” Joshua asked softly, and the question made Seokmin blink, before letting out a soft laugh.

“You make it sound like we don’t literally work in the same place, hyung,” he said. “As if I don’t tell you every little detail about my day the moment we leave work.”

Joshua just shrugged, a small smile tugging up the corners of his lips. “Maybe I want to hear it again.”

“All of it?” Seokmin asked. Teasing.

But Joshua just looked at Seokmin, his small smile widening slightly. “Yeah. All of it.”

And, well. Seokmin had to look away after a few moments, because there was something so delicately silver in Joshua’s smile, and it made his fingers twitch and his ears burn, not quite understanding why that expression was affecting him so… weirdly. 

He told Joshua about his week, though, after gathering his thoughts, because Joshua was always such a good listener, and talking aloud to him strangely made his brain unravel even more. Like his mere presence was enough to smooth all the jagged edges of his thoughts, hush the screams in his mind, settle everything back down into a state of peace and comfort.

“—described such a thought-provoking analysis, and I don’t normally make predictions on my students, especially the younger ones, but she is someone who I think would do really well in something like law or philosophy,” Seokmin finished, and Joshua hummed interestedly.

“Really? From just one analysis she did?”

Seokmin shook his head. “It was her entire essay,” he said, eyes wide. “This was, like, top tier writing the entire way through. She talked about themes and changing ideas in a way we’d never discussed in class. She’s a natural, I just know it.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing her named one of the top lawyers in the country,” Joshua said solemnly, and Seokmin laughed, tilting his head back.

“If you ever need a lawyer, just contact her and tell her you’re Mr. Lee’s long-lost twin,” Seokmin joked, beaming. “She’ll be sure to help you.”

Joshua smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Seokmin leaned back, sighing contentedly. “I don’t know, but there’s just something about you, hyung,” he began thoughtfully, “that makes it so easy to be… comfortable.” He turned to look at Joshua, as the elder raised an eyebrow and propped his elbow on his knee, resting his cheek against his palm. “Is that weird? You’re just really easy to talk to, I think. It’s nice.”

Joshua hummed, his gaze sliding past Seokmin before focusing on him again with a smile, eyes meltingly soft. “I guess it’s just part of my charm.”

“Yeah, probably,” Seokmin agreed easily, and Joshua laughed. “You’re charming, hyung. Like, even Minghao thinks you’re a nice person. And that guy won’t even admit to thinking that Junhui is decent, despite the fact he's been living with him voluntarily for years.”

"Well, Junhui's good company," Joshua said. 

"And he's adorable," Seokmin shook his head, smiling. "That's not the point, though." He lightly bumped his shoulder against Joshua's. "You're always so nice to everyone. Even Minghao agrees."

Joshua chuckled, leaning his cheek further into his palm, eyes fixed on Seokmin. The yellow light above them made his eyes look caramel gold, glinting like gilded words on the open pages of an ancient book. Easily read, easily seen, easily identified as the most beautiful thing in the entire world. 

He really looked so… at ease, his frame all relaxed as he sat next to Seokmin, their knees touching, his smile so bright and sweet that Seokmin’s chest did a weird, fluttery thing, and he had to swallow and blink rapidly a few times to get it to go away. 

But Joshua just looked so open, his expressions crystal clear on his face, and as Seokmin thought back to last week, he couldn’t help but feel a little confused.

“Joshua hyung,” he started, and Joshua hummed, eyes refocusing on Seokmin to listen to what he was saying. “You know during last month’s Game Night? When you were talking to Jeonghan hyung?”

Joshua paused, and while his eyes were still copper-gold, he looked more cautious. “Yes?”

“You kind of… shut down, when you saw me,” Seokmin said. He fiddled with his fingers, and Joshua took his cheek off his palm and sat up properly. “Did I… Are you… Was it something I wasn’t meant to hear? I mean, it’s just that I’ve never seen you look so… like that around me before.”

Joshua was looking at Seokmin intently, and not for the first time, Seokmin felt almost as if Joshua was gauging his real emotions, what his real question was, figuring out how much to say and whether it would be okay to say it. But his face was still glittering gold, irises shining around the edges, so it felt less like Joshua was hiding from him, and more like he was trying to find the words to speak about his real self.

After a moment, the elder smiled.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, slowly. Careful. “Han was just being irritating again. I didn’t want you to be irritated by the nonsense he was saying as well.”

Seokmin stared at Joshua, before shaking his head. “You’re really nice, hyung,” he began. “You’re really nice. To everyone. And that’s—that’s really hard to do. Believe me, I’ve tried. But you do it really well, and—and I can tell, you know. That you’re changing for everyone. So you can be this all-round likeable person.

“And I’m not judging you for it. If I could do that, I’d do it too. But I guess, sometimes, I get… worried?” Seokmin hunched his shoulders, curling into himself, shy. “Because I just really like you a lot, hyung. You’re a really cool friend. And I’d never lie to you, and I know you’d never lie to me, but sometimes, when you change your personality like that, it kind of feels like you are.” 

Joshua was silent, before he reached over and nudged Seokmin’s knee with the back of his hand, a gentle press of knuckles against fabric, the warmth of his touch almost instantly making Seokmin want to melt into him. And then his hand was gone, resting back on his own knee, as he looked away from Seokmin and out onto the darkened street. 

“It’s hard to be your own person, once you realise that being everyone else’s person makes life a whole lot easier,” he said quietly. And then he didn’t say anything else.

After a moment, Seokmin sighed softly, bringing his own hand up to cover Joshua’s where it rested on his knee. “I get that,” he said. “But… it’s good to be your own person too.”

Joshua looked down, shrugged. Thought for a long moment, and then spoke. “By now, it’s habit, I guess. I’m used to being someone else’s person so it probably just comes easily now. And normally, most people don’t notice.”

He hesitated, then, words ringing opalescent in the air, so light and feathery and truthful that Seokmin felt kind of dizzy. Joshua’s hand was still warm under his, and he couldn’t quite tell whether the touch was grounding him or making him feel even floatier. And then Joshua’s grip tightened, just slightly, and Seokmin managed to focus back on him again.

“You’re a little different, though,” he said, chuckling softly. “Both you and Jeonghan. I’m not allowed to be someone else with Jeonghan. And you…” His words trailed off, and he looked back at Seokmin, eyes bright. He blinked, and for a brief moment, Seokmin could read every single galaxy within Joshua’s eyes.

Joshua’s eyelashes fluttered, and he looked down at where Seokmin’s hand covered his own.

“Every time I see you, it just gets harder and harder to be the someone else’s person to you.”

Seokmin breathed in quietly, shakily. “I think you should just be you.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Seokmin,” Joshua said quietly, with a small laugh. “It is me. Everything is all me. I just…” He paused, mouth twisting, like there were words he wanted to say but he couldn’t find them. Or maybe they didn’t exist.

“That’s okay, then,” Seokmin said, and then held Joshua’s hand more securely, wrapping his fingers around Joshua’s as the elder looked up at him, mild surprise in his eyes. “That’s fine. I get it. I still think you should allow us to truly know you, though, Joshua hyung. We’re your friends. We care about you.”

Joshua nodded, and his thumb lightly brushed against the side of Seokmin’s fingers, smiling just a little. “Maybe just you, for now,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just have you know me for now.”

Seokmin blinked, before beaming, wide and happy. “You won’t have to do anything different,” he promised. “I’ll help you feel comfortable with me, all by myself. I wanna know who you are, Joshua hyung.”

“Shua hyung,” Joshua said after a moment, and Seokmin tilted his head.

“Shua hyung?”

“You can call me Shua,” Joshua elaborated, and his face was so soft, his smile tinged with a shyness that Seokmin had never seen before. “I just… It’d probably be easier than saying all the syllables for ‘Joshua hyung’. If you want, of course.”

“I—of course,” Seokmin said, earnestly. Then he grinned again, squeezing Joshua’s hand once before releasing it and throwing his arms open wide for a hug. “Shua hyung! That’s so cute.”

Joshua laughed, bright and tinkling like bells, and as his arms wrapped around Seokmin in return, it occurred to him that he’d never heard Joshua laugh like that before. All bright and carefree and as beautiful and soaring as the elegant notes of a song. “It’s just my name in shortened form.”

“Yeah, and it’s cute,” Seokmin said, smiling so wide that his heart felt like it was going to burst, “Shua hyung.”

