#any of the other three would obviously be powered up immensely by wearing shorts over sweatpants

[razorblade180]

interdimensional dads 5 (Finale)

Orange, Blue, and Purple all make a drum roll on the table as they stare at Red, who is sipping coffee and trying not to laugh at the lunacy that is quite literally, himself.

Jaune: Y’all dome?

*drum roll stops*

Jaune:Yep, your turn. You have to be the buffest for a reason right?

Jaune:And look like you’ve seen shit?

Jaune:We’ve all been through shit. We’re us!

Jaune:Yeah, but you’re you.

Jaune:How- I’m not arguing with that one. Okay, my turn. Since you brought it up, we, I gained weight for a little bit and eventually got back into a workout routine. I might’ve went a little overboard but no one complains.

Jaune:Alright, now we can back this story up and start from wherever you like.

Jaune:Aight, I guess I start with my universe beating Salem. By that point, Ruby and I had been together for awhile. I think we were always together to a degree ever since RNJR formed. We obviously didn’t actually say anything but the time we spent felt different. At least for me it did. Maybe mourning Pyrrha had something to do with it but by the time Yang and Weiss showed up at Haven, Ruby and I were definitely on “friendly terms”

Jaune:Aaaaayyyyeeee!

Jaune:You two are too much. Haha, let him continue.

Jaune:We were trying to keep it lowkey but I’m sure everyone knew. Back to Salem, that was insane. If you were to tell me I’d help save the world when I was only 19 then I’d laugh.

Jaune:Wait...19? I was twenty.

Jaune:Same.

Jaune: I was 21! Are you saying Ruby beat Salem at 17!? That’s insane! Which one of us has the strongest versions of our friends? I never thought about it until now.

They all got silent and thought about it for a moment. That was a very good question.

Jaune:Ummm mysterious voice? Do you have an answer to that?

[Each person varies, but a majority is between Orange and Red. For example, Orange has the strongest Blake, while Red has the strongest Sun.]

Jaune:What about in terms of team RWBY?

[The feats in all universes make that a close race. Red, Orange, and Blue have extremely powerful Yangs that would most likely in a brutal draw. Collectively, the strongest team RWBY would be a tie between Red and Orange]

Jaune:Makes sense, my worlds peaceful.

Jaune:And mine doesn’t have any organized threat against it, just the dangers of living in a world trying to grasp the concept magic and gods again.

Jaune:Well we might not have a concrete answer but I’m sure my wife beats your Ruby. After beating Salem we continued traveling the world to thin out grimm threats, just the two of us. Not that the others didn’t want to but they needed a moment to breathe. Ruby and I however, we were kinda on a high of being the heroes we always dreamed of.

Jaune:Your victory lap was more adventure? Yeah you’re definitely built different from me. My Ruby went on missions but even she took a minute just to breathe. It was a very short minute, but the minute none the less.

[Comparing the two is like comparing an lone apex wolf to a jaguar.]

Jaune:Well then....all of that sounds scary.

Jaune:It wasn’t long before we got a house together. Built it actually, in Vacou. It’s a nice little spot over looking the town and another one in the distance. When Ruby was 19 she had really gotten into her stride and was only getting started. Also, I married her. I had known for awhile that she was the one so why wait? I wanted to go on all of her adventures and create new ones with her.

Jaune:Aaaaawwwww

Jaune:Things were like walking on sunshine. All of Remnant knew about Ruby Rose, the huntress that saved the world with her friends. Then at 21, I got her pregnant. *scratches head*

Jaune:I know that scratch. That’s the “My bad” scratch!

Jaune:Okay, it wasn’t exactly planned. I was thrilled when I found out since I did want kids with her. I learned a month after she knew though because she wasn’t sure what to think at first. Ruby was perfectly happy being the hero, she hadn’t even hit her prime yet technically. When she told me though, it was after she had talked about it with Tai and thought about it. I think she might’ve been happier than me.

Jaune:My Ruby would give anything to have a kid.

Jaune:Mine would give anything for her husband back...

The mood suddenly got a little less cheery with that statement.

Jaune:Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.

Jaune:It’s fine...this next part....isn’t happy. It’s the reason I fell out of shape, and partly the reason why I look like I’ve gone through shit.

Jaune:Oh....no...

Jaune:You lost the baby?

Jaune:Yeah but uhhh, not the way you’re thinking. The pregnancy was fine, the birth was a little rough but it was fine. A little baby boy, Dustin Arc-Rose. I saw him for about five minutes and then he was stolen, by Neo and Cinder. I must’ve ran the fastest I’ve ever had that day. Faster than even Ruby can move on a good day, and yet they got away. Yang, Weiss, and I stood on the roof of that hospital and watched the airship fade into the sunset. I must’ve stayed up there for hours, screaming. Yang and Weiss kept it together for my sake but not by much.

Jaune:Dude I am....I am so sorry that you went through that.

Jaune:We showed mercy to Cinder the day we beat Salem. It came back to bite us. Things fell apart after that. I shutdown, the others felt guilty, especially Yang. As for Ruby, she broke a little. She looked longer than anyone else for a lead and drowned herself in work for about a year. In that time we didn’t talk, I never knew where she was, if she’d come back. Tai ended up taking me to live with him and unfortunately, time wasn’t gonna wait for anyone. Lives had to be lived, Yang and Blake still had to get married. It just didn’t happen with Ruby.

Jaune:How did you even find the strength to keep going after that?

Jaune:In my world, Yang is my closet friend. Thick as thieves, the two of us always try to pick each other up. She never hesitated to be by my sad whenever I asked. I don’t think I could’ve made it without her since Ruby was gone. One day however, the two of them showed up out of the blue. Ozpin had decided to confront Ruby. For once I was glad he meddling in our lives. He got her to start moving on and come back to me. That day I realized how special my friends are. Most people would’ve looked down on me for failing, not going after Ruby, breaking down, but not them. They wanted me back on my feet for my own sake. Just like they wanted for her. I’m really blessed.

Jaune:That’s good. Friendships that you want to live for, I’m glad we wall have that in common.

Jaune:Yeah. Ruby and I took some time to be together after that. No work, no leads, just healing. In that year she was gone, Ruby had become a juggernaut in the huntsman community. Even got a nickname, The Storyteller. Keeping up with someone like that meant getting back into shape. Those months we spent together gave us a slither of the joy we had missed. Eventually, thanks to Yang having her child, we found the courage to try having another one. Her name is Carmine and she’s my gorgeous daughter. We even have another son much later named Garnet.

The other three Jaune’s clap happily.

Jaune:Yeah, that’s definitely a lot of shit to go through.

Jaune:Hats off to ya.

Jaune:How’s Carmine?

Jaune:*puts head on the table* Uuuugggghhh!

Jaune:Yeah, that’s sound you make when you have a headstrong daughter. Who does she take after?

Jaune:That’s just it, she doesn’t really. Not in personality anyways. Carmine is a bit weird socially. She can be pretty blunt, making her sound rude. She doesn’t mind having friends but at the same time keeps them at arms reach. She says they would slow her down. Not to mention her and Ruby’s vision of what a huntress should be doesn’t match up perfectly so they end up butting heads on occasion. Still, Carmine is sweet if you know how to talk to her and understand her words.

Jaune:She gifted?

Jaune:*inhales*....Carmine is genius in battle. We taught her ourselves and sent her to regular school so she gained a bit of social skills. No one outside of selected few knows she has silver eyes. Carmine wears red contacts typically. New types of grimm pop up regularly so Cinder is obviously alive and well. Can’t be too careful.

Jaune:Sounds stressful. I’d rather deal with cult and my world’s grimm problem than Cinder. How old is Carmine?

Jaune: She’s 17 and more impressive than Ruby was at that age if I’m being honest. Though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. We’ve done our best to give her a normal childhood as much as possible. I think what we gave was an odd mix of normal and insanity.

Jaune:Honestly, same.

Jaune:What do you mean Carmine is more impressive? Ruby was awesome since day zero at Beacon.

Jaune:Silver eye use, age five.

......

Red took a sip of his coffee while everyone tried to wrap that around their head.

Jaune:Since a young age, I knew Carmine was special. She has a difficult time showing up but she loves the Remnant we’re trying to build and the people in it that want to do good. I’ve seen her look out over cities before and I could feel the immense desire she had to preserve it. That girl has a strength I don’t think I could take credit for. That stern look, height, hair, and guitar skills though, That’s me. The tipsy of her hair are red though. She’s like a half ripe strawberry, hahaha.

Jaune:Sounds like an incredible girl. Must be pretty popular.

Jaune:If she could come off a bit nicer she would! I’d give up Pumpkin Pete’s for life if this kid could learn to work well with others. I’m glad people like her cousin and a couple of others that can deal with her. It’s not all bad. They know to bring out the normal teenager with her.

Jaune:Is she like Ruby and panics at rats?

Jaune:No, but she can’t deal with spiders. We have grimm spiders that are actually terrifying and that ruined normal spiders with her too.

Jaune:Grimm spiders? How big? A boot size?

Jaune:SUV....one spun her in a web. It was really bad.

Jaune:Fuuuuuuck that! I’d hate spiders too!

Jaune:Yeah but she has fun. Ballet, sleep, horses, etc. You just have to get her to work up to it.

Jaune:What about your son?

Jaune:Garnet? He’s five, has fat cheeks, and is probably eating some dry cereal right about now. He’s Ruby’s little teddy bear and is chillin. He’s probably the only thing that makes Carmine a big softie at the drop of a hat.

Jaune:Sounds like you’re doing pretty well for yourself? That’s good.

Jaune:We have struggles but we make things work somehow.

Jaune:I still can’t believe Cinder killed your kid. I don’t think I’d ever recover.

Jaune:Lost....we lost a kid. Killed wouldn’t be the right word. Dustin...just isn’t....it’s complicated. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Jaune:Sorry.

Jaune:It’s fine. That aside, I think most things life throws at us, we’ll handle just fine.

Jaune:What do you think Carmine is up to right now?

Jaune:Good question. I don’t think she’s on any mission or working with local authorities currently. If it’s morning then she’s in the garden. Playing with Garnet if it’s the afternoon so he’ll tired out. If it’s night time then.....

xxxx

“STAY AWAY!!!” A man screamed, shooting four bullets down a dark alley in the middle of the night. His target, a pair of shimmering red eyes that patiently stalked him from the shadows as he sprinted away. Each bullet seem to go right by his target so he continued running for his life, making a sharp right turn around a corner.

“You know eventually I’m going to catch you right?” Carmine said as she walked. “I’d rather you not make this longer than it has to be Tommy. We could be done by now if you just spoke to me.”

The only response the girl received was the sound of footsteps getting further away and a chain link fence being shook. Carmine sighed and looked around her before picking up a trash lid. She hurled it against a wall to her left and that was ahead in front of her, making it bounce off towards the right. The hunk of metal made its way around the corner with a whack! Followed by a heavy thump that hit the ground. Carmine continued walking until she turned the corner and found her target on the ground. He was rubbing his back in pain and groaning.

“Come on, I know I didn’t hit you that hard. The new head of crime orginization wouldn’t go down so-”

Suddenly the brute lunged at her, revealing a previously concealed dagger. Carmine was quick to react however, and grabbed his wrist before the blade could make contact with her exposed stomach. Carmine then twisted his hand down word and forced his entire arm slam down to the groun; the blade pierced the ground at her feet. Thick yellow liquid secreted from blade and soaked the ground.

Tommy felt his stomach dropped as he looked up to see the young girl staring down at him unimpressed. He went to reach for the knife but Carmine placed her boot on his hand, hard.

“Gah!”

“See? Now that’s what I was expecting. Too bad you’re not so good with knives. I guess you figured you didn’t have to be when it had Deathstalker venom in it huh? Now... let’s talk.”

Carmine rubbed her foot into the ground, causing Tommy to grit his teeth in pain.

“Stop!” He pleaded. “You’ll break it!”

“It won’t break if you talk fast enough. Tell me what I want to hear. A month ago you weren’t in charge. A tubby guy was and he always kept crates of his equipment in a warehouse outside of town. Then someone apparently shows up to have a meeting, tubby is enraged and kicks them out. Now he’s dead and you’re in charge, moving all of his stuff after you had a meeting. Are you getting the picture I’m painting?”

Tommy’s face goes pale. He starts struggling harder to free himself but it’s not working. Carmine can see the man start to sweat as if he got caught in the rain.

“Now I know what you’re thinking, if you tell me who obviously threatened you to move the crates, then they’ll kill you. But that’s the thing about the future Tommy...”

Carmine lifts her foot and swings it right into his face. She watches Tommy hold is face in pain before rolling him over and putting her knee on his back. Carmine grabs the knife and spooks him by stabbing it beside his face.

“It happens later. Focus on the present. Focus on what I could do to you right now and how to prevent that. Then you can think about your future.” Carmine said, not an ounce of playfulness in her voice.

“I....I....w-well I-”

“Before you try lying to me, I know how Deathstalker venom works. Only the babies are venomous and those are extremely hard to find here. Admittedly I don’t know you well but I know your men. They don’t have the patience or brains to find any here, because there aren’t many. So you either got the venom for this knife by being very diligent, going to a different continent, or someone got you the critters.”

Carmine leaned in close, barely away from his ear. “Or should I say made you some, instead of gathering them? Tommy, where is Cinder Fall?”

Tommy felt like he could vomit at any second. He couldn’t let intel leak. He sold his soul to a witch and now he has to live with it. “I....I can’t say.” He whispered, his lip trembling.

“I see. The fear is too much for you. Should’ve chose a different line of work. Maybe you’ll change your tune if you learn to fear me more?” Carmine grabbed the knife. “This won’t kill you but I doubt it’ll feel good either.”

Carmine lifted the knife and held is hand in place. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. She tried asking nicely. “Sorry....”

“CARMINE!” A loud voice echoed through the alleyways and made the people in it freeze. Tommy tilted his head up and got goosebumps. On the roof was a person everyone knew and criminals wish to avoid. Ruby Rose, he hadn’t seen her in person before. The woman’s cloak covered the area as she jumped down gracefully.

With no noise, her heels hit the ground and stood before the pinned man. Her piercing silver eyes borrowed into him and her long hair blew out of her face by the alley draft. Tommy’s back freed of Carmine’s knee and the young girl raised him to his feet. While Ruby’s expression was calm and oddly inviting, Carmine still looked at the man annoyed. Time was valuable and he was wasting hers. He might’ve escaped the knife but now he was stuck between two women that could all but erase him.

“Y...You’re Ruby Ro-”

“I had this under control by the way.” Carmine cut him off. “Don’t see why you intervened.

“You had him terrified and about to wet his pants. That’s a bit much don’t you think?” Ruby put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “No need to be so intense.”

Carmine mimicked her mother’s gesture. “And we care about the state of people like him why? Lackeys and gang bangers with too much ego have no right to be coddled when they’re rotting the city away from the underbelly. People like that might as well disappear.”

“Carmine that’s not how....” Ruby let out a long sigh and looked at Tommy. He was clearly trying his best to remain calm. “Sorry about her. You know teenagers, always intense in one way or another.” She let out an embarrassed chuckle.

Tommy flinched again when suddenly a burst of red petals spun around him. Next thing he knew, handcuffs were on him and his back was against the fence he tried to climb earlier. The pair of red and silver eyes stared him down from just out of the shadows. Yet he could still see Ruby’s more positive demeanor.

“I’m going to jail?” He groaned.

Ruby stepped towards him. “Depends, Tommy.” She reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “The thing is if you go to jail and I bring you in, Cinder will no doubt send someone to try and kill you. Truthfully, it’s not a bad outcome, for me. I’ll just attack your killer and get more info out of them then you most likely.”

“But...you’d stop them before they kill me, right?”

Ruby shrugged, “I can only go so fast. Who knows what could happen, Tommy. Can you take that chance, knowing you will be at the mercy of circumstances around you for gods know how long?”

“N...no” Tommy gulped.

“I mean I could let you run away right now like nothing happened, but any more meetings with Cinder would be absolute hell on your nerves because there’s no way you can keep this from her. What’s worse, you could fuck up and give us information accidentally overtime and then she’d really be mad because we’ll keep an eye on you as long as you’re doing things we don’t like; an unwilling pawn for both sides until someone knocks you off the board. How does that sound to you?” Ruby’s grip got a little tighter.

“Pr...Pretty bad-

“PRETTY BAD!?” Ruby shouted. “Tommy, you will not come out of this well. You’ll probably be dead within the month if I let you leave right now. So my question is what are you gonna do to save your own skin? Because I know what I would ask for in your situation.”

“What’s that?” He asked, almost desperate for his freedom

“I would spill my guts out to the hero because they would at least try to keep you safe if you behaved. Tell me what you know and I will personally take somewhere where you’ll have a fresh start with a new name, a new life that isn’t Illegal. You’ll still sleep with one eye open just to watch your own back but you also know there’s someone who is actively stopping the person who’d want you dead in the first place. Get off the chessboard Tommy. It sucks to be an expendable pawn.”

Tommy could feel her hand trembling. Was she...nervous? No, she was sympathetic. The way Ruby looked at him wasn’t to scare him. She was stating facts and didn’t want him being another statistic. This was the huntress everyone talked about. The one that gives lifelines and creates new endings where they shouldn’t be possible. The was Ruby Rose, the storyteller.

xxxx

Ruby holds up an envelope to the light before facing Carmine, the sound of waves rocking a boat behind them with Tommy in it. Ruby was a woman of her word. She’d take him somewhere safe.

“Here” she held out the envelop for Carmine. “Take it home, no need for me to lug it across the sea.” She waited for Carmine to say something, anything. The girl only nodded and took the thin piece of paper.

Carmine started to walk off but heard Ruby take a step towards her before stopping. She looked back to see her mother frowning, an expression they were both sharing. Ruby looked at her daughter with her emotions clear as day. It was weird to be eye level with her. Without heels, Ruby would be looking up. Carmine had gotten so big the last few years. It was hard not see her as still little.

“I...I know we don’t agree on certain things, and I also know you feel like I helicopter over you. I don’t do it because I don’t trust you or anything like that. Fact of the matter is...I’m your mother. If I can find a way to solve a problem without you doing something drastic, even if you’re willing to do it, then I’m gonna step in. Just because you’re willing to make the tough calls, doesn’t mean I won’t try to keep them away from you. They weigh people down and I don’t want that for you. You’re my daughter, I love you...”

Ruby always hated their fights. It’s why they don’t do missions together. No matter how strong Carmine is, she’ll always be Jaune and Ruby’s little girl. Truthfully, she didn’t hate it at all. Carmine hated arguing too, if not more.

“I get it mom, I do. Perhaps...I was a tad hasty tonight. Thanks for...showing up.” Carmine scratched her head in embarrassment. Since when did talking to her own mom get so rough. “I love you too.” There, she said it.

Ruby gave her daughter a gentle smile and opened her arms, hoping for a hug. She knew she might be getting a bit too mushy right now but unexpectedly, Carmine walked over and embraced it without question. Ruby wasn’t about to complain. Any affection was welcomed at all times when it came from Carmine. Ruby finally let her go and got one more look at her daughter. Time sure does fly.

“My beautiful girl. I saw the trash lid truck by the way, that was pretty badass.”

Carmine playfully rolled her eyes and opened the evelope. Ruby watched the girl read over the paper several times before handing it back. “Got it.”

Ruby’s eyebrows perked up in surprise. A shocked smile came soon after. “You’re-”

“Of course.” Carmine cut her off. She put her hands together and made a glowing red rose form between them. She placed the thing right behind her mother’s ear and smiled. “See you at home?”

“Yeah, I should be back before morning.”

“Good, I’ll have breakfast waiting for you then.” Ruby watch her daughter start to walk off before Carmine slowly blew away into red and yellowish rose petals.

“My oh my, that daughter of mine.” Ruby chuckled. “I can’t wait.”

xxxx

“Done.” Carmine said, rewriting the information down as she layed on the couch. On top of her was her adorable baby brother, fast asleep like he should be. She reached for a candle that lit the room and blew it out. All in all, not a bad night in the slightest. One step closer to their goal. One step closer to the end.

Part 4

Wanna start Rosebud < Part one is a click away.

[yodawgiherd]

The Preliminary Round

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Updating after such a long time feels kinda strange, but I did say that I want to continue, didn't I? Let's get to it then.

Eren did not spend many of his Friday evenings with a cheap beer in his hand in a packed stadium, staring at the metal cage in the middle. Then again, he never missed Mikasa’s fights, if he could help it, and today was one of the blessed days when he was free to enjoy it to the fullest. And it wasn’t a normal fight either, as the Colosseum tournament had officially begun.

It was immensely popular. With a big prize pool backed by several large sponsors, among other the company that Willy Tybur owned, every fighter wanted a piece of that pie. Because of the massive number of entries the organizers had to run preliminaries first. Meaning that fighters from same regions were pitted against each other, dueling for the opportunity to attend the finals in Vegas. The tournament was also special in the way that it had no restrictions. One didn’t have to be a pro to enter. There were no restrictions when it came to gender or weight, a thing that was not very balanced, but that’s how it was. There would be one winner, one champion of the Colosseum. No classes, no divisions. Which meant that Mikasa’s opponent today was a man, a high ranked MMA fighter, just like herself.

Mikasa had limited experience when it came to real fights with the opposite gender, apart from sparing with Levi or Eren, because the professional male fighters weren’t very keen to face off against her. Those who didn’t know her were afraid that she would get injured, those who knew her were afraid that she might injure them.

Taking a sip of that swill they called beer in here, Eren looked on as the fighters walked in the arena, being greeted by a roar of the crowd. The tournament officials were already there, pacing around with the Colosseum logo on the backs of their shirts. They were present just for a quick checkup of the fighters because while there were next to no rules, some still applied. The completely basic stuff, like no weapons or metal in the cage, no groin punches and so on. The raven-haired beauty he knew so well climbed into the cage first, warming up with air-punches. The man followed soon after, stretching. He was a beast, and seeing him now, locked in the cage with Mikasa, towering over her, it made Eren’s heart beat just a little bit faster with worry. But it was Mikasa, this was what she loved doing, and Eren would never even try to stop her from doing it. Taking a seat, he took another sip and did the only thing he could right now. He watched.

Almost all of the advantages were in her opponent’s court. As a male, his upper body was stronger by default, but that was far from all. Mikasa was tall, but he was taller than her and far heavier, his body was massively muscled as opposed to Mikasa’s leaner form. Worst of all, he was a pro, just like she was, meaning that he wouldn’t waste his strength or do mistakes one could try to abuse in an untrained fighter. Just from his stance, Mikasa could say that he was aware of his strength. Tight, with both hands raised to protect his head, he had a basic yet effective boxing one, and this guy was undoubtedly a heavyweight. Any straight punch from those fists would hurt like hell, possibly throwing her off her balance long enough for the guy to follow up with a K.O.

She knew herself, intimately, she knew her own strength. Mikasa had honed her body to its utmost limits and beyond, stretching both her physical ability and the control she had over it far beyond what normal people achieved. Yet to put it short, she was still incredibly outmatched. Even with all that training, this was a David versus Goliath match, and she was the David here. To make matters worse, she forgot her slingshot at home and had to take Goliath in close combat. With her fists. Oh yea.

Most fighters would get overwhelmed by these facts. To fight not only the physically stronger gender but also a specimen that was this far out of one’s weight class was insane, crazy, no one of their right mind would try that. Too bad Mikasa Ackerman was not most fighters. She could hardly hide her excited grin. This matchup was amazing, as she would have to push her limits to win, to overcome obstacles and climb that impossible mountain. Taking her stance, Mikasa readied herself as much as she could, already plotting a strategy inside her head. Strength was not the answer here, there was no way she would prevail in a contest of brute might. Mikasa was aware of her limits - she was strong, stronger than most people, but this man before her was not an ordinary human. Speed and technique, those were the paths she needed to take. Mikasa’s whole body was yearning for this, the sound of the crowd disappearing beneath the rush of blood in her ears, the icy calm that Levi taught her taking over. Yet there was still a sound that broke through, ringing inside her brain.

The bell.

Her opponent moved almost immediately, rushing over the distance between them and firing off a dangerous straight right-handed punch. Mikasa danced to the left, dodging, only to be met with an uppercut from his left hand. Instincts kicking in, she stepped closer, shortening the distance his fist traveled and thus greatly lowering the strength of the hit. It still forced a grunt from her when it connected with her midriff, clenching her abdominals against the pain. But there was a trade-off for this, as she was now right in his face with both of his hands occupied, meaning she could rain righteous punishment down on the heathen. Two quick jabs and a right hook made him stagger back in retreat. Mikasa might have been smaller and weaker than this beast, but she was still unnaturally strong when compared to normal human standards and when her fists found their mark, it hurt like a bitch. Pursuing her target, she landed another good straight punch before being forced to jump back from the defensive spinning back fist. That one would probably knock her out if he landed it.

Taking advantage of this tiny break this created between them, she sized up her opponent once more, seeing a new light of respect in his eyes. It's one thing to hear about a prodigy female fighter, its another to face her in the ring and feel just how good she was on his own skin. They circled each other again, slower now, trying to find gaps in the armor. Mikasa didn’t try to match his jabs, knowing that hers would not be useful even if they landed. She needed full punches, and for that, she needed to be closer. Kicks could also work, as her legs were definitely strong enough, but those required more wind-up and could be countered, so she would need a bigger opening to do one. Creating those and getting closer meant getting into his range, and if she would ever get grabbed, the match was over. Now if she could bait it….

It took the perfect footwork, step-in followed by almost immediate duck backwards, but she did it, made him reach out and grab the air where she was standing just a fraction of a second ago. Hands uselessly stretched forward, he couldn’t block the devastating kick Mikasa planted right into his ribs. Pursuing her advantage, she pressed on, feinting a straight punch that made him raise his hands, hoping to block her. But the real attack was the powerful overhead that Mikasa threw her whole body into, punching hard into her opponent’s upper thigh, completely running his balance. It wasn’t enough to plant him in the ground, as she hoped, but it gave her several good hits in before he recovered, wearing her opponent out. That combined with the way she dodged his counter hit, which was both exhausting and frustrating, finally started wearing her opponent’s patience thin. Here, in the heat of the duel, she made her mistake. Underestimating the speed at which he could move, despite all the muscles, she pushed for one more punch in a created opening, just one more than the safe number was, and got hard punished for it. Rushing forward, he shot one, two, three lightning-fast jabs, and even with Mikasa dodging them all he backed her into a corner. The straight punch was incredibly well-placed and with tremendous strength behind it, flying true. Mikasa blocked it, of course she did, but that almost didn’t matter. The force of it alone lifted her off her feet, throwing her back against the bars of the cage. Ears ringing, the air pushed out of her lungs, she gasped, trying to get her body back into control. It was only the years of training that saved her then, as she unconsciously ducked underneath the follow-up punch, dropping down on the ground and rolling away. Just in time too, as he viciously stomped the ground where she was, looking to finish the match as soon as possible.

Coming back to her feet, Mikasa shook her head, clearing the fog that shadowed her brain from that punch. A single hit and it was almost enough to end her, the man before her was truly a beast. Her constant attacks from before did bear fruit, however, as he was also breathing hard, his steps slower and favoring his left leg, the one she didn’t hit with that overhead just a short time ago. The cogs inside her brain were working hard, looking for a way to turn this into her advantage. He was tired, obviously, looking to end this as fast as he could, one last attack that would put her on the ground. Which meant, he was more open to some subtle manipulation. It was a gamble, of course, but Mikasa saw a chance and decided to seize it. Dropping her hands just a tiny bit, feinting a tired stumble, she opened herself up to an attack, presenting her opponent with an exquisite bait. And he took it.

