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chinchillamajor · 7 months

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Hey, all. It's the Actually Older Simon cosplayer, here in the # simon petrikov mpreg tag again, with a question, this time.

See, I've been really enjoying my time seeing all the comics and drawings folks have been making, especially the ones with their own continuity. Absolutely gorgeous stuff.

And yet, I'd be lying if I claimed that browsing this part of the F&C fandom hasn't been. Bittersweet. In a way that's been really hard to describe.

But I'm wondering if anyone might be willing to draw a commission I have in mind.

Details under the cut, but heed the content warning before the jump: tw for pregnancy complications and miscarriage talk.

Let's have a little storytime, first.

I'll start off by admitting, I didn't even know I could do that.

My body is, and always has been, a wonderland of medical maladies. And as a trans man from the 2000s until people settled on the word "nonbinary" for folks like me, I'd been taking regular birth control shots that disappeared my period for decades now. I have a very scattered memory, but I always made and kept my shot appointments on time.

Until that one time I didn't.

It was an offhand comment from a friend that got me thinking. "I've been craving frosted animal cookies like whoa lately," I'd said, and she replied, "Maybe you're pregnant."

We both paused. Then cackled to each other for a moment, at the very thought.

And then I remembered how nauseated I'd been getting out of nowhere, lately.

I *did* remember to get my Depo shot last time, didn't I? I must've.

Nope, said the two bars on the test stick, later that night. You didn't.

My head was spinning. I gagged and coughed around the idea; it was too big for me to swallow. I was over 40, for crying out loud. How could it be that I'd get pregnant for the first time, NOW?

I waited to see my doctor. Waited a *while.* Because I honestly didn't know what to do. Previous versions of me would've been mortified, and hustled off to get an abortion immediately.

And yet. And *yet.*

The more I thought of this unlikely kiddo, the more I started wanting to fight for it. If it wanted to be a human THAT BADLY as to hole up in *my* body... shouldn't I give it a little credit?

I told basically nobody, the whole time.

And then, one day, there I was, sitting in my doctor's office, and she was telling me my body was already starting to lose it.

Well. If the kiddo changed their mind about wanting to stay, I thought, I'm not going to hold that against them.

I remember laughing. Covering my face with my hands, and breathing in. Like I'd just been shown the camera filming some wretched prank happening.

I'd just nicknamed it the day before, I told her. My little dandelion. And now...

I won't go into the process itself, in the days that followed. Some things, words just can't describe very well. (I will say, the auto-generated targeted ads that started showing me baby supplies, a few months later? THAT. Was just RUDE.)

Time passed, as it does. I hit my head, that January. Got brain damage. Slowly got better. Slowly.

When it was over, I shoved the whole experience aside. Went to my mortician classes. Never brought it up, because that would mean I'd have to think about it.

Everything's fine, I'd say, if folks said I seemed a bit off. Like Simon said at the bar. Same old, same old.

Just last month, I found a new favorite show. All my friends were talking about how one of the characters happened to look eerily like me.

I'd never seen Adventure Time in my life, before Fionna & Cake, but it made me so happy to cosplay older Simon. I was trying to learn a lot of the same lessons he was, after all.

And then, I started seeing my fictional doppelganger in some fanart where he was heavily pregnant.

My mouth hung open for a while, stunned by the hit of pure joy juice that'd just erupted in my brain.

*Simon* got to know what that felt like.

I hit Follow on the tag, and never looked back.

And after taking the time to sit and feel The Hard Feelings, I'm honestly feeling more okay with everything now. Even if it's mostly because I know there's a version of this fictional character I resemble who got to experience what I didn't. The ups, the downs. Everything in between.

I finally opened up to my therapist about it all, this week. She'd known about the miscarriage, but was glad I was ready to talk about it, almost a year later.

I'm so many flavors of grateful to get to see it. Even from a distance.

---

So. That's my take on Simon mpreg.

And I have a commission I'd like to place, at some point.

A very pregnant Simon, getting a visit from a Simon from another dimension, where his kiddo changed their mind.

This other Simon’s not glad it happened, but he's not sad, either. He just wants to give the expecting Simon a big hug, wish him the best of luck, and to tell him to treasure every moment he has with his kiddo.

That he should always know, somewhere, someone's rooting for him. For both of them.

And then the non-pregnant Simon’s back in the Time Cube, thanking Prismo for granting his wish.

You gonna be okay? Prismo asks.

Yeah, Simon says, looking up at the stars and smiling. I think we're both gonna be all right.

If there are any in-fandom artists who feel up to this? Feel free to message me about it. I'll be asking about your rates.

And if you read all that, just... thanks. For listening. I really do appreciate it.

#cw mpreg #cw pregnancy complications #cw miscarriage #simon petrikov mpreg

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artcommunityvent · 7 months

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heres my rant for today: (sorry in advance for long post)

i hate how modern art communities have to “fandom-ify” every single new trendy thing literally DAYS (and sometimes even hours) after it drops. i know this is a lot of the same sentiment as those people that just go “popular thing bad” but honestly it really puts me off some medias because i dont want to associate with anyone else who likes it

do we really need a million different fan ocs and aus for EVERYTHING? and like, i know its nothing new, obviously we have the onceler and undertale aus to look back on, but its exhausting at this point because while those communities were presumably genuine, in the present day it just feels like the fandom equivalent to an industry plant. and most people dont even stick with the thing they decide to make their entire personality!!

remember when spiderverse came out and everyone made spidersonas? who can you name thats actually drawn their spidersona more than once? it feels like everyone just trend hops, and yes i know thats how the internet is but its just exhausting especially when it brings down otherwise creative and inspired works

fnaf security breach: everyone makes fnaf aus and glamrock animatronics, then spiderverse as previously mentioned, then welcome home dropped and thats becoming a shitshow with how yall are fandomizing what is essentially a small creator telling their ocs lore in a creative way, and now its happening with digital circus. im so tired of seeing projects that are cool and visually appealing becoming a cesspit of bland, unoriginal aus and piles of fanart only to get dropped when the new shiny comes out

and i wanna elaborate on welcome home for a second because i know damn well if one of these people who makes “daddy dom priest wally is actually the devil” aus had an oc they loved, and someone came along and made their own aus of it in the same way, that person would bitch and cry oc theft. some people dont even change up the characters design, like how entitled do you have to be to essentially just steal someones oc and call it your own? it disgusts me how people are treating clown and honestly i wish they would put the series on indefinite hiatus or complete their story privately to teach these people a lesson

another thing that puts me off is how every piece of media has to have the “fandom daddy” for lack of a better term. glamrock freddy, hobie brown, wally darling, or jax, its all the same thing repackaged; someones gotta be the tumblr sexyman. its so tiring—ESPECIALLY as a lesbian who doesnt really wanna center men in my life at all—to wanna see fanart of the media you like and its only: “heres the one character everyones horny for drawn in a totally different and more sexualized body type” with everyone in the comments salivating over them. i really like digital circus! but all i see are people who would walk across a mile of broken glass just to suck a fart out of jax’ ass. what about the other interesting characters? why does EVERY conversation with popular media have to be about “which guy is the most fuckable” (guy specifically because come on, when has a female character been the highlight of attention; using the previous example have you seen ONE person talking about digital circus that even remembers zooble exists)

it feels like nobody can appreciate work anymore without having to claim some form of ownership over it, to say “hey this thing is so popular and important that it is now a part of my identity!! look at my millions of ocs that i will draw one time and never again!” im just tired of people being unable to passively interact with media they enjoy and everyone seeming to fight over and prove some connection to the things they like

tldr: im tired of everyone in the art community making heaps of fanart, aus, and fan ocs for stuff the second it gets popular and then totally forgetting about it the next time something else gets popular

(and before yall bring up hyperfixations: i am autistic; i understand having so much love for a piece of media for a short while and then dropping it for no reason and its heart shattering; BUT AT THE SAME TIME this pattern is on oxford to me and its on such a large scale that it infects the greater art community as a whole)

That is indeed the nature of media consumer at its finest. I do feel like it is more appearent now due to the way most social media algorithm works. They only show what is trending at the moment, so naturally, we are exposed only to this specific thing until another trend eventually takes over.

Even artists who never create fan content can be influenced to do so by looking at the other artists, be it to dive in along the hype for the popularity of it, for the geniune fun, for the sense of community, and many more reasons.

- ☁️

#vents #general

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yupuffin · 29 days

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In summer 2016, I got one of the Japanese bookstore's last copies of the KAITO 10th anniversary album Glorious Blue. The whole album is full of BOPS, but I got particularly hooked on Doctor=Funk Beat by nyanyannya. I was super excited to see it slated to be performed at Magical Mirai later that year. I learned the choreography as fast as I could and became, to my knowledge, the first person to publicly upload a dance cover of Doctor=Funk Beat using the Magical Mirai choreography.

Sometime in the next few months, I got hooked on the rest of nyanyannya's discography and decided to subscribe to his Patreon. We got monthly updates and the early release versions of some songs, which was cool! I believe it was in the announcement post for the song Justin⇒Jive⇒Justify in which he included the song lyrics, footnoted with "It'd be cool if I had an English translation!"

So, like the bilingual student I was, I went 🤔🤔🤔, assembled my best attempt at a translation, and stuck it in the comments with "Hey, I wasn't sure if you were serious about wanting an English translation for this, but in case you were and wanted to use one, I gave it a shot!"

I thought this would be a singular instance, but I was wrong! Unexpectedly, this led to us collaborating on quite a bit of translation work for him over the years, including captions for his music videos back when community captions on YouTube were a thing. It was a really cool experience. I remember consulting one of my housemates, an exchange student from Japan, to help me proofread my responses to the messages we exchanged. Once nyanyannya started to get into Vtubing, I learned how to make subtitle files from scratch to match the skit videos he'd send me so he could upload them with the final product. Most of those videos have sadly been unlisted now, but I have fond memories of his avatar's antics, and many of the one-liners still live in my head rent-free despite the defunct source material.

The cozy fandom for his body of musical work "the Namari Hime series" was led by a dedicated user who'd host regular drawing chats -- the kind where everyone doodles on the same canvas while voice chatting. Every few weeks or months I'd get to wake up ridiculously early to discuss new song releases and favorite characters with a bunch fellow fans from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and nyanyannya even joined in himself on a couple of occasions. He laughed at the cleverness of me posting a photo in cosplay of one of his characters "Cash" gesturing dramatically at an ATM. He rightly proclaimed our little corner of the Internet a "super cool fandom."

For a while, we had an unofficial Discord server for the worldwide English-speaking sector of the fandom as well. It's probably still out there, actually! It was really cool to see how the fandom grew over the years from just a couple of people to at least several dozen, if not more.

Shortly after protests broke out across the United States in 2020, I woke up to a message from nyanyannya saying he'd seen the news about what was happening on my side of the pond and wanted to ask if I was okay. It was really touching.

I followed his work less closely after he officially started Vtubing, just because, as a college student, I didn't have the spare time to watch a large quantity of ~3-hour-long videos. And a couple of years ago, I stopped financially supporting him after he started experimenting with generative AI to make YouTube thumbnail images and singing samples.

But we still follow each other on Twitter--even though he posts mostly about Vtubing now, and I mostly post about Hoyoverse games and not Namari Hime. I still see the selfies he posts on Instagram from time to time. And I'm still mutuals with a lot of the previous fandom members, too, even though a lot of them are less active and we don't speak directly basically at all anymore.

nyanyannya's song Fräulein=Biblioteka is featured in the ongoing MIKU EXPO North America tour. nyanyannya is not a mainstream musician. In fact, he deliberately quit mainstream music production before he wrote Namari Hime because of the toll it was taking on his mental and physical health, and turned instead to Vocaloid as tool to help him express his individuality, instead of whatever would be the most commercially successful.

Well, that's just one example. There's plenty more.

KIRA, the producer who wrote the featured song "Highlight," is younger than I am by several years. He wrote the lyrics to another one of his hit songs, "MONSTER," when he was sixteen, and almost scrapped it because he thought nobody would like it. Now a song he wrote played at COACHELLA and he's over the moon.

Utsu-P, behind "Hyper Reality Show," is experiencing similar feelings, as he never would have dreamed of one of his songs featuring at Coachella back when his parents bought him Hatsune Miku with graduation money.

yukkedoluce is another of my favorite Vocaloid producers. He grew up wanting to be an astronaut, but didn't qualify because his eyesight was too poor -- so now he lives his dream in a different form by writing Miku songs about space.

At one of the side events at MIKU EXPO 2018, my siblings and I happened to sit next to a Vocaloid producer named Lystrialle who specializes in making contemporary folk music featuring MEIKO and KAITO. I looked up her music after the expo; her album "You, in the Endless Starlight" almost literally defined my sexuality (or lack thereof), and my Genshin Impact AU is named after some of her lyrics. She runs a Mastodon instance for Vocaloid fans.

What I'm trying to say is... there are Vocaloid producers who might be more comparable to mainstream producers, and there are musicians who started with Vocaloid work and eventually transitioned to more mainstream work. But there's also an endless list of Vocaloid producers who make little to no money off their work and hence are far from major corporate entities.

Individuality and collaboration is at the heart of Vocaloids like Hatsune Miku. Miku is primarily a tool to give musicians the power to create the music they want, not to make a highly successful commercial product. I've given an entire hour-long panel on this that convention attendees still remember ten years later, but that's a lot to put into a post that's already long enough, so I'll spare you the details for now.

Vocaloid was one of my first fandoms back in 2011. I got into cosplay and dance because of Vocaloid. Now I'm heavily involved in my local cosplay performance scene, both in terms of participating in events and helping organize them.

How does that phrase go? Do not recite the magic to me; I was there when it was written.

Don't spread misinformation that Vocaloid producers don't care about people's feelings because all they care about is making a commercial Product(tm).

Instead, please fuck all the way off.

#soliloqyu #vocaloid #miku expo

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flowerbarrel-art · 2 years

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~ Alan Becker, AvA, AvM

~ Mojang, 4J Studios, Minecraft

* I forgot to mention, but the Sticks call King “Orange” here and will up until a point. Apologies for any confusion. I know sometimes Second is called Orange in the fandom.

I think my computer may have finally kicked the bucket. I thought it would soon though so I saved my important documents in my DeviantArt stash. I’ve also got a backup of everything on my computer saved. So nothing permanently lost there.

I don’t know when or if I’ll get a new computer though, so in the meantime I’ll just write things on Tumblr. Thank you as always for reading!

Previous parts of this story:

AvM Mermay Part One

AvM Mermay Part Two

AvM Mermay Part Three

King

Purple

Purple and Blue Part One

Purple and Blue Part Two

Purple and Blue Part Three (You Are Here)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yellow quietly walked into their room to see Orange lying huddled up under the yellow covers and shivering.

Yellow sat quietly next to the bed, setting the bowl of rabbit stew on the bedside table. They then carefully changed his bandages.

Orange mumbled something, then opened his eyes and stared wearily up at Yellow, then around the room in confusion.

“How do you feel?” Yellow asked softly.

“Better...thank you,” Orange sighed. “How long have I been asleep?”

“About a week,” Yellow said, and Orange stared at them in slight alarm, then struggled to sit up. “No, it’s alright, just rest. You’re okay.”

“Who are you?” Orange asked wearily, staring dazedly at the ceiling.

“Yellow.”

“You’re one of the Sticks who saved Purple,” Orange said weakly.

“They wanted to come and check on you,” Yellow said, “but I told them to wait.”

“I…I’m sorry for causing all this trouble,” Orange whispered. “I don’t have much on me…but you can keep whatever you like as my thanks.”

“That's not why we helped you,” Yellow said. “We’re all just glad you’re alright.”

The door to the bedroom creaked slightly, and Yellow turned to see Purple and Blue peeking into the room.

“Is it alright if they come in?” Yellow asked, and Orange gave a tired smile and nodded. “Alright, come in, you two, but you need to be quiet, okay?"

Purple and Blue walked slowly across the room, and Blue patted Purple’s shoulder.

“You made it,” Orange murmured, and Purple suddenly threw their arms around his neck. “Hey, now…it’s alright. I’m going to be alright.”

“R-R-really?" Purple sniffled.

“I’ll be just fine thanks to all of you,” Orange said.

“It was mostly Blue,” Purple said, drawing back and wiping their eyes. “They figured out the Warped fungus could make stronger potions.”

“Warped fungus?” Orange asked blankly, then chuckled a bit. “I thought the potions tasted…familiar.”

“Ate?” Blue asked with a grimace. “Bad.”

“I’m afraid so,” Orange said with a little smile. “A clan of Piglins rescued and took care of me after the Ghast attack. They gave me Warped fungus to eat. I suppose it helped. I didn’t eat very much while I was recovering.”

“Do you know how long you were there?” Yellow asked.

“It was hard to tell,” Orange said, “but I think it was at least a week. I left and managed to find my home. I wanted to leave right then, but I was exhausted.”

“I’ll bet,” Yellow murmured in sympathy, carefully sitting Orange up before picking up the bowl of stew. “Do you think you could eat some?”

“I'll try,” Orange said with a nod. "Thank you."

He reached out a hand for the spoon, but his arm trembled.

“It’s alright,” Yellow said. “You’re still pretty weak.”

Yellow gave him a spoonful of the stew, and Orange closed his eyes.

“You alright?” Yellow asked in concern.

“I’m fine,” Orange murmured. “.I just haven’t had food like that in a while. Did you make it?”

“Yup.”

“It’s good,” Orange said appreciatively. “I cook, but…it’s not as like yours.”

Yellow smiled, then gave him some more.

“It’s not that great,” they chuckled. “The others are better at it than I am.”

“No, you’re really good at it!” Purple exclaimed. “Your cooking’s the best! Right, Blue?”

Blue nodded emphatically.

“Well…thank you,” Yellow said, looking away in embarrassment for a moment.

“Purple, I didn’t mean to leave you like that,” Orange said apologetically. “I’m so sorry. It must have been scary.”

“It’s okay,” Purple said. “You didn’t mean to.”

“All the same,” Orange sighed. “But I knew you’d made it. I checked the cave where I built the Nether portal and saw the cobblestone wall.”

