lutzgocelly · 2 years ago
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"it's cozy"
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absolutebl · 3 months ago
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Top 10 Most Underrated BLs of the last 3 years
(mid year 2021 - end 2023)
This list will not include BLs that ended their run in 2024. I need some distance to know if something is actually underrated (We Are maybe?) or justifiably ignored.
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1 I Cannot Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan 2023 Netflix?)
This classic friends-to-lovers BL is everything Japan does best. Angsty. Emo. Aching. Driven by real thirst. Yamato is deeply in love with his childhood bestie, Kakeru, and has been for ages, increasingly unable to hide his ungainly damaging high school need. He wants Kakeru in every way possible and it oozes off of the screen. Kakeru is silly and a little simple, but not frenetic or overly camp about it. He is earnest, and genuinely wants to keep Yamato in his life, which means giving a romance (and gayness) a fair chance. We watch him realize his affection and what form it can take in a truly authentic way. This show was impossibly kind to both of its lead characters and I felt almost honored that I got to watch something so lovely and rare play out on my screen. Full review.
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2 My Ride (Thai 2022 Gaga)
Thai BL grew up with this pulp (the first ever pulp to make my end of year top 10). It’s a truly lovely and special little show featuring the extremely rare pairing of sunshine/sunshine (AKA a cinnamon roll couple) plus mature explorations of relationships using one of the softest, sweetest, and most innocent friends to lovers vehicles. Kindly, overworked doctor meets broken-hearted motorcycle taxi rider in an “other side of the tracks” slow burn romance. The support cast is excellent, making for great friendship groups and family dynamics. With honest queer rep that adds to, but doesn’t impede, the story, and genuine conversation about the nature of class, wealth, and classism, not to mention communication, honesty, and respect for boundaries, you can’t go wrong with this show. In other news, I am a sucker for a single dimple. Full review.
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3 Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku (Japan 2023 Gaga)
A lonely salaryman (+ talented cook) gets accidentally adopted by a college kid (and his little brother). I was always gonna love this show if they stuck to the original yaoi (which is very dear to my heart). And they did! Paralleling it almost exactly. It’s a quiet & cozy little parable of found family alleviating loneliness. Possibly too slow for some but definitely high up there for me as the best of what Japan can do with softness (like Restart After Come Back Home). It’s only flaw (if I dare say such a thing) is that it is not really “romantic.” Lovely & sweet but the romance beats are being used to build a family relationship, not just couple intimacy, but that's OK with me. This is a very safe show for anyone to watch.
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4 About Youth (Taiwan 2022 Gaga)
A truly lovely little coming of age high school BL with a classic YA low drama but high angst and earnest depth. I didn’t even mind the singing, and that’s saying a lot. A weak seme/uke dynamic but tons of BL tropes (both rare in a high school setting but common for Taiwan) makes this one feel both sweet and colored by real world authenticity and grit. Full review.
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5 Step By Step (Thai 2023 Gaga)
This was Thailand’s answer to The New Employee, and everything I loved about that show I loved about this one. This office romance between a stern boss and sweet subordinate felt more authentic to cubical work than previous Thai BLs of this ilk. That authenticity added tension to the narrative and its characters development (how novel). I also really enjoyed the charming side characters and the brothers' relationship to each other (although I could have done without that brother's side BL). Full review.
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6 DNA Says Love You (Taiwan 2022 Gaga)
DNA deserves extra marks for an upbeat approach to a queer story arc that other shows have systemically mishandled with sadness (in the guise of realism). There is a twist, which I found predictable, but knowing what would happen didn't spoil this show. The leads are luminous and engaging, and it’s full of queer found family representation and an unexpected amount of domesticity, plus it’s Taiwan, so the kisses are great. The first few eps are rough going but have patience, it's worth it I promise! The second half is really special and life/love affirming - and the end is big-grin charming. Full review.
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7 Unintentional Love Story (Korea 2023 iQIYI)
Of all the BLs on this list, this is probubly the MOST underrated. OMG the plot! Uke forced into a totally understandable betrayal, falling in love despite himself, put into a corner he can't get out of, the AGONY, the PAIN in those gorgeous eyes. Gah. Okay, so: A boy loses his job due to trumped-up corruption charges accidentally discovers his ex-boss's favorite artist, now a recluse. Evil manager offers him his job back, if he can convince the artist to rejoin society. Instead, they fall in love. I found the artist a bit stiff and reserved but Gongchan (maknae of B1A4) is a fucking GIFT - he carried this show (which I do not expect from the idol element). He was luminous with extraordinarily expressive eyes, just drown in the emoting abyss. The external conflict, social tension and pressure is complex and beautifully executed, plus Korea gave us legit side dishes (NOT a love triangle, hally-fucking-luya). Full review.
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8 Dear Doctor I'm Coming for Your Soul (Thai 2022 iQIYI)
This is a romance between a doctor trying to save his patients and a reaper who is both his enemy and (eventual) lover (basically the genius premise of a gay Doom at Your Service). High concept looks good on you, Thailand. It’s lovely to see KarnNat back on screen together and they are still great, and Karn is just as painfully beautiful as ever. I enjoyed this one more than its ending deserved, and the best I can say is that it’s not strictly HEA but if you’re okay with Life: Love on the Line, you’ll be okay with this BL. It’s set up well, there’s no surprise unpleasantness like HIStory 3: The BL that shall not be named. Full review.
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9 Destiny Seeker (Thai 2023 WeTV)
A darn near perfect pulp featuring 3 likable grumpy/sunshine pairings with uncomplicated iterations of enemies to lovers. At least one half of each does a decent amount of pining and there’s good chemistry, classic tropes, and excellent communication rep. It’s fun and full of linguistic jokes. Sublimely cheesy but a good rainy day offering with tons of rewatch potential. (Also WAR PEANUTS!) Full review.
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10 Make a Wish (Thai 2023 grey)
A doctor who can see the dead strikes a bargain with a wish-granting irreverent tree angel - naturally they fall in love (from Sammon: Manner of Death & Triage). Stars Fluke Natouch opposite not Ohm, but who cares because Fluke has chemistry with everybody. Once again the Thai afterlife is incredibly bureaucratic but I enjoyed the premise and the unfolding of the story (it’s not predictable but still satisfying and with nice little twist). I like that the doctor is just gay AF - fag hag bestie and made of swagger. The cast is excellent but the comedic stylings are a bit overblown and tonally off. It has sad parts and did make me cry but is ultimately happy with a great sex scene, good smiley kisses, and all the agency.
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10 others I rarely see anyone talk about:
Triage - Many would put this at the top of the list, but I don't find it very rewatchable and that weighs a lot in my assessments. Still it is GOOD and very underrated. BL does Groundhog Day featuring a doctor stuck in a time loop who must save a poor little rich boy from death by seducing the stuffing out of him, then PLOT TWIST, poor little rich boy must do the same for doctor! Unfortunately… stuffing keeps leaking. I thought the plot was engaging if a little redundant and occasionally exhausting. The pairs were all well done, low heat but with decent chemistry and the support characters were likable (or unlikeable, as required). My reason it's not in the top 10? If anything, the romance arc detracted and distracted from the main plot, but that doesn't stop this from being a genuinely good show it's just time loop is not a trope I personally enjoy. Review here.
See You After Quarantine? - This under appreciated gem is Taiwan’s answer to Gameboys and is just as charmg and adorable yet still as quintessentially Taiwanese as one might hope. It features a Japanese love interest and the cutest most confused disaster gay. Slow burn because the two have almost no actual screen time together and yet manage some truly amazing chemistry. Honestly how does Taiwan do it?
The Tasty Florida - I don't know, maybe it's Speed nostalgia, but I love this one, classic Korean BL with all those strengths and flaws... but The Prettiest.
You Make Me Dance - it's Korea but somehow they got this one, maybe by featuring mature characters and a real world crisis? Also they both ve hot.
Blueming - at the time it got a lot of attention but it seems to have faded into obscurity under the shod of The 8th Sense and Love of Love's Sack. This was a precurser to both and well worth a watch if you like it when Korea gets a little gritty.
Love Stage!! (Thai version) - I liked this IP alerady more than most. But this is the best of the 4 adaptations, and the first full Thai version of Japanese IP. It's both charming and notable in the industry. Hard to find and that's why it gets so little creddit but I think it's well worth the effort to track down.
Oh! Boarding House - I think most who watched this din't jive with it because it's an ensamble piece witha wicked love traingle. But I really enjoyed it. It felt like the move Kdrama BL that Korea has given us and I like me some Kdramas.
What Zabb Man! - one of the better BLs to come out of Star Hunter in the last few years. I like this pair a lot more than most, and the sides are wicked great. This is probably one of my favorite food themed BLs, actually.
2 Moons The Ambassador - possibly the lowest scoring BL to appear on this list but I just really like the leads. Nothing else is good, but they are kinda awkwardly fantastic. I also like how gay af the seme is.
Stay By My Side - This show was an interesting take on the "ghost boyfriend" trope. About a boy who is tormented by hearing the dead, except when he is around one other boy - desperation+proximity = love. Despite a strong initial premise it ended up mostly being enjoyable for sappy domesticity but nothing more. Still, I always give extra credit for the diabetes-inducing sugar content and rewatch capacity.
Requested by the lovely @l1xyz
FYI: I judge “underrated” on the strength of what I see people talk about (or more precisely not talk about) on social media, MDL reviews, and YouTube watch numbers (when available, as compared to comparable shows from the same country). 
Because of this, statistically, there will always be quite a few BLs that are difficult to get hold of.
Here's my pulls of the Top Underrated BLs prior to 2021. Considering the amount of content generated over the last few years, the pool to draw from is likely about the same.
My Top 10 Most Underrated BLs prior to 2021
Seven Days
Restart after Come Back Home
Wish You
Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding
He’s Coming to Me
Oxygen
My Day
Most Peaceful Place
HIStory 2: Right or Wrong
HIStory: Obsessed
I'd throw Great Men Academy in there, but I always dither over whether it actually is a BL.
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marticoresims · 1 month ago
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THE SIMS 2 ULTIMATE CALCULATION You need to copy it and save on your account to be able to use it. I can't risk letting people edit the calculator so they can just wipe out the whole thing.
I made a calculator for The Sims 2 that makes it easier for me to choose certain things for Sims such as aspiration, career, hobby and to get a clear idea of who this Sim is.
How does it work? Here's an explanation for all modules!
Aspiration I rarely use this part of the calculator because usually I look at a Sim's personality and already know. This module is not perfect, but definitely comes in handy when I'm not sure. So basically you put in the Sim's personality points into the teal-colored category, and the burgundy-colored one counts itself (giving "negative" points for a trait, e.g. 6 in Neat is 4 in Sloppy). Each aspiration takes different traits into its formula, giving a certain number of points. The more points, the "better" the aspiration fits the personality. Of course this is very simplified, so only use it when indecisive (which I always am). Here is a general idea on which traits suit which personality in my opinion. Except now I think the difference between fortune and knowledge is how nice the Sim is.
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Interests finally matter! The calculator has two systems based on interests that I think make a lot of sense and actually make the interests mean something other than if Sims are going to argue while talking. This calculator makes NO SENSE with VANILLA interests system!!! Interests are based on age which means kids and adults are interested in specific things "according" to their age, e.g. kids like animals and adults like culture. In the vanilla system, this calculator will end up giving you the same results over and over! So I recommend getting this mod that makes interests random and not change in the child→teen age transition.
So go ahead, type in your Sim's interests! Expand the interests panel to have them in the same order as in the calculator (counting by columns left-right top-bottom, so starting with Politics and ending with Sci-Fi).
Career Without this calculator, I would give my Sims the same jobs over and over because I wouldn't even remember all the 25 careers + a few custom ones I have. Each career has a formula and takes different interests into account, you can find them listed next to the career name. It also counts in aspiration, so don't forget to give a few points there! I add in 5 points for aspiration.
One True Hobby I often just leave whatever OTH the game calculated for the Sim based on personality mainly. But sometimes I like it when the hobby and the job align. I also don't like that certain OTHs seem to repeat a lot, so I recalculate it if need be.
The calculator highlights 22+ points in careers and 12+ points in OTH. You can also mark all the career numbers and look in the bottom-right corner for the "max" value to navigate it more easily.
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EXAMPLE! This is John Mole's calculation. His aspiration is popularity, so I gave him 5 points for it and put in his interests numbers. The perfect career for him is Slacker and his OTH could be Tinkering because he's very interested in toys. But he could just as well work as a veterinarian and take up fitness or sports as his hobby, for more variety. This calculator will give you a few options to choose from instead of the entirety of game features. And that's what I love about it!
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laxmiree · 5 months ago
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[CN] MLQC Season 2 Chapter 59 Translation [Lucien’s Route (3/3)]
⚠️  SPOILER ALERT  ⚠️
This post contains a VERY HEAVY SPOILER for the chapter that has not been released in EN yet! Feel free to notify me if there are any mistakes in the translation~
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Lucien gazes at the shallow bite mark left by my teeth on his hand, a hint of amusement mingled with helplessness in his eyes.
With his other hand, he gently pinches my cheek.
"Is this how Miss Werewolf executes me?"
Translation under the cut!
[Previous Part-> Click Here]
—[Lucien's Route - 10: First Clearing After Rainstorm]—
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As dusk falls, my face grows increasingly pale as Lucien escorts me back to my room.
MC: As the game progresses, I feel like the pressure is getting bigger and bigger, and even my head hurts more.
I can't help but reach out to rub my head, but Lucien gently holds back my wrist. His fingers gently brush against my skin as if offering some kind of comfort.
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Lucien: I have a better way to relieve it. Come with me.
He guides me to lie back on the bed, and I rest my head on Lucien's right leg, feeling his fingertips slowly massaging my temple.
Lucien's fingertips are purposely dipped with water, and their slight coolness gradually soothes my mind.
When I slowly open my eyes, his silhouette is tenderly outlined by twilight, with the light catching on his eyelashes and casting a focused shadow.
The continuous sound of flowing water since entering the mansion seems to fade at this moment, leaving only our breathing amplified in my ears.
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MC: [softly calling out his name] Lucien.
I can't help but call his name. Lucien looks at me and blinks.
MC: I hope we can see each other again tomorrow and walk to the last day together.
Lucien: I hope we can make it through the night safely too.
Lucien bows his head, his lips brushing my forehead in a kiss as fleeting as morning dew.
Lucien: [whispers softly] MC, may you have a sweet dream tonight.
I close my eyes and fall into a brief slumber, waking up just in time for the werewolves' activity period.
I don't know when Lucien left, but I still feel his presence lingering in the air.
I shake my head, dispelling the wild thoughts from my mind. No matter what, the game isn't over yet, and tonight is undoubtedly even more critical.
✂———————–
I quickly meet up with Mousy. To avoid any misunderstandings between us, I specifically explain what happened in the morning.
MC: It has been three whole days. If I don't identify a real werewolf, they might start doubting my identity as the seer…
MC: We will achieve victory soon. Do you believe in me?
I confidently recited the lines I had rehearsed during the day. Mousy seems taken aback by my directness and nods in agreement.
However, I am fully aware that the longer the hunter survives, the less likely the werewolves are to win.
As I think about this, I don't feel any regret, but rather more and more at ease.
Perhaps in the time I can't see, Lucien is also taking steps closer to the ending which belongs only to the two of us.
Braving the deafening rain, we head to Joker's room again. As we open the door, a flash of lightning strikes a giant tree in front of the window, charring it.
I refuse Mousy's help and personally push Joker into the pool.
Watching the deep green color disappear into the water, I feel a sense of relief that I haven't felt in a long time.
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That night, I had a rare good night's sleep. By the time dawn arrived, the rain had already stopped.
It was still some time before my usual wake-up hour, but instead of waiting for Lucien to come find me, I took the initiative to push open the door and go out.
Lucien's door wasn't locked; it opened with a push. He stood by the window, looking at the clear, blue sea.
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Lucien: [gently] You’re here.
After being confined all night, the morning breeze flows lightly into the bedroom, ruffling his hair and revealing his smiling eyes.
Lucien: Did you have a sweet dream last night?
Thinking about the scene where I personally "dealt with" the Joker last night, I smile.
MC: [smiles happily] Mm, I had a very good and happy dream~
✂———————–
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Soon, all the players are gathered in the banquet hall again. The long, once full table is now left with only a few people.
Apart from Lucien and me, there are only four people left.
Zhao Jianqiang, who was already not in a good state, is lying on the table today, tapping his head.
MC: Can you still hold on? Do we need to tell the officials?
Zhao Jianqiang waves his hand, putting on an "I can still manage" expression.
Zhao Jianqiang: ....Boss, don't worry, I can still work overtime when the game is over!
.......In this state, it's better not to work overtime. It would be troublesome if there is a work injury.
