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monkey-network · 3 months

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Good Stuff: Hazbin Hotel

Welcome Back Friends, to the Show That Never Ends

I will admit, while I'm a fan of her overall work, after seeing the pilot I wasn't into Hazbin Hotel. Not that it looked bad, just didn't appeal to me whereas Helluva Boss was more my speed. When the A24 pickup was announced though, I was intrigued because its lacking appeal didn't mean complete disinterest in its potential direction, you feel me? The future is alive now and a full series is finally here, blindsiding you with more shades of red than your blood stream. And you know, color me impressed that we truly got to this point upon the unbearable avarice of online chaos surrounding the creator that had its fair share of critics upon an Everest mass of pisstakers. But I'm not here to rummage all that, I just want to finally review Hazbin Hotel at long last.

So let's start with the presentation

Maybe it's thanks to Helluva Boss, but I've always liked Viv's flair in design and color. Things get to stand out in a way that says yes, she owns it. This is the art of somebody who was THE regular at Hot Topic AND adjacent Spencer's, has an autographed Gir hoodie buried in her closet, probably read Revolutionary Utena or Rose of Versailles in school, and her dream was to bring that vision of her childhood to life. Vaggie I say is my favorite design wise, major pilot improvement where the red and black compliments her cream and grey colors. Can things all look busy and disoriented? Of course, never to an eyesore degree but there can exist... garish clashes, like you're wondering how the boarders no less animators were able to put some scenes together. Then again, it's the rare time I can say "I've never seen anything like this" for a cartoon and it actually means something.

Needs more furries though, we can never have enough Broadway studded furry characters

Storywise, I think will be hard to follow unless you've seen the pilot, which is thankfully still online. Episode 0 I say better introduces the characters and whole initial feeling of the hotel's existence since Charlie introduces it to the citizens of Hell first. The structure of this season I was pretty lost on until I found that good ol' "Monkey connects it to another show to make his point" lightbulb. This is that kind of series that unravels as you go along, so if the first two episodes aren't your tea then you oughta drop this show, or not and "hatewatch" like the sodomite you'll become in your 40s. I was reminded of The Bear or Silicon Valley in that it's not about running the titular hotel but the characters getting it together before operations truly start. Charlie has her goal and deadline, and it's all a methodical stream of how bad or good things can turn out for everyone involved. It's story driven but more focal on the characters, if you follow. Speaking of which, let's finally talk characters... and how they're my biggest issue with this series.

Except Nifty. I can never hate on gremlins

I'll say with the characters, it's NOT that their scripts consist "just of swearing and sex jokes". Whether or not the case, this is me we're talking about. El Superbeasto is my all time favorite adult animated movie, and the Hellverse is tamer by comparison. Won't knock points because humor is "subjective", but I'm never gonna act like I'm above the large swear counts or thinking of the nasty every other minute and beyond the first episode, they lessen the excess. The no shits given humor of Viv's work still feels refreshing.

Trust me, nothing Adult has trumped the champ yet

My real issue is something I've realized for Vivienne's shows overall: she's not great at making... flexible characters, lack of a better term? What I mean is that when they work, they work purely in service of the stories, its gags, and it's hard thinking about them outside of their shows if we don't count the porn and memes. They're not static, but I think too symbiotic to the narrative. That's where the dominoes start because being inflexible means they have to be more compelling and if they're not, then the story falls apart. And yeah, Hazbin's characters aren't as compelling. I like them, but I'm not invested in them. The crux of this is that while the pacing can fly, none of the characters provide that snappy dynamic you would get with an ensemble. With Helluva Boss, you could throw Blitz and the crew in different scenarios and it's engaging enough just seeing them run amok. A pinchful of episodes and the Hazbin crew don't really do it for me beyond the occasional gag and piecing clues about them together. The musical numbers are great character moments in their own right, like everyone of them are actual bangers, but for only two an episode they are doing the heavy lifting. Again, it's that type of show where every piece comes into play one at a time, so it's conflicting where I want to be into this series but I'm not that into it.

Charlie also makes it somewhat worth it; infectious enthusiasm is my kryptonite

I overall can't fit this show in a box, and I frankly didn't want to. You think I went into this cartoon cavalcade, radiating with juvenile fujo theater kid energy, about a bunch of sailor mouths that can sing gospel from heaven AND hell and have everything click? It's not possible, but that's what I can respect about this and Vivienne overall. This show doesn't posses a "fuck all of you" type feeling, but an "I want to do this, you can join or go" feeling. Not everything works, but it's meaningfully experimental in a way that somehow makes it meta. Like Charlie and the Satanic Panic Plaza, nothing about this should've functioned, this shouldn't have had any saving graces and got left obscurely on Youtube, but it could and many saw that regardless of how well they're able to express. Viv actually committed to seeing this through and this speaks a lot about creators who put in to an non-compromised vision.

You could say, it's always about finding that one person who gets the joke

From the fractions of episodes I got to watch, I'm unsure if this is a hidden masterpiece or a disasterpiece of storytelling or if it's just okay. I don't know if the show's team can stick the landing, but the fun in her work has always been the journey. She put in the effort since way back for me to give her stuff a chance, to actually review Hazbin Hotel earnestly as opposed to belittling things which would've been easy. To conclude, with all its flaws this is enthusiastic, fascinating start to an otherwise predictably unpredictable year that's leagues better than the Velma series because I actually want to see where season 2 goes.

I'm just glad this finally exists, regardless of the hell it took to get here

#Hazbin Hotel #A24 #vivziepop #cartoons #reviews #Good Stuff #long post

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munsster · 2 years

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Hi again! I have this idea for a Walter Keys (x fem!reader) fic where Keys buys the reader a puppy for her birthday and he has to go and get this puppy and all its toys and then hide it before she gets home from work. I can just imagine Keys running around his apartment chasing a little chocolate Labrador puppy or something and then the reader gets home and he surprises her with it but it's just CHAOS.

of course, you don't have to write it, but I thought it was a cute idea!

keys surprising you with a dog

A/N: THIS IS SO CUTE IM BLUBBERING LIKE A LITTLE BABY OVER IT (also i did it in headcanon format bc it felt right) SORRY I FORGOT ABOUT THE BIRTHDAY PART but it can still b read that way!!

Warnings: just fluff, cursing, a kiss, pure chaos and i love it

he definitely felt like you were dropping hints and you were NOT subtle about it

“omg look at that perfect little puppy” + *bombards his messages with pics of little doggies* + “DOG!” x100 + “don’t you just love dogs?”

but he’s pretty sure you don’t know that he knows that you know what you’re doing

tldr; he’s getting you a dog

he’s spent WEEKS scrolling thru adoption ads online and scouring shelters for the bestest boy and then

looking for a loving home: misha! chocolate lab, 7 month old, friendly/affectionate/playful, vaccines up-to-date

with the sweetest little face and a picture of him playing catch

like COME ON

you know keys immediately called the number and sped on over to the address they sent for this pup

misha sat in the passenger’s seat the whole way home, and keys quickly found out he likes the spice girls

they’re already best friends and it was only a four hour drive

……. he’s committed

only he didn’t consider: food, bowls, a bed, toys, leash, etc.

so the journey is back on, and you’re off work soon

lets misha trot around the store picking out his favorite toys (chooses the loudest, most squeaky ones and is grinning like a bastard the entire time)

picks out a matching collar + leash and a fluffy bed and like 100 pounds of dog food

needless to say, he may or may not have spent almost $1000 that day

no matter ‘cause the look on your face is gonna be priceless, he can already tell

then he lets misha off his leash and into the apartment

and he’s off

sprinting into the bedroom and out again, barking at nothing, bouncing off the walls, he’s got the ZOOMIES for sure

and keys is just standing in the front doorway, leash in hand like……. what have i done

apartment: trashed

so now he’s chasing after the ball of energy, picking up knocked over books and a lamp and trying to get the shoe out of his mouth when he hears

“… i’m home”

all while he’s crouched by the arm of the couch, eyes wide, and turned over his shoulder to smile at you

“surprise?”

and the dog comes SPRINTING out of nowhere, completely mowing him over, flattening him on the carpet

and keys just groans because he can hear you laughing while the dog laps at his face

you set your stuff down and kick the door closed and are DOUBLED over looking at this fully grown man with a dog wiggling around on top of him and nearly suffocating him

and you’re just kneeling down next to them and scratching the dog’s head while keys is playing dead and you’re like

“who’s this little guy?” “the devil” “awww, such a good boy, what’s your name, bub?” “it’s misha. and he’s insane” “hi, misha!!”

and the puppy hops into your lap and you have to hold him back from climbing you like a tree

he’s such a sweetie, and keys is still recovering

then misha sits down in your lap and is panting and nudging your hand until you pet him more 🥺🥺

“so who are we dogsitting for?”

“we’re not”

and you just laugh and shake your head while keys wipes the slobber off his face and sits up

“ha ha very funny. who?”

but keys just stares at you with that little stupid smirk and you look up from the dog and your face go so serious

keys is scared

“he’s ours?” “mhm”

and you just hug the little puppy and are literally on the verge of tears and grabbing keys by the back of his neck to give him a big kiss

and misha starts barking up at the two of you

and you pull away laughing with keys holding your hand

“he’s ours”

masterlist

taglist:

@milkiane

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les-pompiers118 · 1 year

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Doing the math

Buddie | 1887 words | rated T (for mentions of sex) | 6x13 coda

Also on AO3 here

Eddie arrives at Buck’s place later than he thought he would (there was construction on Wilshire) and is disappointed to find he missed all the fun. And by fun, he means chaos.

The kitchen is all tidied up and the apartment is strangely quiet. Honestly, Eddie was kind of expecting a baking day crime scene, but there’s not a splash of flour or dirty mixing bowl to be seen. The only evidence of Christopher and Buck’s efforts are the cooling racks of chocolate chip cookies covering the island—the entire island. Did they mean to make so many? There are enough cookies for the whole school, by the looks of it.

Eddie pops the six-pack he picked up into the fridge, lamenting that he missed his favorite parts of the endeavor: the frantic searches for a misplaced spatula or ingredient every two minutes, Chris’ infectious giggles, Buck’s constant chatter as he measures and stirs. Eddie has never known anyone who likes to talk while he cooks as much as Buck does. Somehow, he always manages to juggle a conversation with whatever he’s doing with his hands. Eddie finds it kind of mesmerizing.

Buck’s already out on the balcony, starting the steaks. Eddie spotted him the moment he opened the door, because his eyes just do that now, apparently. He has his back to the kitchen, his broad shoulders moving beneath the tight, gray sweater he’s wearing (so tight!) as he gets the grill ready. It’s only been a few days since Eddie and Christopher were last here, but Buck insisted. Eddie was not to be trusted with such beautiful steaks, he was told. It was also implied that his job might be at stake (very funny, Buck, another steak pun) if word got back to Bobby that Eddie had overcooked them.

Eddie didn’t argue, especially when Buck offered to make cookies with Christopher while Eddie was at his dentist appointment. Two birds with one stone, and all that. It definitely had nothing to do with the way that Eddie seems to miss Buck more than he used to whenever they’re apart these days. Or the new ache in his chest, both painful and sweet, since Buck was struck by lightning.

Definitely not.

Beer in hand, Eddie finds Christopher tucked into the armchair in the living room, ipad in his lap and oblivious to his dad’s arrival. He doesn’t bother sitting down himself. How the hell Buck’s mom discovered the most uncomfortable couch in Los Angeles is beyond Eddie. She must have found it online and chose it purely for its appearance, without any thought for the person who’d be sitting on it every day. Of course she wouldn’t know that Buck can binge five straight hours of documentaries about tornadoes or mining disasters or God knows what else. She wouldn’t know that he likes to nap here on his days off, usually with the TV on in the background so it’s not too quiet. Really, Eddie could have picked out a better couch for Buck with his goddamn eyes closed. Too late now.

“Hey, buddy,” he says to Christopher to get his attention. “Um, did you guys mean to make so many cookies?”

“Buck decided to make a triple batch,” Chris replies without looking up, “but then he switched to a different recipe that didn’t use metric and he didn’t notice that it makes twice as many cookies as my recipe. He said you guys can take the extras to work.”

“I’m sure they’ll be devoured there. Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies, right?”

“Yup.”

“Are you getting hungry?”

“A little.”

“Okay, how many cookies did you eat?” Eddie asks suspiciously.

At last, Christopher grins up at him and sings out, “Not as many as Buck did!”

“That’s actually not reassuring at all,” Eddie laughs. “I’m gonna go check on dinner.”

Buck greets Eddie with a distracted “Hey” as he scrolls through a text message, smiling. Eddie can’t help making a tiny scoff of irritation.

“How many?” he demands. “Roughly.”

Buck looks up with a confused frown. “What, cookies?”

“No, women.” Eddie points at the phone. “I assume you’re still tracking them all down.”

“Well, not all of them. That would take weeks. Hundreds, probably, to answer your question.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m not bragging,” Buck says earnestly, then lowers his voice. “Buck 1.0 was pretty fucked up and it was the only coping mechanism I had for about five or six years of my life.”

“Jesus. Hey, I’m not judging,” Eddie assures him quickly. “That’s just… a lot of women.”

Buck smirks. “A lot of satisfied women, according to the feedback I’m getting.”

“All right, now you’re bragging.”

“Maybe a little.”

Eddie’s mind unhelpfully conjures an image of a happy, sated, sweaty (and very naked) Buck with some faceless woman, then multiplies it by hundreds. Ugh, no. He desperately wants to ask if it was only women, but it probably isn’t cool to put Buck on the spot like that, even jokingly. And Eddie might just die right here on this balcony if the answer is no, because there’s no way he could disguise his reaction.

Okay, time to stop thinking about this.

Eddie takes a long sip of his beer and turns to look out over the railing. Nothing but blue skies now, like all the storms and atmospheric rivers over the winter never happened. Just as Buck’s laying the steaks on the grill like a bolt didn’t reach down from the sky and try to snatch him away from Eddie and everyone else who loves him. But the signs of both are still there, in the form of fallen trees and sinkholes roped off by caution tape and Buck’s inexplicable new math skills (which is so fucking sexy that nobody could blame Eddie for finding new ways for Buck to use them, right?).

Once the steaks are arranged on the grill to his satisfaction, Buck joins Eddie at the railing and nudges him with an elbow.

“So, how many for you?”

Eddie shakes his head and keeps his eyes on the view. “Let’s just say I don’t need to use all my fingers to count them, and leave it at that.”

Actually, he would only need one hand to count them, even if he included the awkward backseat handjob that definitely wasn’t… mutually enjoyable. Now there’s someone Eddie never wants to look in the eye again. Melanie, his senior year of high school. He shudders just thinking about it.

“Really?” Buck asks, squinting at him.

“Strict Catholic upbringing, remember? And then I knocked up my girlfriend and married her at the ripe old age of twenty-three.”

“Right.” Buck twists around to check on Christopher before asking, “So, have you thought about trying again?”

Nearly choking on his mouthful of beer, Eddie croaks, “Which part? The sex or the marrying?”

“Dating.”

“Oh. I hadn’t really thought about it lately. Maybe.”

It’s the only answer Eddie can give that won’t back him into a corner. If he says yes, word will get out around the 118 and before he knows it, he’ll find himself set up with someone’s chiropractor or neighbor or (God forbid) their kid’s teacher. Or he’ll have to listen to a hundred cautionary tales about dating app calamities. Or Buck will ask what Eddie’s type is and he can’t imagine anything more mortifying right now.

On the other hand, if Eddie says no, Buck might expect an explanation. And that’s a no-go, too, unless he wants to lie through his damn teeth.

Thankfully, Buck decides it’s time to check the steaks. Or maybe he noticed Eddie’s sudden death grip on his beer bottle and took the hint that he doesn’t want to talk about it. Anyway, Eddie is doubly saved by Christopher calling from the living room that the oven timer is beeping.

“Baked potatoes,” Buck explains distractedly as he looks around the grill for something. The tongs, presumably. Eddie reaches around him to lift the empty paper wrappers left from the steaks. “Ah, ha! Thanks. Could you grab the potatoes?”

“Gladly,” Eddie says a little too eagerly.

