#dump ALL the children onto sans

[sansofhumor]

just had a bug in my bonnet about kiddo papyrus haha. probably wont go anywhere with this but it’s a fun idea.

[jack-kellys]

so i am gonna talk abt the delanceys. and i don’t want that to make you scroll away at the speed of light. i want to talk about them in a broader sense, view them in a broader sense, in the way that we talk about jack and his existential need to leave where he is for the west- and, further, going into analysis, like how “the west” in america in the 1890s is a capitalist venture that is sold to jack as this idea of a new home, a better way to live, something that he needs, when the real home is new york with his chosen family and where no one needs to call him “son”.

i think what matters most in the world of the delanceys, and what puts them into a nuanced political stance as well as a personal one, is their father, the striking trolley worker.

i think it’s fair to assume that as a striking worker demanding better wages, as a union member, he deserves those wages. it’s good that he’s striking, that he’s demanding what he’s owed and doing so with his fellow workers. strikers are the right people to support especially based on the historical context of the trolley strike.

but this guy is… an asshole. he dumped these two children into the refuge and left them there to rot, presumably. there’s a possibility he didn’t know about how abusive snyder is, sure, but he knew it was a detention center and that’s not… where u put ur kids when u care abt them lmao.

so this man is a striking trolley worker who doesn’t give a shit about his own children. he’s an underpaid union member who deserves his dues but also lets his two sons suffer for years alone in a children’s jail. he fights the system to his benefit while submitting his two kids into a different one. the dichotomy is important here- it’s essential to the foil the delanceys are for the newsies.

the delanceys are strike breakers. strike breakers are, obviously, paid under the table to disperse union-led strikes and protests to uphold a system that benefits the rich- who of course will always benefit from underpaid work. the delanceys take money from this upheld system when they get the opportunity and beat strikers bloody who don't get to benefit from this system like they do. because they do benefit from that elitist system, since they are choosing to make money off of it outside of their usual job. right.

but within those strikers is their father. the father who left them to rot, who let wiesel scrape them out of that jail and enlist them at a dead-end newspaper gig. so the brothers hate this father, this striker, this piece of family. and this father is making all this noise with these other people- these people who support their father as his coworkers and fellow union members, and the delancey brothers' leave that strike with their fists red with more blood than solely their father's, since they're angry and good at it and the money is hefty.

and their childhood is semi-revenged, but at what ethical cost? they've served broken bones to plenty of workers just trying to fight for their fair pay- something that the delanceys can relate to, by the way, since it isn't like their wages are too stellar for how many hours they're forced to put in. but they put down these people--innocent sans their father--because they have the opportunity. opportunity for them is bringing others down, and when they have the choice, they take it. gladly. "it's honest work" is shrugged off and believed. "i take care of the guy who takes care of me" is snide. uk costuming has them wearing nicer work coats over their newsie-like attire, concealing their similarities and choosing to align themselves more with the elite, since that's...the only protection they can turn to besides each other. the elite gets them extra pay, and keeps them one rung above the newsies to sneer down at them from. they fight via using the system, since systems are all they've ever been apart of, and when they see one that might benefit them for once, they latch onto it.

and, of course, they're strike breaking again, with adult men and their uncle at their side, against their personal foils- the newsies.

the newsies either don't have family like the delanceys, or frequently have to be apart from theirs. lots of them don't have a sibling they can return to daily, or any at all. most don't have parents or family members. or homes to go back to after work. the system they are stuck in is one that does not work for them unless they make it work, making their own numbers and cash by gambling how many papers they can sell in a day to earn every cent back and then some. creating a system within a system--whereas the delanceys mold themselves into one that exists, again, to the elite's benefit--to survive.

and then, the newsies and their chosen family of brothers choose to revolt against their system in an attempt to dismantle it, or at the very least negotiate it.

and the delanceys' reaction to this, to another strike, to a group of kids going against their system (of which would benefit oscar and morris to join, tbh, unless they don't classify as "working kids" of the city, perhaps putting them at around 18 years old...)?

disdain and more snide comments! "not that i'm complaining, my skull busting arm could use a day of rest" "you working, or trespassing?/what's your pleasure?" and putting pressure on scabs to keep with the system- specifically more with uksies, oscar and morris are sort of dusting tommy boy off and whispering to him. trying to split apart the family the newsies have made with each other. and then ofc they beat the actual shit out of the newsies and in uk they have bats they are full on swinging, whole shoulder into it. you did not uphold this system, and it will destroy you for it.

and it nearly does, because then jack scabs, right? and oscar and morris are in pulitzer's office as the man talks jack through the deal, through the cash. as he must've to oscar and morris earlier that week about strike breaking the newsies. and all three of them all have these nearly matching bruises and cuts on their faces.

and then all three of them go to the cellar, the lowest floor of the elite. together the three of them are in this location with this context. two strikebreakers and a scab. taking the elite's money for their benefit, be it in a moment of fear, resignation, or greed. all the oldest kids in the play, the three who've seen the scars and rips and tears in this world more than any of the others. and for like twenty seconds of stage time jack oscar and morris are the same brand. until of course oscar and morris punch into jack's gut--since they're only "given discretion to handle him as they see fit" if he misbehaves, which jack hasn't, so they punch where people won't see/check--and remind him that he's still below them (literally shoving him to the floor ofc), that they're still closer to the elite.

and yeah, they are, because later, jack again refuses the system, and tosses the money back on the table after rebelling against his terms. in true foil fashion, once jack recognizes that his actions align that which he needs to destroy, he renounces them, while the delanceys remain on the other side of the coin they share with jack.

the delanceys, as a storytelling device, right, are meant to represent what the newsies could fall to, seen with the three initial scabs and then jack in act ii. they are this constant threat of sort of equal size to the newsies through the whole show, always kinda lurking. always being a possibility to become if the newsies ever forget what they fight for and against.

also, jack is....kind of.... like their dad, in their perspective. he's parental with the newsies, he leads them, guides them, and protects them, as well as constantly getting the better of the delanceys. why should someone like a father get to fight the system again? not on their fucking watch.

i think it's pretty clear that oscar and morris are meant to represent corruption on the small scale, thematically, while pulitzer is corruption at the top- since it all trickles down. and i think it's really important that this motif is consistently upheld within the brothers, since it sort of alters the message of the show to at least drastically change that abt them. they are the nearest branch of corruption to the newsies guys. that is so fucking cool

[incorrectvtuberquotes]

"The One Thing You Can't Replace" - Ex-Niji Version

AKA the closest I'll ever get to discourse-posting. But if you have quotes for Mint, Doki and the rest, by all means send them in!

Maid Mint: Another story I heard about myself... This one happened in Nijisanji. We had this boss, Mr. Tazumi, and I had a kouhai who went to our agency, Rosemi Lovelock. She was in Obsydia and I was in LazuLight, so she was a gen behind me.

Mint: So Mr. Tazumi was an asshole. And one weekend, he and his yacht decided to leave town, which you should never do if you're an asshole. And Rosemi decided to throw a party at the HQ - hooray! So everyone around Niji heard about it, and we all got up individually and said:

Quinn Benet: Okay. Let's go over there and destroy the place.

Mint: I walked into this party. Everyone I had ever met was there, and everyone was drinking like it was the end of the world! We were drinking like it was the Civil War and a doctor was coming to saw our legs off. It was totally unsupervised. We were like dogs without horses - we were running wild.

Mint: I walked down... I walked down to the basement. They had a pool table in the basement.

[Cut to Michi Mochievee, jumping onto the pool table]

Mint: One kid took a running start and threw her body onto the pool table and broke it in half.

[Cut to Kuro, plotting mischief]

Mint: Another kid found out which office was Tazumi's and went upstairs and took a shit on his computer.

Mint: So the party was going great.

[Chat cheers]

Mint: I'm standing in the basement, and I'm holding a red cup - you've seen movies - and I'm standing there, and I'm starting to black out. And I guess someone said, like...

Sayu: Something, something, managers.

Mint: And in a brilliant moment of word association, I yelled:

Mint/Pomu: FUCK THE MANAGERS! FUCK THE MANAGERS!

Mint: And everyone else joined in! Three dozen drunk EN children yelling "Fuck. Da. Managers." with the confidence of guys who have, like, already been to jail and aren't afraid of it anymore - you know, that "I served my nickel! You come and take me!" confidence. But EN children.

Mint: The reason someone had said "something something managers" was because the managers were there. So an Anycolor manager walked down the stairs and got to the bottom in the basement, and looked out over a sea of drunk toddlers yelling "Fuck the managers!" in his face! And he was almost impressed! He was like, "Wooooowww..." And then he leaned into his walkie-talkie and went: "Get the paddywagon!"

Mint: And my friend Matara - who is now a mother, this woman has babies - she grabbed a 40, smashed it on the ground and yelled:

Matara: SCATTER!!!

Mint: And everyone ran in a different direction. We all ran in different directions. It was like that scene in Rat-tat-touille when the humans come in the kitchen and all the rats go in different ways - we all ran in different directions.

Mint: I ran into the laundry room and I jumped up on a washing machine, and I crawled out through a window into the back alley, and now I'm running through the back alley and there was this big chain link fence. And I thought:

Mint/Pomu: I have never climbed a fence that high before!

Mint: And then I woke up at home.

[Chat laughs uproariously]

Mint: On Monday, I went to work, because that's what we did back then. And I'm walking into the collab, and who do I see but Rosemi Lovelock. And she says to me:

Rosemi: Hey, were you at my party on Saturday?

Mint: And I said no. You know, like a liar. And he said:

Rosemi: Things got really out of hand. Someone broke the pool table. Someone took a dump on Tazumi-san's computer. But the worst thing is, someone stole these old antique photos of Tazumi's grandmother. And our bosses are freaking out about it.

Mint: And I had that thought that only blackout drunks and Steve Urkel can have: "Did I do that?"

[She pauses as chat reacts]

Mint: I figured no, I wouldn't have done that. But I was never sure - until, a year later... Relax!

Mint: I'm playing video games with this kid named Dokibird, that we also went to Nijisanji with. A year later, we've graduated by now. We're playing video games for a couple hours. And then Doki says to me:

Doki: Hey, come here, I wanna show you something.

Mint: And she takes me into her bedroom, and then she takes me into a side room off of her bedroom - never a good thing to have.

Mint: And she shows me a tiny room that is covered wall to wall in stolen antique photos from Nijisanji parties over the years. And I said: "Why? Why do you do this?"

Mint: And Doki said:

Doki: Because it's the one thing Tazumi can't replace.

[Chat erupts into laughter and cheers]

[ivyprism]

Villain! Underfell Skeleton Boys (Info Dump)

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of violence, villains, etc.

-----

Finch - Villain! Underfell Sans

Personality: He's a very humorous man, yet he can be a bit prickly at times. He's a harsh and rude person; once you become his friend and show that you're not a threat, he'll be all over you. He truly like children and is a bit of a flirt. When you think about it, he's a more casual villain. He creates devices and hacks for his friends and family. When he has to be charming and fearless, he is more of a smooth talker. He also really goes in for it when it comes to kills and never backs down in arguments.

Appearance: He has a large and rough scar on his right eye. He also has a golden tooth.

(But redder!)

Baron - Villain! Underfell Papyrus

Personality: He's another prickly and confrontational character, but he's easier to get along with. He is hostile and vicious, but with enough effort, you can win him over. He's highly protective of his friends and may appear antagonistic in order to defend them, but once you've accepted him, he's incredibly compassionate and sweet. He will gladly carry you if you ask. He is otherwise severe and frigid. When it comes to villainy, he is frequently on-hand and, most of the time leads the way. He is a very hot-tempered person and takes shit from nobody.

Appearance: He has a large nasty scar on his eyes that curves onto his nose. He has a large scar on his ribs.

Amos - Villain! Underfell Gaster

Personality: He's another prickly and belligerent character, but he's more approachable. He is hostile and cruel, but with enough work, you can make him your friend. He's highly protective of his friends and will appear antagonistic in order to defend them, but once you've accepted him for who he is, he's incredibly compassionate and sweet. He will gladly carry you if you request it. He is severe and chilly otherwise. When it comes to villainy, he is frequently on-hand and most of the time leads the way.

Appearance: His scars are nasty looking.

(Red accents!)

------------

@kioko-noodles / @kiokodoodles @hearty-dose-of-ranch @und3rwat3r-a5tr0naut @miscneilleaneous

[mariacallous]

Ransomware gangs have long sought pain points where their extortion demands have the greatest leverage. Now an investigation from NBC News has made clear what that merciless business model looks like when it targets kids: One ransomware group's giant leak of sensitive files from the Minneapolis school system exposes thousands of children at their most vulnerable, complete with behavioral and psychological reports on individual students and highly sensitive documentation of cases where they've allegedly been abused by teachers and staff.

We'll get to that. But first, WIRED contributor Kim Zetter broke the news this week that the Russian hackers who carried out the notorious SolarWinds espionage operation were detected in the US Department of Justice's network six months earlier than previously reported—but the DOJ didn't realize the full scale of the hacking campaign that would later be revealed. 

Meanwhile, WIRED reporter Lily Hay Newman was at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, where she brought us stories of how security researchers disrupted the operators of the Gootloader malware who sold access to victims' networks to ransomware groups and other cybercriminals, and how Google Cloud partnered with Intel to hunt for and fix serious security vulnerabilities that underlie critical cloud servers. She also captured a warning in a talk from NSA cybersecurity director Rob Joyce, who told the cybersecurity industry to "buckle up" and prepare for big changes to come from AI tools like ChatGPT, which will no doubt be wielded by both attackers and defenders alike.