And Joshua—elusive, cotton soft, polite and unreachable Joshua—gave Seokmin a smile that could have lit up the whole world.

taglist (send ask to be added) : @fairyhaos @atinytinaa @my-moarmy-heart @weird-life-of-a-closet-fangirl @lilsafsafbooyah @stqrrgirle @bittersweet-folder @weird-bookworm @ultrara-re @tianakings @bangantokchy @tiinkerbell @ahuiahoe @trashmeowcan

[yellowhollyhock]

day 16 dance competition

Couldn’t resist making this about 03 Raph

post-canon, uhhh no trigger warnings this time I think. includes my take on 03 versions of various characters from other versions, not super developed here but very relevant.

It felt like the future.

Raph hated saying that, too, because it sounded like some cheesy tag line instead ot the specific type of headache he really wanted to describe.

It was the high ceilings, and being surrounded by machines he didn’t know the purpose of. Not to mention the uncomfortable suit he had to wear.

“I don’t know why we even have to come,” he said to Leo, half-hoping he’d persuade him to turn back. “I mean, Mikey and Donnie have jobs to do.”

“This is about building relationships,” Leo replied, though he didn’t sound thrilled either. “It’s the first time they’ve had potential off-world clients visit, and since most of their staff don’t have any experience with aliens, we need to be there as a buffer.”

“But Mikey’s already been studying all those cultures with Irma and Oyuki. Isn’t he in charge of being the buffer?”

“He studied the cultures so he could help plan music and a menu that wouldn’t start any wars. They’re still going to need our support in case anything goes wrong. Besides, our presence is symbolic. We’re two of only five people on earth who have ever met a Neutrino, even if it was in passing and we didn’t know it at the time.”

Raph knew that, but it was still unfair. Fugitoid was way more familiar with aliens.

“Yeah, well I bet there’s at least one other person,” he muttered darkly.

“Another important reason for is to be here,” Leo said seriously. “Even though April has government approval and protection, if Bishop somehow finds out—”

They both stopped short at the entrance to the meeting room. The outside wall had been let down as a balcony—with a safety net, something Leo had insisted on in the design phase—and the big conference table had been moved out to make room for a few smaller tables. The bright overhead lights were off, soft yellow tones lighting the room instead.

Leo gripped Raph’s arm nervously. “We’re very exposed this way.”

Raph reached over to pat him on the shell—and was interrupted by a screech and someone jumping onto his back.

“You guys are here! Can you believe we’re really doing an alien party? This is like straight out of Star Trek!”

“I really can’t believe it,” Raph assured him, unable to resist a fond smile. “I hope at least the food is better than on Star Trek.”

Mikey released them both, and they turned to face him. Raph frowned.

“Hey, how come you don’t have to wear a suit?”

Mikey was instead wearing a loose-fitting reflective jumpsuit with seams making hexagon patterns. Since it curved around his shell, he kind of looked like disco ball. He twirled happily.

“You like it? It’s the latest Neutrino fashion. Since I’m a cultural liaison April said I could wear their party clothes instead of ours!”

Raph looked at Leo. “Aren’t we cultural liaisons?”

Leo shrugged. “You wanna wear a disco ball?”

The fact that Raph thought about it for a second was a real testament to how uncomfortable their suits were. “No.”

Mikey laughed. “Come on, April and Fugitoid went up to meet them when they land, Donny’s briefing the staff in the break room. We want to all come in together ‘cause it’s more polite im their culture.”

They glanced at each other to confirm they both felt completely out of place, then followed Mikey.

In the break room, they found Irma, an older woman Raph was pretty sure was named Libby, and Timothy dressed in waitstaff uniforms, white aprons and loose black clothes. Casey wore a suit, Oyuki a black dress. Master Splinter wore a brand new blue robe. Donny was dressed like Leo and Raph, and looked about as nervous as them too.

“The Neutrinos are shapeshifters; they’ll explore their environment by shifting to match us, or other objects they find, so be mindful of what you grab. Remember, you’re all here because we trust you. We’ve done the impossible together before. Just be yourselves, and we’ve got your backs.”

Raph glanced sideways at Leo, unsurprised to see a soft smile. It was almost the same speech he’d given Don that morning. They gave each other thumbs up.

“Is it gonna give them a weird idea about earth for so many of the humans to be the waitstaff?” Oyuki pointed out as she glanced over the group.

Donny frowned thoughtfully. Unfortunately, Raph wasn’t quick enough to recognize an opportunity to change outfits. Leonardo was.

“I can be waitstaff. Timothy, trade me.”

Raph bit back a swear as he realized the opportunity he’d lost. Not only that, he was now the only ninja turtle present without a job.

Meanwhile, Timothy stood at attention, eyes wide. “It’s an honor, Leonardo Ninja Turtle!”

Leo tilted his head. “My last name is Splinterson. Do you know where the bathroom is?”

Timothy gave a very serious nod, and briskly led the way. Leo gave his brothers a backwards bewildered glance before following.

Casey clapped his hands. “Alright so, I guess we’re just waiting on word from the boss. Hope the landing’s going okay.”

“I hope after I spent this much time on my hair there at least some cute aliens my age,” Irma drawled, earning a few chuckles.

Master Splinter gave Raph a very serious look, putting a paw on his elbow. Raph leaned down a bit.

“Yeah, Sensei?”

“You seem particularly nervous, my son.”

“What, me? Nah. Just don’t like dressing up. And it’s kinda pointless, you know? I mean, I’m not exactly your average earth representative, and I don’t know about technology or alien culture. Not really a reason for me to be here.”

He crossed his arms protectively over his chest, realizing that while he had intended to dismiss Sensei’s concerns, he had instead confirmed how nervous he felt.

“I believe you know more about life from outer space and accepting those different from you than most people,” Master Splinter reassured him, “But regardless, you are here to support April and Donatello. They value your presence immensely, my son, and need your support.”

“Yeah. I know.”

He did know, but it was nice anyway, hearing it from someone else.

April and Donny just better be grateful he dressed in the worst kind of human clothes for a whole evening.

“Got her text,” Casey announced, just as Timothy and Leo reappeared. “Let’s go.”

So Raph tried to put his discomfort and insecurities out of his mind, and went to the weird business meeting party.

He gave polite nods and kept his distance. He would have liked to talk to Casey or Don, but both of them were occupied discussing recent work projects with interested aliens.

He looked around for Leo, wondering what there was to eat. He didn’t really want to ask Irma.

He spotted Leo across the room, holding a plate of appetizers and trying to explain food he didn’t understand himself to a bewildered alien.

He backed into something, and heard a surprised trill. Startled, he turned around to find a—uh, creature, with six insect-like limbs and a beak like a bird.

“Oh, uh, sorry.”

The Neutrino made a strange garbled sound. Raph took a half-step back, trying to decide if the tone seemed upset.

“You got a universal translator? I don’t have a universal translator. Were we supposed to get one?”

They dropped—or, looked more like, threw—a bright orange handkerchief at Raph’s feet.

He hesitated, thinking of what Don said about being careful what he picked up. Was that their friend? Had he hurt them when he bumped into them?

Keeping an eye on the insect-bird, he stooped to pick up the handkerchief. They leaned forward expectantly, so he went through with it and carefully handed it back.

Then they whirled and morphed into a turtle, matching Raph exactly, other than the orange handkerchief they held up.

Mikey appeared, beaming and clapping Raph on the back.

“She challenged you to a dance competition!”

“Say what.”

“Yeah yeah, it’s a big thing in their culture! We didn’t expect it to happen here because it’s usually for royalty. Hang on—hey Donny! Could you say into the translator that we need three judges for a dance competition?”

And that was how Raph found himself dancing with his clone, with Libby, Fugitoid, and a Neutrino who’d adopted a mostly human appearance, sat to judge. It wasn’t any kind of music he was familiar with, either.

It was shaping up to be one of the weirdest nights of his life, and that was saying something.

Oh, well, might as well make the most of it.

“Hey, don’t worry, I’ll take it easy on you since it’s your first time being a turtle.”

They matched him step for step.

“Alright, you get some pretty good footwork, but can you breakdance?”

They could breakdance.

“Here on earth we like to call this a moonwalk. You ever walked on the moon?”

Their moonwalk looked quite a bit different from his, and involved inflating their feet to make themselves float a little.