Before joining the game, he was busy editing the film "Odyssey." After this ends, I really need to give him a proper vacation.
Simply put, let's "liberate" him tonight.
As I am pondering, Zhao Jianqiang suddenly stands up.
Zhao Jianqiang: Let me speak first... I am actually the grave keeper. Yesterday, the baldhead that MC checked was indeed a werewolf.
I quietly look around, and no one questions Zhao Jianqiang's words. Without a doubt, my identity is ultimately confirmed.
MC: Then I'll also share the results of my check from last night. Luckily, I identified another werewolf.
I stand up under everyone's trusting gazes, my eyes falling on the burly man who has been very low-key these past few days and is now quietly watching me.
MC: It's you, Mr. Gentle Giant.
Another round of execution is over. In the eyes of everyone, the Seer has successfully identified the Werewolf for two consecutive days, and the game is about to end smoothly.
Or rather, no one is willing to think about the authenticity of my identity anymore.
The irreversible ending is always difficult to accept.
As I get up and walk out of the banquet hall, I'm suddenly called out to.
??: MC!
White Angel rushes over to me. It seems like she has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, a shy blush coloring her cheeks.
Angel: The game is almost over, MC. You're in a very dangerous position right now.
Angel: I have a good idea who the next werewolf is. Don't worry, I'll protect you tonight!
...I never expected that the person who gave the wolf faction a bad start would be right before me.
MC: Are you the Guardian?
Angel: Yes! My judgment was right. With you as the Seer, we will definitely win.
Angel: You might not remember, but we've actually met in real life.
MC: Eh…?
She sees the confusion in my eyes and explains to me with a smile.
Angel: I am a nurse and volunteer for the An Kang Charity Project. I am responsible for caring for deteriorating patients.
Angel: When you came to report, I was the one who received you.
Angel: I deliberately 'subverted' my dress style in the game, so it's normal if you didn't recognize me at first.
‘Carnival Night’ has been going on for so many days, I have completely immersed myself in the identity within the game.
Suddenly hearing about real-life matters, I feel a surreal sense of suspension. I ponder for a while and finally nod in realization.
MC: Oh, it's you!
Angel nods, looks towards Lucien not far away, and whispers in my ear.
Angel: Mr. X is Professor Lucien, right?
Seeing me nod, she beams a radiant smile.
Angel: It's really you! I'm thrilled to meet a media person who tirelessly reports on deteriorating diseases and Professor Lucien who has been dedicated to researching deteriorating diseases.
Angel: Participating in the closed beta of 'Carnival Night' turned out to be the luckiest thing for me this year.
Angel: Even after leaving the game, as a regular healthcare worker, I will continue to support you all!
After Angel leaves, I stand there, my heart feeling like it's stuffed with tangled knots of thread, a strange sensation I can't quite describe.
Even though it's just a game, deceiving someone with expectations and trust in me still leaves me feeling a little guilty.
My empty right hand is enveloped by another warm hand. Lucien has walked to my side without me noticing.
MC: You heard everything?
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Lucien: Mm.
Lucien and I interlocked our fingers, palms pressed tightly together, sharing each other's warmth.
Lucien: [chuckles softly] You've done very well.
—[Lucien's Route - 11: First Clearing After Rainstorm]—
I bite my lip, suppress the emotions in my heart, and smile at Lucien.
MC: Looks like my role as a producer has contributed a bit to the care of deteriorating patients~
Lucien nods, his seriousness clearly visible in his eyes.
Lucien: Not just a bit, but a lot.
Lucien: After all, scientific research isn't purely about rational study; it's intertwined with human emotions and interests.
Lucien: Just like in 'Carnival Night,' those who grasp logic and truth may not necessarily surpass those who manipulate hearts and exchange interests.
I nod slightly, feeling a bit guilty, and listen as Lucien continues speaking.
Lucien: The media can both widely disseminate the latest scientific research results and play a role in monitoring and holding scientific research accountable.
He pauses briefly, then adds softly.
Lucien: —This helps prevent issues like academic misconduct and unethical research practices during the scientific research process.
His gaze seems to drift away from "Odyssey" and look into the distance.
Such an expression makes me inevitably think of the night he took me to the abandoned research institute. I can't help but ask.
MC: Are you... thinking about Mr. Xu?
Lucien, however, shakes his head. When he looks at me again, his eyes remain calm and serene as usual.
Lucien: In the path of scientific research, there have been many such things in the past. And in the future, there will be many more.
Seeing my puzzled expression, Lucien smiles.
Lucien: For example, research on deterioration worldwide has stalled at this stage.
Lucien: Many research institutions have adjusted their research directions and terminated research projects as a result-
Lucien: -And for those projects that still exist, obtaining funding has also become more challenging.
Lucien casually picks up a glass of juice from the tray carried by a passing butler and hands it to me.
Lucien: Given this background, those who continue striving for deterioration research are making efforts to revitalize this research direction.
Lucien: For them, more than studying deterioration itself, what's crucial is making 'innovative discoveries', securing funding, and sustaining the research institute.
The deliberately emphasized tone makes me vaguely understand the implied meaning of Lucien's words.
MC: You mean... some of them have started to take desperate risks?
Lucien nods, his expression still indifferent, revealing no specific opinion or feelings toward these people.
Lucien: Among the organizations researching the deterioration disease that approached me for cooperation, quite a few are involved in such activities.
MC: [worriedly]…What about you? Is there similar pressure at Ultima Bioscience Research Institute?
Lucien: I'm fortunate that there haven't been any so far. Therefore, I can focus more on my research.
Instinctively, I tighten the grip on his hand, and I see Lucien give me a gentle and reassuring smile.
Lucien: [chuckles] It's getting late. Don't forget we're still in the "Carnival Night". Do you want to see other places?
✂———————–
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That night, Mousy and I pushed Zhao Jianqiang into the pool.
Since I have already decided to stay with Lucien until the end, I no longer consider the strategy or the winning and losing of the werewolf faction.
After saying goodbye to the seemingly downcast Mousy, I return to my room with a relaxed mindset and quickly tally the votes.
Mousy and I have 2 votes together, while Lucien and the White Angel have 2.5 votes together. It seems that tomorrow will be our last day as werewolves.
I lie on the bed, turn over, and a strong sense of unreality rises in my heart.
Carnival Night has been going on for several days now, and apart from being startled by Brother Genius on the first night, it seems like everything has been thrilling but safe…
But I have actually always been very concerned about what Brother Genius said about the "game rule loophole" on the night he committed suicide.
Why was he able to go out at that time, and how did he kill himself?
Thinking about this, I remain puzzled, feeling as if a little claw is scratching at my heart, making it uncomfortable to lie down or sit.
Finally, I steel myself and stand up from the bed.
Since the werewolves are going to lose tomorrow anyway, why not take advantage of this long night and go out to investigate?
I look at the clock on the wall. Although the time for werewolf and seer activities has passed, dawn is at five o'clock, and there are still a few hours to go.
So, I get up and walk to the door. After silently giving myself three seconds to hesitate, I decisively open the door and walk out.
Sure enough, I am not punished or sent back to my room for coming out during off-activity hours.
The large mansion is already empty, with most of the room name plates having the players' names crossed out.
I walk alone through the secluded corridor surrounded by pool water, searching for anything unusual.
My body trembles when I reach the atrium, and I stand frozen in shock.
The light in Brother Genius's room, which should have been offline a few days ago, is on.
My heart tightens uncontrollably as I hold my breath and walk to the door. Before I can push it, the door opens from the inside.
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Lucien: Good evening, MC.
Lucien smiles while holding the door, and the indoor light dyes a warm hue on his hair. He steps aside and invites me in.
Lucien: Please come in.
I walk in as if on a sleepwalk and sit down. After glancing around the room, my eyes fall on Lucien, and I can't help but stare at him.
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MC: Why are you sleeping here... Isn't your room on the other side?
Lucien: I couldn't sleep, so I often wander around at this time. Did I scare you?
MC: Not really, it's just…
I ponder my words for a while, feeling a headache coming on and a bit of irritation growing in my heart.
Having reached this point, I no longer care about our identity as werewolf and hunter or about the mansion owner's personal tasks.
So, I look at Lucien and decide to stop hiding anything, pouring all the questions in my heart in one breath.
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MC: Alright, I actually want to know, when did you start coming out at night?
Lucien: [frankly and without hesitation] Since the night of the third day.
I look at his calm expression, feeling only more puzzled.
MC: But why risk breaking the rules to do this? Is it because you discovered something?
Meeting my questioning gaze, Lucien smiles slightly.
Lucien: Because at that time, I realized the same thing you are realizing now: there is something suspicious about Brother Genius's death.
Lucien: The game is based on rules: werewolves kill humans, humans vote players out, and the only two execution methods in the game are pushing them into the water.
Lucien: Out of so many humans being killed, only Brother Genius's death was different.
With a graceful gesture, he motions for me to look towards the bedroom door.
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Lucien: There are some bloodstains on the outside of the door frame that haven't been thoroughly cleaned. He walked out of the room and died at the door.
Lucien: So I infer that he was not killed by the werewolves, and the werewolves' target on the first night should have been Joker.
MC: ...How do you even know this?
Lucien: [chuckles] It's just a guess based on intuition and understanding.
Lucien's eyes curve into a smile. Though he frames it as a guess, his words carry an undeniable insight.
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Lucien: I guess there is a cute classmate in the werewolf faction.
Lucien: [the glee in his tone! he doesn’t even hide his happily wagging ‘fox tail’] This classmate has a low tolerance for Joker, yet still wants to play with me, the hunter, for a while longer.
His hushed voice mingles with the secretive sounds of flowing water, cloaking his words in suspense.
Lucien: After all, for the werewolves, it's far too dangerous and unbelievable for a hunter to survive until now.
Lucien: What do you think, Miss Werewolf?
The facade I've been barely maintaining in front of everyone finally crumbles entirely at this moment.
I look at Lucien, feeling more relieved than frustrated.
This is wonderful, I can finally be completely open and honest with him.
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MC: You figured it out long ago, didn't you?
MC: From the first day... no, from the moment Mr. Hunter first saw me, you knew, didn't you?
Lucien leans in close, his fingertips gliding across my face, from the wisps of hair on my forehead to the corners of my eyes and lips, which are taut from tension…
Lucien: So cute.
MC: What?
His non-sequitur leaves me flustered, and I instinctively lean in closer, trying to hear him clearly.
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Lucien: Your small gestures as you lie, your feigned innocence when defending yourself, and your little wickedness in weaving traps for victory... They are all very cute.
MC: …..
I am rendered speechless, unable to argue, yet finding the sly Lucien before me utterly infuriating.
I reach out and grasp his hand as it caresses my cheek, stare at him for a moment, and then decisively bite him.
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MC: Mr. Hunter's guess is correct. But it's too late. We're about to win.
—[Lucien's Route - 12: The wind is calm, and the waves are still]—
Lucien gazes at the shallow bite mark on his hand left by my teeth, a hint of amusement mingled with helplessness in his eyes. With his other hand, he gently pinches my cheek.
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Lucien: [chuckles helplessly] Is this how Miss Werewolf executes me?
I spread my hands out, letting him pinch my cheeks, and I can only speak unclearly.
MC: I wish I could, but unfortunately, it's not the time for the werewolves to act yet. You've just narrowly escaped death!
Lucien releases my cheek and gazes at my impassioned demeanor, his eyes crinkling into soft crescents.
Lucien: Well then, I must thank you, Miss Werewolf.
MC: Then can I accept a thank-you gift from you?
Lucien tilts his head slightly, his eyes openly revealing a look full of indulgence.
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Lucien: [with that very indulgent tone of his] Of course, you can. What do you want?
MC: We previously agreed to explore the waterway structure inside the mansion together, but various delays have prevented us from doing so.
MC: Regarding this, I want to complete it and solve this mystery before the game ends.
Gazing at Lucien with anticipation, I catch a smile on his lips.
Lucien: Alright. Tonight, I can satisfy all your wishes.
Lucien: Let's go, we have many places to go.
✂———————–
We walk hand in hand through the mansion, quickly finding what we are searching for since most of the rooms are empty.
All water pathways on the blueprint that we draw connect to form a magic formation and the center of the formation ultimately converges in the master room deep within the mansion.
Exchanging glances, Lucien and I enter the master room once more.
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Under the moonlight, the originally clear water takes on a dreamlike pink hue, with soft waves rippling gently.
However, I can not forget that this vivid pink is formed by the bright red blood from those executed, gradually flowing throughout the mansion and gathering here.
A faintly visible magic circle lies deep within the water as if awaiting its final “sacrifice”.
All the clues from the game so far finally connect in my mind, forming a vague conclusion.
Perhaps this so-called island banquet was nothing but a long-planned sacrificial ceremony from the very beginning.
Even though I don't know what the final result of this magic circle will be, I no longer care.
Lucien and I lock eyes, and he gives me a sly wink.
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Lucien: It turns out that the lady of this mansion before me is actually so dangerous.
Since Lucien has already guessed my identity as a werewolf, it's no surprise that my identity as the mansion owner is also revealed. I pout.
MC: Yeah, although I just found out about all these things too. But now, I no longer care about these settings.
Pulling Lucien along, I get into the dreamlike pink pool and smile at him.
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MC: I just want to bring this Carnival Night to an end that belongs to us.
We hold hands tightly, wading through the water just like last time. However, this time, I am the one leading us to our destination.
The pressure in the water gradually increases, my breathing becomes rapid, and the curiosity and desire to explore in my heart compel me to speak.
MC: Lucien, can you tell me why you have been helping the werewolves?
Lucien: I'm not deliberately helping the werewolves.
Lucien's deep gaze falls on me, his low voice echoing in this seemingly infinite space.
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Lucien: I'm simply doing what I want to do and witnessing the result I want to see.
MC: ‘’Result”?
The rippling water casts dappled light on Lucien's face, which holds a faint smile.
Lucien: Whenever I see you in action, I want to know what you will plan, what kind of decisions you will make, and what kind of statements you will say…
Lucien: [gently] I want to explore every side of you and witness where you'll ultimately arrive.
His gaze on me is burning and clear, as if tangible.
Lucien: And the result is... you, finally arriving before me.
[:”””” he must feels so happy that regardless of everything, out of so many possibilities, she just wants to run to his side🥺]
My heart skips a few beats, and my voice drops to a whisper.
MC: B-but I'm doing something "bad" though…
Lucien: But this isn't reality, is it?
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Lucien: It's precisely because tonight is a “carnival" night that I get to see another possibility of you and cherish this possibility.
He says, tapping the tip of my nose.
Lucien: Besides, I haven't missed any of those guilty expressions you make after being "bad" each time.
We have reached the center of the pool, at the top of the magic circle, and I open my arms to hug Lucien.
MC: [smiles softly] Alright, you've seen everything about me and guessed it all. This werewolf is cornered now.
MC: But before I'm out, I have one greedy wish.
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MC: Mr. Hunter, may I "choose" you tonight?
Lucien's heartbeat remains steady as he gently strokes my head, as if what I said were merely an invitation to a date.
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Lucien: [with that indulgent and gentle tone again 🤧] Is this what you wish?
MC: Mm. Ever since I gained the role of a werewolf, I've often found it troublesome. There were many times when I didn't want to continue.
MC: However, just imagining moments like this, when only you and me left, makes me want to linger in this game a bit longer…
Lucien lowers his head and looks into my eyes, his gaze containing a hundred kinds of unspoken tenderness.
Lucien: From the very first second I saw you on this island—
Lucien: I had already accepted this choice.
Lucien hugs me back, letting me lead him as we sink into the water together.
The pink pool water blooms with large swaths of gorgeous crimson. At the moment he is eliminated, a chill also spreads across my waist.
Blood continues to flow from the bullet hole, and my vision quickly fades into darkness.
✂———————–
[Literal chills as I translated this part ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ. I personally like how the whole chapter echoes their relationship progression throughout the main story. Even if they're clearly on opposite sides, they always find a path where they can walk side by side—'enemies' that just want to 'play' with each other as long as possible and protect each other, with Lucien speaking out for MC during the day and MC kill everyone else but Lucien during the night🤧. Lucien's "Queen-maker" aspect is also reflected in this chapter. He guides her but doesn't dictate because he always respects her choice, no matter what it will be. In addition to that, he looks forward to every possibility she can become through her choices and cherishes them. In the end, he lets her be the one leading him to whatever end she chooses for both of them, even if it's to kill each other and die together for love༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ ]
✂———————–
Lucien and I are transported back to the assembly hall. As soon as we open our eyes, we see the eliminated players noisily gathered together.
Brother Genius: See, there's definitely a loophole in this game! The wolves can even kill two people in one night! My attempt the other night was a breakthrough!
