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#I saved what I said so I can reword it but I’ll keep it to myself for now
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eugh that whole ridiculous drama put such a bad taste in my mouth. I hate leaving misunderstandings alone but at this point other’s perceptions of the situation are pretty set it seems. was genuinely not trying to start beef but it seems people like looking for it, and I totally forgot how easy it is to start drama the moment you even hint about the existence of subconscious misogyny in groups. as if that’s not something present in every single person alive, and something you should certainly not be dismissive of just bc the issues started with fictional characters, but I digress. I deleted my reblogs bc I don’t want to leave all that up here and give more reasons for drama. they chose me to be their bad guy and that’s just going to be the way it is. anyway sorry for the drama you guys. didn’t expect people to freak out so bad at the slightest provocation. forgot DR was an active bomb situation outside of friends LMAO
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cerberuscommissions · 2 years
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𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐑'𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐋𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐂 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒.  below are prompts taken from the lyrics from blackbear's album in loving memory.  feel free to change pronouns as you see fit!  some have been reworded a bit or combined in order to make a better prompt.  tw for the following subjects: drugs, cursing, self loathing, depression, etc.  please REBLOG to spread the resource around!
❛ dream another nightmare. ❜
❛ i'm in love with all these ghosts. ❜
❛ i'm afraid that misery might take me backwards. ❜
❛ i'm afraid my misery might bring you down. ❜
❛ i need you now like i needed you then. ❜
❛ i don't love me so i can't love you. ❜
❛ i don't love you anymore. ❜
❛ my hearts a burning shed. ❜
❛ don't let me in, i'll never stay. ❜
❛ i carry all this pain. ❜
❛ i feel you in my veins. ❜
❛ i'm in love with all the voices inside my head. ❜
❛ just another broken dream in my lonely bed. ❜
❛ i'm looking for love in an empty space. ❜
❛ it's the fact that it's so wrong, but it feels so right. ❜
❛ why do i feel all alone when i'm by your side? ❜
❛ from the moment i met you, you had powers over me. ❜
❛ i should've known you were toxic energy. ❜
❛ you're lonely, addicted. ❜
❛ you clench your fists and quit it. ❜
❛ i'm friends with your sickness. ❜
❛ i'm tired of having to fix it. ❜
❛ you were lightning, you were cocaine; you were everything between. ❜
❛ your bitter heart is freezing. ❜
❛ removed you from flames that consume you. ❜
❛ hold me close and tell me lies. ❜
❛ you used to get me high. ❜
❛ i'm built just like a home that is broken. ❜
❛ all you ever had to do was try. ❜
❛ give me something worth chasing after. ❜
❛ tell me what you want from me. ❜
❛ can we just pretend? ❜
❛ there's three little words that i should've said. ❜
❛ go fuck yourself. ❜
❛ stabbing my back with this four letter lie. ❜
❛ you gave my hoodie to some other guy. ❜
❛ i fell for you and i'm paying the price. ❜
❛ i said that last time would be the last time. ❜
❛ it pulls me further down to hell when i let my demons win. ❜
❛ this lonely heart was built to break. ❜
❛ three days more without you here and i might need a drink. ❜
❛ i can't lie, you still get me high. ❜
❛ i miss you, but i never really knew you at all. ❜
❛ forget you, here's to all the years with no call. ❜
❛ fuck you, i love you at the same damn time. ❜
❛ i love you but it's fuck you. ❜
❛ i sleep with demons in my bed. ❜
❛ how do you fall asleep without me here? ❜
❛ i see right through you. ❜
❛ wake up my demons and my biggest fears. ❜
❛ are you in love with me, or the idea? ❜
❛ too many skeletons in my closet. ❜
❛ drunk off a feeling, i don't want to stop it. ❜
❛ this ain't love, i don't know what to call it. ❜
❛ i think we're too far from saving. ❜
❛ it's the same old story, hollywood's on fire. ❜
❛ three nights in a row doing blow, are you tired? ❜
❛ swear you don't really need me, just a moment. ❜
❛ are you in love with the heartbreak? ❜
❛ it's haunting me all the time. ❜
❛ you cut me up like a knife. ❜
❛ you're the one who went and fucked it up. ❜
❛ you're my poltergeist. ❜
❛ demon in my head, keep me up at night. ❜
❛ sinking your teeth in a bruise. ❜
❛ you've got nothing to lose. ❜
❛ consume me; i'll be your sacrifice. ❜
❛ i'm just five minutes away from burning this whole shit down. ❜
❛ we're a beautiful mess, that's the ugly truth. ❜
❛ your heart is a place nobody's allowed. ❜
❛ i'm still black and blue, but you get me through. ❜
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trashyswitch · 3 years
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Oh For Fox Sake!
Michael didn't expect to be given a completely separate job besides the technician job he signed up for in Circus Baby's Pizza World. Now he's sitting in an office with animatronics hunting them down. One of the animatronics happens to be another foxy abbreviation. But this one...gives him many mixed emotions...
This fanfic was suggested by an anonymous person on Tumblr. Whoever you are: I hope you enjoy!
Also, I had no clue what gender to make Lolbit. So, I just gave Lolbit the pronouns they/them/it and followed it throughout. Please let me know if I mistyped anywhere! I'll try to fix it right away.
Michael was sitting in the small private office that had been hidden in the side of one of the PizzaPlex’s auditoriums. He had been working at the Pizzeria as a technician, and was just now given a few security guard shifts. This office was surprisingly a little bigger than the vents. It was also much more darker, and had PizzaPlex merchandise hidden on the table. It even had a black fan roaring away on the desk. Learning from general online rumors, every office that was built within every building made by Fazbear Entertainment, would have Fazbear merchandise and a fan. Some person named [Fitz-coward] on a public chat room called it the ‘Fazfan’. A few other people had given their own opinion on the ‘fazfan’ and even made jokes about it. It was kinda funny at first. But now that it had relevance on a personal level, it actually made sense.
It’s amazing what a few bouts of curiosity will lead you to find…And those poor guys...They’ve probably dealt with so much fear after that job.
Michael checked the tablet and checked the cameras that were available to him. He had to keep an eye on a couple specific animatronics such as Ennard, Funtime Freddy with tiny Bonbon, and Lolbit. Michael hadn’t even heard of Lolbit until this point. Who in the heck was Lolbit?! Only when he saw the orange animatronic staring at him through the hall camera, did he get his answer. It looked to be a twin version of Funtime Foxy. But was it Foxy’s brother? Or sister? What gender even was it? Now that he thought about it: What gender is Foxy?!
Michael heard sounds coming from the left hallway, and noticed that Lolbit was back with its jaw open and ready to crush. Michael bit his lip and closed the door on it. Out of this room! Begone! Scat! Leeeeaaave! He was not in the mood for Lolling around.
Hehehe...Lolling…
Michael looked at the hallways and groaned. Ennard’s broken body was on his way too. Wonderful… Michael kept his hand on the open door and made sure to leave some time to close it on the evil monstrosity. Michael looked over at the other hallway, and noticed that Lolbit was gone. So closed went the right door, and open went the left. Ennard was now locked out, and Lolbit was long gone.
Michael smiled and checked the right door to make sure Ennard was unable to get in. When he was sure, Michael relaxed slightly.
One thing Michael noticed was just how quickly the day seemed to be going. It was already 3:30 and the animatronics were being at least a little more behaved. It’s weird and usually worrisome whenever he does anything involving the animatronics. Whether it’s a loving animatronic like Funtime Freddy and BonBon, or a vengeful animatronic like Ennard, Michael didn’t wanna have anything to do with either. He’s seen enough of the animatronics behaviour to say “I’m out”.
And yet...here he was: back at it again with more shifts.
Hearing sounds, Michael closed the left door again. But suddenly, an ear-deafening bang overwhelmed Michael’s ears.
A few seconds later, another loud bang went off.
...And another.
One last bang filled his pain-filled ears as the huge metal door he closed earlier, started to fall in front of him. Michael shrieked and covered his ears, watching in horror as the huge door came crashing down just inches in front of him. Michael was visibly shaking from the super loud noises. His ears were ringing as well. It was like a gun just went off beside his ear multiple times!
Just as the metal sound slowly stopped echoing throughout the room, some loud and boyish laughter filled the office. “HOHAHAHAHAha! Now I bet you weren’t ex-xpecting ME, now WERE you? OhOHOHOhahaha!” a manic voice asked.
Michael widened his eyes in horror as he scooted to the corner of the room. “No...NO!”
“Oh YES! HAHAHAHAhah! You-u RECOGNIZE ME! DONTCHA?” They asked.
Michael grabbed his flashlight and started flashing it nonstop into the animatronic’s eyes. “Get out of here! This is MY private spot!”
Lolbit walked closer and hit the flashlight right out of his hands. “Su-Such a BAAABY…” Lolbit muttered out loud. “Hmmm...Maybe try ha-A-A-arder next time! HAHAhaHAHAHaha!” It suggested.
“I DID try harder! YOU’RE the one who broke the door down!” Michael argued.
The animatronic looked down and chuckled awkwardly. “O-Oh yeah! I forgot about tha-A-at!” It reacted.
Michael sighed. “Just please Lolbit...Go.”
The animatronic smiled and walked closer and closer to Michael just to spite him. “Since WHE-E-EN could you tell ME what to do? You’ve got qui-I-I-ite the NERVE!” Lolbit reacted.
“Yeah, I do! And I learned it on my own, thank you very much.” Michael added.
“My My! Such a ta-A-A-alker! I wonder: Does that mo-0-O-outh of yours have a benefit?” Lolbit asked.
“Sometimes. I could use it to lead you away so that I don’t end up dying tonight.” Michael reworded.
“HAhahahAHAHAha! Be ca-A-areful what you wi-I-I-ish for~!” Lolbit teased.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
Lolbit knelt down and picked up Michael by the armpits. Michael shrieked in horror and quickly started wiggling and fighting it. “HEY! GET OFF ME! LET ME GO RIGHT NOW!” Michael shouted.
“Haaaaa...And what will you do-O-O if I DON’T?” Lolbit asked with a sly voice.
“I’ll-I’ll tickle you!” Michael shot back without even properly thinking.
Lolbit widened its eyes and stared at Michael.
“Y-Yeah! I’ll do it! I’m not afraid to tickle you!” Michael added, adding wiggling fingers as he went along with it. “Unless you’re not ticklish…”
Lolbit stared off into the space within Michael’s eyes, and only blinked once out of awkwardness...Then, the fox full on dropped Michael where he was. Michael grunted as he landed on his butt onto the slightly dusty ground.
“Ow…” Michael muttered. “Wait, really?” Michael reacted suddenly. Lolbit turned right around and started to speed walk their way outta there. But Michael quickly pulled himself together and grabbed Lolbit’s foot. “Gotcha!”
“aAAA-A-A-AAAH! HEY! I LET YOU GO!” Lolbit yelled at him.
“Yeah, and that made me curious!” Michael replied. “I might’ve been originally joking when I said that. But the moment you dropped me and tried to run, I HAD to find out if animatronics were ticklish.” Michael told it. “Or, if they can simulate being ticklish.” Michael added. “Same difference in my opinion.”
Lolbit leaned against the wall and shook their leg. “Get off me-E-E!” it yelled.
“No way!” Michael replied. He took advantage of the exposed foot and skittered his fingers on it. “Tickle tickle~”
Lolbit shrieked with voice glitches in between, and threw Michael right off the leg with a strong kick. Michael went flying, and ended up hitting his back against the wall on the other side of the office. Michael groaned and laid on his back for a moment, trying to make sure he didn’t break his back or injure it further. When Michael could feel his legs and see his feet reacting to his movements, Michael sat back up and stood. “Ow...All that because you’re sensitive?” Michael asked.
Lolbit pointed at him. “Stop that!” It ordered. “O-Or I’ll get you back!” Lolbit warned.
Michael looked at himself and smirked. “Sounds like a sacrifice worth taking in my opinion!” Michael sprinted up to Lolbit and dove for them. Lolbit shrieked like a freaking witch, and tried to run away. But Michael had an unfair headstart and had managed to grab hold of its orange and white tail! “LE-e-ET GO-”
Michael managed to shut up the fox with a single squeeze to the side. It helped that Lolbit came with curvy, dented plates on both lower sides! Cause otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have been able to squeeze there.
“HEheheEHEHEY! HAHANDS OHOHohohOFF!” Lolbit yelled.
“Why would I do that when I have a ticklish fox in my arms?” Michael asked back. “This is fun!”
Lolbit shook their head. “IHIHIS NAHAhahaAHAHAT!”
Michael chuckled. “A little reminder that you kicked me across the room just a couple minutes ago. You are much stronger than me. So if you really hated it So MuCh…” Michael moved his fingers up to the middle ribs- “You could easily stop me.” Michael concluded.
“IHIHIT’S A-A-AGAINST MY COHOHODE TOHO HUHURT YOHOHOHOU!” Lolbit yelled.
“Is it now?” Michael asked. “It’s against my code to damage you even minorly! We both have the same laws.” Michael admitted. “And yet: you’ve kicked me already. So you would’ve already ‘hurt’ me. But notice this: no one gave you a controlled shock for throwing me. Therefore:” Michael moved to Lolbit’s orange belly. “Yooouuu kinda like it~”
Lolbit squealed and doubled over. Sensing they were gonna fall, Lolbit pushed Michael out of the way and allowed itself to flop onto its side. “Nohoho...Nohoho moho-O-ohore.” Lolbit begged.
Michael fell a bit backwards, but didn’t hit the ground very hard this time. He got up and looked at Lolbit with interest. “You...saved me.” Michael reacted.
“You’re a hu-U-U-uman! Of COURSE I saved you!” Lolbit opened its jaw. “Ihihi-I-I would be in big trouble if I-i-I damaged you under my care.” Lolbit admitted.
Michael smiled at that. “Thanks for saving me from being crushed.” Michael told it.
Lolbit giggled. “Are you ca-A-alling me fat?” Lolbit asked jokingly.
Michael widened his eyes and covered his mouth. “NO! NO WAY! I would never call you fat! ESPECIALLY intentionally!” Michael reacted loudly.
Lolbit bursted out laughing. “HAHAHAhahahahAHAHA! Yohohou’re so GULLiBLE! It’s HI-i-ILARIOUS!” Lolbit reacted, leaning over and laughing towards the ground.
Michael smirked. “You wanna laugh, huh? Alright! Let’s laugh.” Michael crawled back up to the fox and grabbed the ankle. Lolbit’s giggles quickly paused and were replaced with shrieked of artificial fear! “Wa-A-ait!” Lolbit yelled.
Michael started tickling the underside of the feminine-looking foot almost right away. Lolbit started kicking their other foot and covered its snout as it laughed with glitches in between. “HEHEHEHE-e-EHEY! NAHAHAT THEHEheheheHEHEHERE!” Lolbit protested.
“Why not? Ticklish foot, much?” Michael teased.
“Whahahahat dohoho YOHOhoHOU THIHI-i-IHINK?!” Lolbit shot back.
Michael gasped and paused for a moment. “You’ve got quite the NERVE!” Michael reacted, referencing Lolbit’s words from earlier. Michael even made his voice slightly scratchy and higher to make it sound similar to Lolbit’s for the next words: “Such a BAAABY…”
Lolbit bursted out laughing more. “AAHAHAHAHahahaHAHA! THAHAT WA-a-AHAS TEHEHERRIBLE!” Lolbit reacted.
“Oh! Was it now?” Michael reacted. He moved up to Lolbit’s cute, flat and decorated toes. “It couldn’t have been THAT bad, could it?” Michael teased.
Lolbit threw their head back and started letting out fits of glitchy cackles. “NOHOHOHO-o-o-OHOHOhohoho! TOHOHO-o-O MUHU-H-H-huhuHUHuch!” Lolbit yelled to him.
Michael just laughed with them. “Wohohow! Your laugh is going all over the place! It doesn’t know what it’s doing!” Michael teased, pausing his tickling to show them. “It’s up here! Then it’s down here! It goes from SO LOUD, TO super soft...soooo soft...And THEN IT JUMPS UP AGAIN!” Michael teased much more dramatically.
Lolbit shook their head back and forth and kept kicking their other foot. “IHIHI CAHahahahaAHAHAn’T HEHE-e-E-e-EHEHELP IHIhihIHIHIT!” Lolbit yelled back.
“Well duh! Of course you can’t help it! It’s like my snorting! I can’t help it either! But it’s still funny!” Michael added.
Lolbit gently pushed Michael away with its foot on his chest. “Ohohokahay, thahat’s ehe-E-ehehenough.” Lolbit ordered.
“Ey ey, captain.” Michael replied with a salute.
“Hehehey now: I ain’t the captain around here.” Lolbit sat up and looked at Michael. “Foxy is the legenda-A-ary captain aro-O-O-ound these parts!” Lolbit mentioned.
“Really now?” Michael reacted.
“Yeah! AhehEHEHEhehehe! Indeed he is! He’s a version of the original! A family of Foxy’s! I’m more of a-A-a second-in-command!” Lolbit admitted.
“You’re still important though. I think you’re still important.” Michael mentioned.
Lolbit’s ears perked up. “Hey! Thanks ki-I-id! You’re quite swell yerself!” Lolbit replied.
Michael smiled. “Thank you.”
The two of them sat in silence for a bit. It was a good silence, though a little uncomfortable. They just didn’t really know what to say. Lolbit’s break-in was a success, and Michael’s questions were already answered.
Though there was one last question…
“Hey Lolbit?” Michael asked. Lolbit looked up at Michael and lifted their ears up a little. “How come I haven’t seen you until now?” Michael asked.
Lolbit’s ears and snout both fell at that question. Lolbit tapped their orange fingernail on the ground as they came up with an answer. “Well...Foxy wa-A-as adored more by kids. Kids L-L-loved a purple and pink fox better than an orange fox.” Lolbit replied.
Michael’s curious face morphed into a hurt expression.
“And I didn’t mat-AT-atch the other guys.” Lolbit added.
Michael frowned at that. “Well, Circus Baby doesn’t match the general aesthetic either.” Michael added.
Lolbit looked at Michael out of the corner of its black, void eyes. “Circus Baby is-s dangerous. She-E broke the rule. She no-NO-no longer entertains.” Lolbit admitted.
Michael hummed curiously. He began to wonder what exactly Circus Baby did to get so badly in trouble. But, knowing his father and his motives…
Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t know the specifics.
Lolbit looked back up at Michael. “I ha-A-ave a question.” They told him. Michael looked up and gave Lolbit his full attention. “Is it tru-TrUE that you snort when you laugh?” Lolbit asked.
Michael’s eyes widened as he processed the question. Oh no…
Michael quickly tried to scoot back and run away. But Lolbit was one step ahead of him. Lolbit had grabbed Michael’s ankle and had pulled him closer. “Hey now! HAHAheheheHaHA!” Lolbit put their hands around his waist. “You’re not go-GOing ANYWHERE! HEheheHEHEHEE!” Lolbit declared, laughing themself silly as they used their dark eyes to scan for tickle spots. “You had your at-AT-attack! Now it’s MY TU-TURN! AHUHUHuhuhUHUHUUU!” Lolbit declared proudly. Lolbit immediately started out with quick scratches on the belly. “Tickle tickle s-security guard~” Lolbit teased.
Michael squealed and covered his mouth in an attempt to prevent any laughs or snorts from coming out. Lolbit noticed this and immediately pinned one of Michael’s arms above his head. “AhahahaHAHAHAAA! No che-CHE-cheating on my watch!” Lolbit declared. “And just for that:” Lolbit started tickling in Michael’s now vulnerable armpit.
Michael threw his head back and LAUGHED! “BAHAAAHAHAHAhahaha! NAHAT THEHEHERE! NAHAHAT THEHEHEHERE!” Michael yelled.
“Oooooh! Why not? HEHEHEhehehe! Ti-TI-ticklish armpit, much?” Lolbit teased, saying the same thing Michael used on him. “I guess you could sa-say THIS ticklish spot is u-UNDER investigation~” Lolbit said as the fox poked its finger further into Michael’s armpit.
Michael whined. “Thahahat Whahahas TEHEHEHERRIBLE!” Michael complained.
“Wo-Would you say it was punny?” lolbit asked. Or maybe…” Lolbit poked Michael’s shoulder- “Huuuumerus~?”
Michael shook his head and pushed against his snout. “STAHAHAHAP!”
“Wow! I didn’t know my jo-jokes were so…” Lolbit moved their fingers to Michael’s ribs and started digging and skittering. “Riiib-tickling~! AHAHAhahahahaHUUUU!”
Michael threw his head back and cackled loudly with snorts mixed in.
“Oh WOOOW! You really DO SNORT! You-ou must be the life of the PARTY! Or maybe even the life of the PORKY~?” Lolbit teased.
“SHUHUHUT UHUHUHUP!” Michael shouted at him.
“HAHAhahaHAHA! Why would I do that when I could ke-keep making animal jokes?” Lolbit asked rhetorically as they moved their metal nails up and down the ribs. “Be-Besides: Fazbear Entertainment should have made me-ME a parrot! Cause I am a HOOT! I KEET you not!” Lolbit teased.
Michael growled and shook his head. “IHIHIHI HAHAHAHATE THEHEHEM!” Michael shouted. “THEHEHEY’RE SOHOHOHO BAHAHAHAD!”
“Hate them?! But look!” Lolbit poked his mouth. “You‘re smil-iling! And you’re laughing at them! And tha-that with your piggy snorts mixed in, is a real tweet~! Ahahaha!” Lolbit joked.
Lolbit narrowed its eyes and brought its snout closer to Michael. “Ohoho...Excuse me- does it look like I ha-HA-have a black beard to you?!” Lolbit reacted all sassy. Michael giggled more at the fox’s reaction. “Ooooh...You’re trying to toy with the robot! I seeee says the blind man!” Lolbit reacted. Lolbit started tickling Michael’s sides this time. “And I feeeel your fingers, says the nerveless Nellie~” Lolbit added.
Michael yelped and groaned through his new fit of laughter. “HEHehehehey! *snort* THAHAhahahat’s nohohohot- *snort* hohohow ihihihit gohohohoes!” Michael protested.
“Ohoho alright. Ihi-I suppose that pun was a bit of a stretch.” Lolbit decided before finally letting Michael go.
Michael went limp and started panting right away. There were still phantom tickles plaguing him, causing him to giggle and squirm through his shallow breathing.
“I suppose I should be band from funny boneville?” Lolbit finished off.
“Ihihi will shohohock you.” Michael warned with an uncontrollable giggle.
“Ohohoho! How enlightening! Perhaps even frightening!” Lolbit teased.
Lolbit finally stopped with the puns the moment Michael squeezed their sides. There were just too many puns all at once. Perhaps they would be all over now…
No fox were given during the making of this Fazfan-fic. Are these puns bad enough for you, anon? XD
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cryingcow · 4 years
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Character Story - Mine [RGGO]
I feel like i just wrote an entire MineDai pre-relationship fanfic with the word count on this >_< There’s a section in Mine’s wiki page about the “The Man Called Yoshitaka Mine” event. I’m pretty sure this takes place after that one, because Mine makes references to things Daigo said when they first met.
When it comes to idioms, I decided to leave in the ones that don’t sound too different from their English counterparts as is. The others I just tried to reword (it took a lot of googling to figure them out lol). Also, please note that anything I write before the chapter starts is shit I made up, don’t take them as facts XD
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Story: Mine, Chairman of the Hakuho Clan, meets up with Sixth Chairman Dojima. He then goes out for drinks with his boss, loses him in a public toilet, and ends up saving the day with his inherent skepticism that Daigo could be sleeping with a woman (either because our boy Mine’s gaydar is on point, or he believes that the words “Daigo” and “get laid” could never occur in the same sentence).
Mine: (I wish I could be his friend so he could smile at me like that . . . but it seems I am fated to only know him as the Sixth Chairman . . .)
Daigo: “Hey Mine wanna get some drinks together?”
Mine: :O
.
CHAPTER 1
.
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[Tojo Headquarters]
Driver: “Well, Chairman Mine. This is where you get off.”
Mine: “Ah.”
Mine: (Today’s my meeting with Chairman Dojima. Heh. I’ve really gotten far.)
Mine: “Hm? That’s . . .”
{Daigo walks by, talking to someone on the phone.}
Mine: “Is that Chairman Dojima? He seems to be on the phone with someone.”
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Daigo: “Hahaha. It’s hard work. But I’m fine.”
Telephone voice: “But Daigo-san. Ever since becoming chairman, you’ve become a distant person!”
Daigo: “What, would you like to come visit the Tojo Headquarters next time? It’s full of yakuza . . .”
Telephone voice: “No way! Just treat me to some cabarets and soaplands!”
Daigo: “Idiot, use your own money! Ha ha ha!”
Mine: (. . . Is the other party on the phone a friend of Chairman Dojima? . . . From what I heard, Chairman Dojima was playing around with his friends in the city before he assumed the position of Sixth Chairman. Must be a friend from that time period. I thought he was strict, but it seems he can make that kind of expression . . . to a friend . . .)
Daigo: “Oh, Mine. You’re here.”
Mine: “It’s nice to meet you, Chairman.”
----
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[Tojo HQ – Chairman’s Office]
Daigo: “. . . That’s all for today. Good luck from now on.”
Mine: “Yes. I will live up to your expectations.”
Mine: (By exchanging a cup with him, you entrust your life . . . It seems that I may only know this person as the Sixth Chairman . . .)
Daigo: “Hm? What is it, Mine? What’s wrong?”
Mine: “. . . no. It’s nothing. Excuse me.”
Daigo: “Really?”
Mine: (Now I have to fulfill my duties faithfully. To be Chairman Dojima’s . . . the Tojo Clan’s backbone.)
Daigo: “. . . Wait. Mine. Are you free tonight?”
Mine: “Tonight? I don’t have any plans . . .”
Daigo: “Then, do you want to go out for drinks?”
Mine: “Eh?”
Daigo: “It’s late, but consider it a celebration of the direct promotion of the Hakuho Clan. In addition, I’ve never had a drink with you yet.”
