#side quest lol

[nanaslutt]

just got my forst modeling job RAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

#side quest lol #i love playing dress up #YIPEEEEE

[inkskinned]

i know people are good because of this: the universe often assigns me side quests. in a circular strangeness; despite my inability to locate my-own-anything, i am almost-always finding someone else's lost things. dogs, coats, phones, cash, laptops. it happens so often it's almost tiring; suddenly being looped into a tiny amount of detective work.

but when i'm with other people who are not used to this: the response is almost invariably delight. yes, maybe they are simply thrilled by the mystery. it's just... they light up so much. i think maybe more... i think they like the opportunity to do something kind.

a few weeks ago, i was at a bar and i found a wallet as soon as we stepped outside. i felt nervous to ask for help, worried i would be holding up the night. i picked it up and said go on without me, i should help this get back to its home.

instead, three people pulled out their phones - to find him on facebook, to help cancel his credit cards. two people went back into the bar to tell the bartender, two others went calling down the street. group texts, facebook posts, instagram stories. people, without even seeing what happened, start offering help to me. fifteen minutes and: someone knows someone who knows the guy. the cheer that went up - just for finding him, just for this small thing. someone gets him on the phone. strangers dance around me, hopping on their feet - are you the girl that found that wallet? good for you, that's a good thing you're doing/same thing happened to me and somebody did what you're doing and i thank god everyday for people like you/i can't believe you found him so fast this is so exciting

i gave it back to him in a parking lot. i watched his shoulders sag with relief. there was cash in it still - he checked the pocket, and then sheepishly held the money out to me. i didn't take it. i held up my hands. "it's no problem, man. i know you'd do the same for me."

i don't know him, to be honest. i don't know if he is the same kind of person i am. but he nodded at me.

and i know people are good. i know people are good, because the way this story ends isn't surprising. we wave goodbye awkwardly. my friend loops their arm around me.

"i can't believe we got it back to him," they said. "i'm going to be riding that high for weeks."

#i lost my wallet in disney world once #and really thought i had beefed it bc i was 19 and alone #and a woman got it back to me within an hour #just like . a mom #i have no idea how she got my number or info #and i do think that since then karmatically god has been like. #ur about to be the same person in someone else's life #btw i like the side quests but they never happen at a good time #once saved 2 lost dogs while on the way to the airport. i already had my 70 pound dog in the back of my car #and had to chase 2 dogs down the street to wrastle into my passenger seat #(she ended up writing me the fucking nicest thank you card and sending me WAY #W A Y too much in target bucks as a thank-you) #i went 2 go see batman the other night and legit like. had already been running late #to go see a friend #and instead was like. sorry i have to step outside and use this person's phone to see if i can find them #i once found 250 dollars in cash lol #MEANWHILE IN MY PRIVATE LIFE #I LOSE FUCKING EVERYTHING #adhd will be like #: thou art so observant that it is distracting : #: BUT not observant towards items that are not novel to you : #: die mad about it : #: so it is written. so it must be : #: no nobody saw where you put the fucking car keys :

[w1llay]

Objective: go to town and talk to the cat

#dank memes #memes #lol #humor #funny #jokes #cat #mythic quest #pro #side quests #orange cat #christ

[grims-sunshine]

hello! How are you? I see your requests are open? If it's alright, can i request some angst, but with a happy ending because I'm too damn soft🥲 Fem Tav being absolutely devastated when Astarion confessed but also that he was originally manipulating and using her? I never see anyone writing Tav being upset over that, like she's in love with him, but is rightfully angry and upset with him and just sobs while avoiding him for a while? 🥲

Hi hi anon! I'm good, thanks for asking <3 I hope you're alright too!

I love this idea so much aaaaah! I had to start writing pretty much immediately ahaha

Thanks so much for the request, I hope you enjoy it <3

🤍 Feel Better 🤍

Pairing: Astarion x Tav

Word count: 1.7k

Tags: angst with a happy ending, some mild anxiety, arguing, Tav says a few not so nice things maybe

"I care about you."

It's true when you say these words to Astarion. At least you think it's true. At least it was true just five minutes ago.

You're pretty sure it's still true.

You pull Astarion into a hug, and aren't sure if you do it because you want to hug him, or because it feels like the right thing to do.