Uncle: A temporary setback does not define a hero. Next time, I won't be eliminated so easily.
The sound of various discussions about the game fills the air. I quickly pull Lucien to a corner.
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Lucien: Is your head feeling better? Do you want to rest after the summit ends?
MC: I'm okay, I'm okay. It's strange, but as soon as the 'Carnival Night' ended, I felt much better!
MC: Hehe, just now, I was eager to end this game quickly, but now I feel a bit of regret.
MC: What about you? Did you enjoy "Carnival Night"?
Lucien gently tucks away a stray strand of hair from my face, a faint smile playing on his lips.
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Lucien: I really like it, our own special ending.
MC: Hmph, I also like to watch Professor Lucien fool and confuse everyone!
MC: At that time, I could only hold back from showing any expression; otherwise, I would have given myself away.
Lucien chuckles softly twice, his expression revealing a hint of contemplation.
Lucien: However… there are still some loopholes in the game's rules and punishment system. I believe the Infinite staff overseeing it in the background already know this.
MC: That's right... I was scared several times when I was the werewolf! Once by Brother Genius, and once when I saw you in his room…
I am thinking about the feedback to give to Infinite when Lucien suddenly opens a private message, seemingly communicating with someone.
MC: Is there any work that needs to be handled?
Lucien nods and closes the private message.
Lucien: It was the research team that had visited many times, pressuring Pete to meet with me no matter what.
MC: So persistent... How does Professor Lucien plan to handle it?
Lucien: This time, they have come up with some rather interesting hypotheses. I think we can give them a chance.
I can't help but pout and reluctantly hold onto Lucien's sleeve.
MC: Well, I also need to be busy with wrapping up the summit…
MC: When we're done, let's play more "Carnival Night" rounds together!
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Hearing this, Lucien can't help but chuckle softly. He leans over and whispers tenderly in my ear.
Lucien: [chuckles, then whispers] Okay. Next time, it's your turn to explore my secrets.
After bidding a brief farewell to Lucien, I headed to find Zhao Jianqiang so we could proceed to the summit venue together. However, I discovered that he was already offline.
Without giving it much thought, I click on the teleport button for the venue, and the scene before my eyes gradually darkens.
✂———————–
Okay, so some context for the next part: What happens afterward is that the Loveland City Digital Technology Summit comes to a successful close. When MC wakes up, she finds Zhao Jianqiang becoming unresponsive after playing "Carnival Night." Zhao Jianqiang is taken to the hospital. The cause of Zhao Jianqiang's condition is unknown, and his vital signs are normal. But it's notable that he briefly had high brainwaves during the game.
✂———————–
—[Chapter 60-11]—
Inside the Ultima Bioscience Research Center, sunlight streams through the windows into the office, the warm light floating in the air and illuminating the entire room.
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Lucien gently removes the game headset and rubs his temples, trying to relieve the fatigue caused by being immersed in "Odyssey" for a long time.
He takes a report from the tidy desk and grabs a pen, recording on it.
Sunlight spills over Lucien's shoulder, casting dappled light and shadows, gently enveloping his figure as he occasionally pauses to think.
In the report, he records every sensation he experienced during the "Carnival Night" game in detail.
This includes headaches, accelerated heartbeat, shortness of breath, and even slight tremors in his fingertips.
After finishing the recording, he pulled out a stack of white paper from the side of the table and neatly arranged it on the desk.
Without exception, these sheets of paper are filled with his sensory data at different points in time during playing "Odyssey". The densely packed handwriting appears particularly rigorous.
Lucien gazes at the detailed notes, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. After thinking for a moment, he takes out his phone and makes a call.
Lucien: Hello, Dr. Chen, this is Lucien.
Lucien: A patient named Zhao Jianqiang was admitted today, and I hope you can provide a copy of his examination report.
The tip of Lucien's pen glided across the paper, pausing at a piece of data.
Lucien: His situation is rather unique and may provide some insights for our research.
Lucien: In times of necessity, I will not rule out requisitioning him as an experimental subject.
✂———————–
[Next Chapter-> (not yet released)]
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aesfocus · 6 months ago
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TW: ANIMAL DEATH
A tiny little celebration and recounting of this lil old lady, who passed away yesterday april 22 2024, 6 years to the day her adopted sister left the world.
Read on to learn about her adoption story and some of her fav things!
I made sure she had a comfortable lovely weekend, but she let me know it was time.
So who was Turtle?
In Aug 2010 I went to a local shelter and adopted 2 kitties. One a kitten we named Genki, and another a 1+ year old mystery owner surrender they named Hello Kitty.
She saw us and started yelling and slamming herself on the glass to show us how to pet her. She snugged onto my lap immediately in the little private room to meet her and I was in love instantly.
But back at home she was very scared. She hid under the couch for three days only peaking her head out to eat some food and then she went back in. This would be the last time in her life she would be shy, but I didn't know it so I named her...
Alligator Snapping Turtle; Turtle!
She quickly became my shadow. Clinging to me night and day. She would jump onto the back of my chair, lay on my back and slowly slide down towards my butt. She did this so frequently she managed to break the chair, eventually. After that all my chairs have been bought with more room for her to snug me. For a whole decade.
If someone visited, she would insist they hold her, or she'd sleep on them in their sleep. She once was held through a 3 hour long DnD session by someone she had just met; she loved people. Loved being pet, but above all, she adored me.
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She had a specific meow for me, she spent every single night for nearly 14 years in between my legs, and unfortunately, as she got older she got separation anxiety real bad. She would cry and cry for about an hour each time I left. (I rarely do as I no longer work but even a trip to the grocery store did not leave her happy!) I know this because my husband had plenty of videos of her standing at the door hoping I would return.
No matter what I did in the house there she was.
But lets back up a moment, remember that bit about owner surrender? That intake form was interesting. with questions like "What is your pets favorite toy?" came answers like 'small glove'. She spent at least a year in someone with 7 children's garage. They fed her 'cheep food' and knew very little about her past other than they found her about a year prior. No judgements to them, but this girl was a lap cat to end lap cats. You would pick her up and move her to stand and she'd jump right back into your lap. She's dig her claws in if she thought you were trying to leave. She wanted the warmth god damn it!
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Here is her on top my husband. Human's were good options.
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Heat vent? Also a great option.
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She would, when I worked, stay in bed in the covers right where I left her until I came home from work, all nice and cozy.
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She loved it when my husband worked from home, gave her ample time to try and fry his laptop during his breaks or lunches.
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But her fav place was on top of me. I set up my desk just for her actually! This big living room chair was purchased so she could always be near me.
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Because the previous snug situation was not cutting it!
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Here she is on the chair I bought for us.
She was never very photogenic, because she saw my hand and wanted pets. If I wasn't petting her she'd cry and show me how to pet her with her paws, or she'd flop around or rub herself on something and look up at me like 'come ooooonnn you know the good spots.'
Or she would do a 'turkey twerky'(where cats twitch their tails and step from foot to foot rapidly in excitement).
Her fav toy it turned out was not a 'small glove' but in fact the simple spring. Yellow was her fav color of the springs, but past that any small bit of plastic she could chase around and yell at was great. She was a very loud little lady!
I sang her a song daily for about ten years;
"Her name is turtle! and she's a turtle! And she's got a lot to say!"
after which she'd generally make a BIG meow and I'd give her tons of attention. Because she was my lil baby girl.
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But her all time fav thing, beside me of course, was going outside. She didn't get to much as I believe in, and have, indoor only cats, but on special nice days we'd go outside and she'd gets some nice supervised time with the grass. (She made the other cats jealous because only she was let outside without a harness, but that's because if she wasn't in about a 2 foot radius of me she'd come back and yell at me to follow/I was able to out run her.)
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Last year I had her shaved, because she was a fat cat who was struggling with cleaning herself so we were going to get on a rotation of shaving and baths and brushing to make sure she stayed nice and clean...
But unfortunately she began to drop in weight very quickly, the primary sign something was very wrong.
She was adopted on the same day as Genki, and six years to the day she passed on the same day as her sister. Genki lost a very long fight with a fungal pneumonia in 2018 and our hearts shattered and then yesterday they did it again.
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If Turtle was my heart, my little shadow, then Genki was my husband's.
Turtle was such an amazing good friend, I have so many memories of her and it doesn't seem real that she's gone. But I wanted to keep this light, and positive, and so I will end it with, adopt.
Don't shop, adopt. You never know who is waiting for you in a shelter, what kind of very full wonderful life you can provide each other! Hello Kitty became Turtle and she knew that name, she'd come running any time I called, she was my very best friend and I miss her so fucking much.
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poraphia · 1 year ago
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"A Siren’s Tale."
Chapter 3 of "If you look at me, I'll listen to you."
➵ PAIRING! clinic!villain!wilbur x hero!reader
➵ CREATING! 11.9.23 | 2215 words
➵ CONTAINING! reader is eavesdropping on siren, siren reminisces on past relationship with reader, brief use of she/her pronouns, george having pretty privilege lmao
➵ SAYING! here it is! the long awaited chapter 3. I’m literally in class right now writing this— I was just too excited. I hope everyone enjoys! and if you haven’t already, please read chapter 1 and chapter 2 just to get a better understanding of the story <3
My masterlist :)
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ───
Siren.
Siren.
Siren.
A dangerous man, many would call him.
With the ability to make anyone abide to his commands with just the soothing sound of his voice, he was generally perceived as a menace to society.
I sat in my office, scanning through what notes I had gathered on the main three syndicate members. Papers scattered all over my corkboard with different colored pins. There were lined papers with ink smudges, printed out photos of the villains, and small sticky notes jotting down minor details. Zephyrus and Blade’s evaluations had been done already, each with their own interesting finds.
Most of my studying took place before, during, and after hero and villain encounters. I watched from afar, gathering how each member would interact with the other. I’ve noticed that Zephyrus would always look back to check on Blade and Siren, and whenever Blade looked like he was in any sort of distress (which was rare by all means), Zephyrus would immediately stop what he was doing in order to protect Blade.
Blade would bicker with Siren every once in a while, and would occasionally stop protecting Siren just to prove some sort of point, but he would never take it too far and prioritized the safety of Zephyrus and Siren. With his interactions with Siren, it made me wonder if they were related in some sort of way. Their duality couldn't be something strangers could just bond with one another. That goes for Zephyrus too. It was like his wings were assembled feather by feather in order to protect those boys.
I exhaled deeply out of my nose, thumping my forehead on the board. If anything, it felt like I was making up bullshit as I went, and it was driving me insane. I stepped away from the board and plopped down in my seat, rolling away from my computer desk and into the middle of the room.
I was growing restless and getting tired from watching at a distance. So badly I craved the feeling of just wanting to be in an isolated area with one of these villains. A one-on-one session wouldn't be so bad with the syndicate at this rate. I knew it was dangerous, and frankly I think HQ wouldn't be so fond of me interacting with a villain on a personal level like that, but boredom was seeping into my veins like a snake.
Knock knock.
I whip my head around, realizing it was George standing outside my door. His goggles were resting on his head and he was wearing his civilian clothes. I waved at him through the window, giving him the signal that he could come in. He twisted the knob before closing the door behind him.
“Hey,” he said, slightly waving his hand. “just wanted to check up on your progress before I head home for the day.” He walked up to the corkboard, examining each little Polaroid and handwritten note with his hands in his pockets. I watched as his eyes darted to each spew of information.
Finally, he turned to me and pointed. “Haven't gotten to Siren yet, I presume.” he commented. I sighed, twirling a little in my chair.
“Yeah, this week I was gonna evaluate Siren.” I softly chuckled. Suddenly, a question that had been lingering in my mind arose. George and I were were similar in regards of power, but George was prioritized as a main hero. “Hey, George?” I asked.
“what's up?” He replied, tilting his head. I sat up in my chair, playing with my sleeves as I spoke.
“How did you end up fighting as a hero? I mean I heard you used to be in the detainment center too for a while, but now you're a regular fighter.” I asked. This question had been in my mind the moment I learned about his powers. To be completely honest, comparing me and him together, my powers would serve to be more useful in battle. Shouldn't he be the one in the detainment center rather than me?
“To be completely honest, (y/n), I just had connections.” he answered blankly. I tilted my head, a little confused. He continued to explain as he returned his gaze to my board.
“I didn't have to prove myself. I didn't have to go on this wild mission just to show that I wouldn't use this dangerous power for bad. All I did was be friends with Clay.” He shrugged. “I don't know if he coerced the council or they just noticed that I hung out with the heroes a lot, but one day they just.. Transferred me into the team with the occasional detainment center gig.”
I sat there with furrowed eyebrows and an expression of bewilderment. “How long did it take you to transfer..?” I quietly asked.
“Oh, like about three months I guess.” he answered nonchalantly.
Three.. Huh..?
Roughly I've been working my ass off for five months straight, and every time I request that I take up any type of hero mission, just as simple as to patrol, I either get denied or get no response, and he’s telling me that it's as easy as just being friends with Clay..?
I smiled and looked at George. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.” he nodded before waving his hand.
“Yeah, I'll catch you later, (y/n).” and with that, he left my office.
I couldn't help but sit there and sulk. Who would've known that my goal was much easier to achieve as long as I was buddy buddy with hero of the century? It felt all unfair.
I looked at my corkboard again. My information suddenly felt so.. Useless. I barely learned a thing. How would the information I'm learning now contribute anything spectacular on the battle field?
My eyes then wandered to Siren.
A man of notorious power.
A man I haven’t evaluated yet.
And a man who I was going to see tonight.
I left the office at around 9 o'clock, which was usually when villains and vigilantes started to wander the streets. I thought it was best to be on the streets as a civilian. Despite me not being a battlefield hero, it was still important not to draw any attention. I was still a hero, which meant regardless, I was a potential target. I sauntered the streets of South Bay. It had been a while since I was in this area, at least in civilian form. There were some times I was here dressed as a hero, but it was because I was doing research on the Syndicate. Other than that, I never really found a purpose being in here.
That, and the fact that I didn’t want to see Wil anytime soon.
I clutched my bag close to me, wandering through the empty streets. Rats were scurrying in alleyways and litter was scattered alongside the pavement. There was a light breeze enough to send chills amongst my skin. Only the flickers of the streetlights could be heard buzzing above me.
“Fuck, what am I getting myself into..” I muttered quietly to myself. I rubbed my shoulders, attempting to warm myself up. There was no sign of Siren, or any villain showing up for that matter. Sighing, I looked at the building across the street. Maybe a rooftop would be a good view? I was reaching for simply anything. Any sort of danger, excitement, something more than just that plain gray interrogation room and the constant buzzing of the ceiling lights. Sighing, I began walking across the street to find the fire escape of a building.
After what felt like millions of flights of stairs, I was finally at the top. My legs ached and my breath was unsteady. I felt like collapsing onto the cold concrete and falling asleep forever. When I looked up, I noticed that one of the double doors were open ajar with a stopper. Curious, I peaked through the cracks to see if anyone else was on this rooftop with me.
Lo and behold,
There he stood.
Siren leaned against the concrete barrier as he stared at the night sky. His flop of brown hair swooshed with the quiet winds along with the end tails of his coat. It took enough will power to not continue to gawk at the sight.
I needed a way to see him up close.
I covered one eye and projected a hallucination with the other. There, I summed a tiny cat wandering around the rooftop. It's small paws weren't enough to provoke him, meaning that I had to make noise hallucinations as well.
A tiny meow squeaked from the small creature, finally grabbing the attention of the villain. Siren turned his head only to be met face to face with the creature.
“Aw.. Hey there little buddy..” he cooed. He then fully turned around, letting me catch a glimpse of his appearance.
His coat hugged his curves perfectly, and he was masked with a navy blue blindfold. I couldn't make out his complexion that well under the moonlight. The cat sat a few feet away from him, tempting him to move closer. Siren looked around to check his surroundings before walking over and crouching to the cat’s level.
Holy shit.
Siren was right in front of me.
“You're so cute!” he exclaimed in awe. I watched as his hand steadily approached the feline as I manifested the feeling of fur against his touch. He carefully caressed it as I leaned closer against the ajar door to get a better look at the man.
“You know.. I don't know why but something about you reminds me of her.” Siren noted. I retreated a little from the door. Should I be listening to this? This seems a little personal. Siren chuckled. “I don't know. There's a feeling to you, little guy, that reminds me of when I was teen.” he moved his hand so that is was now under the cats chin. Siren sighed, admiring the cat. He seemed to be lost in thought as he stared at it.
“I.. I miss them.” He finally uttered. “She was my beautiful lily when we were kids.” He softly chuckled. I made the cat cuddle up to him more, earning more of his trust. Without realizing, I was holding my breath, straining my ears just to hear another word from him. “That makes me sound old, doesn't it?” I directed the cat to meow in response. The adrenaline was sparking through my body from such a high risk position, but this has been the most information I've ever gotten from a villain, all in five minutes! I leaned in more to listen.
