#The Neo Hive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mageknight14 · 2 months

Text

Exploring the Parallels Between Our Favorite (and Only) Conductors

One thing I think is really cool about the Kitaniji and Shiba parallels is how they both idolized the Composers/Higher Plane members they were in contact with but take that idolization into different directions and how these are reflected in Neku and Rindo’s individual flaws.

First we have Kitaniji, who idolized Joshua and put him and his status as Composer on a pedestal, and thus, in an attempt to try and save Shibuya, conducted a plan to try and rob the city of its individuality and make it a hive mind to, in his view, appease the Composer. However, what Kitaniji failed to consider that what HE, as an individual, wanted was counterintuitive to what Joshua truly desired as shown by the rules/structure of the Shibuya Game and his various interactions with Neku throughout their week together.

Kitaniji acts in a way he presumes would please Joshua, thinking that initiating the human instrumentality project would be the thing to please him most when that's far from the truth, simply because he's unable to look past his ego. He thinks he understands Joshua best, despite not taking the time to actually get to know him (which sounds an awful lot like toxic idol culture) and only ends up projecting his own insecurities about human connection onto Joshua as desires that a god would share as well because hey, why would a god care about empathizing and connecting with people when they’re just so much better than them, right?

He failed to see Joshua for the flawed individual that he was as opposed to the almighty Composer and instead of trying to genuinely connect with him and perhaps convince him otherwise when it came to his plan to eradicate Shibuya, goes right into the brainwashing scheme, essentially doubling down on his flawed mindset. Kitaniji’s idolization makes him believe that he is something akin to a God as well; makes him feel closer to Joshua in a way. In short, Kitaniji’s idol worship is a conscious, agency-prone outcome mediated by the false relationship he has with Joshua.

Throughout the game, Kitaniji makes conscious (and unhealthy) decisions through his idolization of another person; he also believes he has a measure of personal agency and individuality that makes him more important than others, probably in part due to the "special relationship" he believes he has with Joshua (more idol worship toxicity) despite ironically being an empty individual and misinterpreting his intentions, which is what leads to his downfall. This in contrast to Neku, who due to his past trauma concerning his friend’s death, latches onto his flawed misinterpretation of his idol CAT’s words, only for CAT himself to set the record straight, causing Neku to realize throughout the game how he may have twisted his idol’s (Hanekoma) message to support his bias of isolation, and finally understand what CAT's words meant. This in turn is what allows Neku to finally get through to Joshua and convince him through his actions that Shibuya, and by extension humanity, can truly change for the better and gets him to spare the city. A happy ending that a Shibuya free of individuality wouldn’t have been able to achieve.

In NEO TWEWY, we have Shiba, someone who rises through the ranks of the Reaper hierarchy incredibly quickly and thus, became easy pickings for Kubo to try and manipulate to do his bidding; a man that has obtained so much power that he actually begins to idolize himself, thinking himself so strong and important that now he can whimsically make decisions about life and death, treat every situation as some kind of game, and judge people as he sees fit. Shiba only thinks himself as holding such an important role, which really belongs to Kubo's because of Kubo setting things up in such a way that made it so that Shiba's newfound powers would fuck with his ability to rationalize. Kubo fed into Shiba’s ego and slowly nudged him into the direction of shutting out his loved ones, which then leads into a cycle of Shiba becoming worse and worse thanks to the influence of his powers/Kubo and the Shinjuku gang isolating themselves from him. He becomes convinced that what Kubo wants is what HE desires as well, even if that’s not truly the case deep down, and throws himself more and more into his work to accomplish that, which, of course, only adds onto the cycle I described above more and more.

What's interesting here is that Shiba doesn’t draw any implicit or explicit motivations from his relationship with Kubo; he’s just another guy to him. We can make the argument that Kubo as a character symbolizes a particular substrate of toxic idolizing in that he represents status, a constituent of success that Shiba clamors for in the hopes that he can idolize himself. However, with that being said, the relationship between Shiba and Kubo itself in the story has no bearing on the former’s personal drive the way Kitaniji’s relationship with Joshua does. Rather, what Shiba’s idolism represents is the corruption of one's sense of self when they fall too deep into the cesspool of influencer stardom/corporate corruption; the overinflation of ego that becomes a malicious byproduct of commanding such an effect over large numbers of people.