Mine: “. . .”
Daigo: “How about it? I know a good place.”
Mine: “. . . Yeah. I’ll be happy to.”
----
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[Champion District]
Mine: (. . . no way. To receive an invitation from Chairman Dojima . . . I’m in trouble. What do I even talk about . . .)
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{Off to the side, a thug and a yakuza are yelling and fighting.}
Mine: (Jeez. It’s a noisy town. The Chairman will arrive anytime now.)
{The thug and the yakuza keep fighting. The yakuza shoves the thug, and he bumps into Mine.}
Mine: “. . . ku!”
Thug: “What are you standing around there for!”
Mine: “. . . If you two are having a dispute, can you do it elsewhere?”
Thug: “We can have disputes wherever we want!”
Mine: “. . . You’re an eyesore. Scraps.”
Yakuza: “Scraps?”
Mine: “Yeah. Garbage. Messy trash dirtying the Chairman’s path. The Chairman will feel uncomfortable with guys like you around. Get lost now.”
Yakuza: “What part of it don’t you understand! We’re not going anywhere!”
Mine: “I guess it can’t be helped then. I’ll have to announce the Chairman’s arrival before he comes. Bring it on, scraps!”
{Mine takes care of the garbage.}
Mine: “Hn. Not so mouthy now.”
Daigo’s voice: “I think they’ve had enough, Mine.”
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Mine: “Chairman Dojima . . .”
Daigo: “Did I keep you waiting?”
Mine: “No . . . I just arrived myself. Even so, a place like this? There’s a lot to be said about the location, the security . . .”
Daigo: “This is my favorite bar. When it comes to drinking, this is the best place.”
Mine: “Is that so . . . hm?”
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Bodyguards: “. . .”
Daigo: “They’re coming along while we drink. Those guys are at work, don’t mind them.”
Mine: “I don’t have a problem. This is for the safety of Chairman Dojima.”
Mine: (Now, since I was invited, I have to be enthusiastic . . . It’s time to forget my daily duties and just enjoy myself tonight.)
----
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[Bar that might be Shellac unless it’s just reused assets]
Daigo: “Fuu. I finally got a drink. I can’t do without this.”
Mine: “. . . Chairman Dojima, you seem tired. Are the Chairman’s duties difficult?”
Daigo: “Ah, it’s very hard. For days it seems I’ve done nothing but work.”
{A couple overhears and starts whispering near them. The woman wonders what Daigo is a chairman of, but the man says he’s probably no one important.}
Daigo: “. . .”
Mine: “. . .”
Daigo: “. . . Hey, Mine. Why are you calling me Chairman Dojima today? It’s too stiff.”
Mine: “Sorry. I didn’t realize. Then . . . Daigo-san. That’s what I’ll call you.”
Daigo: “Ah, that’s fine.”
Daigo: “You know . . . the Fourth Chairman Kiryu-san’s existence is far greater than I thought. It seems even among those who don’t openly oppose, many are still dissatisfied with my appointment as Sixth Chairman.”
Mine: (Kiryu Kazuma . . . his name will always come up when you talk with Daigo-san . . .)
Mine: “That person, Kiryu, to Daigo-san . . . is he like your aniki?”
Daigo: “Aniki? . . .That’s right, something like that. I can’t express it in one word. But family, no . . . he may be more than that.”
Mine: (More than family? Something that far?)
Daigo: “That person is now running an orphanage in Okinawa. There, he seems to be living in peace with his new family.”
Mine: “An orphanage . . .”
Daigo: “Life in Okinawa is the peace he finally got. I want to protect it, whatever happens . . .”
Mine: (For Daigo-san to declare as much . . . Kiryu Kazuma . . . must be quite the man.)
----
|2 hours later . . .|
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Daigo: “Hahaha! Kanda’s face at the time must have been a masterpiece.”
Mine: “Yeah! Once my anger passed, I was amazed. He had a face like a sumo wrestler’s after I hit it.”
Daigo: “Ha-Hahaha! Su-Sumo wrestler-!”
Mine: (It seems he’s having fun. This is nice . . .)
Daigo: “By the way, Mine. Are you a private person? When it comes to friends . . .”
Mine: “Eh? Private? Me? . . . Hm? A phone?”
{A phone goes off with a notification.}
Daigo: “O-oh. It looks like I got . . . an email . . .”
Mine: “. . . !”
Mine: (What? Daigo-san’s face . . . is turning pale . . .)
Daigo: “. . .”
Mine: “What’s wrong?”
Daigo: “. . . N-no. It’s not a big deal. It’s my work email. Good grief, they must be bored. I don’t usually get emails at times like this.”
Bodyguards: “. . .”
Mine: (Daigo-san looks upset. Who did the email come from?)
.
-END-
.
CHAPTER 2
.
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[Bar]
Daigo: “. . .”
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Mine: (Daigo-san. Since that email arrived, he’s been acting strange. He keeps looking at the time, and acting like he doesn’t want to be here anymore. Who did that email come from?)
Mine: “. . . Um. Daigo-san, are you okay? Your complexion looks bad.”
Daigo: “No, it’s fine. I just feel a little sick.”
Mine: (Are you hiding something?)
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{There’s a commotion outside. Two yakuza brothers are trying to enter the bar, but Bodyguard A says monkeys like them aren’t allowed inside. They get into a fight.}
Bodyguard B: “Sounds like trouble outside. I’ll go help.”
Mine: (Not again. It really is a noisy town.)
Daigo: “. . . Now’s my chance.”
Mine: “Eh?”
Daigo: “Mine, actually there’s something I need to tell you . . . I need to get out of here alone.”
Mine: “Get . . . out?”
Daigo: “Lately, my bodyguards have been hanging around all the time, and I’m getting sick of it. They even follow me to the toilet . . . I can’t even stretch out my wings. That’s why I want to be alone for once and take a break.”
Mine: (. . . he wants to be alone? What do I say to that?)
Mine: “By any chance . . . does the content of the email you received have something to do with this?”
Daigo: “! . . . No Mine, it’s not like that. As I said . . .”
Mine: (He keeps glancing around the place. What is it?)
Mine: “. . . understood.”
Daigo: “So you’ll let me go?!”
Mine: “Yeah. It’s likely you’ll still try to leave even if I say no. However . . . please let me accompany you. As your bodyguard.”
Daigo: “Wh-what? You too?”
Mine: “It is expected that as the Sixth Chairman, you cannot be walking around alone. ‘I will accompany you as a bodyguard’ . . . that’s the last oath your subordinates swear by.”
Daigo: “. . . Alright. Then come along with me. We should be able to get out through the back door.”
Mine: (Daigo-san’s expression when he received the email is no small matter . . . When it’s just the two of us outside, maybe then he’ll tell me what’s going on.)
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Middle-aged Man: “. . .”
----
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[Children’s Park]
Daigo: “Fuu. Somehow I found it.”
Mine: “. . . Daigo-san, what are you doing? You said you wanted to stretch out your wings.”
Daigo: “. . . Ah, that’s right . . . I felt like wanting to move my body somewhere.”
Mine: “If so, there’s a batting center nearby. How about that?”
Daigo: “A-Ah, that’s great! It’s been a while, I feel like hitting some balls!”
Mine: “. . . By the way, Daigo-san. About the email earlier . . .”
Daigo: “!”
Mine: “Are you hiding something from me? If you’re in trouble, I might be able to help.”
Daigo: “. . . . . . No, it’s a personal problem. It’s not something I should be telling you.”
Mine: “But . . .”
Daigo: “. . . . . . Mine, I understand your concern. From my position, it seems I am always threatened by danger to my person. I don’t know what or when it will happen. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow’s safety.”
Mine: “Daigo-san?”
Daigo: “. . . No, it’s a long story. Don’t worry about it. Well, you said the batting center, right? It’s been a while. Mine, will you join me?”
Mine: “Yeah. I’ll take you up on that.”
Mine: (Daigo-san is still hiding something. But, why won’t he tell me?)
Daigo: “. . . Don’t get cold, Mine. I’m going to the toilet.”
Mine: “Understood. I’ll be standing guard right here in front, so take your time.”
Daigo: “I’ll be right back.”
{Daigo enters the public toilets. Mine takes his position by the exit. A few minutes pass.}
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Mine: “. . . . . . . . . he’s taking his time . . . unless . . .”
{Mine rushes to the toilets.}
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Mine: “Not here . . .! He’s gone! Did he go out through the window?! He took his chance the moment he was alone! Fuck, what do I do . . .”
----
[Children’s Park]
Bodyguard A: “Ah! You!”
Mine: “Tch! At a time like this . . . !”
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Bodyguard A: “Where is Chairman Dojima?!”
Mine: “. . . I don’t know. I’m also looking for him.”
Bodyguard A: “You’re lying! Did you bring him outside?!”
Bodyguard B: “You, no way . . . did you plan to kidnap Chairman Dojima all along?”
Mine: “Kidnap? You idiot, why would I?”
Bodyguard B: “Until recently, you were a regular man. You might be a spy sent by an enemy organization.”
Mine: “That’s a stupid idea. Right now we need to-“
Bodyguard A: “Whatever. If you don’t plan on spitting out the Chairman’s whereabouts, would you like us to make you talk?!”
Mine: “Tch. I guess it can’t be helped.”
{Mine beats the shit out of Daigo’s bodyguards.}
Bodyguard A: “Fu . . . ck . . . so strong . . .”
Bodyguard B: “Stupid. We are the elite . . .”
Mine: “Fuck! Get out of the way! Daigo-san . . .”
----
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[West Shichifuku Street]
Mine: “Not here . . . Where?!”
Barker: “Nii-san, Onee-chan, why not come have fun at our place?”
Mine: “A barker? No, not right . . . now . . . wait, are you always working in this area?”
Barker: “Eh? That’s correct, why?”
Mine: “Did a man in his mid-thirties with black hair, a black suit, and a good physique pass by here?”
Barker: “Yeah, he did.”
Mine: “What?! Do you know where he went?”
Barker: “Where he went . . . I think he took a taxi somewhere.”
Mine: “Taxi?”
Barker: “Yeah. He was joined by a young and beautiful Onee-chan.”
Mine: “Eh? O-Onee-chan?”
Bodyguard A: “So . . . a woman.”
Mine: “!”
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Bodyguard B: “I thought he was acting funny when he received the email at the bar. That ‘I’ve done it’ face. It seems that he missed a promised meetup with the woman.”
Mine: “Then, Daigo-san wanted to be alone . . .”
Bodyguard A: “Because he has a secret rendezvous. With who, I don’t know.”
Mine: “Somehow found . . .”
Bodyguard A: “A bad boy is attractive to a woman. Besides his money and his status, he’s also handsome.”
Mine: “. . . he said he wanted to move his body . . .”
Bodyguard B: “Heh. It’s nice to have a great time.”
Bodyguard A: “It can’t be helped. You should call it a night. You had a hard time too.”
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Mine: “Stupid . . .”
.
-END-
.
CHAPTER 3
.
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[West Shichifuku Street]
Mine: “Did Daigo-san go somewhere in a taxi? And with a young woman?”
Bodyguard A: “Chairman Dojima is unmarried, has money, and he’s handsome. It’s no wonder he’s popular. Right now, he’s probably with a model or an actress.”
Bodyguard B: “He should be careful not to get involved in a scandal.”
Bodyguard A: “Now, let’s head back. You should go home too.”
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Mine: “. . .”
----
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Daigo: “. . .”
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Thug Leader: “As promised, did you come alone?”
Daigo: “Yeah. My faithful subordinate tried to follow me, but I left without telling him where I went. I made him think I was secretly meeting with a woman.”
Thug Leader: “. . . Is that right. Did you bring the money?”
Daigo: “Yeah.”
{Daigo hands over a bag. The leader unzips it to reveal cash.}
Thug Leader: “. . . Everything seems to be here.”
Daigo: “Will you keep your end of the bargain?”
Thug Leader: “Yeah. Don’t lay a hand on Kiryu Kazuma. He’ll be living in peace in Okinawa from now on.”
Daigo: “. . .”
Thug Leader: “Even so, that Kiryu person must be really important to you.  . . . Is he your weak point?”
Daigo: “. . . What are you trying to say?”
Thug Leader: “It’s amazing that the Tojo Clan’s Sixth Chairman can be lured out over one person.”
Daigo: “What?”
Thug Leader: “You still don’t get it? I’m saying this time it’s your turn to be the hostage!! Stupid! The aim was to get you all alone from the very beginning! If we kidnap you, we’ll get far more ransom money!”
Daigo: “Fuck . . .”
Man’s voice: “So . . . it was all for Kiryu-san. I figured that would be the case.”
Daigo: “Mi-Mine?”
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Mine: “Daigo-san, I had a hard time looking for you.”
Daigo: “Why are you here?”
Mine: “You think you can get away with such an obvious lie? . . . That barker, you paid him off.”
Daigo: “But he didn’t know about this place . . .”
Mine: “. . . Yeah. There are countless taxi companies in Kamurocho. Too many candidates to question where you went. And those guys won’t give out customer information, saying it’s ‘personal information’. So it couldn’t be helped. I had to resort to buying the taxis off. When that didn’t work, I bought off the taxi companies. When you become a stakeholder, you gain access to customers’ information.”
Daigo: “You did that for each company?”
Mine: “It took hundreds of millions. Heh. It was a huge expense.”
Daigo: “Mine . . . Why did you go so far . . . just for me?”
Mine: “. . . Daigo-san. I’ve shared a cup with you. That’s not something I take halfheartedly. I’m ready to sacrifice everything just for you. Forever and always. There are absolute bonds in the yakuza world . . . you taught me that.”
Daigo: “. . . Mine . . .”
Thug Leader: “O-Oi! Who are you to come barging in and interrupting us! I’ll kill you if you interfere!”
Daigo: “Kill him? You don’t seem to understand the situation. With this guy here, you’re the one who’s going to have a bad time.”
Thug Leader: “Ha?”
Daigo: “Mine here looks like a regular man . . . but don’t you know he’s actually really strong? I can trust him to have my back.”
Mine: “!”
Daigo: “. . . Mine. With you here, we can take on a hundred people.”
Mine: “Yeah. Let’s show them how we do things.”
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Daigo: “Let’s go, Mine!”
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Mine: “Yeah!”
{Mine and Daigo take down the whole gang.}
Thug Leader: “How . . . there are so many of us . . .”
Mine: “You . . . which organization are you with?!”
Thug Leader: “Guh! Th-That’s . . .”
Mine: “Answer me!!”
Thug Leader: “Ta-Takashima Family . . .”
Mine: “Takashima Family? As in ‘The Four Kings of Omi’ Takashima Family remnants? Chairman, what are you going to do? The Omi will want to hear this . . .”
Daigo: “. . . No, I won’t tell the Omi. Even with the conflict finally over, I don’t want to make needless waves over these excommunicated members. The police can handle them.”
Mine: “Is that so . . . . . . Daigo-san, will you finally tell me what’s going on this time?”
Daigo: “. . . Yeah. The thing is . . . I was being threatened before today.”
Mine: “Before?”
Daigo: “‘If you want to protect the peace of Kiryu Kazuma, pay the money. If you tell anyone, his peace will be lost.’ I got an email telling me where to go. Along with a stolen shot of Kiryu-san.”
Mine: “His peace . . . then that means they didn’t directly take Kiryu as a hostage, right?”
Daigo: “Yeah. If they did that, they would be in trouble. Their opponent is a legendary yakuza. However, there are many ways to ‘disturb the peace’.”
Mine: “So that’s why. And you’re Daigo-san. You wanted to protect him at all costs.”
Daigo: “. . . Yeah. I’ve secretly stationed a bodyguard around Kiryu-san. Just earlier, I received a photo of the bodyguard killed.”
Mine: “That’s the email you received at the bar . . .”
Daigo: “As soon as I saw that picture, I had to move.”
Mine: “Daigo-san, why didn’t you tell me this sooner? If you had, I would have been able to help.”
Daigo: “‘Someone is watching you’, the email said, so I couldn’t speak about it. In fact, there was a guy there at the bar watching us. And this is my personal problem. I didn’t want to get you involved.”
Mine: “That’s why . . . it’s unreasonable for you to act on your own. You are the Sixth Chairman of the Tojo Clan, an organization with hundreds of thousands of members in the East. I don’t know the Fourth Chairman or the Legendary Dragon, but acting alone to protect one individual . . .”
Daigo: “. . . It was unavoidable. Kiryu-san is a special person to me.”
Mine: “Which is more important, the clan or one person?”
Daigo: “! Th-That’s . . .”
Mine: “Before, you told me that the clan members are like your family. Isn’t that right? You’re giving priority to someone who’s not even a member of the clan. Are you not aware of that as the Chairman?”
Daigo: “Mine . . . you’re right. I’m sorry. I still have a long way to go.”
----
|A few days later . . .|
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[Tojo HQ – Chairman’s Office]
Mine: “Eh? Me be the Headquarters’ Junior Head Assistant?”
Daigo: “Yeah. I’ve been looking for someone to be Junior Assistant.”
Mine: “. . .”
Daigo: “What? You don’t want to?”
Mine: “No, it’s just . . . the other day we had just been promoted to be a direct subsidiary of the clan. I haven’t raised any tribute since then.”
Daigo: “Didn’t you entrust your life to me? Did you not say you were prepared to sacrifice everything for me?”
Mine: “!”
Daigo: “. . . Mine. I realized something the other day. You . . . you’re the one I can trust with my back.”
Mine: “Daigo-san . . .”
Daigo: “In addition, there’s no one in the Tojo Clan now who can preach to me face-to-face besides Kashiwagi-san, Mine.”
Mine: “I might have gone a bit overboard . . .”
Daigo: “So what do you say? Will you accept it?”
Mine: “. . . Of course. I will be happy to accept it . . . Daigo-san.”
Daigo: “That’s great! I’m counting on you, Mine!”
----
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[Tojo Headquarters]
Mine: (Junior Head Assistant. That was an unexpected harvest . . .)
Mine: (A man named Kiryu Kazuma. He’s a danger . . . I won’t let Daigo-san take such a reckless action again. I can’t leave that matter alone, as Daigo-san’s new Junior Assistant . . .)
.
-END-
Masterlist
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eddiesfaerie · 4 years
Text
Going Under
Summary: As an undercover detective, it’s not unusual to break a few rules to get some classified intel. You just can’t seem to figure out why Flip Zimmerman would want to help you out. (5.3k words)
Warnings: possible spoilers for Blackkklansman, angst, mentions of KKK, mentions of police, mentions of gun violence, period related sexism i guess, f!reader, enemies to lovers?, pissed + jealous Flip :) 
A/N: thank you all for the sweet comments (listed below along with the prompts), and so sorry for how long this took to write, I have 3 prompts combined here and I think i’m pretty happy with how it turned out:) i hope it’s okay that i reworded some of the prompts just so that they fit in better. i hope you enjoy <3
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Based on:
Congratulations on your 300!!!! I’d love to request these prompts with Flip, if you’re feelin it! 2 and 4 from the angst prompts list and 5 and 15 from the types of kisses prompt list. Thank you!
from the angst prompts list “Isn’t it obvious? I’m in love with you!” with flip?? You’re such an amazing writer im here every damn day 🥺🥰
Kisses #45 and “you’re driving me fucking insane.” For Flip, if you’re still taking requests, please! Your writing is fantastic! :)
Skin tight and sparkling, dazzling too. This was not your usual work attire.
Well, this wasn’t your typical work outing either.
An informant had come forward, said he had intel on the KKK and their next meeting. Information even Flip (an undercover infiltrator himself) wasn’t aware of. You couldn’t pass it up. And you didn’t want to give up your informant to the precinct, so you decided against telling anyone about your meeting with him.
It was probably a bad idea to have gone back to the office to grab your audio recorder in the outfit you decided to wear to your meeting.
Because of course, the only man who ever stays this late at work, hunched over files and files of names, dates, events, anything relating to his case with the KKK, was here.
Flip Zimmerman.
You thought you could walk by him without catching his attention. You thought if you stayed in the darkness of the hallway, swallowed by the shadows he wouldn’t notice you. But Flip was good at that, he was good at noticing things.
The sequins of your dress reflected the light from his desk lamp, catching your silhouette in the dark hallway. You fucking siren, what were you up to?
“Detective.” He called out to you from his desk, all too cooly with a cigarette bobbing between his lips. He hadn’t even looked up at you. You tried not to flinch at his sudden firm voice, booming at you and jumping your bones.
“Zimmerman.” You waved, stopping in your tracts, lifting a hand to him and waving dumbly.
He finally looks up from his coffee stained files, making direct eye contact with you. A sly smile stretching across his face as he leans back in his chair, his eyes raking up and down your body as you move closer to him, settling awkwardly against the doorframe. He takes a particularly long drag from his cigarette.
“Whoowee, where you headed looking like that?” He asked through his smile, glancing at his watch to catch the time. It was getting close to midnight.
“Just… out.”
“Oh yeah? What’d you have to come back here for? Needed some pepper spray in case the guy tries something?” He’s intrigued now, questioning you like he would an informant. He leans forward on his desk, resting his weight on his forearms, cigarette between his long fingers now. You play along, laughing with him. Fighting the urge to roll your eyes.
“Yeah, something like that.” Flip nods, chuckling to himself as he brings his cigarette back up to his lips, taking another long drag. You try to look away as he blows smoke out of his nose. He stands up from his desk, walking slowly over to you in the doorway.
“Cute.” He nearly sneers, taunting you. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s really going on, hmm?”
“I’m just-”
“I saw you grabbing the audio recorder.” He says, shutting you down. Defeated, you sigh rather loudly, your shoulders sagging as you run a hand down your face.
“I’m meeting an informant.” You try to keep it short and sweet, hoping he won’t pry but Flip just raises his eyebrows, signaling you to continue. You sigh again. “He’s giving me intel on KKK activity, a possible outing that’s coming up.” Flip rolls his eyes.
“Rookie listen... I’m the one who gets KKK intel around here. What does he know that I don’t?” You shrug your shoulders, trying not to let the dumb nickname ‘rookie’ sting as he spits it at you.
“All he told me was that there’s something going on this week that’s really hush-hush, even between members. He couldn’t elaborate more than that over the phone so I agreed to meet him at a bar.”
“Alone?”
“I can handle myself, Zimmerman.” Now you roll your eyes, you hated how much he doubted you, he always had. You were just really good at ignoring him, ignoring his stares and comments. Usually.
“Do you have any idea how fucking stupid that is? These people are sick, they’re not right in the head. I’m… I’m coming.”
“What? No, Flip I’ll be-”
“I’m coming. This isn’t up for debate... Wait here, I’m gonna go get you a microphone.”
You fought the whole way to his truck, which he insisted on taking. You told him he would blow your cover, you told him he would make things obvious, probably scare the guy. You told him that maybe he would recognize him, recognize him as ‘Ron’. Flip didn’t say shit in response, just opened the passenger door for you and jogged to the driver’s seat, lighting up a new cigarette as he drove you two to the bar.
The car ride was tense, you fidgeted with the hem of your dress, acutely aware of how much skin you were showing, you could feel Flip’s burning eyes on you as he stole glances every now and then.
“You’re unbelievable.” You huffed, crossing your arms and looking out the window, trying to keep your mind focused on the mission.
“What was that?”
“I said you’re unbelievable. Somehow you’re going to manage to get all the credit for this too.” Flip brows furrowed in confusion, he turned to look at you properly for the first time since you two got in the car. He said your name but you averted his gaze as soon as your eyes met. A fleeting moment of tenderness passed through him.
“Doll, what are you talking ab-”
“We’re here.” You’re thankful for the switch of subject as you sit up suddenly in your seat, unbuckling your seatbelt and leaning forward to look into the place. You had no idea what the guy looked like. You assumed he would approach you once you were inside. Flip parked further down the street, on the opposite side. Thankfully it was a one way street so a get away, if necessary, would be easy.
“Hey don’t just jump out, the fuck-”
“Hand me the mic.” You said with urgency. Flip felt flustered watching you move, the way your breasts pressed against the fabric of your tiny dress, the soft swell of flesh at the perimeter of the shiny fabric, begging to be kissed, touched. He shuddered but turned quickly to hand you the mic kit, grabbing the headphones for himself.
You lifted your dress carefully so as not to expose your entire body to him. You pressed the microphone right in between your breasts but underneath the fabric, right above your belly button. Flip sucked on his cigarette, watching for a moment too long before turning his head away, giving you some privacy. You muttered a tiny ‘thanks’. Flip just nodded, gaze averted as he stared out his window into the dead of night, images of your body burning into the back of his mind. Fuck, you looked so soft, so pretty. You shouldn’t be doing this...
Once you were done tapping the mic to your flesh, you secured the battery pack to your underwear. Thankfully it was thin enough to not cause too much of an obvious bump in your silhouette, the informant wouldn’t notice, not that he would really mind. He probably knew you would be recording something but he wasn’t the problem. KKK members were everywhere, they blended in, they could be anyone. You had to be sneaky, hide away from prying eyes that look for detectives, for cops.
But you were good, you were good at being sneaky, conniving. That’s why you were hired. Tonight, you would just look like you were on a friendly date.
You opened the car door, your heels clacking against the concrete. You close the car door quietly behind you, nodding at Flip before heading inside. Flip was easily more nervous than you were. He had experienced these guys first hand, you hadn’t. He knew how fucked up they truly were, how sick and twisted their minds were. Not only did they not trust anyone who didn’t look like them, they were weary of newbies too, white folks just like them.
Images flash in his mind of Felix holding him at gunpoint in his stale basement, threatening to pull the trigger if he didn’t prove he wasn’t circumcised, prove he wasn’t Jewish. Flip thought he was going to die that day. Truly thought he was going to be killed by some nazi in a basement. But Ron saved him, Ron sacrificed himself and saved the whole mission. Flip hoped it didn’t come to it tonight but if it did, he hoped he could save you too.
Chatter on the radio filled his headphones, cutting off his looming thoughts. Your sweet voice filled his head, surrounded him, nearly throwing him off balance in his seat. He tried to look into the bar, to see if he could see you from where he was parked but to no avail. You had sat somewhere out of eyesight and that made Flip nervous. He would have to work based on the tone of your voice, he’d have to judge for himself if you were in danger.
