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entitynumber5 · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker Characters: Sasha James, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood, Elias Bouchard, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist (mentioned) Additional Tags: Episode: e026 A Distortion (The Magnus Archives), Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Manipulation, Gaslighting, Elias Is Unpleasant, Minor Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Sasha James Lives, Not-Them Sasha James Doesn't Exist, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives) Series: Part 2 of this tired world could change AU Summary:

After a series of encounters, Sasha examines her role in the Archives.

(A sort-of follow-up to "a martyr in my bed tonight").

Because I can’t stop thinking about TMA series 1!!!! During the series 5 final act no less!!!!! Have some Sasha and Tim and Martin being friends and supporting each other (but watch out for Elias). I don’t know what this AU is going to be other than everyone will live. Writing is not coming easily at the moment so I am taking whatever inspiration strikes and running with it!!!

Content warnings: blood, injury, panic attacks, worms, dizziness, disorientation, voyeurism, invasions of privacy, surveillance, manipulation, gaslighting, isolation, mentions of past surgery, needles, trypanophobia (phobia of needles), medical anxiety, dermatillomania, exhaustion, insomnia, brief allusion to self-harm, nausea.

Full text below!! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day <3

From where Sasha is sitting, she can just see through the thin, dirty window that stripes down the centre of the staff room door. There are stickers accumulating along its starboard side: a yellow biohazard warning stolen from Artefact Storage; colourful Pride memorabilia from a building society she doubts cares for the cause beyond June; the logo of the band Tim has been trying to get her into for years. She catalogues each one again, slowly, before looking through the slice of a window to where Martin is standing near the fridge, having a panic attack.

She wonders if he knows it isn’t quite a hiding place, that lonely gap between the fridge and the door. The staff room is not especially ergonomic, trying to be too many things at once, and because of this, there are bizarre breaks between appliances and furniture, spaces too awkward to be filled but large enough to linger in.

Martin lingers.

At first, she worried he’d seen something—a silver worm, burrowing into the bin or even the moulding countertop—or was already assessing this corner as a space that might be suited to a fire extinguisher. He was so calm when she arrived, even though it was six in the morning and her coat was stained with blood. He didn’t look like he’d been asleep, although he had been on edge. Expecting someone. Not her, though. Still, he’d taken it in his stride, wrapped her in one of the blankets they’d equipped the spare room with and led her to the chair in Jon’s office while he made calls. Tim first, then Jon. He spoke calmly to them both, only flinching when Jon snapped about how “there had better be a good reason for this, Martin” before Martin had a chance to explain. Listening to Martin then, she knew he hadn’t been asleep. His voice was lacking that rusty disuse, the weariness from being woken up. He sounded tired, but not that his rest had been disturbed. She wondered if he had been talking to himself in the night when it was silent in the Archives and no one else was around.

And then Jon had arrived. He looked unimpressed but otherwise deliberately neutral when Martin explained that he knew where the first aid kit was in Jon’s drawer, that he had already opened it and helped Sasha with her wound. Tim arrived and made a fuss and went to get coffee because Jon was irritated by his constant pacing and hovering. Martin disappeared. Sasha gave her statement.

Somehow, she ended up back in the open plan office, slumped at her own desk while Tim texts her from the Pret down the road and Jon searches endlessly for Jane Prentiss’s statement and Martin has a panic attack in the break room.

She should have intervened earlier. Intervened when he went to make her a cup of tea, but she had been too tired and disorientated to remind him she preferred coffee, that Tim was already on that particular mission. Intervened when the kettle boiled and popped and Martin went to get the milk from the fridge and something made him stop. A collapse of the calm he had gifted her, perhaps. One moment of intense, stubborn, heart-breaking resilience too much. She watches him breathe too fast. He’s right in front of the door; if someone opens it, they will open it into him. She thinks, I need to get up. I need to help. But she is just too tired.

Her phone buzzes. She manages to pull her eyes away, although the tiny motion disorientates her, and when she gets her bearings—she’s forgotten about Tim. There’s a prickling at the back of her neck, like the sensation of being watched, and she just has time to think not again before she is thrown off track by the arrival of Elias.

At least it’s not Michael this time. Although, to be honest, that thought is not as comforting as she expects.

“Sasha,” Elias says, his voice infused with a concern that makes her skin itch, “Jon informed me you were injured?”

Sasha forces a smile. “Thank you, Elias. For your concern. But it’s nothing serious. Really, I’ll be fine, Tim is actually out right now getting me some—”

“Coffee, yes. You’ll be needing it after such a long night.”

Her inhibitions are lower. She doesn’t have the energy to pick apart this conversation, to remember again and again that she is talking to her boss’s boss. She squints at him. “I, um—how did you—?”

“An assumption. Based on what Jon wrote in his email. You recall me mentioning that he had emailed about your unfortunate encounter?”

“Y-yes?” she replies, but she’s not sure she remembers.

“I came down here to speak to Martin, as a matter of fact, but it’s a good job I ran into you,” Elias continues jovially, “Why don’t you take a few days off? I’m sure you could use some rest and relaxation,”

“Jon already offered…”

“How generous of him.”

“But I—I’m not sure I need—”

“The Archives will be quite alright without you, Sasha,” Elias tells her with an odd smile, “Quite alright indeed.”

Sasha doesn’t say anything. Her head is spinning. She wants Tim to come back right now and diffuse the oddness of this situation with his bulldozer workplace humour.

“Now, would you happen to know where Martin actually is?”

The realisation comes, blessedly, with a moment of razor clarity: Martin. Elias is obscuring her limited vision through the staff room door, but Martin hasn’t left yet. The certainty that Elias knows this, somehow, grips her like a hand around the throat. He smiles placidly at her, but there is something cutting in his eyes, something that knows far too much.

“Nothing untoward, of course,” Elias adds, “But he has been going through a rather rough time lately and I wanted to check in with him. Jon has asked me to replace the fire suppressant system with CO2 in case of any future worm infestations. I thought that might also put Martin’s mind at ease somewhat. You know what he’s like.”

Sasha forces herself to meet Elias’s eyes. To not look over his shoulder, to give him any reason to even glance into the staff room. “He’s with Tim.”

Elias’s smile twitches. “Is that so? I could have sworn I saw him down here only a moment ago.”

Sasha continues to look him in the eye. She knows that the only way to look through the staff room door, the only way to catch a glimpse of Martin, would be from her desk chair, from the exact angle she had been sitting in. She had tested this. She used this particular trick when Jon was trying to hide from them all but she needed to ask him something.

Elias hasn’t seen Martin. And yet. It snags at her mind, her logic, that subconscious but vivid sense of wrongness.

“He’s not here,” Sasha says, “But you could tell me how the CO2 system works. In case one of us needs to activate it.”

Elias’s smile falls a fraction. “Another time, perhaps.”

“Another time,” Sasha echoes, trying to hold this as a promise in her mind. She feels like she needs to know. She understands now, the way Martin has sharpened himself in anticipation of an unavoidable future. He is not different, but he is not the same. None of us will be, she thinks. And it scares her how naturally that thought comes, as if from somewhere deep and unknown that she would not be able to conjure on demand.

“I’ll leave you to recover,” Elias says with false grace, “Take all the time you need.”

Sasha summons an insincere smile and hopes he doesn’t realise how desperately she wants him to leave. He turns and walks from the Archives without a glance in the direction of the staff room, but Sasha gets that same impression that he knows Martin is in there. Knows why Martin is in there.

She wraps her hand around the desk and uses it to leverage herself up. But the change in elevation is immediately a bad idea, and her wheely chair has a mind of its own, spinning away before she can throw herself back into it. She stumbles, spots cartwheeling across her vision, and she thinks she is about to fall when a hand closes around her elbow.

“Whoa, steady there, Sash,” Tim murmurs. He slides the coffee holder carelessly onto her desk and puts his other arm around her, steadying her further. “You okay?”

“Tim,” Sasha says, still dizzy, “You’ve played poker, right?”

Tim huffs a small, confused laugh. “Let’s get you sitting down again.”

By the time he’s herded her chair back to the desk, still with one hand holding her steady, Sasha’s vision has cleared. She sinks gratefully back into the chair and grapples for the coffee holder, dragging it across the desk. There are four takeaway cups. She has no idea which one is hers. She wants to drop her head against the desk and sleep.

Tim crouches beside her chair, one hand soft against her forearm and the other shifting nervously at his side. He looks up at her, earnest and worried. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Sasha.”

“Poker. I need to ask you something about poker.”

“I’ll tell you all about poker once you’ve—”

“No, tell me now,” Sasha insists, “While I remember.”

“Alright, alright. What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what people look like when they’ve shown their hand too early. You know, when they’ve—they’re winning but they’ve just told everyone they’re winning.”

“I mean, I just used to play in my college’s basement. And the others were all set on spending daddy’s money, so it wasn’t like anyone really cared if they gave the game away.”

Sasha groans. She brings her hand to her face, rubbing at her eyes, which feel heavy and sore. “Tim, just… humour me.”

“They looked smug, but…” Tim thinks for a moment, his thumb brushing against the inside of her wrist. “Still smug, that’s a hard foundation to shake, but like for the first time in their life someone’s seeing through them. Is that—was that what you needed to hear?”

Sasha drops her hand and smiles tiredly at him. “Yeah. I’ll… I can try and explain, but…”

“Later, yeah?”

Sasha sighs gratefully. “Later.”

Through the door, Sasha sees Martin trying to steady himself. Deeper breaths, shaking out his hands to dispel some of their trembling. He tips his head back for a moment, squeezes his eyes shut and seems to try forcefully summoning some semblance of calm.

“This one’s yours,” Tim says, placing one of the coffees in front of her, “I got the barrister to put extra caramel in there for you.”

“How sweet. When’s the wedding?”

“Psh,” Tim says with a flick of his hair, but there is a seriousness in his eyes that doesn’t match his words when he continues, “I have eyes only for you, my dear. And oh, would you look at that? I’m already on one knee! Sasha James, will you do me the honour—?”

Sasha rolls her eyes. “Get up.”

“As you wish.” Tim winks before he stands.

“Can you go and check on Martin?”

“But I’m currently in the process of checking on you.”

“I’m fine. Martin’s having a panic attack in the staff room.”

Tim whips around before Sasha can tell him to be subtle about it, but it’s not like he can see through the door at his angle. “Oh, shit.”

Sasha leans slightly in her chair. Martin is no longer in view. He must have moved away from the door, which is good. Tim won’t crush him when he opens it. “Go now or he’ll open the new milk for no reason.”

“Oh, god, not the new milk,” Tim gasps.

“Tim.”

“Look, I’ve—we spoke the other day. About the panic attacks. He says he prefers to be alone for a bit, afterwards.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know,” Tim replies with a small, almost imperceptible flinch, “But Sash, you’re still covered in blood. Can I—will you let me check if you need stitches, at least?”

“Martin already looked at it,” Sasha replies, her tongue loosened by exhaustion and blood loss, “Did a pretty good job considering he never actually completed his first aid training.”

Tim smiles, half fond, half admonishing. “I am not letting you near Jon right now. There are some things he really doesn’t need to know.”

“Jon asks me to ‘free up’ official records and whatnot. It’s not like he doesn’t know,” Sasha replies. But she pauses for a moment, defensiveness eclipsed by guilt. “That one was accidental, though.”

“Finding out or letting it slip?”

“Both?” Sasha tries. Tim looks dubious.

“Right,” Tim announces, moving on, “Can I go all nurse Stoker yet?”

“Fine. But you’re checking on Martin afterwards. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Sasha eases off her coat again. The grey wool is stained and she is sure no amount of dry cleaning will get it out, besides the fact that she doesn’t want to weather the awkwardness and anxiety of having to explain it to them. Michael’s hands—talons?��had ripped a neat but gaping hole in the shoulder and sewing has never been her strong point. She could ask Tim to do it, she supposes. But it looks like a lost cause where it droops to the floor beneath her desk and comes to a mournful, final rest.

“I liked that coat,” she sighs.

“I’ll get you a new one,” Tim murmurs distractedly, now fully focused on his task, “Anything for you.”

Sasha grits her teeth as Tim carefully peels away the gauze Martin had applied earlier to inspect the wound beneath. She can feel the wound is clean, almost surgical. It throbs in a similar way to the incision on her lower back when she’d had a mole removed a few years ago, although there was no anaesthetic this time, no warning. Behind her, she hears Tim inhale sharply when the entire gash comes into view.

“That looks deep,” Tim says sympathetically.

“It’ll be fine.”

“I think you need stitches.”

“I don’t need stiches, Tim.”

“To be fair, Sasha, you can’t see it. I can take a picture or something. It’s deep. And it can’t hurt to check, can it? Just in case.” Tim pauses, taking a trembling breath. “Humour me.”

“You know I don’t like needles,” Sasha mutters.

“I know.” Tim’s voice is so warm, so reassuring.

“I really don’t like needles.”

“I’ll hold your hand.”

“What about Martin?”

“He can come with us.”

“He doesn’t like hospitals.”

“Do I want to know how you know that?”

Sasha glances at the door again. She still can’t see him. She wonders if he’s okay. If he has forced himself to go back to making tea, if he is composing himself so they won’t ask when he steps back into the office. “I was watching Gray’s Anatomy the other day on my break. I asked if he wanted to join me since he was looking sort of lonely, but he said he could never get into those kinds of shows, never liked anything to do with hospitals. I mean, I kind of had to force it out of him. I think he would have sat and watched it just to avoid offending me otherwise.”

Sasha knows from Tim’s silence that he knows something she doesn’t. She forces herself not to push.

The staff room door creaks open in a way only Martin can seem to manage—so quiet, so deliberately quiet they wouldn’t hear if they weren’t listening. Martin himself steps out, looking washed out and red-eyed. He doesn’t look like he’s been crying, but he does look like he’s rubbed at his eyes, scratched slightly at his cheeks. He musters a small, shaking smile for them both, a cup of tea in each hand. The surface of the tea ripples with the lingering motion of Martin’s hands.

“Hey, guys,” Martin says quietly, “Oh, Tim, I didn’t realise you—I didn’t make—but you can have this one. It’s got sugar in it. But I know you don’t mind sugar sometimes. Although it’s the mug with the—”

Tim moves around the desk so he’s hiding the coffee cups behind him. “Oh, no, you keep it, mate. It’s your tea. And you look like you could do with the caffeine.”

“Yeah, I need to get on with some follow-ups or Jon won’t exactly be happy with me.” Martin’s smile is still wan, still too small. “And I don’t want to fall asleep at my desk again,” he adds with false cheer.

“Didn’t Jon tell you?” Tim says cheerfully. Sasha marvels, for a moment, at his ease. She knows he is good at this—at seeming happy even when he is not—but her heart hurts at the ways life has forced Tim to lie. “We’ve got the rest of the day off.”

Martin frowns. The smile falls away quickly, as if grateful for the excuse. “We do?”

“Yeah. It’s a workplace rule.”

“About?” Martin says, dragging the word out in nervous curiosity.

“Traumatic events,” Tim replies seamlessly, “I’ll get you the employee handbook if you—”

“As long as we don’t get in trouble.” A humourless laugh from Martin. “As long as we don’t get in trouble, I’ll take it.”

“Why don’t you go and rest a bit? I know you had an early start with all the commotion this morning.” Tim gives Martin a gentle, encouraging smile. Sasha can only see it in profile, but she knows it well enough herself to grasp the full picture. “I’m going to take Sasha to A&E just in case she needs stiches, okay?”

“Oh.” Martin’s lips tremble almost imperceptibly. “Oh, Sasha, I—I didn’t know—I thought maybe it—I’m sorry. I really should have checked better, I—”

“Oh, Martin, no. No,” Sasha interrupts, as gently as she can, trying to mirror Tim’s calm, “You did a great job. Tim’s just being a mother hen.”

“You know me,” Tim adds merrily.

Martin looks even paler with guilt. “I can come with you. If you need someone to—I can tell the doctor about the first aid earlier if they need to know the details—”

“I’ll be fine, Martin,” Sasha tells him, “And Tim’s right. Go and sit down, at the very least. I woke you up far too early this morning.”

