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paradise-in-k4 · 2 days

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The Gap in the Evening, Entry 5: “Blistering Irony in Quantum Theory”

Everyone has a fear. Everyone. Even the one person in your friend group who says they’re afraid of nothing. But what *is* fear? Is it something that was derived from a traumatic experience? A desire to prevent disappointment? A neurological defense mechanism that overreacts to the thing that goes bump in the night? In my opinion as someone who studies relative psychology, all of these answers are correct to their own extents and personalized by individual minds. But it seemed like fear wasn’t a stopping factor for one person who asked to talk about the Parallel Satellite Incident with us after learning about it supposedly through the tengu’s newspaper.

When asked about her identity and reason for asking, she introduced herself as Youmu Konpaku, a half-human half-phantom who wanted to know more about the incident and whether this would entail the Netherworld’s quotas. Halfway through her statement, however, she caught sight of an old horror movie we were watching on a kappa’s monitor and started screaming in horror when an obvious jumpscare involving the movie’s main antagonist- for context this was a vengeful ghost- came up. A reaction like this was to be expected, but not of that magnitude unless this was a kid who somehow watched a movie of this rating despite the public’s best efforts to prevent it. We had to take her inside and close the door to prevent drawing attention and embarrassment to ourselves. It took us a whole afternoon and a couple servings of dango from another local vendor to get her to calm down so we could continue our conversation. And that’s when it hit me.

This movie was her boundary between emotions. Reactions. What if there was another version of her who wasn’t as scared as her… or even more so? Alternate realities. Quantum physics. It all started to add up. If we gave Nitori the numbers and used my ability as a reference formula for some of the missing data, she could create a device that could exploit unkept seams in the dividing lines between universes without having to bother Yukari (whoever she happened to be in this universe), allowing us clear access into other dimensions including the one we were trying to resolve. What if… we weren’t from that universe, and instead… we were from this one?

-Maribel Hearn

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Muse Notes: Youmu Konpaku

Title(s): Half-Human Half-Phantom Gardener, Half-Human Half-Phantom and Half-Baked

Universe of Origin: L1

Size (headcanon): Fairly Short, 4’2”

Species: Half-Human Half-Phantom (Half-Youkai)

Pronouns: She/Her

Age (headcanon): 71

Personality: Youmu is straightforward and diligent, yet openly vulnerable to manipulation, which sometimes results in her getting picked on by others. Despite this, her pure and earnest character grants her a certain likable charm that’s earned her several friends in the past. Youmu is reasonably sensitive to drastic changes in the environment around her such as- but not limited to- an insanity-inducing full moon that made her human half go insane (which made her half-insane(?)). She’s also very scared of things to a point where she’ll sometimes scream and/or run away on sight or sound of things such as ghost stories, dares, darkness, and ghosts themselves… but not phantoms. She’s cool with those since her other half is a floating phantom. For everything else, she’s been seeing others to help her overcome her fears.

Occupation: Gardener, Swordsmanship Instructor

Home Region: Hakugyoukurou, Netherworld

Ability: Capable of handling sword techniques

Techniques: While her training is incomplete under Youki’s disappearance, Youmu displays excellence with wielding both her swords at once to perform otherwise difficult or impossible techniques. She claims that the things she can cut down with her swords are next to none.

Danmaku: Spell card duels are long range. Swords are melee weapons. The energy produced by Youmu’s sword attacks can fly through the air like standard danmaku, which- combined with her speed and reflexes- allow her to close the gap between her and her opponent in order to deliver finishing blows and unnoticeably fast combo slashes. She can also utilize her phantom half for danmaku, as well as for other menial tasks.

Skills:

Ambidexterity

Single & Duel-Wielding Swordplay

Precision Gardening & Pruning

Cooking

Possessions:

Roukanken: “watchtower sword” and katana carried from her left shoulder to right-side waist, supposedly forged by youkai. Claimed to be capable of slicing ten phantoms in one slice.

Hakurouken: “blank tower sword” and wakizashi backup sword by her left waist. A Konpaku family heirloom capable of slicing through people’s confusion.

Aquamarine Vest/Skirt over a white Shirt

Black Bowtie

Black Hairband with a Ribbon

Muse-Specific Headcanons:

Certified screamer at any horror show Yuyuko drags her into

Her phantom half is often used as a universal tool… or something for Yuyuko to nom on for some reason

People sometimes call her Myon as a nickname

She loaned Roukanken out to a mysterious realm beyond Gensokyo called “Summoner’s Rift” once to make a bit of money out of desperation. After seeing how damaged it got after being returned to her, she never did it again and demanded they pay for it to get reforged. Sumireko’s first reaction to that story was a boisterous “LOL” for reasons unknown. (I am not sorry)

Youmu was forced to learn how to cook in order to sate Yuyuko’s periodic intense hunger pangs

Blog-Specific Lore Notes:

Youmu learned about the Parallel Satellite Incident from Aya’s “limited edition” newspaper, where she went to ask Renko and Maribel about it directly. She screamed not even a minute into their conversation since the two were watching a horror movie on a kappa’s monitor

After an accident during a Lunar New Year festival of 2024 that started a series of events known as the Resolvers Incident, she along with Marisa, Reimu, Patchouli, Koakuma, Shinmyoumaru, and Alice got involved with the Frost Miko Incidents and Beasts’ Menagerie Incident after being gapped across time into multiple different realms beyond Gensokyo. This RP blog takes place after the Frost Miko Incidents were resolved, but she along with the others are willing to answer questions about it. No, the Beasts’ Menagerie Incident hasn’t been resolved yet.

Spell Cards:

*close combat spell card

*spell card for close combat and danmaku battles

Ghost Sword “Fasting of the Young Preta”

Preta Sword “Scroll of the Preta Realm”

Hungry King Sword “Ten Kings’ Retribution on the Preta”

Hell Realm Sword “Two Hundred Yojana in One Slash”

Hell Fire Sword “Sudden Phantom Formation Slash of Karmic Wind”

Hell God Sword (AKA Sign III) “Sudden Divine Severing of Karmic Wind”**

Animal Realm Sword “Karmic Punishment of the Idle and Unfocused”

Asura Sword “Obsession with the Present World”

Human Realm Sword “Fantasy of Entering Enlightenment”

Human Era Sword “Great Enlightenment Appearing and Disappearing”

Human God Sword “Constancy of the Conventional Truth”

Heaven Sword “Five Signs of the Dying Deva”

Deva Realm Sword “Displeasure of the Seven Hakus”

Heaven God Sword “Three Kons, Seven Hakus”

Six Realms Sword “A Single Thought and Infinite Kalpas”

Human Sign “Slash of Present World”**

Human Oni “Slash of the Eternal Future”**

Life-Cutting Sword “Slash of Meditation”*

Hesitation-Cutting Sword “Slash of Departure from Hesitation”*

Soul Sign “Wheel of Pain of the Living and Dead”*

Konpaku “Dharma of Gumonji Wisdom of the Living and Dead”*

Sign I “Double Wheel of Pain”*

Sign II “Slash of Delusional Inner Eye”*

Arcanum “Slash of Saigyou Spring Wind”*

Hesitation Sign “Sword of Blinding Desires”

Hesitation Sign “Half-Body Disillusion”

Human Knowledge Sword “Turning Angel Cut”**

Obsession Sword “Blood of Asura”

Celestial Sword “As the Silent Nirvana”

Four Births Sword “Echoes of the Inclemency of All Beings”

Sword Skill “Cherry Blossom Flashing”*

Spirit-Cutting Sword “Slash of Ascension to Buddhahood”*

Cherry Blossom Sword “Flashing Scattered Flowers”*

Thought-Cutting Sword “Slash of the Buddhahood of a Flora”*

Closed-Eye Slash “The Bullet-Cutting Spirit Eye from Roukan”*

Reincarnation Sword “Slash of Circular Vicissitude”*

Voidness Slash “Slash Clearing the Six Senses”**

Swordsmanship “Mōryō Wiping Blood Off of their Blades”

Light Sign “Light Flash of the Netherworld” (Impossible Spell Card)

Higan Sword “Hacking Slashes of Hell and Paradise” (Impossible Spell Card)

“Matsuyoi-Reflecting Satellite Slash” (Last Word)

#rp muse #youmu konpaku #muse: youmu #parallel satellite incident notes #universe l1

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malboraslihan · 10 months

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okay i hear you on that concert shit LMFAOOOO like that sounds rough!! but i'm glad you got to see her so many times<3 okay yes literally obsessed with rachel and tom right now........ had to go rewatch tbosbas like 2 days after initially watching it because i was so into it! and i absolutely LOVE having muses for so long - and especially dob from teen wolf era! brother you've been through it huh<3 i'm getting a lot of good info here...... lot of good info! i'm rapid fire throwing questions at you now. what sort of music would you use to describe patrick (like if you already have a muse playlist, feel free to use that!), what faceclaims would you love to see more resources for, what has been your favorite thing about rp/tumblr for you, and what's some of your favorite movies and why! - ss

please <3 thank you! it's been a long time coming for real, the eras tour was my first tswift tour cause it's the first time she came to brazil rip. but honestly.. i've been wanting to rewatch tbosas ever since i saw it for the first time and the songs from that movie are living in my mind RENT FREE. i can not forget rachel belting can't take my charm out of nowhere... insane. i'm gonna be real with you and say my playlists almost always include taylor swift songs only cause... that's mostly what i listen and draw inspiration from. however.. around the time i made patrick there was one song i always used for edits and that was skyfall by adele. specifically the lines you may have my number, you can take my name but you'll never have my heart as well as the bridge cause it truly represented his feelings towards his twin sister and everything they've faced together to me. other songs i can name are kiss with a fist by florence and the machine, whatever it takes by imagine dragons and if you could see me now by the script. those are probably old as fuck but they're the ones i can remember the most. as for faceclaims i wish had more resources... honestly that's so hard cause i usually jump in to make resources of people i wanna use when they have absolutely none LKADJASKL but recently i became obsessed with adim farah, a turkish show and derya pinar ak who's an absolute beauty but has too little resources. matthew noszka, who's one of my favorite white boys of the month and michael yerger who's also a white boy i love and been wanting to use because i became obsessed with cowboy books. alfie enoch, he's in so many things and the lack of resources that isn't from how to get away with murder is insane.. kazuha from le sserafim, minnie from gidle and god, huh yunjin with her new ginger hair cause they're favorites of mine right now. my favourite thing about writing on tumblr/roleplaying has always been the collaborative aspect of it cause i work constantly with screen writing and while it's amazing to use my creativity i feel that roleplaying truly gives me an opportunity to develop ideas and characters more thoroughly whether it's through plotting or just writing with others. i always feel like my most developed muses are the ones that i created and used through group verses / group rps cause the “forced” interactions with other characters always helps me get to know them more and think about different paths of thoughts and quirks they could have as well as add more to their backstory so it’s always the most fun. i'm always a big big big sucker for group verses settings because of this. i'm almost done.. i promise, i'm rambling too much in these and i promise i'll try to stop KSAJDL but as for movies, i'm very much a horror girlie. my all time favorite (and comfort movie tbh) is scream. but some of my other favorites are the shining (1980) and psycho (1960). i've always been obsessed with the horror genre, mostly cause my cousins would make me watch horror movies when we were younger and spent every summer break together.. chucky is one of my favorite movie characters of all times, i just love him and the movies are some of my favorites as well. i'm a stephen king girlie through and through, even if the most recent it movies aren't the best thing ever i still love the characters so much.. and honestly one of my favorite films ever made is stand by me (1986), i literally cry every single time i watch it cause the whole friendship / growing up and growing apart situation is so beautifully done. the i never had friends like i did when i was 12 quote truly is my roman empire i think about it twice a day.

#rphservergifts #i'm sorry for rambling gdi </3

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thrndlngs · 3 years

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three times shinsou misses the opportunity to kiss you + the one time he seized the moment.

── pairing, shinsou x fem!prohero!reader ── request: x times shinsou wants to kiss fem reader??? pLZ I NEED IT ── author’s note: this was super dope & cute to write. tysm for sending this in. i hope i did this justice and it wasn’t to out of character. also reader has a water quirk & the two of you are in your early twenties. ♡

"'toshi,” you whispered, chest against his as the two of you currently hid from the group of villains. your two agencies had partnered up in attempt to take down a new gang of villains who were transporting drugs from the city to the waters, the two of you were partnered because of how the two of you excelled in your respective agencies, shinsou was sent to aid in your patrols of the waters ── which is why the two of you are currently hiding in a storage closet on a ship.

“shut up.” you don’t take it to heart, you’re sure he means it as nicely as possible - he just lacks a few pages in the ‘vocabulary’ department.

“we need to do something.” you tell him, trying your best to meet his gaze in the tight space (which was nearly impossible because he’s towering over you at the moment). he doesn’t reply, not at first at least, if you looked hard enough you would probably see the gears in his head turning.

“──stop talking, it’s distracting me.”

your mouth quickly shuts, fidgety hands are now at your side, you were starting to get antsy and there was practically little to no room to move around without being heard - or seen for that matter.

“they switch the guards every ten minutes, in the middle of the switch, we run.” the purple haired male explained, taking a peak at the time on his cellphone. the two of you had to endure this for three more minutes. just three more minutes and you would be free.

“three minutes,” you repeated, more to confirm this for yourself. you’re sure you wouldn’t last that long, after all, this was shinsou, the male you’ve had a crush on for quite some time now. how were you expected to last that long?

“──think of it like seven minutes of heaven.”

“we haven’t played that since── “

“yeah, yeah i know, but just think of it like that. don’t think about the closet, just the game.”

you nodded quickly, meeting his gaze as the two of you stood there in silence. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t thinking about kissing him. it seemed like the perfect moment - it was just the two of you. if it were the last day on earth, you at least wanted to go out with a bang. you know?

“let me get comfortable, you can do the same after.” you watched as he places either hands besides your head, slouching a bit against the wall so his back could have some sort of support. he nods to you, signaling for you to do the same.

it takes you a moment, the position shinsou is currently in causes your heart to skip just a few beats. were you disappointed in yourself for letting your mind drift.. elsewhere during a mission? for sure. did you care right now? absolutely not.

you cleared your throat, widening your stance and trying to balance the weight in between your legs to help ease some of the weight ── but there wasn’t really much you could do.

“two minutes.”

this had to be the longest three minutes of your life.

“i think i just tasted my own sweat.” he complained. it feels like he’s sweating in places he shouldn’t produce sweat in.

“i feel like a fish out of water,” you added.

“──gonna start passing out if i don’t throw you in the water soon?”

“says the one whose sweating to death.”

“and you’re dehydrated. guess we’re both shit out of luck aren’t we?”

“yeah, but, i think this isn’t the worst way to die.”

he takes another peak at his cellphone, noting that there’s a minute left before the two of you could finally get out of this damn storage closet. “you’ve got a minute to tell me anything worse than dying like this.”

in hindsight ── there’s a lot that could happen in a minute, that’s the only reason you said something to begin with. “alone, i could die in this closet, alone and then you know, it would be lonely.”

“are you serious?”

“oh come on! that’s pretty serious!”

“it ── it really isn’t,” he’s trying to laugh as quietly as possible and you playfully slapped him in his shoulder.

“okay, well, i wouldn’t want to die alone.”

“mhm, scaredy cat.” his smile is infectious and for a moment, he forgets that the two of you are stuck in a storage closet. maybe now would be the perfect time to kiss you, when it’s just the two of you, waiting to make your grand escape, when the two of your are just centimeters apart.

“now’s our chance,” he whispered, straightening himself to get out first just in case. he doesn’t want to act off of impulses. if he kisses you, he wants to make sure it’s because you want him too.

ii.

“good to see you when you’re not acting like a goldfish who just hopped out of it’s bowl.” the familiar voice teased from behind you, hands folded behind his head. if it were anyone else, you might have tripped them.

“──don’t you have to go buy hair dye now or something?”

“no that was after i made sure a fisherman didn’t take you on the way home.”

“is this what do you do on your spare time? think of jokes that revolve around my quirk?”

he rolls his shoulder lazily, leaning against the apartment railing across from your front door. “they come naturally, no extra thinking required.”

“and here i thought all the hair dye went to your brain.”

this wasn’t out of the norm for the two of you, he would make the first jab and then you would follow suit. sometimes, the bickering could go on for hours ── regardless of task at hand (like the time the two of you were trying to detain a villain and shinsou had told the woman you were a water sprite), it’s an old nickname of yours, he had given it to you back at the sports festival when you were kids. you had earned it when you had almost drown mineta because he wouldn’t stop making inappropriate jokes and you had brought the entire water fountain down on him.

as the two of you stood there in silence, you, had your back against your door, hands folded behind you while he stood parallel, arms against his chest he wonders: is this the time he kisses you goodnight?

“d’ya want to come inside? i have leftovers? we could pull an all nighter like we used to do back in the dorms?” there’s a hint of hopefulness in your eyes and he would feel like absolute shit if he declined the offer.

“only because you have food.”

he doesn’t kiss you goodnight then. and he doesn’t kiss you goodnight when you fall asleep on his shoulder after the second horror movie either. if you were anyone else, he would’ve left without a care in the world, but it’s you and you are different.

so he stays and tells himself that tomorrow will be a new day and tomorrow, he can try again.

iii.

“i don’t dance,” shinsou tells you as you so desperately tried to bring him onto the dance floor. it’s a hero’s gala, everyone from your respective classes at U.A. were here, pro heroes from all around the world and some of your old instructors as well ── these aren’t his thing, you know that. you remember his attitude during the first two hours of the third year’s ‘goodbye party’ - not much had changed. he’s taller, a bit more handsomer and smiles more often.

“you do tonight, come on.” while you had dragged him by one hand, the other desperately tried to loosen his tie because it feels like he’s suffocating.

“──you’ll be the death of me woman.” he’s mumbling under his breath, one hand resting in yours as the other found its place at your waist.

