#ANYWAY that’s what I’ve got pls don’t attack me this is not based on anything except my own interpretations of vibes

[kemendin]

I have a personal headcanon that traditionally, pureblooded Sith children are raised pretty much gender neutral. When and if a child starts expressing some sort of gender inclination, then that’s how they’re treated, no questions asked.

Purebloods have never really struck me as all that fussed about gender overall. And I think this would bleed out into how they view other species as well, just - not really placing much import on anyone else’s gender either.

Obviously bloodlines are rather important to purebloods, so biological sex is certainly taken into consideration when it comes to continuing a family’s bloodline, but often it’s more a matter of convenience than anything else. And science being what it is in the Star Wars universe, there are certainly ways to get around any biological incompatibilities when it comes to procreation.

I just think that purebloods would rather be placing priority on raising their kids to be powerful and cunning and all those good traits than to be worrying about things like gender and what’s in someone’s pants.

(Also despite what SWTOR says I think pureblood features like types of facial spurs and browstalks and chintacles are just universal and not tied to biological sex, fight me)

[apollos-garden]

Thrall

A/N: in this, you’re an Avenger who has atmospheric / air manipulation powers. So basically you can move air, shove air, make a high/low pressure bubble, make a force field of wind, etc. 

Word count: 1878

Summary: mind controlled Bucky is ordered to fight you

The metal-paneled hallway was silent as you snuck along the side. You’d successfully retrieved the element core from under heavy guard at one of HYDRA’s last bases without notice. Just a bit longer, and you’d get outside. Tony’s quinjet was as close as possible to the base without triggering the sensors, about a 3 minute run. At the end of the hallway, you saw Bucky waiting to make sure you weren’t ambushed and cornered in the narrow corridor. You quickened your steps, eager to get away from the flickering fluorescent lights and eerie echo. Suddenly, the speakers in the ceiling came on with a crackle. 

Was that... Russian? “Желание. Ржавый...” You slowed in confusion, but Bucky’s eyes widened in horror before you could register the pattern. “No!” he shouted, plugging his ears in a desperate attempt to override the code, but the volume was deafening. “...Возвращение на Родину. Один...” In a last-ditch attempt to interrupt the sequence being read out, you sent a bolt of high pressure air hurtling towards the nearest speaker, crumpling it, but the others lining the hallway were more than loud enough to compensate. “Товарный вагон.” Silence resumed for a moment before Bucky straightened. “Я готов отвечать.” Ready to comply. 

Your heart sank. “Bucky, pl-.” You were cut off by the voice in the ceiling. “Dispatch subject in possession of element core and return it to the base center. Do not damage the core.” Bucky’s eyes locked onto you, and he raised his gun. Panicking, you threw up a force field. It held off the first spray of bullets, but in a confined and stuffy area like this, it wouldn’t last for long. You needed to get outside. The door was in your line of sight, directly behind Bucky. That was the problem. Strengthening the field as much as possible, you slowly began advancing towards him. 

As you got closer, the bullets’ ricochet paths started veering dangerously close to Bucky. Realizing this, he positioned the gun back across his shoulders and swapped to his knife. Bucky kicked the force field right in the middle, and although the winds spun his foot off, it wavered, weakened from the bullets. After absorbing another kick and two punches from his metal arm, the rushing air finally flickered down. You were completely unprotected. You had a knife in your belt and some explosive beads in a satchel, but even as you reached for the blade you knew you wouldn’t be able to hurt him. 

Bucky jabbed with the knife at your stomach and you sent a focused burst of air hurtling towards the blade, averting it at the last second. Your mind raced, trying to come up with any strategy to get to the door. Narrowly dodging an elbow to the face, you saw your window. Shoving him to the side with a gust of wind, you launched yourself past him, diving onto the hard floor. Rolling, you made a mad dash for the door. You heard a whooshing noise and your left calf erupted in pain, his knife clattering to the ground. Stumbling, you reached for the door handle when you heard the characteristic click of a gun cocking. 

You threw up a force field behind you, blocking a stream of bullets. You reached blindly for the door handle behind you, tugging it open. As you turned, a bullet ricocheted past the wall of wind and ripped into your right side as you almost fell outside, slamming the door behind you. Shaking, you reached for your radio. “Tony, Bucky got triggered and is trying to get the core back. I can’t hold him back for long. I need you to pick me up.” Not waiting for a response, you ran to a nearby tree, crouching behind it just as Bucky burst through the door. If you got the chance to form a low-pressure partial vacuum around his head, you might be able to make him pass out from hypoxia. You held out your hands, hiding them as best you could in the brush around the tree, and began to form the vacuum. Focused on tracking the blood drops you left in the muddy grass, Bucky didn’t notice the faint blurry film cast over his vision. 

The sound of the rain pattering on leaves masked your heavy breathing. Your vision was also starting to blur, but from blood loss and exhaustion. The bubble had sealed, and oxygen levels should have fallen enough to be noticeable. And noticed it was. Bucky clawed at the bubble, but since it was just air, there was nothing to punch through. Unfortunately, he realized that he needed to find you before his air ran out at the same time that the blood trail ended right in front of you. Your eyes locked. 

You formed your third force field just in time to block a kick that would have hit you square in the nose. It was stronger now, with the storm and free air, but you weren’t sure how long you could hold it and maintain the vacuum. Time to try something different. Hooking your foot around Bucky’s ankle, you took advantage of his air-deprived dizziness to flip him onto the ground, slamming his head onto a tree root. Summoning a concentrated force field around both his wrists, you kept both hands pinned to the ground. He strained against it and your head pounded with how much force you needed to exert to keep him there. Blood trickled from your nose. This could last for 10 seconds, tops. 

Your head snapped up as blasters started firing from the rooftop of the base at the approach of Tony’s quinjet. By this time, Bucky definitely should have passed out. You turned your gaze back to Bucky just to see his metal arm rip through its confine, and then the other one. With alarm, you saw no sign of the bubble you had put in place. It must have fizzled out when you had to focus so much power on keeping Bucky restrained. You raised your hands to cast yet another force field to hold until the quinjet landed, but they shook badly and all you managed was a feeble puff. Bucky unslung his gun from his shoulders and you dive away, but a round of bullets rip into the air and one lodges into your bicep. You look up to the quinjet to see Hawkeye on the hatch shoot an arrow into Bucky’s leg. The last thing you see before your vision fades to black is Bucky crumpling to the ground next to you and Cap leaping from the quinjet. 

________________________________

You slowly open your eyes. Your head feels pleasantly fuzzy, almost warm. As you open your eyes, some of that fogginess morphs into nausea. You’re in the quinjet. It’s quiet, the only noise the whir of the turbines and the splashing of rain on the roof and windows. Taking a deep breath, you push up onto your elbows. Your abs and arm burn, but thankfully the painkillers flowing down the IV line in your wrist numb most of the pain. “Woah, sit back down!” came a voice from behind you. You turn your head to see Natasha. “Oh. Hey, Nat.” 

“Lie. Back. Down.” Geez, okay. You settle back onto the medical cot. Natasha dragged her chair over to you. “How’re you feeling?” You smirked. “Actually, pretty okay. This is some heavy stuff. Maybe I should get shot more often.” Natasha just raises an eyebrow at you. The memory of what happened gradually returns as you shake free from the analgesic mental fog. “Um, how’s Bucky? I saw him get nailed by Hawkeye.” Nat sighs. “Well, he’s fine physically. That was a hollow arrow filled with a fast-acting sedative, just to get him out of Winter Soldier mode. Mentally... well, he’s outside. Do you want to talk to him?”

You nodded, biting your lip in concern. Natasha got up and dipped around the door, saying something. Once she was gone, you sat up, leaning against the wall for support. After a moment, Bucky’s head peeked around the door. He didn’t seem like he was going to move. “Hey, Bucky. You can come in, you know.” Slowly, he walked in, stopping near the door. He hugged himself with one arm, holding onto the bicep of his metal arm. He didn’t make eye contact. You tracked his gaze, eyes fixed on the bandages wrapped around your waist and arm. “Don’t worry about those. Bruce used some of his cell matrix regeneration support bandages. I’ve read about them in journals. Bullet wounds don’t even scar over if you get one on fast enough.” Bucky nodded. “Could you maybe come here? I would move but I’m tethered.” You motioned to your wrist. Reluctantly, he walked over and sat where Nat had been.

Bucky still wouldn’t meet your gaze. “Hey. It’s okay. You couldn’t do anything, and I don’t blame you for it.” At that, his eyes snapped up to meet yours. His eyes were red. “Why didn’t you stop me?,” he asked hoarsely. “If Tony had got there any slower, I would have killed you.” You sighed. “I knew if I tried to really hit you, I would have pulled my punches. So then I wouldn’t have made any real attack and I would be close enough for you to really mess me up. Just holding you down and blocking was the only way for me to get out alive. Anyway, we both made it out.” 

“It was this close to only one of us making it out!,” Bucky exclaimed. “I don’t get it. You almost died! Because of me!” His shoulders sagged and you could hear his voice crack. “I thought I lost you.” Bucky looked back up at you, blinking back tears. Some managed to escape and trail down his cheeks. Your own eyes stung seeing Bucky like this. “I’m right here, Bucky. I’m alive and so are you.” You pulled his head forward to kiss his forehead, then wrapped your arms around his neck. “It’s okay.” Bucky let himself be moved without resistance, but his hands wavered before settling on either side of the cot, not wanting to further hurt you. Silently, you lower one hand and intertwine your fingers with his, resting in your lap. 

Eventually, Bucky’s back stopped shuddering with sobs and his breathing evened out. You wiped away residual tears with the back of your hand, gently tugging him next to you on the cot. The combined effect of keeping yourself upright with damaged ab muscles and the steady flow of the painkillers was beginning to take a toll on you, and you leaned a little into Bucky’s side. His brows furrowed in concern. He remained still for a moment before cautiously guiding your head into his lap. “Sorry, I guess these drugs are pretty strong,” you mumbled. “ ’S okay,” Bucky replied, running his fingers through your hair. 

After about thirty seconds, you were already dead asleep. Bucky tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Your pulse was slow but strong and he could just barely feel the beat on his thigh where your neck rested. You both stayed like that, still and safe, until the quinjet landed.

[shinjaeha]

ipytm ep 2 (thoughts + spoilers)

i’ve been trying my hardest to forget about iptym during the week so the countdown to each new ep won’t feel as long, but i don’t think i’ve succeeded. with each new ep i feel more and more nervous and excited bc i know the conflict and angst is only going to keep ramping up as the series goes on (and this ep was a good indication of that...not FULL BLOWN angst yet, but the undercurrent of angst is slowly starting to come to the surface). i’m def more prepared for it than i was during itsay, but that doesn’t make it easy ;;;

the standard ‘this is not a proper analysis’ here...i’m completely aware that this post in particular is really messy, but i just had a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts with this ep. one day i will learn how to condense my thoughts better, but today is not that day so i’m doing this under a read more for once bc it’s embarrassingly long 😂

we start off with teh in acting class where his teacher is explaining how you need to be able to understand yourself before you’re able to understand other people (and therefore put yourself in the shoes of the character you’re playing)...which even before i knew where this ep was going to go felt a lot like foreshadowing for the events that were going to unfold in this ep.

the acting exercises are basically a lot like the ones that we see bkpp (and the rest of the cast) having to do as part of their workshops in the documentary eps, so it’s kind of cool to see them incorporate parts of that into the actual show itself. feels more authentic since, if you’ve watched the documentary eps, you know that this is actually what the actors have to go through when they’re learning to let themselves go and get into character.

so through this montage of all of teh’s classes, we get to see how much he’s enjoying learning more and more about his major. it’s truly his passion, and he’s finally in his element. and it’s great that he’s surrounded by so many seniors that are also as driven and passionate about performing as he is...i find it interesting how teh, even from the start, has always been most attracted to people that have the same sense of ambitiousness as he does. in itsay, his best friend (aside from oh-aew obv) was tarn, who had a very similar mindset as him. so here, it’s not really that much of a surprise that all his uni friends are basically the drama club seniors that he sees as role models. oh-aew is kind of that one outlier bc he doesn’t fit that same mould/personality type that teh tends to surround himself with, which is where you can already start to see the discord between them arising. in itsay, bc oh-aew was working towards the same end goal as teh at the time, it wasn’t as much of a conflict. but in ipytm we can see that their paths are starting to diverge more and more. that being said, oh-aew’s someone that teh truly needs in his life bc he offers a different perspective to most of teh’s other friends, and as we can see later on, teh REALLY needs that.

now THIS was one of the interactions i was really interested in. we already knew from the ep 2 teaser that teh isn’t exactly happy with oh-aew’s new friend group, so i’ve been waiting to see how teh acts when he’s around them. everyone’s at q’s house celebrating plug’s birthday, and honestly?? they’re all really sweet and accommodating of teh (they get him sweet drinks bc teh tells them that he doesn’t drink bc it’s too bitter, and they don’t pressure him when he says he can’t drink bc he’s got morning classes). but then the conversation turns to teh and oh-aew becoming actors and earning lots of money (and how convenient that is), and teh starts to get a little riled up. i don’t think they mean anything by what they’re saying (they’re just playing around), but we know that teh's sensitive to this sort of thing, and i think to him, it’s almost like they’re saying it’s ‘easy’ to become an actor and start making bank. teh, who already knows how hard it is (esp since he’s been watching how difficult it’s been for khim in particular), starts getting defensive about it. the focus being on money hits a nerve with him too bc teh is very clearly majoring in comm arts bc it’s his dream, not bc of the money he could make from it. teh and oh-aew’s gang are just on different wavelengths, and you can really start to see how teh’s having trouble bonding with oh-aew’s gang bc of their differing mindsets.

it makes me slightly sad that you can see how worried oh-aew is about teh and his friends not meshing. it’s like we, the audience, are all feeling what oh-aew is feeling...his nervous glances at teh bc he’s afraid that teh might not like them. and the discomfort on teh’s part too. all of oh-aew friends tend to be a lot more like him, relaxed and happy to go with the flow, but we know that teh can be pretty rigid and intense about the things that he’s passionate about. oh-aew recognises this, which is why he’s as anxious as he is in the first place.

oh-aew’s tea tattoo in honour of teh is actually so sweet 😭 it shows how much teh means to him. he really got a permanent mark on his body to symbolise his love for his boyfriend ;;; but from teh’s perspective, it’s literally that first mark of change. it IS a pretty big decision, so i don’t blame teh for being shocked about it, but teh likely sees this as oh-aew’s friends being a ‘bad’ influence on him (which we know gets brought up again later). not bc of the tattoo itself, but bc of what it represents. it’s like he’s watching oh-aew start to change before his very eyes and he doesn’t know how to deal with that so he brushes it away for now.

the framing of that shot where teh and oh-aew are facing each other and then q comes to walk in between them is A LOT like how they used to frame the both of them in itsay and having bas walk in between them. interesting.

HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE FACT THAT OH-AEW SPEAKS CHINESE WHEN HE’S DRUNK...that’s just plain adorable :’) it’s like he’s reverting back to when teh was teaching him chinese and they were first falling in love again. teh’s method of getting close to him was always tutoring oh-aew in chinese, so it’s as though oh-aew is trying to feel closer to teh again by speaking chinese to him. sort of like he’s trying to recreate that feeling all over again. i also love that this is basically the opposite of that oppo short film ad bkpp did haha.

we got the “ke yi ma” “ke yi” again ;;;;;;;; i love their little domestic moments. they’re so soft when they’re like this (i know we’re gonna have to weather the angst, but i hope we still have a lot more fluffy moments like this too pls). side note, i really love the lighting in these scenes!!

when oh-aew reads teh’s note about the kimchi jjigae and smiles but then reads the “do not skip class” and his smile fades away...oh, oh-aew, i feel u.

so now we get to see oh-aew in acting class, and the difference between oh-aew’s feelings towards class and teh’s feelings are like night and day. teh’s classes make him feel so fulfilled...this is genuinely something that he wants to do. but oh-aew is struggling. he doesn’t have that same sense of purpose as teh bc he’s starting to realise that this might not be what he really wants...he’s trying but just not enjoying it at all. when teh tells him about the casting call, i feel so much dread for him bc he’s clearly not looking forward to it whatsoever, but he knows how much this means to teh...so he’s willing to ignore his feelings for now if teh’s happy :(

is it just me or was this when oh-aew stopped carrying his ‘heart attack’ bag too??

idk this struggle in particular just feels so personal to me. i really identify with oh-aew when it comes to this bc when i was at uni i changed my major like 3-4 times (and changed unis a bunch of times on top of that) bc i had NO IDEA what i wanted to do. even now, i still have no clue what i’m doing a lot of the time. i’m glad that oh-aew at least managed to find some sort of clarity when he dropped in on his friends’ advertising class and realised that this was something that he enjoyed and was good at :’)

teh’s so excited and focussed on this audition that he can’t even see how worried and reluctant that oh-aew is about this. he wants them to have the same dream so bad that he can’t see that this might not be oh-aew’s dream anymore. but anyway, oh-aew is the sweetest, best boy as always. he’s so, so encouraging with teh. so patient. he really such a great balance to teh’s more volatile nature...but that contrast is also what makes you feel so bad for him when teh lashes out at him without thinking (as he’s prone to doing).

i LOVE khim. i just have so much respect for her. she’s always trying her hardest, and it’s painful to see her give so much of herself yet constantly be knocked down. the resilience that takes. i know that that’s part of the industry she’s in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. there’s a lot to be said about how harsh the entertainment industry can be (and the inherent ageism/sexism/homophobia within it), which i don’t have the time to go into here, but having to hear criticism like that...purely based on your looks (you don’t look smart enough, young enough, manly enough, etc.) is so incredibly disheartening. teh commenting on how harsh it is, and khim saying that it’s super common and telling the both of them how they’re gonna have to go through all of that the more casting calls they go to...OF COURSE oh-aew is only going to feel even more dispirited about this when he’s already realising that this might not be his thing anymore.

being able to take rejection and criticism is really fucking difficult (i know i could never do it)...and seeing oh-aew being told that he’s not ‘manly’ enough/too ‘girly’ in acting class and again at the casting call is yet another knock at his confidence. the way you physically see oh-aew get more flustered and anxious as the audition goes on, when he sees the crew shaking their heads at him :((( i feel all the nervousness, anxiety and embarrassment that he’s feeling right down to my very bones. then to walk out from that audition to khim talking about how damn hard it is to keep doing this time and time again only to be continually rejected?? my poor boy :( what’s fascinating to me is how differently the both of them interpret khim’s speech. teh latches on to her words and sees them as motivation to keep going...to keep trying and persevering. like a challenge. but to oh-aew, he just sees the difficulty and rejection. the instability of this career path, and how hard this could potentially be on his family as well. they’re both hearing completely different things.

teh being so happy about his audition even though he didn’t get the part and the way he turns around to face oh-aew directly when oh-aew tells him they said he was “too girly” and how he couldn’t change his personality to be what they wanted :((( pls. i just want to hug him so bad. teh’s “i like you the way you are now” and reassurance that so many other people do too  😭i know he kind of makes a mess of himself later on, but i’m still so glad that oh-aew got to hear that from him at least.

this show is the best at making you feel all that nervousness and anxiety when any of the characters are about to drop some big news. i was waiting with bated breath when oh-aew told teh he wanted to transfer majors. it makes me sad though that oh-aew has to constantly feel like he’s walking on eggshells when it comes to teh...he’s always most worried about teh’s reaction, and that’s prob the main reason why he didn’t opt out of comm arts even earlier. but oh-aew has all these mounting doubts about his major, and there’s only so long he can stick it out for teh’s sake, and the casting call (and khim’s words) really solidified that for him.

teh’s "you haven’t given it your all”/”you haven’t done your best” rubs me the wrong way bc it’s easy to think that way when you’re set on something and know that that’s what you want to do...but when you’re doubting/not sure about something, it just isn’t the same thing. we all have different thresholds when it comes to what we can endure and how much we can put into something. teh’s a hard worker, we’ve seen how dedicated he can be when he really wants something, but not everyone works like this. not everyone can be a teh or a khim. and esp not when they’re having to give their all to something that doesn’t feel right for them. and oh-aew’s right...sometimes once is enough to know that something’s not a fit for you.

when oh-aew mentions that he sat in on advertising class and thinks he might be into it, it’s like a parallel of that scene when they’re kids and oh-aew told teh that he wanted to become an actor like him. only now it’s the opposite. teh’s had this plan in his head that he and oh-aew are going to reach their dream of becoming actors and the lead protagonists in a movie/series together for so long now that it’s hard for him to reconcile that oh-aew might no longer want this as much as he does anymore. it’s like he can see this ultimate goal of his crumbling. so just hearing that it’s bc of q and the rest of the gang’s ‘influence’ that oh-aew sat in on their advertising class in the first place (and this triggered his interest in advertising) is like strike two for teh vs. oh-aew’s friends.

i’ve def mentioned this before, but oh-aew has always been the more pragmatic of the two, whilst teh is more idealistic, so i understand why he would gravitate towards something that was more stable of a career for him. more of a guarantee. he knows that advertising/marketing suits him better (not to mention that he’s always had the resort as his safety to fall back on too), and it’s something that he’s discovering he actually enjoys more in general too.

when i first watched this, i was like “oh wow teh’s matured so much!!” bc he didn’t blow up at oh-aew during this scene...that kind of ended up backfiring on me towards the end, but at the same time, i do think there’s a certain level of growth there since he does end up trying to reassure oh-aew (even if the blow up still occurs later on). it’s a process though...and even baby steps are progress.

