#crap I can’t think of anything else to tag this with

[quibbs126]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how beautiful this artwork is?

For context, this is the opening sequence of Evoland 2, if anyone was curious. I’ve been wanting to back and replay it for a while and I decided today is the day

[miraclewoozi]

SPECTACLE. -j.ww

in which your new boyfriend, wonwoo, doesn't give a crap about his expensive eyewear.

pairing : wonwoo x fem!reader. content : smut. pwp. tags under the cut. MINORS DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT. w/c : 2.7k. notes : yeah i kinda. went insane over this idea. so. bon appetite to you, and also to wonwoo ? i guess.

content + smut tags : established - but new - relationship. making out. FACE SITTING. impact play? (one gentle butt slap). the shenanigans are on a couch if that matters, i don't know. reader is a little shy about doing it. PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything.

Wonwoo looks flushed when he pulls away from where he’s been kissing and nipping at the side of your neck, hair stuck up in every direction thanks to your tugging fingers and your gentle guidance to help him find your sweet spots. His lips are pink and a little plumped. His glasses are steaming up, sitting halfway down the bridge of his nose, and every slightly heavier breath he takes makes his broad chest rise and fall where it’s pressed wholly against yours.

You can’t help yourself from leaning forward into another kiss; he’s completely irresistible. Maybe the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. And while this isn’t really news to you, the dynamic of your relationship with him shifted a month or so ago and you’re still getting used to the privilege of seeing him this close up. 

He’s still adjusting too, if the way he groans directly into your mouth, hands groping harder at the curve of your ass as you shuffle in his lap is anything to judge by. Still learning, still figuring you out. But – and this is how you know what you’re building here might be the real deal – even when it’s clumsy, and when you knock teeth while you’re kissing and burst into slightly pained giggles, or when things accidentally slip out of place while you’re getting steamy… everything Wonwoo does makes your spine tingle. Makes your stomach flip. Makes your core throb. 

Even when it doesn’t always work? It makes sense, and it’s perfect, and losing yourself in the way his lips caress and worship yours is so damn easy when he murmurs your praises just for letting him do this in the first place.

“Will you do something for me?” He asks after a small forever, pulling back just far enough that he's not breathing up your nose. His hands have made their way under your – his – hoodie now and he’s grazing his fingers over your ribs, tickling enough to make you whimper, not enough for you to want to swat him away.

You think you’d give him the world if he asked for it in that deep, rough voice he adopts when things start heading in this direction. The moon too. Shit, if you could get a lasso around the sun and bring it closer to keep him warm, you’d do that as well. So, whatever his little request is now, you know you’re going to agree; resting your hands on his shoulders (finally leaving his gorgeous hair alone), you lean back from him and nod your head.

“Anything,” you say. You’re certain that you feel his cock twitch in his sweatpants where it’s pressed against the inside of your thigh, but you’re not quite sure why. 

It makes you feel hot, though. More-so when he bites back a grin, lips curling in that adorable way. It feels greatly unfair that you can’t swoop down right this second to kiss him again, and again, and again; as painful as it is though, you do exercise enough grace to wait for him to come out with it.

“Get up,” he says softly, dropping his hands down your sides and squeezing at your hips once. 

You do as he asks and move off his lap, sitting on the other side of the couch; he doesn’t say anything else as he stands up himself, pulls his hoodie off over his head and tosses it to one side before sinking all the way down to the floor. You raise an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t see you. He shuffles into place with his back against the edge of the seat and only once he’s comfortable does he turn to look at you over one shoulder, grinning brilliantly.

“Okay,” he says, bending his knees and planting his heels into the floor. “Come here.”

You stand up off the cushions now and look down at him for a second, wondering what on Earth is going through his mind, but you know better than to start questioning his strange ideas. Especially when he’s in this sort of a mood. You step over him, one foot either side of his hips, and start to drop down too, but he puts a hand on each of your knees and stops you before you’re in his lap once again.

“No,” Wonwoo says, shaking his head. His hands then make their way to the backs of your thighs and he pushes forwards, trying to guide you where he wants you. Your knees bend of their own accord and press against the couch on both sides of his head. “Like this.”

You don’t exactly freeze up, but it is as if you forget how to control all of your muscles for a second. The ones in your legs seem to turn to jelly and you know it’s only because the sofa is currently taking a portion of your weight that you don’t buckle completely and fall onto the top of his head. The ones in your face give you a slack-jawed, wide-eyed, unblinking expression. 

Your abdominal muscles tighten and your cunt flutters at what you’re sure he’s trying to suggest, the rush of wetness you feel only worsened by the intensity in his eyes as he tips his head back and looks at you.

“Please?” He asks, all sweet but deep and rough at the same time. 

“Are you s–?” You start to ask. 

Wonwoo clicks his tongue at you and tries to encourage you further onto the couch to prove his point. “Yes,” he says, nodding eagerly. 

And then, just so you really can’t mistake what he's asking for–

“I want you to sit on my face.”

Your entire body heats up at how bluntly he says it. You squeeze your eyes shut and bite the inside of your cheek so that you don’t accidentally laugh with the nerves already trying to burst out of your tummy. 

It’s not that you don’t want to. If you had a penny for every time you’d thought about him giving himself up for your pleasure this way, you’d be rich. You do. You’re going a little crazy just imagining how good it’s going to feel. 

It’s just that him being so bold about it has you feeling shy, and that’s never happened to you before. You’re at a loss. You’re totally stumped.

When you open your eyes again and look down at him, Wonwoo is just as earnest and hungry for you as he was a few seconds ago. If anything, it’s as if he wants it more. It’s without a doubt the hottest thing you’ve ever seen and before you can talk yourself out of it, you’re nodding at him; his fingers start to drag up and down the backs of your thighs happily, before they hook under the waistband of your shorts and gently make that first little pull.

“If you don’t like it, we can stop,” he says to you, only pulling them all the way down when you start to help him. They get tossed over to the side to join his hoodie after you step out of them. His eyes glance to the panties you’re wearing – the last barrier, the final thing keeping him from what he’s so desperate for – before he looks back at your face and flashes you a smile. “Just tell me, okay?”

“It’s not that,” you laugh softly, taking off your own jumper and throwing it onto the pile. Wonwoo groans at the sight of you; you roll your eyes at him. “You just… took me by surprise.”

“Good,” he sighs, wrapping an arm around one of your legs and letting you settle onto your knees in position over his mouth, pressing his fingers into the top of your thigh. 

The first soft press of his lips over your panties makes you gasp and you hold a little tighter onto the back cushions as you look down at him. His eyes are closed already as he breathes your heady scent in, deep enough to hopefully stain his lungs, enough that he’ll never get rid of it, that he’ll be able to carry you everywhere he goes. 

But Wonwoo’s closed eyes aren’t the only thing you notice between your thighs and a soft laugh replaces the pleased sounds already spilling from your lips. One hand drops down to where he's settled and your fingers brush against his temple as they try to pinch at one side of his glasses. He looks affronted when he catches your gaze.

“What’re you doing?” He asks, gently moving your hand away. 

You tilt your head at him. “Your glasses,” you prompt, moving to reach for them again. His fingers curl around your wrist and he shoves your hand into his hair instead, rubbing the tip of his nose against the inside of your thigh.

“I want to keep them on,” he tells you.

“What if they break?”

“Don’t care,” he hums, kissing his way back towards your covered pussy. “I’ll buy a new pair. I just wanna see you.”

You swallow at this and decide that you’re definitely not going to try and change his mind, instead choosing to tilt your head back and let his skilled tongue work you up through your underwear. It’s a mess of arousal and spit and they’re soaked, translucent, clinging to you by the time he’s frustrated with them; frankly, so are you, and it's a relief when he concludes that enough is enough.

“Baby,” he groans as he pulls your underwear to one side and has to crane his neck up to lick the flat of his tongue in a stripe up your slit. You whine, the cool air and his hot breaths a menacing mix of sensations, but you don’t have the sense to respond; one soft slap of his hand against your ass makes you look back down at him, though, and you’re met with dark eyes, flushed cheeks and a practically frenzied Wonwoo in the space between your hips. Your sweet, softly spoken boyfriend is nowhere to be found.

“I said, sit.”

His strong arm tugs you down and your knees slide against the cushions, bringing your pussy even closer to his face, literally forcing you to rest against his lips. He chuckles triumphantly and buries his tongue between your folds, tasting you so much more legitimately than before. The way he loves – straight from the source, the spring. You feel him prod at your hole and your walls clench around what he gives you – barely just the tip, but it’s enough to have you reeling already, and when his other arm hooks around your other thigh, when he starts to move you back and forth, you take very little convincing to start to rock your hips down against him on your own.

“Oh,” you whimper as his lips seal around your clit and he sucks at it once, giving a few experimental flicks of his tongue at the same time. The hand in his hair tightens immediately and Wonwoo groans with you still in his mouth, sending delicious vibrations through your sensitive nerves and making you gush onto his chin. 

“So fucking pretty like this,” he tells you, stroking his thumb over your waist. “Might be my new favourite view.”

He keeps lapping at you teasingly, testing circles and sideways motions, precise swipes, long drags; every subtle change as he tries to find what makes you scream in this position draws a different sound from your throat. He tenses the muscle and fucks your dribbling hole with it while encouraging you to move enough forward that his nose bumps against your clit with every jerky rock of your hips. You’re grinding faster, now, pressing down against his mouth harder, caring less by the second about whether his glasses are actually going to break in two. Besides, the way he drinks you down tells you that he could do this for a week straight without getting tired; he doesn’t want you to stop, or slow down, or ease up. He wants more. And if you’re too shy to give it to him, he’ll just take, take, take.

“Just– oh, fuck,” you gasp as his tongue finds your clit again and he laps at it with so much zeal that he could rival your favourite vibrator. “Just like that–”

Both of his hands grasp you tighter, squeezing and massaging and kneading at your soft skin as you chase your high on his pretty face. His eyes are tightly closed in his own rapture, and you hope that he won’t blame you for wanting him to open them; your hand pulls harshly at his hair again, hard enough to make him cringe, enough to make him stop for just a second before he sees how wound-up you look. You try to pull off from him a little, at least enough for him to catch a couple of breaths, but Wonwoo captures your pussy between his lips before you even hear him inhale.

“You– you wanted to s—see me,” you stutter out as the fire starts to catch and you feel warmth and ecstasy start to build at your core. “Fuck– ah–”

So he does. With big, hungry eyes, Wonwoo watches as you hurtle towards oblivion, as you writhe and squirm and grind down against his ardent mouth.

He sends you crashing over the edge with a wet sob, your own eyes closing now as you see stars in the darkness and ride your high out on his still-moving tongue. There are tears on your cheeks before you can do anything about it. Your walls spasm around nothing. He barely slows, taking back enough pressure so that your pleasure doesn’t turn to pain. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t even blink until you’re out the other side of your climax, though.

When your pants start to die down and you’re twitching to get away from him, so sensitive that even his tiny kisses make you shudder, Wonwoo drops his head back down to the pillows and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. You don’t have the strength to move yet, still reeling, still too floaty to try for any level of coordination, but he doesn’t mind. Your swollen, glistening pussy right over his face is something he'd pay millions to see.

“Didn’t even break the glasses,” you laugh weakly once your voice decides to come back to you. 

“Mm,” Wonwoo hums, sliding them off his nose and inspecting them. He ‘tsk’s before putting them back on. They’re steamed at the edges and a little smeary now, and he surely can’t actually see that clearly through them. He obviously doesn’t care. “That’s not good enough.”

“Huh?” you ask, moving carefully so as not to plant your knee into his jaw but still trying to bring your legs together so that you can sit to one side. He isn't having it, though, and slowly shuffles up onto his knees, turns around to face you and lays his fingers on one of your ankles, wasting no time in trying to pry your legs apart again.

“That’s. Not. Good. Enough,” he repeats, using his other hand to palm himself over the fabric of his sweatpants. The tent in them would be comical if it weren’t for the animalistic look in his eyes; there’s nothing laughable about the way he’s looking at you right now, though.

“So what are we gonna do about it?” You ask, opening back up for him and not hiding how you stare as he rips his shirt off over his head. Then, he slides his fingertips up the inside of your calf, to your knee, down your thigh… he drags them over the lips of your pussy and collects a little of your slick on them before bringing his hand to his lips and sucking it clean.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” he tells you, groaning at your sweet taste as if he wasn’t just drowning in it a minute and a half ago. He lowers himself until he's once more level with your cunt and guides both of your legs over his shoulders, smirking up at your expectant face. “Maybe try to squeeze your thighs a little more this time. See if that does the trick.”

thank you so much for reading!! i hope u enjoyed this hehe. as always, likes, reblogs, replies, feedback and asks are always super appreciated.<3

[marypsue]

There’ve been a few responses to/reblogs with tags on my post about DIY clothing embellishments that basically boil down to ‘I’d love to do this but I’m scared it’ll turn out bad/I’m not a good enough artist’. And I get it, I really do! I also want my art things to turn out nicely. But also...making it badly is sort of the point of punk DIY. 

Listen. We live in a world that would dearly love to charge you a subscription fee for breathing. The bastards are doing everything they possibly can to figure out how to turn art - stories, visual art, music, textile/fibre art, sculpture, crafts and creations of every kind - into a neat, discrete, packageable commodity, a product they can chop up into little pieces and stick behind a paywall so they can charge you for every drop of it you want to have in your life. 

The whole sneering idea that ‘everybody wants to be some kind of creator now’ and anything less than absolute mastery right out the gate is somehow shameful and embarrassing is a tool those bastards are using. It’s a way to reinforce the idea that only a set group of people can create and control art, and everybody else has to buy it. 

But art isn’t a product. Art is a fundamental human impulse. Nobody is entitled to a specific piece of art (which is where this message gets skewed into pitting people who love art against the artists who make it, while the bastards screw us all and run away with the money). But making art belongs to everybody. We make up songs and dances and stories, and paint things, and make clothes, and embellish them, and carve flowers into our furniture and our lintels and our doorframes, and make windows out of tiny pieces of coloured glass, and decorate our homes and our bodies and our lives with things we make and make up, simply for the love of beauty and of the act of creation. Grave goods from tens of thousands of years ago show that ancient hominids gave their dead wreaths of ceramic flowers, tattooed their bodies, beaded their shoes. Making things for the sake of beauty and enjoyment is one of the most ancient and human things we can do. 

The idea that we can’t, that we have to buy shit instead, because art is a product and you have to have the bestest prettiest most perfect product, is the enemy of joy. It’s the death of culture. And it means that, instead of whatever it is that you cherish and enjoy and value, you get whatever inoffensive (and to whom is it inoffensive?) bland meaningless samey-samey crap that the bastards want you to be allowed to have. What are you missing and what are you missing out on, if you don’t make or modify or decorate anything for yourself, if you don’t think you can because the product at the end won’t be polished or perfect or marketable enough? What do you lose? What do we lose? 

It is a desperately vital and necessary thing for you to make shit. For you to know that you can make shit, that you don’t have to just lie back and take whatever pablum the bastards want to force-feed you (and charge you through the nose for). That the bastards need you more than you need them. 

Become ungovernable. Be your own weirdly-endearing punk little freak. Paint on a t-shirt. Sing off-key in the shower or at karaoke night or at open mic night. Make up a story where you get to meet your favourite fictional character and you guys hug or fuck or punch each other in the face. Make art. Do it badly. Do it frequently. Do it enthusiastically. Do it for love and joy and creativity and fun and the spiteful joy of thumbing your nose at some smug motherfucker with a Swiss bank account who wants to track your heartbeat and location for the rest of your life in order to automatically pump AI-generated beats matched to your mood into your earbuds for a small monthly subscription fee of $24.99/month. It is literally the only way we are ever going to have even a chance to save art and our own lives from the bastards. 

So. Paint that t-shirt. 

(Also support artists where you can, and buy your music from Bandcamp.)

[justauthoring]

and i wonder... who? [4]

somehow, you find yourself torn between the two hottest guys at your school and you have no idea who to choose. loosely based off of operation: true love where geto is eunhyeuk and gojo is dohwa :)

a/n: dudes i have so many chapters pre-written! be ready for consistency (lol)

pairing: geto suguru x f!reader, gojo satoru x f!reader

tag list: @username23356-blog - @anxious-chick - @novacaneformybrain - @mandysfanfics - @rottmntrulesall - @voiceofnoreturn - @rh-tg1 - @ky0mybeloved - @black-swan-blog27 - @ladytamayolover - @the8ate - @maybe-a-bi-with - @dudalo100 - @reese-is-right - @6lonely-town6 - @its-a-damn-blue-brick - @kimi01985 - @dorusken - @siimp4youu - @catobsessedlady - @paper--angel - @animechick555 - @meshiinuma let me know if you'd like to added!

Tonight was the night. 

You’re sure of it.

The decision was made pretty clear to you that night at the arcade. Just two days ago, Sukuna had finalized what you’d feared to be true—he didn’t care about you anymore. And honestly, maybe he never had. 

You’re not sure.

You don’t know what would possess him to date you in the first place if he was never interested in you, but you also don’t understand how, regardless of how he felt, a person could be so cruel to another. You don’t think you’re perfect, of course you aren’t but you don’t think you deserved any of the crap you put up with because of him. 

You should’ve realized it the second you caught him cheating—no, you should’ve realized sooner. All those months spent walking around him like you were on eggshells, afraid that the slightest action would make him react poorly to you. All the times he’d let his friends be cruel to you without saying a word to defend you. All the times he’d ditched you for someone else.

Him cheating on you was just the cherry on top.

You’d been silly to think you’d be able to make him like you again.

You’d been silly to think he even deserved a second chance in the first place. 

It wasn’t about you being good enough or not–it wasn’t about being clingy or undesirable or anything of the sort. You deserved better. And you refused to let him walk all over you any longer.

Because when you think about Gojo’s soft hands on you and the way he’d teased you and yet there had been no malice behind it, you’re warmed at the thought of a guy being so charming to you.

Because when you think about Geto’s concerned eyes and the way he’d given you his hoodie and walked you home, you’re eased at the thought of a guy being so gentle to you.

Sure, it’s maybe a little silly and sure, neither of them probably meant anything by it — nonetheless, though, their actions are sweet and kind and reassuring to you that you don’t need to put up with some guy who can’t even break up with you properly if he doesn’t like you.

And it’s that that stills your nerves the second you reach Sukuna’s apartment door.

You think of when Geto had dropped you off at home, the both of you slowing to a stop just outside your front door.

“This is me.”

Geto nods, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans as he lets his eyes wander across your house before settling back on you. “Cute,” he smiles teasingly. Your cheeks warm at his words, looking back at your tiny little house that you share with your parents; you weren’t a very wealthy family but the three of you made it work and truthfully, it was enough for you.