“Hey, George right?”
“Nope, but that’s the name I gave ya.” The guy chuckled. Flip didn’t recognize the voice, probably someone he hadn’t met, it did nothing to calm his nerves. “Didn’t think the name you gave me was yer own so, figured I’d play yer little game, right Pamela?”
Pamela. If Flip wasn’t so high strung, he would’ve laughed at that.
It must have been what? Only last week that he and some of the guys were briefly discussing Pamela Anderson after catching Jimmy reading a magazine she was featured in, teasing him about it, perhaps making too many lewd comments. Maybe you had caught that. Maybe it was a coincidence. Either way, Flip was flustered beyond belief.
You laughed anyways at ‘George’s’ comment, the sound made Flip feel drunk.
“So, what do you have for me George?”
“Now now darlin’, what’s the rush? Why don’t we get somethin’ t’ drink first?” You laughed again, fabric rustling too loudly.
“Sure... I’ll just have a Coke.” You say dismissively. Flip can hear ‘George’ ordering in the background while you seem to fidget around, maybe adjusting your dress.
The conversation progressed at a frustrating pace. The informant kept swerving around your questions, ordering too many drinks which made his sentences harder to understand, and that deep southern accent of his wasn’t helping his case either. Flip could hear the anger and frustration seeping into your voice, coating your words with a vicious bite and a sickeningly sweet laugh, trying to play it off cooly as to not give away your cover. There were too many fucking rednecks in this part of town.
On his fourth drink, ‘George’ started letting his hand wander over to yours which rested on the bar countertop. You could tell he thought he was being real smooth, letting his fingers just graze ever so slightly over yours, followed by a gentle tap of his hand over the back of your palm, then he started leaving it there, running his thumb over your soft skin. It made your skin burn, not in that pleasant way but in the way that makes your stomach feel like it’s about to churn your Coke up your throat and out of your mouth, onto his nice shoes.
The worst part is you let him touch you, you let him get handsy all in the hopes of gaining information. Don’t blow your cover, don’t blow your cover, don’t blow your cover.
“So…” you start, stretching casually, trying to rid your body of his grabby hands. “I hear Mr. Duke is supposed to be making an appearance, sometime at the end of this month right?” George nodded, reaching his hand over to you again, clearly he only had one thing on his mind, and that was not David Duke.
“Yeah darlin’, he sure is. I’m sure he’d like to meet somethin’ as pretty as you. I’m sure he’d like to show ya what the organization is really capable of… they’re gonna make things go boom.” His hand had managed to slither itself around your waist, pinching your skin through the dress. He was practically standing next to you now, breathing down your neck.
Even Flip, who still sat all the way outside in his truck, could tell he was standing closer to you now based on the way his voice had moved in regards to the placement of your mic. It was coming in almost exactly where yours was. Was he hovering over you now? Touching you? He heard loud rustling, a clear agitation of the microphone taped above your belly button, how handsy was he getting? Flip’s heart started beating faster as he weighed his options, unsure of what to do, how to go about this situation stealthily.
“What do you mean, make things go boom?” You asked, bless your fucking heart, still going along with the mission. Still trying to coax answers out of this man who did not give one single shit about you or the information he promised. The more Flip thought about it, the more he realized this guy was probably just using you to go out on a date with someone way out of his league. George chuckled darkly, the sound disgusted both you and Flip.
“Why don’t I… explain it to ya real nice and real slow in the bathroom-” Flip flung the headphone off his head, grabbed his pistol and jammed it into the back of his jeans, making sure his flannel covered it as he secured it in his belt. He threw his hat on, tucking it low over his eyes and ran into the bar, only slowing down to a saunter when he entered. Be fucking casual.
He got the slightest glimpse of a man entering the bathroom before he disappeared behind the closed door, and then he saw you, shining in the dark light of this dingy bar like you had a god damn halo around your head, perched perfectly on the stool like you weren’t having the worst time of your fucking life. You made wide eyes at Flip, shooing him away with a flick of your wrist but he just marched right up to you, grabbing the hand you were trying to motion him away with.
“Fli- what the fuck?” You whisper yelled at him, nearly saying his real name. You glanced over at the bathroom door that ‘George’ so confidently stormed into, so sure that you were hot on his trails, so into the idea of him fucking you. You felt sick to your stomach.
“Come on Pamela, we’re leaving. This is over.” You glared at him, squinting your eyes, shooting fake lasers at him as hard as you could.
“But I can still get something out of him, let me-”
“I don’t think you and ‘George’ have the same idea of what it is exactly you’re going to be getting out of him tonight.” Flip glared, his fist clenching around your wrist, so small in his grasp. His eyes were filled with an emotion you didn’t think Flip was capable of feeling, fear.
“Let’s fucking go, pumpkin.” He spat the nickname out at you, it was better than rookie, but it still felt like a slap in the face coming from him in that menacing, annoyed tone.
You abandoned the mission. You let him drag you out of there, ‘George’ being none the wiser as he probably jacked off, alone in a stall with no one waiting for him on the other side of that door anymore. You didn’t feel bad, you just couldn’t help but think of what a pathetic situation this was, how stupid you had been to think this would work.
You thought about what could have happened if Flip wasn’t there to come knock you to your senses and out of your own stupid fucking naveity. You bet he got some weird, sick pleasure from watching you fail, maybe he felt guilty and felt the need to put an end to your suffering. He was always two steps ahead of everyone anyways.
“What the fuck is your problem?” You yell at him once you’re finally outside, standing next to his truck. You rip your hand from the vice grip he had you in, Flip only turning around to glare at you when you do so.
“What the fuck is my problem? Rookie, he had his hands all over you, you were just gonna let that slide? Let him have his way with you?”
“Why do you care how I get my intel? I could have gotten something good, something useful.”
“Hmmm, sure. You go ahead, believe that. Keep indulging yourself in that fucking fantasy. He just wanted to fuck you!” He yells, voice booming down the street and it startles you, quite literally knocking you off your feet. You stumble backwards, stumble away from him.
Flip leans back against the side of his truck, pressing his palms into his eyes, trying to shut everything out, regain control. He didn’t mean to yell, really, he didn’t mean to. He just couldn’t stop the images flashing in his mind, ones of you sitting pretty while that faceless creep put his hands all over you, touching you, groping you.
He groaned something into his hands, unintelligible to you. You rolled your eyes at whatever it was he said and took a few steps forward until your hand rested on the car door handle.
“Let’s just go, Flip. Before he comes back out and notices I’m gone.” You say, voice much quieter now, gentler, smaller. It surprises Flip, he wasn’t expecting you to back down from a fight with him so soon.
You two always had such charged energy at the office whenever you were forced to interact, it came out in sharp comments from Flip and icy glares from you. You were getting sick of it if you were being honest. Flip sort of was too, tired of all the unnecessary coldness he always approached you with. Maybe he was just covering something up, repressing something.
But Flip nods his head and walks to the driver's side, starting the engine and driving back to the station.
The ride is quiet, much like the ride over except now you’re trying to stop your lip from trembling and your eyes from fluttering shut, threatening to spill the tears that well up in your eyes. How could you be so fucking stupid? How could this have worked? How could tonight have gone the way you thought it would?
“I’m sorry.” That low, baritone voice grumbles from the driver’s seat. You wipe your tears away that managed to fall with the back of your hand, turning to look at Flip in confusion.
“For what?” Knowing tonight would be a disaster? Knowing that you would’ve fucked something up eventually?
“That tonight didn’t go the way you wanted it to.” He kept his gaze ahead, not daring to turn and look at you in that dress with that sad expression on your face. He knew it would break him, make him say things he wouldn’t dare admit, say aloud. “I ruined it. I’m sorry that I fucked up the mission.”
That you were not expecting. Detective Flip Zimmerman apologizing to you. You. Of all people.
“It’s fine… you were right afterall I just… I just didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to do this myself, you know.” You shrug, as if it was no big deal. You wipe another tear that falls and Flip looks then, that fateful moment that he allows himself to look at you.
Eyes shiny, wet and big, looking right back at him, into him. Lips swollen, puffy. You sniffle, pulling your lips taught for a moment before they go back to their resting place, begging to be bitten, licked. Your chest moves gracefully somehow as small hiccups wracked your diaphragm and lungs, making it heave slightly as you try to restrain your sobs. Flip thinks he nearly crashes his truck, but he doesn’t, and you say,
“We’re here.” And he nearly gets whiplash from what a déjà vu this is. Reminds him of the beginning of the night when he had no idea what was in store. Somehow he even managed to park without realizing.
“No, I… I shouldn’t have been right. He shouldn't have acted that way. I just- when I could tell he was touching you… no one should touch you like that, not if you don’t want them to.” You sit there flustered, listening to him go on, voice low like the volume on the radio that you didn’t even notice had been turned on this whole time. You’re astonished. You can’t believe this is the Flip you know, standing up for you, advocating for you.
Flip sees the way you’re looking at him and hell, he’s just as surprised as you are. Suddenly embarrassed for going on such a tangent, he unbuckles himself and steps out of the car. You follow quickly behind him, his strides long and fast with those legs of his. You head into the building and follow him into the storage room so you can remove the mostly useless tape from tonight and return the audio recorder and mic that you borrowed.
The room is dark, stuffy from not being used in hours, the windows shut tight. Flip switches on a little desk lamp and you get to work removing the tape from your body. First, you unclip the battery pack, pulling the wire out from your dress and then your only left with the taped part.
You rip it off like a bandage, only a small noise being emitted from your throat at the sweet burn it left in its trail. That red mark would take hours to disappear, you would have to moisturize it when you got home.
“You good?” Flip asks, barely looking up from what he was doing, which was removing the audio tape from the recorder, writing down the date and names on it before storing it away to be reviewed tomorrow.
Questions burn on your tongue, wondering why he decided to help you tonight. Why he ‘came to the rescue’, why he felt the need to involve himself in something he could have just left alone. Something he could have just not asked about when you ran into him earlier this evening. Why did he-
“Why do you hate me?” You settle on, ignoring his question and shooting one back at him as you place the mic back in it’s box. He finally looked up at you, completely puzzled, like before. You roll your eyes, surely he must know what you mean. How could he think that you didn’t know how he hated you.
“Come on, Flip. I’m not in the mood for games, just answer the question.” You frown, shaking your head. It pounded and throbbed from the inside out, you felt like your head could truly combust right now. You just wanted this night to be over with, you wanted to go home and wash it away.
“You think I would have done that if I hated you?”
“You can still hate me and be a decent person.” You spit, turning away from him and willing your brain to stop creating more and more tears. They stung in your eyes, begging to be set free but you didn’t want Flip to see you cry, didn’t want him to know he could do that to you. You were just tired, emotionally drained.
A large warm hand placed itself on the small of your back, its warmth quickly travelling throughout your body like wildfire. Flip’s hand doesn’t wander, it stays put, just letting you know he’s there.
“I don’t hate you, Rookie-”
“Stop calling me that.” You whisper, voice so small, squeezing your eyes shut, willing, willing, willing the tears away.
And then Flip says your name, possibly for the first time all night. And it fucking breaks you. His voice, so soft, gentle even. Quiet to not alarm you, the words caressing your ears, kissing your flesh. You want to melt into him, you don’t know why but you do. You want to stop fighting this…
You turned around to face him, his dark eyes boring into yours. He was much closer than you expected him to be. His hand hadn’t moved from its place, where it once rested on your lower back, now it grazed your hip, ghosting above the perimeter of your body like he was scared to touch you, frightened.
“You drive me fucking insane… but I don’t hate you.” His voice was quiet too, just like your own. Like the two of you were afraid to speak too loud because it would shake the dust off all these old files, awaken the ghosts.
“You drive me fucking insane too.” You want to laugh, you really do. Maybe you never hated him, maybe he never hated you. Maybe you made it all up, confusing one kind of tension for another. Maybe you really were naive, stupid.
His hand wraps itself around your waist, the other coming to do the same nervously. They truly engulf you, his hands. Big, warm and strong, they pull you closer to him and you gasp when your bodies collide.
“Flip-”
“When I heard him… when I heard how he was talking to you I just, I don’t know.” Flip takes a deep breath, letting his head lean down so that his forehead rests against yours. The intimacy startles you. You want to pull away from him but.
But you don’t. Instead you bring your arms up to hold the sides of his strong neck, feeling his pulse thrumming against your palm. What was happening? What were you doing-
“You, in this dress… fuck. I would have killed him if-if… He didn’t deserve to see you in this, didn’t fucking deserve to know what it feels like to touch you in it…” Flip’s voice trails off, it was quiet to begin with. His hands clutch the fabric at your waist, as if trying to draw you in closer to him, and you’re left speechless, just watching in awe as he works through his thoughts. That familiar crease between his brows appearing. You find yourself wanting to smooth it away, whether it be with your fingers or your lips you don’t care. You just- you just want to show him something other than that coolness you always give him. You want to be warm for him.
“And you do? You deserve it?” You tempt, not sure why you’re even bothering stepping on his toes at this point. You suppose old habits die hard.
“You tell me.” He whispered, nudging his nose into yours and you gasp quietly, your breath fanning across his lips and he swears he could just melt into you right now, if that’s what you wanted. If you’d let him.
And you… you’re still too dumb to know what it is you want, too naive to give in, to melt into his hands. After what happened tonight, you’re scared, scared of how easily things can go wrong in ways you never could have foreseen.
But Flip saw.
Flip noticed.
Flip was there. Maybe you two would make a good team...
Taking a chance, you let your hands move to wrap your arms around his neck, nuzzling your nose into his before… before Flip lets you make your move, lets you come onto him, safe in his arms. He holds you so, so close as you let your lips brush against his, breathing him in, still deciding.
So indecisive, Flip thinks. He would laugh at you right now if you didn’t have him completely wrapped around your finger, hanging on your every move, waiting, waiting for you to take what you need from him.
You press into him, with your body and your lips, letting him hold you as close as he possibly could. Flip sighs against your lips, melting into your touch as your fingers comb themselves into his hair, tugging when you reach the ends. He groans, folding over you, tilting his head and opening his mouth for you, he runs his tongue against your closed lips. Asking.
Yes, you want to say, you want to yell, scream it at him. But all you do is moan pathetically into his mouth as you open up for him, blooming like a flower as his tongue dances over yours, pressing into your mouth, deeper, deeper. Flip groans too, he needed this as much as you did.
Whether it was from the frustration of tonight’s events or the tension that had been pulled tight between the two of you like a tightrope, building for months and months on end, but both of you cracked underneath the pressure of the night.
As Flip worked his jaw on you, he stumbled, falling into you, pushing you back until your ass hit the desk behind you, making it scrape and screech across the floor. Files flew off, pens scattered, rolling across the floor, even the lamp rocked back and forth, back and forth with the force Flip tackled you with. You whimpered into his mouth, letting him move you how he pleased.
You felt his hands slither down your body with haste, stopping only to grab at your ass through your dress. His big hands wrapped around the back of your thighs, hoisting you up until you sat perched on the desk, your legs parting all too easily for him to stand between, pressing his body flush against yours.
Flip continued to devour you, you put in as much effort as you could but you felt weak, dumb with the way his mouth was so soft and warm on yours, his stupidly perfect lips so wet and soft, gliding effortlessly against your own. Like he was made to kiss you.
You lost yourself in his kiss, in his caress, in his touch. You let him hold you, shift you however he wanted, you felt like you were in some old classic movie with the way he was kissing you, with so much passion, so much vigour.
As you dove deeper into him, your inhibitions fell further and further away. You tugged at his hair, pressing his face into yours so that his nose was pressed firmly into your cheek. Teeth grazing his plump bottom lip, you entertained the idea of biting into the supple skin for all of two seconds before you indulged yourself in the sick pleasure. Flip groaned, loud into your mouth as you sunk your teeth into his lip, only letting it go for him to pull back and stare at you with an abyss for eyes. His lip was swollen, you could practically see the blood rushing to the bitten area, making it redder, juicer. You did that to him. Flip growled, pressing his hips and his forehead into yours, both of you trying to regain your breath.
“Did I mention how sorry I was?” Flip said darkly, voice rumbling with lust, deep in his chest. You felt it reverberate into you, it made you shiver. That and the way he was looking at you made you want to… to be good for him. Submit. Listen to him for once.
You nod your head, so breathless as you looked up at him. He was so much bigger than you and your neck was beginning to hurt from all the straining you had to do to keep your lips pressed firmly to his.
“Do you hate me?” Flip asks now, his turn to get an answer. His hand rests against your neck, fingers grazing your jawline from how big it is, wrapping around you too easily. You never wanted him to let go. You bite your lip and eyes still looking up at him, chest heaving, hard.
“No, I… I think the opposite actually.”
Part 2?
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ranmanjuu · 4 years
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hi! can you do a gen z mc who got injured at the protests and have them elaborate on what the protests were about to the oda forces? i got tear gassed at a protest so your writing is actually helping me feel better!
tw : injuries from police br*tality, heavy r*cism
first of all i hope you’re okay!! i’m so sorry for taking so long i hope you’re still here reading this ehhh,,. i personally don’t know much of ‘getting injured in protests’ other than rubber bullets and tear gassing—and for anyone out there protesting (also considering recent things that have happened in my country,,,), please be safe out there!
ᅠᅠ
—nobunaga:
the first encounter you had, he didn’t really notice it. he had a lot of things on his plate, mostly about his assassination attempt, you know, the usual. 
it’s only when he invites you to his tenshu to know more about his most interesting chatelaine. after all, the moment his life was out of danger, the immediate groan out of you raised a brow.
in your defense, going back from a protest then just sent back 500 years in the past did put you in a pissy mood. the injustice was enough bullshit, you didn’t want to deal with this right after.
and,,, your response was probably too snarky for a man in power like him. but that’s what compelled him to bring you to the castle. maybe it was spite, or just dangerous curiosity. no one’s spoken to him in such,,, rude manners before.
being all past the whole, chasing-you-down-just-for-you-to-come-to-my-sickass-castle, the dragged-500-years-into-the-warring-states-period, constant-wars-everywhere, and everything in between, you’ve managed to,, calm down decently, at least. you’re just really confused as to why he called you in. 
through your slippery tounge, you accidentally let it slip that you’re from the future; great job! mission one from sasuke already failed. but—you’ve dug your grave, now you have to lie in it.
upon listening to the rest of your explanation, naturally, nobunaga starts asking questions.
after a series of them, mostly about general stuff like technology, etc., he hits you with a curveball. “what is that?” he asks, observing the small patch of reddened skin.
you’ve been shot by a rubber bullet prior to the time traveling. you wager that they were aiming for the neck—a highly fatal area to hit, even with a rubber bullet, mind you—but you were lucky enough to only be hit near the collar bone. still—to say it’s inexcusable is an understatement.
“huh—?” you follow his eyes, then trail your fingers on the edge as you show more of your injury, “. . .got injured a while back. asshole cops think they can just. . .fuckin’. . .”
your sentence turns too faint for him to hear clearly, he only knows that you feel anger from your tone. all he does is gaze passively as the steam comes out of your, slowly.
“what happened exactly?”
and with that one question, he’s in for quite the story. you start off in the beginning; what triggered it all. the injustice brought by those who are said to protect the people, the same ones that shed blood because they knew they could get away with it. then, the protests done by the ones who wanted justice, equality, something that should just be the norm at this point.
and then, the horrible attacks the cops’ve done to hose who protested,,, the mere thought gets your blood boiling, really. no one poised any kind of harm, it was a peaceful protest—and yet they still hurted, perhaps even killed. and they get away with it.
“. . .and i sure as hell ain’t gonna die to some bullshit system. i’ll keep on going at it until people can stop dying so. . .needlessly like that.”
he pauses after hearing you. his eyes have a vague sense of scrutinize, but certainly not at you. "and you still continue to go, even if it results in injuries for you?”
you look back at him, determination burning like a passion, “as long as less people will die of discrimination; as long as our cause is heard in the end—i’ll sacrifice anything for it. for equality.”
the silence rings for minutes.
but the hand on your shoulder quickly strays your mind back to him. to your surprise, a daring smile, almost a smirk, pulled his lips, “you are braver than many men that i’ve met. fiery and passionate also. i do believe you’ll be quite the addition here.”
and while you raise an eyebrow to that, your heart settles as he ends it with one final thing, “you’ve earned my utmost respect.”
ᅠᅠ
—hideyoshi:
he would have been highly alerted in your presence—had it not been the fact that your eye was bruised and injured. it was fresh, the patch of skin having not turn purple or black yet, but it was enough to signal that it could be a fatal wound.
medics were sent your way by his command, and given the opportunity, he checked in on you frequently. the culprit of the attempted assassination was yet to be found—so he just assumed that you were a poor civilian caught in the crossfire.
you were rather crude to him, but he brushed it all off. you must’ve been some sort of stressed out after just saving his lord, so he gave you space and went to do other things.
it’s when they reconvene under nobunaga’s order did he find out about the decision for your fate.
“my lord, are you sure we should bring them back to azuchi? perhaps they have a place in a town around here.”
“—not really.” hideyoshi’s eyes filled with surprise and concern as a small response came out of you, with eyes looking away from everyone in the tent with lips bitten anxiously and brows stitched together.
so it ended on you going to azuchi along with them. because really, even if you didn’t want to, what were you to do? you had no place in the sengoku, and you’ve forgotten all about your scouts lessons back in middle school to survive in the forest.
and while you insist on working rather than just be royalty basically, hideyoshi is the one who persuades you to at least rest first. with a sigh, you agree.
from then on, you find him visiting you quite often between his breaks. most of the time, asking how you’ve been, making light conversations over tea, and sometimes fussing over the smallest things. it’s a gradual change you’ll get used to—from the failed assassination to the weird, home-y feeling he brings.
it didn’t take long for his curiosity to push him. one day, with the usual cup of tea, the silence passes for quite the moment until he spoke up, “if i may ask, where exactly,,, did you get that?”
he doesn’t quite point to it, but you know what he’s talking about. half your vision is covered now, from ieyasu’s work on trying to make it better. you stare in the cup, swishing the tea around, “. . .my town had, uhhh, ‘problems’.”
he listened intently as you reworded the current real life events. just change the cops to guard, the bullets to blunt sticks(?), etc. the core of it you kept the same, the discrimination, the unruly deaths and wounds of the innocent.
all the while, hideyoshi looks at you with slightly parted lips and eyes that spell a bit of disbelief. such compassion don’t exist in a lot of people—much less a majority of civillians from a town. he thought he’d’ve heard about it, but you did say it was quite the small one, far away.
as you finish your long explanation, your face was scrunched up in a scowl, remembering the scene at the time. the cops came, a highly dangerous situation; but you weren’t leaving just like that. not until you got hit by a bullet did you go back home—and look where you are now.
“—.” hideyoshi calls out your name, snapping you to reality. you dart your attention to him, his face filled with concern, worry—but also slight anger and a distant sense of fondness.
“. . .when nobunaga unites the country, we’ll be sure to aid you. we’ll stop them from hurting anyone else. so until then, please stay with us.”
the sentiment brought warmth to your heart, but you knew the truth. he wouldn’t be able to, the wormhole was a big separation in that. even so, you shook your head, “i don’t,,, uhh, think i can stay for that long.”
his brows stitch together in confusion, “and why is that?”
“. . .i want to go back as soon as i can. and—i only have one chance to do such a thing, and never again.” upon your answer, his eyes widened a bit. no further questions were asked about that, as your own expression said you didn’t want to talk about it.
“but—you could be in danger if you go back.”
“i don’t care.” the tea is cold as you set it down, “. . .i don’t wanna,,, just escape and turn a blind eye to it, i think. it may be safer for me here, but—i still want to help back there. whether or not i’m injured is,,, a means to an end, for me.”
that’s when every suspicion he could’ve had about you dissolved. the determination and righteousness that burned so brightly in your voice was irreplaceable. along with that, was a very deep respect for you. he serves nobunaga because he believed in equality among everyone, and it seems so do you. even if you’re willing to sacrifice yourself—to see a better world where everyone is happy.
a beat passes. two. with a sigh, hideyoshi’s hardened gaze relents back into the strange warmness, hid hand reaching out to ruffle your hair. “well, i don’t think i agree with you diving into potential danger, but just so you know. if you ever need help, you can always reach to us, alright?”
you breath out a chuckle, “. . .of course.”
ᅠᅠ
—mitsuhide:
your whole entire body was sore even before the wormhole sent you back. not to mention, just after that, you had to carry a full-armored man out of a burning building with someone trying to kill said man.
so to say you were disoriented was quite an understatement.
you didn’t even feel it until days have passed. and at this point, you’ve gone under mitsuhide’s tutoring. being sat down for a long time made it painfully obvious that your body was still healing—but you’ve sang this song a million times before. in which the soreness lingered for a while, and then it’d disappear. you can bear with it.
that is, until he started training you in battle.
the tanegashima practice was fine, if a bit triggering by the gunshots. but you saw it the same as archery. however, sparring on the other hand,,,
yeah. the first break you took, you already felt every single part of you reeling. mitsuhide wasn’t ruthless with you, but you figure he wasn’t being soft either.
in truth, prior to arriving in the sengoku period, your body had taken a hit in a protest. you didn’t get caught in the tear-gassing crossfire, or got shot by a rubber bullet. rather, a police car had arrived at the scene and begun to drive forward into the crowd. it didn’t become a car crash site, no deaths occurred to your knowledge (thankfully).
but you were one of the ones in the front row seats, you fell to the ground and took some damage in a number of places. they were more of inconveniences than anything.
still—forcing your body to fight a trained swordsman was not a good idea.
and the fox has an eye for these things, sensing when his enemies are weak. at least it proves to be a disadvantage if you really are dangerous. his eyes linger on you as you rub your sore spots with the occasional groan. 
“the little mouse seems to be wounded.” he says. it’s clear he’s trying to extract some kind of information about the person who just popped out one day, “pray tell, what might be the cause of such?”