8 months later and teh’s walking past that same place he and oh-aew walked by during his first night in bangkok...only now the poster is no longer the same red one. it’s blue... as though it’s signifying that this is just teh’s dream alone now, and teh clearly still hasn’t come to terms with that yet.

i’m really happy seeing oh-aew in a much better place now!! it’s so good to see him happy and actually involved in uni with his friends. but watching teh struggle going through casting calls and rejections makes my heart ache. hearing khim’s experience with auditions, and actually having to experience it irl, are two entirely different things. it’s like the reality of the situation is starting to hit in for teh. and that, on top of oh-aew not being there to support him in the same way bc their goals in life aren’t similarly aligned anymore, is starting to take its toll.

god, when teh lined oh-aew and was waiting for his response i was like nooooo don’t do it DON’T DO IT only for him to open ig to check oh-aew’s story 😭(though it IS cute that they have couple pfps). but we’re regressing. and now that they have different social circles it’s even harder to connect than before. teh feels like oh-aew’s being pulled away from him, into another friend group that doesn’t include him...and his insecurities are bubbling to the surface again. teh’s always needed that reassurance that he’s ‘special’ to oh-aew. clearly, we know that he is...but even now that they’re dating, it’s still something that he questions. and esp now that oh-aew is starting to feel like he’s fading further and further away out of reach.

i love seeing all of teh’s friends encourage him. they all understand how tough it is, and to see them all pull together to lift his spirits again is so lovely. but then his mood completely changes again when oh-aew comes to join them for dinner :( teh’s doing that thing again where he says everything’s fine when everything’s not fine (cue that “they ask you how you are and you just have to say you’re fine when you’re not really fine” meme). the flash to teh’s face when top says that he didn’t pass the exam to get into anantasart, and you know he’s just thinking about how he gave up his spot for oh-aew initially, and now that oh-aew’s transferred, it’s kind of like he’s turned it down twice. oof.

when teh tells them all that oh-aew’s transferred to advertising, it’s as though this is his way of trying to separate both his worlds. like oh-aew doesn’t belong here with his drama club friends, and it’s that pettiness that we got from teh in itsay is back in full force all over again. it reminds me so much of that time oh-aew told the itsay gang that he was a virgin, and so teh told his friends at school that he was a virgin too. or when oh-aew sent him that picture of his and bas’ legs touching, so teh retaliated by putting that pic of tarn on his story and leaning in to kiss her. it’s like he always needs to one up oh-aew. he doesn’t want oh-aew to feel the same bond with his drama club friends that teh has (esp when he sees that oh-aew is so close to his uni friends). where oh-aew was anxious about teh and his uni friends not getting on, teh is anxious that oh-aew and his drama club friends will get on too well so he has to create this distinction between them. kind of like his petty attempt to be all “i have my own friends too!!”, but it’s also combined with that feeling of inadequacy that he might not fit into oh-aew’s life anymore. he might not be ‘special’. idk if that makes sense but basically i think that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things during this scene.

when he starts attacking oh-aew at dinner...that was really hard to watch. you ever feel like you want to reach through the screen and just put your hand over someone’s mouth so they stop talking?? it was rough :/ it’s one thing to fight when it’s just the two of you alone, but it’s another thing to tear your partner down right in front of your friends. i understand teh’s feelings (and i know that they’ve been building up over this time), but my frustration was through the ROOF during this. it’s on brand for him, but still. and then poor khim :( i know oh-aew didn’t mean it in that way but the awkwardness of this entire dinner was just overwhelming.

another thing that’s sad about what teh said about oh-aew is that this is a huge sore spot for oh-aew, and it’s always been one of his biggest insecurities. the reason they stopped being friends when they were kids was bc teh said that he was going to quit eventually, so for teh to talk about how “shilly shally and indecisive” he is/how easily he ‘quits’ at things is a low blow when he already knows how much those words hurt oh-aew.

teh has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on oh-aew’s social media posts instead of actually talking things out with oh-aew so naturally it would make an appearance again here as well. and calling oh-aew’s friends “shitty” bc they’re different to him (aren’t as driven as teh and his drama club gang...therefore a bad influence on oh-aew) makes it really evident that teh still has a lot to learn. he really needs to start taking those acting class lessons to heart so he can see that not everyone is the same, and that other peoples’ experiences and perspectives are valid too.

teh’s long pause and “maybe” to oh-aew’s “and if this is what i really am, you’re not gonna like me anymore, are you?” BIG SIGH. it’s so typical of teh. i know he’s honest to a fault, but he REALLY needs to learn to think before he speaks sometimes bc he always ends up regretting it. i love that impulsivity of his, but it’s also one of the most frustrating things about him.

one thing that i find kind of annoying with the time skip is that we miss so much of teh’s festering feelings that it’s a bit harder to empathise with him when he has his eventual blow up?? i think if we were seeing this more consistently, it would be much easier for us to understand things from his pov better. like if we could slowly see this building up more and more as time went on, rather than just time skipping the 8 months until the blow up.

anyway, now khim and top are graduating ;;; i really hope that we’ll still get to see more of them in the next eps. i also love how the people in teh’s life are always so concerned for him (and how oh-aew’s doing). the message behind the book teh gets for khim’s graduation present is really sweet.

when khim first tells them that she’s going to be a flight attendant and teh blows up, i felt really angry at him initially. but upon reflection and rewatching this ep again...i think i understand where he’s coming from a lot better now. obv i still think he was out of line bc of course what khim’s saying makes sense...she can’t keep going to casting calls and scraping by with minor roles when she has to support herself and her family. in the end, we all need money to survive, and sometimes we have to be realistic about it. i really loved what she said about how we can have multiple dreams at once. but yeah, my heart really went out for her so much here :( it might be difficult for teh to see (or accept) rn, but he’s a lot more privileged than he realises. he still has hoon and his mother to support him financially, but not everyone is in the same position. not everyone gets to be as lucky.

regardless, i still understand why teh gets as torn up about it as he does. khim is someone that he’s looked up to and respected SO much...and his own doubts and insecurities have been steadily increasing. first, oh-aew changes majors, then, he keeps getting rejected at auditions, and now, the senior that he respects the most bc of her hard work and determination, is giving up her dream (at least in his eyes) to become a flight attendant. it’s like the world keeps telling him to give up bc it’s not going to work out for him. and he’s invested EVERYTHING into this dream. it’s all or nothing for him. but it’s like everyone else is slipping away, and it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto.

when teh looks at the tie and is reminded of oh-aew always being there to put it on for him :(((((((( ngl i was hoping that teh would be the first one to approach oh-aew (since their fight was bc of him), but i’m glad he apologised at least. and that they had a good talk about their feelings. but then again, this reflection after their fights is what they’ve always been fairly good at. teh just has to learn to stop internalising things so much that he ends up exploding so they don’t get to this point in the first place. so much has flipped from the first ep where oh-aew was the one feeling lonely and out of place. now it’s teh’s turn to feel all alone as he sees everyone’s dreams and goals (but his) start to change. like everyone is moving on and learning to adjust while he’s being left behind.

when they’re promising each other that their love for one another will never change, it just makes me feel so SAD. seeing them in the moonlight like this compared to the first ep when they were on the beach in phuket and teh was so hopeful and oh-aew was so worried :( everything’s already changed so much. making this promise under the moon like this reminds me of how bkpp kept talking about how the ‘ipytm’ title itself means an impossible promise...the two of them hugging in the moonlight as the score plays just feels so painfully bittersweet somehow ;;; my heart is aching, and i want the next ep, but i can’t deny that my anxiety is slowly building.

anyway, i know the end of this sounds so negative but i’m still banking on our teh/oh-aew endgame!!!!!!! it just needs to get worse to get better, and there’s still so much space for them to grow and learn. so many more experiences in store for them.

[alloftimeandspacetosee]

Pokemon get; Aria

So the original like... main Plot Filled Story Doc for Jay is written in journal entries bc I wanted to try something new with it all, which mean like a lot of this stuff is just glossed over? So I wrote up all the pokemon she receives as separate things (I also did the gym battles, but a lot of them get samey so I’m not putting most of them up (I also only ever actually finished the Sinnoh league)).

 This one’s still ok to put up haha

 pls forgive my French! I was relying heavily on google translate.

~

We stand in the atrium of the professor’s building, waiting. His assistant has informed us that he will be with us shortly, but… that was a while back. Even Birch wasn’t this lax about timing, and I expected it of him.

“I’d ask if you want to go wait in a cafe, but I’m going to need you to translate,” I say to Jayden, who laughs.

“I’m fine waiting.” He smiles.

“Some of us don’t seem to be,” Brith mutters, then barks.

I turn to see Soise, caught mid illusion over the desk of a shivering intern. “Soise.”

She laughs and jumps away, shades of possessed ghosts falling from existence after her.

Vulp, at my feet, yaps something at her, to which Soise replies in kind. Vulp bounces forward, ducking down on her forelegs as if begging. Soise tumbles her over and they go racing around the room.

Sesser cheeps and huddles into my neck, keeping out of view as best she can. Between her and Vulp with her nine tails, we’ve caused quite a stir. Soise is hardly helping, her illusions breaking the way in rarer and rarer pokemon. But at least her… latias child had the sense to stay behind, on the ship. I think, anyway. Who knows what Soise’s hiding.

I’d return her, but she seems to like being out all the time.

“Mes excuses, mes amis!” The door slams open behind us.

We turn to see a man in a lab coat with the sleeves rolled up enter the building. This is presumably the professor. I raise an eyebrow at his assistant, who had informed us that he was upstairs engaged in important work.

She had the decency to duck her head, looking intensely busy.

“Hi.” I stepped forward. “I was hoping to register for the league challenge.”

“Ma beauté, anything for you.” He takes my proffered hand and dips over it, kissing the back.

Holy shit. Again with these guys.

I try not to roll my eyes too much.

“Come, come!” He beckons us to follow. “This way, to my office.”

I exchange a glance with Jayden and we follow him. Brith barks at Soise and Vulp once more, and they run to my side, scrabbling at the stairs. Brith grabs up Vulp and leaves Soise to fend for herself.

I almost turn back for her, but actually she seems to be handling them fairly well, so I let her be.

Brith glances back at her, smirking, and I can’t help but feel like they’re definitely hiding something. Maybe Lairisse, maybe something else. Who knows!

“So, you wish to challenge?” The professor turns as we reach his office, leaning back against the desk. “The two of you or…?”

“Just me.” I hold out my trainer card.

He reaches to take it and leans back on his desk, reaching for the card reader there. “And you’ll take a starter, of course.”

“What? I – no.” I shake my head. “I don’t need any more pokemon.” Far more than enough, really.

“Are you sure?”

Soise paws at my leg, whining.

I glance across at Brith.

“She’s pointing out you haven’t trained anyone new in a while,” Brith replies.

Sycamore blinks and stares at her, fingers tapping at the machine in his hand.

“So? I’m fine with everyone I’ve got.”

“They are all very powerful pokemon,” Jayden says.

I tilt my head, looking at him.

He gestures at the card reader. “It’s supposed to be a challenge, right? If your pokemon are all as powerful as yours are, then… there isn’t much challenge.”

I shrug. “I just ask them to use stronger teams.”

“Oh, I see, you have many badges!” Sycamore exclaims. “What is that, four… five leagues?”

“Six,” I correct. “I did the Orange Archipelago challenge as well.”

“I… actually agree with Soise, here,” Brith says. “You should take another pokemon on.”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. “What’s the starter choice here?”

Sycamore brightens and places the card reader – still with my card in it – back on his desk as he stands, striding across to a glass fronted cabinet to take out a display case of three pokeballs. “Fire, water and grass, of course. Feunnec, which becomes the fire/psychic type goupelin.” He taps the first of them. “Grenousse, which becomes the water/dark type amphinobi.” The second one. “And Marisson, which becomes the grass/fighting type blindépique.”

I consider the choices. I don’t have any grass types at all, but then most of my team is fire-based so I can’t imagine it’d fit in too well. That cut out Marisson… even if training a type I was unfamiliar with would be interesting.

The water type would be interesting. “Can you tell me more about the… grenousse?”

Soise flattens her ears and hisses. Apparently she doesn’t like that prospect.

Sycamore smiles. “They are fast, good at speed and dodging and sneaky attacks. Not so much on defence, I think?”

I nod. Fast and sneaky would be an interesting change, since currently… ok, I dealt in quick attacks and evasion and occasionally stalling. A grenousse would actually fit in with that.

And it wasn’t like I couldn’t cancel out any weaknesses already. Glace could use someone in her corner for the ground types.

Which I could say of the Marisson, for helping Ray with water types.

Ugh.

“Why are you making me take this decision?” I narrow my eyes at Brith.

She laughs. “Because it would be good for you.”

Sycamore glances at her again and sets down the tray on his desk. “Sorry, you are not… you are a pokemon?”

Brith nods. “I spent a long time listening, and then forced my vocal chords to cooperate when I evolved.” She flicks an ear. “That’s what you were going to ask? How I can speak?”

Huh. The more you know.

Sycamore walks towards her, gesturing with his hands.

Brith rolls her eyes and tilts her head up, allowing him to examine her throat. Faint burn scars still gleam through her fur, but they’re not half as bad as when she was a riolu.

Soise growls and leaps up onto the desk – she’s definitely hiding something, there’s no way she should be able to make that jump – and pats at the first pokeball, the feunnec. Then she points a paw down at Vulp, sitting quiet at my feet.

“What?”

“The – ah, the feunnec is something like your vulpix,” Sycamore says, looking around. “Perhaps she thinks they will be good friends?”

“But that’s another fire type.” I frown.

Brith shakes her head and backs away from Sycamore. “That does seem to be your area, fire types.”

“So I might as well specialise?” I laugh. “Oh… good a reason as any. I’ll take the feunnec.”

Soise leaps down from the desk with an excited yip, bowling Vulp over.

Sycamore takes up the card reader again and the feunnec’s pokeball, and registers it to my account. “There you go.” He hands them both over with a smile. “The first gym is south, in Santalune.”

“Is there a specific order to take them in?” I pocket my card, rolling the ball in my hand.

“Santalune, Cyllage, Shalour, Coumarine, Lumiose, Laverre, Anistar, then Snowbelle.”

I nod slowly. “Thank you.”

Sycamore smiles and bows extravagantly. “Mon plaisir,” he replies, “Ma beauté.”

I raise a hand, then point a finger at him. “Don’t start.”

His laughter follows us from his office.

[ddarker-dreams]

I could see Scarlet Ribbons’ stand cry being something like “BOWBOWBOWBOWBOW” cuz like.. ribbons... make bows and stuff.... sorry I’m bad at this 🤪

OKAY THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY CUTE THOUGH... i’m going to make a list of possible stand cries, and this is gonna be added on it!! 

anonymous asked: Is scarlet ribbons willing for a smooch 🥺🥺

but of course!! i’ve pictured scarlet ribbons as being a very affectionate and playful stand, since that adds even more Possibilities of the stand acting up around everyone. scarlet ribbons definitely wants to give ppl hugs and stuff, showcasing how affectionate and :D!!! the user is. 

anonymous said: lmaooo imagine the entire bucci gang's reaction when scarlet ribbon's user/reader end up with someone from la squadra XDD in the au where everyone lives of course

it’d be a battlefield... i guess if they weren’t fighting against one another like they were in the anime, it might be slightly better? but i can’t imagine it going over real well, since everyone would be v wary of la squadra. if reader is happy that’s one thing, but there’s going to be a lot of investigation going into it. they need to make sure she’s safe and sound qwq

anon said: Okay so if i got it right Scarlet Ribbon's attack can be a good way to escape out of GioGio's estate after his kidnapping, you know, like Spider man but in stead of spider web/beam it's cutesy pinky rope of ribbon 😂as for the ocean surrounding the island reader can coagulate their ribbons into a small boat and row themselve back to civilazation 👏😂👏 im thriving for independent reader pls don't mind me 🥺 again, much love + appreciation for you to came out with this awesome concept💓💘💓❤💓💕

ohh so like a yandere version of the SR verse? i’ve definitely given it some thought, since i write 99% yandere content (or smth close to that at least, math was never my best subject). anyways i think that it’d be chaotic for any yanderes to deal with scarlet ribbon darling, seeing as having a stand that versatile gives plenty of opportunities to escape! giorno has the added benefit of being able to track darling down using his own ability, but it’d be a game of cat and mouse for a while. i’ll definitely write a yan version of it one day...

anon said: hi lock!! I just wanted to pop by and say that I love your Scarlet Ribbons series so far ♡ such good food.... u spoil us.... :') that being said, what was your motivation behind it? why did you want to take a fluffy route as opposed to your usual yan content? ty and have a nice day!!

hello anon <3 i’m happy to know that you’ve been enjoying it!! trust me i’ve been having way too much fun fleshing everything out too, it’s been a Mega Muse . i still love writing yandere content the most, but i guess picturing a normal universe felt interesting in its own right. more possibilities open up. i had thought about it being everyone going yan, but i scrapped it when i realized that’d just lead to bucciarati’s team killing one another. i’ve given some thought to individual yandere’s in the universe though! 

i think that exploring different types of content is what helps prevent burnout!! so that’s why i’ve channeled some energy into a more normal universe, just so that when i want to write fluff/more humor based stuff i have an outlet for it. u vu...

anon asked: :eyes: what was rooming in with bruno like? how did he feel when reader went to room with fugo? what is rooming in with fugo like? WHAT RIVALRY DID THESE DORKS DEVELOP OVER THE ISSUE??hdknld i can imagine fugo preening when reader's with him and bruno is lowkey .__.)

THE INITIAL ROOMMATE ... boy bruno was pretty excited! i picture reader waking up early some mornings to make him breakfast/coffee, as a way of saying thank you. reader would be very grateful and feel indebted to bruno for all the kindness he’s shown, especially since he’s not even charging rent for staying at his place! it all has a nice, domestic feeling that bruno never realized he longed for. i’m sure he knows it won’t last forever, as nice as that sounds. 

even with all the times he reassured reader that money isn’t a problem, the thought of imposing on someone who has already given reader a lot is hard to get past. bruno had a bit of a stone face when reader mentioned becoming roommates with fugo, but ultimately wouldn’t want to monopolize her time or anything. he still gets to see her everyday! though he’s going to miss the special talks, and breakfasts ... :(( 

bruno probably picks up on fugo’s treatment towards reader before fugo even realizes how he feels lmao. he’s just hoping that no Funny business goes down, semi hypocritical as that may be. acting as a team leader means making scarifies for the well being of the group, and having to put his wants on the back burner. this is definitely one of those instances. 

anon said: Hey thank you for posting about scarlet ribbons, I’ve been having a very rough time mentally ( Rn I’m confined to a 3 mile radius of the house for medical reasons) and this brought me so much joy, I want to share my goth makeup tips with Leone and tend to my collection with GioGio, your characterisation of fugo has also totally changed my mind on him I didn’t even think he was cute before your writing! I hope you are doing well

aaaa i’m sorry to hear that you’re going through a difficult time. this is definitely a comfy type of series, so it makes me happy to know that it’s brought you some happiness!! i’ll be posting about it plenty, since i have loooots of ideas for it!! leone would love talking about makeup with you, since everyone else before trish is clueless on the subject. he’d likely surprise you with eye shadow palettes or lipstick that you’ve been wanting! in a very lowkey fashion, just kinda shoving it towards you and saying he saw it on sale and it’s whatever. on the inside he’s screaming though lmaoo

giorno is another person who, when isn’t focused on his dream and such, would be Dying for some reader one on one time. it’s cute, he tries to make his interest seem as organic as possible. he manages to pull it off well! 