“Thanks,” you roll your eyes, shaking your head. You move to cross your arms over your chest, before you remember you’re still wearing his sweater.

The decision that comes to your mind's made in a split second.

“Would you like to come in?”

Geto pauses, eyes widening in disbelief as he glances over at you.

“I-I mean…” You stammer, the realization of what you’d just asked and how it came out sinking in as you mentally curse yourself for being so utterly stupid. “I mean… I can wash your hoodie for you and then you don’t have to wait until Monday?” Then, another thought occurs to you. “U-Unless you have so-something to do and don’t have the time which then, I totally–”

“Sure.”

You’re left with your hands in front of you, frantic like you tend to get when you’re nervous, blinking over at Geto as he nods. He takes a step forward and then walks past you, calling over his shoulder; “are your parents home?”

Snapping yourself out of your stupor, you spin to face him, racing past him and up the steps of your front porch while reaching for your keys. “No,” you answer somewhat shakily. “My mom usually stays late at her job and my dad works two weeks on and then seven days off so I don’t see him until his week off.”

Lips parting, Geto calls out a hum of understanding just as you unlock your door, stepping in before opening the door wider for him to step in after. You meet his eyes briefly before closing the door behind him, offering him a pair of slippers to swap out for his shoes and taking a moment to watch as he wanders into the living room, eyes glancing curiously.

“Did-Did you want anything to drink?” You ask, slipping off your own shoes before sliding your feet into your pink slippers.

“No,” he calls back, voice somewhat distant.

You nod even though he can’t see you, calling over your shoulder that you’re going to change, quickly shower and put his hoodie in the wash right away. Geto hums out in response and then you’re making your way down the hall, opening the door to your room. You pause just briefly, glancing over your shoulders at the door before shutting it behind you with a soft click. You make sure to be quick, not wanting to waste Geto’s time, unzipping his hoodie and sitting it against your bed before taking off your blouse and letting that fall to the floor. You grab a baggy t-shirt from your dresser and make your way to the bathroom connected to your room.

Your shower is quick–you mainly just want to get all the sticky residue from the soda off of you. The second you’re done, you step out, drying yourself off before slipping back on the skirt you’d been wearing before, along with your underwear and bra and then draping the baggy shirt over yourself.

You take your towel, your blouse and Geto’s hoodie and step out of your room, making your way further down at the hall before entering the final room on the right. You start the load right away, ignoring the nerves that bubble up in your chest as you finally make your way back to the living room/kitchen.

“The wash should only take forty minutes and then I’ll dry it right after so you don’t—”

You pause the second you see Geto standing against the far wall of the living room, a picture frame in his hands.

Glancing over your shoulder, Geto grins; “you were an adorable little girl.”

Face hot, you scramble, crossing the distance between the both of you and frantically yanking the photo from his hands. Geto lets you with a simple laugh, it grows in volume the second you hug the photo to your chest, turning away from him.

“It’s not that embarrassing.”

“Yes it is,” you pout up at him. “My parents insist on keeping this stupid photo even though I look horrendous.”

Geto just shakes his head. “You look cute. Especially with your little pig-tails.”

Glowering at him, you huff; “shut it. I’d like to see a photo of you when you were younger and see how fashionable you were then.”

“Okay,” Geto shrugs. “I’ll show you someday.”

It’s not the response you’re expecting. Not at all. Stunned, you turn to face him, lips parting as he smiles down at you warmly. The expression on his face is clear – he means it.

“O-oh, well—”

You’re cut off by the sound of the front door opening. Jumping, you spin around only to see your mom making her way in, the frame still clutched tightly against your chest as you freeze, Geto doing the same behind you—both of you oddly feeling embarrassed like you’d been caught doing something embarrassing when all you’d been doing is talking.

Geto’s cheeks are pink as he pushes his face into his shirt, trying to hide.

“M-mom!”

Blinking, your mom pauses by the door, meeting your eyes before glancing back at Geto who stands behind you. She blinks once or twice more before she smiles, somewhat nervously; “honey, who’s this?”

You remember then your mom doesn’t know who Geto is and you didn't tell her you were bringing someone over.

“O-oh,” you stutter, mind racing as you glance back at Geto who meets your gaze back. “This is—”

“Geto Suguru,” Geto answers for you, stepping past you swiftly to offer a hand to your mother. She seems surprised at first but her features ease into a warm smile, eyes shining as she shakes Geto’s hand in response. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Damn. you didn’t know Geto could be that smooth.

“It’s lovely to meet you too,” your mother beams. “Are you a friend of my daughters? I assumed that she’d still be out on her date.”

Tensing, a flash of Sukuna laughing at you comes to mind.

That’s right… you’d forgotten in the midst of everything with Geto.

“It was more like a hangout with friends,” Geto explains swiftly. “I offered to walk her home. That’s all.”

Your mother takes the explanation with ease. “Oh. What a gentleman!”

Geto just laughs bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. You watch as the bun he normally holds his longer hair in loosens somewhat and for a brief moment, you have a burning desire to see it loose around his shoulders.

You blink yourself out of that thought quick.

“Would you like to stay for dinner, Suguru? I’m making some miso soup for dinner.”

“No that’s okay,” Geto brushes off gently. “I should really be heading home.”

Finally finding the courage to speak up, you rush forward; “but your hoodie!”

Your mother just glances at you confused but Geto shakes his head, smiling at you; “just give it to me on Monday,” he waves your concern away, moving to put back on his shoes. The second they’re on, he turns to your mother; “it was lovely to meet you, Ms. Y/L/N.” Then, his eyes fall on you and you freeze, confused by how piercing his gaze is. “I’ll see you Monday.”

You nod, numbly, and then he’s opening the door, offering one more wave before making his way out.

And you stand there for a moment longer, confused by the racing of your heart.

“Well,” your mother sings with a knowing look. “He was certainly handsome, wasn’t he?”

It was only Sunday, so you haven’t returned his hoodie to him yet… oddly, you found yourself excited.

A buzz pulls you from your thoughts and you come to the startling realization that you’ve been standing in front of Sukuna’s door, practically daydreaming about Geto. Slapping your cheeks lightly, you shake your body, pulling your phone from your pocket, smiling when you see it’s a text from Shoko.

Of course, you’d called her yesterday telling her what you planned on doing and she’d been more than ecstatic — given that this is something she’s been waiting for since when you and Sukuna practically started dating, you knew she had to be the first one you told. She’d expressed how proud she was of you and how she expected to hear every little detail Monday.

She was just texting you to wish you luck; 

hope you make him cry :))) he deserves it!

Then, following that, she texts; 

seriously tho, good luck. call me if he’s mean and ill come beat him up

Laughing softly to yourself, you’re quick to reply with a thanks and a joke about making him cry in return. Once it’s sent, you move to put your phone away, figuring you should actually get on with it instead of just standing out here like a freak — it would be the worst if he opened the door and caught you.

But, just as you move to turn your phone off, another text buzzes in.

And it’s not Shoko.

It’s Gojo.

What’re you doing?? 

Brows furrowing, you step back, moving so you’re not so obnoxiously in front of his door and move to reply.

About to break up with my boyfriend

Well, might as well be honest.

Why?

Gojo’s reply comes a second later.

Oh??? 0_0

Biting your lip, you snort.

Yup. 

Did you need something?

This time, his reply takes a bit longer. Your brows furrow when you see the speech bubble pop up and disappear a few time before finally, his message comes through; 

Nope! Good luck :P

Well… that was odd.

Thanks?

Gojo doesn’t reply after that. A few more minutes of waiting and you realize he’s moved on, you finally pocket your phone once again, eyes turning towards the door to Sukuna’s apartment. It was now or never–no more stalling or daydreaming… you needed to do this.

Taking one sharp inhale, you knock against the door. A few seconds pass and you hear footsteps approaching, and you expect it to be his little brother that opens the door (since it usually was), but to your surprise, it’s Sukuna.

His eyes narrow when he sees it’s you.

“What are you doing here?” He asks gruffly, and you take in the fact that he’s shirtless with only a pair of sweatpants hanging low on his hips.

Fuck… you forgot that how attractive he was.

No! Focus Y/N! Focus!

Shaking your head, you meet his gaze head on. “Is anyone home?”

Confused, Sukuna just raises a brow. “No? The idiots out with his friends.”

“Perfect,” you smile, stepping in without giving him the chance to argue otherwise. Your name leaves his lips in annoyance but you just ignore him, forcing yourself past him and moving so you’re standing in the living room, facing him with a small smile.

Huffing, Sukuna shuts the door with a somewhat aggressive slam before coming to stand in front of you.

“So?” He growls, “what is it?”

Straightening your back, you meet his eyes. “We’re over.”

There’s a beat of silence, it lasts for a second, then another, before a mocking laugh bubbles from Sukuna’s throat. “What?”

Stealing your nerves, you nod. “I’m breaking up with you,” you explain, voice tight. “I thought it would be right for me to do it in person rather than over text.”

The amusement fades from Sukuna’s face and he genuinely looks shocked when he realizes you’re serious; “you’re… actually breaking up with me?”

“Yes,” you assure, taking extra care to keep your arms next to you and not hug yourself out of comfort. You’re nervous, you’re positive you’re shaking, but you focus on making your voice as even and confident as possible. “That was all I wanted to say. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’ll be going now.”

And you move to leave, but his hand wraps around your upper arm, halting your movements. His grip is tight, fingers pinching into your skin and you freeze.

“You must be joking,” he practically growls, and your eyes fall on him in surprise. “There’s no way you’re actually trying to break up with me right now.”

Swallowing thickly, you try to pull your arm out of his grip to no avail. “Yes, I am.”

His grip tightens, turning painful and a cry leaves your lips. The shock quickly twists into fear and you stare at Sukuna in disbelief. 

“You? Break up with me?”

“Yes,” you ground out, trying to ignore the fear. “Now. Let go.”

He doesn’t. Instead, Sukuna shifts and then his free hand is grabbing your other arm and he’s pushing you back, forcing you to stumble backwards as you try not to stumble over your own feet.

“Sukuna! Let go!”

“No. Shut up and listen.” He growls, and the harshness of his tone surprises you, body freezing as his grip tightens further–you’re sure there’s going to be bruises there tomorrow. “You don’t get to break up with me. Not you.”

“What-What are you even talking about?” You gasp, confused, baffled and worst of all, afraid. You thought you’d been so brave coming in here and breaking up with him. You thought you’d finally decided to stop letting him walk all over you and yet, here you are, terrified and stumbling over your words. “D-Don’t you hate me? Why… Why else would you kiss Mei Mei?”

And Sukuna freezes, body stilling as his eyes zone in on you. “You saw that?”

“I-I…” Forcing yourself to calm down, you nod; “I did.”

Sukuna laughs at that. “And you still ate lunch with me? You still decided to go on that date with me?”

Bewildered, you shake your head. “I was—”

“Why break up now?” He cuts in, leaning close. “What’s changed?”

He squeezes your arms when you don’t answer right away and you yelp.

“What’s changed?”

“I-I… I don’t want to be with you anymore!” The words tumble from your lips, quick and scared and without thought and yet, it’s the complete truth that comes pouring from you. “I’m tired of feeling like nothing because of you!”

Sukuna doesn’t say anything at first. His grip never wavers but he just stands there, staring at you, all whilst you try to pull yourself away. Then, just as his lips part, the sound of his name being called pulls both of your guys’ attention away from each other and on Yuji, his little brother, who stands by the door with his two friends, a boy and a girl that you’ve seen once or twice around the house the few times you’ve been over.

All three of them are looking at you both in surprise, but Yuji looks the most upset, a disturbed look on his face as his eyes settle in on the bruising grip Sukuna holds on your arm.

He loosens his grip a second later and you’re quick to take that chance to pull away, stumbling from him, meeting Sukuna’s eyes before focusing back on Yuji. You move quick, without thought, avoiding everyone's gaze as you straighten yourself out, rushing past Sukuna and towards the door where Yuji and his friends quickly move out of your way. Yuji looks like he wants to say something, reaching out for you in concern, but stops himself.

Just as you’re about to step out, you turn back to Sukuna.

“I meant it,” you force out, gripping the door tight to steady yourself. “We’re through.”

And the door falls shut behind you, your feet moving rapidly to get away and get home as fast as possible.

The second you are gone, Sukuna sends one sharp look at his brother before making his way to his room, slamming the door shut behind him and slamming his fist right into the wall next to it.

[writtenbeneaththestars]

Stood on the cliffside screaming

Summary: Jameson and Grayson deal with the anniversary of Emily's death Warnings: thoughts of suicide, angst, past character death (please tell me if I missed any!!) A/N: I'm really bad at writing romance so uh I'm sorry in advance for the kinda small averyjameson scene at the beginning.... *please tell me if I made any mistakes!!*

Tags: @catapparently, @urbanflorals, @nqds, @reminiscentreader, @never-enough-novels

“Jamie,” Avery said as she laid a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder. He turned to give her a soft smile.

“Heiress.” She could tell he was holding something back. And she had a few suspicions about what that something was.

“I know what the date is, Jameson Hawthorne.” He tensed for the briefest moment under her hand before relaxing again.

“Happy birthday, heiress.”

“You know that wasn’t the day I was talking about,” Avery said softly. They both knew exactly what she was talking about. They both knew exactly why today was what it was.

October eighteenth. The happiest and worst day of Jameson’s life. The day Avery was born and the day Emily died.

“I know,” Jameson muttered softly, leaning down to kiss his girlfriend. It was soft. He was letting her decide what to do with it. But really, what choice was there but to kiss him back? Deep and yearning. It was a feeling she wanted to go on for forever. But it couldn’t and they both knew that.

“You’re going to have to talk about it at some point you know,” Avery said, pulling away. She was close enough to feel his breath tickle her skin. Close enough to just lean in and let the world melt away yet again. To just let everything go and fall into his arms. But she couldn’t when he was hurting. They both knew that.

“Can’t we just celebrate the good thing?” His breath whispered across her face. She wanted nothing more than to celebrate today, but she wanted to do it when one of her favorite people in the world wasn't in pain.

“You’re hurting, Jamie.” He let out a soft sigh but didn’t back away.

“Today will never be easy. I think you know that. But it’s easier when I’m with you. When I think about the good things and not the bad.” He lifted his hand and rested it on her face. “Like the fact that today was the day you were born into this world. The day that meant that sometime in the future, we would meet each other. The day that led to this.”

“Jamie.” Her voice was barely audible. She was scared that any volume louder than that would break the delicate calm in the storm they had created.

“Heiress.” He returned with the same gentleness.

“I love you.” And they descended into a kiss yet again. Just when their lips touched, she heard someone clearing their throat. Avery whipped her head around, and saw Nash standing in the doorway with a smug grin. Crap.

“You know,” the eldest Hawthorne brother said, walking in. “You really ought to close the door when you’re making out.” He looked over at Avery. “Happy birthday.”

“Oh, um, th– thank you,” Avery managed to stutter out. She was sure her face was red at this point. What was more embarrassing than having your boyfriend’s older brother slash older sister’s fiancé walking in on you kissing? Jamie sighed, narrowing his eyes at his brother.

“Why are you here, Nash.”

“I was bored,” he said, shrugging. Then he paused for a moment before turning to Jamie with concern in his eyes. “How are you doing?” Jameson rolled his eyes with a scoff.

“I’m fine, Nash.” Nash looked at Avery, raising his eyebrows.

‘Better,’ Avery mouthed, taking her boyfriend’s hand. Nash nodded. That was good. As the oldest brother, he was always worried about them. But today especially. Emily’s death day was never good for Jamie and Gray. But Jamie has Avery to keep him from doing anything too reckless now, and he was grateful for that.

“Has anyone seen Gray today?” He asked. Avery felt Jameson’s hand tense in her own.

“You haven’t?” To anyone else, his voice would have sounded carefree and light. But Avery knew what he was really feeling. Despite how he wanted everyone to think, Jameson cared about his brothers a lot. He was worried. And the more worried he got, the more he tended to pretend that he wasn’t.

“I was going to check the pool next,” Nash said with a shrug.

“No,” Jameson said, a strange expression on his face. “His two AM swim should be over by now.” His tone was mocking, but Avery knew better. A look of realization dawned on his face as he let out a curse.

“You know where he is, don’t you,” Nash said, watching as his brother put on a thin jacket, no doubt getting ready to leave the house. Jamie paused, letting out a dramatic sigh.

“Oh, ‘tis so woeful being the only genius in this house.” He left the room, but not before giving one more smirk back at Avery and Nash. She started to follow him out, but Nash put a hand on her shoulder.

“Something about this tells me that they need to do this alone,” he muttered. He shot her a grin. “And if they end up not killing each other in the next ten minutes, we can go get them then.” Avery nodded, before turning to Nash with a puzzled expression.

“How will we know where to go?” Nash shot her another grin, and then it clicked. “You already know where he is, don’t you.” Nash shrugged.

“I figured this was something they should do themselves first.” Of course he already knew. “Although,” he added. “I don’t particularly like the spot Gray chose.” He shrugged, but Avery could tell he was worried too. The brothers cared about each other. And Nash being the oldest one, well, he’s had more experience than all of them in dealing with and taking care of the Hawthorne brothers. “I’ll text you in five,” he called out behind him as he left her room.

****

The wind was cold, but Grayson couldn’t feel it. It was unusually cold for an October day, but he supposed it fit. It was funny, in a twisted sort of way how much he wanted to just– no. He wasn’t allowed to show that. He wasn’t allowed to say that. He could only think that because he needed to be perfect. And perfect people don’t think about jumping off to see if they would fly, knowing damn well they can’t.

Perfect people wouldn’t be like Grayson Hawthorne.

He would just swim. Just swim until he physically couldn’t anymore, then he’d swim one more lap after that. To get rid of the noise. To get rid of the hurt. To get rid of the numb. But it always returned with a vengeance the moment he stopped. But this cliff? This cliff was fine. Yeah, it was fine. He could just– he could just stay here a little longer, right?

He had lost track of time at this point. How long had he been up here, looking over the edge? How long had he been shut off and numb to the world around him? Well, he knew the answer to that. Since practically forever. He couldn’t remember a single day when nothing hurt. When nothing was wrong. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. He wouldn’t let it matter.

Sometime, somewhere in the fog that had taken over his brain, he heard footsteps from behind him. It was funny how he could be so lost yet so aware at the same time. He picked on the littlest things these days, yet he was still never fully present for any of it.

At first he thought he was making it all up. He’s made up entire people before, so what's stopping him from making up this sound? Still he whipped his head around, and was filled with the slightest of shock and relief that he wasn’t making it up.