“Oh, you found that?” Yellow asked in surprise. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“I’m just sorry it took me so long to find and thank you,” Orange murmured.

“Please, don’t worry about that,” Yellow assured him. “I…I’m sorry we didn’t look harder for you.”

“The Piglins found me a day before you went into the Nether,” Orange said. “I’m glad you didn’t try to approach them. I was alright because I had my…”

Yellow gave him a concerned look as he faltered.

“I had a golden helmet,” Orange continued with a hesitant glance away.

“Did you talk to them?” Purple asked curiously.

“No, but they drew me pictures,” Orange said. “At first it was symbols…whatever method they used to tell the time. But they seemed to know about the Overworld’s day and night cycles, and that’s how I knew how long I’d been there.”

“The suns on the back of the drawing of all of us?” Yellow asked.

“That’s right,” Orange said with a nod. “Though…it was just five of you.”

“New,” Blue said.

“Blue found us couple weeks ago!” Purple explained.

“Mer!” Blue exclaimed brightly, and Orange’s eyebrows rose.

“Mer?" he asked, puzzled.

"They used to be a Merperson," Purple said. "Red and Second--Second's orange, almost like you--got a potion from a witch to change them into a Stick!”

“A witch?” Orange asked in concern. “Are they alright?”

“Just fine,” Yellow said quickly, giving Orange the last of the stew. “Now, do you feel alright? Any nausea or pain?”

“No, thankfully,” Orange said. “I feel much better. Thank you. Just a bit tired.”

“You should get some rest,” Yellow said, getting up and ushering Purple and Blue from the room. “I’ll come and check on you later.”

“Wait, Yellow, if you would…” Orange said.

“Purple, Blue,” Yellow said. “I think Red and Green were talking about making cookies. They’d appreciate your help.”

“Okay…” Purple said, giving Orange a worried look. “Could we bring you some later, Orange?”

“That would be nice,” Orange chuckled. “I haven’t had cookies in a while either.”

“Okay!” Purple exclaimed, perking up. “We’ll make a lot!”

"Bye, Orange!” Blue said, giving a little wave.

The two rushed out of the room, and Yellow checked the hall before shutting the door and sitting at Orange’s bedside.

“I think I found the village where Purple used to live,” Orange said after a long silence. “It was abandoned.”

Yellow clenched both fists, shaking their head in resignation.

“I found a Nether portal there, deactivated,” Orange went on. “When I lit it, I wound up very close to the spot where I found Purple. I didn’t realize there was another Nether portal so close to mine…but I…I suppose I never thought to check.”

“Do you know what might’ve happened?” Yellow asked gingerly.

“It had been overrun,” Orange sighed heavily. “I don’t know for sure what did it, but I think it was zombies. No one was left, but the village was mostly intact. It didn’t look like the work of Pillagers.”

“Oh, no…” Yellow muttered, shaking their head slowly. “So…someone got them to safety, probably their parents, but…”

“…I don’t think they made it, no,” King finished grimly.

“Poor Purple…” Yellow said regretfully. “No wonder they didn’t want to live in a village. We asked if they’d like to so they could make friends, but they always got so scared and refused. They hated even taking short trips for trading.”

Yellow let out a breath and lowered their head.

“They had a panic attack the first time we took them there for a trading trip,” Yellow said. “After that, two would stay home with Purple, and two of us would go to the village. Purple always hated it when we had to go.”

“They must’ve been worried for you,” Orange murmured. “I think they don’t consciously remember, but…well…”

“I think you’re right,” Yellow agreed sadly.

“You’re their parents now,” Orange said. “So it’s up to you if you will tell them or not.”

Orange closed his eyes regretfully.

“I…I don’t think I could do it.”

“I’ll tell the others soon,” Yellow said.

Orange nodded, then let out a long, weary sigh.

“Thank you for telling me,” Yellow said. “We suspected something like that had happened…but we never knew for certain. Purple couldn’t remember anything, but they had constant nightmares for years. Well…they still do every now and then.”

“The poor thing,” Orange murmured wearily. “If I’d looked around more…maybe I could have saved them. I was always too caught up in my work.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Yellow said gently, patting Orange’s shoulder.

“I really thought there was nothing off that way,” Orange said wearily, sinking back against the pillows. “I…I should’ve…I should’ve done more…shouldn’t have run away…”

“Shhh,” Yellow hushed him, “it’s alright. You still need a lot of rest.”

Yellow took out a healing potion and gave half of it to Orange.

“…thank you,” Orange sighed drowsily, drifting off to sleep a moment later.

Yellow put another blanket over him and quietly headed for the door.

They paused a moment and glanced worriedly back before leaving the room.

Once in the hallway, Yellow pulled out the Piglin’s drawing.

Purple had added to it; Blue and Orange were now a part of the group.

For a moment, Yellow curiously studied the golden crown Purple had drawn on top of Orange’s head.

Then Yellow carefully rolled the paper up and put it away.

#Alan Becker #AvA #AvM #Sticks #Stick figures #The Color Gang #Red #Second #Yellow #Green #Blue #Purple #King Orange #King #AU #FlowerBarrel art

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melancholypancakes · 3 months

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Hey, so this is going to be a whole rant, sorry I've been gone.

Lack of internet and mainly my job i feel like a workaholic 😭

Anyway, so not many of you know but I've been a TMNT fan for most of my life.

I, unfortunately, grew up with the 2012 series, there are several reasons why that show went downhill.

Donnie x April, writing, the romantic trope is written, the turtles all having a romantic love interest, Leo crushing on Kirai ( his sister may i say) and honestly lost me after the love triangle with April, Donnie, and Casey.

except for Raphael and Mona Lisa, i love them as a couple i wish rise had them in the show or movie.

I have seen the 1980s movies and cartoon shows of TMNT through my dad who is an even bigger fan of TMNT but only the originals.

I'll explain more on, however, 2003 or 2007 i have never seen.

Honestly, I have never loved TMNT more than Rise, I'm in love with Leo and Donnie smart and funny guys count me in XD

I recently started watching the show and when it came out and 15 year old me, did not give it a chance.

At first, i thought it was dumb, i still think they look like frogs lol and i was still confused why April's skin color was changed.

I was used to seeing white April than black April and my dad does not see her as April but as a completely different character.

I'll get back to that later but oh boy i missed out on a good show, given it is still too kiddy for me.

But i love the humor, animation and yes, i believe Leo and Donnie carry the show with the humor :)

Just watching season 1 is making me happy, I'm super into it.

I just love it's the opposite of the old TMNT and less serious.

The old TMNT never really got me into loving the turtles like Rise i just liked them like heroes until Rise..

Usually, Leo is the serious older brother, and leader, Ralph angry fighter, and Donnie is an inventor genius while Mikey is the big pizza lover and fun kid.

While on the rise...

Raph is a giant softie older Brother, Leo is a dumb ninja, Donnie is genius still but autistic in this world which is confirmed and Mikey isn't a full-on pizza lover like in the previous media adaptions but an artist, a fun-loving kid who loves pizza like his bros.

I love the fact Shelldon's voice by the original Michelangelo.

I hope to watch season 2 and the movie soon, definitely won't see the movie til i see season 2.

I recently got into the Rottmnt fandom and made two OCs

Emily & Gwendolyn, i mention them because of the topic I'm going to bring up.

So as far as i will til i upload the drawings of my OCs.

Emily is a half-American half-Japanese teenage human girl, with a mysterious/dark past, best friends with April, and has a HUGE crush on Leo.

Emily lives with her aunt, uncle and cousins it is noting her father is not in the picture and confirmed he is deceased while the mother is a mystery for now.

It's a semi-canon Emily has a large dragon burn mark on her right arm

{...}

Gwendolyn or Gwen is Donnie's human online friend she is surprised that he is a turtle mutant but thinks it is cool, she is a geek, hipster, comic book lover, and mainly chill.

She is basically Ramona Flowers, with the chill vibe, hammer weapon, and dying her hair every day different color.

Gwen is a chubby, Hispanic teenage girl, she lives in New York with her family and is a classmate to April and Emily.

She is known as a smart gal, hipster internet blogger, and gamer.

She is a love interest for Donnie but is not confirmed until later on that they're dating (most likely early season 2 wise)

I recently heard that if you have a cartoon and you have a certain race that character has to be voiced by that certain race.

That kinda sounds like reverse racism, i would go into it but don't want to say anything wrong.

But if i were to choose voice actors for my OCs Emily definitely be voiced by 'Misuki' even though she is only a singer she would be perfect for Emily

Gwen probably would be voiced by Zoe Saldaña, i just see her voice like that :)

Now as for TMNT 2014 & 2016 Bayverse i did not enjoy as much the CGI was just weird and the first movie was alright but the second i wasn't into.

Once again one of the turtles had a crush on April, Mikey.

I dont mind mutant x mutant or mutant x human but it has become weird ever since 2012 Donnie had a crush on April 2014 Mikey had a crush on April.

And now mutant mayhem Leo having a crush on April. What's next Raph has a crush on April.

Personally, i think they should use a different female character to be shipped with the turtles other than April.

As some may tell i didn't enjoy the TMNT mutant mayhem movie, the humor was there but the writing and animation didn't make me fall in love with it, unlike Rise.

However, my dad or i suppose any old TMNT fan, doesn't enjoy the new adaption of TMNT as it become more childish than serious.

Well, from what i seen as an old TMNT fan my dad didn't enjoy the animation or new personalities of the turtles in Rise and the humor doesn't hit him as much.

It's just fun and funny to me him criticizing the show that i personally enjoy XD

I kinda do ship April and Cassandra, not going to lie thought it would be cute :))

Honestly, realized I'm the same age as Raph XD Oh shit, still ship Mona Lisa and Raph though.

This is all i had to rant about, i do love the ROTTMNT series more than the previous franchises before.

Also, I recommend these videos that goes into the deeper dive of TMNT & ROTTMNT all together to get what I mean.

https://youtu.be/bHVB6Ple0bI?si=JB5ump3eYFWFvn1w

https://youtu.be/iBBMxpyLp5E?si=5AqtJLimueLIS1vf

https://youtu.be/_fFXXF051ZI?si=b7jF4SeIJY0Achgm

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2012 #rant post #My ocs #Upcoming chacters #Tmnt 2012 & ROTTMNT #Renew ROTTMNT #it's so good #april o'neil #cassandra jones #casey jones #master splinter

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valleyrunearchives · 2 years

Text

Binary

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Fandom: Boku No Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Pairings: Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Chapter 4/?

“Binary code is a series of zeroes and ones strung together in a specific sequence. On paper, it’s useless. Annoying. Worthless. But put that same string of zeroes and ones into a computer, and suddenly it’s a language far more complex than the human mind can comprehend. I was the same way. The world decided I wasn’t good enough in the physical plane, so I went digital. That’s why I chose the name Binary. And you should be very,” He smirks at the underground hero on the screen, “Very afraid of the reach I have here. Aizawa Shouta.”

Midoriya Izuku is tired of the world treating him like nothing. So he decides to becoming a hacker to show the world that nothing can be anything.

Featuring Midoriya Izuku as the Genius Hacker Aizawa Shouta as the problem child wrangler Yamada Hizashi as the moral support to his husband Tsukauchi Naomasa as the man who needs a long vacation PLEASE Shinsou Hitoshi as the intentionally adopted one Toga Himiko as the unintentionally adopted one Dabi as the really didn’t want to be adopted one but he guesses this is his life now and Nedzu as the Rat God of UA

<=Previous | First | Next=>

Click here to Read on AO3!

Izuku doesn’t go outside often. Not really. People of the outside world aren’t kind to people like him. But he’s not a shut-in. He does still leave the house when he has to and has no qualms or fears about it. Today is one of those days. He needed a new SD card for some of his hacking projects. He's whistling as he's on his way back from the tech hardware store in his neighborhood with the new SD card in his pocket when CATRA pings him. He pulls a wireless earbud out of his pocket to slip into his ear. "What is it?" He asks.

"There seems to be an altercation occurring nearby," she responds, her voice coming out of the earbud. That's not a surprise. CATRA has a secondary function of hacking the street cameras around him when he’s on the move to see if there's any danger in the direction he's headed.

"What kind of altercation? Heroes? Gang fight?" If so he'll need to find an alternate path to make sure not to draw attention to himself. It's just after school and he's not wearing any kind of school uniform. He’d rather not have any questions directed at himself.

"No. It seems to be between several students from Nabu Middle School. It seems three are ganging up on a single classmate. They are beating him."

Uh oh. That's not good. He pulls up the cameras around the area with a bit of hacking. Sure enough, in a nearby alleyway, three students wearing Nabu Middle School uniforms are wailing on another student. The poor thing just cowers against the wall while covering their head as their classmates laugh and hit them. "Can you get me facial recognition on them?" He says as he switches over to the actual camera app on his phone, switching to the video recorder as soon as it’s open.

"One moment... I have recognition of the three assailants but I cannot catch the victim's face to get recognition. Assailants have been identified as Ide Akihiko, Saiki Kaede, and Ishikawa Kazuki. All are in their third year at Nabu."

"Gotcha. Backup yourself and this video I'm about to start recording to storage. Just in case my phone gets broken in retaliation."

CATRA nods, "Understood. I will also continue to attempt to get facial recognition for the victim."

He rushes into the alley, starting to record. He stays quiet for a moment, just getting a nice recording of these three boys beating on the poor student. When he’s got a good minute of endless assault recorded, he stops it and shouts, “Hey! What the hell do you guys think you’re doing?!”

All three boys jump at the sound of his voice. They turn to him and stare with wide eyes. Eventually, the apparent ring leader of the group grins at him sheepishly, “Hey man! Don’t worry! We’re just doing the world a favor and keeping this villain from committing any crimes!”

The distaste in the other kid’s voice makes Izuku’s lip curl up in a sneer, “Villain?” He scoffs, “Last time I knew, villains obviously don’t wear middle school uniforms. Nor are they committing a crime by sitting fearfully in an alleyway while people beat them up.”

Two of the boys flinch at the sass he gives back, the ring leader scowls, “Obviously he’s a villain. Look, you don’t know him. But we do! He is a villain! We go to school with him! It’s his quirk! Brainwashing! He’s destined to grow up to be a villain because he can control your mind!”

“Really?” he says in a fake nice voice, he then hums out a long sound, “That’s weird. Because the last time I was aware, your quirk doesn’t automatically make you into either a hero or a villain… It was your actions that caused you to be a hero or a villain! You're acting more like a villain than he is after all! In fact, I think that the only reason that he would even become a villain…” His stare becomes harsh, “Is because of people. Like. You.”

The ring leader is shocked at his words. Izuku sees out of the corner of his eye that the victim has peeked out of the safety of his arms up at him. It’s a bright splash of lavender hair and a violet colored eye. What he can see of his arms and face are mottled with bruises. That won’t fly, not for Izuku. He’s going to ruin these bullies.

The ring leader’s friend comes up and places a hand on his shoulder, “H-Hey Kaede, maybe we should just go…?”

Saiki Kaede, apparently, shrugs his friend’s hand off of him - stupidly, in Izuku’s opinion - to scoff, “Like hell man! This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about! I’m going to be a hero after all! Heroes stop villains! Even ones in the making!”

“A hero in the making huh?” He plays the video recording and turns it so the boys can see it, “Would heroes or the police agree that this is a future hero in the making? What about your hero school of choice, hmm? Do you think they would accept someone who does things like this?”

All the boys watched with wide eyes as they mercilessly beat on the other boy, faces smirking tauntingly as the clear victim of assault cowered helplessly against the wall. He stops the video but keeps his phone visible as a warning, “Now. Here’s what’s going to happen. You three are going to turn around to him, apologize to him for both beating him up as you did and calling him a villain, then you are going to run home to your mommies and daddies, not mess with him anymore, and pray that I don’t make good on my threat of releasing this video. Got it?”

The three nodded in understanding. They then turned and bowed to the other boy, apologizing to him. Then they ran off with Izuku watching them with harsh eyes the whole way. He smugly puts his phone back into his pocket. Job well done. He then steps over to the boy and crouches down next to him. The poor guy flinches away from him, as if expecting Izuku to hurt him as well. His face doesn’t fully come out of his arms and knees either. “It’s okay,” Izuku says to him softly, “I promise they won’t bother you again. I’m sorry I didn’t get here quicker. Maybe I could’ve stopped most of the damage if I had gotten here faster…”

It’s quiet as they stare at each other. The other boy slowly raises his hand in a dismissive wave. Izuku tilts his head, worried that maybe they damaged his throat, “What’s wrong? Did they injure your throat? Is that why you can’t talk?”

A slow head shake is his response. Still no words though. Izuku waits, hoping that he’ll explain if he’s patient. His eyes meet and dart away from his own a few times. Then his shoulders untense minutely and he sits up fully. Izuku inhales sharply as he finally sees why he can’t talk. A muzzle. This kid’s been muzzled. “Holy shit!” he yells, reaching up to see if he can get it off.

The guy flinches but doesn’t back away as Izuku’s hands touch the back to try and find a buckle or clasp. His fingers come across a latch but they also come across something much larger. Izuku leans up further to see it. It’s a padlock. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He murmurs, mostly to himself. Purple haired guy’s eyes fall to the ground in shame. Izuku holds out a hand, “No, no! I’m not mad at you! I’m mad at whoever put this thing on you! They’re absolutely insane!”

Two slow blinks and a nod in understanding. Izuku pats his pockets down to see if he has anything he might be able to pick the lock with. He comes up with nothing though and groans in annoyance. Of all the times for him to leave even his small screwdriver at home! … Home! He’ll just take this kid home with him! Wow… that actually sounded creepy… He’ll help this kid at his home. Yeah that sounds a bit better. “Okay! So! I don’t have anything to get that off of you with me but I should at my house! Would you mind coming with me so I can pick that padlock on the back?”

Wide violet eyes blink again, this time in shock before nodding again in acceptance. “Great! Let’s get going then uh… Oh wait… I don’t know your name and you can’t tell me…” He places a finger on his lips to think then face palms himself. He has CATRA. Duh! He pulls his phone back out and holds it out, “Here, hold this for a second.”