I LOOOVE FUGO... once i got a more solid characterization for him down, i wanted to write for him a lot. i really wish we got to see more of him in the anime, but purple haze feedback gave lots of good insights to him as well! i think that while he’s more of a serious character, he’s been shown to have some snark as well.

[tonyglowheart]

Trying to semi-organize my thoughts on what exactly I am wanting out of spn fic and hm let's see. If I remember this post in the future, I may update it as I think of/on things and use this for reference so I, also, don't forget lol

Okay so, wants/likes:

Cas prominent. He is my, as I believe the kpop kids say, bias, so he is kind of non-negotiable. Sorry I am just not interested in fics where he is not prominent

Destiel not required but a good plus. Slight preference for intricate courtship rituals over ones where they figure things out ridiculously easy, unless it is established relationship. If the revelation comes too quick and easy then I get taken out of the moment :')

Optional: Angels treating Cas like their baby brother :3 Cas can be somewhat put out by it or not. Actually maybe bonus if he IS, bc they are all angels of the lord and relative by rank and experience, And Yet [whoever] just cannot help but be *points* Baby

canonverse is plus. canon divergence is okay but idk how close to canon I'm looking for, if it's too close to an episode rewrite I may not be into that either

casefics are cool. If it's got that canon-typical vaguely racist sht then pls warn me going in 😔

Found family. Family don't end in blood!!! Spn may forget this but I never will!!!

Any exploration of the whole fucky destiel thematic dichotomies, the whole free will vs destiny shit, stuff like words of prophets are written on subway walls, like.. idk, something that is intricate-rituals-gay and also makes me think of the philosophy of thehuman condition

corollary: slow burns ig?? or like mutual pining? canon typical thinking they are not worthy or that it is something they cannot have? canon typical did not realize until later but even then they have their individual canon-typical reasons for not acting on it, until they do bc it's fic so they can get together for realsies?

trope: Cas and/or Destiel being parents. I read one recently where it was like single dad Cas (to Claire and Jack) and then Dean came (back) into his life recently and I rly liked it

AUs are fine but highly subject to mood so we'll see. I did read a Star Trek-y AU I liked

I'm down for a lot of various other kinds of plot tropes and stuff, tho I want stuff that's more character and plot and less, like, pwp or fuck or die or that kinda thing

trope: curses maybe? I've found a couple curse-focused fics which were interesting

trope: Hurt/Comfort of the Cas whump kind but not necessarily have to be just Cas. But like.. u know when Uriel is beating him up and he looks all bloody and beautiful, or when he flexes his sexy angel powers and transports the Winchesters to the past but then collapses bc he overtaxed himself, or when he had that blanket on when he was suffering from the attack dog spell.... yeah,,,

trope: Anything with like the Winchesters caring about and caring for Cas. I just rly like Cas being taken care of :') pls wrap him in a blanket and pat his shoulder brusque-softly in ur emotionally repressed way Dean

bottom line my emphasis tends to be more on character and plot. I can't do plot without character, the relationships - whether ship or gen - are important to my enjoyment of a fic. I can sit thru a lot if the characters/character dynamics are good and chewy lmao like u can rly sink ur teeth into it

Bonus features:

eldritch horror angels are a bonus. Give me unfathomable trueform angels, I feel like I don't see that enough

wings* but.... caveat I like my spn wings more metaphysical than literal unless they're literal for a point, but this isn't set in stone either. I'm just... slightly tired of the physicality of the wings I guess. Like it's not the physicality that's the issue, ig, but when it's not treated as metaphysical (as well)

wouldn't mind some good endverse fics to chew on altho that might also make me sad

Cas being cute, a la crazy!Cas (who is.... so soft.... his innocence.. *clutches chest*) or like when Cas and Dean went to talk to that police guy and Cas was like you tell them it's angels and demons warring and he will tell you what he knows, or when Cas was like I'm gonna become a hunter :3, or interrogating the cat, or this is his serious face, yes

Powerful af Cas?? I miss season 4/5 Cas, when he was powerful and self-assured and wasn't "mentally deficient puppy" as Metatron meanly put it Cas. I feel like we get less of that as the seasons go on... I miss Cas being powerful and exuding energy that I'm sure is what had ppl assigning him as top energy. Like yes flex ur sexy sexy angel powers pls. There's one ep where my notes just say "ANGEL SMITE ANGEL SMITE / HEAAALING." Season 6 Cas where he is more out of touch with humanity and more brusque was also intriguing even tho he was like that bc of extenuating circumstances. But him flexing his sexy angel powers sure was sexy

Do not wants :(

Endgame human!Cas. Sorry I like short-lived Cassidy am more into feathered Cas than human!Cas. endgame human!Cas just isn't a good solution/happy ending to me, I don't think Cas needs to change to be able to live happily, and also I like to chew on the like philosophical underpinnings of an immortal/mortal pairing if that does get called into question lol

Human AU* but like asterisk bc I will take human AU if the plot is compelling and/or the characterization still manages to capture that je nais se quoi of canonverse. If they are, like, middle age dads being domestic, as an example, tho, then I can probs do that, I just like.. have limited capacity for career-based AUs for the sake of it, if that makes sense... But character/character dynamics trumps all, like I said lmao.. I've sat thru scenarios/setups that lowkey dealt me psychic damage bc of the nature of the set dressing, bc I checked it out out of morbid curiosity but the way they did the characterization ended up working for me

A/B/O - I am not seeking A/B/O at the moment

Hurt no Comfort - it would make me too sad :(

fics that treat angels like literal physical feathered beings. Idk I just like... want the whole angel thing to be treated more metaphysically. They are multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent in holy corporate/business attire visages but they are still very much multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent the ballpark size of our Chrysler building. If the wings are treated too literally I find I start getting bored, ironically. This is ironic bc I'm a slut for wingfic. But with spn I find that a conventional kind of wingfic/angel conception where the wings are just limbs with maybe some slight handwaved dimension-shifting stowing is.. slightly passe for my tastes. Unless it's like a forced manifestation or sth. Just like.. get the metaphysics involved, tie it to angelic grace. Something. Make is racy. But not too racy, the whole wings-as-erogenous-zones thing I'm a bit over too, xenobiology to humans would just be biology to these beings, it doesn't make sense to me to be like "oh they have a tail and it's EXTRA sensitive," like are you suggesting your arm/armpit is an extra special species-typical erogenous zone too?

deaging unless it ties to some other kinda plotty deal somehow ig? Like... I got invested in this fandom for them as they are now I'm not too interesting in unseasoned nibling vers

this maybe goes with the human aus tho that's a slight asterisk but hard line no high school aus. pls I cannot take the psychic damage that would deal to me personal

I have no conclusion even tho I feel like I need one. here's wonderwall? ig I can stumble around looking for reclists and see if anything sticks out, trawling thru tags so far has been a mixed bag

Anyway haha lol, stand-up-style-tone I mean I'm not asking for a lot amirite. Just a nebulously specific set of intricate rituals wrapped around a plot and also found family or something, like you know, just a trifling

[letaliabane]

Willing To Try

anon request: Ooooooh can you do “Shouldn’t you be with him/her?” with Javi pretty please???

Photo cred. to me

warnings: mostly angst (also let’s pretend Elisa and Javier didn’t sleep together for 1x04 just for the purposes of this story? PLS)

Prompts (If you would like to request a prompt, please include the name of the list and the number of the prompts)

15. Shouldn’t you be with her/him? (Angst/fluff list)

You sat back down at your desk, watching as your partners Steve and Javier joined you in your shared office. 

You had just had a mass meeting with the ambassador and the leaders of the DEA apartments. They had informed you that they were keeping an eye on M-19, a group that once had been enemies of Escobar. 

But now it was theorised that they conspired with him and were allegedly the ones who attacked the Palace of Justice Supreme Court. They wanted to be kept informed if anyone came in with information, particularly members of the group. 

However, this was difficult part, because Javier was currently harbouring Elisa Alvarez, the co-leader of the M-19. 

‘How the fuck do you get yourself into these situations Javier? All three of us are going to get caught and lose our jobs if we keep her in hiding any longer!’ Steve muttered as he glared at Javier, arms crossed over his chest as he leant against the desk. 

He scoffed, shaking his head, ‘Maybe next time when your wife decides to bring home a hand grenade like Elisa how about she hands it to you instead of me?’

You just rolled your eyes, continuing to finish the report you had abandoned before the meeting. At times it was just best to stay out of it and let the two stubborn fools but heads. Just before he could leave the office, Steve spoke up, ‘Are you fucking her?’

Your hand froze mid-writing, glancing towards the two men. Javier looked between the two of you before chuckling, ‘Sleep with a communist? That would be downright un-American!’

When he disappeared from your sight you let out a heavy sigh, Steve immediately looking towards you. He knew you were harbouring feelings for the popular, good looking agent long before he even arrived in Colombia. 

Javier and you had been partners for a year or so before they brought in Murphy, and boy had you got along like a house on fire. You’d sometimes share a beer and a pizza after a long day at the office, or you’d go to one of the nearby bars. 

However that changed due to frequency of his visits to his “informants,’ and you 

You saw Steve like an older brother and opened up to him, telling him how conflicted you felt. Yes, you knew the stories of Javier Peña that ran throughout the office, how he was a womaniser and slept with every woman he came across, besides you that is. 

But you wanted to get to know Javier for who he was, you knew he was a good man deep down, but you also didn’t want to end up as another woman on his list of one night stands or informants he had slept with.  

‘I probably shouldn’t have said that-’

You rolled your eyes at Steve’s attempt at softening the blow, keeping you eyes on the scramble of words that were your report, ‘Don’t bother Steve, you heard him. Of course he’s fucking her. Why do you think he wants to keep her around.’ 

Steve only sighed in reply, remaining silent, not wanting to worsen the tension that was already in the air. It was hours later when Javier returned to the office, only to watch as you grabbed your gun and essentials from the drawer of your desk, Steve doing the same. 

‘What’s going on?’

Steve looked up at his voice. ‘We got a lead on where some of those who were involved with the attack on the supreme court are holed up. We’re going to do some recon, scout it out.’ 

‘Why didn’t either of you or anyone else let me know?’

You were quick to answer before Steve could even open his mouth, barely looking towards him. ‘Why would we? Seems like you’ve had your hands full recently.’ 

Javier’s eyes flickered towards you, completely shocked by your words. He'd noticed the changes in your attitude toward him over the past few months, once being very good friends to barely a “hello.”

‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean Y/N?’

‘What does it matter, besides,’ You said as you step in front of him, finally looking him in the eye, ignoring the anger present within them, ‘You probably should go check on Elisa, make sure she’s still waiting for you at the apartment.’ 

You quickly side stepped him as he gaped at you, ignoring as he called after you, knowing full well he was watching you until you disappeared into the elevator. 

Javier glanced towards Steve who also seemed to have frozen at your words while reaching for his gear. He just gave a brief shrug, grabbing his things before following, leaving Javier alone and confused in the silence of the office. 

You hissed as Steve knelt beside you, pressing the freezing ice pack to the darkening bruise around your eye. Once he knew you had a steady grip on the back, he moved to check the bandage wrapped around your waist, spots of blood decorating the gauze beneath. 

You and Steve had gotten into a scuffle when realising two of the M-19 members had indeed been at the hideout you had intel on, and felt cocky when you watched them leave the base. Unarmed and unwatched by others.

Well, you thought they were unarmed. And it was Steve’s bright idea not to take guns to take them down. 

Both of you hadn’t expected the knives they had hidden within the belts of their pants. Steve escaped with a couple of scrapes, however you ended up receiving the brunt of the attack, one of them slashing you across the waist. It wasn’t too deep of a cut, but it did need stitches. 

‘Ow! Fuck Murphy! If I knew you were this bad I would’ve called your wife!’ You screeched, tugging his hand away from your wound where he had pressed down on. 

‘Oh sorry big baby for not being gentle!’ 

You rolled your eyes at him as he pulled your shirt back down, giving you the look over once more, ‘anyway stitches are holding up well so just take it easy this week and allow it to close properly-’

‘And recover my dignity,’ I mumbled, Steve chuckling as he rose from the floor, packing away the medical bag. It was then a loud knocking echoed through the apartment. You jumped from your spot on the couch and Steve reaching instinctively for his gun. 

‘Oi Murphy open up!’ 

Steve sighed at the sound of Javier’s voice, however you weren’t as glad, staring at him in disbelief. ‘You told him?!’

‘What? He called asking how it went when you passed out in the car, what was I supposed to say? He was worried and wanted to check up on you!’ 

You groaned, throwing your head back against the back of the couch as he went to the door, quietly muttering to one another before Javier noisily making his way over. When you peeked your eye open he stood at the end of the couch, hands on his hips as he took in the sight of you. 

‘What the fuck happened to you?’

‘Oh nothing! You know these bruises and this knife cut just appeared out of thin air!’ You bit back, rubbing your temple as it thrummed in what you knew would be a terrible headache. 

Steve sighed, ‘I’m gonna head off, you two need to talk.’ You glared at him about to retort, but he hurriedly turned and left your apartment, leaving both you and Javier in a very awkward, tense silence. 

You sighed, rolling your eyes as Javier looked anywhere but at you, ‘You can leave Peña, just make sure the door doesn’t hit you on the way out.’

He finally looked at you, his annoyance reaching its peak as he turned towards you, ‘What is your problem Y/N?’

‘We are not doing this right now,’ You said as you stood up, turning to head towards your bedroom, but he stopped you by grabbing your arm. 

‘Yes we are Y/N, we haven’t spoken for months now and I don’t know why! I didn’t say anything but now its getting in the way of our work-’ 

‘Look I don’t really want to talk about this, not right now and especially not with you,’ You muttered, ignoring the hurt that crossed his face, ‘Besides shouldn’t you be with her?’

His eyebrows furrowed, confused, ‘Her? With who?’

‘Don’t play dumb Peña, I’m talking about Elisa! You two seemed so snuggled up when Steve and I found you two at your apartment the other night. Why don’t you run along and go see her?’ You uttered, staring up into his face. 

You took in the hurt that filled his eyes, cause by you. There was a tug at your heart, your anger faltering for a moment. You wanted to take it back. But what if didn’t feel the same way? 

Taking a step back, you began to pull away, but before you could turn away he tugged on your arms, pressing his chest to yours so you couldn’t pull away. 

‘I didn’t sleep with her Y/N, I know I have a reputation for that and I won’t deny it, but not with her. She was escorted out of Bogotá this morning. All she was was an informant. Nothing more. I promise you that.’ 

You’re not sure if it was the way he held you in his arms or the sincerity in his eyes that convinced you. But either way you believed him. 

You sighed as he gripped your arms gently, bringing you closer to him. You moved your eyes to the floor, gulping. ‘I-I’m sorry … it’s just-for so long I’ve-I’ve liked you, and yet I couldn’t help but feel like all you saw me as was a friend, a colleague, and I just felt the need to pull away so I didn’t feel the hurt.’

Javier leant into you, using his hand to nudge your chin up. ‘Y/N, I’ve felt the same way for you too.’

Your eyes widened, mouth agape. ‘What?’

‘With the rules and regulations of the DEA, I just thought it would never cross your mind. A-And I just have never been good at this,’ He pointed between the two of you. 

‘Talking about my feelings Y/N is foreign, and something I’m terrible at. And I’m sorry that I didn’t have the balls to talk to you. I was afraid to ruin what we had already, though we weren’t talking, I still wanted you in my life.’

You couldn’t help but smile softly as he mumbled around his words, looking anywhere but at you, taking your hands into his, playing with your fingertips. You tipped his face up gently, pressing a hand to his cheek. 

‘You could never lose me Javier, even if it meant I was a bitch to you without you ever telling me about your feelings.’

He chuckled loudly, and your smile widened. You hadn’t been alone in a room with him for so long you almost forgot how he looked when he did, and you couldn’t help but find it so beautiful. 

‘I’m willing to make this try and work Javier, even with all the precautions we have to take as agents, I’m ready to do it with you.’ 

Javier smiled gently, gripping your hand, ‘I am too. I know I’m not good at any of this, but I really am willing to try.’ 

Still smiling, he pressed his lips to your forehead gently, face cradled within his hands. You couldn’t help but tremble against him as he did so, leaning you’re face upwards before pressing your lips to his. 

He instantly responded, his lips dancing across your gently before firmly pressing a second kiss to yours. His hands moved down your back as yours wrapped around his neck, pulling him in closer as you tugged on his lip-

‘Ow!’ You cried softly, pulling away as he gripped your hip near the cut, his eyes instantly widening. 

‘Shit I’m so sorry-’

‘No no, it’s okay Javier,’ You chuckled, pecking his lips as you kept him close, nudging his nose playfully as he also joined in the laughter. You felt his hands once more lower to your back, careful of where he placed them. With a sigh, you both smiled against each other as you kissed. 

Masterlist | Pedro Pascal Masterlist

Tagged: @pascalisthepunkest​

A/N: Remember requests are open! I head back to uni soon so get them in early! Feedback is really appreciated! (Btw there is some smut coming for our boy Javier AND I MEAN PROPER SMUT THIS TIME)

Remember requests are open for Pedro Pascal characters! Check it out and request whatever you like!

[haec-est-fides]

Filodox’s Trials of Apollo Reactions [Part I]

Welcome to part one of a reflective journey through Trials of Apollo ft. my original ebook annotations! I’ll be your host, 2020!filodox.

For this first episode, we’ll be going back to May 2016, the beginning of it all: The Hidden Oracle.

Annotations for this round are brought to you by 2016!filodox.

Is there anything we should know before we begin, 2016!me?

2016!filodox: I swore on the Styx never to read another Riordan book after he killed Octavian. And yet here we are.

... Alright then! Let’s get started.

But first, a more detailed overview on how this series will work: I will excerpt bits and pieces of the books based on what I highlighted / annotated on my first read. Beneath each quote, I will share what I wrote in the annotation. Below that, I will (occasionally) laugh at my past self, clarify the note, or say how my view has changed.

I encourage questions, comments, and concerns (of which there may be many), so go ahead and use that replies feature if you feel so inclined! However, these are just my opinions and (occasionally) emotional reactions, so no hate pls. <3 (Or, if you do send hate, pls make it funny.)

Now, diving right in with Riordan’s dedication!

To The Muse Calliope. This is long overdue. Please don’t hurt me.

2016!filodox: Hurt him. He didn’t even name the chapters.

As you can see, I had yet to experience Lester’s haiku and was already mad based on the table of contents alone. I went into this series very salty...

I inflicted a plague on the Greeks who besieged Troy.

2016!filodox: At least he did something right. Once.

I was just,,,extremely ready to die on Octavian’s hill. (Though I was a huge Troy / Aeneas stan before all this, just to be clear.)

Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?

2016!filodox: I actually find this particular god crashing into a dumpster quite amusing.

I also blamed Apollo for what happened to Octavian. I think that had a lot to do with how Apollo acted on Delos in Heroes of Olympus, basically disowning Octavian and whining about how some “creature” scammed him? That was bullshit. Apollo needed to own the fact that he blessed Octavian, but he just abandoned him and denied all the blame. TL;DR I had a grudge, okay?

My mind stewed in confusion, but one memory floated to the surface -- the voice of my father, Zeus: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.

2016!filodox: Wait, is this bc everyone blames Octavian and therefore Apollo? Bc lol but also no?

*cough* Octavian did nothing wrong 2k16 *cough*

Zeus will reconsider, I told myself. He’s just trying to scare me. Any moment, he will yank me back to Olympus and let me off with a warning.

“Yes...” My voice sounded hollow and desperate. “Yes, that’s it.”