If you remember, Shiba initially started off in Shinjuku promising change and a better lifestyle for his fellow Reapers, which they clearly took to heart and gladly followed after him, speaking volumes about his charisma. But then when he got a taste of his newfound power after the conclusion of the Shinjuku revolt, he became more and more detached from the people and found himself sinking into the singularity of his own self-indulgence.

This can be considered an almost 1-to-1 parallel with influencer behavior and in a way, Shiba is kind of what Motoi was hoping he'd be before he found some clarity by actually having to look into the face of the fan he was nonchalantly treating as a pawn to stardom and came to realize just how damaging his actions were overall.

In contrast to Shiba, we have Rindo, who also has the flaw of internalizing someone else’s thoughts and opinions as his own, something that gets repeatedly shown off in his interactions with Swallow and Motoi/an0ther. Hell, it gets to the point that Sumio, Motoi’s second-in-command, is able to play on Rindo’s need for validation from his idol and trick him into helping him (I love how Beat in the last pic here sighs in his sprites because he knows that Rindo fell for it, hook, line, and sinker)

However, what truly cements the parallel here is this convo Shiba has with Tsugumi in the Last Day Intervention.

Shiba here basically flat out admits that he was afraid of having to face the consequences of his decisions. Of having to own up to the fact that his self-destructive actions were causing harm to himself and others and so, in an effort to try and suppress that feeling of insecurity, he saw it fit to run away from the warning signs and trap himself in his own self-isolating bubble in order to avoid taking responsibility.

Now, who does that remind you of?

Now, at first glance, this comparison might seem like a stretch, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, let's think back on what Nagi said about Shiba at the end of W3D3 after Kanon's erasure.

When we reflect on what Nagi said, you start to realize that the majority of Shiba's actions throughout the third week was due to his feelings of anger and hurt following what he feels is a personal betrayal from the people he cares about the most and how he then takes out that anger on the people below him. First there's his calling out Shoka personally out of anger of a mix of betraying him and the others by switching to Rindo's group and blaming her for HIS encouraging Ayano to take drastic measures such as personally infecting herself with the Plague in order to try and get Shoka to come back.

Which then leads into the next day where Shiba, out of anger concerning Ayano's erasure, sends out more Plague Noise to target the remaining teams so that they can feel the grief he's currently going through, which ends with Kanon, the Twisters' most supportive ally, getting caught in the crossfire and subsequently erased, which Nagi's analysis on Shiba alludes to when she comments on his wrathful energy in the morning announcment.

Combine this with him sending out Plague Noise that take on phantom images of the Twisters' failures and traumas and him getting so pissed at Susukichi betraying him in a previous timeline on W3D6 that he causes the Inversion a day earlier than intended and you get the sense that Shiba is lashing out at the others for what he views to be their fault, while never reflecting on his own fault on the matter due to a combination of the Dissonance affecting him so deeply and his refusal to see just how much he's hurting the people he cares about the most.

Much like how Rindo tends to lash out at others whenever he feels pressured to make a decision or face the possibility of having to take responsibility of his actions, Shiba's actions can be considered an example of what can happen if that flaw was taken to its worst possible conclusion. Both Rindo and Shiba are afraid of having to face the consequences of their actions and try to avoid facing them by either pawning off responsibility off of someone else or just outright tuning out the warning signs altogether. They put the people around them at arm's lengths, often taking them for granted, and become paranoid around others out of fear what will happen to them if they get too close. However, Rindo eventually starts becoming more savvy to his idol’s intentions and actively seeks out the truth about him, resulting in him breaking away from Motoi’s influence and slowly becoming more assured in himself and his decisions. He becomes more aware of his friends' struggles and will often try to do right by them (as shown with his talks with Shoka and the contrast between his and Fret's conversations at the beginning and end of the game). This is shown off in two ways, with Rindo and Shiba's confrontation at the end of W2D7 and W3D7 being flipped to have Rindo and Shiba trading places to show who’s on top, Shiba utterly alone in contrast to Rindo being surrounded by others, the Wicked Twisters dominating the screen while Shiba can only shrink back in defeat and Shiba being invisible in the Crossing (despite being surrounded by all those people) while Rindo is literally embedded in an ever-expanding Social Network.