The boy takes it curiously as Izuku grins at him, “CATRA, facial recognition on the victim now please!”

A thin eyebrow raises in confusion before blinking in shock as CATRA appears on screen with a meow. His eyes seem to light up with a sparkle as CATRA chirps, through the phone’s speaker this time, “One moment please!”

He smiles as the boy becomes enraptured by the green cyber cat. “Recognition found!” She purrs out happily, bowing her head slightly, “Greetings Shinsou Hitoshi-kun! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

“Shinsou, huh? Nice to meet you then! I’m Midoriya Izuku! And the cat on my phone’s screen is CATRA. You seem to like her so you can talk to her more when we get that muzzle off of you at my house,” Izuku smiles in a way he hopes is comforting to Shinsou.

Shinsou can’t exactly smile with the muzzle on but his eyes do scrunch a bit in what Izuku assumes is a bit of a smile. Shinsou nods again and, with Izuku’s help, finally stands up. It’s slow going but the walk home is quite peaceful. It probably helps that CATRA was giving them directions to ensure they didn’t run into anyone on the way. Izuku really didn’t want any questions as to why he was helping a heavily bruised and muzzled boy his age back to his apartment. When they finally get there, Izuku unlocks the door and calls for CATRA to turn on the lights.

His computer setup also hums to life as the lights in the house all turn on. Izuku helps Shinsou over to the couch, gently lowering him down onto it. “There you go. Okay now… uh…” Izuku turns to the coffee table and sifts around through the stuff on it. It’s not here. Ugh. “CATRA, where did I leave my bobby pins container?”

“I believe I last saw it on your dresser in your room. Perhaps behind one of your textbooks?” the cyber cat replies, now appearing on one of the computer screens.

Izuku mumbles a thanks, racing into his room to search for the container. Just as she said, it was hidden behind one of his textbooks for his online classes. He first started using them when his hair got too long when he was younger. There was a time just after getting free of his mom when he was still really scared to go out alone. He let his hair go and it got too long, falling into his face every time he was trying to do something. So he ordered the container of bobby pins, the same one now in his hand, to pin his hair back. When he got his confidence up enough to go out and get a haircut by a professional, he still kept them in the event that he accidentally locked something without a key and needed to pick it.

He really needs to remember to find a way to keep them on him at all times. Never know when you’re going to need them out in the field. Like today.

He runs back into the living room, skidding to a stop in front of the coffee table again, “Back!” He snatches up a small screwdriver sitting on it and pulls one of the pins out of the container before moving behind Shinsou. “Okay, it might take me a minute but I should be able to pick this lock and get that thing off of you.”

“Is there anything I can do in the meantime, Izuku-kun?” CATRA asks.

“Yeah,” Izuku says, not looking up from his work, “Start compiling evidence against those boys as well as Nabu middle school and anyone else you can find who’s made attacks or discriminatory actions against Shinsou-kun. Pull cam footage in and around the school, if you can, to see what you can find and keep anything that flags. Verbal and physical altercations both. Once you’ve got it all nice and neat in a file, load it onto one of the empty disks. I haven’t had a chance to go out and buy a new flash drive. So I’ll just have to waste a CD. Also print a label and write up a quick note of our findings for Tsukauchi-san. We’ll stick it in a box with the muzzle and deliver it to him again.”

Shinsou’s head whips around to him in clear shock, causing his arms to bend at an awkward angle to keep hold of the padlock, “Whoa, whoa! Hey, hey! Don’t do that! This isn’t exactly comfortable!”

Shinsou quickly turns back to face front with wide eyes. Izuku sighs in relief as the painful stretch lets up in his arms. He then smiles at him over the top of his head, “You can tell me what’s so shocking when we get this off. Okay?”

Shinsou gives a minute nod and Izuku gets back to work on picking the lock. After several frustratingly long minutes, the lock gives. Izuku makes a sound of triumph and carefully pulls the strap loose. Shinsou gasps out as if he's finally able to breathe when the muzzle is pulled off his face completely. "Thank you," he says sincerely, voice gravely from disuse.

"Of course!" Izuku rounds the couch and crouches in front of him. He winces in sympathy, "Ooh… the muzzle cut into your cheeks. Not to mention those bruises… let me go get the first aid kit. And some ice."

Izuku is quick to move away from him again, going to get all the things he needs. He gets the first aid kit from the bathroom first then moves to the kitchen to make up a couple of bags of ice. As he’s in there, he hears Shinsou ask CATRA, “Why did he help me? I mean… He made you so his quirk must be amazing so why did he help someone like me? Why didn’t he just walk away like all the others with super amazing quirks when he heard that I have a villain’s quirk?”

Izuku stays quiet and smirks. He knows CATRA will sort him out. He gave her a special coding strand that makes her abhor quirk discrimination. She lets out a low growl at the questions, “Firstly, Hitoshi-kun, no quirk has ever been categorized based on whether or not it is a hero’s or a villain’s. There is no such thing as a villain’s quirk just as there is no such thing as a hero’s quirk. Every quirk can be used for good or for ill just like anyone can use a knife the same way. Secondly, Izuku-kun has no quirk. Because of how he’s been treated just for having an extra bone in the smallest toe on his foot, he absolutely does NOT tolerate anyone treating someone differently based on the quirk that they do or don’t have.”

Izuku chooses that moment to rejoin then, “She’s right you know. No one should hate you based on what kind of quirk you have. I mean, at least they have one at all. You wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff I had to put up with sometimes from the school, teachers and students both!”

“But you… don’t anymore?” Shinsou asks, confused.

“Nope! I started online school a few years ago!” Izuku grins then shrugs, “It’s better for me anyway. Regular school didn’t give me the freedom to work at my own pace which I desperately needed in order to strive. Really quick, I’m also going to take a picture of your injuries as they are right now. Just to let you know.” Izuku quickly pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of Hitoshi’s face and arms to note the injuries, then he places one of the bags of ice on his heavily bruised wrist before pulling out a cotton ball and some antiseptic.

“That sounds nice…” Shinsou says quietly, wincing when Izuku dabs as carefully as possible at one of the cuts on his cheek, “Your parents must be amazingly supportive.”

“Oh I don’t have those anymore either.” Shinsou makes a noise of confusion. Izuku gently applies a bandage to one of his cheeks, answering him with, “Parents. I don’t have parents anymore.”

“What? Then who do you live here with…? Like… another family member or something?”

“Nobody. I live on my own. Have since I was about ten.” He moves over to the other cut, repeating the process, “It was a whole legal thing but basically I proved my parents were both horrible people who weren’t doing anything to raise me anyway and that I could live on my own just fine without anyone to constantly supervise me. And that it was safer for me to be on my own. It was kind of like American Emancipation but not quite? I don’t know, you’d have to talk to my lawyer to get all the ins and outs of the legal stuff. He explained it to me once but I was ten at the time and didn’t really get it. Probably would get it now if he explained it again though…”

“You have a lawyer?” Another bandage is applied to the other side of Shinsou’s face before the second bag of ice is placed over his eye.

“Mhmm,” Izuku hums, “I don’t know how much you’ve figured out about me but I’m a hacker, in case you didn’t know.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” Shinsou says, “Or at least had a guess that you might be based on CATRA.”

Izuku grins at him before sobering back into a more neutral facial expression, “So anyway, back when I was first getting started, my mom, who was awful by the way, decided that she was going to stop sending money to the house to help me pay for food and other things I needed. Her reasoning was something like I wasn’t worth it, maybe? I don’t remember exactly. In order to feed myself, I offered my hacking services to the public if you knew how to find me. Well, a lawyer, Iwai Fumio, reached out to me about his firm partner. He had concerns that his partner was forging evidence to get guilty clients who paid him a hefty enough bribe out of prison time. He was. I found out how and all the cases he had done it for as well as how much he was paid for it each time. Iwai-san brought it to public light and the guy went to prison for it with all assets from their shared firm now solely in Iwai-san’s name. He insisted we meet in person so he could thank me and deliver my pay to me. I agreed because I really needed the money and was worried he would keep the money from me if I said no.”

“And he found out when you two met?”

“Pretty much. I was a ten year old who just showed up to a café to meet with a lawyer to get a paycheck for hacking his ex-partner’s records and cases to find out if the guy was committing fraud. I’m sure you can imagine how surprised and shocked he was. He asked me questions about my home life and I told him.” Shinsou gives him an ‘are you stupid’ look. Izuku waves him off as he’s putting the first aid supplies back in the kit, “Yes I know. But I was ten! It seemed like a good idea at the time for a ten year old me. And it turned out it was. He got me out of my parent’s custody and proved in a court of law that I was better off living on my own based on how the system treats people like me. Someone still had to be listed as my guardian, which Iwai-san listed himself thankfully, but it’s more of an ‘in case of emergency’ guardian.”

“What happens if someone comes along and like… wants to adopt you or something? And it is a really good fit for you?” An odd question from Shinsou but Izuku’s heard weirder.

“I mean yeah I guess they could,” Izuku shrugs, he takes a moment to snap another quick set of photos of Shinsou’s now treated injuries, “There’s nothing saying that if someone suited to raise me the rest of the way to adulthood came along that I couldn’t be adopted by them. I think? I’d have to talk to Iwai-san to know for sure. Now you though!”

“Me?” Shinsou points to himself.

“Yes you! There’s too many questions that I have to ask. Especially if I’m taking all this to the police.”

“You’re actually going to the police with it? I thought you told those assholes that you wouldn’t tell on them if they apologized to me and left me alone?”

“Uh, no! I was always going to the police with it. I just said that to make them listen to me and let them think they had a chance. Anyways! The muzzle? Where did it come from?”

Shinsou stays quiet, eyes downturned. Izuku waits patiently for him to pick the conversation back up, knowing it might take him a little bit of time to get his thoughts in order. “Um…” Shinsou’s voice is quiet when he finally does speak, “The school puts it on me. They think my quirk is a villain’s quirk too so they make me wear it during school hours. Less chance of me taking control of people that way.”

“And your parents? What do they think of this?”

Shinsou chuckles, but it’s bitter, “Foster parents actually… they’re the ones that supply the school with them. Anytime it breaks, they buy a new one to donate to the school. They have one at home too. In case I get too… ‘aggressive’ towards them. My social worker doesn’t care either. She thanked my foster parents for coming up with the idea and said that if they ever gave me up she would start supplying them to all my new homes. `Less of a risk that way,’ she said.”

Izuku takes a deep breath to stave off the overwhelming rage he’s feeling. “I hate people, I swear. CATRA, ignore everything I said about the label for a box! We’ll have Iwai take everything since it’s clear we’ll have to get him involved. Okay… So… I’m going to have you record everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, you’ve gone through on a sheet of paper, in writing. And we’ll send that in too along with the video evidence. Uh… but there’s also no way in hell that I’m letting you go back to that foster home so…” Izuku thinks for a moment before lighting up with a bright smile, “So you’ll just stay here!”

“Stay… here?”

“Yeah! With me! The apartment has two rooms after all! Oh but the second room doesn’t have any furniture in it right now so I’ll have to order some. But we can make it your room!”

Shinsou blinks, “You would… Want me here with you? Even knowing what you do about me?”

“Well yeah! You’re not going back into the system. Not if I have anything to say about it!” Izuku moves to his bedroom, leaving the door open so Shinsou can still hear him, “I’ll get you a piece of paper or five and a pencil! As soon as you’re done writing everything down, and again I mean everything, then you can come in here and catch some sleep! You look like you need it!”

“What about you? Don’t you need to sleep too?” Shinsou calls back.

“Yeah but I won’t be able to for a while! I’ve got a lot to do! Don’t worry about me though! I’ll be fine! I don’t have to worry about any new assignments for school until next semester anyway!” He tears several sheets of paper out of one of his unused notebooks and grabs a pencil. He brings them out and hands them to the purple haired boy, “Besides, I’ve got to call Iwai-san so he can start making a case for you! I’m sure by the end of this week or maybe the end of next week at most, we’ll have you living here full time! Iwai-san doesn’t play when it comes to the safety of kids!”

“You really don’t mind if I stay? If I live with you?” Shinsou’s voice sounds rough as tears well up in his eyes.

“Of course not! I’d be happy to have you here!” Izuku smiles brightly at him, “I know we’ve just met, Shinsou-kun, but I’ve been through what you’ve gone through. Maybe not to your level of extreme but I know what it’s like for people to treat you differently because of something you can’t control. I wished more than anything during that time that someone would reach out and help me but in the end they didn’t and I ended up having to help myself. I want to be that someone who reaches out to help you. So you don’t have to find a way to help yourself like I did. I’ve always wanted to be a hero. Let me be yours, Shinsou Hitoshi.”

That’s all it takes for the dam to break. Shinsou curls into himself as he sobs, one hand raising to cover his eyes as the ice pack that was over his black eye falls into his lap. Izuku easily moves his hands over to rest on the other boy’s back and shoulder, offering him some comfort without crowding him. He knows Shinsou probably has never had that before and doesn’t want to overwhelm him yet. Maybe at some point in the future he’ll be able to offer more than just this. Perhaps a hug and a shoulder to cry on. For now, he’ll have to let Shinsou get used to his presence as something not out to get him like he probably expects from every human he comes across.

When the tears finally cease, Shinsou starts working on writing down his statement of everything that’s happened to him, both at his foster home and at school. Meanwhile Izuku pulls his keyboard into his lap and gets to work, himself. First, figuring out again how he’s going to get all this evidence to Detective Tsukauchi through Iwai-san without raising suspicion. Then he’s got a lot to do to ensure Iwai-san’s job is easy with his new upcoming case regarding Shinsou. Izuku will take much joy watching all those wretched people burn… legally, that is.

#bnha #bnha fanfic #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfic #mha fanfiction #hacker!izuku midoriya #izuku midoryia #bnha shinso hitoshi #CATRA (oc)

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ofdreamsanddoodles · 3 years

Note

Hey idk if you’re the best person to ask and I’m not trying to start anything, I don’t mean this disrespectfully but why is the new poster artist art problematic?? I’m just not very educated on the subject :)

first of all, i'd recommend looking at this post from thegrinningwheels going over the mistakes people make when drawing peter because this definitely plays into some of them. also, disclaimer that i am white, and if anyone else wants to jump in, feel free. before i start, i'd like to mention this screenshot:

[id: a screenshotted twitter thread containing three tweets. 1. jay onetiredboy (@onetiredb0y) can i ask why you'd want to distance the official art from your previous artworks? is there a particular criticism you'd like to directly address? or... ... 2. Ellison Estephan (@/ellisonestephan) I like to draw goofy stuff as a fan! I thought it would be more professional to make sure people remember that stuff isn't "official art" or something now, just because I'm drawing some posters haha!! 3. *sighs* hyperion city... (@junosteel [rest is cut off]) with all due respect, you can just say that your art perpetuated racism/transmisogyny/ableism without hiding behind "haha its goofy." better to at least be transparent and address it than dancing around the issue an acknowledging it as goofy. own up to your mistakes pls. /end id]

as well as this response to harley kaner saying that people sometimes called others racist to justify bullying them (a post made about an hour or so after the artist was announced)

so they know they messed up but... yeah they're not gonna apologize

(a link to the junoverse designs for anyone who wants to follow along)

for starter’s, the way peter is drawn feels a bit like a caricature, to the point of drawing on transmisogynistic stereotypes. (stereotypes that are like, ten times more visible in their art of vespa, who is actually trans fem which i’ll get to in a second) the intersection of what it means to be a feminine gnc person and being a poc are many and varied, and there is definitely a lot to say about femininity being seen as wrong and shameful. there's a lot of history in how Asian men's femininity has been portrayed and sexualised, both in fandom & in the world at large, and sometimes white authors just aren’t capable of handling those points with care. as much as i would love to celebrate a gnc character design, i think it's safe to say that this artist's depiction of a hyper-feminine nureyev feels like a mockery rather than honest representation

also, it may not be intentional, but when you have a line-up & you're drawing the lighter characters (or at least nureyev and buddy) much more sultry & sexual than the darker ones.... that tells me something about how you view people of color. especially when the sexual way you draw those lighter characters has nothing to do with their character

a line up like this is supposed to give you an indication of character personality. this is supposed to be how you're going to present them to the world. both buddy and peter use their charisma to their advantage sometimes, but that charisma is based on their personality! though he's absolutely flirted to get what he wants, peter tries to give off the vibes of a suave gentleman. if he’s wearing a tie, it’s not going to be haphazardly put on, because he cares about his appearance. peter can be sexual, but it’s not really the way he presents himself to the world at large, and this version of him goes so far it feels like some kind of parody of ouran host club or something, which makes me feel like it’s mocking him rather than trying to honestly portray his character.

buddy meanwhile has never flirted with anyone but her wife and gets her way with confidence & force. that exaggerated body type would already be a bad look on its own because of the hypersexual way people view women of color, but with added context, it kind of feels like there's the implication that the only way these characters could be as cool & charismatic as they are is if they get their way with sex, which is just... incredibly racist

some of it is just an issue with the art style in general. a lot of cartoonish styles have exaggerated features, but there's a limit to how much you can exaggerate those features without just drawing actual stereotypes. alessandra's design makes me uncomfortable for the exact opposite reason as buddy's: cartoonishly gigantic muscles aren't really a great sight when black women are constantly seen as hypermasculine. i might be a bit too critical on this one? i feel like it was worse when i first looked at it, but there's still the fact that exaggerating an asian character's eyelids is racist. it's like. racism 101. both peter and quanyi have incredibly slitted eyes in the majority of their art & personally the way quanyi specifically is exaggerated makes her seem more…. manic, somehow? the way her eyes are lidded aren’t only racist, but make it seem like she’s constantly giving everyone bedroom eyes which is just. Oof

vespa i wanted to talk about in more detail, because there is literally not one element of this design that doesn’t scream bigotry. It reminds me so much of every terrible caricature of a trans woman i’ve seen in horror. The wild bloodshot eyes, the bloody nose, the dagger, the unkept hair & hairy armpits, the wardrobe malfunction revealing a bare chest for no other reason than shock value alone—because how else are we supposed to know what kind of woman she is? There’s already been so many films & just, media in general linking trans women to mental illness and violence. We absolutely didn’t need a vespa design that looks like she belongs in silence of the lambs. If this was just vespa holding a knife, that’d be fine! She does, canonically, have a knife that she uses. But everything about this vespa is designed to look as offputting as possible. She doesn’t look dangerous because she’s part of our cool crime family, she looks out of control. Which is exactly how vespa worries the world will see her! Taking a character who says, pretty up front that she wants to be seen as more than her violent urges & mental illness and then drawing her in a way that screams “look out! This person is dangerous and mentally ill!” is honestly unforgivable. Add that to the fact that everything about her appearance implies she’s doing womanhood “wrong” (obviously, not shaving should be considered a neutral thing, but when it’s only a trans woman character you show with hair, it’s worth considering why you feel the need to do something like that) including the fact she’s going around with her shirt slipped like that, which looks obviously oversized to fill a chest she doesn’t have. One of the first things i learned about writing trans characters is that you should never reveal a character is trans by taking a moment to emphasize how different their body looks from a cis person, be it through having someone else walk in on them in the shower or this. It’s voyeuristic and serves no purpose but to make someone’s gender seem like a dramatic twist instead of an identity that deserves respect, and if a trans artist can’t even understand that, then there’s no hope of them accurately representing literally anyone else.

according to a friend, this art had been drawn before vespa was confirmed as trans (but reposted after, so clearly they didn’t see an issue either way) but that just means they saw an angry, schizophrenic woman & decided to not just make her a harmful stereotype of a pyschotic person, but add insult to injury by making her trans as well.