On that same looming AI issue, we looked at how the deepfakes enabled by tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, DALL-E, and StableDiffusion will have far-reaching political consequences. We examined a newly introduced US bill that would ban kids under the age of 13 from joining social media. We tried out the new feature in Google's Authenticator App that allows you to back up your two-factor codes to a Google account in case you lose your 2FA device. And we opined—well, ranted—on the ever-growing sprawl of silly names that the cybersecurity industry gives to hacker groups.

But that’s not all. Each week, we round up the news we didn’t report in-depth ourselves. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Inside a Ransomware Dump of a School’s Student Records

What happens when a school system is targeted by a ransomware group, refuses to pay, and thus gets their stolen data dumped wholesale onto the dark web? Well, it's even worse than it sounds, as NBC's Kevin Collier found this week when he dug through portions of a trove of 200,000 files leaked online after the Minneapolis public school system was hit by hackers earlier this year. 

The leaked files include detailed dossiers linking children by name, birth date, and address to a laundry list of highly private information: their special needs, their psychological profiles and behavioral analyses, their medications, the results of intelligence tests, and which kids' parents have divorced, among many other sensitive secrets. In some cases, the files even note which children have been victims of alleged abuse by school teachers or staff. The hackers also took special pains to publicly promote their toxic dump of children's information, with links posted to social media sites and a video showing off the files and instructing viewers how to download them.

The Minneapolis school system is offering free credit monitoring to parents and children affected by the data dump. But given the radioactive nature of the personal information released by the hackers, identity fraud may be the least of their victims' worries.

Cyber Command Disrupted Iranians Hacking a US Elections Website

In a rare declassified disclosure at a panel at this week's RSA Conference, General William Hartman revealed that US Cyber Command had disrupted an Iranian hacking operation that targeted a local elections website ahead of the 2020 election. According to Hartman, who leads Cyber Command's National Mission Force, the intrusion couldn't have affected actual vote counts or voting machines, but—had Cyber Command's own hackers not kiboshed the operation—might have potentially been used to post false results as part of a disinformation effort. 

Hartman named the Iranian hackers as a group known as Pioneer Kitten, also sometimes referred to as UNC757 or Parisite, but didn't name the specific elections website that they targeted. Hartman added that the hacking operation was found thanks to Cyber Command's Hunt Forward operations, in which it hacks foreign networks to preemptively discover and disrupt adversaries who target the US.

Instagram and Facebook Remain Rife With Child Sex Traffickers

Following a two-year investigation, The Guardian this week published a harrowing exposé on Facebook and Instagram's use as hunting grounds for child predators, many of whom traffic in children as sexual abuse victims for money on the two social media services. Despite the claims of the services' parent company Meta that it's closely monitoring its services for child sexual abuse materials or sexual trafficking, The Guardian found horrific cases of children whose accounts were hijacked by traffickers and used to advertise them for sexual victimization. 

One prosecutor who spoke to The Guardian said that he'd seen child trafficking crimes on social media sites increase by about 30 percent each year from 2019 to 2022. Many of the victims were as young as 11 or 12 years old, and most were Black, Latinx, or LGBTQ+.

Hackers Are Hijacking AT&T Email Accounts to Steal Cryptocurrency

A group of hackers has been taking over AT&T email accounts—the telecom provider runs email domains including att.net, sbcglobal.net, bellsouth.net—to hack their cryptocurrency wallets, TechCrunch reports. 

A tipster tells TechCrunch that the hackers have access to a part of AT&T's internal network that allows them to generate "mail keys" that are used to offer access to an email inbox via email applications like Thunderbird or Outlook. The hackers then use that access to reset the victims' passwords on cryptocurrency wallet services like Gemini and Coinbase, and, according to TechCrunch's source, have already amassed between $10 million and $15 million in stolen crypto, though TechCrunch couldn't verify those numbers.

[osakunt]

Hi!so i heard your request is open and may i request a hc where The haitanis(saperately)were in a arranged marriage and before meeting the bride they were like hating it and will make sure to run hell on their bride.BUTTT when they finally met they realise that its their crush who they are(madly)in love with.Make it Flufff

➟ ARRANGED MARRIAGE W/ HAITANIS [timeskip]

➟ Thank you for requesting, babes ! Pls enjoy <3

Ran

When he gets told that an arranged marriage is to happen. He was calm. But not calm enough

When asked to at least follow up and text the person he is to marry him, Ran automatically turns away acting like he didn’t hear shit.

The man cringed at the idea of even getting married with someone he didn’t know. So this is what he did

1. Made sure to text the person “just know I already dislike you”

2. Went out with random people and post on his social media because he knew you’d find out some way or another.

3. Trashed his place so the people who supervised him gave you a bad report about him. Sadly he got a little OCD and decided to clean up -

Plan A :backfired 🏃🏻‍♀️

Once it was time to finally meet each other, Ran thought it was a good idea to not get dressed formally. He wore a shirt that he specifically cut holes into and some shit colored pants and hair untamed.

“I hope (L/n) - san still goes along with this. They’ve been thinking of backing out. I understand that the peace between both gangs are on the line. And seeing how Ran has been acting, I doubt Bonten will even have a good clan to be their back bone when needed”

Hearing Kakucho talk to Kokonoi, Ran instantly stops and speed walks to the area the two were standing. “L/n ?? As in (L/n) (Y/n)… Kucho tell me it isn’t the the youngest of the (L/n) clan ….”

“It is….do you know them” Kakucho was lost as fuck but seeing the older man freak out he called in Rindou to help his brother out.

Once things were explained and cleared up, Kakucho sighs and sends the oldest Haitani to go fix up.

“Bet you were surprised it was me, Hmm ?” Ran sees your mouth moving but isn’t paying attention due to him taking in your appearance. The way you held yourself and greeted him even after the shit he had done to get you to rethink things.

“Y/n, I think this’ll work” Ran throws you a lazy smile. To think that he would throw a chance away with the person he was in the dumps for was completely stupid to him. Why would he want to throw away something that can bloom into something real. Something loving and something one and only.

“We can even get married now” he swings an arm around you, coming all up on you like Toji’s worm.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

RINDOU

Let’s say his family wanted his bum ass to get married already so his parents said ‘fuck it, let’s arrange a marriage for him’

“The hell makes you think I’m going to go through with this ?” He yells looking at his superiors not carrying if they were his parents “ You’re 23 going onto 24. It’s time” his mother mocks him leaving the room to deal with other things. She didn’t care if he was throwing a fit.

Rindou being more snarky than Ran, he goes around making comments on how he’s fucked this big number of women and for all he knows could have children.

This is false. Yea he’s had his little sexcapades but wraps his willy cause like…fuck them kids

Anywhore ~ he found a way to get in contact with you even if the rules said that you guys couldn’t talk just yet until a certain day.

“Listen. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. If you were the one to suggest this false of a fake- fuck you. HONESTLY FUCK. YOU. who the hell do you think you are getting my family to agree to this shit” he hangs up without letting you even talk and you’re just there like ‘oh so this is how he wanna be ? Bet say less’

Seeing that Rindou isn’t going to at least try to make a good out of it, you decide to speed the meeting closer. As much as you didn’t want this, you wanted to at least meet with the big mouth who talked down to you.

The days comes and there he is. The click clack of your heels is heard on the shiny floor. Starting from you legs and traveling up to meet your stoic gaze and raised eyebrow - Rindou’s eyes widen at who was in front of him.

“Just came to say that you’re free to go. I only ever accepted cause I heard good things from your parents and cause I actually kinda liked you. Oh well it is what it is” you step to turn around but Rindou gets up from his seat in the café

“…..don’t go….I mean not yet- fuck” he can’t believe the fuck up he is going through right now.

Pushing back his hair from his face, he offers you to sit and you comply with the most professionalism you could give. “In my defense I didn’t know it was you. I wouldn’t mind having you as my wife ,ya know. To be fair I actually tolerate you.”

“I’ll accept this marriage simply because it’s you” his words caught you off guard because this bitch just cussed your ass out ?! SIR WTF !!

When Rindou got home after convincing you to continue the arrangements - he strides into his parents home to give them a hug. “Why didn’t y’all tell me it was Y/n. I thank y’all for understanding my wants” he kisses his moms cheek and hugs his father like never before

“Should I send her an apology with roses, or something…??”

[autisticundertale]

Skelebro Headcanons

So uhh heres a collection of random skelebro headcanons our headmates have been slapping onto documents. A lot of these were inspired by @zarla-s

Papyrus is autistic. He stims through stomping, his special interest is puzzle-making and puzzle-solving, and he has trouble with social cues and friendship-making due to his mind functioning differently. Its also why he can be very blunt at times and why he has an obsessive-compulsive need for cleanness.

.

Papyrus is aware that most of Sans “laziness” is a symptom of depression. The “lazybones” nickname is just a fond tease, and not actual judgement. Sans knows this, and likes the nickname, because even though he’s not as lazy as he pretends to be, he still is a bit lazy even when hes not especially depressed.

.

Papyrus sets Sans up for things (such as his job as a sentry) to push him to do activities. This is because he doesn’t want Sans to lay in bed all day, and doing things helps distract Sans from his depressive thoughts.

.

Papyrus does sleep, however he’s an insomniac, and rarely gets any rest, hence why he finds Sans sleeping an entire night to be blasphemous. Papyrus is unaware that he’s sleep deprived, but Sans knows, and tries to get him to settle down and rest through cuddle sessions/movie nights on the coach.

.

Sans and Papyrus go to the dump to find new clothes when they are bored. They like to compete against one another to see who can find the oddest or flashiest clothes.

.

Sans uses puns, jokes, and pranks to express love for his brother whenever Papyrus isn’t doing well. For example, he might say something like “you know bro, you’re really smart. Your scholastic skills are on point…or, should I say…skull-astic skills?” Papyrus pretends to hate it, but it cheers him up.

.

Sans is God-awful at cooking, just like Papyrus. Toriel and Asgore would probably be the ones to teach them (and Undyne) how to cook well.

.

Papyrus respects Grillby as a person, due to the amount of support he gives Sans. He just dislikes the greasy food Grillby makes, but he doesn’t mind Grillby’s drinks or a salads every once in a while.

.

Sans secretly enjoys reading childrens books, and internally gets just as excited as Papyrus does when reading them.

.

Sans is protective, but not overprotective. Many fans seem to portray him as unhealthily controlling of Papyrus’s personal life, but honestly, I think he’s fine with Papyrus going off and making his own decisions. Sans only steps in when he senses Papyrus is being hurt/mistreated (which he is good at sensing.)

.

Papyrus has sensory issues and likes the feeling of snow and ice on his bones. Plus, the cold doesn’t bother him.

.

This is more of a general skeleton headcanon, but I like to think that skeletons may not be affected by temperature when it touches their bones, however if it touches their soul (which I personally view as being inside their rib-cage)…then they definitely can feel it. So, for example, if snow got into their ribcage, it would be a nightmare. Or, if they were taking a bath or a shower, the warm (or cold) temperature washing over their soul would be refreshing.

.

Papyrus uses their pet rock as a way to see if Sans is okay. On a normal day, Sans will put in the effort to take the rock out on a walk or feed it, but when he’s having a particularly negative day, he just…can’t do it. So, when Papyrus says “he always forgets to feed it” during his date with Frisk, I like to think that the reason for this is because he’s stuck in a depressive rut due to Flowey’s (and in some cases, the Player’s) resets.

[asknarashikari]

Minific idea:

Tsukasa dumps the preteen ToQgers into Aruto's office and a note that says "Babysit them for me"

What the fuck Tsukasa

Aruto sighed, looking around in dismay as it turned into a disaster zone, his once-neat paperwork now fluttering in the air and scattered on the floor and covering every surface, including himself.

"I'm so sorry, Aruto-san!" Tokacchi apologized profusely, smacking himself on the edge of Aruto's table. "Ow!"

"Alright, alright, just take it easy, geez." Aruto replied, trying not to sound too annoyed. "It's okay, we'll just... fix this, alright?"

"Kagura-chan, you apologize too. If you hadn't been playing around, Tokacchi wouldn't have tripped onto the pile of files." Mio admonished.

Kagura pouted at Aruto and Tokacchi. "I'm so sorry, you guys! I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay, never mind..." Aruto waved off. "Can you just... help me pick this all up? Please?"

"Alright, Aruto-san." Hikari agreed on his friends' behalf. Aruto and the preteens got to work gathering the papers, with the CEO instructing the kids how to rearrange them back into their proper files.

"Aruto-san, why does your work have so many numbers?" Right complained, going cross-eyed as he tried to figure out the sheet he was looking at. "My brain hurts just looking at it..."

"My brain hurts looking at it too." Aruto admitted. "Izu helps me figure it all out though."

In all honesty, Aruto was rather annoyed with the whole affair, though he was wise enough not to let it show to the children. After all it was hardly their fault they were kidnapped by a magenta menace for some "fun" (aka a battle for the fate of the world) and unceremoniously dumped on his doorstep to babysit until further notice.

The least he could've done was give him some advance notice. But no, the guy just leaves five preteens for him to find in his office after lunch, with nothing more than a sticky-note on Right's forehead asking to 'watch over them for a bit'.

That had been well over four hours ago. And not even Fruit Jesus knew how much longer it would be before he returned.

Aruto grumbled under his breath. "Onore, Dickeido..." he muttered as he straightened a stack of papers. He swore that when that guy returned, he was going to make him pay hundred-fold...

[yan-purgatory]

Mementos

Pairing: Yandere!San x f!reader

Warning: Mature content

Word count: 1.5k

Admin ❦ &  ღ

note: this was written in collaboration before admin ❦ left the blog. i picked it up again recently and finished it - I hope you enjoy!