“Just pile them on a plate,” Buck calls over his shoulder as Eddie’s going through the door.

When that’s done, Eddie sets the table and shoos Christopher into the bathroom to wash his hands. A moment later, Buck arrives and sets the platter of steak in the middle of the table with a proud flourish.

“Just look at those! I’m gonna make a quick salad while the meat rests.” Buck pauses to give Eddie a concerned look. “You all right? You seem like you have something on your mind.”

Eddie shrugs and straightens the fork next to Christopher’s plate. “Just a long day.”

“Oh, okay,” Buck says. He takes a half step towards the kitchen, then stops again. “If you and Chris want to go home right after dinner, I’ll understand. I know that two nights in one week is a lot.”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t,” Eddie insists when Buck looks doubtful. “If we weren’t at your house, I’m sure you’d be at ours. And besides, I don’t think you guys could make this many cookies in my small kitchen, so it all worked out perfectly as far as I’m concerned.”

Buck ducks his chin sheepishly. “For someone who’s suddenly great at math, I kinda messed up with my calculations, huh?”

“No one’s complaining, trust me. How many cookies per kid would it work out to be, anyway?” Eddie asks, looking to distract Buck from any more questions about what’s going on in his head.

“If Chris took all 152 of them?”

“Uh, huh—assuming you already subtracted the ones you and Chris ate from that number. Twenty-seven kids plus two teachers.”

“That’s 5.241 cookies per person,” Buck answers with a snap of his fingers. “Still pretty impressive, huh?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s not woodworking, but…”

“Hey! It was the first thing that popped into my head! I didn’t expect Willliams to figure it out so fast.”

Chris emerges from the bathroom and Buck proceeds to the kitchen, setting his hand on the middle of Eddie’s back as he passes. The touch feels hot through the fabric of Eddie’s t-shirt… electric. Does Buck notice it, too? He meets Eddie’s gaze with a soft smile.

Figuring he’s filled his quota of more-than-friendly thoughts about Buck for one day, Eddie turns his attention to Christopher, who oohs and ahs over the steaks. Buck tells them about his first cooking lessons with Bobby while he makes the salad, and then there’s a last-minute search through the fridge for butter for the potatoes.

Finally, they sit down, all at one end of Buck’s long dining table just as the light is starting to fade from the sky. It’s a delicious meal on an ordinary Tuesday night, but it’s more than that, too.

It’s passing things across the table without needing to be asked.

It’s the amused glances exchanged at the random thoughts of a twelve-year-old.

It’s three people who mean the world to each other, who can’t imagine anywhere else they’d rather be.

It could be wishful thinking, but Eddie gets the feeling that it all adds up to something more. Maybe he just needs to wait for Buck to do the math and figure it out for himself.

#911 #buddie #buddie fic #my writing #6x13 coda #6x13 spoilers #eddie diaz #evan buckley #christopher diaz

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audley-and-cherry · 1 year

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So, I'm still over on Twitter (they're going to have to forcibly remove me at this rate) and I've got a Mastodon account (barely touched) and I am, of course, slowly shifting over here.

I honestly don't think Mastodon is the place for me. From everything I've seen, Masto seems to be for, not to put too fine a point on it, delicate weenies who are smug in their personal politics and don't want to deal with people criticizing them. To repeat what I was talking about over on the birdsite, I saw a Mastodon post from a Known Author, who apologized for not putting a trigger warning on "politics".

I keep going back to the post that was making the rounds a few days ago about how you have to take some responsibility for curating your online experience. It's wild to me that anyone would think a stranger would need to do that for you, especially when you have the tools at your disposal to filter it yourself*.

The other problem with Mastodon is that I thrive on pure and utter chaos.

That's why Twitter is such a good match for me and I will be sad to see it go. Where else can I get the latest covid news, followed by a huge account mocking crypto, and then a shitpost about which superheroes are best at eating ass? Nowhere else.

*Wait, does Mastodon have mute and block functions? It must. A social media service that touts itself as being a safe space has to, right?

#social media #twitter #mastodon #twitter drama #mastodon drama #delicate weenies #pure and utter chaos #daredevil btws

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urbanxfantasy · 10 months

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What’s currently going on with Toni and the gang?

So the thing is not a whole lot has been going on the past few months because Real Life happened to basically everyone in my discord group and we've been collectively busy, but I'm going to take this opportunity to summarise what's been going on for the past few years because people I haven't written with since 2016 are here again and explaining what's up with Toni now is an endeavour.

So:

(Tumblr I swear to all that is holy stop moving my read more)

2016-2018

2016 was a hell of a year for Toni. The absolute worst year of her life. Her adopted nephilim sons were murdered as part of infernal politics, Zeke vanished with his brothers in the wake of it, she herself was killed by Hanael due to actions taken to protect Lucida, and then Lucida herself was killed by a different demon anyway after expending her life debt bringing Toni back.

She doesn't do grief well. Can't sit in sadness. She got angry, because anger can save her when everything else is gone, and right then everything else was gone. She left New Orleans with one goal in mind; find a way to kill the demon who killed her children. At the time, she expected this goal to follow her into the afterlife.

At some point in her search for answers she came across Zeke, out on a depression bender after becoming disillusioned with his brother's quick rush into their next misadventure, but they parted ways again soon after.

2019

Toni met Mara (then possessing and going by Malcolm), the literal Whore of Babylon and queen of the NOLA crossroads, online and arranged a coffee date. Discovering that they rather enjoyed each other's company, the pair began to hang out more often. A few months later Toni made Mara her first birthday cake, and the demon's strong reaction to being shown basic kindness means they've been best friends ever since, even if Mara did insist on telling her that her body was "10/10, would posess"...

Ray, one of Mara's underlings and her current lieutenant, was assigned as Toni's bodyguard. Proving to be extremely food-motivated, he has since become Toni's roommate.

2020

Due to the pure coincidence of @concentratedbitterness picking a royal demon name out of a hat and landing on Andras: When Toni learnt that Marquis Andras, the instigator in her children's murder (and factor in much more of 2016's chaos besides) was causing problems for Mara in a bid to expand his own territory by snatching away the one she has worked tirelessly for centuries to make profitable, she sensed an opportunity for at least some petty revenge and threw what resources she had behind the pit demon. However, twists of politics and the revelation of personal secrets (first, that Toni is a former hunter and competent exorcist that the demon had neither suspected or guarded against, and second that Mara has a son whose creation was engineered by Hell to be a God Killer, who had not died during birth as she had lead Hell to believe but was in fact hidden away and being raised by his angelic father) forced more drastic action.

Mara needed to kill Andras.

Toni wanted Andras' death to be by her own hand.

Toni then asked Mara to possess her. Combining the demon's strength and power reserves with Toni's hunter background and research into the weaknesses of that one Marquis in particular, they brought the bastard down.

(In the intervening time, Malcolm, who Mara had intended to re-possess, was set free by Ray...)

Unfortunately, weakened in the aftermath of their victory, they were captured by other demons. This forced Mara's husband, the angelic father of her hidden son, to come out of hiding to rescue her, leading to his own capture by Heaven soon after. In a bid to protect his family, he agreed to take up his long dodged responsibility of overseeing the realm of Purgatory on the condition that they be allowed to come with him. Therefore, Mara (now in possession of a new, brain-dead host after Toni kept telepathically scaring off any conscious girl she tried to pick off the street) found herself dragged to Purgatory against her will, leaving Toni in possession of her earthly estate.

Around the same time, Malcolm, who had been taken on as an appentice by the long-time patron and distant relative of the Brockways, the warlock Santiago de Castilla, kidnapped Ray after rediscovering the notes of Santiago's former apprentice snd reignited an experiment begun on Ray several years earlier; a process to cleanse a demonic soul.

After a negative reaction to part of the experiment lead to Ray tearing off Malcolm's leg and escaping, Toni reconnected with her former roommate. Though her relationship to both parties was strained (with Ray for letting Malcolm go despite the risk he posed to Mara and herself, and with Malcolm for obvious reasons) she offered whatever assistance she could in seeing the experiment succeed, as in it she saw an opportunity to rescue her condemned-by-birth children, if something could only be done to retrieve their souls from Hell.

In the time between their rescue and Mara moving to a new host, Toni became aware through observing Mara and Hanael's private conversations by proxy that Han had begun a put rebellion in Hell which was taking full advantage of the chaos sewn by their assassination of Andras.

After a few months getting affairs in order, Toni and Mara are able to reconnect digitally if not in person. At the same time, Zeke quit his depression bender and reconnected with Toni. After being forced to confront both their grief and feeling for each other they became an official couple.

Toni also took on magic lessons with the fae queen Anna, in order to improve her glamour skills. They came to an understanding regarding Toni's part in her estranged husband's assassination.

With some nudging and woo-to-demon-speak translation work from Toni, Mara transitioned to drawing on Purgatory's energy source as opposed to Hell, suffering many of the same side effects as Ray was during Malcolm's experiment. Noticing the similarities, Toni encouraged the demon to allow information to be shared with her former adversary, helping the experiment with Ray along. Within a few months, Ray was shown to be successfully unbound from Hell.

2021

Toni then heard through the grapevine of supernatural contacts the Han's rebellion continued, but was struggling as the Crowns recovered from the earlier chaos. There lied the next opportunity; to secure her children's souls and take some manner of revenge on the royals who were complicit in their deaths all at once. With Mara's help she made a contract and braved a face to face meeting with Han to present it; all sensitive information gathered on the Crowns during years of overlooked observation and the location of Mara's remaining caches, in return for Han bringing her children along for the ride when he eventually made his run for the door.

While this took place, Mara was crowned Queen of Purgatory, and announced the annexation of the New Orleans territory during the official banquet. What seemed a petty and ill-considered move on its face was actually a calculated play in Toni's favour; resources spent on the territory dispute were resources not available to combat the rebellion or the rescue that relied on it. Meanwhile, New Orleans had been Mara's home base for centuries, with protections against such disputed built into the foundation. All they had to be was activated, and opposition was driven out over night, providing a secure territory for the escapees to retreat to. For security reasons, Toni's family was also moved inside the territory for their protection, revealing the supernatural to them in the process.

Purgatory also began taking in refugees from Hell, with the possibility of freeing them in the same manner as Ray.

Though not without complications, Toni's children were successfully retrieved from Hell, and brought to Purgatory for their own protection. Preparations began to adapt the experiment to their needs. Part of this experiment required drawing blood from the nephilim themselves. While Eli had stabilised and begun to recognise his mom enough to allow it, Asher, who had been much younger at his death and much further along in his demonization, pretended to allow it only long enough for Toni to get close enough to become dinner, then devoured the whole of her lower left arm before anyone could intervein. Devourement being somewhat irreparable, no healing magic would restore it.

Unfortunately, Mara had unintentionally become pregnant with a second god-killer. Heaven discovered this and came knocking at Purgatory's door, spurring Toni to make a deal with Anna for mutual protection of each other's children should trouble come knocking. Anna, learning of Toni's arm situation, offered a fae prosthetic, assuaging Toni's suspicion about the cost by declaring it payment for not going full scorched-earth in her revenge and preventing others from doing the same.

The pregnancy would almost kill Mara, if not for an instance of cross timeline time-travel. Mara's daughter 'Fig' (birth name Antonia), who had been forcibly taken as a ward of Heaven and trained to fulfil the role of the antichrist after it had been rejected by Mara's son in her own timeline, had rebelled against her teachers and jumped through time, seeking the familiar energy signature of Han and Audrey's own god-killer infant daughter. Han, after deducing who she was, attempted to introduce her to Mara in the hope that her power might allow her to rescue the demon from her lethal pregnancy. However, contact between this timeline's foetal Fig and the alternate timeline's adult Fig proved catastrophic, with adult Fig absorbing the very essence of the unborn child and irradiating Mara and her host. Mara re-possessed Toni with her permission and remained dormant within her through months of grief. Only Toni's need to move on with the experiment with her own children convinced the now not quite a demon to take a new host.

The experiment proved a success with Eli, but failed for Asher. Grieving her own child while still not having time to process and box away Mara's grief from the latest possession, Toni threw herself into her work of documenting everything they had achieved and learned.

And then she collapsed.

It turns out that being possessed by what she would later call a 'semi-divine entity' had left Toni with irreparable damage to her health, as Mara had changed her body over the course of her own recovery in order to draw in sufficient energy from Purgatory without knowing the long term consequences it would have for her friend, only to cut Toni off from that energy when she left. She now requires a higher calorie intake to avoid hypoglycaemic crashes, is medicated with a medicine Anna used to regulate her own energy when pregnant by Andras, and must moderate her magic usage to avoid knocking herself out.

Mara's husband also died around this time, leaving Mara as the sole regent yet unable to properly control the realm.

2022

Anna's realm suffered repeat incursions from Hell due to problems caused by the rebellion. When the Crowns refused to take action in accordance with the tithe treaties, Anna cut ties and declared war on Hell. Toni found out about this when the deal she had negotiated to protect her own children was called in by Anna to protect Labella.

With their refugees energy situation proving to be a struggle in an already unstable realm, Toni saw another opportunity and negotiated temporary access to the fae realm's energy in order for Malcolm to try a further experiment on former tithe slaves.

And then there was the bomb.

Hell had smuggled a bomb through agents posing as refugees into Purgatory and planted it at the wellspring of its energy, devastating the realm at large and nearly killing Mara, who ended up possessing Toni again for a brief moment before finding a new host to return and oversee the damage. Though claimed as an assassination attempt, it was a cover for Prince Stolas to steal the remains of the infant Fig in order to do further research into the god-killers.

In the aftermath and with some far less than gentle threats negotiation from Toni, Malcolm was convinced to start working with purgatory in order to solve the refugee energy crisis. To do so, Audrey and Ig tracked down the soul of Augusto de Castilla, Santiago's son, who had been burned at the stake as a result of a deal with Mara to rescue his father from the Spanish inquisition centuries ago. He was an expert in alchemy and time magic.

Also, Toni's little sister started dating Leroy Brockway, Malcolm's nephew. Due to this, she invited Lee's family including Santiago to her family's Christmas dinner. Where Eli, upon learning that Santago's familiar Magdalena had "the same name as Mr Augusto's", spilled the beans about Augusto which until that point had been kept from Santiago lest he do something dangerous.

In the damage control conversation Toni had with Santiago immediately after this, he revealed a book he'd been given supposedly by someone from the future. One of the authors was Antonia herself. She might have thought it was some kind of trick, if it hadn't contained finished paragraphs based on notes she had only just written and not yet shown anyone. It is a book she is already writing without realising, despite swearing to never write a boot on her experiences since Gabriel (the angel of prophets) suggested it to her years ago. She does not want to think about the implications.

It's worth noting that Mara has a blood-vendetta against the entire Brockway bloodline, so when Toni found out Lee had gotten Hannah pregnant, Toni shot him in the ass (she was aiming to kill him, but Hannah pushed her and threw her aim).

Current

Toni is trying to ignore that she's doing prophet things while edging ever closer to doing even more obviously prophet things.

There is an ongoing thread of Toni pointing a celestial-enchanted gun (that Han designed) at Han and telling him to stop threatening to kill her on a whim all the time.

Due to a series of unfortunate and very stupid events, Han crushed Malcolm's hands and no one has managed to convince him to come back to purgatory if and when he recovers yet.

Hannah's pregnancy is ongoing but the timeline has been intentionally blurred until we have time to nail down some key precursor plot points because there's a whole reincarnation thing in here somewhere.

------

Most of these plot points are expended on if you read the drabble tags:

Toni's Drabble Tag

and @concentratedbitterness: HERE

I don't know where anyone else involved keeps theirs.

#long ass post #this is key events from Toni's POV #you will have to ask other muns to expand on their own character's involvement it's too long as it is

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wrestlegameslegacy · 1 year

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Marketing Methods THQ Nordic Could Employ For AEW: Fight Forever

For the last year and a half, fans have been frustrated at the silence regarding the upcoming THQ Nordic and Yukes title; AEW: Fight Forever. It has been nearly two years since it was announced, and very little information is known about what the video game contains. The publisher, THQ Nordic, has remained silent while people like myself beg for the smallest bits of information on social media. “Please Sir, can I have some more?!”