He talked less as the music picked up speed. There was no one else in the room; all he had to do was stay moving for longer than her.

When she was still doing spins and he was down to fist pumps, he fell to his knees in surrender. The music slowed to a stop.

“So what happens,” he panted, “If I lose?”

His clone knelt in front of him, then morphed into a humanoid figure to match her friend.

“Wow, you were great!”

He gaped. “You speak English?”

“We pick up languages pretty quickly,” her friend chirped happily. “You have to as a shapeshifter.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Raph acknowledged while his dance partner helped him to his feet.

The scores came in at a dead tie, mostly because Zak, the Neutrino judge, rated Raph so highly. Everyone was in good spirits, and by now all the Neutrinos appeared humanoid. A group of more official-looking ones were telling April they believed her technology would prove life-changing for their home planet. The dancer, Kala, said her and Zak would have to bring her friend Dask on their next visit, and that the three of them may even want to apply for a job here.

Raph listened to all of this with a detached satisfaction; maybe it was good he’d been here tonight, after all.

Donny leaned against him, a quiet show of gratitude.

“It’s been a weird night,” he said.

“Beyond weird,” Raph replied. “You owe me.”

Don gave him a crooked smile. “That’s fair. Want a laser gun?”

Raph shook his head. Don raised his eyebrows.

“What about a new bike?”

Raph motioned him closer so he could tell him quietly.

“Next time, no suit.”

Donny laughed out loud.

“You got it. And I’ll still throw in a new bike, just cause I like you.”

[0wllight]

tell the class all your favorite parts about sova maybe? like what made you really fall for him and all of that!

ok this also might get long i am sorry. thank u for the ask tho its nice to hvae smth to do. either way uhh lets get started

ok so i might have mentioned this but i had a small crush on him a few years ago? i think since like 2022. back then i shipped with cypher and was super fixated on him but i think sova was always in the back of my brain as a crush, although at the time i only had him as a platonic. also cuz one of my good friends who doesnt anymore used to ship with him so i didnt wanna overstep or anything.

anyways im not even sure how i suddenly decided to latch onto him, i think my fixation on yone at the time was starting to fade and my brain just randomly chose to fixate on him even tho he was still a crush at the back of my brain lol. and look where we are now/lh

as for what i like abt him, i think one of the biggest things i like is how polite he is/kind to others. i think thats like a rlly important trait in someone for me if i were like to date someone else and hes just rlly nice in general and very lovely, hes such a big sweetheart :)

also ok im gonna sound crazy here but my friends keep saying im a circle bcuz he rlly fits one of my types which is like the holy trinity of yone vergil and wyll. who are all like, responsible, serious, yet like kind and deeply caring. and sova definitely fits into that archetype haha even though hes not exactly the same?? most of those guys arent exactly the same but theres a huge overlap of similarity with them.

i do also think he is very pretty even tho he is unfortunately white/lh :') (or at least i smacked this guy with the asian beam. get wasian'd) idk i suck at explaining exactly why i like this guy, again i think a big part of it is how kind he is to others!! its again just smth i rlly value in a partner, he genuinely cares about others/esp people hes close to like his grandma. and is very thoughtful. also i like that hes super down to earth and humble like this guy is incredibly talented yet never brags about it at all hes just very modest. smug people drive me nuts so im glad hes not like that lol. he also is very passionate abt his interests like archery and also he does photography! i like to think he also does things like hiking, birdwatching and maybe some gardening in his spare time. idk its a shame we dont get too too much info about val characters although the lore is always constantly growing. i do think he does like lots of outdoorsy hobbies hes very respectful to and attuned with nature i think.

sorry this is getting so long omg. im trying to think of any last things to throw in... i think another thing i rlly love abt him is how calm he is. it kinda balances me out bcuz i tend to be a really hotheaded person but it takes a LOT for him to get bothered by something, or at least lose his temper. in the lore we've never really seen him lose his temper or anything like that? the closest it's gotten is that one image when they were releasing fade where it was like a flashback to him losing his eye and he looked super animalistic. actually i think that in general for him to get that mad or whatever it would probably have to involve one of his loved ones being in danger. which is nice bcuz it shows that he rlly cares.

anyways this is getting so long so i will cut it short but i love my wife <3

[ckret2]

Ive only read one fic that dives deeply into bill being from flatland (flat dreams, though its popular enough, you probably heard about it from someone). And while i love it, im realy intrigued by your ideas cause its taking things in a widly opposite direction

Not only have I heard about it—multiple times!—I've also already had a couple of folks comment on my posts in a way that makes it clear they're assuming my headcanons are inspired by/based on Flat Dreams, rather than simply based on Flatland.

This is the first time someone's said they're intrigued because it's different from Flat Dreams. I feel like there's probably gonna be a lot of people measuring up my headcanons against the other fic they all know and there's not much I can do about that, so I appreciate hearing something positive!

At the moment I haven't read past chapter 2—through absolutely no fault of the author's own, it's pretty irritating to have credit for one's own writing & ideas be given to somebody else who had nothing to do with it, and it's put me off from reading the fic for now—but I have gone out of my way to get as thoroughly spoiled for the fic as I can just to make sure I'm not, y'know, accidentally retreading the exact same plot as the most well-known backstory fic in the fandom.

And yeah, by the sound of it, I just decided to veer off in a completely different direction from Flat Dreams right from the outset.

Between Bill's monologue during Weirdmageddon and "EDWIN ABBOT ABBOT HAS A DECENT IDEA" it makes perfectly logical sense to go "Flatland exactly as it is can be treated as 100% canon to Gravity Falls -> Bill is an extremely weird guy from an extremely repressive & controlling world -> Bill was trying to undo his society's oppression, went way too far, and became the villain," and get a narratively compelling backstory that fits perfectly with canon and does exactly what everyone kinda expects Bill to have done based on what we know.

However, it also happens to be a narrative that personally rubs me the wrong way. I don't think it's bad, and I still enjoy stories that use it—but it bothers me enough that I don't want to write it myself.

Conversational detour time! I've been in Transformers fandom for about 20 years, and—to oversimplify a complicated and protracted series of narrative reboots—over time, the writers of the franchise decided to give the evil villainous Decepticon army more narrative depth by stating that their home planet used to be extremely corrupt, oppressive, and controlling (you can safely compare it to 1984, Flatland, and a whole bevy of other dystopias), and the Decepticons rose up as a rebellion against the oppressive government—but then went too far, turned evil, devastated their planet, started conquering and slaughtering the rest of the galaxy, etc. etc.

The problem with this is the Decepticons are the antagonists' faction, which means the heroes are usually the surviving legacy of the corrupt oppressive government—and so for a long while you got stories with unintentional implications like "are the oppressive government and the underprivileged minorities fighting back against the government actually equally bad?" or "maybe if we let the most painfully oppressed people in society exercise any political power, their first instinct will be to oppress other people" or "sure, cops are bad and nobody wants a police state, but maybe the best solution is to find the nicest cops and put them in charge."

I say this as somebody who loves Transformers dearly, and Transformers does take some stabs at grappling with these moral issues. I don't even necessarily think it's always a bad idea to write a "faction fighting for a Good Cause goes too far and becomes worse than the thing they're fighting" story.

But several years of grimacing at the same bunch of Unfortunate Implications made me personally lean away from writing any story ideas that could be summed up as "—and attempting to fight systematic oppression made him evil."

So right from the get-go I was always going to avoid the most straightforward "Bill became a villain over the course of fighting Flatland's oppression" backstory—and trying to come up with something entirely different that still fits his claim that he "liberated" his "flat-minded" world pretty much guaranteed I wouldn't write a backstory that had much in common with Flat Dreams.

And from everything else I currently know about Flat Dreams, it seems like on most big plot points, I just sorta decided before I knew anything about the fic besides "it's Bill in Flatland" that I would do something different. "Bill gives me hella only child vibes, and that might make a good contrast to how the main cast all have siblings to help emotionally balance them." "I think I'd rather characterize his home world as less like a dystopian Victorian England and more like vaguely-modern vaguely-Western society—something that's easier for the audience see echoes of our world in than a satire a century removed from its context." "Bill doesn't strike me as someone who's good at making or maintaining friends, so with the possible exception of the Flatlander-looking guys I bet his Henchmaniacs are an ever-shifting gang of shallow brief friendships, so he's probably only known most of them a few years." "In the main fic and in Bill's backstory, as much as possible I want to introduce and play with new ideas rather than have major plot points depend upon plot devices we've already seen used in canon (for instance, ruling out Globnar as the source of Bill's power)."