He hesitates for a moment, but puts his arms around you as well. You're overcome with a wave of happiness that he hugged you back, then sadness that he just admitted to having manipulated you, then anger that you were dumb enough to fall for it.

When he holds your hand, you see a glint of sincerity in his eyes. But you're not sure you can trust your own judgment anymore. Part of you wonders if he actually means it this time.

You know it wouldn't make sense for him to lie again, right after confessing his last lie and admitting that he felt bad for it.

But it didn't make sense for him to lie the first time either.

You've been defending Gale when the others were mad about his secret, and he wasn't sleeping with you. You tried to stand up for Wyll when Mizora showed up, and he hadn't shown even a hint of interest in you. You sided with Karlach and helped her deal with the paladins when you didn't even know her yet.

In short, you've been doing your damnedest to protect the people around you, not because you wanted anything in return, but because you're all in an unfortunate situation, just trying to stay alive, and you believe it'll be better for all of you to help each other. You would've done the same for Astarion, without him ever doing so much as touch you.

Your thoughts cause unease to rise within you, getting worse with every second. Once he lets go of you, you excuse yourself, rushing off to a quiet place, out of view from the others.

You sink to the ground, leaning your head back against the wall as your vision goes blurry. Before you even notice it, tears stream down your face and you suppress a sob.

You feel betrayed. Astarion played with your feelings just to gain a benefit from you, with seemingly no care how it would make you feel. You should've gotten angry at him, told him off for manipulating you, screamed at him for hurting your feelings.

Instead, you gave him a hug and said you care about him.

Underneath the anger and hurt, your feelings for him are still there, maybe stronger than ever. If you could just move past this, maybe the two of you can be happy together after all.

It makes you feel like a child, thinking that you're in some kind of fairy tale romance. But you're not the protagonist of a storybook, and you're starting to have serious doubts that Astarion is the prince who will sweep you off your feet and bring you eternal happiness.

And yet, that small part of you makes you decide to stay with him for now and hope everything will work out for the better. You're not sure if you're naive, stupid, or if Astarion really is worth trying, but you trust your gut feeling, even when your brain is telling you to break things off immediately.

Still, you can't help feeling hurt over everything that happened, so over the next couple of days you pull away from Astarion. It's not your intention, but whenever you're close to him, you start to feel dizzy, sick even. You feel your chest tighten and a knot form in your stomach that gets worse the longer you're around him.

You used to not get enough of being close to you, now it feels like your whole body recoils against his presence.

Astarion doesn't seem to notice that anything has changed -- Or if he does, he doesn't show it. If anything, he's become even more affectionate with you.

He's been seeking out your touch more often, giving you occasional hugs and stealing kisses from you. They make your heart beat faster, but you can't tell anymore if it's because you love him or because it sends your brain into overdrive each time, wondering if he's doing it because he wants to be close to you or because he wants to keep you hooked so you won't turn away from him now.

You hate that you have to question him. You hate that you feel like you can no longer trust him when you blindly would've put your life in his hands just a few days ago.

To make things worse, life has decided to hurl even more struggles at you while you're dealing with your feelings.

The Shadow-Cursed Lands have been getting especially cold at night. You try to stay as close to the fireplace as possible, but it feels like the darkness sucks away any warmth provided by the fire, so you're left shivering and wishing you could lie in a warm bed with several blankets instead.

"Wanna cuddle a little for warmth?" Astarion's voice catches you off guard and you almost flinch when you notice him standing beside you, watching you shiver and grasping your arms.

"Not that I have much body heat to give off, but, you know… I could be there for you in spirit." He continues, giving you a smile that looks almost a little shy.

You're hesitant at first, but something about the way he looks at you plugs at your heartstrings. You can't resist him, not when he looks like he's sending silent prayers to the gods that you'll agree.

"Yeah, sure. At the very least you'll block off a bit of the cold, right?" You say, earning a chuckle from him.

"I'll do my very best to shield you from the cold, darling."

He settles down facing you, wrapping one arm around you to pull you closer to his chest.

You try your best to relax, but your body still tenses around him, even when you try to just swallow down your feelings.

You lie in silence for a while, until Astarion sighs.