While it’s clear THQ Nordic is taking its time on its marketing campaign and will speak when they are ready, we’ll look at some unique methods THQ Nordic could use to market itself a little bit differently from the competition. This includes marketing techniques ranging from direct involvement from the fans, to cross promotion and even emulating the methods of the old THQ company. Personally, I’ve been a part of the online wrestling game community since 2009. I’ve seen over a decade of changes happen to the community, the video games, and the way they’re marketed. There has been peace, chaos, and mysterious behavior throughout the years. The question is, which one will THQ Nordic choose? At this point, it could seem like the game is shadow dropped for us without an announcement.

Create A Tie-In Dynamite Event

So far, the marketing and enthusiasm for AEW: Fight Forever on its television programs have been extremely minimal. It’s as ground-breaking as watching paint dry. Every few weeks on AEW: Dynamite, the game cover will appear in the corner of the screen with the words “Coming Soon”. This is sometimes accompanied by a commentary sound byte by Excalibur. Real followers of the game – like myself – remember that on an episode of AEW: Dark in August 2022, Excalibur claimed the game was coming in the Fall. We’re six to eight months past that deadline now.

If AEW wants their fans to be enthusiastic about their own video game – which is looking rare on social media – they’ll have to make the fans believe that they, too, are enthusiastic. One possible method for this would be to name an AEW: Dynamite special episode after the game, using the same logos. A smaller scale version of this has already been done. AEW: Fight Forever made an appearance at GamesCom in Germany and Tokyo Game Show in 2022. Select members of the AEW roster were flown out to these gaming conventions, where a pop-up wrestling venue was created on the show floor. The ring and stage were dressed in the game’s logo, making sure everyone knew what was being promoted. Back during this stage, it really seemed like THQ saw the game as something magical to invest in. They were really pulling out the big guns and hosting full wrestling matches at a video game convention. WWE 2K has never had pop-up wrestling events to promote their game, so to me this seemed like a step in the right direction. And then…CM Punk and Kenny Omega got suspended and there’s been silence ever since. That’s not to say there is a direct correlation, but the timing is suspicious.

On the AEW side, we’ve not seen much from them. Tony Khan likes to mention the game being near-complete in interviews with wrestling press, however people who only watch the product and don’t engage online could easily forget this game even exists. AEW needs to turn up the gas, and start pushing the game hard. Dynamite is no stranger to special episodes in lieu of Pay-Per-View events. Designing one influenced by their video game, main evented by a huge championship match could drive sales up just from the pure hype alone. It’s not unheard of, either. WCW hosted a Pay-Per-View event called ‘WCW: Mayhem’, the same name as their latest video game at the time. They also released a “Best of WCW” VHS with the same name, finding strength in the brand. Another poster claims that the tape was a pre-order bonus for the video game. AEW: Fight Forever has yet to reveal a pre-order bonus, but a piece of merchandise would go a long way over a digital character.

Sources have indicated to me that the game is coming much sooner than most think, and THQ’s marketing campaign could be quick and like a bullet train. If the game is hypothetically set to release in June, my selfish Canadian self nominates the June 28th edition of AEW: Dynamite from Hamilton, Ontario to be branded AEW Dynamite: Fight Forever. Canadian crowds are hungry for All Elite Wrestling, as their AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door event in Toronto sold out quickly. The Hamilton crowd will be very hot, seeing as they almost never get televised events. Hosting a championship match with Canadian star Kenny Omega in the main event whilst the video game’s logos are plastered all over would make fans feel hyped up on dopamine and impulse buy the game after the event if they haven’t already. Who doesn’t love falling into the “feeling of missing out”?

Host Competitions And Tournaments For Prizes

Despite the fact that there has been mostly silence regarding their own video game, AEW has kept a consistent foothold in the video game space with their “All Elite Arcade” Youtube and Twitch series. This channel is similar to WWE’s “UpUpDownDown”. The channel also has video game competitions between AEW wrestlers for the “All Elite Arcade Gaming Championship” belt. THQ Nordic and AEW need to heavily utilize this channel to spread the word about AEW: Fight Forever. Not only do they have to feature their own wrestlers playing the game, but they also need to get the fans engaged with the channel.

Once upon a time, about ten years ago while still under the thumb of the original THQ…@WWEGames on Twitter did massive giveaways. Almost weekly, RAW and Smackdown events had an opportunity for fans to win WWE prizes ranging from copies of the video game, new books, DVDs and sometimes even event tickets. I actually won something myself from one of these giveaways. After 2K took over the account, there were still a few odd merchandise giveaways. Now, they rarely exist beyond a digital code for the video game. Whilst it’s true these things have become expensive to maintain, it’s also true that 2K just isn’t interested in doing it. They are not mutually exclusive. The WWE Games social media has become insanely sanitized and corporate, and AEW could capitalize on this by acting the exact opposite.

First of all, THQ and AEW could host competitions on Twitter and TikTok that involve the video game. Examples of this could be replicating your favorite entrance or taunt in the game, showing off your favorite “markout moment” you’ve recorded, or even your player creations. They could also make it a popularity contest, forcing users to spread their clips in hopes of accumulating likes to win AEW merchandise. The fact of the matter is, players love being engaged with the creators of video games. 2K Sports took this luxury away from us, as the WWE Games account never acknowledges actual discussion. They only reply to tweets that help them to boost their reach. THQ and Yukes have an opportunity here to keep the game alive and growing post-launch by regularly keeping the players engaged with competitions that actually give them an incentive to join.

A second idea would be to host tournaments for players, with finals taking place on the All Elite Arcade channel. The winning player could earn a replica All Elite Arcade championship belt. One of the biggest influences for AEW: Fight Forever is the old AKI Engine wrestling games, such as WWF No Mercy and WCW/nWo: Revenge. These games are heralded as some of the best wrestling titles ever made. Most of the players from that era will tell you that multiplayer was hot and it was incredibly fun to play with friends, myself included. If AEW: Fight Forever hopes to recapture that magic of competitive play, they must encourage the players to try. I’m not a competitive gamer myself but if the environment is nurturing enough, I’d take the leap.

WWE 2K has been failing miserably in making online play fair, balanced, and reliably functional for at least the last decade. When it comes to WWE 2K online, mostly people who have a friend group play online regularly. It’s very rare a casual fan without any wider circle will jump online with random people due to the fact that the gameplay does not foster an online competitive environment. If you’ve ever had a friend group play WWE online, you probably had “House Rules” to follow to make sure nobody exploited some of the game’s native functions.

If Yukes manages to bring a smooth, balanced and fun perspective to online play to Fight Forever, hosting tournaments and filling slots with the player base should come as zero issue. We would actually look forward to competing, and it could become a mini eSport if they play their cards right. But to reiterate, it’s not going to happen without the feeling of being involved and personal with AEW, nor will we feel like we have to enter unless there is an incentive. The prize could be as minimal as an autograph from Ruby Soho, but there will be someone determined enough to win it. This could then break up into content creators hosting their own Fight Forever tournaments for their own prizes, turning it into a splinter of the fighting game community.

In summary, AEW and THQ just need to feed the fanbase regularly. It doesn’t have to be game content updates. It just needs to feel like the game wasn’t dumped to make some money and forgotten about. If the people responsible for its creation aren’t in love with the product, why should I be? Sometimes it seems like THQ just lost interest in the AEW brand. Other times it feels like they’re planning some huge marketing campaign that takes forever to prepare.

AEW Needs To Encourage Creations

It’s very unfortunate that I have to remind AEW fans every so often that they shouldn't expect Fight Forever’s creation suite to be as nearly as robust as WWE’s. But that doesn’t mean it will be unusable, nor does it mean there won’t be some insanely creative community members. Ever since Yukes’ original games like WWE Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth, Here Comes The Pain, and Smackdown vs Raw, members of the community made incredible created wrestlers with limited technology from the early 2000s. Even though WWE 2K may have superior creation tools thanks to over a decade of legacy content, they make one brutal mistake; They don’t promote the community’s creations.

It’s fair to say that they shouldn’t promote created versions of wrestlers not currently signed to WWE, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t ignore all creations. There’s nothing stopping them from encouraging people to download a Cody Rhodes Wrestlemania 39 attire creation. Does anyone else remember that back before 2K revoked control of the socials from Visual Concepts, they did occasionally drop some love to mainstream creators like Dre41? WWE 2K has an incredible amount of community creation power behind it, yet you wouldn’t know that if you just follow their Twitter and nothing else. Community Creations is never promoted by 2K, which is odd since it’s the main beef of a wrestling game for many fans.

AEW and THQ Nordic have a chance to completely change the landscape here. We know for a fact that AEW: Fight Forever hosts multiple create modes. The game listing states “Wide range of customization modes: wrestler attire and appearance, move sets, entrances, teams, and arenas”. One example would be centered around Kenny Omega. He regularly comes out with special gear inspired by pop culture, once dressing in Ghostbusters and Undertale inspired attire. If a player created this in the game, the official AEWGames or THQNordic Twitter accounts endorsing it would make the creator feel insanely validated. THQNordic could also use the creation functions as an opportunity for cross-promotion, showing off characters or arenas influenced by their other titles such as Spongebob, Destroy All Humans and Trine.

In a more extreme example, AEW and THQ Nordic could emulate a former WWE contest. After Smackdown vs Raw 2011 was released, THQ and Mattel hosted a contest to turn your original created superstar into an action figure. The winning creation with the most likes from the community would be turned into an action figure. However, the caveat was that only the winner would receive it. So why would I vote on the best if I couldn’t buy one myself?

That contest was so messy it deserves an article of its own. The winning creation can be found in this video. However, it later created controversy across the fan base as the winner was accused of stealing the design from another creator. AEW, THQ Nordic, and Jazwares could try to repeat this contest with better results, such as turning the winning figure into an actual mass produced item in the line. Personally, I would love to own community-created action figures.

Overall, creators just want to feel acknowledged. Flattery goes a long way in creation circles, and having it come from the developers themselves would encourage community members to create more and more content to keep the game alive longer-term. Unfortunately, members of the mod community already have received confirmation that THQ Nordic and AEW won’t condone our work, but that can be remedied by promoting work made by the in-game tools.

Work With Smaller Content Creators

Despite not being a viewer of much of it myself, I have to admit the wrestling game community is in love with YouTube content. Anyone involved in the community follows some of the most popular creators such as Smacktalks. Influencers have incredibly strong reach in the wrestling game space, and there are a lot of young fans who live and breathe on their content. While I do not consider myself an influencer, I do have people who look up to me and ask me for my counsel on things when it comes to wrestling games. 2K knows this all too well, as the bulk of their marketing for the WWE 2K campaigns come from asking the YouTube community to do free labor and advertise the game for them. The slave program is called “2K NextMakers”.

However, THQ Nordic is completely new to the wrestling game space. Do they know of these influencers and how important they are to the community? Do they even know who people like Smacktalks, Vybe, ElementGames, TonyPizzaGuy, WhatsTheStatus and others are?

Even if they did, there is a major obstacle in place for THQ Nordic; the 2K Next Makers program. This is the official influencer program for the WWE 2K series, a contractual agreement to help market the game and get access to perks such as free copies of any 2K title. Almost every wrestling game creator with a very high following is a part of this program. From what I’ve heard from anonymous members inside the program, it’s very unlikely their contract would allow THQ Nordic and AEW to provide exclusive reveals or similar “official” marketing partnerships. I’ve also spoken to a few creators who are prepared to leave the program if this ends up being the case.

Though, it’s unlikely many of these creators would jeopardize their pampering to cover a smaller, non-yearly title. Despite this, THQ Nordic could utilize smaller creators and give them a chance to be seen, boost their numbers, and spread positive word of mouth to their small but loyal army of subscribers.

Considering the game is significantly smaller in scope to WWE 2K, it’s only poetic that the creators who get a chance to preview the game also be smaller. This is not to say they should entirely ditch the usual, like IGN or GameInformer. It simply means that channels below a certain milestone (perhaps, under fifteen thousand subscribers) would be able to exclusively post some small tidbit of information, such as a gameplay screenshot.

This would not only make these smaller influencers feel like their hard work has paid off, but also give off the impression that THQ does indeed care about its fanbase and the video game by pushing it through channels you wouldn’t expect. Long term benefits can be seen as the creator would develop a positive bias towards the game, get their numbers boosted by the promotion and continue creating content as long as they enjoy it leading to a longer period for word of mouth.

There are plenty of creators in the wrestling game space who have been busting their ass for years creating content, but are unable to break through the complex algorithm to be seen by major eyes. THQ Nordic and AEW offering some sort of chance to them to break through the ceiling would go a long way in public perception of AEW: Fight Forever.

Look To The Past For Advice

If you ask wrestling game fans about the current handling of the WWE Games Twitter account, you’ll get nothing but displeasure. The marketing campaign tactic nowadays compared to ten years ago with THQ is completely different. 2K opts for more of a “general overview” of the game to target casual gamers who typically do not buy a WWE title. The focus of their campaigns is star power and a spotlight on features in the game such as MyFaction and MyGM. 2K rarely flaunts the wrestling fan service part of these games, unlike THQ where their marketing campaign had wrestling fans as the focal target. Now, one could argue this is why the THQ games never popped off and sold as well as the WWE 2K series has. Though, one could rebuttal it’s simply because 2K has more money to pump into game budget and advertising. In reality, 2K probably has hours of market research to confirm their methods are better. However, there are some strings THQ Nordic can pull from the past to tug at wrestling fans’ heartstrings.

We can all see clearly that THQ Nordic’s main tactic for their catalog is nostalgia. After purchasing the THQ name post-bankruptcy, they also worked on collecting former titles like Thanos and the Infinity Stones. One could speculate this was the main reason THQ decided to publish the next Yukes wrestling game in AEW: Fight Forever. So, if nostalgia is their brand, they need to target that nostalgia hard during marketing. Cut and dry standard advertising is not going to make this game a success.

One of the more favorable methods that THQ employed was weekly entrance videos. There is no doubt at all that wrestling game fans lose their minds over well done entrances in video games. Releasing the entrances of nearly every superstar before launch was a staple of THQ marketing and kept fans engaged long-term. 2K on the other hand, only opts to release the entrance videos of superstars who may go viral, such as Cody Rhodes. Someone with some knowledge of the situation once told me that “2K doesn’t see any value in constant entrance videos”.

Personally, I do not believe the fact that AEW: Fight Forever’s shorter entrance cutscenes are even an issue. The scenes seem to be reminiscent of WWE All-Stars and TNA iMPACT, with them being 15-20 second clips. AEW and THQ Nordic could release 5-10 a week to showcase and keep people engaged long term. Even though they are not full cinematic cutscenes like WWE 2K, they still strive to replicate the television entrances in the best way they can. I fully believe that utilizing regular entrance releases will tap the nostalgia inside fans hearts. They can also be accompanied by raw gameplay finisher animation reveal videos, a tactic also employed by THQ. This would show more transparency to the fanbase, as 2K releases finishers with edits and fake camera work.

One other tactic to gain trust with wrestling fans and tap into nostalgia is to do a developer Q&A. You can watch a sample version for WWE ‘13 featuring Bryan Williams, one of the early creative driving forces on Fight Forever. Whilst the community trusts Bryan Williams, he unfortunately left Yukes last year to return to the WWE 2K franchise. His first title – WWE 2K23 – released in March 2023, still before Fight Forever. It is unknown if Yukes has any English speaking “talking heads” to take on this endeavor. One option would be to host a live-stream with the No Mercy director – Hideyuki Iwashita AKA “Geta” – to talk about how much influence he had on the product. Or, perhaps, the “visionary” behind the game – AEW Wrestler Kenny Omega.

The reason the fans romanticize the THQ era is simple. THQ believed in being honest and transparent as best they could when it came to development. Sure, there were things they couldn’t talk about like WWE’s requests and restrictions. If something was a design choice though, they’d tell you that directly. It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Community Managers such as Marcus Stephenson and Aubrey Sitterson came and went, all of them having different ways of engaging the fanbase. In the end though, answers were always found. It even came down to technical things like Marcus explaining why PS3 had less Create-A-Superstar layer limit than Xbox. If THQ Nordic wants to win over the wrestling game fan base, they have to not only be as transparent as the water in Bikini Bottom, but also use someone who knows what they’re talking about directly from the development team.