“Look at your little grin!” (Y/N) squealed, holding up the photo to his face whilst refusing to sit up. San chuckled before finding his own contribution.

Pulling out his wallet, he plucked out a small square from one of the compartments. A miniature photo, which he subsequently showed to (Y/N).

“How old were we?” She gasped, taking in the sight of the two children with their arms wrapped around each other with cheeky grins.

“Seven. Our parents gave us a copy of this photo for us each to keep remember?” San smiled, but (Y/N) only gasped, placing a hand on his thigh to lift herself off her back into a sitting position.

“I must have lost mine within weeks! How is yours still in perfect condition?” She asked, admiring how despite the film having yellowed slightly there was no damage, no tears or folds at all.

“It’s one of my prized possessions,” San replied, easing it out of her grip before placing it safely back into its home.

The sound of some cheesy slasher had been long been tuned out by (Y/N). All she could sense was the feeling of San’s hand on her thigh, drawing small circles on the supple skin. She tried to ignore it, reminding herself that they were just friends. They’d know each other since the age of one, there was no room for any sexual feelings in their relationship. Still, she couldn’t deny how amazing his touch was.

Disregarding her thoughts she turned her attention back to the screen for a second, only to have it snatched away yet again as San’s fingers started to trail up her inner thighs. (Y/N) gave him a confused look, only to be met with his eyes meeting hers. His lips quirked into a smirk before he turned his attention away again, watching as the teen couple of the movie connect their lips passionately before starting to remove their clothes with haste.

(Y/N) stood up, letting his hand fall away as she mumbled something about needing to use the toilet, avoiding look at him. The arrogant smile was still stuck on his face as he nodded, watching her leave the room until the door was shut behind her.

Having been left with blue-balls, San found himself thanking every divinity for his ability to persuade (Y/N) to watch the movie in her room. Now, he had an endless supply of ‘goodies’.

The first thing that caught his attention was a pile of undergarments dumped by the bed, evidently still fresh from the previous night. With delight he fished out the bralette and underwear, letting his fantasy of seeing (Y/N) dressed amorously in these for him taking over for a second. Yet he couldn’t resist the deep desire he had for getting something more out of his newfound treasure.

Disregarding all risks and forgetting where he was for a moment, he buried his nose into the baby pink lace, taking a deep breath in and breathing out shakily. The smell of (Y/N) that hung on the set was something of an aphrodisiac, as he felt himself become instantly aroused, luckily hidden under one of the blankets they had been snuggled in.

San simply couldn’t stop himself from taking another sniff, letting out a moan as he breathed out. He let himself lean back against the headboard, eyes closed in a euphoria like no other.

However, his moment of bliss was interrupted as the door creaked open again with the woman of the hour returning from her bathroom trip with calmer breathing and a settled smile. That was, until she saw her best friend grasping her underwear in his hand with some sort of sick smile on his face.

The only natural reaction was for her to let out a small gasp and grab the nearest thing which happened to be another picture of the both of them no older than ten. (Y/N) threw the framed treasure with all her strength towards his relaxed body.

If only San didn’t dodge it, his head turned ever so slowly towards her. The sick grin stayed put on his lips as his eyes twitched staring deeply into hers with an emotion that could only be read as obsessive lust.

“It’ll take more than that to kill me, princess.” (Y/N) was trapped like a deer in headlights as he stalked towards her. However, rather than attacking her as she feared, he reached past her to find the coil of tape on her desk, lying innocently next to her scrapbook.

San had less innocent ideas than sticking down photographs, as he unwound it and marvelled at how she flinched at the sound. (Y/N) didn’t even budge as he took hold of her wrist and swaddled them in the tape. His hot breath fanned her neck, almost lulling her into an opiated state. She forgot that he was her childhood best friend, she forgot that moments ago he was sniffing her panties. All she could think about was him fucking her.

“You’re such a good girl right now, princess.” He whispered, pushing her gently back onto the bed.

Her thighs naturally clenched together as the indecent thoughts crept into her head of her own best friend above her; the feeling of herself becoming wet for him was bad enough as she watched him bit his own lip looking down on her.

(Y/N) didn’t even last a second in her once matching sleepwear set, feeling San’s hand make its way back onto her exposed leg. His palm rested on her knee as his thumb stroked back and forth, his eyes never once leaving her’s.

His cold finger danced along her leg, higher and higher. (Y/N) squirmed, still not used to getting this sexual with her best friend.

His veiny hands grabbed her thighs, hands tapping her inner thighs and forcing them open. She let out the quicked moan to only be stopped by her own force.

San’s eyes finally left her’s to only divert to her clothed core. The shorts blocked his vision and he practically growled in frustration, his hands having no mercy as they grabbed the fabric from the top and pulled them down in an instant. 

(Y/N) could feel herself becoming hot in the face as San basically shredded the fabric of her shorts. They hadn’t been expensive, in fact she was sure he’d insisted on paying for them, but that was irrelevant right now. All that mattered was San.

“I can basically see how wet you are, all for me,” The bold sentence left his lips without a single care but his next action was even more bold.

His hand cupped her core, middle finger rubbing her slit ever so slightly through the thin excuse of panties she wore.

“San..nie?” She moaned at the feeling of the fabric pressing against her core. His middle finger pushed the fabric even tighter, only encouraged.

The sound of her voice echoing throughout his head was too much for him to contain himself as he practically became lost in the sound of her voice, like a man at sea he was lost.

“Who said you could talk princess? I need you to be silent for me,” San’s calm voice whispered back into her ear, giving a slight peck to the skin under her ear.

All she could do was merely nod, her breathing uneven and her stomach filled with both excitement and fear.

San’s warm hand slowly made its way higher and higher, his middle finger stopped its assault on her core, to be replaced with the settlement on her stomach.

She let out a sigh at the friction, wanting to beg for more but suppressing it when she made eye contact with him. She had to do what San asked of her, and simply closed her eyes as she felt his bulge right next to her thigh.

He finally slipped the lace away and tucked it in his pocket, clearly intended for later use.

“That’s it, princess. You’re so pretty.” San whispered as she unconsciously ground into the space where his hand had been lingering, wanting more.

She felt his hands gripping her thighs, and the softness of his hair tickling the insides of her legs.

Suddenly his tongue was inside her, and she was trembling as the pleasure built up inside her. 

“Oh fuck, oh yes.” (Y/N) breathed out. Her fingers twitched to bury themselves in his hair, longing to hold him and never let go. The knot inside her was almost too much, and with a loud moan she let go.

San was in ecstasy as he lapped at the juices, proud of himself. He was the only one for her: he just knew it.

“Sannie...” (Y/N) groaned, moving her body slightly in the effort to make more contact with him. He just gave her a grin, his eyes swirling with that dark obsession.

“Don’t worry, my princess. By the end of tonight, you’ll know just how much I love you.”

[samstrugglingwithlife]

Babysitting With A  Reserved Male Friend And Developing A Crush On Him

Genre: Fluff

Characters: Ushijima, Osamu, Daichi

Warning: Swearing.

A/n: Male reader x character. This is super long, I sorta got carried away. I GOT CARRIED AWAY WAY TOO FAR MAN! The premise of this ask was so cute and I can only hope I did it justice. I hope you guys enjoy it. This is my first time writing for a male reader so let me know if I did something wrong or if I didn’t capture the essence right. 

It’s super long, so everything is under the cut.

USHIJIMA

This guy is pretty reserved himself, and on top of it, he's also pretty blunt and says things without much consideration. The two of you became 'friends' in your first year when one of the teachers asked you to help him with his studies.

You realised that Wakatoshi is not really as cold as he is clueless. Also, he was a bit of a dumbass, you were pretty surprised when you found out that his brain functioned at full capacity only when it came to volleyball. (A/N: Boy thought that the earth is flat and that Hinata was muscle training by clinging upside down to the surface on the other side of the planet... such dumbassery, I want him.)

You're third years now; you guys have been friends for about two years. Ushijima and you are both serious guys, you two like each other's companies even when you two sit together in silence.

It was a week before exams, that's when the two of you would usually get together in Ushijima's dorm room, and you would tutor him.

"Y/n," he called you just as you left your last class of the day. "Hmm?" "Are you coming today?"

You sigh, "Sorry. Maybe tomorrow. I have to babysit my little sister tonight," he nodded in reply and proceeded to walk away. You thought about it a little and called out to him, "Hey, you can come to my house. I was gonna study literature today." 

Wakatoshi nodded and promised to see you at your place after practice. You texted him your address.

Outside the boundaries of your home, you were very reserved, you kept to yourself and hardly had any friends other than Ushijima, and Tendou by extension. At home, you were a loving brother, you played with your sister, and you were her best friend; she was the reason you decided not to live in the Shiratorizawa dorms. 

That evening, around six, Ushijima showed up at your place. He had never seen you in casual clothes before, you two only ever hung out at school, so he had only seen you in uniform, but you looked cute; he was dressed in his jogging tracksuit, typical.

Your sister was busy watching her favourite cartoons, so she didn't pay any attention as you led him to your room. You left him there to go get the two of you drinks from the kitchen.

Your room was just like you, it gave nothing away. It was sparsely furnished with only a bed, a dresser and a study table. All the colours were plain and neutral. However, there was one thing that stood out, a corkboard. It was covered in children's drawings and pictures of you and your baby sister. 

There was one photo of you that caught his eye, it was you with your sister in your arms, and the two of you were grinning from ear to ear, paint smeared on both your cheeks.

"It was last month," Ushijima turned towards you. You walked further into your room, placing the tray with your drinks on your study table, you stand beside him and stare fondly at the photo. You trace your fingers gently over it, a small smile playing at your lips, his heart does a little ba-dump.

The two of you are immersed in your studies until your baby sister opens your door just a crack, "Nii-chan..." she calls out groggily, her little fists rubbing her eyes. You turn towards her and get up from your seat, picking her up. You look at the alarm clock and inhale in disbelief, "Oh! It's that late?" 

"It's way past your bed time!" you pat her head as she places it in the crook of your neck and shoulder, tired. You softly hum a lullaby as you gently rock her. Ushijima's heart does another flip. He had known you for two years, but he had never seen you like this, with a sweet smile on your face and a gentle cadence in your voice. He didn't know you after all.

After you tuck your sister in bed, you walk with Wakatoshi to the end of your street. He always enjoyed your company, during lunch, in his dorm room when you helped him out with homework, yet he never in these two years felt what he felt in the last two hours.

Ever since that day, his heart always did a flip whenever you were around, he felt the urge to be near you, he felt protective of you. He didn't know what to call this feeling, but he quite liked it, whatever it was.

OSAMU

You and Osamu were classmates, you were his seat neighbour. The two of you became friends when Osamu offered to share his homemade onigiri with you, and you decided to share your homemade dessert with him. He enjoyed the feedback you gave him about his food. He wasn't exactly a fan of sweet things, but the desserts you made were to die for.

Osamu figured early on that you liked to keep to yourself most of the time, you just couldn't get along with your peers. You were on the soccer team but you never hung out with your teammates after practice, so far, Osamu was your only friend. You were both the quiet type, neither of you spoke much, but you always shared your lunches and sometimes chatted about your clubs - Osamu liked to complain about Atsumu sometimes, you found it very amusing.

It was during summer break. The two of you were texting (dry ass texters both of you), he was complaining about his brother and wanted to get out of the house. He invited you to hang out,  but you had to decline because your mother was away on a work trip leaving you to look after your nine years old little twin brothers. You told him that he is welcomed to come to your place and hang out if he really wants to get away from Atsumu.

Osamu took you up on your offer, and within half an hour, he was at your doorstep, a bag of ingredients and snacks in his arms. The first thing he sees when you open the door to let him in is two identical twin boys clinging to you, all of you covered in flour. 

You let him in, "We were just baking," you tell him awkwardly. You had flour in your hair, on your cheeks, your t-shirt, and your arms; for some reason, Osamu's heart quickened in his chest. 

You looked questioningly at the bag in his hands, "Was gonna make onigiri..." he mumbles. Your brothers perked up, "Really?" they asked simultaneously. You chuckled at their voices. It was as if an arrow shot him straight through his heart. He had never heard you could laugh like that. How could you sound so boyish, so cute? 

Nonetheless, Osamu followed you to the kitchen. You picked the boys up and sat them on the counter with a grunt, "Ushah! Now sit tight and lemme work ya lill' runts!" you playfully scold them. Osamu blinked, who were you? He didn't know this Y/n at all; the Y/n he knew spoke quietly and never uttered more than three words at a time, he especially did not make that fuckin' cute grunting sound. 

He unloaded the items onto the counter next to you, he leaned closer to look into your bowl, "What're you makin'?" he asked. "Cookies," you reply. "I saw it online, wanna try it out."

You were busy working on your dough, animatedly interacting with your brothers, as Osamu rolled the onigiri, stealing little glances at you. He was caught completely off guard when he heard you laugh loudly at something your little brothers did, his face flushed as he looked at you, you sounded so different, so charming, your face looked so handsome and cute. He was seeing things he never noticed before, like how one of your incisors was sharper than the other and like despite being big and strong, your hands were so beautiful and so attractive in the way they delicately dealt with the food. "Osamu! yer squeezin' the rice too hard!" oh shit! He turned the rice ball into mulch.

After cleaning up, eating and playing with the boys, you found yourself seeing Osamu off at the door at the end of the day. "Sorry 'bout my brothers," you say as you nervously rub the back of your neck. "Don't worry 'bout it," he replies softly and places his hand on your head shocking both you and him. He retracts it quickly, "I-I had fun, see ya later," he says and hurriedly walks away.

"Ya had fun?"Atsumu asks him when he finally gets home and buries his face in his pillows. "Fuckin' cute..." Osamu mumbles to himself. "What?" Atsumu asks, not really catching what his brother said. "Shaddup," he replies. "YOU PICKIN' A FIGHT ASSHOLE?!!" 