“i got, uhhh,” you can’t say car, those don’t exist yet— “knocked down by a horse.” admittedly, a horse is probably more dangerous than a car—but you deal with what you have.
“is that so.” with the smile and narrowed eyes of his, you knew that he didn’t buy it. but to your defense, your state clearly proves it in some way—so he deduced that you weren’t telling the complete truth.
and he welcomes it. it’d be his absolute pleasure to unravel the mystery.
eventually, he does. in promise to keep your secret away from others, you keep his. 
“so, little mouse,” the night has yet to pass, but you wish it did. your stuff was spilled in front of you, all evidence of you coming from the future, “was that cover-up story about the horse a lie?”
it’s a rhetorical question; he knew the answer already. still, you roll your eyes, “of course, we rarely use those in the future. a police car hit a crowd, and i was caught in it.”
promptly realizing he doesn’t know anything, a lengthy explanation ensued.
“oh my. and you said this, ‘car’ drove into a crowd? that’s highly dangerous, is it not?”
“it is!” your calm words slowly dissolve, your hands now waving in gestures, “and guess what, it’s the cops that do it! uhh—guards in old terms, i guess. y’know the people who’re said to supposedly protect us? yeah, hit us with a car.”
mitsuhide isn’t the most curious about the future. but he is a bit confused about the context.
and so you continue, explaining everything. from the start, to where you were, along with what your thoughts are on the whole situation
through all that, he stays silent, not commenting until you were thoroughly finished. you can’t read his expression—so you stare at him, waiting for even a word.
suddenly, he smiles, “well, looks like our little mouse is quite the something, aren’t you?” before you could respond with anything, he pats you on the head with a strange sense of softness, “pureness and ideals like you are rare in this world.”
in truth, he agrees. he’s someone who’s faced discrimination head on from being in the lower class—and he fights for a world that his lord would like to see. even if he’ll remain in the dark, for his stained, dark hands would only corrupt the purity. at least, so he thinks.
you look back with pursed lips and a slight frown, “then i’ll help make it more common. if it results in people being treated as people, i’ll do it.”
you don’t hear it, but he draws in a sharp breath. his eyes are muddled—with what, you don’t know—but you drop the thought as he lifts the hand off of your head with a chuckle, “i will say, i didn’t quite expect this.” 
they say eyes are the window of the soul. while he had his closed most of the time—you managed to peek in a small bit of warmth and fondness in them.
ᅠᅠ
—masamune:
you came to the sengoku period with a sprained ankle. which, in a time where war was rampant, probably wasn’t a good thing to have. especially when you’re being dragged into battle just for the fun of it.
although you admit you made yourself seem tougher than you were (with you being used to injuries like this before, so you’ve grown used to gritting your teeth), you still curse masamune to hell and back. no, you do not care if you’re on a horse or just in camp, your foot hurt like shit either way.
naturally, you wouldn’t take that for long.
thus the next time he planned to take you along (you could already see the glint in his eye), you snapped at him. well—much less ‘snap’ and more of ‘telling him off rather harshly ft. a sprinkle of swearing’.
“listen, assfart, my ankle’s been killing me, and if i’m going by that analogy, you’re practically desecrating it’s corpse and grave. so for the love of god, stop dragging me into battles!”
an expression of surprise went on his face for a moment, before it morphed to his usual grin, “is that so? seems like out kitten likes to run around and ended up hurting themselves.”
“not my fault they shot me in the fuckin’ ankle. . .” you mutter without a second thought under your breath, which he, unfortunately, heard.
“they shot you, lass?”
seeing his ever so slightly widened eye, you pursed your lips, “yeah. nothing too serious.”
even so, you see the way his eyes narrow with a glint—more so of excitement than anything else, “still though lassie, with you being under nobunaga, i doubt they’ll get away with hurtin’ ya.”
“what does that mean?”
fingers comb through your hair in a wild pat, accompanied with a fanged grin, “they won’t be alive for hurtin’ the lord’s precious lucky charm.”
your lips pursed as a frown pulls upon your brows, “i don’t want them to get away solely for me being nobunaga’s ‘lucky charm��.”
“and why is that, kitten?”
his eyes slightly lit up at your hardened and serious aura as you closed your eyes with a sigh. “the same people who hurt me are the same ones who’ve hurt many others, on the basis that they believe they’re above them; over a stupid thing like race. and i won’t be just letting it slide, even if i can’t fight or anything.”
the flame in your eyes are ones that masamune has grown to recognize; the anger and bitterness as you look back on a memory, only to fill up your heart with passion.
“i’ll die if it means that they’ll be punished and everyone is treated the same.”
silence rings past, the wind slowly becomes a solid aura in the air. stunned, he leaves a small chuckle and pats your head,
“the lord made a wonderful decision to bring ya here, lass.”
—ieyasu:
going by his usual self, he didn’t care much when you arrived, other than you were someone nobunaga picked up from his failed assassination. however, him being an expert in things health related, some things didn’t go by with him.
first of all, your eyes were a slight fade of red. at first he figured it was a leftover from honno-ji’s smokes, but as the days tick by, its persistence is now rather worrying. they should’ve faded away by now, so he thought.
and it became more and more painfully obvious, at least to him. the way you rubbed your eyes sometimes, them tearing up at random intervals—and even you squinting at rare occasions that, unless you had an eye problem like mitsunari, shouldn’t be there.
a seed of worry was planted, although he never expressed it. after all, you were being dragged into battle, where dust and more smoke can easily go into your already bugged eyes.
therefore one day, wordlessly, he took you to his workplace. at first, you were confused; ieyasu hasn’t exactly talked to you a lot.
he picks up a small bottle, along with a cup-like lid, “use this, and wash your eyes with it. and by that i mean just tilt it up and blink when it goes into your eyes.”
you just blinked a few times, stunned more than anything. “,,,, why?”
“you think i don’t notice?” he scoffs, “you’ve been rubbing your eyes like crazy, and it’s past the point where your eyes should even be red since the honno-ji incident. either your eyes have been having problems way before, or you’re just dumber and clumsier than i thought.”
“hey! it’s not my fault, for any of the incidents!”
“so there are multiple instances?”
the judgemental look sent your way was something that your stubborn mind won’t back out from, even if it mean having to somewhat explain your situation.
“w, well, there have been several uhm.... arson crimes in my town, i can’t help but be in the vicinity.”
if arson crimes translated to tear gassings, yes, there were many.
“arson crimes? your town is,,, jeez.”
“it’s not the citizens’ fault, look to the fuckin’ guards of our village for that.” the tone had immediately shifted from a kind of flustered banter, to immediate bitter undertones.
immediately, the silence rang on. ieyasu sat there, looking into you as much as he could, with his bare bones knowledge of you. the pieces were there, and it wasn’t hard to put them together. for a moment, he wondered if you were more than the unfortunate one to be pulled into this mess. but if your town was as much a mess as that. . . perhaps it was for the better.
“. . .then you’re planning to stay here, right?” he had his own opinions and thoughts of someone taking advantage of a high-powered lord taking them in, but eh, he thinks, people will do what they have to do to survive—
“not really. assuming nobunaga would even let me go in the first place.”
ieyasu stood there, stunned, “. . .you’re planning to go back to your own town? even from all the danger there?”
“yeah.” you look at him with a slight imbalanced expression, “i don’t have anywhere else to go, other than there, so. . .”
“but why not stay here? it’s safer, you do know that right?”
“of course,” you sigh, “but it’s still my home, all things considered. yeah, there’s a whole lot of corrupt things going on but, they’re still humans, the people i live with. i don’t wanna run away from it, i’d just. . .i’d like to try and help them also.:
ieyasu stays silent as you lean back to the wall, looking out the door with a fond and melancholic gaze, “the,,, guards in my town are doing this just cause of their stupid beliefs and whatever. superiority complex and whatnot. and people are dying because of it, only for things that they can’t control and. . . it’s just so bullshit.”
you turn back to him, with a strong light blaring in your eyes; filled with hope and determination, “wouldn’t you want to go back and help them? even if i get injured, as long as people will be treated the same and won’t face death for something miniscule, i consider it worth it.”
you’ve never seen him surprised at you; at least not in this sense. usually it’d be surprise at some mistake you did, making an offhand crude comment to it but here. . .here it’s partnered with the smallest bit of sparkle. like a hidden respect for you behind his uncaring persona.
you only look as he slowly stands up, his shadow befalling on you. with the same, yet subtle, amount of shine in his eyes as in yours, he sighs softly and takes your hand,
“at least if you’re gonna go into that kind of battlefield, let me teach your ditzy self how to take care of injuries first.”
—mitsunari:
your sudden arrival already aroused questions, as you’d appeared before nobunaga sporting a bloodied cut on your cheek. at the time, they took the assumption that the assassin did it to you.
and although it was fussed for a bit, it was quickly covered up with some cloth fitting for the period. and then, everything went as normal.
taking up job as mitsunari’s personal caretaker wasn’t one you’d reject, because really, how bad could it be? but the man himself kept insisting that you don’t, added that not only were you a special charm of nobunaga’s, you were also injured from the night of honno-ji. he couldn’t do that to you; not after such a stressful night.
and yet you were stubborn as well. with the final decision being up to nobunaga, which you accepted wholeheartedly, of course, you now had the role to take care of mitsunari.
although his. . .clumsy nature was one that you should be worried for, you find it that he often checks up on you, apologizing each time he could’ve potentially hurt you. and each time, you waved it off and assured him that yes, you were fine.
but you can see it in his eyes, the tint of guilt and worry that lingers on before he succumbs to his reading trance. truth is, the injury is just a mild inconvinience of pain, so there really wasn’t much to fuss over.
in his eyes, your degree has gotten much higher than before. whether your wound would’ve affected your job didn’t matter to him; it was the fact that you were hurt in the first place. you shouldn’t have to take care of him when you needed to take care of yourself! or so is what he thinks to himself.
and so he tries to make it up to you. you need reading lessons? he’ll try to squeeze it in his schedule! or maybe it’s time for a break, he’ll tour you around in the bustling city of azuchi. it feels like whenever you need something, he’s always there next to you, and you can’t help but feel charmed by it.
mitsunari isn’t one to notice details about a person if it isn’t in a situation like in battle. but he’s gotten very sharp at seeing the slight reactions and how you’re doing; and here’s what he’s picked up on:
other than the wound on your cheek, your stomach area seems to be bruised or something close to that. you might’ve not told anyone about it, cause he hasn’t heard a peep of that anywhere, not even when he kept asking politely (or bugging, in the man’s eyes) for ieyasu’s information.
so fuck it, he just decides to ask you one day.
“why do you have an injury on your stomach area?”
it was a lesson hour, you didn’t expect him to throw,,,that curveball. maybe more of, what does this character mean? or how do you write this word? but. . .
“uhm—an incident that happened before the whole honno-ji thing.”
“and you never told anyone, even lord ieyasu?”
“n, no, kinda.”
he’s serious than before, and yet there’s something in his eyes that’s very inviting, inviting you to tell your feelings and story, inviting you to a hug of warmth and safety.
and you succumb.
“. . . things have been happening in my town before i came here.” then what was once a lesson sessioin, turned into you explaining what you and the world was going through before coming to the sengoku, with many phrasings replaced of course.
“is that so. . .” he mutters, “i haven’t heard a case like this, although i don’t doubt there aren’t any. . .i should do some reasearches.. .”
“i-it’s fine, really. . .!”
you managed to convince him that it’s fiiine, he shouldn’t read up on it and just focus on his works (since it would render your story false pretty quickly,,).
“but you still haven’t explained how you got the injury.”
“oh yeah. i got kicked down by one of the guards and then i got this as a result.” you pointed at the covered up wound, now probably just a scar, on your cheek. mitsunari goes silent, then a slow and silent hum resonates in him.
you’ve never quite seen the look in his eyes as you did. they were sharper, even if you weren’t situated in a battlefield, and you could see the gears turn in his brain. for what, you’re not quite sure.
“mitsu,,,?”
and with just your voice, his clouded eyes clear up, and he sends his angelic smile your way, “it’s fine now, lady—” his voice rings gently like bells, “you’re now safer. .even if you want to go back there. but i’ll be here by your side to protect you always, so please remember.”
“. . .heh, alright. of course i will.”
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into-control · 3 years
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Into i need help. I bought a oculus quest 2 right and i tried to connect it to my laptop and it wont work so I realized i needed and actual pc gaming setup you know, problem is idk anything about PCs and i dont wanna get scammed. Can you help me? Ive looked online and idk wtf im looking at tbh. Can you give like advice and shit lol 😂 love you into 💕
well i'm not a professional at pcs by any means but i've always had a huge fixation on them so i can try to help as much as possible and i'll even try to put it in simple terms. fair warning, i talk A LOT in this post because i love rambling about computers :') i tried to use the simplest terms possible since you seem confused but if something doesn't make sense just ask and i can try to reword.
it all depends on what you want out of your pc. and do you want to build one or get a prebuilt one? if you want my advice i recommend building one. getting a prebuilt pc is the easiest way to get scammed because retailers tend to overcharge and they think they can get away with it because they stuck a flashy high end graphics card and colourful lights in it even though it has shit airflow and they cheaped out on the motherboard and power supply or something like that. if you're going to get a prebuilt pc make sure you look at allll the specs and consult some online reviews to see if they're any good, and figure out if you're going to be overcharged. now i'll talk about building one. a lot of this will still be useful if you're considering buying a prebuilt though.
the very first step is deciding your budget. idk where you are but in USD the typical amount to spend on pc parts is i think like $1000 - 1500 (you can spend less but that's if you don't have a lot of money to spend and are still desperate to have a gaming pc). i'm spending around $1700 CAD (before taxes, eugh) on mine bc i want to get into more demanding games eventually. it sounds very costly but computers like these can last you a decade and are very multifaceted. figuring out your budget first instead of going right ahead and buying stuff is important because each component should take up specific percentages of your budget. another important thing to consider when deciding your budget is if you want RGB (the colourful lights as previously mentioned), because components with that capability are slightly more expensive.
after deciding your budget, your first move is deciding what graphics card (GPU) you want. the GPU is responsible for processing and presenting the visuals on your screen. theoretically it should take up between 35 - 40% of your budget because it is the powerhouse in a gaming system. you have two developers to choose from here: NVIDIA or AMD. from what i've seen people tend to prefer NVIDIA but AMD cards aren't bad and they definitely compete in performance. i'll talk about nvidia though because that's what i know more about. by searching up the oculus quest 2 system requirements it tells me you at least need an nvidia geforce gtx 970. this card came out in 2014 and is by no means bad however it is actually the same base price as a lot of newer cards. if you want to go better than the minimum requirements, first consider what your monitor is capable of. if you don't have one yet, consider what you want it to do. monitors are not considered a part of the budget i keep mentioning by the way. idk how much this matters to you since we're talking about the oculus quest 2 but i'm just kind of assuming you're going to use this pc for other games too. the main two things to take into consideration are max resolution and refresh rate. my monitor has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a 144hz refresh rate. what the resolution means is that there are 2,073,600 pixels in the screen, and can go up to a resolution of 1080p in video games. the refresh rate means the monitor can refresh the picture on the screen 144 times a second, therefore can show a max of 144 frames per second in a video game. to put that in to perspective, most screens have a refresh rate of 60hz, such as regular laptop screens, iphone screens, etc.. monitors come in mainly 60hz, 75hz, 144hz, and 165hz, and for resolution they mainly come in 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. seeing as i don't have any plans on upgrading my monitor any time soon, dropping extra money on a GPU that can achieve more than 144fps and 1440p/4k would be pointless. but forget about the monitor, the oculus quest 2 has a max refresh rate of 120hz and its resolution lies somewhere between 1080p and 1440p. if you know what kind of games you're going to be playing, look up how they perform with different kinds of cards. i'm fairly certain anything above an nvidia geforce rtx 3070 would be pointless because of your display limits, and anything below the nvidia geforce gtx 970 simply won't be enough for the system. you can look at all the GPUs ranked here. after deciding which GPU you want you need to figure out which brand of it you want (NVIDIA themselves, asus, gigabyte, evga, etc), because they all perform at slightly different levels, although the difference is usually only a few frames so it's better to save money. something to watch out for is the quality of the fans in the GPU because if they aren't good, it will overheat and underperform. i'm aiming to get a 3060 or 3060 ti, if that helps. the only problem is that there is currently a worldwide GPU shortage due to covid, tariffs, and the cryptocurrency mining boom (gpus are used in bulk to mine). fortunately there is currently a crypto mining crackdown happening in china, where majority of mining in the world happens, so the demand for GPUs will hopefully start going down soon. you wont be able to build your pc right away but the market is looking better than it has in awhile. this is just about the only argument i have in favor of getting a prebuilt pc, because they have GPUs in them and are more readily available. i don't think that's a good enough reason though especially since part of the reason i'm building my pc is because it looks fun lol. another thing to note is that you should not overspend on your GPU. the shortage has caused a lot of GPU prices to skyrocket into the $2k-3k range but none of them should be above 1k except the highest end ones. when deciding on a GPU, search up the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). cards made by brands other than AMD and NVIDIA will almost always cost a little extra, but do not pay hundreds of
extra dollars. but anyways!! the GPU is now out of the way and is definitely the longest paragraph here because it's the most important part.
next up is the central processing unit (CPU), which you should be spending about 20 - 25% of your budget on. its job is essentially to retrieve instructions from the RAM and execute it. i suppose you could call it the brain. again you have two developers to choose from, this time between intel and AMD. i've had two laptops with an intel CPU and my current one has an AMD CPU and both are very good, however the general consensus is that you can get the same performance for less by going with AMD. CPUs have cores, and each core can run its own process. the more cores you have, the more your pc can think about basically. you can get CPUs will all sorts of amounts of cores but for gaming, 4 or 6 cores is all you really need. 8 is actually already a bit overkill. so you really don't need to get the best CPU out there. the one you get should depend on what GPU you get (hence choosing that component first). you don't want to bottleneck your GPU by getting a CPU that isn't good enough for it, but bottlenecking your CPU with the GPU by a small amount isn't as big of a deal because the goal is to allow your GPU to be used to its full ability. another detail about CPU is clock speed, which determines how quick it can complete tasks. the higher the faster, obviously. my (non gaming) laptop's CPU clock speed is 2.30 GHz and has 4 cores. the cpu i have for my build is the AMD ryzen 5 5600x. it has a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz but it can be maxed out to 4.6 GHz, and it has 6 cores. the oculus quest 2 has a minimum requirement of the AMD ryzen 5 1500x or the intel i5-4590, which is a little low on the performance list. but like i said the CPU should depend on the GPU. all it takes is a google search for which CPU goes best with the GPU you've chosen and you can find several answers depending on if you want the best possible performance, best budget performance, etc.. a nice little fact about choosing AMD over intel is that most AMD CPUs will come with a stock cooler, which is absolutely necessary otherwise your CPU will overheat (this is another thing prebuilts will cheap out on). this only adds to the whole price-to-performance thing. the stock cooler will most likely do unless you push your pc or want the build to look prettier.
next on the list is a motherboard, where all the parts come together in unity. you should spend 8 - 10% of your budget on this baby. it's easy to over and underspend on a mobo. the most important thing when it comes to choosing a mobo is that it supports your CPU. you cannot use the same mobo for intel and AMD CPUs. fortunately the product page will straight up tell you which CPU brand the mobo is meant for and will typically have two versions of the same board. it's important to note that motherboards don't always have onboard wifi, meaning it wont be able to connect to the internet via wifi and instead needs an ethernet cable or an external wifi adapter. if you can't get an ethernet cable to the room where you want your pc, you're going to need onboard wifi, or a wifi card/usb. onboard wifi mobos tend to be more expensive so it's up to you, but i personally bought one with wifi included so i wouldn't have to worry about it because our ethernet cables are in the basement and i'm upstairs. another very important thing about motherboards is that their BIOS version (operating system i guess?? idk how else to describe it) doesn't always support your CPU out of the box and must be updated before using it. this can present as a problem if you don't have another CPU to perform the update with, however some motherboards allow you to 'flash' the BIOS with a only usb drive as long as it's hooked up to power. there are plenty of step by step youtube videos about how to do this. i will have to do this with my motherboard when the time comes because it doesn't support ryzen 5s out of the box. don't let this deter you from getting a certain board as long as it has a BIOS flash feature. next up is what I/O ports you want, which are the ports (usb ports, headphone/mic jack, hdmi port, etc) you'd find on the back of any desktop computer. that is the side of the motherboard. basically just be aware of how many of each ports you want, and remember that there will probably be even more ports on the front of the case you get. the last thing i can think of right now is making sure your motherboard has all the headers (where you plug components in) you want it to have but i'll get to that later.
next up on the list is RAM, aka random access memory. this stores short term data. the amount of RAM you have kind of determines how much your pc can multitask. RAM sticks typically go up by some multiple of 2GB. most standard laptops and desktops nowadays will come with 8GB of RAM, which is enough for day to day use. it can be enough for mid and low end games however it cuts it pretty close most of the time. 16GB of RAM is the sweet spot for gaming and anything above that is pretty much overkill (and once again a waste of money) as long as you don't have a billion unnecessary background processes. a large amount of RAM is typically needed for video editors or computer programmers. you should always make sure your motherboard can support the amount of RAM you want although any good motherboard will support 64GB or even 128GB. the best option is to get a 16GB RAM pack, which will include two 8GB RAM sticks. splitting RAM between two sticks will increase efficiency. this is called dual channel. i also recommend getting DDR4 RAM, which is simply faster than DDR3. a good speed to have is around 3600 MHz. make sure your motherboard supports DDR4. you also want to be weary that your RAM is compatible with your CPU brand because they do have to interact for your pc to function.
next is storage. there are three-ish options here depending on how much you're willing to spend. generally you should spend 8 - 10% of the budget here. you can always get a good ole hard drive for the cheapest, however they are the slowest and physically biggest option, meaning whatever you put on it will take a bit longer for your pc to retrieve and open (they can load about 100-200MB of data per second). the next option is a solid state drive. they are a little more expensive but can load as much as 600MB of data per second and take up less space. the last and most efficient/expensive option is an m.2 nvme drive. these things are physically absolutely tiny and can load up to 4GB of data per second. anything you put on these will open very very quickly. the fairly standard solution for this is a combination of two of these three. personally i'm using one m.2 drive and one hard drive. the hard drive i have can store 2TB while the m.2 drive can only store 256GB. funnily enough these two drives are roughly the same price. the idea here is to install your operating system on the faster drive. this makes it so it only takes like 8 seconds tops for your pc to start up. you can also put any other programs you use most often on there (like your main browser and favourite games) and they will open very quickly, while the bulk of your games and other files will go on the bigger drive. that's all there really is to say for storage, just make sure the reviews are good on the drive you want to get, but that goes for any component.
next is your power supply (PSU). very very important to not cheap out on this. 6 - 8% of the budget should go to this. the function of the PSU is to do exactly what its name implies: supply power to all the components. this is where the website pcpartpicker can come in very handy. not only does it help you build a list of parts that are all compatible with each other, it will also estimate how much wattage you will need to run your pc. 600W is usually enough for a normal gaming pc. PSUs are ranked, and you should never really go below a bronze ranking. you can also choose between non-modular, semi-modular, and fully-modular PSUs. non-modular PSUs have all the cables permanently attached. this can be desirable to people who are confused by what cable is plugged in where but also undesirable as unused cables cannot be removed and make cable management harder. fully-modular PSUs come with the cables all in a separate bag so you choose which ones to plug in. semi-modular power supplies have the necessary cables attached and the rest can be attached need be. it all depends on preference and how much faith you have in yourself. i have an 80+ gold certified fully modular 750W PSU because the thought of unnecessary cable management makes me sick lol. corsair is pretty much the most trusted brand for power supplies. be careful because this is another place prebuilts will cut corners.
now for the case! this one isn't overly difficult to choose and mainly will just appeal to your aesthetics. it's less important to stick to a precise percent of the budget for this one but you also don't want to spend more than 8%. do you want a black case? a white one? do you want a glass side panel so you can see inside your pc and admire your hard work? besides that, you also need to make sure the case is big enough for your motherboard, GPU, and PSU. most info pages for cases will tell you the max size of the GPU and PSU and what size of mobo it's meant for. you also want to make sure there is a place to put your storage drives (unless you only have m.2 drives which are installed on the motherboard). you also want to make sure it has optimal airflow abilities. a case with no airflow will cause overheating. the best ones have mesh fronts and tops to allow cool air to be pulled in and hot air out. it's even better if you can get a case that comes with fans in the front, because they are what pulls that cool air in.
next is the CPU cooler, which i briefly mentioned. if you don't get an AMD CPU then you'll need to buy a separate cooler. you can choose between air coolers (a fan and a heatsink) or liquid coolers. i don't really have much to say about them and i recommend doing your own research on liquid coolers lol.
last but not least, case fans. like i said a lot of cases will come with front fans and also an exhaust fan at the back, however you might want more, or even replace the ones you already have with better ones. pay attention to how many fans your case manual says can fit and plan accordingly. check out reviews to see if the fans you want are quiet and efficient. if you buy a three pack of case fans there is a chance it will come with a fan hub. this makes it easier to control all of them in sync because the hub will connect all the fans to one header on the motherboard. generally 3-6 fans are pretty good for a gaming pc. two or three in the front pulling in cool air, one at the back and two on the top to pull out hot air.
now that i have all the components out of the way i'm gonna talk about RGB lighting. numerous components that i've mentioned have the option of including LED lights to make your pc brightly coloured, which is always nice if you have a glass side panel on your pc. it's an extra bit of money but i personally was willing to sacrifice that because i want to show off my build lmao. motherboards, RAM sticks, GPUs, CPU coolers, and case fans are the main components that can come with RGB lighting. you can also get special LED strips and power connectors designed for PCs. if you decide to go for RGB lighting, do try to stick to one RGB ecosystem, meaning make sure all the RGB components can be controlled by one program. RGB is controlled by your motherboard. for example if you get an asus motherboard you'll probably want to use their program, aura sync. most components can be controlled by any brand's program however if the motherboard itself has RGB lighting it can only be controlled via its own brand's program, along with the GPU. if you want RGB case fans you really have to make sure your motherboard has RGB headers (the thingy on the motherboard where you plug the fan's LED lights into). most motherboards will only have two-ish RGB headers so if you're going to buy a bunch of fans make sure they come with a fan hub, which lets you plug them all into one header on the motherboard. also, never sacrifice performance for RGB. specifically when it comes to GPUs. if you have a choice between a GPU with RGB and a GPU without RGB, always take the one that has better performance (given it's within the parameters i mentioned earlier).
that's all i have to say :) if you couldn't tell i really love this stuff. i will also recommend you watch youtube videos about this, you can see the build process and the reasoning for using each component, and also tips on what to do and what not to do. i hope this helps and wasn't too confusing. i know you said this is mainly because you got an oculus quest 2 but if you're going to get a gaming pc you should definitely consider games outside of the oculus too.