“because i asked you to dance? might i say this is on your list of horrible ways to die?” you teased, offering him that infectious smile that makes him go weak in his knees. he hates to admit the pull you have on him ── he might even go as far as saying you might have him wrapped around that finger of yours and you don’t even know it yet.

“if it’s by your hands i would say it’s a merciful death.”

“a merciful death? i’ll keep that in mind.”

“don’t test your luck,” you know he’s only messing with you ──

you’re to busy enjoying the moment to think of some witty comeback. it’s something about the way your hand seems to fit perfectly in his. or how the two of you are able to move in sync without any words spoken in between the two of you that’s driving you insane.

if you would’ve told your past self that you would be slow dancing with the hitoshi shinsou at a hero’s gala while the world around you disappeared you would’ve laughed at the idea. it would’ve seem silly to you ── stupid even. shinsou and you weren’t rivals like you and bakugou were, but, you had always found yourself trying to one up him.

yet here you were, swaying to the slow tune as you managed to snake your arms around his midsection and rest a head against his chest. maybe this was his chance: with the little distance in between the two of you, dim lighting and dressed to the nines. surely, this would be a good memory to relive later down the road wouldn’t it?

but he wanted to savor the moment. so he decides it against it ── despite the ache in his chest.

iv.

"we did it.” shinsou muses, an awkward hand offered in your direction for you to shake. it’s been six months but your agencies had finally shut down the smuggling operation and you could finally take the break you had so desperately needed. you weren’t sure what to do with the outstretched hand, but, you give in anyways, resting your hand in his as he gave it a firm shake.

“pleasure doing business with you.” you tell him, lips curving into a bittersweet smile. teasing, bickering and ‘playful’ sparring aside, you were going to miss him. you were used to patrolling and doing missions on your own but this was different.

“try not to end up on the other side of fishing hook, yeah?” it’s his way of telling you to be careful in shinsou’s teasing nature.

“make sure i’m the one to grant you the merciful death.” please be careful, is what you want to say. though you couldn’t bring yourself to say it aloud - if you did, it would only confirm that you care about the purple haired pro hero more than you should.

he shakes his head with a laugh, “you’re the only one who gets the satisfaction.”

“it better stay that way ‘toshi.”

he doesn’t know for certain if your agencies would cross paths again. your agency was closer to the waters and he was closer in the city, the chance that you would run into one another again would be slim to none.

he clears his throat for a moment, retreating his hand from yours and placing them at your waist instead. he’s pictured this a thousand times but now that he’s in the moment he couldn’t manage to find the right words. it’s frustrating, really.

“──hi.” you’re holding your breath in anticipation, was this another one of his games? was he going to kiss you? tell you a secret? use his capture weapon and tell you that he’s not letting you go until you admit something embarrassing?

he doesn’t care anymore. doesn’t care if it makes him look like a love sick idiot when he kisses you like it’s the last thing he’s about to do before he dies, he doesn’t care if anyone’s watching or for the wrinkles you’ll cause since you’ve got a fistful of his shirt in a desperate attempt to close whatever little distance the two of you had between you.

you pull away first causing him to pout (which was actually cute but you’d never give him the satisfaction of knowing that) but you do laugh.

“you know,” he muses, a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly, a habit you hadn’t seen in years. “──i didn’t want to let you walk away without something to remember, my little water sprite.”

you rolled your eyes at the choice of nickname but were flattered nonetheless, your own arms finding their way around his neck, “who said i was walking away?”

#shinsou fluff #shinsou x reader #shinsou x you #shinsou x y/n #bnha imagine #bnha drabble #mha drabble #mha imagine #shinsou tbt.#( this is so lame bc i wrote this at 1:43 am while at work JHADKJHDA )#╰ ♡ ✧ ˖ 𝐉𝐀𝐘𝐄 ┊ WRITINGS .

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cinnaminsvga · 4 years

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Taming of the Bridezilla | Seokjin

→ summary: Picture this: You had been (not-so) cordially invited to the wedding of your least favorite cousin—a woman who had been hellbent on making your childhood a living hell. Now older and wiser, you would think that you would put aside your differences and attend your cousin’s special day without any hard feelings, right? You wouldn’t seek revenge, now would you?

→ genre: fake dating!au, i2l, humor/crack, fluff → warnings: seokjin and oc paradoxically have big yet small brains, fake proposals, not-so fake mutual pining, thinly veiled baby-making jokes, terrible family members, ass slapping (no worries it’s consensual) → words: 6.3K → a/n: first of all, no this is not a horror fic; i just thought the title was funny. unless you consider the stupidity of the characters to be mildly horrifying, then sure you can count this as a horror fic. this insanely ridiculous fic was commissioned by @breadoffoxy!! anyone who loves chaotic jin is an angel in my book. yes, this comm is a bit longer than expected but what can i say... i love me some jin. anyway i hope you guys enjoy!

“You got the ring, right?”

Seokjin pats his left breast pocket and gives you a quick smirk. The bump where the ring should be is fortuitously hidden by his large and garish boutonniere, looking to all the world like he had pinned a whole head of cabbage to his suit. Even then, he still somehow manages to make it work. “Of course I did. This entire plan would be useless if I didn’t have it,” he says.

“What flavor did you get? I quite like the watermelon one,” you muse, smacking your lips in anticipation. “Though it’s hard to remember since I haven’t had a ring pop in years.”

Seokjin laughs loudly, startling a group of aunties gossiping in the corner. They all shoot glares at him, though the effect has lost its novelty as they’ve already been glaring at you from the moment you arrived. You suppose that they have a good reason to, considering that you both arrived at the reception an entire 30 minutes late. You can imagine them cursing you under their breath, saying something like, “You’ve brought dishonor to us all!” or whatever it is that aunties like to say these days.

“I could have gotten you all the flavors available at the convenience store if you wanted, but then we’d be 40 minutes late instead,” Seokjin sighs, pretending to be anguished at the thought.

You snort in the most unladylike manner that you can, grinning wildly when you hear one of the aunties gasp in horrified disbelief. From the way they’re reacting, you might have thought that you just flashed them your Borat-inspired neon green thong.

“I do love a man who can treat me well,” you giggle, earning a soft pinch from him.

“Oh, hush. I know you love it. You nearly burst into tears the other day when I bought you a McFlurry because your broke ass was a dollar short,” Seokjin teases. You squawk indignantly, unable to come up with a retort.

“Whatever! Just because you’re a trust fund baby doesn’t mean you get to bully my impoverished state. Just you fucking wait ‘til I get hit by a wealthy 77 year old’s BMW and then I’ll be made for life,” you huff, your illusion of annoyance quickly shattered by the large, dumb grin on your face. “Hey, would you still love me if I broke all my limbs but had a massive bank account?”

“I’d rather buy you McDonald’s for the rest of your life than see you in pain,” he answers simply, patting you gently on the head. “Though I suppose helping you inject thousands of calories into your bloodstream would also cause you pain later on in life, but hey, at least you’d go down doing what you love.”

“Oh, yes. Keep talking dirty to me. I love it when you talk about the ways you’d kill me by association.” You laugh, casually looping your arms together as you walk past the slowly growing crowd of aunties and entering the reception hall to find your seats. Almost everyone is already in their seats, with a few guests milling about and greeting one another with tight-lipped smiles and hollow laughter. The sight brings goosebumps up your arm, bringing back terrible memories of having to make niceties with these people despite knowing that they despised you and your less affluent family.

Remember, you’re only here as a representative for your parents, you tell yourself. You’d rather bear the brunt of the thinly-veiled insults than to have your parents have to experience this hell. Besides, you have big plans for today, and they would only be brought to an end if your mother ever found out what you wanted to do in the first place.

“As they say… We’re here for a good time, not a long time, which I suppose is our philosophy for tonight as well,” he quips back. He taps you lightly on the hand, wrenching your gaze away from the magnificent chocolate fountain on the dessert table and back to his somewhat less magnificent face. A straight-up lie, but it is the only defense mechanism you have in your arsenal that can keep you from staring at how gorgeous he looks in his suit and tie like a braindead idiot. Denial, after all, hasn’t failed you during the last five years that you’ve been in love with your own best friend.

“What is it?” you ask, curious when he furtively points out one of your cousins near the front of the hall. “That’s Namjoon. Do you know him?”

“Know is a strong word,” Seokjin hums, winking at your cousin when he happens to turn towards the two of you. Namjoon’s eyes light up when he sees him, but his excitement immediately vanishes when he notices who Seokjin has beside him on his right arm. You could see the mental cogs going on inside Namjoon’s head as he stares at the two of you, but you don’t get to see him reach a conclusion before Seokjin is pulling you away, walking in the opposite direction.

“Seokjin? What was that all about?” you ask, though you have to admit you’re kind of afraid to know the answer to your own question. As much as everything about tonight’s scheme had been your idea, you can’t help but think that Seokjin’s intense enthusiasm to help you isn’t merely out of his own desire to help you as a friend, but rather due to his innate calling to cause chaos wherever he goes.

“I have a secret bonus surprise for the bride and groom once we get kicked out from this joint after we do our thing,” he says. “And, dare I say, it’ll be quite a treat for all the guests here.” The smirk on his lips is downright heinous, only exacerbating the frantic racing of your heart. There must be something wrong with you, not with how badly you want to do unspeakable atrocities to him and his evil-looking ass. Or perhaps he was simply put down on Earth to test your slowly fraying sanity.

He snaps you out of your dumbfounded, horny stupor when he continues, “If everything goes according to plan, then we’ll truly end this night with a bang, no pun intended.”

“What was even the pun there?” You raise a brow, slightly disconcerted by the way Seokjin was struggling to keep his laughter (at his own joke) at bay. “You know what? Don’t even answer. I guess I’ll just have to find out later tonight.”

After some pointless meandering while the two of you locate your seats, you are finally able to locate your table, unsurprisingly situated near the farthest corner of the hall where no one would have to see you. You’re honestly more surprised that your newly-wedded cousin had even remembered to give you a seat, though you suppose that it must have been at the behest of your uncle. While your devil of a cousin has always been rude and cruel to you, you have to admit that at least her father knew some manners, though that only begs the question as to what happened to his daughter along the way. Genetics and expensive etiquette classes can only help so much, you suppose.

“Thank you again for doing this with me. You really didn’t need to,” you say when you take a seat, nearly elbowing him in the process. Your chairs are wedged right beside the emergency exit and a grotesque ice sculpture of the bride and groom, forcing the two of you to sit so close that you could feel Seokjin breathe directly into your ear. If you shifted just slightly to the right, you’d basically be sitting on his lap (which is a prospect that intrigues you greatly, but you refrain from voicing it in fear of creeping him out… for now).

“How could I ever resist the offer to ruin your cousin’s wedding? This has been on my bucket list for years,” he winks cheekily at you. “Besides, you’re my dearest friend, Y/N. You could ask me to fight a bear naked, and I’d gladly let it eat my dick in one chomp!”

“I wouldn’t let a bear eat your dick,” you say kindly, patting him gently on the back. “You can’t afford to lose an inch when you only have two to offer.”

Before you could laugh hysterically at Seokjin’s howls of betrayal, your attention is pulled away when the soft violin music stops playing abruptly. From far away, it’s hard to tell what’s going on until you notice a bright light reflecting off of the sea of attendees, the balding head of the reception’s host bobbing up and down as he makes his way to the front of the hall.

“Attention esteemed guests! We will now begin serving dinner shortly. Please remain in your seats as our waiters attend to you.” The host speaks into a crackly microphone just as a few scraggly-looking underpaid teenagers in black dress shirts come out with the first course of the night.

Seokjin cranes his neck, trying to see what the food is. “What the hell is that? Why does it look like green shit in a bowl?” he murmurs, loud enough so that only you can hear. “I didn’t know your cousin was a Dr. Seuss fan. Are we being served green eggs and ham?” Before you can guess, you watch as his nose crinkles in disgust, a vile stench making its way to your area even though none of the waiters were even close to your table. “Oh my goodness, is that stench what we’re supposed to eat?”

“Smells like a barnyard,” you comment, though you aren’t as surprised as he is by the revolting smell. “Well, my cousin always did like making atrocious vegan recipes on her shitty WordPress blog, so I wouldn’t put it past her if she made up the menu for her own wedding.”

“She’s a vegan and a bully? What are the odds,” he says drily, cringing when he watches one of the guests begin to dry heave the moment a spoonful of the green stuff enters their mouth. “Christ. I didn’t know I was signing up for a life or death mission.”

“At this rate, I don’t think we’re getting served until the end of the night anyway,” you say, observing as the understaffed employees tried their best to get to every table while insufferable aunts did their worst to hinder their progress by nagging and complaining. Why were they so adamant about eating the food anyway? Were they itching to get diarrhea on a Saturday night? You do admit that it would probably be better, so then at least you’d have an excuse to leave earlier. “Though I suppose... Do you think eating the mystery goo while it’s cold would be better or worse?”

“It’s okay, I’ll treat you to McDonald’s when we finish up here,” he says, smiling sweetly at you. Never in your life has the mention of greasy fries and chicken nuggies made your heart race faster than it did at that moment, but then again, it could also be your high-blood pressure kicking up. Either way, you can’t ignore the way your face heats up at his offer, now more excited than ever for the reception to be over.

You and Seokjin chat as you wait for everyone around you to finish eating, not even bothered when the waiters forget to bring your food. You’re in the middle of debating the pros and cons of cock and ball torture when large dark shadows loom over both your heads, much like a solar eclipse. A cold shiver runs up your spine when you look up to find the reptilian faces of your aunts, the fumes of their designer perfume creating a cloud so noxious that you could feel your lungs shrivel into prunes.

“Hello, Y/N. It’s nice to see you after such a long time,” your Aunt Sohee greets, her tone indicating that there was nothing pleasant about seeing you at all. Your aunt, who had gotten so much botox done that she was reminiscent of a plastic balloon ready to pop, has her entourage of fellow aunties behind her, all of whom looked ridiculous in their fake designer dresses. You swear you can see that one of them had forgotten to snip off the Made in China tag before wearing it to the wedding.

“Aunt Sohee, you’re looking… young,” you say after a moment, deciding to settle on lying for now. Even though your main plan for this evening is to create chaos at your cousin’s wedding, your one condition is that you wouldn’t cause a scene with your aunts. While you are hardly in the running for favorite niece, there is still a 1% chance that you could get some inheritance from them once they hit the grave, so you’ll have to grit your teeth and bear the incoming barrage of personal questions coming your way lest you lose out in the long run.

“Why, thank you. I can’t say the same for you,” she huffs, shamelessly grabbing my cheeks and squishing them like stress balls. She peers sourly at your disfigured face, trying to squint judgmentally at you but failing due to her horrendous plastic surgery. “How old are you? Why do you have so many wrinkles?”

You feel your eyebrow twitch involuntarily, unable to respond even if you wanted due to the gorilla-hold she has on your face. You side-eye Seokjin, who is looking back at you with a blank and calm expression. You had already told him beforehand that you wouldn’t be arguing with your aunts, but that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be an asshole.

Being an asshole, after all, is Seokjin’s favorite pastime.

“Hello, Aunties. My name is Kim Seokjin, and I’m Y/N’s long-term boyfriend. She’s told me many good things about you,” he says with a polite smile, his hamster cheeks puffing up in that adorably boyish way. The surrounding aunties all begin to coo at his handsome face (unfair!), but they’re quickly silenced by a sharp glare from your Aunt Sohee. She appraises him, giving him a once over with a pursed lip.

“Long-term boyfriend, huh? Are you sure you aren’t paying her or something? Y/N hasn’t had a boyfriend in years. Her cousins have told me that she’s been too busy with other… extracurricular activities to bother sticking around,” your aunt says snidely, her sneer deepening. She lets go of your face, crossing her arms when she spies the expensive watch on his wrist. “Ah, I see that you’re well-off. I just can’t possibly see why else you’d be staying with her if not for other reasons.”

You can feel your blood pressure rising, the veins on your forehead undoubtedly bulging as you try to suppress your rage. Screw your cousin for spreading a rumor that you’re a whore! It’s as if you were the one sucking guys off in the locker rooms when the two of you were in the second year of high school and not her. You haven’t even had your first proper kiss, for heaven’s sake!

Instead of getting angry, Seokjin’s expression hardly changes at all. His serene smile is still plastered on his face, but only you can tell that he’s even remotely bothered by their rude remarks. You can feel the air around him turn frosty, but your oblivious aunties are still too busy tittering amongst themselves, exchanging insults at your expense.

“Oh, are we that obvious?” Seokjin tilts his head, feigning innocence. Your head jerks towards him, your eyes bugging out of their sockets. What the fuck? “You are so right, Auntie Sohee. I’m sure Y/N must have informed you about our predicament. You see, we’ve—”

“Your predicament?” Aunt Sohee scoffs, interrupting Seokjin mid-speech. “I can’t believe the nerve of this girl, bringing her little boy-toy to the holy matrimony of her cousin—”

“—been trying to produce an heir to the Kim Line for months now,” Seokjin sighs heavily, looking off into the distance with glazed, dreamy eyes. You nearly cough out a lung at his sudden proclamation, about to interject and ask him what on earth he was talking about. Your words die on your tongue, however, when he grips your hand tightly underneath the table. He taps three times on the back of your hand: an old sign that you both made back in high school whenever he was busy bullshitting his way out of trouble.

Luckily, none of your aunts notice your blunder, all of them too occupied trying to wrap their heads around what Seokjin had said. Multiple mouths drop open in surprise and disbelief, including your Aunt Sohee. Her penciled eyebrows arch comically high, her smoothened forehead wrinkling infinitesimally (a feat in itself, for you were sure she had long since lost any ability to move the skin on her face.)

“I beg your pardon?” she whispers, staring daggers at Seokjin.

Then beg, you think to yourself. Judging by the way the corners of Seokjin’s lips lift slightly, you have a strong feeling that he was thinking the same thing to himself. Instead, he says, “Yes, Aunt Sohee. You see, I come from a long line of businessmen. Ever heard of Kim Enterprises.”