“So I was right,” he heard his brother say when he turned his head back around. Jameson sounded smug, but Grayson had long gained the ability to see – and hear – through his facade. He was worried. Grayson wanted to scoff and shake some sense into him because Grayson Hawthorn did not need any worry. He didn’t deserve it.

“How are you today, Jameson?” He asked, because asking Jameson and making sure he was ok was easier than telling him that Grayson wasn’t. He wouldn't admit it was because he cared about his brother. He just wouldn’t. He was met with a scoff coming from his right as Jameson sat down next to him.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, sure.” Grayson said. His brother could deflect as much as he wanted, but Grayson could do it better.

“Well that’s rich coming from the person who’s sitting on the edge of the cliff where they watched someone die.” Grayson could do nothing but shrug. There was a pause before Jameson spoke again. “It’s hard, but I’m getting through it. Avery’s helping.” Grayson nodded. That was good. As much as he hated to show it, he hated the idea of any of his brothers being hurt. “How are you?” So he really did ask it, huh.

“I’m fine.” He was aware that he was echoing Jameson, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

“Yeah, because sitting on the edge of the cliff where Emily died for who knows how long at this point is certainly the definition of fine.” He flinched when her name was mentioned and he knew Jameson noticed. He was relieved when it wasn’t brought up. “Talk to me, Gray.” But he couldn’t. Didn’t he understand? He couldn’t. He let out a quiet sigh.

“Life is funny, isn’t it?” Grayson turned to his brother for the first time since he arrived, laughing darkly. He turned back to the direction of the edge. “It just has to make them both land on the same date, doesn’t it.” He turned his head up to look at the sky. Jameson didn’t talk. “I’m just– I’m so sick of it.” He couldn’t bring himself to care that he was revealing what he had kept buried for his entire life, and to his brother no less.

“Of the dates?” Jameson sounded light, like he didn’t have a care in the world, but Grayson heard the heaviness in his voice nonetheless.

“Of life.” He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, unearthing feelings he had taught himself to suppress for as long as he could remember. But it felt like nothing. Like he was just empty.

“You were going to jump off that cliff.” Jameson said, his voice a mix of emotions that Grayson didn’t have the energy or motivation to pick apart. The part he did catch though, was that it wasn’t a question.

“No.” On some level, he was aware that he was talking. But it felt like he was underwater. Which was funny, because he realized that he sort of wanted to be. Underwater. And to never come back up. “I was going to step off.” He realized on some level that his voice sounded hollow. Like it had died a long time ago, and was decaying. It was funny because that was how he felt. Turned out his voice reflected it too. He realized he had a strange sense of humor.

“How long?” And Grayson knew exactly what he was asking. How long had he been this way? How long had he wanted to simply die and not be revived?

“The question you ought to ask isn’t how long,” he said, “rather when am I not.” He heard footsteps coming from behind them. Ah, so their ten minutes alone were up according to Nash.

“Have you guys gotten all your angst out yet?” He heard his youngest brother say. Leave it to Xander to lighten the mood.

“Meh,” Jameson said, and Grayson could hear him smirking. He knew without looking that Avery sat down next to his brother, and Nash was in the process of sitting down next to him. And Libby sat next to Nash, Max sat next to Avery, and Xander sat next to Max.

“So,” Avery said after a moment of silence. “The cliff?” Grayson shrugged.

“Personally,” Nash started saying, placing a hand on Grayson’s shoulder. He found that he strangely didn’t mind. “I think it’s a bit cold, but oh well.”

“Ok, now that everyone is here,” Jameson said after another moment of silence. “You can’t lie anymore. How are you really, Gray?” He was aware his heart was pounding, but he was too busy making sure he didn’t cry. Because Grayson Hawthorn could not cry. How long had he spent his childhood wishing, pleading that someone would ask him that? But now– now he didn’t know what to say.

“I have no idea.” His voice was monotone and conveyed no emotion at all. Just the way he liked it. Just the way Tobias liked it.

“That’s ok,” Nash said, and something in him broke. He felt a tear silently fall from his eyes. That was another thing. Crying silently. He had taught himself how to do that when he used to cry in the middle of the night before he had mastered the art of blocking everything out. And they just kept coming.

And then Jameson hugged him and they fell faster. They never hugged. Jameson pulled back and looked into his eyes.

'I know,' they were saying. 'I’ve got you. You’re safe. I know.'

The date would always be hard. But they had each other. And that made it that much more tolerable. And it would be ok.

It would be ok.

[shayshaybiscuit25]

Ooh chile it’s just like the beginning of this mess, I remember a former pr blog here saying they got a random anon asking about their Twitter page and then some time went by and the blog found out that Chris’ Twitter account blocked them. We were all like….. 😳 because she never even spoke about him nor this mess on Twitter at all.

So seeing this now, and assuming you guys are referring to being able to use his @ on Instagram, it seems some people here are blocked from using his tag on IG and others aren’t ….if I have this correct ….and I’m sure many of you don’t post about this crap on IG and if you do I’m sure it’s not enough to be flagged or blocked.

So to test my little theory, ready, okay……for anyone who has a blog here where they’ve publicly discussed this shitshow, …..if you all have an IG account, please let us know if you can @ his name there. If you can’t, my follow up is……have you publicly shared or spoken about your IG accounts here on tumblr at all, if not……I got no explanation. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I tried. 😅

Everyone else who lurks on Tumblr or has private blogs here and also have an IG, please do the same and let us know.

We need to tally the difference to see if people who don’t speak about him at all either here or on IG are also blocked from using his @ or if it’s only the ones who’ve talked about this situation here and have publicly shared their IG accounts.

Also, if you were previously unable to use his @ on IG, but after this is posted you magically can again…..please let us know. 😉 😂

I don’t know what’s going on, maybe a glitch but if not then these mofos are going to learn, people on here aren’t stupid, so let us catch him or his team doing some stupid shit while pretending fans opinions don’t matter nor count for anything. 🙄

Hoping it’s just a glitch but if not I have a few choice words for Mr. Evans. 😒

To think they didn’t realize the power his fans had is crazy, we could have had him in a better position popularity wise without this stupid stunt. But anyway let me hush in case it’s just a glitch.

[roxannarambles]

Title: Wings of a Butterfly, Eye of the Tiger (Part 4)

Ship: Nemona x Juliana (Julinemo/Terajules)

Summary: Nemona and Juliana just can’t resist returning to Area Zero once more. They find new places to explore, new pokemon to discover, and a new things to learn … about pokemon battling, but also about each other. (Sequel to Picnic in Paradise)

Chapters: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Tags: Slowburn, Romance, Friendship, Crushes, Action/Adventure, Pokemon Battles, Fakemon

“What the heck kind of Tera type is that?!” Nemona yelled, eyes wide. 

“Umm, I have no idea!”

“So we’re seeing a brand-new type?! Holy crap! Jules, this– this is incredible!”

Nemona’s eyes were gleaming nearly as bright as the Terastallized pokemon. 

“Y-yeah, but–”

The dragon opened its mouth and expelled a cloud of flames. You yelped and backed away, grabbing Nemona’s hand and dragging her with you. You were able to escape the reach of the flames, although you could feel the wall of heat they put out. Hellcat snarled, agitated by the attack. Nemona said,

“Aw geez. I’m sorry Hellcat, this has been a real trial by fire for you, hasn’t it?”

Hellcat clearly wanted to fight back, but the Roaring Moon was still out of reach, floating above the pit of blackness.

“Jules, what secondary type did this thing have?”

“Dark! I think.”

“Ok. Hmm, if it’s gonna keep us at arm’s length like this, we’re gonna have to send something out to meet it!”

You looked at your assortment of pokeballs, exclaiming,

“But what? We have no idea what Tera type it is!”

“That’s true, but it’s okay, we’re just gonna have to improvise!” She selected one of her pokeballs and looked to you, asking,

“You ready?”

“I-I, um . . .” You struggled to make your selection, flustered over having to deal with so many unknowns.

From the sky, Roaring Moon began to fly in several looping circles, its body glowing in a purple light. Nemona’s confident expression slipped.

“Crap, it’s Dragon Dancing! Juliana, we gotta hurry!”

“Right, right, sorry, ready!”

You both tossed a ball, Nemona releasing her Flutter Mane, you sending out the new Screech Tails. 

“Moonblast!”

“Dazzling Gleam!”

The pair of fairies floated out to meet the dragon, one on either side of it. Roaring Moon shrieked, lunging forward and swinging one of its mighty forearms, its glittering talons shredding into Flutter Mane like it was tissue paper. It fainted instantly. 

“Dangit!”

Nemona’s pokemon may have been cut short before it could get an attack off, but your Screech Tails took advantage of the momentary distraction, firing off a Dazzling Gleam before Roaring Moon could do anything more. 

You could hear a loud crash like shattering glass, and the air was filled with shards of crystal spraying in all directions. You and Nemona watched in shock as Roaring Moon returned to its usual form, looking momentarily stunned as it drifted there in the air. You said,

“Already? Whoa, that didn’t last long.”

“Guess Roaring Moon doesn’t have much stamina. Try to lure it over here with the next attack so we can catch it!”

You nodded.

“Okay. Uh, I don’t think it can take another Dazzling Gleam, though, and Psychic won’t work. Uhmm . . . Screech Tails! This way, come back over here!”

You waved a berry at it, trying to draw it over. You’d literally just captured this pokemon, after all, and hadn’t had much time to train it yet. Fortunately, Screech Tails slowly drifted back towards you, drooling.

Unfortunately, Roaring Moon had finished shaking itself from its daze. Its yellow eyes narrowed, locked onto the puffy pink fairy.

“Uh-oh. Screech Tails, use . . . umm, something else!” 

You hadn’t actually had the chance to see its full moveset yet. Screech Tails’ eyes began to glow pink, its tails drifting upwards.

“No, no, not Psychic–”

The ferocious dragon swooped at your pokemon, roaring as it closed in, but its body phased clean through Screech Tails as if it wasn’t even there. The dragon slammed into the cave wall, the ground trembling with the force, causing you and Nemona to jump. Screech Tails unleashed its energy at its foe, but it was a futile effort.

“Try again Screech Tails, use something else, quick!”

Roaring Moon righted itself and turned about, apparently too bent on revenge to bother with anyone else for the moment. It slashed its long claws into Screech Tails, doing some heavy damage. In return, Screech Tails fearlessly bit down on the dragon’s arm, latching on with its fangs. This only seemed to tick the dragon off, though, and it bit and slashed at Screech Tails with its other arm, wrestling in the air above you and Nemona. Your friend called,

“Now’s probably our best chance, start throwing balls!”

Your Screech Tails fainted soon after she’d shouted it anyway; she chucked a pokeball and it drew the dragon inside. It released immediately and you started throwing balls as well. Eventually, one of your Dusk Balls captured it successfully. You picked up the ball, then turned to Nemona. With a little smile, you said,

“Well . . . looks like you got your Roaring Moon.”

Nemona grabbed you and answered gleefully,

“Not just a Roaring Moon, but a new Tera type too?! Let it out, we gotta see it in action!!”

You laughed,

“Okay, okay. I guess since we can’t explore further anyway, we might as well . . . um . . . uh . . . N-nemona?”

“What?”

You pointed wordlessly behind her. She turned to face the tunnel that had been previously blocked by the large, dense cluster of crystals. 

There was now no trace of the crystals.

“What??” She turned to you. “How–”

“I don’t know.”

She went to stand in the tunnel, looking around. 

“We’re not crazy, right? They were just here!”

You went to stand beside her.

“Yeah, they were. I dunno what to say.” 

It wasn’t like they had broken up during the course of the battle, either; there would have been shards all over if they had. It was like they’d just . . . vanished. You both scratched your heads a bit puzzling over it. Nemona guessed,

“Maybe it had to do with the Roaring Moon we fought? That’s the only thing I can think of. It did have that weird Tera type, so maybe it’s connected somehow?”

You shrugged.

“Honestly, in the absence of any other information, that seems as good an explanation as any. It’s the only thing that really changed since I last saw the crystals . . .”

Nemona hummed, nodding. Then she turned to you and said brightly,

“Well, let’s not look a gift Mudsdale in the mouth, we can keep going now!”

“You sure? I thought you wanted to check out our Roaring Moon.”

“I do! I’m so excited I could puke, but I also wanna keep exploring just as much. I mean, we don’t have endless time down here and we’re already this far in, right? It might be now or never.”

She had a good point; you weren’t even sure if you two could return again after today, if your transgressions were discovered somehow. 

You nodded.

“Ok. No getting side-tracked, let’s keep going until we no longer can.”

“All right! Let’s go, Hellcat.”

The tunnel took you down to another room that was more confined, with a much lower ceiling. The good news was there were several directions with additional tunnels in here. The bad news was they all seemed to be blocked by the same dense crystal formations. You and Nemona looked around for a while, frustrated to be met with more roadblocks so soon. There weren’t any wild pokemon lurking about, but you did eventually notice a small gap much higher up, towards the ceiling. 

“Hey what about up there?” you asked. Nemona looked to the corner you were pointing towards.

“Oh, hey, nice eye! Maybe there’s a way through.”

It took some climbing to scramble up there, but it was only the work of a few minutes. Well, for you and Nemona, anyway. Hellcat bounded up there in just a few clean leaps, taking mere seconds. You were jealous.

“Man, you ever wish you were a pokemon?” you asked, watching Hellcat venturing ahead of you. 

“Oh my god yes, like all the time!” Nemona answered immediately,

“Can you imagine battling as a pokemon?! That would be SO much fun.”

You chuckled. Of course that was the first thing she’d think of. The pair of you followed after Hellcat into the small gap, going deeper into the cave.

“What pokemon would you be if you could choose?” you asked her.

“I dunno, there’s too many to pick from! That’s like trying to decide my favorite type, I’ve never really been able to. Mmm, it’d be so cool to be a giant dragon with all that raw power, but what about something small and super agile that can shoot lightning? Or something that breathes fire? Or can punch a hole through a mountain! And that’s not even touching on all the cool abilities . . .”

“I think I’d wanna be something that can fly.”

“Flying, yeah!! Oh man, there’s just too many choices.”

The small tunnel you were following kept narrowing and snaking around. 

“Well maybe they’ll make a machine one day that lets us be a pokemon for a while.”

“Haha, if they do, I’ll be the first in line, I can promise you that!”

The tunnel finally fed into a room: as you entered, you found it was a cramped space with a low ceiling coated in a ton of tera crystal. The crystals occurred in big lumpy sections, covering the floors, walls and ceiling in seemingly random places. 

The most eye-catching thing about the room, however, was that the ground was absolutely covered in tera shards. 

Normally, whenever a Terastallized pokemon battles and their tera form is broken, it sheds a bunch of tiny pieces in the process. Usually those pieces are tiny and brittle, though, and people call those tera fragments. Tera shards, however, were the much rarer, higher-quality pieces that sometimes were dropped by pokemon. These pieces were of such high quality that if you collected enough of them, a Pokemon’s Tera typing could be changed with their power. That made them incredibly valuable. Finding them was very uncommon, though– normally it takes a lot of battling, although if you were lucky you’d occasionally just find them laying around.

This was most assuredly not a normal number of tera shards to just happen across, though. There had to be hundreds of pieces packed into the small space you were now standing in. What’s more, they were shards of almost every type; dragon, fire, psychic, bug, rock, poison, ice . . . the floor covered in an assortment of colors, shimmering like stardust.

“Uhhmmm . . .” you said, staring in disbelief at the cache. Hellcat was sniffing around curiously at the ground. Nemona’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Is this for real? Juliana, there’s . . . this . . . there’s hundreds of them . . .”

You reached down and picked up a handful of the precious gems as easy as grabbing a handful of sand. Something suddenly sprung into your memory from your classes from months back, when you’d first arrived. “Remember the rumors that there was treasure hidden in Area Zero?”

Nemona laughed. She still sounded in shock.

“I never imagined they were true. We could change the Tera type of any of our pokemon with all this! Multiple times over!”

That sounded pretty good to you; there were a few ideas you wanted to experiment with in terms of the tera typings on your team. You pulled the bag off your back and zipped it open.

“Guess we better start collecting, then!”

You both started to stuff tera shards into your backpacks like hungry Sableye grabbing fistfuls of treasure. Before long your bags were laden heavy with them.

“I’m actually starting to feel kinda bad about this. I don’t think we should take them all . . .” Nemona said, looking down into her backpack. Your backpack was much larger than hers, but even yours would soon reach its limit.

“I don’t think we can take it all, anyway. But I don’t see a reason to feel bad, I mean, it’ll just sit down here in the dark if we don’t take them, right? Might as well put them to use.”

“I guess . . .”

You headed over to another part of the small room that had an especially large pile of Steel shards and began to shovel them into your bag.

“I can’t help wondering if there’s a reason they’re here, though. It’s almost like they were put here on purpose? There’s so many of them,” Nemona said, still sounding reluctant. You answered,

“Maybe. But if somebody put them down here, it was probably a really long time ago. Area Zero’s been off-limits to most people for ages now.”

You were digging deep into the pile of steel shards, and were uncovering what looked like some shimmery rainbow shards beneath it. Ooh, you’d never seen shards like that before? From behind you, Nemona said,

“Yeah . . . but it’s also possible whoever put these here weren’t human . . .”

When you tried to grab the rainbow tera shards, you realized the shape didn’t feel right– and then they moved in a sudden jerk, and there were a pair of eyes staring back at you. You yelped, falling backwards as a brilliant flash filled the room. Nemona commanded,

“Hellcat, in front, quick!”

The large tiger leapt in front of you, snarling as the bright rays of light struck it in the chest, the air sparkling with tera energy from the attack. Nemona was at your side a second later, helping to pull you to your feet.

“Jules, are you okay?!”

You nodded quickly, looking back at what attacked you.

“What was that?”

Beneath the pile of tera shards, the glittering figure of a Terastallized pokemon appeared, pieces of shards falling aside as it stood on all fours and shook itself off. Its body was small and slender and very catlike: it seemed to be short-haired, but it had jagged, star-shaped tufts of fur on the tips of its large ears, by each of its paws, the tip of its tail, on its cheeks and at a small ruff of fur around its neck. Its almond-shaped eyes were bright like polished opal, and it had a small spiral horn at the center of its forehead. It was crowned with the same Tera Jewel as the Roaring Moon had been, decorated in a rainbow of colors.

Hellcat looked eager to attack, growling at the pokemon and bearing its long fangs, but Nemona held up a hand, saying,

“Just a second, Hellcat, let’s take a look at it first. Whoa . . .”