DAICHI

You and Daichi were neighbours. He knew you since you two were little so he knew you had trouble getting along with others and you mostly kept to yourself. He was the only exception, but even with him, you never spoke much.

Both of your parents were close friends as well, and both of your younger siblings were more or less in the same age group.

You often looked after all the children when the grown-ups had to go out since Daichi had club activities that ran pretty long on most days. The kids loved you, though Daichi found it hard to believe that such a quiet and reserved guy could entertain a bunch of hyperactive kids.

Today as well, you were in charge of taking care of the children as the adults left to go enjoy Friday. You were in the Sawamura household with the children, Daichi was still at practice.

On his end, Daichi felt relieved that practice ended early today and coach Ukai allowed them to go home. After buying his teammates pork buns he made his way home.

What he came home to caught him off guard, you were sitting on the couch with a storybook in your hands as the kids all sat in front of you on little cushions; you were reading to them, doing all the voices quite animatedly.

All of you heard him enter the house. The kids ran to him and swarmed around him, greeting him. "Y/n onii-san was reading a story to us!" his little sister exclaims. "Is that so?" "Wanna join us?" your brother asks him. "Sure."

Daichi took a seat beside you, you nod at him in a greeting. He rolls his eyes, "Hello to you too."

As you continued the story, the kids demanded that Daichi should do the voices as well. "I'm the wizard and the dragon," you tell him. "You have to be the princess and the parrot." Daichi groaned, "They're both very high pitched, I literally cannot do that!" You shrugged, "Not my problem."

As you continued the story and did your voices, Daichi kept his eyes on you, in all the years he had known you, this was the first time he had seen this side of you. Honestly, this bright personality suited you.

Soon his turn came, you scooted closer to him so you could share the book. "Oh no, I'm trapped in the tower," he started in his usual voice, all the kids whined, "Onii-chan! You have to do the voice!" his sister scolded him. Daichi sighed, "Help me!" he cried out the dialogue in a much higher pitch. "Pfft!"

He turned to glare at you and yell but his words got caught in his throat, your shoulders were shaking in a silent laugh, your hand on your mouth. Your eyes met his, they were so bright and looked so cheerfully youthful, so different from your usual look of guarded emotions. His breath hitched and he felt his face grow warmer as his heart did somersaults in his chest. 'It's the embarrassment,' he tried to convince himself. 

He didn't know that he was staring that long until you nudged his knee with yours and pointed at his next line. Daichi cleared his throat and read it in a high pitch voice.

After the story was finished, the kids were sitting together and eating their snacks. Daichi slumped against the back of the couch, deep in thought, did his heart race because of you or the embarrassment?

"Hey," he looked up, you were standing over him, a glass of water in your hand. He sat up and gratefully took the drink from you, his fingers lightly brushed against yours and he felt his heart jolt in his chest. You didn't seem affected at all. 'It was because of you after all.'

"Thanks for playing along, man," you say in your usual reticent tone. Daichi shook his head and chuckled, "Like I had a choice," you chuckled at that.

From that moment onwards, Daichi was hyper-aware of everything you did, the way you looked in your uniform, the way your features were so boyish and young looking, the way your lips moved when you spoke.

Daichi cursed himself for having a crush on his childhood friend who also happened to be a guy; he needed to get over it fast so you wouldn't find out, afraid that you would distance yourself out of disgust if you ever got to know his feelings. Until then, however, he was going to hang around you as much as he could, just so he could admire you a little more before the crush wore off.

Spoiler alert! It never wore off and you found out.

[yeoandmoon]

you are now listening to graceland too by phoebe bridgers! ( yeosang x f!reader )

fluff, burnout!yeosang, bassist!yeosang, writer!reader, childhood friends 2 lovers but also idiots 2 lovers, yeosang and reader run away, seongjoong are engaged, wooyoung + yeonjun have a band, there is only one bed, yeosang has a nose ring, it’s implied reader has a bad relationship with her mother, wc is 3.1k

NOTE: happy yeosang day! this was a doozy to write, but i hope you all enjoy it! its based off one of my favourite phoebe bridgers songs! :)

There’s a mural on the wall of the hotel lobby. It’s a warm toned painting of a forest, with a hint of a bright blue sky peeking out from the top of the trees. There’s a moose standing at the forefront of the mural, and a little fox sleeping on a rock towards the bottom, surrounded by colourful flowers and leaves.

The mural confused you, if you were being honest. The hotel you worked the night audit at was situated in the busy downtown centre of the city you lived in, and there were barely any forests for miles around the city - let alone any wildlife, like moose or foxes. Hongjoong said it was to make guests feel more ‘in touch with nature’ and to help people forget about the ‘problems of the real world’, while Yeosang claimed it was ‘just another scam in the tourist trap’.

You, on the other hand, was sure the mural was put there to torture you. You would spend nights having staring contests with the moose (which, to your surprise, you always lost), or you would spend hours on Google with Hongjoong trying to find out what species of fox the sleeping fox was (you were sure it was a cape fox, while Hongjoong swore up and down that it was a gray fox). The blue sky between the trees teased you; a reminder that most of your days were spent in the library at your university, or in this dimly lit lobby.

Sometimes, it felt like the only time you saw the sunshine was when you were with Yeosang.

Despite the occasional burnout and the lack of seeing sun most days, you didn’t mind the job. You were always more of a night person, and your classes were always later in the day so you did manage to pull in some sleep. Due to the late hours, you usually only dealt with customers in the first hour or two of your shift, and most of that was just directing confused Ubereats delivery people and pretty Tinder dates to hallways and rooms. It was the perfect job to work on your writing, and get your school work out of the way without listening to your mother cry about how you’re throwing your life away like your sister.

Plus, you could think of a hundred worse people to spend the night shift with than the nighttime valet, Hongjoong. Hongjoong often kept you occupied with his latest reforms and art projects, and stories about his fiancee, Seonghwa & their friend, Yunho (who he kept insisting you needed to go on a date with).

“Your emo boy is coming.”

Well, you could think of ninety-nine worse people to spend the night shift with than Hongjoong, who sat next to you at the check-in desk.

You scoff, “He’s not my emo boy.” You mumble, glancing at the street entrance to see Yeosang walk in with an ice coffee on hand.

Despite your words, Kang Yeosang was your person (you wouldn’t quite use the term ‘emo boy’, even if it did fit), and he had been since your family moved in next door to his family when you two were children. Although your friendship lately had been reduced to these late night meetings while you two were on break on your respective graveyard shifts (you at the hotel and Yeosang at the convenience store down the block, of course) and occasional meetings in the garden when you were both running errands for your families, you still considered Yeosang one of your dearest memories.

It was hard not too, you suppose. He had been there for many of your firsts, and was always cheering you on. Yeosang always made you feel powerful and important - like a powerful heroine, and not his bratty next door neighbor who cried on his doorstep after being dumped by her first year partner. He always made you feel wanted.

Yeosang grinned at you as he stepped into the lobby (if your heart fluttered in your chest, you ignored it). He had on a backwards dad cap, and he had recently changed his nose ring out for the gold hoop San had bought him for his birthday. You could just faintly see his birthmark peeking out from where his bleach blonde hair curled under the hat.

“Hello, Sunshine.” He greets you, setting the coffee down on your desk.

You set the pen you were holding down, “Hi Yeosang.”

Upon first glance at Yeosang, you can tell he’s buzzing about something. He’s leaning over the check-in counter and chewing on his lip while making small talk with Hongjoong about the tourist season.

You raise an eyebrow, sipping your coffee as Yeosang turns back to you, “Do you remember Wooyoung and Yeonjun?”

You nearly choke on your coffee at the mention of your other neighbor and ex-boyfriend. Wooyoung had moved onto your street a few years after you had, and quickly became apart of the little bond you and Yeosang had formed. He moved to the coast with Yeonjun, your ex, the first chance they had gotten, but Wooyoung’s family remained in the neighborhood.

“I babysat Woo’s brother the other day…” You watched your friend, “Did something happen? Mrs Jung didn’t say anything the other day.”

Yeosang grins, and it’s his scheming grin, “Their band got signed,” He tells you, “They need a new bassist, and Wooyoung showed them that video you took of me from that show last month. Their label wants me to come down; play a few shows with them, record a couple demos. See if we have chemistry, basically.”

Your eyes widen - both out of excitement and fear. You were happy and excited for Yeosang! This is the opportunity he had been wanting for years, but you were also terrified.

You were terrified in a horrible, selfish way because you knew if Yeosang left to join Wooyoung and Yeonjun, he’d never come back to you.

“That’s… That’s great, Yeo!” You manage a grin whilst trying to shove the selfish thoughts away, “When do they want you there?”

Yeosang’s smile falters, just for a moment but you still catch it, “Monday.”

“F-Five days?”

He nods, “I’m leaving Saturday morning, so I can be there Sunday afternoon.”

You can see it in his eyes; he’s terrified too.

Before you can say anything else, Yeosang leans over the check-in counter and presses a chaste kiss to your forehead, “I have to get back to work, Sunshine.” He tells you, his voice quiet as if he’s giving you a secret, “I’ll see you later.”

He’s already halfway down the lobby when you swear and move out of your chair, you quickly call his name as you move out from behind the desk. You rush over to where he’s standing, and look up at him. He’s confused.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the words die in his throat when you pull him into a tight hug, “I’m proud of you, Yeo.”

Yeosang wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer to him. His chest is warm, and you’re sure you could spend hours here. He smiles, pressing another kiss to your head, “I know, Sunshine.” He pulls away, his hand on your arm, “I really do have to go, though. I’m already late for work.”

You nod, wrapping your arms around your torso as you watch him leave the hotel and turn down the street to go back to the convenience store. When you turn back around, Hongjoong is watching you with an amused look on his face.

You glare at him as you walk back to the desk, “Don’t you have a fiance to call, or something?”

----------------

You were tired.

Friday nights were always busy, but tonight was draining and loud and you could only take so much of Miss Liu’s incessant phone calls about mundane things at 3am. All you wanted to do was go home, and fall into your bed and sleep for hours.

Hongjoong didn’t help your mood either. It was an innocent question about Yeosang, asking if you’d seen him since he visited you on his break but it pushed your mood down to a low point. You had been so busy the past few days, and if you were being honest with yourself, you had been avoiding Yeosang.

You weren’t ready to see him leave. You knew it was selfish, but you figured avoiding Yeosang was easier than admitting you didn’t want him to leave you behind. You would just simply watch his life through Instagram and consider the ‘what-ifs’ in your life.

You shouldered your tote bag after clocking out before yelling a good-bye to Hongjoong. You could see the beginning rays of morning sun hitting the other buildings in the downtown core as you stepped out the employee doors, and then you were hit by the sight of Yeosang leaning against one of the pillars.

Your eyes widen, “Yeosan-”

“Come with me.”

You stop. Your words are left in your throat, “W-Wh… Go with you? To the coast?”

Yeosang nods, “Come with me,” He steps forward, taking your hands in his, “What do you have here? A degree you don’t care about? A job you hate?”

You frown, running over his words in your head, “I-I have my mom. And… I have Hongjoong!”

He raises an eyebrow, “Y/N, Sunshine… Your mom will barely notice you’re gone, and Hongjoong can visit us.” He cupped your cheek.

You’re so busy having an internal crisis you hardly notice the usage of ‘us’. You’re considering the logistics in your head. Yeosang was right; you didn’t care about your degree, and all it would take was an email saying you quit for them to find a new front desk person. Your mom would be upset for a few weeks. She’d probably make some passive aggressive Facebook posts about you before acting like your best friend again.

“Yeosang…” You look up at him, your hand coming up to circle around his wrist.

“Your sister is there, and you could write everyday.” Yeosang adds on, “I did the math, Y/N. Between the two of us, we’d have 6 months to figure it out. 6 months, and we’ll come back here if nothing works out.”

You stay silent for a moment.

“Sunshine, I promised I’d show you the stars, didn’t I?”

You gasp at the promise. It was a silly promise he had made when you were both kids; something you’d almost forgotten about.

It hits you quickly: there’s no one else you’d rather run away with. There’s no one else you’d trust to run away with.

You look up at Yeosang, “Yes.”

He grins, “Yes?”

You nod, “Yes, Yeo. I’ll go with you.”

----------------

An hour. An hour was how long it took for you to turn your life upside down for Kang Yeosang.

In an hour, you had emailed your program advisor and told them you wouldn’t be returning for the next semester, and you had called your manager and told them you wouldn’t be coming in for your next shift, or any shift after that (which was promptly followed by a phone call from Hongjoong, who seemed more excited about this than you were). You had packed up most of your clothes and important belongings, and they were loaded into the back of Yeosang’s shitty car. You left a note for your mother, and before you knew it, you were sitting in the passenger’s seat of Yeosang’s car.

----------------

You had fallen asleep barely an hour into the car ride. 

The rolling hills and fields outside your window made your eyes feel heavier, but you tried staying awake to keep Yeosang company.

“Go to sleep, Sunshine.” He tells you, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Yeosang’s promise was all it took for you to succumb to your exhaustion.

You don't usually remember your dreams. Though today, there are flashes of a beach, and a smile that takes your breath away. There are blue skies and if you try hard enough, you can just faintly smell sea salt.

You wake up hours later, smiling. True to his word, Yeosang is still there when you wake. He’s wearing a pair of sunglasses, and tapping his fingers to the beat of the song on the radio.

Yeosang smiles when he notices you’re awake, “I talked to your mother.”

Your eyes widen, “You talked to who?”

He laughs, “You didn’t answer your phone, so she called me.”