2016!filodox: Apollo is a self centered frat boy, I forgot...but it is slightly...endearing? *narrows eyes*

Ah, how close I was to stanning Lester in the first chapter, when he was at his most “goddy”. You know, I actually made a rule for myself when I started reading Trials of Apollo that I would not under any circumstances stan Apollo. That was a naive goal, because it was never really a danger.

Regardless, Zeus had held me responsible for Octavian’s delusions of grandeur. Zeus seemed to consider egotism a trait the boy had inherited from me. Which is ridiculous. I am much too self-aware to be egotistical.

2016!filodox: I am going to Murder him.

*chef kiss* the hypocrisy ! the lack of self-awareness !

“I just...I assumed -- I hoped this would be taken care of by now.”

“You mean by demigods,” Percy said, “going on a big quest to reclaim the Oracle of Delphi?”

2016!filodox: That sounds like a decent quest, or you know, QUESTING FOR THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS

I’ve always said I can see the future but an inch to the left. Also, I don’t like Ella.

It warmed my heart that my children had the right priorities: their skills, their images, their views on YouTube. Say what you will about gods being absentee parents; our children inherit many of our finest personality traits.

2016!filodox: AND HE’S MAD ABOUT OCTAVIAN?!

I mean ?

Apollo, when Austin and Kayla show ambition: THEY GOT THAT FROM ME <3

Apollo, when Octavian (or Nero, or Caligula) shows ambition: srry i don’t know him ??

He had a weak jawline, an overlarge nose, and a beard that wrapped around his double chin like a helmet strap. His hair was curly and dark like mine, except not as fashionably tousled or luxuriant. His lips curled as if he smelled something unpleasant. Perhaps it was the burning seats of the bus.

2016!filodox: Nero ???

Not quite sure how to feel looking back at this moment. Call out post @ myself for instantly recognizing Nero, when afaik this scene was before we had any hints that Roman emperors were even a plot point? But here’s the thing: I don’t remember why I could recognize him so easily. I don’t remember where 2016!me obtained this ancient Rome knowledge. A mystery.

On another note entirely, did Nero really like,,,astral project into Apollo’s fever dream to address him directly? Because Rhea does. And sometimes Python does. But Nero? Can he do that?

The man laughed as flames licked at his purple sleeves. “You’re not sorry yet, but you will be. Find me the gates. Lead me to the Oracle. I’ll enjoy burning it down!”

2016!filodox: I too enjoy burning things down. # Nero confirmed

My only comment here is “oh you sweet summer child,,,”

Oh. Perhaps some of you are wondering how I felt seeing [Will] with a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend.

2016!filodox: No, actually. I wasn’t wondering. I was plotting how to kill you, them, and quite a few other people. Do you think I could trade you for Octavian?

Oh man, back at it again with the salt. XD

I could only remember my conversations with Octavian, the way he’d turned my head with his flattery and promises. That stupid boy...it was his fault I was here.

A voice whispered in the back of my mind. This time I thought it might be my conscience: Who was the stupid boy? It wasn’t Octavian.

2016!filodox: I can’t really...explain my emotions upon reading this. I’m still not quite okay, but this...it’s bittersweet in a way. I don’t know if this is a poor attempt at a proper closure, the author’s way of beating a dead horse, or just a way to make Apollo seem pitiable. Whatever it is... Octavian was important enough to remain in Apollo’s mortal memory. He somehow made promises to a god and had Apollo wrapped around his finger. And despite being so much like Apollo, the god blames him. Like everyone blames him. But Apollo also realizes, accepts on an infinitesimal scale, that “it wasn’t Octavian”. He wasn’t perfect, but neither is Apollo. Apollo is (at least) subconsciously admitting his own guilt in the whole affair.

...yeah. I will note that this bit isn’t meant to develop Octavian, but rather uses Octavian as a prop to support Apollo’s development? Which is why it still stings. Like thanks, I guess.

“Your judgement in the past has been...questionable. I wonder if you have chosen the right tools for this job. Have you learned from your past mistakes?”

2016!filodox: Nero has made plenty of mistakes to learn from

Love how I just assumed it was Nero back in chapter 10 and went with it, zero hesitation. Also love how I heard Python say Nero has made mistakes and went “oh absolutely”. In fact, here’s something funny in retrospect that will become more and more apparent: I did not like Nero in 2016. Or, at least, I thought I didn’t. There’s something really odd going on here that baffles me, looking back...

“A triumvirate is a ruling council of three,” I said. “At least, that’s what it meant in ancient Rome.”

“Which is interesting,” Rachel said, “because of this next shot.” She tapped her screen. The new photo zoomed in on the building’s penthouse terrace, where three shadowy figures stood talking together....

2016!filodox: Is it bad that I’m smirking? Because it’s getting interesting ~ *clear malicious intent*

Wow, edgy. Triumvirates are just a neat, Roman thing and I stanned.

“The last triumvirate I dealt with included Lepidus, Marc Antony, and my son, the original Octavian. A triumvirate is a very Roman concept...like patriotism, skullduggery, and assassination.”

2016!filodox: THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL EVERYONE. MODERN OCTAVIAN IS A VERY GOOD ANCIENT ROMAN. POLITICS, ESPECIALLY SHADY AF POLITICS AND POWERPLAYS, ARE QUINTESSENTIALLY ROMAN. Also, I’d like to note that it’s confirmed, in this universe’s canon, that Augustus was a son of Apollo.

Ohhhh, wait. I think I’d watched the HBO series Rome by 2016, which would at least partially explain my ancient Rome knowledge. (Amazing tv show btw!)

“He heard them talking in Latin.”

“Latin? Were they campers?”

Pete spread his hands. “I--I don’t think so. Paulie described them like they were adults. He said one of them was the leader. The other two addressed him as imperator.”

2016!filodox: !!!! (obligatory 💕)

I was such a simp for Latin in high school. And the Roman Empire. Still am, but hey.

“The Beast is planning some kind of attack on your camp. I don’t know what it is, but it’s going to be big.”

2016!filodox: Runs in the family I guess

The Octavian / Triumvirate parallels are everywhere... 👀

“The emperors made themselves gods. They had their own temples and altars. They encouraged the people to worship them.”

2016!filodox: # deify me

*smacking my past self with a stick* You stop that! Edgy child!

Anyway, a much better point here is like,,,the Imperial cult was huge in the ancient Roman world. Looking at Apollo’s explanation here, why did only the “worst” three emperors get to be immortal? Did famously “good” emperors like Augustus and Marcus Aurelius have the option of becoming minor gods, but they chose Elysium or something? Are there slightly less infamous emperors just hanging around anywhere as minor gods? A lot of Roman emperors live on in human memory is all I’m saying.

“Wait!” Will said as I reached the door. “Who is the Beast? Which emperor are we dealing with?”

“The worst of my descendants.” My fingers dug into the doorframe. “The Christians called him the Beast because he burned them alive. Our enemy is Emperor Nero.”

2016!filodox: I honestly can’t believe it took this long to reveal this? Was anyone surprised?

Nero’s reveal is rather late in the book compared to Commodus, Caligula, and even Tarquin iirc? But it makes sense, being the first book of the series. Also love how 16-year-old me was like “this reveal is silly because everyone, like me, recognizes Nero on sight” and didn’t question that assumption at all.

“Germani.” Instinctively, I moved in front of Meg. The elite imperial bodyguards had been cold-blooded death reapers in ancient Rome. I doubted they’d gotten any sweeter over the centuries.

2016!filodox: BITCH. See? This is why I love Rome. They knew what they were doing.

Ngl, as someone of Germanic heritage, I felt really represented by the Germani, which is hilarious on so many levels.

He tried to compensate for his ugliness with an expensive Italian suit of purple wool, his gray shirt open to display gold chains. His shoes were hand-tooled leather, not the sort of thing to wear while stomping around in an ant pile. Then again, Nero had always had expensive, impractical tastes.

2016!filodox: I don’t exactly like Nero, and actually think he was quite the shitty emperor, but I guess I mildly respect and “like” him on principle (in this book at least).

OH YOU SWEET SUMMER CHILD. I was so convinced that I didn’t actually like Nero, despite all of the lowkey evidence to the contrary? Who hurt you, past me? (Lmao, it was Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio.) My working theory is that I was too much of an Emperor Augustus stan at the time to admit liking Nero. It’s hysterical. Look at me equivocating like a champ.

I’d been so proud of my son, the original Octavian, later Caesar Augustus. After his death, his descendants became increasingly arrogant and unstable (which I blamed on their mortal DNA; they certainly didn’t get those qualities from me).

2016!filodox: I’m glad Apollo and I can agree on something. Augustus was amazing and those who came after him...significantly less so.

See! The propaganda really got to me, what can I say?

Nero clasped his hands as if in prayer. “Oh, my. It seems we’ve had a slight miscommunication. You see, Apollo, Meg brought you here, just as I asked her to. Well done, my sweet.”

2016!filodox: This was obvious but I still find it...gods, the only word I can think of is “delicious”

. . .

“The Beast killed my father. This is Nero. He’s -- he’s my stepfather.”

I could not fully grasp this before Nero spread his arms.

“That’s right, my darling,” he said. “And you’ve done a wonderful job. Come to Papa.”

2016!filodox: Okay, but we should have known this since it became apparent her weapons were Roman. Also, oof. Also also, WHY did Riordan feel the need to add that last line? Why?

ASDFGHJKL: I CAN’T

“After the fire, we’ll rebuild,” he said. “It will be glorious!”

2016!filodox: The amount of times I have used this very logic is worrying.

For (some) context, Firelord Ozai is my favorite character from AtLA. <3

The scene might have been funny except that the Germani were now back on their feet, five demigods and a geyser spirit were still tied to highly flammable posts, and Nero still had a box of matches.

2016!filodox: Oh, I find this plenty amusing!

The emperor stared at his empty hand. “Meg...?” His voice was as cold as an icicle.

2016!filodox: The various ways his tone / voice have been described throughout this conversation are just 💕

*looks at camera like I’m on The Office*

Seriously, though. Nero’s voice is like the central descriptive element of his character because he’s so manipulative. It’s really cool and a great use of detail.

[Meg] turned to Nero. “You told me never to lower myself to my enemies’ level.”

“No, indeed.” Nero’s tone had frayed like a weathered rope. “We are better. We are stronger. We will build a glorious new world. But these nonsense-spewing trees stand in our way, Meg. Like any invasive weeds, they must be burned. And the only way to do that is with a true conflagration -- flames stoked by blood.”

2016!filodox: Real 👏🏻 Gods 👏🏻 Require 👏🏻 Blood👏🏻

I was way too enthusiastic about this whole situation, wasn’t I?

Nero grinned. “Good-bye, Apollo. Only eleven more Olympians to go.”

2016!filodox: Wait, shit, WHAT

Having read Tower of Nero, this probably had something to do with Python interfering with the Fates, huh? But does that mean it’s more Python’s plan or Nero’s? If this was Nero’s plan (with his 12 kids literally replacing the Olympians) that’s,,,really fucking bold.

Then I heard the screaming from Camp Half-Blood.

2016!filodox: Music to my ears ~

I’m presenting every edgy detail of my annotations so I have a proper case file when I inevitably have to face the question “On a scale of one to ten, how relatable is Emperor Nero and why should you have realized it’s a ten sooner?”

In a flash of silver light, the camp’s magical barriers collapsed. The Colossus lurched forward and brought his foot down on the dining pavilion, smashing it to rubble like so many children’s blocks.

2016!filodox: Payback! Dear gods, I can’t stop smiling! I’m just like “YES!” I know this will all probably get fixed or whatever but I’M HAVING A MOMENT.

I’ve learned to appreciate the small wins. <3

Percy grabbed one of the crown’s sunray spikes. He sliced it off at the base, then jabbed it into the Colossus’ forehead.

2016!filodox: As much as Nero is FAR from my favorite, I really don’t like defacing ancient (or replicas of ancient) statues and art...

This is where I just start laughing at myself tbh. I was so insistent on not liking Nero. Like, I sound like I’m in denial. Peak equivocation. What happened to that heart emoji a few chapters back? Why did I suddenly make it about *checks notes* ancient art? Updated translation: nooo don’t ruin the Colossus Neronis it’s so sexy aha

Just as the [arrow] reached its apex and was about to fall back to earth, a gust of wind caught it...perhaps Zephyros looking kindly on my pitiful attempt. The arrow sailed into the Colossus’ ear canal and rattled in his head with a clink, clink, clink like a pachinko machine.

2016!filodox: HOW MANY EX MACHINAS IS THIS ?! The dryads, the arrow, Percy, the enchantment, and THIS ?

One of my criticisms of Trials of Apollo in general is just that the stakes are so much higher and Riordan usually solves that problem by having his heroes win on long odds. The chances of them succeeding at like,,,anything they attempt are astronomical, but of course they manage. It’s not surprising but it does get a little tiring.

“Yo, Nico,” Leo called, “please tell me that’s it for the physical abuse.”

“For now.” Nico smiled. “We’re still trying to get in touch with the West Coast. You’ll have a few dozen people out there who will definitely want to hit you.”

2016!filodox: Oh I’d love to hit him. With the flaming, Imperial gold payload of an onager. Preferably WITHOUT the Pontifex Maximus attached to it -- unless of course you mean the false pontifex, Jason Grace.

Leo was the salt in the wound for this one, ngl. He rekindled my undying ire over Octavian’s death. As I said at the beginning of this, I was extremely ready to die on Octavian’s hill after Heroes of Olympus. That sentiment sticks around for a while...

And we can call that a wrap!

Though it may seem like it, my annotations are not, in fact, a compilation of Nero’s greatest hits. There are a lot of scenes of his that I love (naturally) but I didn’t have anything to say about them when I first read the series. Maybe I’ll share those another time.

In any case, I hope you got something out of this ridiculously long post! Until next time! <3

[jisvnq]

OK SO LIFE UPDATE!!! So me and my mom have this tradition of getting coffee together every Saturday morning and since I just turned 15 and I’ve been asking her to teach how to drive since I was 14 she decided THAT SHES GOING TO TEACH ME HOW TO DRIVE EVERY SATURDAY TOO!!!!!AUDHEIEJENSJIWKSB- plus I really wanna get my permit so I can drive around my mom and stuff like a chauffeur AND TOO RUB IN MY OLDER SISTER AND BROTHERS FACE THAT THE YOUNGEST SIBLING GOT THEIR PERMIT when they just turned 15- and brother literally called my mom asking for help on his permit test like 2 or 3 years ago so if she doesn’t help me then that’s just favoritism and she proclaimes she doesn’t have favorites when we all know it’s ME.....jk jk (kinda) and this weekend my mom said she would take me too the bookstore since we didn’t get to go last weekend :( OH AND ON MY BIRTHDAY MY MOM, SISTER, BROTHER, MY SISTERS HUSBAND, AND HIS NEPHEW THREW ME A SURPRISE PARTY!!!! oh and even though I don’t have to tell you this I want to anyway because 1.) I’m ranting and 2.) I’m comfortable with you and I trust you!! Ok so for the couple months almost a year we’ve been living with my mom’s fiancé’s mom, his sister, and his sisters daughter (we nvr get along with each other) and everytime my mom puts in an application for an apartment or a house they never have room or something came up because of STUPID (ง'̀-'́)งCOVID but a week ago my mom put in another application which is also where her best friend who is also my god mother stays at with my god brother and sister (fun fact: my mom has been friends with my god mother since they were in middle school and now there both 43- like WOW and her kids are so nice like me and her son are 2 years apart and her daughter who I’m older than are also two years apart) so fingers crossed 🤞🏽 we get in!! Because I’m not really comfortable at where we are now because his mom is a HARDCORE CHRISTIAN and I’ve been talking to her about lgbtq+, BLM, and other things like that and everytime she says she doesn’t want me to be like the people in the lgbtq+ community because they’re gods enemy but newflash based on what she says I already am because I’m bisexual and this one time I asked her if she didn’t know me would I look like a boy or a girl and she asked me “do you wanna be a boy?” And I said no I was just asking and then she dismissed me telling me to put on some girly clothes and earring when I’m literally having issues with my gender I LITERALLY HAD A PANIC ATTACK AFTER THAT CONVERSATION WHEN I GOT BACK INTO THE ROOM I WAS STAYING IN and I can barybe in the same room with any of them without getting nervous or anxious because I’m not comfortable around them AT ALL, and this one time when I was somewhat comfortable around I told her that I had Social anxiety and depression and she told me to go READ THE BIBLE because if I do then I wouldn’t have that anymore and in my mind I was like: 👁👄👁- what? But anyways enough about that update me on your life and thingz- 🥺 anon

SCREAMS CUTIE'S LIFE UPDATE YES

coffee together every saturday help that is so cute 🥺🥺🥺🥺 anD YOU GET TO LEARN HOW TO DRIVE NOW???????? COOL?????????? and you had a surprise party 🥺🥺

i'm so glad you're comfortable with me and trust me oh my god 🥺 and IKR THOSE KINDS OF FRIENDS ARE AMAZING OMG (tmi my mom has this one friend from when they were in kindergarten and they lived just across each other so they always hung out together every weekend and they're still friends until now and they're 44 🥺🥺 they got married roughly around the same time and had kids nearly at the same time too skfjjs and we still go to visit them every weekend despite our houses being like quite far away lol)

sjdhfjd but that kind of thing? omg HARDCORE CHRISTIAN ?? pls i go to a catholic school (where i know a bunch of lgbtq+ people) and i'm pretty sure the point they're trying to teach in catholicism is to ACCEPT EVERYONE ??? and omg why's she there telling you what to wear and what to do when your own mother is literally fine with it ??????

AND YES THAT'S ANOTHER THING like my teachers once told my parents about me being so quiet and me shaking every time i'm told to present for a group and they just brushed it off, got mad at me when we got home, told me i shouldn't embarrass them like that, then they proceeded to tell me that people who have depression and anxiety are weak and they have weak faith in God so i should start reading the bible and pray instead... i s w e a r...

i'm literally part of the bible quiz group every year and istg i used to read that thing everyday, i go to a catholic school so we're always praying, but i swear when i begin shaking and stuttering like mad in front of people, nothing's helping me there. like ik it does for others, like one of our teachers who ACTUALLY TRIED HELPING ME WITH THIS SHAKING PROBLEM OF MINE, but idk it just doesn't for me and i'm sure it doesn't for others as well...

sometimes it just makes me wonder how some people think that just because this one thing this one way works for them, it'll suddenly work for every single human being on this planet omg 🤦‍♀️

cutie i love you and please don't feel forced to do anything by that godmother of yours... ik you probably aren't, but if that happens again i think you can tell your mother 🥺 like maybe tell her it's making you uncomfy so she could probably talk to her friend about it ?

[kenkamishiro]

Ishida Sui’s Review of 2019

I didn’t think I’d ever finish this with my onslaught of classes including pharmacology, but I somehow managed! 6k word count, the longest TL I’ve done to date besides Parvati’s interlude for FGO. Lots of insight into Jack Jeanne’s production and what Ishida’s been up to for the past year. It was tough to translate because it was so long, but I had a lot of fun.

Let me know if there are any mistakes, I’m sure there’s a whole bunch. Have fun reading!

Original can be found here.

＊＊＊

2019. I’m reflecting on this past year while flipping through my agenda. Since I’m writing this for my sake, there’s going to be a lot of sections without much explanation.

January

○ This was when Jack Jeanne had yet to be announced, so I was mostly doing preliminary work at the time. Stuff like “BU” and “character facial expressions” will be finished some time this month, is written in my schedule book.

○ New Year’s party in Tokyo from the 16th - 19th. The New Year’s party is a joint party that’s comprised of the 4th editorial department (Shueisha’s seinen magazine branch) that’s held every year in January. I attended the party with the staff every year during serialization, minus my first year.

2019 will be the first New Year’s party since the series ended, but I thought I should stop inviting the staff to attend since we’re not working together anymore (plus it’d be a hassle), so I didn’t really invite anyone. But the day before the event, Editor M brought up the topic inside the taxi and asked, “Are none of the staff coming this year?” (Even if they’re invited now, it’s going to be impossible, asking them to fly the next day and causing a ruckus…) When I replied, “Hey, I’m sure it’d be fun if you invited them and they all came~”, the editor contacted Goubaru-kun, and after said, “He said he’s going.” Guess he wasn’t busy. In the end, the staff during serialization and several people from OB and OG came, almost identical to the lineup from previous years, and it occurred to me that maybe I should have just invited them from the start.