“I remember back when we were kids we would always go to each other's houses after school. They would help me with work and then I would make lunch for us together.” he smiled. “I-I didn't even know how to cook! I would have to ask my dad the night before just to learn a simple recipe. Then my brother would complain we were making too much noise..”
What..? But that sounds so..
Siren lifted his head up, staring into the midnight sky. His smile slowly started to fade as an expression of regret only rested upon his lips. “I messed up..” he muttered. “I really did.. And I.. I wonder if they're okay. Last time I saw them was at that Cafe weeks back. Maybe I could ask Tom if he's seen them..”
Oh..
Oh, fuck.
I frantically blinked and lost my concentration to keep the cat hallucination. The cat had disappeared from his grasp, but thankfully, Siren was still looking up at the sky. Without sparing a second, I raced down the stairs, frantic to leave the area as quickly as I could. I started skipping steps and near tumbling as I descended down each flight. It wasn't until I burst through the doors and ran down the street I finally felt safe.
My chest burned along with my face. The cold air stung my cheeks and my legs wobbled with each step, but I was finally far enough to be considered safe. My feet slammed against the grainy, empty road as my lungs desperately searched for air.
Fuck,
I had almost gotten caught.
I ran my fingers through my messy, tangled hair as I attempted to regain my composure. Once my vision steadied, I began looking around. I looked to my left, seeing a familiar set of buildings close together. The distinct streetlight standing on the edge of the sidewalk and the few couple of trees planted in their designated area.
This familiar area could only mean one thing.
I slowly turned to my right, only to be met with the big logo of a big cloud and cursive letters, with a coffee doodle shining in LED.
Puffy’s Cloudy Cafe.
And there was Tommy at the counter.
“(y/n)?”
I whipped my head around, eyes widening even more.
“Wilbur..?”
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ───
a / n ~ adding a cliffhanger after already not posting in so long smhh but its definitely gave me more motivation to keep working on this fic. maybe ill post it on ao3? idkk. likes, reblogs, and replies are super superrr appreciated! :D
tagging ~ @joviepog @heartofwritiing @themonsterunderurmom @listenheresweaty
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atthebell-moved · 1 year ago
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QSMP Language Stats on AO3 (as of June 6th 2023)
Hey hi hello. I just spent 3-4 hours working on this and I'm a little bleary-eyed so forgive the text of this if it makes little sense.
So, I decided to look into the statistics and percentages for QSMP works on AO3 and what languages they're tagged with, to see how multilingual the fandom on that platform is, as AO3 is far easier to do stats on than elsewhere.
Some fun tidbits from the start/tldr;:
QSMP has 1433 works as of today (well, as of checking this while writing it, it's actually jumped up to 1438, but for the data I collected earlier, let's stick with 1433).
English is the most commonly tagged language, at 80.04%, which is a smaller percentage than the percentage of all English works to all works on AO3 (more details for all of this below).
Though the top three languages are spoken on the server, French has no works on AO3 currently.
There's a decent amount of works that are translated into several languages, which is very rad! Doing stats on that would be an entirely different post, with a bit more work involved, but I want to give a big kudos on this as translation is very difficult and is often a passion project in fandom that goes underappreciated.
I got a lot of these numbers just by going through the QSMP tag and filtering by language and then checking manually, but for the larger AO3 numbers I got those on the Languages page, which shoes all languages supported by the Archive.
Now onto the numbers! Everything is below a cut because trust me, this post is long. Viewers beware, you're in for a stats dump.
Numbers, Stats, Percentages, all that fun stuff
QSMP works
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[Image Description: A table with three columns; the first lists languages, the second the number of works, and the third the percentage of total works. For the languages column, each language is listed first in that language and then in English in parentheses, and English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French are all color-coded to indicate that they are spoken on the server. End ID.]
The most commonly tagged language, like I said above, is English, with 1147 works or 80.04% of total works in the QSMP fandom tag.
The second most commonly tagged language is Spanish, with 254 works and 17.73% of the fandom.
Next is Brazilian Portuguese at 27 works and 1.88%.
And the next four are all much lower: Mandarin at 2 works and 0.14%, Russian at 1 work and 0.07%, Latin with 1 work at 0.07%, Esperanto at 1 work with 0.07%, and French with 0 works and 0%.
I included French because it is the only spoken language on the server without any works, which I find interesting and will talk about further in my notes/analysis later on.
Some interesting trends to note! First thing: English, as one would expect, is the most used language, with 80.04%. I am also unsurprised that English and Spanish are at the top, as I know there's sizable MCYT fandoms for both languages. I think there's a few reasons why these numbers shake out the way that they do, which I'll get into later, but for now I think most would agree that these are what one would expect, aside from perhaps the languages that do have works but are not spoken on the server.
With these, I'm actually not surprised either. After English, Mandarin and Russian are the next two top languages in terms of works on AO3 (numbers below), and for Latin and Esperanto, creating works in those is something that happens often enough in fandom that I don't find it surprising, although with how small QSMP is (in terms of works on AO3 at the moment) it is interesting regardless. I talk a bit more about Esperanto in my notes at the end, but for Latin, as a language people often take in school but rarely use and a language with a lot of cultural hype surrounding it, people who took Latin in high school or even studied it in college with sometimes write or translate fic into it.
Across All Fandoms
Okay, with those numbers at the ready, let's compare to total numbers across all fandoms on AO3. I did this comparison using the same languages as above, but I will also add another table showing the percentages for the top 15 languages on the site, as I find that kind of stuff interesting and I think it's somewhat relevant.
I don't have a confirmed number on the total number of works on AO3 as of when I did these numbers, but according to the AO3 welcome page, they're at approximately 11,220,000 works right now. I'm going with this number, as I know its an updated one probably at least as of June 1, and complete accuracy is not necessarily possible in this instance.
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[Image Description: The same table as above, this time with numbers for all fandoms across AO3. End ID.]
The most commonly tagged language is English at 10,021,982 works and 89.32% of all works on AO3.
Spanish has 130,024 works and 1.16%
Brazilian Portuguese has 30,549 works and 0.27%
Mandarin has 621,505 works and 5.54%
Russian has 238,699 works and 2.13%
Latin has 149 works and 0.0013%
Esperanto has 99 works and 0.00088%
French has 52,904 works and 0.47%
Okay! Lots of numbers this time, and some similarities and differences. First thing I want to note is that the total number of works on AO3 being over 10 million means these stats are far more meaningful and show more significant trends than those for QSMP. QSMP also only has 1433 fics, which is MINUSCULE compared to the total number of works across fandoms on AO3. You also have to consider that the number of people who write fic for a fandom versus the number of people who speak it is very different, and you also have to consider platform differences between different fandoms. There are other fanfiction websites in various languages, and that might impact these numbers to some extent.
Going to get into analysis now, as I think discussing how the data compares will get into that pretty quickly anyway.
Analysis:
Disclaimer! Much of this is just my personal opinion, or stuff I've noticed but don't really have numbers on or too much info on myself. I would love to hear from folks in the Spanish, Brazilian, and French communities (as well as any others!) about what they're like, especially as regards MCYT. I am lightly familiar with Spanish fandom because of Karmaland and now QSMP, but it's still not wildly familiar to me, and otherwise my fandom experiences are pretty English-centric.
The biggest thing to note here, in comparing the data between QSMP specifically and AO3 broadly, is that the percentage of Spanish fics is far smaller-- it's gone from the near-20% in QSMP to around 1% for all works. This makes sense, considering how many QSMP members speak Spanish, how much Spanish MCYT fandom has grown in the last several years, and the fact that the server is themed around multilingualism and cross-cultural expression, meaning fans who speak multiple languages are more likely to write in not just English and also generally incorporate more of the various languages into their writing.
The difference here is also in terms of audience, like I said. This fandom is far more likely to attract Spanish speakers than Mandarin or Russian Speakers, at least at the moment, so it makes sense that Spanish would have far more works. In comparison to French, also, Spanish has more than double the amount of speakers than French and from my knowledge Spanish MCYT fandom is far bigger.
For Portuguese, I'm not familiar with the fandom, but there does seem to be a decent MCYT fandom going on and I'm impressed with the number of works in Portuguese. I know it seems small, but again, the total number of works really is not that many.
The biggest reason so far that I think English, Spanish, and Portuguese are at the top, aside from just that the first two were on for much longer and the latter for at least a month longer than the French (and aside from the fact that English is so present on AO3) is that those streamers have made themselves much more central to the narrative and to lore than any of the French speakers have, at least so far. The Brazilians showed up and immediately became so involved and so beloved, and while fans obviously like the French speakers, they're not doing quite as much RP nor are they as involved in the Federation lore that much.
I also think one thing I haven't really seen people acknowledge is that Cellbit is very attractive, which of course begets fan attention. His lore is incredible and I think he's a very talented RPer, obviously, but he is also really hot, which means people are more likely to create fanworks about him. For Spanish and English speakers, obviously there are also creators who people are very into (I'm not even going to name any because it's quite a long list and you're all well aware). For the French, not so much. This is not me calling any of them ugly, I'm just saying that I have not seen really any thirsting over any of them aside from a few people talking about Baghera. I'm not going to get into the logistics of fan attention and attractiveness of creators, I just wanted to acknowledge that that is definitely doing Cellbit some favors and is likely making interest in Portuguese and Portuguese fanworks more popular.
Okay I've reached the point of writing this post where I think I've been working on all of this for at least 3-4 hours and I need to stop thinking about it so. That's everything I have for the moment, but I would be happy to hear what other folks think about this. If i said i would talk about something but forgot please just shoot me an ask or something and i'll add on.
Here's some extra notes:
There are a few (not many, but enough to acknowledge) fics that are written in Spanish but are tagged as being in English. I'm not sure if the same is true of Brazilian Portuguese.
Due to the nature of the server, there is also a huge number of works that contain elements of multiple languages, ranging from a few works to a decent chunk of the dialogue swapping between languages. This is not completely unheard of in fandoms, of course, as there are many fandoms which provide the opportunity for multilingualism, but this is fun to note because it's so present in the canon itself. I would argue there's a decent number of fics that are themselves bilingual/trilingual/multilingual, and I wish AO3 had a way of tagging as such. I'm not sure if there are any freeforms along those lines, but I have seen some folks noting in their tags that there's some amount of Spanish/Portuguese in them as well as English, and the same goes for the Spanish fics I've looked at.
Similarly, there's a decent amount of translations! Which is super cool! Translations are usually only done as passion projects by really dedicated fans, so it's really cool to see a (relatively) small fandom (for AO3) with a decent amount of them. I want to stress that translation is very tough work so major kudos to folks doing translations, either of their own work or other's.
The one Esperanto fic is a translation of an English work! Also, if you're unfamiliar, Esperanto is a conlang (constructed language) created in 1887 as an international language meant for anyone from any background to be able to learn. It never picked up much global steam, as lingua francas are far more common and it's still fairly Euro-centric in the language systems it pulled from, but it is likely the most spoken international auxiliary constructed language, and translating into it is often done as a nod to the importance of translation and cross-cultural communication. I think it's very fun that someone translated a work into it for QSMP :]
Also!!! here are the top 15 languages used on ao3 and their number of works. They're not in a spreadsheet bc i got really really tired sorry
english: 10,022,162 mandarin: 621,520 russian: 238,700 spanish: 130,692 french: 52,904 italian: 33,962 brazilian portuguese: 30,549 indonesian: 29,030 german: 22,755 polish: 17,215 ukrainian: 11,041 cantonese: 8,878 filipino: 8,664 vietnamese: 6,565 czech: 5,168
142 notes · View notes
cloud9gojo · 1 month ago
Text
salt & the sea ch. 2
part one: x
pairing: geto x f!reader if we ever make it there
words: 6.6k
warnings: sfw they’re kids bro, sign language, synesthesia, kid awkwardness, me being awkward, pokemon, slowburnnnn (once we get there), no beta we die like men frrr
Wednesday, April 15th, 1998
"Keep your head above your chest, Inumaki-san."
If you could catch your breath, you would have something witty to say. Instead, your heart is thump, thump, thumping away, causing your ribs to ache with effort. All you can do is grunt your displeasure with Geto.
"I'm just trying to help you." It's the way he says it, head cocked at you with that sly little smile plastered on his face, that irks you. How annoying.
You bring yourself up from resting your hands on your knees, blinking away the stars that swim into your vision. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." It comes out more breathless than you intended.
Running was not your strong suit, no matter how many kilometers you ran or how many breath exercises you did. Your legs were too little, especially compared to Geto, who had already grown a few centimeters since you last saw him in December. Your morning runs seemed to be the only time he was upright.
Good for him, you think, before beginning your cooldown walk along the beach side by side with him. You watch the horizon, taking note of the whispy clouds that littered the sky, stretched thin against the pale spring morning. The cold air blew against your face, cooling the sweat on your temples.
Geto snorts before continuing, "If you swing your arms a little more, you'll be able to move faster. Did you know that?" He adds a little more swing to his for emphasis, making long arcs that match his stride, which was about three of yours. After running drills, he'll say he will slow down to walk back with you, but you always end up scurrying alongside him, trying to keep up. Usually, it was easy to walk next to him, but Geto was a ball of energy after physical training. Restless, sweaty.
"No, I didn't," you mutter before turning to look at the ocean. You weren't really up for conversation immediately after running your little heart out. That, and while you had gotten more used to talking out loud, you much preferred signing. It was so much more convenient and it didn't require so much effort to get your point across. (Plus, you had never had to think about the sound of your voice before, its color was unfamiliar to you. Your brain had already started to block out the different hues of warm orange that your voice made but the process still gave you a headache most of the time. That made you extra grouchy.)
Geto bumps your elbow with his, which he had started doing to get your attention shortly after you started training together. (You had told him that he could wave at you after the first few days of him doing it, but he just shrugged and said, "What if you pretend you don't see me? This way I know you can't ignore me." You had looked at him, incredulous. He figured out you were ignoring him that fast?) "Do you think your dad is gonna open up that case today?"
He's talking about the one your father had unpacked from your attic earlier in the week. You both had stood at the bottom of the ladder while he unloaded it, but he didn't allow either of you to view the insides. Instead, he had decided to set the long brown case on your family's coffee table, where it had lay “untouched” for several days now.
You shrug, still trying to slow your breath. "Maybe."
Geto lets out a puff of air in an attempt to blow his bangs out of his face. "You're so grumpy in the morning, Inumaki-san." It’s more whiney than he usually allows himself, the thought almost brings a smile to your face. You’re so used to chastising each other, it’s rare for one of you to show weakness.
"I have to spend it with you, don't I?"
"I'm a joy to be around." Geto sidesteps alongside you, and you begrudgingly meet his gaze. He has that smug grin on his face again.
You snort and raise your eyebrows at him, "Is that what you think?" It comes out meaner than intended.
Geto's smile falls a little bit, but he recovers quickly. "I have to have a lot of patience to put up with you, it's a skill." There’s an edge to his voice that usually isn’t there, a warning, he can be just as mean as you.
You scrunch your nose at him, not letting his tone of voice upset you, "Put up with me?" You make sure to put as much attitude into your voice as you can muster. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be able to understand my parents at all! You're signing is lazy and all over the place! Without me, you'd be lost." It’s a lie since you’ve been teaching him sign every day you see him and you can’t be that bad at it, surely.
You put some more power into your steps to get ahead of him, but Geto catches up to you easily. Curse his long legs.
The both of you bump shoulders as you make your way through the tall grasses, another desire path already forming from your morning running drills together. Brambles and shoots of grass litter the path and they make faint crunching noises when you step on them, releasing little green pops of color.
"Maybe you're just not a good teacher." Geto is finally starting to slow his pace, facing forward and relaxing back into his usual forward lean.
"Maybe you're just not a good student." You watch as Geto kicks a rock through the air. It skids along the sand, getting stuck in a foothill of beach grass.
He laughs, a deep purple you've gotten used to the most. (If you weren't bickering between tasks, you were probably off giggling with each other, mischief-bound.) "That's probably true, but that's why you're so good at putting up with me also, right?"
You huff and roll your eyes at him, "Whatever." You turn to try and hide the small smile tugging at your lips, but he bumps your shoulder again.
"It's rude to look away when someone's talking to you." It's clunky and he's using two hands to sign, but it's a good effort. Despite your teasing, Geto is a fast learner and you recognize how much he puts into communicating with you and your family.
This time you can't hide your smile. Giggling, you sign back, "You stink. I don't talk with stinky people."
Geto pinches his nose closed in mock disgust, stifling his giggles. "You don't smell much better, Inumaki-san." One-handed, much better.