Rush forward, hands ready to grab her, to put her in a hold she would never break free of. One last attack to end this whole bout, which would have worked if used on anyone else but Mikasa. He was fast, but she was faster. Like a blur, she dropped low, very low, sliding into her enemy and planting her feet firmly on the ground, wide apart. The move itself reached such a speed that the only part of her Eren’s eyes could track was the red streak in her hair. As expected, the massive man practically tripped over her, doubling over when her shoulder smacked into his lower abdomen, and for a fraction of a moment his upper body was practically resting on her back while continuing its original trajectory. Which was just the perfect time to strike. Like a steel coil, her body straightened, adding its strength to the considerable kinetic energy he generated while rushing forward, and with their power combined Mikasa practically smashed her opponent into the cage behind her, the steel creaking loudly when the massive mass crash-landed into it.

This perfectly executed strike that used his own strength and weight against him would be enough to knock out almost anyone, yet the man still stirred, trying to find his footing. Not like Mikasa would ever let him do that. Jumping her fallen target, she wrapped her legs around his neck, taking hold of one of his arms and leaning back, she put him into an improvised hold she designed herself, one that was a strange combination of an armbar and a choke. It was far from perfect and could only be done because her whole body was so strong, all her muscles worked in perfect unison to accomplish the task. He still fought back, the massive body beneath her bulging with all its strength when he tried to throw her off, but she held on like a vice. Increasing the pressure on his neck, squeezing hard, Mikasa knew that his air supply was decreasing, she had to hold on just a little longer, a second, then two, three.

The look on her face was one of perfect concentration, Eren saw, teeth clenched, eyes focused on her thrashing enemy, it was obvious she was giving this duel her all. And it was necessary, as the man kept fighting, trying, again and again, to get up, to throw off the snake that was choking him out. He punched her with his free hand, but it didn’t reach any vital parts and the pain was nothing. Finally, after what felt impossibly long considering that his breathing was restricted the whole time, he raised his hand not to hit her, but to tap the ground in the official gesture of surrender. It was over.

Eren didn’t even realize that he was standing the whole time, but his voice was one of the first that began cheering, screaming in wild abandon. Soon he was joined by many others, the arena celebrating Mikasa’s victory in the most primal way – chanting her name. The raven-haired fighter herself was lying down in the cage, chest heaving, spent and exhausted. It took her several tries to get up, but she managed in the end, raising her hands towards the crowd that was giving her the loud support. Even among all the people, her eyes found Eren’s and she gave him a slight wink. Her opponent also stood up, cracking his neck before approaching Mikasa from behind. For a terrible moment, Eren was scared that he was going to attack her, that he would not stand for the fact of being defeated by her, that she knocked him out of the tournament in the first round. One of his monstrous hands reached out and Eren’s heart practically stopped. But he did nothing of the sorts. Instead, he lightly tapped on Mikasa’s shoulder, getting her attention and then hunching down to say something to her. Understandably, with the distance and the screaming crowd, Eren had no idea what he said, but it made Mikasa’s eyes widen as she blinked a few times, shocked. Patiently, the man repeated the question, and this time got an answer, as Mikasa shook her head and said something back, making him grimace lightly. Not pushing the issue, the fighter nodded in respect before turning around and leaving the cage, letting the victor bask in the adoration of the masses. Hell, it was well deserved.

When she disappeared towards the backstage, Eren made his way down from the seating area, waiting for her to emerge. Levi was there too, he noticed, talking with the manager of the defeated fighter. Just as Eren drew closer, the two apparently came to some conclusion and shook hands, parting after. Maybe he could make some small talk with Mikasa’s brother then while waiting.

“Hey.”, he got Levi’s attention, “How did you like the match?”

The dark eyes, so similar to his fiancé’s swung to him. After a short while, Levi nodded in greeting.

“It was fine.”, he answered with the usual cool in his voice.

“Just fine? Come on, Mikasa was amazing.”

There was a short period of silence from the shorter man, before he, to Eren’s surprise, agreed.

“You are correct. She was exquisite.”

“Did you expect her to win like this?”, Eren went on.

“I’ll admit, I had my doubts.”, Levi’s eyes dropped back towards the cage, most likely replaying the fight in his head, “The man is high ranked in UFC, and the physical differences between him and Mikasa are…. staggering. Yet she pulled through.”

“It felt close though.”

“Surely was. If he got out of the choke at the end it would be over. Same for a good grab at any part of the match. Mikasa could never match him in grappling.”

“Do you think that he underestimated her because she is a girl?”

Levi shook his head resolutely.

“No, definitely not. His manager knew exactly what kind of threat Mikasa is so I can’t imagine he wouldn’t tell his fighter that.”

“A threat huh?”

The dark eyes were back, measuring him.

“A severe one.”

And there that dangerous individual was, walking out of the backstage. When she spotted them, a tired smile spread across her lips and she came closer, accepting the hug Eren immediately offered her. It was the doctor in him that spoke out first, still a little bit worried for her after such a beatdown.

“You okay?”, he whispered gently, hands doing small circles on her back.

She answered with a nod.

“I’m fine, but the adrenaline in me died down, so I’m super worn out.”, a giggle, “ I almost fell in the shower.”

He would probably keep holding her forever if Levi didn’t clear his throat next to them, almost decently, letting them know that there is another person in hearing distance. And of course, to prevent them from doing something disgusting like kissing. Bleh.

“Hey brat.”, he said, looking for the right words, “You…. Ehm... You did well.”

Mikasa blinked a few times, unsure if she wasn’t hearing things.

“Err… Thanks…”

Levi took the liberty of breaking the awkward silence that followed.

“Right then. Get rested, and we go back to training as usual. The preliminaries are far from over.”

And he was gone, ducking away into the crowd that still lingered in the arena.

“Did he just congratulate me?”, she asked, still a bit in shock.

“It’s not such a novelty anymore.”, Eren noted, “He’s growing soft in his old age.”

“Still feels nice to hear it.”

“Well, you deserve it for sure.”

Returning to the matter at hand, which was taking care of his exhausted warrior girlfriend, Eren went on.

“You want to go to eat somewhere or….”

There was a tiny scrunch of her nose, an easily missable thing, but Eren had a PhD.  in the art of knowing the subtle Ackerman ticks.

“Or we could just order take-out…”

The scrunch was still there.

“Or I could cook something up when we get home?”

The scrunch was gone, replaced by a tiny smile.

“I’d like that.”

It became apparent just how exhaust she is when while walking to a car, Mikasa stumbled and Eren had to catch her, a thing that was incredibly rare for a person that could control her body in a way she did.

“Are you sure that you’re okay?”, he asked again, but she nodded vehemently.

“Yes, I’m fine. I just had to utilize literally every muscle of my body, so I’m getting some negative feedback there.”

Just to be sure, Eren kept a hand around her shoulders before they reached the car. Once they were seated, he turned the ignition on, heading home.

“That guy was a monster.”, he commented once they joined the highway.

“Can’t agree more.”, she nodded, slumping bonelessly in the shotgun seat, “I might have won, but I feel like a train had run over me.”

“Don��t worry, I’ll get you home. Safe and sound.”

She made a satisfied noise at that, too tired to speak. But there was still one thing that kept bouncing around in Eren’s skull, so clearing his throat, he continued the conversation.

“What did he say to you?”

She looked up, eyebrow arched.

“Huh?”

“After the match, he said something to you. What was it?”

“Oh right.”, she smiled, leaning her head back into the soft hug of the passenger’s seat. “He congratulated me and wished me luck in the tournament. He was actually a really nice guy, I did not see it coming. Oh, and he also asked me out.”

Now it was Eren’s eyes that widened.

“He did what?”

“Asked me out on a date. He said that when he first heard around me, he had certain doubts, but now that we fought he regrets ever not believing the rumors. And would like to get to know me better.”

“And uuh..”, Eren had a bit of a hard time focusing on the road now, throwing a quick look sideways at her, “What did you say?”

Her smile was one of a satisfied cat.

“Is that jealousy I hear?”

“N-No…”

She laughed, filling the car with that pretty sound.

“Aw Eren, you don’t have to worry. I told him that I’m sort of engaged. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?”

Mikasa grinned even wider, not continuing in that train of thought, her goal accomplished. It felt good to win a difficult fight. It felt good to poke fun at her fiancé. Damn, today was one fine day.

All this training. All those days and nights spent at the gym, pushing herself past her limits. All the things she lost just so she could pursue this dream of victory. And this is what she gets to fight. A damn roleplayer. She was glad that the tournament finally started, because hell, it was about time, but at least It could provide her with a challenge. Wasn’t it supposed to be the best of the best? Oh well, it was time to thin out the weeds first.

“Look,”, the man whispered under his breath, most likely trying to avoid the referee hearing, “you can give up if you want, they won’t hold it against ya.”

Annie didn’t respond, this guy wasn’t worth her breath. Her first round of preliminaries matched her up against an amateur wrestler, which meant that the guy was cocky as shit. That was just her luck, getting set with someone who will underestimate her because of what she was. Reiner got a good match, trading blows with a heavy-weight boxer until he got too tired and her gym buddy knocked him on his ass. Bert also had fun, going head to head with a judo grappler. But her? She got a stupid wrestler, all flashy with a short cape and a mask on his face. Costumes were allowed in the Colosseum, even encouraged, as long as they did not hide any weapons in them. They added to the hype of the matches, and that was what the whole tournament was about. But Annie wasn’t here to wear a costume, she was here to do one thing. Win.

Seeing that he was ignored, the wrestler shrugged and stepped back to his original position. Apparently, he was done showing mercy and Annie could not be more grateful. His voice was giving her headaches. Now that they were both ready, all that remained was the bell, which rung in.

3..2…1….

As soon as it rang, the guy moved in for a kill, his pride still hurting from that rude ignore Annie gave him. Reaching out, he tried to grab her and in a classic wrestling move and… She planted him into the ground in about two seconds, turning and walking away even before the referee called the match. This was boringly easy.

“Damn, you had it for him, huh?”, Reiner said as he joined her from the right, “Poor guy.”

“The training is paying off.”, Berthold added, closing in from the left, “I do hope that we won't meet in the next round.”

“If we do, you will at least be a challenge.”, Annie pointed out, getting a chuckle from both her sides.

“You don’t lack confidence, do you An?”

“Nope. I will win this thing and nobody will stop me. Not even you guys.”

Reiner exchanged a look with Bert. They both trained hard for this, but Annie was practically a religious zealot right now, all of her being was aimed at the single goal.

“Guess we’ll see about that.”

Annie nodded to that, once. In her mind, she was already preparing for the next fight, because there will be no rest until she is standing at the very top.

[xxpadfootxx]