This has gone on too long & i can’t type anymore, but i wanted to say the second citadel designs really aren’t any better. Every character they chose to make a poc implies something negative, such as making marc and tal the only knights of color & then placing them as nothing more than comic relief. Maybe i could believe this was part of an effort to show the white characters as part of the oppressive class if it wasn’t for didn’t seem clear that we’re supposed to see the brothers as a pair of bumbling fools. Not to mention every single other bad thing they did

EDIT: i want to emphasize that just because i’ve only talked about the junoverse designs doesn’t mean the citadel designs aren’t also worth an apology. so far, the only thing ellison has said (aside from them calling the initial line up “goofy”) is this tweet, but when they say “i wouldn’t draw those characters like that now,” that apology doesn’t acknowledge the fact that multiple people on twitter have criticized quanyi’s design for some of the reasons mentioned above. it also rings a bit more hollow when they say “i wish i could go back and design things different” because this citadel line-up was posted in late august. if you’re incline to go “well, this was in the past, and they apologized” (and i do see some proof they changed their vespa design) i’d like to remind you that some of their most recent drawings were in fact, last month, and there has been no acknowledgement they understand what was wrong with that. whoever was involved in getting a new artist for the penumbra saw these racist & homophobic designs and agreed that someone who drew that material was someone they wanted to align themselves with.

And remember, this is the second time the penumbra podcast has worked with an artist with blatantly bigoted art (the first being tumblr user disasterscenario) and i remember plenty of people explaining exactly what was wrong with that art as well. Whatever chance you think they have to learn and improve—they had it! And in response, this is what they gave us

#ask #the penumbra podcast #tpp #This definitely isn’t all i could say but hopefully it’s enough #Like i barely went into the citadel designs but a white person should definitely not be making a monkey girl brown #note: some of this has been edited for phrasing & etc #also #i didnt explain a part well & it wasnt actually super relevant so i deleted it

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duuhrayliegh · 3 years

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my hero - request

request: anon: hi could you write a sebastian x female reader fic where she suffers from anxiety and feels bad because of it but he comforts her and tells her there’s nothing wrong with her and how strong she is even though she has this disorder

pairing: sebastian stan x female!reader

warnings: self-esteem issues, anxiety, toxicity in the fandom, language?

a/n: hey nona! you weren’t super specific on what type of anxiety that you wanted to reader to have, so if this isn’t what you had in mind, lmk and i’ll write you another fic! other than that i hope you like it!

p.s.: my requests and tag lists are open!!

xoxo ray

check out my m.list

You and Seb met at a coffee shop in New York. It was totally cliche and seemed straight out of a storybook. You had somehow managed to spill coffee on that specimen of a man, and he was kind enough to let you pay for his dry cleaning. Your relationship didn’t grow until you ran into him again while you were at a bar with your friends. If he had any say in telling the story of how you met, he spotted you from across the smoky bar and he knew then and there that he had to get to know you. Truthfully, you liked his version, but the real one was just indescribable. It seemed, to you at least, that you were destined to be with this man. Seeing him twice in one week? Come on, that’s possible if you were in the small town you grew up in, but not New York.

You obviously had recognized him as an actor, but really you didn’t care. That’s what drew Sebastian to you in the first place. You treated him as if he was any other guy on the street, he was able to be a normal person around you. Now, two years later, you lounge on the couch of your apartment in LA that you shared with the man you love. He’s still auditioning for any role that catches his eye and you’re supporting him no matter what.

His fans for the most part adored you and your relationship with Sebastian. The fans who didn’t like you were your only issue with this whole affair, but they had nothing to do with Sebastian other than flood his socials with nasty messages about you. You weren’t perfect, that you knew all too well, and you tried to let the comments roll off your shoulders. Most of the time you were successful in your efforts, but other times they clung to your skin like an unwanted disease.

Sebastian was currently promoting his new project Endings, Beginnings. You were so unbelievably proud of Seb, he was doing something that made him happy. In this particular film, he was acting alongside Shailene Woodley, who was just amazing. Seb always came home gushing about the new inside jokes that they had come up with. One of your favorite things that Seb did with you was run lines. You liked having the inside scoop on his new works, but this one was harder for you. It had quite a few sex scenes between Seb’s character Frank and Shailene’s Daphne.

Not that it bothered you. Nope. Didn’t bother you. At all.

...mmm, okay maybe it bugged you a little. It wasn’t that you didn’t trust Sebastian, it was… well you couldn’t really describe what it was. Whatever the case may be, it was putting you deeper and deeper into a funk, one that you were having a hard time coming out of. And Seb’s fans who weren’t in your corner, weren’t really helping you any.

A few nights ago, Seb surprised you with a casual night out in LA. He texted you before he got home and told you that he was going to be taking you out. Did he give you a dress code for the evening? No, he did not (wonderful, thanks so much Seb). You decided to dress in a half business casual, half rail me when we get home outfit. You ended up wearing an adorable bustier top that was embroidered with pretty blue and pink flowers, a pair of destroyed jeans covered your legs. You finished it off with a pair of nude heels, when you looked in the mirror, you thought you looked hot as fuck. It was around seven when Seb picked you up, mouth hanging open, in awe of your outfit.

“Oh my god. You look so beautiful, Y/N.” He opened the passenger door of his car after he hugged you, giving you a small peck on the lips. Sebastian drove you to a restaurant a block off of Thai Town called Home Restaurant.

“Babe, this place is so cute!” You squeezed Sebastian’s upper arm, jumping up and down beside him. “How’d you find this place?” Sebastian shook his head, smiling at you.

“I asked Shai, actually.” He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, and your heart sank a little. Why did it do that? “She said that the paps hardly ever come around here.” He leaned down pressing a kiss to your temple. “I thought that draga mea deserved a quiet night out on the town.” His voice rasped as he spoke in his native tongue, making a shiver race down your spine.

“Well, tell her I said thank you.” You offered him a small smile. He wrapped his arm around your waist, drawing circles on the exposed skin above your jeans. He spoke with the hostess as your mind drifted away. You were pulled out of your thoughts when he guided you to your table. Sebastian sat across from you, staring deeply into your eyes. You brought your hand up to rest your chin on it, staring back at him. “How’s everything been going?” You were genuinely interested in the answer and it made your heart warm watching his face light up.

“It’s been going really well. Everyone we worked with was real nice, it made all the scenes more comfortable.” Seb’s eyebrows rose at the mention of the scenes and you knew which ones he was referring to.

“Oh, right.” You tried not to let your emotions show.

“Yeah, we’re about to start teasing some of them to promote the show.” Seb sighed at the thought of having to use social media, you shook your head at him.

“I’ll help you with it, you dork.” You laughed to hide your discomfort. “Which scene did they approve for the posts?” Sebastian began to speak when he was interrupted by your waitress. After the two of you ordered your food, the waitress returned with your drinks. Sebastian took a large gulp of his before answering your previous question.

“They want me to post the trailer and then the scene between Frank and Daphne at the bar.” You tried to think back to the script, remembering the context. Frank and Daphne were meeting after Daphne had gone out on a date with Jack. Daphne was claiming that she didn’t want to be a wedge in their friendship, then proceeded to make out with Frank. If you were recalling correctly, Frank and Daphne’s first sex scene followed soon after.

“Okay, we can do that. Do you have any behind the scene pictures you wanna post too?” Seb got out his phone, scrolling through his camera roll to see. He had several different photos of him with Jamie and then him with Shailene. He showed you his phone on a picture of Shailene leaned against him on a couch, her arm over his waist. A red filter colored the photo, you had to hand it to him, it was a good one to use. “We can post it whenever we get home, love.” Sebastian locked his phone and shoved it in his pocket, to focus solely on you.

“How has your day been, draga mea?” You bit your lip as you thought about what you’ve been doing. You’ve been working towards your Master’s, so your days have been filled with preparing for your dissertation. On top of that, you’ve become a bit of an influencer on different social media platforms. Really, you believe your popularity came from your relationship with Sebastian. You’ve been giving his fans the content that they’ve always wanted. Not only that, but you’re active with them.

“My day was good today. I had to edit a few papers from my other classmates but other than that I didn’t do much. I did make a few TikTok videos, but really today was a bit of a lounge day for me.” Seb smiled at you, proud of how hard you’ve been working.

“I should be getting a few days off soon, so we can relax together in the apartment, if you aren’t too busy with your classes.” He stretched his arm across the table, palm up waiting for your hand. Seb pulled your hand up to his mouth, placing a sloppy kiss onto the back of it. His eyes settled on you lovingly. To Sebastian, you were the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.

The two of you managed to finish your meal in peace. No fans came up to Sebastian asking for photos, no paparazzi swarms when you left, just a quiet meal for a normal couple in love. After you got home and you were snuggled in your pajamas alongside Sebastian in your comfortable bed, he handed you his phone to read over his post for his Instagram. The paragraph was sappy, about his time working with Drake, the director, and working with the rest of the cast. Seb always was a softy, never was able to hide it, especially in promo posts.

“It looks good to me. Are you going to post it now? Or wait until tomorrow morning?” Seb debated, he probably should wait and do it tomorrow, but he was most likely going to forget to do it. He clicked post, putting his phone on charge and snuggling into you.

“Thank you for always being there for me, Y/N.” He kissed your jawline, nuzzling his face into your neck. “It really means a lot to me, baby. I love you so much.” He wrapped both hands around your waist, pulling you to his front. You smiled wide, momentarily forgetting all of your troubles.

“I love you too, Seb.” You turned your head slightly, pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Now let’s get some sleep, love.” Little did you know that a single post could ruin all of the progress that you thought you had made.

*********************

You woke the next morning, alone in bed. You could hear pots clanging in the kitchen of your home, bringing a smile to your face. Before you left the safety of your bed, you checked your socials out of habit. You opened Instagram first, seeing an absurd amount of notifications this early in the morning. Your smile dropped as soon as you opened the first post. Comments on Sebastian’s post about Endings, Beginnings and his chemistry with Shailene weren’t entirely out of the ordinary. They were to be expected, they were playing parts in a love triangle. People were ‘shipping’ Shailene with Seb and Jamie, so that wasn’t too crazy.

What hurt you were the comments saying, “living for shailene and sebastian! she’s a much better match for him than y/n.”

“never thought that y/n girl was going to last, glad he’s going w shailene”

“shailene and seb supremacy”

“yes! i’ve always supported seb in everything he’s done, but i rlly questioned him when he got w that y/n girl. what was he thinking?!”

Tears gathered in your eyes as you continued scrolling. You never thought you and Sebastian never fit. You knew that people had issues with your relationship, but you never let it get in your head this bad. You checked your explore page, pictures of you and Sebastian from last night were riddling the page.

Your heart dropped.

There were pictures of the two of you from last night with parts of your body circled. The exposed skin above your waistband, the excess skin on your neck and arms. You don’t know where they got these pictures, but your stomach was steadily sinking with each picture you saw. The door of your room opened, revealing a smiley Sebastian with a plate full of eggs in one hand and a cup of orange juice in the other.

“Good morning, baby.” You quickly shoved your phone away from you, wiping your tears away from your eyes to meet his. His brows furrowed immediately. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” You snuffled quietly, before answering.

“Uh, nothing. I’m just so proud of you.” You smiled at him, not wanting to bring down his already happy mood with your problems. Was that entirely healthy? Probably not, but you were doing it anyway, consequences be damned.

“Oh, well you don’t have to cry for me, Y/N. Even if you’re proud.” He walked up to your side of the bed, placing the cup and plate on your nightstand. He brought his hand up to your cheeks, wiping away your tear streaks. “You know that I only like to see tears whenever it’s me causing you so much pleasure you beg me to stop.” He winked at you, smirking at your rising blush. To say that didn’t lift your spirits for about half a second would be a lie. Sebastian brought the plate to your lap, waiting for you to start eating. At this particular moment, after seeing all those horrible pictures of your body, your appetite had gone out the window, but he was so smiley.

“After you eat, I want ya to shower.” Sebastian’s hand came up to your jaw, cupping it as you used it to chew the eggs. “We’ve got a long day of lounging and enjoying each other's company ahead of us.” Sebastian stood from the bed, throwing a wink at you as he left the room dramatically. You stopped eating soon after he left, the food tasting like ash on your tongue. At some point, you got into the bathroom, staring at the reflection in the mirror.

Your phone was in your hand again. The pictures flooding your Twitter feed. Shaky breaths left your mouth as you watched your reflection tilt its head. Tears began gathering in your eyes as it felt like you weren’t in your own skin anymore. You had worked so hard to be comfortable in your own body.

It’s amazing how just one picture can ruin everything.

You leaned forward on the countertop, hands holding up your weight. You shifted towards the mirror, examining every miniscule detail that your eyes could see. Your lids came down quickly, tears dragging down your cheeks. You squeezed your eyes closed, shaking your head back and forth.

“You are not going to let this get to you.” You took a few deep breaths as you turned on the shower. Not wanting to be around the mirror anymore, you kept your bath short, talking to yourself the whole time. By the time you left the bathroom, it was steamed completely, you couldn’t see your reflection even if you wanted to.

“He loves you.” You had a mantra and you continued to repeat it as you walked into your shared closet. “He loves all of you.” You pulled one of his old t-shirts off a hanger. “Sebastian loves you.” A pair of your underwear and his loose boxers covered your lower half. “Sebastian loves all of you.” You shoved your feet into a pair of fuzzy pink socks, leaving the closet still muttering to yourself. You tucked your phone into your waistband after checking your socials again. You know you shouldn’t have, but there was some part of you that just wouldn’t let you not.

The same shit covered your For You page on TikTok. Videos from the trailer of Seb and Shailene and then videos of you and Seb, comparing the two relationships. “They do fit well together.” You thought to yourself. A part of you wondering why Seb was with you in the first place.

“Did you say something, love?” Sebastian looked at you from the couch. A blanket was strewn over his lower half, his upper body inviting, waiting for you to join him. His smile dropped when he took in your glassy eyes instead of your usual happy expression.

“Oh baby, what’s wrong?” He started towards you, eyes running over your body for any outward injuries. An understanding look crossed his face when he saw your phone clutched in your hand. “Y/N, talk to me, baby.” Sebastian’s hands rested on your shoulders, lightly caressing your biceps. You recoiled from his touch, feeling uncomfortable in your own body.

“Just some stuff that some fans posted.” Seb’s thumb traced just under your eye, wiping away the tears. He held his right hand out for your phone, to understand what you were talking about. His brows furrowed deeply as he scrolled, not fully processing how destructive his fans could be. Sebastian always believed that they were the best fucking people in the world. He knew that they could be mean, but this was something else.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about, Y/N.” Sebastian’s voice was firm. It was almost strong enough to cut through the fog invading your brain, but not quite. You had officially zoned out. Dead to the world. Lost in your own thoughts. No matter how destructive those thoughts may be.

Sebastian noticed that you were already too deep, having experienced this with you many times before. He was aware that you were self-conscious, insecure, however you want to describe it. Your anxiety always got worse when you were stressed. Prepping for your dissertation was definitely a stressful time. Add on top of that, Sebastian was constantly pulling you from your work for various reasons. Had he contributed to this? Scratch that thought, he didn’t have time for that. He needed to bring you back down to Earth, back to him.

“Y/N.” His hands hovered over your hips. “I’m going to touch you for a second.” He directed you to the couch, settling on the coffee table in front of you. His fingers lightly traced circles onto your knees, as he assessed how he should approach this.

“Y/N. Baby?” Sebastian hesitated before bringing his fingers up to your chin, not wanting you to react badly. “I’m right here, Y/N, it’s Sebastian.” His left hand hadn’t left your knee, continuing to trace small patterns into your skin, giving you something to ground yourself with. He watched you blink and swallow harshly, inhaling sharply before opening your mouth.

“Why are you with me?” Your chin trembled with unvoiced sobs. “You deserve the world, Seb. I’m not even--” Your sentence was cut off by a loud whimper causing tears to start streak down. Sebastian wasn’t sure if this was a situation where you wanted him to be involved, so he waited for a sign.

“I’m not even worth a glance from you.” Your hand came up to wipe at your runny nose. “They’re so right. You need to be with someone like Shailene.” A bitter sob racked your body, making your body fold in half. Sebastian caught you before you hurt yourself.

“Y/N. I love you.” He always heard you say that to yourself when you thought he wasn’t listening. He knew that you suffered from anxiety, so he was always watching. Always paying attention to your little cues. The little things that he could use to help you as much as he could. “I love all of you.” He held one of your hands, running his thumb over the back of it.