You shake your head at him, shrugging. Of course you do, you both ran double the distance you did yesterday. "Well, we'll see who's left all dirty when I beat you to the shower first!" With that, you take off sprinting towards your back door, Geto's surprised face a blur as you rush past him.
He only lags a second before quickly overtaking the lead you created, laughing maniacally all the way to your back door. You watch breathlessly as he kicks off his shoes and flings the door open. You're halfway up the steps when he whips around to blow a raspberry at you, sticking out his tongue, before running off to your one shower. 
You slow down and sigh before slowly toeing off your tennis shoes and entering your home. Your mother is with your sister Akari in the kitchen, preparing your and Geto's morning snack. (Green tea and onigiri, thank you, mom.) You shuffle past the kitchen entrance and wave a small hello to her before continuing down the hall to your room to pick out your clothes for the day. You can't wait to cool down for real after a shower, you were stinky.
Even though you raced for it, neither of you ever take long showers. You both know there’s always someone waiting on you. If he does take long, you don't let him forget it. Sometimes, it devolves into real arguments if you're a little too mean with your words, which only makes Geto come back at you, just as fiercely.
You enter your room and flop onto your bed. You take a big breath, focusing on the feeling of your heartbeat slowing down. The two of you weren't the best at getting along for extended periods of time. You and Geto had gotten into several bickering matches the first two weeks over the smallest stuff, like debating which pokémon was better. (Charmander, obviously.) Geto had argued Bulbasaur, so you, very maturely, decided he was entitled to his wrong opinion and told him as much. In return, he used his fighting advantages against you during sparring, knocking the air out of you with a strike to your sternum. It was still tender, almost a week later. You rubbed the spot until the pain dissipated, but it always returned within the hour.
The only time you had gotten along consistently was when you and Geto had been inspecting the case between subjects throughout the past few days, trying to pry it open to no avail. You had no trouble working together then, taking shifts to watch for your parents while the other worked on the lock. Neither of you had had any luck picking it, but you think it’s brought you closer. You twiddle your thumbs, feeling for callouses. You hope that today will be the day your father lets you peek inside.
After you were both clean, Geto and you sat in the living room with your sister and mother to eat together. Akari was chewing away on her teething toy in your mother's lap, joyful and chubby, utterly cherubic. Before theory with your father, your mom always made sure to sit and talk with you and Suguru. It was good signing practice for Geto as well.
"So," she starts, "how was your run this morning?"
You gulp down a bite of onigiri before replying, "Same as always. Hard and boring."
Geto sets down his cup on the coffee table to free up his hands. "Easy. Boring." Even though he signs, he still speaks it aloud as well. After two weeks, you barely detect the indigo of his voice.
Your mother laughs before smoothing down your sister's hair. "Well, I'm glad you found it easy, Suguru-kun." Before she can continue, your sister starts fussing, a shrill and annoying cry. Ugh, thank god you can't fully hear it.
"Mom, juice." Her little fists struggled to make the shape, but her intentions were crystal clear. "Juice, juice!" Akari was one demanding cherub.
Your mother stands up with your sister on her hip in one swift motion to take her to the kitchen. By now, you all know any attempt to calm her down is feeble at best. Your sister had a strong set of lungs on her, you think it's fair to assume she's going to get cursed speech. Or maybe something different from both your parents and yourself. A thousand different ways to exorcise a curse (if she has one at all).
You mother ruffles your hair on her way out of the room and you rush to fix it back. (Unlike Geto, you care about flyaways.) 
Now alone, Geto toes your foot with the tip of his slipper and you glance over at him. His eyebrows shoot upwards and he nods towards the case at the end of the table. Both of you eye it then back at each other. Your mother was busy with your sister and your father was preparing afternoon lessons in his study, a perfect opportunity for snooping.
You both slide silently off the couch, taking your usual positions. You approach the case to inspect the lock while Geto spies into the hallway across the foyer towards the study, kitchen, and backdoor. You've both worked out a signal in case someone was coming nearby. One short rap on the wall, easily seen when you were looking out for the bright flash of color from Geto's knock. You kept his hands in view while you studied the case. Of course, it hadn't changed since the both of you last tried prying it open.
Yesterday, you tried to pop it off with a small sound burst but failed. In your defense, you've barely touched on offensive techniques with your mother. In between her cooking, cleaning, and taking care of both you and your sister, she was a busy, busy woman and still had to be the perfect wife, mother, and sorcerer. You don't know how she did it all, and you were definitely not looking forward to doing that yourself one day. You shuddered at the thought.
You blow out a puff of air, trying to get your hair out of your eyes. What should you try today? You didn't have the same control as your mother, so you didn't know what to do now. You look past the case to focus on Geto in the doorframe. He's tall against it, peering out to watch out for one of your parents.
You risk a small thump against the table to get his attention, but he doesn't look your way. You click your tongue, frustrated. You give the table one more thump, this time a little louder.
Geto turns back to you, still hugging the doorframe. "What?"
"Let's switch."
Geto shakes his head, it makes his bangs swing back and forth funnily. "No," he mouths.
"Yes, come try! I can't."
Suddenly, a noise from the hallway. A door being opened? It was hard to tell, but Geto's knock was long gone from your eyesight. He was already back on the couch, trying his best to be nonchalant after having crossed the room in three long bounds. You scramble back from the case and rush beside him. You settle and flatten out the wrinkles in your pants just in time for your father to walk into the room.
"What were you just doing?" He looks between you suspiciously before continuing, "Never mind, let's go outside for a bit. When we finish our meditation, we're going to start something special today." He beckons you both outside with a wave of his hand.
The both of you bump shoulders on your way out to the backyard and share small grins with each other, glad to have not gotten in trouble.
Outside, your father sits with you both in the garden for afternoon “silent time”.
"Good for the brain to focus before moving on to studying theory!" Your father had signed happily before starting, but you weren't convinced. It was times like this when you were the restless one.
You don't know how Geto and your father can sit here, doing nothing, for so long.
Your nose has been itching for the last five minutes, your left foot has pins and needles, and you have a dire need to kill that fly that keeps landing on your bare knee. Yeuch! You hated bugs.
Meditation was by far your least favorite part of training. Theory (practical and cursed) you could do, you would struggle, but you’d do it! Weapons, sparring, and cursed technique applications? Even better. But "coming back to your breath", what the heck does that even mean?
Your nose twitches in irritation and you huff, you could be playing Pokémon Red right now. You've been stuck in Mt. Moon for days and you just want to get out of there. You had already defeated that stupid Super Nerd and picked the helix fossil, but you had managed to get yourself lost trying to level up. Now, your pokémon were goofing around not listening to you, and you were so sick of getting ambushed by zubats and geodudes. (You found Paras was good for leveling up, so they could keep getting knocked out as far as you were concerned, even if it meant overleveling.) You truly have no one but yourself to blame for getting stuck. You groan inwardly, getting more annoyed by the second.
Geto had offered to help get you out last week, but you've both been busy since your father pulled out that stupid case that taunted you every time you were in the room with it.
You sigh, your father's mediation tapes droned on in the background, soft and hazy, reminding you to inhale positivity and exhale your frustrations.
You take in a lung full of air through your nose, crisp and cool, till you feel like you're about to pop and blow it all out through your mouth. Hmm, you do feel a little better. There could be something to this mindfulness thing, you think. Besides, you could always get back to playing after lessons, especially if you got to see what was in that case!
You let your thoughts drift listlessly, barely listening to your father's little portable CD player playing the 'TOP 30 GREATEST MEDITATIONS AND MANTRAS'. You were already on number fifteen, having sat down to one every day after your morning snack with your mom and sister.
After a few more moments of minding your breath, the track ends and a new one begins. You crack an eye to see your father standing up to turn it off. Finally, you can get up and stretch.
You take your time standing up, stretching towards the sky as much as possible, but seeing stars in the process. Geto twists his back to each side, bouncing on his feet, loosening up before placing his hands in his pockets.
Your father turns back to you with his CD player tucked under one arm, "Suguru, please go grab the case from the living room, thank you."
You balk, why didn’t he ask you? 
Geto slides past you to go back inside, wiggling his eyebrows and sticking his tongue out. You wrinkle your nose and stick yours back at him. He continues on inside and, if you focused on it, you could see the purple of his laugh trailing behind him as he went to retrieve the case.
When he comes back he has it held carefully in his arms. He gingerly hands it to your father who walks to place it on the patio table in the back right corner. Geto goes in front of you, coming to stop just before the table. You come up beside him and wait to see the contents of the case.
The 'click' of the locks opening is a small orange burst, and with that, you can feel your excitement building. You bounce on the balls of your feet, eager, "Come on already, Dad!"
He turns to look at you, surprised, before continuing to pull out a silk bag from the case. His frame shaking with laughter, he reaches into the bag to pull out two worn-looking blades. He places all the components on the table with great care, laying them out for you both to see.
"Today, we're going to work on imbuing objects with cursed energy." Your father takes the seat behind the case and gestures for you to follow.
Geto and you sit on either side of him and you trail your finger along the silk bag.
Your father places your hands back in your lap and you purse your lips, you just wanted to feel it.
He continues, "If you're going to be great sorcerers, then you need to be working on advanced techniques as soon as possible. We've already covered how to identify your cursed energy, but today we're going to apply a small amount to these Wakizashi. We've covered weapon safety so I expect both of you to be mature about this. Not only that, but these blades have been in my family for many generations and are the only thing I have left from my father." His gaze turns serious and it makes you wither, sending a shiver up your back. "You will do your best to handle them with care, yes?"
You gulp and nod, "Yes, sir."
Geto returns your father's gaze, just as serious as him. It looks strange on his eight-year-old face. "Yes, sir."
Your father's demeanor softens once more, kindness returning to his features. He nods once, "Excellent. After this lesson, we'll have a short sparring session and then dinner. Suguru, your parents will be here for you at the normal time. I promise not to go too much over today!"
You share a glance with Geto, you both know better. Your dad will keep you until the last possible moment and then some, a true teacher. Which leaves your mother to entertain Geto's parents until you're both released. She's cracked open more bottles of that expensive sake in the past two weeks than she has your whole life. When she tucks you in for the night, you can smell it on her breath. It makes your stomach swirl.
Suddenly, bright blue strikes in your periphery, and you're drawn out of your thoughts. Your father had given the glass surface of the table a rougher smack than intended, "Pay attention, we're moving to stand now."
You nod and hastily make your way next to Geto, who's standing a few meters away from you near the grasses at the back of your yard. You both watch as your father gathers the blades in his hands and walks over to you. He hands each of you a blade and shows you both proper form first. He explains how the blades are shorter, intended for hand-to-hand combat rather than mid-range attacks.
You wait as he works with Geto, who to his credit, is doing well following along with your father's signing. You knew you weren't a bad teacher, the thought brings a smile to your face. 
You take a moment to weigh the weapon in your small hand. Its weathered rope handle is rough against your palm and you shudder at the callouses you're sure to form. It's balanced, despite its age, and not too heavy either. The actual blade itself doesn't seem very sharp though. You test the edge with your thumb and scarlet bursts forth. You hiss and suck on the wound before your dad can see. Well, that was dumb.
It doesn't seem like your father or Geto noticed, so you wipe it quickly along your pants. The small red streak is quickly lost on the dark fabric. You perk up when your father turns to you, leaving Geto to practice with his own blade. If you really, really try you can see a faint glow to it. You can't deny it, Geto Suguru is an exceptional learner when it comes to jujutsu.
He kneels down next to you and shakes his head at your red thumb. He gives it a quick once over before patting your hand, "You'll be fine, but I'm sure you knew that. Please, be more careful."
You nod and he continues, "Do you remember what I told you about cursed energy?"
Another nod.
"Good. Take your weapon, there we go. Steady your breath, in and out, now send your cursed energy into the blade."
The flow of energy from you to the blade is small, but it peaks sweat on the back of your neck. What seems natural for Geto, sometimes you have to work for.
Your father smiles and claps his hands together, almost like a prayer. "Keep working on that release and then re-imbue it. Repetition is the key to perfection!"
Ugh, your dad should stop trying to being witty, he was so embarrassing. Still, you couldn't help but preen at his attention, you loved getting praise.
You work through the motions of imbuing the weapons with your cursed energy for a half hour with Geto besides you. All the while, your father goes over the theory behind imbuing objects with cursed energy all over again. You try to drown it out by sneaking a peak at how Geto’s fairing. You notice how he's not all sweaty and worked up like you. You try not to let it get on your nerves, feeling relief from your thoughts when your father calls for stretching. That can only mean sparring was left before breaking for the day.
You don't know what other eight-year-olds are doing, but you doubt getting ready to fight their friends in front of their parents.
This was by far Geto's favorite part of training with your family. He used his previous fighting experience against you every chance he got. He was a cunning opponent whose strikes were purposeful and his defense was rock-solid. It was rare for you to get an opening. You think Geto feels bad for you sometimes, because you notice he will leave his left side unprotected for short bursts. To strike, you have to be faster, get in closer to reach, but then when you try, he'll flip you over his leg. Your world goes upside down before having the wind knocked out of you. His grip like iron on your arm before being released. Geto is never overtly rough or cruel, he just wants to win, and you can respect that.
You grimace, already thinking about the pain you'll be in tomorrow. You were at a disadvantage no matter what you did, you were smaller and less used to fighting. You sigh, you didn't particularly care for being on the receiving end of his strikes and pins. Until you can get better at managing cursed energy, you were going to be weaker. The thought scared you, somewhat, but you pushed it from your mind.
The first week of training had left large bruises on your arms, you had to cover up whenever you went out to shop with your mom and sister. Luckily, it was still cool enough for sweaters.
When you're both done stretching, you stand face-to-face with each other. You let your eyes study him closer, pushing to see past the layers of air and sound. Yup, he was definitely taller. You wonder how tall he would be by the time you finished training. How tall would you be?
You shake your head, focus. You slide easily into your fighting stance, making sure your base is solid from the soles of your feet to your fists held high to protect your face. Sparring with Geto was supposed to be careful and choreographed, but your father knew better. He would tell you stories over dinner of curses he faced when he was younger before he married your mother. He always got a faraway look in his eye, but you couldn't place it. Your father promised he would make sure you were adequate at facing threats far beyond your skill range. That was probably why he didn't stop Geto from flinging you around like a ragdoll.
Whatever his justification, it was preparing you for the future, uncertain as it may be. You wouldn't take his teachings for granted.
You both circle each other before Geto moves in, you move to dodge but aren't fast enough. He clips your ribs and you bite back a yelp. In a fight, your heart rate doubles, and your vision is overwhelmed with color since it becomes harder to focus on so many things at once. You try not to get frustrated and push forward.
You go for a jab same as him, but he sidesteps you easily, a sly smile playing on his lips.
You huff and pull back, watching him carefully. Indigo colors the air around him, creating a dark aura. Yellow emanates off the tall grasses swaying behind him and white rises from the distant waves crashing. You can already feel a headache forming behind your eyes and you try to blink through the overload of visual information.
Geto pushes forward again and lands a hit to your calf in an attempt to destabilize you. It almost works, but when he moves to strike again you slide under his arm to loop your arms around his waist. It takes all your might, but you dig your heels into the ground and push off, visualizing the soundwaves converging there. It’s more power than you’re used to, uncontrolled and sloppy. You both land with an oof! and you scramble off of him.
You dust your knees off before lending out a hand to Geto whose surprise only last a few seconds before he accepts it. Luckily enough for you, he was never a sore loser, unlike you. You figure he probably would have gave you a win today either way. He was hyper-focused in a fight while you were hyper-aware of the disparity in skill, once in a while wins weren’t something to be proud of. There were only needless distractions. 
You huff and try to calm your heart rate by getting more air into your lungs, breathing out the negativity. It was counterproductive anyway. You reset and nod at Geto, neither of you waiting for your father’s signal before starting again.
You go a few more rounds for the best three out of five, Geto taking the win at the end of the day. His clothes were cleaner than yours, since you only managed to pin him once. Yours, however, were all dusty from the dirt. You reached up to brush it out of your hair and felt all the twigs tangled in it. You were gonna have to take another shower, but Geto's parents needed to be greeted so manners took priority. Good communication skills were just as important as sorcery in jujutsu society.
The both of you help your father clean up the space before turning in for dinner. You give a small bow to Geto's mother, who had come without his father tonight, and take your seat beside your parents. Your stomach growls in response to the smells wafting through the air, aromatics, and spicy oil. Crispy chicken and rice were plated beautifully by your mother on the table, centered around a floral arrangement your father made her over the past weekend.
You all but scarf down your food, barely paying attention to the conversation going around the table. It's all boring grown-up stuff anyways, pleasantries and talk of the weather. You figure Geto could use the practice interpreting.
"It'll hopefully be a sunny Saturday, perfect for a park trip with the children!" Your mother’s lithe hand whips in and out of your view.