You frown, glancing at your phone in the free cup holder. You could imagine the amount of calls and texts that were in there.

“She wasn’t very happy.” Yeosang continues, “She wants you to call her when we get there.”

You nod, “Thank you, Yeo.” You say softly, looking over at him.

Yeosang throws you a smile, “Of course.”

“Not just for talking to my mom…” You watch him, “For not leaving me behind, too. Thank you.”

Yeosang reaches over, taking your hand, “I’d never leave you behind, Sunshine. You’d have to try really hard to get rid of me.”

----------------

The car ride was long, and full of Yeosang’s early 2000s emo playlist & fast food. You called your sister, who was ecstatic to hear about your plans and had immediately offered you and Yeosang her beach house. She made a comment about how ‘she always knew you two would end up together’, and it made your heart flutter when you glanced at Yeosang.

Yeosang told you about Wooyoung’s band, and how excited he was to play with Wooyoung. You smiled, listening to him fondly talk about your old friends and their music.

It was getting late though, and you could see it in Yeosang’s face that he was getting tired.

“We should stop for the night.” You tell him, “You’ve been driving since 6am, Yeo.”

He huffs, “We could drive through the night.” He proposes, “We’d make it to your sister’s place in a few hours.”

You frown, “Or... We could stop for the night, shower, and then leave first thing tomorrow morning. We'll get there by noon tomorrow.”

Yeosang glances at you, going to protest. He ends up yawning instead, his nose wrinkling slightly, “Fine.” He pouts.

You laugh, reaching for your phone to google the closest hotels. There's a comfortable silence in the car, filled with the occasional beat of Yeosang’s fingers on the steering wheel. You feel at ease, even if it's just for a moment.

“There’s a motel off the next exit.” You tell him, stifling a yawn of your own.

----------------

Sure enough, there had been a motel off the next exit. It was small and slightly rundown, but cheap and had an available room. You waited in the car while Yeosang went into the check-in office, promising to be back in a moment.

He came back dangling a key in his hand, and a slight frown on his face as he opened the car door to let you out.

“So... There’s only one bed.” He broke the news, a blush growing up his cheeks, “It’s all they had, unless we wanted to drive another hour down the highway.”

Your eyes widen, “O-Oh.” You glance at the key, and then back up at Yeosang, “I’ll sleep on the floor, or something.”

Yeosang frowns, shaking his head, “We can share for one night, Sunshine. I think it’ll be okay.”

Which leads you to here; lying almost nose to nose with Yeosang. Your hair was soaking wet from a shower in the tiny bathroom and the small motel bed wasn’t comfortable, but you didn’t seem to mind as you took in the man in front of you. You pushed the strands of bleach blonde hair out of his face, and your fingers softly lingered on the birthmark next to his eye.

His breath stuttered, “Y/N,” He says, his voice a mere whisper, “We’re free.”

You let your hand rest against his cheek. Your eyes lingered on his lips before you caught yourself, moving your gaze back up to his eyes.

Yeosang only smiled at you. He gently held your wrist as he tilted his head and placed a soft kiss on your palm, “I’m going to kiss you now, Sunshine.”

“Yes please.”

You felt every nerve in your body light up when Yeosang kissed you.

A small part of your brain told you that this is where you’re meant to be: in Yeosang’s arms.

You felt this way the first time Yeosang had kissed you too, all the way back on that roof in 11th grade. You two had been talking about the future; about your writing and Yeosang’s music. You looked up at the hazy night sky, and you asked Yeosang if you’d ever get to see the stars.

He smiled at you, telling you that he would show them to you one day before he kissed you so sweetly.

Yeosang still kissed you sweetly. He kissed you like you held the secrets of the universe in your hand for him to take.

You pulled away, “I think I love you.”

He smiles against your lips, rubbing soft circles into your wrist, “I think I love you too, baby.”

—————-

You had this assumption that the next morning would be awkward; that you would be stuck for the next 6 months with someone you could barely look in the eye because of a late night confession.

Instead, you awoke to Yeosang kissing your head and placing a bagel & ice coffee down for you. He had quickly ushered you into the shower, before you put on a change of clothes and were quickly led out to the car between bites of your bagel. This all happened over Yeosang telling you how you only had a few hours before you reached your sister’s beach house, and he wanted to try and make good time so you could enjoy the beach today.

You giggled at his antics before settling into the passenger’s seat for the last few hours of your journey.

You sipped your ice coffee as you watched out the window. The countryside on the highway zoomed by you, and the car was full of sunlight from Yeosang’s sunroof being open. There was a Fall Out Boy song on the radio, and you felt a sense of calm brush over you as Yeosang took your hand in his.

The sunshine had never felt so nice on your skin as Yeosang pressed a soft kiss to the back of your hand.

taglist: @vanishingboots @sunsethw4​ 

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven. ~ eight.

Wordcount: 2.4k

Summary: Being with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm.

AO3 Link here 

Masterlist here

Their daughter enters the world squalling, tiny and pink and bloodied and somewhat wrinkled but healthy which is all that really matters), and Atsumu’s eyes widen before immediately filling with tears when the doctor places her in his arms.  

‘You did amazin’, darlin’ he whispers, running his finger against their daughter’s cheek reverently. ‘She’s perfect’. 

‘Make sure you count ten fingers and toes before you say that’, she manages to say before dropping her head back into the pillow, bone weary from her labour, and he laughs through his tears. 

They name her Shino, which means stem of bamboo. She reasons that if their daughter is going to take the Miya family name, she should in fairness have a name that represents her side of the family – and besides, she’d always been drawn to the whimsicalness of the tale of the bamboo cutter, but thought naming her baby ‘Kaguya’ might be a little on the nose. Atsumu’s grandmother isn’t terribly pleased, but her stoic father bursts into tears when they tell him, and immediately sends over a crate full of toys carved out of the bamboo from their family’s ancestral grove. 

The press has a field day when MSBY’s PR team releases news of their marriage and Shino’s birth, but thankfully the full weight of the team’s PR machine manages to twist the coverage to repackage Atsumu’s image as a wholesome family man, so the articles remain relatively positive. Still, they’re forced to sit through a number of photo shoots to keep the press happy, and she shudders at the office gossip she knows she’ll have to face when she returns back to work. 

His teammates crowd to greet Shino when she brings her out for one of their matches for the first time. Atsumu presents Shino proudly to his teammates - ‘look at what I made’,  he demands, dangling her in his hands so they can ooh and ahh over the little girl - ‘ I learnt it from one of  those kiddie cartoons I watched at night when she wouldn’t sleep!’ he tells her later when she scolds him for the precarious hold.

She has to shoo Hinata and Bokuto away when they try to hand Shino a volleyball, the ball looking comically big against the baby girl. Sakusa stands at a respectful distance away, but hands her an adorable onesie in MSBY’s black and gold, wrapped carefully in plastic. The corner of his eyes crinkle behind his mask when he tells her it’s so Shino can support them properly at their next game. 

‘Aww, Omi-omi! I always knew you liked me deep down inside’ Atsumu crows, bouncing on the balls of his feet and clapping his hands.

‘You’re insane to marry him’, Sakusa tells her, refusing to even acknowledge Atsumu’s tomfoolery.

‘Maybe I am’, she grins, warmth furling and unfurling in her chest. 

Despite her initial fears, Atsumu falls head over heels for Shino, and continues to allow their baby daughter to wrap him around her tiny finger. He wakes up without complaint for night feedings, spends nights pacing their little apartment coaxing Shino to bed, and straps her on his broad chest for what his pronounces ‘daddy-daughter’ adventures during the off-season when she’s away during the day for work. On weekends, they bring Shino to the park to watch the birds and the clouds in the sky, to the aquarium to watch the fish in the sea, and to the museum to marvel at dinosaur bones from a distant past. 

It’s at the museum that Shino says her first word, sitting between Atsumu’s legs in the museum sandbox, digging her chubby hands in the sand in search of fake fossils. 

‘Say that again’, Atsumu laughs wetly, pressing kisses to the top of their little girl’s head. 

‘Oto-san!’, Shino crows, the look on her face so reminiscent of Atsumu’s expression whenever he’s pleased with herself that she’s torn between feeling pride at her precocious little girl - and horror that she’s going to have her hands full with a mini-Atsumu. 

‘You’re daddy’s little girl, aren’t you, princess?’ Atsumu says proudly, and Shino claps her hands as he cuddles her close to his chest. He later tries his level best to empty out the museum gift store of toys to commemorate the day and she has to slap his hands from tossing in  ‘just one more toy’  into their checkout basket.  

‘Are you happy, ‘Tsumu?’ she asks him later, after they put Shino to bed. 

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he asks with a puzzled frown. ‘I have everything I need.’ 

‘Just checking’, she replies, her doubts forgotten when he tugs her into bed. 

For Shino’s first birthday, both their families squeeze into their apartment to celebrate by strapping a giant piece of mochi that Osamu made to her back, a tradition to rid young children of any impurities. Atsumu nearly trips over himself trying to capture a photo of the auspicious moment Shino falls over on her butt, and showers kisses on her proudly when she does not cry. 

They also carry out the erabitori ceremony, setting in front of Shino several objects symbolising the various paths she might choose in the future. Aside from the common items like an abacus, writing brush or books, her brothers insist on including a knife (sheathed, of course), earning raised eyebrows of Atsumus’s family. Osamu tosses in a kitchen spoon and Atsumu naturally places a volleyball right in the center of the spread. 

‘Cheatin’ pig’, Osamu mutters when Shino ends up picking the volleyball (attracted by its bright colours, he maintains), but Atsumu ignores him, tossing the little girl in the air in delight.

‘Darlin’, come take a look at this! Kageyama-kun’s playing his first game in Rome, and it looks like - I can’t believe this, why does his technique look better than before?! What - is the water he’s drinkin’ overseas magic or something? How’s he getting so good?’ 

‘Tsumu, could you keep it down? I just got Shino to bed, and I really need to finish the work I didn’t have time to do ‘cos I took over her pick-up today’. She replies wearily, typing furiously at her laptop. 

‘Sorry. I’ll pop over to chat with ‘Samu then, be back late!’

She nods distractedly as she hears the door click behind her back. 

‘I can’t believe I screwed up so badly at practice today’ Atsumu grouses, chin propped up on the wooden countertop of Onigiri Miya in between mouthfuls of food. ‘I kept missing my serves, and then that asshole Omi-omi dared to laugh when I ran around trying to get my head back into the game –‘ 

‘Tsumu’. Osamu cuts in, setting another onigiri in front of him. ‘As much as I want to listen to you complain about your no-good, very-bad day, could’ya help your poor wife out a little bit?’ 

‘Thanks ‘Samu’, she musters the energy to give him a distracted smile, juggling a bowl of rice porridge she’s trying to persuade Shino to eat and preventing said little girl from smearing rice grains all over the place.

Atsumu plops Shino onto his lap, and continues talking over her head. She takes the opportunity to stuff her face with food –  glorious food, and doesn’t notice when he maintains a sullen silence as they walk home. 

A hush ripples across the stands like a tsunami when Atsumu gets substituted midway during the last set of the match. She isn’t surprised, not when he started playing badly during the set – there was a little kid that screeched just as he was about to serve, and he’d hit the ball way out of bounds. That had been the start of his downward spiral during the game – his dump shots got picked up, his blocks weren’t quite on point, and worst of all – he’d somehow managed to misjudge the timing of a toss to Hinata-kun, the ginger haired spiker looking confused when the ball missed his hand. 

He’d stormed off the court the minute the referee’s whistle sounded, frustration and anger written all over his face and she’d made a beeline for the locker room, tucking a sleeping Shino into her carrier. She can hear him yelling (at himself, most likely) and the distinct sound of flesh hitting metal, and is about to burst in to comfort him when Sakusa steps neatly in front of her to block her way. 

‘Sakusa-kun’, she greets him, eyes darting towards the door. 

‘Miya-san’, he nods at her, face already hidden behind his usual mask. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to disturb him just yet.’ 

She opens her mouth to object, but Meian Shugo, the team’s broad shouldered, good natured captain, plants a hand on her shoulder to gently steer her away. ‘It’s not a pleasant sight when he’s in a funk’, he tells her quietly. ‘Let us deal with it, we’re used to him. Do you need me to call you a cab?’

‘He’s my husband – I should be the one to deal with him’ , she wants to say – but doesn’t, because Shino jolts awake and starts to wail. ‘It’s fine’, she does say, hushing her little girl. ‘I’ll hitch a ride home with ‘Samu instead’.

She meant to stay up to wait for Atsumu, give him his usual kiss and listen to him talk about his day, but she’s out like a light when her head hits the pillow (it’s been a long day, in her defense) , and she has to leave in the morning for work before he wakes.    

‘Everyone has their off days, but you’re an incredible setter, you know?’ she does tell him that night over dinner. Shino squeals and smashes her hand into the bowl of food. 

‘Of course I am’, he frowns at her, almost as if he thinks it’s odd for her to even feel the need to say that, and turns away to ruffle Shino’s hair.

She waits by herself in the lobby of her office building for five minutes before she gives in to her impatience and calls him. 

‘Tsumu? Weren’t we supposed to meet for lunch today?’ 

‘Oh shit – I’m sorry, doll, I promised Hinata-kun that I’ll come in for extra practice today. I’ll make it up to you some other day, ok?’ 

She sighs through her nose. ‘Ok – have fun dear’, she replies reluctantly, and he ends the call before she can say any more. 

She can feel the gaze of her colleagues on her back, and plasters a smile on her face before marching off to her favourite dessert place, comforting herself with a box of mochi. She buys an extra box for Osamu (they had a specialty flavour just for the season, and she knows he’s been dying to try that) , and drops it off on the way back home. 