Her face turns pale. “You mean… the Kim Enterprises? The one that owns—”

“South Korea’s largest chain of department stores? I’m flattered that you’re familiar,” he winks. He leans forward, gesturing for your aunts to come closer, like he’s imparting state secrets to them. “My older brother, who has been married for quite some time, has chosen to remain childless at the behest of his wife. For that reason, my father put me up to the task of producing an heir for the company.”

“An heir?” your aunt repeats, dumbfounded.

Seokjin nods, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s quite unfortunate, but it’s a responsibility I’m willing to take. My family is notorious for planning our lives, even for the next 50 years, so I am forever grateful to have Y/N who is willing to bring me multiple potential heirs to my family.”

“Multiple heirs?” Your aunts shriek in unison, causing a few nearby guests to look over at your table in curiosity. You wave at them awkwardly in apology, hoping to get them to ignore the absolute clusterfuck happening right in front of you.

You feel Seokjin kick you gently in the shin, urging you to say something as well. You clear your throat, channeling all the pent-up Seokjin energy that you had indirectly absorbed over the years of being his friend. “That’s right… My Jinnie has always been so lonely, living in his gigantic mansion with his piles of money. He may have never felt the loving touch of his father, but I’m certain that we’ll be great parents to our children. Why, we’re almost like a pair of rabbits when it comes to—”

Aunt Sohee clears her throat abruptly, a deep flush coloring her cheeks as she glares daggers at you. She looks absolutely peeved, and it takes all your mental fortitude to restrain yourself from jumping up in triumph. Take that, wench!

“I have to admit that this is somewhat… unexpected,” your aunt says carefully, pointing a tight smile at Seokjin. He beams back, positively delighted.

“Y/N is quite the catch. I’m grateful to have her in my life,” he says, his tone growing soft by the end. He looks at you then, and you find a mysterious emotion floating in his eyes that you can’t quite name. When you blink and try to get a closer look, his careful façade is back in place.

Eventually, your aunts lose interest in you once they realize they can no longer bully you, not when you had an incredibly rich boyfriend to back you up. “Must be nice being a rich boy, huh?” you snicker, teasing the blushing boy beside you. Thanks to his hair growing longer than usual, the tips of his ears are miraculously hidden away. When you brush his hair back, they are as red as a baboon’s ass.

“Oh, shut up. You know I hate flaunting my dad’s money,” he whines, pouting cutely. He fingers the watch on his wrist, staring at it uncomfortably. “This isn’t even my watch. I had to borrow one from my brother.”

“Well, you did it for me, so I suppose it’s not all bad,” you laugh, pinching his cheek lightly. “Plus, it was funny watching my aunts shut up for once. They’re just mad that you’re richer than the groom.”

“Really? What does he do?”

“He’s an entrepreneur.” You snort, emphasizing the word with air quotations. “Honestly, he just calls himself that while he waits for his self-made business to pop off or whatever. No such luck so far, if what I heard was right.”

“Lucky for you, you’re stuck with my devastatingly handsome face and stinkin’ rich bank account,” he jokes, contorting his face into a funny expression until you’re left snorting at his antics. Little does he know, you still would’ve l***d him even if he wasn’t any of those things, but that’d be too cringey to say. What are you, some sort of romantic lead protagonist?

It takes a little bit over an hour for dessert to start getting served, by which point the bride and groom decide to make their rounds to greet the guests. “Don’t you think this is the perfect time to put our plan into motion? The dance floor is open and we should be able to make it to the center without anyone noticing,” he whispers, his breath tickling your neck.

“Yeah, let’s go,” you say, but just as you’re about to get up from your seat, a flurry of white blocks your path in an instant. You startle slightly, falling back to your chair and hitting Seokjin in the chest with a soft grunt. “Shit, sorry about that Seokjin—”

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my dear cousin,” a voice cuts you off, the disdain in their voice dripping like acid down your ear canals. Your blood freezes instinctively, years of past trauma crashing down on you as your childhood bully stands just inches away from you, her blood-red lips stretched into a broad smirk.

“Kairi,” you greet.

“Y/N,” she responds.

“Seokjin!” Seokjin adds helpfully.

Your cousin turns to him slowly. “Quite right,” she hisses, eyebrows pinched together in thinly-veiled annoyance. “I’ve heard through some whispers that my baby cousin finally managed to snag a rich kid for a boyfriend and I just couldn’t help but let my curiosity drag me over here.” She looks you up and down, snorting at what she sees. “You would think that having a chaebol as a boyfriend would mean you could at least afford a proper dress.”

You glance down at your dress: a hand-me-down from your mother because you couldn’t be bothered to buy a new one, not when you’d rather choke on Satan’s hot fiery balls for all eternity than spend any amount of money just to attend your cousin’s wedding. Despite this, you can’t help your cheeks from heating in embarrassment, an automatic response after years of bullying and torment from that spoiled bitch.

When you don’t reply, Kairi’s smirk widens. “Oh? Cat got your tongue? Sugar daddy couldn’t even be bothered to buy you a dress? While you’re at it, maybe you should ask for a new car too. I’m surprised you even made it here alive in that old metal deathtrap of yours. You’re lucky you were just late to the reception instead of dead on the street.”

You can sense Seokjin staring at you from your right. Your fists are clenched tightly on your skirt, your nails nearly tearing the fabric in your searing rage. Slowly, carefully, Seokjin slips his hands underneath yours—he pries your death grip open until he can lace his fingers in between yours. At once, your anger melts at his tender gesture, your focus pulled away from your cousin and back to him. He thumbs the back of your hand, as if assuring you that he’d handle this himself.

He smiles at Kairi, not a single ounce of kindness in his eyes. “Yes, indeed. It is my mistake entirely for not ordering a dress much sooner. Y/N is so incredibly humble; she’d rather wear a vintage outfit than wear one of those paper-thin dresses from YesStyle that you and your bridesmaids seem to favor,” he sighs, pretending to be pained.

“Paper-thin? YESSTYLE?” Kairi screeches, her voice breaking the sound barrier. You watch in fascination as her skin turns an unflattering ruddy shade.

Unperturbed by her murderous aura, Seokjin prattles on. “Quite right,” he mocks her with her own words, smirking ever so slightly. “Though, I must apologize for being late to the reception. That was my fault as well. My father had a general meeting this morning for all the employees at the company, as he had wanted to announce that I would be the Vice President starting next Monday. We tried to leave sooner, but everyone had been too busy congratulating us,” he apologizes, though not apologetic in the slightest.

Your cousin could cosplay as a walking crack pipe with how much steam was puffing out of her ears. She’s livid, so much so that her fury was preventing her from formulating any sort of comeback. “You—how dare you—I swear on my—” she stutters incomprehensibly, her vulture-like nails tearing her dainty paper-thin skirt into shreds.

Just as she looks about ready to blow, her father comes around to your table. He places a hand delicately on his daughter’s shoulder, immediately understanding the situation when he sees you. “Kairi, I think it’s time for you to greet the rest of the guests. Uncle Iverson said he has a gift for you that simply cannot wait,” he says, doing his best to appease you. He gives you a genuinely regretful look; you shake your head, waving off his concern.

“It was nice seeing you, Kairi. I hope you and your husband will have a wonderful year together,” you say. You gasp exaggeratedly, holding a hand to your heart. “Oh, sorry. I meant to say I hope you have wonderful years together. Pardon my mistake.”

Before the scant amount of brain cells in your cousin’s brain could process your words, her father pulls her away, dragging her to the next table over. Once they’re out of earshot, you heave a sigh of relief. Beside you, Seokjin lets out a laugh that he had been undoubtedly holding in the past few minutes, sounding like a fish gasping for air with how much he is shaking with mirth.

“Fuck, that was hilarious. Did you see how angry she got? Beautiful,” he says, wiping away a stray tear. “Love that for us!”

“Damn. I knew you were good at bullshitting, but even your acting skills almost convinced me,” you whistle lowly, impressed. “You sure you’re not a con-artist in disguise?”

“All good businessmen are con-artists, my young padawan,” he snickers, winking at you. He shrugs. “You get used to dealing with assholes like her when you attend enough rich people parties. Besides, all good lies are rooted in the truth, after all. That’s what my father taught me when I was seven.”

“You must have been a terrible child, then.” You laugh, before realizing what he had just said. “Wait. Rooted in the truth? What does that mean?”

“Oh. Well,” he clears his throat, giggling nervously. He rubs his neck, embarrassed. “I am the vice president of dad’s company now. I just lied about the meeting being this morning. He announced it a day ago or something. Not that it’s a big deal or anything…”

You gawk at him, speechless. Not for the first time in your life, you are once again stunned by the absurdity of the man before you. How did men like him exist outside of cheesy k-dramas? He’s handsome, rich, funny, AND well-mannered? It’s almost like some love-crazed author had penned him into existence for their entertainment.

Seokjin breaks you from your reverie, tapping you thrice on your shoulder. “Shall we go? The dance floor is still empty. It’s now or never.”

You nod excitedly, standing up to head towards the center of the hall. This time, there is no one stopping you as the two of you make your way towards your destination. The lights near the dancefloor are still dimly lit, as most of the lighting is currently focused on the guests as the bride and groom make their rounds to greet everyone. Even if Seokjin got onto his knees right now, only a few people nearby would notice, so you’d have to do something to catch people’s attention.

“This is going to be moderately to highly embarrassing for a few moments, but I think that’s the atmosphere we’re going for, isn’t it?” Seokjin whispers, his mouth embarrassingly close to yours as he holds you gently by the waist. There isn’t a need for him to stand so close to you, but you have to admit his presence is mostly calming—minus the fact that he’s been your crush for five years and he’s going to be fulfilling one of your deepest fantasies in front of your entire extended family. No biggie.

“I suppose so. What are you gonna do to get their attention?” you ask, palms beginning to sweat. Despite this, Seokjin still takes your hands into his own, a small smile on his lips.

“Just watch,” he whispers, before slowly getting down on one knee.

Ba-dump. Here we fucking go.

“My dearest Y/N… The apple of my eye, the straw to my berry, the con to my dom,” Seokjin says, projecting his voice so that it can be heard even above the music. One of the violin players is even startled long enough to stop playing, further causing more heads to turn in their direction. You hear a gasp coming from your left, but you force yourself not to look. Instead, you stare right back into Seokjin’s sweet brown eyes, your heart beating a mile a minute.

This isn’t real… This is just a prank, bro. Get over yourself, you hiss internally, but your heart refuses to listen.

“You’ve been in my life for almost half a decade, and not a day goes by wherein I don’t wonder what it would be like to live the rest of my days with you. In many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am if it hadn’t been for your presence in my life,” he says. If you look deeper into his eyes, you can almost trick yourself into thinking that they looked wetter than they had just a moment ago.

“Y/N, you are the person I’ve loved for years now. I used to think you didn’t like me as much as I liked you, so I was always scared to pop the question. I had many opportunities to ask, but I suppose tonight just felt like the right moment. I was afraid that if I didn’t do it now, I might never get the chance to ask again, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you slip away out of cowardice.”

For some reason, his words seem almost too real, like he was speaking the truth. You have never doubted his acting skills, but would you be willing to wonder if there was even a small possibility that there was some truth to his tale? You swallow thickly, the need to ask just dangling on the tip of your tongue.

He rifles through his jacket pocket, procuring a small velvet box. He thumbs it almost reverently, his hands shaking slightly, but you can blame that on the nerves from hundreds of people watching you. He takes a deep breath, opening the box with a soft click. “My dearest Y/N… Would you give me the honor of spending the rest of my days with you?”

You feel your breath get knocked out of you in an instant, the genuine adoration in his eyes too much for you to handle. You stammer slightly, too busy staring at him to properly register the loud claps, screams, and hollers all around you. “I… Seokjin… This is…”

“MAKE THEM STOP! SOMEONE KICK THEM OUT RIGHT NOW!” You dimly hear your cousin screaming obscenities somewhere, but you are still too caught up in the moment to care. The world only consists of you and Seokjin—nothing else matters right now.

When you look down at the box in his hands, fully expecting to see a comically large ring pop nestled in its cushions, but instead you find—

You gasp, nearly doubling over in surprise. “Oh my god, Seokjin. Is that a real fucking diamond ring?!”

He shrugs, smiling wryly. “Only the best rocks for the girl who rocks my socks off every night,” he jokes, but his nervousness is palpable. He’s sweating, a drop trailing down the side of his face despite the strong air conditioning.

Oh shit. It hits you right then that his proposal is real. The damned idiot is fucking proposing to you in front of your most hated family members, and he’s proposing to you for real.

“Kim Seokjin, please fucking explain yourself—”

But before he can have the chance to open his mouth, you feel rough hands grab you by the shoulders, pulling you away from him. “I’m sorry I have to do this, ma’am. Bride’s orders,” one of the waiters says, awkwardly escorting you to the exit. When you turn back, you see another waiter pulling Seokjin away as well, the box with the ring still clutched tightly in his hand.

The two waiters deposit you outside the hall, bowing stiffly before heading back into the room. You’re still breathing heavily, the adrenaline coursing through your veins. Seokjin isn’t any better, bent over with his hands on his knees. From your vantage point, you can see how red his entire neck is, his blush reaching even past the collar of his shirt.

“Seokjin…” you trail off, unable to say another word. You’re completely flabbergasted, elated, annoyed, and mostly just mind-fucked because when on earth did Kim Seokjin ever have a crush on you?!

“I’m sorry. That must have been quite a shock,” he coughs out a laugh. He rubs his face, embarrassment rolling off of him in waves. “I just… It was sort of a last-minute decision I made. I’ve been into you for years now, and I know I’m kinda putting you on the spot by proposing like that, but I knew if I didn’t do anything soon, you might just slip away before I can say anything.”

“Wait. So are you really… proposing to me?” You squeak out the last bit, your face mirroring his reddened state.

“No!” He shouts suddenly, before covering his mouth with his palm. “S-sorry, what I mean to say is, it wasn’t really a marriage proposal. It was more like… just a general proposal? I do want to live with you forever, but I know that thought must be daunting and—oh god, I don’t even know if you like me like that, so this must be incredibly weird and out of line. Please excuse me while I shove a cactus up my ass—”

“Seokjin,” you interrupt, silencing his rambling. He clamps his mouth shut. “Are you… asking me out?”

He nods his head. “Yeah…”

“And what you said is true? You actually like me?”

“No, you don’t understand. I love you,” he says, before getting shy again. He looks down at the ring box. “Fuck. This isn’t a real engagement ring, by the way. It’s more like a promise ring, so you don’t have to feel bad for rejecting me.”

“Oh my god, I’m in love with an idiot,” you groan, pulling him into a hug. You nestle into his chest, giggling hysterically into his shirt. “I fucking hate you.”

“Wait, I’m getting mixed signals over here,” Seokjin says, gasping when he feels how tightly you embrace him. He doesn’t complain, however. He returns the gesture in kind, nuzzling deep into your neck. “So, does that mean the feeling is mutual?”

“Yes, you idiot. Now give me my ring.”

“My pleasure, princess.” He laughs, drawing away slightly so that he can slip the ring on your finger. The diamond shines brightly under the fluorescent lights, but nothing brings you more joy than having the boy you love in your arms.

As the two of you are sharing a sweet moment, it takes a second for you to realize that the commotion from inside the venue still hasn’t stopped. When you crane your heads, you spot one of the doors had been left ajar, allowing you to slip your heads through the crack just in time to see Seokjin’s beautiful bare ass being projected onto a large screen.

The musical notes of Rick Astley’s most popular song play loudly on the speakers, drowning out the sounds of the bride screaming bloody murder as the IT people tried their best to sort out the mess. The Seokjin on the screen slaps his ass in time with the tune, his glorious moon-shaped globes shaking mesmerizingly for all to see.

When you look to Seokjin for an explanation, he merely shrugs his shoulders. “They really should do background checks on the people they hire for these things. Taking that one video editing course in university really does pay off, huh?”

“Sure does,” you grin, linking your arms together. “Now let’s get some fucking McDonalds.”

And so, you lived happily ever after—the end.

683 notes · View notes

haunted-hijinxer · 3 years

Note

Hi hello I’m obviously one of ur players but it just occurred to me I could use the power of askbox to be like HEY UH WHAT ARE THE LURKERS THOUGHTS ON EACH OF THE CTHULHU BOYS,

Haha, thank you for this delightful ask - happy to oblige!

(For context this is in regards to our BatIM CoC game, where some of the JDS crew somehow befriended a shape-shifting eldritch horror called the Lurker of the Star Pools that ended up looking like Bendy, and brought him back to the studio! The Lurker has become the studio’s resident Bendy, and has some… weird perspectives on some things.)

His thoughts about them in general kind of boil down to: These are the people who took a monster who was very casual about the possibility of all of them ending up dead or insane and yet somehow went ”Hey Lurker, you kinda seem like you don’t really love this situation you’re in, instead of trying to use you as a compelled servant or a bargaining chip in our supernatural struggles, would you like to come back with us and keep your memories for once and have a home where people don’t order you around and also hey, here, have a part of our...souls maybe??? While we’re at it? Yeah, You can have that too!”

His memory from before they showed up might not be the best, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the sort of offer just anyone would make. Suffice it to say that while he has come to learn lots of people are interesting and neat, the original three are especially significant to him. Bendy the cartoon may not take anything seriously, and the Lurker would generally agree... but there’s definitely one thing that’s not a joke to him: living up to their baffling show of trust, and removing anything that threatens them.

As for specific boys, I tried a couple times to answer succinctly and thoroughly failed, so, uh, have a bunch more musings on what this weird cartoon monster NPC thinks under the cut!

Henry:

He thinks of Henry as the one he trusts the most, both his word and his judgement. If two people are urgently telling the Lurker to do two different things at once and one of those people is Henry, he’ll generally listen to Henry. Henry was the one who had control over him the longest of the group, but also the one who consistently chose not to take advantage of that position...it made an impression. I think Henry is the one who gives the Lurker the strongest sense that there is something like ‘right and wrong’ worth aspiring to vs. ‘most efficient’ or ‘most beneficial’.