It catches your attention for a moment, it’s a nice suggestion, but you were more of a homebody. Not that being outside didn't interest you, but come on, Pokémon wins that battle, easy. Speaking of, if you finished early you would have time to play with Geto and, hopefully, get out of Mt. Moon!
You scrape the last bit of rice off your plate and then try to get Geto's attention, but he is too busy slurping down a plate of noodles (he was a picky eater, much to your chagrin.) You wiggle further down your seat and reach to kick him, finally getting him to look up. A stray noodle hangs from his chin and he frowns before sucking it down.
He raises his eyebrows, questioning.
"Me, shower, fast. You, eat, finish. We, play, pokémon." You don't waste time signing every little word, Geto is smart enough to connect the dots.
You're right, Geto nods in acknowledgment before getting back to his noodle bowl.
You excuse yourself quietly before dropping off your dishes in the kitchen and rushing off for a second shower (your poor hair).
When you're done, you make sure to grab your Gameboy before going to the living room. Geto is already waiting there for you on the couch, eyes trained on your TV silently playing Yu-Gi-Oh!
You cross the room quickly and sit down next to him on the couch, bumping shoulders before thrusting the Nintendo into his hands.
He hums, taking it from you and turning it on. The chime of the Gameboy’s startup is pink, but the glow is a low green.
You watch as Geto navigates your character through the dungeon of Mt. Moon. When he concentrates, the space between his brows creases and a frown pulls at his lips. It's easier for him to move through the levels, somehow he was getting fewer encounters leaving than you were your whole time in there. And, of course, your pokémon would choose to listen to Geto the majority of the time and not you. Lucky, lucky.
Eh, whatever, as long as you escape.
Geto makes it back to level one easily and takes your character out of the mountain. "I don't know why that was so hard for you, Inumaki-san. I got out of there ages ago."
You roll your eyes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Don't 'yeah, yeah, yeah' me, I just got you out of there!"
You hide a teasing smile, "Whatever."
Geto sighs, exasperated. He makes a show of dragging his hand down his face, flattening his bangs in the process. You laugh and he fixes them back into place. "It's rude to laugh at other people, ya know?"
"I know, but it's just you, right, Geto-san? And I can be rude with you, since you're my rival." You fix your posture and snootily cross your arms, making just as big a show as he did.
"Hey, we're a team, not competitors." He leans away to pull his legs into criss-cross-applesauce underneath him.
You copy him, your knee pressed against his, a solid connection. "You're right, I guess." Your fingers ache signing, but you were too busy yawning to speak back. A moment passes and you continue, "You should have a sign name."
Geto arches a brow at you, "You haven't even called me by my first name yet."
You frown, realizing he was right. You turn your body to face him so you're sideways on the couch.
He startles, but laughs slightly before asking, "What are you doing?"
You cock your head to the side, studying him. Were you close enough to call him by his first name? You voice this concern to him, but then Geto surprises you with a big belly laugh.
"You let me flip and jab you almost every day, don't you think I should at least be able to call you by your name and you call me mine?"
It's reasonable enough, but you grimace. What if he finds your name funny or makes fun of you? You eye his face warily and decide, no, Geto isn't like that. You nod, "Okay."
He looks at you, expectant, "Well?"
You blink. "Well, what?"
"Are you gonna say it?" Geto looks genuinely eager, but you still hesitate.
He's putting you on the spot and you're starting to sweat. "Just, like, right now?"
He nods, eyes crinkling from his smile. 
Wow, you guys were actually getting a long pretty well today. "Why do you want me to say it so bad? I'll say it when it's natural, putting me on the spot is a lot of pressure." You purse your lips to keep from smiling nervously. 
He matches your expression and straightens up, challenging. "Well, tell me yours and I'll say it."
You shake your head vehemently, "No."
"No? What do you mean no?" He leans back, offended. “You’re the one who brought it up!”
"You're being pushy! You were supposed to say no!" You know pointing is rude, but you jab a finger his way. "Why don't we just stick with Inumaki? You can drop the -san." You nod your head, what a good compromise, but Geto doesn't seem convinced.
He suddenly looks utterly bored, but you know better, he's just giving you his version of attitude. "I'm supposed to call you Inumaki for the next six years while you call me by my first name?"
You shrug. "Why don't you make it a nickname?"
"Really?"
"Or we could stick-"
Geto cuts you off, realizing you weren’t going to give it up. "No, it's fine. Let me think..." He places his hand under his chin, pondering. "Inu? No, you're a girl, not a dog. Plus, you're more cat-like anyways."
Does he know he's talking out loud?
You're about to tell him as much, but he doesn't let you get a word in with the stream of consciousness he's currently listing out loud. "Inuma? No, ugly. Maki? Nah, I already know three. Well, used too, anyway..." He taps his chin a few times before perking up. "I know, how about Aki? Yeah, it works! Inumaki-aki-aki-aki." He chatters on, repeating it, giggling.
You smile at him and he returns it, all teeth. "I guess that works, for now, Suguru-chan." You tack on the last part, partly joking, partly not.
Suguru's cheeks warm up slightly. "Ah, shut up! No -chans, or I'm calling you Inu!" He picks up your forgotten Gameboy from the cushion and faces back towards the television.
You laugh and do the same, watching as he guides your character down Route 4. You sneak glances at Suguru's face every so often, studying his side profile, cast in a greenish hue. How much is it going to change in six years? How much will yours? You turn back to the screen, poking at your cheeks absentmindedly. Only time will tell.
"Your Charmeleon is about to die, we should've healed at the center before leaving..." You're half listening, half not, but Suguru continues on happily. He does try to sign with his left hand every once in a while, a good habit to build, you suppose.
Sleep was calling your name, but for now, you were with your, what? Friend? Earlier, Suguru had called you both teammates, but weren't you friends if you ate together, played together, trained together?
Yeah, he was your friend.
You're only friend, but the thought didn't bother you. If anything, it was a comfort to be in the company of someone strong, who was kind to you and helped you. In his own weird way, the same way you tried for him when you suggested picking the lock together that first day the case was on the coffee table. An olive branch from you? Maybe. Either way, you and Geto were tied together by forces more powerful than you.
There had never been anyone like Geto Suguru in your life before, you had grown up stuck between two worlds. Days out to the park, mall, and restaurants with your parents, face masks on. Then, there were days when your father would lecture you all about the greatness of jujutsu society, and how you and your mother should strive to be as perfect as you can be. You were women, unfortunately, but you could try your best to get as close as possible.
It was like a slap in the face when he says these things, off on another tirade about taking back his place as clan head, wrapped up in antiquated ideals and sake.
You take a deep breath that turns into a yawn and squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t want to keep thinking about the sour memory. 
"It's okay, Aki-san. You can sleep, I'll keep going forward for you." He catches your gaze and signs the last part perfectly.
Hmph, you were a good teacher. You nod, "Okay, wake me up before you go."
Suguru takes a moment to smile at you over his shoulder, bangs hanging forward, before continuing to play.
You return his smile before stretching out, feet skimming Suguru's pant leg, and yawning widely. Smacking your lips together, you snuggle deeper into your part of the couch. The Pokémon Red theme was distant and fuzzy in your ears, but you still managed to drift off, your friend beside you.
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dnpanimationstudioclone · 6 days ago
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I saw your art of Angel & Rocky! Do u have any headcanons for their potential relationship? Platonic or romantic?
Why yes I do! A lot of the people ive shown def enjoyed that art!
I can see Angel use his own spider webbing to help patch up Rocky from “work injuries”(unsafe environments, Val). Actually has done this for his other coworkers and in return they help him too ⛑️🩹
Rocky enjoys helping Angel dress up. Whether it be for shows or events he’s invited to or performing at. Def thinks Angel’s cute in cool-color pinks 💖💜
Whenever Angel’s invited to outings or events, will bring back some food if he can for Rocky💖 def enjoys cocktail weenies.
If they borrowed clothes like shirts, they'd basically be dresses for Angel and bras for Rocky🤣
After a long stressful day, might watch funny shows, movies and videos together.
Angel would be the one telling the cashier "he asked for no pickles!".
I can also see them shop together now and then! Angel def enjoys getting Rocky some threads! He enjoys the grunge/punk vibes!!!! Me and Teddi agree.
Angel’s def gotten him to dress up and do drag with him for fun! Def done Rocky Horror Picture Show for the name pun fun! Rocky loves glitter ✨
Angel helps Rocky be in touch with his feminine side more. I imagine Val pushes him to be more masculine.
Angel def shares his hair products. Rocky’s fair gets super soft and fluffy.
Def have DIY Spa days along with the rest of the workers to relax after a long night.
Also enjoy bonding through their different tastes in music! I can totally see Rocky be into stuff like Rare Americans. I can imagine Angel def got an appreciation for Jazz from Husk…🎷
Tries to be as gentle as he can get away with when doing scenes with Angel.
Has helped Angel get closer with his other coworkers(they all admit they hate what Val makes them do to Angel when he’s angry). Has gotten him to come out now and then with them after work and when he doesn’t have anything to do at the hotel.(Angel-I’m practicing my outside safety net socializing, don’t worry Val won’t be there this time)
Can see them try cooking together. I can see Rocky be kinda clumsy there. I could see him enjoy baking 🍪🧁
Rocky LOVES taking care of Fat Nuggets 🐷💖 often gets scared about hurting him with how tiny he is.
Enjoy exploring Hell together. Perhaps have a day like Millie and Sallie did in Helle's Belles. I hope Angel and Cherri get something like that and Rocky packs a lunch for him💖
@teddie-bear420 shared this with me. I def feel like it shares their vibe! Teddie’s also suggested them dressing up like Grease together! I can also see Rocky want to do something Ghost Rider related
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Def helped comfort Angel when he and Husk broke up💔(hypothetically if they do get together which is probably)
If Husk and Angel do break up, Rocky helps Angel properly apologize and leave things on a better note(I imagine the breakup wouldn’t be an easy one)
Angel acknowledges the mistakes he made in their relationship, admits he wasn’t easy to deal with(both dealing with personal demons) and knows he shouldn’t put it on Husk for judging him for those moments where he had the right to. Even if Husk hurt him…he knows he’s done a lot of that himself and wants to make it clear he doesn’t see Husk as the bad guy. And maybe gives him a parting present 🎁 maybe a drink flask with spider webbing unto it! Husk would use it beyond just booze. 🥃
Maybe Husk ends up giving him a gift too. A new neckwear or other accessory! Perhaps with a suit symbol ♥️♦️♠️♣️
I can def see them vent to each other(Angel usually) about stuff wether that be Val, or perhaps Angel’s own frustrations with himself or back at the hotel.
Ngl I’m hoping they bring up/keep how Angel was back in the pilot Maybe he’s venting to Rocky about the the gang, past things(like feeling ignored in ep 2, the incident in ep 4, etc )….and begins reflecting that he hasn’t always been very considerate himself .
He despite being in free rehab, still did drugs casually behind their backs took part in a terf war and def enjoyed, causing problems for Charlie which escalated into her having a nasty fight with Katie which also led to a fire…like the studio did.
And when confronted, he didn’t even apologize, even still cracked jokes and insults. Sure he had a moment where he felt bad..but was scared to act upon it…and just left…
Angel-…I didn’t even bother trying to make up….let alone apologize…..maybe I shouldn’t be judging Charlie so much for being careless…
On the one hand, Angels actions certainly didn’t escalate to anything as bad as the studio Incident….but he was also kinda careless of what his actions could cause and didn’t exactly try to set things right or even act apologetic for the damage he caused, even still continuing to insult and poke fun at them and their project… And hey Charlie’s not only a sheltered Princess but also the daughter of the DEVIL himself…makes sense she wouldn’t be aware or fully considerate of the impact of her actions ….so what’s his excuse?
He def has every right to still be hurt, Charlie still screwed up with her approach(Probably would’ve been good for Vaggie to have went with her or both wait for Angel, and im not 100% sure how much she was really taking her advice but I can imagine she assumed Charlie would know cause she’s a Princess, not realizing she’s been sheltered and not properly taught those things and didnt think shed have been like that). Not to mention with his things with Vaggie and Husk…he never made it easy for them especially to really empathize and keep their cool with him…
He comes to realize….he hasn’t been the best himself towards the people around him. Only just recently started becoming more considerate of others because of the hotel. I can see Rocky suggest he actually try talking to Charlie more, actually talk to her about sinners and how they think/deal with things being a sinner himself. Help her actually understand him and sinners better! And ofocurse build more bonding with the others too like he has with Husk!
Being with each other make it easier to avoid Val trying to infect them with his nastiness. I actually theorized Val already had plans of hurting Angel and let Charlie stick around to use as a reason to seemingly so Angel would tire of her and come back….clearly it didn’t work. I can totally see Val try to make Angel revert back to his bad habits and issues.
Lowkey scared around Cherri cause of her explosives but tries his best to be friendly towards her since she’s Angel’s Bestie and genuinely wants what’s best for him, even if she can encourage the not so great things sometimes. Would probably buy her a firecracker or something cherry flavoured as a friendly gift 🎁
Same with the hotel. Def appreciates them for what they’ve done for Angel in terms of giving him a place away from Val and helping him improve himself. He and Charlie start off akward considering….what happened in ep 4. He’s def asked her important questions regarding Angel and how she’s trying to help him with that(if she’s properly thinking about Angel and not just what he could be for the hotel). He tries to give her some benefit of the doubt considering her background and figures she just needs more help with understanding mortals and real life problems and other reasons said above(all of the sinners got their own issues going on too)…..if my theory about her “true intentions” is true, and most likely Angel would be crushed though, he’s def gonna rip into her!
If Rocky were to share his own version of Loser baby, it’d be more gentle, supportive and more related to Angel coming to terms with himself and his own personal demons. Probably at a point where Angel’s actual past is revealed(his mafia past) and there’s some argument. Someone shared this REALLY cool theory .
Maybe he asks if he can be at times…like Val or even his family(people have pointed out the similarities of when Angel threw that bottle at Husk, like how Val threw his glass at Vox).
That if…they were right about him, being a bad person and all the other problems he has Rocky admits that...to an extent he can be. He can be selfish, he can be careless, he can even be very cruel and has made similar mistakes (Lashing out, pushing boundaries, not apologizing or admitting his mistakes) But also is not .
He's shown he can be kind, he can be considerate, he's actually admitting his mistakes now a days and trying to genuinely change And in the end, no one down there’s perfect, it’s Hell! Doesn’t mean they can’t get better if they want to be(Don’t need to be in Heaven to atleast be happy and better than you used to be alive)
Kinda hard truth Aesop of realizing at times u can learn some bad things from those who hurt u and repeat them, even be like them but that doesn’t mean you cant learn from their mistakes and change yourself, break the cycle(like Penumbra podcast).
I can def see Husk feel akward around Rocky(since in this scenario, he and Angel broke up) and seeing how well things are between them and how much Rocky’s helped out Angel…
Husk-…guess he was right… I was the problem afterall.
I can see Husk admit his own feelings of guilt and regret only for Rocky to point out had he not been in Angel’s life, he wouldn’t be doing how he is now, he wouldn’t be who he is now without Husk. And also points out Angel def wasn’t the easiest back than to be around himself and actually thanks Husk for being Angel’s first as it helped bring them together…they both appreciate him for everything💖 kinda like that talk Diane and Mr PB had!
Perhaps do cards together for fun 🃏
What do u think? Do u see Angel find anyone else besides Husk, stay single or do u think Huskerdust is endgame? I'd love to know💖
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distortedataraxia · 1 year ago
Text
"Life isn't just about fun."
Y/n x sk8 the infinity (platonic)
wordcount : 14,587
Type : one-shot
Warnings : mention of hospital accident, school related bad memories (?) swearing/cursing, negative thoughts, and i think that's about it!
Author note : Hi! It's been really long since i posted, i wanted to challenge myself to write something way longer than usual, and i've been pretty down in the dumps so it's hard staying active. I'll get to your requests soon, i'm sorry it always take so many months for me to catch up to them! I hope you'll appreciate it nontheless, it's the first time i write a one-shot so long, don't hesitate to send in a few advices if you want! I hope this isn't too much out of character and that y/n can be relatable. It's not easy writing a relatable y/n. I tried to have a moment for each characters but kinda failed, i hope that's okay and that i can write each of them better overtime! Well, now that's out of the way, i hope you enjoy! ★take care ★
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The summer holidays have been good, despites the overwhelming heat making you sweat to your heart content.
You could handle the heat with your friends around you while making sure to stay dehydrated, really, whenever you went to see your friend weither it was to eat at a restaurant, harass shadow, skate around random places, try new tricks, race at S, discuss about skateboards and make skateboards : you could rarely every worry about the heat. It's like the heat never existed in the first place, but of course, as soon as you get home you will inevitably notice a shower is reallly necessary if you don't want to turn into a glue stick human form of thing just by sweating.
