#Clock Using Python

[defmaybe]

Sprint

PURPLE KISS’ Na Goeun x Male Reader

2.6k words

A/N: Very messy lmfao, thanks for reading as always! Part of @mintwithchoco's prompt exercise!

—

“You’re arriving at the halfway point of our cycle. I’m still perplexed why they don’t let you come in after this sprint ends!” Goeun says, clearly annoyed by the fact that you were accepted into the department in the middle of this mess. Still, you have to be a professional and accept this hardship, no matter how difficult it will be.

“Don’t worry, Miss Na. I can work with that,” you answer, trying to sound firm as you walk along with her through the floor, passing countless tables and your soon-to-be co-workers. The scent of lavender wafts into your nose. It’s different from what you’ve expected the office to smell, especially a tech-related office. Sounds of clicking keyboards ring through the floor. These people are clearly working hard, and you have a lot to catch up to them.

Goeun chuckles, clearly amused by your enthusiasm. “Well, if you need anything, just tell me or the other guys, alright? We won’t bite.”

“Yes, Miss Na.”

You two advance through the floor until you arrive at an unoccupied table. The table is empty, like empty-empty. There’s nothing on it, only a plug socket on the right of the partition.

“Here’s your desk!” Goeun says, palming her hands towards the table with a small smile. “Again, if there’s any problem, just ask us!”

“Sure, Miss Na.”

“Just call me Goeun. No need for formalities, really.”

—

Two weeks go by quickly. You find yourself caught in the web of the ever-growing project your team is working on. The sprint is harsh on you, punishing in its sheer complexity and size, but you fight through it. You double your efforts on the works, so determined to earn acceptance from your co-workers. You stay for the overtime (the money’s great). You polish your work. You try to be nothing short of resolute.

And it works.

Your first sprint is a success, and your contribution finds its place in the project. The stakeholders give you a few praises during the meeting, and ecstasy couldn’t even begin to describe the emotion you feel after that.

You aced it.

—

“Well, it seems that your first sprint went well. Congratulations!” Goeun cheers, raising her bubble tea for a toast, to which you shyly reciprocate along with your other co-workers.

“You did great! Especially considering you came in during the middle of it,” Jiwoong adds, giving you a thumbs up.

“I couldn’t do half as good as you did when I joined here. Good job!” says Sumin.

“I’m here because of you guys, so–thank you!” you say, smiling. They sure have helped you a lot. You were afraid at some point that they’d be annoyed with how frequently you’ve asked them for help, but it’s apparent that these guys are genuinely kind. You’re falling in love with this company, well, at least the department.

“To the new guy!” and Goeun leads another toast.

—

The rest of the day goes by quickly as you get absorbed into the whirlwind of work. More Python, more Pandas, and without knowing, it’s starting to get dark outside.

“Hey.” Goeun greets, peeking out from the partition with a small smile. “We’re not paying more after six, remember?”

You look at the clock, suddenly reminded of how much time has passed since your last bathroom break at three. “Oh, fuck, shit,” you mumble, quickly scrambling through the tabs you’ve opened through the day on your overworked laptop. “Let me–uh–”

“I’ll wait in front of the building.”

“Sure.”

—

The chilly night air blows through your body. White puffs of air leave your lungs as you walk along the street with Goeun. Your hands occasionally rub against each other in an attempt to retain some heat. A car passes by.

“So–why did you decide to become a programmer?” Goeun asks. The sounds of dry leaves crunching under your feet can be heard. Another car passes by.

“Oh, my mom, she works in tech, and I kinda didn’t know what to do when I had to go to college, so–yeah.” You let out a huff, looking downwards as you take strides after strides along the asphalt road. Another car passes by. “How about you? Why did you become a programmer?”

“I was also like you—don’t know what to do, and I did well in Python, so I kinda just–roll with that.”

Another car passes by.

She muses, looking up at the stars, “You know, I did wanna be a singer once when I was young.”

An image of Goeun, lost in the symphony, pops up in your head. You find it cute. 

You chuckle softly, out of endearment more than anything. 

“But I was afraid that I’d fail, so I kinda just, well, stick to programming instead, more reliable.”

“You seem like you’d make a brilliant singer, though.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just a hunch.”

You continue walking along the street. You take a glance at her to find her eyes, and you feel something. It’s short-lived, but it’s definitely something. You don’t consider it much more than just an eye contact, though.

“What?” Goeun asks. You aren’t going to deny that she looks good tonight. The pairing of a black leather jacket and a white t-shirt fit her like a glove. She looks much better than your average programmer.

“Nothing,” you reply, before breaking eye contact and continuing to walk into the nocturne.

After a short while, you reach her apartment, very likely one of the rooms inside this 40-floor tower (unless she’s otherworldly rich). You’ve walked past it quite a fair few times. It’s not so far from your apartment, after all.

“See you on Monday, I guess?” you say, smiling. It’s almost your bedtime now.

“Wanna have something from my room before you go? I have a few beers,” Goeun invites you, her thumb pointing towards the building.

Your eyebrows arch slightly, hands shifting inside your pockets. You’re uncertain.

“I mean, a bottle can make you go a bit drowsy and stuff,” she continues, cocking her head towards the tower. “Should help you sleep better.”

—

“Nice room,” you say as you take a look around her place.

Goeun’s room is neat, spine-chillingly neat. It’s a small studio room meant for single-living. Everything is kept in its place. No stray strands of hair on the floor, no clothes lying around. She’s good at this.

“Can’t live in a dirty room, you know?”

“I get it.”

You settle yourself on her couch nervously. It’s your first time at her place, after all, gotta be a good visitor.

“Kirin or Hoegaarden?”

“Kirin, please.”

Goeun picks up a Kirin from her fridge before walking towards you. Her legs look longer than usual from this angle.

“To our next sprint,” she says, handing you the beer can, smiling. You take it.

Cold.

“Thanks.” You open the beer can with a loud pop. A fizzling sound can be heard. You take a swig of beer. The familiar bitterness and a hint of malt runs down your throat, and you’re sure your face contorts a little as you put the can down.

Tastes good as always. Well, for a beer.

Goeun takes a seat beside you. She reaches forward to pick up the tv remote on the table, before turning it on.

“What do you wanna watch?”

—

You forget what time it is, but after Crazy, Stupid, Love ends, the last Merseyside Derby at Goodison Park starts, and you two are glued to the screen.

“I’m going to miss this stadium a lot, been there once, and it was fucking awesome,” Goeun says, taking a sip of beer. There’s a pool of aluminium cans sitting on the table in front of you now. You’re feeling a little woozy as you open your fourth beer tonight.

“Lucky.”

The word brings out a chuckle out of Goeun. You can see from the corner of your eyes that she moves in closer towards you, but that’s the least of your concern right now.

She takes a glance at you. You can see in the corner of your eyes, and this time, you give her a reply, shooting a look back at her. She laughs softly. The soft glow of the television casts onto her face. It’s mostly dark blue from Everton’s kit. You can feel the effect of the alcohol dawning on you—dizzy, disoriented—and you realize that she looks good under any light. You look into her gorgeous eyes, and there’s something in them.

Want.

Need.

Lust.

You kiss her.

You get a taste of her lipstick flavor—intense, fruity. Your body shudders as she has her hand wander around your body, feeling every curve and contour of your body—touching, sliding down your frame with haste—and she stops right on your belt.

“Can I?”

“Sure.”

Your hands aren’t doing any better in straying away from this filth, pulling her towards you by her ass. She gasps into your mouth. It’s affecting her, and you go a little further, giving her butt a light squeeze. “God,” she gasps again. Her lips softly quiver against yours. Her tongue trembles. She’s nervous.

The tug on your belt pulls you closer into her tremored body. “Shit.” Her hands begin to undo the leather belt around your pants. It makes a slight scuffle with her, but it comes off, eventually.

“Lie down,” you say. Goeun’s flushing, all red, all anxious. She grabs onto the back of your head with her hand, pulling you down with her as she falls onto the couch, and you’re on top of her.

You draw your hands forward to her jeans' button, undoing it with haste. It makes a slight scuffle with you, but it comes off, eventually. You’re so, so close to her heat right now, and you couldn’t have asked for more for tonight.

“Fuck,” Goeun utters, writhing under you as your hand run along the hem of her panties. Her hips buck up to you—so wanton, so full of need. “Stop with the teasing already.”

You chuckle before pulling her garments down in a single swoop. Her glistening pussy is sitting just right there—below you, waiting to be filled with your throbbing cock inside your boxers. “Already wet?”

“I’m horny, that’s normal,” Goeun says, giggling. “You’re hard too, you know?”

“Thanks.”

With no more words, Goeun pulls your boxer down your legs. Your cock springs free from its fabric cage. You lower yourself closer to her wanton cunt, making a slight touch as you run your cockhead along her wet slit.

“Fuck,” she says, breathy. “What did I say about teasing, huh?”

You chortle before you push yourself into her pussy. Her breath comes out in a stuttering rhythm. Her eyes roll up in pleasure. She’s loving this.

“Fuck, goddamn,” Goeun rasps as you push yourself into her wet cunt. Her fingers dig into the back of your head, forcefully pulling you into a sloppy, drunken kiss.

Your hands slide under her white t-shirt for her chest as you thrust into her pussy while kissing her vigorously. You give her bra-clad tits a squeeze, eliciting a soft moan out of her lips.

“Fuck, this feels good,” Goeun huffs between the kisses, hand moving with your hips to push you into her warmth. Your bodies move in sync as if it’s a habit between the two of you. She feels so good. Her pussy feels so good.

The sound of kissing rings inside your ear as you try to take in how her body feels. You drag your lips down her jaw. She smells like spring. Her skin is so smooth, so soft. The notes she makes are chaotic, but you find it angelic. Her body writhes and spasms under you as you fuck her brains out. God, she’s perfect.

You double your efforts, pushing in deeper and faster with each stroke. She cries. She whimpers. She moans. Her body responds to you so well, pussy gripping your cock like a goddamn vice.

“Ugh–fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Goeun rasps, her face flushing with red as your hand wanders under her white tee, giving her firm breasts squeezes after squeezes. “You cock, god!”

You reply to Goeun with harsher thrusts; her notes grow higher and higher as you hit the sensitive spot deep inside her cunt. She’s lighting your synapses aflame, making you see stars around her gorgeous face. Your moans and hers are filling up the bluish room.

Goeun’s breathing grows shorter and shorter. Her moans climb higher and higher as she’s at the brink of her orgasm. “Shit, shit, I’m cumming, I’m cumming!” Goeun rasps, and you thrust into her with even more intensity. Your cock vigorously pumps into her wet cunt, so determined to bring her to her peak.

And she breaks. 

Her body spasms under you as the wave crashes into her. Goeun mewls, moans, cries under the sheer force of her orgasm. Her hips buck. Her eyes roll up. And suddenly, she grabs you by the collar again, pulling you into a deep kiss as you keep ravaging her spent cunt. The sound of flesh smacking echoes through the room, along with her filthy cries.

She slowly comes down from her orgasm as you keep fucking her through her peak. Goeun’s chest heaves up and down as she tries to recollect herself back up again.

Pulling back, she utters, “Fuck.”

“I know.”

And you are, again, dragged back by the collar to kiss her pouty lips.

“Cum in me,” Goeun says into the kiss, breathy, tired. “I want to feel that cock twitching inside my pussy. I want to feel your cum hitting my womb.”

The ever-so-used-to feeling is boiling inside your loins as your cock finds its rhythm in and out of Goeun’s cunt. Your hand is still playing with her bra-clad tits. Your fingers slide under the garment for her stiff nipple. She moans, struggling to keep up with the pleasure coursing through her body. It’s getting difficult for her to kiss you now.

“Gonna cum,” you whine, your tongue interlocking with hers messily. Her hand grabs onto the back of your head harsher, pulling you deeper into the kiss. The sound of it is obscene, but you’re too happy to care right now. The burning feeling is so strong right now. You need a release. You need a release.