The Lurker is also the most concerned with protecting Henry, both because the idea of Henry not being around bothers him a lot, and because he’s worried Henry is so busy caring about others he sometimes forgets to care for himself. If there’s one thing the Lurker doesn’t thoroughly trust Henry on, it’s Henry’s ability to judge how much he can endure. So while he’s protective of all the boys, he can get especially protective of Henry.

The Lurker is most comfortable asking Henry for information on things he doesn’t understand about society and people. He trusts Henry to give the truth as best he knows it, and has found Henry most reliably can explain things in ways he will understand. At one point talking to Maf - Henry’s player - about this, Maf pointed out that since CoC Henry is autistic but coped by learning how to mimic the behavior of others early on, Henry has actually put a lot of thought into why people do the things they do and why some things are considered ‘normal’, which could make him especially qualified to try and explain societal constructs to someone else who doesn’t intuitively understand.

The Lurker isn’t exactly a great artist, but he does enjoy drawing, and drawing with Henry especially. He just likes being around when Henry is doing what he loves, and Henry's nice about giving tips.

He respects Henry greatly, and when he’s around Henry, he wants to be better.

Joey:

I think the Lurker sees a kindred spirit in Joey. Joey may not be the best for explaining the rest of the world in a way he gets? But the Lurker DOES feel like he gets Joey himself. They seem to share a lot of the same drives and insecurities, and even though neither of them tends to talk about anything vulnerable if they can help it, I wonder if they recognize the similarities in one another. Though they handle it differently they’re both worried about not knowing where they stand, if they’re ‘good’ enough, and are afraid of losing or hurting those they care for and not being able to stop it. The thought of being out of control terrifies them both to the point they are generally more comfortable actively refusing to acknowledge the possibility.

On the flip-side the Lurker relates to Joey’s pragmatism and his enthusiasm. They both know how to enjoy the moment with no shame. And neither of them is the best at looking before they leap, which has led to them collaborating on a lot of sometimes questionable magical experiments with the Star Pools Ink now flowing through the studio. They work well together, and both understand the impulse to maybe take a few… risks to protect what is important to them. He’s very fond of Joey’s intense belief that everyone can choose their own course, control the path of their destiny. He knows from experience it’s not always true...but he wants it to be. He wants Joey to be able to keep on believing it.

Joey is probably the Lurker’s first stop if shenanigans or new exciting ideas are afoot, and in some ways he’s most comfortable with Joey. Talking about his history usually alarms people or makes them uncomfortable, whereas Joey is generally matter-of-fact about what he doesn’t like and just interested in the rest. If the Lurker just wants to focus on something and have easy company and maybe some thoughtless chit-chat without worrying about shocking or alarming someone, he’ll often swing by Joey’s office.

Sammy:

Sammy is a weird case, because despite the respect and affinity the Lurker has for Henry and Joey, Sammy was in many was the first thing he had to a friend…except that for most of it, Sammy was his ‘crazy’ SillyTime prophet self. They were peers, two guardians of the Star Pools working towards the same goal.

From the Lurker’s point of view, Prophet Sammy was someone who actually chatted with him, considered him favorably, and wasn’t afraid. Even after some loops put them in opposition and ended very badly for Sammy, he was afraid of the danger, but didn’t hold it against the Lurker himself. He wanted to help the Lurker, not even on the basis that it was somehow morally correct, but because he actually seemed to like him. Of course when the party came along and regular Sammy ended up with an insanity that also made him want to please the Lurker, it felt a lot like having the same friend but now with some memory problems.

This meant that it was Sammy’s opinion the Lurker wanted when he realized the party was actually trying to upend the Masked Messenger’s plans. They’d been in this together thus far… if Sammy thought giving their purpose up in favor of an uncertain future might be worthwhile...maybe the Lurker ought to consider it too. I think he also really took to heart Sammy’s somewhat confused assertion that he preferred not knowing what was coming. Maybe there was something to be said for the future being unwritten…I don’t think the Lurker had ever properly considered the concept of actual freedom or making any choice that actually mattered before. If Joey helps him believe free will is attainable, Sammy led him to believe it was alright to want it.

Then there’s the whole period where Sammy’s devotion insanity was wearing off, wherein Bendy realized Sammy, much like himself, didn’t properly have control over the things he did to help Bendy, which was….I think kind of horrifying?? Bendy might have...overcompensated, not wanting to do the same thing to his friend that had been done to him, but.. I think he was also seriously worried that as Sammy got control of himself it would turn out their friendship had only been a byproduct of that forced devotion too. He didn’t tell anyone, but he was deeply relieved when that turned out not to be the case.

As bizarre as it sounds when taken in terms of Sammy Lawrence, I think he’s still the one the Lurker is most likely to admit actual doubts or tough questions to. Both because he genuinely values Sammy's opinion while not feeling expected to follow it, and also because he still has the lingering feeling that Sammy ‘gets it’.

Jack:

Jack he doesn’t know as well so far, and hasn’t had any deep hugely formative experiences with, but…..in some ways, that’s also...nice?

Jack is someone he’s met since choosing an identity for himself, who met him first that way, and who has been generally compassionate and easy to get along with. I suspect Jack might be unusual in how much he treats Bendy like a living being, it seems like it would be very easy for most of the bewildered employees in the studio to treat him like...some kind of bizarre gimmick of the studio, or at best an actor doing some sort of incredibly long form promotion. I think he likes Jack’s quirky style and is delighted by his complete lack of shame with dropping one-liners. There’s also the bonus that Jack hides away and creeps around in the sewers which Bendy just finds interesting, and Jack has also been teaching him music! He originally asked Jack mostly because he didn’t feel he should ask Sammy back when the devotion insanity was still resolving, but now he values their get-togethers for their own sake.

(Also if you think the Lurker wouldn’t 100% conspire with Jack on jokes or bits to spring on the rest of the studio, let me assure you he would be in on that in an inky heartbeat. I like to think whenever they meet up for a lesson or just a chat, their interactions are liberally peppered with them ad-libbing jokes back and forth, and that the Lurker might just be in the running for liking Jack’s jokes as much as Jack does.)

#WELL THAT GOT VERY LONG INDEED!!#I hope some of this was whatever you were hoping for lol #I gotta wonder tho if some of his kneejerk reactions are also based on the POW he got from Joey and Henry…#The tendency to think of Henry as someone very special who he finds the thought of leaving abnormally scary #Thinking of Joey as someone who isn’t always right but who he’s very fond of anyways #and likewise the lingering of his protective tendencies #now because of his own wants and because it feels right instead of because he has to #here I am in the tags still having thoughts about this adopted eldrich horror adhjslkflsdfl #shazzbaa #Thren Answers #Thren Art #Call of Cthulu: Haunted Hijinx #Joey Drew #Henry Stein #Sammy Lawrence #Jack Fain #Bendy the Lurker #SillyTime Sam #BatIM #I uh wrote a lot but I had a lot of fun thank you for this lovely self indulgent ask XD #thren posts

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chaseatinydream · 4 years

Text

pirate king (10) || atz

How did you end up in this situation?

Cobblestone under your feet, smoke in your eyes and sandwiched uncomfortably between two men. When you look to your left, the purple haired gunner grins easily and the arm slung over your shoulder tightens, sending you into some form of secret-to-hide panic. When you turn to the right, Jongho merely looks away, your mind coming up with a hundred and one reasons why he hates you.

After treating Jongho’s wound, the quartermaster, Mingi, had announced that the ship had finally arrived in the pirate town of Tortuga. San had brought you up to the forecastle deck, where you watched civilized land come into sight for the first time since your awakening.

The ship had docked in one of the empty piers, much to the excitement of the crew. You knew many of them loved the ocean, it was their home, but you had to admit that seeing the same thing for weeks had to get boring after a while. It was also difficult to bring fresh food onto ship as it spoilt fast, so most of the ship had been buzzing excitedly about all the delicacies they would eat once they had the chance to explore the town.

But you had a different mission.

After Mingi had gone to the docks to settle the toll, San had pulled you to the side. You frowned at him as he produced a long list from his pocket.

“Uh, Master, what is that?”

“I need you to go shopping in town for me.” The healer had told you, pressing the list into your hands. You immediately started to panic.

“Me? Master, I can’t! I barely know my way around the ship, let alone a new town I’ve never been to!”

Your reasoning fell on deaf ears.

“It’ll be fine! I’ll have Jongho follow you, he’s going into town as well for some shopping.” San chirped happily as he pulled a coin pouch from the inner folds of his shirt. You stared at him in abject horror as the coins clinked in your hand.

“Master! You can’t send me with… with Jongho-hyung! Why don’t you send Seonghwa-hyung or Yeosang-hyung instead?”

No way. No way in hell were you going to be with the young battlemaster for long, extended periods of time. He’d probably “accidentally” lose you in town somewhere as revenge for shooting him on accident and you had no wish to die a terrible death in some dank, dirty alley.

San had cocked his head at you curiously. “Seonghwa-hyung is busy fixing the ship as the head carpenter on board. Yeosangie is helping Mingi negotiate for a lower price to pay for the toll. I need to stay here to treat the wounded and Jongho can’t tell a marigold poultice from marmalade.” Then the corners of his eyes crinkled a little and he gave you a sly grin. “Or is there any reason why you don’t want to be alone with Jongho?”

You glared at him. Your master must have felt the tension in the room between you and the young battlemaster earlier, and now he was just milking it for all it was worth instead of helping you out.

San had laughed at the sour look on your face and relented a little. “Alright, alright. How about this? I’ll send Wooyoungie with you and Jongho.”

“Send who with me now?” You were utterly confused. The healer sighed.

“The head gunner?” He tried to jog your memory, gesturing wildly with his hands as if that would aid you in remembering anything. “The one with the dolphin laugh? The purple haired one?”

“Him?” You were sent into a moment of panic, flailing your arms desperately. “But I don’t know him either!”

San clapped, the sounds starting to get annoyingly loud. “All the better! You can finally get to know more of your crew mates!” He steered you by the shoulders towards the gangplank, which had been lowered for the crew to disembark the ship, all while ignoring your cries of protest. “Just wait there for Jongho and Wooyoung!”

And that was how you had ended up in this terrible situation.

“So, you’re our little stowaway, aren’t you?” Wooyoung beams at you, arm around your shoulder. His hand is hanging alarmingly close to your chest, but you can’t push it away without garnering suspicion. You try to give him a smile, but it comes out more like a painful grimace.

“Yes?” Your answer sounds more like a question.

“Aigoo, you’re so cute!” Wooyoung smooshes your cheeks together much to your complete embarrassment. Then you hear a muffled snort from your right and you really want to crawl into a hole and die. The purple haired gunner is way too close, way too touchy feely, way too physical. Honestly, you’ve just met the man!

You give him an awkward chuckle through your squished cheeks and pull his hands from your face. The shackles around his wrists jingle as his hands fall back to his sides.

“So, where are we going?” You try to distract the man before he tries to hug you again. You don’t think your heart can take any more surprise embraces before it gives you a heart attack.

Wooyoung stops in the middle of the street you’re in, glancing around. The place is bustling with people, vendors peddling their wares, women in colourful dresses picking out accessories and hairpins.

Your fingers reach up to brush the short, messy braid your own hair is in and for a lingering moment, a feeling of yearning rushes through you.

“Do you want a hairpin, stowaway?” Wooyoung’s head rests on your shoulder and you leap into the air in fright. The gunner miraculously twirls out of the way with insane reflexes, barely saving his jaw from being crushed by you.

“I’m so sorry!” You squeak, horrified, but Wooyoung merely waves you off with a grin.

“Aww, it’s no problem.” He smiles merrily at you and you’re starting to get a little scared from how he doesn’t seem to stop grinning. Then he looks over your shoulder, his eyes crinkling to adorable half moons as his smile somehow grows even wider.

You turn to see what he’s looking at.

A gorgeous woman stands there, dolled up beautifully with a fair face and red slicked lips. Her dark hair is done in a shower of ringlets, pinned on top of her head with an intricate silver butterfly hairpin. Dressed in a tight leather corset and a ruffled lace skirt that barely comes to midthigh, she and her group of friends draw eyes from everywhere.

Wooyoung beams and waves at her.

The woman looks shocked for a moment before her lips curve up in a sultry smile, her finger beckoning him forward in a come hither motion. The head gunner grins at the two of you.

“Well, I’ll be going now!” Wooyoung squeezes you and Jongho into a tight hug, much to your panic. The maknae stares at him in mounting shock and fury. “Remember to take care of our baby stowaway, Jongho-ah!”

“Hyung, you can’t just leave me alone with him, you shameless basta-”

But then Wooyung is gone with the mysterious woman before the two of you can blink.

Jongho practically has steam pouring from his ears. “I’m going to kill that little son of a bitch the next time I see him. Ditching me to babysit while he sleeps around-”

A frown pulls on your lips as Jongho rants on to nobody.

“Why doesn’t Wooyoung-hyung just sleep on the ship?” You pipe up timidly, and Jongho whirls around to stare at you in shock with a hand pressed against his mouth.

The two of you stare at each other for a moment.

Then Jongho starts rambling with the most unnatural smile you’ve seen plastered on his face. “I can explain-”. He pauses for a long moment, then shakes his head furiously. “No, scratch that, I actually can’t explain. Well… Wooyoung-hyung doesn’t like the hammocks on board, so he prefers sleeping on land-”

“So is the woman his friend?” You ask, glancing back at where the two had left, a lavishly decorated building of marble and stone, the letters above it spelling “The House Of Pleasure” in crimson red.

Jongho’s smile turns rather strained and his eyes flit around desperately as if looking for something. “Yes?” He finally chokes out, not quite meeting your gaze as he steers you away from the building and down the dusty street.

“Their skirts are really short.” You muse to yourself quietly. You wonder if that’s practical and turn to the silent maknae to ask, but his face is as dark as a thundercloud and you’re immediately wary of his temper. Swallowing your question, you follow him as he stomps down the alleys and winding streets, meek and silent as a mouse.

Eventually the two of you end up outside a small, dingy shop, the windows dark with grime as if they haven’t seen a clean rag for centuries. A wooden sign hanging from the doorway depicts a picture of a snake curled around a short staff.

“This is an apothecary.” Jongho jerks his thumb at the shop. “Get whatever the hell you need fast so we can get back to the ship.”

You jump a little at his curt tone, but you can tell he’s still simmering with rage at how Wooyoung just up and left the two of you alone with each other. Your head droops. He must really dislike you after the little stunt you pulled with the musket yesterday. And now he’s stuck with you, forced to take care of you and stay with you.

“I’m sorry.” You mumble quietly under your breath, but Jongho hears it anyway and whirls around to stare at you.

“What?”

The two of you stare at each other for another awkward moment. Well, shit, you hadn’t meant for him to hear that, but since he had, you might as well tell him what you had wanted to.

You repeat the words a little more clearly this time. “I’m. Sorry.”

Jongho waves off your second apology impatiently. “Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. Why are you apologizing, though?”

You look down at the ground, your booted feet kicking back and forth at the cobblestones. “I’m sorry for being such a burden to you, Jongho-hyung.” Your voice comes out smaller than you thought it would be.

The young battlemaster remains silent for a moment. Then he grabs you by the shoulders and pushes you towards the shop, much to your surprise.

“Get your stuff.” His voice is a little softer, gentler, kinder now. You’re a little confused by his sudden change in attitude, but you do as he says and enter the apothecary.

“Marigold poultice, green tea leaves, honey…” You move past the shelves, studying the handwritten labels as Jongho trails behind you. The maknae looks utterly lost in the small shop, his shoulders brushing the glass jars on the shelves dangerously as he glances around curiously at the dried herbs hanging from the rafters.

“That’ll be twelve silvers, child.” You whip around in shock to see a wizened old man standing there. The bottles and herbs almost tumble to the ground, but Jongho scoops them up before they can shatter into pieces.

“Don’t scare him, old man.” The young battlemaster shoots the shopkeeper a dirty look as you thank Jongho profusely. The elder simply smiles expectantly. His silvery eyes are almost unblinking and you’re a little creeped out for a moment.

Then you remember you’re supposed to be paying him and rummage around in your shirt pocket for the coin pouch. Carefully counting out twelve small silver coins, you press them into the old man’s hands. They feel rough, like sand, against your fingertips.

“Your first time in Tortuga, huh?” The shopkeeper’s laughter sounds more like a dying wheeze. You and Jongho both stiffen at the words. Then the young battlemaster’s eyes narrow as his fists tighten.

“What’s your deal, you old geezer?”

The man merely lets out a derisive snort, pointing at your chest. For a moment, dread grips you as you fear he may somehow figured out that you’re a woman, but then you realise that he’s pointing to the silver necklace dangling from your neck, the clear cut crystal resting against the rough fabric of your shirt, strangely out of place.

“No smart person would leave such a pretty piece for the taking in a pirate town. I’m doin’ you a favour, kid.”

You rush to shove the necklace back underneath your shirt, heart thumping wildly in your chest. It must have slipped out somehow when you had been walking through town. A bead of sweat clings to the curve of your jaw. “Thank you for your help.”

The old man snorts, turning away as he shoos the two of you away. “Don’t expect to meet another kind soul like me here. Get lost before someone tries to steal it from you and I’m caught in the crossfire.”

The pair of you exit the shop, and you hurriedly shove all the things you’ve bought into a cloth bag. Jongho looks a little on edge from the man’s warning, grabbing the bag from your hand and taking you by the wrist.

“Let’s go.”

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ninjakasuga · 3 years

Text

Sonsally Celebration Week, Year 3, Day Four!

Sonally Celebration Week, Year 3, Day Four!

Another day of Sonsally Week, unlike the last few entries, this is where I break linearity and go travel back to a prior period in the timeline. When the prompt of ‘Power’ was shown my mind of course went to the Super-Forms, the Deep Power Stones, and the like. Yet also my mind went back to some fanart from last year about a certain someone I would have loved to have seen share a Super Form with Sonic… Y’all can see where this is going.~

Forward: Timeline wise, this is 9-10yrs before Crossroads; the last battle of the war with Dr. Eggman. I admit I’m once again sprinkling tidbits from my still WIP Archie-Sonic-Verse that has yet to be published, but I think the easter eggs and hints of things yet to be seen will be fun for the reader.