Atsumu complains about only getting one piece of mochi when Osamu sends him a picture of her gift – she can imagine him gloating even though the picture is unaccompanied by any text. 

‘You don’t even like chestnut!’ she scolds Atsumu, and he sulks. 

‘Tsumu! Could you come help zip me into my dress?’ she calls, checking her watch impatiently. The babysitter should arrive in five minutes to take care of Shino for the night while they’re away at the team’s annual gala party.

‘Yknow’, we’d get there a lot faster if you hadn’t sold your old scooter’, he tells her, as he steps into the room, immaculately dressed in his best suit. 

‘I told you – it’s not practical to keep a scooter around when we have a young child’, she answers, already weary of a conversation they’ve had multiple times before. 

‘I’m just sayin’, he says lightly. ‘Oof – sorry, darlin’, the zip ain’t budgin’. 

‘But it fit perfectly fine the last time I wore it’, she frowns. 

‘You must’ve put on some weight’, he says absently, the heat of his hand burning on her hip even after he walks away. 

‘Tsumu, seriously? I told you yesterday morning that we’re out of milk powder and diapers!’ she growls into her phone, cramming her way onto the subway. ‘Fine – whatever, you go for training, I’ll deal with it myself’, she ends the call, dropping her phone like a hot stone into her pocket. 

She runs to the supermarket during her lunch break, cursing herself for wearing heels instead of more comfortable flats, picking up two packs of diapers, a double can of milk powder, and a pack of wipes on discount - all things Atsumu should have picked up last night, but he claimed he was too busy with training and club events to pay attention to a simple errand like this – 

She’s so lost in her thoughts she doesn’t notice when her foot misses the curb and lands on her knees in the dust, the contents of her bags spilling onto the road. There are scores of people on the street but no one stops to offer their assistance, so she ignores the searing pain to pick her precious supplies up before they’re lost in the crowd. 

The blood from the cuts on her knees drips down her calves, and she limps her way back to the office.  

‘Trouble in paradise?’ Yuna-san asks with a curious smirk on her face when she heads back to her seat, eyes red, knees wrapped with white bandages. 

‘No, nothing like that’, she answers the office gossip, keeping her voice deliberately light. 

Atsumu only grunts when she asks him that night how his day went, kneeling down to greet Shino with a hug. 

‘Won’t be stayin’ for dinner, got a team event at night’, Atsumu calls out to her, one foot out of the door. 

‘What? You should’ve told me earlier, I’m already halfway through preparing dinner’, she shouts back, hacking at the vegetables on the chopping board with a vengeance. 

His only reply is a slam of the door, which startles Shino enough to cry. In her hurry to get to her daughter, her hand on the knife slips, and she cuts open her hand. 

The space beside her remains empty throughout the night, and she falls asleep pretending the only pain she feels is from the bleeding gash on her hand. She’s so exhausted she does not wake until her alarm rings, not even when the surge of rain overnight batters her windows and water floods the streets. 

[philip-ks-dick]

Philip K. Dick, For Dummies.

I’ve been researching PK.D for a few years now, as he’s my father’s favourite author and I’ve been watching movie and show adaptations of his work for the longest time. I have personally only read the books listed, here’s the order (I think) you should read them in, based on difficulty level and the knowledge you need of the PKD canon to understand the books that follow. This is purely my opinion based on knowledge of the author. by philip-k’s-dick (lol)

Beginner. (These books and stories allow readers to explore Dick’s pet themes and stylistic quirks without falling too far down the rabbit hole)

The Short Stories: Over the course of his life, PKD wrote somewhere in the range of 150 short stories. Naturally, it would be silly of me to dump all of them on you at once, but undeniably, the shorter format allows the big ideas of Dick’s work to come through more clearly, and even the screwier stories conform to relatively coherent shape, making them an excellent jumping off point, especially for an author who wrote almost nonstop throughout his life.

My Favourites:

In The Days of Perky Pat - In this novel, survivors of a global thermonuclear war live in isolated enclaves in California, surviving off what they can scrounge from the wastes and supplies delivered from Mars. The older generation spend their leisure time playing with the eponymous doll in an escapist role-playing game that recalls life before the apocalypse — a way of life that is being quickly forgotten. At the story's climax, a couple from one isolated outpost of humanity plays a game against the dwellers of another outpost (who play the game with a doll similar to Perky Pat dubbed "Connie Companion") in deadly earnest. The survivors' shared enthusiasm for the Perky Pat doll and the creation of her accessories from vital supplies is a sort of mass delusion that prevents meaningful re-building of the shattered society. In stark contrast, the children of the survivors show absolutely no interest in the delusion and have begun adapting to their new life.

(Elements of the story were later incorporated into Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, written in 1964 and published in 1965, in which a Perky Pat simulation game is induced by drugs and miniature models instead. Palmer Eldritch is not a continuation or sequel however.)

What the Dead Men Say - Death is followed by a period of 'half-life', a short amount of time which can be rationed out over long periods in which the dead can be revived—so that, potentially, they can 'live' on for a long time. When attempts to bring back important businessman Louis Sarapis fail, it's clearly more than mere negligence. Sure enough, Sarapis starts speaking from beyond the grave. From outer space, in fact. Yet no-one seems terribly bothered, other than those directly concerned in the plot mechanics. Eventually entire communications networks (phones, TV, radio) are blocked by Sarapis' broadcasts

(Philip's later novel Ubik is a continuation of What the Dead Men Say)

Autofac - Three men wait outside their settlement for an automated delivery truck. Five years earlier, during the Total Global Conflict, a network of hardened automatic factories ("autofacs") had been set up with cybernetic controls that determine what food and consumer goods to manufacture and deliver. Human input had been lost, and the men planned disruption to try to establish communication and take over control. They destroy the delivery, but the truck radios the autofac and unloads an identical replacement, then prevents them from reloading items. They act out being disgusted with the milk delivery and are given a complaints checklist. In a blank space, they write improvised semantic garble—"the product is thoroughly pizzled". The autofac sends a humanoid data collector that communicates on an oral basis, but is not capable of conceptual thought, and they are unable to persuade the network to shut down before it consumes all resources. Their next strategy sets neighbouring autofacs in competition with each other for rare resources and seemingly succeeds, but there is a hidden level

Beyond Lies The Wub - Peterson, a crew member of a spaceship loading up with food animals on Mars, buys an enormous pig-like creature known as a "wub" from a native just before departure. Franco, his captain, is worried about the extra weight but seems more concerned about its taste, as his ship is short of food. However, after takeoff, the crew realizes that the wub is a very intelligent creature, capable of telepathy and maybe even mind control.

Peterson and the wub spend time discussing mythological figures and the travels of Odysseus. Captain Franco, paranoid after an earlier confrontation with the Wub which left him temporarily paralyzed, bursts in and insists on killing and eating the wub. The crew becomes very much opposed to killing the sensitive creature after it makes a plea for understanding, but Franco still makes a meal out of him. At the dinner table, Captain Franco apologises for the "interruption" and resumes the earlier conversation between Peterson and the Wub - which now has apparently taken over the Captain's body

Human Is - Jill Herrick and her husband Lester are in the middle of an argument. Lester deflects his wife’s claim that he is “hideous” with cold indifference. He tells her that he will not allow their child in the house and will have him removed to government custody because he is interfering with his research. Before the distraught Jill can pass this onto their son Gus, Lester gets news that he will be taking a trip to Rexor IV. Despite Jill’s desire to go there and see the planet, Lester insists that he will go alone.

Later Jill tells her brother Frank and she is going to leave Lester. She explains how happy she has been with Lester gone and how he seems to be getting worse every year of their marriage. More cold and more “ruthless,” not to mention the incessant working.

Lester comes home a very different man. He praises Jill’s cooking and expresses disgust with his work on Rexor IV studying toxins. He says he prefers Terra and being home with his wife.

Jill reports these changes to Frank, while Lester is playing in the room with Gus. Frank has Lester brought to a lab for more studies under the guidance of the Federal Clearance agency. Before long they realize that Lester has had his body taken over by a Rexorian.

The Hanging Stranger - The protagonist, Ed Loyce, is a store owner who is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.

He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see if anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over. He then takes Ed outside and hangs him from a lamppost.

The Commuter - Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.

The Minority Report - In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot

Full Books:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to "retire" (kill) six androids of the new and highly intelligent Nexus-6 model which have recently escaped from Mars and traveled to Earth. These androids are made of organic matter so similar to a human's that only a posthumous "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference, making them almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Deckard hopes this mission will earn him enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep to comfort his depressed wife Iran. Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the accuracy of the latest empathy test meant to identify incognito androids. Deckard suspects the test may not be capable of distinguishing the latest Nexus-6 models from genuine human beings, and it appears to give a false positive on his host in Seattle, Rachael Rosen, meaning the police have potentially been executing human beings. The Rosen Association attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android, which she ultimately admits.

Clans of the Alphane Moon - War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The Man in the High Castle - In 1962, 15 years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former co-worker to begin a handcrafted jewellery business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1945, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.

Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann, after a short illness. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favour with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.

Intermediate. (These are the books to pick up once you have the basics of what makes a PKD novel down. They’re obtuse enough to hit a little heavier, but don’t provide the full dose of surrealism Dick was capable of serving up. This is also good spot to jump in if you’ve experienced weird fiction before.)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.

Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed.

Time out of Joint - Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words "SOFT-DRINK STAND" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor "Vic" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.

Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: "Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel

Ubik - By the year 1992, humanity has colonized the Moon and psychic powers are common. The protagonist, Joe Chip, is a debt-ridden technician working for Runciter Associates, a "prudence organization" employing "inertials"—people with the ability to negate the powers of telepaths and "precogs"—to enforce the privacy of clients. The company is run by Glen Runciter, assisted by his deceased wife Ella who is kept in a state of "half-life", a form of cryonic suspension that allows the deceased limited consciousness and ability to communicate. While consulting with Ella, Runciter discovers that her consciousness is being invaded by another half-lifer named Jory Miller

Difficult. (This section comes with a caveat: within these novels you will encounter numerous hallucinations, drug trips, an entire trilogy about gnostic spirituality and mental illness, and more than a little unabashed nightmare fuel. It’s normal to get tangled up in what goes on in these books. It’s also normal to be weirded out. But with proper grounding, you’ll make it though with your faculties intact. Probably.)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.

Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible.

The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite.

A Scanner Darkly - When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.

Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients

(If this one seems difficult to wrap your mind around, that's because its a fictionalized account of real events, and you may need to read about Philip's life at the time to understand the autobiographical nature of the book.)

The VALIS Trilogy

(Fictionalized account of religious experiences in PKD’s life.)

VALIS - In March, 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, 1974. Kevin turns his friends onto a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those that Horselover Fat has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an alternative-universe version of Nixon ("Ferris F. Fremount") and his fall, engineered by a satellite called valis. (The plot of the fictitious film Valis was that of Dick's then-unpublished novel Radio Free Albemuth.) In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. In addition to healing Phil's schizophrenic personality split, she tells them that their conclusions about valis (which Fat had previously termed "Zebra") and reality are correct, and more importantly, that we should worship, not gods, but humanity. She dies two days later due to a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. Undeterred, Fat (who has now resurged) goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia.

Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany, acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.

Characters:

Phil (Philip K. Dick): Narrator (first person), science fiction writer, author of Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Three Stigmata.

Horselover Fat: Narrator (third person), a schizophrenic modality of Phil himself. (Philip in Greek means "fond of horses"; dick is German for "fat".)

Gloria Knudson: Suicidal friend of Fat's who Fat is unable to save.

Kevin: Cynical friend of Fat's whose cat died running across the street, based on K. W. Jeter.

Sherri Solvig: Church-going friend of Fat's, eventually dies from lymphatic cancer.

David: Catholic friend of Fat's, based on Tim Powers.

Eric Lampton: Rock star, screenwriter, actor, a. k. a. "Mother Goose"; a fictionalised version of David Bowie.

Linda Lampton: Actress, wife of Eric Lampton.

Brent Mini: Electronic composer, a fictionalised version of Brian Eno.

Sophia Lampton: Two-year-old child (personalised incarnation of Holy Wisdom within some variants of Gnosticism), said to be the daughter of Linda Lampton and valis and the "Fifth Savior".

The Divine Invasion - After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.

In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.

With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.

Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.

Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.

When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a goat kid living in a petting zoo.

In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.

Characters:

Herb Asher: audio engineer

Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS

Yah: Yahweh

Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah

Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form

Zina Pallas: Shekhinah

Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov

Belial: Yetzer Hara

Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate

VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.

Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).

The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert.

On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law.

Characters:

Angel Archer: Narrator, manager of a Berkeley record store, widow of Jeff Archer.

Timothy Archer: Bishop of California; father of the late Jeff Archer and father-in-law of Angel. Dies in Israel, searching for psychotropic mushroom connected with Zadokite sect. Based on James Albert Pike, Dick's personal friend, who was an American Episcopalian bishop.

Kirsten Lundborg: Timothy Archer's secretary and lover. Dies from barbiturate overdose after loss of remission from cancer.

Bill Lundborg: Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia, and who is obsessed with cars.

Edgar Barefoot: Houseboat guru, radio personality, lecturer. Based on Alan Watts.

Jeff Archer: Son of Timothy Archer, and deceased husband of Angel. A professional student who was romantically obsessed with Kirsten.

Thank you, if you read all of this. it took me six hours today to write this all 

[thebiscuiteternal]

I had an evil thought on twitter and way too many people encouraged it, SO-

“Collecting the Pieces”

Mild Horror, Family Secrets, Mental Instability, Magical Fuckups, Sangyao-lite, Nie Huaisang Doesn’t Know Yet, Jin Guangyao Is About To Know More Than He Ever Wanted To

__________

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang.