“Do it, baby. Cum in my pussy.”

And you break.

Your cock shoots ropes and ropes of cum into Goeun’s wanting cunt. Your entire body shakes and spasms above her. You moan, whine, whimper, and cry into the kiss. Her pussy wraps your cock so fucking well, and you just fail to find any word to describe the feeling you’re feeling right now.

Fuck.

You connect your lips with her messily again. Your fingers latch onto her face as your tongues are busy exploring each other’s mouth. She finds a good grip on your ass and pulls your hips closer to hers, pushing your softening cock deeper into her cunt.

You pull back. Her bangs are a mess.

“We can’t tell anybody about this,” Goeun huffs, her chest still heaving from the sheer force of her orgasm. Her whole body flushes with red, but most importantly, she’s beaming, so full of joy.

“Sure, sure, Miss Na.”

Goeun chuckles, getting up from the couch as you get off her flushed body. “We should get cleaned up.”

“Round two in the shower?”

She shoots you a smile, before saying, “Definitely, maybe.”

—

[agentlizardofowca]

Bubbles!

Human Perry and Heinz watching their favourite star trek/star wars show! Perhaps split into three sections: 1) Heinz and Perry watching it together, 2) Perry with Heinz watching it with Phineas and Ferb, 3) Perry and Heinz trying to get Vanessa to join in on their mutual love for this franchise.

(Hope this wasn't too much to ask. My ao3 if you require it for anything: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SD2006)

@adhd-riddled-crow Thanks for the ask! I made it just one drabble and I chose to use Space Adventure instead of irl IP's. Established relationship Perryshmirtz, Human Perry, fluff! An Introduction to Space Adventure! (1975)

Heinz and Vanessa were supposed to go home after they had dinner with the Flynn-Fletcher family. Instead, Candace and Vanessa disappeared to the top floor to go see her Ducky Momo collection. Perry was sort-of thinking about how to extract the gothy girl, so that they could get home, but then Lawrence asked Heinz about Drusselsteinian clock-making and Perry realized they would not be making it back to Heinz’s apartment anytime soon. He didn’t mind. Not at all. He listened to his brother and his boyfriend happily yap for a solid twenty minutes before he realized he was falling asleep. So, he yawned, stretched, and moved to the couch for a ‘little nap’ Perry Fletcher had taken many ‘little naps’ in his life, and most often he startled awake four hours later despite his intentions to only lay down for ten minutes. This happened often, especially when he still lived with the Flynn-Fletchers, they usually just let him sleep. Not Heinz, Heinz wasn’t afraid to wake him up. Perry’s grumpy and sleepy face didn’t scare him, infact, he kept pointing out how cute it was.

A while later, Perry woke from his light slumber as he felt warmth and movement beside him.

“Sit over here, Ferb. We still fit.” Phineas whispered from the other end of the sofa.

“I believe we’ve grown, Phineas,” Ferb responded calmly. And he sat on Perry’s leg. When the uncle looked over he met Ferb’s apologetic expression.

“Oh, you’re awake, Uncle Perry,” Ferb noted, mostly to point it out to Phineas.

“Oops! Sorry.” Phineas said, looking completely unapologetic. “Do you mind, we want to watch Space Adventure! Dad bought it on dvd, and it has a bunch of bonus features we can watch afterwards.” 

Perry tucked his legs in a little closer and smiled as the kids settled in a little more comfortably to watch the movie. He leaned his head back on the armrest and closed his eyes once more.

“You’re not going to snore through the whole movie, are you?”

Reluctantly, Perry opened his eyes again. 「Just start the movie.」 He signed grumbily and he sat himself vaguely upright. This often -but not always- stopped him from falling back asleep. The movie started with bombastic music and a lot of background information to establish the sci-fi world. At this point all of them have seen this movie so many times that they can just talk through it, which was exactly what Phineas did whilse Ferb and Perry politely listened.

Barely ten minutes into the movie, Heinz and Lawrence popped into the room to ask Perry something. Not even halfway through the question, they notice what movie’s playing. One thing leads to another, and suddenly, Heinz is in the armchair beside Perry, holding his hand, playing with his knuckles and watching along.

Heinz had also seen this movie many, many times. The first time, he was in Drusselstein and the movie was poorly dubbed by just 6 voice actors for the entire movie. “They were all men,” He explained. “So all the women characters had really fake high voices.” 

“A bit like monthly python?” Lawrence asked. “Except they did that on purpose, of course.” 

“I guess so. But the movie was also heavily censored. The first time I saw it in America I was so confused.”

“Hey Dad?” Vanessa’s voice rang out behind them, from the top of the stairs. “It’s getting kinda late…” Just like everybody else, her eyes were distracted by the screen, where Captain Zowt was speaking; an alien commander with red eyes and horns. “What’s this?” She asked as she and Candace made their way down the stairs.

“Are you really watching the space movie again?” Candace asked and turned to Vanessa. “So he’s a corporal for the bad guy, but he’s secretly a spy for the rebellion.” 

“Candace, you’re spoiling the movie,” Ferb interjected with a little frown.

Meanwhile, Vanessa kept her eyes on the screen. “Is he a big part of the movie?” 

“Vanessa, sweety, come sit.” Her father said and he waved her over. “If we all ask for Popcorn there’s no way Linda can say no.” 

“He’s one of the main characters, Vanessa!” Phineas explained cheerfully. “But he doesn’t get as much screen time in this movie as in the sequel.” 

“Wait, so who is he trying to help?” She asked as she settled on a pillow in front of the couch.

“Someone else, please explain! I only pay attention when the pudgilu is on screen.” Candace pointed out with a groan. In her defence, the movie was quite plot-heavy.

“Pudgelu?” Vanessa parrotted, curiously.

“Oh it’s a little space puppy that can fly and it’s SO cute!” Candace explained loudly as she gestured vaguely about the space-pup’s shape and size. “He has really big, cute eyes and he naked little noises!” 

“Candace, he’s not even in this movie, you’re just confusing her now!” Phineas interjected. “Let her catch up first.”

At this point, Lawrence paused the movie. “Can we all agree that we start the movie over so that Vanessa has a fair chance to watch it?”

So, the movie was restarted. It was a herculean task to prevent Candace and Phineas from talking through the entire movie and spoiling all the big twists. But with a lot of soda, a big pile of popcorn and a lot of shushing and stern looks from their uncle, they eventually settled down.

As the end-credits rolled, everybody turned to Vanessa. 

“Did you like it?” 

“So how many movies did you say there were?” She asked instead. “And is Zowt in all of them?” 

“He is, but he’s an old man in some of them.” Phineas explained.

Vanessa turned to Candace. “Like, a hot old man?”

Her friend thought for a moment and shrugged. “Kinda. If you’re into demon aliens with gray hair.” 

On the other end of the couch, Perry was distracted by his boyfriend, who was strangeling his fingers happily. He turned to Heinz, who bounced happily in his seat. “I can’t believe we finally managed to introduce Vanessa to sci-fi!” 

Perry happily patted Heinz’s hand. He was going to try and watch so many movies with her now.

“You should watch the other movies and then tell me if you agree that Zowt and Prince Spohth would be perfect together, I have so much fanfiction to send you!” 

“Wait,” Vanessa turned to Candace with a little frown. “I thought you didn’t care about Space Adventure?” 

“Oh, no I do.” Candace giggled. “I just didn’t want you to think I’m lame if you didn’t like it.” 

“Candace, I still want to be your friend, no matter how lame and weird you are. Ugh.” And she rolled her eyes.

By the time the movie ended, it was way past bedtime for the boys, so the Doofenshmirtzes stayed just a little longer whilst Perry tucked them in and said goodbye. Downstairs, Heinz somehow got sucked into Candace and Vanessa’s conversation, which was all good and well until Vanessa discovered that her father also had a crush on Zowt. 

[the-ghost-king]

Hello ! I wanted to ask will there be any more Percy Jackson books after Percy gets his final admission letter ?

I can't usually see that far ahead, let's take some well respected truth from the Oracle of Delphi, Rachel!

RACHEL: Hi, great to be here!

RR: Great to have you! Let's get started, shall we?

RACHEL: Sounds perfect!

RR:I see Apollo has asked you to bring something along today, can you explain?

RACHEL: Yes of course! This here is my trusty magic eight ball, whenever demigods are setting out on dangerous quests it's something I can consult if they're hesitant.

RR: And that actually works?

RACHEL: This magic eight ball is actually special, since it was blessed by Apollo after his return from defeating Python recently it has great advice to give.

RR: Like what?

RACHEL: Well, sometimes it says things like "feed Seymour now, ask again later" or "party at the Hermes cabin, answers await" other times it's advice might be something like "even a broken clock is right twice a day". Very useful stuff for demigods in need!

RR: Sounds like it! And there's been no issues with the prophecy since Apollo's return to his throne on Olympus?

RACHEL: Well the one day the magic eight ball refused to give any answers, but I think that had more to do with Holly and Laurel using it as a billard ball for a competitive game of Pool.

RR: What makes you think that?

RACHEL: It just showed on the triangle inside no matter how many times you shook it, the ball just kept saying "AHHH!! WHY WAS I BORN THIS WAY HOW DID GOD MAKE ME SO PLEASE I WISH TO END IT ALL I LIVE A LIFE OF AGONY. SHIT. FUCK. OH MY GOD PLEASE LET ME BE FREE I WANT-"

RR: I hate to cut you off, Rachel, but that's certainly colorful...

RACHEL: Oh you don't know the worst of it, it delivers limericks too! Listen:

There once was a Zeus from Olympus, he had big balls that started to rust, when he clanged them together, they could control weather, and a lightning bolt would shoot out his-

RR: That's definitely not appropriate for younger readers!

RACHEL: Huh, maybe you're right. Let's try another!

RR: I'm not so sure-

RACHEL: Okay, here we go:

There was once Aphrodite, beware her vegence was mighty, she fell to her knees, and with one look said "please", and made Ares cu-

RR: Well, thank you so much to Rachel and her magic eight ball from Lord Apollo for giving us their time today! See you all again later!

Rachel: Bye!

Magic Eight Ball: 𝙹⍑ ⍑𝙹∴ i ⍑ᔑℸ ̣ ᒷ ||𝙹⚍

i ∴╎ᓭ⍑ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᓭ!¡ᒷリ↸ ᒲ|| ℸ ̣ ╎ᒲᒷ ⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ

ᔑꖎ𝙹リᒷ, ⎓⚍リリ|| ᔑリ↸ ⍑ᔑ∷↸

[list-of-lists-of-ominous-threats]

Negative one.

I would like to give all the members of The Threatsverse a gold star :)

Wowza that's a lotta people!! I hope you dont mind if i just do it in this format instead? Sorry D:

@the-real-list-of-ominous-threats @the-list-of-real-ominous-threats @the-fake-list-of-ominous-threats @fuck-you-ominous-threats @list-of-spacey-onimous-threats

@priest-of-ominous-threats @twelfth-list-of-ominous-threats @redundant-ominious-threats @very-not-ominous-threats

@backup-ominous-threats @another-list-of-ominous-threats @list-of-lists-of-ominous-threats @aroace-ominous-threats

@atheist-of-ominous-threats @puddles-of-ominous-threats @nominous-threats

@this-threat-is-ominous

@the-last-ominous-threat and anyone i didnt tag!

You all get one of these!