Power:

“Sal, are you flipping insane?!” Cried Sonic as he stared Sally down at her suggestion. “You want to use the Deep Power Stones to amplify our Super Forms? What about all that ‘overload potential’ nonsense?!”

Standing beside Sonic, one eye on the half of the Deep Power Stone in her hand, the other on the approaching Egg Armada. A legion of robots, ships, and what other mechanical horrors Eggman had left to try and quash them all for good. With the world-wide alliances winning victory, after victory, Eggman grew desperate and now was throwing everything he had at them in a ‘If I can’t have it no one will!’ tantrum of a scorched world move. Basically it was done to the wire, and now they were as desperate as Eggman.

Her grip tightened on the stone, that madman would not have the last laugh. He wouldn’t end their world as he did the Mobius he came from! “It’s something I was thinking about for awhile, Sonic. We’ve seen what the stones can do just augmenting the individuals who bring the stones together. If we bring that kind of augmentation to the Super Forms? We have the Master Emerald already channeling to empower the Seven Chaos Emeralds, imagine channeling the Stones through it to the Emeralds and the Power Rings. All of you could not just have a greater power boost, but potentially the forms will last longer, long enough to wreck most if not all of the Egg Armada and put an end to this war for good!”

“It might work…” Murmured Tails, standing on the other side to Sally. “Channeling the Stones' power through the Master Emerald, which itself is a beacon and conduit for the Seven Servers…” He began to murmur as his brain went over the numbers and possible calculations. As the two-tailed fox finished his thoughts, he turned to the Guardian of Angel Island, wanting his thoughts. “The Master Emerald is your expertise Knuckles, you think it will work?”

The red-furred Guardian furrowed his brow as he contemplated this. “Maybe, I admit while my communion with Tikal or my Great Grandfather has given me greater insight to the mystical aspects of the Master Emerald, I’m still a novice truth be told.” He sighed, looking apologetic. “Sadly I know more of the scientific side of things given the Brotherhood’s data mostly focuses around that. Even my Father’s old notes are more historical musings than proven theory.” He sighed again, mentally cursing his forebears for yet another aspect of oversight the Brotherhood neglected during their long tenure of guarding Angel Island. Then again, save for the Lost Tribe, it would seem most of the old mystic arts were lost to the Echidna of today, what few were left. “Given we’ve found many connections to the old mystical artifacts of the world, there’s a good chance they’ll work together as Sally thinks.”

A low growl-like ‘hmm’ punctuated the air, before a stern voice interjected aloud. “Or it will overload the Emerald, destroy it, and fry all of us, or potentially create a super-bomb.” Shadow stated with arms crossed, and looking pensive. As all looked his way, he spoke on. “I’m not saying we ditch the idea, but it’s something to consider. I have a vow to protect this world to uphold, as well as too many I care about to let them die.” His thoughts dwelled on Rouge, Omega, and Hope especially. His other comrades within G.U.N. and the Thorndyke Labs. Even of those here, despite any past animosity, he wanted them and their loved ones to equally live. They all had family, and friends to protect.

The last member of the group, his expression uneasy, yet a deep resolve in his eyes looked about his comrades, and then the horizon as their enemy continued to fly toward them. “We don’t really have a choice do we? This is the last chance, for all of you, as well as the Future I want to prevent from coming to pass.” Clenching his fists, Silver felt his powers hum through his being. It had been a long journey, and one not without many hurdles. From his bungling to interpret data from then Future, and its founding in the past, to dealing with the truths of his own ‘Master’ and the struggle of wondering if he was truly a pawn to bring about ‘his’ world versus a world for everyone to be happy. In the end he was wiser, more experienced and ever resolute to ensure the dark future never came to pass. All other obstacles save Eggman had been dealt with. This was the final hour. “So, save for Sonic we’re all in agreement?”

Hands on his hips, Sonic frowned deeply, looking rather indignant. “Hey, hey! I never said scrap the plan, I was just pointing out how before everyone kept yammering about doing something stupid with the Stones. Given either configuration usage done wrong could lead to KAB-BOOM! Jus’ pointing that out!” Eyeing everyone, his gaze rested on Sally, those deep blue pools that always sucked him in. Reaching for her hand, he wrapped his hand over hers, their wedding rings shining in the sun together. “You think this is our best bet, Sal? If you’re really onboard, so’m I.”

In truth, Sally did share the same concerns as Sonic and everyone else. She knew even using just the ‘boost’ augment which so far had been the safest, could lead to disaster as much as the other configuration which always ended destructively. Plus this would be the last time they could use them. As per Merlin Prower’s warning, the Deep Power Stones could be used a handful of times, and the mystic had given them warning they were on their last usage. This was due to a special magical limiter the Neo-Walkers put on the Stones, halving their ability so the Freedom Fighters and their allies could have an edge. However with the last use, the limiter was off, and so it was full power, and potentially the best opportunity for the worst case scenario. After this the Stones would vanish for another millennia until they were recharged and reappear randomly about the planet again.

Yet as Silver pointed out, what choice did they really have? Eggman was going all out; and thus, their hands were tied. “It’s the best shot we have. G.U.N.’s mechanized forces are exhausted and what isn’t in the repair bay is out fighting the forces encroaching their borders. None of the rest of the allied nations have any armies big enough to fight this horde. We can’t call for help from Blaze or any other friends from other dimensions because the Zone Cops sealed all dimension travel to Mobius Prime to prevent Eggman from escaping. This, this, is all we can do.” Her resolve sounded unshakable, despite her internal doubt, she had to sound resolute. Matching her gaze with Sonic, she managed a grin as she laced her fingers with his. “Let’s do-it-to-it, gang!”

Smiles formed about at the catch-phrase that was so infectious even Shadow was sucked in. One by one, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow and Silver joined in placing their hands over each other, forming a lock. “Let’s do-it-to-it! They all cried, before breaking to get into place. While Sally stood by the Master Emerald with Knuckles, the others began to loop around the Master Emerald, each linking their hands together. From Shadow to Silver, to Tails, to Sonic. Instead of holding Knuckles’ hand, Sonic placed his own on the Echidna’s shoulder. Knuckles did the same with Sally, while his free hand touched the Master Emerald. Sally held the Deep Power Stones in each hand, waiting for the right moment to place them together. Craning her head to Knuckles she nodded, and he nodded back, his gaze shifting to the large emerald his bloodline made their mission to protect along with Angel Island itself (well Echidna population for them, Knuckles was out to protect everyone).

“The servers are the Seven Chaos… Chaos is power, enriched by the heart… The controller exists to unify the chaos!” As he started the chant, he briefly saw a flash of Tikal within the Master Emerald, smiling at them all. This allowed Knuckles to smile, but he didn’t let this distract him. “We who are blessed by the Chaos, beseech to wield your power and wisdom, to save the planet and the innocent lives that dwell upon it. Let us be the Guardians of Mobius, of the Chaos, and the Light of Gaia!”

“We will gladly give our lives if you can let us protect all we love, please help us.” Murmured Sally, interjecting her own addition once Knuckles’ incantation chant was finished. Staring at the two halves of the stones, Sally placed them together, the halves flashed as they became one. An intense glow emanating from the black object that soon blinded them all. A bright, green glow from the Master Emerald broke through the white, with the gathered Power Rings (including Sonic’s Billionth Special Ring) all giving off a golden glow as the colors mingled together. A pillar of the mingled colors erupts from the Master Emerald’s resting place, shooting up, and up into space as the island is bathed in its warm glow.

Tails was the first to regain his sight, and once the relief they did not explode passed through him, a wide grin formed on his face as he felt it, the power of his Super Form. Not only that but he could ‘feel’ the power was increased. “Alright I think it worked!” He hollered, pumping his arms as he felt the power of Turbo Tails peak and flare briefly. “Hooo it’s been a long spell!”

Shadow merely made a ‘heh’ sound, yet smiled as he stared at his own glowing hands. “Yes, I can feel it, now those machines can feel Super Shadow’s fists and Chaos Spears.”

“This still blows me away with how powerful it makes me feel.” Murmured Silver as he marveled at his Super Silver transformation.

“Oh holy crap…” They heard Knuckles utter, followed by Sonic stammering “S-S-Sal?”. Everyone turned their heads and gasped in awe.

“Oh, my God…” Was all Sally could murmur. Her fur was a pink-orange tinge, and her hair a golden glow, flowing freely from the sheer power itself. “H-how? I thought only those with a tie to the Chaos Force could achieve super form?!”

“Maybe the powers that be felt you were worthy.” Knuckles mused, giving a nodding approval to this development. The light-pink glow of his Hyper Knuckles form, arcing with energy like everyone else. “In any case it looks like it worked.”

“I’m not a fan of the colors, they remind me of when I spent hours scrubbing chemicals out of my fur.” Muttered Sally, recalling the chemical splash that caused her fur and hair to change colors twice, before finally returning to her proper brown and auburn tones. She shuddered at the memory; she was lucky Rotor and Quack were able to make a fur-shampoo solution to cleanse the stuff from her fur, and luckier she wasn’t exposed long enough to cause any health issues.

Rubbing his chin, Sonic flashed a wide smile as he drew in his wife’s Super Form. “I dunno Sal, you rock the colors, and do’. It’s giving me ideas-.”

Tails held up one hand, and the other he put a finger to his mouth. Making a faux-gagging sound. “Sonic, I’m right here, don’t wanna hear that stuff!”

Snorting, Sonic rolled his eyes, “Hey, hey Li’Bro who said my mind was going to the gutter?”

Knuckles shot Sonic an incredulous look. “And I quote, “I’m always horny for Sal.”, end quote.”

Both Sonic and Sally managed to blush through the color of their super forms. Each coughing, and averting their gazes from their friends for a time.

“How about we can the small talk, and focus on saving the world?” Shadow stated, breaking up the moment as he turned and pointed towards the approaching Armada. “I’m sure Eggman saw that light show and is going to get even more antsy to try and finish us off.”

Clearing her throat, Sally stepped forward from the Master Emerald, letting Shadow’s comment further help to put that momentary embarrassment behind them. FAR behind them hopefully! “Shadow’s right, we got the power, now let’s use it.”

Pounding his fists together, Sonic began to jog and jump in place to pump himself up. “Juice and jam time folks, let’s show ol’ Eggy he should’ve stayed on that satellite in his home dimension.”

“If not just shriveled up and died.” Growled Knuckles as he flexed his fists before slamming them together.

“For everyone here, and those yet to come, we must win.” Silver uttered as he began to float, flexing his psychokinetic powers in anticipation.

Spinning his twin-tails, Tails began to hover as well. “Sally, give the word, we’re ready!”

“Everyone, it’s been an honor… LET’S GO!!”

#boundingforfreedom #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sally Acorn #Archie-Sonic Comics #Knuckles the Echidna #Shadow the Hedgehog #Miles 'Tails' Prower #Silver the Hedgehog #Master Emerald #Deep Power Stones #Super Forms #Fanfic

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hime-memes · 3 years

Text

( Requested ) This long list of starters comes from the youtube content creator: Nisipisa ! In particular, the video: ‘ Let’s Go Window Shopping 6: Crimes Against Pants with Shein ‘

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Innuendo, Alcohol & Drug Mentions and Swearing.

As always: feel free to change anything within these starters that you see fit to make it work for your muse & the receiver’s muse !

( Some sentences have been modified for length, understanding, or to give fuller context. )

“ First of all, these shorts ? I’m living for the whole outfit. I appreciate _____ finding a use for trashbags that’s not just holding trash. “

“ ... I don’t have enough brain bandwidth to actually hold enough information about it ... “

“ People deserve access to clothing in their size. 100 %. “

“ I’m already kinda impressed. “

“ This is a pretty dress & this is a pretty dress. That’s pretty ! That’s ... passable ? “

“ We had a lot of fun last time with t-shirts. “

“ Oh my god. Oh god ... Oh yes ! This is our first graphic tee of the day. “

“ It’s a crew neck in the ugliest shade of purple known to human or lobster eyes. “

“ Sorry: #Momlife. “

“ You can make sure your search engine optimization is as powerful as possible when you’re waiting in line to check out at Target™ for the fourth time this week. “

“ I didn’t mean to shame anybody that spends three days out of their week at Target™. “

“ If there wasn’t a panna cotta going on, that would be me. It’s my favorite place in the goddamn world ! “

“ It’s second only to shoe stores that sell a size twelve ! “

“ As we all know - I am not a mother and will likely biologically never be one, because God looked at me and said, ‘ If I give you a reproductive system, you’re going to be too powerful ‘ and so, he just nuked my uterus. “

“ I don’t find that this t - shirt celebrates motherhood in any meaningful way. “

“ I do think it celebrates having bad taste in a meaningful way. “

“ You know what ? For some people: That’s enough. “

“ ... We aren’t going to address why having a cutout tight might be useful ... “

“ And THIS is the sexiest shoe we could have put my girl in ?! “

“ You guys put her in this conservative nightmare heel ?! “

“ I like that ______ thinks you should wear all these graphic tees with light wash mom jeans and converse low tops. “

“ I think every website should encourage it’s patrons to dress like the main character of a Sarah Dessen novel from 2007. “

“ There’s some high schooler in a debate club that’s really into it. It’s kinda their whole personality, and they’re like: ‘ This is so ironically funny for me ‘. “

“ In the year of our Lord, 2008: I started high school and my absolute favorite shirt to wear was a shirt quite like this. “

“ It looked like I was wearing long sleeves under short sleeves when in reality, I was wearing a crime. “

“ Have you ever tried layering ? Like, actual layering ? It sucks ! “

“ You’re kidding ! A double whammy in the same row ? Oh my god ... “

“ ... We have also inexplicably made the model hit this pose. “

“ The person who needs these pants is someone who likes to go out and party - likes to go to the club - but, they are also the president of a fan club for Shar Pei dogs. “

“ You know what dogs I think are cute ? ( * Googles favorite dog * ) Just look at this guy ! “

“ Look at these pointy bastards ! “

“ This is like if you had a bat and you did a spell on it to make it a dog ! “

“ These ... Now THIS is a pair of pants ! “

“ Clinically depressed, stressed jeans. “

“ You take leopard print fabric and sew it into your distressed holes. “

“ You don’t have to frankenstein it into this type of fit ... this is kinda like how a hypebeast would dress if they were in elementary school. “

“ If you put a bow on this and a tutu: this is me and my girls rolling up to the Jojo Siwa concert. “

“ Am I saying I wouldn’t wear these shorts ? No, I’m not saying that at all - I would wear the fuck outta these shorts ! “

“ As we’ve established: my taste is awful. “

“ Do you think in 1503, when Lisa del Giocondo sat down to start being painted for this portrait - she thought in a couple hundred years some random fast fashion brand would take her likeness, photoshop a face mask on it ... and sell it on a graphic t - shirt ? “

“ The only responsibilities I had were watching Rugrats and learning object permanence. “

“ Stop living in the past. The future is fun because my videos are in it ! “

“ This little cherry top, I think I’d probably wear. I think it’s very sweet ! “

“ I’m so weak to anything with a grid print. “

“ I’m going to think about this shirt for the rest of my life ... “

“ What exactly does a lil’ house elf from Harry Potter™ have to do with this ? “

“ I do feel like this floral print will cause my brain to atrophy if I look at it too long. “

“ Rosé is not the only wine to rhyme with ‘ all day ‘. Rosé isn’t even good ! “

“ You know what ? I don’t work for _______, so it’s fine. It’s not my responsibility ! “

“ Hey guys, you having fun at mushroom college ? “

“ I saw two things: The crotch butterfly and the booty butterfly and now I’m thinking these are the only clothes anyone should ever wear. Ever. “

“ NOT THE ‘ SEX ’ EARRINGS !? YES ! “

“ This is brazenly and offensively targeting a very very very specific group of people that I went to my preppy college with and I don’t appreciate that. “

“ I’ve worn spaghetti sauce stained yoga pants to bed that are sexier than this ! “

“ I’d wear the fuck outta this. “

“ I don’t know what I can say ... the picture speaks for itself, this is awful ! “

“ I’ve been saying for the longest time there is absolutely no store online that I can find articles of clothing for my single, mid-western, art teacher from the 70s, halloween costume. Finally someone is filling that niche ! “

“ This is absolutely unprecedented, because _______ decided to take something that, not only didn’t exist, but that no one has ever asked for and make it a reality. “

“ They think to themselves: ‘ Man - I love leopard print and I love galaxy print: but, I wish there was some way I could experience them at the same time, in an orientation that looks like the very beginnings of a DMT trip, and I wish I could experience all that whilst exercising. “

“ This is so tacky that I wanna wear it. “

“ Lord - Jesus, life is so beautiful. and full ... and amazing ! “

“ Curse allttle and carra fu///ng ON. “

“ The Rocky Horror Picture Show did not die for our sins for you to make this, okay ____ ? “

“ I feel like the person that wears this is a representative from the International Coalition of Clowns that are also Sexy. “

“ I want the opposite of this: I want a pink pastel frilly one piece that just says across the front of it, in like Curlz MT font : ‘ Death ‘. “

“ Listen, I don’t know what font that is, but I would like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to outlaw it. I don’t think it does society any good. “

“ I heart freak city ? “

“ Uh yeah, I live on Drip Goth Punk street. “

“ Is that near Superfreak Sexy Gurl lane ? “

“ We have a big snake problem here in Boston and I’m glad _____ is finally recognizing this. “

“ Mama. “ * Cue insane cackling *

“ This shirt says ‘ heart stopper ’ ... that’s me when I’m a serial killer ! “

“ That’s so topical and current ! Thank you, _______. “

#rp meme #roleplay meme #sentence starters #sentence starter meme #youtube sentence starters

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dfcfanfics · 3 years

Text

I May Have Made A Minor Miscalculation Miraculous Prompt of the Day

The Grey Goo Problem

"...Two more over there!"