Martin looks almost like the words Sasha is thinking are on the tip of his tongue: I wasn’t asleep. But he offers another blank smile, a valiant attempt, but there is something deeply sad and guilty around his eyes. “Keep me updated?”

Sasha smiles. “Of course.”

“How about I come and let you know when we’re leaving? I need to let Jon know before we go, anyway, and Sasha’s not in a rush to go near any needles,” Tim offers.

Sasha wishes her desk wasn’t enclosed so she could kick Tim. Martin just nods and begins walking away, almost ghost-like, still holding both cups of tea as if he doesn’t know he is in possession of them. Sasha wonders when he will notice. If he will punish himself for it in some hidden, devastating way.

Like refusing to sleep under the guise of keeping watch.

“God,” Sasha murmurs, “I really—I feel awful.”

Tim watches the shadowed hallway Martin disappeared through. “I’ll talk to him. And you have nothing to feel bad about. You couldn’t help waking him up and it’s not like you were feeling—”

“It’s not that.” Sasha chews at her lip. She almost doesn’t want to tell him, even though she knows he won’t judge her. That almost makes it worse—that she shouldn’t be forgiven, but she will be if she speaks it aloud. “I was—I kept trying to make it logical in my mind. Jane Prentiss, the worms, Martin’s encounter. I realise now I was just trying to make myself feel better, but I kept telling myself that if she was really a serious threat, Martin would be dead. But, Tim, he’s—he’s far more resilient than any of us give him credit for, and I’ve been a complete—”

“Sasha,” Tim whispers, brushing his fingers against her knuckles where she’s clenching the desk again, “I understand. I do.”

“I guess I’m just a bit shaken by it all.”

“I know. We all are. But it’s going to be alright. I’m going to do everything in my power to make it alright.”

Sasha meets his determined gaze. “Me too.”

“Right, I’ll text Jon and tell him where we’re going. He’ll be elbow deep in statements somewhere and very grumpy if I interrupt.”

Sasha musters a weak laugh. “Don’t be mean. He was nice to me. I think he was worried.”

“Jonathan Sims? Worried?”

“Tim.”

“No,” Tim assents with an apologetic smile, “To be fair, it’s been a stressful few months. I know he cares. I just wish…”

“He’d show it a bit more?”

“Yeah. Just a bit.”

Sasha sighs. She gives Tim a weak push. “Please go and check on Martin. Don’t make me ask again.”

“Okay, okay, but…” Tim smiles, almost shy. “Can I kiss you?”

Sasha taps her forehead, just once. It’s a familiar, well-worn routine by now. Tim lowers his lips to her hairline, places a gentle kiss where she indicated and then moves away from her desk. He smiles, a genuine, real smile—nothing behind or beneath it. Uncomplicated, complete. She returns it.

“I’ll be back,” Tim warms in an overly-dramatic voice as he hurries away to check on Martin.

Sasha sits alone at her desk and thinks, incongruously, about fire extinguishers.

When the Archives are under attack, when Jane Prentiss roams hissing and writhing through the rooms and halls where she used to laugh with people she no longer knows are alive, Sasha doesn’t go to Elias.

When she finds the fire suppressant system, when it takes her nearly ten minutes to work out the wiring and the code and the mechanism, she is almost sick with the fear that she is too late.

When she finds out she was right on time, she weeps.

And when she looks at Jon and Tim’s scars, when she notices the shadows beneath Martin’s eyes, when she faces down her own nightmares about a siege that could have been so much worse and yet wrought so much damage, she still cannot help but think she dodged a bullet.

It’s a stranger of a feeling. The certainty of it is new and unsettling. But it doesn’t leave her, this sense that she escaped something intended for her. She cries with fear when she hears fire alarms, close or far, and finds herself intensely, unexplainably grateful.

#anyone else think about how hard Sasha's encounter might have been for Martin or is it just me #also Sasha deserves to be loved and cherised #i miss her #Sasha is aro btw i don't mention it specifically but i adore this hc #i don't even know what this AU is and yet it is the only thing getting me out of bed right now #i want Sasha and Tim to somehow appear in the finale but i DREAD how that might come about #i just miss them so much!!!!#cw blood #cw injury #cw panic attack #cw worms #cw disorientation #cw invasions of privacy #cw surgery #cw manipulation #cw gaslighting #cw isolation #cw needles #cw medical anxiety #cw dermatillomania #cw exhaustion #cw insomnia #cw self-harm #cw nausea #i hope i got all of them but please please let me know otherwise #mostly very brief mentions but i want to be safe #take care of yourselves #<333 #also fuck elias #i'm sorry to subject you to him in this fic

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schmokschmok · 4 years

Text

omnia mutantur, nihil interit

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Georgie x Melanie

Characters: Georgie Barker, Melanie King, Jonathan Sims, Martin K. Blackwood, Tim Stoker, Sasha James

Wordcount: 10.000

Freeform:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Alternate Universe - College/University

Romantic & Platonic Soulmates

Minor Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Brief Jon/Georgie & Melanie/Sasha

Amicable Breakups

Trans Melanie King & Martin Blackwood

He/Him & They/Them Pronouns For Asexual, Nonbinary Royalty Jon Sims

Summary

Melanie is lucky, that's what everyone says. She's blessed because she's got the name of her soulmate etched into her skin. For her, the name is many things: a blessing, a curse, her Damocles' sword.

A "the first words your soulmate says to you are written on your skin"-au but with a twist, i guess.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056415

Complimentary Jon/Martin Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395876

CN: Mild Internalised Homo- and Transmisia in #6 and #7, Food (mentioned in #9 and #10); Alcohol (mentioned in #10)

It’s rare for a person to have the name of their soulmate as their mark – or at least that’s what everyone says.

They congratulate her when they see the loopy script on her ankle, cooing at the roundness of the O and the little bow of the H and the wrongly weighed Ss. They see the tilt of the script and tell her, it must be an optimistic soul writing with the future in mind, looking forward to all the things the future could hold.

They tell . her she’s lucky, oh so lucky to know the name of the one she’s waiting for, that she doesn’t have to strain her ears every time she meets someone new for faint, trivial words like “hey, what’s your name” or “look out!”

They tell her she’s blessed for the simplicity of her soulmark – words written by her soulmate themselves instead of little marks she has to find on the body of her loved one, or a string tugging on her finger and connecting her to a heartbeat she may never see the face belonging to, or a countdown leaving her to grasp for straws in the middle of Trafalgar Square staring at thousands of faces and possibilities rushing away. She’s blessed for having two clues to find out the identity of the person who’ll love her the most. That she could be one of the forsaken that see everything their soulmate writes on their skin. That she could have been in pain when she’s away from her soulmate – bound to them by fate and chance.

No, she’s got a name, loopy and bubbly and inked into the skin underneath her left ankle.

“Jonathan Sims,” she whispers sometimes while brushing over the name with her thumb or the tips of her fingers, wondering what kind of person he will be. And she doesn’t know who he is, but she’s so young and the only thing she truly knows is that she will love him dearly.

She wears his name in pride, presents it like a trophy, wants everyone to know: She’s not afraid of bearing her soul right on her skin for everyone to see.

She shoves her feet into black, clunky boots and she begs her mother to buy them, because she needs them so much. Never, she thinks, blinking away the hotness and the burning behind her eyes, never again will she look at those cursed letters, at his name that she wanted to hear so desperately for the longest of times.

Until she found herself lying in bed next to Sasha like the thousands of times she did in the past. Until darkness ascended upon them, their faces illuminated only by the glow of the full moon. Until Sasha reached out, intertwining their fingers and whispering softly that she loves her; that she always has, that she always will. Until Sasha comes closer and closer and almost closes the gap between them – if it weren’t for Melanie closing it first.

“Jonathan Sims,” he says absentmindedly as if it weren’t the most important name for Melanie, a curse and blessing at the same time. He doesn’t even look her way, just scans the page for their assignment, underlining a few words in preparation.

She stares at him, takes in the sharp line of his mouth and the prominent cupid bow that should soften the hard look but really doesn’t. Her eyes roam his face, the long bridge of his nose that’s interrupted by a crook indicating he broke it in the past. She stares at his wide forehead and his thick eyebrows, at his long eyelashes and the brown half circle of his irises. His profile is composed of sharp angles and straight lines, his skin of a deep, dark brown, scattered with circular scars, his face framed with rich, brown wavy hair that came free at some point from the messy bun nestled on top of his head.

He’s not attractive, by any means, but she can easily see he’s got a presence and a certain kind of charm. He looks like a college professor on the wrong side of the classroom.

And it is his name on her ankle, hidden beneath layers of tights and soft socks and the thick material of her boots. And it is his name that sends a shiver down her spine and makes the hairs on her neck and arms stand up.

She stares and she stares and she stares and she stares – until he’s looking at her, too, brows furrowed and a look of annoyance on his face. And the only thing she can do is releasing a shaky breath and softly saying: “Oh no.”

His eyes widen a fraction and his hand shoots up to his clavicle on instinct. Then the expression on his face shifts into a scowl and a heavy coldness sinks into her stomach.

“The feeling is mutual,” he spits through gritted teeth, quickly scanning her face, finding something she can’t even name. Subsequently, he averts his eyes and shuffles through the papers in front of him. “I’d prefer to split the work evenly and propose a meeting a few weeks in to compare notes and draft a first outline for the presentation.” He clears his throat. “If you’re interested, we can exchange numbers for research related questions.” He eyes her. “And research related questions only.”

Her jaw’s locked and cracks worryingly when she opens her mouth violently to retort: “I’m not interested in anything other than our presentation, jerk.”

Maybe she’s imagining it, but her insult seems to loosen his shoulders just an inch and the scowl softens into a less sullen look.

This man, this crabby looking man, is her Damocles’ sword.

They’re sitting in the institute’s library, knees knocking into each other every once in a while, their table littered with notes and papers and books. The pen behind Melanie’s ear slips further down when she shakes her head vigorously.

“Did you spend even a minute thinking about that take?” She barks out an incredulous laugh. “Ovid was not ‘too self-absorbed’ and ‘incapable of eradicating his failures.’ Who are you? Seneca’s sycophant?”

“It’s a well-known fact that Ovid never surpassed his early stages. His texts had potential and even though they received the criticism needed to fix them, he was never capable of revising them and tapping the full potential,” Jon shoots right back, pulling multiple notes out of the mess on the table. “It isn’t only Seneca, you know that full well, Quintilian provides anecdotal evidence as well. His writing is shallow and superficial, and I should say it.” Melanie huffs agitated.

“What you should do is shut your cakehole and read some fucking books.” Melanie wrings her hands in frustration, before reaching over the myriads of notes and papers for a book that’s half-buried underneath two other books. “Is the only book you ever read about Ovid by Fränkel? Because that is some seriously prejudiced fuckwart and he should never have been allowed to write about Ovid in the first place. Otis’ work was published in the same fucking year, you could have read that instead.”

He bristles, reminding her of a peacock fanning out its tail feathers. Swallowing a triumphant laugh, she readies herself for the next round to come.

“I’ll have you informed that I read every single thing you forwarded to me, but I know they’re wrong.” He stares into her eyes, unwavering.

“That you’re wrong,” he clarifies. “You will never convince me that Ovid knew what he was doing.”

“We can’t do this presentation if you can’t admit that you’re wrong!” Her voice is probably too loud for the library, but Oliver doesn’t mind them as long as they’re alone and Professor Lukas is out of the building.

“Is there anything you’re ever right about? We don’t have to agree about the history of research to present it,” he argues because of course he does. They’re project partners for five weeks now and despite the fact that this is their first meeting vis a vis, he disagreed with practically every single thing she sent him over the past weeks. If she says Ovid’s Metamorphoses are a composite epos, he tells her it’s a collection of loosely connected stories. If she says Ovid’s been exiled for political reasons, he tells her Ovid’s probably never been exiled and it’s all a nice story he drafted to write his Tristia and that’s it.

“I know we don’t have to agree on anything,” she says and she’s about to raise her voice again to continue arguing, when a voice startles her, and she freezes up: “Jonathan Sims!”

Jon rolls with his eyes and says, without turning around: “I’m in the middle of something, Georgie, can you get back to me later?”

“Can you get back to me at all?” She plops down next to them on a chair and Melanie’s breath gets caught in her throat. She’s beautiful, but in a preppy hipster kind of way. Her hair falls in tight, natural curls over her shoulders almost onto her back and frames her round face. Underneath her wide nose glistens a golden, sun-shaped septum, accentuated by the deep red of her full lips. Both complimenting the warm undertone of her black skin. Despite the cold outside she’s only wearing a thick knitted cardigan over a white top with a floral pattern and a mustard yellow skirt. “I messaged you three times today and yet you refuse to answer me.” The colour of her nails and outfit are geared to each other and she lays her hand on his elbow to finally catch his full attention.

Jon looks up to her at last, ignoring her hand on the sleeve of his light brown button-down. In spite of his deadpan voice, the corners of his mouth curl upward into the smallest of smiles.

“If I would have wanted to answer you, Georgie, I would have done it. As you can see, I’m working on a project with Melanie right now.” Two pairs of brown eyes land on Melanie and she feels scrutinised all of a sudden. Georgie smiles at her, dimply and revealing the golden shine of a labial frenulum piercing resting against the top of her bunny like front teeth.

“Oh, you’re Melanie!” The way she says it is equally anxiety inducing and thrilling, like she wanted to meet Melanie, like they could be friends. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

And the only proper response that comes to her mind is: “Oh god, I am so sorry.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” Georgie rushes to say, then she’s backpaddling again, correcting herself: “Well, maybe Jon wanted it to sound all bad, but I think you sound like a lovely person.” Jon scoffs but he doesn’t interject. They share a look Melanie can’t decipher.

And suddenly, Melanie grows aware of the way she looks today. She is a wall of black clothes and silver accessories and white skin contrasting the warmness of Georgie and Jon. Like an old-timey photograph next to a polished fall edition of the vogue.

Georgie and Jon make a beautiful couple. She’s chubby and soft where Jon is lean and sharp, she’s lively and welcoming where Jon is still and reserved. They balance each other and share these little smiles and glances of contentment. And Melanie is a washed-out copy of a copy of a newspaper picture of welcome to the black parade with the name of this man engraved into her very bones.

“I think, I need to go,” she forces the words to tumble over her lips. As she’s trying to gather her notes without stealing Jon’s or knocking something off the table, Georgie as much as sprawls herself over Jon’s lap and snatches her wrist mid-air and forces her to a halt.

“No, no, please,” Georgie pleads. Lowering her voice as if she didn’t want Jon to hear, she adds: “Don’t leave me alone with this guy, I have to listen to him go on about fungi for way too long. And I cannot take it anymore.”

“I feel kind of attacked,” Jon interjects and Georgie waves him off, right in front of his face, almost hitting his nose, and says: “Good.”

“You should go and get a coffee or tea with us,” Georgie turns to Melanie again and smiles, dimples violently digging into her cheeks. “You both seem tense, maybe we should go right now.”

“We don’t have the t–“ Jon doesn’t get much farther in his rejection, before Georgie interrupts him: “You don’t have a say in this, you owe me for ignoring me, Jon.” His mumbling could be interpreted as a fine and Georgie obviously decides to do so.

Melanie only stares at them, at Georgie mostly, clutching her paperwork to her chest and thinking that life’s unfair. That she’s condemned to have his name on her forever, while he has the most gorgeous woman as his girlfriend and no interest in her at all.

She shouldn’t agree and she knows that, it’s a simple fact of life that Georgie is a beautiful goddess and Melanie is a tiny lesbian who has no control over her lizard brain. She will crush on Georgie and it’s only a matter of time. If the past few minutes are any indication, she will crush so hard, the only pieces left of her will be scattered by the storm that’s already starting to brew.

“Yes,” she says in spite of everything she knows to be true, “That sounds lovely.”

The look Jon sends her expresses almost comically her previous thoughts. Ignoring his pained face, she shoots Georgie a loop-sided grin, the dreadful realisation of her fuck-up finally sinking in. Unbothered by both Jon and Melanie, Georgie sits back in her chair and clasps her hands in front of her chest, while saying: “Perfect, gather your stuff and off we go.”