TL;DR?

Over the last decade of 2K’s reign as the license holder of WWE, fans have increasingly felt neglected more and more as the years go by. I don’t even look forward to their reveals anymore. The social media handles are becoming more corporate and sterilized by the day. Bugs are not even acknowledged to even exist by the official WWE 2K accounts. AEW and THQ need to tap into that part of the niche that has felt like they are the reason for their parents’ divorce.

Kenny Omega has a huge opportunity here to herald in a golden era of casual wrestling gaming again, regardless of how polished the game is. Word of mouth is a strong, viable method to help sell this game over the long term when it comes to holiday sales and negotiating for a sequel or more content updates. Consistent patches to fix issues are key to the game’s long term survivability, even without something like Community Creations.

THQ and AEW seem to have a strained relationship to the outside world. People will instantly forget about the mess of waiting for information and constant delays if they work together to put on the best campaign they can for the game. A Dynamite tie-in event featuring big matches would get the entire AEW fan base worldwide interested and engaged. Hosting regular tournaments and giveaways would give people an incentive to buy the game and play more as well as practice competitively. Highlighting the creations made by the players would encourage hard work and repeat usage of the creation suite, even without a Community Creations feature. Smaller content creators would fall in love with THQ Nordic or AEW Games if they got a chance to have their ‘big break’. And as we just mentioned, the old THQ knew how to really break things down for the wrestling crowd, so take a few notes from them.

AEW: Fight Forever has yet to start a marketing campaign, so let’s hope they ponder some of the points I made.

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seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 2 years

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I was at the hotel today, idk if you got my last ask but… there are fans gatekeeping KMM Mexico City content. I saw the sex*est, whor*est, slutt*est SLOW MOTION video. You won’t recover, I haven’t recovered. It was just oh my god….The girl said she was going to water mark it and share it online. I hope she does for all our sakes.

Now the actual thing, Louis came out for about a minute and a half? it was pure chaos. I’m that anon that tries to not take pictures or videos just living in the moment so I didn’t. I just stared at him? 😅 trying to ingrain him in my memory. It’s true what they say, his eyes are such a beautiful blue and clearer. He has so much detail in life! His stubble, his a smile and the way he carries himself. I was just over the moon, speechless really. I wasn’t even moving (I couldn’t move 🥲 there were too many people) so I focused on him; my eyes following him around. He was so happy to see us. I could see his intent was to say hi and stay a little longer, but we were a mess and too many. I think at one point they were about 2k 2.5k people. There was too much screaming and pushing so the barricade that was in front of me completely fell down and we broke other barricades. Louis didn’t get hurt or anything but it was complete chaos and he went back inside really fast 😕 I guess after failing to keep everyone ok (paramedics did come on the scene) he didn’t come back out. Anyway, those 90 seconds left me extremely happy. I got to see him Sea and yeah, I’m a very chill fan. If I ever meet the lad I’m talking to him like a normal person, but I also loose it a little bit around the energy he creates. It was worth it and wonderful and hopefully not my last time seeing him.

Omg anon this is the best ask ever.

Some mutuals live in Mexico City and gave me updates during Louis’ trip for Premios Telehit and when he was there during the pandemic, and it sounds like Louis always has a fantastic time there. He knows he is very well loved; that’s why he’s comfortable to come out and say hi to fans.

As for the videos … holy shit, I’m begging for Louies to please share them. But if you don’t, that’s ok too; it’s your experience!

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akwardlyuncool · 2 years

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After We Fell (2021) - Movie Review

(Based on the novel series After by Anna Todd)

CW: Some alcohol abuse/addiction. (Brief in relation to the entire movie, but still notable.)

Normal Disclaimer: I still have not read the actual books these movies are based off of, so any reference to them is purely thoughts and speculation and a whole bunch of assumptions.

Once again I told myself to re-watch the previous two films in this series before watching After We Fell so that I wouldn’t be completely confused, however I was unaware that this one even existed long enough for me to want to prepare. Basically I saw that I could put it on hold, so I did. I also feel like it’s kinda better to go into these movies a little confused cause it adds to the chaos.

And boy was there chaos! Being that this is the 3rd movie in this series you’d think it would at least try to break away from its obvious pulls from 50 Shades, but it continued to ride some of those coattails very hard. Well actually, I take that back, it tried it just didn’t succeed all that well. If you’re unfamiliar with this story Tessa (Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) (the couple on the cover) have a relationship that is packaged like an epic romance of love and war with a ridiculous battle being fought at all times, except its not epic, it’s mainly just toxic when it’s not being manipulative. Hardin tends to behave in a less than stellar manner, typically very emotionally immature and Tessa finds new ways to pine for him right before she forgives him. I feel like they eased up a little bit this go around, but it was laid on so thick during the first two movies that they’re not going to be able to come back from that.

It feels like everything is spinning around this couple at all times for no reason. There is definite family trauma, among other things on both sides, but the way they let those experiences be the excuse for every move they make, good or bad, is too much. Not trying to say that that kinds of trauma can’t have lasting effects on how people show up in the world, I just think they tried too hard to fit it into every part of the story without actually giving it the in-depth attention it deserves.

Speaking of not giving things the proper attention, After We Fell continued to rush it’s way through this chapter of the story. Many of the major events that took place never got adequate time to really be told in any forgiving way. It was like how fast can I tell this story in hopes that you forget the things we glossed over. Not to spoil anything, but for example Tessa went to the doctor and received some, in my opinion very hard news, however there was no processing of that news besides a few frames of her looking in the mirror and the movie just continues from there. They do that so frequently throughout the film that I question if the people behind this series actually care about these characters. Like I’ve said before, in online book world its quantity, not quality, man.

It keeps you mildly interested for sure, but it’s just not good. That leads me to another irritant I had with this particular film. Now it’s not a big thing, however the spice content was not sexy. My assumption is that the book is far more spicy than the movie was allowed to be. After is a New Adult (Adult books aimed at 18-21 year olds with characters of a “college” age range) book, and not going full spice is something the genre is know for, so this is not all that surprising. I also think they didn’t go full spice because they were once again rushing, thus losing out on any of the sexiness it could have had if they just extended those scenes out a few moments. Not saying they didn’t attempt full adult spice though. (Borderline NSFW) For the record though I’m not asking for spice at all, I just know the story has spice in it and based on that fact I felt the need to critique what was given.

I also need to critique Landon’s character real quick. His character was recast for After We Fell and is now played by Chance Perdomo, which is whatever cause he wasn’t the only one recast, however if you want him to not feel like a after thought and that you care, you can at least comb out the dude’s afro. Like Erykah Badu said, “You need to pick yo afro, daddy.” This series has never really cared for the Black characters/cast and it shows, especially to the Black audience. This critique isn’t about respectability, just the obvious lack of care they’ve shown to them. First Landon’s biological mother was white and then she was Black and then she was recast and I (a Black person) absolutely noticed, every single time.

Note: There was a lot of recasting for this movie, so that wasn’t an issue specific to the Black cast members, like I said, it was just another example of the films lack of care. That being said, do people actually want to be associated with this movie, and if not y’all got bigger issues.

We don’t watch this series because we think it’s good, most of us anyway, we watch cause it’s bad. We know what were getting ourselves into, but simply calling it toxic, New Adult trash doesn’t make for a long enough review. If you’ve seen the first two and like me are cool with watching the down spiral, then go ahead and put this one on. Why stop now?

PS: Was Trevor supposed to be in this one, cause I was fully expecting him to come back and tie up whatever lose ends I thought he created?

Also check out my reviews of After and After We Collided the first to films in this series, if you’re curious about what I thought of those movies.

#Movie Blurbs #Movie Reviews #After We Fell #After #After Series #Josephine Langford #Hero Fiennes Tiffin #Arielle Kebbel #Rob Estes #Stephen Moyer #Chance Perdomo #Mira Sorvino #Louise Lombard #Frances Turner #Angela Sari #Based On A Book #Anna Todd #Movies

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veratrance · 5 months

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Did you watch the final episode? Thoughts? Feelings?

I did!! I was very much a boomer living under a rock the moment it came out though, so I totally missed the hype and chaos of the release. I came back online like 'ayo what did I miss??' and then I got a heart attack seeing that final episode was released PLUS THE LEVI SPINOFF THINGIE?

Anyway, I'm side tracking, back to your question:

Thoughts: I had a blast watching it!! Adrenaline and feels and shivers all at once. I did read the manga a while ago though and I remember the pure fandom apocalypse when the last chapter got released, because certain aspects of the ending were definitely hella questionable and controversial, but I did notice they changed a few things in the anime to make it better. With that final conversation between Eren and Armin, I'm very relieved they made changes to the dialogue, and it’s also good that they made that scene much more morbid visually, which was necessary to lessen the way Eren's actions were downplayed. So I thought MAPPA did a wonderful job!

I loved the way it was animated. The tragic and terrifying parts hit hard with all the effects, cinematographic decisions, the music, etc. I was completely immersed from start to finish, like experiencing the story for the first time.

So overall: I was happy with it!! I don't know what my thoughts would've been if I hadn't read the manga first, though. Like, plotwise, I definitely think it isn't flawless, but I feel pretty neutral about those things now.

Also, as a Levi girlie, I gotta say: the Levi parts were so well done too! Got me all up in my feels again

#asks

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switchbackstudio · 1 year

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youtube

Hello, and welcome to the first of what is planned to be a monthly series of devlogs chronicling the development of my new game, Grippy Golf! Today, I’ll be taking you on a longer journey than normal, all the way from my first lines of code to the creation of my shiny new store page. There’s a lot to cover, so I won’t go into too much detail on any one subject, but maybe there will be some future posts that break things down further, who knows.

So first off, what is Grippy Golf? Well, the initial concept is like golf, except that everything the ball hits, sticks. I first came up with the idea over a year ago, when I challenged myself to make 10 games over the course of just 10 weeks. Grippy Golf, or as it was known back then, Sticky Golf, was my first entry into the challenge, and probably one of the best, or at least the funniest. So, after wrapping up my previous game, I decided to take the concept and expand it into a full release.

It was nice to already have a prototype available, but there were a number of significant changes I wanted to make. For one, the pure chaos of the prototype is fine for a game meant to last 10 – 20 minutes, but I worried that it would lose its appeal in a game meant to last 10 – 20 hours. It needed something more, but at the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what. Don’t worry though, we’ll come back to that.

The other major mechanical change is that I decided to include a multiplayer mode, for both local and online play. Now, as any game dev will tell you, this is not trivial. Online multiplayer in particular fundamentally changes how you have to think about your code. I’ve also never done it before, though that’s true of a lot of things I do as a solo dev. So, after rewatching Alex Forsythe’s excellent video on multiplayer in Unreal for the 5th or 6th time, I got to coding.

I spent the first several weeks creating the basic framework of the game in C++: the character controls, the behavior of stickable objects, etc. It’s generally nitty-gritty details that are kind of boring, so I’ll mostly skip discussing it. At the end, I had a functional, albeit ugly game, where you could hit the ball, have it stick to objects, and reach a goal.

On to the next step: aesthetics.

Now, that might seem strange. There are lots of resources about game dev that will tell you that you shouldn’t worry about the look of your game at first, and should instead work on refining your mechanics and making sure they’re crisp. Mario 64 is the classic example here, and there’s undeniably truth to that statement.

However, it’s also true that as an indie dev, you need to attract customers, and you need to start doing so as early as possible. And if your game plays well but looks bad, it’s going to be hard to generate interest.

A balance is needed, where your game looks pretty enough to show off, without the visuals taking up too much of your time, at least initially. So, to beautify things up a bit, I first needed to determine the game’s art direction.

One of the main limitations I face as a solo dev is that I am not particularly good at art, especially 2D art. As a result, any art style I come up with has to avoid using anything hand-drawn or painted, which sadly locks me out of a lot of my favorite styles. Still, there’s a lot you can do within those limitations.

Here’s the process that I settled on for Grippy Golf. First, I download realistic textures for the material I want, typically from amazing Creative Commons 0 websites like AmbientCG. Then, I open them up in Gimp (yes, I use Gimp) and mess around with the Waterpixel and Oilify filters to achieve a softer, painted look. The next step is to desaturate the resulting image, and increase the contrast so it stretches all the way from black to white. I know that sounds weird, but bear with me.

Now, I add the modified texture to my model over in Blender. I prefer to have just one material per model for performance reasons, so I bake all the different materials to a single texture. However, there’s a lot more here than just the black and white image. There’s the normal map, of course, and other basics like metallic, roughness, and ambient occlusion. Then there’s a black and white vertical gradient that runs up the model, and an index value that is different for each material.

Baking all these different maps and consolidating them is annoying, so I also wrote a python script to automate it, which is probably my single biggest time saving decision so far. If you haven’t messed with scripting in Blender, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, Unreal is where everything starts to come together. Here, I use that black and white image to interpolate between two colors, which lets me change the color of my materials in Unreal, without having to rebake the texture. The vertical gradient is used similarly, and keeps things from looking too flat or static. The material index that I mentioned earlier lets me apply different settings to different parts of the model, even though they all use just one material. The end result is that I have lots of ability to fine-tune the look of the game without leaving the editor.

After making several example models using this approach, I also spent some time working on so-called “game feel”, things like particles, camera shake, and so on. In my experience, prioritizing these is a great way for your visuals to stand out, even if the rest of your game still uses placeholders. I ended up redoing all of these later, but even the preliminary versions were very well received.

In the process of testing these FX, I stumbled across the “something more” that I had been looking for in the gameplay. Namely, I realized that it was super fun to chain together a bunch of arrow boosters to get a “hole in one”. That, coupled with Mark Brown’s video on Neon White completely changed my conception of the game. Now, rather than the player being at the mercy of the wacky physics, I realized I could give the player tools to work with and around that wackiness, with an emphasis on fast, frenetic combos.

To that end, I created a flurry of new systems and powerups. The most notable is the dash, a one-time burst of speed in the direction of the player camera. This increase in player control over the ball completely changes the feel of the game, especially once I made it so that the arrows refresh the dash ability, like in Celeste.

I also added fans that blow you around, a magnet powerup that draws objects towards you, barriers that only break if you have enough objects stuck to you, and my personal favorite, the firework.

I could have kept going, but I deemed it was time to start working towards the next landmark: a store page. Having a store page is really important, as it gives you something to point people towards and lets you start gathering wishlists, i.e. potential sales. My personal prerequisite for a store page was to fill in all my current placeholder assets, namely the player character, the walls, and the floor.

Up until now, the player character had used models and animations from Mixamo, and they worked just fine. For the final product though, I wanted a character that was fun and appealing, something that could serve as a mascot for the game. I chose a robot so that I didn’t have to deal with human facial animations, which intimidate me. I also decided that they would fly, so that I didn’t have to figure out where the ground was every time I moved them. The noodley arms are a massive pain to animate, but I really like the way they look so I’ll probably keep it.

For the walls, I created a bunch of houses, largely inspired by the architecture around Capitol Hill, DC. There’s not as much variety as I would like, but for now it’s fine. Of course, this is a game about a ball that sticks to things, so I made sure each separate part of the building can be individually detached. I did the same thing with some trees as well, with each branch being a separate object.

For the floor, I didn’t want to be constrained by square tiles anymore, so I used Unreal’s Geometry Scripting system to make a custom landscape editor. It lets me trace out an outline with one spline, while setting the height of the resulting landscape with another. On top of that, a barrier is automatically generated around the level, so the ball can’t fall into the void. The more flexible terrain also needed more flexible roads, so I made a road tool using spline meshes.

With everything together, I made an example level or two, took some screenshots, and sent the page for review! Everything’s approved, and you can check out the page right now if you’re interested.

That brings us to the present! There’s a number of smaller topics I didn’t have a chance to discuss (creating an options menu, implementing controller remapping, fiddling with splitscreen for online multiplayer, various physics shenanigans, etc.) but this post is already long enough, and I’m itching to get back to work. I hope you found it interesting to see how I progressed from a basic prototype to something that at least resembles a full game. Again, if there’s anything you want to hear more about, let me know.

Cheers!