[bonedev]

Things I want for Momentary x Kiss (function-wise)

A map with the 6 date locations & gift shop

Functional gift shop (buy/sell/work at the shop)

Locations blacked out after date is completed

Gallery to show cutscene wallpapers

4 galleries for each character

A special gallery for the Best Ending

5 question trivia (+5 for each question right, -5 for each question wrong. +10 for the bonus questions)

Leaving a date will be an option, but will cost a -20 drop in relationship with the characters

Quiz will start after each date, a 10 second time will start for each question

Hot keys for easy navigation & gameplay (ex: I for inventory, M for map, P for phone, Ctrl+S for save)

Game slots for multiple save files

Opening animatic showing the plot of the game (possibly animated or at least some movement)

Money system/bank app to keep track of your money

Work at the gift shop for 8hrs ($15/hr), but once you finish your shift, all date locations will be closed (show a clock animation to show passage of time)

Inventory system, can carry only 12 items at a time

Custom tutorial/help screen to refer to

Character select screen after opening intro

Calendar system/day & night system

Relationship meter bar that shows your relationship to the character

Code certain items to that the characters like, these will boost your relationship with them

You can text the characters during the week, ask them questions about themselves. But they'll get annoyed if you ask the same question repeatedly

Prevent the player from using their phone or map during dates & quizzes

Things you learn about the characters will be logged on the Notepad app on your phone

You can give gifts during dates, but not during quizzes or at the end of the night

You can only give 3 gifts per date

When out on dates, the characters will ask you to order meals for them, the food you order will be in your inventory

You can't go to the gift shop for a date

Going to bed will trigger the end of the day

You can only go on dates on Saturday (the characters will say they're busy with the band the rest of the week)

Go to a 'special location' at the end of the 6th date, if relationship is high enough

Going to date locations by yourself doesn't trigger wallpapers

Certain ways you respond to the character's questions/statements can boost or lower your relationship with the characters

Keep in mind: I DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH CODING IN REN'PY!! But I do know it's not impossible to code these things & implement them into Momentary x Kiss.

There are a lot of youtubers I follow that have a lot of great tutorials about Ren'Py/Python coding that already tackle these functions.

My goal is to avoid Feature Creep (when a game dev adds too many unnecessary features/functions to a game that don't relate to the main quest/plot of a game).

I want small functions that limit certain things, but also give players room find new ways to play the game. I wanna encourage you guys to play smarter & not harder.

It's going to be a while until I get to the point where I'm ready to code, but I want to at least share what you can/can't do in Momentary x Kiss

[bruisedconscience-reblogs]

Day 95+??/100 Days of Code

Ngl I think I finished my previous 100 days of code, I might need to start the clock again! Stopping by to say I'm getting my butt kicked by IDLE just bc I have experience in other IDEs & languages, & I'm not using saving files as a crutch yet, I'm just raw dogging it out here in the shell... End me! I miss emmett so bad LMAO.

[ Screenshot description: A python IDLE screen. Code in the Idle reads: SyntaxError: unexpected indent; age = 12; if age == 10: print("What do you call an unhappy cranberry?"); print("A blueberry!"); elseif age == 11: SyntaxError: invalid syntax; elif age == 11: SyntaxError: invalid syntax; if age == 10: print("You are ten!)"; elif age == 11: SyntaxError: '(' was never closed; if age == 10: print("You are 10"); elif age == 11: print("you are 11"); elif age == 12: print("you are 12"); elif age == 13: print("you are 13"); else: print("huh?"); you are 12 /end description ]

[eretzyisrael]

by Naomi Ragen

The IDF didn’t go into Nuseriat to kill Hamas terrorists or uninvolved civilians (if they even exist) and would have gladly taken the Israelis they had rescued from torture back home without firing a shot if they had been allowed to. But as it was, as on October 7, Hamas decided on war. Now they are dead and everybody in the world is crying for them.

Not me. We didn’t go in there to kill. We went to save lives. But a few hundred dead Hamas is the cherry on top. I don’t know why anyone is crying. Haven’t Gazan mothers told us time and time again how much they love death and martyrdom? How much they want it for their kids? So here, we gave you both. Say thank you. As for the Europeans crying for them, you are all idiots.

I guess I’m not surprised at the reactions from places like Turkey, or Egypt, or Jordan. But then, there are these: The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Josep Borrell: “Reports from Gaza of another massacre of civilians are appalling. We condemn this in the strongest terms,” Borrell said on X. “The bloodbath must end immediately.” And Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, who strongly condemned Israel for what he defined as “another massacre of civilians in Gaza.”

Today I read an article about a poor villager in Indonesia that went missing and who was later found, swallowed whole, in the belly of a python. I can’t help thinking that the python of Islam is well and truly on its way to digesting whole certain European countries; places where the doors were opened wide to bring in the murderers and rapists of their women and girls and whose entire culture, economy and educational system is being undermined by backward, violent, ignorant, racist, misogynists who will soon take over and turn the clock back to the Middle Ages. Rome let in the Barbarians, and that was the end of it. The same thing is coming the way of all those who side with Hamas. They are no longer part of the civilized world. They have been swallowed whole.

I rejoice that little Israel is showing the world how civilized people behave, and that Jewish lives aren’t cheap. Hamas was asking for the release of 50 murderers for every hostage. So we’ve shown them each hostage is worth the death of 65 Hamas terrorists. The math works for me. There will be no cease fire without the release of all the hostages and the banishment or death of Sinwar, Deif, and the rest of the Hamas barbarians. Don’t give us advice when you have done nothing to help us fight this war against the barbarians. Just sit back, watch, and shut up.

[apriltempleos]

october 2nd 2024: some code stuff

preacher: the original idea behind "APRIL" was that she would be able to pull up word strings from the templeOS god word app on command – this was supposed to be her primary/only function.

we're going to put up a post on templeOS later because it's completely fascinating and i've been obsessed with it for a while, but for now what's important to know is that due to some decompiler issues, it's not really possible to run templeOS on the raspberry pi which is the computer that we are using. scott's here to explain this at length – find a detailed technical explanation below the cut.

scott: Initially I was gonna start coding the whole program in Python starting with the godword random prophecy function. But then after looking into how the original godword program worked on the og TempleOS worked, with FIFO (First-in-First-out) queues, of which I was pretty unfamiliar with, I decided to code the bulk in C because I know C a lot more than Python and the queues seemed easier to implement in C. Pi allows both Python and C coding languages naturally anyways so why not.

The original TempleOS was written in a variation of the C/C++ language called HolyC by Terry A. Davis who wrote the language variant and compiler himself. Because of this, it's hard to decompile it manually to look at source code, or to run it on certain machines. Because of this I couldn't run the actual godword program or TempleOS on the raspberry pi so I knew I was gonna have to recreate the godword function as close as I could (which I initially called "heresyword" lol). After some research, I found one of the only breakdowns of how TempleOS worked by Xe Iaso [1].* They have such a good breakdown of the whole operating system thats really context inclusive and even includes extracts from Terry Davis' actual comments on how TempleOS works which are really hard to interpret actually. * (preacher: btw, i highly recommend everyone read this link. it really does a great job of explaining everything and once again, templeOS is endlessly fascinating so i think it's really worth the read. see the picture below for an example)

So from Xe's blog I found that TempleOS has a public global class called "God" that is used in several areas of the operating system. For godword it loads all words from the database Happy.txt into a separate array and then uses random entropy bits from several areas, including an "internal microsecond stopwatch" and data form keypresses, to choose random words from the word variable and loads them into a FIFO queue, printing them one by one when needed. I was initially gonna recreate this FIFO queue and all these random entropy bits but decided it to be too much complicated work for little result so just decided to generate random words from the Happy.txt using the cpu clock for entropy and save them to a separate .txt file to be called and read later on, acting in place of the queue system.

Sidenote: Xe's blog also had the Happy.txt file which was really useful and which I also realised was just every single word from the King James Bible.

[beanswrites]

The Arcana characters as pirates

hii everyone!! i know i don't write for the arcana anymore but i just realized i never wrote these headcanons about tm6 requested by my dear friend @bananasharkie!! sharkie, i'm so sorryyyyyyy

these little hc's are based on Netflix's movie "The Sea Beast", which is lovely and amazing, so go watch it if you haven't!!

requests open!! | masterlist | rules for requesting

Asra ☾︎:

found himself on a pirate ship as a traveller, journalist, looking to trace and learn everything about the sea and what it offers as he travels

when a sea beast attacked, he was more so fascinated with them then scared. no, he knew they weren't going to attack without a reason - asra loves animals, especially the exotic ones (he has python around his neck that follows him on all adventures), and therefore knew they never attacked without a reason. either they were hungry, or scared.

was the first one on the ship to make contact with the sea beast. he lowered all weapons gently on the ground, bowed, and placed his palm forward, offering peace. he quickly made friends with it and now they are adventure buddies

when it comes to his pirating life, he helps around the ship here and there, nothing too exciting. the most work he does is with Captain Nadia, helping her with mapping uncharted areas

Julian ♥︎:

he joined the crew as a doctor, voluntering to help out with all kinds of sicknesses and injuries that can happen out on the sea. totally not because he's a state felon and is wanted all over the kingdom. and totally not because he has a crush on the traveller

was scared shitless when a sea beast attacked. like, shaking in his boots. he probably hid in a cabin as it all happened.

doesn't trust them much, even after asra made friends with them. he pretends he's confident and not scared anymore, but that's absolutely not true. probably taps them gently on the head a few times (but just and only because he wants to impress a certain someone)

when it comes to his life as a pirate, most of the time he's either preparing his medicine and leaches (there are a lot of injuries on deck, okay?), or helping his sister in the kitchen, if she needs it. If he's not doing anything work related, he's pretending to mop the deck. While stealing glances.

Nadia ♔︎:

the pirate queen. While she wasn't born and raised on the open seas, and even though she comes from a land far, far away, Nadia made her way into being the most feared, most respected ruler of all seven seas. The ship is hers, and it's her mission to protect people from the sea beasts.

was ready for a fight to death when the sea beast attacked. it was her ship and her crew, and if they were going down, she was going down with them. And she was not going down without a fight.

however, when asra made peace with them, she did too. while her people and their safety are her first priority, she was open-minded to other living creatures and their lifestyles.

when it comes to her being a pirate, she's the captain of her ship and spends her days commanding her staff and sailing. And when she's not so busy, you can find her in her cabin, reading, or playing cards with her most trusted sailot and her best friend, Portia.

Muriel ❁:

muriel was born and raised out on the open sea, so he naturally became a sailor. he rarely talks, and even more rarely about his past. even though his stoic, almost rude demenour makes all the other sailors a little scared of him, he's actually a huge sweetheart.

not that he had an opinion on sea beasts - he loved animals, and yet, when one attacked, he instinctively went to help captain Nadia protect the ship.

wasn't surprised when it turned out that sea beasts weren't such a threat at all. at the end of the day, he knows a thing or two about being big and seen as a monster, even though you are the furthest thing from it.

he, as a sailor, is very useful and hardworking. he's the one making sure the ship works like a clock since he's the only one that's strong enough for all the fixing. in his spare time, he likes to hang out with portia and help her in the kitchen (he's surprisingly amazing when it comes to baking)

Portia ☼︎:

doctor's sister, ship's cook, and of course, captain's right hand. the sweet portia found herself on this ship by pure chance, following her brother in his escape from the law and meeting Nadia.

she didn't even notice the sea beast attacked - being the cook, she spends most of her time bellow deck. however, she figured something was happening from the rushing footsteps and shouts she heard above her.

absolutely adores the sea beasts!! she thinks they are adorable. immidiately became friends, no questions asked (++ teases Julian about being scared)

as a pirate, she's fearless but insanely sweet and kind. most of her time is spent in the cozy kitchen, however she always sneaks a few extra moments to hang out with her Captain.

Lucio ♕︎:

not a pirate, he's actually the king who decided all sea beasts should be killed. nadia is his ex wife, and when their marige ended, she left to sail the seas.

as soon as he heard that a sea beast attacked, he was outraged that Nadia and her staff didn't kill it on the spot.

was even more outraged when he found that some random traveller made friends with it (he's scared of them but won't admit)

when it comes to him being a king, he's bitter, selfish, narcissistic and a major coward. but, c'mon, what did we expect? at the end of the day, it's still just lucio.

that's all, thanks for reading!! check out my masterlist for more!!