🐾Late Night Murmurs🐾

A/N: Hey everyone! I finally got around to starting up this Tumblr account! Welcome to my first post here! I will start to post more of my works here more often and I will be taking requests so if you like what you see and would like to see more then please let me know! My rules and regulations are posted on this account if you have any questions! Also, this was supposed to be just a short little one-shot/drabble and then it turned into this... oh well, sorry it’s so long 😂Now, on to the IzuOcha stuff!

~~~

Izuku knew it was late. His eyes stung and he felt as if his brain was constantly short-circuiting but he needed to keep going. Glancing up at the clock on his wall, Izuku groaned, his hands rising to rub at his sore eyes and run through his hair. It was nearly three in the morning, and although Izuku knew he needed the sleep, he just couldn’t. The stress of the upcoming exams gnawing at him like a dog with a bone, preventing him from sleeping and making it difficult to focus. He felt the anxiety wash over him and it took everything in his power to keep from wanting to vomit. Leaning back in his chair, Izuku closed his eyes, tears building up under the lids as he felt his eyes stinging in relief. He didn’t know what to do. He had been studying for hours and yet everything still felt so jumbled and confusing, it was making him lose his mind. Throwing his pencil down onto the desk, Izuku placed his face in his palms, relishing in the small break he was giving himself as the stress continued to wear him down.

A small snore jolted him from his scrambled thoughts, causing him to turn around and glance at the girl sitting behind him. A small smile made its way to his face as he peered at his friend’s prone form, her eyes closed peacefully and her mouth slightly open as she lay sprawled out across his second desk, fast asleep.

Ochako had come sprinting up to Izuku earlier that day, panting heavily with a bright red face and alarmed eyes, her arms filled with a ton of books and papers, asking him desperately to help her out. She had seemed almost feverish at the time, her mind swirling and her hair messy as she explained her predicament. Ochako was very smart when it came to a lot of different subjects but the one she genuinely struggled with above anything else, was math. She had tried and tried to study for the mathematical exams that were going to be a part of the final test but she just couldn’t get it right, her mind obsessing over the smallest things that would change her answer astronomically. She had been on the brink of tears when she had asked Izuku for help, knowing he actually enjoyed math and never struggled with numbers. Izuku had been a bit stunned to see her this way, the normally cheerful yet collected young woman acting as if she had just been chased all over Japan by a villain, but had immediately accepted her plea for help, taking her to his room to help her study.

He watched her sleep now as her gentle snores got a little louder. She looked so peaceful now, so different from the hot mess he had been confronted with that morning, her face relaxed and her breathing normal. She had calmed down when he brought her back to his room, helping her set up at his desk and pouring over her work to see what she was doing wrong, but she had remained tense the entire time, her body ramrod straight and her knuckles had turned white with her grip on her pencil. His council had helped her relax just a little and he knew she was immensely grateful for his assistance, but he could see now just how much stress she had been under as he eyed her fully relaxed form.

He hated seeing her so distraught, she was always so joyful and kind that the sudden change in her mood had set him off balance. He decided that he never wanted to see her like that again as he watched her, the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders soothing his own torrent of stressful thoughts. She had been with him through thick and thin, ever since their first year at U.A. They were adults now, making their way through their third year at the esteemed hero school, but she still stuck with him. She had been his rock ever since they had met, battling beside him, holding him when he felt lost, consoling him, allowing him to shed his status as one of the most quickly promoted young heroes in Japan and just be Izuku Midoriya around her. She let him cry on her shoulder and let down his walls, to just be human. He had always held feelings for her but held them back. He may be climbing through the ranks rather quickly but she was not too far behind. After their first year at U.A., Ochako had worked harder than anyone, fighting tooth and nail to the top so that she too could stand beside the best of the best, unwilling to back down from the daunting task of chasing her dreams. He admired her so much for that, how she had taken something she was doing just to make sure her parents lived a happy life and dialed it up to eleven, choosing to be the best hero she could possibly be rather than choosing to settle as a sidekick. Both jobs would get her the money she needed to support her family, but it was her fiery determination that made Izuku feel so inspired by her.

He understood why she had been so freaked out earlier, she wanted so desperately to pass these exams, make it through one of the final hurdles to achieving her dreams. He knew that she considered this test to be one of the most important moments in her life and it made his heart clench to know that she had panicked over her own skill, her mind filling her heart with doubts about her own capabilities until she broke down, desperate to prove herself wrong, to make it through and make all of her hard work worthwhile. He felt the same in a way, although he felt pressured less because he doubted himself and more because he didn’t want to let everyone who had helped him get this far down. Just like her, his whole career rested on the shoulders of this exam and he couldn’t help but feel the same rising panic in his gut when he thought of it. But just like always, being with Ochako had helped him get a grip on himself, helped him to focus on the problem just like he always did. He hated seeing her with that look of panicked despair in her eyes, but he was happy that he was finally able to return the favor of comforting her when she ran up to him. Pride flashed through his heart as he thought about it. They had been friends for years and yet it still made him beam with glee when she came to him with her problems, that she trusted him enough to spill her insecurities to him and vice versa.

It was something they had started to do half-way through their second year at U.A. when Izuku had come to Ochako randomly one night to cry to her about a battle he had had with a villain during one of his work studies where he couldn’t save the life of a man that had been targeted during the fight. He hadn’t wanted to burden anyone with his problems but had no other place to go, so he had forced down his pride and embarrassment and asked if they could talk. The night had ended with them holding each other, his face pressed into her neck as she cuddled him, just letting him cry and release everything he felt inside of himself. She had just listened and comforted him, only interjecting to calm him down and praise him softly. After that moment, the two had been inseparable (much to the enjoyment of their teasing friends), always looking after one another, and watching each other’s backs both in and out of battle. Izuku’s feelings for the gorgeous young woman had only grown as their bond strengthened, their increasing age making it more and more difficult to ignore his feelings around her, but he held back. He didn’t want to interfere with the dream Ochako had worked so damn hard for, and on top of that, he did not want to ruin their seamless friendship with something as stupid as romantic feelings.

She stirred slightly before settling again, making Izuku snap out of his reverie for the second time that night and debate whether he should wake her or not. On the one hand, he knew she would have the worst back pain in the morning and knew she would be much better off spending the night in her own bed. But on the other hand, a small, selfish part of him liked seeing her in his room, her body relaxed as she slept away her worries. It made him feel light that she was so comfortable being around him. He glanced at the clock again and realized it was probably time to wake her and send her back to her own dorm. She was obviously dead tired and he didn’t want her to be teased in the morning if she was seen leaving his room when everyone else woke. Leaning forward, Izuku reached out to gently shake her awake when she groaned slightly. The sound trailed off into a small, adorable whimper that made his heart clench.

“Mmmm,” Ochako mumbled making Izuku chuckle a little. A few more incomprehensible words then fell from her lips, her nose twitching slightly.

“Trying…,” Ochako said in her sleep. Izuku watched her silently, he didn’t know her to be a sleep talker, but here she was, starting to form words and small phrases as she slept soundly.

“Forward.”

“No, don’t go over there…”

“Wait, come back…”

“Come here, I want to tell you something.”

She was just so beautiful. He smiled as his eyes trailed over her, keeping his gaze modest as he just stared at her in wonder. He knew that what he was doing was a little strange and he had no idea what he would do if she woke up right now and demanded an explanation from him, but she was just so captivating, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. She sighed and moved a little again, her fingers twitching slightly. It seemed like she was waking up, so Izuku backed away from where he had unknowingly leaned close to her face, and prepared to wake her up once more.

“Urm, I-Izuku?”

Izuku froze as his real name fell from her lips in a breathy tone. She never called him that, she had always reverted to using his nickname, Deku, when addressing him. He was almost disgusted with himself at how much his heart fluttered when she said his name.

“H-Hey Uraraka, are you awake? It’s really late, you should probably head back to your room.”

It took a while for her to respond, the silence seemed to almost pound on his ears. Izuku had no idea why he was so eager to hear her talk to him again, but he felt like he was going to explode if she didn’t say something soon. When the silence was finally too much for him, Izuku leaned over and placed a warm hand on her shoulder, his mouth opening to speak when she cut him off.

“Izuku, hmmm,” she moaned softly.

Izuku’s hand shot from her shoulder as if he had been burned, his cheeks burning a bright flaming crimson at her words. His mind struggled to grasp what was happening. He wasn’t naive or stupid when it came to women, he knew what those husky words meant despite never having heard them before, but he was struggling to get a grasp on his emotions. What the hell was he supposed to do!?

“I-Izuku,” her breath hitched slightly as she spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Izuku did a double-take, snapping out of his dazed mindset for a moment. He knew she wasn’t entirely awake and was probably in the middle of some dream but it still made him look at her incredulously at her words.

“What the hell do you have to be sorry for?” Izuku asked in a hushed whisper, leaning closer to her to hear her more clearly.

“I-I’ve failed you,” she muttered softly.

“What are you talking about!? You have not failed me! You will NEVER fail me, what is this?” Izuku said.

Ochako groaned again and shifted a little, her face scrunching up slightly, almost as if she were in pain.

“I’ve been holding you back.”

“What!? You have not been-”

“You’re so amazing, Izuku. I’ve always known that but what I haven’t known is how much you have been restraining yourself,” she mumbled.

“What’re you-?”

“You’ve been holding yourself back, all because of me. I have been keeping you from reaching your full potential. I didn’t see it before, how selfish I have been, keeping you for myself. But I see it now.”

“Uraraka-!”

“I’m so so sorry.”

“Stop apologizing!”

“You have such beautiful wings, Izuku. You don’t need me tying you down, you need to soar. You’re already such a fantastic hero, everyone loves you, and you need to be able to stay in that limelight,” Ochako said as she shifted again, her body curling into a ball slightly.

“Uraraka, you-!”

“I don’t deserve you. But I can’t live without you. All this time, I’ve been fighting and battling for the top spot without even realizing how much I was hindering your chances. You are the best hero and you deserve that spot. The last thing I want is to get in your way.”

Izuku opened his mouth to cut her off again but didn’t even get the first letter out before she spoke again, her voice choking up as a few small tears escaped from beneath her closed eyelids and ran down her cheeks. What he wouldn’t give to kiss those tears away.

“I-I want y-you to be free,” She whispered, more tears sliding down her face. “I want you to have a future and I know now that if you are to fully achieve your dreams, that future can’t have me in it.”

“No!” Izuku all but yelled. She still didn’t wake to his surprise, her nose merely scrunching up more and her eyes closing tighter, her whole body writhing in his desk chair.

“I will say this before we part though,” Ochako whimpered. “T-Thank you so much for being my best friend. My life would n-not have been the same without y-you.”

Tears streamed down his face as Izuku reached out to touch her shoulder again. He needed to wake her up now.

“I love you.”

Izuku’s whole body froze for the second time that night, a jolt of hot electric emotion skittering up his spine and biting at every nerve in his body. It honestly felt similar to when he would activate his quirk but multiplied times ten.

“I love you so damn much,” Ochako whispered, her face turning red even as she slept, her arms coming around to clutch at her knees. “I know it’s wrong of me to love you, and it’s probably even worse to tell you, but I can’t hold it in any longer, especially when I won’t get to see you very often anymore. I love you, and even though you don’t feel the same, I needed to tell you, otherwise I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

Izuku couldn’t move. His whole body was stock still, stuck in time, unable to break free of the vice-like grip her words had on his heart, mind, and body. Ochako chuckled a little, still lost in sleep.

“What do I love about you? Everything. Absolutely everything, Izuku. I love your personality, I love your looks, I love your courage and your determination and your strength. I love your weaknesses and your insecurities because to me, they are nothing more than more amazing parts of you in disguise. I love how smart you are, how loved you make me feel, how kind and loyal you are. You are very handsome, and, as a little secret between us, I almost cried when I saw you interacting with the children who have been affected by tragedy after our battles. You are so gentle and inspiring and loving, just like you are with me. I imagine that one day, you will make an excellent father.”

Izuku blushed somehow even deeper at her words, his eyes nearly bulging out of his skull.

“I just love you and everything about you,” Ochako said, her voice low and husky. She twitched and shifted in her seat again, her mind barely on the edge between her dream world and reality.

Izuku snapped then, his patience completely lost. Gripping her shoulders, he gently shook her awake, his fingers tightening slightly when he saw her gorgeous chocolate eyes flutter open to look up at him. His breathing was heavy and he knew the blush on his face was practically making him glow but he didn’t care at that moment. His hair had fallen to slightly cover his eyes but he ignored the strands in his face as Ochako finally made her way into full consciousness.

“Deku!!!” Ochako shouted in surprise, jumping away from him, her rolling chair sliding across the floor of his room until her back bumped against the wall. Her eyes were wide with shock and she held a hand up to her heart as she tried to calm her breathing. “Sorry Deku, you just scared me, what time is it?”

Izuku didn’t respond but instead shot up from his chair and marched over to her.

“Deku-!?” Ochako squealed when he grabbed her shoulders, hoisted her out of the chair, and pulled her into a tight hug. She hesitantly wrapped her arms around him, her eyes widening as she felt his whole body begin to tremble.

“Deku, what happened?” Ochako asked breathlessly, trying her hardest to shove down the feelings that reared up in her throat and chest when he embraced her.

“Ochako, I need to know, did you mean it?” Izuku asked, ignoring her other question as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, his body starting to shake even more as he awaited her answer.

The shock of him using her real name for the first time was bypassed by her shock at his question. She knew what he was asking, but how did he know? She only confessed her love for him in her dream! Unless…

“Fuck,” Ochako muttered to herself, causing Izuku to pull away from her to get a good look at her face.

“Ochako?”

“I was sleep talking wasn’t I?” Ochako asked, her large eyes meeting his gaze, several indistinguishable emotions swimming behind them.

Izuku nodded slowly and leaned back into her embrace, his eyes closed. Ochako sighed in response before nuzzling his hair, her arms clamping down on his back to bring him even closer to her, tightening their embrace. Izuku’s breath hitched at the feeling.

“Does that mean you-?”

Ochako nodded against his shoulder without hesitation, her eyes closed as she waited for the sound of his rejection. Damn her inability to keep her mouth shut. “I’m so sorry Deku, I didn’t mean to say anything, I don’t want to make things awkward between us and I just screwed everything up!” A few tears slid down her still damp cheeks. “I’m sorry, god, I know I should be dealing with this like the adult that I am but I just can’t…”

Izuku leaned back and looked into her face once more, his trembling subsiding a bit as he took in her beautiful features. She was so stunning, even with the tear tracks lining her skin, her eyes shining with emotion as she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“You didn’t screw up anything,” Izuku said, reaching a hand up to cup her cheek. His heart flipped in his chest when she leaned into his touch, her eyes closing. “I feel the same way about you.”

Ochako’s eyes flew open and she stepped away from him, shaking her head back and forth. Izuku frowned, concern and confusion washing through him in waves. Why was she rejecting him? He just confessed to her after hearing her true feelings for him, why wasn’t she embracing him again? Letting him kiss away her tears? Letting him hold her and whisper in her ear all of the loving things he has wanted to say since they met?

“Ochako-?”

“Don’t pity me, Deku. You have your own life to live, don’t change your feelings just because I’m your friend. You know as well as I do that being invested in a relationship that you aren’t fully interested in is unhealthy, even for a normal person. And you are trying to become the new number 1 hero! I will only be in your way,” Ochako sniffled and tried her hardest to hold back the rest of her tears, saving them for when she was alone in her own room. Standing up tall and holding her head up high, she managed to make eye contact with him, his wide green eyes making her smile sadly. “You are so kind Deku, but for once, you don’t have to save me. Please, be free.”

She looked down at her feet though, suddenly unable to hold his gaze any longer. The silence hung heavily between them as Izuku scrambled to think of something, anything to say back to her. He had so many thoughts jumbled up in his mind, his mouth couldn’t possibly form the correct words.

A heavy sigh from the amazing young woman in front of him dragged him away from his inner turmoil and his eyes widened as he watched her steel herself and turn away from him, her hand reaching for the doorknob.

“Goodbye Deku, thank you for being my friend, I’m sorry I had to ruin it for us,” Ochako said in a hushed whisper, her fingers wrapping around the handle in front of her.

Deku wasted no time in making his way to her. He had no idea what he was going to say or how he was going to say it but he had to do something before the best thing that had ever happened to his life walked out on him, her own self-doubts and insecurities clouding her judgment. Striding over to her, Izuku reached out and wrapped both of his arms around her torso, his hands clasping together on her stomach, his face burying in the back of her neck. A small smile made its way to his face when he heard her sharp intake of breath at the contact, her body freezing under his touch.

“Deku, please, let me go,” Ochako begged, her throat starting to choke up. Why did he have to make this so hard on her?

“No, please hear me out, I just have so many things I want to say. I can’t sort through them all fast enough. Just please wait, please, I need-” Izuku cut himself off as his own throat started to constrict. He swallowed hard, holding her tighter against him. Ochako didn’t move away but she didn’t hug him back either, her back remaining ramrod straight against his hold. Izuku gulped and took a deep breath. He needed to say something, now. Slowly releasing her, Izuku gripped her shoulders and spun her around to face him.

“Why do you think I’m not serious?”

Ochako frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what made you think I am not completely in love with you?”

Ochako gaped. He couldn’t be serious, he just couldn’t be! How could he love her? She wasn’t in some romantic movie or novel, in real life things like this just didn’t happen. Maybe she was still dreaming?

“I-I-I don’t know, I just feel like it’s impossible for you to love me back, not when I’ve loved you for so long, not when you’ve never been interested in a relationship before. There’s nothing special about me, there’s no reason for you to like me back.”

Izuku’s eyes flashed with disbelief and rage, an emotion she had never seen directed at her before. She shrank back slightly, scared she had upset him. He noticed her shift and calmed the harshness of his gaze a bit, but remained firm.

“What are you talking about?” Izuku asked incredulously. “You think I feel shackled to you? You think you are keeping me from being successful? You think I want nothing to do with you now that I’ve found out you are interested in me in a romantic way?”

Ochako swallowed before nodding slowly.

“God no, Ochako! I know you confessed by accident but you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear those words from you. Ever since I met you I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but then I got to know you and I found out you were so much more. You were always so kind to me, so loving, so gentle, so amazing and talented. You inspired me to work harder for my dreams. I’ve never deserved you, Ochako, but I am so damn happy to have you in my life. You don’t shackle me to the ground, you are the one who built my wings! Without you, I’ll never be able to fly. Please, don’t go,” Izuku’s voice started to shake as he spoke. “Come on, you’re the smart one, open your eyes and see that I am telling nothing but the truth. I love you, more than anything.”

Ochako felt more tears stream down her face but for entirely different reasons than before. Her heart called out his name at his loving words, her mind racing, and her breathing hitching. She felt as if this was all some dream, but she knew it was real. She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but the honest truth swirling in them, his green hues shining brighter than ever before.

Izuku knew she believed him, but he also saw the hesitancy in her eyes, the doubt that she still wasn’t good enough and that this was all some elaborate illusion. Gathering the small strands of courage he had left, a shaky breath left his lips as he cupped her cheek again.

“Still think I’m not serious?”

Without waiting for a response, Izuku dove in to seal her lips with his own. Ochako gasped in surprise at the feeling of his warm and surprisingly soft lips on hers and instinctually pressed her hands into his wide shoulders for support. The kiss was gentle but persistent, encouraging her to give something back, to either push him away or pull him closer. It was only after a few more seconds of hesitation before she decided on the latter, linking her arms around his neck and pulling him close to her, their bodies pressing flush against each other.

Izuku groaned at the feeling of her against him. He had wanted this for so long, she was immediately intoxicating. Reaching down, Izuku gripped her thighs and scooped her up. He smiled when she squealed at the sudden movement, the joyful sound making his heart throb. Izuku carried her over to his bed and sat down, settling her down on his lap. They broke the kiss for air, the two young adults panting as they leaned their foreheads against one another.

“Ok, I believe you now,” Ochako said with a breathy chuckle.

Izuku beamed at her and brushed her hair back behind her ear, his heart leaping for joy. He had always found her hair to be absolutely stunning, but it had always bothered him when she would push it back, his fingers itching to do it instead.

“Good, I never want you to doubt me or yourself ever again, understand? I need you in my life, Ochako, more than anything. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. You will never hold me back, because with you I am the best version of myself. Got it? I never ever want you to think your not good enough,” Izuku murmured.

Ochako felt like her heart was going to explode. He was being so kind and gentle, so loving. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. He loved her back, he really loved her. Izuku watched as the determined sparkle in her eyes returned, making him love her even more.

“Okay, I promise. Just so long as you make the same promise,” Ochako said softly.

“I will,” Izuku said, his eyes darting down to her lips and then back up to her eyes.

Smiling at his request for permission, Ochako nodded once and leaned in, meeting him for another kiss in the middle. She sighed as his lips acquainted themselves with her own, his eyes closing and his fingers moving to run through her hair. Ochako uncrossed her legs and wrapped them around his waist bringing them even closer together. She tensed, hoping she wasn’t pushing any boundaries, her cheeks on fire. Everything about this was new to her, but it felt right so she went with it.

To her relief, Izuku took it in stride, pulling her closer to him with a soft groan. The noise he made set her nerves on fire, her blood roaring in her veins. They eventually broke apart again, Izuku staring at her with a slightly glazed expression. Ochako giggled and reluctantly slid off his lap. Izuku’s gaze instantly cleared and he looked at her with a mix of confusion and longing, an expression that made Ochako want to laugh and leap right back into his lap but she held off.

“As much as I’m having fun, it is 4 AM and we have class tomorrow. Maybe we can continue this tomorrow though? Maybe go to a movie first?” Ochako asked, her eyes twinkling.

Izuku snapped his gaze to the clock on the wall and realized she was right. He had totally forgotten how late it was, his exhaustion chased away by his ability to finally hold the woman he had wanted for so long. He smiled and chuckled slightly, running a hand through his hair. His face was flushed but he managed to meet her gaze.

“I’d love that. Goodnight ‘Chako, I love you,” Izuku said.

Ochako seemed to almost glow at his words, her eyes twinkling and her teeth flashing as she smiled the widest she had ever grinned.

“I love you too ‘Zuku.”

Izuku melted into a pile of goo at the use of his first name in real life, something about the way she said it with such love and confidence making it much more significant than when she had called to him in her sleep.

“Thanks for helping me study,” Ochako said slyly with a wink as she made her way out the door, closing it behind her without waiting for a response. Izuku laughed quietly to himself and laid down on his pillow, waiting for sleep to overtake him. When he did finally fall asleep, he dreamed of the two of them, a small smile creeping onto his face as he slept peacefully, the beast in his heart finally satisfied after all these years. Finally, they were together, a closer team than they had ever been before, and Izuku wouldn’t have it any other way.

[unwiltingblossom]

Queen’s Favor (Mysme Jumin/MC AU 8/?)

Summary: Being a maid would be much easier if the cat would just let her do her job.

AU - Instead of joining the RFA via random text, MC is hired on as one of the maids assigned to Jumin Han’s penthouse. Nothing else about the setting has changed, the messenger and the RFA still exist, only the MC’s position has been altered.

Honestly, she didn't even need to keep a watch on her, because Elizabeth seemed to have that timing down, and wouldn't brook any kind of deviation. She'd never had to interrupt any of her work just to go play with the cat, but she had no doubt that Elizabeth would put her paw down about it if she ever tried not to.

What this penthouse really needed was a sign she could check off days for how long it'd been without an accident or life threatening encounter.

She ought to have a prize, as this was the 30th day without incident.

Unsurprisingly, no such thing awaited her when she arrived at the penthouse. Aside from the one gift (which she kept at home most of the time, as it was much too valuable to wear at work), her enigmatic employer - contractor - left her nothing else but the odd bit of food and endless weird messes that made her wonder just what he got up to when she wasn't there. He did arrive from time to time when she worked, but as always he left her alone and merely gave her pleasant compliments or a stiff drink at the end of her shift.

The cat was troublesome as ever, but hadn't caused her any injury.

She leaned down to rub the cat under her chin, and then tossed some bell-toy further into the room. No longer nearly as starved for attention, the flowy white cat pranced off after the toy. After a bit of fussing, Elizabeth had gotten back into the habit of just expecting her in the mornings, not all day, and so the cat mostly only smothered her when she first arrived and whenever it was her break time.

Honestly, she didn't even need to keep a watch on her, because Elizabeth seemed to have that timing down, and wouldn't brook any kind of deviation. She'd never had to interrupt any of her work just to go play with the cat, but she had no doubt that Elizabeth would put her paw down about it if she ever tried not to.

The phone rang.

That in of itself wasn't particularly unusual. Although it seemed most of his contacts either knew his working hours or used whatever gold-encrusted cellphone he owned, there was always the odd whoever that called anyway. The strange thing about it was that after the first call went to whatever voicemail was attached to the phone, it started ringing again. Immediately. At first, she was a bit worried there was some urgent matter actually meant for her on the phone. But that was absurd, as she had her own phone on her - and she double-checked, it was fully powered and getting signal - and anyone that desperate to speak to her would get through to her phone somehow.

Ten minutes passed with it ringing, and it was getting on her last nerve. Only her immense sense of self control - and need for the sweet, sweet pay the job provided - kept her from ripping the phone right out of the wall and then possibly throwing it out of the window.

"He's not here, you needy stalker!"

She didn't pick up the phone and say that, obviously. But it did make her feel a little better saying it out loud.

Almost eerily, the phone stopped ringing.

Maybe it just took that long for whatever desperate caller that was to figure that out. Maybe she should let the penthouse owner know he had this obsessed caller? Just in case? Not that his security didn't seem tip-top as it was. Aside from the cat-napper, anyway. But apparently they were friends somehow.

She jumped and gave a short shriek when her phone rang in her pocket.

The number on the phone was unknown. Probably, it was just spam or something unrelated.

If nothing else, at least she had an excuse to chew out the caller without getting fired, if indeed it was related at all.

She frowned at the phone a moment, before finally accepting the call with a huff.

"Man, you are way too good at resisting the urge to answer the phone call of destiny!" She couldn't immediately place the voice, but it...sounded way less creepy than she'd expect for a phone stalker.

"...Huh?"

"Ninja maid! Your dulcet tones are always such a gift!" Oh, it was him. Wait. How was it him?! "I heard you were gravely injured as punishment for allowing my escape from yon castle, so I had to call you to show my appreciation, but then you just ignored all my calls! For so long! Are you just afraid of phones, is that why you ignored the phone call of destiny?"

Wait.

Wait. Many questions all jumbled together at once.

"That's not what I-that's..how-how do you even know about that? How do you have my number?! Who are you?"

"Oh, wow! My first interview~. I didn't come prepared." Although his voice sounded as if his phone were on speaker on some desk or something, she didn't miss the teasing tone in it. "Fortunately, I can answer all the questions at once! FOR YOU SEE! I am none other than the diabolical genius, world famous hacker 707! ...If you think about it, you'll see that answers all three questions."

Yes, she understood how it applied to all the questions.

No, she didn't believe it at all. The scrawny little screaming nerd she'd twice tackled didn't have the right look to be a hacker, firstly, and secondly she couldn't imagine why a high profile heir to a giant corporation would associate with someone criminal. And another thing: even if he were a hacker, why would he fixate on harassing the maid?

He was definitely some kind of a stalker.

"I'm going to call the police and have them trace this call."

"That's...sort of the spirit!" He laughed on the other end of the line. "Anyway. It's tragic, but...I've been trapped inside my house for a month, unable to go out and see Princess Elly! About now is when I'd normally go out to get a recharge by visiting her, but...alas! I'm going to be trapped even longer in here. That's why I need you-"

"No."

"-to be my hands!" He didn't even miss a beat. "You must send my affection to Elly through the phone!"

"Absolutely not. I know the kind of things you do to her."

"Don't put it like that, Ninja Maid! Our love is purer than that. If you could just snap a picture-"

"I'm going to hang up now. If you call back, I'm turning it off this time."

"NO WAIT-"

Seriously, though? How in the world did he get her number? Had he stolen it somehow during one of their scuffles? Or did he trick the company into sharing it with him? He didn't seem all that wily or convincing to her, but then...maybe he could be a bit more charismatic to someone whose first interactions didn't involve him screaming bloody murder in their ears or sitting on their boss' bed in a cheap maid outfit.

She rubbed her forehead and flopped down on the couch. Her head still hurt from the crank calling, and that voice shouting in her ear didn't help the situation at all, either.

Elizabeth wandered into the room, tail flicking as if she, too, still had ringing in her ears. The little furball looked up at her for a moment, as if silently scolding her for daring to take her break early, before prancing over and hopping up onto her lap.

"Yeah. Didn't think you'd have a problem with it." She reached down to run her fingers along the cat's soft white fur, and the little monster bumped its head up against her hand, as if demanding more petting.

Honestly. It'd be kind of a bummer when she had to move on to another place to clean some day. The odd life-threatening situation and conniving cat wasn't actually all that bad of a compromise for having such luxurious breaks and so few really alarming messes. The owner wasn't home all that often even when he wasn't out of the country, and it showed. Both in the demanding cat, and in the lack of lived-in messes she encountered.

She scoffed to herself as the cat grabbed her hand in its paws and gnawed lightly at her fingertips. Easy to say it's not that bad a compromise when it's been a month since any peril though, huh?

"Alright, geez. If you're going to keep biting like that, I'll get you something to eat that isn't human."

--

She stretched, listening to the alarming musical starring her back and spine. She liked to think that all came from the hard work she put into the day, and not the torture rack that her bed had slowly been devolving into since it started running low on fluff and springs.