Full of vim and vigour, she pushes herself out of her chair and stands up.

For a moment, Melanie can’t look away from her. She starts comparing herself to Georgie and if it weren’t for Sasha and that faithful night, she’d still think she only ever wants to be the beautiful women she sees when in reality she wants to be with them, with the picture she painted in her mind, so badly everything inside her aches.

melesbian: things i should have told you long ago – a complete list by melanie king

melesbian: i met my soulmate and he has the most beautiful girlfriend of all time

melesbian: that’s it. that’s the list.

sashaway: ghgfhlsd

sashaway: you made me keysmash, I hope you’re proud of yourself

sashaway: is that list really complete?

melesbian: no

sashaway: thought so

sashaway: what are you going to do about it?

melesbian: continue not talking to that pompous twat and silently pine after his girlfriend

sashaway: as much as I love your dramatics, I need more information to really get a grasp on that situation

melesbian: it’s not a good story. it’s not even a story

melesbian: i’m taking this class on greek and roman epic (for the credits tbh) and one jonathan sims is my project partner

melesbian: we worked in the library on our first draft today

melesbian: and suddenly

melesbian: a goddess ascended from mount olympus (to keep the theme) and plopped up right next to the guy that said in no uncertain terms that he’s not interested in talking to me at all

sashaway: oof harsh

sashaway: are you interested in talking to him?

melesbian: lol no

melesbian: i know it’s late but i’m in front of your door and … you could open up?

“We broke up,” she says matter-of-factly, she doesn’t sound too stressed about it, however. Georgie’s head lies in Melanie’s lap and she’s painting her long, almond shaped nails in a soft baby blue. Almost constantly, her hair moves due to the light breeze and tickles Melanie’s bare arm. But she doesn’t want to move because she’s quite comfortable and Georgie would probably move too, if she thought she’d inconvenience Melanie in any way.

Normally, she wouldn’t pry for more information because the only person she feels close enough to know how to deal with the aftermath is Sasha. But she’s curious and she thinks that there’s no reason in the world to dump Georgie Barker, so she probably left him and – even though Melanie doesn’t want to acknowledge it – Jon and her, they are somewhat friends and she doesn’t want him to feel too bad. (Only ever a little, as a treat.)

So, she shoots for nonchalant and distant interest, but misses the mark by far: “Why did you break up?” Georgie doesn’t seem to notice.

“We mutually agreed he’s an insufferable twat and I’m the burden of his very existence,” she replies, stretching her arm as far away and then pulling it as close as possible to inspect her painted nails. “We not so mutually agreed that he’s got a big, fat, massive crush on someone else.”

“Who could he have a crush on if you literally exist??”

Melanie didn’t mean to say that out loud, oh fucking hell, this is bad. This is real bad. She can’t have Georgie knowing about Melanie’s big, fat, massive crush on Georgie.

Georgie laughs.

“Oh, Melanie, you’re lovely. I always feel special talking to you,” she says as if it wouldn’t set Melanie on edge; as if it wouldn’t make her heart race in her chest, loudly pounding and pumping blood through her veins. She suddenly feels light-headed and dizzy. Georgie continues, nevertheless. “You know, he says it’s not a crush, it’s ‘active disdain’ but he didn’t listen to me at all when I tried to explain to him what ‘active’ in this context means.” She sighs. “It’s a bit pathetic, but that’s Jon for you. And I don’t think I’m one to talk because,” she makes a show of looking inconspicuously to the left and right, “maybe I’m projecting my own crush onto him.” She looks up at Melanie, tentatively. “But you can’t tell him that.”

“I would never,” Melanie rushes to say, not quite processing the fact that Georgie’s already infatuated with someone new. Someone who’s probably not Melanie, because Melanie is never that lucky. She inhales shakily. “So, you’re still amicable?”

For a moment, Georgie seems contemplating, a bit unsure almost. Then she says slowly: “I think so, yes. Jon’s my best friend, I would never forgive myself if I lost him over something as trivial as a breakup.” She shrugs dismissively. “How about you? Anyone caught your attention?” A heartbeat passes, Melanie freezing up like a deer in headlights. “Or are you aro? We’ve never talked about this, when I think about it now.”

“Not aro,” Melanie forces the words out through her teeth, trying to sound like she’s got still air in her lungs to speak. “I’m a lesbian, actually.”

She readies herself for Georgie to get weird and regret lying on Melanie like Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus on a divan. But instead, Georgie’s face lights up and she coos: “We could have talked about girls for months, Melanie, we could have truly lived that LGBT+ solidarity!” As if it’s an afterthought, she adds: “I’m bi. It’s pretty obvious because every time I leave a room, I announce that very fact to the whole room but somehow people think I’m just really enthusiastic about getting away.” She laughs, and that, paired with her trashy joke, lets Melanie lose a bit of the tension that coiled in her stomach.

She doesn’t say We’ve got three letters present then, because even though she’s got the most impressive crush of all times on Georgie and Georgie labelled herself bi just a few seconds ago, she’s not quite ready to open up that much. (Pride’s approaching fast and maybe in a few weeks she’ll be ready to brandish the trans flag, but for now she wants to feel proud of herself for saying I’m a lesbian out loud for the first time since she came out to her parents. She doesn’t get much opportunity to tell people she’s gay and the only ones outside of her family that know are Sasha and Tim – because they were the only ones important enough to tell.)

“Biii~ the way,” Georgie continues, showing off a smirk that would look like a smile on any other person, “you didn’t answer my question. Anyone caught your attention?”

Well, there’s this girl I really like but she’s been in a relationship with my soulmate until very recently. And I also thought she was straight as an arrow, so I didn’t really entertain the thought she could be interested in me in any kind of way, is what Melanie wants to say. (Well, not really wants to but perhaps should and definitely feels the need to.)

“There’s this girl I fancy,” is what she says instead. “Stunningly beautiful, breathtakingly kind.”

“Do I know her?” Georgie’s voice doesn’t change, not really, but it feels like there’s an edge to it that wasn’t previously present. Maybe it’s because of the softness of Melanie’s voice or the distant, unfocused look on her face that she always gets when she’s trying to not give in to the urge of fucking everything up – both unknown to Georgie until now, because, even if Melanie likes to think otherwise, they’re not that close.

“I don’t think, I know her, really,” she settles on. Because it’s true. And it stings. It stings to think that the gorgeous woman in her lap is just the ex-girlfriend of the guy she did a project with for one of her classes and whose name is part of her life for longer than she can remember – and that they hang out from time to time but that it’s more on a superficial level. Hell, she can’t even name the most basic things of Georgie’s life: Is she an only child? What’s her favourite colour? Is the skin of her hands as soft as it looks?

“That’s unfortunate,” Georgie replies softly, “maybe you should get to know her.” The tip of her finger suddenly boops Melanie’s nose, and she smiles encouragingly. The smell of nail polish lingers in the air. “And when you know her and still think she’s that nice, you should introduce her to me so I can make sure you’re not wasting your time.”

And Melanie thinks that maybe she should introduce Georgie to Sasha so Sasha can tell her that she should stop wasting her time.

However, for now she’s going to be a little selfish, so she holds up her hand in front of Georgie’s face and says: “Do you think blue would suit me?” Enthusiastically, Georgie sits up, sunshine reflecting on her septum, and her labial frenulum piercing exposed in a wide grin.

“This blue would suit you very well!” She reaches for Melanie’s hands and her nail polish bottle. “We’d match!! And it would distract me from the fact that my nail polish doesn’t match my outfit.”

“Why’d you paint them, then? The pink was nice,” Melanie asks and watches Georgie uncapping the bottle and getting to work on Melanie’s nails.

“Jon asked me to accompany him to an outing tonight and I wanted to wear a blue dress, so the pink had to go,” Georgie explains while finishing Melanie’s third finger. It looks so easy when Georgie paints nails – when Melanie does it, she always paints over the borders of her nails and on her cuticles, the polish ends up a bit uneven and streaky in places. But it suits her overall aesthetic, so she’s not too stressed about it. But this is different, isn’t it? It’s Georgie holding her hand like a precious object, like a restaurateur may hold a vase or plate while trying to glue the smallest of bits back together. It’s Georgie applying her own nail polish that’s the softest of blues instead of Melanie’s usual blackest of blacks. It’s Georgie being a considerate friend for Jon despite their recent breakup. It’s the domesticity of sitting on the grass in the middle of the Magnus’ University’s campus, ready to be seen by anyone that passes by. It’s Melanie not being disgusted by and anxious because of affection and touching and overall close proximity. – All in all, everything is too much. So, she stills.

“If you wanted, you could join us.” Georgie’s voice is timid, as if she’s testing the waters. And Melanie wants to say yes, because Georgie asked her and she wants to spend time with her, get to know her, but she also promised Sasha to meet up with her because they have to start planning Tim’s birthday. So, she says as much and adds: “I’m sorry. But next time I will come, I promise.”

“You can bring Sasha and Tim. I would love to get to know them,” Georgie says with a hint of disappointment and a spoonful excitement.

“Yeah,” Melanie says, “I think that would be nice.”

They fall silent after that and Melanie thinks she could get used to this. To learning all the little things about Georgie. And she begins now with the dry softness of her hands against her own rough palm.

Melanie inhales shakily, counts to ten, and exhales slowly. A hesitating hand reaches for her own, startling her and making her eyes snap up to land on Sasha’s smiling face.

“You okay?” Sasha’s voice is soft and only meant to be heard by Melanie. “It’s not too late to go, if you want to.” Just as Melanie opens her mouth to retort that she doesn’t actually want to go, because she wants to be here and enjoy this, a familiar voice calls her name. Before turning around to face Georgie, she gives Sasha a quick nod and forces something akin to a smile on her face.

“Finally! I was afraid we wouldn’t find you,” Georgie says, a little out of breath and through half a laugh. “It took a bit longer, but the boys are to blame, I reject all accusations that my make-up is at fault.” She looks gorgeous as ever; it’s the first time, Melanie has ever seen her with braids instead of her natural curls. She’s wearing a pink top and the mustard yellow high-waist skirt she wore the first time Melanie had met her. Her legs are clad in light blue overknee socks. Despite the pressing heat, she’s wearing a thin white cardigan.

Looped through her arm is Jon’s bare one. He looks highly stressed in his black button-up and his light grey skinny jeans which she – Melanie is sure of it – has seen on Georgie on the seldom occasion she wears trousers. White socks stick out of his lilac chucks.

“I thought you were bi.” The words escape her mouth like an accusation a second before her eyes fall on Martin who should be the first one to spot due to his height but tends to merge with the background because of the way he slumps into himself, shrinking a few inches to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. He’s in his usual floral-patterned button-up and khakis but someone has painted the rainbow flag on his freckled cheeks.

“I am,” Georgie answers light-heartedly, “but the colours of the pan flag are much nicer, don’t you think?” She lets go of Jon’s arm, at least doubling the anxiety apparent on his face in the process. She twirls and fans out her skirt, curtsying ironically, before looping her arm through Jon’s again.

A moment of silence falls over them, broken only by the chattering and cheering voices around them.

“This is Sasha,” Melanie almost yells, attempting to brush over the fact how uncomfortable she feels and with the thought in mind that introductions are long overdue. She holds up their intertwined hands and Sasha smiles into the round. Tim, whose existence Melanie has straight up forgotten until now, clears his throat behind her. Hastily, she points over her shoulder at the tall guy. “And this is Tim.”

He drops his elbows on her shoulders, leaning half-way over her and stage-whispering: “I want to be offended because you didn’t introduce us earlier, but I can see why you tried to keep your model friends all to yourself.”

A scowl on her face that could rival Jon’s best ones, she retorts: “If you don’t retreat in a peaceful manner, I will not shy away from shanking you.” Tim doesn’t take her seriously, which was to be suspected, and rests his chin on her head, laughing quietly.

“I love your subtle use of the flags,” Sasha says, gesturing widely at all three of them. She’s wearing shorts and an oversized shirt – that could also be one of Tim’s, Melanie’s not sure –, around her waist she’s tied a bi flag like a loop-sided dip hem skirt. “You definitely put more thought into it than Tim.” Her free hand points over her shoulder to Tim, who dramatically rips his arms away from Melanie’s shoulders and stands tall to his full height. Almost knocking his hand into a stranger, he spreads his arms out like wings and showcases the pan flag he made Sasha paint across his whole torso.

“I was never one for subtlety,” Tim admits like it’s a character trait he’s allowed to be proud of. As if he’s waiting for applause, his arms stay extended and he grins at Jon, Martin and Georgie.

“I tried to coax Jon into going shirtless with a giant ace of hearts painted on his chest, but due to unknown reasons he refused,” Georgie intersects, once again causing Jon’s scowl to deepen. He hisses at her: “There are no ‘unknown reasons’, Georgie!”

She ignores him and bulldozes on: “I think it has everything to do with his stunning good looks. If he’d show too much skin too many people would start swooning on the streets. We can’t have that.” She winks conspiringly at Melanie.

Petulantly, Jon interjects: “If I didn’t wear a shirt, where would I have put my pin?”

Only now Melanie notices a tiny pin shaped like two banners above each other on his breast pocket. A teal coloured pin reading he/him.

Georgie waves her hand dismissively at Jon, but it’s obvious that she’s doing it in a fond, loving way.

“It’s cute and you should really buy Martin a drink later as a thank you. However, you didn’t know Martin would gift nice pins to you, so it wasn’t an excuse when I proposed the idea to you back home,” she says with a shit-eating grin on her lips. “And you still have the bracelet, don’t you?” She points to the wrist of the arm she holds onto that pokes out of his pocket. A simple bracelet braided from teal coloured yarn. Then she cups her free hand around half of her mouth and she stage-whispers to Melanie, Sasha and Tim: “Martin made that as well. It’s really nice.”

They all coo appropriately, Martin’s blushing under the sudden attention.

“I wear one, too,” he pipes up unexpectantly and holds up his left arm, presenting a braided bracelet on his wrist. “It matches your socks.” And it’s true. Both his bracelet and Melanie’s overknee socks show the unmistakable colours of the trans flag. She smiles at him, genuinely and thankful. He didn’t have to do that and yet he did. Since their first-time meeting, they haven’t talked much to each other, but this little act of reassuring kindness makes her want to be better friends with him. He always looked like a nice bloke, but this … he didn’t have to do that. “If you want one, too, I– I could do that.”

“That would be really lovely,” she replies, while Sasha squeezes her hand reassuringly. And because Melanie can’t take all those eyes resting on them both, she turns to Jon: “Does that mean you got more than one?”

“Bracelets or pronouns?” He asks, irritation clear on his face. “Either way, the answer is yes.” He’s pulling his hand free from his pocket, showcasing a second pin shaped like the first one – only that this one reads they/them – and a differently braided bracelet. Both in salmon pink.

She makes a mental note to keep an eye on his wrist from now on

Being alone with Jon always feels weird, she thinks, fiddling with the strap of her bag. They’re proper friends now, she thinks, but they both now what’s written on their bodies, and it looms over them every time they talk.

This is the first time she’s in their room. Their roommate Gerry is out, and she sits on the open floor, propped up against Gerry’s bedframe. She’s met Gerry a total of two times and she digs his style, matching her all black aesthetic. But he’s a musician, never too far away from a guitar, and she never had the opportunity to hold a conversation with him. So, they greet each other, awkwardly aware of the other one’s presence and nothing more.

“I don’t want to sound rude, but why are you here?”

Jon’s voice is gruff and clearly irritated, but they’re not hostile which is more than Melanie could have hoped for. Even though they know each other for almost ten months now, she still can’t take the measure of them. If they think they’re friends. (The realisation that they could somehow not be on the same page makes her anxious, nausea washing over her.)

“Did Georgie tell you to add that to sound more approachable?” She’s deflecting and she knows it.

“Maybe, yeah.”

She didn’t think they would admit it. And that calms her a bit, because if they’d still hate her guts, they wouldn’t show the least bit of vulnerability.

“I came here,” she starts saying, pausing nervously. Then she shakes her head, lets go of her anxiety as much as she actively can. “I wanted to talk about Georgie.”