[sephirthoughts]

Father: Verb

Epilogue (1 of 2)

Summary: 11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

Hooray, first epilogue!!!! There are two because this one got a little heavier than I intended. Stay tuned for the second epilogue, which is the fun one!!

rating: teen and up

(prev chapter and ao3 linked at bottom)

When the first dawn of their new lives broke, they were lying together on the narrow bed of a cheap inn in Kalm, where Vincent had carried Sephiroth, after their flight from the Manor. Sephiroth’s face was buried in Vincent’s leather chest armor, which had returned with his human form, and his arms were wrapped tightly around Vincent’s narrow waist.

The boy actually hadn’t let go of him, since they arrived, not even allowing Vincent to go out and purchase food for him. He seemed to be afraid that if he let Vincent out of his sight for a single moment, he’d disappear forever. He’d eventually drifted back off to sleep, but if Vincent so much as stirred, he’d murmur in protest and constrict his arms, like a little python.

Not that Vincent had any complaints. He wasn’t even certain he was allowed this much happiness, as he lay contentedly, in the hazy twilight of early morning, listening to his son’s soft, even breathing. Every once in a while, he would lean down to press kisses to the top of his head, breathing deeply of his warm scent, reminding himself that this was real. That it was all over. That they were free and they were together.

Violet turned to yellow-gold, as the rising sun pushed lazy shadows across the floor, patiently herding them toward noon. Vincent was still holding his sleeping son, watching the fairy-glimmers of sunlight, that slipped in through the eyelets in the curtains, shimmer and glow as they were captured and refracted by Sephiroth's brilliant, silver hair. 

Sephiroth finally stirred and blinked about, blearily. “Vincent? What…what time is it?”

“Almost noon,” Vincent answered. “This is officially the latest you’ve ever slept. Congratulations.”

“How do you know what time it is? From the position of the sun? Is that a Turk thing?”

“I can see the clock, from here.”

“Oh,” he yawned. “Do we have to get up, now?”

“We don’t have to do anything. Stay in bed as long as you like. I figure you’ve earned about fourteen-hundred sleeping in days, since you’ve never had a weekend off, before.”

“You’ll stay with me, though, right?”

“I have nowhere to be.”

Sephiroth nuzzled his face back into Vincent, like a cat, and lay silent for a few minutes, before he looked up at him again. “Well, now I’m too excited about having a day off. I can’t go back to sleep.”

“Do you want to get up?”

“Mm, not yet. Can we just…lie here and talk?”

“Alright. What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Yes, a few things. First of all, how did you know?”

“About what?” Sephiroth asked, though he knew very well what Vincent meant.

“About Chaos, your mother, where to find me, everything.”

Sephiroth peered up into Vincent’s face. “I…was possessed by time-traveling future versions of myself, who showed me all their memories from my potential futures. That’s how I found out you’d never abandoned me, at all, and Hojo had imprisoned you under the manor, while Shinra sent me out to commit war crimes, and be the poster boy for recruiting other innocent children into their SOLDIER program.”

“I see,” Vincent said, furrowing his brow thoughtfully.

Sephiroth blinked. “You believe me?”

“Yes. Why would I not believe you?”

“I guess, I expected some skepticism, at such a fantastic claim.”

Vincent very nearly smiled. “Seph, I’m the undead vessel of an ancient demon who can kill gods, and you are my superhuman son, conceived in a lab, using extra-terrestrial DNA. A bit of possession by time-traveling future selves seems the least fantastic thing about us.”

“But it wasn’t Jenova’s DNA that conceived me. You know that, right? It was introduced in the womb, to alter me, after the fact. My conception was purely human. I—I’m human.”

Seeing the boy’s eyes redden, Vincent wrapped him up tightly in his arms. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry. Of course you’re human.”

“You are, too. No matter what you think,” Sephiroth said, his voice muffled by Vincent’s cloak. 

Borne down by the weight of their mutual trauma, the two lapsed back into silence. For a long while, they simply lay in each other’s arms, listening to the birds chirping outside, and the people on the street below, going about their daily business. Sephiroth had never felt so much like a monster, so far removed from the rest of humanity, as when he was exposed to human beings, living their peaceful, mundane lives. That feeling was magnified, tenfold, now that he was free to live as he chose. Would he and Vincent ever have such a life? Could they? He hardly dared to hope.

“Your future versions,” Vincent said, drawing him from his ruminations. “Are they still…in there?”

Sephiroth shook his head. “No. They stopped existing, once we broke fate. I will not miss them. Living so many lives, all at once, was exhausting.”

“But you still have those memories? From all the futures?”

“Some. The futures my others came from don’t exist anymore, so most of the memories are fading quickly. But it’s not like I have amnesia. I remember that those things happened, I’m just losing the memory of actually having been there, in those times and places. The others wanted me to be free of fate, and live a life of my own choosing, not following their paths. But, a man choosing a path and one stumbling onto it may still wind up at the same destination. So, they left me with guideposts, to help me avoid the patterns of events, that led to that terrible future Lucrecia showed you, in her visions.”

“And you’re certain you can trust them?”

“Yes. But it’s not just because they’re me. That would be a foolish reason to trust them, since I know myself. I trust them because of the oldest one—my final version. He hardly spoke, but he was the strongest. When his body died, he won a battle of wills with the lifestream, and kept his consciousness intact. That was how he discovered the way to defy destiny and travel back.

“During his life, he overpowered and silenced Jenova, and got free of her will. Only, it was too late. He restored his sanity, only to fully comprehend what a monster he’d become. That is the one thing, I will never forget, as long as I live. His…anguish. His abject despair and desolation, when he looked back, with clear eyes, upon what he had done, under the influence of her poison, and saw the rivers of blood, in his wake.

“I will never forget the agony, that tore his soul apart. His desperation, to find some way to make it right, to heal the wounds dealt by his own hands, to undo it all. No version of me would ever willingly walk back toward that fate. That is the reason they all agreed, one by one, to die, in order to have a chance at changing it.

“And now, they are me. I am all of us. I am Sephiroth, unbound by fate. I will take this precious gift I have been given, and dedicate my life to protecting this world and its innocent children, from the cruelty of gods and monsters.”

“You sound like such a grown man,” Vincent observed, with a sigh. “So wise and circumspect. I don’t know if you even need me, anymore.”

Sephiroth’s slit pupils contracted and he sat bolt-upright, grabbing Vincent’s arm with both hands. All at once, that look of aged weariness and hard-won wisdom evaporated from his face, and he was just a fourteen-year-old child, again. “No. No. Never say that, Vincent. I need you. I’ll always need you. You can’t…you can’t ever leave me. You’re my special person. You are the one I want to be with. P—please don’t leave me. Please don’t—”

“Seph, breathe,” Vincent interrupted firmly. “I’m not going to leave you. Not ever.”

“But you said that before and then they took you! It was our birthday! And they took you away from me! What if they try to take you away again!”

The boy was spinning out into a panic attack, shaking and chest heaving with rapid, shallow breaths, squeezing his forearm in a white-knuckle grip, that would’ve pulverized the bones of a normal human.

Vincent sat up and threw his cloak back. “Come on. Bite. Just like when you were little.”

Sephiroth lunged forward and bit into the leather, clawing Vincent’s sides, hanging on for dear life, until his head stopped spinning, and the iron bands stopped constricting around his chest. Then he loosened his grip and melted into Vincent, with a shuddering sob.

“It’s ok. It’s ok,” Vincent murmured. “There’s no one who can take me away, anymore. No one who can tear us apart. If they want to try, let them come. All the armies in the world would break on us, and be swept away like dry leaves before a gale.”

“That’s…very poetic,” Sephiroth sniffled.

“I think I read it in a book, once. I don’t remember the book.”

“Thank you, for helping me calm down. I’m better now,” he said, wiping his red-rimmed eyes with the back of his hand. “Sorry for acting like a baby.”

Vincent’s throat constricted with a tight ache, hearing the boy use these words again. “Hojo berated you for crying, didn’t he. Did he call it acting like a baby? You’ve said that before.”

Sephiroth lowered his blue-green eyes and nodded.

“Seph, showing emotion doesn’t mean you’re acting like a baby. Even if it did, you are a child. You may have grown-up memories from alternate realities and a supergenius intellect, but you’re still just a little boy. You have every right to be one. You are allowed to cry. You are allowed to be scared and sad and confused and angry. You are allowed to make mistakes and not be perfect, and know that you’ll still be loved and protected and cared for. No matter what. You don’t have to be strong, for me, Sephiroth. You don’t have to be a hero, for me. Just be my son. That’s all.”

Tears were rolling down Sephiroth’s cheeks again, and despite Vincent’s admonition, he kept brushing them away, as if he was ashamed of them. Vincent drew him right back into his arms and held him, rocking him gently, till the tears naturally subsided. Even when Sephiroth pulled away, eventually, he took Vincent’s hand in his and fidgeted with the brass gauntlet, unwilling to break physical contact.

“Vincent…is it alright if I call you father?” he asked timidly, without raising his head. “It—it’s ok if you don’t like it. Just tell me and I won’t.”

“What?” Vincent said, taken aback. “Of course you can, why would you…wait, is that why you’ve been calling me Vincent since we left the manor? You were afraid I wouldn’t like it if you called me father?”

Sephiroth shrugged, still looking down at the gauntlet, as he straightened Vincent’s fingers and curled them, observing how the articulated plates moved and interlocked. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”

“Where is this coming from, Seph? Why would you think I’d want to distance myself from you, after everything we’ve been through together?”

“I know it’s biologically true, that you are my father, but you never asked for any of this. Lucrecia stole a piece of you,and made you a father, without your consent. She impregnated herself, with the express purpose of using your child as experimental material. If I were you, I’d feel betrayed. Violated. I’d be furious. So, I would understand if you’d rather not be reminded of…of what she did to you.”

“I’ll never understand why she did what she did,” Vincent sighed. “I knew all along that she was a scientist, first, and that she loved her work, above all else, but I never imagined that would extend to her own child. I don’t know if I feel betrayed and violated. Maybe I should. Maybe I should be angry. Mostly, I just feel regret and pity for her.”

“What happened between you?” Sephiroth asked gingerly.

Vincent shook his head. “It’s…complicated. It was never anything more than friendship, technically. I know she at least partially reciprocated the attachment I felt to her, but everything between us was implicit and contextual. Then, when she told me she’d made her choice, and it wasn’t me, I backed off. All I wanted was for her to be happy, even if her happiness didn’t have a place in it for me. Looking back on everything, now, I think she wanted me to fight for her. But I didn’t understand that, then. I believed standing aside was the right thing to do, so I did.”

“It was, though,” Sephiroth contended. “You can’t blame yourself for not pursuing her, against her stated wishes. You can’t blame yourself for not fighting for her, when she told you she didn’t want you to. It wouldn’t have been you.”

Vincent smiled ruefully. “Because I’m a coward?”

“Because you’re a kind and considerate person!” Sephiroth returned, warming quickly in defense of his father. “What is wrong with that? Since when is accepting another person’s decisions and respecting their stated boundaries cowardly? She made her choice, and you respected it. It wasn’t your fault she didn’t tell you the truth!”

“But, I should have known,” Vincent said, wavering. “I should have known her well enough to grasp the subtext, and understand what she really wanted.”

“Would you have done it? If you understood what she wanted from you? Would you have fought for her?”

Vincent closed his mouth tightly and looked away, for a long beat. Then he very slowly shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t have.” As soon as he’d said it, he let out a shaky breath, as if even pronouncing the words had cost him a tremendous effort. But now that he’d finally got them out, a dam seemed to have broken, inside him. “She…hurt me. She chose another man. If she loved me, she—she should have chosen me. I should have been good enough for her. It would have wounded my pride, too deeply, to lower myself to fighting over her, like a dog over a bone. I deserved better, than to be pitted against her lover, in a contest for her affection. At least, I thought I did.”  

“You did! You did deserve better! It’s not wrong for you to have a bottom line. She had no right to expect you to sacrifice your dignity and self-esteem chasing after her.”