Time really does fly by when i'm around my friends.. you think to yourself, the summer holidays are coming to an end very soon..
And every nights i feel it.
This is going to be a long night for you, a very long night.
There is no better feeling than staring at a wall with closed eyes. If that makes senses.
In fact, you couldn't really sleep, you kept waking up every 2 hours, scared of missing your alarms, afterall you'd be bummed out if you were to miss your first day of school. It's not that you enjoy going to school at all, it's just that if you'd miss the first day of school you'd probably get into troubles with your parents, and you'd feel double lost at school, which isn't so cool to be honest.
So you kept trying to sleep, rolling around in your bed to try to find a comfortable position, and… stay here until you stop crying. Because yes, tears were leaving your eyes right at that moment, your eyes were burning and your head was hurting and it was hard to sleep. Breathing was a bit troublesome, it might seem dramatic, but you still felt all of these wandering emotions anyway.
You had some fears concerning school, or a lot of fears. You remembered all the bad years you spent, having to complete your homework in time and stay good enough to your teachers and parents no matter what, forcing yourself to try to even listen to the teachers' lesson and remember it, having to suck up all the weird looks from your classmates whenever you answered something dumb or did something weird from their point of view, while you had to look unaffected whenever the teacher or your classmates said something dumb… School wasn't a place where you could be yourself, it wasn't a place where you could express your opinion, it's not a place in which you're ever good enough, not a place where you feel able to develop any sort of potential if you had any, and it's not a place in which you had fun at, if anything, all the bad years at school were just taking colors away from life, a lot of colors. The endless homework to finish at night wasn't so pleasant aswell, you could remember the allnighter or allnighters to catch up on your homework or lessons. Hours of class felt more like a black hole sucking up all of your energy, what was the use of having energy and going through the day if you're going to do this your whole life? Was something you thought more than once or twice.
What if it happens all over again?
You really hopped to stay in the same class as Reki and Langa this year, but it wasn't for sure, you guys could be picked to be in different classes for all you know, why do you have to even change classes every years? It's a breeze when your class sucks but not when your class is actually somehow not that bad. And what about all the new people?
When you weren't in their class, you could recall zoning out more, dissociating more. Strangely enough, they usually seperate people from their friends so that they focus on the class, but you're more prone to focus if your friends are here, let alone, if they ask for your help with any homework, you feel a kind of responsability and a will to help, so your grades uncounsciously got better so that you could help out Reki who's being late on classes because he's staying up late to skate at S and barely listening at class, so you could also help out Langa who's having struggles taking notes and understanding everything, because even if he spoke japanese, he still had a hard time to adapt. But even if your grades were to be lower or not different, it felt way better when you were willing to work for it not just to not get in troubles, but also to help your friends. Maybe it wasn't entirely for you in that case, but it already felt better.
But whenever you mess up and feel unable to help, it feels bad. You actually had a bad dream once in which messing up continuously during group projects with your friends led them to burst into tears because it was really too much.
There's just, a lot of things to worry about. You have to study about your future, you can't just skate all day long and have fun with your friends, and they'll be fine without you, life isn't like that, it's not just about fun…
Ah…
You stared blankly at your arm.
You absolutely dreaded this day. School for you was like a survival game, you'd play, try not to fail and lose just like you'd go to school everyday and try to keep everything up to just not fall apart.
Well, to be honest, last school year was a bit more manageable with Reki and Langa around, surprisingly enough, they made your days at school usually less boring, and if the all three of you guys were unhappy or not doing good, you could complain together ; About the teacher's teaching methods, the way this or that spoke to you, the way you got caught watching skating videos instead of reading-
You could really cool down a bit with them around, things were way less stressful than they could have been. And somehow you felt more productive with less pressure felt.
So, in the end, maybe it wasn't that bad, you could get to spend more time with Reki and Langa, and you wouldn't have to die to the summer heat.
Or maybe not, maybe you won't end up in the same class, maybe you won't feel brave enough to sneak your phone between your pages to pretend to read anymore, maybe you won't be in a good class, maybe you'll get picked on by your classmates and maybe-
afterall, it is true that you could spend much more time with Reki, Langa AND your other friends outside of school, if they weren't on vacations without you that is. School can be a real seperation factor for friends, and it sucks, it can be very isolating.
But school is important, nontheless.
I think.
Are the all-nighters productive? Are they healthy? The stress, the social fears, just… everything overall that comes from school, except the time you spend with Reki and Langa and the rare lessons where you learn something that is actually helpful for you.
Probably not.
You've tried not to think about it, but really, the more time passes, the less you're able to sleep well or spend your days without worrying as to weither or not you're making the best of the summer holidays, without feeling guilty for doing nothing when the heat is killing you or you're tired. Time is so scary, the meaninfgul times fade away so fast, and you lose so much occasions on making the best of your life, time always gets you.
Finally, the morning came, you could hear the birds sing, the sun was shining through the curtains, making you regret ever opening your eyes who were now burning at the burning source of light, you wanted to hide under your pillow and blankets and never see the light again. Why get up when you can just sleep ? Your alarm rang, it gave you a headache, a headache that'll follow you probably all day long, you had to get up now. Goodbye to the everyday without worrying of what's coming next day. What a life.
I mean, everyone has to work or go to school, it's society, it's just life, there's nothing to complain about, be grateful that you have it easier than some people. Or even, most people.
Besides, you still have Reki and Langa right? It'll be okay, right? Even if you don't end up in the same class, you could look up to every ends of the days to skate together and every mornings to skate together, same for the free time.
That is, if your schedules aren't too different and if you even have the energy to skate and hang with your friends, you could remember days in which as soon as you'd get home, you'd fall to your bed, fall asleep and skip dinner, only to have to catch up on your homework in another stressful morning and find something to eat in the fridge your family emptied the night before.
School is back. Holidays were great, but everything came to an end. Nothing ever last forever, does it ?
You yawned and tried to stretch yourself to wake up but your eyes were shutting tight, your every single thoughts begged you to fall back asleep and rebel agaisnt whatever keeped you awake, before you knew it, 5 minutes already passed. If you wouldn't have put multiple alarms to wake you up every minutes, the amount of time in which you were late would have greatly multiplied, by ten maybe, well, if you were never late because of that ; that's because you skated very fast to school or ran. These alarms really pain you but they still save you, a great plenty of time, you probably would have been late right now without them. On the first day of school, your sleep schedule is not even set on time.
Be grateful.
You sit up and get up, feeling every ounce of your body wanting to fall down and just lie in the ground to sleep, you try your hardest to motivate yourself to get dressed, making a mess out of your wardrobe, you'd have to clean that later and put your clothes in order, or deal with it and have your parents scold you for it until next holidays, but really all the thoughts that came to your head were negative, you didn't even bother to think about your friends yet, you just wanted to sleep it off, sleep it off so much you wanted to cry, get away from reality. As you kept getting lost in your thoughts, your arm hits your wardrobe and furnitures.
Ouch. The hit was a bit brutal, you were stressed and you were scared. Your arm felt like it was burning, why did you have to get that arm hit and not the other? How lucky can you get? Is it a lack of luck or is it just your problem for not sleeping enough?
And before you know it, you already have to leave your house in 5 minutes. 5 fricking minutes, and you just got dressed.
Mornings were really fast, especially if you're as tired as you are right now. You could get up and leave your bed and you already have only 10 minutes left to somehow get dressed, eat, brush your teeth, check that everything is ready, make sure to use the toilets, wash your hands, and happily get out of the house with your skateboard to get to school! How you loved going to school every mornings!
Well, last year you could feel positive going to school most days, it's the year when you met Reki and Langa at, one of the most liveliest years of your life. But now that you know them, you rather spend time with them outside of school.
You were tired, completely tired, your heart was beating fast, so fast and hard it was hurting, like some sort of drums inside you, the bat would dum- dum- slap your heart out just to keep you awake. You could barely keep your eyes open, your hair was a mess, all you wanted to do was hide yourself under your blankets until the school year ends. You only want this to be a dream, it's just a bad dream, school never existed… Is hiding and denying all you're ever good at?
But maybe that's a bit harsh, isn't it ?
What a great start of the year, surely the year wouldn't go well if you kept that up.
You didn't have time to eat breakfast, or else you'd be late, so you started walking out of your room and you fought the stairs. Not literally don't worry, we respect stairs here
As you were about to step out of your house to get to school you receive a message on your phone on a groupchat. A groupchat between you, Reki and Langa.
"Y/n, we're waiting for you at our usual spot, where are you?? :("
You smiled, for a second there, you felt like summer holidays were still going on. You felt as if you had nothing to worry about. Your friends were really important to you, they held a special place in your heart. And they made you look forward to everyday, everyday felt more like a pleasant surprise with them around. Maybe just maybe, you don't have to worry about this school year.
Or maybe you do, maybe you do have to worry about this school year.
The messages having reminded you to take your skateboard, you grabbed your skateboard after turning off your phone, almost forgetting to take your skate, almost forgetting about how you got into skateboarding and almost forgetting the entire last year you've spent with Reki and Langa. Too busy overthinking about the past years before that one.
Maybe it was better to expect the worse to not have your hopes crushed, but would that make you happy?
You put your phone in your backpack, left the house, and pushed to get to your skateboard, trying to be careful of where you're riding despites your attention span being lower, trying to keep your foot well positionned and not accidentally press your back foot against the tail of your skateboard which would make you.. fall off if you press hard.
Skating was a bit harder this morning, the thought of school came back to you very soon and it drew out your motivation fast, very fast.
You were really tired so it was hard, but the thoughts of your friends cheered you up a bit, so you skated to your usual meeting spot, thinking about how Reki and Langa must be waiting for you right now. And soon enough, you recognized a shining red-head and a outstanding blue-head, you surely couldn't miss them by accident even if your vision was blurry, not a lot of people around there has had their hair dyed.
You wondered, would reki's head shine more with no hair or does it shine more with red hair?
They finally noticed you skating towards them, they turned to you, it seems like Reki was staring at his phone while Langa's head was peeking over his shoulder to see the screen. You waved at them and they waved back, you smiled instinctively, until you suddenly fell of your skateboard and rolled down the floor, making sure to protect your head while trying to keep your other arm safe. But you still hurt your arm, which is sadful.
"Ouchhh-" you yelped, usually you'd laugh whenever you fall of your skateboard, it was silly, you fell off because you kept your eyes on your friend and not the floor. You liked them just way too much. But you just didn't feel the energy in you to laugh, something just didn't click inside, you couldn't laugh. Maybe you're just grumpy because it's the morning, maybe you're just not in the mood. Whatever it was, you didn't feel the willpower to laugh it off as you usually do.
"Y/n !" Reki screamed running towards you "Don't be reckless, you hurt yourself at your last race ! " he crouched down to your level "here, let me help you" he took your arm and checked your bandages "did you even change them!? He asked frantically, eyes focused on your bandaged arm, as Langa walked towards you and caught your skateboard for you. —I forgot. you answered, in an honest and tired laugh, it was so hard getting even dressed in the morning that you forgot to check your bandages. —This can't be good.. The redhead sighed and looked at Langa Langa, pass me the bag Langa tossed him his bag over, hitting Reki in the face Ouch ! That wasn't cool Langa ! he complained —Sorry, i didn't mean to, are you hurt ? The blue haired boy panicked —No, i'm fine, anyways… Reki's hand searched for something in the bag Ah there it is ! He got his hands out of the bag and took out a disinfectant and some bandages Now let me check that."
Reki always had this sort of thing ready in his bag, as getting hurt is common when you skate.
He inspected your arm and your wrist, your bandages were getting red, he got rid of them to check your injuries "Oh they're healing faster than i thought, even though they should have already been healed, thank god they're still healing though. But you're bleeding." He smiled, almost motherly to you, making sure that you don't panick, the thought of reki as a mother was very funny to you as it crossed your mind, but the cursed images of reki being pregnant following your thoughts were more cursed than funny "I'm gonna have to use disinfectant, Just tell me if it hurts okay?" he uses the disinfectant carefully, you groaned in pain a bit but it was fine. "There we go." he then proceed to put some new bandages over your arm and wrist, and Langa complained " you never took this much care of me whenever i bled. —You never got really that injured, you only ever bled, it's nothing we all bleed from time to time when we skate. Reki tried to explain himself, still focused on your arm. —You let me faint. —Oh shut up, i panicked and ran to you for the record. —Like a prince in a shining armor ? you asked, randomly, Reki stopped bandaging your arm for a second, only a second, and then he continued bandaging your arm. —I wasn't charmed, I was already uncounscious. Langa argued —Are you falling in love with Reki or something Langa? You wanted to be charmed? You tried to tease him, Reki just finished bandaging your arm and jumped over to turn around and put the stuff back in his backpack, seeming a bit agitated and quick to hide his face, he then spoke —Don't say things like that y/n ! We're bros, nothing like that —I was speaking to Langa, not you. —Oh you get what i meant ! "
You didn't continue trying to tease them, this was largely enough and you enjoyed the way Reki was talking to you but turned away from you and Langa was just staring at the both of you completely zoned out, dumbfounded.
They were really fun to be around with. Your morning was already much less depressing, Reki really cared for you and Langa did too. You reallly hopped to be in the same class as them, even if you felt like a thirdwheel, you don't want classes schedules to disrupt your common routines.
For a moment there, it felt like you guys were already in the same class, but would that be too optimistic? Should you actually hope?
"So… Are you guys, perhaps… excited for school ?" you asked, curiously. They looked like they had much more energy than you, it's as if summer holidays never actually ended. Their face looked so bright, they seemed so happy and careless, as if summer never really ended. Reki and Langa looked at you curiously, finally, Reki spoke ;
"Definitely not. —Eh!? How can you have so much energy then!? I don't get you. —Personally, Langa speaks I'm excited whenever i can spend time with you or Reki, and school is important to me, i need to improve my japanese skills and understand how things work around there. Langa explained, honestly. —Right… Well, as long as i'm not a thirdwheel. —Don't even say that word, it makes me think about my final race with Adam. Reki groaned thinking about it, he acted like he was going to puke, Langa chuckled. —Was that race this bad? You were really good. —It was fun but.. I really don't enjoy skating against Adam and you know that Langa, i don't get you, you almost died when racing him down that crazy path last time ! —Oh, that's true. Langa recalled, having actually forgotten this detail —You really looked like you were falling mindlessly, you weren't even moving and then you suddenly moved and took your skateboard and won the race, what even got into you? You really scared me you know? I was worried. You both are crazy, you got injured last time too y/n Reki spoke, with a genuine troubled expression on his face. —Reki, you get injured much more than i do. You spoke, with a stern voice —The word fun saved me. Langa spoke, out of the blue, with full honesty in his voice —What? You mean the word fun we put on your fixed skateboard?"
Reki turned to Langa with a curious face. You looked at the time, you guys were already going to be late at this rate, you coughed "guys, we're going to be late." your tone was a bit harsh, but you really didn't want to be late.
"Oh crap! Langa, y/n, let's go ! " and there you guys went, skating to school, fast.
Your friends looked very energetic, it killed you that you couldn't be as energetic, honestly, it's been a few days or weeks since your energy drastically dropped to the thought of school, and you couldn't tell if your friends noticed, but you were afraid to be a burden to them. They were shining so bad, and you were starting to feel like you were staying in the dark, maybe you always were in the back afterall, but everytime, it seemed Reki, Langa or Miya found a way to cheer you up or make you feel like you belong.
Reki and Langa did a few ollies and some random tricks while you just cruised. It's crazy how they're late and still able to flex, have fun and pull up some tricks. Well, it was like this last year too.
You met Reki and Langa at school, and met your other friends at S, and these friendships really made your life much more brighter. Could it be constantly the case though? What if they were the one brightening up your days - but you weren't the one brightening up their days ? That thought hit you a bit inside, like a small bullet passing through your body, but slowly, and with barely enough pain, you felt a small wave of negative emotions, it hurts a bit, but you felt a bit empty, in a way.
You felt the air pass through your lungs, burning, as the cold air hits your face, and finally, you reached school. Somehow you made it despites the overwhelming feeling that the air is so heavy it'll crush your bones.
School is back. ~
You slid your skateboard behind your backpack and walked to your assigned classroom after the school announcement concerning the begginning of the year, you were not in the same class as Reki and Langa, of course.
That's not all that mattered though. Your grades mattered too.
You're not going to die by working a little and spend less time with your friends, come on. You could still spend time with them nontheless later.
Before you go, you exchanged a small wave in Reki and Langa's direction, they waved back; these two were in the same class it seemed. Maybe they were better without your grumpy-self though. They seemed much more happier than you were, were you just overthinking and dramatising everything?