By the end, Rindo actively takes accountability for his actions and achieves the happy ending he strives for, even helping with bringing Shiba back to his senses. Shiba on the other hand, once his influential power gets to his heart, begins to devalue the significance of the wants, needs, and individuality of the people who followed him fervently, and it's not until he gets his ass kicked and then is forced to face his number one fan/the person he cares about most, Hishima (another parallel with Rindo and Motoi), does he come to terms with how his actions have affected people he cares about, and is able to break out of his own self-idolizing and begin his path towards reformation, taking responsibility for his actions much in the same way that Rindo himself does.

To recap, Kitaniji becomes convinced that what he’s doing is what JOSHUA wants while Shiba becomes convinced that what KUBO wants is what he actually desires when that’s really not the case and I find these parallels to be incredibly fascinating. Kitaniji and Shiba are considered to be the ideal of what a Reaper should be in their respective cities and what's especially interesting is how while the values each game tries to instill does have merit when applied to our lives, they also show off the downsides of what those values can have if you're not especially careful.

On one end, you have Kitaniji, who is the "ideal" of a Shibuya Reaper. Highly unique and imaginative, has a very strong sense of self and sense of identity. Is an individualist but is also very isolated as a result. Tellingly, when Joshua starts to force his hand and basically tells him to come up with a way to save the city or get fucked, Kitaniji starts going down a dark path and tries to rob the citizens of Shibuya of their individuality in order to save the city from becoming destroyed, unknowingly increasing its countdown to its inevitable destruction and became twisted into a raving madman that insists that he’s saving humanity and is shepherding them into a new ideal utopia.

By contrast, when you take a look at the flashbacks and how the others speak about him before he got his new powers, Shiba is shown an be incredibly charismatic individual and this goes hand in hand with his role as the most powerful of the Shinjuku Reapers. His leadership and connections are his strength. He’s a social butterfly (his Noise powers and pendant are themed for a reason) and is considered the ideal of a Shinjuku Reaper. However, thanks to his new powers getting to his head, he’s pushed away all of his remaining allies and now has just about no one but himself, the emotional isolation being incredibly damaging to both himself and the people he cares about .Susukichi, Rindo, and Neku even talk about this, speculating about how he must be lonely and how his new powers most likely contributed to this.

Both TWEWY games can be read as a cautionary tale of idolism; of influencer status; of becoming so disillusioned that you either close yourself off to others or deem yourself so important that other people matter far less. Last but not least, they emphasize the importance of being accountable for one's own self, especially in a society of influencers because at the end of the day, it's important that you believe in your own views and can uphold them responsibly; it's important to not blindly follow others, especially if your self-worth hinges on it and ESPECIALLY if they become like Shiba or Kitaniji.

#twewy #the world ends with you #neo the world ends with you #neo twewy #ntwewy #rindo kanade #neku sakuraba #yoshiya kiryu #megumi kitaniji #shiba miyakaze #analysis post

65 notes · View notes

theautumnaldemon · 2 months

Text

Hazards to Society

Hazards to Society is a found family/ fantasy/ science fiction show concept about an angel named Midnight who rises to power after murdering their god, afterwards founding a group called the Hazards. Although small, the group is known for causing chaos on Aleam Island… until, of course, they have to protect it at all costs…

Created by me and my real-life friend group, Hazards To a society is our passion project formed solely off of our OCs and pure chaos.

it combines the humor of the amazing world of Gumball, the lore of Hazbin Hotel, and the unsettlingness of invader zim into one chaotic mess of AWESOMENESS!

Some of the old art I have drawn for it:

Me and my friends are working on animating a pilot and doing the voices ourselves!