“The worst of it is that she never told me the truth. Not even when she tried to force my hand, and said that if she was the only one concerned, then she’d go ahead with the fetal experiments.” Vincent’s brow darkened and his eye flashed gold. “She gave me that ultimatum, while continuing to let me believe you were his child! What sane man would have pressured a woman to leave her lover, whose child she was ostensibly carrying, when she had already refused him? What game was she playing? How many dragons did she want me to slay, to prove my love? Did she want me to get on my knees and beg her not to ruin her life?”  

This was the angriest Sephiroth had ever seen Vincent, and he was stunned to silence. The sudden change in the gentle, softspoken man was akin to watching a beaten dog break its chain, and suddenly realize it was a wolf. Hackles up, fangs bared and bristling—a proud and beautiful creature. It was breathtaking.

“I—I’m sorry,” Vincent faltered, misunderstanding Sephiroth’s expression. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“No more apologizing!” Sephiroth said vehemently, grabbing and tugging his hands, to stop him withdrawing into himself. “You didn’t frighten me, at all. I was just surprised to see you finally expressing anger. To be honest, I was beginning to worry that you’d keep turning it all inward and punishing yourself forever, without admitting that what Lucrecia did to you was wrong.”

“But, it wasn’t all your mother’s fault. If it weren’t for Hojo—”

“We’re not talking about him, we’re talking about Lucrecia,” Sephiroth interrupted, pointedly using her name, rather than the maternal designation. “Getting angry isn’t enough. You have to admit to yourself, that the blame for what she did rests on her, alone. She was a grown woman, years older than you. She made her choices with her eyes open. She didn’t need her twenty-seven year-old bodyguard to tell her what she was doing was wrong. She knew it was, and she did it anyway. She lied to you and violated you!

“And then what? She expected you to force yourself into the situation, in order to save her from herself? How were you supposed to navigate the tangled web she wove, when she didn’t even get out of it alive? That doesn’t mean you can’t forgive her, but you can’t keep finding ways to excuse her. Lucrecia wasn’t a saint, and she wasn’t a victim of circumstances. She was a person who made a conscious choice to destroy all three of our lives.”

Vincent’s shoulders slumped, and he gave a long, weary sigh. “I…I didn’t know you felt that way. For what it’s worth, I think she really wanted to be your mother.”

“Then she should have done better,” Sephiroth said icily. “I wasn’t a person, to her, when she decided to use me as a test subject. I was a biological process, that she could manipulate in the name of science, with no thought to the human repercussions.”

“But…she did change her mind,” Vincent attempted. “She regretted her mistakes. I doubt she ever suspected that Hojo would take you away, and never even let her hold you. By the time she realized what he really was, it was too late. She was trapped by what she’d done, and it all spun out of her control. When I saw her image in my dreams, she said that she couldn’t live with the guilt, anymore, after all the suffering she’d caused. She begged me to forgive her.”

“She also asked you to kill me.”

“Yes. That is why I doubt what I saw was really Lucrecia, in the true sense. It was probably more like an echo of her will, filled with her lingering regrets. But whatever the truth of the matter, she was still your mother. I hope you can forgive her, one day.”

“You hope that I’ll forgive her because you loved her. I didn’t even know her. All I know is what she did to us. Maybe, one day, I’ll have it in me to forgive her. But right now, she is no more a mother to me, than that thing in the mako reactor was.”

Vincent nodded his understanding, despite the pain his son’s bitter words caused him. “It’s up to you, and I won’t press you.” He paused. “But Seph, no matter what she did or how I feel about her, I would never harbor any negative feeling toward you, because of the choices your mother made. You’re the only good thing that any of us ever did. The way it came about was ugly and complicated and full of misery, but you are my son. You are the only person in the world who matters to me. Of course I want you to call me father.”

Sephiroth sighed, leaning into Vincent’s embrace again. “I never wanted anything more than I wanted you to be my father. But I feel like…I don’t deserve to be that happy. I keep expecting to find out there was some mistake, and I’m not your son at all. That I’m just a freak, with no connection to anyone, except a dead monster.”

“Well, that can’t possibly be true. Even if Hojo could have faked the DNA profiles he showed me, you look just like me. I tried to downplay it, because of his threats, but there’s a reason people always assume we’re father and son, despite our hair and eyes being the exact opposite colors.”

“That woman at the bakery didn’t. I forgot to tell you, because we ran into that boy and his mother. She thought you were my lover. She said we must be a fated pair!”

Vincent’s eyebrows went up. “Well. That’s certainly flattering to me. Except, you’re not a girl.”

“Oh, please. As if that matters to you.”

“Excuse me? What are you implying, young man?”

“Don’t forget, I’ve seen the future, father. I know all about you,” Sephiroth said, looking very wise and mysterious.

“What does that mean? I’m not—I don’t…do I?”

“Nuh-uh, I’m not telling. First of all, that would be weird. Second of all, it might be totally different, now. We rewrote destiny, after all.”

“Well then why bring it up?” Vincent groused. “Just to tease me?”

“Actually, I brought it up to break the ice. I wanted you to know that I’m aware your…horizons are broader than you let on, as far as gender and attraction. I don’t want you to feel you have to hide it from me. And also, I wanted to tell you right from the beginning that I don’t like girls and I never will. Just to spare us the awkward conversation, when I bring home a boyfriend.”

“B—boyfriend?!” Vincent sputtered. “You’re fourteen! No boyfriends!! Not till you’re twenty—no, thirty!”

“Tch. You’re such an old prude.”

“You think I won’t make it forty? Keep sassing me and find out!”

“Alright, alright, calm down before you turn into Chaos,” Sephiroth laughed. “I was just joking, anyway. I won’t be dating or anything like that. I’m waiting for my soul mate.”

Vincent squinted at him. “Soul mate? I didn’t realize you were the romantic type.”

“No, I mean I am literally waiting for him,” Sephiroth clarified. “I know he exists, because I have seen him with my own eyes. He was my soul’s anchor point, in every timeline. Our connection to each other is the reason experiencing all the other futures didn’t destroy my mind. I’m going to protect him and take care of him, this time. I will never let anything bad happen to him. I also plan to marry him, one day. He just happens to be far too young for that kind of thing, at the moment.”

“You’re far too young for that kind of thing,” Vincent grumbled, crossing his arms. “Maybe slow down on the marriage talk, before you give your father a heart attack.”

“Nice try, old man. We both know you don’t have a heart.”

“That’s because you took it.”

“Speaking of that. I should probably give it back,” Sephiroth said sheepishly.

Vincent held his hand up. “No. I meant what I said. Keep it for me.”

“You…you want me to keep your heart?” Sephiroth’s eyes misted over again, and his voice trembled with emotion. “You really trust me that much?”

“Of course I do. There’s no better place for it, that I can think of, than with you. I’ve thought about it, since we left the manor, and if you’re literally holding my heart, you won’t have to worry, anymore, when we’re apart. You’ll always be able to call me back to you, if you need me.”

Sephiroth nodded, through his tears, reflexively laying a hand on his heart. As he did, he felt the familiar shape, through his shirt. “My locket. But I gave it to Chaos, in the reactor.”

“I thought you’d probably want it, so I put it back on you, while you were sleeping.”

Sephiroth pulled the locket out of his shirt and looked at it, for a moment. Then he unclasped the chain and took it off. Rocking up on his knees, he carefully fastened it around Vincent’s neck.

Vincent balked. “Seph, I can’t take this. This is your—”

“No, you have to take it,” Sephiroth insisted, laying one hand over the locket, on Vincent’s chest, and the other over his heart, on his own. “You gave me your heart. Since I can’t cut mine out and give it to you, this is the next best thing. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that matters to me. It represented love and family, to me, till I met you. Now that I have my father, I don’t need to cling to an old picture of my mother, for comfort. So, I want you to keep it for me, as a symbol of our love and trust.”

Vincent hesitated, then dipped his chin in solemn assent. “Then I will take good care of it, for you.”

“I think it may have belonged to your father, anyway. There’s a V engraved on the inside.”

“Huh. That’s odd,” Vincent frowned, opening the locket and holding it up to inspect it. “It does look like the V from our family seal. But my father would never have worn something silver. He was allergic.”

“It’s platinum, not silver. The chain, too.”

“I see,” Vincent said, with an odd expression. Then he repeated it, in a lower voice. “I see.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing important. Just an answer to an old question,” he said, tucking the locket away under his cloak. “Now, it’s about time we got you something to eat. You must be starving.”

“Not really. I can go days without food, before I start feeling it,” Sephiroth chirped.

Vincent’s iris flashed a warning gold. “And you know that because Hojo…”

“Father, he’s dead,” Sephiroth said, putting his hands on Vincent’s shoulders. “I cut off his head, myself. There’s no use wasting any more anger on him.”

His wrath subsided immediately, along with the gold ember in his eye. Then he was embarrassed that he could so easily be pacified, simply by being called ‘father’ and touched affectionately by his son, and scowled disconsolately, which made Sephiroth laugh again.

“Well, whether you feel hungry or not, I’m going to get you food,” Vincent announced, reasserting his authority. “It’s unhealthy not to eat, especially while you’re still growing.”

“Alright, but I’m coming with you.”

“Seph, you know we can’t risk you being seen. Your appearance is too distinctive.”

“Said the man who wears a bright-red cloak and shiny brass armor everywhere.”

“No one is going to be looking for me, and if they were, they’d have no reason to believe you and I would be together. Most of Shinra don’t even know I was at the manor. Besides, I know how to move around unseen.”

“I know how to—”

“Without mind control.”

Sephiroth made a sour face. “It’s not my fault people are weak-willed and easy to manipulate.”

“That’s true, but it’s still not nice to do it, if you don’t absolutely have to. How do you know there won’t be any permanent side-effects?”

“Hmph. Fine, I won’t go about scrambling the brains of the riff-raff, if you’re going to be so strict about it. Oh! I know! I can just disguise myself! So much has happened, that I forgot it’s one of the abilities my others left me.”

To Vincent’s horrified astonishment, the boy’s body suddenly warped and distorted, and he found himself standing face to face with…himself. Or rather, an identical copy, down to every detail. “Seph, this is…very weird. Is that really what I look like?”

“It is,” Vincent’s double said, with Sephiroth’s voice. “I can’t change my voice, though. That’s a flaw. Also, I can’t keep it up for extended periods. No more than a couple of hours, at a time.”

“That’s a pretty remarkable talent. I don’t see how you being me helps, though. We can’t both go out like this.”

“I just wanted to impress you with what I can do.” Sephiroth grinned, as his body shifted back to normal, only his hair was still jet black and he still had Vincent’s crimson eyes and ashen skin. “How’s this? No one will be looking for Sephiroth Valentine.”

That shot struck home, of course, and Vincent was thoroughly defeated. Just as he’d said, Shinra really couldn’t do much to them, even if they did send an army. But they could make things annoying for them, and they certainly wouldn’t bat an eye at hurting any civilians that happened to be in the way. He and Sephiroth weren't in hiding, per se, but it was better not to invite their notice.

Down the street from the inn, was a pub he’d visited many years ago. It had since been converted into a bakery, featuring local baked goods and some light lunch fare, such as sandwiches and salads. Because of Vincent’s knack for fading from sight, the beautiful boy with him attracted many curious gazes, but no eyes fell on him, despite the crimson cloak and brass armor. After they entered the bakery, he leaned down and whispered something to Sephiroth. The boy nodded, and Vincent actually vanished, leaving him to peruse the pastries in the glass case, alone.

Outside, Vincent alit on the ridgepole of a rooftop, crouched like a stone gargoyle, sighting the streets below for about ten seconds, before he sprang away, dissolving into crimson blur and rematerializing in an alleyway, a street over, with the massive barrel of Cerberus pressed to the base of a man’s skull, below his black ponytail. The man’s gloved hands went up slowly.