Sometimes it’s easy and people just know what’s going on because they just sense the vibe of the room or whatever, but Jon’s not one of those people. They try to pay mind to the people around them, or at least their friends, but social cues slip past them all of the time. She should have seen their questioning look coming, the way the little crease between their brows appears and their lips curl into half a pout. Slowly, they ask: “What about Georgie?”

“I want to ask her out,” she replies with as much bravado as she can muster. To be honest, she’s quite proud of herself. No quiver in her voice. No hesitation whatsoever.

“I’m not asking for your permission,” she clarifies hastily. “I only want to know if – you know, there are any– lingering feelings. For her.” She clears her throat. “We’re friends and– well, at least I think we’re friends, and I wouldn’t want to hurt you with my feelings.”

The thing is, she thought she’d get a straight and honest no, or a defensive no which really means yes. She didn’t think they’d look that … caught off guard. Like it’s complete fucking news to them that she could be interested in Georgie, or like it’s absolutely ridiculous that anyone could think Jonathan Sims could be hung up on a goddess. Or maybe, just maybe, they really are crushing on someone that’s not Georgie. Like they didn’t expect the conversation to go that way and they didn’t prepare an answer that would satisfy them in the long run.

“I–,” they stop talking, obviously restraining their hands from wringing the hem of their button-up. She catches once again the salmon-pink bracelet on their wrist. “I don’t harbour any romantic feelings for Georgie.”

It would feel more natural, if Jon averted their eyes, but they’re staring at Melanie. Trying to assess Melanie and her reaction, categorising every movement and word into the messy drawers of their mind.

“Okay,” Melanie says. “That’s good.” Her eyes flicker away from Jon’s face. Only for a moment. “For you. Because you’re not together anymore.” The sound that comes out of her throat is akin to a laugh or maybe a scoff. “And, well, for me? You know, with the whole date thing I’m trying to do.”

They look at each other for a moment. Outside of the room a door closes noisily and startles them out of their silence. Jon clears their throat and asks: “Am I obliged to share a personal information about my romantic life as well?”

“I mean, if you want to?”

“Georgie says it’s customary to,” their face scrunches up in something resembling disdain, “’trade’ that kind of information. So, if you’d like to know about my romantic endeavours, I would provide you the appropriate amount of ‘gen’.”

And this is the last straw. Hearing Jonathan Sims saying ‘gen’ like they’re chewing on the stickiest of caramel candies, is so unbelievably funny. So, she laughs. Between bursts of laughter, she tries to explain herself, but every time she stifles it enough to get half a word out, she gets a blurry look of their face and starts over again.

“I don’t get what’s so funny to you,” they state, piqued.

“What comes next?” Despite trying to slow her breath, she’s more gasping than asking. “You’re gonna dish on Georgie and Martin, all fax, no printer? You’re gonna spill the tea and throw some shade?”

Melanie wipes a stray tear from her cheek and the wetness from the corners of her eyes. She inhales and exhales deeply, multiple times. Then she draws another breath for good measure and says: “You don’t have to share anything with me, if you’re not comfortable. I didn’t come here to dig up some dirt on you. If you want to share, I’ll listen, or whatever, but I won’t, like, actively ask you about this sort of stuff.”

“I think, it would be,” they pause briefly, “good.” And yet, they don’t continue. She makes a prompting gesture with her hand. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that I take a fancy in someone. However, I find myself in the predicament of slowly acquiring a liking for … someone.”

“You want to share the name of that someone?” She’s not sure if they need to. When she thinks of it, she isn’t even sure if they know anybody else than herself, Georgie and – Martin. (To an extent they know Sasha, Tim, Basira and Daisy. And that’s it. She doesn’t take them for one who develops feelings for someone they barely know.)

“I don’t think I have to do that,” they reply, sourly. Apparently, they did the same equation as her.

“No, maybe not.” She shrugs. “But if you ever feel the need to say it out loud – you know, not just in front of your mirror but rather a real-life person – I’m here.”

They smile. They definitely smile, even if it’s just the slightest of upward movements of the corner of their lips. And it makes her smile, too.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” they say, softly.

In the end, Melanie doesn’t get around to ask Georgie for a date. She wants to, really, she plans on doing it on this very day. But then she chickens out. Embarrassingly, so.

They went out for ice cream, Georgie in her cute summer sandals, Melanie in the clunky, black boots she’s wearing since she’s sixteen. They must make a weird couple, Georgie all cosmopolitan extravaganza and Melanie every MCR album cover incarnated.

Now, they’re sitting on the couch in Melanie’s shared flat. Georgie’s legs dangle off the armrest and her head lays in Melanie’s lap, once again.

“It must be nice to live in a whole flat,” Georgie says, her eyes closed and sighing contently. “You can throw a party, if your flat mates are up to it.”

“I’m not up for parties,” Melanie replies. “Annabelle and Jude aren’t either, thank god.”

Georgie cracks open one of her eyes and scans Melanie’s face. She catches Melanie’s gaze and brings every thought in Melanie’s mind to a halt. The only thing she can now concentrate on is Georgie’s soft looking cupid’s bow, and the desire to kiss her right there, and on the corners of her mouth, and the place on her cheek where Melanie knows appears a dimple whenever she smiles, and the line of her jaw. Melanie wants to kiss her forehead, along the edges of her brows, down her temples, and right next to her ears.

Sometimes it’s hard to sit next to Georgie and keep her distance. Everything about Georgie draws her near, pulls her in, makes her want to scream from the top of her lungs and remain silent at the same time. There’s a bowl filled with a burning hot liquid inside her, and every moment with Georgie is about balancing it out, preventing it from spilling.

“Would you go to a party with me?” While asking, Georgie opens her other eye and her gaze on Melanie grows even more intense.

“Is there a party?” Buying time seems reasonable, Melanie thinks.

“It’s a hypothetical party. And I hereby hypothetically invite you.” Georgie grins, lifting her chin a little. “Will you go with me to this hypothetical get together?”

“Well, if you ask me so nicely, I will hypothetically agree,” Melanie replies, smiling herself now. She can do this. She can totally ask Georgie for a date. (Her heart disagrees. But if her mind tells it Yes You Can Do It often enough, maybe it will become true.) “Maybe we should do that.” Close. “Go out.” Closer. “Together.” Yes, perfect. Nicely done, Melanie! “To a party.” Overshot.

“I would like that.” Her voice is oh so gentle and it’s as if Melanie had said go on a date with me, as if she hadn’t blown it completely. Georgie’s hand comes up, nude coloured nails brushing Melanie’s cheek. The tips of her fingers sink into Melanie’s hairline. “Your hair feels really nice.”

“Than– Thank you.” She can’t keep the stutter from the two words and it’s a bit embarrassing. She’s stuttering quite often, if she’s completely honest with herself. When she gets excited about her studies or about a paper on intersectional feminism or when she stumbles upon a really, really cute cat video. But never with her friends. It’s been ages since the last time she got so flustered she had to stammer and stumble over the words on her lips. “But it never looks as nice as yours.”

She can do this whole flirting thing, okay, she’s the fucking master of smooth comebacks. Once Georgie had said that Melanie’s coffee looked really nice and Melanie had answered ‘No, you’ like the absolute fucking court jester that she is. (She spends too much time with Martin, is the morale of the story.)

“If you ever decide to grow it out, I can braid it for you,” Georgie suggests, gently playing with the tips of Melanie’s hair. “I think you’d look nice with a small braid right here.” She traces a path above Melanie’s ear. “But I like your short hair, too. It suits you very well.”

Melanie doesn’t answer for a long, long moment. Then her hand finds its way towards Georgie’s face, hovering a good centimetre next to it, silently asking for permission. And Georgie’s grants it, comes even closer, letting her face be cupped by Melanie’s hand.

And with a sudden intensity, she feels the need to tell Georgie just how much she likes her. It’s gnawing at her, making her dizzy and uneasy. Her hand’s cradling the face of the woman she’s growing so fond of that sometimes the first thing she thinks of in the morning is shooting Georgie a little text wishing her a good morning.

Not being able to hold it back, the words spill from her mouth: “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Georgie’s mouth opens into a little surprised o, revealing just the tip of her labial frenulum piercing, shimmering in the warm shine of the coffee table light.

“I won’t do it if you don’t want me to,” Melanie rushes to say. “But if you’d like to, I would really, really like to kiss you right now.”

A heartbeat or two, then Georgie’s other hand shoots up, landing on the other side of Melanie’s face. She’s nodding vigorously now and grinning, eyes crinkling and full of zeal. She says: “Yes, okay, yeah, please do that. I would like that. Very much so. Right now would be good. Perfect actually.”

Before Georgie can spiral any further down the rambling vortex of her words, Melanie leans down and pulls her face up in the same movement. And she shuts Georgie up with the hard press of her lips. Her eyes flutter closed, and she can’t believe she’s really doing this. Kissing Georgie Barker on a humid night in July, sprawled on her couch, butterflies trying to escape from her torso.

This is good, this is nice, this is actually rather perfect.

Their mouths don’t fit right together with Georgie still lying on Melanie’s lap. She must be straining her neck somewhat awful to reach up to Melanie’s lips, and Melanie has to bend down awkwardly, and to be quite honest also a little bit dolorously, to actually keep the kiss going.

Melanie can taste the lipstick on Georgie’s mouth, feels it colouring her cupid’s bow. But she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t mind their uncomfortable position, the state of dishevelment they’ll both be in just a few minutes from now, and the fact that she wasn’t even smooth, asking Georgie for a kiss.

When they part, Georgie’s opening her eyes a tick after Melanie, and she uses it to really look at Georgie’s face. The perfectly shaped eyeliner, the warm colour of her subtle eyeshadow, the faintest traces of rouge on her cheeks, and the smudged lipstick.

“This is,” Georgie starts, finally sitting up without leaving Melanie’s lap. “I didn’t expect this when I came here.” She laughs softly, cupping Melanie’s face now with both of her hands; both resting just underneath Melanie’s jawline. “I’m not complaining, really, I thought about this for long enough. I’m just surprised, I guess.”

“What do you have to be surprised about?” Melanie tilts her head in confusion. “I am still in shock that you agreed to kiss me. I mean, I didn’t pressure you into doing that, did I?”

Georgie laughs.

“No,” she says. “No, you didn’t. I very much wanted to kiss you, thank you.”

“Are you thanking me for kissing you?”

Georgie tilts her head as well, contemplating Melanie’s words as if she hadn’t even realised, she had said them at all. Then she says: “I must have, yes. It was a rather nice kiss, so I think you deserve my gratitude.” She grins. “So, thank you, Melanie King, for the extreme pleasure of kissing you. And hopefully, I can extend this thank you indefinitely, because I very much intend on kissing you more.”

Melanie places a gentle kiss on Georgie’s nose and retorts: “You’re very welcome. And you can kiss me any time you want.” Their foreheads touch and Melanie lets out a shaky breath.

#10

It's rare for Melanie to get roped into things she doesn’t enjoy at all. That includes family functions, student mixers and getting dragged to the nearby lake for a swim.

Swimming, much like jogging, was invented by the devil and exists solely for the purpose of torturing Melanie.

Usually, she tells Sasha and Tim or Georgie to go without her. On seldom occasions, she packs a book and a beach towel and sprawls herself out in a safe, reasonable distance to the water.

Today, she thought she could make Georgie happy and actually wear a swimsuit. – She still wouldn’t go near the water, but she could at least pretend that there’s a chance she won’t stay dry. She didn’t, however, think about the fact that it’s scorching hot today even though they’re in the shadows, and that Georgie isn’t as gullible as necessary to believe her lie about going for a swim.

“Why don’t you put those away?” Georgie asks; this time, Melanie’s head lies in Georgie’s lap, so Georgie has to look down at her girlfriend while gesturing towards Melanie’s clunky boots. “It’s a thousand degrees and you’re wearing two pairs of socks in black boots.”

“I’m also wearing only a swimsuit and shorts and there’s a light breeze,” Melanie counters, tugging at the strap of her black swimsuit. “Regular people sweat. Goths, we simmer.”

Chuckling, Georgie interjects: “You’re not a goth, love.”

It’s been two whole weeks since their first kiss, but Melanie’s still not used to the little jolts of excitement and endearment she feels, every time Georgie calls her a term of affection. She’s just like that, calling Jon honey and Martin our kid and Melanie love or dear or bird. At times Melanie thinks about all the possible names Georgie could call her, and about all the petnames she could think about calling Georgie.

“Well, sweating is gross, so I don’t do it,” Melanie says, shaking off the warm feeling in her chest. It’s warm enough as it is. “If you’re so hot, maybe you should take off your cardigan.”

The hesitation in Georgie’s answer translates to the uncertainty Melanie feels herself: “We could do it together.” Melanie doesn’t say anything at first, contemplating. “Putting it all out there, you know.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Georgie adds hastily, brushing a stray wisp of hair out of her face. It’s the first time Melanie sees her in a bun and therefore the first time she can see Georgie’s ears, the lobes stretched and decorated with little plugs engraved and gilded with a sun very much like the one she’s wearing as a septum. “I just want you to know that you’re safe with us and that I don’t care.” Her gaze is unwavering. “About, like, your mark.”

For all intents and purpose Melanie doesn’t want to look away but she still does it. Takes a look at Sasha and Tim, kicking water at each other and laughing. They are, as far as Melanie’s concerned, a one in a million pair. Sasha’s shoulder adorns the same spiral pattern as Tim’s biceps, and they knew each other since Sasha’s father worked one of the shifts when Tim was born in the hospital. – It’s not romantic, they’re platonic soulmates and they always knew that about each other.

Then she’s looking over at Jon and Martin, sitting on the small landing stage, feet dangling into the water. She doesn’t have to see their marks to know what they are. Beneath Jon’s clavicle OH NO is written in neat small caps. It’s not a nice mark but Jon’s not a nice man, so it’s not far-fetched to imagine that she’s not the only one proclaiming these words upon talking to him for the first time. Martin, on the other hand, has a full sentence on his upper thigh: Just got drunk and walked in. Written in a sharp script, the L reaching as far down as the G and the capital J. Something’s rather familiar about the handwriting, but she seems to be the only one paying attention to the marks at all and she doesn’t want to attract notice to something with so much potential of going wrong.

Georgie and her, they are the only one still hiding their soulmarks. And in this moment, Melanie thinks that there is no reason anymore to keep it secret. If anyone would be okay with Jon’s name on Melanie’s body, it would be Georgie. He’s her best friend and maybe they’re as platonic as Sasha and Tim. Maybe he’ll be her best friend, too. In, like, a distant future.

“Okay,” she hears herself say. Maybe even more surprised than Georgie. “I think I can do that.”

She sits up, blinking against the dizziness and the black dots dancing in front of her eyes. After that she reaches forward, tugging at the laces of her boots. One by one gets pulled free of their confinement and it takes not nearly as much time as Melanie would like it to.

A shaky breath (she should stop doing that, it fucks with her whole bad girl attitude) and she’s pulling off one boot at a time. Out of the corner of her eyes she can see Georgie taking off her cardigan, so she undresses her feet completely, setting aside both pairs of socks.

“My feet are the whitest of white,” Melanie jokes to cover up her nerves. “I don’t remember the last time they have seen the sun. I’m going to get a sunburn.”

“I’ve got sunscreen,” Georgie answers gently, cupping Melanie’s upper arm with her hand. Her nails are painted in the blackest of blacks, Melanie’s one and only nail polish. (Well, that’s not quite true. She’s got two bottles of the same colour, one for her hands, one for her feet.)

Georgie’s gaze falls onto Melanie’s feet. Amazed, she coos: “You painted your nails!”

“I always paint my toenails,” Melanie admits. “I’m usually the only one who sees it, but I like knowing that they’re painted.”

She turns around and for a moment she thinks about sitting tailor-fashion, hiding her left ankle. She doesn’t do it, however. Pulling her legs close, she sits sideways on her hip, showcasing Jon’s name in all its loopy glory.

“May I–,“ Georgie cuts herself off, fiddling with the cardigan in her lap. “May I take a look?”