Well, it was fine. With what she made, she could really start saving for medical exams, a better bed, or even moving somewhere that looked less like an 'Escape from New York' movie. The evening air was cool on her skin as she walked, and she wondered idly if it might even be worth it to just go ahead and start using a car. The walk did take a while, and it meant getting up extra early in the mornings.

The streetlights flickered on above her, as the sun finally got low enough in the sky to upset them.

Actually, tomorrow was payday. She glanced down and grabbed frayed blonde locks in two fingers. Her hair could probably do with a good trim. She could look even more killer in her uniform with a good cut and style.

Someone shoved into her, nearly knocking her face-first into the pavement. She manged not to collide with the ground, but only by engaging in a rousing round of pinwheel hopscotch.

 It's not like I was just taking up all the space in the sidewalk!

She rounded on her assailant, but the figure already moved away from her at a quick pace, hood up, obscuring their face in the evening shadows.

"Hey-!"

They - probably a he, given their relative height - didn't even hesitate or react to her calling out to them. Despite the two of them being the only ones in the street. Which was almost as rude as nearly knocking her over in the first place.

Naturally, she chased after him. Just to make sure he could get the earful he deserved.

He was surprisingly agile, as he took quick turns through multiple alleyways without any warning. Frankly, she was starting to worry that she might inadvertently be tailing someone to a drug deal. If I see anyone shady popping up, I'll just...

...Okay. So maybe she'd gotten a little too into giving some random jerk on the street an earful just for bumping into her. Now that she thought about it.

She blinked, looking back and forth on the street.

 Wait. Where did he go?

She'd barely even gotten distracted at all, and yet the figure she'd put so much effort into following was just...gone. A few businesses stood nearby, metal gates locked down tight, and one or two houses that looked burned out and boarded up. There were no obvious entrances to any of them.

A short distance down the road stood a building she'd have considered tall before that penthouse spoiled her. Distant city lights reflected on the windows of hundreds of rooms, but not one of them were lit up, even in the increasing darkness of the evening.

"Weird." Businesses usually kept their lights on for security purposes, right? At least dim ones. She frowned and made her way closer to the building. A modest parking lot with various marked carports sat in front of it. Completely empty.

There weren't any obvious signs on the building indicating whether it was one big business, or if it was a mini mall of some sort that just hadn't successfully rented itself out to any local businesses. Well. All the same, the man likely disappeared in there. Somewhere.

She wasn't crazy enough to go investigating it, though.

...Instead, she just...needed to figure out how to find her way back home. And not chase after random people who made her angry on the street.

"...Ah."

Well. Crap. She had a pretty decent idea of what direction she came from, and she could probably make her way back to the main road. But it was also late, and a pretty shady part of town.

She frowned, and dug out her phone. Light flooded her vision as she turned it back on. "GPS...please work."

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 4.1 - Ultimate Talent Development Plan (Mostly Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

First off, some of the usual preamble about how this mode even works. Functionally, it’s, of all things, a board game that serves as a companion for another bonus mode which is a dungeon crawler RPG. Characters don’t gain experience from battles in the RPG; instead, you level up characters in this mode, by playing through the board game as them. I could go on at great length about all the mechanics of this, because I got rather addicted to it at one point. (Apparently all you need to do to make me invested in the mechanics of an RPG is to put characters I already love into it, and then I will do everything in my power to figure out how to turn them into the awesomest fighters they can be. Kaito is the best tank and will take all of the hits to protect his glass-cannon sidekicks!) But we’re here for the story aspect, so I shall restrain myself.

Flavour-wise, each playthrough of the board game follows your chosen character as they live out three years at Hope’s Peak, in a non-despair AU in which the casts from DR1, DR2 and DRV3 are all in the same school year. (Well, it’s mostly non-despair – at the end of the three years, an army of Monokuma robots is unleashed under the school, and that’s the dungeon crawling part. But your heroes ultimately deal with that threat before it can cause any chaos outside.)

The board game is only a very abstract representation of this story. Each turn supposedly represents one month, but really most of the spaces on the board are just various ways to level up your various attributes and don’t have any real narrative. The only spaces that matter for our purposes here are Friendly Spaces, which will show you one of five scenes featuring your character, that I’ll refer to as “friendly events”, in which they interact with one or two other students. If you land on enough Friendly Spaces, which is easy enough to do if you’re aiming for it, you’ll see all five scenes with your character.

The other source of story here is seasonal events, which trigger automatically on a specific month in each of the three years. The character you’re playing as gets a choice of three possible things they can do for the event, each of which results in a scene with one or two other characters. Unfortunately, these choices are mutually exclusive, so to see all of a character’s scenes, you need to play as them through almost the entirety of the board game (because the last seasonal event is near the end of year 3) three times.

…But actually, that’s not all, not if you want to really see all the scenes for a single character. Friendly Space scenes are easy to see all of because they’ll appear when you’re playing as any of the characters featured in them. (Well, usually; one of Kaito’s doesn’t appear for him, but that seems to be just a programming oversight.) But the seasonal event scenes don’t work this way and only appear for the character who is given the choice of what to do. So any given character is also going to appear in a bunch of other characters’ seasonal events, and you’re only going to see those scenes by playing as those other characters. Worse, if you’re interested in a specific character’s scenes, there’s no way to even know which other characters’ seasonal events they appear in. So the only way to be sure that you’ve seen every single scene for a given character is to play through the board game three times each as *every single one of over fifty characters*. (Actually, the exact number is fifty-three, which… I think is genuinely just a coincidence. Heh.)

In short, thank god for the wiki. I do not envy but am immensely grateful to the people who went and did exactly that and got transcripts – with sprites, even – of every single one of these scenes. Thankfully, each character’s page for this mode on the wiki contains all of their own seasonal events and all of their appearances in other characters’ seasonal events, so you can see absolutely all of their scenes in one place. I am not using my Vita for this one. (I wouldn’t have wanted to anyway because the backlog function doesn’t work in this mode, but.)

While it makes things way more inconvenient in terms of actually seeing every scene, I do prefer the board game as a framing device for this AU’s story far more than the framing device for the Salmon Team AU. Salmon Team used the same interface of Shuichi walking around and talking to people that the main story had, which resulted in an impression that, in-story, everyone was just robotically standing in the same spot every day doing nothing until Shuichi came to talk to them. But this board game is abstract enough that we know none of the rolling dice and landing on spaces is really what’s happening in-story. The scenes we see give us a glimpse of the students’ school lives, but there’s clearly so much more happening offscreen that we don’t get to see. It feels like an organic and fully-realised story that the board game just happens to only give us a series of brief windows into.

Before beginning into the board game itself and seeing any of the actual scenes, you also get a single textbox from the character you’ve chosen to play as, as they get ready to enrol in Hope’s Peak.

Kaito:  “Alright! I’ll keep training while I’m here and after I graduate, I’ll go straight to space!”

Kaito’s words here raise a few questions, honestly. If he’s already started astronaut training, he should be focusing entirely on that and really should not also be attending high school. He questioned in the demo why he’d have bothered enrolling in some academy when he should just be working on getting to space as soon as possible; you’d think he’d feel the same even if it was Hope’s Peak! It seems like the writing is just desperately trying to have it be the case that Kaito is both already an astronaut trainee in order to justify his Ultimate status, and yet is also attending Hope’s Peak, even though dividing his focus like that really doesn’t seem like the right way for Hope’s Peak to nurture his talent.

However, we could get this to work by imagining that Kaito is exaggerating here about having already started his training. Perhaps what’s really going on is this: Kaito managed to impress the space program despite being way too young, so they made him a deal. They recommended him to Hope’s Peak as the Ultimate Astronaut, having acknowledged his incredible potential to be one, and if he graduates from there, then he gets to jump straight into astronaut training without also needing a college degree. After all, part of Hope’s Peak’s deal is supposed to be that you’re “set for life” if you graduate, which I can imagine would equate to getting privileges like that.

I wonder if these privileges also mean that Maki doesn’t have to be an assassin any more after she graduates. This is the one universe in which Maki has actually killed people and her assassin cult actually exists and she’s going to have to go back to killing people again once this is over, which makes me very sad. Unfortunately I really doubt the canon Hope’s Peak would have given a fuck about helping Maki out like that, and all of the scenes we see here remain very vague about what’s going to happen to Maki once she leaves. Buuuut maybe we can pretend that this AU version of Hope’s Peak is nicer and is going to abolish her assassin cult as its way of making her “set for life”? I just don’t want to imagine Maki having to go back to killing once she leaves here. I can’t imagine Kaito or Shuichi would stand for it either.

Meanwhile, in Shuichi’s little intro line, he isn’t wearing his hat, when he really should be if you think about it. Until he meets Kaito and Kaede and starts trying to be braver, he’s not going to take that thing off.

…So, if this introduction didn’t already make it obvious, I’m going to be focusing on scenes featuring at least one of our adorable training trio, with a particular focus on Kaito because what did you expect, it’s me.

Shuichi (featuring Kyoko)

Obviously one of the friendly events I’m here to talk about is one between Shuichi and Kaito!

Shuichi is already Kaito’s sidekick in this event, which is something we don’t really need to be shown coming about, not when we can easily fill in the gaps and imagine that it went roughly like it did in canon. Kaito saw Shuichi’s weakness and made it his business to help, just like Kaito always does.

…It is a little different from canon, because there isn’t the context of Shuichi needing to have his act together in case there’s another class trial, nor is there the subtle Kaito’s-issues context of him feeling like Shuichi has already been more of a hero than him and wanting to make himself a part of that in order to feel useful and not inferior. But this just goes to show that those reasons were never necessary and Kaito would have reached out to Shuichi regardless, because that’s genuinely just who he is.

Kaito:  “Why’re you looking so down now? I thought you’d been looking better than when you first got to this academy. If there’s something going on, then spit it out! It’s a hero’s job to help out his sidekick!”

Shuichi:  “It’s nothing, I just… I feel as though I haven’t used my detective skills lately.”

Kaito noticing Shuichi looking down and encouraging him to talk about whatever’s wrong is still so good. It seems Shuichi would normally have felt this wasn’t important enough to mention, but thanks to Kaito’s prodding, he’s been starting to learn that it’s okay to talk about even small-seeming problems, because Kaito will help him with anything.

(And Kaito is indeed actually right in his judgement that something was wrong, because this isn’t chapter 4 in which he’d become desperate enough to forcefully insist Shuichi needed his help when he really didn’t. No I am not going to stop mentioning the time Kaito did that in his chapter 4 FTE; it was delightful.)

Shuichi:  “I feel like… I should be doing something. I got my Ultimate talent by chance, so…”

Props to Shuichi for wanting to do something about this. Even though he feels he got his Ultimate title by chance, he’s not just going to wallow in the feeling that he doesn’t deserve it – he wants to work until he can feel like he does deserve it and can be proud of it! It’s definitely Kaito (and probably also Kaede; she’s his friend in this AU too, of course) who helped Shuichi feel this way, because this was very much not his outlook at the beginning.

Shuichi:  “But… a detective can’t work unless there’s a case to solve, or a request to fulfil.”

Kaito:  “No! Your talents are more than just that!”

Shuichi:  “Huh?”

Kaito:  “Hey, Shuichi… I’m an astronaut. Do you think I’m useless when I’m not in space?”

Shuichi:  “You’re not useless! You have good teamwork, and you always help people in need. Everyone really depends on you, Kaito.”

I really like Kaito’s approach to this. Of course he’s not useless when he’s not in space, because all of the skills he has that gave him his astronaut talent can also be applied in so many other ways! In terms of current achievements, Kaito is a far worse astronaut than Shuichi is a detective, because Shuichi has at least solved a good few cases, while Kaito’s never even been to space. But Kaito doesn’t let that get him down! There’s so much else he can do with his skills before he gets there!

Kaito:  “Then what about detectives? Are they useless without cases or requests?”

Shuichi:  “Well…”

So the same should go for Shuichi, right? Obviously!

Kaito:  “So I’ll be the hero and you be my sidekick!”

Shuichi:  “…Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

It’s… a little hard to translate the Kaito-ese here, and I don’t blame Shuichi for getting confused. But I think what he’s trying to get at is that he’ll cheer Shuichi on while Shuichi goes out there and lives up to his potential, because that’s what the hero-and-sidekick thing is really about.

Kaito:  “And when someone’s in trouble, you help ‘em out! Like, by giving them advice or something! It might be different from your usual detective work, but… Instead of rotting away like that, it’ll make you feel alive by helping out those around us.”

It’s adorable that Kaito’s basically encouraging Shuichi to be more like him, in the sense of trying to help people. After all, he knows that Shuichi’s a naturally compassionate person who does instinctively want to help others a lot. Their respective talents lend themselves to helping others in quite different ways – Shuichi isn’t necessarily going to be as great at giving advice as Kaito is – but that just means that there’s things that Shuichi can do for people that even Kaito can’t.

There actually is something of a running theme of Shuichi doing this kind of thing in some of his other scenes in this AU! The types of cases he took on at his uncle’s office were often about finding lost pets or missing people, so he’s really good at tracking things down, which can come in very handy when others have more practical problems than the kind Kaito helps people with. Just like in canon, Kaito is good at helping people with his words, while Shuichi is good at helping people with his actions.

This also comes up a little in another one of Shuichi’s friendly events, with Kyoko. Because, yes, she’s here too, meaning there’s just awkwardly two different Ultimate Detectives in the same school year somehow.

Shuichi:  “An apprentice like me doesn’t deserve to share the title of Ultimate Detective with you…”

Which, predictably, makes Shuichi feel rather inferior when comparing himself to Kyoko and her accomplishments.

Kyoko:  “Others accept that you are a detective, and have also come to rely on you, too. The other day, I saw you running all over the place with Ryoma and Peko… No doubt because they needed your insights as a detective, right?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, I was just looking for a missing cat around the academy… I’ve handled plenty of missing pet cases before, so I was able to help, but…”

This is indeed a thing that happened – there’s a scene between Ryoma and Peko (the former of whom is a big cat person and the latter of whom loves fluffy animals in general) in which they discuss a lost cat they’ve seen around school and ultimately decide to get Shuichi’s help to track it down and find its owner. That scene doesn’t actually get as far as featuring Shuichi in it, but this scene here with Kyoko confirms that he did indeed manage to help solve that “case”! It’s neat how there’s various events that are referred to in multiple scenes, to help things really feel like a cohesive story.

Kyoko:  “Do you think it’s meaningless for people to rely on you?”

Shuichi:  “…No, that’s wrong. It makes me… so happy to be helpful.”

Kyoko:  “Then I see no reason for you to compare yourself to me. Every detective is shaped by their motives, methodologies, and case histories.”

Kyoko has such a good point! She and Shuichi are very, very different types of detective and shouldn’t really be compared to each other. Kyoko is a homicide detective and takes a very objective, impersonal approach to things, whereas Shuichi handles more domestic cases that are about solving people’s problems and generally has more of a focus on helping people in the process. It’s possible that Kyoko brings up people relying on Shuichi because she actually kind of looks up to him for that, since that’s very much not something that her own type of detective work makes her suited for.

This idea gets explored a little more in another scene Shuichi has with Kyoko, as one of his seasonal events for the final year. (I’ll mostly be trying to do the seasonal events in chronological order as we go along, but there’s some final-year events, such as this one, that exist as kind of a follow-up to an earlier friendly event between two characters. So I’ll be doing those in conjunction with the relevant friendly event, even if it means we have to temporarily skip ahead to the end of the three years now and then.)

Shuichi bumps into Kyoko about to leave for some urgent business in such a hurry that she won’t even have time to tell her classmates she’s going to miss the closing ceremony, so Shuichi offers to let Makoto know for her.

Kyoko:  “If that’s the case… I’m sorry, but would you mind doing it?”

Shuichi:  “Ah, don’t worry about it! It’s alright to depend on others when you need to. I’ll give you advice someone gave me. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. Sometimes, asking for help is exactly what you need. Even if it’s something small.”

The way Kyoko apologises before asking Shuichi for something this small does suggest that she’s very much not used to relying on others at all. Kyoko is of course naturally very capable and independent and doesn’t often need help in the first place, but she can also be reluctant to rely on others even when it would benefit her to do so. Good thing Shuichi can help her a little with that, in part thanks to all of the advice Kaito’s given him!

Shuichi:  “Ah, but… I might be getting a little *too* much help from everyone…”

Kyoko is a detective who maybe doesn’t rely on others enough, while Shuichi is a detective who relies on others maybe a little too much. It’s a neat contrast.

Kyoko:  “I never meant to hold it in… That was never my intention. When you involve yourself in someone else’s business, you can easily misjudge them.”

Shuichi:  “I’m sure you’re right. There are certainly situations like that. But aren’t there times that make you think… you want to really trust someone? Even if you might get hurt?”

Kyoko at least tells herself that she tries to refrain from personal ties and relying on others in order to remain detached and impartial for her detective work. That is perhaps more important for a homicide detective than it would be for a domestic detective like Shuichi. Then again, in canon, Shuichi had to solve a bunch of murders, and he managed to do that despite also having an emotional side that willingly formed bonds and wanted to believe in people. You don’t have to throw away Kyoko Kirigiri in order to be the Ultimate Detective, Kyoko!

Also, Shuichi’s words about wanting to trust someone even if you might get hurt are definitely paraphrasing Kaito’s principles on that topic here and I love it. He’s had much less of an issue with that notion in this AU when there haven’t been any murders, but maybe instead it was the beginnings of their friendship with Maki that prompted Shuichi to ask Kaito how he could believe in people so easily.

Maki Roll (featuring Chihiro)

…And than brings us rather conveniently onto the next friendly event I wanted to cover, because of course Kaito also has a scene with Maki.

Maki is also already Kaito’s sidekick in this scene, but unlike with Shuichi, we can’t just assume this went basically how it did in canon. See, Kaito (and implicitly also Shuichi, though he’s not in this scene) knows about Maki’s talent, but nobody else does. Which is in fact a huge difference from canon that warrants some lengthy speculation about how Maki even ended up as Kaito’s sidekick in this universe at all.

In canon, it only happened because Kokichi found out Maki’s talent and told everyone. Kaito started properly reaching out to her and trying to make her his sidekick after that, and since she had nothing to lose because the worst had already happened and her secret was already out, she didn’t put up that much resistance. Kaito’s continued belief in her despite knowing her true talent let Maki realise that people knowing wasn’t the absolute end of the world like she’d been terrified it would be.

Here, though, without a class-wide bombshell revealing Maki’s identity, it’s very remarkable that Kaito even knows at all. Throughout chapter 2, Maki was so terrified of anyone finding out her secret, because she was absolutely convinced that it’d make everyone hate and fear and try to kill her and she’d end up forced to kill them in self-defence, which she did not remotely want to do. That fear might not be quite as intense outside of a killing game, nor without a whole room full of proof of her talent readily available for anyone to wander into, but it’d still be there. She’d still be reluctant to get close to anyone even under the guise of being the Ultimate Child Caregiver, not only out of a belief that she doesn’t deserve to have friends, but also out of a fear that letting someone get too close will increase the risk of them finding out her secret somehow even if she’s trying to hide it.

So obviously Kaito’s persistence and stubbornness would still have been a huge and necessary factor here. Although he didn’t know Maki’s talent and therefore just how weak she was and how badly she needed it, he must have seen her as a potential sidekick anyway. She was still cutting herself off from the rest of the class for reasons that Kaito’s instincts could tell weren’t malicious, meaning he probably figured that she was running away from something and needed help. So he’d have kept trying to talk to her and include her in things and invite her to train with him and Shuichi and generally be his incredibly stubborn self at her.

But… because Maki’s secret wasn’t already out, it must have taken way more stubbornness from Kaito here than it did in canon to finally get through to her. She’d have realised that he’s trying to figure out why she’s so closed off and get her to open up, but she would be utterly convinced that telling him the truth would only make him fear her and give up on her, and probably also warn everyone else about her talent and ruin everything.

There’s two possibilities I can think of for how Maki eventually gave in and opened up. One is that Kaito and Shuichi managed to figure it out themselves after enough attempts to talk to her, through a combination of Shuichi’s detective skills and Kaito’s intuition for people. Then they gently confronted her about it, with a very clear message of “we know this is why you’re scared, but it’s okay, we trust you, and you can trust us not to tell anyone, we only want to help you”. I’m not totally sold on this idea, though, because it would still leave Maki with the fear that she couldn’t actually trust them, not after they figured out her worst secret without her consent. (Also, hello Shuichi’s issues about accidentally figuring out truths that the subject of them hates having exposed.)

The more likely possibility, then, is that Maki did eventually tell Kaito herself, not out of openly trusting him and being comfortable with him knowing (because she would never believe that anyone could be okay with her being a killer until she’s already seen it happen), but more out of just trying to get him to finally leave her alone already. Surely knowing that she’s a killer will make even a stubborn idiot like him give up on her and realise she’s not worth getting close to, right? But that’s still remarkable, because people finding out her talent is still the worst and most terrifying scenario imaginable to Maki. So while she’d be telling herself on the surface that this is just to get rid of him, she would still have had to genuinely trust somewhere deep down that Kaito would at least respect her secret and not tell anyone else, even if he’d also totally never want to speak to her again.

I’m pretty sure that’s roughly how this must have gone down, and that’s really incredible. Maki would have had no obvious, undeniable way to realise she could trust Kaito, not like she had in canon from the simple fact that he continued to believe in her despite knowing that she’s an assassin. Imagine the absolute persistent supportiveness Kaito would have needed to display in order for Maki to start to instinctively feel that way anyway. And consider how huge it is for Maki that she did end up coming to trust Kaito enough, even if she wasn’t admitting it to herself, that she was able to briefly lift her otherwise-unbreakable barrier of no-one must ever know, if only in what she was telling herself was an attempt to push him away. Kaito is so good, and Maki absolutely needed someone as stubbornly, recklessly kind as him to begin to get through to her.

Kaito:  “Hey, Maki Roll! You better remember our promise for tonight!”

Maki:  “Are you talking about training? You made that promise, not me. And stop calling me Maki Roll.”

These opening lines put this scene very early on in Maki’s sidekickhood. Kaito has started calling her Maki Roll, which it only took him a few days to do in canon after she’d become his sidekick (and after he knew she was an assassin and therefore that giving her the most un-assassin-like nickname would be a good way to help her). But Maki has not yet given up telling him not to, which also only took a few days.

Plus, Maki is still acting like the only reason she’s going to training is because Kaito is nagging her to and is not yet openly accepting that she’s choosing to go for her own sake. In fact, the way they talk about the promise like it’s not already a regular arrangement suggests that tonight may be the first time Maki will ever come to training, or at most the second, if it happened for the first time last night and Kaito told her to come again tomorrow.

That moment in which Maki finally gave in and told Kaito about her talent must have been no more than a few days ago, then. Kaito would of course have responded by reassuring her that he still believes in her, and that rather than pushing him away, she should be accepting his help in growing stronger, for which she should obviously start coming to training with him and Shuichi.

Kaito:  “Alright, you remember! I’ll see you there!”

Despite Maki acting like she’s only doing this because he’s nagging her, and not even explicitly promising she’ll be there, of course Kaito knows that she will definitely be there. He called it a promise in the first place because he knows that she has already made the choice to try and get stronger. And he can tell that she must already trust him on some level to have even told him her secret in the first place.

Maki:  “…Is that why you came to talk to me?”

Kaito:  “Nah, I’ve got a message from Kaede. She wants to talk about the promise you made with her. I dunno what kind of promise it is, but… since when were you guys so close?”

Maki:  “We’re not close, and I wouldn’t call my arrangement with Kaede a promise, either. She offered to play piano for the kids at my orphanage. That’s all.”

This is actually a promise Kaede makes if you do Maki’s FTEs with Kaede in the main game! It’s lovely that they also put it into this AU and made it an actual thing that happens, because man was that never going to actually be able to happen in canon for multiple reasons.

Maki is probably right to say that she and Kaede aren’t that close. If she’s this early on in being Kaito’s sidekick, she definitely hasn’t really started to open up much with other people either. But it seems that despite that, Kaede has tried approaching Maki anyway and had similar conversations with her as she has in her canon FTEs, because Kaede is lovely and always trying to make friends even with more guarded people like Maki.

Maki:  “But… I left that orphanage years ago. Kaede thinks I was the Ultimate Child Caregiver at that orphanage before I came here, but…”

This is of course the assumption Kaede was running under in her FTEs with Maki when she offered to play piano for the kids then. (Not that Kaede hypothetically learning Maki’s real identity would change anything, once she learned Maki’s reasons for it – if anything, it’d only make Kaede even more determined to do something nice for Maki and those kids. Kaede is just as good as Kaito is.)

Kaito:  “Hey, there’s no reason you can’t go to the orphanage, right, Maki Roll? So just take Kaede there with you. For the kids living peacefully there you worked so hard for… Let them hear Kaede’s music.”

It’s lovely what Kaito’s doing here. Maki is telling herself that she barely deserves to be going back near that happy life at the orphanage any more now that she’s a horrible murderer, but Kaito’s trying to reassure her that hey, none of that means she can’t at least visit and do something nice for the kids she cares about so much!

…And, okay, so apparently we’re also at a point after Maki has opened up about exactly why she became an assassin, which took several days longer than her initial decision to try and change (and happened after she’d given up protesting the Maki Roll). It’s a little surprising that she reached that point so quickly, because subconsciously trusting Kaito not to betray her talent to everyone is a lot different from actually telling him why she’s an assassin and more or less admitting that she never wanted it. So… I am starting to get the sense that the writers here maaaay not have fully thought through what they were implying with this scene’s opening lines, because those definitely gave the sense that Maki had barely started training if she was reluctant to even admit she was coming.

Unless maybe things happened in a different order in this universe, such that Maki had already begrudgingly told Kaito a few stories about her orphanage during his persistent pestering for her to open up (just like she does with Kaede’s attempts to reach out to her). Which might mean that when she finally threw up her hands and told him she’s a goddamn assassin so leave her alone, it wouldn’t be as much of a leap for her to then admit, with some more questioning from Kaito, that the orphanage stories were still true and are actually quite related to her being an assassin. Maybe.

Kaito:  “Oh! I just had a great idea too! How about me and Shuichi tag along? Yeah! Let’s do it! If Shuichi’s with us, I bet Kaede will get all psyched up!”

Aww, Kaito. It is making me very happy imagining this gathering of these four being friends at Maki’s orphanage and making the kids smile. (I bet Kaito is also very good with kids. Especially if they’re aware he’s the Ultimate Astronaut, letting him jump right into his inspiring hero role and tell them all sorts of exciting things about SPACE.)

…Kaito’s comment about how Shuichi’s presence will psyche Kaede up does imply that he might have figured those two have a bit of an unspoken romantic thing for each other. But even if that’s the case, I like to imagine that Kaito wouldn’t make any overt moves to act on this and try and set them up together without one of them directly asking him for help. After all, Kaito’s only working on a hunch here, and if his hunch happens to be wrong, then trying to push his friends into a romance they don’t actually want would be a dick move. (More on a similar concept regarding Kaito’s hunches in another scene next post.)

Maki:  “You want to tag along… and bring Shuichi?”

Kaito:  “Yeah! If there are any problems, Shuichi and I will help out!”

This is the real reason Kaito invited himself and Shuichi along, though. He can sense that Maki is uneasy doing something that comes so close to her personal life and the truth about herself when she’s including someone who doesn’t know her secret. As such, Kaito’s offering to go along with Shuichi to be there for her and help her feel safer. Since it doesn’t make much sense for there to be logistical problems with Kaede playing the piano to the kids, Kaito is really talking about the possibility of there being problems with Maki’s talent remaining secret. He’s saying that he and Shuichi will be there to cover for her, and, if worst comes to worst and her talent ends up coming out anyway, talk Kaede through the revelation and assure her that Maki still deserves to be treated like a person. (Kaede would definitely understand, of course, but she’d need some explanations, and Maki might not be comfortable giving those on her own.)

Kaito:  “Do you not want Kaede and the others to find out about your real talent? But… I know you don’t wanna distance yourself from them like when you first got here, yeah?”

Maki:  “…Don’t make assumptions about me.”

He’s right, though, isn’t he, Maki? However, she’s still not quite willing to admit that yet herself, so this is still quite early days, one way or another.

Maki:  “But… I guess I’ll give the orphanage a call.”

Kaito:  “Alright! Then it’s decided!”

Maki’s going to do it! I really, really get the sense that without Kaito’s reassurance, she wouldn’t have actually acted upon this and would have left Kaede hanging. Kaede might well have been trying to prod Maki about it herself and getting only vague uncertainty since Maki wasn’t truly comfortable doing it. That could be why Kaede asked Kaito to talk to her about it, having noticed that he seems to be closer to Maki than she is.

Maki does have a friendly event with Kaede, too, but it turns out to be more about Chihiro, who’s also in the scene. Maki and Kaede happen across Chihiro crying, and he explains that he found an injured bird that died before he could take it to Gundham to maybe save it.

Maki points out that that’s not Chihiro’s fault and Gundham might not have been able to save it anyway.

Chihiro:  “You’re… right… But when I thought about how it probably wanted to fly more, I just started crying…”

Chihiro is projecting his weakness issues onto this poor little injured bird that probably wished it was stronger, but then it didn’t manage to get any stronger and died because it was too weak! Aww, Chihiro.

Maki:  “I don’t think you should be crying over that, though… But… I do think it’s fortunate it had someone to cry for it.”

Maki looks distant during that second part, because apparently she’s also somewhat projecting her issues onto this bird. She’s acknowledging that it’s sad when someone suffers alone without anyone knowing and being able to care about it. In a very, very indirect way, she’s saying that her past suffering matters, and that she deserves to have others know and feel sorry for her about what she’s been through. That’s a big deal coming from Maki!  (And I’m sure others do know about her suffering; if she’s admitting this, then she’s probably already told Kaito and Shuichi about some of the more awful parts of her assassin training by now.)