“I don’t care what they say, baby.” He lifted your face to his, steel blue eyes locking with your cloudy pair. “I picked you.” He pecked your right cheek. “I want you.” A peck to your left. “I want only you.” One to your forehead. “It’s always been you, Y/N.” Another on your chin. “I love all of you, Y/N.” Sebastian landed a final short kiss to your lips, lingering for only a second.

“I want you to understand something, Y/N.” His gaze never left you. “I’m not going anywhere.” His brows raised as he hardened his voice. “I’m especially not going anywhere at the behest of my fans. I love them to death, but they don’t get to decide who I love.” Sebastian shifted to sit next to you on the couch. “Is it okay if I put my arms around you?” All he got was a brief nod in return, which was expected.

“I’m yours, Y/N. As much as you’re mine.” His arms descended around you, wrapping you in a loving embrace. You turned to face him fully, bringing your own arms around his waist, shoving your head into his neck.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with all my shit, Seb.” Sebastian almost missed your comment because you spoke into his shoulder and through loud snuffles. He backed away to look you in the face.

“I signed up for this, Y/N. I’m here for whatever we go through.” He tucked a stray hair behind your ear. “We go through ‘your shit’ together, Y/N. This is a partnership, a two-way street.” He looked at the weak smile on your face, heart warming slightly at the sight. His face turned serious, casting a glance at your phone on the coffee table.

“How long have you been sitting on this?” He knew how quickly your mind could twist things, so he wasn’t sure what to expect. You bit your lip, not meeting his eyes anymore.

“Just since this morning.” He held you away from his body, watching your expression.

“Is this why you were crying earlier?” You gave him a meek nod in response. “Baby, I thought we talked about this. We have to talk to each other when we think we’re going to go into a funk.” The two of you had talked about it before, but you didn’t think this was going to be a funk.

“I should’ve been able to just shake this off because I know you love me and you won’t leave me because of something that some people on the Internet say.” The words left your mouth before you could process everything, your mind quick to defend itself.

“It’s okay, Y/N. You don’t always have to be able to shake something off. We just have to keep each other in the loop.” Sebastian looked over your tear-stained face, pressing a kiss to your forehead again. “Let’s ditch the phones today. Just spend the day in each other’s arms, how’s that sound?” You smiled softly, nodding at the man in front of you. He got up quickly hiding both of your phones in the kitchen somewhere.

This definitely wasn’t a solution to dealing with your anxiety, Sebastian knew that. It also wasn’t dealing with the toxic people on the Internet, but you didn’t need that right now. You needed to be immersed in an environment that accepted what you were going through without judgement, Sebastian could provide that. Seb hummed happily when you snuggled into his side under the covers on your couch while he searched for a movie. He kissed the top of your head and he felt you smile against his stomach.

“I’m proud of you, draga mea.” You turned to face him, a confused expression lacing your features.

“For what, Seb?” He stroked your face with a single finger, mapping out your features.

“I’m proud of how you handle yourself. I’m amazed at how strong you are, even when you think you’re not.” He leaned closer to you, whispering his next words. “You’re my hero.” One corner of your mouth twitched upwards, not wanting to accept it. You rolled your eyes playfully, settling back onto his stomach before speaking.

“I love you, Sebastian.”

“And I love you, Y/N.”

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likealittleheartbeat · 4 years

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I deeply appreciate how ATLA depicts all the main characters responses to trauma. Aang’s, for me, however, stands out for its rareness in media. And we are not hammered over the head with the idea that Aang (or any other characters) repeatedly act certain ways because of a single traumatic event. Sure, there are key moments in our lives when a certain event comes to the forefront, but no one experiences the world as constant flashbacks. Rather, we see only in retrospect the way our sarcastic sense of humor or our heightened friendliness were protective responses to a deep emotional injury. Being able to understand Aang’s approach to loss is essential for the show. The structure of the series is founded on his arc (despite an incredible foil provided by Zuko). Our little air nomad initially confronts the loss of his people with a full-on meltdown in the episode “The Southern Air Temple,” where Katara’s offering of familial belonging soothes him. But this kind of outburst is not Aang’s primary response (and actually the literally out-of-character apocalyptic tantrums align with Aang’s overall process of grieving). Instead of constantly brooding (hey Zuko!), Aang leans heavily toward the monk’s pacifist teachings and toward his assumed destiny “to save the world.” He becomes overtly accommodating and joyful, constantly trying to see “the good” in everything with a perfectionist’s zeal. This is not to ascribe his bubbliness only to his trauma. Rather, he comes to emphasize this part of his personality for reasons related to the negative emotions he struggles to face. Book 1: Water

In the first season, Aang is simply rediscovering his place in the world. “Water is the element of change. The people of the water tribe are capable of adapting to many things. They have a sense of community and love that holds them together.” This is vital to Aang as he initially faces his experience. He won’t get through this if he is not prepared for his life to change. Even if he hadn’t been frozen for 100 years, his world would never be the same. This fact involves eventually finding new people that he feels safe with. After such a massive loss, he’s learning who to trust, and also often making mistakes; not only does he find Sokka and Katara (and I’d argue he’s actually slow to truly open up to them), this is the season where he helps save a fire nation citizen who betrays him to soldiers, befriends the rebel extremist Jet, and attempts to befriend an actively belligerent Zuko (his moral complexity had only JUST! been revealed to the kid!). He’s constantly offering trust to others and seeking their approval in opposition to the deep well of shame and guilt he carries as a survivor of violence. This is also the season where Aang swears off firebending after burning Katara in an overeager attempt to master the element (one will note how fire throughout the series is aligned with, above all else, assertiveness and yang). Aang is so eager to be seen as morally good to others that he refuses to risk any possible harm to them. And asserting himself carries a danger, in one sense, that he might make a mistake and lose someone’s positive regard, and, in another sense, that he is replicating the anger and violence he’s witnessed. He has no relationship to his anger at this stage of his grief, so it comes out uncontrollably, both in firebending and the Avatar State. It’s through the patience of his new family that he can begin to feel unashamed about his past and about the ways his shame is finding (sometimes violent) expression in the present. Book 2: Earth In the second season he begins to trust himself and stand his ground. Earth, after all, is the element of substance, persistence, and endurance. The “Bitter Work” episode encapsulates how Aang must come to a more sturdy sense of his values. First, there is the transition of pedagogical style. While Katara emphasized support and kindness, Toph insists on blunt and threatening instruction, not for a lack of care towards Aang. Instead, it’s so Aang learns how to stop placing the desires of others above his own--to stop accommodating everyone else above his own needs. Toph taunts Aang by stealing one of the few keepsakes from the monastery that he holds onto. This attachment to the lost airbending culture is echoed in the larger arc with Appa. And, by the end of this episode, it is Aang’s attachment to Sokka that allows him to stand firm. This foreshadows the capital T Tragic downfall in the “Crossroads of Destiny.” Aang gives up his attachment to the other member of his new found family, Katara, despite his moral qualms. Although he has access to all the power of the Avatar state, his sacrifice is not rewarded. Season 2 illustrates Aang coming to terms with his values. He is learning about what he stands for, what holds meaning to him. Understanding himself also includes integrating his grief, and there’s a lonely and dangerous aspect to that exploration. We see Aang’s anger and hopelessness over longer stretches rather than outbursts in this season. It’s hard to watch and hard to root for him. That depressive state leads to actions that counter his previous sense of morality, as he decisively kills an animal, treats his friends unkindly, and blames others for his loss. Letting these harsher feelings emerge is an experiment, and most people discover their boundaries by crossing them. Finding ways to hold compassion for himself, even the harm he causes others, is the other side of this process. Our past and our challenging emotions are a part of us, but they are only a part. Since Aang now has a strong sense of community and is learning to be himself rather than simply seeking validation, we also see him having more healthy boundaries with new people. He’s no longer befriending villains in the second season! He’s respectful and trusting enough, but he’s not putting himself in vulnerable situations nor blindly trusting everyone. Instead, he’s more likely to listen to his friends’ opinions or think about how the monks might’ve been critical towards something (they’re complaints about Ba Sing Se, for example). By knowing what he cares for, he can know himself, the powerful, loving, grief-struck monk. And he can trust that, though he might not be everyone’s favorite person, he does not need to feel ashamed or guilty for who he is or what he’s been through. Book 3: Fire However, despite a sense of self and a sense of belonging, Aang and the group still find themselves constantly asking for permission throughout their time in Ba Sing Se. It’s in the third season, Fire, that initiative and assertiveness become the focus. And who better to provide guidance in this than the official prince of “you never think these things through,” Zuko. It’s no longer a time for avoidance or sturdy defensiveness. It is the season of action. Fire is the element of power, desire, and will, all of which require us to impact others. We see the motif of initiative throughout the season: the rebels attempt to storm the Firelord on the Day of the Black Sun; Aang attempts to share his feelings and kiss Katara; Katara bends Hama and a couple of fire nation soldiers to her will. In each of these examples, the initiators face disgrace. Positive intent does not bring forth success, by any means, only more consequences to be dealt with. This is perhaps Aang’s biggest challenge. He is afraid that his actions will fail, or worse, they will succeed but he will be wrong in what he has chosen. The sequencing in the series, here, is important. We have already seen how Aang has worked to care for (and appreciate) the well-being of others and how he has learned to care for his own needs. With this in mind, he should be able to trust that his actions will derive from these wells of compassion. But easier said than done. Compassion can also trap him into indecision, hearkening back to his avoidant mistake in the storm, in which the whole mess began. Aang’s internal conflict, here, becomes more pronounced as the finale draws nearer. I think it’s especially significant that we witness Aang disagreeing with his mentors and friends. He must act in a way that will contradict and even threaten his sources of support if he is to trust his own desires. Even the fandom disagrees about the choice Aang makes, which further highlights the fact that making a decisive choice is contentious. There is no point in believing it will grant you love or admiration or success. For someone who began (and spent much of) the series regularly sacrificing himself just to bring others peace, Aang’s decision to prioritize his own interests despite the very explicit possibility of failure is the ultimate growth his character can have and the ultimate representation of him processing his trauma. (This arc was echoed and made even more explicit in many ways with Adora in the She-ra finale.) The last significant time Aang followed his desire, in his mind, was when he escaped the Air Temple in the storm. To want something, to trust his desire and act on it, is an act of incredible courage for him, and whether it succeeded or failed, whether anyone agrees or disagrees with it, it offered Aang a sense of peace and resolution. Now I appreciate and love Zuko’s iconic redemption arc, but Aang’s subtler arc, which subverts the “chosen one” narrative and broke ground to represent a prevalent emotional experience, stands out to me as the foundation for the show I love so much.

#aang #avatar the last airbender #trauma #ptsd #cptsd #atla #atla meta #zuko #redemption arc #adora #spop #catradora #catra #also no one will read this far in the tags but this is phoebe buffay's arc on friends

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heartcal · 3 years

Text

“who do you believe?”; l.h.

Disclaimer: i didn’t want to write sierra as a bad person because i personally cannot see that, and i know there’s some discourse about her within in the fandom but i don’t want any of that here! so i named the girlfriend after a girl who bullied me in elementary school lol (but another disclaimer: i do not want to see any hate towards the boys’ s/o! pls don’t send any asks that talks bad about them, i will not answer them!)

thank you for requesting! :^)

a/n: while transfering this from microsoft word, the formatting kept screwing up for some reason so if there are some janky paragraphs, i apologize! not too comfortable with this one compared to my previous fic (this feels rushed) but it is long and i did not mean for that to happen lol. enjoy!

if there are any mistakes, please tell me!

pairing(s): not really a mention of luke hemmings x reader but it’s mostly luke hemmings x named gf (rachel/oc) (gender neutral but if i slipped up, please let me know!)

summary: having known luke for years, it was bound to happen eventually. the crush you developed happened before you could stop it, and you did your best to keep it a secret. you told no one, did your best not to show it, so what do you do when his girlfriend finds out?

genre: angst, and mostly angst >:^)

warnings: swearing, luke’s gf being mean, bullying?

wc: 4,057 (she’s a long one)

my masterlist!

You don’t know when it happened, or frankly how it happened, but one thing is for sure: you don’t want to feel this way.

Was it when he bought you a stuffed animal version of a pet you had as a kid, one that you remember so fondly and still tear up about it to this day? Or was it when he would always bring back a certain candy you can only find in its country of origin, and bring as much as customs would allow? Maybe it was when he printed out every photo he could find from the beginning of your friendship to the present day (at that time) and made a scrapbook for your birthday since you cherish memories?

Whatever memory it was, you want to track it down and destroy it. It wasn’t fair that you developed such strong feelings for your best friend, knowing he doesn’t feel the same since he’s taken.

It’s not that he isn’t attractive – far from that because if anything, you wish you could draw just so you can draw him because there’s no way someone can look that good – but it’s more of the fact that he’s your best friend, someone you hold dear to you.

You two grew up together; saw each other’s worst phases, styles, and embarrassing moments (it was well documented towards the middle of the scrapbook). He was with you when you went through bad break-ups, and you with him. Throughout school, you two were inseparable, and when the band got big he made sure to keep you close and to never lose contact. It was hard in the beginning but you two managed.

Now finished with college, you’ve taken on the role of working with the team when they’re on tour and helping plan aesthetics for the next album. He offered the jobs after you struggled to find a job after graduation, and in the end, you enjoyed being with the guys and doing the tasks needed.

Tonight, the band was set to play their new album to an intimate crowd. It was to welcome back old fans and welcome new fans, introducing both sides to a new sound they worked hard on. You couldn’t be any more proud.

You sat on the couch as the guys walked around the room, pepping themselves up and hyping each other. You had finished doing your tasks with the crew and spent your free time watching the band prepare as the audience began to fill in the theater seats.

A nudge on your arm makes you direct your eyes from Michael styling his hair with a nervous expression to the person on your left.

“What’s up?” you asked, smiling at the curly-haired individual.

Luke shrugs, glancing around the room before his eyes land back on you. He has a small smile on his face as he leans back onto the couch, “Nothing.”

You scoff, shaking your head with a smile, “Yeah, sure, ‘nothing,’” you mimic, tilting your head to the side, “I doubt that.”

“What do you want me to say?”

You give him an incredulous look, crossing your arms as you turn to face him. You can tell he’s nervous, like the rest of the team and the band, but he won’t admit it. He’s always wanted others to view him as strong and unbothered, especially when those around him feel off.

He mirrors your position, a smirk on his lips because he knows you’re about to lecture him.

And he’s right.

“Your band has a new album out in a couple of days—an album you guys have worked hard on even when your management gave you shit, mind you—and you’re about to perform a majority of the songs in front of 500. Are you not nervous?”

He shakes his head, smugly smiling as he returns to his position leaning against the couch, watching Ashton dry the wet ends of his hair.

“Liar,” you mumble, uncrossing your arms and taking your phone out to check the time.

“Alright,” Luke sighs, giving in, “maybe I’m a little nervous, but I’m not a wreck.”

He’s still a liar. The success of their last album was astounding, so creating an album to reach that level and hopefully top it was hard enough. Playing it in front of an intimate crowd who may or may not like it was tough.

Luke isn’t cocky. He’s a humble man, but he likes to joke around in stressful situations. He’s used to concerts, so he doesn’t have any anxiety when it comes to performing. But when he is nervous for any reason, he won’t show it. He’ll act cool, completely collected with his head held high in confidence. If he needs to relieve the stress, he’ll either do it himself with a strong pep talk, or he’ll go to you.

“What are you nervous about?” You ask, wanting to make him feel better.

“Will they like it? Will it even chart? Is it too bold?” he continues listing out his insecurities about the album and the performance, finally lifting everything off his chest.

And you listen. The way his eyes stare into yours with slight confidence, covered by worry makes your heart sore. Luke’s kept everything inside and now that he’s listing his grievances, it makes you wonder just what else you can get out of him that he’s kept buried inside.

However, before you can give him your insight on this particular problem, “Luke!”

His head immediately turns to the door, the worry in his eyes fading out into sheer happiness and adoration. Something you’ve always wanted to see directed towards you.

Luke stands arms wide as he captures his girlfriend in his arms for a hug. Her arms wrap around his waist as his arms go around her shoulders, dipping his head down to kiss her on the head.

“I can’t believe you made it!” you hear him speak with excitement, expressing more words of happiness as he guides her to another part of the room.

You don’t miss the way her eyes glare in your direction, and you’re not afraid to give her a look back.

Rachel was nice when you met her. You actually liked her, despite your crush on Luke, and you were rooting for the two. But, a couple months ago during a stressful week, she turned on you. Her attitude towards you shifted, almost as if you had disrespected her and her bloodline. She would always act as if you weren’t in the room, and when plans were made with the boys, she would “accidentally” leave you out. It was embarrassing for you when you’d find out your friends went out, calling you to find out why you didn’t come. Due to the embarrassment, you would go along with it, making up some excuse as to why you were absent.

None of the boys, to your knowledge at least, have caught on to her antics, and you honestly hope they don’t. Whatever it is you did to her, you want to find out for yourself so you can fix it.

With a sigh, you stand from the couch, stretching your arms briefly before wandering to Calum, who stood in the shower room connected to the dressing room.

“Hey,” you greeted him with a warm smile.

He smiles back, finishing his drink before tossing the plastic cup in the trash. He grabs his bass, which was placed on the counter, and holds it out to you.

“You want me to see if it sounds out of tune?” you jokingly ask.

He nods, “Yeah, I feel like one of the chords might be flat.”

You chuckle as you pluck a random chord. His instruments are always tuned before it’s time to play. One of his pre-show nervous ticks was the constant doubt of his instruments being playable.

“It’s fine, Calum.”

The doubt shows on his face as he brings his guitar back to himself, putting it on and checking the chords himself, but it doesn’t last long as Ashton’s voice calls everyone to the center of the room.

Walking with Calum to where the rest of the crew was, you notice how attached Luke was to Rachel. Joint at the hip, arms wrapped around each other; it was annoying.

“Show starts in ten,” Ashton gains your attention, holding up a cup as Michael hands Calum a similar cup before doing the same to Luke. The three follow the drummer’s action as he continues, “let’s make this show fuckin’ awesome.”