Anyway, at this year’s New Year’s party, I don’t really remember much of what happened. I talked with my senpais from back when I was an assistant for Kingdom, and outside the venue I sobered up from the agoraphobic dizziness I was feeling inside. At the second party I remember people talking to me haphazardly and being photographed. I wish I’d refused. Also, I was sexually harassed by Rikudou Matsubara, my senpai from the same region as me. This New Year’s party will be my last.

February

Briefing session for the game held in Tokyo. Key visual created. It says here [on the agenda] that I want to go to Kagoshima. Every week there’s a checklist for 10 km of jogging and weight training 2-3 times a week. I spent about a week doing some composition work. It ended up being helpful for me, but it made me decide not to work anymore with people with different levels of interest from me.

○ TRPG is written for the 28th. Usually we use the DX (Double Cross) system, but this time one of our participating players, M’s schedule was under mysterious attack. As game master, taking consideration of everyone who’d made time in their schedules for tonight, I thought we could switch to Cthulhu and asked them to wait an hour. 2 hours later I finished coming up with a scenario and began the session. It was fairly fun.

March

Finish BU this month, is clearly noted down. BU stands for bust-up, which are drawings of characters in standing poses [sprites] that are common in ADV games. Normally, since it takes a huge amount of work, the BU work is always divided up. The original drawings are done by the illustrator, in this case I do the base illustrations (line drawing & colouring), and using them as the base, the department sharing the work cleans up the line drawings and recolours it...that’s how the process goes. But since I’m a mangaka and don’t have the technology needed to make gaming assets, I thought it’d be best to leave it to the pros in that field, so that was how that stage proceeded. At that point in time at least.

I also had plans written down to go to Kagoshima. Looks like I didn’t go.

○ TRPG on the 25th. Player M’s schedule lined up with ours, so we played DX with 6 PL plus me as GM. We went to the aquarium, were attacked by witches, and so on.

April

Finish BU, is faintly written down. It seems like the work was more or less completed earlier this month.

○ High school friend K’s wedding on the 6th. Up until then I’d only been to two other wedding receptions. The weddings were for a different friend from high school, and Tajika-san, one of my senpais from Kingdom. This suddenly reminds me of that time at Tajika-san’s reception, when I took a super early flight because I absolutely didn’t want to be late whatsoever, but I ended up not being able to fly for about an hour and a half because of engine trouble or whatever, so I entered at almost the same time as the bride and groom during the reception…

K’s wedding was the first time in my life where I was present all the way from the wedding to the reception, but how should I put it, I was struck by a beam of light. I don’t know who he’s getting married to, I have no clue what their relationship is like. But I was somehow bombarded...by all these thoughts that became jumbled in my head, like the energy in this place, the power of their oaths, questioning what it was, how light isn’t always justice.

I got the feeling that this was what proper, respectable humans take part in, but since I'm fine with not being a proper, respectable human, I decided to not do anything other than what my heart desires.

I'm definitely not good with places where I’m in the spotlight. But congratulations.

○ “Play Sekiro” is strongly noted down. Thank you for supporting me in the first half of 2019.

○ TRPG for the 29th - 30th. DX. Player M’s character dies.

May - June

My schedule book is starting to look more scattered now. On the other hand, since I’ve got a good memory of this time, I can write while recalling the events.

○ I did the covers for the Touken stage play book.

I drew the cover illustrations for the Touken [Ranbu] stage play that Mikasano-san, who I’m grateful to for his work on the anime and movie scripts for TG, worked on. In my mind, it feels like I'm watching the back of who I'd consider my older brother in the creative world, or a fellow comrade on another battlefield fighting to the death. I think it came out quite charmingly, so I’ll include the links for now. Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

During this time of work for Jack Jeanne, I was working on “model sheets”. Blueprints for the characters’ attire, not just from the front but also the internal structure.

Unlike most other games, Jack Jeanne has “performance costumes” in addition to normal attire. Because of its “revue” theme, costumes that will be worn onstage needed to be prepared. I was shocked when I suddenly admitted that I needed model sheets for 5 different performances (spring, summer, fall, winter, final) for the 6 main characters, making 30 designs in total.

Back in the TG era, these kind of drawings that I just explained, or drawings that needed a lot of layers, were a pain in the ass. Plus I wasn’t good at them, so I thought that I didn’t want to do it for the rest of my life if possible. But it seems like I have to do this myself. With a sense of determination, I decided to work solely on this for all of May. At the same time, I made nothing but curry for all my meals. There’s no deep reason behind it, but my aim was to kinda boost my ability to concentrate daily by choosing to be decisive in that action.

○ Working on model sheets It came with an unintended effect. Because I spent a month on work that required balance and consistency, my right-left checking skills got better, and completely unrelated, I improved in drawing perfect copies. The design work for the model sheets itself became really fun to do, starting around when I became obsessed with the scarf design (sumo wrestler drawing) I definitely couldn’t use for Neji’s summer costume. I discovered that it’s precisely because I’m not good at this that my labour bore fruit. I feel like this was my experience for the latter half of the year.

July

The cast members were chosen. Unlike TG, there are 6 people + 1 person who can be referred to as the main character, so it was interesting to have a cast with some breadth.

Seems like lyrical work was the main thing I worked on.

Lyrical work. In Jack Jeanne, each performance contains several songs to sing and dance to, so each one is supposed to be sung. ...hence the lyrics.

The topic of what to do with the lyrics was brought up in November 2018. What happens typically is that, let’s say there’s singing in an idol game, then a company that specializes in it is asked to produce the songs. Even for Jack Jeanne, there were several candidates I could pick and choose from. But after a quick look-through, frankly speaking, they all looked the same to me. There’s one person that’s good, it’d be great if we could get them...is what I thought, but, “Even though I don’t have the skills, I’m the one who understands this world the best,” crossed my mind. ...should I try? I tried it. To be honest, I was super embarrassed since it’d be seen by a lot of people, but it evolved into, “Who cares if you’re doing it?” And so Jack Jeanne’s lyrics were tasked to me.

I mentioned this earlier, but there are multiple songs for each performance. So if you combine those plus the opening and ending songs, that makes 17 songs in total. Lyrics for 17 songs that I’m fully responsible for. What the hell...am I doing? Maybe it was from that moment that I started losing it.

Including the lyrics that I’d been working on bit by bit every month, the remaining ones were finished in one go this July. By the time I finished everything, my current state was, “Give me more songs...let me write more lyrics!” But it wasn’t over just yet.

August

Every time I meet someone I tell this story. I’m thinking of keeping it up. Here I am, relieved to have finished the lyrics, when a message pops up on the Skype group chat. It’s from Yamashita Daisuke of Broccoli.

To briefly touch upon Yamashita Daisuke, he is a young man who’s been involved with this project since October of 2018, and a poor soul who was tasked with conducting very important meetings on his third day of working at the company.

The producer from Broccoli was going on maternity leave, so he was scouted as her replacement. As an aside, if I have to be honest, the exchanges between me and Towada-san, and Broccoli’s Jack Jeanne team up until then were quite frustrating. “How about doing it like this?” they would counter. And we’d respond with something like, “This part is going to be developed later on, and since this will become foreshadowing for the entirety of the story, it can’t be modified that easily.” This kind of situation, having to explain everything in detail one by one, going 3 steps forward and being held 2 steps back, had been going on for about 3 years, so the two of us would often whine about it over drinks, going, “When should we quit, this is ridiculous,” etc.

Finally when things began going more smoothly, the producer who was leading the project took her leave, so I wondered if we’d be able to get along with Yamashita Daisuke, but he was, how should I put it, very diligent. For the last year I've been working with people who don’t put in their best effort, so I was very hopeful and thankful to him.

But I digress. This was the gist of the message that Daisuke sent.

“Kosemura-san’s who’s in charge of musical composition wants ‘scratch vocal tracks’ for when the singers are recording.” “Does Ishida-sensei happen to know anyone he could ask for this favour?” “I’m sure it won’t be a problem for you!” “Frankly speaking, it’s okay even if they’re bad.”

Huh. Well, as you might have already guessed, even with the lyrics, it’s impossible to really understand the song at first sight without knowing what kind of rhythm, what kind of emotions are being expressed in the bar measure. Of course we’d need ‘scratch vocal tracks’ to explain the general feeling of the song.

Now, what Daisuke said was, “Do you have anyone you can ask? It’s okay even if they’re bad. Or even you can do it.” But if I found a “it’s okay even if they’re bad” kind of person, we’d still have to show them how to sing it and explain how the rhythm goes. Daisuke already knew which was probably why he asked for the favour. “The person writing the lyrics would be able to make the scratch vocal tracks the fastest.” ...come to think of it, the demo songs that Kunimitsu sent me every time that were sung using Vocaloid, weren’t they also scratch vocal tracks?

Daisuke must have been in a pinch trying to figure out how he should ask me candidly. Ishida-sensei, I couldn’t just ask you to sing it, so I had to ask in a roundabout manner.

I’d already given my answer, but I was still hesitant. It’s true that after I finished writing the lyrics for the 17 songs I’d already lost sight of myself, but if I sang, my singing would reach Broccoli and Kosemura-san’s team’s ears. But I couldn’t just leave poor Daisuke hanging.

So I consult Towada-shi, whom I’d been collaborating with in creating the scripts for Jack Jeanne, for advice. (He had been in charge of TG’s novels, and I’ve known him for a long time.) “Did you check Skype?” “I did.” “What do you think?” “Start by looking up scratch vocal tracks,” so we paid a visit to YouTube. The first search result that came up for ‘scratch vocal track’ was a video of a vocalist who was used to sing a scratch track for AKB or something. I see, so that’s what it looks like. Innocuous, but I could see it was very professionally done.

And the second result that came up was Tsunku♂-shi. The figure of Tsunku♂-shi himself recording a scratch track for his idols. The producer himself became an idol, and was singing really cutely, in his emotions and how he sang it. “This is it?” I said. “Yeah, it is,” Towada-shi agreed. If Kosemura-san and his team, and the people who will be performing the songs have to listen to it, it’d be a disservice to them to half-ass it. I don’t like people who don’t try their best. That means I have to show that attitude myself. Let’s come out of my shell for poor Daisuke as well.

“You’re gonna become Tsunku♂.” “Yeah...I’m gonna be Tsunku♂!” And that was how I became Tsunku♂.

I replied to Daisuke on the Skype group chat. “Understood, I’ll do what I can.”

So this guy, who doesn’t even know what the ‘D’ in DTM stands for, first downloads the software, and begins setting up a recording environment. Other work is pushed aside. I set 3 days to work on this.

I timidly begin working on the scratch tracks. From the perspective of someone who doesn’t have to listen to their singing for a living, it starts out as a living hell, but you get used to it as you listen to it over and over.

And so I kept learning new things. I noticed I was harmonizing with myself.

Just like Tsunku♂-shi, I’d change the voice for each character. If it was Jack (male in a male role) I’d sing like a man, and if it was Jeanne (male in a female role), then like a woman, while the main character Kisa (female) should sound cute... No, Kisa needs to be cuter! I re-recorded her part many times. Depending on the song, I’d sing for 7 people. I was Jack Jeanne now.

Tsunku♂ (I) recorded 17 songs in 3 days, and sent the data first to Towada-shi. Since I was now Tsunku♂, I no longer felt any sense of embarrassment.

“I listened to it,” the reply came, and I called him. Towada-shi was roaring with laughter. I regained the embarrassment I’d forgotten.

“Oh no, I was laughing ‘cause I was impressed,” he said, but my heart was already as fragile as that of an abandoned dog.

“Even this is a big help to Kosemura-san, and Daisuke should be grateful, right?” Yeah. Although Towada-shi guffawed at me, Daisuke will surely thank me. And then he’ll definitely tell me what a good job I did!

I dumped the music into the Skype group chat. “I did what I could,” I added.

How will Daisuke react to my Tsunku♂? I waited restlessly. Three days later on August 5th, a formal message arrived after it was received.

“Thank you very much. We will schedule a meeting with Kosemura-san…”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My hard work got dismissed with, “Thank you very much.”

Daisuke, why? I thought you were in a pinch, so I...were...were you fooling with me from the start? Answer me! Daisuke! Just tell me I did a good job, or follow up with something, I’m fine with anything! So much for my heart being like an abandoned dog, it’s more like a grown-ass man left naked on a snowy mountain. I did what I could! This feeling was welling up inside me, but was it myself that managed to do it?

○ Later, at a meeting with Kosemura-san “It’s great that you could do this much for us. You didn’t have to do all that.” With the gist of those words, a warm blanket was finally placed over my heart, which had almost frozen to death.

“I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t sure if Sensei was the most who did it in the first place,” Daisuke said, so I decided to satisfy myself by threatening, “I’m gonna tell this story until the day I die.”

September

○ Responses to the Questions to Ishida Sui contest We did a “Ask anything to Ishida Sui” contest as a project for the art book “zakki:re”, where purchasers could apply with a postcard. I was writing the replies for them.

I thought there’d be a lot more questions about TG or its contents, but surprisingly there were a lot of questions asking for life advice. There were quite a few questions that I had to seriously think about to answer.

It was kinda tough since there were over a hundred of them, but I thought it’d be nice to get in touch like this every once in a while.

○ BU work for Jack Jeanne Once the music-related tasks like lyrical composition and scratch vocal tracks were completed, I worked on BU. ...BU work? Wasn’t it finished back in April?

Well, a similar situation arose just like what happened with the lyrics. Regarding sprite quality I might not be able to beat the pros, but since I’m the one who best understands how the characters look best and their body balance, I had decided to do all the line drawing colouring myself in June. I had no clue whether I’d make the deadline or maintain the quality, but thanks to Broccoli’s understanding, I was allowed to make it myself.

I realized once again that I’m terrible at splitting up work. If I can do it by myself, I will.

Plus, it’s, how should I put it, starting from my TG days, even though it wasn’t a lot I got to see various types of workplaces. I’d see places where there was no sense of responsibility whatsoever, or the work may have been divvied up appropriately, but it felt like they were making something without a sense of purpose, like a main plot line that isn’t going anywhere.

It’s impossible to accomplish big things with that kind of stance, and I understand that the more people that intervene, the more uncertain the core becomes, so I didn’t like that kind of approach. It makes me wonder whether there’s any meaning in creating a work that’s conservative and unchallenged, and if it’s nothing more than a money grab.

Since I don’t have any desire for material things, getting fed up about it is useless, but I just can’t help thinking about it.

Of course, it may be difficult to get what I want 100% of the time, but I want to create things in an environment that I think is beautiful, even in places that I’m slightly involved in.

...in other words, BU work is tough, but I began remaking the sprites once again by myself. This was the toughest work I’ve ever done out of everything, including the serialization...

○ Scratch vocals training camp at the end of September I went to the recording for the scratch vocal tracks. Based on the scratch tracks that I made, we got professional vocalists to sing it again properly. This is what the actual cast would use as a reference to sing. (So my version was like the pre-scratch vocal track.)

I was stuck in Tokyo for almost a week. Wake up, get ready, go to the recording studio. Come back at 8 or 9 pm, rest and sleep, repeat.

It was like I was back in school, and since I don’t have a steady lifestyle, I enjoyed it.

Kosemura-san’s team is really great, and I know I mentioned this before, but I felt like their workplace was a very healthy production site. When I was drawing manga, I never had much time to talk with fellow manga artists, and I’ve never had the chance to experience what other professionals’ workplaces were like, so it was very exciting for me to see people as professionals tackle one thing seriously. The vocalists were as amazing as I expected, and although my scratch tracks were played at a loud volume to annoy me, I had a great time.

The game might have a high level of entry, but it’s worth listening to just for the songs, is what I truly thought.

○ Parting words to Editor M-shi This might have been back in August, but from 2018 to 2019 I had a lot of things on my mind, so I began talking to the editor.

In between the 11 years of serialization starting from my rookie days, I’d received guidance from him so it wasn’t easy, but I expressed to him that we should keep our distance for any future works.

“I want to become absorbed in myself, not to Ishida Sui or Tokyo Ghoul,” I told him. The other part said he also felt the same way, and accepted it. The next time we meet, I hope we can talk about what we’re into, what we’re going crazy over, he said.

And so, 2 months after that conversation was the scratch vocals training camp in Tokyo, and I had the chance for the two of us to talk again. That day I was completely tuckered out from recording the scratch track, but it was a day filled with accomplishments.

He took me to a restaurant with delicious food in Ebisu or somewhere, and after concluding our brief business meeting, I tried throwing out the cliched, “So, what are you up to lately?” As the lead writer, there was a part of me that was curious about how he was doing after that talk we had.

The editor began talking about homemade curry.

...that’s what he’s into? I decide everything from selecting and picking the ingredients myself, and next time I want Ishida-kun to also see how delicious the curry is...he told me passionately, but how should I put it, the conversation wasn’t very spicy.

The food was delicious.

October

○ BU work

What’s hard about BU work is that it’s difficult to separate the layers according to the face, hair and clothes, and they all have to have the same style and touch to it. If it was manga, then maybe...no, even in manga, there’s still some need to match the outfits, but it doesn’t really matter to that extent.

It’s because I don’t like game sprites. “This character has so much energy from their sideways pose! Amazing!” This never happens…

Around this time of the year, my older sister called this elaborate task, “the task you’re probably the worst at.”

○ The bean life I’m not really fat in particular, but I made up my mind to try dieting. At the time, my body fat percentage was at 18%, and I’ve never been below 10% ever in my entire life, so I’m thinking of aiming for that. Instead of eating rice with unseasoned chickpeas and black soybeans, I began my lifestyle of consuming vegetables and cuts of meat with less fat. Hopefully I can achieve my goal in about six months’ time.

○ Ano-chan, Honda Keisuke, and I After Ano-chan left “You’ll Melt More!”, her official Twitter account removed every single account she was following, but for some reason only two people remained. Those two people were Honda Keisuke and Ishida Sui. To Ano-chan, Honda Keisuke and Ishida Sui belonged in the same category. After some time passed, even we were removed, but I consider this one of my hottest mysteries of 2019. Ano-chan! I’ll always be waiting, so let’s have tea some time with Honda Keisuke!

November

○ BU Need I say more.

○ Main cast’s first recording session from the 26th - 27th.

I visited Tokyo with Towada-shi to supervise the main cast members’ recording session. Wow, everyone was so amazing~

Of course, not just the main characters. Terasaki Yuka-san who plays the main character, Tachibana Kisa, was wonderful as well.

In this kind of game genre, the position as the main character feels less important than the male characters, but I want her to stand firmly in this story’s script. I thought it’d be nice to have the main character not stand out too much and have her watch over the male characters, and I felt that Terasaki-san’s voice and acting fit that image perfectly.

About the cast members, it seems like there’ll be a chance to speak to them eventually, so I’ll come back again.

○ 1 month into the bean life I’m steadily losing weight. Basically I always work from home. I go to the gym and supermarket 2-3 times a week. I started cooking for myself. I got a brand new refrigerator to replace the one that suddenly broke. It actually cools things down now. Living standards have risen.

December

○ I break off ties with M who I played TRPG together with. He was a former classmate who was even chief assistant at some point during the series’ run, but eventually he ended up getting fired due to falling asleep at work. He said he’d attend the last session for the story that day (although his own character had already died), and I was working on a schedule to accommodate him, but once again he cancelled at the last minute.

It’s fine to cause trouble for me (although I’ll probably get pissed), but I can’t overlook treating others the same way. And it’s not the fact that his schedule didn’t match up, it’s because he was complete trash who didn’t know how to behave like an adult once he made plans with others, that I felt sorry for the other TRPG people who took time out of their schedules. Since I felt ashamed when I was together with him, I decided I’d had enough.

This was a year where I cut ties with a lot of people, but I think what they had in common was that I was ashamed to be with them. From now on, I don’t want to associate with such people.

What’s more, when I finally told him, he didn’t even try to deal with it and just gave up, responding, “So that’s how you felt about me. Okay. My bad.”

I won’t go anywhere with those kind of people again.

○ The bean life ⇒ the potato life. I changed it to potatoes.

○ BU is over...

On December 17th, I finally finished the BU work that I spent ageeeeeeeees on.