The accounts of some collaborators: @vespiem @thefrogcollector @stephan-thesnail @jellyrosescollective

Characters:

Autumn, the Tabaxi warrior who betrayed her nation, The Hive

Bee, aka Beelzebub, the silly goofy guy who’s also literally Satan

Beetle, the grumpy witch and bootleg Emperor Belos

Clam, the more reclusive vampire

C, the runner of a cartography company of parrots

Midnight, the cold and calculating god

Neo, the frog boy who happens to have mind control powers

Rob, head scientist and Beetle’s assistant

Lyre, the sweet cherub sent down to assist Midnight

Zizi, the chaotic and loveable ghost

Talon, who makes everyone know he was betrayed by his father

Sharky, the weird gnome thing… idk man…

Jinx, the unhinged trickster god

Flick, the perpetually-high alien retail worker

Disco, the all-powerful music god who owns Midnight’s soul

Cicada, Flick’s cool alien girlfriend

Ramona, who works alongside Flick and has been done with his shit

Orion, Autumn’s old abusive army general

Basil and Celeste, Orion’s second-in-commands, much friendlier

Cosimo, the principal of the high school Beetle teaches at pets:

Karl, Beetle’s dragon familiar

Bartleby, Beelzebub’s demonic axolotl

Hex, Rob’s gremlin raven

Mr Beaks, C’s second-in-command at the factory (also a parrot)

Gary, Neo’s frog friend

Hollie Cow, the ‘holy cow’ friend of Lyre

Mid’s Shark, Midnight’s landshark with 9 lives

#Hazards to society #Hts

21 notes · View notes

ironwoodatl01 · 7 months

Text

JAUNE'S HAREM (BAD ENDING)

The bullying of Pyrrha Nikos reached its climax after Pyrrha had a bucket of water dumped on her in the ladies' restroom during recess. At his limit, Professor Jaune Arc hauled the ringleaders of his class bullies to the counselor's room to take the smug brats to task after their lastest escapade.

What followed was a grueling contest of flesh and will as Jaune attempted to instill discipline in his students.

"No~! Gonna cum~! Wait, please~!"

Despite his courage, Jaune was just one man against three of the most experienced girls in the school. With a heroic effort, he overcame the dusky Emerald Sustrai and filled her plundered depths with a full measure of his seed. By a close margin, he subdued the fiery Cinder Fall and dampened her flame with a load of his virility across Cinder's cold face. However, Jaune was far too exhausted by the time he faced Neo Politan.

He had ran the gauntlet and his body had paid for it. His legs had turned to jelly and buckled at the knees, while Neo's thighs were as steady as marble pillars and held firm in a proud letter 'A' against Jaune's desperate thrusts. Neo's wide hips and slender belly clenched, tight and wet, around Jaune's tortured length and caused white spots to flash in his eyes as Neo's womb milked him from root to tip.

The sounds that filled the classroom between Jaune and Neo made Jaune nauseous, and he cursed Neo out to clear his mind from the soaked, sticky sensation that clung to his hips like velcro. At the same time, Jaune pressed his weight down on Neo and pawed at Neo's breasts in a vain attempt to throw the insatiable nymph off-balance for a moment.

Neo laughed silently in response and relished Jaune's worship of her incomparable body. Her scent was a mix of vanilla perfume, strawberry sweat, and feminine triumph which set Jaune's brain abuzz like an agitated hive and eroded Jaune's will. Jaune had proven himself worthy prey, but his masculine fury was ultimately impotent compared to Neo's experience, her consummate skill, and a figure that would have put Aphrodite to shame.

The combat was finished once Cinder and Emerald recovered and pressed their sweat-slick bodies against Jaune's back. Their kisses on Jaune's sweat-drenched skin drained his stamina while their hands dragged Jaune down to the floor. Jaune bellowed like a wounded lion and held on for a few seconds longer but withered once Jaune came into Neo's mouth, and she then shared Jaune's cum with her greedy sisters through deep, wanton kisses.

Broken, Jaune crawled across the classroom floor on his hands and belly; his useless meat bled white between his soft thighs, and he begged that the girls let him slink away with some measure of dignity intact. Unsatisfied, Cinder and Emerald had their revenge for Jaune's temporary victory over them, while Neo took her own trophies from her latest victim. The photos of Jaune's defeat would ensure the punishment of the three girls, but Jaune's humiliation is something he could never recover from. He would never earn any respect from his students and peers again, and all Jaune can do is leave the Academy in shame for the rest of his days.