I dunno what this says, except that two writers can take the exact same source materials and decide to construct a narrative with the exact same overall arc about the exact same character guided by the exact same canon quotes/details, and still come up with two wildly different stories depending upon the writers' individual tastes, priorities, and interests.

so uh tl;dr: yep I've heard of Flat Dreams; I respect its position in the fandom but haven't read it yet; based on what I know about it, I think I'm just interested in telling another story than Flat Dreams' author, and that's neither better nor worse but it is different. (And I really appreciate hearing "I'm interested in seeing something different"!)

[auraspheres]

HMMM just thinkin' off the top of the dome here...interested to hear your thoughts because I feel like these two could fit anywhere!!

💜 close friendship (the teasing is relentless) and/or 💛 childhood friends (depending on your timeline!!) They Go Back imo.

💗 slow burn and/or 💘 friends to lovers (I'm just weak for these tropes LMAO...but staying platonic is lovely too!!)

☕ Riley works in service of Cynthia (probably not literally working, just thinkin' about what you had written before about Riley's dedication to Sinnoh/champion as The Last Aura Guardian Standing)

RELATIONSHIP TYPES

ooOH I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON THEM OKAY OKAY. This ran long so it's going under a read more lol.

close and childhood friends YES - I dont doubt they go back and I speculate they did a lot of training together too. They're both incredibly strong trainers on a journey at one point though Riley of course going the way of taking up his his heritage and right as an Aura Guardian/Master rather then a dedicated trainer, gym leader or champion. He's never dropped his constant support or hand of course esp when she went down that path. It's not hard to communicate after all - he's got funny aura powers that makes connecting to people he's close to super easy no matter how far apart they are. Helps with knowing if something is wrong right away and for mind memes he's not at all caught up with. He lived on a little cave island with no internet, he still doesnt get why people laugh when he says the vibes are off wha-

Not only is that his very good friend but that's the champion and his guardian duty is to the welfare and protection of his people at her hand. He'll take a bullet for you. Dont test him cause he'd absolutely find a way to prove it too-- But dont let that detail get it twisted, regardless of who the champion is, was or will be he'd still very much offer his full support. He just calls her "Miss Cynthia" now probably to a lot of chuffing.

AND YEAH...YEAH...Im a sucker for the knight x ruler trope and friends to lovers. I imagine he doesn't understand the full scope of his feelings and pretty inexperienced with any form of intimacy. Spending most of his time training and meditating on an island kinda does that to you, oops. They run deep. He reads it as having profound regard for someone he's very close with and can understand with ease even without his aura reading powers. This steadfast dedication is from his sense of duty, right? ...Well not entirely. As mentioned above champion or not he'll be there at the drop of his fancy hat. There's something different about these feelings he's noting, and for someone who's literally mastered reading emotions he sure can't figure out his own.

Maybe a little nudge and some getting past his own modesty and over-politeness could point him in the right direction. But I sure look forward to how they get there.

Also catch me and how they connect in being some of the last of their own kind if you think about it, they even wear their ancestral symbols on them and --

[thecorvidforest]

Hi!! I saw that ur punk and I had questions if that’s okay!!! Im p sure I heavily align w punk ideology (and have already been cpunk for a while) (I strongly don’t want to conform to society and love all “weirdos”, fuck cops capitalism etc etc,,,) but I don’t listen to punk music or dress punk at all. I know u don’t have to dress any certain way (feel like ppl r gonna call me fake though) but people say u need to listen to punk music and I’m going to try !! but I’m very new and haven’t started yet.. when exactly is it okay to call myself punk? and umm while I do align with ideology I actually am very uneducated on anarchy and maybe similar concepts that I’m very interested in learning about but have no idea where.. can u give me any info on what being punk is really about and where to learn more? some people say there are “posers”’ but what exactly would make someone a poser?

hello! not a problem, i'm happy to tell you what i can :) (also ayy, fellow cpunk)

i would say that you can call yourself a punk when you're educated on the politics and ideology and can say for certain what parts you align with. being punk isn't about the aesthetic, it's about the ideology, so making sure you understand said ideology is the most important step.

that said, while punk ideology is generally left-leaning and anti-establishment, it's a massive umbrella that covers tons of different political beliefs. i personally am an anarchopunk, which is very left-leaning and centered around community instead of authority, but is directly against the beliefs of other subgroups like neo-nazi skinheads or national front which have both co-opted a lot of punk culture for its anti-establishment beliefs. there is no single set of punk beliefs, so it's important to do your research before adopting the label.

some places i would look to in order to learn more: classic punk literature (https://www.popmatters.com/punk-literature-101-recommended-readings is a great list of some places to start), and punk arts such as poetry, music, and zines, and punk history. dcdig.dclibrary.org has some fantastic collections that cover some of the history and politics that have influenced punk culture (i would very much recommend their DC Punk Archive Zine Library). in particular i'd look at the queer and BIPOC historical influences on punk culture, because those tend to get left out and knowing about that history is very important.

as for what makes someone a poser: posers in the punk community are typically people who embrace punk aesthetics but are uneducated on punk politics. they want the social recognition of the label but have nothing to contribute when it comes to their ideology. they tend to flock to places like tiktok where they can get that social recognition without having to talk about their beliefs. they also tend to gatekeep the punk community a lot. posers are not punk.

some red flags that a person might be a poser: they gatekeep the punk community, they don't talk about their beliefs and/or get irritated when people ask them about their beliefs, their punk fits are bought from amazon or other large corporations instead of being handmade or from small/punk owned businesses (it's pretty hard to tell from just looking though), they shame people for not listening to specific music or not "looking punk enough", they happily promote unnecessary violence because it's "edgy", they hate on everyone who doesn't agree with them, etcetera.

and in regard to your follow-up question about whether one can be emo/goth/nerd etc and punk at the same time, you absolutely can! these subcultures tend to overlap pretty often, and there's really no actual rules about what makes or breaks a punk identity other than being educated and honest about the labels you use.

i hope this helps, and good luck! :))

[superman--yoosung]

hii, i would like to have a genshin matchup! i would like a male young adult or adult character. i go by she/her. i don't want to be matched with tighnari or baizhu :)

personality: my mbti is ESTP. i am extroverted, social, impulsive, adventurous, artsy and playful. i like to express my thoughts and feelings, through written and spoken words. i am pretty temperamental and can be moody, but i won't let it out on others if they aren't involved. i get along with a lot of people and can easily talk to strangers! i like to make new friends and experience exciting things -> adrenaline kick (rollercoaster, theme park, haunted house..). i am bubbly, but like to listen, i appreciate peaceful silence (even though i have outbursts of energy). i also like to write poetry and really connect with my emotions. my love language is definetly quality time and i want my lover to spoil me, while still being playful and teasing. i do not fall easily in love. i am also pretty sensitive, so i need a lot of reassurance.

flaw: im temperamental and tend to act before thinking :/

vision: i think my vision would be electro. i just feel like if fits me, i'm impatient and i think i would like a power that's 'striking' and effective.

likes: dresses, pearls, dark colors, dark red, black, cats, roses, grand gestures, handmade things, romantic, attention (!), poetry

dislikes: puzzles, spiders, someone who is materialistic, very sweet food, chaos

add.info: i definetly need someone who can balance my energy and can ground me but still can be my partner in crime :) i need electric sparks and butterflies and adventure ☆

if i would be an animal i would be a grey ragdoll cat, my personal style is pretty dark, i prefer elegant dresses and simple alternative clothing.

Hi! Ragdoll cats are my favorites - they're so fluffy and usually easy to pick up! Nice choice!

Your matchup is...........................

AYATO !!

Rumors among the noble clans were not uncommonplace; but the more recent ones held a bit of credence. The young Lord of the Kamisato Clan, head of the Yashiro Commission, courting an Electro Vision holder held in high regard by several important political players? Why, yes - most had seen him about town with a young lady at his side recently, or come upon his aides at various shops searching for fine gifts.

Then again, rumors tend to be baseless - and these ones, in particular, boiled down what those closer to the both of you know to be a complex, deep-rooted connection. Kamisato Ayato is certain of most things in his life: status, purpose, and future. Yet some factors are still volatile, and that makes them all the more appealing, especially those revolving around you.