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thebadgerclan · 4 years
Text
Face Tomorrow
Pairing: Remus Lupin x reader (Marauders Era)
Requested by Anonymous
Summary: The future is so uncertain...
A/N: Y/H/G is your House gem, I couldn’t think of a better abbreviation.
Gryffindor-rubies, Slytherin-emeralds, Ravenclaw-sapphires, Hufflufpuff-citrine
More A/N: I know I said I’m on “hiatus”, but I’m going to reword that into “way less active than usual”.  REQUESTS ARE STILL CLOSED, but I’ll still write occasionally.
Part of him thought it was too soon.  You’d just graduated Hogwarts and were beginning your career, but with how uncertain the future was, Remus knew it was the right decision.  He couldn’t bear the thought of living one more day without you.  Whatever the future held, he wanted you by his side until the end.  Remus had saved every cent of muggle money he’d ever received and tucked it away.  His mother had always given him enough Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts to get by.  Now, he knew exactly what to do with the muggle cash.  
The ring was simple, a gold band with a half carat diamond surrounded with small rubies and Y/H/G surrounding it.  On the inside of the band there was a wolf engraved, a heart next to him.  Remus hoped that you’d love the ring, he was asking you tonight, and he was terrified that you’d reject him.  When he arrived home, he found you waiting for him.  A smile crossed his face, and the nerves returned.  “Hey love,” you greeted, kissing his cheek.  Remus pulled you into his arms, kissing your forehead.  “Let me change and then we can head out.”
Remus had made reservations at the new muggle place in town, one that you’d been eager to try.  The meal was delicious, and as soon as the plates were cleared away, Remus took your hand.  “Y/N, I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you.  I think we both agree that the future is uncertain, and I want to spend every second I have with you.  Y/N L/N, will you marry me?”  You were silent for only a second before exclaiming, “Yes!”
***
Wedding planning was far more involved than Remus initially thought.  He was under the impression that you’d reserve a time and bam, married.  It was after you’d vented to him about venues and seating arrangements and guest lists that he understood.  Eventually, you agreed on getting married at Hogwarts, on the shore of the lake.  James would be his best man and Lily would be your maid of honor.  Dumbledore volunteered to officiate the ceremony, to which you and Remus eagerly agreed.  
“Okay, what flowers do you want?” you asked one day, summoning your notebook from the table.  Remus laughed.  “Y/N, I don’t know the first thing about flowers.”  “But Rem, I want your input!”  You dramatically threw yourself onto him, kissing his neck.  “Okay, fine.  How about roses?”  “Don’t you think that’s a little overdone?”  “Do you not like roses?” he asked, carding a hand through your hair.  “No, I like them, I just think they’re kinda cliche.”  Remus sighed.  “Okay, lilies?”  
“What about lilies and roses?”  Remus smiled, pressing a kiss to your forehead.  “Sounds great, love.”  You scribbled something in the notebook.  “Okay, guest list.  I only want to invite my parents and a few friends, what about you?”  “Well James is already gonna be there, and I definitely want Sirius and Peter there.  Oh, my parents too.”  You nodded, writing that down.  “All that’s left is to get my dress fitted next week.”  “Can I see?”  You smiled, gently smacking Remus’ arm.  “No, you’ll see it on the wedding day.”  Remus whined, and you laughed.
***
All the tedious planning had paid off, the ceremony was beautiful, and the Great Hall looked amazing.  As did you, of course, in the white dress that Remus simply adored.  “Mrs. Lupin,” he said, wrapping his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder as you talked to your friends.  You turned to face him, a massive smile on your face.  “Mr. Lupin.”  Remus kept an arm around you as you talked to your friends, occasionally pressing kisses to your cheek.
“Dance with me?” he asked after a while.  “Of course, love.”  Remus took your hand and led you to the dance floor.  He draped one arm around your waist, keeping you close as you swayed to the music.  “I love you, Y/N,” Remus whispered as you danced.  “I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but I’m glad I have you by my side to face it.”  There were no words, so you simply nodded against your husband’s shoulder, ready to face tomorrow with him.
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natcat5 · 3 years
Text
Lethe (wangxian madoka magica au) chapter 3 notes
Read it on AO3
A last round of notes. Not as long as they should be, because my draft crashed and I lost the entirety of the long author’s note I had written :). a mark of my hubris, in not saving the draft periodically. oh well. hopefully this is the last time I’ll be posting an author’s note on tumblr. i’ll never have to embarrass myself like this again! 
Spoilers for the entirety of Lethe, the entirety of the original Madoka Magica anime, and for the first two madoka movies
All cultivator outfits have already been revealed! I contemplated doing image references for wwx’s god outfit, but I don’t think we get a good enough look at it to warrant it. Hm...perhaps for Elysium....but if I commit to that than I’m committing to posting Elysium’s author’s notes on tumblr too, and I’m really trying to avoid that!!
General Notes
-I had so many general notes and I lost them all to my browser refreshing im so angry. 
-This chapter is strange, it’s a lot of disjointed scenes of self reflection, with small time skips in between. im honestly quite anxious about how it does as a final chapter. the final battle scene really isn’t that long. i mean, this chapter is meant to be the end of character arcs, which is why it’s so inward facing, so introspection heavy. but intention doesn’t mean that it’s going to read well, you know? im genuinely concerned people will find it boring, or unfulfilling as a final chapter. ah, well. guess we’ll see? 
-shout out to my friends for answering all my strange cultural questions. i asked them what song is usually played at Chinese family gatherings or holidays and they said Gongxi, Gongxi, and so in the fic it went
-Wei Ying’s memory of driving with his parents was inspired by, of all things, one of Waylon’s notes from Outlast Whistleblower.
Madoka Magica specific notes
-so angry about the lost notes!!!
-Madoka Magica has a lot of scenes that are like, well-directed? scenes where the staging, the voice acting, the movement of the characters, and the dialogue are just all really good. Like there are just some scenes that really hit. One of them is in episode 11, when Madoka says ‘but.....but!’ and you can see this is the moment she has her wish. I had a version of this chapter where I recreated that scene, but it didn’t quite make sense in the context of wwx already having a wish in mind, and didn’t feel the same written out as it felt animated. but i just want to say, I love that scene
-Writing out the Walpurgis Nacht battle was a nightmare. It’s the section I spent the most time editing. I ended up not like, rewatching the battle and trying to describe it, but inventing my own descriptions. that made it easier. also, there are not enough synonyms for the world ‘building’ in the English language. I’d like to lodge a formal complaint about that.
-Writing out wwx’s wish was also kind of a nightmare! I almost just gave him a bow bc I couldn’t figure out what to replace Madoka’s hope-arrows with. I figured it out eventually, but it took some thinking. 
-madoka’s wish wording is so specific it felt impossible to find a way to reword it, but i didn’t want wwx to make the exact same wish. and i also wanted the wording to make him death adjacent rather than hope adjacent, bc that fits the character better. When I came up with the wish’s wording, I was like, embarrassed by how long it took me to think of it. It seems obvious but I promise it required a lot of careful thought!!
-i left all the other cultivators alive bc it didn’t make sense to have one of them die. in madoka magica it makes perfect sense for sayaka still to die, because the conditions that make her soul gem go black still exist. Additionally, it would be jarring for her character, so close to madoka, to be shown in a world without madoka. and it keeps that note of tragedy in an ending otherwise full of triumph and hope. im fond of that narrative choice, but there wasn’t a character in this story that had the same conditions as sayaka, and so there was no one it made sense to have stay dead. also, this fic was already so sad y’all. wanted a little bit of a happy ending, you know?
Playlist Notes
Chapter 3 songs: 
(so angry about the lost notes!)
Stay Young by Strata -call this chapter 3 theme song. ensemble pov, with an emphasis on wangxian perspective of course. this was my fave song on a madoka playlist i made like seven years ago
Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Final Fantasy) by Stars - ‘You saved my life, you were my friend.’ Lwj explaining, wwx not remembering
Weight of the World (English vers) by AmaLee and Peter Hollens -Lan zhan’s still fighting, everyone else is dead. what wish is worth the world? -the English version has different lyrics than the japanese lyrics from chapter 2. and i chose this cover bc it’s a duet
Silhouette by Aquilo -Loss; the dragon of
Terrible Love by Birdy - ‘It was love, not friendship.’ 
New Divide by Linkin Park -the storm, and wwx hesitating (for the last time)
Black Swan (piano cover) by DooPiano -Lan Zhan, facing Walpurgis Nacht, he must go on he can’t go on– -this version is instrumental, but I had the lyrics of the original song in mind. 
English translation
The Dawn Song by Elliot Ireland and Geoff Smith - ‘One last time, I will choose hope’ -I want everyone to know I didn’t stumble across this song. I was planning this story, building the playlist, and thought ‘you know what would go great? that song from the buzzfeed black friday video’. and then I went and found it.
Be Still by The Killers -a last conversation between friends. ‘You’ve made your choice, you’ve made your wish, and we know you’ll see this through.’
On by BTS -Wei Ying transformed, versus Walpurgis Nacht (for the last time) -am I a clown for putting a BTS song on here? Perhaps. I feel like the English lines communicate the meaning of the song well enough, but i’ve included the full English translation just in case
English translation
Goodbye to a World by Porter Robinson -The world reordering around wwx’s new rules
Shrike by Hozier -Wei Ying remembering, Wei Ying reciprocating, Wei Ying leaving–
The Parting Glass by Peter Hollens, The Hound + the Fox -The final goodbye
Vague Hope (Spring Rain) by Keigo Hoashi -’It rains, a normal spring rain‘ In the new world, without witches 
Run (Snow Patrol) by Eklipse -’No one recognizes the name Wei Ying.’ Wangji, mourning. Wangji, continuing on. -this version is instrumental, but I had the lyrics of the original song in mind. So I’ve linked them.
Lyrics
Insomnia by Electric President -’What is easy, what is hard, what is impossible. And the unavoidable trial of simply existing.’ -i’m still not over the fact that this is Radical Face. Ben Cooper, why must you wear so many hats? this has nothing to do with the story im just in a perpetual state of shock over Electric President and Radical Face being the same person In our Bedroom after the War by Stars -Despite the loss, despite the pain, this life is a victory. Wangji will look towards the dawn.
Thanks for sticking with me! Hope to see you for Elysium, posted next week!
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xxisxxisxxis · 4 years
Text
Deleted Scene: Gateway Drug
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"Fool Me Once" -- [1987] 
I run a hand through my done-up hair, snagging it on hairsprayed strands, wincing. 
"Thank you for coming today, I know you're busy as busy can be but you made time for this, so, we appreciate it." Danielle tells me me as I sit down and she readies her notepad and pen, switching her recorder on to tape audio.
"No problem." I reply, glancing at Duff in the corner by the door. 
"I know this might be a little strange but I always like to start my interviews off with a icebreaker, if that's okay?" She offers. 
"No, that's fine." I tell her, getting more comfortable in my chair. 
"This philosophy we've been trying to pan out in some of our shoots is the difference between beautiful and sexy, and explore that notion and gauge if people even think there is a difference, so my question for you is: do you think there is a difference between 'sexy' and 'beautiful' and which would you rather be?" 
"Oh, my God, okay." I breathe out, laughing, and she joins me. 
"You said 'okay' so I asked." She reminds me and I nod. 
"Beautiful implies to more than just outward appearance, it applies to someone's soul and their spirit, their attitude, how they carry themselves, how they treat others, whereas 'sexy' literally means sexually exciting which is usually based on looks mostly." I point out. 
"Okay, and I also asked which you'd rather be--or which one you think you are." She rewords it. 
"You sure did, um…" I already know my answer, but don't want to make it seem like I want someone to tell me I'm pretty. "...I don't…" I sigh and she looks like she's dying to hear my answer, and so is Duff. "I'm pretty." I reply and she furrows her brows. "I mean, I think I'm decently pretty. I've been called beautiful before but I still have a lot to work on within myself before I feel comfortable with that. But I appreciate it when I'm called that." 
"And what about 'sexy'?" 
"Oh, no. I'm not." I say it matter of fact, and she looks stumped. 
"What?" 
"I mean, if I try I probably can be but just everyday I don't see myself as 'sexy'." 
Duff's laughter quickly erupts, and I look at him to see his hand on his mouth to stifle it before he clears his throat. 
"Sorry." He mumbles to Danielle when she looks back at him before turning back to me. 
"I assure you, Vivian, you are a very sexy, very beautiful woman." She promises. 
"Thank you." I smile shyly at her.
"Okay, I was wanting to talk about you a little bit because I feel like people know who you are but not much about you other than what's, I guess, painted on you in a certain way, so if you would tell me who Vivian Sixx is." She crosses her legs, brushing a hair from her eyes as she patiently awaits my answer. 
"Oh, gosh, nobody's asked me that, yet." I blurt, thinking for a moment as she brushes my comment off with a small giggle. "Um," Nikki Sixx's wife, maybe?, "to be honest I'm not sure." I chuckle out, rubbing my lips together. And she looks at me like she fucking pitties me. I force myself to save this close-call shitshow, giving Duff another look and he gives me an encouraging thumbs up as he mouths, "you got this." 
"I dance." I let out, and she raises her brows. "Ballet, not stripping." I clarify. "I have since I could walk." 
"You've never considered a professional career in it?" She asks me next. 
"I was going to but then plans changed and I put off school. But I do plan on going back and finishing at some point." I explain. 
"Did those plans involve your marriage?" She questions and I chuckle a little. 
"I got pregnant--or I thought I got pregnant. It wasn't until after we got married that I found out it was a false positive." I admit. "And I'm sure people are going to say that I was never pregnant, that I was just trying to trap Nikki in a marriage but that's bullcrap because nobody can 'trap' Nikki or make him do something he doesn't want to do, so..." 
"I can’t see him doing anything he doesn’t already want to do.” She agrees with a smile, glancing down at her notes before clearing her throat. “On the lines of Playboy, being that some of our executives saw you in the music video for ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, you were voted ‘easiest on the eyes’ in this past weeks poll out of eighty-two other women.” She informs me and I raise my brows. “Does stuff like that flatter you or do you see it as misogynistic?”
“Well, um, firstly, I’m sure glad you said ‘on the eyes’ because I was about to ask you who started the survey and where do they live?” I reply and she laughs. “So, I’m glad it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but, um…” I lick my lips, letting out a breath. “...I don’t think it’s necessarily misogynistic so I don’t mind it, but I don’t really like the fact that there’s eighty-two other women at risk of feeling less-than now.” I admit. “I appreciate it, though. I’ll take it.”
“You don’t like competition?”
“I do but I’m pitted against women constantly in my personal life or the media tries to, at least, and it’s just stale at this point, you know? It’s stupid.” I rub my forehead.
“Are you referring to what’s recently happened with Vanity?” She blurts and I force myself not to be phased. “Do you have any comment on that particular situation?”
I look at Duff once again, screaming internally while faking a smile.
“It was honestly a misunderstanding.” I lie. “I know we’ve already said it was misunderstanding before but it truly was.”
“Have you spoken to Vanity since?”
“Yes.”
“So, you two are still on good terms, even though she told the world she was engaged to your husband?” She presses more and I brush red hair from my face, trying to keep my tears from growing in my eyes as I see Duff from the corner of my eye, looking at me sympathetically.
“I love her to death.” I say, honestly--even though I shouldn’t love her, I do. Even if she’s a part of the reason my heart broke, I still love her. Even if I’m not acknowledging her existence, I love her. “And I wish and pray nothing but the best for her.” I finish and she grins slightly, knowing she’s getting a good story.
"Is she a woman you've felt like you've needed to compete with?" She asks next, her words hitting me in the gut. 
"Subconsciously, maybe, but I've never gone out of my way to compete with her. I've never had to." 
"What about groupies?" She raises a brow. "Or do you care because you two have been married for a while?" 
"I'm sure a lot of women think, 'oh, I'm married to him so I've won', but I've seen guys take off their wedding rings before walking into a strip club or a bar and leave with three girls under each arm--a marriage doesn't solidify anything we think it does, it should but it doesn't so of course there's been moments where I've been pissed off about women doing everything they can to cross a line but, again, I don't wake up every morning and say, 'what do they have that I don't?' in comparison to groupies. They're termites: they swallow wood, ruin homes, and then it's on to the next." I say and she swallows uncomfortably. 
"Does that not contribute to society's stigmatic view on promiscuous women being 'sluts'?" She asks me. 
"Having sex with people doesn't make a woman, or a man, a slut. Pursuing a taken man or woman, knowing they are taken, makes a slut. Cheating on a significant other makes a slut." I state. 
"What about posing for Playboy while being in a relationship?" She counters. 
"Posing naked doesn't make someone a slut." I defend what I said earlier. 
"Just wanted your view on that since you come from a strict upbringing in the Christian faith, is all." She tells me. "Especially since your mother is bound to hear of all this and probably have plenty to say." 
"I haven't talked to my mother in years so if she has something to say but can't say it directly to my face, it's not worth hearing." I tell her. "My dad is the one I'm antsy about all this happening because of." I feel my skin prickle with nervousness because I never gave much of a thought to my dad seeing me on Playboy. 
"Do you have a good relationship with him?" She asks me, intrigued, and I nod. 
"Yes." I say. "I always will, he's the most important person in my life for sure."
"I think we all thought that'd be Nikki from the way we see you look at him in pictures and in passing." 
"Oh," I say it a little flat, a small inkling of a look coming to her face and before I plant any doubt in her mind, I add, "I'm still completely head-over-heels for him but my dad's always gonna be my number one." 
"Does he and your father get along or does your dad keep his distance, too?"
"No, no, he and my dad get along fine." I assure her. "He really keeps his distance out of respect for my mom, but lately he's been more involved, so...but, no, he doesn't have any problem with Nikki. He really appreciates him and all he's done for me, um, yeah, it's really a blessing they get along." 
At least he did. Before he found out Nikki had an entire mistress...on national television…along with the rest of the country. 
"That is very nice." She agrees. "And what about the other boys, do you get along with them as well?" She refers to Vince, Tommy and Mick. 
"Oh, yeah, absolutely." I rub my lips together.
"Is it true you and Tommy and Vince and our very own Tansy Lyn grew up together?" 
"Yes. I met Tommy in elementary school, and Vince and Tansy in middle school and we've been friends ever since." 
"What are they really like? Outrageous news reports, complaints from parents and the church, girls, parties, drugs and booze aside, what are they authentically like and how do you coincide with them and how has being alongside them from the start of their journey, to now, shaped you?" 
"They seem larger than life and it's hard to see them as anything but that, but I've seen them all be so overwhelmed indescribably with joy, and I've seen them all be completely broken and not know what to do, and I've seen them be piss poor and then have more money than God it seems, but they aren't these huge rockstars behind the scenes. They have diva moments, of course, but Tommy and Vince still act just like the boys they were when I first met them, and the same goes for Nikki and Mick. They act out for publicity, and everything in the press is obviously exaggerated but they're normal guys. They're honestly just regular, gross, messy, disgusting, perverted, immature stinking boys--talented, but still normal." I admit. "And I think the effect it's had on my life is just that I've had to mature faster than maybe I would have because it's like I have children. Like I'm constantly going and someone's going through a crisis whether it's Tommy one day or Vince the next, or whatever so keeping them out of trouble the best I can and then trying to be there and as present as I can be when they need me is stressful but it's rewarding. I like helping out where I can and they need all the help they can get so, it's really helped mature me a little more, I guess, is what I'm trying to say."
"I mentioned earlier their reputation within churches and religious groups and I'm curious as to know how you, as a Christian yourself, feel about songs like 'Shout at the Devil' which really got a rise out of politicians and church-goers everywhere, and most recently 'Wild Side'--which is a song that you are an accredited writer on--that's off of their 'Girls, Girls, Girls' album and is a mockery of the Lord's Prayer?" 
"First of all, to clear this up, I didn't write anything in 'Wild Side', Nikki asked what the Lord's Prayer was and I told him and his brilliant mind gave me a writing credit which will plague me the rest of my life, I suppose, but to answer your question...it's 'Shout at the Devil', not 'Shout with the Devil', therefor it doesn't bother me. Now, 'Wild Side' bothers me. A lot. But that's a way Nikki felt when writing it, and I'm not going to tell him those feelings aren't valid just because I don't feel the same way. That's not fair to him, and I'm certainly not ever going to tell him not to express himself and channel how he feels into his work because that's what makes music and art individual and unique. So, it doesn't matter how I feel. If it makes him happy and he's proud of it then that's that and if I don't like it or don't agree with it or find it insulting to my beliefs then I just, 'forgive him, God, he knows not what he does' and just get over it." 
"Do you think there will be a new 'Filthy Fifteen'?" 
"I would say Tipper Gore and her group of desperate, dry, housewives can go get screwed by other men because their husband's are clearly inadequate but then I suppose they can't find bigger pricks than who they're married to, so..." I blurt and she widens her eyes, a little smirk on her lips as she laughs. 
"I take it you weren't a fan of the censorship?" 
"The only plus side to censorship and stickering everything is that kids know what to play in front of their parents and what to save for themselves." I finish and she chuckles some more. 
I talked some more about marrying so young, what it was like being married to one of the biggest names in rock music at that time and so on, all while hiding the fact that once I left there, I was going to go back to the tour, sleep in a separate room than my husband, not talk to the friends I grew up with who were supposed to have my back, and be so completely miserable.
The moment Duff and I leave the room once I've said goodbye and thanked everyone who was apart of the process for my shoot, I feel lightheaded. 
"Viv?" Duff asks me, concerned, and I take deep breaths, bracing against the wall. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I lie, nodding a little. "Just tired, I think." 
My voice cracks painfully and my tears are already beading at my lashline. 
"Viv, if you need a second--"
"--No, I'm fine. We gotta go." I deny, making myself walk again before he stops me. "Duff…" before I can argue, he's putting his bass down and pulling me to him, hugging me tightly. 
I give up, knowing that he knows me too damn well to buy my shit. 
I wrap my arms around him, burying my face in his chest, feeling my tears, hot against my cheek, soak into the fabric of his t-shirt as the warmth of his lips press comfortingly to my hair. 
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phynali · 4 years
Note
I don't know if you're apart of the Supernatural fandom, but if you are, could you do a speech analysis for Dean Winchester? Thank you.
I am! I’ve fallen into (back) into SPN hell recently and gotten a ton of feels I did not expect, thank you very damn much. But anyway, yes I am happy to oblige. 
Dean’s voice is very distinct, but I can see why it’s hard to grapple with for many writers because very seldom does he say what he means and very often when he does it’s wrapped up in humour or pain. It’s often quippy as a means of deflecting emotion or maintaining a status quo or emotional handle over a situation. He uses commands and charm and pop culture references but he’s a very complex character so sometimes that all disappears and he’s open and vulnerable and raw, and those lines can be hard to draw.
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Notes 
To understand Dean’s focal speech patterns, we first to recognize that we’ve known Dean for 15 years, and that people’s modes of speaking can and will change over time. We’re gonna focus on things that have stayed more or less consistent over time, and his ‘base’ speech patterns that make his dialogue him. I’ll mostly shy away from different eras but may highlight a few things, and the same goes for who he’s talking to because he’s pretty similar with his only major differences being a function of closeness. He’s not much of a conversational mimic so we don’t have to worry about that. 
We’re also gonna state the obvious and contrast the type of conversation he might be having - whether he’s tied up or in danger vs. expressing emotions vs. focused on the job. That’s probably where the meat of this is for people who are interested in these kinds of analyses anyway :)
Also - this is 4200 words so I’m sure there are typos so just acknowledging that up front.
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Sentence Style
Let’s start with overall style.
Dean’s speech is generally straightforward (when he’s not being referential) with a low proportion of adjectives and a decent amount of degree modifiers (more on that below). He uses simple sentences with clear statements, though will add clauses to clarify, reference, or add degree fairly frequently. 
For example:
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”Like you said” is acting here as a way to refer back to a previous conversation. Dean does this more when he’s stating something not about himself/his subjective experience, but stating an absolute (or at least something to be taken as absolute). 
Also something to point out about this example: like I said he uses shorter, simpler sentences. While that isn’t always true of course, it definitely it is the case that he doesn’t tend toward long, breathless sentences. Even here he could have said this in one sentence and instead split it into two concrete points. A person could transcribe it differently (”Like you said, we’re family, and we don’t leave family behind.”) but he tends to speak in this manner that implies full stops between these separate statements. 
(Later I’m gonna completely contradict myself by talking about his longer statements btw. He tends to use longer sentences in more serious conversations, and includes clauses that qualify the statement).
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Declarative I-Statements
Dean uses a ton of declarative sentences starting with I. Like - a lot of people do. But Dean’s iconic quotes are often “I”, and a large proportion of his sentences are declarative sentences in the active voice centring around him, his opinion, or his experience of the world. From “I think he wants us to pick up where he left off - saving people, hunting things, the family business.” to “I think I’m adorable”, Dean likes to tell us what he thinks and what he is.