#gaming #gamedev #indiedev #indie games #devlog #game development #golf #crazy golf #get motivated #game physics #youtube #video games #video content #Youtube

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just-jammin · 1 year

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I posted 7,206 times in 2022

1,936 posts created (27%)

5,270 posts reblogged (73%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@just-jammin

@astro-inthestars

@joyflameball

@anarchy-and-asexuality

@foxyfexyll

I tagged 3,603 of my posts in 2022

Only 50% of my posts had no tags

#idk anymore - 1,984 posts

#that was stupid - 1,984 posts

#inquiries of a fennec - 627 posts

#<= (a tag for me speaking) - 555 posts

#<= (also a tag for me speaking) - 491 posts

#a really nice anon - 340 posts

#not my art :p - 162 posts

#self rb - 160 posts

#pokemon infinity liveblog - 122 posts

#jammin’s ocs - 104 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but i either 1. don’t want to include them bc we actually haven’t talked much or 2. they’re in a diff friend group than the ppl in the list

My Top Posts in 2022:

after quite a while, here's my half of the art trade with @altairtalisman!

(psst, open image to see cool shit)

they asked me draw Rook Ayeran, specifically vaer Ascendant Form! but i DID add another person into the mix...

anyways, enjoy and both versions (that are higher quality) are under the cut in case y'all are on Dark Mode or something

See the full post

21 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

it's Pride Month wooooo

i wasn't rly planning to draw somethin' for it but eh fuck it

so here is

Which Shirt?

yeahhhhh i'm confused with my gender again

not sure if i'm a demigirl or an nb girl, but hey, at least it's easy enough to change online, right?

anyway, bonus is under the cut

See the full post

29 notes - Posted June 8, 2022

i wanna make one of those 'let's make a creature' things

so i tried searching for one and chose this

or reblog thread, in this case (maybe replies if the order can be coherent enough)

(got it from here; op is MiuNightmare)

i also wanted to add two three more things to the thread:

7. the creature's body type (think like the shape of the creature, like for example, here's the Pokémon body types from Gen 8)

See the full post

33 notes - Posted January 17, 2022

the aub

e Lekismon

yes, this is the thing that i ACTUALLY wanted to draw when i drew the loading screen-looking thingy

just some OMORI x Digimon AU stuff that probably won't be in the actual story that i planned for it

catering to my own interests is much harder than i thought...

also the bg is has the same source as the loading screen one; it's from the game, but i REALLY edited the colors to make it more... er, Digital World-y

36 notes - Posted September 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

ok folks and frops and funky lil' aliens

remember the Aura Fusion Generator that i've mentioned a few times back?

it's still not done, but i AM starting to let you apply for the generator's Alpha release!

this is because it might take a BIT longer to make a final, more improved version of it since i am still a coding amateur

although there ARE some features that are unique to the Alpha version of the generator (even a giveaway of some files to help you out!), as well as... maybe a contest that i'll announce here on tumblr after i release it?? idk

so to apply, please reply (not ask, not reblog even tho those are needed for spreading the word) here with your answer to this question: "If you got an AuraStone, what would your Aura Fusion/Pure Aura be based on your own vibes?" it can contain 1-3 Auras, with 2 being the most common, 3 being less common, and 1 being the rarest

oh, and the Elements are Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Nature (plants), Life (flesh and organs), Metal, Electric, Light, Dark, Null (the soul and senses), and Chaos (randomness and everything else)!

37 notes - Posted June 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #wow that was a BUMMER compared to last yr #and the top post is something that everyone (at least one anon) hates!#whoopee!! /s

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baeshijima · 2 years

Text

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫!𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫!𝐲/𝐧

A/N : oMG YOO ITS BEEN WAY TOO LONG SINCE I LAST POSTED ANY STREAMER CONTENT KSLDFS (ಥ _ ಥ) BUT IM BACK !!! AND WITH OUR BELOVED GIGACHAD, ARATAKI NUMERO UNO ITTO ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪

masterlist

wE’RE BACK TO STREAMER AU AFTER 6387562507349750TREYURET034 YEARS

AND WITH STREAMER ITTO ??!?!?!?"!$"£%^

pog.

poggers

poggies

pogu—

ahem

anywho 👩‍🦯

our one and oni gigachad of gigachads, ARATAK1TTO, here would most definitely make a top tier streamer

i mean it

nO BC HE’D BE SUCH A FUN AND ENTERTAINING MULTI STREAMER ????

I SWEAR, ONE MOMENT HE’D BE KO-ING IN VALORANT OR APEX, THEN HE’D BE DOING 50 POKÉMON TCG BOX OPENINGS TO TRY AND GET CHANDELURE/GENGAR VMAX, THEN HE’D BE OUT VLOGGING WHILE BEATLE HUNTING SHIRTLESS

at this point it’s just a talent of his that his community have just,,,, had no choice but to accept their weird but loveable strimmer

i won’t lie, itto is just chaos incarnate

the physical representation of the elmo hellfire gif

the type to have that super obnoxious, yet cute and contagious laugh that sounds more like a wheeze but gets covered up by the loud slapping of his hand on his keyboard bc he missed the actual desk space if he’s not choking

probably leaned so far back once that he just fell off his spinny gamer chair and nearly knocked the desk over

ngl, there have been multiple petitions hosted by his community

one of which being :

pls give our questionable strimmer software funds so he can afford 3 new monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, endless lollipops, and life support to help him survive in his own room <33

he snacks and eats sm on stream that it would be weird if he doesn’t eat abt 10 mins after the last thing he ate

mf probably has a hexbug collection too

but speaking of community, he’s one of those streamers that everyone just,,, knows even without ever watching him

well, it’s purely for all his chaotic moments that went viral and got turned into a meme

which is literally every waking moment he records himself

also just gets KAPPA’d and OMEGALUL’d and UNLUCKYYYYYYYY 99.5% of the time he streams <//3

. . .

itto sweetie ur doing great, i swear

:’)

and another thing that really stands out with his community is that they’re not just ??? a community ???

they’re literally all bros

one big diverse, confused, wholesome family of bros

bros before hoes—

he also just calls everyone “bro”, “dude”, “man”, “buddy”, “pal” and “homie”

unironically calls his friends “babe” too

when voice chatting on streams he’s caused more misunderstandings than u can imagine :’)

unlike the other two streamers i have posted abt (albedo — whose community is just the epitome of wholesome — and childe — whose community is just the literal spawn of the devil), itto’s community just has this super warm and comfortable, yet chaotic vibe ??

idk how to explain it

u gotta be there in the discord server especially to know what i mean

all the times they voice chat, have a big watch party of an anime/movie/series, have a massive and stupidly competitve game night (probably pkmn tcg online or who can get the biggest in agar.io or smth)

but real talk, there have been so many instances where they all hype each other up to do dumb shit, as well as help one another through their lowest days that it honestly just takes the top spot as the number one community KJHSLJ

PLS THEY’RE ALL SO OPEN WITH EACH OTHER ???? BC ITTO’S COMMUNITY REALLY IS JUST ONE BIG FAMILY AT THIS POINT 😭🖐

definitely played doki doki literature club once bc his chat said that it was a super cute and fun game and he was down bc wow, cute girls and a fun dating sim? count him in!

that was until he actually got into it

there are many… many clips of him freaking out

they all went viral, as expected—

“iF yOu LoVe Me leT me goOoOOOOOOooOo~~~”

beatboxes 74.2% of the time he’s on stream

but this big ole puppy has lots n lots of plushies !!! i just know he does !!!!

one of his favs is this bull plushie that he always has on him just to rest his head :(

lots of fanarts of him with the bull as his lil mascot

so much so that it’s now his actual mascot 😭

he also has one of those little chomper thingies that u attach to ur charger as a gift from one of his viewers !!!

it’s a smol cow one (≧︶≦)

probably has quite a few pets !!

maybe like,,, 3 dogs, 1 cat, a couple of hamsters, maybe some ferrets,

and a goat

mans probably lives on a farm with horses and 10 cows or smth

wouldn’t be surprised

it’s probably why he’s broke tbh

nOW ONTO HIM BEING WHIPPED FOR U AS A GENSHIN STREAMER ?!?

well

it all started on this one, fateful day

he was doing a pokémon tcg box opening and rambling abt his authentic hexbug collection (u know, as u do) when a viewer sent in a tts :

“hey boss !! (that’s what they call him when doing a tts ;-;) have u tried the game: genshin impact yet?”

and that folks is the beginning of him spiralling down the hell known as genshin <33

now

after finishing up his pkmn unboxing, he searched up the game and downloaded it !!

truthfully, he has heard of it, but it didn’t really interest him all that much at first

in other words, he’s only gonna give it a try bc his chat wanted him too (when he asked if they reallyyyy wanted him to play it and they all spammed yes, he gave in JHJKS)

while waiting for the download to finish, he began just going through the official website to see the characters

by this point, it would be around the 1.3 update, so the lantern rite festival would be the ongoing event in-game !!

so he’s going through the mondstadt character list:

“alright, not bad! this diluc guy looks like batman with his dark clothes, so that’s pretty cool! kaeya looks suspicious tho. could never be me.”

also thought fischl looked super cool too

he thought albedo was a cat until he saw diona, who was an actual cat of sorts

now thinks albedo looks like a puppy

then he gets onto the liyue characters:

“WOAH! WHO’S THIS?! XIAO? MAN DOES HE LOOK AWESOME, AHAHAHA!”

so yeah

he’s part of xiao nation now :’))

but then he noticed his chat spamming similar things

“wait where’s (y/n)???? they left out my beloved adepti ARATAKISOB”

“(y/n) modCheck”

“zhongli’s righthand adepti has perished ;-;”

“liyue’s nuke where KEKL”

and itto just sat there, being the confused bby he is like:

“(y/n)? who dat? 🤨”

and his chat went W I L D

next thing he knows, he has an influx of tts screamers, ppl spamming words of affection for u, others tryna send pics of u in-game + links of ur official art—

it seems his chat are all part of (y/n) nation (and rightfully so wink wonk—)

he managed to get hold of one of the links to ur official art promoting the 1.3 update and. . .

oh my

u hear the sound of that?

that’s the sound of itto’s jaw positively dropping to the floor and his heart stopping.

it was so quiet on his end that his chat had thought he died or smth 🤡

tho, that wouldn’t be all that far from the truth bc hOLY ???? IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A CHARACTER TO LOOK SO BADASS AND STUNNING AND SO FREAKING LOVEABLE N ADORABLE AT THE SAME TIME ?????”!”!£?$£$£^%&

itto be running laps rn

heart pumping, mind spinning, and a big goofy grin to top it all off

MISSION: convert mr aratak1tto from xiao nation to (y/n) nation has been a success !!

so when he realises that ur gonna be released in this current new update after xiao banner (in place of keqing bc as much as i love her, she’s a standard banner so i can easily replace her with ur release :’)), he’s now super pumped and impatient for the game to finish downloading

his chat get a front row view of him going through ur character demo, trailer, previews, art, and then him tapping his monitor screens in hopes it’ll speed up

they approve of their strimmer’s actions. 100000000000/10 !!

and once it does download? he’s right on it 🐥

until he realises he won’t see you until he finishes the prologue with mondstadt

and that xiao’s banner is still ongoing so he can’t even get u

f in the chat for aratak1tto sir 😔💔

but he forgot abt all that once the game displays it’s immaculate graphics

mans is hypnotised by dvalin roar and venti disappearing

NO BUT ONCE HE UNLOCKS WISHES HE’S SO CLUELESS

“luck? why would i need luck? i’m the luckiest man alive! just you all watch and see the greatness that is arataki itto—” *starts choking or smth as usual*

thought he was god when he got noelle in his first 10 pull until someone told him everyone gets her in their first multi on beginner <//3

n e who he did another multi on beginner and got another noelle

noelle gang rise—

no but i can actually see him as a noelle main pls 😭

but anyway he goes through the prologue, ranking up, screaming while fighting slimes and hilichurls, screaming while running from mitachurls, abyss mages, whopperflowers and ruin guards, screams while tryna steal the holy lyre der himmel, then just goes spin to win with noelle 25/8

shield mitachurls his beloathed until he remembers he has amber <//3

contrary to popular belief within his community, he actually completed the prologue quicker than they thought

and by that i mean within abt 4 hours or so

they all think he just wanted to meet u as soon as possible HKJHSDKL

bUT NOW HE’S IN LIYUE !!

makes his way through the region to liyue harbour, only to discover more enemies to go on his beloathed list, which incurs more shouting on end and free entertainment for his chat :’))

enter: liyue harbour ~~

and w o w

the visuals are just ??? so cool ???

he was told by his chat to complete the liyue archon quest, and he would’ve sighed if it weren’t for the fact they told him u would be introduced in the first act

h a

itto is positively whipped and he hasn’t actually met u SKDJF

by now he’s built up a good amount of primos from his time in mond, and his chat told him to save for now since there was still about ten days left of xiao’s banner

so he did just that and witnessed rex lapis dying 💀

speechless

just sat there, gaping at his screen

man </3

fast forward some more and he’s screaming while running through the milelith bc he doesn’t speak sneak, just sprint

found childe weird when he first saw him and heard his name ngl JSHDKJ

then found him even weirder when he found out it was tartaglia bc it sounds too much like the pasta he ate literally an hour ago

but now he’s on a mission to find the five adepti with the sigil of permission !!

first meets moon carver while attacking the milelith with his spin to win tactic, then xiao who he practically fanboys over before shouting at the ruin hunter in the forest, then mountain shaper where he has a field day pretending to be an adepti messenger, and finally cloud retainer in which he complains abt not having enough ingredients to cook everything

and now is the time everyone’s been waiting for

ur introductory time :’))

after he finds the four, another quest pops up telling him to head back to liyue harbour, to which he finds a bit suspicious bc shouldn’t he be looking for u since ur the last one ?

but his chat reassure him so he proceeds

and lo and behold ur there waiting for him at the bridge

he didn’t even realise u were there until the screen went black bc he was too busy sprinting and gliding to notice HKJLSD

but once he realised what was happening he let out the biggest gasp

he let out an even bigger one when u looked at him his character

safe to say he’s now ur biggest and most devoted fanboy despite u not even saying a word yet <33

definitely takes so many screenshots to commemorate ur first meeting so he can look at it every anniversary

he goes through ur dialogue and omg ur voice is so nice, and so is ur smile, and— wait no don’t leave already !!

salt. and betrayal

anywhoodles he’s in love with u and now ur both official

who says? well, his community said so :/

also lowkey falls in love with zhongli and beidou but like,,,

who doesn’t ???

but timeskip of abt another few hours and it’s 1 am but he doesn’t care bc he’s a mAN and will power through to the end and his chat are both here for it and are ✨ concerned ✨

zhongli hinted abt u more than a few times, esp when at the guizhong ballista

ngl, a lot of ppl have so many theories and speculations that u two have/had smth going on, esp with zhongli’s voiceover abt u in his profile

itto may or may not have attacked zhongli’s model when searching for the broken parts a couple of times bc of it

but ye he awed at the osial fight but also shouted at the fatui until he started screaming bc of the speed buff xiao gave him

but anyway let’s just skip past that and go straight into ur banner bc this has somehow dragged on long enough at 2.2k words and i’m abt to cry bc of it but it’s okay—

bUT YES !! IT’S NOW TIME FOR UR BANNER

he’s so excited and has been waiting for this day since,,, well,,, ten days ago

itto became an ar 49 player with all the all nighters he spent grinding and exploring

but anywho, he has all ur mats ready and prepared for when u come home to him ~

his community both revelled in and pitied his introduction to artifact farming

they know what it felt like to get pummeled by rng but his reactions were too entertaining :’))

he actually got xiao somehow within 40 pulls, so now he has a lvl 80 dps xiao bc he’s not at ar 50 yet 💔

but rn he’s prepared for u as much as his ar 49 ass can so u better appreciate his efforts and external crisis

okokok sO

banner change

ur here

he cries at how amazing and cool u look in ur splash art bc

“KSDJFHDKJGHDFJLKG ??@?!$£’?”