JAUNE'S JOURNEY ENDS HERE

#lwdeit #lwde #doomlewd.txt #rwby smut #rwby jaune arc #jaune arc #rwby emerald #emerald sustrai #rwby cinder #rwby cinder fall #cinder fall #rwby neopolitan #rwby neo #neo politan #jaune x pyrrha #jaune arc x emerald sustrai #jaune x cinder

21 notes · View notes

bccfggffbgv · 4 months

Note

Who is the most dangerous enemy faction within Multiversal Fusion?

That's a very tough question to answer since they're all dangerous in their own ways and all have caused a good amount of destruction in their wake, even the less well-known factions have messed up entire cities and kingdoms.

The Crystallized Horde is definitely a good contender out there in terms of how much they've taken over within the merged universe with both the crystals and Black Hearts soldiers.

2 notes · View notes

animentality · 1 year

Text

As much as I generally like Tumblr more than say, Twitter.

Or even you know. The disgusting hive mind that is reddit or TikTok.

The terfs of Tumblr are the most unbearable, self righteous, perpetually angry, chronically online group of misanthropes you'll ever encounter.

Like Twitter is full of hate, in every flavor, but it's muted. It's like some insane opinions, some more moderately insane opinions, and then some truly batshit, how did anyone ever think of that stuff.

But here. You say like, trans people are literally just people, and then some radfem terf tribal leader comes out of nowhere with her army of frothing attack dogs with mouths full of rabies and they co opt entire posts.

They attack everything you say, and then things you don't say, accusing you of being a misogynistic porn lover or a tranny or a man masquerading as a woman or a self hating misogynist woman.

And it's like oh wow.

There is a reason Tumblr was and still is called hellsite.

It may be gayer here than most sites, but your main enemy is so uniquely Tumblr that it becomes unbearable and horrible in its own flavor.

I have had some asshole conservatives on my posts. I have had some incels saying some stupid shit. But they get laughed at and bullied normally.

But here? Well shoot. All it takes is one annoying terf whose entire life mission is being on Tumblr, preaching the words of pastor bill in the form of gender politics.

And then her squadron of piecemeal worms come out of the dirt or nearby shit hive where they live and start gnawing at flesh like the ravenous hordes of cannibals they are.

It'd be embarrassing if it wasn't so sad.

What do you think you're doing, anyway? Advocating for women's rights from the comfort of your armchair? Are you actually helping women, are you supporting domestic abuse charities, are you volunteering at battered women shelters, are you going outside even once or twice to discuss real systemic issues that affect women, or are you just a spiteful, angry, misanthropic, jaded loser who spends all their time being angry and going on witch hunts and spewing venomous bile online at strangers?

You know that neo Nazi fuck, Andrew Anglin, used to be a hardcore liberal who liked trolling the Westboro baptist church?

I suspect that most terfs don't really have a morality behind it, you're just a re vamped version of anger addicted. You like to bully and belittle and deride, but you've grown up on movies that have hammered in just how much bullying is bad. So you need a different way to bully, a liberal way to bully, and look who it is!

A catty group of popular white girls with the southern white woman tactic of weaponizing victimhood. Your true people. White recognizes white. You think your righteous rage is fair and just and liberal and you're nothing like those chauvinistic sexist patriarchal neo Nazis?

Lol.

First off you support neo Nazis far more than you'll ever support the LGBT community or even women. Second, you might as well join the neo Nazis since your definition of a real woman is just a patriarchal depiction of the proper biological breeding slave with a vagina and child bearing hips.

Again. It would be embarrassing, but the saddest thing is you can't even see just how embarrassing you are.

#lgbt #transgender #anti jkr #anti harry potter #and before the terfs get here #lets see how they attack #lets watch #i want you to dissect it #see how they move #see how they pat themselves on the back #and make bad faith arguments using circular reasoning

80 notes · View notes

allergic-to-buttercups · 2 months

Text

Valentine's Gift For Dsnzfb

Hi @dsnzfb! I was your secret snz Valentine! I wrote some P/hoenix and E/dgeworth for you, I hope you like it!

Story features: allergies, holdbacks, stuck sneezes, very very slight character-with-the-kink, and E/dgeworth being the flustered mess we know and love.