The wild pokemon blinked its eyes, a soft, ethereal light glowing gently around it. You didn’t recognize the move, but at least it seemed to be fairly passive. 

“Nemona, am I crazy or does this pokemon look like–”

“--an Eeveelution?” “Y-yeah!”

“Yeah, no, you’re not crazy, it looks exactly like one.”

“Oh my god.”

She nodded, grinning.

“My thoughts exactly. Okay, Hellcat–”

You touched her wrist, saying,

“Wait!”

“Hm? What?”

You looked back at the pokemon, which was simply standing there, its piercing gaze watching the three of you closely as its tail swished back and forth. 

“It seems pretty peaceful. I think I just startled it, when I thought its ear was a tera shard and I tried to grab it.”

Nemona turned to you and answered,

“Well yeah but you still wanna catch it, don’t you??”

You nodded,

“Yeah, of course, I just. I dunno, for some reason I feel kinda bad. We came into its home and robbed it, woke it up and now we’re gonna battle it?”

Nemona blinked at you for a few moments and you felt silly for even saying it until she answered,

“Well when you put it like that, I feel a little bad too . . .”

You looked at your backpack, slumped on the ground and spilling out treasure.

“I guess we could try to leave it be . . . give it back its tera shards?”

The thought clearly seemed to pain Nemona– mostly the idea of not catching the new pokemon, you imagined– but after a few moments she smiled a little and nodded.

“Okay.”

She turned and called out to the pokemon.

“Sorry for disturbing you. We, um, we didn’t know this was your home. We’ll go if you want us to . . .”

The pokemon stared at her, motionless. You went to cautiously pick up your bag, backing away.

“Yeah, and we’ll give you the shards back if you–”

The pokemon jerked, turning to you and giving a cry. It sounded very high-pitched and rhythmic, like glass wind-chimes, but it didn’t sound happy. You looked down at the bag in your hands and stammered,

“N-no, wait, I’m going to give them back, I was just–”

“Jules, look out!”

Colored little balls of light began to fill the air above the wild pokemon. They looked quite beautiful, actually, but you knew better than to be fooled. You scrambled to get out of the way as fast as possible. Nemona yelled,

“Hellcat, quick, Dire Claw!”

Hellcat sprung forward, raking its claws across the mysterious Eeveelution. The colored balls of light started to rain down on Hellcat in quick streaks, like shooting stars, each strike sparkling with tera energy as it landed. The accumulated damage was incredible, the tiger swaying weakly on its paws by the end of the onslaught. 

“Holy crap. This thing’s no joke!” Nemona said, eyes wide. 

The Eeveelution cried out again, a vengeful little melody. It looked at you and Nemona, its eyes shining like diamonds, power gathering around its body from all around in a big, glittering swirl. 

It looked like it was preparing to Tera Blast.

“Oh my god. Hellcat, I need you to Thorn Fang! Now!”

Hellcat was weary but still obeyed immediately, leaping forward and biting down. The wild pokemon screamed and staggered back and there was a loud crash, fragments of tera crystal exploding in the little room as its Terastallization was broken. It seemed the wild pokemon had been stunned, interrupting its attack. You breathed,

“Geez, that was close.”

“Great job, Hellcat!” Nemona quickly turned to you, asking,

“You still want to leave it be, or should we go ahead and catch it?”

You looked back to the pokemon briefly.  It looked very weak and vulnerable, and you could see poison seeping out from the wounds marring its shimmering rainbow fur. It was clear that at this point, it was much better to take it with you than to leave. 

“Catch it,” you answered. You didn’t need to tell Nemona twice; she whipped out her pokeballs and immediately started throwing. After around six attempts, the ball clicked shut, and the little room you were in fell eerily silent.

You both stared for a few beats. Then Nemona went and retrieved the ball before turning to you. She held a hand over her mouth and made a muffled, excited little squeal.

“Did that really just happen? This is getting so unreal, I swear.”

“Penny’s gonna be so jealous.”

“I know! Man, I’m glad we interrupted that Tera Blast though, that probably would have been very bad in this confined space.”

You choked on a laugh.

“Yeah, we might not have been around to enjoy this.”

Nemona carried on blithely,

“And that move it used, with the colorful lights! I had no idea what it was, but wow it packed a punch. Whatever pokemon this is, it’s tough.”

You looked down at the pokeball in her hands.

“What do you think it is? An ancient version of Espeon, maybe? Or maybe Sylveon . . .”

Nemona shook her head.

“I really don’t know, it’s hard to say since it was Terastallized into that mysterious type! And it’s not like the moves it used can help us to figure it out. I saw it use Swift, Cosmic Power, and that unknown move of course. And then Tera Blast! Which . . . honestly, I thought no wild pokemon could know. I thought Sada developed the move herself.”

You gave a thoughtful hum.

“That’s a good point . . . that is weird. But I guess maybe tera energy came from a long time ago, and so these ancient pokemon know how to wield its power? She might have developed the move from them.”

“True, that would make sense! Although it doesn’t help us narrow down what this Eeveelution is.”

“Mmm, yeah. Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be an ancient version of something we already know. It could be a brand-new evolution, too. Like a Rock-type Eeveelution, maybe!”

Nemona’s eyes widened as idea struck her and she said,

“Or, or! What if it’s an evolution of whatever this new mysterious type is?? So its actual type matches its tera typing. This new tera type is all rainbow colored and stuff, right? That matches this pokemon pretty well . . .”

Your eyes widened too.

“Oh my god, yeah, that might actually be it, Nemona!”

“Heheh, right? Wouldn’t that be cool?”

You gestured at the space around you, saying,

“Well let it back out, maybe we can figure out more–”

She held up a hand, interrupting.

“Ah-ah, Juliana! Remember what we said earlier?”

You blinked, thrown off for a moment before recalling.

“. . . oh, yeah. Um, no more getting side-tracked?”

“Yeah, c’mon Jules, you know you’re like 85% of my impulse control, you can’t tempt me like that–”

You laughed,

“Okay, okay. You’re right, we shouldn’t get distracted now or we’ll never get any further.”

Nemona nodded.

“Right, and things just keep getting cooler and cooler. I wanna see how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

You grinned.

“Let’s back out of this part of the cave, then. If our theories are right about those weird crystal roadblocks, maybe a new way’s opened up out there.”

“Okay! Hellcat–”

She turned and saw Hellcat was laying on the floor, looking completely exhausted. The tiger gave a pitiful little chirp when Nemona said its name. Nemona’s eyes widened and she held a hand to her mouth.

“Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry Hellcat! I completely forgot– ugh, here, let’s get you fixed up!”

She pulled a potion from her bag and went to tend to the tiger’s wounds. Hellcat clearly wasn’t a fan of being potioned since it apparently stung.

“Come on, now, I know it’s smarts, but if you hold still it won’t take me very long . . .”

She sprayed again and the tiger snarled, bearing its huge fangs at her in a threat.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, buster! Sit down. Now.”

Hellcat backed away and sat, making a miserable grumble. She continued to gently spritz potion on the pokemon.

“Easy now, okay. We’re almost done, I promise.”

When Nemona finished, she gave Hellcat plenty of berries and praised it.

“There you go, that’s such a good kitty! These are your favorite kind, right? You like the bitter ones. You did such a good job, thank you for all your help.”

After the treats and the praise– and the potion working its magic– Hellcat seemed much happier, perking right up. 

“Oh here, let’s get you a couple Leppa berries too, okay? Guess if we keep coming down here to battle and we’re keeping you a secret, we’ll be needing a lot more Leppa berries, hah. Here you go.”

Hellcat snapped the berries out of midair when Nemona tossed them. 

“Sorry again for forgetting you for a minute there. I, um, I kinda get distracted sometimes.”

You spoke up,

“To be fair, so did I. I think most people would be, this is some pretty exciting stuff.”

She glanced to you. 

“Mmm, still. . .”

Hellcat bumped its head against Nemona’s leg and rubbed against it, making a small rumble, before walking off and wandering back out into the connecting tunnel. Nemona stared wide-eyed after the tiger. 

“Did they just . . .”

You giggled.

“I think they forgive you.”

Nemona bounded up to you and cheered,

“They like me!! They actually like me!!”

 “Of course they like you, you’re amazing.”

She laughed, looking a bit shy at how readily you praised her. She glanced away and said,

“Um, let’s finish getting these tera shards, we might as well since we have the pokemon now!”

So the two of you finished filling your bags with tera shards, to the point where you had plenty but weren’t weighed down an excessive amount. Then you headed out of the secret little treasure cache room. Once you’d climbed back down to the main portion of cave where Hellcat awaited, you found that one of the paths was indeed now unblocked. 

“We were right! Yessss, let’s go!”

Nemona grabbed your hand and rushed ahead with you. You laughed, Hellcat chasing after you both. When you entered the new tunnel, you found it sloped gently downwards as you traveled. There was the sound of rushing water from somewhere, and the air felt noticeably damper.

Your voice echoing in the damp, cold space, you said,

“Oh, hey, I can hear water?”

You both slowed your steps so you wouldn’t trip on the slightly wet ground.

“Yeah, it’s been a long time since we have. Guess all that water’s gotta go somewhere though, right?”

You nodded. After walking for a while, you commented,

“We really just keep going deeper, don’t we? All these tunnels have been going steadily downward.”

“Mmhmm. They keep getting more and more crystally, too, I noticed.”

You glanced around, noting just how much of the walls and ceiling were coated in tera crystal now. 

“Yeah, you’re right. Plus, I dunno if this is just my imagination, but I feel like even the air is . . . more shimmery down here?”

It was the same sort of gleam that the air on the surface of Area Zero had, but it seemed thicker here, like a dense cloud of dust motes suspended in a sunbeam. Nemona agreed,

“Yeah . . . I wonder where all this stuff comes from, anyway.”

You both fell quiet for a bit, pondering the mysterious origins of the tera crystals and energy. But before your idle thoughts could formulate into anything particularly solid, the tunnel had led you to a space that opened up again to a huge ceiling and a large drop. The path led into a continuous curve heading downwards, like a massive spiral staircase. From somewhere above you, water leaked out from the ceiling, forming a waterfall that dropped down the center of the room.

“Whoa,” you said, peeking over the edge of the path. You could see the waterfall crashing into a pool of water far below. The glow of all the tera crystals reflected in the water, bouncing and shimmering, casting all kinds of mesmerizing little rainbow flecks on the cave walls.

“Forget the Ten Sights of Paldea, they don’t even come close to this,” Nemona mused. 

You both began to descend the spiral path, but the floor was uneven and slippery from the damp air and so you had to be very careful. There was a portion where the stone had fallen away entirely, but a big chunk of tera crystal had fallen across the gap, acting as a precarious bridge. This was by far the most unnerving section, especially since it was too narrow to comfortably walk side-by-side holding hands. There was a pool of water below you, of course, but you couldn’t actually tell how deep it was, so there was no way knowing if it was safe to fall into. Hellcat took the bridge first, and then Nemona, and finally you, each step careful and measured on the slippery crystal. After that point, the path was comparatively easy, and you worked your way down until finally reaching the bottom.

From down here, you could see the waterfall was crashing into an elevated portion of ground, and the water was relatively shallow and rocky. In fact, you could walk along some parts of the ground until you were practically right beneath the waterfall. The elevated ground continued on for some ways like this, but you could see the water was running off into a deeper pool a bit further ahead. You both worked your way over to stand as close to the waterfall as possible, looking upwards into the room you just descended from. 

“Too bad we can’t dive from the top up there,” Nemona joked. You snorted.

“I’m okay with not jumping that.”

Nemona reached her hand out and through the waterfall.

“This is incredible, though, Jules, it’s like some kind of fairy tale down here or something.”

“I know. I wonder if Sada’s ever been down this far. Or anyone, for that matter.”

Hellcat was not as impressed with the splendor laid out before you. The tiger was sitting on the highest portion of the damp rocks, looking displeased with all of the water and licking its paw. It made a little ‘hrrumph’ sound.

Nemona shook her head.

“You’re gonna have to face your fears sooner or later, Hellcat.”

The tiger glanced at her briefly, then returned to licking its paw, ignoring her. Nemona shrugged.

“Have it your way. You can hang out here while Jules and I check ahead.”

The pair of you walked as far as you could on the raised ground, sometimes hopping over rocks as stepping stones where the water was deeper, until you came across another tunnel. It led into a portion of cave with a very low ceiling and tera crystal formations that were growing wildly out of control, incredibly thick layers built up on the walls and ceiling– way more than you’d seen anywhere else. At its center seemed to be another tunnel entrance, but it was blocked by another one of the crystal roadblocks.

“Wow. The crystals are getting a little intense here, aren’t they?” Nemona said, touching the walls covered in the dense layers of pearlescent sheen.

“I’ll say. I wish it wasn’t blocked off, though. I feel like it must look really cool in there.”

“Well, maybe we can find another one of those weird Terastallized pokemon! I bet there’s one around here somewhere.”

You chuckled,

“Your hunches have all turned out correct so far, so I have no reason to doubt it. Let’s keep looking.”

Nemona seemed to love the prospect of finding yet another new pokemon.

“All right, sounds like a plan! Ooh, plus we can learn more about this mysterious new type at the same time. Hm, we need to give it a name, we can’t just keep calling it ‘the weird type,’ huh?”

You suggested,

“Maybe ‘Rainbow Type?’”

She beamed,

“Oh yeah, I love that! Or maybe ‘Light’? Since rainbows are made of light. I mean, we have Dark types, it would be so cool if there were Light types too, maybe Light would be supereffective on Dark? Oh, but that reminds me–”

She stopped walking and turned to you, excited by her new train of thought.

“The Terastallized pokemon have been confusing me. That Roaring Moon used a move that used tera energy– you can always tell when a move does ‘cause you can see the air swirling with the tera energy, you know?–  I wasn’t sure what move it was though, so I thought it must be this new type, Light or Rainbow or whatever, right?”

You nodded. Nemona continued,

“But I swear when it used the move a second time, it wasn’t powered up anymore. And then that Eeveelution used Swift and it looked like the move used tera energy, too, which is like, what the heck?! Then it used that mysterious move of course, which also used tera energy. So now I don’t get it! Does it get something similar to Pixilate? Or maybe I was just seeing things, I dunno. Did it look to you like that Swift was powered up with tera energy?”

You scratched your neck and answered sheepishly.

“Well, uhm, I was kinda busy panicking at the time, so I’m not sure . . .”

“Oh, right. Pshh, sorry, of course you wouldn’t have noticed. Well it’s fine, I’m sure we’ll find out more soon. Honestly I’m so excited to face an unknown type, part of me doesn’t wanna figure it out too fast.” She laughed and added, “Is that weird?”

You thought about it and shook your head.

“Not at all. When I was exploring Paldea, every time I came across a new pokemon I loved trying to figure out what it was all about.”

You’d been ambling along the tunnel at a leisurely pace while chatting, not really in any hurry. Nemona clasped your shoulder and grinned, saying,

“Exactly, it’s like that! You don’t really want it to end, do you? I was thinking, before we battle later with our new pokemon, we should make sure to train far away from each other. That way we’ll know as little as possible about each other’s teams and there’s more surprises.”

“Sure. I like surprises.”

Her shoes splashing through the shallow water, Nemona enthused at you,

“Yeah, me too! I can’t wait to–”

A sudden, sharp cry caused the both of you to stop in your tracks and look up. Just ahead of you was a Terastallized pokemon, its colors and jewel immediately demarking it as the new Rainbow type. It stood on two legs and appeared to be some sort of raptorial dinosaur, although its slender body was covered in feathers, which included a feathery crest on its head, furls of feathers on its arms, and a long train of feathers on its tail. The pokemon stood quite tall, looking down at you and Nemona over a narrow snout with its pinched eyes and an expression that left you feeling as though it was regarding you with disdain.

You and Nemona exchanged a brief look.

“Speaking of surprises,” you said quietly. Nemona turned back to the pokemon and gushed,

“This is so cool, we’ve had the best luck with finding awesome stuff down here!”

The pokemon lowered its head a little, lips curling back to reveal sharp, needle-like teeth. A cry vibrated in its throat, rhythmic and strange-sounding, almost like a sound an exotic bird might make. Nemona was standing a little closer to the pokemon than you were, and you didn’t like the way it was looking at her at all. You muttered,

“Nemona, careful.”

“Of course. Hmm, what should I use . . . oh, I know–”

She reached to her belt to select a pokeball, but the raptor’s eyes followed the sudden movement and it reacted instantly by unfurling its massive tail.

The sight was breathtaking, dozens and dozens of long, elegant feathers creating a collective shape like a huge blooming flower or a setting sun, each feather tipped in round spots that shimmered with a brilliant, ever-shifting light; the effect was only heightened by its rainbow Terastallization. The pokemon’s tail shivered, causing the feathers to sway and bob in a very hypnotic way. In fact, the more you stared, the stranger you felt; your head grew heavy and you started to feel a sense of vertigo creeping in. 

Uh-oh.

“Nemona!”

Nemona was staring at the pokemon’s tail as well, transfixed, her hand still frozen in place from when she’d been reaching for her pokeballs. 

“Nemona, don’t look at it, I think it’s–”

“–too late, I, nghhh– I can’t– move,” she said through grit teeth, her body quivering with the effort, her fingers unable to even curl around her pokeball. You also tried to move and gasped, your limbs suddenly feeling as though they were as heavy as lead. 

“No, no! Fight it, Nemona, one of us has to send a pokemon out!”

She grunted,

“I’m trying!”

You were trying too, but the mere act of lifting your arm was overwhelmingly difficult. You could flex your fingers but that just wasn’t enough, because you had your pokeballs all in your pockets. You slid your hands up a few inches and couldn’t get any further– it was like your body just refused to listen. It was terrifying, and you wondered if this was how pokemon felt whenever they got paralyzed.

The raptor pokemon took a few slow steps forward, its tail swaying as it moved, its eyes locked on Nemona. Power began to gather around the pokemon’s body, its tail glowing with a warm pink light. From the color you guessed it was charging a Psychic move. 

“Stay away from her!” you screamed, your voice high-pitched in your panic. The pokemon didn’t listen, its tail glowing brighter and brighter, its power rapidly reaching its peak. Nemona was staring at the oncoming move with the expression of someone who realized they’d really screwed up.

You battled hopelessly against your numbed body, your head spinning as you cried,

“Nemona!”

Just as the air began to ripple with the strange energy of a psychic move, there was a shrill, furious scream and the advancing pokemon crumpled under the weight of the tiger from hell leaping onto its back. The pair crashed to the ground, Hellcat clinging to the raptor with its claws and trying to bite it, but ended up getting a mouthful of tail feathers instead. The two grappled desperately for a few moments and somehow the lithe dinosaur was able to slip away from Hellcat’s grasp, although bunches of feathers were left behind in the tiger’s claws. The raptor righted itself and turned to face its foe, flashing its mesmerizing tail feathers in Hellcat’s face.