^^^^ his actual reaction

anyway, he hypes himself up and chat spams his (Y/N)NumeroUNO emote for good luck ><

one multi in. barbara.

telling himself it’s alright since he has no pity anyway

two multis in. the bell and another barbara.

telling himself it’s (not) alright since he only had 10 pity

three multis in. rainslasher.

telling himself it’s alright since he only had 20 pity

four multis in. gOLd no it’s purple.

he got bennet

it’s alright, he’ll take bennett constellations but hahahsjhfds where are u?

five multis in. a fischl.

u know what? he’ll take that too bc fischl pog but no seriously where are u pls come home soon preferably now?

six multis in. dragon’s bane, barbara, and sacrificial fragments.

okay haha funny joke,,, now (y/n) pls come home—

seven multis in. barbara.

okay i take it back this isn’t funny anymore pls come home ;-;

eight multis in. ningguang and the bell™.

internally crying and externally screeching

nine multis in. if he doesn’t get u here he will—

keqing.

. . .

oH SHIT UR IN THIS MULTI TOO WTFJSDHOS

bro’s fallen off his spinny gamer chair again bc u appeared on the very last one <//3

he’s crying, chat’s crying, his lil mascot’s soaking up his tears, and ur the cause of it all ehe

no but as soon as he looks up and sees u on his screen he just has a big dumb grin on his face that he’s (kinda) forgotten abt the suffering u just put him through

now he’s on ur profile thingy and admiring u in all ur glory :’)

levels u up so fast and just,,, runs and jumps around with u in his party of noelle, xiao, and bennett

ur party is called the ARATAKI GANG and he’s never been prouder

his fav voice overs are favourite food + when the sun is out + good morning + birthday (when he has his birthday, that is,,,)

did he set u as his profile icon?

pshhh, of course he did

did he change his signature to be related to u?

yuh-uh he did :

“me and (y/n) finish each other’s sandwiches o(≧▽≦*)o”

he was very proud of himself for coming up with that

did he change his in-game name?

hAH! obviously !!

“(y/n)’s ( •̀ .̫ •́ )✧”

he also made sure to put u into all of his socials in any way he could

pfp? done. bio? EZ. display name? hah! child’s play

anything else?

well, he pulled for ur weapon with funds provided by his community bc they pitied him

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact fluff #genshin #genshin x reader #genshin impact arataki itto #genshin impact itto #itto #arataki itto #arataki itto x reader #itto x reader #streaming dreams #nO BC WHY IS THIS NEARLY 3K WORDS #WTFKSDJHFKLSJ #jhkdjs pls dont flop tho ;-;

2K notes · View notes

wiypt-writes · 2 years

Text

What The Stark Spangled F**k?

Trouble Tin Paradise: A Stark Spangled Forever One Shot

Summary: Rori is causing chaos in the kitchen…

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Katie Stark (OFC)

Warnings: bad language, Rori being a brat…nothing else specific

Disclaimer: this is pure fiction. I own none of these guys bar Katie Stark and any other OFC mentioned. I don’t give anyone permission to use or repost my work. Reblogs are cool though. MINORS DO NOT ENGAGE.

A/N: been sat on this for a while…but here’s some Rogers-Stark chaos…

Stark Spangled Forever Masterlist

Main Masterlist

“Where’s Mom?” Jamie asked, wandering into the lounge. Steve, who was led on the rug helping Flossie slot brightly coloured bricks through the corresponding holes, looked up.

“If you’d have been listening at breakfast instead of messing with whatever was so important on your iPad you’d know the answer to that question.”

Jamie rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “Humour me.”

Steve laughed and shook his head, “She’s taken Harry to soft play, then said she might head to the tower to see Auntie Pep about some work. She’ll be back for dinner.”

“Okay, so I actually did know that.”

“Why you asking then?”

“Coz I wanna know why she didn’t take Rori.”

“Take it you didn’t hear the shouting before?”

“Had my head set on. I was kicking Uncle Bucky’s butt online. You know, for someone who used to be in the army, he is so crap at shooting games.”

“Okay, two things. What have I told you about saying that word? And two… me and your mother are gonna have a discussion with Bucky about the kinds of games he’s buying you for that damned PlayStation.”

Jamie sighed, “fine, whatever, but what was the shouting?”

“She back chatted your Ma one too many times. This morning she refused to put her coat on, said she hates it. When your mom told her there were kids all over that would be grateful for such a nice jacket, Rori told her to, and I quote, ‘wrap it up and give it to them as a present’.”

“Oh.” Jamie grimaced.

“Yup, so she’s in her room…”

“Yeah, no she’s not.”

“What?” Steve blanched and felt his stomach flip.

“Don’t panic… or actually, maybe do…”

“James, what the hell-“

“She’s in the pantry… and…”

“Oh for the love of- watch Floss.” Steve jumped up as Jamie swapped places with him and he jogged down the hall.

“Rori? Aurora? What are you-“

He stopped dead in the doorway between the kitchen and large pantry and blinked. Rori was sat on the counter side, having pulled half of the tinned food cans Katie kept in one of the cupboards out and had liberated them of their labels.

“Hi, Daddy.” She grinned at him, as she flicked a label from a can of kidney beans off her finger.

Steve looked at her, then to the damned cat that seemed to be wherever she was, as it sat on the side, currently swatting at a label from a tin of tomato soup.

“What. The. HELL do you think you’re doing, young lady?” Steve’s voice was loud and stern. Rori blinked and then shrugged.

“Taking the labels off these tins.”

“Yes, I can see that!”

“Then why d’ya ask?”

Steve looked at her, as she stared back before he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, let’s try a different question. Why are you taking the labels off the tins?”

“Because Mommy annoyed me. And I want to make Erica a paper dress, because she needs one for the cat-walk.”

“Because Mommy annoyed you.” Steve repeated.

“Yup.”

“You know, right now you’re really annoying me.” Steve looked at his daughter. “Shall I go start pulling labels off all of your things? Or how about I go and pull all your drawings off the wall in the play-room?”

At that Rori’s eyes widened. “No, Daddy, that’s-“

“Mean?”

“Yeah!”

“And what do you think this is, Aurora?”

Steve’s anger was now starting to boil over. He loved his kids, every last one of them, and he would also happily admit to anyone who asked, one of his favourite things about Rori was that she was a total sassbag like her mother. But sometimes that sass got too much, just like it did with Katie, and now was one of those times.

“Daddy-“

“No, no, this is naughty. And your mommy shouted at you this morning because you were naughty. You didn’t get to go to soft play because you were naughty. And now, you’re here, being equally as naughty by trashing the pantry, because Mommy annoyed you by punishing you for being naughty in the first place. Can you see the flaw in your logic?”

“What’s a flaw?”

“Problem.”

“Oh. What’s logic?”

“Reasoning. Something you use when you decide if something is a good idea.”

“Oh.” She pondered for a moment, then shrugged. “But I can use the labels!”

“Oh, you can use the labels huh?” Steve strode forward and ignoring the yells of protest swept them off the side and scrunched them into a ball in his large hands, “not anymore!” He stalked over to the garbage and tossed them in. “Now get down from there right now and go to your room.”

“I don’t wanna!”

“Well right now I don’t wanna look at you…”

“Go back to the lounge then!”

And that was it, Steve’s final shred of self control snapped. He gently gripped his daughter by the arm, ignoring the screams and yells and lifted her off the counter, slinging her over his shoulder. She screamed and hit at his back with her balled fists in an out and out tantrum as he carried her upstairs and dumped her on her bed.

“Stay here, and if I hear so much as a foot step, I swear to God I’ll put every single one of your toys in the garbage too!”

Rori glared at him, through her angry tears, sobbing loudly as she wiped her eyes. “I hate you.”

Steve swallowed, he’d never heard that from her before. Jamie had uttered it once or twice but been quick to take it back but it still cut him to the core. However, not wanting to show weakness he simply swallowed, hands on his hips. “That’s fine, because right now, I don’t particularly like you either.”

Closing the door on her cries, Steve leaned against it, banging the back of his head on the wood lightly as he did so. He took a deep breath to calm himself, before he headed back down to the lounge.

Flossie grinned up at him, holding her hands up, “Daddda.”

He picked her up and smiled as she pressed her palms against each of his cheeks. “You gonna turn out to be as much as a diva as her?”

“Course she is,” Jamie shrugged, “she loves Rori.”

“I’m too old for this crap.”

“Language!” Jamie grinned and at that, Steve chuckled before he groaned.

“Your mom is gonna go mad.”

“Yup.”

Steve chewed the inside of his lip before he placed Flossie down and flopped onto the sofa. “Find me a seven foot block of ice I can freeze myself in again, will ya?”

****

Katie stared at the array of tins on the side and groaned.

“I was gonna put em away,” Steve sighed, “but I didn’t know what to put where or…”

“No, it’s okay. Little shit.” Katie shook her head as she picked up a tin and shook it. “So that’s soup of some kind…”

“Oh, I threw the labels…” Steve groaned, “Doll, I’m sorry.”

“Steve, it’s fine.” Katie turned to him, “this isn’t your fault, it’s hers.”

“Well, I unloaded on her, big time. Enough for her to say she hates me.”

Katie snorted, “she says that to me at least twice a week.”

“She’s never said it to me before.” Steve hung his head a little and Katie moved, her hands sliding up his chest and coming to rest on his broad shoulders.

“Because she’s a Daddy’s Girl, soldier, and has you wrapped around her little finger.”

“Hmm, wonder where she gets that from.” Steve arched a brow and Katie popped a shoulder.

“It’s a talent I’ve perfected, I’ll give you that.”

He chuckled a little as she stood on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Don’t worry about it, just go make sure Harry and Floss are okay and I’ll start dinner.”

Leaving her to it, after offering to help and being waved away, he headed into the play room and spent some time with his youngest son who told him all about his day in a very enthusiastic manner. An hour or so later, Katie called them all in for dinner which turned out to be one of her exceptional lasagnes, a huge salad and some garlic bread. Rori stalked into the room, not even looking at Steve and sat down.

“This looks great, Mom, thanks!” Jamie helped himself as Steve dished up a smaller portion for Harry and Rori, Katie giving Flossie a few crackers to keep her occupied, the tot having been fed earlier.

“I don’t like lasagne.” Rori mutinously stated as Steve set the plate down in front of her.

“For the love of-“ he began but stopped when Katie held her hand up.

“Since when? You are it last week.”

“Since now. It’s boring.”

“Okay.” Katie replied, her voice calm, “how about I fetch you something else?”

Steve and Jamie exchanged a glance, neither of them sure where this was going. Katie was normal the hard ass when it came to things like this.

“What else?” Rori asked.

“It’s a surprise.” Katie said, mysteriously and Rori grinned.

“Okay.”

Katie left and momentarily returned with a label-less can and true can opener.

Immediately, Jamie roared with laughter as Katie grinned and began to open the can.

“No, I don’t want-“

“But you don’t know what it is yet!” Katie looked at Rori before she opened the tin and face an “ooooh” before she clapped her hands together. She grabbed a spoon, stuck it in the tin and slid it over. “Your favourite!”

Rori grabbed the tin and looked inside before she pushed it away and glared at her mother. “I hate peas!”

“Well…” Katie shrugged, “I couldn’t tell what was in it on account of you taking the label off.”

Rori blinked, then looked at the tin before she looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry.” She sniffed and then a tear fell down her cheek.

“Thank you for apologising.” Katie spoke gently. “And I think you need to apologise to someone else too, huh?”

Rori nodded and raised her head to look at Steve. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t hate you. That was mean.”

Her voice broke on the last word and Steve sighed, moving so he could pull her into his lap. She wrapped her arms round his neck and sobbed as Steve gently rocked her side to side.

“It’s okay, and Rori, it’s alright to be angry and feel mad but it’s not okay to do and say things like you did today. Do you understand, Princess?”

She nodded and sniffed again.

“Okay, now, you gonna sit and eat your dinner?”

She nodded again and Steve kissed her head before she shifted and sat back down.

The room was silent for a few seconds as everyone tucked in, the happy mood restored in the Rogers’ household.

And then, a little voice spoke from Harry’s seat.

“Momma? I like peas.”

#what the stark spangled fuck #stark spangled #Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers x ofc #Steve Rogers x Katie Stark #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers fanfiction

106 notes · View notes

seasonschange-butpeopledont · 2 years

Text

Wish You Were Here: A Not-So-Warm Welcome

Pairing: Frankie Morales x OFC (Valentina “Val” Garcia) / Santiago Garcia x Frankie Morales (platonic)

Warnings: Family drama, mentions of the death of Val & Santiago’s father (and a family pet, very briefly), a bit of cursing, domesticity, drinking, a bit of blood, references to drug use, Pope probably has PTSD, and Tom is an ass as per usual. You might want to punch Pope in the face.

Word Count: 3,669

Author’s Note: In a dramatic shift from the pure softness that was Sunday Mornings, Pope has arrived to cause some chaos in the Morales-Garcia household. The fluff will return momentarily, with an extra side of ✨drama✨

Summary: When Pope returns to recruit the boys for his mission, he finds that things aren’t as he left them, and not everyone is so ready to welcome him home.

Taglist Form - Masterlist

Pope glared down at the phone in his hands. He heard an overly-pleasant voice announcing boarding for group-whatever. He’d bought his ticket last minute and paid twice as much as it was worth; he expected he’d at least wind up on the plane sometime before take off, but he wasn’t necessarily holding his breath. Not that it mattered when he was so annoyed with the fact that it had come to this point to begin with.

None of those assholes had answered his texts. And he needed them this time, bad.

What was left to do but get on a plane and drag them down here himself?

He wants to be surprised at the distance between them as he scrolls through the three years of unanswered texts and voicemails, but…

There’s a text from Benny informing him that Will’s fiancé had left him. He could really use a friend right now. You should give him a call, Pope.

A picture from Tom of Tess’ first day of junior high.

An email from Will. An online article in the local newspaper’s sports section. Benny won his first professional fight. Go team.

A voicemail from Frankie. We got married. Tried to call… a few times, actually. We really wanted you to be there.

Another voicemail, this time from Val. Dad’s gone. Heart attack. He never made it to the hospital. Mom is a wreck, Santi. The funeral is on Friday… Please be here. I need you.

And then nothing. A year and a half, that’s all it had taken for them to give up on him.

Pope doesn’t blame them.

He didn’t know what he had come to Columbia for, not really. He remembered the bullshit he had spouted off to the guys, something about empowering the people of his mother’s homeland. It had sounded real fucking noble at the time, but it wasn’t the truth.

He was running. Or maybe he was chasing something, trying to hold on to the only life he’d ever really known. Terrified of slowing down long enough to let his demons catch up to him.

He didn’t know how the rest of the boys did it. They just fell back into civilian life as if any kind of normalcy was out there for them after all they had seen and done.

Well, he did know how they did it. Ironhead made himself king of the group therapy sessions down at the VA, Fish had his dealer on speed-dial, and Benny beat the shit out of people for a hundred bucks a pop. God only knows what selling condos did for Redfly’s issues.

And Pope ran around South America playing the hero. They all had their ways of coping.

A hint of guilt made itself known in his gut when he looked at the voicemail from his younger sister. He hadn’t gone to the funeral. He’d called his mother, given her some excuse about a lead he just couldn’t lose, and buried himself deeper into the hole he’d been digging for himself.

Frankie’s finger hovered over the delete button as he heard the water in the shower turn off. He tapped the button, erasing the messages, and tossed his phone down on the bed beside where he sat. He dropped his head into his hands, massaging his temples to stave off his impending stress headache. And it wasn’t even 8:00 am.

Whatever Pope was popping out of the woodwork for, he knew it wasn’t as straightforward as he’d made it out to be. It never was with him.

The click of the doorknob had his head shooting up, straightening his back and rolling his shoulders. Val emerged from the bathroom, humming softly to herself with a pleasant little smile on her lips. Her brother was still something of a sore spot for her, a disappointment she had never quite gotten over, and he’d done his best to hide the messages from her.

He wasn’t in the habit of lying to his wife, but he was in the business of keeping the peace. He’d been there when their father had died, had held her in his arms as she cried at the funeral Pope hadn’t bothered to attend. Val hadn’t so much as spoken her brother’s name since.

“Is she awake yet?” Val asked conversationally, shuffling through one of the dresser drawers.

“Not since four,” He replied, pushing himself up off of the bed and heading towards the bathroom sink, and set to brushing his teeth. The mirror was still steamed over, but he could just make out Val in the reflection, pulling on a pair of leggings and a sweater.