Unfortunate truth the first: M/iles E/dgeworth was allergic to cherry blossoms.

Unfortunate truth the second: he had made this -fascinating- discovery due to the limited-edition Spring In Neo Olde Tokyo Samurai & Pink Princess Scented Plushie Set, a Valentine's Day-adjacent product of which only two hundred had been manufactured and sold.

Unfortunate truth the third: he had a meeting with W/right in approximately five minutes to discuss an upcoming case the man wanted E/dgeworth's advice about, and he very much did not want his...rival? friend? Crush...to know that he had purchased such an item. Yes, he no longer deluded himself into thinking that W/right wasn't at least a bit aware that he was a closet Steel Samurai fan, but owning a -bright pink- -highly romantic- -Valentine's themed- -limited edition- plushie set wasn't something he was -quite- ready to admit to the man who stirred in him such complicated (unnecessary) feelings.

Unfortunate truth the fourth: W/right was early for the meeting, for once in the man's blasted life, and E/dgeworth had time to do nothing but shove the plushie set in the top drawer of his desk and close said drawer, desperately hoping that the teasing, tickling scent would remain trapped inside for the duration of his conversation with W/right.

W/right hadn't even finished laying out the case documents he'd brought for E/dgeworth to look over when his hope was squashed.

He can smell it. The horrible, cloying, artificial cherry blossom scent. He's not sure if it's because his desk isn't doing enough to block it out or because enough of the perfume had spread into the office air before he sealed away the offending plushie, but he can smell it.

And oh, his nose -tickles.-

When M/iles E/dgeworth is allergic to something, he's not the kind of man who sniffs delicately or has a slight cough or develops hives or anything along those lines. No, E/dgeworth's allergies manifest in one way and one way only:

Enormous, trumpeting sneezes that simply -cannot- be stifled and -cannot- be stopped.

And, of course, -always- seem to come in fits.

He needs, he realizes, to hold off the fit until W/right has left. He remembers the other man having been aware of his massive fits when they were children together, back when it was a source of humor rather than embarrassment, but he does not want his rival-friend-possibly-crush-definitely-someone-he-wants-to-impress to know that he is STILL plagued by such undignified sneezes.

It is not going to be an easy task.

The scent is everywhere, in every breath. He breathes through his mouth, and it helps not the slightest. His nose wants desperately to twitch, to hitch, and keeping his face still is a Herculean task.

Still he tries.

And tries.

But oh, he has to -sneeze-.

And then, of course, it gets worse, because he's supposed to be helping W/right with a case, so it's not like he is able to simply stay quiet throughout the meeting. Soon, W/right has finished listing out the facts of the case - as though E/dgeworth hadn't researched it beforehand, which he of course had - and is asking the prosecutor for his opinion.

"The reason my client, Mr. Blossom, is accused of the murder is because the victim, Miss Addison Shoo, recently purchased a huge bouquet of flowers from his shop, Blossom's Blossoms. She had a boyfriend, who she planned to gift the flowers to. The prosecutor - one of the Paynes, although I can't for the life of me remember which one - is going to insist that the flowers were poisoned, because the victim's cause of death was poison."

"That's patently ridiculous," E/dgeworth responds. For a moment, he's so caught up in the insanity of the Payne's accusation that he conquers the tickle, getting out a full sentence. But then, he takes in a breath to speak more, and the tickle spikes, driving deep into the back of his nose. For a moment, the sneeze feels like an inevitability, and his attempt to get out his next words without hitching is a miserable failure. "How could flah...ehhh...flowers be poisoned?"

He hopes Wright won't catch the hitch.

He hopes in vain.

"Are you all right, M/iles?" the defense attorney asks in that damnably soft, stupidly caring voice. "If you're not feeling well, we can-"

"I'm fine!" the prosecutor snaps. Do not let your voice hitch, he tells himself. Do not take in a sharp breath. Do not allow your traitorous nose to twitch. You are in control. You are -fine-.

He is not fine.

"I am merely ahh...noyed that a prosecutor in my employ could make such a..." Here he pauses, forcing another hitch back, back, desperately trying to conquer the tickle. For a moment, he emerges victorious. "Such a ridiculous accusation. The poison must have been delivered another way."