Although I said that serialization is tough, as long as I finished 18 pages a week that was it (although there were times where I was chasing myself with other work), so I could finish it as long as I didn’t sleep. I somehow managed to finish both the manuscripts and the colour illustrations this way, so expecting BU to be similar, I wasn’t really scared about it never ending, but BU truly was despair. When is this gonna end? I’m even working super hard… This is how it went on the entire time for over a month.

There were about 200 different sprites I had to make myself, including the different costumes and poses, and I had to do all of them.

For one thing, when, “This process is necessary,” came out, I had to go through the same process roughly 200 times, that it felt like I was facing the final boss who already transformed many times. Also, it’s like not equipping myself with a lot of equipment and recovery items in the previous town, but the dungeon I somehow managed to enter is extremely dangerous and even though there’s no safe points anywhere in sight, the boss suddenly comes up behind you, and you go I’m gonna die I’m gonna die

○ If you eat a lot while you’re losing weight, you’re going to have a bad time.

On December 15th I had trouble concentrating, so I tidied up the living room, created a space in the middle of the room, and darkened the lights. After an hour of meditating, only the sound of my breathing could be heard in the room, and so I went back to work with renewed concentration after confronting the issue (like a monk?).

On December 16th, I’ve been working the entire time since morning. I thought today was going to be the last day, but an entire day has passed and I don’t have any energy...

I’ll buy a midnight snack, replenish my energy, and end it once and for all. I’m trying to lose weight, but I went to the convenience store while thinking about how I’m gonna eat a katsu sandwich (I didn’t have the energy to cook).

While looking for something at a convenience store I can eat during weight loss, I think back over the last few months.

Like how it seems like BU is finally over, how a lot of things have happened, how I’m working hard, how lately I’ve been eating only potatoes, vegetables and meat.

And then I suddenly thought, “I wonder if the reason I don’t have any energy is because I haven’t had any rice lately.”

...I thought I should go on a diet in October, so I’ve been living a very modest life since then. Thanks to that, my weight has steadily decreased, and my body fat percentage has gone down 3% to 15%. What will happen if I continue with my relatively strict dietary restrictions during this difficult time?

...even if you’re losing weight, there’s a technique you can set up to binge eat during periods where weight loss stagnates, called cheat day (though results may vary), but what is it that makes no-cheating so inefficient even for weight loss?

...should I have a cheat day today?

“Huh, is it really okay?” I asked my mind. “Do it!” was the answer I got. From that moment, everything around me morphed into things I could eat.

No exaggeration, my knees trembled.

I crammed into my shopping basket carbohydrates, carbs, more carbs… It’s okay just for today, I say as I shove cream puffs, dorayaki, pudding, Family Mart chicken and ice cream. (Even if it's a cheat day, it’s probably not a good idea to take non-nutritional foods, but shh.)

With food in both hands and in high spirits, the first thing I ate was the delicious part of the Family Mart chicken.

I groaned loudly, all alone in the room.

Alright, let’s finish this work! I was energized, but my blood sugar levels spiked so much that I felt extremely sleepy and went to bed instead.

The next day on the 17th, I wake up at 4 am and immediately notice something unusual. My body is burning. I’m sweating.

I immediately wake up, and overflowing with energy, I head for my desk. I’m working actively, and I finish the BU work. It felt like I was pushing forward with only positive energy, feeling uplifted.

I break out a laugh at a slight joke I found funny from a foreign drama (The Mentalist) I’m playing while working. The greenery of the plants and the lighted sink glisten, and the scenery is vivid.

What is this?

I suddenly recall the story of a YouTuber I saw recently. He lives in a region where medical marijuana is legalized, and he explained in detail what changes would occur if you smoked cannabis.

To put it roughly, you feel calm and your senses sharpen. Trivial things can become funny, and funny videos can make you roar with laughter.

Then maybe...I thought, I'll watch Nagareboshi (a comedy duo) on YouTube. Usually I go, haha, that's funny! But that day I exploded with laughter...all of their videos were just too funny.

I learned that when you’re losing weight and suddenly eat a lot, it alters your mind and body as if you smoked cannabis. (※ Just to be clear, I don’t know what cannabis is like.)

Thus the BU work ended with me being high as a kite.

(※ I’m covering it with mosaics for now. I’ll remove it once I can announce it.)

○ I stopped playing TRPGs. I’ve been doing it for about two and a half years, but it also helped me in honing my creative skills. I’d sometimes perform, so it was useful when I was recording the scratch vocals… It was a good experience, managing to vicariously live the energy of ending a story. It was a story about a group of friends, so it was easy to appreciate.

Summing up 2019

After the weekly series finished in 2018, I was in a daze for a few months, but in 2019 I worked only on Jack Jeanne for the year.

This year I tried various things, and trite as it may seem, felt the possibilities within myself expanding. I had many opportunities to realize how important it is to keep a distance from bad things that don’t do anything for me.

During my work on Jack Jeanne, I vaguely thought about my future creations. The work I’m doing now in game production is fun so I wonder if I can keep working in this field, but I’d also like an environment where I can release things more constantly.

I can’t promise anything specific, but I’m going to work on things that I want to do.

I look forward to what 2020 has to offer. Have a happy New Year.

2019.12.31 Ishida Sui

[wiccanz]

Law of Attraction

Summary: After getting sued, Peter finds himself focusing on something else — asking his lawyer out. Pairing: Peter Parker x Fem!Reader (adult!peter) A/N: hellooooo!! this is def different from anything i’ve ever written before so i’m crossing my fingers that u guys actually like this one !! (also, this is based on friendly neighborhood spiderman #5!) PLS ENJOY THANK U I LOVE U (and send requests :( hehe)

“Ms. Y/L/N, someone’s here to see you.” your secretary says into the phone, uneasy. “Bring them in” you replied, going back to organizing your files. After a few more minutes, no one has still walked in your office, much to your dismay. 

“Sarah, where are they?��� you walked out. Sarah just looked at you with wide eyes, unable to explain. Suddenly, a gust of wind swoop in from behind, making you turn around. “Spiderman? Seriously?” you exclaim. The masked hero spun around your chair, stopping to face you. “Hello”

You sigh, fixing your blazer and smoothing down your skirt before going back inside your office, closing the door behind you. “Never thought Spiderman needed a lawyer. What? You wanna sue the Daily Bugle?” you joked, sitting down. “Sorry about my entrance. And no, I don’t plan on that yet” he chuckled. “Then what do you want?”

He hesitates for a while, but stands up to close the blinds so no one can see you guys. “What are you doing?” you question, crossing your arms. Now facing you, he takes off his mask, making you gasp. “Peter Parker? From high school?” you whisper-shouted. He nods, sitting back down. “I’m getting sued by Vanna. Like OUR, Vanna.” he sighed.

You hold back a laugh, making Peter furrow his eyebrows. “What?” he asks. “I just,” you pause, “Why is Vanna Smith suing you?” you chuckle. Peter shrugs, “can I borrow your laptop? I’ll show you why. It’s ridiculous” he says, taking your laptop and going to Vanna’s blog. 

I wanna write my experience about the infamous person the Bugle’s been writing about. I already encountered him back in my senior year of high school, when the Vulture attacked. He was hiding right behind the bleachers, where I was sitting. Must have looking up our skirts. What a sicko.

I knew that he wasn’t done. I was at the New York Science Museum for an assignment a few weeks ago, when he suddenly came bursting out of the bathroom stall! The WOMEN’S bathroom. I, of course, defended myself. I hit him with my purse, demanding an explanation. But then some guy comes bursting in!

So I’m just like, “this is impossible!” he must be working with these weirdos just so he can impress me. He’s staging these fights, putting other people in harm’s way just for me. Weirdo.

And then yesterday, I was at the beach, when he was fighting that Sandman guy. Trying to act like he didn’t notice me. Pft, he was glancing at me. He isn’t so slick.

I’m suing him soon for harrassment, since the police is too busy worshipping the ground he walks on to even help.

After reading the blog entry, you looked back at Peter, breaking into a fit of laughter. “Holy shit, Peter,” you laughed. “Not surprised Vanna is still crazy to this day. This is absolutely ridiculous, you’re going to win in like 10 minutes” 

“So are you going to help me?” Peter asks. “Oh, I definitely will. This is my most interesting case yet. Hell, I’ll do it for free” you laughed. “Seriously?” Peter raises his eyebrows. You nodded, taking out papers for him to sign.

For the next few weeks, Peter came around more, visiting your office almost everyday just to “check on how the case is doing” when there’s not even much to look into.

“Seriously, Peter? You know It only took me like a day to gather all the “evidence” for this case.” you laugh as he walked in. “Actually, I was just, uh gonna ask you something” he says, sitting down in front of you. “After this, do you want to go to dinner?” he smiles.

“I don’t think It’s professional to date clients, Peter” you chuckle. “I’m only your client for now. We go way back” he shrugs. “Fine. but only if we win, got it?” you reply, a smile spread across your face.

On the day of the hearing, you went inside the courtroom, sitting in the defendant’s table. Vanna Smith looks at you with wide eyes, unable to form a sentence. “Hey, Vanna. Remember me?” you chuckle before turning around. 

The courtroom was full. Ever since news broke of the lawsuit, the media went crazy, sending you countless messages, asking for his true identity, and other uncomfortable, odd questions. Looking around, you scoff at the sight of J. Jonah Jameson, the Daily Bugle’s editor-in-chief, and Spiderman’s #1 critic.

“All rise for the Honorable Judge Lewis.” the Bailiff says, making everyone stand. “Thank you, please sit down.” he nods.

“Your honor, we have reason to believe Spiderman is harrassing Ms. Smith after a series of events that goes way back to high school,” Vanna’s lawyer starts. “Staging fights with these so-called “Villains” just to impress Ms. Smith?” 

“Spiderman has saved countless of lives in the past, with or without Ms. Smith’s prescence.” you argue, standing up. “Alright, you may call in your first witness.” Judge Lewis gestures to Vanna and her lawyers.

Everyone’s eyes widen as J. Jonah Jameson stands up, making his way the witness stand. “Mr. Jameson, do you believe that Spiderman is capable of doing this?” he asks. “Yes. absolutely, Spiderman is a threat, and seeing him chase over an innocent lady, putting her in harm’s way just to impress her? It’s not surprising at all.”

You walked over to him, “Mr. Jameson, you’re accusations against Spiderman has been proven false many times, and you’ve been recorded many times trying to frame him for profit. Your honor, Mr. Jameson should not be the one we should be relying on for this.” you argue. “That would be all, Judge Lewis.”

“You may call in your witness, Ms. Y/L/N.” 

A smile spread across your face, clearing your throat as you adjusted your blazer. “Your honor, with the court’s permission, I’d like to call Spiderman to the stand” you say, making everyone gasp — including Jameson.

Peter swings inside the courtroom, landing on the witness stand. “Let’s make this quick, I’m a busy man” he jokes, making you roll your eyes.

“This is insane! You’re not allowed to just show up in a mask! That’s probably not even him” Vanna exclaims. “You’re right. Which is why, Tony Stark let me borrow one of those Avengers issue scanners” Peter says, pointing at the box on your desk. You open it, holding up the scanner to his face.

SPIDER-MAN: CONFIRMED the machine spoke, making you smirk. “Now, Spiderman, are you intentionally staging these fights just to impress Ms. Smith?” you ask.

“Not at all. I don’t even know who she is.” he shrugs. “And are you intentionally putting civilians in harm’s way just to impress Ms. Smith, who you apparently don’t even know?” you quirked an eyebrow. “Of course not, I’ve been doing this for years, and the evidence that they presented, what, I’ve only done my job 3 times?” he scoffs, “I’m kind of offended, Ma’am”

Vanna and her legal team don’t even budge, remaining silent. 

You walked out of there with a bright smile, camera’s flashing in your face, bombarding you with questions. When you finally returned to your office, Peter was sitting on the couch, smiling. “Hey, winner” you chuckle.

“Hey, Y/N. Thank you, I actually feel bad for you doing it for free-” 

“Peter, stop” you cut him off. “It’s nothing for what you’ve done all these years to defend people. About time someone around here defended you. Give me a call, maybe I’ll face off with your boss next time” you smirk. ”Right,” Peter muttered as he sat on the edge of your desk. “But there’s another thing we still have to do”

You look at him for a few seconds, trying to recall if there’s something else Peter needed. Your eyes widen as you finally remember that deal you guys made, making Peter cheekily grin. “We were going to win anyways” you chuckle. 

“It’s a date then”

[ahiijny]

First impressions of Symphogear XDU Global

... from someone who’s never played gacha and in fact didn’t even own a phone until as of 2 months ago

Oh, the screen’s in landscape aspect ratio, okay.

“The latest game data will be downloaded (110 MB). Wi-Fi connection is recommended.” I’m on Wi-Fi, that’s fine.

Hm, my phone only has 32 GB of storage and it’s already more than half full, will I be okay?

The Japanese dialogue audio is still in this, noice.

Oh, so this basically the first episode of season 1.

“Croitzal ronzell Gungnir zizzl...” Kanade transformation :)

“Superb Song”. Personally, I’m fine with this choice of translation; I’m pretty sure it’s what the creators originally intended, too. But “Swan Song” still sounds much cooler, doesn’t it :P Also, this song. Goosebumps, every time...

“The latest game data (130 MB) will beIn the background downloaded” More downloads? Also, that “beIn” isn’t a typo, the words were weirdly mushed up against each other in the app for some reason.

Symphogear XDU OP! Noice. I’ve seen this before on YouTube, but it’s still really awesome. And it contains a few minor spoilers for GX (Carol and Elfnein and the Autoscorers), noting that for future reference.

Miku in this OP is just so cool! A scenario where Miku became a main Gear user, that would’ve been nice. Alas, canon, it was not to be...

Kanade and Serena are active Gear users in this too, noice. But there are two Gungnirs and two Airgetlams now?...

“Gjallarhorn” Oh, so this is the parallel dimensions relic I’ve heard so much about.

“Please enter player name / *Player names can be changed later / *Names can be up to 10 characters long”. Okay.

Oh nice, Ryouko’s explaining the app.

“6 kinds of quests: Main Quests, Hexa Quests, Event Quests, XD Quests, Side Quests, and SP quests” Uhhhhh that’s a lot.

“You can choose one friend who will follow you into battle.” Oh, is this like the pair system in Touhou 11?

This quest is called “Diva of the Battlefield”.

Ohhhh this is the very familiar general everyday life memoria OST (I don’t know the name) that I’ve heard on the YameteTomete site before. You know, that one.

They translate Andou’s nickname for Hibiki as “Bikky”

"Custodian”? Is... is this foreshadowing? Or just a translation quirk? Do Japanese schools even have custodians? (I thought the students do all of the cleaning)

“Imyuteus amenohabakiri tron...” (looks like they mashed it all up into one word)

Okay, battle start.

Waaaaaaait what why are Chris and Hibiki here?? This is too early in the plot!

I am plot confus

Is this just one of those things where you have to be like “it’s part of the game mechanic” and try not think too hard about it?

Huh, and the Gear users and the Noise exchange attacks automatically?

Like... I barely need to do anything?

This reminds me a bit of the game mechanic in Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge, where the battle is mostly automatic based on your arrangement of chips in your “program deck” beforehand, and the only interactivity is your ability to slot in a special attack at any point during the battle (but you can only use your L and R chip slots for this, and you can only use them once).

Yay, battle won.

“MA1-1: Diva of the Battlefield”. I like numbering schemes.

“So she’s the Valkyrie of the Special Disaster Response Team Section 2... The only one who can stand up to the Noise?” Huh, so they do use the word “Valkyrie” in these translations, interesting

“Soldier A: "Whoa, I suggest you stop right there, soldier. You saw nothing and heard nothing. Is that clear?"” Heh :) Ah right, it’s supposed to be confidential.

According to Hibiki, the day one bonuses are amazing.

This onomatopoeia just looks kinda funny for some reason :P

Bikki pls

(Also, sorry about the volume bar, I’m still not used to taking screenshots on a phone)

The little girl calls Hibiki “Missy”.

"Balwisyall nescell gungnir tron…" Hibiki’s first transformation is just not the same without Synchrogazer :/

Got Song Stone x5, owo neat. I don’t know what these are though

Looks like that’s the end of the tutorial!

Ack so many unread notifications

Oh right, there’s some Attack on Titan crossover event going on, I’ll have to check that out later

Reading some of the news posts. Dunno what limit breaking is.

Hm okay, let’s try some of these free gacha rolls.

Why is a gacha roll so fancy graphics

“AME NO HABAKIRI DATTO” Noice

Wow why so flash

Let’s try more of these

“Ayumu Takasaka” Ah, a person whose name I don’t remember. iirc she’s one of Tsubasa’s classmates.

“WARUKUNAI WA NE” Yes, thank you Maria :P

Drop rates, Song Stone log, hmmm

Reading through the FAQ

“A: You may only upload game content for non-profit purposes (including personal use as a hobby.” I wonder if this excludes monetized YouTube channels. Not really relevant to me in any case though, my channel has 4 subscribers.

“Q: I want to learn more about the Symphogear anime and merchandise.” “A: We are not able to respond to any inquiries outside the scope of the Symphogear XD Unlimited app.” wat

Okay, let’s read through some of these "Rights and Agreements” pages.

Skimming through the terms of service. Lots of this reads as generic lawyer boilerplate, not tailor-made for this app, but rather feels like it was adapted from some very standard and thoroughly vetted template. Like, there’s stuff in here talking about using a robot/spider/site search/analysis application, but doesn’t that only apply to websites? Can you robot crawl an app server?

And it talks about it being prohibited “posting photographs or the like of nudity with a high degree of exposure” but is it even possible to post photos in this app?

“a. a. Posting or sending messages for the purpose of buying, selling, or exchanging...” there are two a’s here :P

Oh here we go, more topically specific ToC stuff. “Use of in-app currency” “Song Stone” hm okay.

Heh, the music changes to the XDU OP if I open the "Credit” page.

Hm, what’s this “Rights” section?

Oh, here we go, a bunch of software licenses. Mostly Apache, some MIT as well. And some without a specific name.

Interesting...

Anyway, hopefully I don’t get too addicted to this, I have a lot of other work that I still need to be doing.

But it’s nice finally starting to have a vague inkling about what all the Japanese XDU players were talking about :P

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

RWBY Rarepair Week Day 3, @rwbyrarepairweek

Prompt: Vampire Hunters

Pairing: Pyrruby (Pyrrha/Ruby)

*I know I said in my day 1 that Nuts and Dolts was going to be the only ship I wrote for above the preferred 100 fic line.  At the time, that was the plan, but then I got the idea for this yesterday and just sort of really liked it.  

Also, I’ve turned it into its own au, so there’s that.

AO3 Link (pls leave a comment or kudos if you enjoy <3)

.

Sanguine

“This isn’t fair.  I don’t even eat people!”  The Vampire paces around her cage.  Her silver eyes stay locked onto Pyrrha.

Pyrrha resists the urge to grab Miló, her javelin, and throw it at the creature she spent the past three weeks hunting down.

The infamous Vampire of Patch has done nothing but complain since their arrival back at her base of operations.  Pyrrha would have gagged the Vampire, but her glinting, pointy, front incisors keep the Huntress at a distance.  Detoxing from vampire venom is a pain Pyrrha really doesn’t want to deal with right now.

“You drink blood, don’t you?”  Pyrrha snaps back.  Better to keep the Vampire’s thoughts occupied than plotting ways to escape, anyway.

The Vampire stops pacing.  She glowers.  “Because I need it to survive.  You wouldn’t withhold food from yourself, would you?”

“I don’t take my food from innocent people,”  Pyrrha says.  She turns on her computer.  She doesn’t need to keep her full attention on her captive.  The Vampire isn’t the first quarry Pyrrha has kept locked up here for a time.  Pyrrha’s one of the best Huntresses in the monster-hunting business, after all.

The Vampire sits down cross-legged by the bars of her cage.  “The animals you humans hunt aren’t innocent?”  She cocks her head in what could have been a curious gesture if Pyrrha doesn’t already know it’s a feigned act.  Grizzlier monsters then the Vampire have tried to gain her sympathies before, and (almost) all failed.

“That’s different,”  Pyrrha states offhandedly as she opens her emailing service and begins typing up a report to send in to Headquarters.  The sooner she’s paid and this talkative, little imp sent off to meet her doom, the better.

“How?  They don’t want you to kill them, but you still do!”  The Vampire retorts.  “At least I don’t kill anyone!”