Melanie shrugs, thinks better of it and says: “Yeah, sure.”

Carefully, Melanie extends her left leg, stretching it out in front of Georgie, so that her ankle is next to Georgie’s knee. Georgie’s hand reaches out tentatively, the tip of her index finger stopping just shy of Melanie’s skin. And suddenly, she’s touching Melanie’s skin, brushing over the swirls and bows and the name that is not hers.

“This is unbelievably funny,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s funny. Melanie doesn’t think it’s funny. Her brows furrow and she’s this close to pulling her ankle away from Georgie’s touch. But it’s nice, is the thing. This is the first time in forever someone has touched her soulmark. Not even Melanie has consciously laid a finger on it in years.

Melanie’s silence following her statement must have tipped Georgie off that her choice of words maybe wasn’t the best because she startles and tries it again: “Sorry, that was rude. I mean.” This time she has the nerve to chuckle. “That’s not Jon’s handwriting.”

Surprise is not necessarily the best word to describe the thing that hits Melanie square in the stomach, sucker-punching the air from her lungs. Through gritted teeth and a tense jaw, she asks: “It’s not?” She needs the confirmation, needs Georgie to say it again.

But she doesn’t.

Instead she turns around, reaches for her purse and rifles through it until she finds what she’s looking for. A felt tip marker. She stops, however, hovering over Melanie’s ankle in a silent question. Melanie waves her hand dismissively, and Georgie apparently interprets it as affirmative. Then she proceeds, writing for a few seconds, maybe even half a minute. When she’s done, she lifts her head and caps the marker again, accidentally nudging Melanie’s foot with the back of her hand.

“You should take a look,” Georgie says, her voice with a nervous edge to it.

Melanie pulls her legs towards herself and scans her ankle that’s now covered in names in the same loopy script of her soulmark. The Ss of Sasha are as wrongly weighed as the ones in Sims, the bottom half much smaller than the top half. The Os in Stoker and Georgie have the same perfect roundness of the one in Jonathan. The Ks in Blackwood and Barker are written with the same bows as the H in Jonathan.

This is bizarre.

“Can– could you–,” Melanie huffs out a frustrated noise. “May I see yours, too?”

Slowly as if she’s trying not to scare Melanie away, she extends her right arm and Melanie can see the tiny handwriting in the crook of her arm. The tiny, tiny handwriting hat is unmistakably Melanie’s.

“You told me, you heard so much about me,” Melanie breathes. “You came into the library and went all soccer mom on Jon and then you said you heard so much about me.” She stares at the Oh god, I am so sorry engraved on Georgie’s skin. “And I thought: Oh shit, that guy is my soulmate and his girlfriend is the most beautiful being on this planet and he probably told her how much he hates me.”

“I didn’t think anything about it,” Georgie confesses with the softest of smiles. “I met so many people whose first words to me were an apology. Eventually, you start to, well, stop thinking about it.” She casts the marker away and leans forward, cupping Melanie’s hands with both of hers. “And Jon told me about your first encounter, so I didn’t think about it, like, twice.”

Melanie returns the slight pressure of Georgie’s hands and a smile blossoms on her face. She would have been okay with a platonic soul bond with Jon, really, she would have been. (Not at first because he’s a pompous twat and a squabbler, a know-it-all that rubs Melanie in all the wrong ways. But he grew on her like yeast on wet flour, and now she can easily picture herself sitting with him on the floor of her flat, eating ice cream drowned in scotch straight from the tub while decidedly not talking about their feelings or anything important at all.) But she doesn’t know if she would have been alright with Georgie falling out of love with her because of her soulmate. (It’s selfish, that’s what it is. Hoping against all hope that Georgie doesn’t meet her soulmate as long as they’re romantically involved.)

Now there is another bond between them, not necessarily romantic, but they were supposed to meet. Melanie’s allowed to fall as hard as she possibly can, because Georgie is the human the universe hand-picked just for her. The human that loves her the most. The human that she’s allowed to love back, unconditionally if she chooses so.

“I think, I’d like to get this tattooed,” Melanie croaks, averting her eyes.

“Don’t want to have Jon’s name on your ankle anymore?” There’s a chuckle in Georgie’s voice and a loving gentleness.

“I don’t think I mind it as much anymore,” Melanie answers. “But this is nice. Having the names of the people I love on me. Not just the clueless prat that led me to you.” She laughs. “And if they ask, I can still tell them it’s a list of my future enemies.”

They’re both chuckling now, and Melanie lifts their hands up, pressing soft kisses on the knuckles of Georgie’s hand. Warmth floods Melanie’s insides and she thinks that even if they ever were to break up, they can still remain friends. Jon and Sasha are a few feet away and they are living, breathing evidence that Georgie and Melanie can do this.

Something tender sits on the top of Melanie’s tongue and at first, she’s trying to swallow it back down, to not be that vulnerable so soon into their relationship, but then she shakes off the thought. Georgie seems to be honest with her feelings at all times, unafraid of showing her deepest inside, and Melanie doesn’t want to be a chicken about the only thing that truly matters. (Even though the weightiness of it is probably the reason why it’s so hard for her.)

“I really like you,” she ends up saying. The words like camomile on her tongue. What’s even better is Georgie smiling lovingly at her and replying; “I really like you, too.”

#the magnus archives #fanfiction #georgie barker x melanie king #spooky lesbians #what the girlfriends #wtgfs #tma #fanfic: mine #college au #schmok writes #10k fic #soulmate au #non-binary jon sims #trans melanie king #trans martin blackwood

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aleenya · 5 years

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first date / / hinanami prompt 01

@hinanami-week

First date prompt! <3 I love these babies from my childhood skghj. This is a bit of a long rambling mess but I hope someone finds enjoyment in it!

There was a reason Chiaki failed at dating sims. Beyond the obvious fact of how she was a girl of very little romantic experience, there was also the dilemma of just how frustratingly confusing people could be. Yes, even the weird 2D ones. Whilst the fast pace of arcade fighting games or the tricky logic riddles of puzzle games had her barely breaking out in a sweat, there was something profoundly next-level about taking someone's future - their happily ever after, so to speak - into her own hands and bringing about the optimal result. It was a responsibility she couldn't be trusted with. Kind of like how she couldn't be responsible for her own breakfast in the morning. Or for a healthy sleeping schedule. Oops. So, it was rather ironic that she'd somehow ended up with a boyfriend, even with her notoriously bad track record at breaking hearts and peeping on girls in the bathroom. (Hey, anime always did it, how was she supposed to know that was an automatic hit to the relationship flag she was trying to trigger?) With how constantly she failed at first dates in video games, the dreaded real-life first date of her own seemed like a loss just waiting to happen. Which was why, the week before it was due to occur, she'd holed herself up in her room with nothing but her trusty DS and PSP, five dating sims of various length and quality, and a copy of Animal Crossing - for when she inevitably needed a break, of course. The plan was this: she'd pour hours, hours, into clocking all five dating sims at nothing less than a 100% completion rate. No guides because that was cheating, and it wasn't like there was some walkthrough for her own date that she could keep checking throughout, though that would be ideal. Even if slightly under-handed. Oh well. She was snuggled up in the thick fluff of her weighted blanket; a bag of crumpled chips and five soda cans perched precariously on a pillow; she was ready for anything the next grueling week might throw at her. With the determination that only a true Ultimate Gamer could possess, Chiaki puffed out her cheeks in defiance of fate and set about her quest. Day one was easy enough. She'd managed to get around six hours into her first play-through with minimal errors. It was only once she'd chosen a girl to "seduce" (these games really were weird) that problems started to arise. Multiple choice questions of the proper conversational avenue to travel down never failed to muddle up her brain. Three choices were hard enough - how was she going to cope on her own date when there would be an endless array to choose from? The very thought sent anxiety swirling into the pit of her stomach. Maybe this was a good time to take that Animal Crossing break. The Animal Crossing break lasted two days. Day four was when Chiaki got serious again - and also when a pesky knock on the door interrupted her intense train of thought. "Come in," she called without taking her eyes off the screen. Yellow light pooled in from the hallway and cut through the stale darkness of her room. If Chiaki had been a vampire like the one she was trying to chat up in her visual novel then maybe she would've hissed and retreated further into her blanket cove. Which she did. Maybe she really was a vampire. That would explain the anemia. "Ugh. It reeks." A familiarly squeaky voice shattered the comfortable silence Chiaki had worked so hard on establishing. Saionji strode in pinching the bridge of her nose with Sonia and Akane at her tail. "Congrats, you've officially become a basement dweller." Chiaki peeked out from her cave of blankets, drawn like a moth to flame by the wafting scent of fresh food. "Oh. Hey guys. Long time no see." "We brought food," Sonia said with a lift of her arm to reveal the picnic basket dangling there. "We figured you might appreciate something of more ... sustenance." Akane then switched on the light, which summoned stars to glitter and dance within Chiaki's vision. All three girls let out audible gasps. "Chips? Seriously?" Akane again. Chiaki had burrowed deeper into her blanket fort in order to grant her throbbing eyes some small amount of reprieve. "Chiaki, you seriously can't have been living on cola and a bag of potato chips for the past four days!" Suddenly, the blanket was whipped out from over her head. Hiyoko plucked the console out of her hands before a very sleep-deprived Chiaki had a chance to react. "My Vampire Girlfriend? Okay, I was joking before, but you really have become a virgin basement dweller." Chiaki pointedly decided to ignore the mischievous young girl and directed her attention onto the basket that Sonia placed in front of her. Opening it up, she was greeted by a bento box ripe with fresh sushi, fluffy rice and spring rolls. "Courtesy of Hanamura," said Akane, "but don't worry, I can guarantee it's not spiked this time." Saionji huffed and dropped the DS. Chiaki was tired, but not tired enough to fail at catching her baby mid-air. "What's that look for?" "Don't act like you don't know!" They were a pleasant, albeit distracting, surprise. And so, for the rest of the day, Chiaki found herself unwillingly placed on a side quest. Sonia, Akane and Hiyoko had taken it upon themselves to clean her room up, with the latter grumbling and complaining but ultimately putting in the most work out of everyone. Sonia ended up at Chiaki's side, badgering her with questions about what game she was playing and, when Chiaki answered, why. "A practice run," said Chiaki simply, barely reacting as an empty cola can bounced off her head. "Sorry," Akane called sheepishly, "that was meant for the rubbish bin." "A practice run ...? Oh!" Sonia's face lit up. "Don't tell me! Do you have a date?" "Maybe. Tomorrow." Saying it out loud, the passage of time sunk into Chiaki with a force she hadn't expected. In a rare show of defeat, she allowed the DS to slip from her hands and topple to the floor. "But it's no use. I haven't learned anything. What am I even supposed to do?" Sonia picked up her DS, glanced at the screen, then dropped it in a striking flash of surprise. "I'm guessing not that," she said. Hiyoko peeked over her shoulder. "Aw man, even pixelated you can tell it's small." "Give me that!" Akane snatched up the console and showed the screen to Chiaki. "Seriously, this is like the worst guide you could have for this. It's not gonna teach you anything because it's not real." "That's not true," Chiaki quietly countered, "just because games aren't real doesn't mean they can't teach stuff." "Maybe, yeah, but not this type of game. You want advice? Then here's the best I can offer. Just be yourself!" "Myself?" Chiaki tilted her head. "But ... what if he doesn't like myself?" "Oh for the love of - he wouldn't be going on a date with you if he didn't, numbnuts!" Hiyoko gently thumped her fist down on Chiaki's unruly mop of hair. "That's true," Sonia said, "besides, who wouldn't like you for who you are? We certainly do!" When the trio had finally left with good luck wishes and pleas that she at least eat half the bento tonight, Chiaki found herself alone in a spotless room with a less-than spotless mind. They'd given her a lot to think about, more than the dating sim had in three days in fact. Just be myself. She didn't sleep that night. Chiaki kept powering through her dating sim, the four others still lying in a dejected heap at her side. Even if she wasn't taking strict lessons from it anymore, the idea of giving up and never completing it felt like a cardinal sin. She'd come this far; what was another twenty hours of gameplay in the grand scheme of things? On the dawn of the fifth day, there was another knock on her door. When they didn't come in upon her calling out that it was alright to, Chiaki was forced to untangle herself from her nest and answer it. Even though it was to be expected, the very image of Hajime standing in her doorway sent a jolt to her heart. "Ah, sorry." He threw up his hands in an apology, perhaps thinking he'd woken her up from a nap. Chiaki wasn't one to lose her cool. This definitely stood true now, but still, she couldn't help flushing slightly. She'd been so engrossed in her game that she'd nearly forgotten all about what she'd spent all week preparing for in the first place. "You don't have to apologize," she murmured, turning her back on him and retreating into the familiar darkness, "come in. You're very welcome." Hajime seemed a tad nervous as he slowly slipped his way inside. "What's wrong? Have you never been in a girl's room before?" It was supposed to be a joke, but it provoked a flustered reaction from Hajime and a stream of fumbled failed sentences. "Kidding." Chiaki flopped back into her blanket nest and patted at the crumpled spot at her side. Glancing side to side, Hajime made his way to where she'd made herself comfortable and collapsed in turn. "I've been worried about you," he began as he pulled at the cuff of his shirt. "You haven't replied to any of my texts. You've been eating, right?" "Sorry." He'd sent texts? Chiaki hadn't looked at her phone since the start of the week. "I've been really busy practicing." "Practicing? For what?" "For today." She showed Hajime her screen. He recoiled. "Oh ... I didn't realize you were into those kinds of games, Chiaki." "I'm not," she replied, shoulders slumping and a sigh floating off her lips, "can you keep a secret, Hajime?" With how serious she said it, Hajime's expression turned grave. "Sure, I guess?" Chiaki threw him the most serious look she could muster, complete with her cheeks puffed out in a pout and eyebrows furrowed tightly into creases. Her hands unconsciously squeezed at the console she still held. "Dating sims are my kryptonite." "Oh ... Dating sims are your - wait, what?" "I'm really bad at them," Chiaki said. She was unable to keep a tinge of sadness from her voice. "Not that I usually mind. But ever since last week, when you said you wanted us to go out somewhere, I thought that I should be prepared. It's no use though. I guess, on the bright side, I did make it to the H scene." She flashed her screen again, to which Hajime, with a sheepish smile, pushed it back down. "How about we don't take advice from porn games, yeah? They're not exactly the real deal." "Huh. Akane said the same thing." "She did?" "She said I should just be myself. But I don't know if myself is all that much fun to be around." "Why wouldn't it be?" Hajime scooted closer. "If I wanted a 2D girl, I'd just play ..." He picked up one of her strewn dating sims at random and pulled a face at the title, "Sexy Magic Witch School - seriously, Chiaki, where do you get these?" "I have my sources." "I'm not sure if I want to know what those are ..." Chiaki had to admit, with how natural their conversation was flowing, she could get used to this. She hadn't even hit her pause button yet. Unable to keep the smile from her face, Chiaki turned back to her DS and asked, "so what would you like to do?" "As in?" "You know. Dating. That kind of stuff. We're supposed to go out, yeah?" "We're not supposed to do anything," Hajime replied. "Really, I'm ... as good at these types of things as you are. But we don't have to go anywhere if you don't want, or do anything that you don't want. That's not what dates are about." "They aren't?" Why did everything have to be so complicated? Her dating sims had explicitly said otherwise, yet Hajime was saying they didn't have to do anything. Before she could formulate a proper response, Hajime changed the topic unexpectedly and asked, "have you slept?" Oh. Sleep. "I've had one or two naps," she mused, thinking back on her five days of intensive training. She'd been so caught up and involved in what she was playing that she'd barely allowed herself the luxury of sleep. She was definitely starting to feel it now. Chiaki rubbed at her sore eyes and swallowed a yawn. Hajime's flustered expression gave way to amusement. He sighed, but Chiaki didn't miss the smile on his lips. "Seriously, what am I going to do with you?" "Hopefully not this." She flashed her DS screen again and Hajime spluttered in embarrassment. "I like you, Hajime, but you haven't triggered that relationship flag yet." "You know that's not what I meant!" She laughed. Hajime climbed to his feet and extended his hand; she took it, stumbling upwards on wobbly knees and feeling the ache in her legs that could only accumulate from five days of non-stop sitting with only the occasional bathroom break. "But is it really okay?" she asked as he guided her to the bed and tossed her blanket back over her body. "I know you were really looking forward to this all week." "Who's to say this isn't our first date now?" said Hajime. "Ah, but, if you'd rather I go ..." She grasped his hand and tugged him down onto the bed. Hajime let out a less than manly squeal and fell down on top of her, which Chiaki recalled was a very common trope in My Vampire Girlfriend that signaled she was on the right romantic route. So she'd done something right after all! This was definitely a romance flag trigger. Chiaki could almost see the achievement popping up on Steam. "Path unlocked," Chiaki said cryptically, with a teasing smile. Hajime scrambled off, face red, and Chiaki twisted around onto her side. "You can sleep next to me, if you'd like," she said. "I can't think of a better way to have a date." Though visibly embarrassed and tense, he did lie down to face her. Chiaki grabbed his hand and intertwined her fingers with his own. "Jeez," he said, "why am I not surprised that napping is your idea of a perfect first date?" "It's not yours?" she quizzed, voice thick with the encroaching haze of unconsciousness. "I'm not opposed," he hummed. "Good." Pause. Save progress. And take a screenshot - just for good measure. At least, that's what Chiaki would have done if this were a dating sim event with a cute CG. But it wasn't. And that was for the best. Chiaki had decided that in this case, nothing could beat the real thing.