Ladybug's cry and gesture sent Chat Noir into instant motion, despite his exhaustion. Between the two of them, they made short work of the villain's constructs, who dissolved into puddles of purplish-grey goo once hit with enough force.

"This is insane," Chat panted. "We've taken out fifty of them, today alone! And I feel like we're no closer to finishing this than when we began."

"We fight until we drop," Ladybug reminded him. "These things have to have a weakness... a secret as to where they're coming from... and we're going to find it."

"We're not going to find it if we're spending all our time fighting them off," argued Chat. "And we can't not fight them. If we ignore them, they start chasing normal people around, instead!"

"Over th--" began Ladybug... then stopped.

"...What?" Chat asked.

"LOOK!"

He expected to see more of the villain's proxies, perhaps a large group of them. Instead, a tall figure stood quietly in the middle of the courtyard... one whose visage neither of them could ever forget.

~--~

"Ladybug... Chat Noir. I have found you, at last," Hawkmoth intoned as he saw them rush in his direction. "Please. I have not come to--"

"HI-YAH!"

A flying kick and a baton strike sent Hawkmoth sprawling, crashing through the side of a small bus stop. He began to climb to his feet, slowly. "Stop," he called out, in a weak voice. "This is not--"

THWACK!

He went flying again, this time tumbling across the sidewalk into the street.

"Keep the pressure on!" Chat yelled. "We can't let him regroup! We may only get one chance at this!"

"He's not getting away from us this time!" Ladybug declared, through gritted teeth. "We're finishing this!"

An impromptu game of Hawkmoth Pinball sent the archvillain flying repeatedly. It felt satisfying to Ladybug, getting some revenge in for all the pain Hawkmoth had inflicted on this city... and, yet, something in the back of her mind told her that something here was wrong.

"Please," Hawkmoth begged. "I need you to listen--"

A high-low combination sent him flat on his back, with a baton at his throat.

"Forget it, you scum," Chat glared, fire in his eyes. "This time, we've got you! Once and for all."

"...Chat?" Ladybug wondered. "Keep him covered. Don't let him up. But have you noticed something strange about what's happening here?"

"...Like what?"

"Like... Hawkmoth had the drop on us. He saw us before we saw him. But he didn't do anything... and he hasn't attacked us at all," Ladybug pointed out. "He hasn't even lifted a finger to defend himself."

"You're right," considered Chat. "Maybe... this is some kind of decoy? Not the real Hawkmoth?"

"I... assure you, children... I am the genuine... article," wheezed Hawkmoth. "But I have not... come here for... a fight."

"Your critters certainly have," Chat barked.

"Those... critters... are why I am here," Hawkmoth gasped. "I need... your help... to stop them... or we are all doomed."

Chat and Ladybug stared at each other, in disbelief over what they'd just heard.

"Chat... let him up. Just for a moment."

"You're kidding--"

"Something's wrong here. Hawkmoth doesn't even seem like a threat right now," mused Ladybug. "He looks like he can barely stand up, in fact. We've hit him harder than this before, and he's kept on coming."

With that in mind, Chat pulled his baton back slightly, keeping it pointed at Hawkmoth's head just in case. The villain reached out towards it, used it to help pull himself off the ground, and only got as far as a nearby bench before collapsing onto it.

"All right, Hawkmoth. You wanted to talk... so talk," Ladybug growled. "What the heck have you done?"

~--~

"Ladybug... do you remember our very first battle? Stoneheart?" Hawkmoth began, slowly regaining his breath.

"Of course."

"You failed to purify the initial Akuma... so it flew away, it divided, and you had many Stonehearts to contend with as a result," he reminded her. "A mistake that you have not repeated since then. I considered that about a week ago, and had what I thought was a brilliant idea... though I have since recategorized it otherwise."

Chat waggled his baton, as if suggesting, Go on...

"This Akuma has a self-destruct function," Hawkmoth explained. "After a period of time, roughly one day, its focus disintegrates. The Akuma floats away, unharmed... it finds a quiet spot... and it separates into several more, at which point the original reforms as well. 'Divide and Conquer,' I called it... a central villain that divides endlessly into a conquering army of independent drones."

"Ohhhh," Chat frowned. "I get it. They keep multiplying and coming after us... but we might not have even seen the main villain yet. He just sits in hiding and generates these blob things."

"Clever. Nasty, but clever," Ladybug conceded. "So... why do you look so concerned? You wouldn't come out of hiding without a very good reason."

"Something... has gone wrong. I do not know what; some quirk in the magic, I suppose," Hawkmoth gasped. "The drones are beginning to multiply independently! They do not have foci of their own, so they should not have that capability... I do not know if they are dividing somehow, akin to cellular mitosis, or if they have somehow developed their own magical mechanism."

"I don't like the sound of that," worried Ladybug.

"I REALLY don't like the sound of that," Chat declared. "If the spawns are now also spawning new ones... this could turn into exponential growth very quickly."

He turned to Ladybug with a somber expression on his face. "Dozens could become hundreds... then thousands.. then millions! This whole city could be buried under an avalanche of these things."

Ladybug considered that concept with horror... then glared at Hawkmoth. "We get the picture," she grumbled. "What do you want from us, to stop this... our surrender? Our Miraculous?"

"...Ladybug?" Chat noted. "If this is his victory lap, he doesn't seem too happy about it."

Hawkmoth closed his eyes. "You do not understand fully," he sighed. "Every time these divide and multiply... there is a mystic link back to me that draws a little bit of energy, which powers it. I felt that I could handle the increasing drain... because, surely, a couple of dozen villains would prove to be more than you can handle? But now we are in at least the hundreds, perhaps the low thousands, and I am being suctioned away like water by a sponge. It took all of my strength just to venture forth to find you."

"So... call the Akuma back, or something!" Ladybug shouted. "You have that power, right? To take it away if your target disobeys your orders."

"I have tried," Hawkmoth replied. "It is not working. I suspect that I am too weak now to wield that authority over it. And if this continues... I am sure that I will be dead within days. Perhaps hours."

"We're... not going to let that happen," said Ladybug. "And not just because we don't know if that would stop the dividing."

"Great. Just great," muttered Chat. "So where is the master villain, anyway? The Divide that's sending out all these Conquerors?"

Hawkmoth lowered his eyes.

"I have no idea."

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #fanfic #prompt #the best laid plans #that's what I call a sticky situation #god bows to math

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nothisis-ridiculous · 3 years

Text

Take Me Home Now: Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve: In Your Head, In Your Head, They are Dyin'

Set after the events of ME3.

A rewrite. Ao3.

FemShepxKaidan

Geez, open my big fucking mouth much? Oh Jane, could you go to the Citadel? But why shouldn't you? You said you had spent time there; you're the one person who knows how to get around. She half-assedly kicked at the locker at the foot of her cot, besides, Rogers is too green. We need someone with experience leading the team. It would be best if you kept busy; civilian life doesn't agree with you.

They couldn't order her around.

Jane craned her head, taking in the entirety of the beam that would catapult her into the Citadel. A frown was the sole betrayal of her panicked nervous system, she would never be ready to go back there. But this was not the time for fear, not when Biotic's Division looked to her guidance. At least she could hide the apprehension- they looked like they could piss themselves at any moment. Jane knew the beam wouldn't lead to death but they were not so confident. It seemed insane, she got it.

Roy and Helen talked amongst the students, leaving Jane some time to collect herself. The last time she had approached the beam the entirety of Hammer had died to get her here, it seemed too easy now that it was a simple jaunt down a hill.

"You sure this thing won't vaporize us?" Roger's question interrupted her solitude.

"I'm not saying it's going to be pleasant, or you'll like what we're going to find-" distress crossed the 2nd lieutenant's face, this was the wrong approach, "if Anderson's team could make it to activate the Crucible, I think we will be fine. Besides, think of the bragging rights- being the one to restore communications with the Citadel, and eventually with the rest of the galaxy. It's not a small thing."

"But I'm not leading the operation," Rogers's hadn't taken the forced deference to the Recruit well.

"Believe me, kid, you'll be glad for all the calls you didn't have to make." She had refused to lead on principle, even after several others had tried to guilt her for refusing the mission. Jane wouldn't have stepped up if not for a series of harsh conversations from Mr. Alenko, most of them implying he would take the mantle if she would not, "get the team into place, we leave in two."

Roy and Helen naturally separated from the group, not away from the mass of students but toward her. Roy led a step ahead and Helen fixing her with the usual judgmental stare from behind her husband.

"I'll be fine," the woman snapped the M-77 into a ready form, "it should be easy."

"Be careful."

How many times had she heard that? To boot, in the same somber tone. The last time, so physically close to where they stood now. It was an odd irony that his father stood closer to the beam than Kaidan had managed to get.

"Thank you," regret was a hell of a thing, so unprompted she grasped his hand unflinching under that whiskey-hued gaze. For a blip of a moment, she looked forward to coming back. Hope returned in a microdose.

The students lined up as ordered, each reaction as individual as the person who stood before the blue light while they wouldn't argue with the mission: it didn't mean they had to trust it. Jane would question flinging herself blindly into the beam, she had at a couple of points. On Illos, she at least had the Mako to give her the illusion of safety, here for the second time only experience made her undaunted besides the emotional toll.

"Alright, the mission is simple. Meet with Bailey or whoever is left in charge. After that, we worry about setting up the long-range commlink," it was better to put this off as a simple run, when things got complicated, they would deal with it then, "on arrival, where exactly we'll end up is a mystery. This functions much like a Mass Relay, so small groups and make sure your ass is out of the way."

Jane nodded to Rogers and the female that stood beside him, "anyone else want to go first?"

She didn't wait for a reaction before sauntering brazenly into the beam.

The Spectre had thought she was used to running into the unexpected. She had made a career of dealing with the strange, but awe of circumstance truly never went away. This time it was far more physical than expected. Pulling herself over the lip and onto the metal path, water violently expelling from her nose and mouth. If she were a little more with it, she would have pulled a gun on the Keeper scuttling by- but she was a little more focused on breathing. The next concern was the two in line behind her; one was lucky and ended up straddled over the railing the next erupted from the water much in the way she had.

Once it was clear all was fine, Jane rolled onto her back. Dark laughter barking from her diaphragm. It was a far cry from the body-lined hallways and corridors she had dreamed up, the relay monument looked down on her. God, she felt nauseous. Her sides didn't stop seizing until all breath left her body, eyes stinging with tears. Rolling to all fours, then finally upright the world swirled into sudden clarity.

This was the Presidium. Behind her, the partially broken statue that honored the krogan. A white spire jutting into the sky, a brave blue flower standing tall, heat speckled metal walkways, and the white-walled building. Her fingers raked through a tangle of wet hair, shook out her pistol, pulled Rogers from the railing, and tightly squeezed her fist until the twang of her muscles bid for release. The relay fired again, splashing followed, and the approach of footsteps came from her right side. The tepid water running down her face made pinpointing smells impossible, but she could sure taste the strange flavor of the unfiltered liquid.

"Holy shit."

"See, you should have never doubted me."

The Lieutenant did not find it quite so humourous.

"Lighten up, Kid," she remarked blithely, turning her attention to the squad that corralled them into the center of the walkway, "it's nice to see C-Sec arrive promptly."

The turian officer scoffed but lowered his weapon, "Bailey will want to see you."

"Good, we're looking for him."

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

"How is it always you?" Bailey hardly looked up at her, "but I've got to admit, nobody else is crazy enough to walk through a beam on foot."

The man was one of the few who could recognize her immediately, even with grown-out and natural hair. He had seen the scarring left behind after the Lazarus Project before they had faded for the first time. It took only a little imagination to see past the more extensive facial scars.

"The first or second time?"

Bailey's head craned up, concern crossing his face, "Com-"

Jane waved a hand, "please, Bailey, that person is gone. Let her die with her crew."

The concern grew behind the glow of his omnitool "if anyone ever asks, you waved your Spectre status in my face. But I don't think you are here to catch up."

"No, I am not."

The team back on Earth had tried to reconnect with the Citadel, but all attempts to reach them had failed. So a mission to the station became necessary. Bailey attempted to skirt the subject, but life on the Citadel was not easy. Slowly some peace was restored but at a snail's pace. Whatever jammed the comms slowed any hope of a unified force on the station. It also explained their failure to find a tech expert who might fix the issue and perhaps the lack of a Spectre or someone of a higher rank to authorize it—security measures as usual were great until they hindered progress.

"I'll need you before you try and disappear again," Bailey warned, swirling the scotch in his lowball glass. He figured this was special occasion enough, even if the hero returned as little more than a ghost.

"I'll consider it my retirement party," she mused, finishing off the bitter liquid, "seems easy compared to a Reaper invasion."

"Nothing with you is ever simple."

"Hell, this could all be a dream... for both of us." It felt a little cold for a dream, but it was all surreal. For now, she put it off as walking old hallways and the memories of the companions that haunted the place.

"The scotch must be hitting you hard."

"I haven't hit the hard stuff since-" the statement crossed into territory painful for both of them, "but I say there is no time like the present. Must be driving my squad nuts waiting."

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

"Shepard before-"

Jane flinched, and Bailey retracted for a moment. Equal parts confusion and frustration with the jumpy woman. Perhaps it was time, untold horrors of war, or the alcohol that made her weird, if not mentioning the other multitude of reasons the Spectre seemed off her game. She went by a different name to the men she led, and it was becoming apparent the problem was far out of his wheelhouse.

"I have to give it to you plain, we found Anderson's body in here. It looked like he was shot."

"I know."

She had shot him after all. For a long time, she had tried reasoning that it was not her fault; after all, the Illusive Man had made her do it. Those strange cybernetic eyes had stared at her in her dreams, one of the thousands of voices taunting her. Those blue eyes had found her again as she walked the hallways to the Council Chambers.

"He must have activated the Crucible before he died, it's funny because we all assumed you had done it."

Jane hadn't activated the Crucible. That was true. Maybe Mary had; it was all a little foggy.

"We gave him the best funeral we could, I can take you there later if you like," Bailey offered, trying to rouse her with a touch.

Jane shook her head, "another time, this is enough."

Too much.

Bailey nodded, falling behind a few paces so she could absorb the room. Mentally, she remarked on little other than it had become a bit overgrown in disuse and that she liked it better without the constant trickle of running water.

"Nothing unusual up here, Ma'am," buzzed the comm.

"Roger, roger."

"It wasn't funny, even when the Major did it."

Fine, "hold position, I want eyes on anything that could go wrong. I'll place the shunt."

Jane moved slowly across the catwalk, the face staring at her accusingly grew clearer as she approached. The simple frame wreathed in upkept foilage, plants, and candles of all sorts making up an altar. She tried to move through littered petals and papers with reverence, but some wound up disturbed fluttering into the pit below. Jane crouched to cradle the picture gently, "Admiral."

Her blue eyes scanned upwards, resting on the bloody handprint covering the virtual interface sensor.

The total weight of another being crashed onto her, attempting to wrestle her from the catwalk. Even after weeks without combat, Jane dislodged the man with ease throwing him over the unprotected edge. The unnatural steel blue eyes, shocked with bright blue patterns, brimming with fury. Quickly as they had entered her vision, the figure went still and dark.

Coldly, empty, she returned the broken frame to its spot. Her complete attention turning to the console that lit up at her presence. The only break from her attention was the dramatic slam of her fists on the sides of the railing behind the console- it wasn't working.

Before she could release her temper upon the undeserving railing again, a keeper nudged her aside. Compiling the necessary commands with ease, the sudden noise of a system erupting in a blastwave. As quickly as the creature arrived, it scuttled back away. Leaving Jane to complete her task.

Bailey looked over the ledge, approaching the woman slowly once he was satisfied.

"Commander Bailey, you should have access to all Citadel systems," her bright blue eyes turned to him with a terrifying hollowness, "don't make me regret it."

"You- but, he," Bailey swallowed, running a hand over his cropped hair, "it's never simple with you."

He grabbed her arm before she slipped by him, "take this."

"I should go."

"Don't worry, you weren't here," he called after the stumbling figure.

Jane didn't recall stumbling back through the relay, or for that matter, picking her way back to the mall. Or the time she had left, or if she had bothered to warn anyone in the meantime. Reality was a persnickety thing at the moment, failing to anchor her securely to the present.

It was dark, the mechs hadn't stopped her, and not even her body was warning her of exhaustion. It was all instinct.

The room she stole into, that was not so much a call of instinct but of desperation. Her world grew colder, and it was beginning to tumble at a speed that she could barely withstand.

"Rahna."

Nothing.

"Rahna."

"Jane?"

#kaidan alenko #shenko #fshenko #mass effect fanfiction

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darknessofbnha · 4 years

Text

I’m coming

Requested by @todogirl707 “ Hi! I just stumbled across your blog and I already love it 💞💕uhm the bio said requests were open so if it’s not too much to ask could you please do a scenario fic with todoroki shoto where the reader gets kidnapped ? And then he has to save her? Or something like that ? Again if this is too much feel free to ignore it

Thank you so much for the request and I’m glad you like my works! I hope I won’t disappoint you! 💞💕

I’ll take the chance to tell you guys that I’m working on the requests. Don’t worry. I just had finals, and still have them, which is why it’s taking time ^^; I don’t think I’ll be refusing requests (unless I’m inexperienced on the topic or extra uncomfortable) so don’t be afraid to go wild haha~

Word Count: 2247 Warnings: kidnapping; blood; gore Pairing: Todoroki x Reader

Feedback is deeply appreciated~!

｡☆ ❅ ★━━━━ ❅ ━━━━★ ❅ ☆｡

He would never forget when it happened. The memories wouldn’t even leave him to dream peacefully. They would come crawling and wake him in cold sweat with a shout stuck in his throat.