W/right looks down, eagerly shuffling through the papers, presumably looking through the record of the victim's final hours for any sort of other method by which the poison might have entered her body. E/dgeworth takes advantage of the other man's brief distraction to press a single longer, aristocratic finger underneath his nose.

For a moment, it works. For a moment, it is bliss. The tickle subsides, and E/dgeworth keeps the finger pressed where it is for one, two, three, four, five glorious seconds. Then W/right looks back up, and E/dgeworth hurriedly removes his finger and tries to act as though he was simply adjusting his cravat.

For one blessed moment, he thinks the tickle is gone.

Then that scent, that horrid -scent- invades his nostrils once more, and he knows that he is wrong. Worst, he has misjudged the situation, quite badly.

Holding his finger under his nose had only allowed the tickle to incubate. Now, when it returns, it is sharper, fiercer, a battering ram against his formerly iron defenses.

He dares not move. He dares not speak. He dares not -breathe-.

He just needs to fight this cresting wave, and then the tickle will surely, -surely- back down again. He just needs to be strong for a little longer, and he will not sneeze. He! Will! Not! Sneeze!

"Huh, wait, this is weird," W/right says, his brow furrowing as he notices an odd detail in the paperwork he is scanning. "It says here that Miss Shoo was financially unstable, having lost her job a few weeks ago and not found any new one - but according to Mr. Blossom's testimony, she purchased the most expensive bouquet in the shop."

Oh, it tickles. Oh, it -tickles-.

"Consisting entirely of rare and exotic flowers-"

Do not sneeze. Stay strong.

"like passion lilies, birds of paradise..."

"Ahhh..." Okay, that had been a hitch, but acceptable damages, W/right had been too caught up in expounding on his new theory to notice.

"....oh, and hmm, also it looks like the bouquet contained a lot of..."

No, W/right, do not say it, or I shall lose this battle! E/dgeworth thought as his nose twitches and throbs. Somehow he knows that even the word will set him off, will remind him of the scent that invades his nostrils.

"...sprigs and sprigs of fresh cherry blossoms."

"HAH'SCHUUUUUUU!" The sneeze is out of him before he can even think to stifle or hold back. His allergies are so severe that even hearing the word -cherry blossom- was enough to spark a sneeze.

W/right looks up, shocked. "Ble-" he starts to say.

"kSCHUUU! hah'SCHUUU!" Two more sneezes follow before he can even get the word out.

"M/iles, are you all right? We can postpone if you-"

The tickle is still there, but he fights, he -fights.- "No, W/right, please, it was merely a brief irritation." He is not going to sneeze any more. He is not going to reveal the allergen tucked within his drawer that he had so foolishly purchased. "Continue."

"Okay, if you're sure..." W/right doesn't look sure, and E/dgeworth does not -feel- sure, not with the tickle still battering against his nasal defenses, not without now knowing just how -wonderful- the relief of a good sneeze had felt, but onward he presses.

"Well, purchasing such an expensive bouquet surely implies that she had come into some money, somehow? And we know it wasn't a new job, at least not anything official - she was constantly active on social media, and she posted about all of her previous jobs the same day she was hired." "Heh..." E/dgeworth agrees with a hitchy nod. There's another sneeze building, and he's tempted just to let it out. He's embarrassed, true, but he'd already sneezed in front of W/right and admitted to a "slight" tickle in his nose (although "slight" is not -really- the word he would use to describe it) and so another sneeze would not seem -that- strange. And this is a devilishly tickly one.

So he'll let it out, he decides. It feels like a single, and not a particularly large one, by his standards, and it will probably go a long way towards alleviating the teasing tickle.

Only, now that he's decided that, it seems that the sneeze doesn't -want- to come out.

"Heh...ahhh..." He hitches under his breath, trying to urge it a long. Just a moment ago, he had been desperately trying everything in his power -not- to sneeze, and now the sneeze simply...won't come.

"She hah...hahh...hahhh...d a boyfriend, didn't she? Wouldn't such a bouquet make sense for a romantic gift?" He breathes in through his nose as he talks, trying to urge more of the tickly scent into his nasal passages, but the dastardly odor seems to have at last dissipated, because the sneeze remains firmly stuck.