#hinanami #chiaki nanami #hajime hinata #hinanami week #hinanamiweek2019 #i love them so much skhgj

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years

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Hi, do you like pizza? Yeah. I got into more recently when I discovered there’s other sauces besides just the red sauce. I know, I know. Super late to the game, but now that I have I’m really into them.

What do you like on your pizza? I like creamy garlic sauce with cheese (including feta) and spinach. One place I go to has pesto drizzle and olive oil as options, so I get those there. I also gotta have ranch on the side for dipping.

Do you like mushrooms? No.

What did you have for lunch? Bologna sandwich with sharp cheddar cheese, mayo, and mustard on white bread and a pickle on the side along with olive oil with some of this Italian herb mix added in on the side as well for dipping. I usually add spinach to my sandwich, too, but I didn’t this time.

Are there any lights on in the room you’re in? Yeah.

Who’s to your left? No one.

Are you allergic to cats? No.

Are you at home? Yes.

Do you have any gaming systems? Yeah, an Xbox, Wii, PS2, and a PS4. They’re my brother’s, but we use the Xbox and PS4 as well for things like Netflix and to watch DVDs.

Do you have a cell phone? Yeah.

If you do, where is it? Next to me on my bed.

What color is your hair? Naturally it’s dark brown, but I dye it red.

Is that the natural color? ^^^

What kind of shampoo did you last use? A salon style one for red dyed hair.

Do you put clothes on your animals? She has a couple sweaters and a really cute red Adidogs (like Adidas, but for dogs, ha) hoodie.

Do you like cats? Yeah.

Where is your mother? At work.

Do you like cheese? Loveee cheese, various kinds.

Last band you saw live? Green Day.

What’s your favorite television show? I have a few.

Where do you keep your spare pens and pencils? In a drawer in the kitchen known as the “junk drawer.” I feel like everyone has that drawer for some reason.

What was the last thing you broke? I don’t remember.

Have you ever seen PS I love you? Yeah.

Do you fall asleep when watching movies? Depends. Like if I’m watching it in bed then I might.

Is your mouse wireless? I have a laptop, so it’s built in.

Have you ever choked on anything? Yeah. It happens with food or drinks sometimes, sometimes on just spit or like air haha, but it happened with a pill once and that situation was really bad and scary. So bad that ever since then I can’t take pills without crushing them.

What time is it? 9:36PM.

Have you ever babysat? Yeah, my younger brother and cousins.

Do you know anyone who has a hearing deficit? Yes.

What is the average number of customers that stop by where you work? I don’t have a job.

When you are having a bath, do you have the water low, medium, or high? I don’t take baths, I take showers.

Do you know anyone who pronounces ‘ketchup’ with ‘catsup’? I’ve heard that before, but isn’t that a thing, too?

What are your methods to remind yourself of something important? Setting a reminder on the reminders app on my phone.

Would you miss winter if it never came back? Why or why not? Yessss. I would really hate that.

Does bad weather ruin your day? Why or why not? Only when it’s hot and miserable and I have to be outdoors for some reason.

What is one thing stopping you from becoming a veterinarian? My heart couldn’t do it.

When you read ‘bass’ just now, was it read like the fish or the instrument? The instrument.

The last time you left your house, where did you go? To the movies this past Saturday.

What were you doing at 9 o’clock this morning? Just getting up and around.

How old were you 6 years ago? 23.

What are the chances that you will kiss someone tonight? Zero.

When was the last time you had a headache? A couple weeks ago.

When were you last in the presence of someone who was intoxicated? It’s been awhile.

Are you wearing anything yellow? Nope.

Have you eaten any chocolate today? No.

Have you ever made someone of the opposite sex cry? Yes, but not intentionally or in a malicious way.

What will you be doing tonight? Some surveys, my Bible study, play The Sims, eat nightly bowl of Ramen, sleep.

What is the best/fastest way to move on from heartbreak or unrequited love? Good question.

In what ways would you consider yourself to be lucky? I don’t believe in luck, but I am blessed with my family, to have a roof over my head, and food to eat. Do you feel like you are further ahead or behind everyone in your age range in terms of experience and achievements? I’m waaay behind. People younger than me have accomplished so much more. My 20 year old brother has accomplished so much more.

Are there any opinions you used to have even a few years ago that you look back on and think, “I can’t believe I ever thought that way”? I’m sure there probably is.

Did you have a good day yesterday? It was okay.

Who is your favourite person to have a deep conversation with? It used to be Ty. I miss our talks.

Do you remember what you had for lunch yesterday? Yeah, I had the same kind of sandwich I had today.

Who/what has been on your mind the most today? How hot and tired I am.

Does/did the last person you text messaged go to the same school as you? No.

Is there anything worrying you? There always is.

If so, have you talked to anyone about it? Not really.

What colour are the eyes of the last person you held hands with? Brown.

Is it possible to be “just friends” with someone you had feelings for? It was really hard for me, but I did try.

Is there someone of the opposite sex that you can talk to about anything? No.

Are you looking forward to anything? No.

The last time you cried, what was wrong? Blaaaah.

Should you be doing something else right now? Nope.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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pink-chevalier · 5 years

Photo

GET TO KNOW ME TAG

Thank you @omiscanking for tagging me! <3 (Sorry I did this so late, hunny!)

RULES: Post a pic of your simself with your traits and answer the questions! PS: My simself is so damn pretty while I’m here looking like trash.

Tags: @cosmic-espie @purplesimmer455 @stucksimming @cloud-9-sims @enniewritesathing @99simproblems @aboxfullofocs (If you were tagged and already did this I am so sorry!)

If you want read about me, all a&q before the cut!

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? Chanel

2. WHAT IS YOUR NICKNAME? None

3. BIRTHDAY? October 12

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK SERIES? I regret reading more fanfictions then books now. I don’t think it was a series, but I could be wrong. I read something called Evermore.

5. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ALIENS OR GHOSTS? Both.

6. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR? I don’t have one. I tend to just read books.

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RADIO STATION? Don't have any.

8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ANYTHING? Strawberry or Chocolate.

9. WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE OFTEN TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING GREAT OR WONDERFUL? “This is fucking amazing!”

10. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT FAVORITE SONG? One Hundred Sleepless Nights by Pierce the Veil.

11. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WORD? Goddamn it.

12. WHAT WAS THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? The opening song to season one of Tokyo Ghoul.

13. WHAT TV SHOW WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR EVERYBODY TO WATCH? I don’t really watch TV as much as I used to.

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE TO WATCH WHEN YOU’RE FEELING DOWN? Hercules and Mulan.

15. DO YOU PLAY VIDEO GAMES? I play tons of video games.

16. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? That something could be lurking in the dark. It gets super dark in my apartment, and I'm scared that something or someone could be in here without my knowledge.

17. WHAT IS YOUR BEST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? How nice I am.

18. WHAT IS YOUR WORST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? I can't make a damn decision to save my life.

19. DO YOU LIKE CATS OR DOGS BETTER? I lean towards the dog side.

20. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? Fall. It's not too cold, and it's not too hot.

21. ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP? I'm single as all hell.

22. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU MISS FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD? Not having to worry about the future as much and stressing over debt. I miss just playing with my friends and thinking that long division was hard.

23. WHO IS YOUR BEST FRIEND? Stuffy (nickname). We met in high school, and we stuck together like glue.

24. WHAT IS YOUR EYE COLOR? Dark Brown.

25. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? Very dark brown, almost black.

26. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOVE? I love my family, my friends, the simblr community.

27. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU TRUST? My best friend.

28. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN? now, a good friend who passed away this year…

29. ARE YOU CURRENTLY EXCITED ABOUT/FOR SOMETHING? For one of my French classes, we're going to take a trip to Canada so I'm super excited about that.

30. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST OBSESSION? Tumblr!

31. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW AS A CHILD? I have two: Courage the Cowardly Dog and TMNT.

32. WHO OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER CAN YOU TELL ANYTHING TO, IF ANYONE? One of my cousins.

33. ARE YOU SUPERSTITIOUS? Just a tiny little bit.

34. DO YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL PHOBIAS? Roaches. I will set my whole damn apartment on fire if I ever find big ass roach just crawling around like it owns the damn place.

35. DO YOU PREFER TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA OR BEHIND IT? Behind it.

36. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOBBY? Writing and working on my queue.

37. WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? The Odyssey

38. WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Aquaman!

39. WHAT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? Snare drum.

40. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL? Wolves.

41. WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 FAVORITE TUMBLR BLOGS THAT YOU FOLLOW? I have too many that I follow (stalk).

42. WHAT SUPERPOWER DO YOU WISH YOU HAD? Time Travel.

43. WHEN AND WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST AT PEACE? In the shower or just laying down in bed under a ton of blankets.

44. WHAT MAKES YOU SMILE? A lot of things. If my baby cousin does something cute, my dog being silly, or something stupid my best friend and I did while playing a game.

45. WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? I'm not good at sports.

46. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK? Strawberry Soda.

47. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A HAND-WRITTEN LETTER OR NOTE TO SOMEBODY? Before the winter vacation, my friend and I were passing notes to each other.

48. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS? Depends on how high up I am.

49. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE? When people are in my damn way even when I said excuse me.

50. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A CONCERT? Nope.

51. ARE YOU VEGAN/VEGETARIAN? Nope.

52. WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? I think I wanted to be either a fireman or president.

53. WHAT FICTIONAL WORLD WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN? I can’t think of any off of the top of my head.

54. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WORRY ABOUT? I worry about a lot of things.

55. ARE YOU SCARED OF THE DARK? I'm scared of what's inside the dark.

56. DO YOU LIKE TO SING? Yup.

57. HAVE YOU EVER SKIPPED SCHOOL? Yup.

58. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE ON THE PLANET? My bedroom.

59. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE? Somewhere in France, England, California, Greece, Italy or Japan.

60. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? Just a sassy little dog.

61. ARE YOU MORE OF AN EARLY BIRD OR A NIGHT OWL? Night owl.

62. DO YOU LIKE SUNRISES OR SUNSETS BETTER? Both are so pretty.

63. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE? Nope.

64. DO YOU PREFER EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES? Headphones.

65. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES? Nope.

66. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC? Anything rock.

67. WHO IS YOUR HERO? My mother.

68. DO YOU READ COMIC BOOKS? Sometimes.

69. WHAT MAKES YOU THE MOST ANGRY? How stupid some people can be.

70. DO YOU PREFER TO READ ON AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE OR WITH A REAL BOOK? Both are fine. But, I tend to spend more time on my phone, so I guess an electronic device.

71. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? English Class. (Mostly for the books)

72. DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS? I am an only child.

73. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? A jacket.

74. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5′5

75. CAN YOU COOK? I'm okay at cooking, but if you want me to bake you something I'm your girl!

76. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU LOVE? My dog, my sims, and my friends/family.

77. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU HATE? Stupid/rude people, roaches, and killers on dead by daylight that rage quit.

78. DO YOU HAVE MORE FEMALE FRIENDS OR MORE MALE FRIENDS? I have more female friends.

79. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? Straight

80. WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY LIVE? New York City.

81. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TEXTED? My best friend.

82. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I think it was during finals.

83. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBER? I have too many.

84. DO YOU LIKE TO TAKE SELFIES? Depends.

85. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE APP? YouTube.

86. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENT(S) LIKE? It's amazing.

87. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOREIGN ACCENT? British.

88. WHAT IS A PLACE THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO, BUT YOU WANT TO VISIT? Japan, Greece, England, France, Italy, and Cuba.

89. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 12

90. CAN YOU JUGGLE? I wish!

91. ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? Nope.

92. DO YOU FIND OUTER SPACE OF THE DEEP OCEAN TO BE MORE INTERESTING? The Deep Ocean. Not going to lie I won't be surprised if we find some damn alien species in the ocean.

93. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A DAREDEVIL? Meh.

94. ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING? Yeah. Octopus.

95. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE? Yeah.

96. CAN YOU WIGGLE YOUR EARS? Nope.

97. HOW OFTEN DO YOU ADMIT THAT YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING? A lot, but I don't say oh I was wrong, I always say "Wait, no, I'm a fucking liar, I lied to you."

98. DO YOU PREFER THE FOREST OR THE BEACH? Forest. I'm not a beach person.

99. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ADVICE THAT ANYONE HAS EVER GIVEN YOU? Focus on being happy.

100. ARE YOU A GOOD LIAR? I don't really know. God, I hope not.

101. WHAT IS YOUR HOGWARTS HOUSE? I don't have one... I'm sorry.

102. DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF? Yup.

103. ARE YOU AN INTROVERT OR AN EXTROVERT? Introvert.

104. DO YOU KEEP A JOURNAL/DIARY? I used to when I was younger.

105. DO YOU BELIEVE IN SECOND CHANCES? Yeah, but it depends on what was done.

106. IF YOU FOUND A WALLET FULL OF MONEY ON THE GROUND, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? This actually happened to me once, and I ended up returning it to the person.

107. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF CHANGE? If someone really wants to change then, they can change, so in a sense, yes, I believe people can change.

108. ARE YOU TICKLISH? Too ticklish.

109. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A PLANE? Yup.

110. DO YOU HAVE ANY PIERCINGS? Yeah, my ears are pierced, my grandmother actually did them when I was a baby.

111. WHAT FICTIONAL CHARACTER DO YOU WISH WAS REAL? Caleb Vatore hehe

112. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? Not really.

113. WHAT IS THE BEST DECISION THAT YOU’VE MADE IN YOUR LIFE SO FAR? First is making this simblr because I met some pretty nice people here even though I’m too shy for my own good. And second becoming a French minor, I love it so much.

114. DO YOU BELIEVE IN KARMA? Hell yeah

115. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS? Glasses all day every day. (I have an intense fear of sticking things in my eyes)

116. DO YOU WANT CHILDREN? Yeah, but in the future.

117. WHO IS THE SMARTEST PERSON YOU KNOW? My mother

118. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MEMORY?

119. HAVE YOU EVER PULLED AN ALL-NIGHTER? Too many times.

120. WHAT COLOR ARE MOST OF YOUR CLOTHES? Black, White, Pink, Yellow, Grey, Red, and Blue.

121. DO YOU LIKE ADVENTURES? Depends on the adventure.

122. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON TV? Nope

123. HOW OLD ARE YOU? 24

124. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? “Don't abuse someone's kindness. Remember, even in every angel, a demon hides."