Fun details:

Courting a noble is a bit of a big deal in Inazuma; but you met Ayato at the Irodori Festival as a visitor from another nation when the borders re-opened, eager to see the land of the God whose Vision element you wield. You had neither false pretenses nor grand adorations for who he was supposed to be, and so treated him like an equal; and for that, you earned his interest, and eventually, his trust and affection.

Ayato enjoys spending time with you, in as many ways as he can. He is a very busy man, but he also likes to play hooky from time to time; it may be up to you to sternly chastise him in those instances when he shirks his work. Still, sneaking out to local shops or away from prying eyes are equally appealing opportunities, and you'll both indulge in them together when you're able to.

You like excitement - and Ayato delivers. This man always has some trick up his sleeve, or some surprise to delight you with. Whether it's an impromptu evening of fireworks, sneaking out to one of Itto's beetle-fighting competitions together, or hosting a traveling Fontaine fair on the beach - he'll pull out all the stops to make sure you'll always be looking forward to something exciting.

As personable as you both are, it's easy to have full discussions together. You get along well with his sister and his friend Thoma. But there are just as many moments spent in contented silence together, attending to your own interests. Oftentimes, he'll talk to you about his day while you write poems, and you'll return the favor by reading them out loud to him as he finishes paperwork or practices calligraphy.

Acting without thinking has landed you in trouble before. And as amusing as it is for Ayato to find out what sort of sticky or awkward situation you've managed to land yourself in this time, he never lets those things endanger your safety. There will be Shuumatsuban shadowing you more often than not to help keep you out of truly dangerous or heinous situations, though they're almost never necessary since you're a capable fighter and speaker.

The two of you rarely have to fight alongside one another, but every now and then you may encounter some hilichurls or bandits while rendezvousing. It's a boon to have your electro-charged attacks proc off each other's skills. It will lead to some shenanigans if you ever fight near a large body of water, though, though Ayato will be careful with planning around thise possibilities where possible.

Your temperamental nature and his teasing one means they sometimes butt heads when one of you isn't in the right mood. Your fights aren't big and are usually just petty things that can be solved by either walking away or discussing them again calmly at a later time. Still, Ayato knows one of the best ways to apologize is to bring an olive branch with him... usually in the form of a gift.

Speaking of gifts, Ayato will shower you in them over the duration if your courtship. If you choose to marry, these gifts will still continue, so don't worry about that! Elegant, luxurious items will soon fill your wardrobe and accessories boxes, especially fine Sango Pearls. He will happily indulge in grand gestures of affection, too, in both private and public - large bouquets of Sumeru roses, buying out a whole jewelry stand's stock of items just for you, having fine silk kimono and yukata designed with your favorite patterns and colors in mind. Really, the sky's the limit when it comes to these things, and he aims to scrape the clouds for you.

Ayato loves to have your attention on him, and he'll give you his in return. So long as he lives, his favorite thing about you by far will be the way your eyes betray your emotions. Whether he's teasing you, giving you the third gift of the day before lunch, raising his sword to defend you in battle, or any other such situation, he can always tell how you'll react from the way your eyes widen or your pupils dilate. And he loves those little tells. He loves your reactions and emotions. He loves you.

~~I hope this is to your liking! I had several characters in mind for you, ranging from Diluc to Itto, so I feel like you're a very flexible individual when it comes to who you might be paired with. Regardless, I think I picked a good one, lol! Have a good day!

[metukika]

ok you needing a second to understand that tumbel in tumblr saved me from my embarrassment for having misread your message xD hell yeah haha

maybe you could write us a lil post about your favorite character & why they are that :D (soz for not doin it myself i‘m not feeling like putting anything out there today)

and don‘t decide that you won‘t ever contribute to a bigger project that touches people yet !!!!!! YOU‘RE SO YOUNG you‘ve got the whole world waiting for you and you‘re ALREADY so good at art though. your art is already touching people, no reason why that shouldn‘t work if you should ever work with others on a bigger project!!! GET OUT THEREEE i mean also take your time but IF YOU WANT THAT ABSOLUTELY SHOOT YOUR SHOT KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR OPPORTUNITIES i‘d personally love to see your work in something bigger :D nothing‘s set in stone <3 <3 <3 !!!

aww thank you so much anon! idk who you are but youre so kind to me... thats so nice!

about the whole future thing... i know i have a lot of time but i think because of some stuff coming up soon (when i leave school) im stressed about the future and my decisions in it entirely. idk what im gonna do if i need to go to the military lol like what job to take... i havent started driving and i dont understand shit about all the other stuff thats attached with going to the military im just stressed in general. i dont wanna end up staying in my parents house forever ig.

but i have a lot of time and i know that even if my connection with my friends fade away when they get recruited (which is... also something that could happen... oh god i dunno how to make irl friends) i still have my family, and probably the online world too. if i open commissions im pretty sure id get some work, but i dont think i could do that too much cuz i hate drawing things i dont wanna draw.

but, again, who knows what will happen. ill be fine haha, especially if there are people like you who care enough to write messages like these. most of my online friends are from twt so its always nice to see a tumblr fan <3 thank you anon.

(im realizing how depressed this is all making me sound like i promise its just my school hammering in the importance of the military signs up like i dont even know what part of the mess ill be in most of the time theyre teaching shit that doesnt concern me. im okay, im not dying!!)

now to actually talk about my favorite character! woohoo! happy topic change!

for the two people who read this and the one thats actually gonna read till the end, im putting a cut so this isnt annoying on ur dash (note to anon: this post is so so fucking long i know u prob asked me my fav character to cheer me up but dont force urself to read this whole thing just to be polite lmaooo but id appreciate it if anyone did cuz holy shit)

something that ive realized a while back is that usually when it comes to favorite characters of media, i have a type.

when i made this the character i had in mind where souda (danganronpa), aiura (saiki k) and teru (mp100).

after making the tweet i also thought of denji (csm) who fits right in, and also bakugou (mha) who doesnt, but he looks like half of the characters i did mention lol.

i think the whole social but nice thing came to because of all those shows and stories where the popular kid in school is the mean bully.. maybe i dislike this trope cuz i havent personally experienced any kind of bullying in my school, even as an observer so i cant relate to the experience of having this type of antagonist. the worst it ever got for me was when in fifth grade a girl made fun of me for crying and no one laughed. (shes still in my class over six years later and shes really nice not ufhduh were not friends but were friendly and i dont hold a grudge). maybe its just cuz im wholesome so i dislike any type of negative character. maybe.

that might sound stupid cuz i said i like bakugou, who i used to think of constantly, like for the entirety of 2021 he was in my mind it was annoying. but idk man not all my favs fit into this category ((shinguuji, saihara, yuuko, tweek (who also looks like them! what the fuck!) yuudai from sakana (why are they all blond?!? and men. more female characters what the fuck) barf bag (yes im an object show fan good morning)))

anyways. i like the popular but nice trope is what im saying. why are they all simps? i dont know honestly only one of the characters that i mentioned at the start is simping for someone i ship them with (terumob) (but the reason i even like teru in the first place might be cuz i saw terumob art, thought it was cute, and decided to search more art. i do that with a lot of characters when i dont watch the show (from the original list ive watched all of saiki k, watched playthroughs of the first 2 dr games, watched like a season of mp100 years ago and watched like 2 seasons of mha even before that. i get my filling of plot and character from meme videos, fanart, and fanfics. i understand enough.) and i get hooked on the ship (more examples include akiangel, kiribaku and the two gay boys from evangelion. a lot of homo happening. also whatever the fic version of this is but with denji and yoshida).

about the simping and the bakugou being mean-- i accept my character's flaws!!! i dont erase them!!! bakugou is an asshole and thats why i wanna see him get punished and learn from his mistakes, even if its a little hard! a great fic where this happens (but isnt the main storyline) is quirk: knife! which is probably my favorite non ship heavy fic, check it out!

my fav characters have flaws but just like how you need to embrace flaws in the people you love, whether that means helping them get better or accepting them, i embrace these flaws cuz it makes them who they are! souda, denji and auira wouldnt be themselves if they werent pushing the lines with their crushes and idk what the fuck bakugou would be if he wasnt what he was.

alright lets actually start talking about my favorite character now.

so, right now, my favorite character of all time is-- ding ding ding-- kazuichi souda! who i already mentioned.