Nemona shouted,

“Hellcat, be careful, don’t look!”

Hellcat was crouched, ready to leap and pounce, but its pupils widened and it snarled, struggling to move. 

“Damnit,” Nemona cursed quietly. The raptor opened its slender mouth and let loose an enormous blast of water right into Hellcat, the force of the hit pushing the tiger back and crashing it into the wall. The air whirled with mist and glittering tera energy in the wake of the move. Nemona yelled,

“Hellcat! What the heck, now Hydro Pump gets powered up too?! This makes no sense!”

In your efforts to better see the pair of battling pokemon, you realized you were starting to get movement back in your limbs– they prickled with a painful pins-and-needles sensation but you could actually drag them along slowly.

“Nemo, I think I can move again, sort of!”

Nemona answered quickly.

“Perfect! See if you can get into my bag, the side-pouch on the left side.”

You were confused why that was a priority but you trusted her, so you inched along the ground until you reached Nemona’s back. 

“Left side?”

“Yeah, there should be a yellow bottle!”

You lifted your arms slowly. A bit further ahead in the tunnel, you could see the raptor was skulking its way back up to Hellcat. Hellcat hissed. You grasped the zip of Nemona’s pack and dragged it open, fumbling about for a bit before pulling the bottle from her bag.

“That’s it, that’s it! It’s a Paralyze Heal, squirt it on yourself! Then you’ll be able to use some on me.”

“Right, okay!”

You pointed the nozzle at yourself and struggled with squeezing the handle, which they made way more difficult to use than they needed to. You could hear another blast of highly pressurized water and glanced up, seeing Hellcat snarling in pain.

“Hurry, Jules!” Finally, the dumb bottle released its contents, dribbling the medicine on your hands, which immediately made it easier to use. You were able to douse yourself quickly after that, and it felt like magic, the numbness and pins-and-needles melting away, your muscles loosening up again. 

“I got it, I’ll do you now!”

You came around and used the rest of the bottle to spray Nemona all over.

“Great, perfect! More on my legs, they’re still rubbery!” You heard a vicious cry and briefly turned to see Hellcat lashing out, raking the raptor across the face with its toxic claws– then you turned back to finish dousing Nemona with the potion.

“Okay, great job Jules! Let’s go help Hellcat!”

You both approached the pair of pokemon further down the tunnel. The raptor had recovered from Hellcat’s attack and was glowing hot-pink again, preparing another move. Nemona fished around in her bag and pulled out another Paralyze Heal.

“Crap, we’re kind of on the wrong side of the battlefield here,” she realized. The raptor’s back was turned to you both, Hellcat on the other side.

You reached for your pokeballs.

“We can double team this jerk,” you suggested. The raptor finally released a ball of energy, but instead of hitting Hellcat, the energy drifted upwards into the air before simply vanishing away. It was very odd, but you didn’t have time to ponder it, because the next thing you knew, Hellcat sprang forward, sinking its fangs into the dinosaur’s neck.

The Terastallization shattered, coating the ground in little rainbow fragments. The wild pokemon staggered backwards, groaning. 

“Or, um, nevermind, looks like Hellcat has it covered,” you laughed. 

“Great work, Hellcat! We’ll take it from here,” Nemona shouted, chucking a pokeball at the raptor. The ball missed, bouncing off a rock instead. Nemona’s eyes widened and she looked embarrassed.

“Uh, hm, whoops– I haven’t bungled a throw like that for a while . . .”

You looked at how she was holding her braced arm and said,

“I don’t think I potioned you enough, it might be the lingering effects of paralysis. Don’t worry, I’ll get this one.”

She nodded,

“Right, thanks Jules!”

A few Dusk Balls later, and the raptor was safely contained in your pocket. Nemona quickly went to Hellcat once the coast was clear. The tiger was limping from the paralysis and drenched from the Hydro Pumps, looking quite pathetic, but it still allowed Nemona to crouch down and douse it with a Paralyze Heal.

“There you go, this should help. You did so good, Hellcat! You really saved my skin, thank you so much!”

When she’d finished with the potion, Hellcat could move freely again. It shook water from its body vigorously, then butted its head affectionately against Nemona’s. The tiger wasn’t quite aware of its own strength and had bonked Nemona hard enough for her to land on her butt with an “oof,” but she didn’t seem to mind in the least; in fact, she seemed over the moon.

“You’re such a good kitty, you faced all that water and battled through the paralysis just for us,” she said, petting the oversized cat behind the ears. You could hear a deep rumble and at first you worried Hellcat was growling, but then you realized it was purring. 

“Jules, do you hear that?” Nemona whispered, eyes wide with wonder and joy. You nodded.

“I guess it took almost dying for them to realize they like you,” you teased. 

“Oh pssh, we didn’t almost die, it was just–”

She paused when there was a strange crackling noise. You both looked up to see a sphere of pink energy materializing out of nowhere in the air above your heads. Nemona’s eyes widened.

“Crap– Hellcat, MOVE!”

You didn’t know what was going on, but Nemona was sitting on the ground and there was clearly very little time, so you lurched forward and helped yank her to her feet and scramble out of the path of the oncoming orb of energy. Hellcat leapt aside as well, and the orb smashed into the ground, a wave of pink tera energy swirling and sizzling before dissipating, leaving behind a sizable impact crater.

You just stared at the crater for a few seconds, blinking. Nemona let out a sigh. At your confused look, she said,

“Future Sight. Forgot about that, haha . . .”

“Oh,” you said, once it had sunk in,

“Isn’t that a base 120 power move?”

Nemona nodded. You added,

“And uhm, it seemed powered up with tera energy . . .”

She laughed weakly.

“Apparently.”

You looked at Nemona again, your expression one of great dismay.

“Nemona, I think that maybe counts as almost dying!”

“Well it does now. Maybe she should, um, take a quick breather.”

You nodded.

“Yeah, good idea.”

The pair of you walked back to the chamber with the really intense crystal growth to check and see if the way was now clear for travel. However, oddly enough, the crystal roadblock had not budged. It didn’t make much sense, since you’d captured the Rainbow Tera pokemon in the area. You both took the opportunity to rest for a bit, though, sitting on a crystal and snacking on trail mix. You helped apply more Paralyze Heal to Nemona and Hellcat groomed itself so that its fur was all fixed up from its last encounter.

After your rest, you walked back to the section of cave with the big waterfall, searching for any more pokemon along the way. There were a few Carbink and Glimmora drifting around, but no other Rainbow Teras in sight. 

“I’m not sure where else to look. It’s so weird that the one we captured didn’t do it,” you mused, sitting by the waterfall and watching the Carbink floating around. Nemona peered further into the cave and suggested,

“Well, how about we explore this river? It looks like it goes for quite a ways back there, we might find something.”

You stood and came beside her, looking into the water.

“Worth a try. Looks like it goes pretty deep, I’ll get us some help.”

You pulled a pokeball from your pocket, sending Koraidon out. The big lizard looked excited to be let loose again, trilling happily and stomping through puddles, sniffing around. 

“Okay, Scarlet, you ready to go for a swim?”

He immediately turned and ran up to you, eager. You patted him and then hopped aboard, followed by Nemona, who settled onto Koraidon’s flat back right behind you. 

“I doubt Hellcat’s as excited for a swim as Scarlet is, so I think it’s time they rested in their ball for a bit,” Nemona said, pulling out a pokeball and recalling the tiger.

“Probably a good idea. You all set, then?” you asked.

“Yup!”

“Okay then, let’s go, Scarlet!”

Koraidon waded out into the still waters. The water got deeper very quickly, so the pokemon switched to a dog paddle. It was impossible to tell exactly how far the underground river continued on; when you gazed ahead through the narrow channel, the view was eventually obscured in the dimness of the cavern. You felt a little thrill over venturing into the unknown, despite the fact you’d been doing it for a while now; maybe it was the sort of thing that just never got old. As Scarlet carried you both onward through the waterlogged tunnel, the ceiling grew lower and lower, until it was barely higher than your heads. The number of crystals in the cave walls and ceiling also decreased, so there were far fewer gems to throw out their light– as a result, it became much darker. Most of the light came from the tera crystals growing under water, casting a soft, ethereal glow to the cave around you that was more diffused and mysterious than the usual glow from the rest of the cave. You told Koraidon to slow down, moving through the narrow, dark tunnel at a leisurely pace. For a while, there was only the sound of water dripping from the ceiling and the gentle, soothing paddle of Koraidon’s feet through the water. 

“It’s so pretty here,” you said softly, gazing around at how the water cast rippling shades of green and blue onto the walls. It reminded you a little of photographs you’d seen of the aurora borealis. Nemona agreed,

“I know. It feels so magical and secluded through this part, doesn’t it?”

“Mm-hmm, exactly.” 

You breathed the damp air deeply, just enjoying how peaceful it felt to drift through the tunnel. The slowly shifting colors of the water were almost hypnotic to watch. You relaxed in your seat, letting yourself lean back a little against Nemona. She didn’t seem to mind at all, wrapping her arms around you in response, in a way she sometimes did when you were both racing on Koriadon’s back together. You secretly reveled in the feeling whenever she did it, probably far more than she realized.

Nemona giggled,

“I just thought of what this reminds me of, it’s kinda like one of those Tunnel of Love rides, right? Like the ones at the fairs.”

You froze perfectly still, the heat rising to your cheeks. Why’d she say that at this exact moment?

“U-uh . . . y-yeah,” you said, trying to fake a laugh, but it came out sounding more like a squawk. Nemona seemed to sense your unease.

“Oh, sorry if that was weird, it just popped into my head . . .”

You forced your voice to sound more normal and quickly answered,

“N-no, it’s not weird, I-I mean you’re right, they are kinda similar!”

It came out a little more forcefully than normal. Damnit, over-compensated. Lucky for you, Nemona didn’t pick up on it. Instead she just said,

“Yeah! Although I’d say this place is way prettier. Feels more special, too.”

You cleared your throat and agreed,

“Definitely.”

Koraidon slowly followed the bend in the tunnel, curving around a large crystal growing out of the water that had managed to reach the surface and grow beyond it. There was something brighter you could see up ahead, and you both subconsciously leaned forward, curious. Koraidon carried you until the narrow tunnel fed you into a room that opened up wide, your view suddenly expanding to a dazzling underground lake filled with long, sloping tera crystals framing the cave walls. At the center of the lake was a small island, dominated by a single, lonely oak tree. 

The tree was completely encased in tera crystal, everything from its trunk to its branches to every one of its leaves– all of it translucent-blue, a rainbow of colors reflecting along all of its smooth surfaces. It looked frozen in time, a silent witness to bygone eras. 

“Oh my gosh,” Nemona murmured from behind you. Koraidon paddled slowly out to the center of the lake, affording you a great view of the entire area. It was almost impossible to tell which crystals were growing beneath the perfectly clear, still waters and which were reflected from the ones growing on the ceiling above. It was an incredible feeling, just being in this place and taking it all in, perhaps the first living creatures to be here in eons. Your skin prickled in goosebumps at the thought.

You felt Nemona’s arms squeeze gently around you, and her voice came in a gentle hush in your ears.

“I’m so glad we slowed down to enjoy this, tesoro.”

Your goosebumps spread further, but now for different reasons.

“Me too,” you answered her softly. Nemona’s chin came to rest against the top of your head, her body pressed entirely against your back, and as you floated together in that sparkling cavern, you thought perhaps this was the best moment you’ve had in life for a while now.

Neither of you saw the triangular dorsal fin sticking up out of the surface of the water, silently slicing through the smooth, still waters. Even Koraidon didn’t notice, not until it was too late.When the calm waters were torn asunder with an ear-splitting roar, you and Nemona tossed violently from Koraidon’s back, the only thing you could think was Are you kidding me, NOT AGAIN–!

[thatsadbietch]

Critical Hit

Tickletober Day 4: Weak Spots

Yes, I am severely late. No, I will not be taking comments on it at this time. I would rather post something I'm satisfied with late than something half-assed on time. You all and I both deserve the best <3

Ryuji is tasked with leading the next Phantom Thieves' training session. Leave it to him to work in time to pick on his favorite Joker and teach something worthwhile!

Warning: Of course, tickles, and some curses.

“Joker, watch out!” Skull cried, deflecting an oncoming attack toward his leader, who had been occupied with another enemy.  The attack was directed back toward the Shadow that cast it, defeating it instantly.

“Nice job, Skull,” Joker praised, finishing off his own target. The Phantom Thieves were surrounded, but not critically so; a group of lower-level Shadows had managed to get the jump on the gang.  Even so, this was far from the Thieves’ first rodeo, having made several trips to Mementos, both in search of their favorite non-feline’s past and to help the citizens of Tokyo whose Shadows have become too strong.

“Truly art in motion,” Yusuke, aka Fox, commented. He, Skull, and Joker have been tasked to search a section of Mementos while Panther, Queen, and Mona search another section, having Oracle be the go-between for communications.

“Skull, your form and approach have quite changed for the better.  Perhaps I can attend your and Joker’s next training session? Surely there’s much I can learn,” he asked sincerely.  Skull snickered, throwing a knowing glare at his leader.

“I’m cool with you tagging along, but it’s up to the mighty leader over here.  Not sure if he could handle both of us.” Joker rolled his eyes as his friend hinted at the mischief that unfolded last time.

“Yes, Fox, I think that’s a good call. And since Skull is so eager for you to join he shouldn’t mind planning our next training session.”  That wiped Ryuji’s grin away.

“What?”

“Yeah, you did really well last time.  And it would be beneficial for someone else to be able to lead training sessions, just in case.”  Ryuji thought for a minute before nodding slowly.

“...Yeah, I can do it, no worries.”  Ren smiled.

“Good, can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

“Nor can I,” Fox chimed in, “I’m looking forward to it.”

They agreed on meeting in a week’s time, when the field and track would be free and clear again. It seemed like the dialogue in Ryuji’s head went from “I’ve got a week, no big deal” to “CRAP, I have to have this ready in a few hours!” in the blink of an eye, and he still had no idea on how to lead a training session.  He sat alone in the library, which was a rare sight in itself, but he knew he needed to step up.

“Come on,” he mentally prompted, “just plan training time.  An hour, maybe ninety minutes.  You can do this.”

“Ryuji?” The electric blonde jumped out of his skin with a shrill noise of surprise, earning him a “Shh!” from the other students. He turned quickly and saw his student council president and Queen to Mementos.  Makoto sat across from him.

“I’m surprised to see you here.  You looked like you were struggling, though.  Anything I can help with?”

“Uh… Yeah, actually.  But I really can’t talk about it here. It’s about practice,” Ryuji emphasized and gave her a look, hoping she’d take the hint.  She stood, as if to say “received,” but actually said, “Of course.  We can use the student council room.  Our meeting just ended, so no one’s in there right now.”

They walked to the now empty classroom where student council meetings are held, and Ryuji explained the situation to Makoto.  She listened intently, already forming several solutions but not wanting to miss any details.

“He just sprung it on me.  And in front of Fox, how could I say “no”?”  Her strategizing mind realized he was venting now, and she smiled at him.

“He trusts you, Ryuji.  And he wouldn’t have asked you if he didn’t think you could handle it.”

“...you think so?”

“Absolutely! You’re his best friend, you don’t need me to tell you that.” Ryuji reflected on it and smiled, but in an instant grew panicked again.

“Wait! Aren’t you and Ann going too?!”

“Shhh! Ren and I already discussed that,” she started, keeping her voice low despite the privacy of the classroom, “it might be best to keep up appearances as much as possible.  Meaning getting together in a big group all of a sudden might seem suspicious. She and I have separate training days until we figure out something else.”

“Oh… yeah, that makes sense.  That’s why he’s the Leader, I guess.” Ryuji couldn’t help but be relieved; he enjoyed having Ann and Makoto on the team, but the less people at his first led training session, the better.

“So, as for your session,” Makoto started, “Always start any physical training with a warm up.  It’ll help keep you from getting sore, and will help with performance during the training.” Ryuji was scribbling madly in his notebook, as if she were sharing answers to a final exam.

“Next, you need to pick the focus of your session.  What did Ren do during your last session?” Ryuji shrugged.

“Ran and sparred, mostly.” Makoto looked blankly for a moment, and as if on cue Ryuji added, “Oh! He went over “observing and adapting,” saying stuff like how just charging at Shadows wasn’t always going to work.  Which I still don’t know if I buy it, but his way worked, too.” Makoto sighed at his impulsivity, but continued.

“So he focused on refining a skill.  You can do that. Or, you can try teaching something that you specialize in.”

“Well…” Ryuji thought, “I am pretty good at knocking down some Shadows with one hit.”

“So you’re good at finding their weakest points, and using them to your advantage?” Makoto asked.  Ryuji’s eyes started to light up.

“Yeah… I can show them how I do that! Thank you, Makoto!” He suddenly stood and hugged her, running out of the classroom and not stopping until he reached the track field.

“I wonder how he’s going to teach that.”

**************************************************

“How the heck am I supposed to teach this?!” Ryuji exclaimed in his head, pacing the track while waiting on his two trainees.  He didn’t have to wait long though, as he could see Ren leading Yusuke in his direction, both changed in athletic wear and ready to start.

“Hello, leader-for-today,” Ren started, “I’ve been wondering what you’ve come up with.”

“As have I,” Yusuke chimed in, “I hope to be better equipped to handle Shadows, and to gain some artistic inspiration.  Seeing Joker take the lead is inspiring in itself, but you surely will offer a unique perspective,”  Though Yusuke’s intentions were pure, Ryuji took this as “the pressure’s on,” and became a bit more visibly nervous.

“Uh… Yeah… totally… WARM UP!” he shouted, suddenly remembering Makoto’s advice and recognizing a way to dodge the inevitable for at least a few more minutes.

“Right! We can’t train well without a warm up! Let’s jog a few laps and stretch!”  The two looked a bit confused, but did as they were told while Ryuji led the jog and stretches.

“Ryuji, are we ready to get started on the lesson?” Ren asked gently, starting to realize the task had given his second-in-command much more stress than he thought.  Ryuji finally sighed.

“Okay, I wanted to show you guys how I land critical hits on Shadows, but we aren’t in Mementos and I know we don’t usually go without the others just in case something happens and I couldn’t think of anything else to do and-”

“Ryuji,” Ren put a hand on his shoulder, and it worked as if it functioned as a “pause” button.

“That’s a great skill to learn! And we don’t have to be in Mementos; I’ll be the Shadow so Yusuke can observe.”