125. DO YOU PREFER SWEET OR SAVORY FOODS? Sweet.

#nonsims #tag game

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steve0discusses · 6 years

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Yugioh S1 Ep 43: Mokuba Simply Has No Survival Instincts

While it surely wasn’t intentional, since the 00′s hadn’t finished their course at the time this show aired, the storyline of Kaiba, the moodiest millennial of them all, the boy who works his ass off, wins every award, studies hard, and then fails at every aspect of his life when he actually goes out to try and get his career on track is just so very millennial. It’s a pretty familiar story--trained to be a shark in a small swimming pool, dreams as big and high as the moon, but occasionally completely disconnected with what’s going on around us because we’re trapped in some MMO videogame. Again.

We’ve already had quite a few episodes that dove into Yugi’s psyche, including one where we literally walked through his labyrinth brain full of traps and real legit problems as he said “nonono this is all really just fine.” But, this is an arc that’s all about Kaiba, who is about to be devoured by the same insane pipe dream ideas he worked so hard to create.

Mai and Joey suddenly realize who the other is and then just decide “youknow lets not duel” and I praised the sun because how pointless would that have been?

The Mokuba orange text is very close to the Joey yellow. Sorry if any of you are colorblind, I never realized that Mokuba would have so many speaking lines when I started this. Maybe I’ll make him a light blue at some point?

I know I titled it as Mokuba has no survival instincts but honestly it’s every single person on this show.

(read more)

I only say I’m too afraid to check the skyrim mod forums because most those mods are a little too kinky for me.

Like...

Why didn’t Bakura use THAT card back on the island? Holy cow. It’s a good thing Joey isn’t cursed with the ring because everyone would be very super dead.

So they trot along across the desert and not much happens. I guess a sand worm or something? It’s just a desert.

And like do I even need to make the obvious joke or is it already--

No, not yet.

Anyways, what’s at the other end of the desert, hm?

We are SO CLOSE to finishing this season how is there ANOTHER MAZE!? There’s only like 6 episodes left we could have been maze free I just...whoever was in charge of maze design for this show worked overtime.

God bless, storyboarder. This is a frame I caught completely by accident--most people would not be able to notice that Joey just takes two hands--one on Yugi’s head, the other on his chest and just pushes him completely over like he’s one of those roly-poly toys.

The hell Mai? She is the age to date Joey’s Dad.

This labyrinth is different than Yugi’s, in that it is crowded by a bunch of huge inconvenient tanks that all want to kill them for some reason. I have no idea how any of these tanks ever turn a corner.

Mazes seem to be the most boodthirsty thing in this universe--can’t pass through a maze without every law of physics/tanks wanting to murder the hell out of you

Imagine the David Attenborough documentary on this family of wild tanks.

And then this weird thing happened--as if we weren’t already seeing the weirdest collection of things that Kaiba chose to focus on in this magical world where he could have made anything else happen.

It’s Marie Antoinette Mokuba. She’s just here. To exist.

Speaking of bad ideas, Kaiba is getting crucified.

Every anime ever made just acting out the Passion for kicks and giggles, it ain’t even Easter yet.

So quick side story about bad ideas and stuff, because sometimes we spend YEARS of our lives trying to make something that is not very good work and it just doesn’t--it just doesn’t happen. I work in freelance so I see that a lot. I see it happen to other people, I’ve seen it happen PLENTY to myself.

I knew this guy, I’ve known him my whole life (and he’s way super old so he won’t read this blog) and for the entirety that I’ve been alive he’s been trying to make an operating system to compete with Windows. Now I’m from the Bay Area, so this isn’t SO weird. There’s this whole crazy world outside of Linux where everyone and their mule is making an OS that will change the Silicon Valley landscape and make them the next Bill Gates. It’s kind of like “here’s my neat app idea” but like 2 steps more ascended.

For about 40 years, this guy has *and still is* making this OS. 40 years. But his OS is now like 40 years behind the times because he never released it in any form because it wasn’t done yet, it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t ready.

One of the most important things I’ve ever learned is that whatever you may be working on right now will not be your Magnum Opus. It just won’t. So finish whatever you’re on and move on to the next thing. When I was told this, I was working on my first comic and although I wasn’t really aware--it was hella not great. But, it was a story I grew up writing, so I was hella attached to it. So, it could never be perfect. It mattered so much to me to get it right, and I was so worried about what other people would think, that I worked on it for about 4 years before I ran into the OS guy and I realized “I need to just post this and move on or this will be my endless OS”

Like, this is all a silly story of climbing through Kaiba’s bad fiction, but sometimes our simple ideas can turn into parasites, and we become so obsessed with them, that our good efforts are robbed of ever getting a chance to finish something good. Like this is Kaiba’s one big huge sprawling terrible video game idea and all of his friends and his brother are here to basically give him an intervention. Also to save him from the guys who are still heading Kaiba corp for some reason.

Anyways, now these guys are in a generic carriage because they got to the Camelot section of Kaiba’s cyberworld because this boy could not focus on one single genre.

Whatever because inside this castle is DINNER

The vague orange oblong fruit is back! The gravity melons! We still aren’t sure what they are--because they could be mangoes but they’re orange like oranges. huh...

Anyways, it’s about time for this show to get dark.

So this is a game mechanic of playing the card game Yugioh--so like...it actually does make sense why it’s here but like. This is just medieval The Lottery, huh? Is Kaiba getting ritually sacrificed by his own video game? Ritually sacrificed WHILE getting crucified? For a DRAGON? It’s like right in front of him that his Dragon Obsession has maybe gone too far but I assume that once this is over he’ll be right back on ship dragon.

I just like to think that, for the past few years, Kaiba’s just been drawing birds and medieval stuff in class and being all “it’s going in my sweet ass video game, Joey, it’s not a princess, it’s Princess Atena, and she’s gonna get sacrificed to satisfy the Mythic Dragon” but none of his classmates ever remembered any of this lore because their brains kept getting wiped by some Season Zero Pharaoh nonsense.

This color scheme on the walls is just...that’s lime green and lilac all right.

Anyway, how generic 90′s fantasy anime can we make the armor here?

None of them use swords.

Scratch that--Pharaoh would know how to use a sword. For the rest of them the weapon seems kind of moot because they’re all card wizards?

So off they go, Joey in a minidress made for...breastfeeding? I guess? And the rest in matching armor suits. Seems like Kaiba’s game is programmed to recognize and harass Joey just as part of it’s core code.

OH.

So there was a lot of buildup to that happening and I blinked and missed it and had to rewind, it happened so quickly.

Man if they had just stayed indoors none of this would have happened.

So Mokuba is in a 7 layer ballgown for the rest of this show right? I feel like the hoop skirt would make it very difficult to get crucified in. So, at least he has that.

As they bring this ancient bird to life with the time card, we get to see what Tristan and Tea have been up to--mostly just pushing stuff.

So when Tea does ballet she’s on the bottom just tossing everyone else around, right? That girl is jacked.

So, that was a lot of random things in succession--Next week, on Yugioh:

Does Kaiba turn into a dragon, finally, like he’s always wanted? Will the next environment in this randomized video game land them right in the middle of a Fallout Post-Apocalypse? Or will it be in the middle of a Petz kitten-adoption center? Or, will it be the ultimate challenge for these kids--in a Japanese High School visual novel sim where they actually have to attend class?

#Yugioh #yugioh recaps #photo recaps #s1 ep 43 #humor #they're still in this video game I guess #seto kaiba #mokuba #yugi muto #joey wheeler #tea gardner #tristan taylor #mai #this arc is hella random

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stoopsbookstore · 6 years

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Greaser!Wonwoo Part 1

(A/N) SO... I decided to do this. I finally got the courage to do this. I was debating if I should do this for Wonwoo or Jaehyun, like I was writing this for Jaehyun, but I have a different idea for him now. I have a massive AU that I've had in my head for a good year now and there's most likely gonna be little hints to it in all of these 😐 Please keep in mind that I'm on mobile 99% of the time so some formatting may be weird. Another thing... I might have Sims based on these scenarios that I might make another blog for 🤔

Reader - Female

Greaser!Wonwoo... no one knows who he was until he started to hang out with the Diamond Gang, Pledis Prep's local criminals

He just kinda appeared out of nowhere with Mingyu

Rumors has it he's a narc, but that doesn't make sense... he's.... in the gang... like Seungcheol has straight up said that if Wonwoo was a narc, ain't no one would know he even existed

What had happened was Minghao and Mingyu were partners with Wonwoo for an assignment

Wonwoo has dragged to a race one day and was just kinda thrown in the car after Mingyu get his head smacked

You know that scene in Grease where Kenickie gets hit in the head before Thunder Road?

Yea, that's Mingyu and Wonwoo right now

Seungcheol told Wonwoo if he wins, he doesn't have to join the Diamond Gang, he can just leave with no consequences and live his life. If he loses, he's now the group's running bitch

Take a guess at what happens?

He actually wins, but Jeonghan convinced him to stay with promises of getting to know how to break into the local library after hours

You wanna know how Jeonghan knows this? He's not only lazy, he's also the librarian's son, he has a key duh

Y/N was the stereotypical good girl

Follows rules? Check. Straight A's? Check. Always home at curfew? Check.

Wonwoo hates being called a Greaser and he finds the Socs name stupid

Wonwoo thinks the labels are just pretentious bullshit

Seungcheol has told Wonwoo horror stories about the Socs

How they treats their girls, how they have the cops wrapped around their fingers, how Jeonghan was put out of comission for 3 months just for walking on Soc territory

Wonwoo tries not to believe the b.s., but it's really hard when it seems like all there is, is just a bunch of hatred between the groups

So, he walks around the town, Masonridge, to just clear his mind, when he sees the Soc gang, Neo, at the baseball park, beating up someone who looks to be protecting someone else?

Wonwoo looks around for something to wave in the air to make himself look scary, seeing as he doesn't have the Diamond Gang leather jacket yet.

Right now he's in his glasses, a light yellow sweater with the cutest little sweater paws

He sees a bat left behind by the Pledis baseball team and he goes up to Neo and confronts them

He sees Johnny, Taeil and Yuta turn around and he gets a closer view of the situation

It's Dino... protecting Y/N... after she said she wouldn't sleep with Johnny

At this point, Wonwoo sees red and he starts swinging

The 3 memebrs of Neo seeing this haul ass back to S.M. Academy, but not before Yuta warns Wonwoo that Y/N is just a troubled slut in a poodle skirt

Dino helps calm down Wonwoo and they both help Y/N

Y/N is kind enough to let both of them come to her house, seeing as her parents aren't home, for some tea and so she can wrap up Dino's wounds

Wonwoo texts Seungcheol to let him know what just went down and Seungcheol texts him to stay at Y/N's, let Dino rest and don't let Y/N out of his sight

Tbh this takes place in one of those future of the pasts, like it's 1950s styled... but it takes place in the present

Anywho, all three finally get home and Wonwoo and Y/N patch Dino up and after a little bit, he decides to take a nap because as we all know, getting the shit beaten out of you hurts a lot and may or may not take a lot of energy out of you.

Wonwoo starts to douse off and he doesn't even notice that Y/N left the room until his phone buzzed and he got a text from an unknown number saying Y/N looks really good standing on her balcony right now, with a photo attachment of Y/N looking like a goddess out to the fading skyline

Wonwoo immediately shoots up from the couch, calling for Y/N

He sees her chilling on the balcony, swaying with her cat, Mochi, to some Michael Buble

He's just hypnotized... like he's not one to fall in love at first sight, so he'll call this love in the first 4 hours of knowing you

He finally speaks up, making sure you're okay after what happened

Putting Mochi down, you say you're fine, just a little shaken up

Wonwoo and you are quiet for a little bit, until he finally asks why Yuta called you what he did

You tell him about him the story of your father and mother. Your mom was a Greaser and your dad was a Soc

Within the first year of your life, your mom left with your dad's best friend, who was also a Greaser

Using the excuse she needed more freedom and adventure and that's exactly your dad's friend could provide

When you turned 16, your dad was super protective of you, but you decided to act out like your mother

You got wrapped up in the wrong group, you hung out with Neo and your first love was Yuta, as you were his. You gave your virginity to him, he gave his to you

After that happened, he started to act distant and become more of the Danny Zuko type of Greaser, flirted with everyone, tried to get into everyone's pants, he literally didn't give a fuck anymore

Turns out, while he originally did love you, he just kinda stopped, but he still cared about you... so instead of just ending it, he just led you on and continued to let you believe that he was in love with you1a

After that night when you both lose your virginities, he started to ghost you and you saw him less and less and even thought it was never offical, it was unofficially offical.

So to cope with your heartbreak, you ended up throwing yourself into studying and this is when you met Dino

Yuta didn't like that you were talking with another guy even if it's someone like Dino who you saw as a brother.

Yuta was pissed so he started to spread a rumor about the reason y'all broke up was because you were sleeping with everyone at all of the schools around Masonridge

Yugyeom from JYP Prep, Hyuk from Jellyfish School of Music, and 4 of the other members of Neo were just a fraction of the names that were thrown around. All of them denied it except the Neo members of course

Your father was pissed and while you apologized about treating him the way you did, he didn't fault you because you realize what you were doing

Wonwoo, sensing your tears and against his better judgement, immediately hugged you and held you while you cried

While this was happening, your father came down and saw Dino on the couch, curled up like a cat, using his Diamond Gang jacket as a pillow and Mochi's favorite blanket to cover himself

Knowing Dino, he didn't question this , but still your father goes looking for you and finds you asleep on the bench, while Wonwoo is pacing, trying to stop himself from destroying Yuta

Your dad speaks up asking who he is

Wonwoo introduces himself as one of Dino's friends

Turns out your dad knows exactly who he is because you talked about the tall cute brooding guy who sits in the corner of the library and you're too scared to ask him to move so you could get a book you needed for class

Wonwoo blushes at the fact that you told your father you think he's cute

Your dad shakes you awake because he doesn't want you to fall asleep on the bench when it looks like a storm is coming oh if he only knew

Dino and Wonwoo are offered to stay for dinner and they won't turn down free food like ever

While your dad and Dino are setting up the table, you and Wonwoo are cutting the vegetables and doing the prep

Wonwoo keeps taking peeks at you wondering if you still thinks he's cute or if you don't even like guys anymore or has your shirt always been unbuttoned to the 3rd button and are you getting hot because he is and are yo-

In the middle of thinking, he slices his finger and Nurse Y/N is needed one again hmm... nurse Y/N with Patient!Member? 😏 but what kind of patient is the question

You bring him to the guest room because your dad is very queasy when it comes to blood it makes that time of the month SO MUCH FUN

Wonwoo is sitting on the guest bed while you're cleaning the wound and wrapping his index and middle finger together and Wonwoo just can't stop thinking about how cute you look so focused

You put the final touches on and before you get up to the first aid kit away, Wonwoo sees his chance and kisses you

At first you were confused but then you melted into it

He tasted like coffee and mint and your lips had a light tinge of strawberries

He didn't want to scare you or your dad or Dino. So, he just kept his hands down by his side

Much to his shock, you decided to straddle him and kiss him a bit harder

Wonwoo was in a state of pure bliss until Dino knocked on the door causing you to stand straight up and Wonwoo to fall back in disbelief

Dino, totally oblivious to what was happening beforehand, cheerfully told yall it was time for dinner

Cue the most awkward dinner for Wonwoo, sitting there thinking about the kiss and all of his feelings because he's been thrown for a tailspin in the past month between becoming a member of the Diamond Gang and falling in love after 4 hours with a Soc

Seungcheol finally comes to pick the two after dinner and he thanks you for helping, even shaking your father's hand

You asked your father why he was so chill with the Greasers in his house. Not only Greasers, the notorious Diamond Gang

He said that in his years of being a cop, he noticed that the Diamond Gang hasn't done anything wrong except for drag racing

Other than that, they're just a group of guys who found the real home in each other and anyone who hangs out with Dino is a good kid

And he already likes Wonwoo miles ahead of Yuta

The next day, Yuta confronts you about being with Wonwoo, saying what does Wonwoo have that he doesn't?