W/right eyes him oddly, but has the good sense not to question him. That, or he's genuinely too caught up in the discussion of the case to notice. "Yes, but they'd only been officially dating for three months, and it didn't seem from Miss Shoo's posts that things were getting serious yet. And it wasn't any sort of anniversary, or his birthday, and they definitely weren't getting engaged or moving in together or anything of the sort."

Breathe in, breathe out. Tickle, tickle. Sneeze, damn you, sneeze! he tells himself. But it won't happen. It will not come. The sneeze is well and truly stuck.

"So she wasn't in a financial place to buy him a fancy bouquet with no reason..."

His nostrils flare. "Ahh...heh..." For a moment, he thinks he has it. But no, the damned thing backs away again.

"...and there -is- no obvious reason, which makes me think it has something to do with money. She had gotten some, and was planning to surprise him with the bouquet alongside the good news. It would make sense - Mr. Blossom confirmed that the boyfriend was a regular customer of his, and his social media is full of pictures of his houseplants. He was a known flower fan."

"Did Mi...did Miss...heh...ahhh...Did Miss Sha....Miss Ah....Ahhhh...Ahhhh...." Even the victim's name seems to tease him, reminding him of the sneeze he desperately wants to release from his poor, tormented nose. "Did Miss Shahh...Shaaaaahhh....Ahhh..." The tickle is poised right there on the edge, but it -just won't come out-, there's nothing he can do, he can't talk without hitching, can't -breathe- without hitching, but he just simply cannot SNEEZE!

"M/iles, please, just sneeze if you need to. You don't have to hold back on my account. I'm not grossed out or anything, I promise." "That's nahh...nahhh....not..." His voice has taken on a helpless, whining tone that he hates more than anything. "It's stah...stuck!" "Oh." The tone of W/right's voice is not pity or amusement as he had dreaded, but genuine concern, mixed with...Interest? Fascination? Between gasping breaths, E/dgeworth looks up. The defense attorney's eyes are locked on his face - no, on his desperately twitching, flaring nose. In those eyes are an intensity E/dgeworth almost never sees outside of the courtroom. The evidence leads to only one conclusion, although he cannot for the life of him figure out -why- it is so: P/hoenix W/right wants him to sneeze. And he wants to sneeze, too, now. The tickle has been teasing him for well over a minute, he cannot -breathe- without even gasping. Throwing caution to the wind, E/dgeworth flings open the drawer, freeing the awful cherry blossom-scented plushies within. A wave of faintly floral air bursts upward, and the sneeze crests at last. "KA'SCHOOO! ahhhhCHOOOO! haaaaaa....ahhh....ACHOO! KER'SCHOO! AHHHHHHHHHCHOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Well, not sneeze, but -sneezes-.- When the fit has calmed at last, the expression on P/hoenix W/right's face has moved from mere interest into something pointed and dark, filled with the promise of very, -very- interesting discoveries for a curious prosecutor to make should he pry further. In a move far more spontaneous than he is used to making, he hands the scented plushies to the defense attorney. "Happy Valentine's Day, W/right," he manages to get out before gearing up for yet another tortured, allergic sneeze. "HAH'SCHOOO!" "Happy Valentine's Day to me indeed," W/right murmurs, the case documents on the desk completely forgotten as he thoroughly examines his new acquisition. (M/iles E/dgeworth's theory about the affect his sneezes have on one P/hoenix W/right turns out to be correct, and the scented Steel Samurai and Pink Princess plushies quickly become both the bane and the blessing of his existence over the next many, many nights spent in W/right's arms. Eventually, they do manage to solve the case, finding the stub of a winning lottery ticket that had been purchased by a Miss Addison Shoo but cashed in by her boyfriend, a Mr. O. Bviousguilt. During the trial, the cherry-blossom filled bouquet becomes a key piece of evidence, much to the delight of a certain defense attorney and the frustration of a poor prosecutor who decides to support his -own- new boyfriend by watching the whole thing from the gallery, a sneezy, allergic mess throughout the trial but there to cheer P/hoenix on regardless.)

#24snzvalentines #dsnzfb #sneezefic #my sneezefic

9 notes · View notes