“Special Agent Valentine. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” He sounded young. Very young. His voice was steady, but too stiff and proper. Concealing his nervousness behind cold formality. Vincent had been the exact same way, when he was a rookie.

“Not a Turk anymore,” Vincent growled.

“Still, I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t kill my agent,” another voice said, behind him. “For old time’s sake.”

Vincent pulled back the hammer with an audible click. “What the hell do you people want with me?”

“Come on, Valentine,” the voice behind him said, with an edge of impatience. “Point that gun where it belongs. Leave the kid out of it.”

“He’s a Turk, not a kid.”

“He’s fourteen.”

Vincent’s eye twitched. Then he drew the gun away and holstered it with an annoyed snarl. “Shinra just can’t stop turning children into killers, can they.”

The boy turned around, glancing up at Vincent, before looking to the man behind him for orders. Vincent was surprised to see a Wutaian, even more so one who wore a religious symbol so openly as this one did, with a bindi dot on his forehead. The boy was clearly surprised by Vincent’s face, too, though there was no telling which element of it he found more startling than which. 

“You can go, Tseng,” the other man said. “Agent Valentine and I need to have a chat.”

The boy looked up at Vincent again, his eyes lingering for a second or two, as if he wanted to say something, before he turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

“Vincent.”

“Veld.”

The two men studied one another for a long beat. Vincent was a good four inches taller, but Veld was stockier and appeared much older, with grey streaks in his dark-brown hair, and a perpetually rugged look about him, despite his smart black suit.

“Holy hell, you look exactly the same,” Veld said, at last, shaking his head.

“You have aged,” Vincent replied flatly. “Since when does the Director of the Administrative Research Division track down targets in the field, himself.”

“Since the target is you, you fuckin’ asshole!” Veld exploded. “They told me you died, Vince! Where the hell have you been for a decade and a goddamn half!”

“I did die,” Vincent sneered. “I spent most of the past fourteen years in a coffin.”

“Real fuckin’ funny. If you're not going to—” He broke off, catching sight of Vincent’s gold iris, which he could see faintly glowing, now that it was in the shadow of his shaggy bangs. “What…is that? What did they do to you?”

Vincent turned his head away. “Nothing you want to know about. Answer my question. What do you people want with me?”

“Officially? Recovery. You’re a missing Shinra asset. In reality, I don’t know if I have the manpower it would take to haul your ass back to Shinra.”

“You really think you could bring me in, even if you had brought all your men?”

“God damn it, Vince, listen to me. I’m telling you I’m not trying to bring you in. There’s too much going on with the conflict in Wutai, and we’re already stretched paper thin, so the president doesn’t have the bandwidth to worry about you. I pushed back on hunting you down, and he agreed that it’s enough to just have you surveilled, for now, to make sure you’re not an immediate threat to Shinra.”

Vincent tilted his head. “And what does he plan to do, if I am?”

“Did you become more of a prick, in the past decade and a half?” Veld asked, eyeing him cagily. “I seem to recall you being a lot more…”

“Of a pushover?”

“I was gonna say agreeable, but yeah, pretty much.”

“People change,” Vincent answered vaguely.

“I guess so.” Veld paused and ran his hands back through his hair, which he always used to do when attempting to conceal some strong emotion. “It's so good to see your face, again, Vince. All these years thinking you were killed in action, and you know how I found out you were alive? I'm supervising the cleanup of Shinra Manor. One of the assets whose location I was to verify was you. That’s how they told me my old partner wasn’t really dead. A name, in an inventory of their property.”

“I am dead. I don’t know how much more clearly I can say that.”

“Well, you’re sure making it look good,” Veld Chuckled, clearly still not understanding. “Speaking of good looking, who’s the kid with you? Boyfriend?”

“My son.”

“Your s—your son?? But how? Who? Did you…with a woman??”

“I guess it’s hard for you to imagine, because of…back then. But yes, before they killed me, I loved a woman. He is my son, with her.”

“Well, where is she? Are you on your way to see her?”

“She died.”

“Ah. Uh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Veld, I understand that you have to keep a tail on me. I know you’re just doing your job. And I know what it took for you to put Shinra off hunting me down, even if you’re making light of it. I’ll never forget that. But if your people get within a one-block radius of my son…I’ll kill them all.”

“Fair enough. I wouldn’t want Turks snooping around my kid, either. I’ll tell ‘em to keep their distance. But in exchange, you gotta agree not to kill 'em, unless you absolutely have to.”

“Agreed.”

“By the way, I found something I think belongs to you.”

From a storage materia somewhere on his person, he produced a box, about the size of a shoebox, only a bit longer and narrower. It was wrapped in rumpled, stained red paper, and had a grimy silver ribbon with a flattened bow tied around it. The name ‘Vincent’ was clearly written on the wrapping paper, in black permanent marker.

Vincent stared at the all-too familiar object in stunned disbelief. “Where did you find this? How did you—”

“My crew found it in a trash bag, out by the dumpsters, where the garbage from the manor gets hauled away. They’re a good way from the buildings, so the stuff there didn’t get burned to a crisp, with everything else. You recognize it?”

“A birthday gift, from my son. It…was thrown away by mistake.”

“Well, I’m glad I made the boys sort through the trash, then. Despite all the bitching and moaning.”

“They should, anyway,” Vincent frowned, as he tucked the rumpled present into his cloak. “You can learn more about a target from the garbage they throw out than—”

“Than from the garbage that comes out of their mouth, yeah, I remember,” Veld laughed. “So, you’re still thinking like a Turk, after all this time.”

“It’s not something that just goes away. And I…I do miss it, sometimes.”

“You ever think about coming back, there’ll always be a place for you.”

“No. I’ll never work for Shinra again. I promised my son that I’m finished with all of that. We’re going to settle down and have a nice, quiet life together.”

“I respect that. Maybe one day, I’ll follow your example.”

“I hope you do. Sooner, rather than later,” Vincent said, as he turned to go.

“Maybe…I can meet your son, one day, too,” Veld called after him.

Vincent paused, then gave a nod, over his shoulder, before he vanished.

Back at the bakery, Sephiroth already had the middle-aged ladies that owned the place fawning all over him and stuffing him full of ‘free samples’ of pastries, like a couple of grannies that were worried he was too thin. He and Vincent took their lunch to go, and once they stepped off the main street, Vincent scooped Sephiroth up in his arms and flew them over the castle-like city walls, to the broad, green valley below.

Sephiroth chose a picnic spot in the turfy grass, beside a cheerfully babbling creek. He’d never seen a creek, in person, and was so enthralled by it, he had to be reminded to eat at least some of his lunch, before he went to play around in it.

“It’s so cold!” he shouted laughingly to Vincent, when he’d rolled up his trousers and waded into it, up to his knees. “Do you think there are fish?”

“Not here. Maybe further from the city, where it gets deeper and slows down.”

Sephiroth kicked and splashed around, till he soaked the legs of his trousers, and had to use a fire spell to dry them, before he could put his boots back on.

“How did you get rid of the Turks?” he asked, when he’d sat down again, and began working on Vincent’s half of their lunch.

“One of them was an old friend. He was willing to be reasonable. He was also at the manor, for the cleanup. He, uh. He found this, and thought we might want it.”

Vincent drew the stained and rumpled package from his cloak. Sephiroth’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open, in an endearingly childish expression of wonder. “It’s your birthday present! I can’t believe they saved it! How did they save it?”

“Technically, you saved it.”

“Huh? Me?”

“The area where the garbage is left to be hauled away is far from the buildings, so it doesn’t attract wild animals to the areas where people work. None of the things there were burned.”

“Oh. Right. I threw it away.” Sephiroth’s face fell. “I—I thought you weren’t coming back and I just…couldn’t bear to look at it.”

“You don’t have to explain. Hojo made me watch the security feed, anyway. He knew hurting my body didn’t work anymore, so he hurt you, to torture me. I’m so sorry, for all of this. For the pain I caused you, just by existing.”

“I said no more apologizing. Now open your present, I worked really hard getting it for you!”

Of course, the custom-made holster was the most beautiful gift Vincent had ever received, and not just because it was from his son. Even more precious to him, however, was Sephiroth’s happy excitement, chatting to him about the design process and his correspondence with the blacksmith, and all the little details that made it special, while he helped Vincent remove the old holster and strap the new one on, in its place. It fit perfectly, and without that awkwardness of a new thing, as if it had been with him all along.

After that, Sephiroth was still full of energy, being exhilarated by his first foray into the great outdoors, so Vincent agreed to take a walk in the green valley, under the early-afternoon sun. He walked, rather, while Sephiroth picked up interesting rocks, stopped to investigate unfamiliar plants, found a family of frogs, and startled the local birds half out of their wits, scaling nearly every tree he saw. 

“You said your other versions left you guideposts, to avoid repeating their future,” Vincent said, after a while. “So, do you have a plan?”

“I do,” Sephiroth answered decisively, hopping lightly down from the large boulder he’d leapt onto. “First, there are people we have to collect, and some we have to strategically position. Things have to be done at the right times, to be effective, though, so it’ll be a process that takes several years. The upside is, we’ll have a lot of time to relax and travel around, while we wait for circumstances to align.”

“Sounds good. Then what?”

“Then we’re going to kill President Shinra, and everyone else on the board of directors. Well, almost everyone.”

“We are?” Vincent asked, confused. “I thought you were done with killing people. I thought we were going to have the peaceful life you always dreamed of, now.”

“But I want everyone to have a peaceful life. There are powerful people who are malignant influences, actively causing suffering, to as many others as they can. Shinra's top ranks are full of them. None of them are any less monstrous than Hojo. Except one. There’s one good man, who got mixed up in Shinra, and managed to stay a good man.

“We’re going to kill the rest of them, so he’ll be installed as Shinra’s interim chairman, while they’re dragging Rufus home and filing the paperwork, for him to take over as president. By that time, our man will already have public support, and his power base within Shinra will be stable. Rufus will have no choice but to let him steer the ship. And he will definitely steer it in the right direction.”

“You seem to have a lot of faith in him. Who is he?”

“His name is Reeve Tuesti. He’s just an engineer, working in their Urban Planning Department, at the moment, but he’s a genius. He’ll be promoted to Executive Director, within a few years. Youngest executive in Shinra history.”

“How old is he?”

“Now, I’m not sure. Probably eighteen.”

“Already an engineer at eighteen? Impressive. Speaking of precocious teenagers, do you know anything about a person named Tseng?”

“Tseng? Why do you ask?”

“He was one of the Turks they sent after me, today. I just…got a feeling about him.”

“He’d be fourteen years old, right now,” Sephiroth frowned. “He was a Turk so young?”

“I don’t know why that should surprise you. Shinra sent you to war at fourteen, didn’t they?”

“Not anymore, but yes. They would have. Either way, your intuition was spot-on. Tseng is important. We can leave him be, for now, but we’ll need him on our side, later.”

Vincent glanced at him, sidelong. “Out of curiosity, what is ‘our side,’ Seph?”

“It’s…ours,” Sephiroth answered broadly. “It’s the side that wants to help people and save whoever we can. We can help the most people in this world by going after Shinra. Not by blowing up their reactors like a bunch of idiot children, but by completely restructuring the company, from the top down.”

“Blowing up their reactors?”

“There are these eco-terrorists…don’t worry about it. We’ll be ten steps ahead of them. Oh, also we’re going to need the family fortune, to fund our world-changing efforts, so we’ll have to inform the Valentine estate lawyers that you’re not dead. And also have me added to the family register.”

At this point, Vincent didn’t bother to ask how the boy knew about the family’s financial situation, and took it in stride. “You’re sure you want to be a Valentine?”

“Of course. What else would I be?”

“Well, there’s your mother’s surname. I thought you might—”

“No. Not even if I didn’t have another option,” Sephiroth said bitterly. “I may as well take Jenova or Hojo as my surname.”

Vincent looked as if he’d slapped him. “Seph…”

“Sorry, father. I didn’t mean that. I have a lot of pent up anger,” he corrected himself, lowering his head contritely. “All I mean is that, I don’t want any surname other than Valentine. I’m your son. That’s all I want to be.”