Chihiro wants to bury the bird, so both Kaede and Maki suggest they should take it to Gundham, who’d know about how best to do this sort of thing. Maki offers to come along, which Chihiro seems surprised about.

Kaede:  “You know, Chihiro… Maki may seem edgy on the outside, but she’s actually very sincere.”

Maki:  [pouting] “…You don’t need to come with us, Kaede.”

Kaede:  “Why!? I only said the truth!”

Maki is a good caregiver! And also embarrassed at Kaede earnestly telling near-strangers how caring she is. Kaede is good and I hope she and Maki continue to be friends; she’d be able to help Maki out a lot too, even without necessarily having to know her secret.

Maki:  “I can’t just leave a crybaby like you alone. That would leave a bad taste in my mouth…”

Maki mentioned during her FTEs that her best friend from the orphanage (who is no longer alive) was something of a crybaby who tried her best to be strong. Is Chihiro reminding Maki of her friend here? Because that’s adorable.

There’s a little more Maki and Chihiro in one of Maki’s third year winter events, not precisely as a follow-up to this but I might as well cover it here anyway. Maki happens across Chihiro in the dining hall, and after some conversation about Chihiro not having the strength to open a jar (but wanting to keep trying rather than having Maki do it for him), Chihiro comments that Maki must be like a reliable big sister to the kids she looks after.

Maki:  “I don’t think… I’m that reliable.”

Chihiro:  “Huh, why?”

Maki:  “I’m not good at taking care of people and I keep secrets. You can’t rely on someone like that.”

Makiiii, you are very good at taking care of people. And you only keep your secret to protect both yourself and other people, not out of any kind of malice or intent to deceive, so that doesn’t inherently make you unreliable. I guess in this universe Kaito never got the chance to give his speech about how having secrets is just human and doesn’t necessarily make someone a bad person.

Chihiro:  “You keep secrets?”

Maki:  “Nothing. Forget it.”

Chihiro:  “Um… Uhhh… Keeping secrets might be bad… But I don’t think it’s strange… Even I… have secrets.”

Turns out this is something Maki and Chihiro have in common! Chihiro isn’t keeping his secret for a malicious reason either, nor does it make him any less worth relying on because of it!

Chihiro:  “Maki… is there anyone you talked to about your secret? Or have you not told anyone?”

Maki:  “Well… I have told someone.”

The fact that Maki says that she told Kaito and Shuichi her secret makes it all the more likely that the reason they found out really is because she slowly grew to trust them enough to tell them. I don’t think she’d word it that way if they’d been the ones to figure it out first.

Chihiro:  “Okay, then you’re fine. It’s a bit of a relief to have someone to talk to.”

Maki:  “That’s true… I actually do feel a bit relieved.”

Chihiro is saying this because, in this AU, he’s entrusted Mondo with his secret and Mondo has been training him to get stronger, a lot like Kaito has with Maki! This is a big thing they have in common, and it’s lovely to have that brought up here and see them both agreeing that it’s nice not to have to bear their secret alone.

Honestly, if Chihiro had happened to be in Kaito’s class instead, he’d probably have admired Kaito’s strength and gone to him instead with his secret to ask for help getting stronger, and damn right Kaito would have immediately taken him on as a sidekick and it would have been adorable. But instead, Chihiro has Mondo, which in some ways is essentially the same thing and in some ways is rather different, as we’ll get into later in this post.

Year 1 seasonal events

The first year’s seasonal event is the summer sports festival. There aren’t too many here I want to cover, but I might as well group them together for it anyway.

Show ‘em what you got in the three-legged race! Maybe you should talk to someone before the race. But who?

-      My sidekick, of course!

One fun thing about the way the game does these seasonal events is that the narration and the choices are written in the POV of the character you’re playing as. Kaito is so into this and so eager to talk to his sidekick – obviously he wouldn’t pick anyone else! (He did keep saying back in Salmon Team that the sidekick totally wouldn’t pick anyone besides the hero – and that at least is something that goes both ways!)

Kaito:  “Alright, bro! It’s finally time to show off the results of all our training! Don’t hesitate! There’s no way we can lose after training through blood, sweat and tears!”

Shuichi:  “Blood, sweat and tears sounds like a little too much… But it’s true that this training will give us an edge in the festival. I feel like we can win!”

Of course their training will help! Not just in the sense that it’s made Shuichi physically fitter, but also just because it means Kaito and Shuichi are so very in-sync with each other. The three-legged race is an event that relies less on physical prowess and more just on extremely good teamwork, so it’s perfect for Kaito in general, and especially for him and Shuichi since they’re such close friends. I bet Kaito signed them both up the moment he heard there was going to be a three-legged race, probably before even asking if Shuichi was up for it (because he already knew he would be).

Kaito:  “I’ve already decided I’m gonna win at everything today. So as my sidekick, you better support me!”

Kaito is still pretending like the sidekick thing is even remotely about Shuichi making him look good when really it’s literally the opposite of that. Though I suppose events like this give him an excuse to actually make things seem this way for once, so that he can set a super-awesome example for his sidekick to strive for.

Despite acting like he definitely wouldn’t have chosen to talk to anyone but Shuichi, Kaito can also talk to his opponents, one of whom happens to be Fuyuhiko. (Another event implies that Fuyuhiko’s partner in this race is Kazuichi, which means we were so close to seeing Kaito and Kazuichi interact! They do not have a single interaction in this mode and I feel incredibly robbed.)

Kaito:  “Oh hey, Fuyuhiko. Never thought I’d be going up against you!”

Kaito starts with this, so it seems he’s aware of what Fuyuhiko’s like and knows that it appears to be unlike him to be at events like this. (This is, after all, a Fuyuhiko before his canon character development in which he warmed up to everyone.)

Fuyuhiko:  “What, am I not allowed to be here or something? Did you think I’d just ditch school events?”

Kaito:  “Nah, man! I’m glad you’re here! I always thought you were the type that’d show up to this stuff!”

Fuyuhiko:  “Geez… don’t act like you’ve got me figured out. I never wanted to do any of this lame shit.”

But Kaito does have Fuyuhiko figured out, doesn’t he! Despite what he said at first, which was based on how Fuyuhiko appears on the surface, Kaito can also see past that and tell that really Fuyuhiko does want to join in with this kind of thing with his schoolmates and is just very prickly about it. And by being so forward with the “Yeah, of course you’d do this!”, he’s also trying to get Fuyuhiko to realise that it’s really not so embarrassing to want this and he should be more open with it. Kaito is so good.

Kaito’s other opponents, and last options to talk to for this event, are Hiro and Hifumi. There’s nothing of substance in that conversation other than pointing out how hilariously ill-equipped they are for a three-legged race. And since Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi are not super in-sync with each other and liable to bicker, Kaito and Shuichi definitely destroyed the competition and showed everyone what an awesome team they are.

Kaito appears in a few other people’s sports festival events, but none of them are that noteworthy. He suggests Gonta should play more aggressively at basketball, protests that his face is not dumb-looking when Mahiru decides to take photos of the three-legged race, and encourages Peko to be enthusiastic in cheering on her friends.

Kaito:  “Shout whatever you think will help. That’ll become their strength out there!”

Words becoming other people’s strength is so very luminary of him and it’s lovely to see him passing that idea onto others.

Maki has a brief noteworthy bit during the sports festival, in an event you get as Kyoko, who is one of Maki’s opponents in the girls’ three-legged race.

Maki:  “Even though sports festivals are a pain… I don’t intend to hold back. There’s someone in my class who would nag me if I don’t do my best.”

Guess who she’s talking about! Sports festivals may be just for bragging rights and not really Maki’s thing, but Kaito has managed to instil her with at least a little of his philosophy that anything and everything is worth getting passionate about and giving your all.

The sports festival happens in June, while Japanese school years start in April. Which means that, man, Kaito really got to work fast on his prolonged stubborn pestering to get through to Maki if he’s already done so in the space of only a few months. …Or, since she only says “someone in my class” and not “a friend”, maybe this is before Maki has actually told him her secret (though she’d still be reluctant to admit he’s her friend for a little while after that). But even if she’s not his sidekick yet, clearly he’s still been pestering her plenty about doing her best and getting involved in things, because of course he has.

Meanwhile, Shuichi’s events for the sports festival involve him tracking down and apprehending Monokuma, who was causing chaos for the hell of it (yes, Monokuma is here in this non-despair AU as a separate autonomous character, somehow, just go with it). Shuichi’s using his detective skills to help people, just like Kaito was encouraging him to!

Mondo (featuring heroes and sidekicks)

Another of Kaito’s friendly events, and one which is followed up on with a third year seasonal event, is with Mondo. While I am endlessly sad that there are no interactions between Kaito and Kazuichi… perhaps that’s understandable, because Kaito would have full-on sidekicked the hell out of Kazuichi and it would have been a whole thing that this mode wouldn’t have room to do justice. But I do also like Mondo a lot, so maybe Kaito’s interactions with him here are the next best thing.

Mondo:  “…”

Kaito:  “What’s up? Is something bothering you?”

Given Kaito’s intuition, he’s probably right to assume that something’s bothering Mondo here. After all, Mondo definitely has a lot of issues that he hasn’t remotely sorted out yet.

Kaito:  “Alright, then I’ll tell you about the universe! It’ll make your problems look insignificant!”

While this could read as such, Kaito is not saying this in any kind of self-centred sense of “my space stuff is more important than your issues”. Rather, he’s trying to help Mondo realise his problems maybe aren’t quite as big and as scary as he’s making them out to be. “The universe is impossibly vast” isn’t necessarily just something Kaito says to geek out about space. Perhaps it’s also a way he’s found to help put his problems in perspective (you know, when he has them, which is definitely never and why are you asking where his parents are), so he’s trying to do that for Mondo, too.

Mondo:  “You talk about space and shit all the time, but… you ain’t even been there yet, right? And even so, you’ve still got such a confident look on your face.”

Kaito:  “Of course. I’m Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars! It’s already been decided that I’m gonna go to space! Right now is just before that happens!”

This is such a straightforwardly Kaito outlook. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t been to space yet, he’s definitely going to, so he might as well carry himself like somebody who already has! He’s so good at having confidence in himself and what his future holds.

Mondo:  “It pisses me off, but… hearing you say something like that makes it sound possible. Space, huh? To have a dream like that, you gotta have some real balls, man.”

…And maybe that sort of outlook is the kind of thing that could help Mondo. Kaito presents himself the way he does not just to make himself look good, but more importantly to try and inspire others to have that same incredible confidence in themselves.

Kaito:  “Right!? I knew you’d get me, Mondo! Space is huge! It’s filled with the unknown! It’s a man’s passion to explore it, right!?”

Mondo:  “A man’s passion… Like the wind on ya when you’re riding your motorcycle at top speed? …Is it something like that?”

Kaito:  “That’s right! Just like that! It’s somewhere you’ll never reach if you live normally!”

Look at these manly dorks. Even though exploring space and riding a motorbike are two very different things, I like that Kaito agrees they basically both fall under the same principle – it’s about pushing the limits and doing whatever you’re most passionate about, no matter how out-there it is. Kaito’s concept of “a man’s passion” is somewhat different and more specific than just his general concept of manliness, and in his case, it’s all about that passion for SPACE. Still not inherently gendered, I might add.

(Mondo also has his own general concept of manliness, of course, and his is definitely very gendered, although there’s still a decent overlap with Kaito’s in terms of things like integrity and honour.)

Kaito:  “Hey, what’s your dream, Mondo? I bet yours is filled with fire and passion!”

Mondo:  “Nah, I… ain’t got something like that.”

Mondo does in fact have a dream – he wants to quit his bike gang and become a carpenter when he graduates. But it seems he’s embarrassed to admit that, perhaps because it doesn’t sound “fiery and passionate” enough next to Kaito’s dream of space.

Kaito:  “Really? Are you only looking at the past or something? You can’t move forward in life if you’re looking backwards, y’know?”

Some good advice and definitely something Mondo needs to hear! He is very stuck on the past and what happened to his brother, when he should be looking to the future and trying his best to move on from that.

(Also remember that Kaito lost his parents, and while that presumably wasn’t at all his fault like Daiya’s death kind of was Mondo’s fault, Kaito is still very much using his past pain to push him forwards rather than hold him back.)

Mondo:  “…”

Kaito:  “What? You don’t wanna tell me? Don’t compare your dream to mine, y’know? You’ll get scared by the size of the universe…”

Again, this is not Kaito doing a self-centred “my dream is better than yours”. In fact, it’s the opposite – he’s telling Mondo that he shouldn’t worry about comparing himself to others. Just because most people don’t have dreams as ridiculously huge and over-the-top as Kaito’s dream of space, that doesn’t make their own dream any less important if it’s something they’re equally passionate about! The example Kaito is trying to set as a luminary isn’t about inspiring everyone to literally share his goal of going to space, but rather to just be as passionate about their own goals as Kaito is about his!

Kaito:  “Then chase your dream with confidence! Don’t think your dream is too small or you’ll become small yourself!”

Mondo:  “Like hell I’d do something like that! I’m gonna be the best in the universe at my dream!”

Kaito:  “Heh, that’s what I like to hear!”

Exactly! Being a carpenter may be an ordinary job, but that doesn’t make it small and insignificant, not if it’s what Mondo’s really passionate about! And Kaito succeeded in getting Mondo to feel that way! He’s going to be the best carpenter ever!

Kaito is so good. Mondo has a lot of issues he needs to work out, and while Kaito didn’t really begin to get into any of them, he still managed to encourage Mondo to be more positive about his future. I always say that Kaito presents himself with so much overblown confidence to try and set an example for others to do the same, and here’s an instance of that very tangibly working on someone and helping them out.

As a brief interlude between the two Kaito and Mondo scenes, Mondo can end up serving Shuichi from the yakisoba stand he’s working at for the school festival in a second-year seasonal event.

Mondo:  “Thanks for coming, it’s on me!”

Shuichi:  “Hm? That’s… Are you sure?”

Mondo:  “Hey, don’t worry about it. Any buddy of that spaceman is a buddy of mine.”

Aww, Mondo really does appreciate Kaito’s encouragement! He didn’t need to make a thing of it in front of Shuichi at all – Kaito would never know or care that he hadn’t – but he did anyway. Mondo is a good guy. This kind of suggests that maybe he and Kaito have been hanging out offscreen a bit more than the one scene we saw – evidently not to full-on sidekick levels, but at least a little.

Mondo:  “He’s like a younger brother to me. Seriously, it’s on me, man.”

Shuichi:  “…So that’s what he is to you, huh? You’re both the same age, though.”

Yes, Mondo, that is definitely what he is to you. While he’s happy to show his appreciation for Kaito, Mondo doesn’t want to tarnish his tough-guy image (nobody must know how weak he really is!!!) enough to admit that really Kaito’s the one who’s helped him. Mondo is totally a born big brother figure, it’s definitely not like he was actually the little brother who adored and looked up to his big bro or anything.

Shuichi is right to be sceptical, not only because Kaito and Mondo are the same age, but also because he knows that Kaito is always the supportive figure and is highly unlikely to end up being treated like a younger brother by anyone.

Shuichi ends up insisting that he repays Mondo’s free yakisoba sometime and that he’ll bring Kaito along. The three of them hanging out would be adorable! It’s a shame we don’t get to see it.

Then, in one of Mondo’s third year winter events, he ends up bumping into Kaito on a nighttime walk. Most of the scene is just Kaito being very enthusiastic about space and confident about getting there one day.

Mondo:  “With that kinda confidence, I think you might actually make it up there…”

Kaito:  “Well of course! I’m the Ultimate Astronaut, y’know!? Everyone told me it was impossible… But the impossible is possible, all you gotta do is make it so!”

Ayyyy! Of course this is still a thing in this AU. Plus a very rare instance of Kaito referring to himself as the Ultimate Astronaut rather than the Luminary of the Stars, perhaps only because he’s literally talking about being an astronaut and going to space.

Kaito:  “You can always change your present and your future, as long as you don’t give up!”

Mondo:  “You’re right. I can’t change the past, but I can do something for the future.”

But Kaito also reiterates this advice from before, and it really does seem to have got through to Mondo and helped him move on from his brother’s death. This scene doesn’t add much, but it’s nice to underline what Kaito did for Mondo and show that it really did stick.

Kaito:  “Yeah, that’s the spirit! Do your best, even after you graduate, Mondo!”

Mondo:  “Don’t talk to me like that, I’m not one of your sidekicks…”

Heh, I like how this implies that they’ve had enough conversations for Kaito to have told Mondo plenty about his sidekicks, allowing Mondo to have figured out roughly what he really means by the word. Mondo isn’t exactly one of Kaito’s sidekicks, no, since Kaito hasn’t quite made it his personal business to help Mondo out in every single way he can… but since Kaito has helped Mondo out a little anyway, it’s not too far off from that.

It’s almost a shame we don’t get more insight into these conversations they had about Kaito’s sidekicks, because the sidekick thing is rather similar to what Mondo has been doing with Chihiro in this AU, in that Mondo’s been guiding Chihiro through physical training to help him get stronger. Mondo wouldn’t call it this, but Chihiro is effectively his sidekick in Kaito’s definition of the word!

So, even though scenes featuring only DR1 characters would otherwise not really belong in this V3 commentary, I am going to talk a little about the Mondo and Chihiro scenes here for the purposes of comparing their relationship to the one Kaito has with his sidekicks. When I say that, I mean specifically Kaito’s relationship with his sidekicks in canon, since in this AU he’s genuinely fine, but in canon he was not as strong as he was pretending to be, a lot like Mondo. And by “sidekicks” I of course mean particularly Shuichi, since he’s the one Kaito secretly looked up to and saw as already greater than himself, much like Mondo does with Chihiro. See? Similarities! But there are quite a few differences, too.

Mondo and Chihiro have two scenes together, the first a regular friendly event and the second as one of Mondo’s third year seasonal events. The first scene presumably happens not especially long after Chihiro has begun training, because it features him struggling to do even half the push-ups expected of him, while Mondo reassures him that he’s just got to keep working at it. The second scene has Chihiro remark that the exercise makes him feel refreshed, which Mondo points out is great progress when it used to make him feel sore all the time. Chihiro agrees that maybe he really has got at least a little stronger over the past three years, to the point that he’s starting to feel brave enough to tell everyone the truth about himself before they graduate.

Chihiro:  “Even though I can never be as strong as you, I’ve been doing my best… I feel like… I can tell everyone. And it’s all thanks to you, Mondo.”

Mondo:  “Hey, come on. I didn’t do anything special.”

Look at how Chihiro looks up Mondo as the perfect ideal of strength that he’ll never quite be able to reach and has no idea that Mondo has any kind of weakness. That sure is familiar.

Similarly familiar is the way Mondo feels like he barely did anything to help (because it was really all Chihiro’s own strength and hard work, right?). And yet, simply having Mondo there both as an example to strive for and as a friend so that he wasn’t doing this alone made a huge difference from Chihiro’s point of view. It only takes a nudge, but that nudge is vital! You did help him, Mondo!

Mondo:  “Besides, from the very beginning, you…”

Chihiro:  “Huh?”

Mondo:  “…Nah, nothing.”

Obviously, Mondo was about to say that he feels Chihiro has always been strong – stronger than him – but then backed out of admitting it. This is reminiscent of the part in chapter 3’s first training session in which Kaito almost admitted that Shuichi wasn’t weak like Maki was, but then caught himself and changed the subject. In Kaito’s case, though, I think he was only just starting to realise that he saw Shuichi this way and wouldn’t have known how to properly articulate it even if he’d actually tried to (because wouldn’t that mean that Shuichi was never really his sidekick and didn’t really need him at all? and NOPE nope abort let’s just not even think about that). But here with Mondo, I get the sense that he’s already been very consciously aware the whole time that Chihiro is much stronger than him and is simply unwilling to admit it to anyone but himself.

Both our pairs of training buddies have a delightful thing going on where they each look up to their friend for having a kind of strength that they lack and assume that the other is stronger than them because of it. In Kaito and Shuichi’s case, they’re both types of emotional strength: Shuichi’s ability to focus on finding the truth no matter how much it hurts, and Kaito’s ability to keep being positive and upbeat no matter how bad things get. Ultimately, they’re still basically both as strong as each other, just in different ways. But with Mondo and Chihiro, Mondo’s strength is entirely physical, while Chihiro’s strength is entirely emotional, so they’re not really comparable at all. Which means that when it comes to the more meaningful kind of strength, the emotional kind, Chihiro is just stronger than Mondo.

The problem is that Chihiro doesn’t seem to realise that emotional strength is equally if not more important than physical strength. Yet Mondo clearly does, since he knows Chihiro is stronger than him – so if only he’d tell Chihiro that! That’d have helped Chihiro realise what he really needed to be striving for, and that getting physically stronger, even if it’d help him feel more confident in himself, was not really the main point. (If Chihiro had been Kaito’s sidekick, Kaito would absolutely have made that point clear and let Chihiro know that simply by trying to change he’s already grown stronger than he was before.)

Mondo wouldn’t even have needed to mention his own emotional weakness while hypothetically telling Chihiro that emotional strength is more important, so he shouldn’t have had an inherent reason not to do so. Perhaps the issue could be that Mondo was afraid that talking to Chihiro about emotional strength would lead Chihiro to probe about Mondo’s emotional strength too and realise the truth about him.

It could also just be that Mondo wasn’t at all used to this whole having-a-“sidekick” thing. Therefore he felt that the only way he could really help was by helping Chihiro with the thing he is good at, aka physical strength, and he didn’t feel like he was qualified to talk about emotional strength at all. …Essentially what I’m trying to say here is that maybe Mondo didn’t want to talk through Chihiro’s emotional weaknesses while still refusing to admit to his own because he didn’t want to be a giant hypocrite. That’s very possible. After all, he doesn’t have Kaito’s double-standard of “but I’m the hero so it’s different for me because they need me to be strong already” that caused Kaito to not even realise his hypocrisy.

See, Mondo is hiding his weakness here simply out of weakness, that same kind of cowardice that Kaito pointed out in Maki before he convinced her to face her issues and try and change. Mondo’s just too scared to bring his weakness out into the open and have everyone know that he’s not the tough guy he claims to be and that his brother’s death was his fault.

Kaito also didn’t want to admit to his weakness out of fear of shattering the image others have of him, but that was for other people’s sake and not his own, because he was convinced that he wouldn’t be able to support Shuichi or Maki or the others any more if they knew the truth. Mondo also evidently doesn’t want Chihiro to know that he’s weak, but I feel like that’s more for his own sake, because Chihiro looking up to him so much lets him feel strong and helps him continue to hide from the weakness that he’s too scared to admit to. He seems relatively willing to admit to himself that really Chihiro would be fine without him, so it’s not that Mondo thinks revealing his weakness would cause Chihiro any problems.

Although, there is some level of selflessness in Mondo hiding his weakness – not in terms of Chihiro, but in terms of the members of his gang. They all look up to Mondo as their awesome leader who bested his big bro in a bike race (even if that ended tragically, that was Daiya’s fault for getting reckless because he was about to lose, wasn’t it?). So Mondo’s afraid that if they learn the truth and how weak he really is, the whole gang will fall apart. I’d like to believe that’s not actually the case and that his gang members are good enough bros that they’d understand and be supportive of him and still look up to him anyway even if they knew. But it’s hard to be sure of that without knowing much about what they’re like, so it’s possible that Mondo actually does have a more legitimate reason to be afraid of this than Kaito ever did.

Once Mondo and Chihiro are done training in their winter scene and Chihiro has left, Mondo has one last line to himself…

Mondo:  “I wonder… if I can change too. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as strong as you, Chihiro.”

Just admitting to that desire to change is the first step, Mondo! And with that alone, in some ways, Mondo has immediately got further than Kaito ever did in canon.

Admitting it to Chihiro would be a bigger help, though. After all, even Chihiro himself needed someone else to share his problems with in order to be able to change in the way that Mondo is admiring so much. It’s a shame that Mondo can’t even use that as inspiration to find the courage to do that himself, in order to start working on his weaknesses like he so clearly wants to do. You’d only need to tell one person to begin with, Mondo! And Chihiro would keep looking up to you for your physical strength anyway, because that’s a separate thing that you still undeniably have!

(Which was totally a different thing for Kaito, since Shuichi looked up to him for his emotional strength, so surely Kaito admitting that he’s emotionally weak would have ruined that entirely! It couldn’t possibly be that he’s still emotionally strong in some ways even if he’s weak in others and Shuichi would still have every reason to admire him – if he’s weak at all then that instantly means he’s a failure as a hero, right?)

If only Chihiro had ever learned about Mondo’s weakness one way or another, he would definitely have been able to help. Even if he wouldn’t have exactly known how to, he’s an absolute sweetheart who’d have done his best anyway to try and reassure and encourage Mondo that if even Chihiro can work to get stronger and admit his secret to everyone, surely Mondo can too!

It does seem like Mondo made some decent progress over his time at Hope’s Peak, based on this winter scene with Kaito and another one with Taka in which he openly talks about his plans to quit the gang and become a carpenter (Taka is adorably proud that he wants to put in the effort and contribute to society). That’s a little bit thanks to Kaito, but also a lot thanks to simply having friends like Chihiro and Taka and having had time to reflect on things. But if only he’d been brave enough to confess his weakness and what happened to his brother to at least just Chihiro, they could have talked about it more and Mondo could have made a lot more progress on the real root of his issues. Alas.

[janisarkisian]

Silence of the Siren ch. 2

This is an AU where the Anarchist females + Narcissa are sirens, and the Renegades are lifeguards. If you want to read chapter 1, here it is. Note: This chapter is unedited.

Word Count: 1,840

Nova looked down at her plain outfit and sighed. Honey was going to another one of those stupid clubs, and she wanted Nova to go with her. What was the point? You dance, you meet a boy, you drink, you go home. She knew very well that Honey would not keep in touch with any of the boys, but that wasn’t her concern.

“Are you going?” she asked Narcissa. She shook her head no. Nova sighed again. How bad could it be? She couldn’t talk to anyone anyways, so she could just chill on her own. She didn’t have to talk to anyone.

“What do I wear?” Nova reluctantly asked Honey.

“Oh yes!” Honey squealed and disappeared into her closet. A few minutes later, Honey returned with a short, black lacy dress. It was immediate distaste for Nova. “You have to try it!” Honey insisted.

Nova sighed and disappeared into her own closet to change. When she was finished, Nova looked at her own appearance. She knew very well that she was beautiful. All sirens were. Ace made them worth it. Sometimes though, she felt very ugly. Before becoming a siren, Nova had always pictured herself ugly. Looking at herself as pretty was a hard habit to make.

Walking out of the closet, Nova heard Ingrid’s easily identified laugh. “I can’t believe you’re actually going!” she exclaimed. Nova simply rolled her eyes. Now that she knew Ingrid was in denial, she was going to have a good time simply to spite her.

Looking at her feet, Nova realized she was going to have to find some shoes. She sighed. She hardly ever wore shoes. As a siren, it was impossible to get hurt, so having foot protection was unnecessary. She knew that Ingrid felt the same way, but Honey would always wear shoes. They were yet another accessory for her to look stunning in.

She peered at her meager supply of shoes. All she had were a pair of sandals and a pair of tennis shoes. In the past ten years, Nova had not had one occasion to dress up for. That was the way she liked it.

“Honey!” she called, “I’m going to have to borrow a pair of shoes!” She heard Honey’s perfect squeal. A second later, Honey came running in the room with a pair of bright red heels.

“No,” Nova immediately protested. There was no way she could walk around all night in those. They were at least four inches high and looked like torture for feet.

Honey sighed. “Fine. I suppose I could find something a little more modest.” The look on Nova’s face immediately went grateful. If she was going to this club, she wasn’t torturing her feet as well.

Nova ventured into her closet. It wasn’t very full, mostly because Nova mostly wore tee-shirts and sweatpants. Occasionally, Nova went out of her comfort zone for the leggings Narcissa constantly raved about. They were nice, but Nova would always prefer sweatpants.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a slight glow from the back of her closet. She shoved away the shirts and revealed a pair of blue pumps.

Blue wasn’t the right way to describe them though. They were almost a glowing turquoise and reminded Nova immensely of the bracelet that always hung on her wrist. The last thing she had from her dad.

Nova knew that it wasn’t right to remember so much. Ingrid remembered none of her family, and Honey remembered only her mother. Narcissa was very lucky to remember her grandfather’s name. Nova knew more than that though. She remembered the names of all three of her family members and their personalities. She knew that Ingrid was worried about her, so she mostly kept these memories to herself. If she was feeling talkative, she would share a few memories with Narcissa.

“I don’t need the shoes!” Nova called to Honey. Curious, Honey peeked back at her. She gasped at the sight of the glowing blue pumps.

“Those are perfect!” she exclaimed.

“Glad you think so,” Nova responded. Both girls piled into Honey’s yellow sports club. That was another plus to being a siren. Ace supplied them with all the money they could ever want, so they never had to work. It was too risky. Honey started blasting the newest pop tunes. Nova didn’t care. It was hard to keep up with the latest trends when you’re practically immortal. She preferred the music from back when she was really sixteen.

She caught sight of the club before even their GPS. Honey gasped at the sight. It was in a tall building, and it was covered with neon lights. The sign read: The Merfolk.

“Get out your fake ID,” Honey whispered to her.

“Which one?” she responded.

Honey sighed. “I don’t care, just one that says your over twenty-one. We should have visited Ace before we came here. He could have aged us a little.”

Nova let out something between a laugh and a gasp. “You really think he would help us?” she asked sarcastically, “He only uses his powers for special circumstances, and I don’t think that going to a club counts.”

“You’re right, like always,” Honey sighed again. They pulled out their fake ID’s and flashed them to the man outside. Honey made sure to give him a good look at the extra-beautiful face. Nova simply rolled her eyes.

The man did let them in, and Honey immediately made it out onto the dance floor. Even though they couldn’t talk to anyone, she had always done an exceptional job at mingling and getting various lovers. In the past ten years, Nova had exactly zero lovers. She didn’t try, for fear that she might fall in love. This was a fear that stayed far down in her heart. Ace’s minion, Phobia, checked their fears every once in a while, to make sure they weren’t getting too attached to boys. Or anything else that could jeopardize their time as sirens. Nova couldn’t risk having a boy and getting discovered. She needed to be fully loyal to Ace. Phobia told her that was another one of her fears. Losing her loyalty to Ace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why am I here? That question had cycled through Adrian’s head at least ten times since he arrived at The Merfolk. He had never been one for parties. That was always Ruby and Oscar’s thing. Even Danna seemed to be having a good time though. Adrian found himself a little jealous.

He wandered over to the bar. Legally, he was too young to drink, but Oscar had found them all fake ID’s to get into the club. Adrian was starting to think that he might need some alcohol to get through the night here.

Quickly, he banished the thought from his head. What would Dad and Pops say if they knew he had been drinking at a club? They wouldn’t approve of him being here in general, much less drinking. They thought he was having a team sleepover at Oscar’s. It wasn’t a full lie because they would be going to Oscar’s after the club. He sighed. Why was he here?