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You can also extend this pattern to other sentences that might start with different words but carry the same thesis “Demons I get - people are crazy.” It could be reworded just as simply as “I get demons - people are crazy.” But if Sam were the one saying it? “People are crazy” seems just as likely (although I’d put my money on “what is wrong with people?” as Sam’s most likely statement if he were trying to get the same sentiment across). Sam would express it as an absolute about the world or a rhetorical question, rather than one focused around his view of the world. Which doesn’t make Sam less self-focused or idiocentric than Dean, but their speech patterns express different modes of seeing the world, and in some ways Dean’s vocal patterns do more to acknowledge that his view of the world is subjective (but also that his subjective view is all he really cares about anyway).
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(see all the other gifs here. Think “I’m proud of us” and so many other lines. So many I-statements).
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Imperative and Commands
Dean speaks in a lot of commands. Idk what else to tell you. He’s a natural leader and he takes charge of situations, so it’s just kind of a natural facet of his speech. 
He does this with humour:
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And without (”He asks, you answer! Then you shut your hole” for example).
Telling people what to do isn’t always met kindly, of course:
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And although not an imperative sentence, he also is comfortable using speech to demand compliance:
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Word Choices
One thing I like to always examine is word choice, contractions, and negation, so let’s dive in to that. 
Diction
While Dean doesn’t flower up his language much in terms of verb and noun choice, that isn’t because he has a small vocabulary. I’d wager it’s a choice to being unpretentious because of the world he lives in. He never has any issue pulling out technical or clinical language:
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(Also seen here: he tends to be very pithy and flippant, especially when he’s unimpressed with someone or with a situation, or wants to express annoyance and frustration. It’s his first-stop for “I dislike this”.)
We’ve seen him use words like Achilles’ Heel and describe how he made an EMF using technical language, so there’s no hesitancy to drop these terms, but for him it’s a matter of expressing what he wants to in a manner that will be easily understood by the person with whom he’s speaking.
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Negation
For how he uses negation - Dean doesn’t say “ain’t” and he seldom said “[x]’s not”. His typical negation is “isn’t”. 
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(Not “this ain’t the Scooby Gang” and not “it’s not / we’re not the Scooby Gang”. Isn’t. And yes, the line “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you” bugs the hell out of me for this specific reason. When else have we ever heard him say ain’t? “There is no me if there is no you” is way more in keeping with his usual negation style.)  
He also negates using the word Never. “I’ve never had anything this nice.”
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Like this. And like this:
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This is interesting because it fits into Dean’s pattern (discussed below) of using words (adverbs and swears alike) as ways to modify the intensity of his sentences. A lot of people use qualifiers to create this sense of degree (words like “really” and “very”). While Dean sometimes uses or combines those words with others (”really freakin’ hate this”), he does something that very few people do, which is use the qualifying word ‘never’ to express an absolute quality. Most of us can’t say we’ve never done something. We might say we “didn’t” do something, but we don’t express it as absolute as “never”. Dean does. Dean makes it clear what things simply do not get to be attributed to him or are not to be counted within his sphere of existence.
(He says it under less extreme circumstances too though...)
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Contractions
Dean is liberal with his use of contractions and word shortenings. I’d recommend writing his use of words like “freaking” as “freakin’” “nothin’” and so forth. Can’t, not cannot. 
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Gonna, wanna. You are going to want to = You’re gonna wanna. (Also “you’re gonna have to trust me”. He tells people what they’re gonna have to do a lot).
He uses other shortenings like “y’know” and “’cause” as well, when he’s relaxed at least. Like all of us, if he’s emphasizing those words he’ll enunciate fully, so try to match the contraction use to what you want to emphasize and to the tone you want to convey.
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Addressing Others
I wasn’t sure what else to call these (linguists might have some idea), but I’m talking about the use of words like “man” “dude” and “y’know” (and even his “Listen Velma” above). He uses these words like we all do - to ensure the person we’re talking to is clear that we’re addressing them directly, calling them into the conversation. Dean uses ‘dude��� a frequent amount for Sam (and others) but also “Man” at times (especially when annoyed). He uses “brother” for Benny as well in S8 in the same manner. 
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Conversely, “y’know” tends to come up when he’s being sly or pithy. He doesn’t really use ‘Buddy’ except for strangers (but not like Sam who essentially uses it as a threat) and I can’t recall him saying ‘pal’.
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Positive and Negative Words
Some generic positives: awesome, super (often sarcastic)
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Some recurrent negatives: ugly, bad, douch-y
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“It ends bloody. It ends bad.”
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Expressing Emphasis
Look - Dean doesn’t use a lot of adjectives, but he does use a lot of degree modifiers/adverbs. One of those is “just”. “Just do [x].” “Just so you know.” Just.
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(Even here, “I just”).
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He also does a very neat thing with the word “Uh.” It’s used not to hesitate or equivocate, like most people might use it, but instead to increase attention to what he’s saying. A false-hesitancy which tends to both emphasize and diffuse what he’s saying a bit.
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(It’s so neat!)
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Swearing
There is absolutely no doubt that Dean is an avid curser. There’s an excellent 4th-wall-bending implication from 3x13 (Ghostfacers) where we see Dean (and Sam) dropping f-bombs and other swears that get bleeped out in the Ghostfacers documentary. Which allows us as the audience to realize they’re swearing all the time, but that the network doesn’t allow that kind of swearing, so we see a watered down version of their dialogue on screen. 
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Dean says “freaking” a lot, and I feel like we can assume that 9 times out of 10, he’s dropping an f bomb. His favourite exclamation is “son of a bitch”, but when he’s really pissed off, we get a “motherf*cker”. Seasons 4-8 his favourite thing to call people is a douche or douchebag if he looks down on them. In general my advice to authors would be not to hesitate to have Dean swear, but make sure you’re using them right. 
While many swears are just exclamations or word replacement (”kicked my ass” instead of “kicked my butt”), a lot of the swearing that Dean does is specifically to increase emphasis to something in his speech. Adding in freaking/f*cking as an intensifier is probably its most common use for him. 
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For the record, he uses “hell” in a similar fashion. What the hell, how the hell, where the hell - etc. Expressing intense emotions via swears that increase the degree/magnitude/intensity of the statement.
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(Oddly enough, although Dean will insult people casually calling them douche, etc, when he’s pressed and angry and aggressive, his insults toward people don’t become vitriolic diatribes. Threats are more common, typically without an upscale in cursing, and so is being pithy to get them mad and distracted.)
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Questions, Answers, and Emotions
Okay so one thing I have to address: I kind of setup a strawman in the opening about sentence length. Because sure, Dean uses a lot of shorter and more declarative sentences. But he’s a person, which means that the bulk of his speech is just speech. While all else being equal, he uses more shorter, i-statements, and more commanding language than others, he also has conversations. He’s got a great sense of humour and a bit of an acid tongue, even under pressure, so if you’re not writing him with some some glibness or humour (even when it comes out biting, frustrated or falls completely flat) you’re probably missing something.
And often, he expresses himself in questions. This humour and glibness can come out like:  "What are you, the Dog Whisperer now?" in a less strained situation, or it can come out to try to keep his feels under wraps while seeking insight: 
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Of course it’s not all questions. Sometimes his glibness, including for his own life, comes out in the form of answers:
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He’s being serious but totally glib about life and death, having accepted his fate. (Dean accepting his own mortality is kind of also a must, especially post S1 finale).
And sometimes he expresses pain and feeling as questions without any glibness at all:
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So to be clear, don’t write him as only ever using short i-declarations. Pepper those in, but remember that if he’s expressing an emotion or a vulnerability (even if he’s covering it with glibness), he’ll be using this roundabout way with questions or with indirect answers that don’t directly state his feelings but still manage to convey what he’s thinking.
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Pleading
One more thing I want to touch on in this section: there are (probably surprising to some who aren’t looking) a lot of notes of supplication when he’s talking to others and feeling vulnerable. It’s very easy to think of Dean as someone who’ll never ask, never beg or plead. Because that’s what he wants you to think, because he’s the cool, in charge Han Solo type. 
But Dean does ask. He pleads. He pleads to God/Chuck, he pleads to his father, to Sam, to Cass. A major difference between he and Sam is actually the situations in which they’re likely to say “please”. Sam’s likely to use it as a first response (and therefore says it waaaay more) but absolutely refuse to under duress. Dean will never ever use it as a first response, but will fall back and resort to it in the end. We could unpack what that means about their psyche, but we’re here for language.
Not too surprisingly, I’m having a hard time getting the gif search to grant me specific gifs of Dean saying ‘please’, but I can recall some instances. S1 finale, when Azazel is possessing John. First he starts with quips and pissing Azazel off, and then it’s “Don’t you let him hurt me!” and then when that fails, he begs his father to help him. 
He pleads in S1 for Sam not to leave, because Sam is all he has left. He pleads with an angelic APB at the opening of S9 for an angel to save Sam. He tells Cass he needs him when Cass his pulverizing his face. “Please, he’s my brother”. Is that what he says to Lilith? Or was the ‘please’ implied there?
Here, instead of single gifs, you should get the full experience of the duress under which Dean will say please:
To God
To his dad
To his dad again
To Bobby
To Sam in an alternate timeline
And when he wants to be left alone the same thing occurs:
To his mother
To Sam
You get the idea. He doesn’t always say please. Sometimes it’s notes of supplication in his voice and sometimes it’s a somewhat desperate “c’mon man” when he doesn’t want to have to ask but he’s at the end of his rope.
(Okay final characterization note for this section - I also think Dean is probably useless against someone who looks up at him with wide sad eyes and says ‘please’ to him. I suspect part of why it’s his final defense is because he himself would be defenseless to that kind of plea from others, because he was hardwired from a young age to look after his infant little brother, and that involves a certain amount of responding to pleading and helplessness).
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Pop Culture References
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Dean uses a lot of highly referential language. He refers to bands and musicians, films, pop culture, current events and modern history, etc. Despite him not being overly tapped into social media (e.g., not knowing what myspace is in early seasons, among other things), it’s equally clear that he’s tapped into film, TV, music - any means through which he can consume content. This makes sense given how much driving time and downtime his life must have, with time in motels and between jobs to watch and rewatch the same media. Try to pepper in these sorts of references in as ways for Dean to describe what’s going on and relate new experiences to what makes sense to him.
If you’re a non-American writing him, or a very young American, it doesn’t hurt to brush up on music and media that were popular from the 80s and 90s, which will make up the core of Dean’s formative years and therefore references. There’s also evidence he knows a lot of pop culture history though so don’t hesitate to make references to films etc from any decade of the 20th century. He’s also a bit of a sci-fi nerd and we know he reads (including Vonnegut) so literary references are perfectly in order. I would shy away from references to historical fiction, Shakespeare, and instead keep it to genres we know he consumes (including cartoons!).
"You were wasted by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Angel?"
(ps - seriously just look at this post - we’ve got scooby doo and blues brothers and batman and I wasn’t even trying to find pop culture references when I gif searched).
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Deeper Emotional Conversations
While I mentioned above that he uses questions and answers to roundabout discuss his feelings, not all chick flick moments can be handled in that manner, and many can’t be handled with glibness at all.
For Dean, directly addressing his deeper negative emotions is difficult, and thus becomes a pained pronouncement. The nuance tends to come through in his face and nonverbal cues so focus on those, but linguistic choices are pretty important here. And this is where directly naming his emotions comes in. Unlike that question/answer section above where his thoughts and feelings are conveyed without directly naming his sentiment, sometimes he is called upon to express his feelings more specifically.
Because let’s be honest, he’s got his A Single Man Tear(TM) and he’s got deep, painful feelings, but he sucks at talking about them.
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Let’s create an example that isn’t something that specifically happened in canon, but easily could. So - let’s say that Dean might need to say he’s scared of losing Sam. That would come after some pained discussion and Dean will act like he’s having his teeth pulled, but he will say it. And when he does, it’s either an angry proclamation (”you want me to say it? fine! i’m scared, sam - i’m scared as hell that one day i’ll wake up and you’ll be gone.”) or he cracks himself open completely exposed and vulnerable, and all the air rushes from the room when you see it because his eyes are shining and it’s visceral and real and been sitting right below the surface, suffocated until this moment (”i’m scared, sam,” a crack in his voice, an inhale of breath, and he looks a second from losing it. but it’s dean so he won’t, he’ll hold on by the skin of his teeth with his heart spilling out of his mouth, red with the blood of his own truths. “i’m terrified of losing you.”). 
There’s very little in between. There’s almost never any emotionally removed or more clinical discussion of his feelings like you might get with Sam. (”you want me to say i’m scared? of course i’m scared. i’m terrified, dean, but that’s not the point here. the point is -”). Because Dean struggles to accept and avow his painful internal emotional landscape, he struggles to discuss it in a way that’s removed, so it becomes very intense when he does. 
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What this also means for writing emotional dialogue is that although Dean does not lack insight into his emotions, where they come from, and why he’s feeling the way he is, he’ll very seldom provide you an in depth explanation. This may make him seem less emotionally mature, but really what’s happening is a struggle to put those feelings into words. Discussion of anxiety, insecurity, and trauma are put into boxes he can more easily communicate - fear, anger, violence. Less “I overreacted because I was scared of losing you” and more “I’m fucking terrified of losing you. And yeah, it pisses me off.” Dean doesn’t tend to use explanatory statements (”because”), he tends to present emotions and even concepts outside of emotional discussions as separate statements, and it becomes your job to then connect those statements (as the one he’s talking to, and as the audience).
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Like I said near the start, Dean also uses longer sentences when having serious conversations. “As long as I’m around, nothing bad’s gonna happen to you.” Note the first half of that sentence acting as a qualifier (implying something bad could happen, but not when Dean is around, creating the condition upon which the whole sentence and sentiment hangs).
Less Declarative Expression
Dean expresses negative emotions like disappointment and frustration as well, but unlike his more intense/extreme negative emotions (terror, fear of abandonment, deep anger) he very seldom will declare those emotions. While he might use question and answer format, he might also control the conversation with a straightforward expression that saves him from having to say what he’s feeling while still getting it across.
For example, "Well that's great, because without your power, you're basically just a baby in a trench coat." Instead of saying he’s frustrated, he says something that gets to the point of what he’s mad about without saying he’s mad. (This is especially true when what he’s mad about is the situation. Because while these statements are about people, on the balance of things, they’re not really directed at them. Because often he’s frustrated because of something they can’t solve and he knows that). 
He’s also liable to not-declare-but-express pent up feelings he’s not ready to unpack in the same manner:
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He’s obviously stressed and angry, but he doesn’t want to have to avow that anger and unpack all of where it’s coming from. It’s not the feeling of the emotion he dislikes so much as it is the examination of the underpinning reasons for it, because the dredge it up and unpack it is more painful than to let himself to continue to feel it at this low consistent level while he processes.
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Outliers and End Notes
No post can fully capture and analyze 15 years of dialogue. There’s probably a million important elements to Dean’s speech that I missed. I think I want to emphasize a few things before we part. 
First - if you really want to write Dean, make sure you write him as charismatic. He uses humor, charm, deflection, questions, commands, and confidence all to control conversations and he does it seamlessly. Despite his rakish nature, he seldom if ever seems to offend people (unless he’s deliberately trying to piss them off) and you should take that into consideration when writing him. 
Keeping him fully in character will therefore involve a sort of fluidity about his speech, and those references. He is personable and exceptionally confident. He does not tend to hesitate or apologize (except in a flippant, superficial way, or in very strained emotional conversations and then only to those he loves deeply). His volume and tone are probably as or more important than his words, so consider when he’s saying something with a purr vs. with a snarl vs. shouting vs. having his voice crack into a whisper. He’s incredibly expressive with his face, but not overly gesticular with his hands (though he does gesture, just not in a way that stands out a great deal).
If you want or need him to give some type of confession in what you’re writing, you pretty much have two options. Either expressing his emotions in ways I’ve described here, or giving it the good ol’ S12 monologue where he bares his soul (when he’s inside Mary’s head). That should be reserved only for very extreme circumstances though - circumstances like saving his mother from brainwashing, discussing his hell trauma, or declaring that there’s nothing on heaven or earth he’d put before his little brother. Because in general long speeches aren’t his style.
And if you can, give some thought to what season you’re writing in. Is he still calling everyone and everything douch-y? Is he in the later seasons and more capable of unpacking his emotions directly? Is he in the early seasons where he’s trying to be Han Solo and too damn cool and smooth about everything, even his impending death?
At the end of the day - Dean is a wonderful, complex character and I hope this analysis helps some writers understanding his speech and character better!
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Text
Blood Red Heat prt 40
For the last night planet side, the pack had piled into Green for a sleep over. Krolia, Allura, Romelle, and Coran, all invited, even if they didn’t feel what their pack felt. Sitting between Hunk’s legs, Hunk was helping Lance keep up with the weird card game he and Pidge had tried to invent that was somewhere between poker and uno. Coupled with Pidge, the three of them had crushed Keith and Shiro, who didn’t actually know the rules of the game. Keith’s alpha struggling seeing Lance seated between Hunk’s legs, but he’d managed to keep his temper with how happy Lance seemed to be. They’d all noticed it now, the pauses and the weakness. Coran had suggested a group walk out to where they’d found a wide piece of stream that was better for water collection that further down and closer to camp, Lance stubbornly tried to keep up the “relaxed pace” Coran had set, his hand on Kosmo for support . When Lance had stumbled, Hunk had thrown himself down dramatically with an exaggerated sigh and demanded a time out from training. Pidge caught on quick, their gremlin also asking for a break.
Upon seeing so much water, Lance had wanted to go swimming. Coran having to be the one to break it to him that swimming wasn’t advisable as they had to boil the water for drinking due to some potential parasite. Sitting on the bank of the stream, Lance had told him all about growing up surfing. Keith had never been surfing. Living in a land locked state would do that to you. Lance promised to teach him when they finally got back home, explaining how his next oldest brother was totally a grommet... whatever that was. Keith was simply happy to hear Lance talk so enthusiastically about something he clearly loved. It was then that Lance decided to also tell him about his older sister Veronica who worked at the Galaxy Garrison. Lance might love his siblings, yet the way he talked about Veronica, it was clear she was the one he was closest to out of the brood...
The alpha feeling semi-bad that he couldn’t recall Lance’s family from all their forced upon mind melding. He wished he could keep up with it all. Lance taking his silence the wrong way, apologising for “rubbing his family in his face”. Maybe he had, but Keith wanted to know. He wanted to make sure he didn’t make a fool of himself when he finally told Lance’s family that he had the honour of courting him.
Scrunching his face as up as he went cross eyed at his cards Lance was being cute again, Keith ducked his head to cover the slight blush setting in. Not missing anything, Shiro nudged him with his elbow, whispering in his ear
“Quick, Lance breathed, you better blush”
His brother could go jump
“Fuck off. Like you and Adam were any better”
“Hey, we raised a kid together, we were allowed to be gross. We needed each other with how often you got in trouble”
“It wasn’t always my fault, you know”
“I do. He seems happy”
Throwing a card down, Lance craned his neck to look back at Hunk who nodded supportively
“He is. He still has his moments, but the game really did knock out the hardest part of the apology”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who apologised as much as him. Is there any way to get him to stop?”
Keith snorted, if Lance praised him any more, or apologised for something not his fault one more time, his brain might just short circuit
“Try dating him... You love to apologise for everything, don’t you, babe?”
Lance wasn’t listening until he heard “babe”, worry coming to his face as he tilted his head
“Hmm?”
“I said you love to apologise”
Lance seemed unsure, hesitantly nodding, but trusting Keith
“I’m not going to apologise for kicking your butt”
“You’re not going to show me any mercy, are you?”
“Nope... not even if you’re my alpha”
Shooting Lance finger guns, Keith grinned stupidly thinking himself smart
“That’s my omega”
Lance groaning as he blushed. Pidge and Hunk both shocked he’d ever shoot anyone finger guns
“Babe, nooooo”
“I think you mean, “Babe, yessss””
Pidge rolled her eyes at them, surprisingly she was still quiet quite with her teasing, sometimes it took her a moment or two to reword what she was going to say, this time she was straight to the point
“Let Lance keep his finger guns... It doesn’t look right when you do it”
Keith pouted, huffing
“There’s nothing wrong with my fingers”
Lance choked on thin air. Keith blushing hard as he tried to fix what he said
“I didn’t mean it like it! I mean they work and they do their job! Babe, help!”
Shiro patted him on the shoulder
“Keith, kiddo, brother of mine, please just stop”
“I’m... you guys suck”
Continuing their game a little longer, Lance dropped his cards as he rubbed at his head. Hunk casting a worried look to Keith, who placed his cards down and crawled over to his omega. Krolia and Coran both on edge in case there was something wrong. Allura and Romelle stopping their gossip session of how Altea of the old had been. Feeling Lance’s forehead, Hunk gave a small shake of his head, Lance not feverish
“Babe, you okay?”
“Red says it’s time I was asleep... I dun wanna sleep. I think I’m finally getting this”
“Wanna come give me a cuddle for bit then? Maybe you can teach me how to play?”
Lance reached for him, the pack adjusting around them so Lance could sit in his lap and still be included in what was happening. Thinking he was whispering, his boyfriend failed hard
“I don’t think Pidge and Hunk know how to play... I’m so confused”
Hunk and Pidge both groaned. Hunk, shaking his head
“Honestly I think I’ve had enough. Do you want to try fish instead? We all know Pidge cheats at poker”
“It’s not my fault I’m graceful and charming”
When no one immediately agreed, Pidge kicked Keith in the ankle, Shiro chuckling
“She is style. She is grace...”
Lance adding on, as if this “song” was a “well known thing”
“But mess with her and it’s a foot to the face, or her little gremlin fangs in your ankle”
Pidge smiled proudly at Lance, wiping a fake tear from her eye
“Awww, dude, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said”
“I do try to be nice”
Shiro reached over to ruffle Lance’s hair. This was what pack nights had been like before he’d left, only now he had Lance and it seemed a thousand times better for it
“We know, kiddo. You going to play, or do you want to watch?”
“I wanna watch... You guys should teach Coran”
Introducing Coran to “fish”, Coran started explaining the aquatic animals that’d called Altea home. He wasn’t sure why humans called it “fish”, and seemed to think they should all have tiny little rods for picking up the cards. Too preoccupied teaching Coran, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro, failed to notice as Keith slowly drew out of playing to watch with Lance. Hands holding each other’s, as his omega started to doze off in his arms. The game would have continued if Lance hadn’t accidentally kicked his leg out, knocking the pile of cards over as he sighed in his sleep. Lance had always been a heavy sleeper, once he got to sleep, Keith content as a human pillow as Pidge collected up the cards. Shiro being the responsible “Space Dad”
“We really should call it a night”
Hunk smiled at his best friend, probably happy to be free from Coran’s story
“I’m pretty tired, I think Lance has the right idea”
Pidge nodded her agreement, ignoring Coran’s pouting at the game coming to an end
“Mhmm... I could sleep. It’s been ages since we did anything like this as a pack”
Between their night under the stars and the day spent triple checking everyone had everything and rations were fairly divided, Keith felt it too
“It’s nice. You guys got all your bedding?”
Pidge answered for all of them
“Yep. We made sure we had everything before we started playing cards. We even set you and Lance up with your own bed”
There was mischief in Pidge’s tone, Keith not surprised at all
“Thanks for that... but we’re probably going to crash right here. He’s already completely zonked out”
“Fiiiiine, put all our hard work to shame. I dibs sleeping closest to Lance”
Hunk immediately spluttered
“I’m his best friend”
“You got to cuddle him all night. We all need pack time, Hunk”
Hunk sighed
“Fine. Next time I’m sleeping next to him”
“We’ll see. Shiro, you good?”
“I’m going to use the bathroom before everyone else. Keith, you need a hand?”
“Nah. I’ve got him. I’ll save brushing my teeth for the morning”
Pidge wrinkled her nose up
“I swear I’ll shoot you if you come at me with your morning breath”
“I’ll save it just for you, Pidgeon”
Their bantering continued as everyone got ready around him and Lance. The floor of Green not the best bed, but he did have the best cuddle mate in the pack. For Romelle and Krolia this was new experience, Coran had taken to watching over the pack when they’d had their sleep overs, falling asleep upright on the castle sofa as the rest of them slept close. Now Coran was sleeping near Allura and Romelle, with Krolia the one choosing to take the position of silent guardian. His mother really didn’t get how pack dynamics worked, but she was prepared to accept that this was what they all needed right now. His mother so thoroughly his mother that as she watching, she was oiling her blade. As everyone settled in, Green’s lighting switched to emergency lighting, filling the space with a soft glow. Hunk mumbling
“Pidge, I need the light on”
“Don’t look at me, that was all Green. I think Green agrees with Red that it’s past our bed time”
Black nudged into Keith’s mind, his own lion also in agreement. It’d be hard having to pilot Black away from Lance, but Krolia, Romelle, Allura, and Coran all agreed they were happy to swap having shifts in Red so Lance and Kalternecker would never be left alone
“Yeah, Black’s telling me we should be sleeping. What about Blue and Yellow?”
Allura giggled happily
“Yes, I do believe our lions have all ganged up against us”
“Maybe there as anxious as we are to get back out there?”
A pillow flew over Keith’s head, hitting Shiro, as Pidge grumped
“Personally, I could sleep for a month and that still wouldn’t be enough”
Keith snorted. Pidge was forgetting the one thing that made her more excited than anything else
“Now, now Pidge. Your dad probably has all sorts of new tech waiting for you”
Pidge spluttered, still thinking of her witty reply as Lance snuggled closer to Keith, letting out a loud rumbling content purr that they all heard. Hunk asking
“Dude, was that Lance?”
“Yeah. He’s got a good purr on him”
“I’ve never heard him purr like that before”
Pidge’s pillow was lobbed back over his head, Keith assuming she’d caught it as she didn’t complain about being hit. Closing his eyes, Keith buried his face against Lance’s back. Lance liked being the big spoon, yet seeing he was sleeping, Keith got to be big spoon, which the alpha preferred seeing it didn’t end up with Lance having a face full of his hair
“That’s because he’s all snuggled up with Keith. Don’t you two do anything gross in Green or I’ll kick you both out”
“Shut up. We’re not that gross”
“I’m just saying, we’re already hunting for a sun and if I see something I don’t want to, I might just yeet myself into it”
As Keith mentally sighed, Coran seemed to think now was the time to join in
“Not in Green you won’t. She’s a fine lion who deserves more than that. I’m sorry, Pidge, but I must insist you not do this “yeeting” of which you speak”
Pidge huffed, though her scent showed no trace of actual annoyance
“Look, now you made Coran cranky”
Keith trying to sound as deadpan as possible
“Oh no. Whatever shall we do?”