It manifests in small signs at first.

Little things like how he would look at a person, but not at them, green eyes dull as if he wasn’t actually seeing who he was talking to. The unnaturally pale tint to his skin and the dark shadows under his eyes. The fact that his robes had gotten heavier over thr last several months, trying to hide that he was getting thinner.

The incident where he had lost consciousness in the middle of a discussion with Ouyang-furen and had only been saved from cracking his skull against the floor by the reflexes of his head disciple was… concerning. But like all of the other symptoms, it could easily be tallied up as exhaustion from lingering grief and having so much responsibility dumped onto an unprepared back.

But then...

Then there are the conversations none of them can hear. Those moments where he sits with his head slightly bowed, staring at nothing and lips moving silently.

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang, and for those not of his sect, his presence has gone from mildly concerning to downright unnerving.

Jin Guangyao has to point out to his father more than once that they have only just averted the conflict with the previous sect leader; to bar the new one from the discussion conferences just because he seems strange would be an insult tantamount to inviting war, even if Nie Hengbai does seem to be doing all the talking for the Nie at the moment, his sect leader a quiet little shadow at his side.

He finds it a unique opportunity to observe, in fact. Everyone is so unsettled by the mere fact that Nie Huaisang converses with empty air that no one has apparently thought to find out what he is saying when he does .

The seating arrangement isn’t ideal. The only person besides his own disciples who doesn’t seem to be scared off by Nie Huaisang’s unnatural behavior is Jiang-zongzhu, who pointedly settles himself on the opposite side from Nie Hengbai and scowls at all gossipers, their host included. His height half-blocks Nie Huaisang from view.

But still, Jin Guangyao can see.

And as he watches the words fall unheard from Nie Huaisang’s mouth, he feels a chill slowly creep up his spine.

‘Da-ge, come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll behave. I'll be good. Please come back. Please, Da-ge…’

He is glad that his sleeves hide the involuntary clenching of his hands.

While he knows better than to completely dismiss a possibility, no matter how small the odds, his mind nonetheless rebels at the first idea to enter it. It cannot actually be Nie Mingjue's resentful ghost haunting his little brother. Even if it had been whole, if he and Xue Yang had not scattered it with the man's physical pieces, it is decidedly not Nie Huaisang that the man would be tormenting with his presence if he were capable.

Isn't it?

And yet, he cannot shake the cold in his bones.

There is something wrong with Nie Huaisang, and he will seek out the source.

---

"San-ge?"

Nie Huaisang blinks at him, eyes glassy and confused. He tilts his head questioningly like the birds he is so fond of, then slowly regains awareness of his surroundings and smiles, looking more like himself.

Jin Guangyao forcibly clamps down on a shudder. "It's good to see you, Sang-er," he says, allowing himself to adopt the regional address since they are nowhere near the judging eyes of Koi Tower. He reaches out and sweeps the younger man's hair out of his eyes, then tuts in concern. "Are you still not sleeping well?"

"Ah-" Nie Huaisang flinches and looks embarrassed at the gentle chiding. "It's… nothing, really. Busy times and too much paperwork, that's all. Can I get you anything?"

"I just need to look over some map records, if you don't mind. A handful of small sects have brought a problem to my father, and I'm afraid our own records are… a bit lacking."

The younger man simply nods, accepting the excuse at face value, and Jin Guangyao isn't sure if that says something about Nie Huaisang's state of mind, or the Jin sect's reputation for ignoring anything that isn't expenditures or debts to be collected. Either way, when Nie Huaisang reaches out to tug his sleeve, he goes willingly and tries to ignore the slightly unsteady sway to his friend's pace.

Even though the poor end to his relationship with Nie Mingjue had been loud and public enough that the whole of the Unclean Realms knew about it before the day had even ended, he is apparently still a familiar enough face that barely anyone pays him mind.

Indeed, most of their worried glances are directed towards their sect leader.

He refuses to examine the possible reasons why that might be settling sour in his stomach.

They are still a few halls and turns away from the library when Nie Huaisang lets go of his sleeve and puts a hand to his head, looking even more pale than before. Jin Guangyao catches him before he can topple into the wall and then bites his tongue when green eyes slide over him, gaze unseeing.

“Sang-er?” he asks cautiously.

Nie Huaisang’s eyes don’t clear, but he seems to still be at least halfway lucid. “I’m sorry… I don’t feel well. I think I need to stay here. You remember the rest of the way, don’t you?”

“I do, but this is no proper place for you to rest.” He leans around the corner and waves over a passing servant. “Would you assist Nie-zongzhu to his room, please?”

“Of course, of course,” the woman says in a tone that conveys she is apparently -unfortunately- used to this. “Come along,” she says, taking hold of Nie Huaisang’s hand and wrapping a steadying arm around his waist, as if guiding a lost child, and he follows her lead without complaint.

Jin Guangyao watches them go and squashes that sour feeling when it threatens to churn.

Answers.

Answers first.

---

The library he needs, he has decided, is not the primary library, the one that Nie Huaisang had been taking him to. No, he seeks out the room buried so deep in the Unclean Realms that no daylight reaches it, that he had only stumbled upon by accident back when he had been employed here.

Lighting the only lantern in the room with a flame talisman, he finds that nothing has changed since the last time he was here other than a thickening of the layer of dust.

Swallowing hard, he straightens his back and starts with the family records.

---

‘After much deliberation and testimony from the physicians and healers involved in the care of the first young master, it is the advice of the sect elders that- ’

He has relit the lantern twice, and he’s fairly sure it’s long past dinner when he sinks into a chair and slaps the open scroll down onto the table, feeling lightheaded and shaky.

A spirit-tethering.

Until he had seen the books Lan Xichen carried from the library of the Cloud Recesses, such a thing had been the stuff of fantasy stories. Even in the vaunted Lan texts, it was only described in abstract theory.

And yet there was apparently enough foundation to it that a serious proposal had been made to cast such a thing between a pair of children to keep Nie Mingjue from being torn apart by the saber he’d bonded with far too young.

He forces himself to keep reading, feeling his stomach sink with every passage.

Nie Haoran had argued viciously against the idea for two years, even offering himself as the tether, only to be shot down due to his own unstable health. He had only given in when his son had experienced his first qi deviation at eleven years of age.

Eleven years old.

Nie Huaisang would have only been five.

Jin Guangyao bites his tongue again and presses the back of his hand to his mouth to forcibly swallow back the bile that bubbles up in his throat.

The mechanics of the matter only make the horror of it even more stark. The only ones who would have been able to undo the tether would have been the brothers themselves. He finds notes, plans, all written in Nie Mingjue’s sharp-edged calligraphy, of how he would set his brother free once his own health became too compromised but before his mind was too unstable…

But he hadn’t done it.

Hadn’t been able to do it.

He’d deteriorated too quickly.

Instead...

Nausea continuing to roil in his guts like a thunder cloud, Jin Guangyao rolls up the scroll and shoves it back into place with enough force that it crumples, practically fleeing the room even though there is no monster there to escape, just-

It is indeed dark outside as he traverses the hallways, barely able to restrain himself from running.

No one answers when he knocks at Nie Huaisang’s door. He sucks in a sharp breath to ground himself, then carefully pushes it open.

The room is as stark as he remembers from his last visit. Though he knows he Lan Xichen have both offered to help, Nie Huaisang has yet to start replacing any of the possessions that his brother had burnt. There is a tray of food on the table near the bed, untouched and probably long cold.

The person he’s seeking is curled up on the bed on top of the covers, still fully dressed. Fingers twitch and scratch at his own arms as he shivers, most likely in the throes of a nightmare.

His lips are moving.

Jin Guangyao doesn’t dare read them.

He closes the door behind him and crosses the room to the bed. Nie Huaisang doesn’t react to the dip in the mattress as he sits down, nor to being pulled and shifted until the younger man’s head rests in his lap. When he gently removes the guan from his hair and begins combing out the braids, however, the fit finally eases, the anxious lines of Nie Huaisang’s face smoothing out as he calms.

Jin Guangyao closes his eyes for a moment and sighs.

He now knows what is wrong with Nie Huaisang, and he knows he is at fault.

He could lay the blame elsewhere. He wants to. The elders who’d made the proposal... Nie Haoran for allowing it... the healers who’d carried it out… It is most tempting to blame Nie Mingjue for having not undone it as soon as they were both grown.

But no. The fact of the matter is that Nie Huaisang’s condition can be laid at his feet. Had he not hastened Nie Mingjue’s death… He doesn’t regret that.

He refuses to let himself regret that.

But this…

Grief could be moved past.

Missing pieces could not.

He opens his eyes to find Nie Huaisang has shifted to curl against him, and he allows himself a small, weak smile as he begins carding his fingers through silken hair again.

He knows what is wrong with Nie Huaisang, and perhaps he can’t fix the damage already done, but there are still things he can do. Information he can find, pieces he can move or remove. He can make things easier.

“It will be alright,” he murmurs, then leans down and gently presses a kiss to the sleeping young man’s temple. The gesture makes Nie Huaisang snuggle closer in his sleep, and his own smile gains strength.  “I took care of er-gongzi before, I will be happy to take care of zongzhu now. He is my responsibility, after all.”

[unabashednightmarepizza]

Even If Time Passes| KnY x OC Story

Previous | Next

“Bro I’m telling you: The next person that walks outta my life, I’m gonna go with them! I’m sick of this ass as well!”

“That’s the fifth time you’re telling this…”

“What the hell are you trying to say, huh?!”

Sabito tried to jump at Haizaki, only to fail because of his friend Giichi’s attempt of stopping him. Makomo was sitting away from them, eating with the Flower and Insect Hashira. They could only sigh angrily at them but Makomo suddenly threw a pebble right at Sabito’s face and caused him to dramatically fell to the ground while holding his cheek.

“Well deserved! Good aiming, Makomo-chan!”

“WHAT WAS THAT FOR MAKO-CHAN?! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!”

“We are, you idiot! But you’re forgetting where you are! We are at Oyakata-sama’s garden and she could hear you!”

Sabito and Haizaki immediatelly paled and got silent. The female Hashiras smirked in victory and continued to talk quietly.

“Do you think we should give Oyakata-sama some dangos? She loves them so I think that shouldn’t be a…”

Kanae  couldn’t finish her sentence when she saw that one of her fellow Hashiras, Iguro Obanai, walked through the Gates with dark circles under his eyes. It was obvious that he, and probably Mitsuri, couldn’t get enough sleep and he looked like he was about to crawl and sleep on the ground right then and there.

“ Iguro-san… You look terrible.”

“Thanks, Kocho. It’d be much better if you didn’t point out the obvious but yeah…”

Shinobu only laughed at her friends misery with his children while her sister was scolding her to not to say things like that to a new parent. Their tsuguko Toko offered some food to him but he rejected, saying that he had a little lunch with his family. One by one, every other Hashira and their tsugukos came to the meeting and you can guess what that meant: More chaos.

“How many people dumped you by now? Five? Or I dunno 10 maybe?” at Sanehiro’s loud laugh and his other friends laughing, a big angry mark appeared on Sabito’s face and he tugged at Sanehiro’s hair harshly.

“Look who’s talking! You can’t even confess to your crush you no-eyebrows!”

“HAR?! WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME, YOU PEACH?!”

Sanehiro’s hand was on his katana the second Sabito mentioned his crush on Kanae and was ready to pounce on him when a soft but half angry voice spoke out.

“Shinazugawa-san, please don’t forget that you are in the humble house of Oyakata-sama and think before you act.”

When Tenma heard his son’s voice, he immediatelly checked him since he knew that his mother was up all night. He then went to his side and pat his back.

“You look sleepless, Hakuji… Where were you last night?”

He scoffed and turned his head sideway. This way he wouldn’t have to look at his father’s face and face with his shame. Tenma looked at him sternly and softly grabbed his neck and turned his face towards his, looking at him with stern yet soft eyes.

“I’m your father, Hakuji. You don’t get to act like that. Your mother was up all night and she will probably want to talk to you. I don’t know what happened but know that we love and care for you.”

As soon as he learnt that his mom was up for him, another wave of guilt washed through him. I shouldn’t have reacted like that, I shouldn’t have said those words, she will hate me… While he was drowning himself with these thoughts, his father started to talk once more.

“The girls asked about you by the way. They were sad that you weren’t there for the breakfast but Ume being Ume, she cheered them up.”

At the mention of his little sisters, a genuine and soft smile graced his features, even though he was still feeling guilty. My little princess Mononokes, as he calls it since they love that movie a lot. Because he knew he made everyone worry, he apologized to his father and said that he will make it up to them by watching Studio Ghibli or Disney movies with them. Speaking of the devil, two of his sisters and his brother came in view and launched themselves onto his arms.

“NII-CHAN! WELCOME BACK!”

Everyone laughed at the kids’ excitement and Hakuji felt the heat on his face and ears but didn’t care or get embaressed, he just hugged them tightly to his chest and sat on the ground with them. After seeing his children were fine, Tenma went to chat with his fellow hashiras before his wife, Oyakata-sama, came. The girls were talking about their days and what they’ve done and suddenly( he doesn’t know how) the topic became his love life.

“Were you with Koyuki nee-chan, nii-chan? Can she come here and play with us?”

He sweat dropped at their question and wondered who told them but when he heard a snicker from the Serpent Hashira’s way, he turned his head towards him and mouthed “You bastard.” When he looked at his sisters again, he saw that they were waiting for his answer with big and hopeful eyes.

He heard his friends snicker a bit at his confused look at his sisters. Don’t get them wrong, they love their friend but making fun of those who had a significant other was a great fun for best friends. Considering he and Tenma were the only ones who had someone special for them, their only way to make fun of someone was with them.( They were far much scared of Obanai to make fun of him but Shinobu was an exception.)