look at him! idk if the one and a half people who are reading this know him, but if u know denji, who is a more popular character atm, then imagine that but more wimpy.

the first time i encountered this character i was watching game grump's playthrough of the second game. i watched their first and enjoyed it but didnt really join the fandom. i didnt know anything about the second so i was going in blind like arin and dan, so theres a chance that whatever i thought about the characters was biased and connected to how they feel.

at first i really liked his design. a lot of the characters have small and complicated details but souda is probably the most simple design, not including hinata, but unlike him souda has a lot of bright colors that draw the eye in! i dont particularly prefer designs with sharp teeth but i think its a pretty nice quirk, since its another part of him that makes him look intimidating. theres a headcanon that he filed themselves but i honestly think he wouldnt do that, and prefer the headcanon that its genetic, even if it makes less sense. but danganronpa, and their designs, dont make sense. i think these little strange quirks are better when they arent thoughtout or have reason. he has sharp teeth becuz. just cuz.

if u dont know what happens in the game im just gonna say that the plot doesnt really matter, cuz really the only growth souda experiences is with his relationship to hinata (the main character) and his trust to his survivor friends that makes him stronger and convinces him to leave the virtual reality. im not gonna be talking about the plot in detail. i also havent watched the anime so im not gonna get into whatever he does there. i do know that he makes some cute faces in it, which is pretty awesome.

but, yeah, besides his design, at the start i truthfully didnt really like him lmaooo he was kind of stalkerish towards sonia (ill prob get into their relationship later), he is also a wimp but honestly... i get it hes stuck in a killing game i would be scared of anything too. i feel like of all of the cast, from all the games, souda is probably one of the best depictions of an actual teenager that might exist. of course he has his obnoxious moments, but in a way that a dumb teenager would have. i dont know when i started liking him, maybe after discovering soudam? hmm.

kazuichi is the ultimate mechanic, which is one of the talents in the game that actually gets used? he makes the communicators in chap 3 and fixes the elevator in chap 4. besides that, he is also important to the second chapter since he helped tie up komaeda and he also brought hinata to the diner, though that has nothing to do with his talent.

he learned to be a great mechanic from working at his dad's repair shop or garage or whatever its called. its mentioned that their family is pretty poor, and i think the concept of a character being at one point or another un-wealthy pretty interesting (did that come strange? sorry). he worked to help get their family money he is a good boy, he mentions being better than his dad too. he doesnt look like the typical mechanic, except from the greasy hair and jumpsuit (im talking specifically about his color scheme) and thats another one of those quirks that make no sense but i just like haha

speaking of his parents, lets talk about a popular headcanon that fans have of souda's dad (before we start i wanna state that my opinion on this topic and the topic of souda relationship towards sonia and his trust issues were all stem from an analysis video of him on youtube, if u know u know, so if i want someone more competent talking about it go there, but if u dont care enough to research it or ure only reading because u like me and wanna hear me talk about something i care about dw im gonna go into detail about these anyways

the hc is that souda's dad physically abuses him. i wanna talk about why dont agree (if u wanna skip this part ill put *** when it ends so just go there <3). this hc stems from a story he tells hinata in one of the free time events where he didnt go to his previous school trips because he wanted to save money for his family, even though he really wanted to go, and he says something along the lines of how his dad "beat the crap outta him" when he didnt go.

do i think his dad hit him? probably. i dont really know how common this type of discipline is in japan, or in places with more un-wealthy people so this might be normal to them. does that make that okay? obviously not. but if the only example we get for him hitting souda is after souda does something good for the family in his own expense, it wont make sense for his father to be mad about it, right? i think he was upset his son had to give up his happiness for them, even if it was to save money. the analysis vid said it might be souda just using more dramatized words for it. He was hesitant to tell hinata that he was picked on at school, i dont think hed just admit to being abused so casually. i think his dad might have smacked him from time to time when he was younger but probably stopped the more souda grew up. if his dad really hated him he wouldnt beat him after doing something that would benefit the dad, is what im saying.

also i think that the way souda acts doesnt reflect someone who would be regularly abused... its not like im an expert, but if we for example look at tsumiki, who was canonically abused and bullied regularly, we can see a great difference. yes, souda tends to be caught off guard or scared of stuff, but usually its less of other people and more about the situation around him. he was scared of monokuma and the monobeasts and the morning after the killing gama announcement. he's also generally not that apologist about his stupid behavior... for example he doesnt feel remorse for tying up komaeda, and even threatens to tie up kuzuryuu too. i also think he said something about wanting to punch one of the other guys? this might be cuz he tends to blurt out his thoughts stupidly and doesnt know how to hold his tongue (something that, if he was abused, would probably get him in trouble) but he never recoils from what he said. he whines about being judged, like after letting slip that he was thinking of sonia in a creepy way, but he never goes back and is afraid that someone might punish him or hurt him. like how tsumiki apologizes for the smallest thing at claims that she'll take any punishment.

it might also be because i generally dont like hcing characters with abusive parents haha. i know for a lot of characters its a part of what makes them who they are, but if thats not the case i feel like its always to excuse the character from some frowned upon trait they have.

its a bit difficult to explain so ill take an example from a different character from a different show. todoroki from mha was abused as a child, and its a part of what makes him him, and its a big part of his character, even if hes not in that situation anymore. i wont deny it. now, theres a hc that some people like to believe about bakugou's parents, specifically his mom, being abusive. this isnt canon. first of all everyone is entitled to hc what they want but a lot of the time i feel this is a way to explain his asshole behavior (also i just love mitsuki). i dont like excusing his fucked up actions and blaming his parents. i think that him being an asshole from the ideals that he himself made is kind of what made him interesting. he believes in what he learned from his own experiences that he and only he had. his stupid child thinking made him the gross person he is, and thats way more interesting than blaming his parents' behavior, like we can do with reason in todoroki's case. todoroki acts antagonistic at the start of the show because of the pressure his dad put on him.

now going back to souda, by making his dad abusive a lot of people linked that to him being a creep towards sonia. while i do see how his parents and their expectations might be a motivator, i prefer to blame souda himself for his wrong actions. i dont want to excuse his actions like that. its more interesting to see him grow from the ideals and reasonings he made himself.

***

now let's talk about his relationship with hinata! woo!

canonically, hinata is the person souda is closes to in the game, even though most of the time hinata is just tolerating his stupid behavior. except in his free time events maybe. their relationship is probably the biggest character development souda gets.

lets talk about his past a little more.

souda tells hinata that he used to be picked on for looking like a nerd. he had black hair (but i hc it more like dark brown, because reminder this is a post gushing about my fav character first and an canalization second), brown eyes (in hc world dull pale brown cuz a lot of the char's eyes are dull and pale colored) and glasses (hc: thin and rectangle shaped). he's not really a nerd... except that he's probably good at math and that type of things, since he builds machines and all. if i remember correctly, he says his bullied got away with what they did because he tends to be naive and trusts too easily. he was also used by his best friend that cheated off of his test, blamed souda for it (which he didnt really mind, showcasing how much not a nerd he is if he doesnt care about his studying and tests like that) and then kinda ghosted after feeling bad. but at the time souda was really heartbroken and felt betrayed, this whole situation gave him trust issues because that his naive heart cant tell when someone really wants to be his friend or if they'll drop him when they dont need him anymore.

souda and hinata start off being friends because souda didnt like any of the other guys enough (fair enough, hinata is the most normal one lol) and he tolerated him enough to go to the diner on the second island to spy on the girls with him. at the time kuzuryuu was still an asshole to everyone, but the two do get friendlier after the second trial (survivor boys bff agenda. i did say "bff coded" didnt i?)

souda tells hinata that after his ex best friend left him, he kinda went through something-- he dyed his hair, put in contacts, and pierced his ears (which i like to think was really scare to him) (and i assume this is when he started to wear bright colors, but i like to think he was always a fan of them (aiura and teru kinnie)) to make himself more intimidating (like i said in the list! remember the list?!) so that he wont be picked on. i assume the bullying he experienced was more emotional that physical, and he was probably called names for his nerdy appearance and was made to do tasks for toxic friends and somethings like that. tsumiki was physically bullied and she has bandages all over her design while souda rolls up all his sleeves and has his collar bone exposed while there is no marks on him. maybe he's have some scars from beginner's mechanical mistakes but thats hc territory.