“She must have tired herself out last night– this morning? Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“Must have,” Frankie echoed through a mouthful of toothpaste.

He could feel her watching him, the normal affection in her eyes replaced with a hint of worry. “Is everything okay?” She asked with a frown. Val studied his face carefully, tracing his features with her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You just seem… off.”

“It’s nothing, babe,” He dismissed with a shake of his head. “Just tired. I really need Luisa to start sleeping again.”

“You and me both,” She sighed. “Do you have time for coffee?”

“Not really, I’ve got to get to work,” Frankie replied regretfully. “Ben asked for the day off to get ready for his fight tonight, so it’s just me at the garage this morning. Can’t be late.”

“Oh, right,” She nodded. “I forgot you’d be home late. Will you wish Benny good luck for me when you see him?”

The disappointment on her face was clear— they spent so little time together these days, and he could tell that working from home with just the baby for company was taking its toll.

“Of course,” Frankie agreed, a hint of teasing in his tone. “He’ll be so thrilled you remembered.”

Val rolled her eyes, giving his shoulder a playful shove. The small crush Ben seemed to harbor for his wife— greatly exaggerated on Frankie’s part— was a running joke between them, one that never failed to lighten the mood. As the advice columnist for the local newspaper, Val had it on good authority that his crush was actually the check-out girl at the market where Benny shopped for groceries, but he did seem to be a bit of a hung up on Helpful Holly if the frequency of his letters was anything to go by. He didn't know it was Val, of course, but Frankie got a kick out of it nevertheless.

By the time he’d finished rinsing, the humming had picked up again, and the usual morning routine of dancing around each other in their cozy, half-renovated home commenced once more.

Twenty minutes later, Frankie left the house with a quick peck on the cheek, Luisa’s chubby baby hand waving him off, and a thermos of coffee warming his hands against the brisk morning air.

To say that things hadn’t been easy lately would be an understatement. With the suspension of Frankie’s pilot license and the new baby, things had been exceptionally tight financially.

If it wasn’t the odd jobs that he hated, or the fact he had paid the mortgage late again, or the constant anxiety that kept him on edge, then maybe it was his eight-month-old’s apparent sleep regression.

Frankie was exhausted in every sense of the word, but he liked the life he was building here, imperfect as it was. Whatever trouble Pope was about to bring into it, Frankie was sure that he wanted no part of it.

“It’ll be strange not having you around,” Frankie mused.

His truck was idling in front of the airport as they prepared to say goodbye. Pope had sold his car last week, knowing that this trip to Colombia was one-way, at least for the foreseeable future. He’d been bumming rides from the boys the past couple of days. Each of them was reluctant to admit that they were grateful for the opportunity to spend a few extra minutes with their friend before he left them all behind.

“Yeah? I’m sure you’ll be able to hold down the fort until I get back,” Pope chuckled, patting his shoulder.

“It’ll probably be easier without you always getting me into trouble.”

“Trouble? If it weren’t for me, you’d spend every Saturday night alone in your garage trying to resuscitate this piece of junk–” He rapped his knuckles against the door for emphasis. “I keep your life interesting, Fish.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Speaking of trouble, this thing with my sister...“ Pope smirked as Frankie’s head snapped towards him, his eyes wide with surprise.

Frankie shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he murmured, “Ben Miller is a dead man.”

“Is it serious?”

“Um… It’s not— I mean, we’re— “ Frankie fumbled, unconsciously reaching up and pulling the brim of his hat lower to hide his embarrassment. “We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

“Relax,” Pope dismissed his discomfort with a wave of his hand. “I’m her brother, not her parole officer. Now, if it was Benny she was sneaking around with, that would be a whole different story. Just promise me that you’ll look out for her while I’m gone.”

Frankie let out a sigh of relief, relaxing his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. “You know I will.”

And Pope believed him wholeheartedly. After everything they’d been through, he trusted Frankie with his life.

He’s jarred from the dream– the memory– by the elderly woman who had sat next to him on the plane, sucking in a sharp breath when she reached out to shake his shoulder.

“Wake up,” She huffed. “I have a connecting flight that leaves in twenty minutes–”

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” He grumbled, getting to his feet. His neck and back ached from sleeping hunched over in his seat, and he rolled his shoulders to relieve some of the tension.

There was a lingering discomfort pit of his stomach that stuck with him all the way to his rental car, and it seemed to grow worse with each passing mile that brought him closer to the idyllic little town his friends had made their home.

Through his phone full of unanswered text messages and a very brief stint on social media, Pope knew that things with Val and Frankie had, in fact, gotten serious.

The “I’ve got the new baby now and my lady doesn’t want me doing this kind of shit anymore” kind of serious that was currently threatening to blow up his plans, much to his annoyance.

The smile on Frankie’s face when he talks about the new baby is something that he hadn’t been prepared for— not that he’d spent much time contemplating it as he drove from the airport, running through his pitch. It had been one thing to know that his best friend had become a father. Lots of people their age were parents now. Pope was no expert and had no burning desire to go out and start a family of his own, but babies were cute enough from a distance. When they were calm and quiet and not covered in their own excrement.

It was putting those concepts together, Frankie and a baby, that was throwing him. He’d seen Frankie do some shit—wild, crazy, dangerous shit. Horrible shit that still haunted him, amazing shit that he’d never take credit for. Pope had always imagined his best friend retiring on a beach somewhere, full Margaritaville style. Perhaps flying celebrities and weekenders with too much cash to burn to and from the mainland to keep himself occupied. Maybe he’d get a captain’s license, too, if business got slow.

But it was easy to see the pride reflected in his eyes when he talked about the tiny human that had recharted the course of his entire life. Pope had never seen him so… enamored. Even with Val, back when Frankie was mooning over her all those years ago, it had been nothing compared to this.

He sees it then, perhaps for the first time since he got off the plane. These weren’t the same men he’d left behind three years ago.

The recce is a harder sell than he anticipated, but he talks them into it eventually. He isn’t sure if he’s surprised that Frankie is the last holdout. Pope didn’t know anyone in their right mind who would turn down easy money like that, no matter what shit they had going on back home. Seventeen grand was seventeen grand, and if he played his cards right, they could easily turn that into a couple hundred thousand. Millions, even. He isn’t sure if it’s loyalty or guilt that finally wins out, but there’s a heaviness in Frankie’s shoulders when he finally gives in.

Benny won the fight, if one could call it that. Benny worked the crowd well, kept on his toes, and most of the blood on the mat was his opponent’s rather than his. Will stayed behind, dragging Benny off to the locker room to fuss over his baby brother’s bloody nose.

It’s just the three of them, then. Tom, Frankie, and Pope meandering through the crowd and towards the parking lot. He wasn’t sure he could get a decent buzz off warm beer anymore, but he felt like a teenager again, completely invincible with his boys at his side and ready to take on the world. Tom had confiscated his keys, and twice Frankie had to reach for his arm, preventing him from picking a fight with the guy who’s knocked into his shoulder in the crowd or trailing after the blonde who’d been eyeing him all night.

“Where are you staying tonight, Pope?” Tom asked finally as they broke free from the mass of bodies exiting the gymnasium.

“I was hoping I could crash on a couch,” Pope admitted, stumbling slightly as they reached the parking lot. He hadn’t thought that far ahead once he’d made up his mind to buy the plane ticket, not even bothering to figure out a place to sleep. If worse came to worse, he could always sleep in his rental car. He’d certainly slept in worse places.

Frankie sent Tom a pleading look, but he simply shook his head and scoffed, “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who’s screwing his sister.” Charming as ever.

Frankie glared at him but didn’t engage. It wasn’t worth it, even if Tom was right in his own fucked up way. If Pope needed a place to stay, he knew that Frankie would offer it. They were family, after all.

“Holy shit, this thing still runs?” Pope asked, patting the body of the old Ford.

“More or less. She got a new transmission for Christmas last year,” Frankie remarked. “Val wanted me to sell her, but…” He trailed off. There was an awkward beat of silence before Pope spoke up again.

“Is Val gonna be okay with this?”

Frankie shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels slightly. “Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Pope raised an eyebrow, challenging his response. “You aren’t going to call her first?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Pope gave a soft snort of amusement, hitching his duffel bag higher up on his shoulder. He got the sense that he was something of a sore spot in the Morales-Garcia household these days.

“Better get going then. Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

Frankie gave a nod, opening the door for him before walking around the front and climbing in on the driver’s side. Pope followed suit, sighing as he relaxed into the familiar worn leather on the bench seat.

Pope reached for the photograph tucked into the visor in front of him. Val, a few years older than he remembered her, and a baby. So obviously Frankie’s, with the same dimple in her cheek and big doe eyes.

“What’s her name?” Pope asks as he stares down at the photograph. He’s just sober enough to feel guilty for not already knowing.

“Luisa.”

A hard lump forms in his throat, and he turns his attention back to the blurred headlights of the passing cars.

They’d named her after his father.

Frankie turned down a gravel driveway, jolting Pope from his daze as the truck took the bumps.

Once they’d passed the thick line of trees, he could see the small, white farmhouse set against the backdrop of the lake. It was extremely modest, a fixer-upper that was likely an ongoing project for Frankie. Fairy lights hung from the roofline, extending towards a nearby tree and illuminating a picnic table.

Frankie put the old pickup truck in park. He held his finger up to his lips, signaling for Pope to be quiet as they headed towards the front door. The heavy wooden door creaked on its hinges as it opened. They were greeted by a German Shepard lounging in his bed by the door, waiting for Frankie to return. His eyes opened upon their entrance and closed again once he was satisfied that they weren’t intruders.

“’Night, Pax,” Frankie murmured, bending down to scratch behind his ears.

“Pax? What happened to Ranger?”

Frankie straightened, still not quite looking at Pope.

“He died a couple of years ago. I sent you a text about it.”

There was a sharpness to Frankie’s tone that hadn’t been there before. He wondered how many texts and voicemails Frankie had left that had fallen on deaf ears. Had he called when Luisa was born? On his wedding day? How many times had Pope let him down?

“Nice place,” Pope said politely, his eyes roaming over the peeling wallpaper in the hallway. Nice was a generous assessment, but it had good bones.

Frankie snorted quietly, shrugging out of his jacket. “It’s a work in progress. Turns out renovations are a lot more fun when you actually have the cash to fix things.”

Pope felt the sting of guilt cut through him once more. Frankie needed this job. He could see in his eyes how tired he was. How much he wanted to make things good for his family, to provide for his little girl.

“Honey, who are you talking to?” A sleepy voice croaked from the end of the hallway. Pope could just make out the sound of bare feet padding along the hardwood floor before Val emerged from the darkness.

She squinted, her eyes still adjusting to the dim lamplight. Pope could see her shut down the moment her sleep-riddled brain put the pieces together.

“Santiago?”

A wave of emotions swirled in his chest, mixing with the alcohol in his veins and forcing bile to rise in his throat. The coldness in her tone washed over him like a bucket of ice water.

“Hey, Valentina,” Pope greeted, raising a hand in a half-hearted wave. He’d dreaded this part since the moment he’d bought the plane ticket. Facing her again after all those years, after everything that he’d missed…

She didn’t look at him the same way he remembered. There was something guarded there now, and he instantly regrets not opting for the motel they’d passed on the highway. She wasn’t happy to see him.

“Frankie?” She prompted expectantly.

“Surprised the hell out of me too, babe,” He shrugged casually. She raised an eyebrow, the pair of them having a silent conversation that Pope wasn’t privy to. He could only imagine that they were negotiating the terms of his stay.

Frankie’s trademark puppy dog eyes brought them to some kind of resolution, and with a sigh, she muttered, “Just keep it down.”

Frankie nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”

And without another word, she turned, disappearing once more into the direction she’d come from. Pope sent Frankie a grateful look, sure that he would be paying for his hospitality later.

“There’s a quilt on the back of the couch,” Frankie told him, gesturing to the worn leather sofa Pope recognized from Frankie and Benny’s old house. It was a damn comfortable couch, one that he’d crashed on plenty of times before, now covered with a throw blanket and decorative pillows.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” He continued, “And the kitchen is that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction.

“I’ll talk to Val about all of this in the morning, and we’ll figure out a better place for you to stay while you’re here. In the meantime, whatever you do, do not wake the baby. She’ll probably kick us both out,” He warned before heading off towards what Pope assumed was their bedroom.

Frankie was a good friend, even after everything.

Dropping his duffle bag on the floor with a soft thud, Pope kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. He recognized the stitching on the quilt as his mother’s and pulled it over himself. It was soft and heavy, and it reminded him of home.

Sleep didn’t come to him easily anymore, no matter how much he wished it would tonight. Instead, he was left to turn over his mission in his mind, again and again, walking through his plan step by step before his thoughts turned back to the team he’d assembled.

Benny was an easy hook, young and hot-tempered with an unwavering loyalty bred deep in his bones. Will named his only condition, and Redfly was searching for some kind of redemption wherever he could find it.

But the fact was, they had nothing to lose.

But Frankie and Val were a family now. They had a baby, a quaint little fixer-upper on the edge of town, and enough problems of their own to handle without Pope throwing a few more into the mix.

As Pope stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of crickets chirping outside the window and the soft cries of his niece waking from her sleep for the umpteenth time that night, it occurred to him that maybe he was asking too much.

General Taglist: @theravenreads @marshmallowtraver @computeringturtle @artsymaddie @heythere-mel @jaime1110 @rosiefridayrogersunday @amneris21 @adriiibell @practicalghost

Pedro Characters Taglist: @pascalisthepunkest @coldlilheart @fuck-goes-on @spideysimpossiblegirl @grogusmum @fangirl-316 @writeforfandoms @tobealostwanderer @diaryofkali @littlemisspascal @pjkimrn @curiouskeyboard @felteppsters @dinsangelx

Frankie Morales Taglist: @freeshavocadoooo @fangirl-of-randomness @darnitdraco @punkerthanpascal @quietpainter @lawfulgranola @meanperegrine @marvelousmermaid @luxmundee @tanzthompson

Wish You Were Here Series Taglist: @marvelousmermaid @hnt-escape @luxmundee

And… People I Think Might Be Interested But Will Untag if Asked Taglist: @artemiseamoon

#Frankie Morales #Santiago Garcia #Triple Frontier #frankie morales x ofc #francisco catfish morales #pedro pascal characters fanfiction #santiago pope garcia #fic: Wish You Were Here

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taeescript · 3 years

Text

29+1 (Part One)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰: In which Seokjin is the Devil from The Devil Wears Prada, Taehyung is your work Jesus and Jimin is your handsome successful brother.

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: seokjin x reader (taehyung x reader if you squint real hard)

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: slice of life; ceo!seokjin (diva!seokjin)

𝔴𝔠: 3.6k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: heavy use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, a plethora of sarcasm (please don’t be offended) and a sprinkle of softness (is that a warning?).

𝔞/𝔫: this sat in my unwritten folder since 2017 no lie. I wrote the premise and a singular paragraph at that time, then just gave up. I opened it a few days ago, got inspired again and this word vomit came out (heavily influenced by a midnight Zoom call with my friends). Ngl this was so much fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. This will probably be in three parts. 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔯: I did not know that DailyHive is an actual online news source when writing. This work is purely fictional and has absolutely nothing to do with the real DailyHive.

part two

Your friends have a saying: After 29, nobody shares their age until they’ve accomplished something.

In the past, you didn’t understand it. What’s so bad about saying you’re 30 or you’re 32? That’s still a young age! Sure, you’re not exactly in your prime anymore but you’re not old, right?

So, you continue in your own wondrous world of naïveté until that fateful day at your class reunion. You had simply been walking around, minding your own business when you had been stopped by an old colleague.

“Hey, Y/N, right?” she waves you down.

You smile kindly, not even bothering to try and remember her name (you sucked at names, what could you say).

“Hey…you!” you chuckle lightly, “How have you been doing?”

An everyday question leading to catastrophic effects.