“Kosmo will teleport me over at the first sign of a potential yeet. You kids need your sleep”
There was a choruses of “Yes, Mum”, Krolia probably hadn’t expected to suddenly be called “mum” by all of them. She didn’t have a smart reply to that. Still, it was nice. To have his whole pack there, and for them to accept his mother, and his mother to accept Lance... all of it so damn nice that he could cry... but he wouldn’t. He loved his pack, for all its weirdness. They really were, and would forever be, his family.
** Three Years Later**
Lance had stood by Keith’s side for all of it. From coming back to Earth, to kicking the Galra off their home planet, to showing up wearing what seemed to be a full set of saucepans because Coran had been talking to him about Altean courting customs, Keith helping his omega unpan himself as they’d watched the sunset sitting atop black. Things hadn’t been easy. Lance nearly dropping when his second heat had come, due to the trauma before his first heat.
When Altea and Diabazaal had come back into existence, and with Honerva and Sendak both finally as dead as they deserved, slowly their pack dynamic had changed as they all sought their own paths. For Lance and Keith it’d been time on Earth, helping Lance’s family reestablish their farm in Cuba. Keith really didn’t like the first time he’d been invited to dinner by Lance’s Mami Miriam. The woman quick to share so many embarrassing stories about his omega. Lance shaken, but bold enough to stand up for himself and ask her to stop. His boyfriend talking him out to see Plant City, as most of the refugee families had been there at the time. Their time on Earth feeling like one big arse term at the Garrison. Keith finding himself “the future” as Lance had called him. Being the first Human-Galra, and the Black Paladin of Voltron, Keith found himself thrust into the spotlight that he’d never wanted.
For a time Lance worked with the Blades to help rebuild Diabazaal, as well as working as Earth’s ambassador to Altea. Coran refused to have it any other way. Lance was there for all of them. When Shiro had learned about the loss of Adam, it was Lance who kidnapped the pair of them from the awkward wake held for all the heroes lost when the Galra attacked. They wound up on some shitty beach in the middle of nowhere, but somehow that was everything Shiro needed. It was also Lance who helped to encourage Shiro to find happiness with his new boyfriend Curtis. Slowly as things had settled, Lance picked up teaching on Altea. His omega such a natural with the children that “laughed at his funny ears”.
Getting a call out of the blue from Coran, Keith broke every rule regarding wormholing off of Diabazaal. The stupid Blades had needed him for some stupid stealth mission. Keith well and truly over pockets of resistance that kept popping up trying to bring back Zarkon’s legacy. As far as Keith knew, Lance was on Earth. One of the perks of Pidge working at the Galaxy Garrison was the new gun tech coming out of the place. Lance had only been joking about being her official tester, yet almost every time Pidge upgraded some kind of gun, Lance would be the first one she’d call to her lab, even when the damn thing didn’t work, and the facility went onto lockdown because they’d tripped the fire alarms... He was supposed to be on Earth, with Pidge, and Pidge’s somewhat scary mother Colleen, planting a new crop of something or other resistant... Honestly, he still didn’t get farming talk, but Lance was meant to be in Cuba and now he was on Altea on that wasn’t okay, especially not when Coran had told him to come straight to main medical centre.
Landing on Altea, Keith flicked off the engines of his pod, out the thing before it’d finished spooling down, still in his Blade stealth suit, or his “onesie of justice” as Lance called it, as he bolted for the medical centre. Alarmed Alteans had no clue what was going, Keith nearly smacked into the glass doors, narrowly barrelling through the with only catching his shoulder instead of taking out the door frame. Hitting the admin desk, the Altea behind gave a small squeak as she rolled back
“Where’s Coran?!”
Timidly the woman pointed him down the hall to the left, Keith taking off jogging. Instinctively he wanted to keep running, yet Lance would smack him for running in a hospital.
Finally finding Coran, the alpha grabbed Coran by the shoulders. He wanted to shake an explanation out of him, but first he had to catch his breath
“Keith, my boy!? What a pleasure to see you again...”
“Lance... where’s Lance...”
“Uh, yes! Now...”
“Coran, don’t tease him! Keith, I’m okay”
Coran was kind of shoved slightly backwards as Keith tore away from the Altean, darting into the room he’d been standing in front of. Sitting on the bed, his omega looked exhausted as Keith rushed over to him. Wrapping his arms around Lance, the alpha let out a shaky breath. Yeah. He’d gotten a bit better with his rashness and impulse control, but that always went out the window when it came to Lance. Scrambling to tear his mask off with one hand, he didn’t want to let his omega go
“Babe... thank fuck...”
Chuckling softly, Lance smiled at him as Keith forced himself back to see his omega’s face
“Are you okay? I thought you were in Cuba. Coran messaged me that you were here...”
“And you came running... Babe, I’m okay. Something Coran should have told you”
Scrunching his brow, Lance being “okay” only made him confused
“I... if you’re okay, what are you doing here?”
“I... uh, started feeling ill. So I came for a check up... and hold on, let me show you...”
Pouting at Lance letting him go, his omega fished something out his pocket, Keith had no idea what the hell it was... until he was passed it
“You might want to be careful, I pissed on it”
Pee... on a stick... oh... oh... OH! What... how...
“Babe...?”
Lance snorted, then kind of sobered. His omega had to be terrified. Even with all the tech they had, he’d still had so many issues with everything growing and settling. Lance’s chances of contraception raising, but severely damaged by his red heat
“Don’t worry, I have a stack of them at home... I wanted to get it confirmed. Coran wasn’t supposed to freak you out”
Stabbing Lance less than romantically in the eye as he took his omega’s face in his hands, Keith’s heart was racing
“And... are... you...?”
“Yeah. We haven’t done an ultrasound, but... blood test and a quick examination confirmed it. I put off coming when I first started feeling sick... but today I started throwing up and it... yeah. I must have brought every test in the shop... I know... we didn’t think and... I’m sorry...”
No fucking way was Lance apologising for this. This was best news he’d had since Shiro and Curtis got engaged. Kissing his omega happily, Lance relaxed into the kiss, stick still right up against his eye.
Behind Keith, there was the sound of a party popper, confetti falling over their heads. For a moment Keith panicked, Bob and his fucking game show haunted him for a long time, so, for an instant, he thought he was back there. Instead, as he whipped his head around around and moved to protect Lance, Coran was beaming at the pair of them. Incriminating party popper remains still in hand
“Oh, I’m so proud of you, my boys!”
Knowing the cause of his distress, Lance tugged on his arm until Keith turned back to him
“You know he’s been addicted to them since Shiro first told him how to use one. I’m okay, tired, kind of nauseous, but I’m okay. Are you?”
Relaxing under his omega’s calming scent, Keith was very very okay...ish. God. He was nervous more than anything... The way Lance stared at him... even after three years, his omega sent his heart all funny
“Yeah. Yeah, babe... a pup... we’re having a pup of our own”
“We are... I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but... fuck... I said I wouldn’t cry...”
“Sweetheart, I think I’m crying too...”
Yeah. No. He definitely was... This was actually happening... This was finally happening for them, not that they had been trying, but they hadn’t exactly not been either. Shiro knew all about from making the mistake of walking in on them after one particular tedious briefing. Shyly, his omega asked
“So... you’re... this is... okay?”
“Oh, I’m very okay”
“Good, because this baby and me, we’re both gonna need our big strong alpha”
Inside his alpha was screaming with pride. He was going to be a dad. Lance was going to be a dad. They were going to be dads...
“You and our pup... you’re going to be so loved you won’t know what to do”
Both of them were messes, the pregnancy stick finally dropped as they nuzzled into each other until it was impossible to tell who’s tears were who’s. Lance letting out a barked laugh at the state of them. They might have grown plenty, but no matter how many years had passed, you only had to put them together and they turned into emotional idiots
“Now, yes, well, Lance came for a scan today, perhaps you’d be so kind as to let me patient lay down?”
Giddy, Lance giggled. Both their scents were kind of making Keith giddy too
“Coran begged me to let him do the scan. I think our Space Uncle is excited for us. He probably now knows more about my condition than anyone...”
“If you trust him, you know I trust him...”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t. You’re the second to know... well, third. The man at the store probably suspected with all the tests I bought...”
“When do we tell the others?”
“When we know both me and this little one are going to be okay... which we won’t know until Coran does the scan”
“Oh, I guess I better let you lay down”
“Yep... you have no idea how much water I had to drink for this scan, you better not keep me waiting any longer”
That didn’t sound fun... Everything anything to do with birth, and male omega’s, came out of Lance’s various appointments and therapy sessions... however, he didn’t need a fancy education to know having to pee sucked
“I promise I’ll never keep you waiting again”
Humming sweetly, Lance would never not be the most amazing and sweetest omega he’d ever met. A pup with his big blue eyes... His heart was melting at the thought of them
“Mmm. I might just have to hold you to that, but first, let’s meet our baby...”
He was never going to tire of hearing that. Their baby. Theirs... made by them...
“Our baby...”
*
The novelty never had worn off, no matter how many times he told everyone and anyone repeatedly. No matter how many times Lance teased him about all their friends knowing. Keith was proud as quiznak right up to the birth, and prouder even still when he finally got to hold their first pup in his arms.
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themuzzleofnemesis · 4 years
Text
7–Memory of the God; Scene 5
The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 244-255
A vast plain.
A world with nothing in it.
I stood now at its center.
.
Postman—no, the “Servant of Evil” Allen Avadonia, stood by my side.
“Welcome back.”
It was a short greeting.
Where in the world had I returned to?
I knew the answer to that, now.
.
This was—the real world.
A nothing world after it had been brought to ruin.
--The world I had destroyed.
.
That clinic.
That laboratory.
And me, working there.
Allen told me that it was all a delusion.
But that wasn’t right.
It had also been a truth.
Before this world had been born.
The world that I had lived in.
That was the way it had looked before it fell.
Before we had “run away” to space.
That was me from the days I had fought there.
.
“What I’d like to ask first,” I said to Allen. “Is how you’re here on the ground world now, when you died centuries ago.”
Allen replied, smiling slightly, “It’s not just me. Everyone is here. Everyone who once lived in this world.”
“Even though the world was destroyed?”
“It’s because it was destroyed. Almost all of the souls are here on the ground world as a result of the barrier between this place and the hellish yard being broken.”
“Then are you a soul too?”
I didn’t really need to ask that.
I had just said it myself.
He died centuries ago.
“I see…Everyone’s a soul. Then there’s no more living people in this world, I suppose.”
“Wrong.” Allen shook his head. “There is one.”
“Huh?”
“—You. The sole living thing in this world…is you. On the world’s last day, a deranged Nemesis fired the weapon of mass destruction “Punishment” all over the world.”
“…Inside Nemesis’ spirit was a ‘malice’ that sought destruction--one of the ‘gods’ that had once been locked up in the ark. The voice of her ‘other self’ that Nemesis heard was the ‘malice’ that slept inside her.”
Inside that ark, I had wished for the world’s destruction.
I suppose that meant that in a sense, after a thousand years I had finally achieved my original aim.
…Though it wasn’t all that satisfying now.
“The world was obliterated by ‘Punishment’. But how am I still—”
“Don’t you know? A demon contractor—can’t commit suicide. Your body was blown away by ‘Punishment’. However, as long as a single scrap of your flesh remains, you’ll be revived eventually.”
I had destroyed the world, and I alone survived.
“Never has there been a more bothersome suicide attempt.”
“Ha ha, I guess so. …Your body was reformed. But you hadn’t gone back to normal exactly. Your shattered heart wasn’t restored.”
“I don’t care much for your wording.”
“Then let’s reword it as ‘your body and spirit were separated’. Nemesis’ soulless body continued to wander through the empty world, and meanwhile the spirit locked itself up inside a delusion world of its own creation.”
So that delusion had been the laboratory in the clinic.
“But why did you come inside the delusion to meet me?”
“Nemesis’ body was solely devoted to repeating the last actions that she had taken. Wandering eternally through the same moment forever, neither moving into the past nor the future.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The world’s destruction by ‘Punishment’—Her body was trying to repeat it.”
“But…such a thing is impossible, isn’t it?”
If everything was destroyed then even ‘Punishment’ wouldn’t exist anymore.
“You’d think so. But even without ‘Punishment’ there’s still the thing it was based off of.”
“…The ‘Boy’.”
“Yes, the creature that brings destruction. Seth created various things with that as his starting point, such as ‘ghoul children’ and ‘Grim the End’. The ‘boy’ was also caught up in the world’s destruction, but…as a living creature he had a soul. That yet remains in the depths of Lunaca Labora—the ‘grave yard’.” Allen pointed to the ground. “Nemesis’ body went to the ‘grave yard’ looking for the ‘boy’’s soul, and tried to carry out her destruction once more. ...It took a great deal of effort to put a stop to her.”
“But there’s nothing left on the ground world to destroy, right?”
“The ‘boy’ as he is now is a soul. So then the targets of his destruction would be other souls like himself. If I hadn’t stopped Nemesis’ actions, then even the beings that wander the ground world like us would have been erased. Once that happened the world truly would have ended.”
“…I see.”
By ‘souls’ he was talking about spirit data.
“Even after capturing Nemesis that didn’t mean everything was settled. Without bodies ourselves we couldn’t hold her back forever.”
“So then you came to see me—Nemesis’ soul.”
“Yes. We needed to get her back to normal. …However, it wasn’t a straight-forward issue getting inside your spirit world. I had to satisfy various conditions. One among them was that I needed to disguise myself as ‘someone who existed in Nemesis’ memories’.”
“That’s why you were dressed as Postman.”
“Going as myself wouldn’t have cut it. I had met ‘Elluka Clockworker’ before, but ‘Nemesis’ was different. They’re based on the same person, but when you ‘swapped’ into Nemesis you lost your memories.”
But Allen hadn’t entered that spirit world alone.
I hadn’t seen them directly, but I could sense other people there.
--And I had another question as well.
“What was that ‘Irregular System’?”
“Well, that was a last resort to get you to remember everything. It was difficult for me to perform on my own, so I relied on some help.” Allen snapped his fingers. “—Elluka Clockworker’s apprentices.”
The two of them suddenly appeared from nowhere.
.
--Michaela, who had inherited Held’s remains and become a god of the forest.
--Gumillia, who had become Master of the Hellish Yard after the duel of Merrigod Plateau.
.
The two of them had always watched over me after I was reborn as Nemesis.
I spoke to a smiling Michaela, “So then, the true identity of the ‘Will of the Forest’—I know that now. You were the one who tried to save me.”
“Haha…Were you alright when it came to Lich?”
“In the end I never met him as Nemesis even once. Well, I have finally remembered…the connection between the two of you. Though I know to be cautious of him, to an extent.”
Next I approached Gumillia, expressionless as ever.
She was wearing a mask.
Yes, it was the mask of the “Demon of Wrath”.
“You’re the one who sent Mr. Ziz to me.”
“…Because I, couldn’t leave the Hellish Yard. But, frankly, he wasn’t much help. On the contrary, actually, he made things more complicated.”
I could hear a voice coming from the mask.
<But I did intend to follow your command? At the very least I upheld my promise to keep Nemesis from dying>
“That’s true. …Thank you for everything, Mr. Ziz—or rather, Seth,” I thanked the mask.
<…Hmph. You and I have an old debt with each other. Don’t think this makes us even>
“That’s my line. Come on, let’s set aside our quarrels for now.”
Michaela giggled as she watched us from the side.
“What’s so funny, Michaela?” I asked. Still smiling, Michaela handed me a mirror.
“Oh, it’s you and Gumillia. When you two are lined up like that you’re almost like twins.”
I accepted the mirror and looked at my face.
--Reflected there was no longer Levia.
It was Nemesis’ face.
That was proof that my body and spirit had once more become one.
“…Now that you mention it, is there a reason why Nemesis and Gumillia look so much like each other?”
Allen was the one to answer my simple question. “Events like that were occurring all over the world just before its destruction…Though asking the one who created the “World’s Rules” might be the fastest method for answering that, don’t you think?”
“You mean the sun god—Sickle.”
“He is currently in the ‘heavenly yard’. We can go there, but…I don’t know if we’ll be able to return to the ground world once we do. That’s why—there’s something I want to do here before then."
“I haven’t got any urgent business, so that’s fine…What is it?”
“There’s still many ‘mysteries’ left on the ground world. I’d like to solve them…and there are also some people I want to see. First—let’s head to ‘Evils Theater’.”
“…What do you mean? Are you saying that theater is still around?”
“Surprisingly, yeah. That alone is still around, despite the fact that everything else has burned down.”
That theater had also survived unscathed when the prototype “Punishment” was fired at the Millennium Tree Forest as well.
That was certainly a curious point.
“Will you come with me? L—Er, what name would you prefer I call you by?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. Levia, Elluka, Nemesis. The fact remains that all are me.”
When I said that, the other people around us started to voice their various opinions.
“Hmm, I think maybe her real name of Levia would be better.”
“…Elluka.”
<No, she’s Nemesis right now>
Listening to the three of them quibble from the side, I answered Allen, “—Alright. I’ll go with you. It’ll help me ‘kill time’, yeah?”
“Thank you very much. That’s reassuring.”
“But the world is already in ruins—What’s your ultimate goal here?”
When I asked him that, Allen replied, his expression full of self-confidence:
.
“Naturally—to save the world.”
<<prev------directory------next>>
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iaintyourbro · 4 years
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I wonder if the reason why Cle~rith fans getting desperate with twisting facts is because most of their romantic moments are in midgar ,since midgar was in the pt1 and there’s non to them now only small parts ohh & GS date the moment they worship ,C beating A , A going to the FC then her death but i wonder if A death will actually happen the part 2 Because i’ve seen some people say the devs may change the plot and A death will happen differently (1/2)
so maybe A death will happen at the end of last disc in the remake , but remind me again when does the moment C say to T “it you opinion that matter.” I’ve CAs downplay this moment that the devs will remove it just like how most of their moments do you think the devs will remove CT moments in favor to them cause they’re hoping for that right now , i really thought it was too good to be true that many CT moments were added in pt1 since T was irrelevant until A death in OG (2/2)
Hey there! Thanks for the ask! This ended up much longer than I expected, so I’m going to add a Keep Reading for everyone’s sanity.
First I’ll talk about the scene where Cloud says this line Tifa. This happens when you go to the Northern Crater and Sephiroth creates an illusion of the Nibelheim vision. At the time, you don’t know it IS partially true, but it’s based on how TIFA remembers it. Sephiroth knew Cloud was there, but since he never revealed himself to Tifa, he used this to his advantage.
Cloud is holding strong saying he knows what Sephiroth is doing, and that the guy who runs out of the mansion won’t be him. Zack runs out - and Cloud is like I don’t care, this is Sephiroth’s illusion. I know I was here. Then Sephiroth also is like “okay... fine... I got a picture.” (He doesn’t say that exactly, but you get the jist)
Tifa then can’t respond, because she knows he wasn’t there. Cloud notices she starts to waver on this and says that her opinion is the only one that matters.
Here’s the exact lines that Cloud says:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
However, Tifa can’t confirm anything now. Sephiroth did exactly what he wanted to do. This is what actually breaks Cloud. When he realizes that Tifa can’t remember him being in Nibelheim, seeing what Sephiroth is showing him and telling him, his mind breaks, and the illusion of Cloud Strife is broken with it. This allows Sephiroth to get the Black Materia and throw Cloud away like a used puppet, which is exactly how Sephiroth sees him.
This is an extremely powerful scene. You don’t get resolution on what most of this means until you go to The Lifestream later one and Tifa helps Cloud rebuild his mind. 
This is the first time that it’s obvious that Tifa is very important to Cloud. This is probably why it’s discounted. Anything that’s showing anything where anybody is important to Cloud other than who they ship him with is not real. 
If you replay the OG and pay attention, there are moments that show Tifa is important to Cloud. They are very subtle and NOTHING as obvious as what you see in Remake, but they are there. There are also comments from Barret and Aerith hinting at Cloud’s hidden feelings for Tifa. 
Barret when you first get back to Seventh Heaven after the first bombing mission asks if he wants to see his little baby (I thought this was funny).
Barret on the way to Sector 5 makes a comment about them after Cloud is trying to make sure Tifa isn’t scared. “You two can do this later.”
If Tifa and Aerith aren’t in your main party when you get to Costa Del Sol, Aerith will make a comment to Cloud when Tifa says she wants to go swimming about him getting crazy ideas and melting that cold exterior, and then she runs off with Tifa. 
But the OG was NOT romantic. I think it’s comical that so many people see all this romance. I replayed it recently. Any romance is very subtle. This game has like 5% romance, 95% crazy shit going on. 
Okay, LTD stuff: The Midgar scenes people refer to that I can think of are Cloud laughing with Aerith on the roof (which was removed from the Remake and given to the Avalanche crew), being imprisoned so Tifa hears about the date Aerith promised Cloud, causing some LTD drama, also removed, Aerith running after Tifa instead of Cloud - also replaced with Cloud going after Tifa. The last one is used to say that Cloud didn’t care about Tifa. So, they made sure to cover that one. 
Aerith HERSELF has helped to end the LTD. Her entire resolution was a nod to the OG plot - she gives foreshadowing on her death, on Cloud not being Cloud, and various other aspects. She tells him he can’t fall in love with her because even if he thinks he has, it isn’t real. They laid it on heavy there. Aerith HERSELF doesn’t seem interested. She’s absolutely more interested in what’s up with Zack. She built up the entire time you’re going through the Collapsed Expressway in Chapter 9 to ask Cloud if he had any SOLDIER buddies. 
In any case, the Northern Crater scene will be one that slays people. It was emotional in seeing it in text and polygons, but with voice acting and HD, you’re gonna see crying, fear, and see Cloud slowly breakdown in HD.
Now on to Aerith’s Death
So, I strongly believe that the main plot points of FF7 OG will be the same or similar in FF7 Remake. The devs themselves have said they are not going to divert from the story. However, that doesn’t mean that things won’t be added or tweaked. They added 30+ hours of content to a 6 hour portion of the OG. They moved scenes around, reworded things, and in some cases, removed scenes. But EVERYTHING they did only added to the main plot points. 
The Sector 7 plate still falls, no matter how hard you try to get there and stop it. Tifa still goes to Don Corneo and you have to save her, Cloud still falls in to the Sector 5 Church, President Shinra still dies, Aerith is still captured by Tseng.
The main aspects to drive the plot forward still happened. What happens in between those things is what is different, but ultimately, the main points are the same.
The things added or modified didn’t impact these aspects. If anything, they added to them. For example, having Barret get stabbed by Sephiroth served as a nod to the original idea to have most of Cloud’s friends actually die. This was changed to have just Aerith die. Sephiroth stabbing Barret also served to fuck with Cloud. Barret is revived because we all would have burned down SE HQ. (No, he’s revived because there’s quite a bit that would have had to change story wise, such as Corel and all that.)
Adding Sephiroth in early is enhancing the original story. There were instances in the OG where Cloud heard Sephiroth talking to him, but you didn’t know who it was. The “In my veins flows the blood of the Ancients.” is directly from the OG, at the same time. It’s when you’re going to Elmyra’s house. They just enhanced that scene. They’re building up the mental breakdown of Cloud slowly, so by time it happens, you will also feel like you’ve been mentally broken down by Sephiorth. It makes it much more powerful than hearing a high pitched sound and a random line of text appear on the screen.
I think that Aerith knows she’s going to die, just like she eventually seemed to know in the OG. I think Zack coming back is going to be part of that. I’m going to guess that he’s somehow going to help her. She will still need to be in the Lifestream at this point to make everything work. 
Do I think that the entire event will be the same? No. I think it will still happen at the Forgotten City. I think Cloud may completely go nuts and your party will need to stop him from killing Aerith himself, like he almost does in the OG. I’ve seen theories saying HE will kill her, but I don’t know if they’ll go that far. I think Sephiroth will still kill her. I’m not sure it’ll be the same exact way, but I’d be very surprised if they changed the scene too much.
It’s a really powerful scene. I don’t think it’ll be JUST Cloud looking at her. I think that’s why they’ve built up the relationship with her and the others - especially with Tifa. But I definitely think she will be killed in a very similar way in order to keep the horror of the original scene... and I think initially she’s going to survive it. That’ll be the whole illusion, but she’ll die pretty quickly after that. They’re going to fuck with us and make us think she’s going to survive it. 
I do think that Zack is going to come and “get her.” I think that Cloud will have interactions with Zack and Aerith to try and prevent the AC scenario of extreme guilt. Zack will definitely have a much bigger part than he did originally (which was almost non-existent in the OG). 
In order for them to properly follow the FF7 story, Aerith has to die. 
The other option is to have her die at the Northern Crater, which is originally where they were going to have it happen, but I’m not sure how that would fit at this point. Tifa is the key to breaking Cloud for Sephiroth. Sephiroth knows he can manipulate Cloud by using Tifa against him. Aerith wouldn’t do much additional in this scene. She doesn’t know Cloud. It also would require that Aerith dies to add to the grief the party is feeling. Cloud needs to be broken down, and Aerith is part of that breakdown. 
So I think she will still die at the Forgotten City. I do think that you’ll have more interaction with her after she’s in the Lifestream, but through symbolism. I think that Tifa will talk to Aerith when she falls in to the Lifestream. 
Everything that builds the skeleton of the FF7 story will be there. It’s just how powerful it will now be and how much will be added.
This turned out REALLY long, but I had fun writing it.
Hopefully I answered your questions!
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haillenarte · 5 years
Text
full steam ahead;
Here is a translation of the dialogue between Ran’jit, Minfilia, and Thancred in “Full Steam Ahead,” the level 77 Shadowbringers main story quest.