Pyrrha snorts.  “You expect me to believe you’ve never ‘accidentally’ killed anyone while sucking out their blood?”

“No!  Because I don’t do that!”  The Vampire seems insulted.  She jumps up and begins pacing again.  She gesticulates wildly with her arms as she talks.  “I go to hospitals and they give me blood!  The only time I drink from actual people is when they already have poison or a toxin or something in their blood and it’s killing them!  Those don’t affect me like they do you humans, so I can get them out of their systems faster and safer.  That’s how I pay for what the hospitals give me.  I save lives!”

“Uh-huh.”  Pyrrha pulls her headphones on over her ears and puts on some loud music.  A part of her does want to believe the Vampire.  She likes to think the world is full of kindness.  Truly, Pyrrha does.  But she also knows what happens what she lets her guard down for even a second.  She’s not going to make that mistake again.  Not when it could lead to another (too high) body count.

The Collectors, those who come to take the monsters Pyrrha catches away for disposal, are busy with a job up north.  They’ll be down in two days to pay her and take the Vampire off her hands.  The head of the Guild, Salem, as always, thanks Pyrrha for her service.  Pyrrha sends off a quick reply, and then shuts down her computer (it’s too costly to let it run all the time).  She glances back at the Vampire.

Since she no longer has Pyrrha’s attention, the Vampire has taken to entertaining herself.  She’s lying on her back in the center of the cage, holding up two pebbles she must have found on the ground somewhere.  Pyrrha makes a mental note to keep the holding area cleaner in the future.  The Vampire makes the pebbles ‘attack’ each other by slamming them together.  She makes pew, pew noises with her mouth as she does.  It would be a human, if a bit childish, action, if the Vampire weren’t actually a destructive monster.

Pyrrha turns away.  Again, she can’t afford to let her guard down.  She goes to her kitchenette and starts putting a small dinner together.  The noises of Pyrrha’s pots and pans clanging together and the sizzling of heated butter gets the Vampire’s attention.  She rolls over on her stomach, rests her head on her propped up hand, and watches Pyrrha.

“Oooh, what are we having for dinner?”  The Vampire’s tone is a bit happier, a bit more upbeat now than before.

Pyrrha responds, “I’m having stir fry.  You aren’t having anything.”

“But I’m huuungry,” The Vampire whines.  “It doesn’t even have to be blood.  I eat other stuff too.  Like cookies.”  Her expression turns excited.  “Do you have any cookies?”

“You...eat cookies?”  Pyrrha approaches the Vampire.  That’s unexpected.  And probably a lie.

“Yeah my dad used to make them for me all the time.”  The Vampire’s shoulders sag.  “Well, he did.”  She turns away from Pyrrha.  “He’s a really nice human.  That’s why I don’t think you’re entirely bad.  Maybe you’re scared or hurt.  He was too, in the beginning.  But then he got to know me, and he changed his mind.”

Pyrrha crosses her arms.  “Let me guess, he’s dead now?  There was an ‘accident’?”

“No.”  The Vampire shakes her head.  Her short, red-tipped black hair flies around her head.  “I ran away so he wouldn’t.”  She takes a deep breath.  “Everyone was always so scared of me.  I didn’t want them to hurt him too.”

“That’s a nice story.”  Pyrrha returns to prepping her dinner.  She checks her cupboards and finds all the necessities for chocolate-chip cookies.  She has everything she needs.  Pyrrha takes the ingredients out, but makes sure the Vampire can’t see them.  She hasn’t completely made up her mind on that yet.

“What’s it going to take to convince you that I’m not dangerous?”  The Vampire speaks the words as a half-grumble.

Pyrrha goes over to the cage.  She squats down next to where the Vampire is.  “Nothing.  Ever.  Will.” she talks down to her.  “The last time I did that, someone I cared about very much died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”  The Vampire pauses.  “But that still doesn’t give you the right to kill me.”

Pyrrha sighs.  A part of her does agree with the Vampire.  “Look, I’ll make you a batch of cookies.”  She acquiesces to doing that much.  Her eyes sweep over the holding cage.  “And, since you’ll be here for a few days, I’ll get you some pillows and a blanket, but that’s it.  I can’t allow you to go free.  Someone will wind up dead.  I will not allow that to happen.”

“Hmm…well, what if I just stay here with you?”  The Vampire asks.  “You can keep an eye on me.  No one gets hurt either.  And I’ve been looking for a new place to stay.”

“You do understand, I hunt monsters.”

“I know.”  The Vampire grins.  “But, you’re not one of the evil ones.”  She holds out a hand between the bars of the cage.  “My name’s Ruby.”

Pyrrha sighs.  “Pyrrha Nikos.”  The Va—Ruby’s hand is unusually cool to the touch, but still soft like a human hand.

On the one hand, Pyrrha thinks she’s making a mistake.  On the other, it’s only for two days really, and it does feel like a burden that’s been weighing on her has lightened just a little bit.

[badbookreviewclub]

Complete Review: Insanity: Jeff the Killer by Neesha Nickleson

DISCLAIMER: There are spoilers in this review. I highly doubt you will have any plans to read this book, but if you don’t want it to be spoiled, just don’t read the review until after you’ve read the book. To take a break from Empress Theresa and the pain that it has been causing me, I decided to read a fanfiction that Neesha Nickleson, self-published and sold via Amazon. Insanity: Jeff the Killer is significantly shorter than Empress Theresa, at a grand total of 76 pages. On the Amazon listing, Nickleson admits in ‘Videos for this product’ section that she wrote the book when she was fifteen, which in itself is almost endearing to me. Apparently, she wrote it for a contest that Nickleson claims to have won. I’m not entirely sure what the contest was for, but kudos to her. Nickleson also comments that there’s a sequel to this book, however, I haven’t been able to find it.  Neesha if somehow by the will of the fates if you find this review; Please, I just want book two. When will you release book two for purchase? I need it in my life.  The Summary: “Bullies and liars beware: A new threat is arising. Naomi Jansen just wanted to have a normal carefree life until she met Jeff at summer camp. Jeff is a laid back teenage boy with a dark secret. Then one morning at camp, Naomi hears that one of her long time bullies, Mallory, was found dead in her cabin. Naomi suspects Jeff at first but then decides that he’s too sweet do something like that, until a series of events changes her mind and her outlook on sanity.”  This summary isn’t terrible, to be honest. I’ve read far worse, though personally there are a few things I don’t like about it. First of all, revealing that Naomi’s bully was killed. I know this isn’t much of a plot twist because it happens within the first couple of pages in the book, but it gets rid of a sense of mystery. Second, we don’t really know anything about the characters right off of the bat besides general characteristics. I would have preferred if Jeff’s characteristics were written from Naomi’s first impression, for example: “Jeff seemed like a laid back teenager, though when Naomi hangs out around him, the air feels off.” Not the best that could be done considering I literally just threw that out there, but there are small revisions that could be done to give more of a sense of mystery to the book and the characters without pulling from the content of the summary itself.  I do know that this book is quite literally about the Creepypasta, Jeff the Killer, so it isn’t as if anyone reading it has no idea who Jeff the Killer is, but I do feel like the point still stands. Just because a reader has an idea about the content of the book doesn’t give an author the excuse of revealing plot points in the summary. I do also understand that it was written when Nickleson was a fifteen-year-old, so I don’t hold much against her in that regard. Hell, I wrote shitty fanfiction when I was fifteen. However, if you are willing to publish your work online and even sell it, you are going to have to expect criticisms and reviews.  The Characters: Naomi Jansen - The main female lead, Neesha Nickleson’s original character. Jeff Woods - The main male lead, based heavily on if not is completely a mirror of the Creepypasta, Jeff the Killer. Liu Woods- Jeff’s brother, both in the story and in the world of Creepypasta. Based off of or mirrors the character of Liu Woods. Mallory - Naomi’s bully.  Randy - As per Nickleson’s descriptions, the “average-sized” skater boy. He’s the boss of Troy and Keith. Troy - the “fat” skater boy and can apparently run very fast. Keith - the “skinny” skater boy Plot Summary and Breakdown: Considering that the book is only 76 pages, there’s not much plot to it, but there is a plot. The entire book follows Jeff and Naomi around, from their first encounter at a summer camp to the ‘first day of school’ and finally to the moment when both of them snap and kill their families. It’s a fairly simple and straightforward plotline, which works to the advantage of the story at some points. At other points, however, the rapid pacing of the book can be incredibly confusing and makes little to no sense. There are a lot of logical gaps throughout the story that can leave a reader confused or holding their head in their hands, which I will go into as we delve into the storyline itself. Nickleson also has a tendency to flip between Jeff and Naomi’s perspective throughout the chapters, which is a problem within itself. Thankfully she does label in big and completely capitalized letters when she is switching perspectives, which makes it easier to follow along.  There can be a few problems with jumping perspectives in the middle of chapters because we lose connection with the character who was just narrating at times, though it can certainly help the book from becoming repetitive when you want to repeat a scene from a different perspective. In this case, however, it would have been best to completely write the book from third-person rather than jumping between first-person perspectives. First-person can work incredibly well for emotional impact and drawing the reader in, however, in my opinion, it is still possible to do that in a third-person perspective. Perhaps an author wouldn’t be able to do it as well, but in the case of Insanity: Jeff the Killer It would have worked just fine. We start off the book from Naomi’s perspective as her mom is dropping her off at Summer Camp. She is dropped off at a Summer Camp every single year, though this is the first year that she’s seen Jeff, so we could make the fairly logical guess that Jeff is new in town. Namoi’s first opinion of Jeff is that he’s a ‘weirdo’ for wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer. I honestly can’t blame Jeff for wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer because I do the exact same thing. Admittedly, the hoodie I wear in the middle of summer is a lightweight one, but I do. If I could go all year without ever having to stop wearing my jackets I would be so content (So, let’s stop global warming pls. It’s getting harder to wear jackets in the middle of summer. This is a terrible reason for wanting to stop global warming, but any reason to stop it is decent enough in my opinion). We don’t really get Jeff’s first impression of Naomi, but he does follow her and sit next to her to introduce himself because I guess she gave him a weird look. This is when we meet Mallory, who somehow already knows Jeff despite the fact that I thought he was new in town.  Mallory is a little asshole, ‘nuff said.  Just kidding, I have more to say. Mallory calls Jeff her “future husband Jeffy”. She also absolutely adores the color pink which we find out because she’s covered head-to-toe in pink. We also know that Mallory is Naomi’s longterm bully from the back summary, yet, she already knows who Jeff is despite the fact that I’m fairly certain that Jeff moved in. This was a little confusing for me, but I decided to just take it as a sign that Mallory had met Jeff when he arrived at camp and she decided right then and there that he would be her husband. It’s not entirely unreasonable for a teenage girl to say that about a boy that she finds attractive, right? I mean none of my friends ever said that about anyone that they found attractive, but it’s something that I’ve heard about happening. Mostly in movies, but I’m sure it happens elsewhere.  I think.  Maybe.  Anyways, Mallory basically attacks Naomi with a fucking pink and sparkly knife that her mom gave her. She cuts up Naomi’s arms, legs, back, and waist to prove that she’s better than her. This is where we learn that Mallory is a psychotic fucking bitch, and this is where Mallory kisses her life away. Naomi doesn’t tell anyone who could do something about it that Mallory did this to her and instead just fixes herself up. She does meet up with Jeff a little bit later and shows him what Mallory did, he feels bad about it because he just watched before passing out (I think).  A little later on Naomi goes to bed and has a dream about Jeff killing Mallory, we move on to the next chapter and SURPRISE Jeff killed Mallory and her entire cabin. Here’s where the first logical fail comes in; Rather than keeping everyone in the camp to be interviewed by the police or to keep the potential killer from running away, as soon as it is found out that Mallory and her entire cabin were brutally murdered, the camp decides to send them home early. From what I can gather, there’s a little voice in Jeff’s head that tells him to commit these violent acts, though it really only crops up when someone has hurt Naomi. This seems a little ridiculous to me considering that he literally just met her and as far as the book goes, it doesn’t seem like he had these violent tendencies before he knew her. However, Jeff doesn’t want her to find out that he was the murderer so when Naomi’s mom is giving them a ride home, he tries to hide the fact that there’s very clearly a bloodstain on the pocket of his white hoodie by saying that it’s spilled kool-aid. The bloodstain came from the knife he used to kill Mallory, which as far as I could figure out, isn’t a small knife. How Jeff got away with this, I will never ever know, nor do I think I could ever hope to know. Naomi excuses this and accepts it without question because she believes that Jeff is too sweet to have committed a brutal mass murder. I don’t know if this is naive or endearing that Naomi already seems to be falling for Jeff, though this is mostly from my own inference rather than any emotion that has been implied.  Emotion tends to be another problem throughout the book. There’s no emotion in it. The characters seem to be cold and blank slates, even when facing some pretty anxiety and adrenaline-inducing situations. Even when they’re potentially facing death, we don’t get much emotion out of it, and in this regard, the book tends to be pretty disappointing. The way that the plot is laid out, emotion is incredibly important to the story and so are their thoughts and opinions because it is supposed to be a total spiral into madness. When Jeff and Naomi both snap and lose their sanity, we don’t see that spiral, it’s sudden and jarring. There was no slow spiral or thoughts that circled down the drain faster and faster until both of them gave in. A little bit of that is implied with Jeff, which I’ll talk about later on, but the reader doesn’t get any of that from Naomi, making her sudden transition to insanity abrupt and with no foreshadowing other than it being blatantly stated on the back of the book.  However, I digress. Moving back onto the plot, we meet Liu when Jeff is dropped off at his own house. I assume Liu is around the same age as Jeff, though I’m not entirely sure on that point. This is were another logical fail comes in; Despite having been told only pages before that they were being sent home early from camp, apparently, the first day of school is tomorrow.  The rapid pacing of the book created this failure of logic and made me pause for a second to question just what I was reading. It only took a few seconds to remind myself that this was a book written by a fifteen-year-old and originally was posted as a fanfiction. Of course, that’s not to say that all fanfictions are bad, there are some absolutely amazing ones out there, but I do have yet to find one written by a fifteen-year-old that doesn’t have some error in logic. Nickleson just so happens to have more than a few errors, especially towards the end of the book.  Before the first day of school however, Jeff texts Naomi and tells her to go watch the news. So, she heads downstairs and turns it on. It’s a live report of Mallory’s mother accusing Naomi of killing Mallory. And, as it would turn out, they’re right out front of Naomi’s house as well which is rather convenient because they want to interrogate her on live TV and ask if she killed Mallory and why. Because, you know, having someone interrogated by the news rather than having the police interrogate them always goes well. Naomi exposes the cuts that Mallory gave her and essentially just calls Mallory a horrible person. There was no questioning here, the news reporter just accepting it without a single word and declaring Mallory a horrible person. Ultimately this whole episode and everything that Mallory has done is inconsequential to the rest of the book and everything is pointless.  I’m dragging on the longer side here, so I’ll try to speed things up so my review doesn’t end up as long as the actual book is. The first day of school comes and Jeff and Liu are waiting at the bus stop with Naomi. We meet the three skater boys here, Randy, Tony, and Keith. We realize that Jeff and Liu really are new to town because Randy tells them that the new kids have to pay a bus fee because they’re new. Rather than paying it though, they decide to fight. Jeff stabs Keith in the legs and the arms though this never really matters because Keith is fine. Jeff and Liu run to their house and Naomi runs to hers. A short while later Naomi shows up at Jeff’s house and claims to have knocked out the three boys with a metal baseball bat, though right after she did Randy somehow cut open her arm. Blah, blah, blah, they watch a movie, eat some pizza, and then Jeff makes his love confession to her by kissing her. Naomi reciprocates the love and BOOM I guess they’re dating now, how lovely.  Despite the fact that this is supposedly the first day of school nobody is questioning just why they’re playing hooky from school and just accept the fact that they’re not at school. A little while later they go back to Naomi’s house and we learn that Naomi’s mom was home the entire time. So why she didn’t go to her mom for help is beyond me. Naomi shoots at Randy with a bb gun and they all run off after coming after her and Jeff again. She then goes back to Jeff’s house with him for reasons even I don’t get because it seems like they’re just jumping between houses at this point. Liu gets arrested here after saying that he was the one who beat up the three boys, covering for Jeff. Jeff is upset about it and for some reason, Naomi is as well because she thinks that she could have had proof to stop them from arresting Liu despite the fact that she said only moments before that he’ll spend two days in jail at most. Liu doesn’t get a trial for this whole thing, which only makes it more confusing why he’s spending a few days at a Juvenal Detention Facility.  Related story time: When I was 12 I got into a big fight with some of the kids, enough so that the cops were involved. It was mostly just some throwing of hands and the boys shouting “punch her in the boob.” It happened because one of them, threatened to grope my 8-year-old sister, and as the big sister of the family, I couldn’t let that happen. I called him an idiot and we got into a fight. Nobody was arrested, nobody got into trouble with the police, just with their parents. There were a few bruises and a couple days later at school, the boy came up and apologized to me.  Look, I know Keith got stabbed in Jeff’s fight, but honestly, it’s never mentioned again and Keith runs like he didn’t get stabbed at all and acts like he didn’t ever get stabbed so I honestly don’t know if Nickleson remembers that Jeff stabbed Keith. As such, I think it’s a little ridiculous that Liu, a child, was arrested, and sent to Juvie without trial, for a fight when the three skater boys weren’t arrested either.  Moving along from that whole mess, Jeff and Naomi go to an 8-year-old’s birthday party because Jeff was invited by the kid’s mother after Jeff and his family moved into the neighborhood, and Naomi babysat the kid. Randy and Co. show up to the party and Naomi send all the children inside. The Co. have guns and are aiming them at the adults so they don’t try to interfere. Randy lunges at Jeff and Jeff fucking murders him. Keith obviously is upset by this and breaks a bottle of vodka over Jeff’s head after dropping his gun. I don’t know why he had a bottle of vodka or where he got it, but he has one. He then chases Jeff upstairs and to the bathroom and another fight breaks out. A bottle of bleach from a bathroom shelf falls onto Jeff and douses him in bleach. Keith points out that Jeff is now covered in bleach and vodka and proceeds to light him on fire. Bitch what the  f u c k.  I will admit, I do think that this is a creative solution as to why Jeff has bleached skin and does follow along well enough with the actual story of Jeff the Killer, so I am inclined to believe that Nickleson either did a bit of light research into his story or had some prior knowledge about it. This is one thing that I will give the book kudos on.  Jeff wakes up at the hospital, after the bandages are removed he finds out that his skin is bleached and he says that he loves it. Naomi apparently loves it as well and nobody in his family concerned in the slightest that Jeff loves it. We find out that Keith was caught though Tony managed to evade the police because as the reader learns earlier in the book, despite being larger in size, Tony can run like the fucking wind. This becomes a problem later on in the book because Tony comes back and shoots Naomi. Yes, Tony shoots Naomi despite insisting much earlier on that she wasn’t part of the dispute, only Jeff was. Jeff hears the gunshot and grabs the biggest knife he can find and from what I can tell, he murders Tony as well. There’s a little bit of a typo in this section, as instead of saying that Jeff murdered Tony, Nickleson says that Jeff murdered Keith. This threw me off a little bit before I realized that it was a typo. Jeff goes to the hospital though in the ambulance that Naomi’s mother called when she heard the gunshot. Because when you hear a gunshot, your first instinct is to call an ambulance and not go see what happened to see if everyone is fine first. This is really the first bit of emotion we see in the book because Jeff is pacing back and forth so much that Liu, who is out of juvie at this point, points out that Jeff is going to wear a hole into the floor. Turns out, Naomi is fine because the bullets missed her brain and her heart by a millimeter. Now I’m not a doctor, but I’m at least 80% sure that could still kill you. Not only would a bullet near the brain shatter the skull and cause hemorrhaging from the distance it was, but it would screw a lot up. The impact of a bullet that close to your heart would probably still do a lot of damage as well, and yet, Naomi is released from the hospital that night. I’m more than certain that the doctors would have kept her for observation, but I suppose not.  Before Naomi gets shot, we do get a decently sweet scene of Jeff dancing with Naomi, fulfilling a daydream she had of herself and Jeff dancing to a song called Fallen Angel. The artist of the song is never stated but apparently, it’s really good music for dancing and is appropriate enough for Naomi to daydream of herself and Jeff dancing to it in a ballroom. If anyone would care to fill me in on what song it could be, it would be much appreciated. The scene is short-lived though and doesn’t have as much emotion put into it as I would have liked. I think that it could be a beautifully sweet scene, though it isn’t. It isn’t a beautifully sweet scene simply because Nickleson doesn’t write descriptively enough to fill us in on what the characters are feeling. She tells us what they are feeling occasionally, but even then, it’s only on occasion and a story like this could greatly benefit from having emotions tied into it.  After Naomi gets shot and released from the hospital Jeff snaps. He can’t see how beautiful he is when his eyes are closed and when he’s sleeping, so he goes and burns off his eyelids and cuts his cheeks so he’s always smiling (as per the actual story of Jeff the Killer). He then murders his parents and stabs Liu. I’m not sure if Liu actually dies or not as in his story, he survives though Jeff cuts a smile into his face rather than just stabbing him. Jeff then goes over to Naomi’s house, potentially to kill her and her parents, I’m not sure. He finds Naomi playing the piano and when she turns to him, she has “a cut along both of her eyes and a heart carved into her cheek.” I assume that she has a line cut over the top and bottom of her eye, rather than on her eyes because holy fuck that would be intense. But she reassures Jeff that she finds him beautiful still and shows him that she murdered her parents too. Jeff and Naomi go missing after this and are only seen again when they show up at an interview with a ten-year-old boy whose parents they murdered. They had nearly killed him though they didn’t get the chance, so they decide to take action and killed him and the interviewer in the middle of the interview. Jeff and Naomi then make a promise to come and kill everyone else.  In the epilogue of the book, they show up to Slender Mansion, where they are warmly greeted by our friend, Slenderman whose movie in 2019 holds many nostalgic feelings for me but also sucked ass. If you don’t know what the Slender Mansion is, you can read about it here. It introduces you to what it is and is essentially just a giant rant about why it shouldn’t exist because it basically tells the canon of the creepypasta universe to fuck off as it does what it wants. It’s rather amusing, actually. Rating: 4/10 Ending Thoughts:  Overall, it was an enjoyable read when you didn’t think about it too much. It brought me back to my days of loving Creepypasta and everything to do with it. It was an endearing fanfiction to read, even if not written amazingly well. It was still better than Empress Theresa and was a much-needed break from that shit show of a book. I also want book two Neesha. You said you had book two and it was better than this one. Where is book two, Neesha?  I don’t know what I’m going to post next because I am genuinely dreading reading the next portion of Empress Theresa. It will probably take me longer to get through it as I want to do a couple of chapters in one go. Up next I’ll probably ready a book called The Rose Council, written by a man I absolutely despise. I’ll explain more in that post when I get around to doing it. Or perhaps, I’ll write a review on an actually good book for once. 