The crew cheers, dying down quickly as Michael gives his thoughts, “We worked our asses off for this album, I don’t have any doubts about it. We got this, guys!”

The cheers resume as those with a drink take a celebratory sip before placing their empty cup on a surface near them.

Calum leaves your side to join Michael while Ashton heads to you.

“You excited?” he asks, putting his right arm around your shoulders with a large smile.

“Yeah!” you return the smile, “What about you? Nervous like the others?”

He shakes his head, crinkling his nose, “I’m not too nervous. I’m just happy to play again.”

You’re about to ask him what song he was the most excited to play, starting to get into the conversation but yet again you are interrupted by Rachel.

“Hey, Ash,” she greets him, Luke following close behind her as his arms make their way back around her shoulders again.

“Hi, Rachel,” Ashton nods his head at her – his eyes dance to Luke briefly before returning to Rachel’s, “didn’t think you’d make it.”

“Couldn’t miss your big show,” she smiles, looking up at her boyfriend as she pats his stomach.

Luke laughs, gently pushing her hand away from him, “I’m surprised, too—“ he grabs the guitar a crew member hands him, left arm lifting itself from Rachel’s shoulder as he slips the strap over his head, “—because her schedule did not look clear enough, but here she is.”

“Three minutes,” a different crew member rushes out, patting Luke and Ashton’s shoulders before rushing to tell the others.

“See you after,” Luke shifts his guitar away from Rachel before leaning down to kiss her on the lips – something you wish you didn’t see – and turning around to head out of the dressing room.

Ashton gives you a quick hug, “Excited for the lights,” he mumbles in your ear before turning to Rachel to give her a side hug.

It doesn’t go unnoticed how Rachel’s eyes glared at you by Ashton, but he doesn’t mention it as he heads out with the other guys towards the stage.

As a majority of the crew follow them out, you stay behind to clean up the empty cups and other trash, trying to occupy yourself as Rachel too stayed behind.

Her eyes followed you as you moved about the room, carrying the small plastic bag with you as it fills up with cups and wrappers. You could feel the glare burning into your side and back as you paid her no mind.

When it was just you two left, the bass from their opening song was heard and felt as you finished picking up the garbage.

“For how long have you liked Luke?”

You froze. Your head whipped towards Rachel, wide-eyed as you glanced around the room to make sure it was just the two of you.

“What…what are you talking about?” You can feel an extreme warmth rising up from the bottom of your back, all the way to your face, nervousness clouding your brain as she stares you down.

“Luke—,” she crosses her arms and moves to the couch, “how long have you liked Luke?”

“I don’t—I,” you stutter, your stomach dropping as you realize you’ve been caught.

His girlfriend knows you like him.

“Cut the bullshit,” she spits, “I can see it. You’ve been friends with him for years, you obviously caught feelings for him.”

You shake your head, standing up straight to give off the illusion of confidence. Turning your back to her and towards the door, “I don’t have to talk to you.”

You opted for walking out of the dressing room and go watch the band from the side of the stage, but you made a quick stop in the bathroom to splash cold water on your face.

You did what you could to avoid her during their performance. You knew she was watching you, seething at how you ended the conversation so fast.

Rachel wanted to break you down, find the reason why you like him and separate you two for as long as it takes to make him fall in love with her. She finds you a problem in their relationship because of how close you and Luke are, because of how long you’ve known each other. A threat to her and her relationship.

An hour and a half later, the show is finished and the whoops and cheers from the crowd indicate the album was very well received. That thought swept the interaction with Rachel from earlier under the rug as the boys’ adrenaline spread throughout the crew.

Ashton was first to greet you, sweaty and ready to envelop you in a hug but you’re quick to avoid it, ducking down just as his arms closed around the space where your head was. He laughs it off, heading for his next victim.

Next was Calum, who grabbed a drink from Andy and gulped it down. He had a smile on his face after, only growing wider when he saw you. “I think they liked it!”

“Bass in tune, huh?” you return, patting his back as he passes you to go to the next person.

Michael is the third, taking off his hat (which made you question why he was so worried about his hairstyle that he spent at least fifteen minutes playing with before the show). He stops in front of you, phone in hand as he takes a picture of the two of you: a tradition he started a few tours ago as a joke.

Finally, Luke makes his way towards you, ready to ramble about the show but is brisked away by Rachel. He doesn’t even glance over at you after he’s taken away towards the hall.

Entering the dressing room where the rest of the boys sat, you saw Michael talking animatedly on the phone, Calum laying across the couch with an arm over his eyes, and Ashton wiping off excess sweat with a towel. He was the first one to notice you.

“Ready for that hug?” he asks as you approach him.

“Why not.”

You hug each other, smiling as you pulled away. In the distance, over the cool-down music, you hear Luke’s laughter in the hall. Knowing he’s with Rachel makes you wonder if she’s told him about her suspicions, and that thought alone makes you clam up all over again.

Ashton immediately notices, tilting his head as he asks you what’s wrong.

“Nothing,” you quickly reply, eyes focusing on him.

He notices how jittery you seem, but he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable so he says nothing.

“Guys,” Andy comes in with his camera in hand, “we need to take a few photos.”

The three agree and follow the photographer out. You move to the snack table for a bottle of water, but before you can take a sip, someone clears their throat in the doorway.

You roll your eyes immediately because you know who it is. You don’t pay her any attention and instead take the sip of water you need.

“We need to finish that conversation you oh-so rudely ended,” Rachel moves into the room, keeping her voice down as she crosses her arms.

“We don’t need to finish anything.”

She scoffs, “I asked you a question, and you were so quick to avoid it. I think you’re proving a point.”

“What point?” you turn to look at her, “I know you don’t like me but I don’t know why, can we start with that?”

“Like I said before, I know you like Luke. He’s my boyfriend, and I don’t like how he’s close to you.”

“We grew up together,” you state, standing tall as you glare at her, “of course we’re going to be close.”

“Well I don’t like it,” she huffs.

You shake your head with a sigh, closing the lid to the bottle as you turn your back to her. You were getting angry at the fact that someone who didn’t know Luke as long as you did was hinting that you should stay away from him.

“Stop hanging out with him.”

A curt laugh escapes you before you can stop it, “Are you jealous of our friendship?”

“No,” she smirks, “but I know you’re jealous of our relationship.”

She’s right; you’re only a little jealous of their relationship, but it’s not something you want to risk your friendship with.

You open your mouth to defend yourself, but you’re caught off-guard when nothing comes out. The one opportunity to make her believe you don’t like her boyfriend and you can’t say anything.

Giving up with sinking shoulders, you glance at the door before looking back at her. Grimacing at her knowing smile, “How did you find out?”

She hums, “It was easy. I love him, so I know what it looks like to look at someone you love. You made it so obvious, I’m surprised no one else found out!”

You grit your teeth. You did your damn best to make sure no one, especially Luke or Rachel, know how you feel about him.

“I’m not intimidated by you,” she walks closer to you, arms uncrossing as her hands move to her hips, “but I won’t deny the fact that you and Luke have chemistry.”

“What will it take—” you place the bottle back on the table, “—for you to leave me alone?”

“Do the same to him.”

“What?”

“Leave him alone, unfriend him,” she shrugs, “simple as that.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you walk around her to the door, ready to end the conversation.

“Do that or I’ll tell him,” with a harsh tone she walks towards you, grabbing your arm to stop you from walking.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” another voice from the doorway makes the two of you jump, “that’s enough.”

Ashton walks into the room, grabbing Rachel’s hand and removing it from your arm.

“W—” she stutters out as she watches the tall man move to stand in front of you.

“I came back for my drumsticks—” his eyes shift to the object sticking out of his bag before dropping down to Rachel, “—but instead I find you, what, threatening a good friend of ours?”

Rachel is speechless while you’re frozen. It was embarrassing enough for one person to find out about your crush on Luke, but now Ashton might know and you want to go into hiding.

“Let it go,” you tug on Ashton’s shirt to get his attention but he doesn’t move.

“Telling someone who’s known your boyfriend longer than your relationship to just abandon him is low, Rachel. Don’t think the way you’ve been treating our friends has gone unnoticed.”

You hear more footsteps approaching the room, and now you wish the ground can swallow you up. You don’t want all this attention on you.

“What’s happening here?” Michael says as he peeks into the room, Luke behind him as Calum leans against the other side of the doorway.

“Nothing—,” Rachel tries to deflect but with four pairs of eyes on her, it becomes too much. Tears start pouring out, and you’re in disbelief.

How can she be the one crying after she was the one who was rude to you?

Luke immediately rushes in, creating a beeline right to her side to wrap her in his arms.

His eyes dart to yours, an emotion on his face of something you’ve never seen, but you know it’s not good.

“What did you do?”

You’re taken back by his tone and the way his angry eyes stare you down. It hurts because instead of staying neutral and finding out what exactly happened, he immediately chose a side: a side of someone he’s known for only for a short amount of time.

“Mate,” Ashton speaks up for you, “I think you’re asking the wrong person that.”

“No,” Luke’s voice raises, eyes moving from yours to stare into his band mate’s, “I’m asking the right person.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, your eyes welling with tears as the weight of everything happening within the last ten minutes starts to bring you down. Your eyes move away from the ones boring into yours, and with a tremble in your voice, “I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who started—.”

“Bullshit!” Luke’s roar cuts you off, “Absolute bullshit, because if she started it, then why is she the only one crying?!”

The two other guys move in to the room to mediate the situation.

“Luke, calm down,” Michael’s hands raise to the motion of ‘calm down’ as he tries to get Luke’s attention.

“There’s gotta be more to the story,” Calum moves to your side, checking on you briefly.

“Don’t,” Luke states as he watches Calum grab your shoulders to move you out of the room.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Ashton questions. He watches Luke soothingly rub Rachel’s back, wiping her tears with his free hand.

“My girlfriend is crying and you two were the only ones in here,” Luke replies, gently grabbing Rachel’s arms so he can look directly into her eyes, “what happened, babe?”

“I asked them—,” Rachel sniffles, continuing her façade, “—if they needed any help cleaning the room earlier and they yelled at—at me and told me to go away. Then after the show when you guys went for your photos, I came here to apologize to her, even though I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She was selling it; the tears, the sniffling, the stutters, and hiccups. A great actress who knows what she wants.

“That’s not true,” you inhale, your ears feeling warm and ringing, “she has had a problem with me lately and I don’t know why!”

Luke scoffs, shaking his head, wrapping Rachel in his arms again.

“C’mon,” Michael mumbles, wanting to leave the room.

Ashton turns around, watching your face go from pleading to blank as the tears fall from your eyes. He turns his head to face Luke, “You’re unbelievable,” he grabs your shoulders and starts to move you out of the room, “let’s go.”

Michael is already out of the room, the tension too much for him and ruining the after-show vibe. Calum is waiting by the door ready to help lead you out. Ashton has you turned around, pushing you towards the door.

“Wait, Luke,” you mumble, getting out of Ashton’s hold and turning back to face Luke.

He doesn’t look at you, sighing as he rubs Rachel’s head as it’s against his chest.

“Please,” you plead, begging him to look at you and when he does, you ask, “who do you believe?”

“What?”

“Who do you believe, Luke,” you gulp with a sniffle, “me or her?”

For a moment, you think you see hesitation. His jaw tenses as he stares you down, his best friend for years and someone he turned to when times got tough. He then looks down at the girl in his arms, someone he loves crying into his chest.

He sighs again, this time soft, before looking up to meet your eyes. He does notice the tears, the pain etched on your face as his other best friends watch them. “I believe Rachel.”

“This is fucking stupid,” Ashton mutters as he gently grabs your shoulders again to lead you out of the room.

You let the tears fall freely, not meeting any of the boys’ eyes as you kept your head face down.

You’ve lost your best friend. He chose someone else over you, a lie he chose to believe.

Whatever it was that made you catch feelings for your best friend, you wish you can find it and destroy it, along with any other memory you’ve made with him. After tonight, you want him erased from your cherished memories.

---

part two!

#5sos imagines #5sos blurbs #5sos drabbles #5sos one shots #5 seconds of summer imagines #5 seconds of summer blurbs #5 seconds of summer one shots #5 seconds of summer drabbles #luke hemmings imagines #luke hemmings blurbs #luke hemmings drabbles #req #5sos preferences #5 seconds of summer preferences #5sos imagine #5sos preference #5 seconds of summer imagine #5 seconds of summer preference

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iclaimedtobethebetterbard · 3 years

Text

popcorn & pronouns

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: Janus, Remus, Roman Rating: Teen & up Relationships: Dukeceit, Creativitwins Warnings: Not much to warn for in this one. Language, a little bit of suggestiveness, vague non-detailed descriptions of a horror movie. Word count: 3402

Read on AO3!

My writing masterpost

Starlight Universe masterpost

Dukeceit Week 2021 start - previous - here - next - masterpost

Summary: A movie night date leads to an important conversation. Already being t4t makes it a lot easier. Or, in Remus's own words, “This is just, like, going to be a week of people coming out to me, I guess. Huh.”

Notes: Day 6 of Dukeceit Week 2021! Almost there! @dukeceitweek Takes place in my Starlight Universe, where each piece can be read without any context. Takes place 9 months after college; at the start of the story, Janus uses only they/them pronouns.

“Ooh, popcorn! Can I have some?” Roman popped his head into the kitchen of the apartment he, Remus, and Logan had shared in the nine or so months since they had all graduated college.

“No, Jan and I are having a date in twenty minutes,” Remus said, waving Roman off without looking away from the air popper.

“Okay, I don’t see how that’s relevant to my question.” Roman pushed himself to sit on the counter by the sink. “I mean, that’s really cute, I hope you have fun. But can I have some popcorn?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Make your own when I’m done.”

“But you make it better!” Roman pouted overdramatically.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “All I do is plug in the machine?”

“Right, which is better than me doing it.” Roman grinned at them. “Less work for me.”

“Hey!” Remus swatted his arm. “The transphobia, honestly—”

“Well, if you making it for me is transphobic to you, then you not making it for me is—” Roman broke off quite suddenly, his expression undergoing several shifts very fast that Remus could not make sense of. Which was… unusual, to say the least. Roman was normally the one person they could always count on understanding. They didn’t like this new development one bit.

“Ro?”

“Iiiiiit’s… queerphobic to me,” Roman said at last, a worried pinch to his eyebrows. He laughed, and it almost didn’t sound forced. “So we’re at a tie, so you should just make me popcorn.”

“First of all, I’m queer too, make your own damn popcorn. Second—” Remus turned away from the popcorn machine and gave Roman his full attention, leaning back against the kitchen island and tilting his head to the side. “Do you wanna talk about whatever the fuck that was?” So far as Remus knew, Roman was bi; that was the label he’d been using for years and years, so long that it practically felt like forever. Since almost the very beginning of high school. Since before Remus had questioned their gender, even. Only last week, he’d called the light switch biphobic without hesitation when it broke.

Whatever had happened to make him so very deliberately not call himself bi just now, it was new.

Roman’s expression closed up very fast indeed, but not before Remus caught a flash of something he was almost certain was fear. “No.”

“You know it’s okay to question, right?” Remus inquired awkwardly. “No matter what specifically, and no matter what the outcome is? Yeah?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You know I’d still love you no matter what, right? Even if you were, like, a straight man—like, I would make so many jokes about not agreeing with your lifestyle, but—Ro, you know everything is always gonna be okay, right?”

Roman glared at him. “Remus, I don’t want to talk about it.” He wrinkled his nose. “And I’m definitely not straight.”

Remus blinked and raised their hands. “Alright. I didn’t mean literally straight, I just meant—you could be literally whatever, and it would be cool. That was—like—the most extreme example I could think of, you know?”

Roman let out a slight huff of laughter. “Thanks,” he said reluctantly after a pause. “It’s nothing, though.”

“Bullshit,” Remus said immediately.

“It—” Roman swallowed. “I need it to be nothing, okay?”

“If anyone’s making you feel shitty, I’ll beat them up,” Remus said immediately. “Even if it’s Patton. Just drop the names. I’ll do it. I’ll—”

“Remus, it’s fine. I want to stop fucking talking about it now!” Roman snapped.

Remus hesitated, fumbling for what to do or say next, everything about the conversation feeling just a little wrong and sideways.

Roman sighed. “Sorry.” He pushed off the counter, went to the fridge, and stared into it for a solid thirty seconds, then took a cheese stick out of the door. “I’ll make my own popcorn later,” he mumbled and retreated back to his room.

“Damn, alright,” Remus said to the empty room. “Be like that, I guess.” They flung their hands into the air and went to get the butter they’d been melting in the microwave before Roman’s appearance.

Roman would talk to them about it, whatever it was, eventually. He always did. And whatever was bugging him, Remus would figure out a way to bug it back until it stopped and Roman was all happy and bubbly again. Because that was what Remus always did. It would be fine. It was just a waiting game.

Remus sighed. He always hated waiting.

***

“Mmkay,” Remus said, when Janus had arrived, and they had worked together to move the TV out of the living room and into Remus’s room, and they had settled in on Remus’s bed—Remus sitting up against the headboard and Janus half-laying in Remus’s lap with their long thin legs stretched out along the bed and their head on his chest—and the popcorn had been set beside them where they could both reach it, and the blanket nest had been fluffed once more. “What shall we watch?”

Janus was silent for a long moment. Actually, come to think of it, they had been quiet since they’d arrived at the apartment—even more quiet than usual. But Remus was almost certain they weren’t nonverbal, seeing as they had exchanged a few fond words with him. It just hadn’t been very many words.

“Janny, baby?” Remus leaned forward, over their shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of their face.

Janus had their fingers knotted in the blanket that was spread over their lap, fidgeting with it anxiously, a thinking-hard expression on their face.

“Baby?” Remus curled one hand lightly around theirs. “You good?”

“Choices are too hard right now,” Janus said at last.

“Okay, that’s okay. Do you know what you need?”

“I want to watch a movie.” Janus frowned. “I just can’t choose.”