First, a preface: This translation is not a word-for-word translation, though it is slightly more loyal to the Japanese script than the official localization. As always, the Japanese text is enclosed for you to make your own comparisons and judge my decisions if need be. I have some more comments about where I departed from the original text at the bottom of the post.
FULL STEAM AHEAD 廃都ナバスアレン "the sealed city of nabaath areng”
ランジート : ……無様よな、反逆者ども。 我が主に従っていたなら、かように地を這うこともなかった。 ランジート : おお……ミンフィリア……哀れな娘よ……。 お前はそのまま待て、すぐに鼠どもを始末してくれよう。
TRANSLATION RAN’JIT: I pity you, apostates. Had you surrendered to my liege when you were given the chance, you would have no need to squirm through the darkness and the earth like rats. RAN’JIT: And you, Minfilia... my wretched daughter. You shall wait there as I exterminate these pests.
LOCALIZATION Ran'jit: Had you only sworn fealty to Lord Vauthry, you would have no cause to skulk about like frightened animals. Ran'jit: You will remain as you are, while I dispatch these villains.
ミンフィリア : だめ……だめです、そんなこと……! ランジート : 何故だ。 かつて我は、拾うたびにお前を育て、ともに戦場に立ち、 何百何千もの罪喰いを屠った……。 ランジート : されど世は変わらず、お前は幾度も、幾度も死に続けた! ランジート : この薄汚い鼠どもはッ! 哀れなお前に、なおも戦うことを迫り、 混迷の世に招き入れようとしている! ランジート : 惑わされてはならぬ……ならぬぞ……! お前を苦しみから永久に解き放てるのは、 我が主、ヴァウスリーのみッ! 
TRANSLATION MINFILIA: No... No, you can’t! You can’t... RAN’JIT: Why not? Have you forgotten who I am? It was I who found you. I who raised you, time and time again. I who stood on the battlefield beside you, slaying hundreds and thousands of sin eaters by your side! RAN’JIT: But we accomplished nothing. The world never changed. And I watched you die, over and over and over again!  RAN’JIT: What would these filthy vermin bring you?! They encourage you to fight only because they would lead you down a path of chaos we have already tread! RAN’JIT: Do not be deceived, child! Only Lord Vauthry has the power to save us from this endless cycle of torment!
LOCALIZATION Minfilia: No! I won't...! I won't let you! Ran'jit: You forget to whom you speak! Who armed you? Trained you? Fought and killed a thousand sin eaters with you!? Ran'jit: And when you were inevitably cut down and lay lifeless in my arms─who sought out your successor to carry on the futile struggle again and again!? Ran'jit: We seek to bring peace to what is left of this shattered land, while these mad fools would only bring further chaos down upon us! Ran'jit: Do not be deceived, child! Only by Lord Vauthry's hand will this dying world know a sliver of salvation!
ミンフィリア : ……いいえ、私はそんな風に救ってもらいたいわけじゃない。 ミンフィリア : 今だって、痛くて、つらくて、とても苦しい……。 それでもこれは、ここまで旅してこられた証です……! ミンフィリア : みなさんからかけてもらった言葉を、覚えています。 一緒に見た風景を、覚えています……。 ミンフィリア : その思い出があるからこそ、苦しいのだとしても…… なかったことになんて、絶対にできません……! ミンフィリア : 伝えたいんです。 大好きだと……ありがとうと……。 私のこの、命ぜんぶで。 ミンフィリア : だから、あなたの手は取りません。 そこを……通してくださいッ!
TRANSLATION MINFILIA: ...But I... I never asked to be saved. MINFILIA: I know that fighting hurts. Living hurts. It hurts, and we suffer, through the bitterness and the tears... But that very pain is proof of how far we’ve come. MINFILIA: The things that everyone said to me... I remember them. The things that everyone showed me... I remember them. MINFILIA: Even if having these memories hurts me, I can’t just go back to my cell and pretend that nothing happened. MINFILIA: ...I want to be able to say things like “I love you” and “thank you” because that’s what it means to be alive. MINFILIA: So I can’t take your hand anymore. I won’t accept what you offer me. Please, stand aside and let us pass!
LOCALIZATION Minfilia: I don't know about the world...but I never asked to be saved. Minfilia: However much it hurts, and however hard it gets, it's my life, and I want to live it on my own terms! Minfilia: And those “mad fools” you want me to abandon? The ones I've traveled with, fought with, and may one day die with─they feel the same. Minfilia: So no, I will not be deceived! No matter what you say, I refuse to believe it's all for nothing! Minfilia: They're everything to me. All I have and all I need. And I would gladly do anything for them. Minfilia: Let us pass, or kill me. I'm not leaving here without them.
ランジート : 愚かな……! 反逆者どもに染められおって、仕置きが必要か……!
TRANSLATION RAN’JIT: Foolish girl...! Very well — you must be disciplined. If you would stain your hands with rebellion, then you have earned your father’s ire!
LOCALIZATION Ran'jit: How dare you! Very well─if you would cast your lot with villains, then you shall share their fate!
サンクレッド : ……お前が伝えようとしてくれた気持ちは、 痛いほど、よくわかってる……。 言葉で示せず、すまなかった。 サンクレッド : 行けッ、こいつは俺が食い止める! ミンフィリア : でも……っ! サンクレッド : だから誰のためでもない、お前の望みをぶつけてくるんだ。 サンクレッド : 俺は…… お前のわがままくらい、いくつだって受け止めてやる……!
TRANSLATION THANCRED: ...I heard what you said. And I understand how you feel. I know it so well that it hurts... I’m sorry I never said it myself. THANCRED: Go! I’ll deal with him! MINFILIA: But — THANCRED: You’re doing this for yourself, right? And not for anyone else. THANCRED: I... If it’s for you, I’ll do anything.
LOCALIZATION Thancred: I heard what you said. And I'm sorry for all the things I've left unspoken. Thancred: You have to go. Now! Minfilia: Thancred, no─ Thancred: Go! Do what you came here to do. Thancred: I'll not have you waste that newfound resolve on me.
サンクレッド : そいつを頼んだ! 必ず、「ミンフィリア」のもとまで届けてやってくれ。 
TRANSLATION THANCRED: I’ll leave her in your hands. Take her to Minfilia!
LOCALIZATION Thancred: I leave her in your hands. Hurry!
サンクレッド : 行かせはしない。 妹と娘、ふたりの家族への想いだ……打ち破れると思うなよッ! ランジート : 笑止ッ……! 貴様のような未熟者が、あれの父など名乗るではないわ!
TRANSLATION THANCRED: You’re not getting past me, old man. My sister, or your daughter... which do you think she’d rather be? RAN’JIT: Don’t make me laugh, boy... A brat like you couldn’t possibly call himself her kin!
LOCALIZATION Thancred: Not another step! Your fight is with me. Ran'jit: You think yourself her protector!? Hah! As if a whelp like you could be a better father to her than me!
(After the battle...)
ランジート : ……あの娘は、苦難の星のもとに生まれたのだ。苦しむぞ……これからも……。 サンクレッド : 護っていくさ。……あいつが、それを望むかぎり。
TRANSLATION RAN’JIT: That girl... she was born under a calamitous star. She must be shielded from her misfortune... I must... THANCRED: You don’t understand. You can only protect her as long as she wants to be protected.
LOCALIZATION Ran'jit: You would have her suffer and die. I would spare her that fate! Thancred: That is not for you or anyone else to decide─ever again.
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サンクレッド : ……でも、一度くらいはちゃんと叶えたいだろ。 俺は、お前の、「お兄さん」なんだから。 サンクレッド : ミンフィリア…………
TRANSLATION THANCRED: ...Still, I wanted to do it right, just once. Because I’m your big brother...  THANCRED: Minfilia...
LOCALIZATION Thancred: One last time, with a little help. I'm so proud to have been a part of your life... Thancred: Oh, Minfilia...
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TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
I wound up “rewriting” the script a lot more than I intended to, mostly for emotional impact, but for fairness’s sake, let me note where I really changed things up.
MINFILIA: Even if having these memories hurts me, I can’t just go back to my cell and pretend that nothing happened. To be fair, Minfilia does not mention going back to her cell in Eulmore here. However, I threw it in because her speech about pain being inevitable in life doesn’t really sound like she’s even talking to Ran’jit otherwise. The gist of their argument, obviously, is that he wants to insulate her from all of life’s suffering by throwing her in a cage, but she is trying to tell him that she can accept that pain.
MINFILIA: ...I want to be able to say things like “I love you” and “thank you” because that’s what it means to be alive. This isn’t a significant change in my opinion, but I had to reword the nuance of the original text very slightly or else it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. What Minfilia says in Japanese is something closer to “I want to convey it... [things like] I love you, and thank you, and everything in this life of mine,” but I went with “what it means to be alive” since that’s a much more familiar turn of phrase in English literature and pop culture.
RAN’JIT: Very well — you must be disciplined. If you would stain your hands with rebellion, then you have earned your father’s ire! There’s nothing actually wrong with the localization’s decision to render this as “cast your lot with villains.” I actually might have done the same thing if not for the fact that I try not to repeat the localization unless it’s necessary. What he says literally is “if you would allow yourself to be stained by the rebels,” but I didn’t like the sexual connotations of words like “tainted,” “besmirched,” and “corrupted,” so I avoided all that by turning “rebels” into “rebellion” instead. This isn’t really important enough to be explained, but I just wanted to defend myself against anyone who might think that I misread this sentence. I know it says “rebels” — it was just unpleasant to keep it that way!
THANCRED: If it’s for you, I’ll do anything. Definitely the most aggressive rewrite on my part here, but I think it’s defensible (and would have hurt me a lot more than “I'll not have you waste that newfound resolve on me”). Thancred’s Japanese line, in a really clunky literal way, is “If it’s for your selfishness, I can accept a great number [of burdens/blows]” — but obviously, no one talks like that in English, so I felt it made the most sense to straight up render it “If it’s for you, I’ll do anything.”
THANCRED: You’re not getting past me, old man. My sister, or your daughter... which do you think she’d rather be? Thancred doesn’t call Ran’jit an old man in Japanese here, but I thought the aggressive banter between “old man” and “boy” was charming, so I threw it in. The second line is also a pretty liberal reinterpretation on my part: the Japanese is something like “Sister and daughter, two feelings of family, don’t think you can break it so easily!” — but, again, this is weird as hell in English, so I made it more of a taunting statement on Thancred’s part.
RAN’JIT: That girl... she was born under a calamitous star. She must be shielded from her misfortune... I must... THANCRED: You don’t understand. You can only protect her as long as she wants to be protected. This is, again, a reinterpretation on my part. Ran’jit says something roughly like “That girl was born under a calamitous star, she has always been suffering, even now,” and Thancred replies, “Then I’ll protect her. As long as she wants me to, that is.” I think the English script wanted this exchange to be more about giving Minfilia the ability to decide her own fate, but I thought this take on it gave more weight to Ran’jit’s madness — the reason he’s so hellbent on “protecting” her is because he still thinks of Minfilia as his daughter, the one that was born under a bad sign, and he still needs to protect her, because he’s still her father. The localization probably changed this because they didn’t want Ran’jit spouting random mumbo-jumbo about stars, but I think there’s actually something very sad about Ran’jit suddenly going on about his daughter’s astrological sign, do you know what I mean? He doesn’t at all understand that she’s long gone. There’s certainly power in “That is not for you or anyone else to decide─ever again,” though.
THANCRED: ...Still, I wanted to do it right, just once. Because I’m your big brother... THANCRED: Minfilia...  I don’t know if I successfully carried this thought over from the previous sentence correctly, and maybe this was already obvious in English, I'm not sure — but what Thancred says in Japanese is “I wanted to make it happen just once,” where when he says “make it happen” he means essentially, “I wanted to see my dream come true.” Basically, his “dream” is that he wanted to protect Minfilia like a real big brother — both the Minfilia from the First, yes, but also the Minfilia from the Source, whom he feels he failed to protect. Yes... This dork really just wanted to have that big damn hero moment where he gets to protect his little sister from the bad guys that are after her... I also cried...
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sunnieskies02 · 4 years
Text
You Need It More Than I Do (College AU)
Shouto Aizawa x Reader
3.3k Words
Trigger Warnings: n/a; A/N: This is for you Pinky @pinky-the-elephant-room
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Working at the Elephant Cafe was more shitty than it can get.
You opened and closed the shop every single day, the customers were shitty especially the teenagers/ highschool students. You hated them with a passion, every time they walked in you wanted to bang your head on the wood counter so you wouldn’t have to deal with their antics.
Some of them would make a scene and destroy some of the tables and chairs forcing you to kick them out. Other items you would see these big groups of girls walk in, order something that sounded pretty off of the menu, take thousands of pictures of it and then walk out. And every time they did that you silently thought to yourself ‘What the fuck! Those pieces of shit waste so much food, and they come in EveRyDaY!’
You sigh in utter disappointment but you kept on working throughout the day.
The Elephant Cafe was in a very affluent district, fancy cars would silently roll down the street with designer stores covering each side. You realized that the people who came in had almost all the money in the world, and could give two shits about wasting the food or their money. You hated that, you despised how the kids that would walk in would have the rest of their lives planned while you worked all the hours of the day.
A day in your life went a little something like this: At 3am, you would wake up and do your morning routine and be out the door by 3:30am. At 4 o'clock in the morning you would do package deliveries until 8am where you would then change to go to the cafe and work there from 8:30 to 1 in the afternoon. By the graces of Satan you are blessed with a 30min lunch where for the majority of that time you are a part time hotline operator. Then at 5pm, you close the cafe and head to the local convenience store and work from 5:30 to 10pm and you’d still have to do your online college course.
Four jobs in total, not all of them paid well, and the only job that did pay well was working at Elephant cafe. Your home situation wasn’t the greatest, years before you had become a college student your father had died leaving you and your mother to fend for each other. Your mother was a sweet little old lady who took care of the neighborhood children and was a strong prominent woman. Knowing that your mother was growing older in age, you, in secret, gave up on going to college to make more money to take care of her and was going to stay with her mother to take care of her.
But mother knew best.
She told you “Don’t worry about me sweetheart. You need to live your life, I’m not that much an old hag. I can carry my own, be free, and live life. AND don’t forget to bring me back some grandchildren.” As much as you told her that you wanted to stay and take care of her, your bag was packed and you were shipped off to a new part of the country.
Dad didn’t leave a lot of money when he died. So when you were in the big city and on your own getting a job was your very first priority. As you job hunted, you found plenty of job openings and applied to them as soon as possible. Luckily you didn’t have to worry about housing because your friend Mirio had a spare room in his apartment and was allowed to stay as long as you cleaned up and kept yourself healthy. | this sounds a bit awkward and it would be best if you reworded it.
You felt bad for Mirio, but envied him at the same time He got a full ride to E Univeristy while you were working every hour of every day to amass enough money to survive and still try to graduate on time. Life sucked but there was no other way ( respectful way) at that to make more money than you were already making and saving.
Money had you in a mental bind, you felt bad that you were leeching off of Mirio who was working hard, but now even harder because he had an additional mouth to feed.
“Hey y/n? You seem out of it, what's wrong?’ Mirio’s cheerful voice rocked you out of your depressing thoughts and you turned your head towards him. You sigh, « I just… want to make more money y’know. I already work four jobs and I just wanna make money without having to work. » A laugh erupts from Mirio’s chest and he says « Well, the world doesn’t work that way. That’s why I’m letting you stay here for as long as you need. Don’t fret. »
You wanted to combat his words but his bright smile doesn’t allow you too. You close your computer and make way for your room, you throw yourself into your bed and look at the clock. 12:00’ the clock read « Fuck me. » You turn over and force yourself to get a wink of sleep and prepare for another slave away day.
oOo
Elephant Cafe was bustling as normal, preppy pieces of shit would walk in and cause a ruckus. The same group of girls would walk in order food, snap it, post it, then dip. You rest your head on your hand at the counter, and all of a sudden a man walked it. You lifted your head and saw a man who was wrapped in a dull scarf, with eye bags heavier than your under your eyes.
“I’d like a dark coffee with 4 shots of espresso please.” His voice was deep and velvety, it shook you to your core. “Yessir and may I get the name for your order?”
“Aizawa Shouta please.”
“Your total will be—“ A crash interrupted your sentence. Two high school kids were fighting in the dining area over who knows what. “G-give me a minute I’m sorry.” You reluctantly walk over to them and try to handle the situation.
“Who the FUCK do you think you are putting your hands on me!!”
“I barely touched you, I am just asking you to leave the premises. You are disrupting the others.”
“I DON'T CARE!!! My dad could buy you and all of those shitty workers back there!!”
‘I’m pretty sure he could.’ “Please ma’am, whatever you and your friend is arguing about could probably be solved by or infinite pockets and—“
“The fuck is that supposed to mean. Are you saying because I have money and privileges I can’t have any problem!?”
You didn’t answer. Then a splash of water is thrown on your face, and the laughter of the woman erupts in your ear. You wanted to keep your job, but something in you snapped.
“ Your right. I do think that you're privileged and rich and yes you might have problems but I bet you wouldn’t LAST a day in my life.” The girl was silent and shocked “I WORK FROM 4am to 5pm every single day. Four jobs from 4am to 5pm AND I go to college online. I don’t make enough to live on campus, or enough to live on my own. I’m sick and tired of rich pieces of shit not respecting those that work for and around you. You come in here everyday, and disrespect all of us and threaten to have us fired! YOU’RE DADDY’S GIRL AND I HOPE HE CUTS YOU OFF SO YOU'LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS. I GET SO TIRED OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE WORLD AT THEIR FEET AND NEVER WORKED A DAY IN THEIR GODDAMNED LIFE!”
The girl looked at you slack jawed. She didn’t know what to say, she looked at you in awe. “Go a head and call your daddy, cuz’ that’s all the fuck you know how to do.”
You walked back behind the counter and continued with the customer who didn’t look dazed at all. Drenched in water, out of breathe, adrenaline pumping “Your total is 5.95. Will that be cash or card?”
“Cash,” he said. He fumbled in his pocket and handed you an American Black Card. You swipe it and he tells you “Debit is fine.” You look at him with a warm smile and back down at the illuminating screen.
“I like what you did back there. She looked really surprised that there are people who actually work.” You scoff, “ Hell yeah, and I work too hard for her to always call on her dad when things don’t go her way. My dad died so does it look like I can call on him, hell no. I work four jobs and I’m still poor.” Realizing that you damn near poured your life to this man you didn’t know you look up and see a small smile.
His order is completed and you hand him his drink. “While you were working so hard her dad showed up.” You roll your eyes and groan, then an envelope and business card is handed your way. “ If you are fired just give me a call. I’ll help you, a hard worker nowadays is hard to come across. And daddy’s little girl is a prime example.” Once he walked up the girl's dad spoke with you, and you were happy that he sided with you in the matter. Which resulted in the girls father cutting her off to make her work to be just as wealthy as he was since he was self made. The look on her face was priceless and she tried to argue with him but the dad didn’t care at all. Daddy’s little girl would have to become a woman.
As Shouta walks out and you look at the envelope, it looked….pretty thick. A cold sweat ran down your face, what was he trying to do? Was it a sleep agent filled envelope! Was it DRUGS?! Not saying that you wouldn’t use them but….what kind of drugs. You take an envelope and place it in your locker in the back and for the rest of the evening, it sits on your brain.
When your shift was over you grabbed the envelope and rubbed it with your callused hands. ‘What the fuck is in here.’ And at the same time you fumbled his business card in your hands. The card read ‘ Kitty Kafe CEO. Owner Of Kitty Kafe Around the Globe. Mobile #: ***-***-***’ Your heart nearly dropped
Into your ass, ‘WTF!’ You’ve never run home so quickly.
“MIRIO!!!! I-I met thé CEO of Kitty Kafe and he gave me his business card and envelope.” He quirked an eyebrow “Wow! That’s a once in a lifetime chance how’d you look?”
“H-how’d I look? I was in my—“ It dawned on you, when you met him you were in your cafe uniform but later drenched in water. “ I was in uniform but later drenched wet.” Mirio shot you a concerned look “No like that you ass. A customer there threw water on me so… yeah.”
You and Mirio spoke about the events of the day and how you made a girl get financially cut off by her dad. That night you slept soundly but that envelope stayed in your mind.
The next day at the cafe you had the envelope at your side waiting for him to come back and to your luck he did. He had the same look on his face and he said “Well it’s nice to see that you aren’t drenched in water this time.” You chuckle, “Same thing as last time, CEO Shouta?”
“So you looked at the business card, it’s good to know that you're literate. But yes,” He hands you his card and rings up your order, “ I’d like for you to sit with me while I drink you coffee. I don’t want to force you.”
You look up at him and furrow your brows “W-why?”
“Don’t act like a kid, I was intrigued by your actions and what you told me. All I wanted to do was know more.” You relaxed ‘Okay, well at least he isn’t a creep.’ Once his drink was made you hold it and walk with him to the seat. While you and him sat together you learned more about Aizawa, he did come from an affluent family but he wished to make it on his own. He was a self made billionaire and his business was flourishing more than he thought. You had also found out that he hated kids, but he was a teacher for a fraction of his life so that was humorous.
Both of you spoke for hours until the end of your shift. Some days, he would sit and watch you work behind the counter. How the sweat would get stuck in your face, and how you would make everyone’s order perfect. Other days he would purchase something for you to eat and laugh at how some crumbs from the cake would stick to your face.
“Hey, you have something on your face.”
“I-i do. Where?” Aizawa leans across the white table and wipes the crumbs off of your cheek. His calloused finger rubbed over your lip slightly and returned back to your cheek. Your face became dusted with pink as he continued to stare at you. His eyes were a deep maroon color, and the seemed as if they peered into your eyes.
“You have very pretty eyes.” Shouta takes his hand back and places it back onto the table and stares. His eyes had a calming effect, his eyes were somehow piercing but soothing at the same time. On another occasion you had made him laugh, you and him have a mutual hate for children, so when you were sitting and chatting with him and said “These kids are the result of too much money shoved up their asses. They need to get smacked the fuckk up.”
Hearing him laugh was foreign to you. It was deep and hearty, like a dad’s laugh in a sense. Aizawa laughed and laughed and when he finally stopped his face went back to its restless state. You look at him in shock and he says “It wasn’t that funny.” You playfully sock his arm and chuckle, pink dust crosses his face and he smiles. These conversations were to die for.
You enjoyed the time you spent with him and hated it when he had to leave. He waved you a goodbye and walked out. You returned to the table and noticed that another envelope was left and you saw that it had your name on it. ‘Was this for me?’ You picked it up and it dawned on you that you forgot to give him the other envelope. You just had to wait till tomorrow, and tomorrow came.
The same thing happened over and over again, Aizawa would order his dark coffee with 5 shots of expression and ask you to sit with him. When you sat with him, you felt the world was on your side, his still face and weird smiles that looked more scary than sweet made you laugh. And at the end of your shift envelopes would be left on the table. It was like he left them on purpose that late because he would have wanted to see you the next day.
Over 3 months of meeting him and texting him( because you had finally exchanged numbers) you had over 93 envelopes with your name on it sitting in your room. It got on your nerves, why had he left them, what was he planning for you?
The next day when you showed up to open. », Aizawa was there,
“What are you doing here Aizawa and I need to talk to you anyway.” he quirked an eyebrow and said “I’m not going to be able to attend our daily meetings. I'm gonna go out of town. So I wanted to see you.” ‘Hé wanted to see me??’ That was weird but once you unlocked the store you motioned him inside.
“What did you wanna y’all about? ” You closed the door behind him and dumped your bag on the table « These envelopes. What’s in them? » He looked at you and said « Money. »
“Money?” Aizawa walked over to an envelope that was pretty thick and spoke, “I looked into who you are y/n. And you’ve had it pretty hard.”
He was right, hell yeah your life was hard. « You moved from a village to a big rich city for school all in your mother’s words after your father died. You came here to get a good education to get a high paying job to send your mom money, so you work hard. Everyday and I saw the pain in your eyes. You push through it but pushing threw isn’t going to be good enough »
You looked at him in shock and he continued to talk. So, when I saw you handed that girl her ass, I started to like you. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you everyday, you were interesting.”You sit at the table and he says, ' In every last one of these envelopes was enough money to give you your own place and money to send to your Mom.” Tears started to form at the corners of your eyes « Working yourself to death is no way to live if you want to die early. So I wanted to help you and I thought you would have caught on. »
You were shaken, you had only met this man 4 month ago and he was treating you in such a way that no one has treated you before. “Why, why are you doing this? I-I don’t understand, I--”
“You work hard. You are a very determined person and everyday you deal with people shit, who never give a damn about anyone else. And,” he walks over to you and grabs your hand. “Everyday I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with someone as strong and eloquent as you.” Your heart breaks a little, “Is this what happens when you are nice to people? I guess I should be nice to rich people more often.’
You hurriedly wipe the tears off of your face and repeatedly say thank you again and again and again. But a thought dawned on you, “Hey Shouta… how old are you?” He looks down through squinted eyes, “38 years old. Why?”
“I-I’m…(y/a). So that makes you…” you show him a big beaming smile. “Myyyy SUGAR DADDY!!!” You giggle hysterically and he rolls his eyes. “I hate to ask this but what the hell is a sugar daddy?” he asked calmly
“Well~ a sugar daddy is an old man who gives a young boy or girl a shitton of money. And you're kinda doing the same.” You latch onto his arm and hear him emit a disgruntled tch come from his mouth.
“Well at least you are being given money for a good reason. You work harder than what you are paid so I’m paying you….and for also being another realist in this world.” You sigh and look up at him, and he looks back at you and continues “ This world runs on greed and people who are hard workers never have enough money to grant themselves a better life. And those who do have the money to live a lavish life they waste it. I saw you and believed that as hard as you work you need it more than i do. So I’m fine giving you money because you earn it based off of your hard work and determination.
You were happy. You were given the golden ticket and you can finally start being more productive and given a man that doted on you for how hard you work and appreciated it. Aizawa was different, and that’s what made meeting him all the better.
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