[imaginedisish]

Shout (Colin Ritman x Reader) (Bandersnatch)

A/N: WOOAAAHH TWO IMAGINES (kinda because it’s technically tomorrow since it’s 12:17 am where I am) IN ONE DAY???? WHAAATTT!!! I felt bad because my posting schedule was extremely off this weekend, so I wrote this up this evening. This is based on an anon request I got a few days ago, and the title is based on the song of the same name by Tears For Fears. This imagine is pretty dark...so make sure you check out those warnings...anyway...Stefan smut will be posted tomorrow! Until then...enjoy this! (P.S: I hope I wrote this okay...I really don’t want to offend anyone...I just write what I get requested and hope  that I do the request justice. If you are offended, pls lmk...I will rewrite this or remove it immediately)

Summary: Thakur sexually assaults you in a meeting, and Colin refuses to let his disgusting behavior slide.

Warnings: Sexual assault/sexual harassment, angst, lots of language, fighting, blood, and luckily mega fluff in the end and as well as the middle for some relief...obviously mega canon divergence

Word Count: 1,983+

Your knee bounces up and down anxiously as the secretary to your left types away violently at her typewriter. You felt like a child waiting to be called into the principal’s office, and you hated it. 

It had been three months since you had started working at Tuckersoft as a game designer, and you absolutely loved it. You had made great friends, one of which being The Colin Ritman. You didn’t see him as any sort of celebrity, though. You saw him as someone you could depend on, someone you had come to love.

You and Colin clicked the very second you stepped foot into Tuckersoft. What started out as him simply admiring and appreciating your work flourished into a beautiful friendship, and eventually, a bit of a massive crush on your end.

Everything seemed to be going extremely well. That is, until you were called into Thakur’s office. His secretary had paged you so harshly, far too harshly for there not to be some sort of problem.

“(Y/N), Mr. Thakur will see you now.” Your head snaps towards the secretary, who’s words brought you back to reality. You stand up slowly, trying to brush the wrinkles from your dark green cargo pants away. You then reluctantly trod towards the door to Thakur's office, your heeled black boots thumping heavily against the carpeted floor. 

You hesitate before pulling down on the door handle as an unsettling feeling fills your gut. Your instincts beg you not to enter the office, but you know you have to. 

You take a deep breath, and slowly open the door. 

“(Y/N)! It’s good to see you mate!” Thakur calls out, a smile plastered across his face. “Now we need to talk! Take a seat!” He seems to be rather cheerful as he motions for you to take a seat in the armed chair across from him.

You nod in response, pulling out the chair and quickly sitting down. Thakur clasps his hands together under his chin. 

“You know what?” Thakur questions, pausing for a second. “I hate this space between us, don’t you?” Thakur quickly stands up, dragging his large, black swivel chair behind him as he walks in your direction.

He finally reaches you, plopping himself down in his chair. Maybe it was the fact that he smelt like wet dog, but there was something that made you feel extremely uncomfortable about this interaction with Thakur. 

“This is better, no?” Thakur questions, smirking like the cheshire cat. 

You ignore the strangeness of his actions. “So what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Thakur?” You ask, cutting straight to the point as you anxiously pull on the collar of your The Cure shirt. 

“Ah, yes!” Thakur scooches closer to you, “About the release of your game…” He trails off, pointing a finger in your direction as he rolls the chair even closer to you once again. You begin to feel more unsettled as the apparent space between you and Thakur seemingly disappears into thin air. 

Your heart jumps into your throat. “It’ll be released just in time for Christmas, I know. We talked about this already.” Your words are hurried, as you want nothing more than for this meeting to be over.

“About that,” Thakur pauses, moving closer to you so that his knee is now pressing up against yours. “That’s not going to happen, love.” You cringe at his use of the word love. It was something Colin called you often, but never Thakur. It felt so wrong to hear that word come out of his lips. Thakur opens his mouth once more. “That is, unless…”

Suddenly Thakur’s hand lands on your thigh, brushing the area slowly, making its way towards the last place you would ever want Thakur to touch you. 

You quickly push yourself back, jumping out of the chair. “What the hell?” You shout out, feeling nauseous and absolutely disgusted. 

Thakur pushes himself out of the chair, and rushes over to you. “Oh come on! Don’t be such a prude!” He says, walking closer towards you. You try to back away, but he has you cornered. He grabs your wrists forcefully with his hands. 

He pushes you up against the wall as tears rush to your eyes. 

“Get the fuck off of me!” You scream. But Thakur doesn’t listen. Before he could do anything else, you forcefully bring your knee up into his crotch, successfully kneeing the prick in the balls. 

“Holy shit!” Thakur cries out in a high pitched voice, backing away from you in pain. You take this chance to run out of the office. 

“What the bloody hell was going on in there?” The secretary asks firmly, standing up from her desk. You ignore her, and proceed to sprint down the hallway. 

Tears continue to rush to your eyes, an it feels as though the walls are closing in on you. The fluorescent lights burn your skin. You stop running, and rest your back against the wall. You slide down to the ground, pulling your knees into your chest. 

That’s when the tears begin to fall at free will. You sob heavily to the point where you can no longer breathe. It feels as though a million elephants are sitting on your chest. The world was spinning. You put your head down to rest on your knees. You feel helpless as your panic attack grows worse and worse. 

Then, out of nowhere, you hear a calm, familiar voice. “(Y/N)?” Colin coos. You lift your head from your knees, and you see the blonde boy crouching in front of you. He brings a hand to your cheek, trying to wipe the uncontrollably falling tears away. “Are you alright? What happened?” His voice is soft and reassuring. 

“Th-thakur…” You can’t speak. You didn’t want to recall what had just happened. It was all too painful.

“Did that son of a bitch fire you?” Colin’s voice is firm. “I swear, I’m going to kick his ass if he did.” You say nothing in response, and Colin brings a hand up to the back of your neck. He begins to play with your hair.

“H-he d-din’t fire me,” You’re finally able to stutter, inching closer to Colin. “H-he…” You trail off, staring into Colin’s eyes through the silver rims resting on his nose. You wished he could read your mind so you didn’t have to say what Thakur did to you. 

“Wait a minute,” Colin’s eyes widen with shock. “D-did that prick,” He pauses, attempting to fathom the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “Did he touch you?” He questions  softly, still combing his hand through your hair. 

You nod, suddenly sobbing heavily once again. Colin drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you tightly into his embrace. 

You whimper and sob into Colin’s chest as Colin plants soft kisses on the top of your head. 

“I’m so sorry, love. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Everything is going to be fine,” Colin whispers, his arms still wrapped tightly around you as he gently rubs the small of your back. 

You feel safe in Colin’s arms. You feel like no one could hurt you now. Your troubles, while still in the back of your mind, melt away temporarily as your nose is filled with Colin’s distinct scent of vanilla, cinnamon and cigarettes. 

“Th-thank you,” You mumble into his chest. Colin continues to pepper the top of your head with gentle kisses. 

“There’s no need to thank me, love,” Colin purrs, pulling apart from you. “Now, I’ve got something to take care of quickly. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Before you could protest, Colin quickly pushes himself off the ground, adjusting his silver frames, and storming off in the direction of Thakur’s office. 

“Colin, wait!” You call out, standing up, attempting to catch up with the blonde boy. He ignores your call, and continues to sprint towards Thakur’s office. Colin turns a corner, leaving your line of sight. 

What the hell is he going to do? You think to yourself as you pick up your pace, turning the corner that Colin went down. 

You spot Colin as he approaches Thakur, who’s back is facing Colin. 

“Hey, dickhead!” Colin shouts, causing Thakur to turn around instantly. 

Without hesitation, Colin runs up to Thakur, his hand in a fist. 

“Fuck you, you fucking prick!” Colin yells, his fist coming up to punch Thakur with all the strength he has inside of him. “That’s what you get for touching her, fuckface!” Colin screams as Thakur falls to the ground in shock. 

“Stop Colin, please don’t hurt me anymore mate!” Thakur cowers, cover his face with his hands. 

Colin’s knuckles are bleeding. He ignores his injury, standing over Thakur, grunting as he harshly kicks Thakur in the crotch. Thakur’s hands immediately move to the affected region as he cries out in pain.

“I’m in love with that girl! How dare you fucking touch her?” Colin yells, pointing towards you, his face red, and his brows furrowed in anger. His eyes don’t leave Thakur for one second. “And I swear to fucking god, if you ever even think about touching her again, you won’t just be on the ground,” Colin spits in Thakur’s right eye, “You’ll be in it, mate.”

Colin swiftly kicks Thakur in the groin once more, and storms towards you. 

Once Colin meets your side, he slowly intertwines his fingers with yours, and pulls you out of the Tuckersoft office. 

You don’t know what to say as you and Colin walk down the many flights of stairs, exiting the building and walking out onto the streets of South London. 

After some thought, you know exactly what to say.

“Y-you’re in love with me?” You ask, stopping in your tracks, staring up at Colin. He nods once, as if it was a widely known fact. 

“Yes, of course I am,” He states matter of factly. Colin continues to walk along, in turn pulling you along with him. He stares deeply into your eyes. “I don’t expect you to give me any sort of answer. I know how much you’ve been through today, and I don’t want to pressure you into anything.” Colin looks forward again, pulling you swiftly through the city streets. 

But you stop again, pulling Colin closer to you. “I-I l-love you too, Colin. I-I really do.” Your quick answer takes him by surprise.

Colin smiles widely, his brows arching upwards. You had always seen him smirk, but you had never seen him smile. 

That smile, that damned smile made your heart flutter in your chest. It made you feel safe despite everything that had happened. 

Colin pulls you into a tight embrace, one hand pressed against the small of your back, the other on the nape of your neck.

“Thank you, again, Colin,” You whisper into his chest. You pull apart from him, and look down at his right hand. His knuckles are still a bloody mess. You grab his hand, holding it carefully in yours. 

“I’m fine, Colin says, his ocean eyes staring into yours. He adjusts his glasses nonchalantly with his free hand. You shake your head in disagreement. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” You giggle for the first time all day. Colin smiles again, and nods in response. You pull lightly on his hand, leading him forward. 

“But, if you get to take care of me, then I get to take care of you too, got it?” Colin says firmly, arching a brow in your direction. You nod in response, and the corners of Colin’s mouth turn upwards. 

While you had been through so much, Colin seemed to make things feel okay. 

You felt better now, especially with him. 

And that meant the world to you.

[ycjins-blog]

⁓ ♡  hello lovely people !  first, let me introduce myself as the dumbest person of earth because i misspelled my own name. it’s Evy and not ivy ( someone pls kill me to relieve me from this burden aka my dumbness ) and this is my precious bean yejin ( s/o at myself for not misspelling her name but i actually did in my theme but i fixed it hah ! *cries in the distance* ). actually, at first i wanted to base her on our favourite tabasaco aka vasco from lookism, but when i started writing her bio, suddenly things got out of control. so here i am, with my dumb little child and her dumb mun, but pls love me anyway asddfgjk ! also i’ve made a super basic connection page HERE but i also listed some very wanted connections in my intro ! oh and if you’d like to plot pls LIKE this post and i’ll jump in your IMs ! <3</small>

┅ ☆ ★ ✮ ∟ ‖ kim jennie. 22. female. she/her. ‖— camp fires , flushed cheeks , expensive perfume. 」did you hear that JEON YEJIN is planning on attending the next race ?! i won’t lie, i’m pretty excited to see their BLACK KAWASAKI NINJA H2 in person. i know people say they’re really  WITTY , COMPASSIONATE & LOYAL , but don’t you think they come off way too INTERFERING  ,  INDECISIVE  &  OVER-SENSITIVE ? i hear they’re always blasting TO MY YOUTH by BOLBBAGAN4 ? oh well, they’re a member of the HELLCATS so i guess i shouldn’t complain.

tbh no one had ever expected that fate would take such strange twists and her life would turn out to be like this

growing up as the youngest of two sisters, she actually had a pretty normal childhood. nothing traumatic or any of these things.

and no, she also wasn’t that one neglected child who was overshadowed by her older sibling. quite the contrary was actually the case, and it was her who received all the attention.

yejin, was the golden child in the family. and even at school she was liked by many. 

 since she was young she had an interest in martial arts and pestered her parents to let her at least try it and so they allowed her to attempt jiu jitsu. however, this little “attempt” soon turned into more and yejin found herself training everyday for several hours.

although her parents at first wanted her to do something different, something that would fit her “soft personality” they couldn’t say no to their favourite child and even accompanied her to all kinds of different competitions.

her name became known among people in this field and her future seemed bright. but with her growing popularity there were also people who were jealous of her. and while they could not outgrow her by their own skills there were other things they could do to get rid of her. and this was probably the moment where her life started to get messy.

they didn’t go for the old-fashioned “injuring her to that point she wouldn’t be able to fight anymore” method. instead, something more sinister was growing in their minds. yejin had crushed their pride when she won against them and they wanted revenge. and with only leaving her injured, she’d still be remembered as someone to look up. they wanted to ruin her, ruin her to that point that no one would even look at her anymore. 

(because i’m too tired to write that all out i’m getting straight to the point ) they tried to pin a murder on her and they were successful.

suddenly, everyone who once adored her, hated her. and the adoration in their eyes turned to disgust. the people truly believed she was guilty and the people who did this to her were smart enough to make all the evidence point at her.

of course, yejin insisted on being innocent because she was. but after some time even her friends turned her back on her.

so with no one really helping her out, she was just handed in like that. and the judge declared her for guilty and she was send to prison.

there she remained for two years and when got out at the age of 21, when her case was reinvestigated and she was proven to be innocent.

still, a little naive as she was she could just continue with her life as it was, but oh boy she was wrong.

not only, did everyone else still saw her as a murderer, making it impossible to her to ever return to her old life and continue her career as an athlete, but also her parents turned her back on her.

the image of the golden child was long gone and they were embarrassed of her. they didn’t want their neighbours to talk about them and treated yejin as if she was never a part of their family to begin with. they didn’t care abouther anymore. she wasn’t perfect to them anymore. just a damaged good, too bothersome to repair.

her sister, which whom she didn’t have the best relationship to begin with, was happy about the attention their parents finally gave and yejin couldn’t blame her.

so here she was. with nowhere to go and keeping herself with part time jobs and some savings alive.

she was alone. and she hated it. she was always bad at handling loneliness and this time she really was lonely.

it wasn’t until a member ( WANTED CONNECTION ?? ) of the hellcats approached her. and as desperate she was she did join them. and despite of everything she started to see them as their family. a family that wouldn’t neglect her like her own just because people would spread lies about her.

while, she doesn’t agree with everything ( well, actually like 90 %)  the hellcats do, yejin is still holding onto them. they’re the only thing she has and she turns a blind eye to the things they do. after all, they saved her so to her and if they were bad people they wouldn’t have done that. or at  least that’s what she thinks. 

personality and headcanons

truth to be told, yejin isn’t cut out to be a member of a gang. she’s too soft around the edges and perhaps the only thing that makes her suitable are her fighting skills and nothing more. 

she knows that some people actually have already figured that out. and behind the rather distant and cool facade she likes to hide behind, is actually just a lost person desperately clinging to something like a family. 

yes, yejin is that type of person who will cry at movies when she is watching them alone but as soon as someone is with her, she’ll pretend she’s tougher than she is , which causes her to sometimes find herself in difficult situations just because she wanted to prove someone wrong ( although they were right) 

being more on the soft side, yejin always tries to understand where others are coming from, no matter what they’ve done. being accused of something she didn’t do, yejin learned to give always others the benefit of the doubt. something that might essentially be good if there weren’t others who’d make use of that trait. 

while yejin isn’t the perfect match or someone one would describe as suitable for that life, she’s loyal to the bone. no, she won’t instantly beat you up when you utter something bad about the hellcats, because jiu jitsu isn’t meant to attack ( at least that is what her teacher liked to remind her of ), but being short-tempered as she is, a little provocation will make her ignore these words.

perhaps, it’s just her curious nature or perhaps she’s just straight up annoying, but yejin likes to meddle with other people businesses. she’s the that friend who always wants to know what’s going on, even if you aren’t that close and it happens often that she’d just take matters in her own hands because she “just wanted to help out”. 

she doesn’t participate in races because tbh she doesn’t care much about them, and also she has a bike (which she has stolen from her father btw, after she found out that her family abandoned her )  so she can’t do it anyway.

she’s part of the security

wanted connections

a best friend: someone who always stood by her side, even after everything that happened to her. or perhaps someone she met later in the gang and both immediately hit off. 

used to be best friends but grew apart because something bad happened between them ???

childhood friends that either still are close or have grown apart and coincidentally meet again

the person who introduced her to the hellcats: basically someone she’ll always be thankful to. they don’t necessarily have to be friends, but whatever the other person might feel about her yejin will still adore them and do everything for them because she thinks the owes something to them. ( jiwan )

“siblings” they treat each other like family and have a sibling like relationship. where they see yejin as the older/younger sister ( doyeon )

someone who was related to the victim of the said murderer: they might still believe it was yejin and might revenge that person’s death. or they might believe yejin and it’s awkward between them, or one of them tries to make up to the other. 

someone who is always causing trouble and because yejin is part of the security she always has to deal with them. perhaps they might just do it beause they want to annoy her or bored or whatever shndssdn

messy exes pls?? perhaps they were a couple before the whole prison fiasco (why does this sound so funny to me?? ) and they broke up with her because of that. or yejin broke up with them bcs she felt bad for them and didn’t want her reputation to to also harm theirs. (minsu)

exes that still have feelings for each other but DRAMA and angSt???

AnYTHinG AnGstY ANYTHING!!!