"Is everything alright, dear? You've been acting a little off lately. I wasn't sure if I should mention it at all, but to be honest, I am a little worried." His tone is serious, void of the usual playfulness in his voice.

Damn it. He noticed.

"It's nothing, really," you say, hoping that he'll drop it. Instead, he just looks at you, sceptical.

"Are you sure? You can talk to me, you know." He frowns brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "It's just," he hesitates, like he's unsure of what to say, "I feel like you've started avoiding me ever since I opened up about my feelings. So, I've been thinking, maybe I misread the signs and you actually never wanted to move past… Whatever the hells it was we had before," he rambles. Then, a little quieter, he adds, "You know, I've never done this whole relationship thing, and I really don't want to make a fool of myself by pursuing someone who doesn't like me that way." He lets out a nervous chuckle.

Oh hells no.

"Make a fool out of you?" The words break out of you, louder and angrier than intended. "What about me, who made a fool out of herself the whole time thinking you actually liked me?" You should stay composed, calm yourself before you say something you regret, but at that moment, all the complicated feelings you've been having swirl together and explode within you. "You didn't stop once to think about that, did you? But when it's about you having to deal with something unpleasant, suddenly it's a problem. Don't you think that's a little selfish of you?"

By the way Astarion looks at you, you'd think he'd just been slapped. Then he averts his eyes and you feel his hands tightening, gripping the back of your shirt.

"Right," he sighs. "I deserve to be called selfish, I suppose."

Astarion takes a deep breath, his jaw clenching as he thinks about what to say next, before he relaxes it again. "I know what I did to you was wrong. I manipulated you and you didn't deserve that. At all." His voice quivers a little as he continues to speak. "And I know it's no excuse, but this is what I've done for two centuries. Manipulate people to avoid getting hurt. I have no damn idea how to navigate a relationship with someone who isn't trying to make me suffer at every turn, or someone who I know will meet a terrible end because of me."

He looks at you again with a pained expression. "I really do care about you, despite what I've done, you know? I didn't intend to care about you, but you crushed all my intentions just by being your wonderful, amazing self. And if you're willing to give me another chance, I promise to make this right. I promise I won't ever try to deceive you again. I want to be someone worthy of your love and I'll do what I can to be that kind of person."

This time you're absolutely certain that he's sincere. There's not a sliver of doubt in your mind about that.

You don't even realize that you haven't said anything in a while until you notice Astarion grow increasingly nervous, looking at you like he expects you to cuss him out and tell him to leave any second.

You grab his hand and press a kiss to his palm. "I am willing to give you a chance," you say, seeing the instant wave of relief rush over his face. "I know you're new to all of this, and I know you've been through a lot. I should've talked about this sooner instead of just avoiding you. And I shouldn't have yelled earlier either. So I'm sorry as well."

Astarion presses his forehead against yours, pulling you into a close hug. "So things are good between us now, right?"

You nod, leaning in to kiss his cheek before nuzzling into his chest. "Yeah, everything's alright."

Title inspired by this

#astarion #bg3 astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate astarion #astarion x mc #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #i really struggled picking a name for this but ig that's it now lol #some day I'll pay someone to name my fics for me /hj #side quests

[danikatze]

[ID in alt text]

Haven't finished the first run yet, but I made a new bg3 character.. Their name is Russet Cuprum, Russ for short :3 (brown and teal like rusted copper is one of my fave colour combos) They're a barbarian but also a Soft Boi ™️

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanart #tav #bg3 tav #russet cuprum #oc #got a bit overwhelmed with the first one - all the stuff and the decisions and quests and side quests #made an absolute mess of my inventory hehe #so I started over lol #found the mod that allows you to take the whole party on the road instead of just three :3 #it's cheating but it's a lot less stressful now that I don't have to decide who to take with me #do feel a bit sorry for my first tav tho :c #fanart #danikunst #described #2024 #2

[apitnobaka]

avoiding saving hyrule by doing npcs quest, 01

also available as sticker and stuff here!

#zelda #zelda fanart #totk #tears of the kingdom #art #apitoodle #i suck at bosses so im just doing all the side quests first lol

[skyloftian-nutcase]

The Great Boopathon

Twilight

It had honestly been an accident, a truly sincere miscalculation. Sky tried to remember that Wolfie was Twilight. But sometimes, when the fluffy animal trotted into town, panting from exertion or cheer, Sky just immediately knelt in front of him with a sweet greeting and a gentle boop on the nose.