You were someone he held dear. You had been there for him when he needed support. Never mind how many times he refused, how cold he used to be, you never left his side and stubbornly clung to him. You had overheard his story during his confrontation with Midoriya at the Sports Festival and you weren’t afraid to tell him after it was all over and to once again offer him your support and friendship. He was grateful and before long, his feelings manifested into love. He loved you unconditionally. He didn’t know how to express himself though.

When you got burnt by Dabi while your little group was trying to save Bakugou and Tokoyami during the Training Camp incident, he got so angry with both the villain and himself for not confessing his feelings earlier. The thought of something happening to you and him not being able to tell you that he loved you scared him. So during that night, at the hospital, he held your hand, as you struggled to not fall asleep due to exhaustion, and confessed. It was awkward but also cute and it made you smile and laugh which was more than enough for him. He was happy that he made you happy. And that’s how you started dating.

Everything was so perfect when you moved into the dorms and you two got to spend every minute together.

But the Universe always has to put people through challenges. To test them. And it happened so suddenly that it took your breath away and swept you off your feet.

The news had been blasting about a dangerous villain who managed to kidnap people easily. Nobody knew how or what Quirk he had and it was causing big trouble. What was even more troublesome was that his victims were very young girls, obviously virgins. Rumors were that he was a crazy Satanist using virgin blood to summon demons. Perhaps a bit farfetched but it wouldn’t be surprising if it was the truth considering that the world was full with insane psychopaths.

Your Quirk was powerful – very powerful. It allowed you to manipulate earth and Kirishima often joked and compared you to Toph. Speaking of Kirishima, you were very good friends. Your quirks were compatible as well. He was the best defense and you were the best offense. That’s why the two of you decided to intern together, choosing Fatgum.

“Hey kiddos, what do you say we go out tonight and eat some takoyaki?” grinned the hero and you and Kirishima nodded vigorously while Tamaki only smiled softly in agreement. And the four of you ended up walking and chatting while eating, inhaling the aroma of the street food and absorbing the lively atmosphere. Even though it was night time there were many people out.

“Oh, I’ll go buy some ice cream!” you exclaimed when your eyes landed on the colorful, creamy texture of the ice cream and the boys nodded, telling you their favorite flavors.

“Why don’t you guys go buy some waffles and other sweet things while I get your ice creams? I’m dying for sweets tonight,” you offered and they laughed before walking away. And that’s when you heard it – the most melodic, soothing and beautiful voice.

“Beautiful, sweet girl, come to me,” it swayed on the wind and tickled your ears, beckoning you to follow it. And you did.

“Hey, little lady, where are you going? I’m still not finished with your ice cream!” exclaimed the seller but his voice got drowned. Everything got drowned, fading in the background in the shape of a dull lull as your brain concentrated only on the man calling you.

“There you are. I knew you would come,” came in the voice from your right and you slowly turned your head to look at the man. He was young, tall, very handsome with his sun-kissed skin and light blue hair tied in a low ponytail. Even under the fancy suit the muscles were visible.

Your legs moved on their own. You weren’t sure if you even felt your body at this point. You were completely entranced. You came to stand right in front of him, leaning your head on his chest and closing your eyes, allowing yourself to sink into him when his arms encircled you.

“What a good girl. No resisting whatsoever,” he chuckled and it sent pleasant shivers down your spine.

“Let’s go home.”

｡☆ ❅ ★━━━━ ❅ ━━━━★ ❅ ☆｡

“What do you mean gone?” whispered Shouto and Kirishima sniffed, looking at the ground. “What do you mean gone, Kirishima!?” shouted the boy this time and the redhead grit his teeth, letting the tears fall.

“I-I don’t know! She was with us a-and a few seconds later s-she was just gone!”

When they had returned to the ice cream parlor, you were gone. They had asked the seller but he had been able to only point at the direction you had gone towards. They had run immediately but there had been no sight or sound from you. Nothing. They had immediately contacted the police. By now it was obvious that you had been kidnapped by the same villain that was terrorizing the town.

Shouto was numb. He stared at his classmate before his eyes moved to the floor, hands clenching so hard that his nails dug into his skin, forming crescents that bled. He was both freezing with fear and burning with anger.

“I have to find her,” he muttered but when he tried to pass through Kirishima, the boy stopped him.

“Are you out of your mind? You can’t do anything! Nobody can! Because no one knows anything about this villain!” cried out the redhead and Todoroki grit his teeth.

“Move,” he grit out as he attempted to pass but Kirishima held him again.

“Todoroki!” before he could say anything else, Shouto threw him the iciest glare. Kirishima and the others, who had been watching the display with tears in their eyes and shaking forms, didn’t even have time to be shocked when Todoroki encased all of their feet in ice.

“That’s not cool, man!”

“Don’t do that, Todoroki-san! It’s dangerous to go out!”

Their shouts fell on deaf ears because at the moment, Shouto’s mind was clouded with the thoughts of finding you and killing the bastard who took you.

He barely got past Aizawa and the Hound, leaving UA grounds and going to the place where everything happened. He narrowed his eyes as he rattled his brain about the possibilities of this villain’s quirk.

“What do you have so far?” he asked himself quietly as his brain brought up all the news he had read so far. Many of the cases were mysterious because nobody was there to see what happened. But there were a few cases when there were witnesses and all reports stated that the girls were going on about their day when all of the sudden they stopped and switched directions, walking towards something or someone as if in a trance. From what the ice cream man had told Kirishima, you had reacted the same way.

“Walking towards the source as if in a trance, huh? Is it like Shinsou’s Quirk then? Mind control?” he mused, rubbing his chin. “But if it was mind control there should’ve been some form of contact. She was surrounded by crowd. What kind of contact can one create in a crowded area. Even if his quirk doesn’t require an answer like Shinsou’s, or eye contact like Aizawa-sensei’s, there still should be some sort of cont-“ he gasped lightly. But of course. It has to be his voice. His right side grew colder and colder, frost seeping from his feet, covering the ground gently and baring footprints.

“Hold on a bit more, Y/N. I’m coming,” he vowed quietly, cold, smoky breath sipping through his lips.

｡☆ ❅ ★━━━━ ❅ ━━━━★ ❅ ☆｡

You hissed, the stinging pain causing you discomfort. It was one thing getting hurt while fighting because the adrenaline was not letting you experience the pain, at least at the beginning, and completely another when someone was slicing at your body with a blade.

“That’s right, princess. Bleed some more for daddy,” he smirked, licking his lips impatiently as he squeezed your wrist, causing the blood to flow harder and making you feel dizzy. How much did he bleed you? Two, three, five times? You didn’t know. But he made sure to do it often because you couldn’t use your quirk in such condition. That and it gave him immense pleasure. You couldn’t understand him. Did he enjoy drinking blood? Was he offering it as a sacrifice? Was it part of his quirk or something? At this point you didn’t care. You knew that you were going to die. Nobody knew anything about this villain. There were only speculations about his quirk. No one would walk through these enormous mahogany doors and put an end to this.

“We’ll continue later. I have something else to do now,” he grinned at you as he left the golden goblet on the cabinet next to you before he moved to the bed and laid down next to what you assumed was a girl. You willed your vision to clear. Yes, it was a girl – probably his previous victim – and she was dead, chest torn open as if the bloody eagle was performed on her, drenching the sheets in red.

“Isn’t blood beautiful? Don’t you want to be surrounded by it all the time?” he asked you and you barely managed to shake your head, a scream of horror trapped in your vocal cords. “Don’t worry your pretty little Y/H/C head. You’ll be joining her soon,” he laughed and a tear slid down your cheek.

And at this moment, the doors burst open, getting completely shattered by sharp shards of ice. Splinters showered the occupants of the room, causing the man to shout enraged.

“Who has the audacity-“ he didn’t get to finish because more ice came towards him. The man evaded gracefully to the left, only to be engulfed in flames, making him scream. Before he could get serious burns, the flames were extinguished and he was quickly encased in ice from head to toe.

“Shouto,” you whimpered and smiled shakily. The boy’s head snapped, eyes widening. He had been so insanely worried but thankfully you seemed to be alright. When he actually reached you and took a good look at you, he realized that, no, you weren’t really ok. You were covered in slices and bleeding. He saw red. He twirled sharply, fully ready to shatter the ice alongside the person trapped in it when your voice stopped him.

“Please, Shouto! It’s not worth it! Don’t put a bad name for yourself before your career has even started!” you pleaded and he gulped, lowering his hand and turning to look back at you. You shot him an encouraging smile, trying to signal him that you were alright. He didn’t say anything as he burned the ropes and scooped you up in his arms. The police and other pro heroes were swarming the place for investigation and arresting the villain. Shouto was angry with himself for taking so long to notify the police of what he found and to formulate a plan. And you could see that he was blaming himself, that he was angry and disappointed with himself. You wouldn’t have that.

“Hey, look at me,” you whispered as you cupped his cheek. That made him stop. The two of you were far from the beeping sirens and the bustling cops. “I’m ok. Nothing happened to me. Just a couple of cuts that Recovery Girl can heal. You did well, Shouto. You saved me. You are my hero,” you told him gently as you snuggled into his chest, hearing his rapid heartbeat that was slowly beginning to calm down. He pressed a kiss to your temple and tightened his hold on you.

“I’ll never let anything happen to you again. I promise,” he murmured and you encircled your arms around his neck, bringing him closer and kissing him on the cheek.

“I’ve no doubt.”

｡☆ ❅ ★━━━━ ❅ ━━━━★ ❅ ☆｡

You were accepted with happy cheers and a cake from your classmates. They literally threw you a party and it made you so happy. They were truly a blessing. Poor Kirishima blamed himself and you had to smack him over the head a few times to get it through his thick skull that he was not to blame.

It was the first few nights that were the problem. The very first night, you had a nightmare and you snuck into Shouto’s room. He had had a nightmare too and gladly accepted you into his embrace.

“I can’t get this girl out of my head. That was… the most horrifying scene I’ve seen. I dream of myself in her stead,” you sniffed and Shouto hugged you tightly as if imagining you melting into his embrace so he could protect you from the world.

“I dream the same,” he admitted quietly and you looked him deeply in the eyes.

“We are going to be ok. As long as we are together, it’s going to be ok,” you whispered hopefully and he gave you a smile – that little pretty smile he had reserved only for you.

“Together then.”

#bnha #bnha fanfiction #bnha todoroki #bnha imagines #bnha x reader #reader #boku no hero academia x reader #boku no hero x reader #mha #mha x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki shōto #todoroki

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lo-55 · 4 years

Text

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 17

Delicious Fried Garbage

When Ichigo barges into the shop without so much as a by-your-leave Urahara is in one of the backrooms, working on a janky looking computer. Ichigo had seen some fucked up attempts at electronics before, during his time travel escapades, but this was another level entirely. He actually looked like it had an eye sticking out of the wires snaking around it.

Ichigo stares at him. When Urahara looks up it takes him a second to get his smile properly in place and his fan in hand. That mask is getting a bit old.

“Ichigo! To what do I owe the pleasure? And you’ve brought friends?”

It’s true. Medusa and Achilles had met them outside the school when he and Shinji had gone marching about. Cu was investigating the ley lines around the town. Waver hadn’t been wrong, there was something weird going on with them, and he was the only decent mage amongst their group. The other three of them were fighters, plain and simple.

“This one,” Ichigo grabs Hirako by his tie and hanks himself forwards for Urahara to see. “Is your fault. So we’re using your basement.”

“That’s a rude way to ask,” Urahara huffed at him. Ichigo pins him with a glare.

“I’m not asking,” he said frankly. Ichigo drags Hirako past Urahara and his horror computer to the trap door he knows is in the room just beyond. Hirako hops after him, but he still manages to look nonchalant about it.

Ichigo tosses him down the ladder, abandons his body in the safety of the ground above, and hops after him, with his servants in tow. All three of them land as gracefully as Hirako did, with Ichigo now in his dark shihakusho. A few moments later Urahara drops down after them as well. He held his hat to his head to keep it from flying off.

While Medusa and Achilles found a couple of rocks to lounge on and watch from Ichigo and Hirako make their way away from them so they don’t get caught in the crossfires. Not that it would matter for Achilles. His shield was almost as good as Mash’s.

“Okay,” Ichigo runs his fingers through his hair and gathers half of it into a pony tail at the back of his head, so it’s out of his way. ‘ How do you wanna do this, Nieve?’

Medusa looks at him with a frown. ‘ Who…?’

‘Just don’t go fightin’ me okay? It won’t be so different from other fights. We’ll just be closer this time.’

Ichigo winces at the wide-eyed look Achilles and Medusa were giving him. He’d forgotten to tell them about his new ‘friends’. Whoops.

Ichigo eyes Hirako warily. He touches his forehead, the way Hirako had before. He thinks of Nieve. He thinks of the driving force behind his blows. Desperation and vicious need. He thinks of the sting in his chest and the shadows. Phantom hands pushing his body to get out of the way. Protection. Survival. The steel of a sword in his hand.

Ichigo claws across his face in a move that feels almost natural.

For one dizzying second the whole world warps and twists. Everything is sharper and clearer. He tastes the energy in the air. Snakes and chains. Armor and blood. Shadows and thread.

Ichigo didn’t know you could taste a kaleidoscope, but that’s what Hirako’s soul reminds him of.

“ Huh.”

Ichigo blinks at Hirako. There’s something pointy just up over Ichigo’s sight. Horns? Is he some kind of bull?

I should summon Asterios next, he mused. We can match.

Ichigo lifts Zangetsu up to block a blow from Hirako. Their blades sing with the sound of battle. Ichigo can feel Zangetsu’s laughter in his soul, and his own smile is hidden from view by the mask on his face. It’s smooth bone.

Ichigo pushes him back harshly. He ends up throwing Hirako further away than he’d expected. It’s not just his senses that are heightened. His strength was increased too, and when he launched himself after Hirako he realized his speed was to.

He realized it because he almost smashed face first into a boulder trying to get around Hirako and hit him from the back. Fortunately the rock broke before his new horns and he was able to skid around and swing at Hirako again.

They felt like one. Him and Zangetsu, together. Sword and weilder. It was more than a metaphorical ‘the sword is an extension of your arm’. Zangetsu really was an extension of himself. Longer reach, harder hits, faster moves and dirty tricks.

They wanted to win.

Hirako fired a kido spell at him and Ichigo sliced through it with his Getsuga Tenshou, one the gauged a crater into the earth beneath them. Ichigo shot himself after the attack and swung hard at Hirako from above. He caught Zangetsu at the crossguard of his own katana, but he wasn’t expecting it when Ichigo came in from the right with a sharp, short blade he’d kept tucked in his sleeve.

It gleamed white and blue, to Zangetsu’s black. Or Nieve’s black. He was going to have to figure that out eventually.

Hirako is forced into a retreat, with Ichigo hot on his heels. He dons his pharoah mask, and the tides turn equal. Each hit it hard enough to send shock waves through Ichigo’s arms, and with each hit and near scratch does Ichigo grow stronger and faster.

He feels perfectly balanced for the first time in a long time.

A blade in each hand, and a mask on his face. He almost laughs before the clarity of the world snaps around him. He lurches and manages to knock Hirako’s guard aside with Zangetsu before he comes in with the shorter blade again.

“Stop!” Hirako shouts suddenly.

Ichigo freezes, his eyes wide.

Something gives way. The mask cracks and evaporates in the time it takes him to blink.

It takes Ichigo’s strength with it. He collapses on the ground, his chest heaving and his legs feeling like jelly.

“What… the… fuck…?” he asks between frantically gulping air.

‘Ran outta steam, partner.’

Fuck. So he had a time table for this power? Damn it.

He looks up to see Hirako pulling his mask off and letting it dissolve into thin air. There’s somethin unreadable in his eyes.

“Ya actually stopped.”

Ichigo grunts up at him with a scowl.

“Ya weren’t outta control. If ya were, ya woulda kept goin’ till I was dead. Or you were. ”

Ichigo snorts at him. “You aren’t that…. Annoying, Hirako.”

“Some might disagree,” he crouches in front of Ichigo. “I still wanna know somethin’. How’d ya manage to do all that on yer own? You lasted a whole minute and a half. Where were ya trainin’? And with who?”

“Nowhere and with no one,” Ichigo grouses at him. He’s exhausted, but with a slow breath he starts to calm enough that he can function again. “I’ve never done that before.”

“What?! Then why’ve ya been insistin’ ya don’t need help?”

“Because I don’t! I talked it over with Zangetsu and we’re fine.”

“Ya just… talked,” Hirako says slowly. He looks at Ichigo like he’s grown a second head.

“Is there a fucking echo in here? Yeah, I talked. Why?”

“Because that’s impossible!” Hirako reached to grab Ichigo by his shoulders but froze when he flinched back instinctively. He frowned. “I’m not gonna hit ya. We’re done fightin’ for now.”

“I know,” Ichigo scowls at him. In the time it took the words to get out Achilles had crossed the ground between them and landed at his side, a flicker of green lightning around his heels.

“That’s enough,” he said firmly. It was strange to hear from the normally laid back servant. Achilles arm wraps around Ichigo’s shoulders and lifts him carefully off the ground. Once, Ichigo would have shoved him off and insisted he could stand by his own merit. But Achilles was with him for the hardest fights of his life. Camelot, Babylonia, Solomon. They stormed the hanging gardens together.

He lets Achilles support his weight and stand him on his own two feet. He’ll be fine in a bit, once he’s eaten and maybe caught a cat nap.

“We’ll be taking him home, now,” Achilles says firmly. He shoots at look at Medusa, who’s left Urahara to travel over to them. This Medusa is a Lancer, not a rider, or she might have kept speed with him.

Or not.

Achilles is in a league of his own, as Ichigo well knows. A rank servants are like that. They’re also incurably insane.

“Now hold on. I got questions for Ichigo-”

Hirako’s reach for Ichigo is cut short by a sudden lashing of chains between the pair of them. Hirako is just fast enough to keep himself from loosing a hand to them. Ichigo shoot a look at Medusa over his shoulder.

“Was that necessary?” he asks dryly. She sniffs at him.