“Gotcha. No problem.” Remus pressed a kiss to their cheek. “I’m really good at choosing.” He threaded his fingers through Janus’s long hair, scratching soothingly at their scalp in just the way he knew they liked, and pulled up the library of movies, switching from Roman’s profile to his own.

“How’s some really cheesy horrible horror film we can make fun of sound?” he asked, scrolling with the remote and still playing with Janus’s hair with his other hand. “I know we have a bunch of those, I loved ’em when we were kids and I think they’re funny.”

“That sounds fine.” Janus nodded and relaxed a little further against Remus.

“Good.” He kissed the top of their head. “Do you need anything else?”

Janus shook their head. “I’ve just been kind of stressed lately. Work’s been shit, and all that. It’s fine. I just want to cuddle and things.”

“Ooh, ‘and things,’ I like the sound of that,” Remus teased, sliding his hand gently to their chin and drawing them to twist around far enough that he could kiss them soft and slow.

“I didn’t say what kinds of things,” Janus said innocently, their eyes still closed and so close to Remus that their lips brushed against his as they spoke. “Perhaps I could be persuaded later.”

“I’ll be sure to prepare my best arguments,” Remus said, leaning slightly up to kiss their forehead and then back down to their lips for another lazy kiss, taking his time and exploring Janus’s mouth until they sighed and melted against him.

“A compelling preview,” they murmured, their eyes still closed and the slightest smile curling at their lips.

Remus meant to make some kind of witty quip in return, really he did, but all that came out of his mouth was a quiet, awed, “Holy fuck, you’re so beautiful, Jan.”

Janus’s eyes opened and met his for a moment, soft and vulnerable, before they turned and hid their face in his neck. “Love you,” they whispered against his skin.

“Mm, I love you too,” Remus said happily, wrapping his arms securely around Janus and kissing the top of their head. “Love your pretty eyes and skin and hair and body, love how clever you are, love your scary goth clothes, love your snark, love your stims, love you—”

Janus whined wordlessly into his neck, pressing kisses to it and fisting their hands in the front of his shirt.

Remus chuckled, taking a handful of their hair and gently tugging until they looked up at him once more. “Do you want to watch a movie at all, or do you just wanna make out? Cause I’d be good with either, but if you wanna do a movie, we should get on that before we’re too distracted.”

“Oh.” Janus leaned their head back a little until it was resting against Remus’s hand. “Not that I don’t want to make out, but—”

“Nah, I gotcha. Gotta at least get through the popcorn, am I right?” Remus cast about for the remote, lost in the blanket pile, as Janus shifted about until they faced the television again.

“There it is!” Remus snatched the remote up, clicking through the library on the television until he saw the particular film he was thinking of and pulled it up. “This look good?”

“‘When moving into their new house, little do our protagonists know it is haunted by a demonic serial killer. Will they get out in time? Or will they be his next victims?’” Janus read the summary aloud. “Sounds absolutely thrilling. Extremely original. Love the bad Photoshop on the cover. I’m sure the acting will be of the highest quality.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s so shitty, I love it. So many cheesy effects and fake blood, it’s the actual stupidest shit,” Remus assured them. “I love it, though. Went as the demon thing for Halloween when I was nine. Nobody fucking knew what I was, but I had the time of my life. And got fake blood on Roman when he wasn’t looking. It was great.”

Janus chuckled, reaching up to brush their fingertips against Remus’s cheek. “Well, with such a glowing review from someone so attractive, how can I resist?” they said fondly.

“That’s the spirit!” Remus hit play.

Remus had watched this particular movie more times than they could count over the course of their childhood. He peppered commentary throughout the film:

“This is my favorite part, if you pay attention you can see her real fingertips holding onto the fake hand she’s about to get chopped off!”

“There’s a jumpscare in this scene, I know you hate those—okay, hit the skip-ten-seconds button in three, two, there. Perfect. Dumbass demon movie can’t even trust itself to be creepy without cheap scares.”

“Look, I know the mom is supposed to have some kind of hot blonde thing going on for the horny straight men in the audience, but she’s got nothing on you.”

“For some reason they made a director’s commentary and it actually includes the fake blood recipe they used, I’ll show you sometime!”

Janus, in turn, provided brilliant, extremely snarky roasts, mostly of either the actors’ absolute lack of skill or the gaping plot holes:

“Oh, yes, going alone to the attic at midnight without so much as a candle is a fantastic idea, nothing bad could possibly happen in this scene.”

“Listen, I can excuse the children because they’re about eight years old, but do you think this man has ever even heard of acting? Or even, like, speaking in a non-monotone?”

“I am truly fascinated by the special effects department’s understanding of human anatomy.”

“So, the demon feeds on misery? Why hasn’t it taken up residence in a large office building? I mean, come on, hundreds of souls in an environment designed to grind out constant levels of misery? It’s perfect. The poor thing must be starving out here in the two-point-five-kids-and-a-dog suburbs, every meal it gets is tiny. I would be so much better at its job than it is.”

At last the credits rolled.

“Wanna see pictures of the costume I made?” Remus asked.

“Sure.” Janus sounded amused.

“Lemme just—” Remus scrolled through their camera roll for a minute. “Oh, here they are.” They displayed their phone to Janus; tiny nine-year-old Remus, who sported long tangled brown hair in two ponytails, was draped in a black curtain, donated by his great-aunt, that he had very enthusiastically taken a pair of scissors to to create a tattered effect; the curtain was splattered with bright red goo, and tiny Remus had a pair of plastic knives in his hands, which were blurry in almost every photo because they’d hardly stopped making stabbing motions all evening. To their right, their little sister Gabby, who’d been six at the time, was dressed as Elastigirl and making a punching motion; to their right, Roman—who had already been a full three inches taller than Remus, even at nine—was wearing a Belle dress with a poofy skirt and a sword strapped around his waist and a huge smile that was missing one front tooth.

Remus swiped through the photos; a delightful scene unfolded, as tiny Remus posed for a few pictures, then in one was blurrily turning towards Roman, then dumping something on him, then Roman was screaming and Remus was laughing as red goo dripped down the poofy yellow skirt; Gabby watched with both hands clapped over her mouth, eyes huge.

“You two really have not changed at all, have you?” Janus asked, stifling laughter.

“Absolutely not,” Remus agreed with an answering laugh. “I think the most that either of us ever changed was when I chopped off all that hair and dyed it green.”

“When was that?” Janus asked.

“Sophomore year of high school. I did not have permission to chop it all off, but I did get permission to dye it afterwards, so that was pretty sick.”

“And that didn’t go against dress code?” Janus inquired.

“No, actually. Not sure how. But I bet my parents would’ve kicked up a big stink about it if the school tried and made me change it; they were always super big on self expression and shit.” Remus gestured towards the picture, indicating tiny Roman in his princess dress. “We always got to wear whatever we wanted, and shit like that. It was nice. Made gender shit way easier when that became a thing for me, you know?”

“It sounds nice,” Janus said softly. “I’m happy you had that.”

Remus nodded and pressed a kiss to their forehead, reaching for a handful of the popcorn dregs in the bottom of the bowl.

Janus shifted in their arms, rolling over to face Remus and propping themself up on their elbows. “Actually,” they began.

Something on their face told Remus that whatever this new topic of conversation was, it was important. He swallowed the half-chewed popcorn in his mouth. “Yeah, baby?”

“Speaking of gender.” Janus picked at the edge of the blanket.

“I love speaking of that, go on.” Remus tousled Janus’s hair fondly.

Janus took a deep breath, staring at the blanket in their hands. “I want to start using he pronouns again. In addition to my regular ones. Or.” They wrinkled their nose. “My current ones, I guess. So, he/they.”

“That’s great, he/they pronouns are very sexy,” Remus said at once.

Janus laughed, looking up at him at last. “That’s true, you are the sexiest person I know,” he said fondly. A shadow passed over his features. “But,” he went on slowly, chewing on the inside of their lip and picking at the blanket once more.

“Yeah?” Remus encouraged.

“I really don’t like the idea of telling anyone else about that.” Janus grimaced. “I keep worrying I’ll get asked stupid questions about ‘oh, so are you a man again now?’ when—like—no, and I never was one in the first place. So.”

“Oh, that sounds gross,” Remus agreed at once. “I can see why you’d be worried about that.”

Janus nodded. “I just—I don’t want to explain. And I don’t want people to ask questions. And they might. And I just—I don't want any of it. I want to skip to the part where they know and it’s all how I want it to be.”

“That’s reasonable,” Remus agreed. “But, I mean, if they can get me using he/they pronouns and being nonbinary, they had better fucking wrap their minds around the concept of you doing it too. Yeah? Or I’ll make ’em. Violently, if you want.”

Janus snorted. “I appreciate the offer, darling.” They reached up and touched his cheek. “I… don’t know if I want to tell anyone else yet. But I did want to tell you.”

“You got it, cutie.” Remus booped Janus’s nose once. “Just let me know if anything changes. I’ll punch people for you. Anytime. They don’t even have to have done anything. Just point me at them and consider it done.”

Janus did laugh at that, outright, scrunching up his face and burying it in Remus’s chest. “I should not be this into you offering to punch people for me,” he said wryly.

Remus grinned and flipped their hair. “Nah, I think it’s definitely very sexy of me and should absolutely turn you on.”

Janus smacked Remus’s arm. “I did not say that!”

“You implied it.”

“Not… necessarily. That was one possible interpretation—”

“Oh, right, I see, mmhm, very interesting.”

They smacked his arm again. “You’re teasing me.”

“Only a little bit. You’re so pretty when you get all flustered.” Remus bent their head at a somewhat awkward angle to kiss Janus’s lips gently. “Are there any new words you want me to use, by the way?” they asked. “Besides updating pronouns?”

Janus tilted his head to the side, considering. “I think… I still like all the sorts of things you call me already. Pretty, and partner, and—and baby, and so on.”

Remus smirked. “That’s good, I like calling you baby.”

“Oh my god, shut up.” Janus hid their face in their hands.

“Why, baby?” Remus asked innocently.

Janus made a strangled noise, and after a pause carried on. “I do think I wouldn’t mind adding a little bit of… masc terminology? I guess? If that makes sense? Adding that into the mix. Not all the time, and not as much as the things you already call me, but… just a bit would be nice.”

“Gotcha.” Remus nodded. “I can do that. So, like, my baby is very pretty and handsome?”

Janus’s cheeks went bright red in an instant, and he hid his face in Remus’s chest again, letting out a tiny wordless scream. “Yes. That. That—that’s nice,” they managed after a pause, sounding almost entirely composed.

Remus chuckled and ran their fingers through Janus’s hair. “Good to know,” he said teasingly. “I will definitely keep this in mind.”

“Oh my god,” Janus mumbled. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Absolutely, but only in a sexy way of making you happy.” Remus kissed the top of their head. “This is just, like, going to be a week of people coming out to me, I guess,” they mused. “Huh.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, something’s clearly eating at someone else we know, and I think they’re going to tell me about whatever it is within the week. That’s all. It was just funny timing.” Remus kissed the top of Janus’s head again. “So, the movie’s over,” they noted, which, sure, was a blatant and deliberate change of subject, but he felt this was justified, both for avoiding-speculating-about-Roman’s-personal-information purposes and, more importantly, for fun-after-movie-things purposes.

“That it is,” Janus said, a particular innocent tone entering their voice. Excellent, he was of a similar mind to Remus, then.

Remus grinned and drew them up for a kiss. “So, what does the very pretty and handsome and lovely human in my arms want to do now?” he inquired.

Janus made another small, wordless, flustered noise and promptly dragged Remus into another kiss. “You can’t just say things like that!”

“What, about how you’re the loveliest—prettiest—sexiest—” Remus pressed tiny kisses to Janus’s lips with each word, until at last they caught his lips with their own in a proper kiss to shut him up. “Pretty sure I can say it, actually,” Remus murmured against his lips. “Cause it’s true.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Janus said, sounding very pleased indeed, and kissed them again.

Taglist (ask to be added/removed!): @theimprobabledreamersworld @peruviandesertfox

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gb-patch · 3 years

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Ask Answers (February 22nd, 2021)

Hello! Here’s another collection of anon ask answers all put together in one big post.

This might be strange considering how upbeat yall are about the fandoms for your games in general, but is there any particular trope or ship you WOULDN'T want us writing/drawing/etc. in relation to your stuff? (IE, any canon you don't want us 'overwriting' or something like that?)

Of course we would want the fan content people make to not be racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, harmful, etc. But in terms of generally doing non-canon pairings or adding in headcanons or stuff, we really don’t mind that. People are welcome to have fun and explore their own ideas.

for the 1.2 Android update was it meant to download as a separate app? I really want to keep my previous save files but they don't show up (also thank u for the updates I'm really excited to get back into the game!!)

We had to change the name of the file and unfortunately for some phones that meant it’s treated as a brand new game. I’m sorry your saves didn’t transfer over to the new version. You can try to look up your specific phone and see if there’s a way to access save files for games on your device and then transfer those saves over to the new build manually. It may or may not be possible.

I'm having some trouble figuring out how to get the update from Itichio without losing my save files? Is it the same game or a folder I can put in the properties? Sorry if this question is not worded well or if this isn't the avenue you'd want to take technical questions on

Are you using Android? If so, the above answer may apply to you. If you’re on PC or Mac, the save files will automatically still be included.

Hey. I really loved playing our life. It was a fun experience and I never thought I would like it this much. I do have a question, I am currently replaying the game and I am choosing choices I never chose at first. In step 2 during the road trip arc, I decided to ask Cove about what he liked to see on people. One of his response was anklets and black eyes. My MC have just happens to have black eyes. Do Cove say black eyes cuz my mc have it or it was just a coincidently programmed into the game?

He uses your eye color intentionally! If you changed your eye color he’d change what he said.

Will step 4 have 10 moments like steps 1-3?

Step 4 is only an epilogue. It plays like the openings/endings of the earlier Steps where it’s a bunch of scenes all in a row, there aren’t any individual Moments.

hi! who was/were the artist(s) for our life?

who is the artist for Our Life: Beginning and Always?

Main Sprite and CG Artist: Addrossi

Main Background Artist: Vui Huynh

Main Interface Artist: Winter Slice

Other artists who helped out can be seen in the credits of the game.

In the new ol, there are two main love interests... Would it be possible to pair them together or is that weird?

You can’t stay single and pair them together. If we are going to add all the extra content to have a route where the two LIs get together, it’d be a full poly route where them and the MC were all dating. And that’s not a for sure option yet because it’d add a lot of extra complications. But either way, in OL the relationships all gotta be about the MC, haha.

In OL2, there will be extra LIs in form of DLCs? Like Dexter and Baxter.

Maybe! We’ll see how it goes.

Since Cove will have 2 diff body types in s4, will the storyline and dialogs reflect this? Or all of it will be the same? Btw love the game and sorry for bad english. Hope this doesn't sound rude 😅

Some descriptions and pieces of dialog will change, but it won’t impact the story really. And you don’t need to apologize! It’s all good.

Will you ever release the transparent sprites of the Our Life characters?

Probably not, I’m afraid. They’ve got a lot of pieces and it’d just be kind of hard to deal with, aha.

Something I was curious about, what was your inspiration for making a game with so much customization?

Initially, the idea was just about having a romance where you actually grew up with the LI. But it was pretty stressful to try deciding how fast the relationship would progress with it taking place over such a long period of time and with no real storyline carrying it. People might not wanna play a game where the characters don’t get along as kids, but other people might not bother with a game where kids immediately liked each other. So the obvious answer came, just let the player pick themselves how it goes. From there we simply continued to add more flexibly with the MC due to the same thought process of wanting to make sure people were onboard with how their life was going.

What made you decide to change the artstyle for ol 2 so much? I of course respect all your decisions and will buy the shit out of everything related to ol 2, but i love the original style and i m honestly not a fan of the styles shown on patreon, despite me liking the painterly style in general. (I don t mind the style being changed, just that the examples shown so far all feel like there s something wrong with them.)

We’ve always used different art styles for each of our projects. They all have distinct looks from each other. It’s just nice to do something new. I’m glad you really like how the first game looks, though. And those samples were only general concepts, rather than the exact options being decided between. We wanted to see reactions to different options. The art style we’re going with won’t be exactly like those, though I personally like all of them. I think players are gonna enjoy the style Our Life: Now & Forever when it’s revealed.

Hey! Is it ok to ask what gender ourlife2 protagonist will be and if we'll be given the same opportunity to customize an MC? Totally understand if you're keeping this under wraps for now if u don't wanna say!

OL2 will have the same type of MC customization as OL1, but even more refined! So their gender will be up to you.

Hi! I happened upon Our Life on Steam by pure chance. It is such a great game, I am super excited about the DLC, and I just want you all to know that you are awesome! :D I have a question, and I'm sorry if it's been asked before. Do you have plans of making more games similar to Our Life, with customizable player character? The customizable player character was probably the one thing I personally have been desperate for in romance VNs. So glad there finally is one and would love to see more.

Thank you! And yep, we do have plans for more games like Our Life, most notably is another game in the franchise- Our Life: Now & Forever. We’ll also likely have other, non-OL, games with customizable MCs, though we may still have some games with set MCs in the future as well.

On the patreon dlc just curious but is it possible to play it without actually sleeping together/getting the nsfw content? I just want to spend more time with Cove

Yeah, you can still choose not to go that far. Though the event is shorter if you pass on the 18+ stuff.

At the beginning of Step 2, did Cove end up accidentally falling asleep in your bed? Or did he fall asleep on the floor?

He fell asleep sitting on the floor with his body/head leaning against the side of the bed.

This may seem like a weird question, but what exactly is the difference between "direct" and "relaxed" on the comfort scale?

Direct is blunter and more teasing, relaxed is lighthearted and goes with the flow.

can the MC have tattoos in step 3?

Not in Step 3, but you can in Step 4.

how would Cove react if he visited somewhere like North Carolina in winter where it can get in the 20s(F) at night sometimes?

He would be shocked and unprepared for what serious coldness is really like, haha. The poor beach baby would wanna go home.