He didn't think it was possible for an animal to look so offended, but somehow Twilight managed it.

Sky

This was war.

Twilight huffed as he watched Sky sleep. The teenager was out cold, as per usual, curled into himself and covered in blankets. It was a little more unusual than his usual sleep position, in which literally anything was possible because he could fall asleep literally anywhere, but the boy's head cold had him shivering.

That didn't stop Twilight, though. He still remembered the boop. The completely humiliating and degrading gesture, the cute noise Sky made with it as he bapped Twilight's wolf nose gently with a smile on his face and a flush to his cheeks.

Sky moaned miserably, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Twilight swallowed, grabbing his resolve. He walked forward stealthily before laying on the ground, his canine nose stretching forward until it met Sky's own congested one. Then his tail swished back and forth, dusting leaves off the earth.

Sky scrunched his nose in response, tickled by the wetness of it, before he opened his eyes to see a snout. He yelped, trapped in his blankets, and Twilight pounced on him, bapping him with a paw and pinning him in place as he laughed and tried to fight.

Abel

"There's no way you can do it!"

Link glared defiantly in response. He would do this, and there was no stopping him. He would always rise to a challenge. He couldn't afford to fail, he couldn't afford to lose the faith of those who believed in him.

He was stealthier than he'd ever been in his entire life. He could pass for a Sheikah, he was certain. His heart pounded in his chest, anxiety trying but failing to whittle away at his resolve. His naysayer watched with bated breath.

The greatest challenge, of course, were the floorboards. There were some that creaked. It would be absolutely catastrophic if his foe heard his approach. Carefully, Link tried to remember which boards creaked the most, settling his bare feet with such care to distribute his weight properly.

When he finally reached the bed, he nearly failed in his mission. His enemy stirred, almost awakening, but he managed to avoid disaster. Finally, his objective in sight, the Hero of Hyrule leapt, landing on his prey with a mighty hyah.

Abel nearly jumped out of his skin as he was startled awake before getting slammed in the face with a pillow.

"I told you I could do it!" Link yelled at the stairway where his sister, Lyra, was hiding.

Daruk

The leader of the Gorons had many precious memories to make him smile when he was more contemplative in the evenings. Perhaps his favorite, though, was when the Champions met his child, who had been so delighted to meet them that he'd rolled over Revali's toes and crashed into Link's knees, knocking the Hylian over. It had been a fun day in general, but the little boop his boy had given him when he picked him up had been the most delightful part.

It was usually what Daruk would do for the child before bedtime; to have such a simple gesture reciprocated brought him more joy than he could ever articulate.

Shadow Link

He had nearly succeeded in getting away from the damn gloom hands, but his stamina had run out. When they'd caught up to him, he could practically sense the displeasure radiating off them, and his insides froze at the sight of them.

Then one of the hands leaned over and booped him on the nose, making him yelp, before the others grabbed him and teleported him through the gloom back to Ganondorf's location.

"Was that really necessary?" Link grumbled, holding his nose as if it had been burned.

"Yes," the demon king replied without hesitation as he snatched him by his tunic and plopped him beside him. "Now rest."

Mystery Link

Link wasn't sure how it happened, but being completely smothered by his dog was not how he wanted to start his mornings. Nevertheless, it was how Friend decided to be his new morning alarm, slapping his face with a paw as a warning before laying her whole head over him and asphyxiating him.

By the fifth morning, he started wrestling her in response, and she always got so excited about it that she would spend the next few minutes zooming all over the forest, tail tucked and legs flailing in all directions.

Wind

Twilight was acting weird.

Wind was a little worried. After all, he'd only just recovered from his injury recently. Although the sailor had the utmost faith in the elder Hero's abilities, he couldn't help but watch him and see what was up. This was a matter of great importance, and only Wind could truly understand as the others seemed completely oblivious.

He made several observations while the others were pointlessly distracted. Twilight's eyes were wary, looking everywhere as if he were expecting an attack. Wind knew for certain that the rancher hadn't been patrolling because Time and Wild wouldn't allow for it quite yet. But no one else was on edge. It was possible Twilight just felt inadequate or useless, as he was typically the one who tried to shoulder a great deal of responsibility.