You started to list everything about Wonwoo, even the little things about him, that made Yuta furious because you never talked about him like that

Yuta challenged Wonwoo through you, you could say

Yuta tried to pull that whole if he's so good why won't he race me bullcrap and before he could say the last word, Wonwoo accepted

Yuta marched away and you looked at Wonwoo like what the hell

Wonwoo gets up all this courage and says that he knows that he can and will win if you're there with him, cheering alongside the Diamond Gang

You told Wonwoo that Yuta plays very dirty and he's not one to be taken lightly

You smack his arm but also tell him that you'll be there with Nayoung and Roa

The day comes and you couldn't be anymore nervous, you kept thinking what if Yuta does something drastic to hurt Wonwoo and holy shit you've felt this way about one other guy and that was Yuta and you don't like this feeling but you like Wonwoo and has Wonwoo always had that nice of a chest in a white t-shirt?

Nayoung shook you off of your thoughts as the guys got in their cars, Yuta shooting you a wink and Wonwoo blowing you a kiss you know that snarky kiss Xiumin did? with the two fingers? Yea it's like that just with more love instead of snark

Xiyeon stated the rules... there was no rules... and started the countdown

3.... Wonwoo looks at you, 2..... he mouths I love you, 1..... he hits the gas pedal

Both taking off like a rocket, Wonwoo was behind for a good chunk of the race

The turn was coming up and Yuta has going well over 70 while Wonwoo was going to drift

Yuta takes the corner....

But he takes it too wide and crashes

Wonwoo stops, just lead foot on the brake and he unbuckles and runs to Yuta's car

He's shouting and trying to get a response from Yuta, anything, a groan, shout of pain, something

#jeon wonwoo #wonwoo #seventeen headcanons #wonwoo headcanons #seventeen scenarios #wonwoo scenarios #seventeen #seventeen au #sleepy sloth #my writings

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leyacer · 7 years

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"Medea" - Yandere Sim P5 AU fanfiction

I love creating new versions of things, and when I designed a Metaverse outfit and Persona for Yandere-chan I couldn’t just drop it after finishing it. So I wrote a fanfic, for fun, about Ayano awakening said Persona. It’s under the cut, because it’s really long.

Ayano didn't think her day could get any worse. She turned out to be horribly wrong. It had started with that terrible substitute teacher, Mida Rana. Ever since she had come to school after Senpai's teacher had gotten ill, Ayano had seen her try to seduce Senpai time and time again. She did the same with the other boys, but Rana's attention seemed mostly fixed on Senpai. Ayano had already tried many different ways to get rid of that monster, but it always seemed to be one step ahead of her. And because she was a teacher, there was little left that Ayano could do without getting into major trouble if she wasn't careful. Ayano looked through her phone, seeing if she could perhaps contact Info-chan for help, or find something herself. The only things that caught her eye before she was interrupted, was a text from the girl in question and a strange app she didn't remember installing. Koharu Hinata, the girl sitting next to her, suddenly shook her shoulder and Ayano became aware of miss Fuka's piercing glare directed at her, and quickly put her phone away. "Aishi, do not let me see you with your phone in class again, or you'll be wondering where it went the next time I do." Ayano quickly nodded and apologized. Miss Fuka sighed and turned to the blackboard behind her, which was filled with all kinds of mathematical problems. "Now, Aishi, would you be so kind to as solve this problem for us?"

After being disrupted from her scheming like that, Ayano wasn't exactly in a good mood. She groaned and started walking over to the courtyard, in the hope that seeing her beloved Senpai would cheer her up. What she didn't expect to see was him and that disgusting woman talking in the hallway. When she saw the two standing together, Ayano walked in their direction and, when she was within earshot, took her phone from her bookbag and pretended to play a game on it, while truly eavesdropping on the substitute teacher and her pupil. From the corner of her eye she watched them have their conversation. "Yamada," Rana said. "I've looked at your tests, and..." She made a tutting sound. "What is it, miss Rana?" Senpai said, sounding slightly worried. "Oh, Yamada..." Rana turned her head away from the boy in front of her. She looked sad and disappointed, but Ayano knew that had to be fake. That teacher couldn't be trusted. "Your test scores... They are horrible. With grades like these, if we don't do anything, who knows what will happen... we might have to hold you back a year." Ayano saw Senpai's eyes widen in surprise, and desperately wanted to run over to him and comfort him, telling him that witch was lying. But she told herself not to act too hastily, and kept listening. "But miss, I'm sure I did well this year! My grades were perfectly fine a week ago!" "Oh, Yamada, a lot can change over the course of a single week. Please do not act as if this is completely impossible." That was one of the worst excuses Ayano had ever heard, and she couldn't wrap her head around how people fell for this woman's tricks. One week, and Senpai's grades had dropped to the point where he might have to be held back a year? Ayano gritted her teeth and kept listening. "Well, Math has been a bit harder lately..." Senpai mumbled. "There is still hope. I could help you study, and that will get your grades back up in no time. What do you think of that? Would you like me to be your private tutor?" With that, the woman leaned forward, getting up in poor Senpai's face, who Ayano saw was having a hard time keeping his eyes from wandering anywhere else than his teachers eyes. "I promise it'll really help." Stammering, Senpai clumsily agreed to his teacher's offer, if it would indeed help him out. Ayano bit her lip while she saw Senpai walk away. Rana, she noticed, turned to a group of boys who had been watching her. "I could be your tutor too, if you want." she said to them, and winked. The girls standing a bit further down the hallway the teacher didn't even acknowlegde. Ayano couldn't take watching her anymore, and walked away, following Senpai from a distance.

"Ugh!" Ayano groaned once outside the school gates, after she'd watched Senpai leave. Angrily, she tapped the screen of her phone, once she had taken it out of her bookbag again, and opened a random navigation app, not really paying much attention to what she was doing. "How dare she! Trying to seduce my Senpai and other boys like that! And treating me and other girls like we don't matter!" Her phone buzzed as she kept tapping. "Does she think she can do this just because she's a teacher? Little miss Mida Rana isn't the queen of her own little palace!" Ayano grumbled. Suddenly, Ayano got a headache for a moment. It wasn't awful, but just enough to make her grab her head for a moment and utter a small groan. But before she had the chance to wonder where it had come from, it was gone again. Ayano shook her head, slightly confused by the sudden headache. "That was... strange." She took a step forward, then realized something. "Oh no, I forgot to check near Senpai's locker for anything suspicious! Or something he left behind!" She turned around to head back into the school, but where the school should've been, there now was something completely different. A giant building resembling a castle had taken the place of Akademi High. It was large and imposing, with dark walls and small towers. Nearly very one if the large windows was covered from the inside with golden curtains, and the glass doors that usually gave way to a school building had their place taken by heavy-looking ebony doors giving way to who knows what. The entire building's atmosphere was radically different from the school's. Whereas the school had radiated cheerfulness and carefreeness, this building that had taken its place had a strange, dangerous feeling to it. The skies above had somehow changed, too, and they were now stormy and dark, instead of sunny and bright. "What..." Ayano muttered. "Where did the school go? What happened?" Unable to control her curiosity, Ayano cautiously walked to the ebony doors. After listening for any suspicious sounds, she slowly opened the weighty wooden doors. When she got inside, what she saw went above and beyond her understanding of her already confusing situation. "What the hell is this?" she said, worried and perplexed. A big hall that seemed to be a reception hall bathed in the dim light from the chandeliers hanging above. A golden staircase was in the centre of the room, leading up to the similarly golden balconies arouns it. The walls were decorated with dozens of paintings that showed off Mida Rana, in all kinds of poses, ranging from smart and scholarly to sensual and seductive. Ayano walked up to the centre of the room and looked around. "What is up with this place... And those painti-" "Stop right there!" A raspy voice interrupted Ayano, and made her turn around. She was faced with a strange creature towering over her threateningly. It looked like a medieval castle guard, with a sword in hand and wearing heavy iron armor, but what was visible of its masked face seemed to be made of a strange red-and-black substance, which swirled about like water in a whirlpool. It was however, much more solid, as Ayano noticed when the creature grabbed her. "How dare you intrude like this! You should be punished!" Up until then, Ayano had been too bewildered to react, but when the creature grabbed her like that, she was suddenly pulled back into reality. "No! I don't even know what this is, and yet you want to punish me for mere curiosity? I'll leave, if that's what you want." she said. The thing laughed, and before Ayano knew what had happened, it had hit her with the hilt of the sword it carried and knocked her out cold.

The first thing Ayano noticed when she woke up was the fact that she wasn't in her own room. Her bed was an actual bed, not the bench she was lying on now. Her room's walls were beige-colored, not bare stone walls, with chains hanging off of them. And the entrance to her room was definitely not a jail cell door. As soon as she noticed this and recalled what had happened, Ayano got up and ran to the bars opposite her bench and shook them, in a weak attempt of trying to open them. After a short while, footsteps could be heard nearing the jail cell, and on the other side of the iron bars, accompanied by two creatures similar to the one from earlier, appeared... "Mida Rana?" The woman wore something very different from her usual school outfit. It was even flashier; a black dress with an incredibly low neckline, fishnet stockings and crimson stilettos. On top of her head was a golden tiara, similar to one little girls might play dressup with. It matched well with the red ermine cape hanging from her shoulders. The whole ensemble looked like she wanted to make a noticeable first impression, but didn't care enough in the end and raided her little sister's dress-up box for missing accessories. The things with her opened the door, letting Rana enter before they did. Ayano quickly stepped back before one of them would walk into her. The creatures stayed near the door, making sure Ayano couldn't escape. Rana, once inside the room, turned to one of the creatures, and asked with a voice that sounded just a bit off: "Guard, this is the intruder you were speaking of?" The guard replied: "Yes, my queen. She was discovered nosing around in the reception hall." Ayano snorted at hearing the guard-things call Rana a 'queen'. Rana seemed to have heard that and walked up to Ayano threateningly, until Ayano was with her back against the wall. Up close, Ayano noticed that her eyes weren't chocolate brown, but a golden yellow. And they were glowing. "What was that, girl?" Ayano didn't say anything. She still barely knew what was going on, and realised she only had her wits to help her out, but those were of little use with her being so completely overwhelmed by the events of this odd afternoon. So she simply watched everything play out, trying to make sense of what was happening. "Wait..." Rana said. "I think I recognize you. You're that girl who's always spying on me and my Taro!" Something in her expression must've showed some of the surprise and disgust Ayano felt hearing that, and Rana continued. "Did you seriously think I didn't notice you?" She laughed. The guards laughed with her. "Oh, but of course I didn't in the beginning. However, when someone always seems to be around at those specific moments and never otherwise..." Ayano bit her lip and glared at the woman. She hadn't expected her to be so observant. "And now you suddenly show up in my castle, unannounced, and start snooping around! I do absolutely not acc-" "My queen?" Rana's speech was interrupted by a soft, all too familiar voice. The guards who had been standing near the entrance of the cell, stepped aside to make way for a young boy. Behind his black bangs, the boy's stormy grey eyes looked at Ayano and Rana. He wore tight black pants and dress shoes, and a red shirt so thin you could see his bare breast underneath. Just like Rana, a crown was on his head, but it was less impressive -if you could call a dressup tiara impressive- than Rana's. Ayano could barely get the word out of her mouth. "...S-Senpai?" Hearing her, Senpai looked at Ayano with a face of contempt and disgust, and it was like someone had just kicked her in the stomach. Then, even worse, he walked over to Rana and stood incredibly close to her, as if he were her boyfriend. "I have been looking all over for you. I didn't know you were checking on the prisoners." Prisoner? The bars might've been a dead giveaway, but up until the moment she was actually called a prisoner the reality of it hadn't hit her yet. But now it did, and she was hurt and insulted by it, and by Senpai acting so close to Rana. Trying to keep her nerve in front of him felt like all she could do in this situation. "This is a unique one, honey. She was found nosing around in the reception hall. What do you think we should do with her?" Senpai seemed to think for a moment, and then, with a smirk, he said: "The punishment for unlawful entry is death, right? How about you just have her killed, my queen, and be done with it?" This shocked Ayano to her very core. The Senpai she knew would never just agree to killing someone for trespassing. Trespassing, of all things! Why did he act like this? Why did he call that horrible Mida Rana his queen, and act like he was actually her boyfriend? No... This... This couldn't be her Senpai. No matter how much he looked like him, sounded like him, smelled like him, walked like him... this wasn't Senpai. This was an impudent imposter. "Good idea, sweetie. I don't know why I even bothered with this. Guards!" Rana called. The guards heaved their swords, came walking at Ayano, the blades glinting menacingly... "No! Wait!" Ayano found herself yelling. She felt her panic, surprise, sadness, anger and confusion she had tried to supress suddenly all going wild. "Being in the dark as to why I'm being punished so harshly for nothing drives me crazy! What did I ever do to you that deserves this treatment?" Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, caught off guard by the up until then tacit prisoner's sudden outburst. The prisoner, knowing waiting and watching wouldn't work out anymore, continued. "Rana, you are not a queen! A queen doesn't act like this. You are merely a selfish girl who spends her time seducing innocent schoolboys for fun, claiming to teach them." The self-proclaimed queen seemed to not be used to people talking to her like that, her eyes betraying absolute horror at the statements of her prisoner. But Ayano didn't stop there. The words kept coming out of her mouth, like a dam finally breaking and all the water flowing through. She turned her gaze to 'Senpai'. "They didn't ask for that, and neither did I ask for this!" It felt surprisingly good to yell out all the things she had been thinking and feeling all that time. It was satisfying. "This is just you abusing your position, the power it holds! And I have no idea how it came to be in this place, but if at school the other teachers, the counselor, or even the damned headmaster back at school won't stop you, then I'll take it upon myself to make you stop!" The guards quickly ran to Ayano, protectively stepping in front of their queen. Knowing she was nearing the end of her outburst, Ayano used her momentum to make a final statement. "I'll tear you down! Starting here, in this miserable cell, all the way back to your miserable classroom from where you first started infesting this school!"

About time.

Suddenly, another woman's voice spoke loud and clear... in Ayano's head.

Are you finally done waiting?

Ayano screamed. Her head was suddenly hurting again, but so much more worse than last time. It was as if a thousand daggers were being thrust into it.

Aren't you tired of dancing to someone else's melody? Of someone else pulling the strings?

She wasn't dreaming. She was actually hearing a voice in her head that wasn't hers. Ayano screamed again, and grabbed her head in frustration and pain.

If someone else is pulling the strings, how about cutting those strings? Or pulling them yourself? Such is the will of your inner self, after all...

The pain wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop. It was still there, and so was the voice. Ayano's legs were shaking, and would probably fail continuing carrying her soon.

Do you understand? Are you willing to do what it takes? Then, let us forge a contract...

The voice became louder, silencing everything else. Even the pain's chaos became a little less dominant.

I am thou, thou art I...I will grant you my strength...

With the voice continuing, oddly enough, within the pain and chaos, Ayano felt an growing feeling of determination, a strange determination she had never felt before.

...so that you may orchestrate this world's melody from here on out!

And then it was gone. The pain, and the voice. In their place, a mask and a newly found determination. Ayano didn't think or question anything of this. She merely acted out of instinct, and started pulling of the mask. It hurt immensely, but this was a different kind of pain, one she simply endured, and didn't fight against. The mask came off. A split second after, everything faded to white. When Ayano's vision and mind cleared up, it felt amazing. She felt a new kind of power at her fingertips, one that would allow her to do all the things she could never have done before. She could take on this miserable excuse for a teacher, and this disgusting imposter claiming to be Senpai. She laughed. "I see now." She knew where this new power came from. It came not only from herself, but from her Persona as well. Ayano didn't have to look to know what the being now hovering behind her looked like. She knew it was a female humanoid, with light blue skin, her azure hair tied back in a ponytail, a few loose strands here and there. The multi-layered dress made her even more imposing, and beneath the mask similar to the one Ayano had teared off her face, sharp golden eyes that looked in the same direction Ayano's silver eyes did. A smile was on the Persona's lips as she played with the bars she held that controlled the marionettes hanging from them. Ayano enjoyed seeing the confusion and surprise she had felt this entire afternoon on everyone's faces. She didn't linger on it long, however. She was finally finished waiting, done holding back, and yelled: "Let's make these puppets dance, Medea!

#yandere simulator #yandere simulator au #ayano aishi #yandere-chan #senpai #taro yamada #mida rana #p5 au #persona 5 au #alternate universe

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