“I... I’ll talk with her about it, princesses. Is that okay?”

“YAY! DON’T HIDE HER FOR YOURSELF NII-CHAN!”

The two girls kissed his cheeks happily while their brother was looking at them confused.

“Nii-chan is her uh boy…boyfriend. It’s normal he wants to spend time with her.”

“Boyfriend…?”

When they heard the uncertainity on Asumi’s features, Hakuji cocks an eyebrow as he watches her ponder on the word “boyfriend”. Why is it confusing to her? Oh God, Am I about to fight for my girlfriend’s attention like in the stories my friends told me to?

“What’s wrong, Asumi-chan? Is something wrong with your brother being her boyfriend?” asked Sumihiko. Asumi looked anxiously at her mother’s student and went to him. She whispered in his hear and as soon as she was done, Sumihiko was on the floor clutching his stomach. At his reaction, while everyone was busy looking at them as if they’ve grown another head, Yoshiteru, Toko and Kanata also came up to her to learn what’s all about Sumihiko laying down and wheezing like a chicken toy.

When the little girl told what she told Sumihiko shyly though, Toko only giggled and pat her head while Kanata was giving a soft yet apologetic eyes to her. She put her hair behind her ears with her little hands and hid behind her bangs, something quite rare for her. The pillars couldn’t stand the young ones’ fun and finally decided to ask them what’s going on.

“Child, what’s it that made them laugh so much? Don’t worry, nobody will make fun of you…”

At Gyomei’s gentle yet deep voice, Asumi gathered all of her courage and told them what she said… Only to cause another ruckus.

“In class, I heard a girl saying boys are gross and… Her nee-chan said boys are a waste of time. Then I heard Sinobu nee-chan saying boyfriends are just use-useless t-trashes and a co-com-complete waste of time…”

“Is nii-chan also a waste of time?”

With and angry scowl and and irk mark, Hakuji turned to the mentioned young woman, in hopes to see her guilt but he was left dumbfounded since he couldn’t see any and the only thing he was able to see was… Pride and utter joy in her eyes.

“That’s right, Asumi-chan! Look at her, she’s already a genius about boys even at this age!”

“Shinobu, you’re not helping!”

Tenma slapped his forehead and took his girl in his arms since she was madly blushing. He cannot argue with boys being gross... especially boys who tries to touch and play with her. One of the main reasons he doesn’t let that Yui kid play with her. She is his girl until she dies, no uh huh, no boys till she dies one day.

Kanae and Toko saw the distraught look on her face and their big sister/ Mama insticts went overdrive to reassure the little girl. Toiya was just done with his life and just wanted to go and take a little nap with his Mama but he had to wait for his little sisters, well Asumi to be exact.

“Don’t be sad, Asumi-sama! Not every boy is a waste of time!”

“That’s right, Asumi-chan! Boys who take care of the one they love, love and cherish their lover and spends time with them is the best thing!”

Asumi looked at their mesmerizing eyes and nodded her head a little and smiled shyly at them. Since she was occupied with looking at their eyes and complimenting them, she couldn’t hear her father’s grumbles of “BoYs wHo LoVe thEir lOver is The BeST tHiNg…”

Toiya realized that their meeting was about to start so he called out to his sisters so that they can go now. Three of them immediately came to him and held his hands, making him flustered since it was now obvious that he had a soft spot for them even though he always looked annoyed by their presence.

The Flower Hashira and her tsuguko awed at them and the Flame Hashira let out a boisterous laugh and a “What a beautiful sibling bond!” at them. While they were almost out of view, Asumi turned and asked her final question which made Toiya rethink every single nice thing he had thought about his sister.

“Kanae nee-chan… Does that mean To-chan is gonna be a waste of time? He hardly plays with us… I don’t think he’d play with his lov-lover.”

“Asumi… Can we please go so that I can show you how playfuI I can be?” asked Toiya with a slight irritation and went inside the house while every pillar was laughing uncontrollably. His sister was innocently asking what they are gonna be playing and he couldn’t help but wonder: How are we twins? Did I eat my true twin so they had to put someone else?

Every other male pillars were patting Tenma’s back, saying that he raised a bold and sassy girl and that they couldn’t wait to hear more of comebacks like this. And when he was about to answer them he heard the voice he loved: a very soft, elegant yet powerful voice.

“It’s good to see that my children are having a great time.”

Every Hashira and their tsugukos widened their eyes and knelt in front of her with respect as she was walking towards them. When she was finally in front of them, they saw that she wasn’t wearing her usual fox mask that was a present by her dear friend Urakodoki but a half mask that was covering her left side. She was wearing a turquois and dark blue kimono with floral designs and a red spider lily hairpin that was hanging from her ponytail. With her katana and weapons, she was standing tall and strong. Everybody was waiting for one of them to say their prayer and wishes but before anyone can do it, Shinobu spoke first.

“We eagerly pray for much happiness upon you and your family.”

“We find it most honorable to be in your presence, Oyakata-sama.”    

When Shinobu spoke her kind words to Hana, she smiled in gratitude and looked at every Hashira and tsuguko present.

“Thank you, Shinobu. I also pray for every one of your health and safety.”

She looked at every one of her children’s face and when her eyes landed on Hakuji, he internally sweated a bit but before he was able to say something, his mother started to talk one more time.

“ It’s been a long time since we had a sunny day. I hope me, wanting to make the meeting outdoor didn’t cause any problems.”

“Never, Oyakata-sama! We are happy to be here!” At Kyojuro’s loud voice, she let out a slight laugh and covered her mouth a bit.

“I knew that letting the kids out first was a good idea. Since you all have a good aura, let’s start the meeting.” she concluded and sat down in front of them and thus, the meeting started.

          “And this concludes our meeting for today. It’s already late so I don’t want to take anymore time of yours. Does any of you have questions about your missions?”

The sun was about to set and the sky was in every kind of orange and red hues, which made the leader of the Corps look even more ethereal. All of her swordsmen that was present in front of her shook their heads in admiration and some of them with a blush. Tenma looked at them with fire in his eyes, feeling possessive. Being amused at the look on her husband’s face, she smiled and then looked everyone of her children’s eyes and raised her right hand to her face in a curious manner while smirking at them and voiced her thoughts.

“You’re all remarkably well-behaved today… What happened this time?”

They all looked at her and then each other, as if asking who should tell her or if they should tell her. She saw that they were weighing everything in their heads and moving in their seats nervously. Seeing them fidget nervously made her knit her brows together and the only thought that crossed the tsugukos’ mind was “Oh no, we angered her!” since they weren’t used to be in a Hashira meeting. Before anybody can have a heart-attack, she straightened her posture and sat down cross-legged, inducing them to be not formal with her. But the young students were still hesitant so she sighed deeply and looked at them straight in the eye.

“From now on, the meeting is over. You don’t have to be formal, I just want to hear about your days.”

At their leader’s honey-like voice, they all sighed with relief and sat cross-legged like her. She smiled proudly at them and when she remembered her Mist Pillar’s children’s state, a worried look settled up on her face.

“Hikaru, I heard that your twins were sick… Is there anything I can help you with?”

At his leader’s genuine question, he bowed slightly in gratitude and looked at her with his own almost- identical red eyes.

“Thank you, Oyakata-sama. They are both fine, they had a high fever a few days ago but now they are recovering.”

“I wonder how Oyakata-sama always knows what’s going on with every slayer. Aren’t there like… thousands of us?”

Since the tsugukos were seated a little far from the Hashiras, Yoshiteru whisper yelled at Kanata who was trying so hard to not hit his head for the reason of him talking about their leader in a whispering tone while there were people around, yet alone her husband. Though he couldn’t disagree with his friend. It was as if she always knew what would happen the next, as if she has faced with similar things before and now is acting depending on her experiences. Her posture didn’t help as well. Considering that she looked identical to her father, Ubuyashiki Kiriya,( That they know since she would sometimes wear a half mask that covers her left side and they’d be able to see the other half of her face) and had experience more than anyone, the rumors about her being a msytic being was common even though she never denies her being a demon and had knowledge about almost everything for that reason.

Unknown to them, Akahana heard their little chat and smiled softly to herself since thanks to her husband, she had enhanced her hearing ability even more. Though, she didn’t say anything because Sanehiro was such a wild individual, especially to the young ones, that he would throw insults at them and could destroy their confidence as well. She couldn’t help but think: You’re like your great-grandparent,Sanehiro…

“I’m delighted to hear this, Hikaru. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate. Now, what’s all about Sabito and your teasing Shinobu?”

At her knowing smile, Sabito was only able to try and hide behind his haori while everyone else were stiffling their laughs. Though Tenma and Sanehiro didn’t even try to hide the truth and let out their laugh. She couldn’t help but smile at their happy faces, and started to think while looking at her husband. He really is pretty… Why did he even choose me? Anyways, It’s been a long time since I slept with them I guess I can go and touch hi- What the fuck am I thinking? Is this what teenagers call as “Horny”?.... Oh well, that’s a first.

She shook her head as a little red hue appeared on her cheeks. She secretly touched her right cheek and when she skimmed over her children, she caught her husband’s stare and he smirked to himself, seeing that his awkward and stoic wife was blushing while looking at him. She looked at her flustered student and moved closer to him. She didn’t realize him being more flustered because she was close to him, but Sabito was internally screaming when she put her hand on his shoulder.

“Your girlfriend dumped you again, right?”

“Oyakata-sama… please don’t give them any more reasons to make fun of me…”

She looked at him apologetically and pat his head while scolding the others for making fun of his failure of a love life. She comforted him as much as she can but her giggling wasn’t unheard and the only thing Sabito could do was praying for this torture to end.

Meanwhile Hakuji was happy that his mother was interacting with others and happy. He knew that they will have to talk, that he couldn’t escape his mother’s silent threats so he just leaned back and watched the others’ banter for now.

After a 30 minutes of having fun and almost choking on water, Akahana officially ended the meeting and chased them all out so that they can go back to their families. While the young slayers were almost out, she remembered the tsugukos’ little chat and called to Yoshiteru.

“Yoshiteru?”

At the leader’s sudden voice, he squeaked hard and clinged on his sister who deadpanned at him and tried to make him let her go, but it was in no-vain. After turning to her with quavering lips and teary eyes, she walked to them and pat his head.

“I know everything that’s going on with every one of my children, after all I have ears everywhere. “

At the end of her sentence, since her voice went deeper and raspier Yoshiteru got even more scared and wailed to go home and stumbled on his way to get out while Toko, Genya and Kanata all laughed awkwardly and bowed in front of her deeply. After she dismissed them, only she, Tenma and Hakuji were present. She turned to her husband and gave him a kiss from the cheek.

“Dear, go home before us and tell others that we’ll be late. I believe we have things to talk with Hakuji.”

After briefly looking at his son and giving his wife a kiss as well, he got out to let his other wives know about her and Hakuji.

She then turned to her son and extended her right arm for him to take and Hakuji walked to his mother and took her arm to lead her to their usual walking route.

“You love giving a little scare to Yoshiteru, right mom?”

She smiled at her son and nodded her head enthusiastically which made Hakuji smile as well.

“What can I say, I used to scare his father and great-grandfather as well. It was my only way of having fun at those days.”

She then started to tell her stories with previous Hashiras and how they used to be the victims of her sudden appearance and raspy voice. They were laughing while walking to their favourite food shop and after they bought their food and talked to the owner a bit, they went to a silent park, a place they’ve always been to since his childhood.

After watching and talking with the children there, little kids who admires her strength and power; they silently looked at the moon and ate their food. He was waiting for her to start the inevitable scolding, her anger, but what she said suprised him and made him look at her with teary eyes.

“Hakuji… Do you see yourself unworthy of my love?”

[squarefriend]

DragonTale Toriel Doodle Page + Notes!!

So, I’m doing these for each of my DragonTale designs! Baisically I’ll be doing a lil doodle page plus some extra info on the anatomy, world, any changes from cannon etc. This mostly a design based AU, so any changes are litterally just to adapt to having a much larger quadraped instead of a slightly tall biped moving around the ruins lMAO. Anyhoo!! Onto my lil info dump:

- Toriel actually has some difficulty flying. She can get off the ground, but is more built for gliding or short, quick bursts of flight. This is due to having heavier mammalian bones and two sets of wings. They’re mostly for show.

- That being said, she is an exelent climber. She can scale mountains and large trees easily.

- She is 8 feet tall at the head, 8 feet long at the hip, and 16 feet long from about to tail. Her wing span is also 20 ft long. Though, the inner set only have a 16 ft span.

- You saw that picture right, she has hands. Well, closer to half hands half paws. She flat palm walks, similarly to a monkey of a bear and has a developed thumb. Again, kinda like a monkey.

- She’s a mammal, not a reptile!

- She can breathe fire! She can control the heat of the blaze, and often uses it to bake. She can also use pour healing magic into the steam that comes out of her nostrils!

- She carries all of her children by the scruff of thier neck. If it’s a human, then she’s grabbing by the shirt.

- Tori floofs up when provoked or angry. Think an angry. When the neck fur raises, watch out.

- Also!! The ruins is a lot larger in this Au, mostly to compensate for the massive beasts roaming it’s halls. Toriel’s cottage is more built for a qaudriped. She has a nest instead of a bed, the chair is a comfortable rug, everything’s larger and more spread out, that kind of stuff. I’ll be making floor plans soon!

And that’s about it! If you have any questions about these DT! Toriel or DragonTale in general, feel free to leave an ask! I’ll be putting out Sans’s ref next, because I’m saving Flowey for the end of this ;)

Have a good day!