Wind moved closer to his dear friend, curious. He was going to ask him outright if he kept this behavior up, but--

Twilight gasped, grabbing Wind around the ribs and holding him like a shield in front of his body, and Wind yelped as Sky poked his nose.

"Hey!" Sky snapped. "No cheating!"

"There are no rules in this war!" Twilight huffed back. Then he gave Wind a squeeze against his torso as a compensatory hug. "Sorry about that, little pirate."

"Ha! Sorry? Let me go, I'll avenge you!" Wind happily offered, already wiggling out of his grip as Sky fled.

Time

"This is getting out of hand," Time said severely, hands on his hips. "And is unbefitting of a Hero."

Twilight looked extremely schooled. If he were in his wolf form, he probably would have his tail between his legs, ears peeled back. Time did not feel guilty in the slightest about it. The camp was in utter disarray, supplies strewn everywhere as Twi's wolf form had utterly destroyed the place and barreled over most of the heroes while he'd tried to escape Sky's little winged mechanical booping machine and Wind's exuberant screams.

Unlike Twilight, Sky looked nearly indifferent, but somehow he managed to convert his expression to apologetic when Time glared at him. Wind, however, was unrepentant.

And giggling.

Time was going to lecture him further when the reason for Wind's laughter dropped out of the nearest tree, landing on Time's shoulders and booping him on the nose.

Sky and Wind cheered as Wild scrambled off Time and fled into the forest, giggling all the way.

#800 boops in twenty minutes is quite the achievement LOL #y'all are too powerful XD #writing #I was tied between Shadow and Mystery being my grumpiest OC Links so I just wrote both lol #different kinds of grumps I suppose #one is teenage angst paired with the insanity/horror of his situation #the other is just 100% Done with everything (which frankly is more fun LOL) #RIP Abel you never had a chance once Link was given a challenge #he does love his side quests and mini games after all and Lyra was ready to give him a challenge #Twi and Sky start to have a boop war #it gets insane #everyone gets dragged into it #Daruk being a Dad made me unexpectedly soft and happy #also RIP Revali's birdie toes #he deserves to be run over it's fine

[catmintnepetas]

:3

#professor layton #pl #luke triton #i meant to finish this earlier but then i went on a side quest called watching a 4 hour long among us vod and rhythm gaming lmao #also i was really lazy with the background lol #a

[zetadraconis11]

HL Incorrect Quote #89

MC: Garreth, acromantula venom is a rare potion ingredient, right?

Garreth: Yes?

MC: Alright. Happy birthday and Happy Christmas! *hands over vials of venom*

Garreth, overjoyed: What?! I- well- How-?

MC: You don't want to know.

#As an arachnophobic I HATED all side quests that involved those big stupid spiders #But at least Garreth gets some nice rare and expensive potion ingredients out of it lol #Those acromantulas are also jerks to fight in the game. Made me hate them even more #Like why? Why Avalanche? #hogwarts mc #garreth weasley #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy incorrect quotes

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

Hope when you receive this , you finished TOTK and isn't overwhelmed with requests. Is it alright if i ask for a Kazukoi comic? (Kazuichi x Mahiru)

idk if this is the same anon but I figure i can knock out two asks in one go yeeeee

Kaz: the vibrator's for your birthday, Mahi

Mahiru: oh kaz 🥰

Hiyoko: GROOOOSSSS!!!

#anonymous #danganronpa #souda kazuichi #mahiru koizumi #hiyoko saionji #kazukoi #req art #fala replies #i also have not in fact finished totk lol because its a big ass game #and i get distracted A LOT #so many side quests #a e i o queue #also kaz just making vibrators/sex toys for people is an idea #that was firmly planted in my head by Austa so shout to Austa #for giving me such baller ideas #kazuichi souda #koizumi mahiru #saionji hiyoko

[femmespoiled]

butch/femme couple goes out and gets some mangoes

#femmespoiled #🖤💗 #side quest acquired when we went out with a friend #we forgot to take regular pictures until today lol

[vonlipvig]

me, 20+ hours into disco elysium: there's fast travel in disco elysium? there's a map?!