anyways, because of his appearance change, he got some attention from flirtations girls and said that it had intimidated him. i imagine that while he was in his nerd looking mode, he didnt get much attention from the other sex so when they only started approaching him with the assumption he's some punk badass, that was probably a bit overwhelming for him and thats why he has a strained relationship with the female sex. he does kind of sexualize the girls, specifically in the second chapter, but honestly its not really that bad. it kind of even feels a little forced, like he said nanami had "huge jugs" and wonders if this "is what moe gap is" or something like that but he doesnt even say anything about wanting her lmao. the only girl he really shows any interest is sonia, and he mostly gushes about her beauty, instead of her body. not that thats really any better ofc.

he does get along with some of the girls or at least acts normal and not incel-y towards them, like whenever he's angry at saionji, when he felt awkward next to tsumiki or when he made minimaru for owari (though he did mainly do that to impress sonia). when alter ego enoshima suggest putting him between her boobs or whatever batshit crap she said he just yelled he's get crushed, so like. good for him for not being toooo bad. so yeah i do think there are reasons why souda's best friend woudlnt be a girl (for now, at least) and thats why it really is hinata.

and while hinata has other friends, his and souda's connection is special <3 some examples: he is friends with nanami, but they dont really get each other, or at least hinata doesn't feel too connected at her at times cuz shes like a robot and doesnt really get emotions to the full extent. canonically, his and komaeda's relationship is just not... bros, yknow? whatever it is its not "bros". he and souda are bros. i know that he and kuzuryuu consider each other brothers but i feel like while the friendship they have is great, hinata would be more comfortable just letting loose and being stupid with souda. they could connect by being stupid together and distracting one another from the bad in the world by being fun. cuz souda can be fun when he isnt stressed.

but since souda is an emotional character (i dunno if i mentioned this, if u didnt know souda beforehand hes emotional as shit and cries constantly, my beloved) they can get close the two of them emotionally and are empathetic enough to be able to comfort each other. that is, when souda trusts his enough to do that.

thats right. as much as id like to say souda is loyal like a dog, he doesnt really show that in the game lol. because of his experience with his ex friend, souda has trust issues, which i think i already touched upon (idk this is so fucking long im tryna go thru this one topic at a time but good god) and these issues come up in his and hinata's relationship, mainly chap 4. to put it simply cuz honestly the plot doesnt really matter in this context: souda suspects hinata to be a traitor, and because in chap 4 the characters are not allowed to eat, this probably makes him more stressed and causes him to think even more rationally. after the chap is over, in souda's last free time event, he invites hinata to the beach and order him to punch himself.

his actions are really silly here, but basically: hinata shows in souda trust, which makes souda feel like a bad friend, because he couldnt bring himself to trust hinata even though hinata didnt do anything wrong. he feels that their friendship is unfair and that he's the cause of this problem. so i guess he knows he'll get into an argument or a fight because of it, or maybe he wants to give hinata a reason to not trust him so he bring hinata to the beach so they could fist fight. but souda doesnt like to harm people cuz soda is a good boy tm so he asks hinata to do the work for him (which he does not do lol. they communicate and talk like normal friends). this is where souda tells hinata about his past being bullied, after in the last free time event hinata said he could see souda hanging out with the cool kids, so this is where he confides that hes not a cool kid. anyways souda comes to the conclusion that hes more scared of being a bad friend and a coward because of his trust issued that actually being betrayed, and tells hinata that he'll trust him. hooray!

in my mind they are suchhhh good friends. i dont mind shipping souda with a lot of the characters, but it think their friendship is the most important to me. i love them!

now lets get into his relationship with sonia!

i do, in fact, think that his crush on her is fake. i do think he believes in it. but he does not realize that the created a version of her brought on by her general politeness, her status as a princess and her beauty, in his mind that every day strays farther away from the real sonia. he denies her liking of the occult and other scary stuff that turns him off and he acts shocked when she admits to being a virgin (yikes. at least he doesnt really shame her. i think it just ruins his image of her-- again, yikes-- but he ignores it mostly. like he ignores her, the real her, most of the times)

i dont know why he needs a romantic relationship specifically so desperately, but i can think of why he wants that puppy love admiration that he has for her. she, or at least the way he makes her in his mind, is wildly out of her league. sure he wants a girlfriend, but deep down he knows hell never get her. thats why when she turns him down again and again he only gets hurt for like a minute. she even suggests she would rather he be the blackened in the 4th trial and he gets over it pretty quickly. this is the reason he wants to like someone out of his reach so much-- because he cant get hurt from her. he isnt being betrayed or heartbroken like his ex best friend did to him (yes this is about the trust issues again) because he never expected to be with her in the first place. by expecting failure by chasing a girl that is so so out of his league (a pretty perfect princess) he knows what he gets when hes turned down. to him, this is better than actually making an effort with someone he is genuinely attached to because in that case he might actually get his feelings hurt. we see this with his relationship with hinata, though it isnt in a romantic sense. sadly, after they become close friends, he still chases after sonia, but that might be because the player isnt guaranteed to play all of souda's free time events.

this stuff probably will take time for souda to understand. ofc this doesnt really justify his actions and creepy behavior towards her... i like to think that at some point (i constantly forget that dr is a game about killing each other and the apocalypse, but ig this can take place in here too since they both survive) he understands where his problem stem from, maybe with a conversation with hinata or kuzuryuu and he learns and he asks forgiveness from sonia and changes his behavior. the long and hard way!!! my boy did something stupid and he has to make up for it!!!! he will take responsibility because thats what good character writing is!!

itll probably be difficult to come to terms that the girl in his mind, that i do believe he actually fell in love with, is not real. he will cope <3

briefly i'd like to mention souda's and kuzuryuu's relationship i think they are bffs #2 honestly i feel that the both of them plus hinata could be the best trio they are such wholesome guys from all corners of the bro spectrum let the be friends<333 idk maybe even add owari. owari and souda sibling energy <3 this is just hc territory at this point. mioda and souda sibling energy!!!!! for more kuzuryuu and souda friendship read the fic Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi's Guide to Despair Disease: A How-To Take Care of Your Friends(?) Without Spiraling Out Of Control Story. still a wip.

hmmm that was a lot. lets talk about some hcs cuz believe it or not i dont just think of his as what he is canonically, but also what he could be!

ok lets talk about appearances (still canon atm:) he is short-- one of the shortest guys in the cast cuz fuyuhiko and teruteru dont count (thats a plus) and he is, sadly, pretty ripped. it makes since cuz he prob carries heavy stuff and moves his arms a lot for his talent of being a mechanic but when a (male) character is TOO ripped and not for a good reason (for example theres a good reason why nidai or oowada are physically strong cuz of their talents, and some characters are just himbos that deserve it like momota) i just look at them like :|. but it think souda deserves some strong arms <3 he is a cuddler. he would. i just dont think he's impressively ripped. like i think he could sprint fast, but not for long, and that girls wouldnt flawk him for his arms (if they already knew who he was) cuz all in all he is still a wimp loser and he will stay as such, please and thank you.

im a big fan of his narrow eyes. theyre just. dont make sense on him i love it. just like the sharp teeth, he is blessed with looking the opposite of his personality.