Taking a look at very distracted Oscar staring at Ruby, and Ruby dancing with some stranger, Adrian decided that no one would miss him if he simply lingered in the shadows for a while. He made his way over, and nearly bumped into someone. It was a girl with short, dark hair.

“Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was back here,” he apologized. The girl didn’t respond. She took out her phone and started typing what Adrian thought might be a text. Then, she held the phone out to him The note read: I’m mute, so I can’t talk. I can hear fine though. Your apology is accepted. Adrian nodded at the girl, but he wasn’t really paying attention to the message anymore. When she had held out her phone, Adrian got a good look at her face. Truthfully, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Mute or not, Adrian wouldn’t mind getting to know her.

“Are you here with someone?” he asked her. She started typing again. Her message read: Yes, my friend Honey.

Adrian nodded. “I’m here with my friends too. My friends Ruby and Oscar are dancing, with each other, I presume, and I’m sure Danna is at the bar. She’s like the vodka aunt of our group if you get what I mean.”

She nodded her head. Adrian continued, “If you look out there you can probably see them. Ruby has hair that’s dyed in layers of black and white, and Oscar has a cane. Danna’s wearing a muted orange dress.” The girl started typing again. The message read: It’s cool that you have such a cool friend group. I have two other friends named Ingrid and Narcissa, but they’re not here.

“Not the club type?” he asked her. She nodded and started typing again. This time it read: I’m not really either, but Honey really likes these places, so I figured I would give it a shot. I’ve now decided they’re not my thing.

This time it was Adrian who nodded. “I’m pretty much in your situation. Oscar and Ruby live for clubs, and even Danna seems to be having a good time, but I’m not really liking it. If they come back, I most likely won’t be with them.”

The girl looked like she was about to start typing when they both heard someone yell, “Where the heck is Adrian!”

When she typed again it said: Are you, Adrian?

“Yep,” he responded, “What’s your name?” She typed again: I’m Nova. “Cool,” he said, “Um Ruby’s obviously looking for me so I should go. I hope that I get to see you again soon.” She nodded yes, and Adrian left to go join his friends.

As Adrian and his friends piled into Oscar’s junky car, he saw Nova and who he presumed must be Honey, hop into the yellow sports car beside them. He wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he rolled down the window, and yelled, “Bye Nova!” She didn’t respond. Suddenly, he felt the weight of the stares of all his teammates on him.

“So who’s she?” Danna finally asked.

“Chill, guys, I just met her at the club.”

It was Oscar who spoke up next. “I’m pretty sure he’s in love.” Adrian smacked him in the arm. “What?” he asked him.

“I’m not in love with a girl I met twenty minutes ago, guys, chill.”

“That’s good,” Ruby responded, “We’d be seriously worried if you were.” Adrian simply sighed and started the car. Considering he hadn’t drunk anything, he figured it would be best if he drove. No one argued with him.

When they pulled into the driveway of Oscar’s house, they saw his mom glaring at them through the kitchen window. Before, Adrian would have said that any punishment they would get wasn’t worth it. After meeting Nova, he wasn’t quite so sure.

[bookworm-blogs]

Passing The Torch (Félix Drabble)

Ok I know I don't usually make stuff like this-- or make original things anyway, I mostly repost stuff-- but an idea came to mind and I can't shake it. So, here's a quick drabble on Félix.

Also: I'm a huge fan of "completely deadass brother Félix and dorky sinnamon bun Adrien" so I'll deviate a bit from popular opinion of canon Félix. Idk why, but I have a feeling there's more to Félix than meets the eye.

<_>

"Finally, we did it," Chat Noir panted and shot Ladybug a victorious grin, which she returned with a smirk of her own. Alya, Rose and Juleka-- the trio Punisher-- were now back to their original civilian forms with their purified akumas floating away into the pristine Parisian air. Funny, how even with all the chaos, the beautiful city of love continued to shine brightly and buzz with everyday excitement of normal people.

It was beautiful for such a stressful day.

'I could really go for some lunch right now,' Chat thought with little appetite. Honestly, after the day he had, he wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep; fighting three supervillains was hard enough, but add the drama at home with his surprisingly cruel cousin and a small dose of parental issues, his day was really turning out to be shit.

Chat Noir turned to Ladybug, ready to announce his leave, when his heightened ears caught footsteps approaching them. He turned and found none other than his cousin, Félix, standing there- thankfully dressed in his own clothes this time. His expression was smug and his eyes were knowing as he scanned the two superheroes before him.

"You two make a really good team," Félix observed before directing his gaze to Chat. "Chat Noir, a word please?"

"And why the hell would I do that?" Chat spat. "Haven't you caused enough problems already?"

"I know that, but I have a good reason. I'll tell you if you're willing to listen," Félix told him coolly, and Chat was horrified finding himself listening to him.

"We're not doing this. Come on, Chaton, we're going to de-transform soon," Ladybug said firmly, and as if on cue, both their miraculouses began beeping. Chat Noir swallowed the tension in his throat and looked between the two uncertainly.

Félix was an asshole, that much was obvious, but if Chat Noir knew anything about his cousin, it was that Félix wasn't a man of short-sighted actions. He's meticulous and thoughtful, he always has been. He should be angry at his cousin, furious even, but deep down he only wanted to know what made Félix do the things he did.

"Chat," Ladybug said again.

"Your secret is safe with me, Chat Noir," Félix said unexpectedly, and when Chat Noir caught a good look of his face, he knew immediately what Félix meant.

'He knows I'm Chat Noir.'

"Alright," Chat said, "we'll listen."

Félix shook his head. "No, I want this to be between us," Félix said and shot a meaningful look Ladybug's way.

Ladybug looked like she wanted to argue or even hit something, but she caught Chat Noir's gaze and held it. He shook his head at her and took a step towards his cousin.

"Excuse us, m'lady. We won't be long," Chat Noir told her, and through gritted teeth, Ladybug nodded.

Chat Noir followed Félix down from Chloe's hotel roof and into one of the empty VIP rooms. While Chat Noir closed the blinds and checked for any unwanted viewers, Félix reached for the cheese platter in the mini fridge and took out a small peice of camembert.

Chat Noir's miraculous beeped another warning.

"Nobody's watching. You can change back now," Félix said, and with that, Chat Noir uttered the key words that changed him from a wild looking hero in leather spandex back into the form of a normal teenage boy.

Plagg flew out of the ring and onto the bed with an exhausted sigh. Instead of immediately whining about food, however, Plagg sat up and shot Félix a look filled with disgust, surprise, a little bit of joy, and most obviously, recognition.

"Félix, it's been a while," Plagg said, and the other blond sent the small god an appraising look of his own, though Adrien knew Félix well enough to see relief in his stoic face.

"Hello, Plagg," Félix said. "It's good to see you again."

Plagg scoffed. "You say that now even though you're the one who rejected me," the small feline grumbled, and Félix rolled his eyes.

"For a god as old as the universe you whine an awful lot."

"As if you have any room to talk, you jerkface."

"Okay, okay, hold up," Adrien interfered and sent both parties immensely bewildered glances. "You know each other?"

"Yes, we do," Félix said, and Plagg huffed unhappily from his place on the bed. Félix glared at the kwami before continuing on. "Around two years ago, I was travelling with my family in Thailand on a buisiness trip when the weirdest thing happened: snake people began coming out of the dirt and attacked several villages.

"Master Fu was wandering the area at the time when he met me, and he gave me the Cat Miraculous to combat against the naga invasion. By using the miraculous, I managed to defeat the nagas before they could do any major damage, and for my efforts, I was granted full custody of the miraculous--"

"Which you rejected!" Plagg hissed. "Could you believe this guy? He was given all the power mass destruction could give him and he gave it up!"

Adrien looked at Félix as if he had grown a second head. Félix was his predecessor? He was a Chat Noir, too? Adrien sat down; there was no way he could process his information on both legs.

Félix rolled his eyes. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you are jealous, Plagg," Félix remarked coolly, and Plagg bared his tiny fangs in response.

"I'm not jealous! I was mad! I had to be stuffed away in that cramped box again!"

"Anyway," Félix went on, much to Plagg's frustration, "I told Fu living the life of a superhero wasn't meant for me, but rather, for someone I knew would have not only the ambition to be a hero, but someone who had the strength to keep it up. I told Fu to go to France and look for a boy named Adrien Agreste."

"You sent Fu here?" Adrien gasped, and Félix nodded his head. Warmth slipped into his eyes and he managed a true smile completely unlike the serpentine ones he wore earlier.

"When I came back to France, I had to know what was going on. I wanted to check up on you after my aunt... vanished, but I also had to make sure you matched my expectations. So, I pulled every last trick I could think of to get people mad. My ploy worked, and I could never be more proud at how you exceeded all my expectations. You truly are a Chat Noir worthy of Plagg."

Adrien gaped at his cousin, who looked so composed and regal without ever actually trying. Adrien always envied Félix's ability to be the perfect man, and now here he is, trying to imagine Félix in a black cat suit fighting snake men. It was an impossible picture to conjure, and Adrien couldn't help a laugh.

Félix quirked up a thin golden eyebrow. "What's so funny?" He asked.

"I- I just can't believe this. You brought Fu here and you were Chat Noir? Wait, what did you even look like? What was your hero name?" Adrien asked, and Félix's eyebrows shot to his hairline. He looked stunned for a moment, then he almost seemed to lift his chin higher.

"I looked a lot like you do, actually. Though I had a bigger bell and didn't look anything like a stripper," Félix said proudly, and Plagg guffawed in joy.

"You kidding? Of all the Chat Noirs I've had, none of them had a more sinful outfit than you did. I don't know what your deal was with those thigh-high stripper boots but--"

"PLAGG!"

Adrien lost it. He fell on his side, wheezing while Félix's cheeks burned red in shame.

"IT'S NOT FUNNY, STOP LAUGHING!" Félix shrieked, and Plagg floated over to his side and took the camembert out of his hands.

"Good going, Dark Knight, you broke him," Plagg remarked, and Adrien wheezed even louder.

"Wait, YOUR NAME WAS A BATMAN REFERENCE??"

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MENACING!"

Plagg took a big bite out of his camembert as he watched the two cousins shriek at each other. He could easily imagine the two growing up together as closely as true brothers, and he was relieved to see that most of the bad blood between them was forgotten, at least for now. If they had come to hate each other after all this, Plagg would be put in an awkward situation.

In Thailand, Félix was a sight to behold; he had the grace of a butterfly with the fury of a panther, and with every village he reclaimed from the nagas, the more potential Plagg saw in him.

Félix was, without a doubt, one of the best Chat Noirs he's had, even if it was for a brief time, but he could never measure up to the hero Adrien was bound to grow into. Times were undoubtably going to get tougher for Adrien, but Plagg knew Adrien was ready for that kind of commitment.

Not all heroes wear capes, but some do wear ridiculous bells.

[xoruffitup]

AITAF’s Broadway Show

WHERE DO I START? Okay, at the beginning, I guess - Deep breaths!

First, I want to describe the beautifully diverse group that came together for this extraordinary evening. It started with me and two amazing girls I met at SNL. (One being @reylonly <3) We sat together during the SNL dress rehearsal, exchanged phone numbers afterwards, and we’ve had the best group chat going ever since. My veteran dad came for me and @reylonly’s military ticket admission, while our third SNL friend had managed to connect with a colleague’s mother, who was an army nurse. The vet nurse loves theater and brought her husband as well, so we were a pretty inspiring group of all ages and backgrounds, and shared amazing conversation throughout the night.

The evening started with a very classy reception. We saw Joanne floating around talking to people and she looked stunninggg. The reception area wasn’t that big though, so we soon went down to the theater to find our seats.

We sat in the 5th row!! So when Adam came up to the front of the stage to give an introductory speech at the beginning about the inspiration to start AITAF, their 10-year anniversary, and to thank everyone who made the performance possible, I was just sitting there basking in awe and the fact that he was really THERE. TALKING. SO CLOSE. No, I would not get over it even at all for the following 2 and a half hours... :’)

I’ve read a bit of Sam Shepard but never seen True West performed live, but wow you could not ask for two better actors to play the main characters: Brothers Austin (Adam) and Lee (Michael Shannon). They said before they started the reading that they’d only rehearsed that afternoon, which is nothing short of INCREDIBLE, given how well these two played off each other. This play is full of furious, dark humor and there’s an edge of potential violence undercutting almost every scene, building the tension more and more until Austin finally tries to strangle Lee in the final scene. These two pushed and pulled at each other, getting in each other’s faces and needling each other with sharp words and insults. It was like the actors had been playing off each other for months; They knew just how to drive each other to the breaking point, and they were each brilliant in depicting the moments of rupture.

Adam highlights: There was an amazing section when Austin gets very drunk. Adam sang twice, the second time a hilarious mix of singing and shouting. He started the play wearing a blue t shirt with a grey sweater on top, but during this scene he pulled the sweater over his head, dragged it off, then bundled it up and stuffed it under his shirt. He walked around like that for a good five minutes. He half-fell against a wall and dropped to the floor, only to do a handstand and kick his feet up against the wall. (!!! This was AMAZING ahaha) At some point he did an INCREDIBLE coyote yelping noise. Another point, he talked with an entire mouthful of water and it fountained everywhere hilariously.

Lee bets Austin that he couldn’t steal any household appliances even if he wanted to, not even a toaster. (Lee steals a television early in the play.) This results in Austin stealing the entire neighborhood’s toasters and collecting them in their kitchen. (“There’s a lack of toast in the neighborhood this morning!” “You need breakfast... How about some toast?” “I love the smell of toast in the morning... it makes me feel like anything’s possible.”) All of Adam’s toast-related jokes were just killer. :’)

Obviously, Adam always looks stunning in person, but this time the highlight was unquestionably THE HAIR. The lush, long, majestic hair. There was a portion in the play when he knelt down at the front of the stage and put his head down on the floor, and !!!! THAT HEAD OF STUNNING STELLAR HAIR WOW. There was also A LOT of pushing his hair back with his hands and it got me every. single. damn. time. Be still my beating heart. (it never does when Adam’s involved...)

After the play ended, the cast stayed on stage for the Q&A, joined by the Director. Adam facilitated some discussion among the actors on their previous participation in AITAF events, and the differences between acting on stage and in film. Then he opened it up for questions from the audience.

Q&A highlights:

Someone asked how Adam manages to create a sense of intimacy in all his scenes, even when working on big films. The title “King of micro-expressions” was used, asking whether that aspect is intentional. Adam first reacted with his typical “what-me-talented?-crazy” look of skepticism, but then LOL he just bust out into every ridiculous face he could think of, to show off those micro expressions. It was SO PRESH AND FUNNY.

A few questions later, someone asked what advice he would give to his younger self while he was in the Marines, if he had a chance. Adam’s initial joke response was just: “Microexpressions” and everyone lost it.

Okay this was hands down the purest moment! The cast on stage couldn’t really see up into the balcony because of the lights, so at first Adam shaded his eyes and squinted real hard when a woman in the balcony started her question with “Hi Adam, we crossed paths back in Mishawaka a few times.” Then Adam saw who it was, grinned, and told everyone it was his high school drama teacher!! As she then began her question, she suddenly got extremely emotional and I couldn’t see it, but heard in her voice she was already or would shortly start to cry. After a moment she managed to finish her question - Whether the people Adam meets and performs for when he travels to military bases talk to him afterwards to thank him for sharing his talent and the gift of his craft. It made me a little choked up too, not gonna lie, to hear someone who knew and had some role in Adam’s earliest forays into theater, be overcome by seeing how far he’s come and all the manifold ways he puts his singular talent to use to better the world around him.

I ASKED A QUESTION AND I WAS SO CLOSE THAT HE AND I TALKED DIRECTLY TO EACH OTHER, HE LOOKED STRAIGHT AT ME AS HE ANSWERED AND IT WAS LIKE HAPPY FIREWORKS GOING OFF IN MY WHOLE BODY AHHHHHHHH. I asked him about how he’s seen attitudes change towards AITAF’s work throughout its whole 10-year journey, and I’d like to think he appreciated the question for his reflections back to their first performance and how far they’ve come since then. Video here because my friend is amazing!!!!

A SECOND BULLET DEDICATED JUST TO MY AMAZED DISBELIEF THAT ADAM SPOKE TO ME. Like, he responded to words that came out of my mouth and I somehow managed to speak said words while speaking directly to him?? SLAP ME IM DREAMING :’’’D How did I actually manage to keep myself together while in close proximity to him?! Let alone speaking directly to him?!!! I SURPRISE EVEN MYSELF. But then again, Adam seems to make the impossible possible :’)

I frequently watch theater, but tonight was really a thrilling surprise. I KNEW Adam would be stellar, of course, but I didn’t know if any of the play’s power would be lost with it just being performed as a reading. To the contrary, the performance style may have even made it better! There’s a lot of raw, angry energy in this play, and this stripped-down reading was performed with an immediacy and visceral energy I’ve rarely ever seen on stage. The movements weren’t all blocked out and planned; There was no shuffling of people or props on or off stage; There were no protracted pauses or fancy stage effects to build an atmosphere around the actors; They created everything with just their voices, words, and bodies.

I’m so, SO immensely grateful I got to attend tonight, because this might have been even better than seeing Adam in a full play. Tonight was unfiltered and instinctive, Adam just going for it and throwing everything into the part for a solid, uninterrupted 2 hours. It was equally stunning to see him just remove himself from the whole 2-hour buildup of angry tension as he started the Q&A. (Though there was a laugh among the audience when Adam turned to Michael Shannon for the first time in the Q&A, like “sure you guys really don’t want to strangle each other?”)

Tonight was wonderful and wholesome, moving and inspiring from start to finish. From the people I shared the evening with, to the frank dialogues that occurred during the Q&A about negative stigmas sometimes attached to the arts within the military, to testimonials of how AITAF’s programming guided military families into shared engagement with the arts. It was wonderful to hear the military audience around me responding with genuine enthusiasm to Adam’s initial introduction, applauding and voicing agreement. I appreciated the chance to hear Adam speak so candidly and enthusiastically about his passion project; Just as much as I appreciated slapping @reylonly’s leg and whispering “Why are his feet so cute?” and “Look at his HAIR.” :’)

TL;DR TAKEAWAY: Adam is truly insanely talented and his selfless commitment to AITAF’s goal of bringing theater to military audiences as an enhanced outlet of self-expression is so, so admirable. This man is never in it for himself, and only puts himself in center stage when there’s a larger utility for doing so. You could see that tonight, when he’d realize he was the only one answering two or three questions in a row and would look around self-consciously to his fellow cast members and say “I feel like I’m monopolizing the conversation” or “Feel free to stop me anytime... jump in anYTIME, GUYS, ANYTIME.” (<Increasingly anxiously)

SOMEHOW, Adam succeeded in the impossible tonight: Making me love him even more. But perhaps having him gazing right at me as he spoke to me was sure to have that effect :’D

Nope, still have no fucking clue how I managed it or how I survived. :’’’)

[multifandhoem]

Horns

A/N: I was inspired by this fmv, about Jungkook being a demon, so this is a demon!au (about jungkook, obviously) Also, I had uploaded this earlier but deleted it again for a more consistent tumblr activity. Please keep in mind, that English isn’t my first language and tell me any mistakes :)

genre: angst, a bit of fluff words: 2505

The second Jeon Jungkooks shoes touched the dark asphalt when he stepped out of the car the world fell silent. He could practically smell it. They tried to hide it. Started a quiet conversation with their partner again. But it was so obvious. Fear. 

He loved it.

He jokingly growled quietly while calmly striding past the people on the street and more than one took a step back. 

“I thought you would open the door for me!” A female voice suddenly huffed next to him and he turned his head a bit. Ah, right. He took someone with him this time. A human. Wasn’t all that bad looking. But so weak. And she feared him, too. Trying to overplay it with cheap perfume and false confidence. Hell, he was already annoyed. 

“Go!” He ordered and she smiled triumphantly before striding past him towards the open luxurious doors. “I meant, go away!” He corrected himself and she froze in her step. “Are you kidding me?” Her voice became shrill. 

Jungkook rolled his eyes and stepped through the doors past the still frozen girl. He soon disappeared out of her eyesight and immense anger started to bubble inside of her. “You can’t treat me like that, Jeon Jungkook!” She stormed inside and for a moment everything was quiet. Then there was the piercing scream of the woman until everything fell quiet again. 

The people outside on the streets stared at the huge building in fear before hurriedly continuing their way to get away from it as fast as possible. 

“You really enjoy this, right?” 

Trying not to show his surprise Jungkook turned around and came face to face with Park Jimin, his best friend and highest ambassador of the demons. “What do you mean?” “You know, spreading fear, killing people for one teeny tiny mistake, only wearing suits, should I go on?” Jungkook huffed, a smile on his lips. “It ain’t my fault that every little human shivers when he sees me!”

“Every little human? Even demons shiver at the mention of your name! You’re the freaking devil, Jungkook!” Jimin laughed heartedly and finally, a grin adorned Jungkooks face.

“Why are you here? Don’t you have to work?” He then asked. “I am working! Namjoon wants to see you!” “Why?” Curiosity filled Jungkooks mind. Namjoon was one of the most powerful demons and one of the heads of security. And until now he never asked to see him because of work. So that either had to be something really good or really bad. “Don’t ask me, man! I’m only the ambassador!” 

“Let’s go!” Jimin packed Jungkooks arm and shortly afterwards a black whirl appeared in front of them and they stepped through. It was a part of Jimin’s power that made him to the highest ambassador and the best one hell had seen in the last five thousand years. He could not only fly like nearly every demon but teleport to every place he wanted. 

“Ah, there you are!” Namjoon was unusually stiff when they greeted him. “It’s amazing! We have a recruit and it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before from the child of two workers! It’s a youngster, only 350 years old or so and such a power, it’s unbelievable!” He rambled and Jungkook raised a brow. “Who is it?” “Y/L/N Y/N!” “Never heard of her!”

He just snapped his finger and immediately a girl appeared in the middle of the room. Jimin raised both of his brows at that but made sure to control his expression shortly afterward. She bowed her head in respect when she realized who the three men in the room were. “She appears when you snap your fingers? Did you put a ban on her?” Jungkook asked interested but Namjoon as well as the girl, Y/N, shook their heads. 

“It’s the hearing. She was in the training room and heard me snapping!” He explained and Jungkook nodded slowly. “What else?” 

“Fire. Hellfire, to be exact. She can make it!” Jungkook nodded at her as a sign and suddenly her whole body was only fire. The dark red fire Jungkook himself could control. He stretched his arm towards the fire, losing a couple flames with a slight move of his finger and playing with them on this hand. “Amazing!” He mumbled before snapping the flames back towards Y/N, who materialized shortly after. 

“Where’s the catch?” “I can’t fly!” It was the first time she spoke for herself and Jungkook was surprised at her gentle voice. He hummed before turning to Namjoon once again. “Keep me updated. If she ever beats you or Jin, send her to me!”

“She already did that. That’s why I got you.” Now he was seriously surprised. She was a girl after all. “Let’s fight, little one!” 

“Wh- what?” Her eyes were big and Jungkooks ego grew at the sight of fear in her eyes. 

“You heard me.”

He strode out of the room towards the training center, the girl right behind him. Namjoon and Jimin seated themselves at the tribune, along with all of the other recruits who stopped their training when the devil himself stepped into the room. 

They stood in front of each other and slowly Y/Ns form started to change into her demon version. Her nails extended in claws and her chin pushed itself forward to make place for her fangs. “Start!” He challenged her, but she just shook her head, circling around him slowly. Jungkook knew exactly how she was going to start. She knew his senses were the best. Her only chance was to catch him by surprise. When she materialized right in front of him, her whole body on fire he only scoffed before moving his hand so she flew at the wall. 

She was the fire. And he could control it. 

He tugged her towards him again. Y/N being unable to move thanks to him. “That was hardly a challenge!” He smirked, his hand weaving its way into her hair and yanking it back so she had to look up at him. “I’m keeping you.”

With that, the world around her disappeared and shortly afterwards she was in an unfamiliar room. Jungkooks hand was still in her hair, now circling her little horns on top of her head. “They are quite small for someone with such power!” He mumbled more to himself and noticed with enjoyment that her brows furrowed with disagreement, but she kept quiet, seeing that it was the devil standing in front of her. His fingernail scratched slightly along the skin right at the edge of her horns and in a matter of seconds her knees gave in and a soft moan left her lips. 

“Interesting!” He smirked and repeated his action. It was amusing how she tried to keep her posture even though he was obviously pleasuring her with his movements. 

They were going to be the strongest demons the world has ever seen. He, the devil, the strongest one to ever exist and she, the impersonation of hell. They would be finally strong enough to defeat everyone. Not even these arrogant bastards who currently hid from the demons who got the hell, the world, but not totally heaven. 

But now. Now it was possible. 

He removed his hands from her head and she let out a deep breath before slowly looking him into the eyes once again. 

It drove him insane. “Why did you.. keep me?” 

She wasn’t afraid anymore. If he wanted to kill her he would have done so. He could have. But he didn’t. Just why? “Because I want you. I need you!”

“For what?”

“Everything!”

He knew he had her. He saw it in her eyes. She wanted to do whatever he wanted with all of her soul. So submissive. He loved it.

They looked at her. Envious. Afraid. Marveling. It was amazing. She savored every moment of it. An unknowing form of ecstasy filled her body as if she was getting drunk from the attention. 

“Do you feel it?” Jungkook mumbled right next to her ear, his arm still secure around her shoulders and a slight smirk tugging at his lips. 

“Of course I do! It’s the best feeling I ever experienced!” Her pupils were blown, she was ready to show every person in this room that she was better. Better than they could even imagine. 

“Well, it’s not the best feeling but it is quite alright!”

He chuckled at her amazement that she covered up like someone who had experienced this kind of attention a million times before. 

They strode towards the VIP lounge without sparing the audience a second glance and Jungkook tugged her leg over his lap as soon as they sank into the soft cushions. Her tight leather pants made her legs look so delicious, he should forbid her to wear anything else from now on. 

The deep bass of the music thumped into her oversensitive ears but she didn’t really notice it, her gaze fixated on the handsome devil in front of her who ordered their drinks with short words before turning to her with a dangerous grin. 

“Do you want to dance for me, little devil?” 

Contrary to her usual demeanor she giggled shortly before sliding out of the booth over his lap. 

“Make sure you watch me!” 

His eyes were glued onto her back when she confidently left the VIP area and went towards the dance floor, turning around as soon as she reached her destination to look him straight into the eyes. 

Was there something this girl couldn’t do? She was playing with his mind. Her hips, her legs, her hair, the little horns. He sucked up every little detail about her as she swayed to the music, her eyes fixated on him when they weren’t closed.

With a scoff, he acknowledged the hungry men who gathered around her. They wouldn’t dare to lay a hand on what's his. They wouldn’t. 

But when one of them came dangerously near her, he stood up. Straightening his suit jacket all hints of a smile disappeared from his face and he only directed his gaze at the dumbass who dared to even come close to his little devil. 

She noticed the intruder of her personal bubble long before Jungkook stood up. And she silently dared him to touch her. Didn’t his parents teach him to stay away from demons? Especially when they were in company with the devil himself. The second his hand moved towards her butt, she lit up. 

Jungkook, only being a few feet away by now, stood still in his tracks as he witnessed the man catching fire, his screams echoing through the shocked club while he burned to death. 

With a wink of his fingertips, she got pulled into his arms by force, her arms nestling around his back as she continued to sway her lips lightly. 

Rough fingertips grazed her chin and pushed it up so his lips could reach hers passionately while spinning around. 

It was as if they danced to the screams of the man dying and the people shuddered in fear just at the mere thought of that. 

This night changed how Jungkook viewed Y/N. 

She wasn’t a mere toy anymore. She proved she could survive in the cruel world. That she wasn’t one of the girls who wanted the guy to deal with her fights. 

And his lust increased into eternity. That night was the first night where he fucked her. And many followed. He didn’t get enough of the talented little demon. 

She also realized her effect on him. She got cockier. Teased him. Made fun of him but never to the extent that he would get angry. 

And he didn’t know if he should love or hate it. 

His friends teased him about her. But he couldn’t let go. She was too important for his plans.

“We found them!” Jungkook could kiss Jimin for interrupting his work with these three words. It was time. Finally, he could get all the power he wanted. “Y/N!” It was the first time he used her real name instead of a nickname and she appeared almost instantly by his side. “It’s time!” 

She couldn’t remember a moment where she saw Jungkook grinning so excitedly. 

Her hands cupped his face, caressing his cheekbones with her thumbs. “We are gonna destroy them!” She giggled and he kissed her fiercely. 

Jimin completely understood why the people were so afraid of the couple that started to make out with little laughter escaping just at the mere thought of destroying the world. It would be amazing. Nobody would be there to stop the demons once the last remaining angles were destroyed. 

“Everyone is ready!” Jimin told them but Jungkook just shook his head. “I don’t need anyone! Just my little devil here!” She adoringly gazed up to him, pressing a kiss to his jaw. 

Jimin shrugged. Who was he to disobey the devil? It didn’t take long for Jungkook and Y/N to arrive at the place in heaven where they said the angles hid. 

He was shaking from excitement. Finally. Finally, he could rule over everyone. Since Y/N couldn’t fly he carried her in his arms while flying higher and higher up. 

“You came alone?” A deep voice laughed at him. Just you wait. He was going to kill every single one of them. “I’m perfectly able to kill you all by myself!”

A chorus of laughter emerged. “Good luck with that!”

One after another the men in white clothes appeared. Arms spread, magic flowing between their hands, ready to destroy the devil and to prove that in the end, Good will always win. 

“The only thing that can kill us is hellfire!” They laughed at him. Couldn’t believe he would surrender himself so easily. But they didn’t expect Jungkook to laugh as well. “Well, luckily, I have my own personal little hell with me!” 

It was her cue. She lit up and in a matter of seconds the whole area was engulfed in flames. Screams, so many screams. Jungkook was the happiest he’s ever been while guiding the flames around, catching every little angel who wanted to flee. 

Then it was quiet. With a slight whoosh, he took all the flames back together and she appeared again, in all her glory.

He caught her and grinning she hugged him. “We did it!”

They kissed and it felt like an eternity. “I love you!” She mumbled between the kisses and he answered her by pressing his lips to hers again. 

A breathless chuckle escaped him when they parted again. “You love me? Sweetheart, I’m the devil! I don’t love. And I don’t like to share, either!” 

Her eyes widened with fear. 

“No! No, Jungkook, no, please!” She pleaded and with relish he absorbed the fear that dropped out of her pores. He laughed when her scream echoed around him when he loosened his grip, letting her fall into her certain death. 

[mevekagvain]

Nobles and how they work (2/?)

3. The Kertia

-Although they're extremely loyal to the lord, as individuals they have one certain person they will put above all others. Whether this be the lord, a family member, the noblesse, etc.

-Commonly they are either blonde or brunette and tall. Rael uh... got unlucky in the height factor. Also the most attractive clan (for the nobles) in general though they tie with the ??? clan. Also they all generally have straight hair.

-Very strong sixth sense. So strong that some can even make accurate predictions about things, also the future. They can get seers but this is very rare and needs one of the 'parents' to have that running in their blood (aka the Kertias have something to fall back on if they aren't needed as assassins anymore lol).