#disco elysium #jules plays disco elysium #well would you look at that #idk guys i went into the bookstore once did all the doomed commercial area stuff and never went back. i dont spend money. #well im done with side quests and about to go find ruby so i dont think it matters now lol

[ctrl-alt-cel]

when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways. 

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them. 

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me. #its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing) #anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx' #fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you. #you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

[scionshtola]

17. Taking a step away from “canon”, do you have any wholly unique side quests and adventures your Warrior of Light has gotten caught up in? Did they chase down ghosts of their own past, get married, open a bakery, or fix an ancient blood curse on their family line? Have they reunited with loved ones or buried old hatchets? If there’s some unique story behind your character, how does it show up and how did it play out? (x)

After returning to the Source from the First, Corisande journeyed to the Bozjan Southern Front to aid the resistance in their effort at reclaiming their home. They had no idea they would find their mother there, already aiding the resistance as a scout. When Corisande left her village nearly 6 years ago, it was with the understanding she and Annika would likely not see each other again. But word of Corisande's feats as the Warrior of Light had made their way to their former village deep in the Golmore Jungle, and Annika, hearing of what her only child was doing, was not content to stay hidden in the forest when she could help (wonder where Corisande gets that from!). Neither of them could believe their eyes when they first saw each other, and are still overjoyed to be reunited.

#oc: corisande ymir #ffxiv #gpose #shadowbringers spoilers #sorta #i havent finished bozja yet btw...im working on it but it is important to cori #cori lore prompts #not a wholly unique side quest but the question did ask about a reunion lol so! #i guess also #oc: annika ymir #the pink highlights are hereditary 😊

[vampirepunks]

Since Kojima’s been saying that the Death Stranding film is going to tell a story that can only be told through the film medium, I really hope it’s a prequel to the game. There are a lot of background events represented through text and dialogue that wouldn’t translate well to a video game format on their own.

It’d be really cool to see the start of the Stranding, Victor and Igor’s backstory (as seen in the DS novelization), snippets from Sam’s childhood/early years with Bridges, the development and construction of the chiral network, and most of the events described in Higgs’ journals.

Coffin’s decision to leave her family behind, start a terrorist uprising by radicalizing the porters who unknowingly abetted human sacrifices by delivering BBs for the chiral network, and the decision to adopt Higgs as her protégé? That story alone would be worthy of a film.

#just thoughts #i would kill to see little baby Peter #and witness his Becoming™️ from that scared kid into the man we know and love #i know that ‘new world with a new sky’ moment would be POWERFUL #and what of his porter partner who died? what did that relationship look like? how close were they? #what of his relationship with Fragile after Coffin died? having a best friend who probably never saw his face? #not to mention his tragic rise to power and the secrecy that came with it. having to kill to maintain his DOOMS because people needed him #like he was handpicked as the inheritor of a rebellion against Bridges/the UCA and suddenly ended up with a LOT of responsibility when- #-Coffin died. and suddenly he was living a double life to care for and protect the people of the Western region #and those folks responded by calling him King Midas. naming him after a folk hero whose defining tragedy is being powerful but alone #everything he touched turn to gold but it’s so hard to form connections when you can’t shake hands #(sorry not sorry lol) #it’s such a complicated and nuanced backstory & so many people don’t even know about it because it’s in hard-to-reach texts & a side quest #idk I just think it’d make a really good movie. bonus points if it canonized him being a repatriate #it’d make a really good sci-fi political thriller/horror #i would vaporize in my seat if it cold opened with higgs saying 'once there was an explosion...' but now i'm just being self-indulgent #death stranding #death stranding movie #death stranding a24 #higgs monaghan #logan.txt

[moeblob]

(it doesn't work)

#tokyo mirage sessions #kiria kurono #itsuki aoi #tharja #i love both of them going along with kiria being ridiculous despite it not working and then being like #you do know you can like cute things too right like you dont have to hate cute things to be cool #also hey wtf is up with the level rec for a quest saying 34 and then being a level 40 enemy hey why #not relating to kiria but another character lol #i dont know how to check active side quests and have the attention span of a squirrel #so i hurried to level grind via tomes and skill books and beat it now i think i may be over leveled for story but idk because #there are SO MANY QUESTS