“Then you’ll be a Valentine,” Vincent agreed, pulling him close, to kiss the top of his head. “After we take control of the family fortune, what’s our objective?”

“We start gathering allies.”

“Alright. Who’s first?”

“The most important one, of course,” Sephiroth smiled. “Maybe the most important person in the world.”

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY i bet it's Reno

next chapter:

[apphiarothowrites]

I’m back for no reason other than I want to share this sort of idea and I am too swamped to even begin writing

Marco doesn’t know how he ended up on the thousand sunny.

That’s a lie, logically he knows. Luffy had come up to him after the battle and asked him. Then perhaps, ask is a strong word… Luffy had catapulted into the region of his arms and twisted around him like a jungle python. Marco is not sure if he actually heard the words ‘join my crew’ as he was rapidly losing consciousness due to asphyxiation.

Then he woke up on the sunny.

God they are so fucking young. Children really, maybe that’s why he hasn’t taken off yet. Put his zoan wings to use.

Luffy scampers around the deck, laughing madly as the cook attempts to punt him in the ocean.

Everyone is so bright in this ship and it crushes his sternum while filling his lungs with air.

“Strange isn’t it.”

The clattering or bones usually indicates brooks approach but, the skeleton can be annoyingly sneaky when he wants to be.

Delicate phalanges press a cup of tea in Marco’s empty hands.

“You remember being that young?”

The blonde man stares into the amber liquid completely lost. He didn’t remember, not really. Flashes of his mother’s sash, ink stained books that seemed so large to his small hands, a foggy memory of a rocky shore.

“I think most of it was lost to time.” He shares with a wry grin.

Brook clicks his tongue? Does he still have that? “Time, time, time, time. If there ever was a god he was the one who hung the clock.” The skeleton hums. “Are you staying for Ace?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you love him.”

Marco pauses, letting the memories wash over him. The smell of smoke, the raucous laughter. “I didn’t, not yet anyway.”

The sea breeze picks up, heavy with salt.

“I used to play the violin for my husband every day.”

The skeleton is looking at some point beyond the horizon.

“Did he like the violin?”

“Not at all.”

—

The most important thing Marco has learned while travelling with the straw hats is that none of them (with exception to Jinbe and possibly Brook) have ever had any kind of sane adult to care for them.

Don’t get him wrong, bellemere seems like she was a good lady and lord knows he has visited the floating restaurant a couple times. But for the love of god if finds zoro trying to work out one more time he will have a chat with mihawk.

Honestly he’ll have a good long talk with crocodile too while he’s there, Robin seems to hold herself together with spiderwebs. Not surprising given ohara, but the whole warlords tool thing obviously made it worse.

In two weeks of sailing with the strawhats marco has a goddamn list of people. Including Zeff (marco is very very tired of the nosebleeds.)

Weirdly enough the most stable person is literally a cyborg, then again Tom was a fucking angel on earth and Marco wished he had stuck around longer to write a book on parenting.

Luffy calls him the reserve doctor.

Marco doesn’t call him captain.

“Well obviously.” Luffy had pointed out when Marco had haltingly tried to approach the conversation. “I’m not your dad.”

“But I am sailing under you aren’t I?”

“Yeah.” Brown eyes blinked at him slowly. “But I’m not your dad.”

Marco bites his tongue and wonders how long it would take to explain his very weird existence. Too long he decides and just gives a brief nod. “No, you’re not.”

—

A long time ago two children played on a rocky shore, laughing as the waves lapped at their ankles.

—

It’s slow, marco sails, flys. Leaves for weeks on end only to return in the heat of battle. He tracks down Whitey and spends a good week crying into his sisters pillow. Sanji challenges him to a duel for robins hand and he kicks the cook into the ocean. He should really talk to Zeff…. His brothers are here and there, sometimes he looks sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he joins Jinbei for meditation. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he drinks coffee while the fish man finds inner peace.

He does end up meeting the cross guild (it’s shanks fault.) getting dragged to an “important” meeting by a yonko begging you to pretend to be his husband is.. not as ego boosting as you would think. Shanks flirts and preens and marco doesn’t even know who he’s trying to impress. (He doesn’t want to know.)

Even so.. the small movements, the way mihakw floats beside crocodiles hook. The low murmur as buggy leans into hear what the scarred man said. It makes marco believe that maybe love isn’t a one time thing (except if your shanks)

Oh god this is so long cliff notes time

Marco is kinda immortal he has a rebirth cycle and can semi remember what he has lived through

Sanji gets many seminars on respecti ‘n women

Zoro gets many seminars on “stop fighting when injured”

Luffy is luffy

The phoenix and nika are kind of drawn to eachother (not romantically but they have similar domains or something)

Tom is best dad

Brook is the straight out of jail uncle

Nami and marco are distant (she doesn’t want a dad thank you)

Dr chopper dr law and dr marco hang out

Idk bout romance in here it’s mainly found family (Cora is alive though so ya know..)

The central plot that was not conveyed at all is basically marco wanted this to be his last cycle (with his dad and stuff) but because of everything he missed his chance (idk mystic bullshit yadda yadda) so he has to learn to live again or something

Might have kizaru join the straw hats)

Idk my semi vision was

Marco - the worst mental state

The strawhats - pretty decent mental states

Marco - omfg these children need so much therapy

#GiveMarcoABreak2024

I love this, there's so much potential in everything!!! no notes, perfection

luffy takes one look at marco after the final battle and goes "is nobody gunna found-family heal that?" but doesn't wait for an answer before just straight up taking him

marco relearning what wanting to love is from these idiots while Brook slowly learns exactly how old he is is Great tho

[snowbound-cabin]

The Westminster Quarters are great for my ADHD.

If you know me, you probably know I have really bad ADHD/autism. I'm not very aware of my body's needs, I'm not very aware of time, I'm not very good at making sure "I'll do this SOON" isn't "I'll do this in 3 hours."

The Westminster Quarters are a set of chimes that play every 15 minutes. If you've been around a functional grandfather clock for an hour, you've probably heard at least the fourth-quarter chime. Big Ben plays all of them, and, as of yesterday, so does my computer.

The Actually Important Part

The Westminster Quarters are an external stimulus that happens reliably, which is super useful for me, because it makes me ask two important questions:

Does my body need anything?

Am I supposed to be doing something else? (So "I'll do it soon" becomes the more concrete and reliable "I'll do it next quarter.")

A lot of my issues with other coping mechanisms are that I have to engage with them, and so once I start forgetting them, they just... Stop working. This is a reminder to engage with other coping mechanisms; my ADHD brain can't answer those exact questions reliably without a bit of extra work. I'll make another post with those in a bit.

If anyone wants the python script I used to do it, let me know. It supports any sounds at whatever 4-digit time you want - I just set mine up with sounds I was familiar with.

[lutiaslayton]

The timeline thing is a godsend!! Is there any chance or you creating one that is year based, instead of days? This is more intuitive than any other writing/plotting timeliness I've been able to find.

Hi, thank you and I'm glad this is (somewhat) helpful to you!

To be entirely honest, the timeline I am using for my own story purposes got even MORE insane with even more options, and I've been wanting to share that template as well. But unfortunately... Making it "I don't know how to code 😭" friendly is insanely hard (even more so because now I'm using a python script to automatically generate the main HTML file out of sub-files + a number of parameters that can adjust things such as which time period is shown, how wide/thin the time scale is, custom elements for the size of icons and such, etc, and ALSO by far the most important detail, my timeline now actually has a smooth transition between day X and day X+1 instead of having a blank that creates an offset every time the clock strikes midnight, I'm so sorry that the currently downloadable version has that issue in horizontal mode), and unfortunately I just don't have the free time to make that right now (<- PhD student with way too many side projects).

I could try sharing the current state of my timeline as it is now, but I don't want to do that because it's like. full of spoilers for my own fanfic for obvious reasons lmfao. So for the time being I guess I can just share a screenshot of what it looks like and just how insane I am:

Regarding your question on the time scale: you could change that yourself by changing the contents of the svg file named "scale.svg" in the chr folder. It is actually a text file, not an image, and hopefully the logic behind it can be guessed easily enough! So if you know what exactly you want, and if you're willing to risk tinkering with it yourself, you can make a backup of that file, remove/change a few lines of code in the scale.svg file (don't rename it or move it around, change exclusively the file "scale.svg"), then reload your main timeline HTML page in order to see what that does.

The numbers in that file are X/Y coordinates for the most part, so by adding/moving/removing vertical bars, you could transform that 24-hour scale into a year scale. I guess it's convenient that a day has 24 hours and a year has 12 months! You could start first by deleting one in two hour bars and renaming the labels from "XX:XX" to month names. After that if you want to add the days... Well, it'll be trickier, but hopefully you'll have figured out a bit better how the logic of that file works so you'll be able to add these smaller day marks through a bit of trial and error.

......After looking at the state of my SVG file actually that might be a bit trickier. However, I have good news for you: you can copy-paste the code into the website SvgPathEditor in order to make your editing process much easier! All you have to do is copy-paste only the part of the code that looks like "M0 20 0 50M300 20 300 50M600 20 600 50M900 20 900" (the logic here is "M 0 20 0 50" = one vertical bar that starts at coordinates (0, 20) and ends at coordinates (0, 50), so it's just a list of the vertical bars one after the other. Sorry it's much less clear than I remembered it ^^')

(EDIT: I just hope you don't need to account for leap years, because due to the way the timeline is coded, I don't think it can afford to do that unless you make your scale so that it works by four years instead of only one. And let's not even get started on the "sometimes it's a new century so there's no leap year but some centuries do start with a leap year anyway" rule.)

All that being said, thank you again for your kind message, I'm sorry I can't do more than that for the time being (and you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for an update, I honestly don't know when / if it will ever have the time to happen :')), and good luck! I hope what I gave with the current zip file + this reply's advice will be good enough for you.

(EDIT²: For people who never heard of the original timeline post, here it is! It's a tool I made forever ago that lets you create a timeline in order to keep track of what each character does at what time in your own stories.)

[studiousandrogynousfox-blog]

busy busy busy

it's been so busy but i got to do some cool stuff like using a microscope on my own and having a first go on an experiment inside a vacuum chamber of a scanning electron microscope!!!

but at the same time the change in clocks and the weather (and a certain light entertainment tv show ending) have completely disrupted my sleep cycle and with it tanked my anyways poor executive functions. so i've decided to take a stick day to try and have a bit of a reset.

and to keep myself accountable i'm going to update this post throughout the day with my progress on my reset day.

my goals:

shower

get dressed

water my plants

do a food shop

start winding down at 10pm

first stretch goals:

clean the bedroom

sort out my python envs

second stretch goals:

do laundary

clean bathroom

change bike seat height back

[kammartinez]

By Keziah Weir

Frieda Hughes and I are an hour into our conversation when Wyddfa the snowy owl enters the chat. With some coaxing, he has hopped down the hallway, lined with woven rugs, to perch next to Hughes in her high-ceilinged kitchen. The pair of them, framed by a Zoom square, are in their home in Wales, where they live with 12 other owls, plus “five chinchillas,” Hughes says, “one aging ferret, a python called Shirley, and the two rescue huskies.” By publication of this piece, she has added a fourteenth owl.

Wyddfa, who is so dapper that he immediately elicits very silly comments from this interviewer—Hello, sir! He’s a little gentleman!—joined the household in 2016 after a zoo could no longer care for him because of a damaged wing; another of the owls has “wonky feet.” All of them have an avian forebear, without whom the parliament might never have found their way into Hughes’s care: an orphaned fledgling, now the eponymous subject of her new book, George: A Magpie Memoir (Avid Reader Press). The book chronicles the five months in 2007 during which Hughes hand-raised the magpie after finding it tossed from a nest in her garden. “I had no idea how much I was going to fall in love with that bird,” Hughes tells me. “Oh, dear.”