“O-Oh, okay… Yeah! Thanks, dude!” Ryuji regained every bit of his energy and excitement, causing Ren to chuckle fondly and Yusuke to wonder how Ryuji functions so well against enemies while his train of thought was all over the place.

“I suppose that’s what I’m here to learn” he thought, watching Ryuiji and Ren take opposing stances.

“Okay, um… Ren?” his ravenette friend smiled at him.

“Just do what comes naturally when you’re fighting.  Try to narrate it.”

“So,” Ryuji started, “There’s a Shadow in front of you, Yusuke. What do you notice about his stance?”

“Well, he’s grounded.  And he has one arm toward his face, and the other at his torso.”

“Right.  And that’s pretty normal for us: to protect our faces and middles, where our organs are,” Ryuji explained.  Ren and Yusuke were shocked at Ryuji’s knowledge on the subject, and how well he was teaching it.  Ryuji was even surprising himself, although he was only doing as Ren said, narrating his instincts.

“Every Shadow is going to have different areas they want to protect.  They don’t have organs and some might not even have faces, who knows.  But they’re weak somewhere, and their defensive stance will usually tell you where.”

“What about our Personas?” Yusuke asked, “They seem to have abilities that work well against certain Shadows, and not with others.”  Ryuji blanked, he hadn’t really thought about that part.

“Excellent question, but let’s focus on the basics for now,” Ren saved, “Queen and I were actually discussing this earlier, and are working with Oracle on compiling a list of Shadow’s we’ve faced and what their strengths and weaknesses are.” Though it appeared to just be the three here, Ren wanted to remain vigilant in keeping the other members’ identities safe.

“I see, thank you. My apologies, Ryuji, please continue.”

“Yeah dude, totally ask questions!” He faced Ren again.  “Now, come at me like you’re going to attack.  Slow-mo, though.” Ren nodded, seeing where Ryuji was taking this part.  He motioned a running start, and a punch with his right hand, the one originally blocking his torso.

“Stop,” Ryuji instructed.  Ren froze in his position, right arm extended in a mock blow to Ryuji’s jaw.

“Now, I can do three things. Since I was in my own defensive stance, I can block with this arm,” motioning his left, protecting his face, “I can take his wrist and fling him behind me using his own force,” again, the both of them demonstrating what that would look like,  “or, what I’m showing you guys, I can take this as an opportunity.  Yusuke, what’s changed about his position?”

“Well, in order to make an attack, he was forced to uncover a weak point he was previously protecting.”  Ryuji beamed.

“Exactly! You can’t do both. See,” Ryuji demonstrated, taking his pointer finger and tracing from Ren’s ribs to his hip bones. “His weak points are wide open now.” Ren inhaled sharply and winced. Ryuji looked to him, suddenly smug.

“And I do mean his weak points.” As a leader, he was proud that Ryuji picked up on small cues that could give him an edge.  However, he wasn’t the acting leader right now, so as his friend he’d hoped it would go unnoticed.  Yusuke hadn’t paid the brief interaction any mind, as he was more focused on the lesson at hand.  Ryuji returned to his original position, to the moment just before he would have been struck by his opponent.

“So,” he continued nonchalantly, “since we decided to attack, I see him coming toward me with this opening, I’m going to dodge, and strike.” Ryuji swerved his body under Ren’s extended arm, and instead of a mock strike, latched onto Ren’s side and squeezed.  Yusuke would have had to be blind and deaf to miss Ren’s reaction this time, as he squealed and recoiled from the surprise attack.

“AH! Ryuhohoji!”

“...What’s going on?” Yusuke asked, as much confused as he was amused.

“Just a demonstration,” Ryuji replied with a snicker before releasing Ren.  “I think you should give it a try.  Ren, you’re the Shadow again.”

“Greheat,” he replied as Ryuji and Yusuke switched places.  Yusuke had a gleam in his eyes too similar to Ryuji’s to be considered “comfortable” to the Joker.

“All right, Ren, slowly.  Yusuke, get ready.” Ryuji prompted. Ren exhaled, moving slowly for Yusuke’s sake.  It was his job, after all, to teach his team. And surely Yusuke is serious about his training, as to not be tempted by such juvenile tactics-

“BWAH! Hehehehey! YUSUKEHEHEHE!”  Yusuke did appear very serious in his training; so much so he adopted two strategies.  As Joker came with his slow swing, Yusuke grabbed his wrist with his right hand.  With his left, Yusuke latched onto the Joker’s ribs, noticing a much stronger reaction to his grip than Ryuji’s.

“Lehehehet go, Yusuke! Yohohou got me!” However, the artist chuckled and held firm to his “opponent’s” wrist.

“Have I done it correctly, Ryuji?” The blonde couldn’t believe what he was witnessing, and in the best way.  He cackled wickedly.

“I couldn’t have done better myself.  But he doesn’t look totally defeated.” Ren, still giggling against Yusuke’s ticklish grip, noticed Ryuji approaching.

“Stahahahay awahehey, Ryuji!” Ren threatened, trying with more desperation to break himself free from Yusuke.  However, in response Ryuji snatched his other wrist.  His giggles were already becoming more frantic, knowing how screwed he was with both of them playing this game.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Ren,” Yusuke noted, “It’s like witnessing a whole other part of you.”

“You are, dude.  This, you see, is “nearly defeated” Ren.” Ryuji explained as if we were now the expert in Ren’s weaknesses.  Which, in the context of which tickle spots can get Ren to buckle, he just might be the expert, Sojiro being a close second.

“I see. Are you telling me he has weaker points?” Yusuke said, still sounding like a student but adopted the smug smirk and mischievous gleam of a tormentor.

“Juuhuhust get ohohon with it!” Ren pleaded.  Why were they taking so long? And talking about him like he wasn’t even there?

“Quiet, you, I’m teaching, just like you asked,” With that, Ryuji swiped his fingers along Ren’s collarbone and neck with his free hand.  The raven-haired boy scrunched his shoulders up and sweet giggles bubbled forward.  Yusuke would not have believed this boy, adorable in his mirthful state, was in charge of the vengeful Phantom Thieves, if he were not there in the flesh to see for himself.

“Such a sweet sound, and a precious expression to accompany it.  I had not expected to find such inspiration from mere child’s play.”

Ren didn’t really have a response; he didn’t think he would serve as inspiration in this state either. Other than inspiration for Ryuji to continue leading him to his ticklish demise.

“Yeah yeah, he’s cute, we get it,” Ryuji said, and blushed himself a bit at the remark.  “Here, give me that.”  He took Ren’s other wrist from Yusuke and pinned both over his head.

“Now see, you’ve found your target’s weaker areas.  Deliver a critical hit.” His instructions came out malicious, and Yusuke’s look of adoration turned back to sinister.

“Y-Yusuke! You don’t have to do it! You already got me, and you picked it up really quick!”

“Yusuke, you remember when we fight Shadows how they sometimes beg to be spared?” Ryuji intervened, “Well, this is one of those times.  Since Ren’s right and you did get it on the first try, it’s your call. Mercy, or finish him?”  Yusuke looked at his now pitiful leader, and almost felt bad for him.  However, he realized this was an effect Ren tended to have on people.  He comes off pretty innocent or unassuming, but Yusuke has seen first hand what he’s actually capable of.

“How will I know if he’s “defeated”?

“Yusuke!” “Oho, trust me, he’ll tell you!” Ryuji said.  Ren felt his grip tighten on his wrists as he helplessly watched Yusuke approach him, claws formed with his hands.

“Y-Yusukehehe, nohoho, dohohon’t-NAHAHAHA!” Ren begged, but it fell on deaf ears as Yusuke descended his claw-like fingers into the hollows of Ren’s underarms, skittering up and down his tricep.  Ren tried vehemently, but failed to bring his arms down and out of Ryuji’s grip, who he could hear snickering under his own cackling.

“RYUJIHEHEHE you JERK!” he spat. 

“You know, we don’t take crap from Shadows, do we, Yusuke?”

“Definitely not.  This heathen needs to learn his manners.” Ryuji was absolutely ecstatic that Yusuke was seamlessly playing along as he shifted gears, drumming on Ren’s ribs like he would a piano.

“Do you know how many ribs you have, Joker?”

“YEHEHES!”

“How many?”

“TWEHEHENTY-FFFFAHAHA!” 

“PFFT!” He might have been trying to say twenty-four, if not for Ryuji throwing in a raspberry to the crook of the Joker’s neck.  He could (barely) handle Yusuke prodding at his ribs or Ryuji’s raspberries to the neck, but both?

“Well, if you don’t know, I’ll have to show you.” Yusuke stated simply, starting with his bottom two.

“THAHAHAT’S NOT FAHAHAHAIR! YUSUKE!” 

Ryuji laughed wickedly at his best friend’s expense, unknowing beforehand that Yusuke could be so cruel.  He wasn’t sure if Yusuke could tell, but amongst the loud belly laughter and rib-counting, Ren was starting to buckle the farther up his ribs Yusuke’s wiggling fingers traveled.

“Hey, Yusuke,” Ryuji said.  He almost had to raise his voice to be heard over the ravenette’s boisterous laughter.  He halted immediately, and Ren took the gracious opportunity to catch his breath.

“Be ready when you get to twenty-three and twenty-four. That’s our Joker’s weakest spot.”

“I started to believe he himself was a weak spot.”

“Screhehew you bohohoth,” Ren replied, bracing himself.

“Is that really any way to talk to your pupils?” Yusuke asked, catching Ren off-guard by kneading into his belly.  It was firm from consistent training, but still was quaking from all the giggle fits it helped produce.  Ren threw his head back onto Ryuji’s shoulder in a surprised guffaw, nearly head-butting his nose.

“H-hey, easy dude!”

“I-ihihi’m sorrihehehe!” Ren cried, putting in more effort to hold himself up.

“Here, Yusuke, follow me,” Ryuji instructed.  They led Ren to the ground, Ryuji still holding his wrists but allowing his head to rest in his lap rather than the ground.  Yusuke straddled his waist.

“I suppose this Shadow’s had quite the battle,” Yusuke observed, noticing the streaks of mirthful tears on his leader’s pink face. “I’ll waste no more time then!”

“Any last words, Shadow?” Ryuji teased.  Ren offered one more futile tug to his wrists and took a deep breath.

“Do your worst.  Because you two are dead.” 

“Tch, as if,” Ryuji played off, ignoring the slight chill down his spine.

“Bold words in the face of your demise,” Yusuke noted, also feeling a tinge of nervousness, but wasted no more time and drilled his thumbs in the topmost ribs on either side.  The same leader daring enough to make such a claim in his position positively howled as his most ticklish spot was exploited.

“YUSUKEHEHEHE!” Ren bucked and kicked at the space behind them, but to no avail as far as stopping the maddening sensations playing at his ribs.

“This Shadow’s done for!” Ryuji exclaimed, then laughing along as if Ren’s giggles were truly contagious.

“It’s almost as if, once you know how to deliver a critical hit, the Shadow is not as menacing,” Yusuke teased, switching from drilling to vibrating his fingertips along the length of ribs twenty-three and twenty four.

“JUHUHUHUST YOHOU WAIHIHIT! BWAHAHAHA!” Joker cackled, somehow still delivering threats.  His booming laughter soon grew silent, and he became too weak to struggle.

“All right, all right, I think he’s had enough,” Ryuji warned.  As cruel of a tickler as he was (which Ryuji made a mental note of), Yusuke stopped within the same second he was asked to do so, not wanting to abuse the trust he’d been given. Ryuji released Ren’s wrists, though his arms remained limp above his head while he caught his breath, which occasionally hitched in leftover chuckles.

“Are you all right, Ren?” Yusuke asked, now concerned.  But Ren chuckled, of his own accord this time.

“Yeah, heh, I’m okay.” Ren looked up at Ryuji, since his head was still in his lap.

“If this is how you plan on leading training sessions, you’re fired.”

“What?! No! At least, not every time,” he grinned, still full of mischief, “Gotta keep you on your toes, Joker.”

“And I yours. Yours too, Yusuke.  You won’t know when, you won’t know where-”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it, fearful leader, so scary,” Ryuji brushed off.

“...Let’s instead get some water and continue training? Actually training this time?” Yusuke suggested, as he and his eccentric blonde partner in crime helped their leader up.  While the rest of the training went as planned with no more antics, Yusuke and Ryuji couldn’t help the nagging feeling their Joker was not about to forget this any time soon.

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 29

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[Part 29/?? Word Count: 1535]

—————

Blitzø continued explaining the upcoming festival. “The locals have a great time and the Pain Games are fun to watch, but I gotta do my bodyguard thing. Don’t even get to play.” He pouted, looking more like a grumpy impling than an adult. “Loonie’s coming for extra security. Dina’s never seen it so she’s tagging along for fun.”

Barbie made a noncommittal sound, mostly acknowledging she’d heard. She sipped her iced coffee, the rattling sound from the straw saying it was now more ice and coffee. She shouldn’t be upset. What was there to be mad about? Besides her coffee running out. There, that was it. She was annoyed about missing a free coffee after therapy. Her tossed cup landed in a trash bin; at least her aim hadn’t suffered from all the abuse she’d put her body through.

Blitzø, also finishing his drink, dumped the ice in his mouth. Gotta get all the chocolate he could from it. His cup followed Barb’s, hitting the rim before falling in. Crunching on his ice cubes, he saw Barb cross her arms and stiffen up. He’d seen her chomp on ice too, so he didn’t think that upset her. “‘Ey,” he said around a mouthful of coffee flavored ice, “‘ou w’nna come wif?”

“Huh? Swallow Blitzø, can’t fucking understand ice mouth dude.”

He crunched and swallowed some, giving himself brain freeze. “You wanna come with?” he repeated once it passed. “You’ve been doing great with rehab, maybe your therapist will clear you for the day?”

Barb blushed a little. Nope, she wasn’t embarrassed that he picked up on her feeling left out. Because she didn’t feel left out! “Well, how else am I gonna get my free coffee?” She huffed, deliberately loosening her shoulders and uncrossing her arms. “Which day is it?”

After giving her all the information, Blitzø realized there was something he needed to mention before she saw him in a public setting with Stolas. “Uh, one thing real quick. I gotta play the whole master/servant bullshit. For appearances and crap.” He rubbed his neck, his discomfort radiating off of him. “And that means I gotta have this.” He brushed his other hand against his forehead where the All Imp Circus mark was.

But when his hand moved away, there was a solid white heart in its place. It was topped by a crown with elegant scrolling lines on either side. Barb felt a flash of rage at the sight. You asshole, you covered up our mark?! Then she saw Blitzø’s expression underneath the changed brand. Hurt, shame, and fear. He couldn’t make eye contact with her. Her twin took a shaky breath and passed his hand over the mark again. It was back to a stylized skull heart.

But his expression didn’t change. “It’s… it’s part of the binding,” he said, voice thick with emotion. Fuck this hurt more than the brain freeze. “I learned enough magick to illusion it back, for when I’m solo. But anything in public with Stolas… yeah.” His voice trailed away.

Something else for her to process. “Well, thanks for the gut punch. Least you didn’t spring it on me at the festival.” Barb’s tail cracked in annoyance as she walked. The tip poked him in the side. “C’mon, I’m hungry and I wanna get back before the cafeteria closes. If you beat me there I’ll let you tell me more over dinner.” She picked up the pace, Blitzø slack jawed behind her.

“Fuck you Barb, you know the way better than I do!” He ran to catch up. He didn’t beat her to the dorm but they still had dinner together. They chatted about less heavy subjects and Barb agreed to the festival, pending therapist approval.

—————

A week later, Barb was waiting at the elevator concourse, not quite patiently. Either Blitzø or one of the girls were supposed to meet her at the Sloth terminal and head to Wrath. Normally, Barb was dressed in some sort of tight miniskirt dress with tall boots. She’d swapped that for denim shorts, sensible shoes, a crop top, and a checkered button up tied under her breasts. No point in her good heeled boots getting stuck in mud or worse at Wrath’s farms.

Loona hopped out of an elevator for foot traffic. Like Barb, she wasn’t wearing her usual goth outfit. Unlike Barb, she was dressed in a dark jacket, slacks, and wore a set of dark shades. “What’re you supposed to be, Men In Black?” the imp scoffed.

The Hound plucked at the jacket. “I know right? Blitzø wants my help with security and this is his idea of a bodyguard outfit. But fuck all happens at this thing. This is the third one I’ve been to and it’s soooo dull.” The two got in line for ascending foot traffic. “By the way, if you and Blitzø are cool now, should we call you Aunt Barb?”

“Fuck no! Makes me sound like an old lady, one that sits around knitting and shit. Just Barb, got it?” The imp glared up at the Hellhound. “And I still don’t know if I’m ‘cool’ with the jerk.’

Loona shrugged and pursed her lips as they boarded. “I mean, you accepted his invite? Been talking after every group?”

“I wanted a change from all that Sloth-pink. And he gets me free coffee.” Loona smirked and let the matter slide, for now. They complained idly together as the elevator steadily rose. Once at the Wrath level, they exited to see a throng of imps outside the terminal, gathering for the festival. “Dad and the rest are waiting at the main tent. You wanna see them first or check things out around here?”

Barb squinted at the harsh orange light. After years of Sloth’s dreamlike hues, her retinas felt like they were burning. “Might as well let Blitzø know I’m here.” They pushed through the crowd; the festival stage and tent were easy to spot amidst the countrified buildings. “Waiaminnit, isn’t that royal here too?”

“Oh shit! Yeah, Stolas, Dad’s with him.” Loona halted a few yards away from the tent. “You gonna be okay? I can let Blitzo know you’re here if you don’t wanna deal with Stolas.”

Barb glared at the fancy tent walls. “Fuck it, I’m here. Let’s rip off this freaking bandaid.”

Living in the circus gave her a flair for drama. She whipped open the tent flap and announced, “Barbie Wire’s here, bitches.” The small group inside all looked at her blankly before her twin walked up.

“Barb! You made it!” Blitzø had a similar outfit to Loona, black jacket and slacks, with dark shades. “Everyone, this is my twin sister Barbie Wire. Barb, you know Loonie and Dina. That’s Millie and next to her is Moxxie; they’re my employees. And this -oh shit.” Blitzø stumbled over his words as he’d just been about to introduce his twin to his master. Barb crossed her arms, suspicion rising over Blitzø’s hesitancy.

“Allow me, Blitzy, darling.” Blitzy? Darling? The Goetia rose gracefully from his ornate chair. His hair feathers almost brushed the tent canopy as he stalked over. Then he bowed deeply, putting his face at eye level to the twins. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Barb. I am Prince Stolas of Ars Goetia.” His deep pupil-less eyes looked sincerely pained as he continued in a voice only the imp twins could hear. “Although it may not mean much at this late day, I deeply apologize for the pain my father put you and yours through.”