Hello! I just joined the PATREON!! It’s amazing! I love your games! I have a question, approximately how much after will the nsfw be out? After or before the dlc 3 and step four? Sorry my English isn’t the best!❤️❤️❤️

Thanks so much! The NSFW DLC will be out after the Step 3 DLC but before Step 4. And you don’t need to apologize for that ^^.

This might be obvious but, will step 4 have dlcs? Also, where will the nsfw dlc happen? Won't bother me at all if it s in in our or his house but i do think it d be moderately funny

Step 4 will have the Cove Wedding DLC and the Derek and Baxter romance DLCs each add a lot of new content to Step 4, though they’re also partially set in Step 2 and Step 3 respectively. The NSFW DLC happens in Cove’s room.

I keep wondering what would've happened if Mr. Holden met Lizzie first instead of the MC. I can't see that turning out well somehow lol.

It wouldn’t have made a difference. He met the MC’s parents first and they told him about their two kids. He wanted the MC specifically to be Cove’s friend because the two were the same age.

Even though we have a way to go I'm really excited for OL 2! I was curious though, is the next main character going to be adopted again? I thought it was really clever to make the first main character adopted so when players are customizing, they can make them look how ever they like without worrying about pesky genetics. Just wondering!

The OL2 MC is not adopted. We wanted to go for a new dynamic. Instead their parents are their biological single mother who is partially customizable and an off-screen sperm donor father. So the mom will look generally like the MC and any other traits not from her can be assumed to come from whoever the father was.

—– —– —–

Thank you so much for all the asks ^^

FAQ If you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #ourlifeba #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #Our Life: Now & Forever

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5uptic · 3 years

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hey fanfic spotlight again:)

arm candy by amsves (5up/Fundy, general rating, m/m | 300 words)

Summary: The first thing Fundy does after the stream ends is lean over and engulf 5up in his arms.

a chance encounter by mangoedges (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 450 words)

Summary: Who would have thought Apollo would find his soulmate now?

Desecration Smile by AllianettemiE5 (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: No summary.

She said to me, Oh Death / Come close my eyes by Anonymous (Apollo/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: Steve thought the words on his wrist were the coolest thing ever, but they just didn’t make sense. No, really; he even asked 5up–had called him in a possibly drunk state on his twentieth birthday, when a prickling sensation on his arm made him think that he was about to die, 5up, help, and was reminded drily that it was his soulmark, dumbass–and the best his smartest friend (self-proclaimed) could offer was, “Maybe your soulmate’s a poet?” Completely useless. Steve remembered hanging up on him, the click of his mobile cutting off his indignant exclamation. It was only the next day that he looked, properly looked, at his soulmark and tried to make sense of it. Nope. That didn’t work out either; he blamed the hangover. For the longest time ever, he just dismissed it as the universe fucking up. A slash in the middle of a phrase? Ridiculous.

why’d you only call me when you’re high? by LVTO (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: “I miss you,” Steve mumbles through the phone, and his voice has that soft, honest tone that it always does when he’s like this. 5up’s heart clenches. It’s these moments that keep him from leaving like he should’ve done four months ago, these soft-spoken truths that time and time again have him believing that maybe, maybe this time will be different. It never is. or 5up receives a phone call and ponders his life.

jealousy, jealousy by planetwitch (5up/Fundy, teen rating, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: 5up and Fundy are best friends and have never crossed that line into something more. Until Fundy gets jealous at 5up's constant admiration for a certain 6 foot tall musician.

mimi's menagerie of the miraculous & the mundane by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.1k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: a drabble for the word of the day, every day, for 100 days.

5up & Co. Throw Yarn at a Wall (and more) by WhenTheFogClears (general rating, gen | 1.3k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: Hafu neither confirmed nor denied, instead snatching the half unraveled ball of yarn out of his hands forcefully, a cheshire grin finding its way onto her face. Before 5up could clearly decipher the situation, she flung it at him, smacking him directly in the center of his face. or 5up loves throwing yarn at walls, and everyone else quickly picks it up from him. But in different ways.

Inside My Mind by SilverSprinklez10 (5up/Apollo, Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.4k words)

Summary: Soulmates are usually a blessing. But sometimes, a soulmate connection can feel like a curse.

(2021, 190 x 172 cm, oil on canvas) by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.9k words)

Summary: Nobody ever painted anything if they’ve never painted the way 5up closes his eyes when he laughs, how his slender fingers wrap around a new tube of paint, how his smile is all teeth and eye-crinkling. Cabanel’s Fallen Angel has curls, but they aren’t 5up’s, are they? Hyllas, in the nymphs, has fair and delicate hands but 5up’s are prettier, especially when he accidentally squirts paint everywhere and slams his palms on the table and goes “fuck!” Steve cackles until he can’t breathe.

Don't Take Me Tongue-Tied by AoDity, LovelyDayForIt (5up/Sleepy, 5up/Apollo, teen rating, m/m | 2.2k words)

Summary: "Sleepy found the ring by luck, something that matches his lover's graceful beauty that he could still afford. Twisted strands of thin silver with a little shimmering opal in the center, it was perfect." Aka: Sleepy's love for Five brought him heartache. If they try, there's still a chance the two could be happy.

implying that the ferris wheel's your body (and i'd really love admission to it) by homeward_bound (David/Hafu/Steve, mature rating, multi | 2.2k words)

Summary: Steve might be drunk out of his mind, but David's just really hot, okay? [or, steve propositions david, kind of. hafu and dumbdog bear witness to his lapse in judgement.]

mi casa es su casa by some_spooky_shit_right_there (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.9k words)

Summary: Apollo's soulmate is cautious. Except, apparently, when it comes to coffee. Because, for the fifth time this week, Apollo wakes up to a burnt tongue. It's annoying. He can't really be mad though, because he has given his soulmate so much worse. The occasional burnt tongue is a meager act of penance, comparatively.

I love you too (I love you too) by some_spooky_shit_right_there (5up/Apollo/Steve, general rating, multi | 3.9k words)

Summary: Apollo comes into 5up's coffee shop. He always gets a cup of coffee and either a bagel or a croissant. He always seems tired, and he never comes in on weekends. Steve would really love to find out just who, exactly, he is.

i'm more fool than wise by 5fu (5up/Steve, unrated, m/m | 5.8k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: Steven Suptic is a brilliant crewmate - ask anyone. Okay so don't ask Janet. Or Dk. Or Koji. You know what, don't even ask - it's pretty obvious he is. But when new recruit and stunningly intelligent 5up boards the Crewfu, Steve isn't so sure he can compete. Not that he cares. Totally. Absolutely. On their mission to gather intel on Polus and find out what happened to the previous crew that disappeared from the planet three years earlier, Steve may realize that maybe he was indeed more fool than wise - and maybe it wasn't a bad thing.

i was praying that you and me might end up together by Qupid (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 7.8k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: Four years at Polus University. Four first weeks of school. Two strangers become two friends, and maybe even something more. Apollo hates being seen, hates having attention drawn to him, hates living in a world that feels like a game where everyone knows the rules except him. Steve thrives on attention, purposefully draws the gaze of everyone in the room, making his own rules as he floats through life. They're a match made in hell, but Apollo finds that when Steve looks at him, gives him nothing but attention, he doesn't mind being seen after all.

Long Journey Home by some_spooky_shit_right_there (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 9.6k words)

Summary: Homesick and lonesome and I'm feeling kind of blue Feeling kind of blue, boys, feeling kind of blue Homesick and lonesome and I'm feeling kind of blue I'm on my long journey home

there’s so many ways to say “i love you” and i wouldn’t wanna waste ‘em (on someone who, don’t feel it too) by Dear_MaedaysUnwelcomedGhost (5up/Steve, 5up/Hafu, 5up/Ellum, 5up/Kimi, teen rating, multi | 13k words, chaptered)

Summary: Love was a strange thing, 5up found. It was everywhere. And not in the way it may seem. It wasn’t in the adverts of perfect couples with artificial lighting. It wasn’t in the glittery cards made by factories or the flowers sold at grocery stores. Not in the TV shows made to bring in cash and be thrown out, with couples who don’t have anything to hold onto but brief infatuation and physical attraction. But in the friendly smiles of strangers as they pass by. In a mother cutting fruit up for their child. Running a hand through the hair of your partner, as their eyes flutter close and to sleep. Helping a stranger pick up their dropped papers, asking for nothing in return. In the graffiti on the wall by the alleyway you walk by everyday to get to work. To the goods baked by small independent bakeries. Flowers planted in parks to make it just a little nicer, or the ones growing out of pavement cracks with determination.

Also!

GuardianPuppy‘s this city needs to be destroyed or at least painted in a different color collection.

spaded_ace’s Casino in the Sky collection.

5fu’s among all this pain collection.

FAQ:

Wait what is this: pretty straight to the point! i’ll regularly share crewfu-related fanfictions to this blog :)

How regularly is “regularly”?: great question! LOL. it depends on the flow of fanfics that get uploaded, which i do not have any control over, but i’m looking forward to do this twice a month. after all, it’s only me doing this and i often run on a tight schedule.

What’s the format like?:

[title of fic with link] by [author of the fic with link] ([main pairing(s)], [fic rating: eg, general rating], [relationship: eg, m/m] | [word count in k], [added prompt to specify if it’s complete or not])

Summary: [summary provided by the author. if it doesn’t have a summary, a “No summary” prompt will be put instead]

(What does WIP mean again?): Work In Progress :)

Why are you doing this?: from the beginning, my blog has hosted conversations about RPF (real people fiction) and crewfu pairings. this has evolved into people sending me updates about certain fics in the crewfu tags every now and then, but i wanna take the next step and just do these things myself. after all, i’m already lurking in the tags often to see the fics that get posted. as someone who is both a writer and a reader, i wanna appreciate fanfic writers and help out other people that want to read fanfic and consume more fandom content!

Will it be AO3 only?: well, ao3 has a very helpful tag system that makes finding fics incredibly easy, as well as allowing people with no accounts to like and comment on fics, so that’s the site i will personally look in for fanworks. but if there are any fics you’ve written or liked in any other platforms, such as wattpad, you can always contact me through my inbox (send an ask or a dm!), and i’ll make sure to include for the next fanfic spotlight :)

Does it mean you won’t reply to fic asks anymore?: yeah, i guess. since i’ll be doing the searching myself it seems counterproductive. but if i ever skip a fic or again, it’s in another platform, or you’ve posted/read the fic a while ago and you want to get more traction on it, hit me up and i’ll take it into consideration!

Will you read every single one of the fics on your list?: oh no. again, i run on a tight schedule, and also i have my own taste when it comes to fics. i won’t be reviewing fics or any of the sort, and my intention extends to simply sharing these fics to this page so people will have easier access to them :) that’s where ao3 tagging becomes SUPER useful!!!

So what’s the criteria for the way you’ll sort out the fics in your list?: word count, going from lowest to highest. in case of fics in other platforms, i guess i’ll put them at the top of the list. i’ll also be looking for fairly recent fics, so let me know if you want any old-ish fic to be included.

I see you talking mostly about 5up/Steve and Steve/Apollo. Can I still send/see other crewfu fics?: why yes absolutely! my goal is to push every fic which heavily features regular crewfu characters - 5uptic and supdog just happen to be very popular pairings. so, to give you a list: core 4 (5up, hafu, dk, steve), apollo, aipha, annie, janet, kimi, ellum, koji… you know the drill. it doesn’t have to be centered on a relationship, or about 5up in specific, etc. my only requirement is that any of the previously mentioned members are a central part of the fic or are HEAVILY featured in it (sorry, minecraft fics with 50+ tags who only mention 5up as an afterthought won’t make the cut :/).

Isn’t shipping Bad™?: well, it’s a little more nuanced than that. i will go out of my way to discourage and shame people who often violate CCs’ boundaries by acting like so and so has a crush on this person, or that this and that are Actually Into Each Other or secretly dating. any sort of tinhat bullshit is a big nono (think larries). but i run on the assumption that people who write rpf understand that what they’re doing is simply write a completely fictional story using real life personalities, and understand the boundaries necessary to do it - aka they’re not tinhats, they understand they can’t assume everything about CCs’ thoughts and personalities, they understand that what they’re writing is strictly fiction, they keep these works only in fandom circles, etc. (but again, it’s only one me doing this, so please be kind if i don’t happen to know that this person is Actually a tinhat or whatever).

show fic: NO. (seriously. i don’t feel comfortable putting my ao3 account out there. please respect my privacy on these trying times <3)

I REALLY don’t care about your rpf/fic talk: fair! i’ll be tagging every single one of these posts as “fanfic spotlight”, so just mute the tag using tumblr settings so you’ll never have to look at these! likewise, you can follow the tag if you want to keep up with it, or search it on my blog to look at the other entries you might have missed.

Hey, my fic is here and I don’t feel comfortable with it being shared over here: no problem! let me know as soon as you can and i’ll take it down <3

#crewfu #fanfic spotlight #long post #finally a steve/dogfu fic.... come kiss me author

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stxleslyds · 3 years

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is it a hot take that I don't rlly care about duke thomas, harper row or any of the other recent additions to the batfam or at least their general grp of gothamite heroes

like there's too many of them now. too saturated. how can i care about these additions and how they affect the dynamics of the group when the previous dynamics were so messily written beforehand

can you please enlighten me bc there's not much that draws me to care about them both as individuals and as members of the group.

in complete fairness, they are new so maybe we just haven't seen their impact yet or given them their time to shine. theyre not as well-established as the others. I want them to be consequential so i can care. tbh it's gotten to the point where I just don't bother to read the issue if any of them are there

i rlly dont get the hype pls send help. it's not hate, just apathy and it sucks

Hey there Anon! Well, I would say that you (or anyone) not liking some characters from Bat-related books isn’t a hot take, but that might be because I hyper fixate on Jason and Dick when it comes to DC comics as a whole and I only am aware of other characters due to their interactions with Dick and/or Jason.

But yeah, I would still say that it isn’t a hot take or unpopular or bad, as you said, there are just too many characters right now and it is impossible for us to keep up with all of them. I really don’t believe anyone has the time or money to keep up with that many characters. And sometimes you read about a character and they don’t make you feel any sort of way that makes you invested in their story and that’s completely valid.

I don’t really like when people say stuff like “if you don’t include x and y in your headcanons, fics or art, then you are this or that” when it comes to the “Batfamily” because I don’t really believe that anyone is able to relate to all these characters or follow every single new story that comes out from them.

Let’s be honest, keeping up with all these Batman-related comics, money wise, is completely impossible unless you are rich and don’t mind wasting money in probably bad comics. I pick and choose what comics I will read each month and which I am actually going to buy, because I can only buy digital books through comiXology, single issues isn’t something that is available in my country.

It is completely ok to not like, hate or simply not care for a character. For me it is very simple, from DC I only like Dick and Jason and characters and I have enjoyed their interactions with other characters which has led me to like other characters like Damian, Donna, Roy and Garth. There are other characters that I appreciate, like Tim, Cass, Barbara (as Oracle) and Talia, but that I wouldn’t go out of my way to read about. And then there is every other character in between that I am just indifferent to, like Kate, Steph, Duke, Harper and so many others.

I just don’t care enough to keep up with all of them, fandom and DC thinking that just because we like one member of this “family” we have to be aware of everyone else within it is kinda dumb, some characters we are just not going to connect with and that’s as valid as being able to connect with each and every single one of them.

From what I heard Batman: Outsiders from Rebirth was an excellent book and that one has Duke and Cass in them and they seem to have been developed in a very good way and they have a brother/sister relationship. That’s lovely and I am happy for Cass and Duke stans but no matter how good the book might be, it is still a book that I am not interested in reading because it is not content that has what makes me want to read a DC book.

If you want to know learn about these characters then I would suggest looking for blogs that talk about them or look for comics that revolve around them, and if after you read that and you still don’t feel any connection to them then that’s okay too!

Now, when you said this in your ask “like there's too many of them now. too saturated. how can i care about these additions and how they affect the dynamics of the group when the previous dynamics were so messily written beforehand” I have to say Anon, you give too much credit to DC. They certainly had written well developed dynamics way back then, but now all of them are gone and we are just left with mess and promises of characters having mended their relationships off camera if you will… Jason and Dick, Dick and Tim, Damian and Jason, Jason and Tim, all of these dynamics have been messed with or they have appeared out of nowhere and we are expected to just take it.

Sometimes I even think that DC leaches onto the progression and “development” that fandom comes up with and then just writes from there, let me explain myself a little better, you know how Jason and Tim suddenly became fandom’s idea of best bros? Well DC could have seen that and then give us those pages of them having brunch together and then teaming up against Dick in Robin War. Like, DC never makes the effort to explain their current family dynamics, we are just expected to take it and be like “this makes sense, of course Tim and Jason would be good friends, they just talked about Jason beating and almost killing Tim before and now they are best of friends, they also don’t mind the fact that they have opposing ways on how to deal with crime, nothing matters, just…believe us when we tell you they are besties”.

DC just hates developing dynamics now, and they refuse to acknowledge that they have given every dynamic that Dick used to have with these people to Jason and the reason why it doesn’t work is because Jason and Dick are very different characters and they should understand that just because Dick used to be written as having a solid relationship with Tim and Damian, it doesn’t mean that Jason needs to have those same exact relationships with them now. And, this me and my “leave Jason alone” narrative being outed, but Jason shouldn’t be written as if he cared enough about all these people, like what? Leave me alone! It doesn’t make sense; they barely know each other and it just makes Jason’s character a basic copy of Dick. Leave Chonky alone DC!!!!

What is it with me and not being able to stick to the topic? Why did I just go there? It doesn’t matter, to end this post I just want to say that not being able to keep up or not being interested in all these new and/or old characters is perfectly reasonable and no one should ever feel pressured into liking a character or anything of the sort. You not feeling anything for those characters shouldn’t suck, it is just how things work sometimes.

That obviously has to go hand in hand with still being respectful of the characters that we are not interested in and their stans, yeah, I might not care about a character but I won’t go out of my way to be nasty about them either.

I hope this response as put your mind at ease a little bit Anon, please don’t feel bad about not being able to connect with characters, you keep on liking who you like and keep exploring whatever seems interesting to you!

#batfam #batfamily #asksss #dc comics #jason todd #dick grayson

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