-Are not exactly the best morally. This is partly due to being nobles and partly due to them just being Kertia. Examples include them letting their babies cry for ages to make them more 'independent' (we call that abuse...), letting little kids play with sharp objects (...yea i know y'all assassins but still), and more. Not only things like that though, they will place the person they are loyal to above all else and prioritise them to the point they may hurt (emotionally, physically, whatever) their own lover, sibling, etc. Plus other stuff that I won't mention.

-Despite being such dedicated and amazing nobles, they're all dumb as shit. No seriously if nobles in general are gullible than the Kertia are the worst off even though they have their sixth sense. They're just stupid in general though, like repeating the thing that made you fail isn't exactly going to help... please stop walking into the exact same wall 300 times in one week.

-Also the most emotionally constipated clan... They are very bad at displaying their emotions and so we have travesties like the relationship between Rajak and Rael.

-Clan distribution is more in favour of men (about 70-80%) though the women are monsters. Moreso than the men.

4. The Landegre

-They don't have much of a general height. It's all over the place. Most of them have that distinct white hair with black streaks but some will have black with white instead. There are also those who just have plain black or white hair (or features from other clans though). They do not tend to look like porcelain dolls though (Regis is just cute haha), if they do it's probably not from the Landegre side originally.

-As knights it's pretty common to see a lot of the Landegre wearing clothes that look like armour. Whether it be light (just padding, leather, some chainmail) or full on metallic.

-Very stubborn as shown in canon. This applies regardless of their personality type. Whether they're the calm and collected type, an absolute asshole, a two-sided snake, gentle, etc.

-The most rational and normal ones when it comes down to it. This also means that they very often have high positions of power.

-They get along with pretty much everyone. There isn't any clan that they generally aren't close to.

-Like the Mergas a large part of the clan is in the Central Knights.

-Clan has an an equal distribution of the sexes.

5. The Elenors

-MAGIC. Okay so their magic works like this. They have it flowing in their blood vessels but they have a specific organ that creates it (wild i kno). The rate at which this is created is affected by matter that is taken in, state of the noble (exhaustion, emotional, etc), and just their metabolism in general as well as other stuff. So they don't need to chant anything though they can to focus better. The actual learning process is to make them aware of the magic inside them, and learn how to manipulate it so they can bring it out of them. Once it's outside they need to learn how to manipulate it further which is extremely complicated. There are many branches of magic and each Elenor specialises in whatever they want. Making potions is also considered a branch of magic and not just something that can be done by any Elenor. Most Elenors will specialise in two or three branches but those who live longer will have more.

-Most common hair colours are blacks and browns with the occasional green (recessive gene). No reds (if they do it's originally from another clan). Once again no general height but they tend to be in the extremes. Either really tall or really short.

-Very easily influenced by the company they have. As such it's common in the clan to only be close with certain clans or people because they don't want to be influenced negatively. This influence refers to their personality and views mostly. Habits not really.

-They tend to have amazing singing voices, like sirens. Nobles generally can become good singers since they have so much time to practice, but they're naturals and their singing has an almost ethereal quality. Most don't sing often though so they aren't as great as nobles who do regardless of clan.

-Not interested in children as much as other other nobles so their clan is somewhat smaller too. Romantic interest is still pretty common amongst them but can be extremely short lived.

-They all are very deep into their research and their own things. Not necessarily magic; it can be hobbies, science, etc. A lot of them do adore science though. Makes it easier for them to understand magic and vice versa.

-Their clan distribution favours women heavily. About 70% are women.

6. The Drosia

-Blondes and that's it. Even with Drosias with parents from different clans they'll almost always be blonde.

-They all have sword fetishes and honestly. Relatable.

-If the Mergas are the most common to be seen as lovers with the lords than the Drosia are the second (all because of Ragnarok babe. all because of Ragnarok). They aren't particularly close with the lord and their lineage though.

-Quite a large diversity of body types here honestly.

-Unlike other type 1 nobles they aren't as solitary and like to be with someone else at all times. Preferably someone they're close to, are loyal to, etc. They will settle with anyone though if there's no alternative, even people they hate immensely.

-Another clan heavily involved with the Central Knights.

-Also a large creative interest here. Inventing and experimenting is a big thing with them, ranging from scientists, blacksmiths, artists, etc. It's usually weapon, or just plain offense and defense, related.

-One of the two clan that love to fight. They can hide it very well though so it's not commonly known.

-They enjoy protecting those weaker than them and sparring those of equal strength or stronger. They also train other nobles a lot.

-It's not easy to make them dislike you so if you do... you my dear have fucked up.

-Equal distribution of both sexes.

7. The Blersters

-Don't have any defining physical features.

-Obviously pretty romantic in general. How so depends on the individual. Krasis might have been stiff but handwritten letters are a thing (and would have me seduced in two seconds flat). They're very creative in the ways they romance people.

-Their clan tends to grow out their hair for some reason or another that's been lost to the channels of time (it's recorded somewhere in their library...).

-The nobles in the clan can be divided into two categories. Those who genuinely want to fall in love, and those who just idolise the notion.

-Extremely loyal to their romantic partners and hearing of this clan falling short here is not a thing.

-Also extremely cold, upset, or angry if their romantic partner falls short though. Which, considering their extremely low standards on the actual lover, is very hard and if one does fail then they are truly at fault.

-Most are trained in archery along with another weapon. Many do carry around both these weapons, the bow and quiver in plain sight (...I'd be impressed if they could hide it), and the other weapon concealed. As such this isn't a fact known by other nobles.

-Pretty volatile for type 1 nobles and their first reaction to a lot of things is to shoot at you.

-Clan has more women then men but not by much.

8. The ???

-The clanswomen themselves don't know their clan name so it's quite possible they don't actually have one.

-The heights for this clan spans from extremely short to average. It's rare for them to be tall. As for their hair, it's usually white (though it can be any other colour) with coloured streaks. The number of coloured streaks can vary (from just one to countless), and so can the number of colours for these streaks (in most cases there's only one colour but there are those with two or three or more). These colours also span on unnatural ones such as blue, purple, etc despite the hair being all natural. 

-The clan that has inspired the most mythology around the entire world. The Egyptian sun god Ra, the Roman goddess of the moon Diana, and countless more were all inspired from them. There are exceptions such as Eros and Aphrodite being from the Blerster clan, Ares being human, etc.

-Although the clan is able to release limiters on their body to fight better for a period of time, this is not the same as Berserker mode. That is unique to the clan line (which is probably a bad thing as it was most likely inherited from a human or witch and therefore may not mesh well with their genes and fuck things up).

-Their blood acts as a hallucinogen when consumed, and not in a good way. The person who drinks their blood will think they are in a violent situation and their brain will force them to be aggressive in return.

-Like the Drosia they all enjoy fighting, but they're much more open about it and won't hold back. As such they're more of a special fighting force than just regular Central Knights.

-More likely to be attracted to opponents that put up a good fight or are stronger than them.

-Like the Kertia they are extremely attractive.

-Have pretty high sexual attraction for type 1 nobles.

-Very rare for them to have children and the only reason their population doesn't decrease is that it's extremely rare for anyone other than the clan leader to enter eternal sleep.

-The clan is made up of 70-80% women.

9. The Noblesse

-Height is average and they always have that iconic black hair. There is no other variation in the hair colour. Same shade always.

-Unlike the lord's lineage there is no real 'lineage' here. Although they can be born through reproduction, it is not necessary because when the noblesse dies and there is no heir a child will be born in the Sanctuary. This child is not the previous noblesse and are two completely different people.

-If in the rare case there are twins (there has never been a recorded case of being more than two) one has to die. This is because the power of one noblesse is divided between the two and it is almost impossible for them to carry out their duties when needed. As such one of the two must die and pass their powers to the other.

-Only one noblesse can exist at a time. If the noblesse has a child, that child will not have any powers and merely be a normal noble until the noblesse dies. Only then will that child become the noblesse.

-Can be male or female.

Type 2 Nobles

-Used to be a different (supernatural) species in the past. This means they all have different cultures, morals, viewpoints, etc. They are all also much more social than type 1 nobles and will constantly be found with others.

-Were made into nobles by a lord because they were near extinction or would have become extinct sooner or later.

-Have accents. If the accents are heavy they learn how to speak without them and can even speak like type 1 nobles who don't have an accent (nobles may be able to understand any language as long as people who know it are around but I don't think accents are under the same treatment). They still speak with the accents when with their own clan members though.

-Are thankful to the lord and their lineage but not necessarily 100% loyal to them.

-Have learnt to act more like type 1 nobles so that they aren't ostracized by them because they 'aren't what a noble should be'.

-Don't really understand the whole elegance shtick except for some individuals. Same goes for other things common to type 1 nobles.

-Get extremely insulted by some type 1 nobles compliments due to culture, upbringing, etc. Also because type 1 nobles do NOT seem to understand emotions and what sounds nice.

-In the event that nobles reproduce sexually, their genitals are based off of their previous species.

1. The Loyards

-Used to be a humanoid species that fed on corpses and souls. Furthermore they had translucent flesh that allowed one to see their skeleton. This is why they are now associated with the grim reaper. Don't really fit into any of the classes but they are vertebrates. They also reproduced asexually originally and first existed around 4.2 billion years ago. So they were nearing extinction (around 3.8 billion years ago) when organisms that did aerobic respiration started to appear as they did anaerobic respiration and could not adapt fast enough (this is actually true. I'm not making this up though it sounds a bit weird even to me). Due to this the lord of the nobles at the time offered to make them nobles.

-They look very delicate regardless of their figure, as if their skin is made of glass or porcelain. The fact that their skin actually does emit a very soft glow (which only shows when their skin is at their normal body temperature) makes them even more beautiful. The clan has white and silver hair but grey, black, and brown are also common. No general height. Have a low body temperature of 25°C. They can make the outermost layer of their skin warmer however to about 35°C. If they reproduce sexually they have human genitals due to not having any in their previous species.

-Have the ability to take energy from living organisms, however this only can be done to replenish their own missing energy and if they are 'full' they cannot do it.

-Their blood is extremely cold and is necessary for necromancy (specifically to bring someone back to life in pristine condition).

-Very effective communicators and would make for good ambassadors and other roles requiring this.

-Clan members seem to either give of a creepy vibe (like horror movies) or a warm and welcoming one regardless of their appearance. Seira and her father are the latter while her brother Lusar is the former.

-Have a light accent that makes their speech slightly slower than average. They also tend to pronounce soft letters as hard ones but most train themselves out of it (though they may still slip up). For example 'arch' would be pronounced as 'arkh'.

-Equal amount of males and females.

2. The Tradio

- A group of fae (try looking at the blog elsewhere university. that's where I'm basing them off of, without the university part of course!) who somehow managed to piss off both the Seelie and UnSeelie Courts around 40 million years ago. Then they made a deal with a lord about 35 million years ago. As such they are actually the most recent clan of nobles.

-There is no fixed appearance. Literally anything goes here, even non-humanoid appendages. Hair colour? Anything. Hair type? Why not add on some leaves or worms? Be creative. Most of the Tradio also have markings all over their bodies (including face and head) but they cover them up out of shame or just to blend in better. These markings can be of any colour, may glow, be different in different lights, only appear under certain conditions, etc. If they reproduce sexually genitals are also diverse, being different for every individual. Just do whatever you want for them. Their body temperatures also vary all over the place.

-Have glamour, AKA that magic which can make them look human.

-Have magic but not like the Elenors. This is more like very slight stuff that happens naturally. Also have a high affinity for flora and fauna though it leans more one way or the other. Claudia is better with animals but Lagus was a plant person. The magic also applies to their plants and animals, plus medicinal remedies.

-Their blood, when consumed, acts like a truth serum. It also causes the noble, who said blood comes from, to gain control over the person that drank their blood for a period of time.

-Have a strange aura that makes them come of as strange, unnatural, and just plain wrong. They can suppress this aura as they grow older but never completely which is part of why they aren't too trusted by type 1 nobles.

-Good with words/word games (can and will fuck with you head)and never lie. They merely twist the truth.

-Don't have an accent. Rather they probably have some language of their own

-More commonly found as scientists or the sources of medicine that is known to work than in the Central Knights. They grow and make the medicine themselves, both herbal remedies and chemical ones.

-Distribution of the two sexes is equal.

3. The Ru

-A supernatural species that was sent down by an actual deity a billion years ago. This species was a winged tiger with white, silver, and grey fur. Their purpose was to guide lost souls of certain sentient species created by the same deity to Eden. Once these species went extinct, their purpose was over and they had little more to. As such, around 800 million years ago they were made nobles. Are they birds? Mammals? Who really know.

-Have either white, grey, or silver hair. They do get affected by other clans easily though so other hair colours are common as well, this applies to other features too. All of them are pretty muscular, though the type can differ. They tend to be pretty tall but there are some of average height. Body temperature is about 37.5°C. As for their genitals... just search up those for tigers if you want to know.

-Enjoy fighting, and have an affinity for nature, though not as strong as that of the Tradio. There is also an affinity for electricity which will be detailed later in the soul weapons section.

-Martial arts of all types are pretty common so there are also quite a few variety of weapons among them. They are also willing to train anywhere so it's wise to tell them if you're okay with it or not, lest they destroy something.

-They're divided between science, growing plants/animals, and the Central Knights.

-Eyes glow in the dark, they also glow in photos (because cats).

-They are a bit more solitary than other type 2 nobles though they will seek out company when they want it.

-Have a pretty strong/thick accent which they train themselves not to use when around type 1 nobles. It's pretty rough but still the average talking speed. They also tend to roll and exaggerate the r's a lot.

-Ratio of males and females is equal.

[shima-draws]

★ SIMULATOR AU MASTERPOST ★

Well, here it is! You all have been asking for it--the ultimate Sim AU guide!! Below is everything that you need to know about the AU. Thanks for all of your amazing support ^^

So what exactly is the Sim AU? The Simulator AU, shortened to just the Sim AU, (sometimes also referred to as the AI AU) is a canon divergence to the end of season 2 of Voltron. However unlike the last episode Team Voltron actually defeats Zarkon in battle definitively, managing to destroy his empire and free the universe from his reign. Prior to the final battle, for unknown reasons Lance asks Pidge to create a very complex simulator installed with all of their memories and tons of other data. He also has her create a simulated version of himself, a highly advanced Artificial Intelligence program containing all of his memories, personality, appearance and abilities. This AI version of Lance is given one task, programmed into his very core and is his sole reason for existence—protect Lance’s most important person. Later on this person is revealed to be Keith, and during the final fight Keith is gravely injured and put into the simulator (which also serves as a healing and escape pod) and is shot out into space to protect him from further injury while the other Paladins finish up the final fight. Keith awakens inside the simulator, thinking that he’s still in the real world with Lance, and back on Earth after having won over the Galra empire. However this is all a ruse to protect him from the truth, as he is being kept company by the AI version of Lance while the real one and the rest of Team Voltron have mysteriously disappeared. Soon after the simulator begins to malfunction and Keith crash lands into a planet, he is thrown into a crazy battle against the Galra uprising, the remains of the Galra empire, and is accompanied by lookalike versions of all of his friends and a now-physical embodiment of AI!Lance. The AU is basically a tale of all of his adventures falling in love with the AI and getting into crazy shenanigans with his new but familiar comrades along with the Galra Resistance.

The rest is under the read more to save space!

What’s the background on AI Lance? AI Lance, as previously stated, was created to protect Keith and serve as a moderator over the simulator. After Keith wakes up on an alien planet and encounters the lookalikes of Pidge and Hunk, the two of them work to make a physical body (a highly advanced robot, basically, think Westworld) for Lance’s consciousness to be put into. Once Lance gains a physical body, he has the same appearance of the original Lance but with a few minor quirks. Exposed wires poke out of the back of his neck and when referring to himself and his actions he often relates them back to his internal systems, all machinery and mechanical parts. He frequently gets checkups by Katy and Hunk so that they can update his systems and check his inner circuits to make sure everything’s running okay. Due to this the three of them become quite close, similar to how the original Hunk, Pidge and Lance were all friends back at the Garrison. Throughout the AU Lance struggles immensely with his identity, not wanting to be labeled as a copy of the original Lance and wanting to form his own identity outside of that. He constantly battles within himself, asking “Am I Lance or am I just me? I don’t know” and that struggle is one of the main conflicts of the story!

What is Keith wearing around his neck? That is an AI cube! It serves as a storage system for all of an AI’s data and programming. Lance’s core is an AI cube, which serves as his “heart” and is basically what keeps him functioning. The one that Keith has is a gift from Lance and contains all of his backup data. Katy fashioned it into a necklace for him for safekeeping. So not only is it a sort of accessory (I mean, it’s really pretty to look at), but it’s something for Keith to protect since a lot of Lance’s extra data is in that cube.

Who are the lookalikes, exactly? The lookalikes are all similar to the original Paladins but with minor differences! It’s still a mystery why they’ve shown up and where the original Paladins have gone. On the roster, we have Katy, a Pidge lookalike but not disguised as a boy, Hunk, who isn’t even human but looks just like one, being of a mysterious alien race, Allura and Coran, both humans and the leaders of the Galra Resistance Army, and Shiro, an Altean with a tragic past. It’s difficult for Keith to meet these people, who so resemble his teammates, and have to completely reforge his bonds with them since they obviously aren’t the same Paladins he knew before. (But, well, at least he has Lance.)

Why can’t you reveal the secrets of the Paladins’ whereabouts and why Lance had Pidge make the simulator? Because I don’t want to give everything away! All of that information will soon be revealed in the story, so please be patient! Once that stuff is written out and explained I’ll update this post about those secrets I’m keeping.

Is there a fanfiction for this AU? Yes, there is! It’s called A World of Zeroes and Ones (the title is based off of a Vocaloid song of the same name) and starts out with Keith waking up in the simulator. Everything else about the background and Lance’s identity as an AI has yet to be revealed to Keith but he’ll figure it out soon! You can read it here over on Archive! It’s still in progress, updates are slow but I’m chugging away at them :’) Thanks for all the support so far! And yes, if it wasn’t obvious already I do have an actual storyline in mind for this AU, from start to finish I have the entire plot written out, it’s just a matter of getting down and actually writing the entire thing...!

Who is Error Lance? Error Lance is basically what I’ve dubbed an “evil” version of AI!Lance where he has completely malfunctioned and been corrupted beyond saving, his entire systems being reduced to an error code. In this mode he loses all sentience and thought, only being driven to destroy and cannot tell friend from foe. Error Lance is basically just a lost confused child who doesn’t know what he’s doing or who he is or why he exists—he only knows how to kill. This mode is usually triggered if something contradicts with his core programming and his reason for existence—Keith. If Keith is somehow injured horribly or even killed this will set Lance off and totally wipe out his systems; it reduces him to the errors that are caused by his reason for existence being compromised. The only thing that can successfully snap him out of this mode and restore him to his previous “version” before he was corrupted is Keith—therefore proving his reason to exist is still there. Hopefully that makes sense? It’s sort of hard to explain haha

Who is Zero? Zero is AI!Lance’s prototype, the original original first AI that Pidge created. (Hoh, you thought that our regular AI!Lance was the first? Nope!) Due to a whole bunch of malfunctions and bugs, Pidge scrapped the prototype and created a better version, which is the Lance we all know and love now. (I mean she can’t get it perfect on the first try it was her first time creating an Artificial Intelligence, especially one of this caliber!) She meant to delete the prototype permanently, but…a whole bunch of crazy stuff happened and interrupted the process so Zero was never actually fully deleted. He sleeps deep, deep within the simulator’s core data, only longing to meet Keith at least once, since that was the reason he was created. This poor kid. He’s really scary since he’s…a huge mess and just broken. Broken. But he honestly loves Keith and sincerely hopes for his happiness, even going so far as to use all of his power to help Keith and Lance when they get into sticky situations. Like original Lance, Zero is dismayed that Keith is in love with AI!Lance, considering Zero was supposed to be the one made for Keith, but was scrapped. Maybe one day he’ll get a happy ending...

What inspired this AU? The song Shelter by Madeon and Porter Robinson! The whole idea for the simulator originated from the animated video for that song. You could say it’s become sort of the themesong for this AU haha

Can I repost the art of this AU? Nope, sorry! This AU is very very important and special and personal to me so I’m not comfortable with other people using the art from it or reposting on other sites. I appreciate your enthusiasm and support but I won’t be changing my mind about this;; Please don’t go against my wishes and repost it anyway, because if you do I’ll report you without any hesitation. Let me repeat: DO NOT REPOST ANYTHING REGARDING THIS AU ON OTHER SITES. This AU has only been shared on tumblr, so if you see any of the art for it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. please let me know right away!

Can I make fanart of this AU? YES!! Yes, please, please do! There is nothing I would like more! Please, if you do end up making fanart, tag this blog or submit it here, my submission box is always open! Either way I’m gonna want to show it off to everyone else and shout about it, so yes, it’s highly encouraged and greatly appreciated!

The AU so far:

The overall tag/The tag in chronological order

Introductory post Crashlanding Arm sword Lance Concept sketches and doodles No, my circuits are humming You can’t spell AI without Mcclain! System overheating. Love you! Katy doodles *Chirr* Valentine’s Day Dorks Pixel animations He’s glitching out of happiness! Happy birthday, Lance! The master of sarcasm Embarrassed kisses When will I be seen as myself? Laughing smooches Human Error Happy boy! Take your boyfriend and make a run for it Soulmate AU to the AU (this doesn’t have art, but a cute mini fic I wrote if the AU also involved soulmates as well!) Kisses kisses KISSES Lance, you’re sparking! Floorplan/layout of Lance and Keith’s room Error Lance appears! Smol Error boy (and Eruba) Happy birthday, Keith! (This also has a short fic attached to it too! It’s very very fluffy and sweet) Error boy Lance flirts with a mysterious boy?! Zero’s Introduction Would you kiss this sweet broken Zero boy? Zero dabs My sensors can’t handle this! Klance kisses Klance kisses KLANCE KISSES ,,˙͡ɥ͢ʇ̴ᴉ͘ǝʞ̡˙˙˙͞ƃu͡ᴉʇ̛ᴉ҉ɐ͟ʍ ͠ǝ͟q̵ ͢l̨l,I˙˙˙u̶oos̢ ̕n҉oʎ ɥʇᴉ̨ʍ ͟ʇ̡ǝǝɯ͟ ̧ǫʇ̶˙̵˙˙ʇ͞uɐ͘ʍ I ¿́no��ʎ ̡ǝ̶ɹɐ˙˙̶˙͢ǝɹǝɥ͟M,̡, 100% Form In love in love in despair Favorite place with you (This one’s animated!)

I’ll update this post with any additional art I make as we go along!

And if you have any other questions, please, don’t hesitate to ask! I love talking about this AU, it’s my heart and soul ❤️

[justadadonthenet]

Loser’s Club as camp half blood kids hc

(These are terribly organized I’m so sorry, all under the cut)

Stan: deffo an Athena kid, look at that little logic man and tell me he’s not Athena. He would be extremely talented on the battle field but would rarely want to fight (besides, why do that when he could command his battalion in capture the flag) and he somehow befriended an owl in his third year at camp and it’ll do whatever he wants (including keeping richie in check)

Ben: also in the Athena cabin, but one of the softer of them. Always wins when they’re tasked with a building competition cause he actually reads up on what types of structures work best,,he would develop and design all of the Athena cabin weaponry and would specially design stuff for stanley. Their cabin is the coolest one because Ben is always reconstructing as needed, and it’s never too full because he has somehow developed a building that expands as needed, but only on the inside. This kid is fucking gifted.

Mike: Jesus imagine my boy mike as a Persephone kid that’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen,,,persephone kids are almost as rare (if not more) than big three kids, so he lives in the Demeter cabin. the whole camp would adore him and the wood nymphs would love talking to this ~one~ boy because he has major respect for all parts of nature,, he would grow lil flowers to give to everyone and would make flower crowns for bev,,and although he is a little flower child he takes capture the flag VERY seriously if he’s up against his Losers. (The wood nymphs love doing favors for him such as tripping richie and taking bev’s sword right out of her hand)

Richie: holy fuck he would definitely end up head of the Hermes cabin (somehow) and he would be worse than the Stoll brothers combined,,,don’t ask how he managed to acquire a dildo tree or get a Trojan horse to camp without anyone noticing, he’s also ~conveniently~ part messenger god, which makes sending pranks to people even easier (also imagine the first time he tries to use the winged converse y i k e s there was definitely a face plant in there)

Bill: listen,,,,he would definitely be a Zeus kid if he wasn’t such an angery piece of shit,,, so you better believe he is one of the softest Hades kids to ever enter that camp,,,when he got bored he’d summon cool rocks and shit. As soon as he hears of Nico being able to summon the dead he pesters him into teaching him, learning extremely quickly how to summon spirits. Every once in a while the losers cant find bill, cause he’s sitting in a hidden cave he managed to create, talking to Georgie

Bev: listen my fiery girl would obviously be an Ares kid. She may be the nicest in the cabin, but you’re dead wrong if you think for a second she wouldn’t beat your ass if provoked. Her and Stan definitely have a friendly rivalry in capture the flag (or any battle-related activity, for that matter.) she loves her bf Ben but she can’t help but coaxing the latest Athena cabin weaponry plans out of him. Ben goes to mush as soon as Bev talks to him, and every thought he had of keeping the developments to the cabin goes out the door with one look into those eyes. Coincidentally, next week’s capture the flag battle is between Ares and Athena, and Ben is completely lost as to how the Ares cabin somehow had counter measures for all of their weaponry,, he’d been planning them for months, and had picked through all of the Ares cabin’s tactics previous to this, how did they know? Let’s just say stan was HEATED

Eddie: okay with an idiot of a boyfriend like richie (who constantly forgets where he sets up traps during capture the flag) eddie needs to be able to fix his boy. He may not seem like an Apollo boy other than the fact that he’s wicked good at being camp medic, but he’s getting pretty dialed in on his foresight (even though it only consistently reaches about an hour into the future.) still, this makes fixing up his idiots easier, as he knows exactly what to pack in his magic fanny pack (think Leo’s tool belt) before every capture the flag (even though he no longer needs it, after realizing that it wasn’t his drugs healing him but his own abilities). After LOTS of practice, Eds walks up to richie, touches his forehead, and richie fucking loses his shit because h o l y s h i t why is everything so blurry??? Before taking his glasses off and crying because everything is in focus

Also:

-bill and mike always help in developing the area for the capture the flag games and make sure it’s aesthetically pleasing, interesting, and different from the last time

-SHIT AND MIKE AND THE DEMETER CABIN MAKE CORN MAZE CAPTURE THE FLAG FOR FALL (complete with spooky scares from the grain nymphs)

-most of the hades kids come and go, so billiam is alone a lot in his cabin, making the hades cabin basically the loser’s cabin for sleepovers

-(bill also sleeps in the Athena cabin a lot cause of the immense space and his bf)

-Eds discovers his poetic abilities when sitting with Ben and trying to think of what to say to ask rich out

-Eds definitely also helps richie write songs

-richie is a large lanky boy but somehow kicks ass when they have track events (its one of the only places he doesn’t trip)

-his biggest threat? Billiam, aka lanky boy #2

-“it’s not fair, he can literally influence the track and make my lane turn into sand!” “S-step up your p-prank game, tozier”

-richie replaces bill’s shoes with some winged ones and Jesus Christ he’s never laughed as hard as he did when bill hit the side of the big house as soon as the race started

-eddie never really pursues his artistic abilities but one time rich has a bad night and sends Eds a message to meet him at the hades cabin (bill is with Stan) and he finds richie panicking over a nightmare so he starts singing to richie and holy shit richie was crying but not cause of his nightmare

-mike always brings flowers to the medics tent and brings some of each patients’ favorites to put at their bedside

-mr d cannot stand richies existence sometimes but all of that is forgotten when richie somehow gets him some ancient bottle of wine that d hasn’t seen in millennia

-whenever eddie sees richie’s laugh or smile the camp gets a lil brighter for a second

-sometimes mike goes and sits with bill while he’s talking to Georgie. He helped him with hiding bill’s little spot, can also (to an extent) contact the dead, and bill trusts him immensely. Bill loves the losers but most of the time he just wants to talk to Georgie alone. When he does invite the losers to come talk, they don’t go to bill’s spot

-I can’t help but imagining mike making all of the losers little flower crowns made of assorted flowers and all of them match the person

-richie has so many laurel wreaths from mike due to his immense list of track records

-they think bill was conceived while the gods were battling with their second self, because he was claimed by hades but has the ability to conjure metals and jewels like Pluto (which is super uncommon when you’re Greek)

-(of course he gets his bf’s cabin some of the best metals for weapons)

-richie somehow gets all of the Good Shit from the outside world into the camp. Nintendo switch? Stan buys it off of him the first day rich has it (along with all the Mario games that comes with it.) cigarettes? Him and Bev share those. Books from libraries across the world? Ben is still amazed as to how richie gets a hold of some of the Ancient Greek texts he sells him but he’s not complaining.

-Eds sometimes misses his boyfriends stupid glasses, so richie finds some hipster glasses and wears them sometimes

-sometimes Eds wishes he had better luck with curses bc sometimes his boyfriend needs to shut the fuck up

-richie and Bev live at camp year round, while bill and Ben often return home, eddie has to go home every break (no matter how short), and mike and stan only goes home on the really long ones

-mike also helps Eddie with finding certain medicinal herbs (richie of course finds the medical marijuana eddie is keeping hidden in his fanny pack)

-instead of “your mom” jokes richie now makes jokes relating to Percy (with only the occasional jokes about mrs k) because come on he’s now the camp mom

-“wait eddie this is so gross that we’re dating cause we’re related” “fuck off richie” “gives me more of a reason to date your mom”

-eddie always makes sure Bill gets enough sunlight,,,that kids depressed enough he needs some vitamin d

-Stan’s owl friend always watches the cabins during the night, and when he sees richie setting trip wires and such on the playing ground, alerts stan

-eddie teaches richie guitar, which he picks up on quickly. It’s one of the only things his Hermes dexterity applies to, and his lankiness gives him a little bit of an advantage

-reddie is the musical power couple that everyone loves during campfires, although Eddie objects every time until richie literally pulls him to the middle of the circle with Eddie on one knee and his guitar on the other

-they have WiFi thanks to richie