Barb shifted uncomfortably. “Just Barb, none of that ‘Miss’ crap. And uh…yeah…” From Blitzø’s side of things, Stolas was as much a victim as he had been in the whole debacle. But she hadn’t been prepared to deal with all that right this second.

“Not the right time Floof,” her twin muttered at the royal. Floof? They have pet names for each other? Stolas gave a surprised hoot. “Right, we can discuss this later if need be. Today is a festival after all. Why don’t you all take a look around before the official event’s start?” Stolas shooed all the smaller demons out into the Wrathian heat. “You too Blitzy, have a bit of fun.” Barb noticed Blitzø’s grimace as the flicker of light shone under his collar.

“You sure you’ll be alright on your own? You remember what happened the second year you hosted,” Blitzø protested as the owl demon continued to usher the group out.

Stolas laughed. “Yes of course I remember darling. You did an excellent job dispatching those assassins and their leader is still making a splendid horse hitch at the edge of town. Ah ah ah!” He shook a long finger at the imp as Blitzø tried to interject. “I promise I shan’t move from this pavilion until you return and any attackers will find themselves encased in stone. I’m sure someone could use a fence post around here.” With that he pushed his lover outside and closed the tent flap with as much drama as Barb opened it.

“Bad idea to piss off royalty boss,” Moxxie called out. “Better do what the prince says.”

“Oh go fuck yourself Mox.”

—————

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[writerofjourneys]

not trying to be a dick but if all of your sumire thoughts are just character hate like, what exactly possesses you to put it in the all the main fandom tags as well as the character tag. like, if you don't want to get hate from her "cult" why are you putting your rants in the tags they use. puzzling behaviour.

(I’m not adding Keep Reading on this)

Okay, dear Anon, let me answer this “puzzling behaviour” you think that is.

This is literally my RIGHT as freedom of speech and that just BECAUSE I’M MAKING AN OPINION, it’s labeled as hate. And I CAN hate a character all I want because that’s my right to think and choose and feel to do so. Why do I always have to keep stating this?

My thoughts on Sumire are everything I’ve considered on how her role and character doesn’t fit the story and point she is supposedly supposed to make from the writers. That’s MY take. So take it or leave it. I don’t dislike her for NOTHING!! I’m not throwing this crap for shits and giggles. I have reasons. My rant posts are my reasons. What I’m seeing here is you being incredibly biased and narrow-minded.

And they have had debates by others. Do you know how lengthy these were to read and respond back? They didn’t start shit but rather offered polite opinions of their own. The reactions to these things were exactly what I expected and something I debated about even posting that in the first place because I knew people were going spew pointless hater talk bullcrap at me. And it’s tiring. Especially about a character that’s worshipped so highly, it makes anything you say against them seem controversial.

And these tags are there because it’s about them? What’s hard to understand that while I knew I was bringing myself attention for adding these tags, I did so on the grounds of seeing anyone else thinking similar things or offering something different instead of collecting tumbleweeds waiting for anyone to stumble across my posts. I had said before that if anyone could even sway me on this, they could try. But after all this time I can’t be bothered to give a shit at the end of the day on a fictional character and this hate judgement you’re throwing me with hypocrisy. Blind level of understanding. And that’s not what my rants were at all.

If you can’t even make a counterpoint to my argument, much less talk about why I’m such a hater for my personal thoughts, even with a series of reasons to explain why, then your response here has no purpose.

I am TIRED of having to repeat myself over this pettiness and repetitive song and dance calling me a hater with hate. I can say whatever I want about whatever I want. Everyone’s always going to think differently and be judgy about them but nobody needs permission to think differently. Have a nice day, Anon.

[esta-elavaris]

Just wondering if you’d be able to share some tips on writing? Your fics are legitimately some of my all time faves, and when I was a teen a dabbled in fanfic writing but I’ve never been a strong writer if I’m being honest. But I have a fic idea that I really wanna try and write since I can’t find anything else with this specific trope 😅 would be amazing if you could give some advice on how to improve!

Thank you so much!! 💜 A lot of this is just off the top of my head but I hope some of it is useful -- good luck with your fic!

Okay so first of all one of my favourite pieces of advice is something you're literally already following by taking on an idea without being totally sure how to go about it. That's when a project always ends up being a good one, and that's what makes you improve ten times faster than like, "easy" ideas that don't have any intimidation factor to them. I'm always happiest with the fics I didn't know I'd be able to pull off in the beginning, and my crap ones are always the ones where I go in confident.

Read a lot and read broadly - books, not just fanfic. You'll end up reading a lot of stuff you didn't like, but you'll know WHY you didn't like it and it'll inform the kind of decisions you make with your own writing. And, better than that, you'll also find a lot of stuff that you didn't expect to like but actually did. Plus it opens up so many avenues for ideas to flow in from unexpected sources, even from stuff like autobiographies. And like, I think a lot of people underestimate that kind of thing because they'd go "well I'm writing romantasy, why would I need to read horror books?" but then they have no idea how to handle tense, spooky, or even angsty scenes when they do crop up - and those little moments of genre-hopping make a story feel real, anyway, because it's more true to life. Real life isn't permanently fluffy, or comedic, or even depressing all of the time without any let up, and like? That's why the best pieces of media are so good? LOTR has strong elements of fantasy (duh) but also comedy, romance, action, drama, and even bits of horror all at once and that's why it's so vivid because so does life (although in a far less dramatic way, for me at least 💀 idk what other folk get up to).

If you read consciously (critically?), too, you can go and seek out how your favourite writers handle things like exposition, or the bits that serve just to get the characters from point A to point B, or even more minor details like dialogue tags. I find that really helpful because it reminds you that not every sentence has to be like? Groundbreaking or even particularly good? "She walked over to the chair and sat down" is fine, it's golden, it serves a purpose, but when you get too in your head about wanting something to be great, it's easy to forget that and get too hung up on little throwaway lines.

Also people are gonna be sick of me saying this but the best thing I've ever done for my writing is writing every day, as a rule. If I could only ever give one piece of writing advice ever again, it'd be that. I do think folk lean too much towards the "any time the vibe is slightly off don't write a word! self care!!!" thing and uhhh not writing every single time you can find a minor excuse not to is going to be way worse for you than forcing a page down when you don't particularly want to and the real self care is the fic we forced ourselves to write along the way. I started Little By Little juuuuust before I started daily writing, I think, and comparing that to stuff I was even writing just one year later shows how quickly it forced me to improve. It's like a muscle, the more you work it, the stronger it gets - and if you show up every day, the ideas will too.

I know there's not much like? Technical advice here but honestly I don't have any of that to give? I don't approach chapters like "ah, yes, this one shall begin with dialogue because that provides an element of (literary term that I'm too tired to use as an example) which sets things up nicely for (other literary term I don't have enough brain cells to conjure)", I'm not that technical or that smart about it, if I do try to approach things that way it doesn't feel organic, I'm just out here vibing and feeling my way through it. But like I said, if you read enough and write enough, you get used to that and your gut will tell you which way to take things.

[yukidragon]

So... I always had this question in my head, How do you think Shaun and Ian would react if MC and Jack had a baby? Well, in the sense that they can't see Jack they don't even know he exists, so I think it would be weird (especially Ian who would be (devastated)) that the MC would come with a baby. I also think if MC had a child with Jack, what would her pregnancy be like?

Shock would be an understatement if no one else but MC knows Jack even exists. Shaun and Ian would want to know who the father is, that’s for sure.

You know, this ask gives me a good excuse to do a few happy baby headcanons to counteract the sad and depressing ones that came from the previous ask about the topic. Mind if I use my specific version of the MC, Alice, for this? Awesome.

Before we begin, let’s throw in the obligatory tags for @channydraw, @earthgirlaesthetic, & @sai-of-the-7-stars​. If you want to be tagged in my next headcanon/theory post, please let me know!

Just as a gentle reminder, Something’s Wrong with Sunny Day Jack is an Adults Only game, so there’s most likely going to be some 18+ only content sprinkled into the headcanon. Also, I might use some art Jambeebot/Sauce posted on their public twitter before it went down, so I’ll once again remind everyone to please not repost the pictures posted privately for patrons on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon.

First of all, the pregnancy is entirely planned. With Jack’s very existence being heavily dependent on Alice(/MC) wanting him there, it’s doubtful that he can accidentally get his sunshine pregnant. He can’t do anything she doesn’t want him to do, after all. It’s impossible even touch her if she doesn’t want it, so I doubt any eggs are getting fertilized unless she is 100% on board with the two of them making a baby together.

Since Alice wouldn’t want to have a baby until she is more financially stable and lives in a bigger place, this would probably be a few years down the line from when she first meets Jack. Let’s just ignore all goals he might have for his state of reality and presence in the world, and just assume that even at this point, only his sunshine can see/hear/touch him.

This might be a bit of a spoiler for the future of Sunshine in Hell, but I’ve mentioned it in a previous post anyway, so whatever. Alice is going to tell Shaun about Jack, both about the situation with the tape and such, and about them being in a relationship. Shaun has been cautiously supportive of their relationship and seen proof Jack exists. I mean, it’s hard to claim Jack is just Alice’s imaginary friend when said “imaginary” friend can lift her up off the ground.

As heartbroken as Shaun was that Alice got in another relationship that’s not with him, the idea of having a ghost(?) lover is exciting, and he’s kind of lowkey jealous.

Shaun is the first to hear of Alice’s pregnancy, outside of family. To say that it fills him with conflicting emotions is an understatement. On the one hand, he’s happy that his friend is happy, but on the other hand there’s this sense of sadness from missed opportunities and what might have been. He’s a big enough man to not let the latter influence him, but it still stings.

However, the bigger thing is the fact that the baby’s daddy is a ghost(?) That is both incredibly cool, and concerning. There’s plenty of horror movies where making babies with a supernatural entity ends very, very badly. I mean, Shaun would actually consider doing it if he had a supernatural lover and he could because, shit, that’s so cool, but he’d also be worried about how it might end... and doubly so when it’s a close friend of his going through this.

Shaun loves Alice, he’s just trying his best at this point to keep all that love platonic rather than romantic. He doesn’t want anything to happen to her, and he’ll do what he can to help take care of her... even if Jack gets a bit territorial.

This sort of exchange may or may not happen between them.

...

“Hey, back off with the spooOoOopy ghost crap, man. I know you gotta rub it in my face that Alice is with you now whenever we hang out ‘too much’ for your jealous yandere ass to handle, but pregnancy is no joke. I’m helping Alice as long as she needs it.”

“The only person Alice needs is me.”

“Oh get over yourself. You ever heard about what people go through to make a baby? That shit takes a lot out of you, and those are just normal babies. Who knows what a half-ghost baby is going to put her body through.”

...

Well, something like that at least.

Yes, Shaun and Jack are going to have conversations. Jack can move objects around, so why not a pencil on paper? I already have a few fun ideas for some interesting messages Jack might send to Shaun. :o)

Also, I want them to become friends despite their friction. Because I think it’s possible if things fall into place the right way with their interactions, and if Jack is able to feel secure enough for Alice to have other friends besides him. Plus I just think it would be a really fun dynamic. :3

Shaun does help a lot with driving Alice places like doctors appointments during the later stage of her pregnancy. While Jack can technically drive a car, it’s going to cause a lot of issues if people see a car moving without a driver behind the wheel.

Jack is totally not going to sulk in the back seat the first time Alice needs a ride from Shaun, definitely not.

So while overall Shaun isn’t exactly totally thrilled about the pregnancy, he is supportive for Alice, and is happy for her. She does sincerely want this baby and is both excited and scared to be a mother, and what sort of friend would he be if he couldn’t take some pleasure in her happiness?

Ian, however, is a totally different story.

I’m going to go with the idea that Jack didn’t actually do anything supernaturally madness-inducing to make Ian go away that involves horrific nightmares. Ian got to keep his sanity because Alice finally blocked him and moved on completely from that chapter of her life.

Ian, despite everything, still holds onto the hope that he and Alice will get back together someday, that they are meant to be together. Hearing the news that she’s pregnant - second-hand no less - would be devastating. He heard some rumors that she had a new boyfriend, but there’s no photos of this “Jack” person, and none of their mutual friends have seen Jack personally.

In fact, a friend of his wondered if Alice was making up having a boyfriend to keep Ian from going after her. It would certainly explain why Jack never appears on any social media photos Alice posts. If that’s the case that “Jack” is just made up, then Alice got knocked up by some random guy and is going to be raising the baby alone while lying to the world... or deluding herself that she has a new relationship.

Either possibility does make Ian afraid for her. Despite Alice cutting him off, he would feel the strong need to reach out. Hell, he’ll be willing to raise the child as his own if she’ll just give him a second chance!

Needless to say, Ian wouldn’t do anything to endear himself to either Alice or Jack by doing this. Hopefully he’ll take another rejection from her alright. If he won’t listen to her, then hopefully he’ll listen to Shaun’s advice that it’s over and he needs to move on.

If not, then Jack will certainly make sure Ian won’t trouble his sunshine further. Stress is bad for Alice and the baby after all.

Speaking of the pregnancy, Alice would likely be more exhausted than from a normal pregnancy. Bodies work on overdrive when building a baby, and given she seems to be what’s allowing Jack to be around in the first place, no doubt she’s already being taxed pretty hard. She’s probably going to be eating a lot more than the usual pregnancy and sleeping a lot longer. Luckily for her, Jack is actually going to let her sleep in whenever she needs it.

Jack would insist on carrying Alice around as much as possible during the pregnancy, even in the early stages. By this point, she’s gotten used to being carried by her big sappy tree of a boyfriend, and it’s sweet how eager he is to take care of her. It’ll be especially appreciated when she’s feeling the ill effects of pregnancy, such as morning sickness.

As mentioned earlier, Alice would make sure to be in a good financial situation before getting pregnant. She has a better job at this point, one that allows her to work remotely from home, which is very helpful when she finds herself with less energy to do much or go places. She also finds herself with a lot of cravings when it comes to food. Fortunately, Jack is there to help make sure she eats well, takes her medicine on time, and exercises moderately.

Naturally, a fair amount of that exercise involves sexy times.

Okay, maybe most of the exercise is sexy times. Pregnancy hormones can make a pregnant person very horny, and that’s the case for Alice.

Speaking of which, Jack’s connection with Alice is very heavily emotion-driven. Since pregnancy wreaks havoc on emotions due to hormones, that supernatural link between them is going to be affected.

Remember this picture where Jack got drunk because MC was drunk too?

Now imagine Jack getting a nice little cocktail of pregnancy hormones affecting his mind.

The result is Jack being even clingier and hornier than ever. Hard to believe, I know. Fortunately, when Alice isn’t feeling crappy and exhausted from her body building a baby, she will be trying to climb him like the big sappy tree he is.

Jack will certainly not complain about that side-effect of the pregnancy. It would be a fun change, since Alice is the more timid one of the two of them when it comes to sex, so it would be quite arousing to see her get a little demanding in that regard. He’ll even encourage her to top him and lavish her with praise for how well she rides him. Reverse-cowgirl is a good position when pregnant after all, and it allows him to play with her breasts while she bounces up and down in his lap. He’ll be sure to point out just how much her breasts have grown during the pregnancy as well.

Speaking of, as soon as Alice starts lactating, Jack is going to want a taste. He won’t steal from the baby when they arrive, but he’s going to enjoy the special treat while he can. He’ll also make sure to let her know that it’s the best milk he’s ever tasted, much to her embarrassment.

It’ll be pretty arousing as well as heartwarming for Jack to watch her belly slowly get bigger, knowing that it’s their child growing inside her. Alice loves him so much that she’s having a baby with him, and soon their little sundrop is going to come and join their family.

There will be plenty of intimate and not necessarily sexual moments where Alice will snuggle up to Jack while he rubs lotion on her pregnant belly, just quietly marveling at the little life growing inside of her. There’s a little person made up of parts of both of them, proving that he’s real without a shadow of a doubt. He won’t be forgotten because a part of him will always live on in their baby... and all the other children they’ll be having.

Alice would be feeling self-conscious about her body being changed by pregnancy, but Jack would reassure her the second he senses her thoughts going in that direction. She is beautiful, absolutely glowing with life. She appreciates those moments where he’s just quietly admiring her body, sighing in contentedly as he rubs her soothingly and cooing gentle words of love and praise as he takes good care of her.

Of course, Alice will be sure to let Jack know how much she appreciates him, and how glad she is that he’s there. Hearing her tell him how much she loves him is going to make the man just melt into a puddle of happy goo.

Love, consent, and their emotional connection is so important to the bond between them, and it’s even more true when Alice is pregnant. She would feel more inclined to just spend time with Jack to the point that she would wake up early of her own accord just because his isn’t in bed with her when he snuck out to surprise her with breakfast in bed.

In fact, I’m inspired to write out a little scene:

...

Jack hummed a quiet but cheerful tune as he cooked breakfast, wearing nothing but an apron and a smile. He just finished flipping over the second pancake when a warm body suddenly pressed into him from behind. He quickly realized Alice had snuck up behind him while he was distracted and latched onto him like a koala clinging to a tree.

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle fondly as he looked back over his shoulder at his sleepy lover. “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Mmmfgh,” Alice responded as she buried her face into his back, wearing nothing but his big fluffy robe. It was so large compared to her that it dragged on the floor behind her, but she was too tired to care.

Jack set aside the spatula and turned around to pull Alice into his arms, hugging her close before pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You can go back to bed and sleep in a little longer if you want. You need plenty of rest for the baby.”

Although Alice sighed in pleasure at the kiss, she grumbled at the suggestion, and buried her face in Jack’s chest, muffling her next words. “Don’ wanna... Too cold without you.”

“Awww...,” Jack cooed, his heart melting, and he swept Alice up into his arms, carrying her easily despite how far she was into the pregnancy. “Sunshine...” He gave her a soft peck, his lips curling into a smile as she sleepily returned the kiss. “I wanted to surprise you with breakfast in bed, but I’d love it if you keep me company while I finish cooking. I won’t be long, I promise.”

Alice merely mumbled a sleepy affirmative as she snuggled in closer to Jack, basking in his warmth of his love.

...

Yes, this is the first thing I imagined when I thought of the scenario of Alice getting pregnant. I am a sucker for sweet little moments of intimacy like these.

While the pregnancy is going to be taxing on Alice, I’m definitely not going to headcanon a sad result like in the previous ask. The pregnancy is going to be complicated by her chronic health issues, but Jack will move heaven and earth to make sure his sunshine and their baby are happy and healthy. At the end of it all, the two proud parents will welcome their baby, a son whose name I haven’t decided on, who looks a lot like daddy dearest.