“You’ve just used a substantial amount of energy. You should be resting, not dealing with fools who think you a liar or malcontents who hide the truth.”

Her last comment is accompanied by a glare over her shoulder towards Urahara, who is watching them with shadowed eyes. They’re sharp in that darkness, and all too aware. Ichigo can see him piecing things together.

“Rider,” he says, “Let’s go already. We have things to do.”

Achilles agrees, and Medusa lets her chains slither back into her hair before following after them. Her boots click with each step.

Ichigo had decided, a long time ago, that Achilles’ name would be spoken aloud only in private. He had too well known a weakness to be exploited. Everyone knew who he was, everyone knew about his tendon.

Medusa was a bit less well known, and she didn’t rely wholly on her eyes either. As long as they stayed vigilant of mirrors and shields, everything would be fine.

The pair escorts him up the ladder while the two supernatural beings watch.

Ichigo really needs to stop hanging out with dead people.

There’s a car sitting outside the shop when they get out. It’s a bright orange Nissan Note, and Cu is sitting in the front seat.

“...Did he get a rider classification while I wasn’t looking?” Ichigo asks wearily.

“Nope,” Medusa says with far too much cheer. Ichigo takes the front seat, while Cu and Medusa slide into the back and Achilles slides into the drivers seat.

Ichigo buckles in quickly. He does not like the gleam in Achilles eyes when he grips the wheel and turns the key.

Ichigo watched the fog curl unnaturally outside the window.

Even though he’d heard London called the city of fog before, seeing it up close and personal was another thing entirely. Mash and Mordred were upstairs, doing something with their new guest. Mordred had said there was something she wanted to discuss with Mash, as ‘fellow knights’, and whisked her away to one of the rooms Jekyll kept, along with a new companion.

He had a comfortable house, spacious and wealthy, but Jekyll himself was a fairly practical man. Most of the house was dedicated to his work. Lab equipment, mostly, but books lined almost every spare surface. Novels, non fiction, history.

Ichigo still needed to stop fighting sometimes. To recharge his batteries, even if he was only supporting Mash, he coudln’t power through this singularity the way he had before. This was a more delicate operation, with more mystery around it than Ichigo could stomach.

He liked knowing who he was fighting, thanks.

In their down town, of which they had far too much and far too little, Ichigo had taken to picking through Jekyll’s books.

He’d read Shakespeare a’plenty, and a few works by Lord Byron, but here Jekyll had books Ichigo had never even heard of. For all he knew a hundred and a half years in the future they wouldn't even exist anymore.

He did know that when he got back he was going to try to find a copy of the Mill on the Floss. And he was going to have to see if Jekyll had any copies of Thomas A Kempis, so he could make more sense of all of it.

He was puzzling over Maggie’s spiritual upheaval when a scuff on the floor had him looking up and over.

Jekyll did that on purpose, Ichigo found. He had made the mistake of sneaking up on Ichigo once, and ended up with a black eye for his troubles that was still fading. In his hands was something that smelled suspiciously like tea. It steamed faintly across the rim of the cup.

“Jekyll,” Ichigo greeted. The doctor offered him a smile and came closer. Ichigo slid a scrap of paper between his pages and set it aside so he could accept the cut when it was handed to him.

Ichigo had never considered himself an academic, and compared to Mash and Jekyll he definitely wasn’t, but he was starting to enjoy the more mundane aspects of living. Who knew he would ever miss high school?

“Hello. I thought you could use something to drink.”

Ichigo dropped his legs off the side of window box he’d claimed as his own in one of the downstairs sitting rooms.

“Sit down?” Ichigo offered.

Jekyll hesitated before he did so. He sat right at the edge, like he was ready to spring himself away at the first sight of trouble. He’s been jumpy for a while now, and Mordred’s not wrong. He’s often very pale.

“If you want me to.”

Ichigo took a long drink of the tea and made a sound of surprise. He looked at Jekyll, who offered him a half smile.

“I found green tea on a supply run,” he said, almost sheepishly. “Mash told me that you’re from the east.”

“It’s good,” Ichigo told him. “ I just wasn’t expecting it… Thank you. Really.”

Jekyll smiled at him a bit wider. “Your welcome.”

“What’s it like normally?” Ichigo asked abruptly, nodding towards the window.

Jekyll followed his gaze to the roiling mist outside. The demonic fog was dangerous to most people. Jekyll always had a dark look on his face whenever he got off the radio. More and more people were dropping off, people he’d managed to get in contact with despite everything that was happening. People he knew, and some he didn’t.

Earlier they’d gone to try to help his friend, Victor. They’d come home with a young girl who was ‘frankenstein’s monster’. Which was not what they were going to call her under any circumstances. Ichigo would fist fight anyone who suggested otherwise.

“It is still foggy, most mornings. Sometimes it burns off by afternoon. On the worst days, you can’t see the other side of the road. It got worse with the industrialization. Sometimes it’s so bad the fog is more yellow than white, and it’s almost as dangerous as it is now*.

“That’s…. Kinda horrifying.”

“Maybe. But it’s still home.”

Ichigo rested his forehead on the glass, letting the coolness sink into his skin.

“...When I was a kid I would walk along the riverbanks where my mom died. I can see ghosts, and I kept looking for her. Like she would just appear. But she never did. Sometimes it got foggy in the morning. I thought I’d see her, but it was always just mist.”

“I’m sorry,” Jekyll said sincerely. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine. It’s been a long time,” he said at last. Not long enough, and it’s not fine.

Jekyll touched his leg and offered him a slight squeeze before his hand retracted. He didn’t flee, like he originally looked like he would. Instead he sat back and asked Ichigo about his book while the pair of them sat together.

Mist rolled by, and eyes watched them from across the road, peering out through the cloying mists.

* *

“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Ichigo asks when they finally stop, third in line behind red lights and bright menu signs. The smell of fries is unmistakable.

“You need to eat,” Achilles says like its obvious. Which it is, they can all see how tired he is, and they know him enough to know that some food with get him a better mood. “You’re a straight bitch when you’re hungry.”

“I don’t think you’d know straight if it smacked you in the ass.”

“If you’re smacking my ass, you’re definitely not straight- ow!”

Achilles rubs his arm and actually pouts at Ichigo, who looks smug. Time was he’d have broken his hand hitting his Rider that hard.

“Why are we at a MgRonalds?” Ichigo asks impatiently.

“It’s delicious,” Achilles says sagely.

“It's fried garbage.”

“It’s delicious fried garbage.”

“I’m not winning this fight, am I?” Ichigo asks, trying desperately to hide the fondness in his voice. Medusa snorts at him from the back seat.

“Not a chance, Master.”

“Call me by my name!”

He’s ignored, as he knew he would be. “How do you even know that you like this stuff? There’s no grail to shove knowledge into your thick skull.”

“No, but we learned quite a bit with you and Mash, and we’re still connected to you as well. So we know enough to navigate this time, I think.” Cu says from his place next to Medusa.

“You know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, right?” Ichigo frowns minutely. Then again, there were lots of things that don’t make a lot of sense, that he himself can’t make real sense of.

Ichigo rubs his fingers across his command seals. They were familiar, the same ones he’d had at Chaldea, but they weren’t in Chaldeas anymore. He’d thought that command spells were distributed by grails themselves, or the FATE system in his case. But apparently that wasn’t the case, or he wouldn’t have these three. Right?

Achilles elbows Ichigo when they get up to the window. A young man in a red visor that matches his eyes smiles out at them.

“Hi there,” he said brightly. “Will that be cash or credit?”

“Here,” Ichigo fishes out his card and passes it over Achilles to the man.

He glances over the man shoulder when a young girl in pigtails goes flying behind him, followed by the sound of something falling down. The mans smile grows a bit tenser.

“M-Maou! The fryer-!”

“Excuse me,” he waves at them and turns away. “Chi, what did you-?”

The commotion is cut off when the window slides shut with a click.

Ichigo looks at the other three and can’t help cracking a grin.

“Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have a day job.”

“The lives of normal people are not for any of us,” Achilles says with a nod.

“Okay, whatever you say mr. I-wanna-go-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory.”

“I don’t regret that decision, and you know it!”

He knows. Achilles has only few true regrets from his glorious life. One of them is the reason he always hesitates to fight a woman. The other is related to Hektor, who Ichigo had never had the pleasure of summoning himself. For the best, he figures.

They sit for a few minutes before the girl with the pig tails pops up at the window and hands them their bag with a few frantic apologies that Achilles waves off with a gentle smile.

“No harm done. Have a good day.”

Ichigo grips his door like a lifeline when they roar out of the parking lot. There must be magic involved for them not to get pulled over by the cops on the way back to the house. Even though the drive only takes a few minutes at Achilles speed Ichigo still manages to wolf down three burgers in just as man minutes.

He’s gonna have to practice using his hollow powers, or else he’s going to end up feeling hollow every time after. It’ll make him far too vulnerable for his own comfort, even if he is surrounded by his servants when it happens.

He trusts them implicitly, but he’s begun to rely on his own power, not just theirs. Having a sword of his own has changed him.

Medusa helps him out of the car when they finally reach the house, and lets him go once their in the living room. Ichigo falls onto the couch with a long sigh.

Achilles wasn’t wrong. Food did him some good.

The couch dips and a weight lands on his lap when the aforementioned Rider crosses his legs across Ichigo’s and hands him the rest of the burgers. Cu takes up the last space on the couch, on Ichigo’s right, and Medusa sets herself up in the chair across the room from the three of them.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “For pulling me out of there. I was really getting irritated.”

“He wasn’t being fair,” Achilles says with a frown, “Don’t these people know to just go with your flow yet?”

Ichigo snorts. “Not yet. I’ll bully them more another time. As much as I would like to just hang out with you guys, they do know things that I don’t. And soon enough, I’m going after Aizen.”

“Are we?”

We.

“Mhmm. I still have my promise to him. I don’t know how to restore memories from a timeline that doesn’t exist anymore, but I can at least prove to him that we used to be friends. I just have to figure out how to get to him. Urahara could get me to Seireitei, he might know a way to where the hollows live too. Now that he doesn’t think I’m losing my mind or whatever.”

“Your life never is dull,” Cu teases him, tugging his long orange hair. Ichigo rolls his eyes fondly at him.

“As if you’re one to talk. You��ve been fighting since you were a child.”

“You were just a boy when we met in Fuyuki,” Cu points out. “Older than me, admittedly, but still young.”

“I was practically grown up!”

“That’s not a good thing,” Medusa scowls at him from across the room. “You should mourn your lost childhood. Not celebrate it. Mad man.”

Ichigo falls silent and looks elsewhere. He can’t even really disagree with her. It’s one of the things he’s most angry at his father for. He’d let Ichigo grow up too fast, he’d never tried to explain what happened and he barely supported him, so lost was Isshin in his own grief. He was always better with the girls, but even Yuzu and Karin are more grown up than they should be for girls of their age.

He’ll deal with that later. His food is getting cold.

* * *

Once Ichigo is out the door, Shinji turns to Urahara.

“So. That went well.”

“I thought you said he was having trouble with his hollow. Not that he was about to turn everything on its ear.”

“I didn’t know,” Urahara defended, snapping his fan shut and pacing away from Shinji. “Yoruichi said that it almost took over during his fight with Kyoraku. She said she had to knock him out to get him out of the situation, before things got really bad. The mask was half formed and he was healing from a cut on his shoulder.”

“Well he didn’t need our help after all. And now he’s pissed, and I’ve got questions for ‘im,” Shinji crossed his arms over his chest. “Like how the hell he managed to just have a conversation with a fuckin’ hollow!”

“You think I don’t want to know the answers too?” Urahara frowned at him from over his shoulder. “This could be a turning point. If he went about it a different way that opens so many more possibilities. But now he’s being puppy guarded by those strange friends of his.”

“Yeah,” Shinji frowns. “Who are they? What are they? They sure as shit ain’t human.”

“I’m not sure. I think it has something to do with Ichigo being a mage, but he’s not a very forthcoming boy when it comes to mage craft. Some rule that says he has to kill you if he tells you.”

“That’s one’a the weirdest things about ‘im. Since when can someone be a mage and a shinigami?”

“I’m beginning to think that impossible things follow Ichigo around like a shadow. Do you know what he said when he was going to save Rukia? That he didn’t need to bring his friends because he would make some there. And you know what he did?”

“He turned half the officers of the 13 on their own superiors. Ya said somethin’ about that earlier.”

“Yes. He’s a very unusual boy.”

Kisuke flicked his fan back open and looks down at the pale paper. “I’ve made many mistakes with him, Shinji. He shouldn’t trust me. He shouldn’t even talk to me, at this point, but this was the first place he brought you for this little fight.”

“Weird guy,” Shinji says idly. He’s never seen Kisuke so out of sorts, all over a not-so-human boy who’s rapidly turning the world over on its heels. Shinji can’t tell if he’s afraid or excited about what going to happen in the future.

“Tomorrow, after school, I’m gonna try to bring Ichigo around to meet the others. I wanna see what Hiyori makes of ‘im.”

“You mean besides a punching bag?”

Shinji snickers at the image. “I’m not sure I’d put my money on our girl in that case.”

* * * *

Ichigo wakes up in Avalon again.

He’d in Merlin’s lap, his cheek resting on the mages fine robes. He blinks a few times and finds he’s not alone. Again, two spirits sit across from him, but the charged energy of secrets is gone, leaving shoulders loose and muscles relaxed. Be it Neive or Zangetsu, they’ve both calmed considerably.

“What’s going on?” Ichigo asks, slowly sitting up. Merlin lets him go willingly.

It’s Zangetsu who starts talking, which is interesting since the last time they were here Ichigo practically had to pull his teeth out to get him to open up.

“Why am I still here?”

“...huh?”

“You woke up last time. I thought I would have disappeared when you knew I wasn’t your real Zanpakutou. Why am I still here?”

“Because you’re still mine?” Ichigo honestly isn’t sure why they’re even having this conversation. “He’s my zanpakuto and you’re my quincy power. I’m not very good at the bow so you’re stuck being a sword. Deal with it.”

Zangetsu gapes at him like a fish while Neive howls with laughter.

“Although,” Ichigo adds. “I need a better way to distinguish the two of you. He’s already Neive, but if he’s actually Zangetsu you can’t be just Zangetsu anymore. So… Tensa. Like the Bankai.”

“Like the one you barely even use?” Neive asks dryly while he wipes a tear from his eye.

“Hey! I was totally ready to use it to save Rukia! But nothing else has really happened since then! Even Hirako was just interested in the mask.”

“Besides, isn’t it always better to keep a card in your back pocket? Now the only people who know about our Bankai, or what it was before now, is Yoruichi and Renji. And probably Urahara, by extension.”

“Then you will call me that?” Zangetsu -Tensa- asks.

Ichigo nods with finality. “Tensa and Neive. Both parts of me. Both parts of Zangetsu.”

“You know,” Tensa begins, “Now that you’re going to be training your quincy powers, your fighting style may change further.”

“I would think so,” Ichigo says flatly. “But what exactly were you thinking?”

Tensa taps his fingers along his thigh. “It might not work in the human world, but the next time we’re in Seireitei I’ll let you know.”

“Fair enough,” Ichigo nods at him, before he finally turns to Merlin.

“Don’t you have better things to do than drag me into your garden every night?” he jokes, even though he quietly appreciates it. He much prefers Avalon to fire and death and decay.

Merlin sniffs at him. “Unappreciative cur. I should banish you.”

“That’s the most bullshit old english thing you’ve ever said!” Ichigo shouts and tackles him into a cloud of flowers. Neive laughs loudly behind them while the pair of mages, one grand and one poor, tussle in a bouquet.

* * * * *

There’s a magic book breaking into buildings and killing people. There’s a famous author who looks like a child trying to solve the problem.

They can’t beat the book, because it’s not physically able to be beaten in the state it’s in. Or something. Ichigo’s not sure he understands what he was talking about, but the end result is that he gives the book a name.

Alice.

And all of a sudden the book is not a book, but a little girl clutching a tome of fairy tales to her chest. Her hair is white and her eyes are pink, and she’s absolutely tiny.

Ichigo grabs Mash by the should hard to keep her from going in fighting.

“No!” he snaps, dragging her back a step.

Mash’s brows furrow. “Master, this is the tome that was attacking people…”

“I know but…” he can’t let her hurt a kid. Besides. “Anderson said she wasn’t trying to kill anyone. She was looking for a master so she could take a human form. And I mean, I’m right here.”

Ichigo steps towards the girl, past Mash’s safety and the protection that might be provided by Anderson. He walks slowly, with his hands up so he won’t scare her.

Even if she could probably kill him, he doesn't want to frighten the girl.

“Hey there,” he says quietly. “I’m Ichigo Kurosaki. It’s nice to meet you Alice. Are you feeling better, now that you’ve got your own two hands?”

He waits for her hesitant nod.

“Would you like to come with us?” he asks. “You were looking for a master, right? Well I’m afraid I’m the only one in the city.”

He offers her his hand.

Slowly, so slowly, she places her own tiny hand in Ichigo’s larger, calloused one.

Ichigo picks her up gently into his arms, the fight forgotten. She hadn’t killed any of the people she’d attacked, which helps him justify this beyond him having a soft heart. He just can’t stand the idea of hurting a little girl. Or any little kid. He wants to protect Anderson too, even if he is a bit of an arrogant brat.

“Man, I hope Jekyll has a couple more rooms free,” Ichigo muses with a grin. Mash shakes her head at him.

“Master really does collect any strays he sees,” she says halfheartedly. “I’m sure Dr. Jekyll will find a place for everyone.”

“Good thing he’s not the type to yell.” The other personality though…

Well. Ichigo could handle Hyde if it came to it.

* * * * *

#Ichigo Kurosaki #bleach fanfiction #BAMF!Ichigo Kurosaki #Ichigo Kurosaki is Ritsuka Fujimaru #Merlin Fate/Grand Order #medusa fate grand order #cu chulainn #hirako shinji #Urahra Kisuke #Achilles #nursery rhyme (fate)

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