“Oh you know,” she says and rolls her eyes as if you truly did know, “I’ve just been out and about. Did I tell you though? I got married last year!” She holds out her hand in which a giant diamond adorns her finger. “Wow!” you gasp, feigning interest. It’s not that you aren’t happy for her, but you are reminded of just how single you are currently. When was the last time you felt another human’s touch? Does kissing come back as easily as riding a bicycle? “Hey!” she says suddenly, “I’m actually meeting with a couple of friends from our class. You should come join! I’m sure they’d be happy to see you again!” You want to wave her off, but against your better judgment, you find yourself following in her footsteps and listening to her speak about wedding venues and honeymoon destinations.

“Oh my god!” another female voice filters in.

The “couple of friends” this old classmate had mentioned is in fact a fairly impressive size of twenty. This is also the third time the wedding announcement has been made.

“Last year?” the female continues, “Weren’t you young?”

Yes, you want to respond. Yes she was young. A full 365 days younger than she is now.

Your classmate, Sooyoung (or Kiko as she insists going by now) titters in front of you. “I mean, you can sort of say I’m a late bloomer. I got married when I was 31.”

Her words unintentionally cut into you. Here you are at 29 without a beau in sight. You take a fast swig of your beer and end up hitting the empty glass with a clink to your teeth. Nobody notices.

“Enough about me, however, how about you?”

“I started my own business actually. It’s been doing really well and it’s been a crazy mind. Imagine me, my own boss at only 33!”

You nervously join them when they suddenly laugh together.

“Hi, can I get another pint please? Actually add a tequila shot to that,” you whisper the last part to the waitress you had just stopped.

And that was how the rest of the night went. People asking one another what they had accomplished. Any moment in time after 30 would not be mentioned until somebody travelled to Uganda to build houses at 31 or another gave birth at the same age. Below 30, anything would be attributed to luck or in your case…

“What are you doing currently?” somebody asks you, “The little baby of our class.”

Swallowing your third tequila shot of the night, you wonder for the umpteenth time how you had become a part of this giant sharing circle. You wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse that you had graduated a little early and thus was younger than most of your peers.

“Well,” you start, “I’m currently working at DailyHive.”

“Ohh!” a man gushes. You recognize him as the once-upon-a-time science partner you used to cheat notes off of. “I use DailyHive nearly as much as Instagram these days. You guys cover everything from news to sports to fashion.”

You shrug. “Yeah. It’s, uh… it’s a pretty big company!”

“What are you doing there?”

Kiko-ex-Sooyoung hits the man teasingly on the shoulder. “Y/N is probably the Director of Marketing or something. Remember how she used to spend all class doodling in her notebook?”

“Or sleeping!” someone quips.

You don’t join in when they all laugh.

“I’m…an intern,” you say with as much pride as you can in a group of established professionals ranging from dermatologists to that one guy who had flown around the world as a TedTalk guest speaker.

A hushed silence befalls everyone.

“That’s…cool!” the same man encourages you, “Interns are totally rad! Everyone wants an intern spot these days.”

His girlfriend pats your arm, almost empathetically. “Yeah. I know a bunch of people who first start off as interns and then they shoot up the ladder quick enough. As long as you’re no longer an intern at 30, you’re golden!”

Once again, the entire group laughs as if she has said the most hilarious of jokes.

She composes herself and says to you, “Because after that, you should have accomplished something.”

Her words still ring in your ears as you sit at your desk this morning.

Yeah…something. All you need to do is accomplish something in the next three months before you are officially, 29 + 1.

Your fingers tap against your thighs silently while you observe the current debate that is occurring in the conference room. You barely have time to sweep the falling hair back behind your ear as your fingers ferociously fly across the keyboard to keep in track with the meeting.

Fei is arguing that the implement of a new search word system would boost users while Daniel says that it is a waste of resources. Instead, everything should be put into updating the entire system as a whole. You have long since lost track of their words as neither pertain to what you do as an intern.

“Enough,” the CEO of DailyHive holds up a hand. His one word causes the entire room to hush over – truly, the words of a god.

And that might as well be what he is. With his hair swept back and a lone tendril curling perfectly above his brow, Kim Seokjin is legitimately a walking god. Off his broad shoulders hang an expensive white linen suit bought with his pocket change and your yearly salary. A pair of sunglasses hangs in the V of the collared shirt dipping low enough to blur the lines between being fashionably professional and just downright sexy.

The snap of his fingers brings you back to the present.

He dramatically rolls his eyes and accepts that you are an incompetent minute-taker.

“I have to remember that the world just doesn’t move as fast as I do.”

- Quote: Rolling Stones 2019 Kim Seokjin.

Now if only he’d remember he had once said that.

He points at each of them with one finger, then swipes to the left. “Both of you, solve this outside. I don’t want to hear your voices any longer. You two from the marketing team, Ungroomed Stache and Acne Chin, create me a report if we are to implement Ms. Song’s idea. The two of you from…” he takes a pause here clearly having forgotten who his employees are, “The two of you do the same thing but for Mr. Hwang.”

The pair from accounting open their mouth to protest that they are in charge of only numbers, but they are ignored.

“All of you out now. Except you,” he points his finger directly at you, “Stay.”

Nobody utters a single word until they have all left and you are left alone with him. Standing before him with your hands folded nicely in front of you, you blink and wait.

He stares right back at you, picks up his coffee mug and drops it. The clatter of ceramic smashing against the ground causes a pause in the loud buzz outside the room. You know everybody’s focus has been shifted into the room.

“Do you want to kill me?” he drawls.

You take a long inhale. “No,” you say.

“No?” he repeats the word, “Well I think you do. Did you check this coffee before you brought it to me? I tasted cinnamon in it. You know how I’m allergic to cinnamon. Get me a new cup. And this mess, get somebody to clean it. I don’t want the smell of coffee in this room when I have my next meeting here in twenty. I’m taking a smoke a break.”

He stands up and brushes past you without saying anything else.

Nobody can be allergic to cinnamon. Besides if he had actually tasted cinnamon and was that sensitive, he would be dead. And good riddance to that.

Of course, you say none of this and wordlessly begin to pick up the broken ceramic pieces of the dead mug. The bustling outside the meeting room has returned back to its normal state of chaos. Seeing the ugly stain of coffee on the once pristine carpet causes you to swear beneath your breath.

“Who the fuck is allergic to cinnamon?” a new voice says, sliding up beside you.

The second god in DailyHive; the much nicer and evidently preferred Kim; Taehyung takes the mug pieces from you and drops it into the garbage bin.

Blessed with not only intelligence but devilishly model-like features, he is your desk buddy in the small space allotted for interns and your sole friend in the company.

“Tae,” you sigh with exasperation upon seeing your lifesaver, “What am I going to do about this stain? He’s going to return in fifteen and there’s no way I can get a coffee stain out of this expensive-ass carpet.”

Taehyung taps a long finger to his lips, leaves the room briefly, and returns with a roll of Bounty sheets and a can of Febreze. He promptly blots as much of the coffee off from the carpet then proceeds to pull the meeting table.

“C’mon, Y/N, don’t just stand there. Help me! Time is of the essence!”

You laugh and join him in moving the table so that one of the legs cover the stain 80% of the way. Once he is satisfied, he takes the Febreze and sprays until the whole room smells like “Hawaiian Aloha”.

“You’re welcome.” He gives an extravagant bow, the motion popping open the top button of his shirt to expose a surprisingly chiseled chest.

Fei returns back into the room holding a phone to her ear and a clipboard in her left hand. “What the hell? It smells like a Bath & Body Works in here. Intern, aren’t you supposed to be filing or something? Stop standing around and be useful.” She grips Taehyung’s arm and drags him out of the room. “Button up. This is a professional workplace.”

You give him a tiny wave as Taehyung is steered away by his girlfriend and back to the cubicles.

Taehyung may be your saviour at work, but outside, it cannot be denied that your brother is the true Fountain of Life.

A week has passed since the coffee incident (you suspect a cleaning personnel had found the stain and cleaned up after your improv as aforementioned stain can no longer be found), but Jimin still brings it up.

“I still can’t believe that he said he was allergic to cinnamon. I’ve never heard of such bullshit before,” your brother says over the phone. You can practically hear his eyeroll from across the world.

As a renowned ophthalmologist, you have not seen Jimin for close to a year as he has been initiating his new clinic, a flying eye hospital.

“You should hear his Starbucks order. I always feel like I’m ready to launch my next EP whenever I’m at the counter,” you say.

Jimin laughs. There is the muffled sounds of voices as his never-ending flow of patients have arrived for the day.

“I shouldn’t keep you,” you say upon hearing that, “You’re probably really busy.”

“No,” he says, “I’ve got a few minutes if you’ve got a few. I miss talking to my baby sister.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Jiminie,” you say using the nickname he hated.

“Oh that’s right. Your birthday’s in a little under three months, right? My baby sister is turning the big three-oh.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“Want me to come visit you?”

You contemplate the idea once, having not seen Jimin in quite a while.

“Only if you have time. But I feel like Mom and Dad would probably want to see you more. Speaking of which, um… How are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re good. I hear Dad is finally going to retire this year. He’s giving his practice to Kibum, you remember him? Mom will probably start pestering us about what to do for his retirement party.”

There is a pause.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to say hi to them once in a while.”

You sigh. “And say what? Hey, it’s me. The child that ran away from home at 18? Yeah, I’m not a doctor like everybody else in the family but a 29 year old intern at a popular app company. Whassuuup?”

“Y/N, that’s not what I – ”

“It’s okay, Jimin. I’ve come to accept that not everybody is cut out to be a doctor. I just wish Mom and Dad could realize that.”

Jimin sighs on your behalf. There is the sound of a crying child coming through the earphone. “Well, your contract expires a few weeks after your birthday, right? Who knows, you might be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”

He has never explicitly inquired about your life plan and you know this is as much as he is willing to push without asking, “What’s next after this intern hiccup?” At least he had the decency to compare you to a controversial Internet entrepreneur.

The child is crying much louder now.

“Again with my birthday. But I’ll let you know,” is the only reply you can come up with at the moment. “Okay, brother, go forth and heal the blind. I bless thee in the name of the Holy Spirit, Son and Ghost.”

There is true laughter that rings from Jimin as he ends the call. “It’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost you dweeb. I love you sis.”

“You too.” You hang up first before he can add anything else.

With that, you enter into the 7am Starbucks queue and prepare yourself in running the first single of your long overdue EP.

Seokjin leans back in his chair, watching you from inside his office. Today he has chosen a black turtleneck and a brazen maroon-nearly purple suit jacket to complete the outfit. For once, there is an empty mug of coffee beside him and his morning headache has been appeased.

He knew he had given you an impossible task.

“Compile all the troubleshooting errors we have received since the launch of DailyHive. Organize it in a manner that allows me to identify the most prominent problem. Run it through whomever you please before giving it to me. I don’t need to waste my time correcting your mistakes.”

There is an amused smile that bubbles beneath his otherwise stoic features. He cannot deny that there is, might he dare say, a cute quality about you as you manually scan through the received concerns on your laptop dating back to the initial beta tests – the ones that were lost in a data crash and only backed up with unintelligible scribblings of previous interns.

The moment you had been introduced as the new intern, you had caught his eye. You are exquisitely mundane, and perhaps the reason you had even caught him the first time was due to solely to the fact that you were older than most interns – himself even. Nevertheless, you continue to present him small surprises in your tenacity and capability to tackle challenges.

“Mr. Kim.”

His intercom comes alive with the voice of his secretary.

Seokjin’s eyes do not leave you as he answers.

“Mr. Hwang is on line two. Would you like me to defer him to a later time if you are currently busy?”

Seokjin cannot help but sigh. Hwang Junho, his co-founder, while a genius in international business is also a notorious chatterbox and gossip. There is seldom a reason for Junho to call him except to relay the cover titles of E!Magazine.

“Did he mention a reason for calling?” Seokjin inquires.

His secretary seems to be reading from a note. “He says it’s to do with the company. Something he read from Cosmopolitan this morning.”

So not E! but another sister celebrity gossip blog. He checks his watch and duly notes that he certainly has no meetings scheduled until later in the afternoon where your report would be needed to run a preliminary analysis.

“Sir?”

“Yes, put him through. But tell him I’ve got only five minutes, so he’s better give me the Cliffnotes version,” Seokjin sighs again.

Before he can be connected, Seokjin quickly says, “What’s the name of that intern again?”

“Who?” his secretary asks, “We’ve hired four since the beginning of the year.”

“The one who keeps wanting to poison me.”

“I’m sorry, Sir?” she sounds concerned.

“The one who keeps forgetting that I despise cinnamon.”

There is no response.

“The older one. Spilled coffee a while ago but still has enough coordination to pull together a decent report.”

“Ah,” she says.

He waits patiently as she searches through the database, eventually giving him your name. He gives a slight pause and then says, “Good. Now patch me with Junho.”

There is a momentary buzz as the call becomes connected in which Seokjin turns over the syllables of your name wordlessly.

“Mr. Kim. The man of the hour. How are you, my brother?” Junho’s baritone fills the office in a manner of seconds.

Despite the little annoying quirks, Seokjin cannot help but smile when hearing the voice of his best friend.

“You’ve got three minutes, Junho.”

Junho grumbles. “That’s not my fault. You were the one still on the line with your secretary. Is it still Yerin? ‘Cuz I won’t blame you if that’s the case. Did I catch you doing some naughty phone sex during office hours?”

“Two.”

“Holy hell. Fine. It’s always business with you. That’s why the tabloids are always writing you as an uptight asshole.”

This shifts Seokjin’s attention to the phone. His name is seldomly mentioned except for the features in business columns. He prefers to stay out of the limelight.

“What?”

“Put your name on Google.”

Seokjin does as he is told.

There are millions of results, but the first few pages share the same headline. He clicks on the first one with a grimace.

“Kim Seokjin. Mr. Worldwide Handsome as noted by his fans, has recently sparked Internet outrage.”

A quick skim of the otherwise trashy article brought to the surface a summary: his last dating scandal had ended badly and the repercussions of blowing off a famous celebrity’s daughter had finally caught up with him. The Internet was calling him arrogant, narrow-minded, and even greedy. “The young Chief Executive Officer of booming social media app DailyHive has been accused of using his relationship with actress XYZ to further his own business. Once he gained recognition from aforementioned relationship, he has cold-heartedly cast her away to pursue his next.” “You’re calling me for this bullshit?” Seokjin scoffs. Junho tuts his tongue loudly. “This is not bullshit. It’s affecting the image of your company. Do you think people want to download and support an app that is run by somebody who is being called cruel and dishonest? You’ve got to address this soon before it gets out of control. You’re lucky I have alerts set for these type of things. I caught it for you just in the nick of time.” Seokjin inhales deeply. “You’re also lucky that I’ve got the perfect solution in mind.” “That is?” “The Silver Gala,” Junho references the prestigious event. The Silver Gala is hosted annually and attended by the largest celebrities as well as other wealthy investors and guests. Those in the social circle shared between Seokjin and Junho often yearned for tickets to attend events such as this, as they serve as excellent networking opportunities. Besides the above, such events are circled by reporters and writers of gossip columns to get the exclusive scoop on any eyebrow-raising rumours. “The solution lies in such an event,” Junho continues, “You know how many people will be there. All you’ve got to do is show up with your average girl-next-door type and it’ll show how you’re actually really humble and down to earth. Kim Seokjin is perfectly capable of dating like any regular human being. He doesn’t use “love” or whatever to further his business. Love is the connection between two souls; two individuals who – ” “Beep. Your time has run out Junho. I’ve got another meeting scheduled right this moment,” Seokjin interrupts. “Dude, seriously. Think about it. You could bring Yerin. Everbody loves a good CEO and his secretary affair. And if that’s too juicy for you, I can introduce you to some girls. Or maybe we could go back to our university days and hit a bar, y’know?” Junho tries his best to persuade. “Fuck!” you swear beneath your breath right as you walk into Kim Seokjin’s office. His door had been open and, in your excitement to show your completed report, you had dropped all the loose papers on the ground. Four hours of organization gone, just like that. You hope that at least Seokjin hasn’t heard or noticed you as he had been engrossed in his phone call. Seokjin had in fact noticed you. He can’t help himself but follow the curvature of your bare shoulder as your bangs escape the hold of your scrunchie and sweep across your skin. “Don’t worry, Junho, I’ve just thought about it,” he says with a smile.

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