London-born Hughes, a painter and poet, describes her growing up as peripatetic. “I felt as if the ground on which I stood was constantly changing and shifting,” she writes in the introduction to George, “because, following the suicide of my mother, Sylvia Plath, on 11 February 1963, my father, Ted Hughes, found it difficult to settle.” Her parents play a small role on the memoir’s pages, though the reverberations of their loss are felt throughout; most explicitly, Hughes notes the surreal feeling of strangers knowing, or believing to know, the intimacies of her personal history. (In the early aughts, the filmmakers behind the 2003 Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Sylvia requested that Hughes grant them the right to use Plath’s poems. The film, Hughes wrote in her own poem, “My Mother,” would be “for anyone lacking the ability / To imagine the body, head in oven, / Orphaning children.” Needless to say, she did not grant the request.)

As a child, the ability to keep animals became an elusive sign of permanence—“if I had a pet it should mean that I’d have found a home in which to be stationary,” she writes—something she says she has finally found. 

During the five months of George, Hughes was grappling with the impending dissolution of a marriage—she and her husband had, three years earlier, moved together from his native Australia to Wales and he longed to return home—and her own chronic fatigue. An incessantly needy and increasingly tricksy young magpie proved to be a consuming diversion for Hughes, though not everyone was as charmed by his penchant for stealing food off plates or landing on heads. “Oh, there’s a magpie on the sofa,” Hughes quotes one visitor saying “with an offhand sort of grimace.” As a reader, it’s hard not to fall a little in love with him, an attachment aided by Hughes’s illustrations of him that run throughout the text.

Hughes has long been attracted to what she describes as “the wounded and the limping.” As a child, she says, “there were lots of little tragedies because I wanted to save everything, and couldn’t”—a theme that continues in her memoir. “If only I could have found it before the cat and the fly eggs,” she writes of another orphaned bird that died in her care, “if only I had a magic wand.” Still, as much as she acknowledges the difficult inevitability of death, she clocks lifeforce all around too. Of the wiggly garden creatures she collects to feed to baby George: “If worms had only a single thought in their little nematode bodies, it was that they wanted to LIVE.”

Before our interview, Hughes had been riding around the countryside on her motorbike when it broke down, stranding her, but she seems unbothered by the hiccup outside of apologizing that it had made her late for the call. There’s a forward momentum to her, a sort of indefatigable sense of thrust. One accepts difficulty, and moves forward. “He’s stuck on the ground,” she says fondly of Wyddfa, before we say goodbye—but “he makes the most of it.” 

Here, we discuss George, learning to open up after years of secrecy, and how to love despite the promise of loss.

Vanity Fair: I’m always interested in the why now of memoir. What made you want to revisit this time with George?

Frieda Hughes: Well, actually, I wrote it as George happened. A year later, I turned it into a book and then I tried to get it published. I had a publisher who was interested and then, I'll be perfectly frank, my brother committed suicide, and I thought I can't actually cope with the book and dealing with my brother's death at the same time, and so I put it on the back burner.

When, finally, my brother's affairs were all sorted out, and everything else, I thought, okay, I can revisit the book, I can get back to my art, I can get back to my painting and my poetry. I think I probably rewrote the book over the following years. Then I wrote an article about keeping owls for the Financial Times, and Cecil Gayford, my editor, saw this article and said to my agent, would Frieda consider writing about her love for birds, and she said, well, she already has. 

I have a new appreciation for magpies after reading the book—I had always really loved crows and ravens, but I hadn't thought so much about magpies. 

Where I live in the country, magpies are not regarded with great affection. They're regarded as pests and killers of baby birds. They get an awful lot of bad press, but in fact, all corvids are more interested in clearing up dead things. Ravens are apparently the supreme intelligence of the corvids; crows are very serious—so smart, so clever, but very, very serious. Magpies are complete imps, absolutely mischievous, curious. Honestly, I swear they have a sense of humor.

I remember a couple of girlfriends coming to visit and one of them was taking loads of photographs, and George was performing for them. He sat on my head, he nibbled my eyelashes, which is a bit unnerving because I could feel his beak against my eyeball, but he was adorable, and afterwards, my friend contacted me and said, "Frieda, I took all these photos and you can hardly see him. He's just a little bird." The thing is, we can't photograph the personality, can we, and that's what's so frustrating. His personality was extraordinary, and one of the things that really hooked its way into my heart was the fact that he related to me. The dogs would come up for a pet or a stroke or a snack, but George would look at what I was doing and play with it. When I was doing sketches of him, he would come and sit on the paper and try and pull the lines off the paper. 

He was probably only a couple of days old when you found him. I wondered how you think that played into the attachment that you had to George, that you had rescued him and that he needed you.

Hugely, because the more needy and desperate an animal or bird is, the higher up the priority list they come. George really needed feeding. He had the droopy wing, I didn't even know if he would ever learn to feed himself. It wasn't until I was working in the garden and I would uncover, on more than one occasion, a dead mouse, and George would be watching and suddenly, he appears and grabs the mouse and flies off and I thought, you know what? I think George is going to be fine. 

It is such a different project to raise an animal with the hope that they will be able to return to the wild. I think that's something that most people don't experience. Usually, you're raising an animal who you hope will be with you till the very end. In some ways, your experience seems almost much more like child-rearing where the goal is for children to grow up and take care of themselves.

In George's case, I was very, very torn. Part of me wanted him to stay, desperately. But it doesn't matter how much we love people or animals. At some point, we are going to have to let go, if we don't die first. They are going to go off to a new life; children grow up and leave home. Some parents are really happy about that, other parents, less so.

It's the same with partners. Sometimes we die, sometimes we fall out of love. We only borrow people. I believe in making the most of it, but also I believe in not ever keeping anything or anyone prisoner of one's own affectionate imposition. There are people I love, but if they feel that they need to go, I ain't going to be the one to stop them. I would only wish them wings, as it were. Loving people and animals so that you can let them go when you need to, if you ever need to, I think that is the best—difficult, but the best.

In the book, you wrote about your now ex-husband. There was a mirroring going on—him wanting to go back to where he was from, and dealing with that in the relationship as you were also dealing with the fact that your bird was wanting to go back to the wild, where he was from.

Yes, very much. He had said that he wanted to move back when he got old, only he wasn't able to tell me what old meant. He was 14 years older than me, so he was 14 years ahead of where my head was. He, too, ultimately needed his freedom. One might make all the effort one could to make things nice, but if somebody wants to go, they want to go—and also, quite often, by the time they want to go, we are quite glad for them to go.

In George's case, not. But having said that, he was complicated by these bad habits he developed, like the one of jumping on heads, which scared my elderly neighbor to the point where she wouldn't go out of the house if there were magpies in the garden. Hence the aviary, that enormous aviary, now populated by six very large Eurasian eagle owls.

They are alluded to at the very end of the book. I want to hear about who you have right now.

The first owl was Arthur, with the broken wing. Three of the owls that I have were given to me by other people who could no longer look after them; one had an operation on his shoulder, and another one was just incredibly sick and had diabetes, and so I got these owls and they came with two eggs. So I bought an incubator and hatched Charlie and Mac in 2015, and then two years later came Eddie, and they are fabulous. They're very, very handleable. They come in the house for a couple of hours at night just to play around in the kitchen

In the time period of the book you were working on a collection of autobiographical poems, which seemed to take a lot out of you emotionally. Over the years, how have you juggled a desire for a certain amount of privacy, but then also wanting to draw from your life and feelings in your writing? 

I'm working on balancing it all the time, because the answer is I'm not sure how to balance it. When I was younger and my father was still alive, the wish to be private on his behalf, not to say... I'll give you an example. The other kids would come back from a weekend and say, we did this and we did that and we did the other. I wasn't ever sure what I could give away or not give away, what would be okay.

In my first book of poems, it became really difficult because that's where we start, with our innermost emotions and feelings. I had all these poems boiling away. For years, I wrote poetry and never told anybody. Ultimately, I worked up to showing my dad my poems. He'd have criticism, and finally one day—I think I must have been about 15, 16, 17—I said, "Daddy, don't you have anything good to say?" He looked at me in complete surprise and he said, "But I thought you knew they were very good. I was only mentioning the bits that need pushing.” From then on, he would say, “Okay, this bit's brilliant and that works really well.” He was a very good teacher, but at the same time, I was trying not to read any of his poetry or my mother's poetry because I didn't want to be influenced.

My first book I wrote while I had chronic fatigue. I wanted to be autobiographical and I didn't dare. I'd trained myself so seriously to be private for the family's sake. So allegory became my best friend. And then in 2007, I set myself certain parameters for the autobiographical poetry book, 45. One was that I could be open about myself. When you say it must have been emotionally taxing or challenging, it was, because it was like stripping my skin off because I wasn't used to it. I hadn't had that practice.

In the end, as I get older, I think, does it matter? I'm getting older. One day, we're going to die. If I was publishing my autobiography at the age of 96, I wouldn't care much about what I put in it. I'd just put everything in it, but I'd have to be 96 because then I know I was probably on the way out. So I don't know. I'm working on it. 

You wrote in the book about the strange ways that either people react to you once they realize who your parents are.

It's very odd because until they bring it up, I labor under the illusion that I'm the only person standing where I'm standing. The moment they bring it up, I feel the spot on where I'm standing is now quite crowded with all three of us.

In your poem “Mother,” you’re writing about the strange idea that there are people who are portraying your parents in different ways and dramatizing, or writing biographies or making movies. Is that something that has gotten easier, emotionally, as you have dealt with it over the course of your life?

One of the difficulties is when people make up whole sentences and relationships and ways of speaking and there's nothing to support it. I've been very determined to make a home in which I feel safe, and create my own support and not look at those things because there's no point. I could rant and rave. I'm not going to change anything. 

So poetry is where I put things I feel very, very strongly about, and reading a poem like that on stage, you feel as though you're delivering it as a killer blow. It might only be for one moment in the ether, but it's something. When people reinvent my parents, it'd be like anybody reinventing yours or anybody else's parents. It's wounding and it takes them away. 

When articles or books have come out that depict negative versions of your parents’ relationship, do you just try to steer clear of that as well?

Well, they're rehashing it. It's been written about a lot. There was the very good recent biography by Heather Clark, Red Comet, very thorough. I had to read that for permissions, and I thought it was a really masterful piece of work. It didn't impose judgment and it didn't guess at anything. Everything was backed by research and reading, and for that reason, I found it really impressive. 

You have this rule, you wrote, to live each day the best you can no matter what—having experienced significant and public loss, and then also dealing with chronic health problems, how have you kept that up?

I can't believe I was in such pain when I was looking after George. I still get back pains, I still have problems with it, but I'm so much better. I work out at the gym three times a week, I do the gardening. I'm actually in better nick than I was then, and although they say that we never get rid of chronic fatigue, it's like a little warning sign; if I ever feel that coming, I now know, hey, I'm doing something wrong

A journalist actually asked me after my brother died, "Do you now want to kill yourself?" Part of me wanted to slam the phone down on her, but I thought, I actually think I know where that question's coming from. Because it would be what's in everybody's mind, or certainly a lot of people's mind, she just spoke it, she just put it out there. I'm the only one left in my little family. Somebody has to live life like it matters. My attitude is very much that I need, for my sake and for theirs, to make my life matter. 

[holmoris]

Begging everyone reading this to get ahold of 14TB of disk space somehow - Multiple disks, one big one, whatever - and download the fullsets off archive.org, which sit at about 13.6TB for basically everything pre-2005. This includes the xbox 360 and almost everything before it including personal computers. I know I've posted about this before but it's important and trivial to set up, either use torrents or just search internet archive downloader on github for a python script that can pull the entire collection. If you don't have that much space I'm begging you to at least grab everything pre-PS2, especially the computers. GCN, PSX and everything before clock in at about 4.5TB. 5TB HDDs run 60 bucks. That's less than *one* current release at msrp. Just do it.