Yes, I couldn’t resist headcanoning this adorable bean as Jack and Alice’s oldest child. I mean look at that face! So cute! Just wanna fluff that hair.

As for younger siblings to follow... there’s going to be quite a number of them, since Alice wants a large family, and Jack is only too happy to help her make as many babies as she wants. I guess I’d have to design them myself sometime. At least one of them is going to inherit their mama’s albinism, of course.

Of course, how things go down in Sunshine in Hell will be a little different than this scenario, but this is still fun to imagine the challenges Jack will have taking care of a pregnant partner and then their children while the world doesn’t realize he actually exists.

[nobodysdaydreams]

I STARTED SEASON 3 OF WOLF359 AND GUESS WHAT FOLKS? YOUR SI-5 FAVS ARE HERE, AND I DON’T LIKE THEM CUTTER’S ERRAND BOYS HAVE GOT TO GO (or my reaction to Episodes 29-31 and Mini Episode 4 of Wolf359).

Sorry for the delay, but I did warn you my schedule would be very inconsistent. Thank you everyone for your patience.

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell @commsroom

Episode 29: Pan-Pan

Minkowski doing the intro because Doug is gone 🥺

Our boy has been gone for 100 days?!?!?

If the others knew about WHAT? Minkowski? Hera?

Ngl, the arguing and bickering subplot is getting a little old. I understand tensions are high due to the Doug situation, but where is the main plot?

Over one hundred critical failures and y’all are still fighting?

“It should be habitable” “But not comfortable”.

I love how Hera and the crew will do things to try help each other feel comfortable even though Hera can’t feel human sensations and the humans can’t feel AI sensations.

Are they gonna have to cuddle for warmth? Snuggle time! 🥰🧸

“Distress calls? Who is gonna pick up?” Why the characters I saw my mutuals posting about before I blocked the wolf359 tags, of course! I can only assume that why they’ve been so excited for me to start season 3.

Hilbert. CUTTER IS NOT GONNA HELP YOU.

No, don’t go to a corner. You guys need to snuggle and feel better.

“Why do I have to go?” Hilbert you tried to kill everyone. So yeah. It does have to be you. It should always be you.

Lovelace that’s too far, Cutter probably put some malware in her.

“Whose fault is it?” CUTTER’S WHO DO YOU THINK.

Oh my gosh this is going WAY too far.

All the bad stuff you did was out of desperation or impaired thinking due to the stress of space, which is, again, BECAUSE OF CUTTER! So stop blaming each other.

Minkowski… oh she misses Doug. 💔

…cracks? The end of operational life? We can’t fix it?

Um. No. Not this hopelessness. I need them strong enough to punch Cutter in the face.

Call command? No. Don’t do that. I don’t trust them. Bad idea. BAD IDEA. The only idea, unfortunately, but that doesn’t make it good.

Episode 30: Mayday

Um. What’s with the weird noises?

DOUG! HE LIVES!

…I say as if there aren’t two seasons left with him as the main character.

Oh no that was a rewind. This is a flashback. So maybe Doug doesn’t live.

Yikes that scream. Me too Doug me too.

Minkowski’s voice in his head 🥺

Haha… mocking him about not reading the manual Cutter worships.

And she put it in there just for him. 💕

Reliant Robin? Interesting name. I like it.

“Ignorance makes death inevitable” well put our heroes sure are ignorant of a lot no thanks to Cutter & co.

It’s okay Eiffel. I like your action plans.

“That’s dead boy talk” 😂

“Find someone else” …interesting. There are others…

…I wonder what they’re like.

I’d hate being frozen like that. Yeah. This is gonna be rough Doug…

I love how he keeps renaming the ship.

Oh gosh. It’s killing him. Poor Doug. Oh dear. Oh Doug.

“USS Peace of Crap”

Oh he lost his hair? Well. At least he matches Hilbert now. Maybe they can bond over that if they ever see each other again.

“Please respond” Doug sounded so broken.

Oh but now there’s whistling 🎶🎶🎶

He doesn’t have nails?

6,000 years? “How do you know there will even be anything there?”

“Nevermind”. Oh that was dark. Doug have you been freezing yourself incorrectly?

What about Hera’s voice? Or the voices of that family he won’t talk about? 👀

You tried Doug. You tried your best. Wait, “never get to talk to who?”

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOODNIGHT DOUG. RAGE!

USS Horrible Unending Nightmare, what a name.

YES HERA.

DOUG THEY WANT TO HELP! Yes! Or maybe no… depends on who it is…

How does he know who he is?

“We’re here to take you home” why do I not fully trust you random man?

Episode 31: Sécurité

Urania? Who is this? 👀

“They’re there”. YES THEY ARE.

JACOBI! Before I blocked the tags, I remember seeing your name. A few other names too in fact.

Well, well, well my friends. I’ve paused the episode to announce that the moment is finally here. You see I wanted to go into this spoiler free, so I dutifully blocked the Wolf359 tags on tumblr. But before I blocked the Wolf359 tags, I saw a lot of angsty Wolf359 fan art from my mutuals heavily implying that the Hephaestus crew gets betrayed by someone they come across. Now I’m going to assume that this is true, maybe I’m off base, maybe I’m not, please don’t confirm or deny anything. But working off this assumption, incorrect or otherwise, is very exciting because I just remember the art, nothing about names or context other than what I stated previously, which means it’s time to play everyone’s favorite game show:

✨Who Is Gonna Betray Everyone? ✨

Welcome to the show ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be checking in later to review our options, but for now let’s see what we got. In one corner we got Jacobi. I recall my mutuals posting about him, but were they doing it affectionately or with anger… ooo… that detail escapes me. And as always we have the “Bods… no one is gonna betray anyone except Cutter and maybe Hilbert again. They’re the bad guys. You already know this. I don’t know what fan art you thought you saw but literally what are you talking about?” And if that is the case then… uh… just ignore this sorry guys.

Ohhhh… never mind! Option 3 has arrived: Wareen Kepler. Works for Goddard Futuristics which already puts him high on the traitor suspect list. But of course Kepler and Jacobi could be working together, come to think of it, I think I might have seen a ship tag of them before blocking the general Wolf359 tag. Is it because they’re a canon couple? Good space buddies? Or a pair of sneaky Judases united by the atrocities they’ve committed? Only time will tell.

SI-5? Okay I have FOR SURE seen that mentioned before.

Kepler knows Hilbert? Oh yeah… yeah Kepler is moving right up that suspect list. Red flags out the wazoo.

Okay Kepler. Respecting Hera’s name. That’s nice, but the red flags are still waving. What do you want to know about Hilbert’s work?

DOUG IS BACK!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳

“Maybe the fact that we brought Doug back is proof we don’t mean you any harm”

EXACTLY WHAT A TRAITOROUS SNAKE WOULD SAY. 🐍

Besides, Cutter still wants to know about the aliens. He’ll keep them alive. For now. But what happens when they run out their use?

They have alcohol on board? Quite a luxury. And the rescue mission is very… nice of Cutter. Creepily and very suspiciously nice. I wouldn’t drink anything he offers you.

Another one? That sounds ominous. And I don’t like that Hera can’t see inside. If this guys are making Hilbert of all people suspicious, clearly things about to go South.

SI-5 agents? Black operations work? Top men? Kepler… the most dangerous man you’ll ever met? Don’t like that.

Don’t like you either scary lady. Oh. She was addressing Hera. I like that, but Dr. Maxwell? So far we haven’t had good luck with science people working for Cutter. And if she’s an AI specialist, she could very well be Cutter’s version of Garrison (@ my TMBS mutuals). Looks like detective Bods has sniffed out another suspect.

Well. She seems very helpful. Suspiciously helpful. And… my AirPods are out of juice.

Thank goodness AirPods charge quickly. Now let’s see… Maxwell is an AI specialist. Oh Hera sounded a bit nervous when she realized Maxwell developed AI. Makes you wonder how AI developers treat their creations. And yeah, why would command send you?

“Who said anything about a rescue mission”?

I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. IT’S ALL THREE OF THEM ISN’T IT AND I’VE BUSTED THOSE LYING LIARS I’VE CRACKED THE CASE WIDE OPEN.

I knew it. They aren’t leaving.

“Your boss is an insane psychopath” THANK YOU DOUG. TELL THE TRUTH.

THEY DID KNOW DOUG. OF COURSE THEY KNEW. THEY’RE PART OF IT. THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN PART OF IT. THEY ARE EVIL. THEY VALUE PROGRESS AND THEIR OWN AMBITIONS MORE THAN HUMAN LIFE. THAT FALLS SQUARELY INTO THE “EVIL” CATEGORY.

“You’re whisky” Guess what Kepler? Guess what Jacobi? What happens when you’re whisky? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE EGGS THAT NEED TO BE CRACKED TO MAKE AN OMLETE?

Maxwell did that to Hera? Oh I might just hate her the most. She needs to keep her hands off of the AI. I know people like her, I recall seeing her name in posts, people have usernames with her in it, but look, right now, I really can’t stand SI-5. Cutter’s little errand boys have got to go.

I love how Hilbert is just back with them now 😂

Yeah, I don’t think knocking them out will work. Never thought I’d say this but Hilbert has a point. Wait, personal interest? I don’t want Cutter taking a personal interest in anything. And I don’t just mean anything involving the mission or space or AI, I mean literally anything. He can’t even take a personal interest in knitting or bowling or historical trivia. He doesn’t deserve hobbies.

Kepler was the one who lied about Lovelace. Well, well, well. Seems like someone has a motivate to kill. 👀

Oh no. They really got to Hera. But if you want to be subtle maybe DON’T change her language like that.

“you won’t see them coming” sure I will Hilbert I saw that fan art. I think they shoot one of you? Maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Well. At least a common enemy is bring the team together. Cheers for that at least. Mini Episode 4: Meanwhile

Mini Episode Time! 🥳

Who is talking? Why…why does that sound like female Cutter? Oh it’s Rachel. Wasn’t that the girl Cutter threatened to throw out a window? I feel less bad for her now.

Cutter please get past the BS.

“The Black Archives” well that doesn’t sound ominous at all. “Things that aren’t supposed to come back, they shouldn’t have a paper trail. They could get us into legal trouble”.

Oh I certainly hope they do Rachel. I hope you get your butts dragged to court: you, Cutter, Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell. I hope they throw you in cells without toothpaste and feed you nothing but the frozen mush you gave your astronauts. I hope, just like poor Doug, they force feed you enough cigarettes to get you addicted and then take them away to prevent your from dying faster, but still make you to feel the cravings Doug felt. And if you’re wondering why Hilbert isn’t on my jail list, his recent actions have struck a comical and benevolent chord in my soul. I sentence him to a lifetime of community service that involves surrendering his free will to his creation: the blessed eternal.

What does Blessie think about all this? No one has mentioned him. SI-5 either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. But Blessie is a very capable plant. A good ally to have in a time like this.

Omega contingency? “Last resort”. I don’t like that.

“something big is coming” Indeed it is Cutter, and I hope it involves your death. Pretty please it would make my Christmas.

Thanks for reading friends. Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoyed!

[chirpsythismorning]

Fixations in fandom are valid.

Yes they can be unhealthy, just like too much of anything in life can be unhealthy.

But just like in life, you can’t control other ppl and force them like/unlike things bc of your own preferences and fixations.

What bothers me so much about the whole ‘all bylers care about is byler argument’ is that while… yes. Who tf cares?

The whole point of the ‘will they’ ‘won’t they’ trope is that it’s known for engaging viewers more than most storylines are able to, and it also tends to keep fans engaged for long periods of time. And it’s because they’re literally designed to keep you guessing and anticipating what comes next.

If romance isn’t your thing, fine. If gay ppl on your screen isn’t your thing, whatever. It is what it is. It’s not like we want to spend our time fixating on the stuff you like either.

Regardless of whether or not you ship byler, that still doesn’t mean you have to be insufferably incapable from analyzing their scenes and the show in general whatsoever?

Like the subreddit literally deletes/blocks posts that mention Will and Mike romantically at all, with the sole argument that there’s already similar posts to it.

But like be fr there are hundreds upon THOUSANDS of posts humoring the same old theories and shit takes, and yet they have no problem letting those constantly circulate on a regular basis.

But when it comes to byler, one post is enough! Two? Three? More than three?? Oh no. Now that just won’t do! This is too much we’re tired of talking about this! Can we talk about something else? ANYTHING else.

Idc if there have been 100 byler posts inquired on that sub over the last year, bc I can guarantee you, x that by 100 and that’s how many times ppl in that tag have posted stuff like ‘hot take but I hate Erica.’

Believe it or not, a majority of the ppl on there run-off of one brain cell and said brain cell is not the least bit impressive. Most of the time all they have is tired ignorant takes that only require ppl with basic critical thinking skills to unpack as crap right from the jump.

Seriously those mods are awful and the way they dictate what does and doesn’t stay posted on the sub is a fucking joke.

Idc if you like byler or not. If you’re so convinced it’s all reaching, actually look at the all evidence instead of censoring it followed by calling us delusional.

Bc while we may be annoying for obsessing over anything and everything, y’all are the ones not even willing to look at any of it. And as a result you’re soon gonna find out you misinterpreted everything because of your bitterness. Bc you were too close-minded to look behind the curtain at all.

[andtheirmoonlight]

The new ‘strategy’ is depressing, but I’d have accepted it for lack of anything better — if only the new desktop version wasn't there. The new desktop interface is unusable and anxiety-inducing, and I don’t think we’re getting the old one back. I’d be happy to be wrong about it, but.

For now, I open tumblr and I want to leave right away. It’s unusable for a multitude of reasons. It looks like twitter. So the question is ... is there anywhere left to go? To go, as in, one’s populated social media of choice. People from twitter and reddit did a go to here. Tumblr was the last. Everything else had already succumbed to capitalism and The Algorithm, but even if I looked past The Algorithm for a second; facebook sucks, and the Parents are there and they’re eldritch; I avoid instagram like the plague, among other things I prefer to eat my food asap and I don’t want to share any pictures publicly; twitter is nothing but pointless hatred, one can’t be social there without suicidal thoughts creeping up in minutes; mastodon is a wasteland etc etc. Where do I go where it’s okay, where there’s a lot of people, where I don’t need to show my real face or real name, where an app is not a must, where the things that people share are in chronological order, where there’s no pressure and no clout-chaser-induced crap..?

Popularity is conformity, and I thought that tumblr existed specifically for people who aren’t interested in conforming, yet now there’s this ‘update’ that directly states: psych, lol!

You might say, go be social on discord, but I’m fandomless. I’m fandomless, but I do want to see what my mutuals are obsessing over and be like ‘wohoo! good for you!’ on occasion. I want to have mutuals, so to speak. I want to have the means to find more mutuals. I want to be social. With people who live on the other side of the world, and I can check how they’re doing and how their various niche interests are doing. And I want to be able to poke random strangers with reblogs and ask ‘r u fren?’. I want to post my sad little jokes too. I want to be able to curate my own experiences. I also want to have something to just scroll and read and poke hearts on, yes — when I have no energy and brainpower to read books (although I read at every opportunity). But uuh, do you read books in doctors’ waiting rooms or under IVs? I doubt it. I bet you, too, read through odd tags of odd things. So where do I go?

If your answer is ‘outside lol’ — joke’s on you, I go there every day, and not even/only for vexing things, but just on walks and for game nights and date nights and falafel. We go on aimless walks every day. Atm we live in a very walkable country with a lot of nice touchable grass, and that’s not what I mean. Yes, I get that it’s healthy and all, but I am not exactly a healthy or particularly outgoing person, and outside is definitely not somewhere I can go to poke random people who are happy about being poked, or to potentially befriend someone from the other side of the world— and I want to. So where do I go?

I’m pretty sure that it’s a rhetorical question, and that the only place left for me to go is gooseberry grove (which is code for ‘my head’).

The internet has gotten so lonely.

[magicstar16]

Banzai Family au

Sooo uhhh I’m inflicting my au on you all because why not

Basically it’s where Arnold Markdown and Bugsy Pugsler are Giovanni’s dads and they are a crime family

Sooo it starts with like a regular mission and one of the blasters goes up to Arnold and Bugsy and the blaster is all like “Eyo bosses I found a baby in a dumpster” and just hand baby Gio to Arnold and go about their mission

Arnold and Bugsy look at each other, they look at the baby, and they look at eachother again and their all like “What do we do with this?”

Arnold, against his better judgement decides to keep Baby Gio because who just leaves a defenseless baby in the middle of nowhere?! Arnold may be a criminal but he has STANDARDS! (Also he’s never gonna turn down anything free)

Bugsy is more apprehensive and he’s all like “Can’t we just give him away? we already have the blasters!”

That is until baby Gio grabs one of Bugsy’s fingers with his tiny, ravioli sized baby hand, Bugsy’s heart melts and decides “Nevermind, we are keeping this” 

They decide on the name “Giovanni” either by

A: One of the blasters suggests the name and Arnold and Bugsy go with it (Unbeknonst to them, said blaster is a huge Pokemon fan and they just named their son after a Pokemon character)

B: The name is found on a tag on a blanket that Giovanni is wrapped in and they’re all like “Oh! I guess that’s his name!” 

They can’t get a sitter so they just put Gio in one of those little baby carriers and bring him to work, or just carry him around.

The first time Arnold and Bugsy bring him it’s basically that one Icarly meme

Banzai co-worker: “uhhhh, what you guys got there?”

Bugsy, Carrying baby Gio in one arm, and a smoothie in the other, Arnold also has a smoothie and is carrying huge bag of baby supplies: *Simultanously* “Smoothies.”

If they are too busy they will choose a minion to be a “Banzai Babysitter” (It took Bugsy three hours to think of the name) to take care of Gio.

Do NOT try to hurt baby Gio, or else you will have to very angry Banzai vice principals. They will cut the theatrics and beat the crap out of you if you’re unlucky enough. 

They will DEFINITELY go Papa Wolf mode on any rival Banzai squads or criminals who try to harm Gio or kidnap him. Some rival Banzai gangs learned this the hard way.

Blaster: “NO! DON’T HURT HIM!”

Criminal, holding a crying baby Gio hostage: “Relax! Just do what I say and the baby doesn’t get hurt, I’m not a monster.”

Blaster: “I wasn’t talking to you! Boss, other boss, please don’t hurt him!  I don’t think we can’t afford any more casualties!

Criminal: “Wait what?”

*Cut to a Furious Arnold and Bugsy, fully ready to Omau Wa Mou Shinderu this guy*

so yeah just a family who’s Great at Crime™