now lets talk about post canon appearances! in the world of canon, where the most tragic event in history happens and they were a part of the despair refinements and they live the neo world program (i always forget they dont live in my lil modern day normal aus, ugh), i think he would wake up still looking like how he did in his depair era. idk how long theyre like that but this is my personal hc: hair that reaches his chest, some ugly dulled down pink still sticking to the tips of his messy hair, no hat </3 but his hair is long enough that he doesnt have that hedgehog thing going on </3, no contacts, no glasses, probably scars over his arms and one over the side of his lips like that rio penguin from madagascar (also curse that show for making my tiny stupid child brain think there are penguins in the desert. at least there are such a thing as beach penguins... hmm). i think he would cut his hair to be shorter that it is in canon, a bit longer than hajime's and would resemble saihara's except brown, parted and no ahoge. he wold be dispensation by the length. he would also wear a cap (the normal way) and with his natural colors back, he would look very snuggble :)) he would hug everyone he would be the comfort giver at least to the survivors (this is the part where u realize how insame i am for him lol)

in a world where the end of it didnt happen, i feel like he would feel kind lonely for a while after school, and wouldnt care enough to wear contacts and would go back to glasses, and he wouldnt dye his hair (i just really like his naturality okay i know i said i liked him at first for his colors but this is character growth! he is learning that he doesnt need to be intimidating to get friends!!!) his hair would be a little longer than canon but not by much. i just have this au where he works in an office and there he meets kamukura (who, personality wise is just hinata but depressed) and they become bffs dont at me, and this is how he looks in that au, wearing a button down without the tie and the sleeves rolled up. i do think hed wear obnoxious colors in his free time tho <3

maybe i should get into ships a little? mostly i shipped him with tanaka because i love me some rivals to lovers that isnt angst filled and is mostly just petty. theys either be salty towards each other or tanaka would be very intense in his friendship and souda would be tsundere-ish, not the obnoxious type tho. imagine how denji acts towards yoshida. (denji and souda are actually really alike. before i knew anything about csm my twt mutual told me id prob like denji cuz i like souda and.. well he was right)

but recently i dont really focus on shipping souda with anyone as much as i focus on his friendship with hinata (am i the only one who watched gg compilations and put their faces behind the silly conversations? like i imagine their sprites laughing while the video plays. is that weird? them and also saihara&momota. cuz theyre the same relationship!!! tactful mc and their friendly dumb bro! they!!!). also if u recall i made that drawing of souda with a bunch of ships so its not like loyal lol.

also why are souda and tanaka together constantly in the anime... i think its the end song where theres a slide show of all the characters in class in places like a picnic and the beach and stuff and the two of them are almost together. theyre at the very least friends. that dynamic where they both look intimidating but theyre both so fucking stupid. frienemies. <333 they are so <333 theyd be friedns at least!!! thank you for the anime for realizing that.

i also like to imagine that he and tsumiki would be friends <3 they were both bullied, they both cry a lot and arent really taken seriosuly, at least when it comes to their emotions. i think theyd hug and cry together and be friends :) also as couple they could be very cute.

i dont really know what more to say... i think this is it! i dont know what about kazuichi souda makes me love him so much. he is flawed but not to the point of being unlikable. he is unique but can easily be related to! i care about him so much... the amount of aus i come up and put him in... i dont post so much about him, but know he is my love. ofc i dont have romantic feelings for him some ppl just thirst over their favs i wanna preface that aint the case. not cuz of his age (im close to him in age) but cuz i just... dont feel and romantic or thristy feelings towards anyone so istg if anyone says something stupid to me about that.

thats all! i think this is the longest post ive ever made? when i got this ask last night i thought id write about all those characters i mentioned at the start but then when i went to bed i thought about my answer and realized i have a lot to say lol.

to the one person who actually read until the end, if u even exist (who knows myabe this was for nothing, i still had fun), you're insane. and i hope u have a great rest of ur day. if u didnt know who souda was before this... well u certainly do now (also why did u read this?) sometimes i just gotta rant about something i adore haha. its been a while since i went all out cuz me and my irl dont watch the same shows. i hope i made whoever read this love souda! at least a little!

this post is 5787 words long... im not rereading this

[nerdyenby]

Pink time :D I’m watching Olive

I love Olive so much you guys, I was genuinely not gonna watch if they weren’t in

The fit!!!!!! They’re so pretty what

“I studied!!! I studied like it was the SAT”

I’m sure they’ve already said but… concussion??? You ok, queen?

Me 🤝 Olive: shaky, anxious, nonbinary kings

I was ready to smile and nod at the purple outfit but it’s *pink* floyd lmao

Olive was a viewer 😭😭😭 not new information but the mental image of them watching MCC on their college roommate’s tv is so <3333

Ayo half•alive is my favorite band

“I’ve had kenough of you” omg I love this team

Apo’s a poet fr, was this pre-written

HI APO’S MOM

“For my mother, and Ken!!!!!”

“Can we have a team pronoun check?” “Frick yeah we can!!” “Call me whatever the fuck you want” APO 😭

I have never watched Apo before but if they don’t stop being the most captivating person in existence I’m gonna have myself a new hyperfix

“Are your sheets crunchy??!?!!” Olive my beloved, why would you say it like that

The nepotism team my beloved <333

Olive spreading the good word of goodtimewithscar’s toe wiggling tip

Apo threatening to kill a man for pressing the noxcrew button is so based tbh

Why the buildmart hate?????

Sands of Time

Sot first 😭😭😭

The rising guys saying hi to H and Jojo <333

Graecie first trying the word puzzle like the girlboss they are!!

It feels like there’s hardly any sand!!!

Olive’s doing a really good job, especially as a concussed first time sandkeeper

Olive thinking the tomatoes were strawberries 😂

SECOND!!!!!

“The nerves are quenched” Apo???? They’re not wrong tbh

I mean, I was thinking it but I wasn’t gonna say it lol

Grid Runners

Preassigned pairings??? They’re so fancy!!!!

The team synergy is unmatched <3

“We are kenough” so true!!!

Meltdown

They’re so good at thinking critically but not getting down on themselves

Middle of the pack!!

We love some pkt positivity

“I blame game mechanics. Like every good pvp sweat, it’s not me, it’s the game” Apo my favorite pvp sweat

Ace Race

“Um, godspeed, don’t fall” my streamer!!!!

We are still swimming, so true!!!!!

Olive my shaky king <3333

Everyone did so well!!!!

Zero stress on this team, I love them so much

Flirting????? In my MCC??????? That’s how you know it’s mc championships tbh

Nonsense sounds my beloved

“Pyro messaged me saying ‘has erotic roleplay ever been done in the decision dome?’ and I just replied ‘Scott runs the event’” THATS WHAT IM SAYING

Olive stop stealing my joke /j

We getting achillean and sapphic flirting this mccr

“I’m trying to roleplay right now!!” the audible >:( is killing me

No one ships streamers more than the streamers themselves lmao

Survival Games

I can’t believe they were too busy being gay to go to the bathroom smh

Literally no one wanted to play sg 😂😂😂

“Let’s hold hands and run” “Can we skip a little bit, too?” Graecie is so based

“I have an iron helmet, would you like it Apo?” “That’s yours though” they’re so polite, all of them, how much these guys genuinely care about each other hits me at the most random moments

They’re killing it!!!! Literally!!!

THEYRE CRAZY WITH IT!!!!!!

YOOOOOOOOOOOO

ACHO AND APO POPPED OFF!!!!!!!!!

“Apparently someone really cool is on the top” Acho!!!!!!!

Rocket Spleef

Rsr late game!!!!! I don’t know how that is for this team but I’m glad it’s in the latter half just for my own enjoyment

Apo!!!! They popped off!!!!!!

Oh no Acho!!! Stars having a rough time D:

Like Icarus!!!!!

“Caw caw bitch!!!” Those are my parrots!!!!!!

“You did so good compared to some other people in this vc” Olive, no self-deprecation in my mcc

Apo beat the point record??????? King shit!!!!!

Buildmart

BM RAHHHHHHHHHHHH /pos

Manager Graecie :))

[squirmmm]

received possibly the most polite solicitation of my life today... ummmm content warning for description of transphobic sexual harassment but! when someone opens with "i hope i can ask without offending you" it's an immediate "yup. this is a 'what are you' conversation" to me, but turns out the guy was cruising and not a chaser. like ok sure, fundamentally what's the difference? i am a little over vilifying everyone who sees trans people and wants to bang them. but STILL normally that kind of interest from random strangers on the street goes into 'you should be grateful some people are into tr*nnies" reaaaal quick once i am not receptive. but this was some guy pretty far on in years, with a mobility aid *full* of daily necessities at the buy nothing event i run cleanup on, and at first my other friend was helping him find pants that fit him. and later he addresses me with that "hope i can ask without offending you.... Are you bisexual?" and pressed me when i said something vague about 'just knowing i'm different from the majority' (0% interested in detailing my experiences for strangers. i keep it honest but insubstantial). and i was ready for it to turn into him being a jerk but he actually said "i think i'm kind of like that too." n after a little clarification/sharing i started to drift back to the cleanup and said to let me know if there was anything i could help him with n he said "maybe there is but you're working" and im like. oh, well, is it something quick? and he said: "don't tell me THAT went over your head." and honestly he was kind of sweet the whole time! and YES he was absolutely angling for a handjob in the park restroom that always smells like piss and YES i was absolutely not into it but. it was very different from how i am used to randos clocking me and trying to hook up and while i wasn't flattered i was oddly moved