-richie sets up sensors on all the cabin doors on April first and the first door to be opened (bill’s) sets off speakers in all the cabins, blasting Africa by Toto at full bass and full volume

-let’s just say eddie didn’t talk to him for four days because WHY WOULD TOU DO TJAT RICHARD

-“wait bill can you have blue fire hair like hades in Hercules??” “Richie I s-swear to god”

-eddie purposely makes it sunny all the time cause he loves the way the sun shines in Rich’s hair and gives him lil freckles :,,,,)

-Ben appreciates the sun too because bev’s hair looks like fire and she gets so many freckles

-Percy stays at camp during breaks cause he knows how lonely it can get and it always helps for richie to have one more friend while most of his are gone

-he adopts richie cause he sees a little bit of himself in that little shithead (and he may use him to long-distance pester Jason with letters rigged to spew water at him as soon as he opens the envelope before pulling out a soggy piece of blue paper that says “hope you’re not missing us too much in California”)

-Annabeth ADORES Ben and Stanley, she basically adopts them as her kids cause Ben is an intelligent little softie and stan is equally intelligent (although in battle strategy rather than crafting)

-Ben loves it when annabeth visits cause he has someone to show his architectural plans to and help him revise them

-Ben gets SUPER good at architecture, so good in fact that he’s literally hired at age sixteen to help in construction in Olympus

-Hermes learned from his mistakes of neglecting his kids, and is sure as hell to visit and talk to richie and the others as often as he can, especially Richie because of his family history

-after the Athena cabin’s plan backfire, stan gets richie’s assistance in payback (he gets the Hephaestus cabin to create weapons that look exactly like the Ares cabins’, but turn into a mini metal figurine of richie doing finger guns as soon as the capture the flag buzzers go off)

-Bev has a rage in her eyes that hasn’t been seen since they defeated IT, and sweet sweet Ben has to hold her back and (try) to calm her down until bill can come in and make her pass out

-she wakes up kicking and screaming with her entire cabin giving up at blocking her from the door and parting like the Red Sea as soon as they see a red glow surrounding her

-this is the one time bill allows a third loser into his cave hiding place, as nobody knows where it is (he made richie pass out as well before taking him into the cave to protect him from the Wrath of Beverly)

-Bev finally calms down (eddie may have put that medical marijuana to use in some special tea he’s formulated)

-mike sometimes just goes and sits in the forest if he can’t sleep. He loves how it looks at night, and how many odd creatures are roaming around

-he meets Grover one night, and they instantly become great friends

-Grover figures out that one of the wood nymphs has a crush on mike, and plays match maker

-the losers notice mike going to the forest more frequently, and while walking back into camp, little patches of flowers grow in his footprints

-when they start dating, mike likes to make his girlfriend’s tree bloom, and changes the color and type of flower each time

-they’re adorable and everyone loves them

-he protects her tree with all costs, as its life is tied to hers

-mr d has definitely found richie in his underwear and a camp Jupiter shirt passed out on the steps of the big house at 6 in the morning, with Richie holding a bottle of fireball

-richie was put on pegasus shit duty for a week, and Eddie refused to rid him of his immense hangover

-somehow richie gets a cat into the camp, its the camp pet and rich always brings it into the med tent to cheer up injured and sickly kids

-the cat mainly lives there, but it goes to bill’s cabin a lot for peace and quiet

-listen,,, the cat would totally have some horrible name that richie makes up like mr noodles and mr d would be so confused as to who mr noodles could be

-Ben my sweet boy and Stanley sometimes sit with mike in the forest during the day. Mike and stan watch the birds, and Ben reads more of the books rich has smuggled in

-richie tozier makes it his goal to get as many aphrodite kids after him as possible (eddie acts like he hates it but knows his idiot would never leave him)

-literally half the Aphrodite cabin is in love with him, and the other half isn’t interested in guys

-richie gets mike to give him assortments of flowers, and brings them to Eddie in the medics tent every morning

-it’s basically like an alarm cause every day, without fail, the sun will shine a little too brightly at 8 am

If you took the time to read all this you’re a Saint and I appreciate you

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 18th August 2019

Bruh bruh bruh bruh

Top 10

For the sixth(?) week, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello continue their surprising reign on the charts with “Senorita”, still at #1. I knew this would debut high and continue doing well due to the star power of both artists, but the longevity was somewhat unprecedented, especially considering the quality of the song.

At the runner-up spot of number-two, we still have “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid because clearly someone in the world thinks that song has any redeemable quality.

Thankfully, however, up three spots to number-three, is coincidentally “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike (It’s his first top five), which is still probably my favourite song on the charts.

At number-four, up four from the debut, is somehow “Taste (Make it Shake)” by Aitch. I’m perplexed somewhat considering not only is this the usual genre to fall immensely after its first week, and this is some of the least interesting of that genre and scene, but there hasn’t been a remix in sight to propel Aitch’s single up until the top five.

We go back to quality with number-five, which is “Higher Love” by Kygo and Whitney Houston up four spaces this week as well. Despite the song generally being pretty decent, I do worry how the success of this will lead into a posthumous album from Whitney Houston where a bunch of EDM producers remix a couple bonus tracks and just the prospect of that sounds unlistenable.

At number-six, down one space form last week, is “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey.

Up five spots from last week in probably the most shocking advent here on the charts this week, Sam Smith’s “How Do You Sleep?” entering the top 10 at number-seven in its fourth week, becoming his 11th UK Top 10 hit. It’s the most shocking simply because there seems to be no reason for the reasonably large boost, yet it hadn’t gone Top 10 before? This is Sam Smith, it should debut in the top 10, surely? Why did it take three weeks outside of the top 10? Why is this gain so sudden? I have  a lot of questions.

MIST and Fredo’s “So High” returns to the top 10 after a three-spot increase at number-eight.

Unfortunately, it brought Lewis Capaldi’s “Hold Me While You Wait” up a spot to number-nine with it.

Also returning to the Top 10 is “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy up four spaces to #10, because we need more Ed Sheeran in the charts... I guess.

Climbers

The highest and most unfortunate climber is probably Lil Tecca’s “RAN$OM” up eleven spaces to #13 despite being easily one of the worst hit songs of this year, really pathetic, derivative trap-rap. Other than that mistake, there really isn’t much to speak of here at all, other than “Harder” by Jax Jones and Bebe Rexha moving up six spaces to #30 but I should stop pretending I care about that song at all. Oh, and Dermot Kennedy’s “Outnumbered”, listed by Taylor Swift as an influence, is up five spaces to #34, looking like this will become a sleeper hit and I’m not particularly excited for that.

Fallers

On the other hand, we have plenty fallers this week, which seem to mostly be massive hits that have continued to fall over the past week or are just starting to drop off the chart. One of these fallers is a clear exception and that’s Social House’s “boyfriend” with vocals from Ariana Grande immediately dropping down seven spaces to #11 after the debut, which isn’t a good look going forward. Also probably a first for the UK Top 40, we have two absolute smash hits that peaked in the top five both dropping down a whopping 18 spots to a place outside the top 20 in the same week. The first at #21 is “I Don’t Care” by Ed Sheeran with Justin Bieber, and the second at #25 is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish which conversely just ended the 19-week #1 that is “Old Town Road” in the US. Also down this week is “I Spy” by Krept & Konan, Headie One and K-Trap down five to #27 after the second wind of the remix wears off. “Vossi Bop” by Stormzy is also down five to #39 and is slowly but surely exiting the charts.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We literally have one drop-out this week and it’s “Mocking It” by JAY1 out from #40, which at that point it’s pretty obviously going to fall off soon enough... okay, are you kidding me? There’s one song to enter in the charts... barely. I would once again have no new entries to discuss if “Mocking It” kept in there (I’m not complaining that it didn’t, though). I think it’s probably time to do a featured single, but I’m already late enough writing this, so...

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Hot Girl Summer” – Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign

Produced by Bone Collector and Juicy J – Peaked at #11 in the US (#1 on the Rolling Stone 100)

Yeah, that title won’t be dated in a year, will it? There’s a difference between this and “Harlem Shake” however, while that was an immediately dated dance fad, this feels more like an anthemic celebration of success and overall being recognised, in a time period that just happens to be attached to a meme. Back to the song itself, when I first heard this dropped, I was ecstatic yet also confused, we’ll talk about that a bit more later, but everything about this song seems to fit my taste. I’m already a big fan of Megan Thee Stallion and pretty fond of a lot of features from Ty Dolla $ign (His solo work is pretty much ignored by everyone in the general public, I think I’ll decide to do the same), and when Nicki Minaj has her admittedly rare rap verses that aren’t watered-down by pop hooks (“MEGATRON”) or sub-standard guests, I really enjoy her delivery and often her punchlines, because she is a pretty clever rapper when it comes to wordplay, just incredibly inconsistent. Also, this was produced by Juicy J? That’s insane, why haven’t I already checked this out before writing this? Maybe I’m setting myself up for disappointment here and I’ve got too high-hiiigh hopes for this one, but come on, it’s a Megan Thee Stallion song produced by Juicy J, how bad can it really be? Yeah, this is pretty great, actually. The intro builds the song up with some pretty intense orchestral stabs, an insane amount of ad-libs, producer tags and even a sample from City Girls’ “Act Up” which is a pretty fitting sample considering that Yung Miami and JT were very much part of this Hot Girl Summer wave this year with “Twerk” featuring Cardi B and “Act Up”, both of which were big hits in America, but not much here. Honestly, we’re a bit slow to catch up with female-lead hip hop, but also hip hop in general, so it’s inevitable that this will catch on at some point. The record scratching on the City Girls sample is so fun before it drops to a bass-boosted beat that is driven by 808s and sub-bass only, with a lot of subtle record scratch breakdowns within the chorus, oddly handled by Ty Dolla $ign... I understand why they’d want him to be admiring the women as some kind of awe-struck child which is hilarious and really works for what it is, but maybe get another black female singer on the hook? I can think of a couple who’d be willing, convincing and not too expensive despite being very famous: Kehlani, Kelela, Mahalia, Jhené Aiko, Mereba? Also, Missy Elliott made a surprise comeback this week, maybe she could have gotten a verse here? I shouldn’t be worrying about what happens on the remix because this song is great by itself. The chorus almost sounds like a smooth 90s R&B or new jack swing song twisted and hyper sexualised to the point where it loses all recognisability other than that signature New Orleans bounce percussion and groove, and Ty’s sultry voice. Megan kills it, which should be expected, and is almost putting down Ty Dolla $ign in an incredibly snide way, it feels like a diss track to the guy doing the hook, and the pre-chorus as well as her ad-libs during the chorus show a lot more singing than I’m used to from Megan but are actually pretty fun... but her verse seems really short. Nicki on the other hand kills it for a lot longer but sounds a lot raspier than usual too; apparently she lost her voice, but honestly her slurring cadence sounds much better than how she usually does, and all three verses, including Megan’s second have a commanding yet smooth flow. The outro, which takes time for record scratching as well as a lot of their signature ad-libs, shows a really out-of-character upper register vocal riff form Ty, which I didn’t expect but it sounds great. Honestly, this is pretty fantastic, I’d like a bit less Ty and more Megan here, though. Just saying.

Oh, yeah, and get Trina for the remix. This seems like a pretty obvious choice for a Memphis trap and R&B fusion.

Conclusion

Well, what other choices do I have? Best of the Week goes to Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign for “Hot Girl Summer” but trust me it’s not just by default, that’s a great lead single. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week!

[storyunrelated]

Short Stories

For a given value of ‘short’, seeing as how most people’s definition of a short story is about 5k up to 10k (roughly) while mine is lucky to reach two thousand. But! That’s variety for you, eh? We’re all different? Etc?

Anyway.

These are the ones I’ve put up on here. You’ll notice I don’t do that anymore. The reason – to myself at least – is the ever-lurking notion that one day I might parcel a bunch of these up together and do something fancy with them. Unlikely, but the thought keeps me up at night sometimes. If only because of the work that would be involved.

Speaking of which, I do sometimes also consider parceling up all of these ones into an e-book or something (the ‘Money for Old Rope’ collection I’ve mentioned previously).

This would require work too, as these below are peppered with typos and poor structure. This is because I don’t proofread.

Because I don’t CARE.

(I had to put them below this line because there’s a lot of them and I can’t in good conscience do that to your dashes. Of course, this now means that no-one will look but, you know, swings and roundabouts.)

Unwanted Advances – The logic of online pornographic robots is even more obtuse when they appear in real life, at your front door. Who’d be stupid enough to fall for that? 

An Interview With… - Something I wrote for a contest thingy with a local writing group. Didn’t win, obviously. It’s about an interview, obviously. Someone trying to make a big break in the blogosphere by talking with something they found in the garden. In a chasm. 

Just A Touch – For a refreshing change, believe what a conspiracy theorist believes for a little bit. Only recreationally, you understand. Just a taste. 

In The Loop – A very childish game, played with the very real possibility of horrible consequences should you fail. The thing behind you won’t do wonders for your concentration. 

Soothe Me – Sometimes, while doing horrible things for what they think is a good reason, a person might suffer a bout of introspection and wonder whether murder and horror is the right thing to be doing. Luckily, there’s usually someone on hand to explain why being a monster is fine.

Cupcake – There’s a hole in my bathroom wall and out of this hole extends an arm. Me and the arm are buddies, and a cupcake seems a good way of expressing this.

Checklist – What’s keeping you here?

Rollover – Even as your efforts come to nothing and you wither away to dust know that the trying will never stop.

Immovable Object – The next stage in unskippable advertisements (obviously the best form of advertisements) is something rather more difficult to ignore.

Oh What’s New? – Networking is very important! It’s all about who you know! So go in there and try to make some connections! What’s the worst that can happen? Really?

Get Hammered – You’re special, but special doesn’t fit. Don’t worry. You can be made to fit. (And later when you see someone else lauded for not fitting, don’t complain; no-one likes bitterness).

Open Platform – It’s important to let people speak their piece, but it’s equally important to recognise that what some people want to say is nothing but toxic.

Ga-Ga, Goo-Goo – The world is a scary place, isn’t it? So many bad things happening! All so complicated! No solutions without drawbacks! Problems on top of problems with no end in sight! Wouldn’t it be better if you could just divest yourself of responsibility and press yourself to the bosom of someone big and strong who’ll stroke your hair and tell you who’s to blame? Good news!

By The Book – Pick the beliefs that best reflect yours, rather than having to adjust your view to conform to something else – where’s the fun in that? Show me which book lets me hate the people I already hate and let’s get going!

Stay The Course – Support the tyrant to the hilt! Until they do something that directly impacts you, at which point you should bawl your lungs out about how unfair it is.

Old Songs – I thing I wrote out by hand (writing club, again) and then transposed. A man who can fix things by singing to them, obviously. Old songs have power, you see?

Sit Comfortably – What starts as an unusual job interview goes in an unforeseen direction. Specifically underground. Where there are spiders. More spiders, rather. (This story has a lot of spiders).

Things Are Grim – A dystopian broadcast to tell the populace something they already know for no good reason. You never know when an audience who doesn’t know how the future works might be watching, after all.

Tabula Rasa – The Book is very important, but you are not allowed to read it.

Reaper of Souls – A being of immense power watches over the city, guarding it from necromantic mischief. It also likes fanfiction and knows the importance of leaving feedback.

Out The Door – A man makes things and the two others that live with him have differing opinions on what he should do with them once they’re done. Do you improve them first, or do you move on? Ultimately, who even cares?

My Violent Heart – Using machines to turn people into soulless drones so they work without complaint seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Tinted – Goggles that allow you to see the world not as it is, but as you think it should be.

Sanded Down – You only have so much sand in your life and how you use it is very important. But using it is far more important than hoarding it. After all, even if you do something badly at least you’ve done something…

Misshapen – Looking at what everyone else is doing, it seems easy enough to replicate. Right? Right?

For Your Own Good – “Unhand that phallus!” and with that cry is the crime of male masturbation rudely interrupted. But it’s entirely altruistic – that’s spinal fluid, that is!

Flensed – Every month you’re renewed and every months you’re stripped to nothing once more. This horrible process happens without fail and it does not get any easier.

Southern Pole – How else should you define yourself except by how you are not like someone else?

Interloper – You don’t belong here.

Tannin Salon – The best tea in the world? Why, the nectar of the Teabeast of course! Getting it is a bit of a pain, naturally, but that’s all part of the allure!

Well Off – Someone’s been put at the bottom of the well, and someone at the top has a vested interest in this staying that way.

Machinegun Man – A long way from home, in the rain, only a gun for company.

Extra-Curricular – An ovoid in class provides answers the teacher cannot bear to hear.

Little Shop Of Sandwiches – A dusty, quiet little sandwich shop that sells lunchtime snacks the likes of which few have ever seen. The likes fewer still have eaten!

Start The Clock – The time between you starting a conversation and it all falling apart horribly because you’re an awkward mess is always smaller than you think. Clock’s ticking!

Rote – It might feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over (and over) again, but somehow from the outside everyone seems to think you’re all over the place.

Push On – Success can be yours! Look at all these other people! They succeeded. You can too! Just keep going! No matter how had it gets.

Excision – In the future, love is to be outlawed! No-one is really clear as to why, however.

Consult A Doctor – If you experience an erection that kills you, you should probably get that checked out.

Object of Disputation – A child tries to make something nice for their parents but everyone else has an opinion on what it actually is.

Catch Of The Slate Sea – A man on a cliff watches a big ship catch a big fish.

Faceless – We wear many faces in life, acquiring new ones as we grow and as we encounter those who dislike what faces we have already. It can be so hard to keep track of who you were to start with. Then again, were you ever anyone?

Slice And Dice – A man invents a superior method of killing that which is reluctant to die.

We Care A Lot – There are those that are paid to be professionally unpleasant in very public places. Eventually, machines displace all jobs held by persons – such unpleasant people aren’t as safe as they think.

Taste Test – Blended down, is there any real difference between these two people? A focus group shall decide!

Limit Break – Be nice enough and it’s inevitable

Three-Way – Just because what you believe also happens to be what’s best for society doesn’t mean you’re biased or myopic. You’re just sensible! It’s everyone else with the problem.

Better Than – How far would people go to avoid something horrible happening? Often, far enough that they’ll inflict something far worse and fail to see the irony. That’s irony! Is it? Maybe.

Infantalise – Casting men is easy! There’s no upper limit. Women (girls, sorry)? That’s another story! They get old so quickly! And who wants that? We have to go younger. Much, much younger. No, younger than that!

Material – Where do these journalists get these outlandish tales? Out of thin air, obviously.

Barred And Shuttered – Life is full of opportunities! Just not for you. A lifetime of closed doors. Have fun!

So Delicate. So Fragile – A man births an opinion! He’s surprised, but knows he must protect it from everything and everyone. Exposure is lethal to an opinion! It might become something else.

Mother Of Invention – Every new weapon invented is touted as the last one, the one horrible enough to turn mankind off war forever. Eventually that’s got to bear fruit. Surely.

All That’s Fit To Protect – Wrapped in lies, the truth of harm is simply deflected.

Abstinent Without Leave – What’s the best way of ensuring The Youth is not banging away like an outhouse door? Education, trust and respect? No! Ignorance!

Great Hunt – The girl is gorgeous and her father is unusual. A boy is invited to the house of the most popular, wonderful girl at school, though he knows not why. He also doesn’t know why all these other guys have been invited, either.

Nothing To Hide – If you’re not thinking anything bad then you won’t mind having your head smashed and your thoughts poked at, right?

The Perfect Model – The human body is disgusting but we’re forced to hang clothes on it so we must find the best example for this. Why must women insist on having MASS?

Lead Balloon – Trapped in an office a man yearns to run off with the nice lady from across the room. Does it end well? Take a guess.

Four Guys – The best burger you might ever encounter! But at what cost?

By His Own Hand – A man is desperate to leave a mark and to leave life on his own terms.

Somebody Cares – Someone trying to put a comforting, supportive voice into his head does it wrong and regrets his decision. His method of removing the voice might perhaps be going a bit far.

Restructure – Journalists are obsolete. We feed a monster now.

Magic Eye – What’s obvious to everyone is not so obvious to this one guy.

Rod For His Own Back – Watch what you say, or else you may find your words used against you.

Bad Boss – Not everyone is cut out to be an evil overlord.

La-La-La – If you ignore a problem like everyone’s legs turning invisible then it’ll probably just go away.

Inner Glow – Scooping out his insides and replacing them with hot coals.

You May Find This Relevant To Your Situation – Truffling for potatoes in a lake of shit.

The Door Opens and Let’s the Future In - Nigel mustn’t touch the door. The future is on the other side.

Writing Is The Wall - Waking up to find a huge wall has cut their bedroom in half. It says something, but they don’t see it. You will.

Hoops - Life is a series of hoops, and each one matters until you jump it, then you find out it didn’t.

Flat - A man finds out something about his partner he should have noticed before.

Secret Techniques - They make tea differently in this office.

Dancing in the Dark - Do what you enjoy, no matter the audience.

Close Observation - It’s nice to be watched, but it’s not happening.

Slug - The people who run the world are beaten to the punch.

We Have to Go Deeper - Layers of suffering lie beneath your feet, and further still beneath those.

Exegesis - Feel free to bring your own meaning to the book, but disagree with me at your peril. Your soul is at stake.

Square Cube - Weaponising physics to kill kaiju

Irresistible - A court-case segues into just raving about how poorly-handled sexual assault cases are. So, uh, enjoy that.

Smoke - Newspapers spew enough nonsense that it stops working.

The Dick Heard Around the World - A man sends a picture of his penis to a woman. It works too well.

Driving Home for Christmas - I look at the driver next to me. He’s just the same.

Hangers On - Saying the wrong thing can attract unwanted attention.

Bottled Up - A man in a cave puts stories in bottles. No-one cares.

Little Furnace - Curiosity burns bright in the human breast, which can end badly if mishandled.

Pecking Order - The worse a tenant you are, the higher you are placed in the building.

Waiting Around - There are those who sit and wait for opportunity to fall into their laps

Hazy - A man loses himself.

[insane-mane]

11 year old Ben’s new batch of 10! Updated powers n such under the cut!

Swampfire has the ability to regrow his body over and over again from even the worst type of damage. He has a heated inner core that allows him to create fire from his charcoal-like hands. When snapping his fingers together,  a spark ignites the methane gases his body produces, allowing him to create fire. Being a being that LIVES on heat, Swampfire can withstand almost any type of hot temperatures. Swampfire is pretty resilient against many things, but if in extremely col environments, he is greatly weakened. He has a TERRIBLE odor due to the methane gas (although not as bad as Stinkfly’s stank) so hiding ain’t easy. For this design, I tried merging all of his concept designs, along with his blossomed form while adding a bit of my own flare to it. Heh, flare. Like fire. As in the alien above. The one that controls fire. Aptly named Swampfire. I wish I was dead.

For Echo Echo’s new design, I kinda wanted to return to form on this one. While I love Omniverse’s style and a lot of their redesign’s (I mean it IS practically the only art style I try to go for when drawing Ben 10), there are a few redesigns that don’t really strike me as the best. Echo Echo kinda being on of them. My only complaint was making him more pudgy-looking and giving him bulbous bug eyes. So, I kinda used his old design while keeping in tune with Omniverse’s design. Echo Echo is like a living amplifier. Covered in head to toe with a biosuit allowing him to create copies of himself, Echo Echo can duplicate and increase his amplitude tenfold. However, he can’t make infinite copies of himself. His max limit for clones is around 10 to 15. Anymore than that can weaken him and make his amplification less powerful. So if you’re expecting an army, you’re out of luck.

For Humungousaur’s new design I didn’t necessarily change much despite his power set is a tad different. AS for his clothing, I absolutely LOVE giving Vaxasaurians MMA-style clothing (shorts and gloves, primarily). I liked how it looks on my OC, Brawlasaurus, so I wanted to do it with Humungousaur too! Humungousaur is one one of Ben’s strongest, and largest aliens (besides Way Big). Humungousaur is pretty much just a large humanoid-like Dinosaur alien ranging up to 20 feet tall. He has IMMENSE strength (surpassing Four Arms), and very durable, incredibly dense, armor-like skin. But, like every alien, he has his weaknesses. Vaxasaurians are notorious for being cold-blooded creatures. Meaning if they were ever in contact with harsh, cold elements, their strength and size would dwindle and could possibly even die. So if a Vaxasaurian were to ever pick a fight with a Necrofriggian, chances are the Necrofriggian would come out the victor. And before anyone asks, no. My versions of Vaxasaurians do not sporadically change their size and grow plates of armor. They’re already large enough and have dense skin.

Instead of flying fast, Jetray is able to merely glide quickly in the air. In the water, however, he’s an incredibly fast swimmer. He can still breathe both on land and in water. Instead of shooting lasers from his eyes and tail, he merely has the ability to do so from his eyes. His tail is now able to shoot out a very long, VERY sharp paralytic barb that he can regrow. For this redesign I wanted to keep Jetray’s colors/stripes and such, but have a few of his features to feel a tad more alien. So I decided to simply restructure his face and change his abilities.

Big Chill’s power set is not that different from what we’ve seen. He still has the ability to freeze things by blowing incredibly cold gases/wind onto an opponent, freezing them instantly. He also has the ability to become intangible and phase through different objects, even freezing them inside-out if he chooses. Big Chill now has the added ability to create large ice structures over his limbs in order to make any punch/kick twice as powerful. Big Chills species can survive the cold vacuum of space, however they are still susceptible to incredibly hot temperatures. Was really excited for this one since Big Chill was an old fave of mine. For his design, I really wanted to keep the buff look Omniverse gave him, since I sorta felt his more scrawny-look made him look like a dude in a suit (a problem I feel UAF had a lot of times with their designs). I wanted to give him a lil fur, like an actual moth, and an exposed rib cage that has a translucent sack that can sorta show his organs (although a tad hard to see in the pose, my bad). I also REALLY wanted to keep the hood he always wears, so I had the idea that to top part of his wings stay on his head when he’s gliding, but when he needs to fly faster they flow outward, giving him more air to fly on. 

Chromastone is still a subspecies of Petrosapiens known as a Crystalsapien. However, this subspecies mainly lives deep underground, illuminating the dark caves and catacombs. They absorb large amounts of light when they’re on the surface and “feed it” to the core of Petropia, thus containing the planet as a whole. The crystal on his head allows him to shoot a wide range of powerful beams of light that can disintegrate an object in no time flat. He can also create light energy-based barriers to defend himself (an evolutionary trait his species learned to not be crushed by any cave-ins). Nothing too different from the last redesign I did for, but merely simplified it and gave him a new outfit.

For his powers/skill set, Brainstorm is one of Ben’s most strategic and analytical aliens on the roster. Able to calculate practically ANYTHING (whether it being complex math equations, enemy attacks, etc.) Brainstorm proves to be a go-to alien when needed for complex issues Ben can’t solve on his own. Brainstorm can produce and manipulate electricity in a variety of useful forms, including shoving/launching or shocking enemies, creating protective force fields of energy by opening the exoskeleton plates on his skull. Brainstorm is often very cold an calculating, so a lot of his calculations don’t involve how other may feel about his solutions. His species is also very boastful, so he may get stuck on admiring how intelligent he is.  Nothing all that different for Brainstorm in terms of design, pretty much just an addition of the sharp, winged ridge around his dome. Felt like it gave him some mad scientist “hair” in a weird way. .

For his skill sets, Spidermonkey is not too different. He’s now equipped with sharp, prehensile spider-like arms and a paralytic/venomous bite. Spidermonkey’s webs are about as strong as a lightweight cable, and sticky enough to latch on to just about any surface. Spidermonkey is able to climb on just about anything, although places with sooth surfaces can be pretty hard for him to grasp on to. Spidermonkey is INCREDIBLY agile, able to dodge many attacks and can jump insanely high. However, he’s not as strong as you might think. He relies far too much on his webbing, but can only organically spin out as much as he can. He can be easily caught off guard and taken down, depending on his adversary. For this design, I really wanted to hammer in the whole spider aspect about Spidermonkey, since I sorta feel his design was pretty much just a monkey with extra limbs and weird eyes. However, I didn’t want to stray away from his initial design he had in UAF. I didn’t really like the hair design they went with in Omniverse, so I kept the UAF style since it gave him more of a spider-looking head. 

This Goop doesn’t need his Anti-Gravity Projector to move, however if he’s on a planet with little to no gravity, his body will move aimlessly and sporadically. He’s still able to make his goop acidic, and can fit between any crease or crevice. However, if the Omnitrix (which is now located inside his body for convenience) is removed from his body it will return Ben to his human form. His one major weakness is large amounts of water. If submerged, his body will dilute and also cause Ben to revert back to his human form. Goop’s species is immune to heat, but can be slowed down in much more frigged temperatures. Nothing too different from the first redesign I did of him, just felt like putting him in an old pose he’s had before. 

And last but certainly not least, Alien X! I really loved his initial look, so the only thing I really wanted to was give him clothes inspired by OS suits and the Galactic Gladiator outfit. I also wanted to make the three horns on his head to be the same color green that Serena and Bellicus are to show how there are three entities controlling Alien X (including Ben, obviously). Alien X is at the TOP of the most powerful aliens list. He’s omnipotent, being able to warp reality, time, and space with ease and at any level. He’s so powerful he can even recreate the universe if need be! However, that doesn’t mean these tasks are easy… A major weakness for the most powerful alien in the universe is simply coming to a decision on what to do. Sounds dumb right? It should be easy knowing what to do immediately. Wall crumbles? Just rebuild it using your thoughts. City being wiped out by typhoon? Just reverse the effects of the planet to calm it down. Bad guy going on a rampage? Teleport him to the nearest dimension. Well, it wouldn’t be hard to actually do those things, but it depends on every variable you could dream of. Ben often goes to Serena and Bellicus (the two other halves of a Celestialsapien that they all have) to see what to do. Serena tells Ben how one decision can solve the situation, while Bellicus tells him how it could also mess with events going on ANYWHERE in the universe. Not only that, but Alien X’s powers are so difficult for Ben to manage that any one of his abilities can mess with the fabric of reality itself. While in this form, Ben would have to be absolutely emotionless and analytical. All three must come to a conclusion that ends up solving the problem, while not damaging any part of the space-time continuum. You can probably imagine how that sort of thing can be really difficult for an 11 year old who barely knows what cereal to get at the super market. Not only that, but turning into Alien X takes a major tole on Ben’s psyche. After transforming back, Ben still hears voices and gets major headaches. He has trouble sleeping at night, thinking about every action he takes that could have a negative or positive effect. It really messes with him for a while, making Alien X one of his most powerful, and harmful aliens to transform into.