You reached your classroom and when the teacher told you to, you sit down, taking the sit at the back, avoiding to talk to anyone. Why bother? Approaching people isn't on your to-do list at the moment.
The class was already loud and obnoxious, just like a circus. You paid no attention to the noises and as to avoid getting bothered by the noises, you stared at your desk and zoned out, thinking about all the times you went skating with your friends. It was the only thing you wanted to think about right now.
Despites your efforts to not be bothered by all these voices, you still heard a few people talk
"The manager of the fruit stand always sat and only sold vegetables —What!? You mean the fruit stand down your street ? —Yes, atleast the vegetables are cheap. So me and my mom always go there the saturday mornings. —I wouldn't buy my vegetables there if it was a fruit stand only selling vegetables…"
This random conversation you heard was completely unrelated to school, you sighed, but who were you to care? It seemed like people knew each other, you were probably going to end up alone this year, is it so bad though?
The teacher coughed and asked for everyone to be quiet, and the class continued talking. Why were you even here? This is supposed to be the first class, usually during the first classes people should be quiet, atleast on the first classes of the year. But who were you to talk? You can't lie, you really wished you could talk to Reki and Langa like this right now, but you guys aren't even in the same class.
Between all the talks you could hear, you heard another one, still completely unrelated to school, there was a brown-haired girl talking to a black haired boy, the girl looks cute you thought, the boy spoke : "Why do you LoOOooOOOoOve me Stanley? —I like your blue eyes. She replied as if it was a sufficient reason to like someone —Why did you only tell me now ? He stared at her with his PieRcIng BlUe EyEs —I didn't want any new girls stealing you away from me. Your classmate declared in full confidence —…Wow so possesive grrr~ He said before the two burst out laughing —You're so stupid the girl chuckled, a smile on her face —Stupid for you ? he asked, playfully "
And there you witnessed a newborn couple that was probably going to last a few days or weeks, on the first day of school.
Everyone didn't look like they cared about the first class. You wished you could not care aswell, but you cared, you cared a plenty lot, this was supposed to be important. You couldn't not care with all these anxious thoughts going on in your head.
Why can't i see? you thought to yourself, wondering why you couldn't see things the way your other classmates did. Everyone else seemed so much more happier than you did. Why do you have to be like this? Why can't you see things the way they see things? Why do you have to mess up so bad on this?
When you finally stopped your thoughts and snapped back to reality, you noticed the new couple stopped talking and were looking at you whispering some things. Shit, you stared too long. You quickly turned to look at your desk.
Finally, after some time the teacher managed to get the class to be silent, he presented himself, talked about how everything works this year, and asked everyone to present themselves one by one, to break the ice… apparently.
A girl on the left front beggined ; "My name is Mallory and i love riding horses on my free time. —You mean men? the boys snickered"
Long after that, it is finally your turn to present yourself.
"Uhm, i'm y/n.. and i love skating with my friends. —You have friends!? Someone random in the class exclamed themselves, even though they barely knew you for even an hour, some people laughed and the teacher told the class to be quiet"
It's crazy how people make assumptions on even people they never talked to and saw for only minutes of their lives. This is gonna be a long class, ice breaker wasn't really working out, was there even ice to break to begin with?
School is back, i guess. ~
The class ended, it's finally free time, you went to sit on your skateboard at the rooftop, the place you, Reki and Langa discussed going to if you were ever seperated at school and wanted to meet up. Eventually, Reki and Langa walked up to you.
The class was long, everyone was loud and judgemental, it was… definitely great.
"Hey, y/n" Langa spoke with a gentle voice "Wanna go skate in the playground ?" he asked and you looked at him, with a frown on your face "we're gonna get in troubles again, and i'm injured, for you to know." Langa insisted "But you still skated this morning despite your injury, and it could be fun, you seem down, come on come with us" he almost pleaded, you couldn't say no to him at this point, reki finally spoke "I mean it's your choice if you don't wanna skate i understand, but you're acting just like you were when we barely knew you, come cheer up a bit with us, won't ya ? If we get in troubles i'll take the blame if that reassures you." you looked at Reki, with a curious look on your face "How can you even take the blame for something like this ? —I don't know, I'll come up with something. Reki shrugged, you looked at the floor, a bit hesitant, but ended up saying —Fine fine. you saw the boys' eyes light up —Let's go then ! "
You stood up and took your skateboard with you.
You guys ended up skating at the corridors before reaching the playground, of course, a teacher was there and you ended up having to run away from a teacher with your skateboard in hands. You guys were caught as always and got in troubles, Reki did his best to put the blame on him but it didn't work out, now you three have to stay after school and help the janitors clean, atleast it's better that it's the three of you guys in troubles than only Reki. Ah, and the teachers took your skateboards, Reki literally groaned and Langa looked like he was going through all the stages of grief at that moment.
"Oops? Reki muttered under his breath when the teacher finally left you guys I hate cleaning He complained innocently —If it's with my friends i think it's okay, i help my mom clean the house most times. Langa said, looking as if he was recalling all the times he helped his mom with the laundry, the cooking and the overall house chores, as her husband died, Reki turned to you and spoke —Sorry, we didn't want to get you in troubles, we just thought you'd cheer up a bit since the first school day doesn't seem to be going well for you- —How was your class guys ? you asked out of nowhere, after having zoned out, cutting reki's speech off as if it was nothing —Huh!? Oh uh, i don't know, i didn't really pay attention, the window was more attractive. Reki answered, taken a bit off guard you didn't pay attention to what i was saying thou- —You mean the reflection of Langa next to you was more attractive? —How did you- i mean, no homo though. Reki scratched the back of his head, a bit embarassed, these two were so obvious, you stared at Langa, he seemed zoned out —Langa ? you called to him, he looked at you and then he said —I'm confused. —What are you even confused about ? Reki asked, with a nervous voice —I'm confused: when people ask me what's up, and I point, they groan."
You facepalmed.
"Dude?! When people ask you what's up they ask you how you are, not what's literally up ! Reki spoke, dumbfounded —Japanese is difficult. Langa remarked, thoughtful, looking at the ground —You mean english is difficult!? Reki retorted, remembering the many times Langa tried to teach him something in English —I guess any language can be difficult for anyone."
You were not participating in this conversation, staring in disbelief at Langa.
you zoned out, thinking about the way your new classmates were staring at you in class, and all the whispers you heard in your direction.
"say y/n, how was your class ? Reki turned to you, curious I mean, you're not in the same class as us and you asked us so.. —It was fine. "
Your answer was short and automatic, you know that tone and voice when you reply automatically and it's technically you talking but it doesn't feel like it's you - like you don't even think the words you say but somehow they leave your mouth as if they were the complete truth ? As if you had to answer this specific answer at all cost to protect yourself and act like it's the truth, so much you replied without thinking ? That's exactly how you felt when you spoke, and you hated it. You couldn't control it though, your brain decided it was best to lie.
And yeah, maybe it was best, Reki and Langa didn't have to know about anything, you didn't want to make them feel akward. I mean, it's always this way, whenever you feel the slightest bit down, everyone is always akward or replying "ah" or "oof" or "Sorry", it's as if what you said bothered them in a way, and you just didn't like it.
You noticed Reki and Langa exchanged a glance, did they notice your weird behaviour and caught on your lie or is it just a gay-type of glance ?
You continued talking, trying to sound convincing "I mean, the class was rather loud but it was pretty funny, there was this newborn couple and the guys joked around a lot-"
The bell rang, it was time to seperate again. Thanks god the bell interrupted you, because you didn't even know what you were saying. Still you didn't want to go back to the classroom, you wanted to stay with your friends.
"What? Already!? Reki complained, looking like he was going to be out of his mind if the bell rang one more time —Please focus this time Reki, instead of staring at me. Langa remarked, blankly, it took Reki off guard —I wasn't staring at you i was staring at me ! He defended himself, he put his arm over Langa's shoulder and tried to coonvince him I was staring at my hair because i thought about getting an haircut, you know ? You noticed sweats appear very fast on Reki's face —Right. Langa spoke, half-convinced You never changed your haircut in over a year, you only ever take your headband off when you're mad at me. —Let's go to class now, i need to tell you something. Reki changed the subject and started walking away, before turning to you and waving See you on the rooftop at lunch y/n ! "
You guys waved at each other, and you went back to your class. It was loud, once again, and you could hear a bunch of random conversations again, unamused.
"My uncle's favorite pastime was building cars out of noodles. —How do you even -"
"You know my favorite song? It kinda goes like this, tired of explaining, as these seasons keep on changing —Is this even Japanese…? —No it isn't."
"Which is greener, purple or red ? —Red is greener than purple, for sure. —Look at that color circle, purple is closer to green than red is ! —Does that even mean anything… Purple is made by blue and red, why wouldn't be red greener ? "
"What do these results on this quiz mean ? —You're like the peanut butter. The creator said so. —Wha- but i wanted to be a cheese! so that i could be cheesy with rome- —You're not always who you want to be."
The teacher eventually got the class to quiet down and called for everyone's names one by one to check weither they were present.
Your name wasn't pronounced, weird. But you paid no attention to it.
The teacher begun with an history lesson, a classmate raised his hand and asked something, he wondered why at 18 he was old enough to go to war, but not old enough to buy cigarettes.
You couldn't focus, your head was heavy, until eventually, you noticed the teacher was looking at you.
"Uhm, excuse me.. he called out to you, not pronouncing your name, he coughed, akwardly —Yes ? you asked, a bit taken off guards, were you going to get in troubles for not listening ? —What's your name ? He asked, a bit unsure of his question, staring at a paper, the class was looking at you —y/n l/n —Hm let me see… no you're not in this list. The teacher remarked Weird… What class are you supposed to be in ? —This class sir, it was written on the paper. you show the paper and the teacher examinates it, he looks embarassed —There must have been a mistake somewhere, maybe this is why Aoi haruka isn't here, let me contact my colleagues."
The class was silent, and after a few minutes, an adult came to the class to pick you up and lead you to your class, when you left the classroom, you could hear whispers in your directions, the adult apologized to you explaining your name got mixed up with someone else.
You walked with the adult, reaching another classroom. They knocked on the other classroom door and explained the situation to the other teacher.
"Please excuse me, we mixed up the names and got two students mixed up, i'm here to put y/n l/n here and take Aoi haruka to her actual class. —Oh uh, it's okay… Aoi haruka, please go, and uh.. y/n l/n, please go sit down"
The teacher looked a bit embarassed by this situation.
You entered the classroom, a bit nervous, everyone was looking at you, you looked at the whole classroom to search for a place to sit at, and saw a girl standing up with her backpack and stuff and leaving the classroom, it must have been Aoi Haruka. You looked at the seat, it was next to Langa.
You were in Reki and Langa's class in the end.
You could feel immense relief when you realized, and went to sit down next to Langa, Langa and Reki looked at you curiously, there's a paper on Langa's desk, there's sentences with a very good japanese writing on it next to bunch of badly written japanese sentences, Reki and Langa were probably passing notes about something, you could read a few words from the distance, but only a few, you managed to read your name and the words mission and lie.
What were they planning? When you think about it, what if they were talking behing your back like the other people who you thought were your classmates probably did ? You decided to shake it off, you were probably going too far. You want to trust Reki and Langa… Don't you? Aren't you a good friend?
Yeah.
Reki whispered something to Langa, and Langa then leaned his head towards you to whisper something to you.
"Reki asks what are you doing here —My name got mixed up with someone else, i was apparently supposed to be here"
Langa leaned his head back towards Reki and whispered to him what you said, Reki gave you a thumb up.
You smiled. Maybe you were luckier than you thought.
And maybe they weren't.
the class passed, it was way much better, the other class was kind of funny to be honest, but it was really tiring on the first day and they didn't seem to like you so, it's really better this way, and you get to be next to your friends.
But you need to focus on your school work don't you? You can't always hang out with your friends and have fun, life isn't like that, you need to work and be responsible. Be grateful you have it easier than other people, make the best of your school time because it will be harder once you start having a job.
Ah… right.
The teacher talked and you started taking notes, struggling because your wrist hurt, this is the wrist you usually write with, it's injured since your last race at S. Langa looked at you.
"Do you need any help ? he asked, with a calm expression on his face and a tint of worry —No it's okay, i rather not bother you, besides i can't even understand your writing. you whispered back, a bit harshly at the end, you internally slapped yourself for it. —L/n, is there anything you want to share with us ? The teacher spoke, looking at you, your classmates looked at you, you hated it —Uhm actually sir, their wrist is injured, so i was asking them if they needed help. Langa spoke instead of you —Thank you Langa but I was asking L/n to talk- —I CAN HELP ! reki raised his hand and exclaimed himself —Alright… Thank you for your enthusiasm Reki… the teacher replied, looking like he gave up at this moment —Sit next to me, y/n reki spoke —Ah yes… Langa, could you please exchange your desk with l/n's for the class from now on until their wrist heal ? —Yes. Langa moved and you guys switched desk, it looked like Langa was a bit sad to not be next to Reki anymore, but he was happy to be of help in any way —Thank you, Reki, Langa you mumbled, Reki smiled to you —It's nothing "
You got injured after a race at S a few days ago, you were racing Reki. You weren't doing so bad during the race until you thought that if you got injured maybe you wouldn't have to deal with school, and coincidentally, you lost balance, rolled down to the side, and hurt your arm and wrist. Reki was upset and worried and your skateboard continued rolling until it fell off a cliff and you never saw it ever again, but Reki had a spare skateboard for you, thankfully.
The class passed faster than the last class, Reki helped you and took notes for you, though he was pretending to take his notes about the lesson, his notes were mostly about skateboarding if anything, he looked more focused to help you though. Reki seemed kinder to you than usual, it's not that he's never kind, he's always been kind, but it felt a bit more insistant this time. ~ The bell rang, you put your stuff in your backpack and Reki helped you.
"Y/n" Langa spoke, you turned around to face him "yes ? —My stomach hurt. He said, Reki closed your backpack and walked up to him, concerned, he asked —Did you eat anything weird this morning ? Do you want to go to the infirmary ? —This morning, I ate a sock because people on the Internet told me to. You stared, blankly, trying to process the information, and Reki exclamed, in disbelief —What people on the internet !? Langa you can't listen to everything the people tell you to do, how did you even get yourself to eat a sock!? —It didn't taste good. —No kidding it didn't taste good! Langa look at me, did you swallow the whole sock ? —Yes. —So that's why you were having a hard time skateboarding earlier! "
To be honest, you didn't even notice this, but now you were worried for your friend, Langa. And you let Reki speak to him and explain to him that: no, eating a sock isn't safe.
Langa was really something, he was still skating better than you this morning even though he swallowed a whole sock, how did he not choke? ~ Long story short, he got drived to an hospital. For eating a sock. Because people on the internet told him to. Reki looked mad.
You were sitting on the rooftop with Reki, you both were silently eating.
"Langa really is reckless, he scares me"
Reki broke the silence.
You contested : "I don't think he's scary —That's not what i meant, but i mean, sometimes i literally have nightmares because of him, he can't go on and accept every challenges people offer him, i mean, the race with ADAM and now the sock? What's next is he going to mess with the FBI or something!? —I wouldn't even be surprised at this point.. you sighed —Right? I wonder what goes through his head, i mean, what's fun in eating a sock? —I don't even want to imagine. "
And there's a silence again. Until Reki broke it once again, looking at you with a stern look on his face.
"y/n, you won't be as reckless as him right ? —Huh? —I mean, last time you raced at S you got injured, we were racing, y'know… —Well hey, atleast you won ! You tried to reassure him —I want to skate with you but i don't want you to get injured, you know, and you just fell off so suddenly, it didn't even feel like it was an accident if i was honest You felt yourself internally panick, you didn't even know yourself if you did it on accident or on purpose. —No, don't worry it's just a silly little injury, it could have been worse. you tried to reassure him, Reki shouldn't be too worrieed about this, it's not like he never gets injured, he was injured for half of the memories you have had with him, he needs to think more of himself too. —Oka once told me, it's not bad to take care of yourself sometimes, you know ? his tone became a bit more stern —What do you mean ? —You don't look like you've been even sleeping at all y/n, and for the record, your injury was supposed to be healed by now, but you keep using your injured arm and your body is not getting enough rest, i'm worried that you'll actually make it worse."
You stayed quiet at his words, Reki sighed.
"y/n, please take care of yourself, i really don't want to lose you too"
you remembered him telling you about his old friend, you felt bad for even thinking for a second that maybe Reki didn't care about you, but now you needed to think of a way to reassure Reki, this was your fault for being reckless. You smiled and said "Hey hey, i swear it's going to be okay, i'm not being merely as reckless as you or Langa are sometimes " you joked and added "I never raced ADAM"
Reki looked at you with a silly angry face "Well it doesn't mean you can go around and make your injuries worse! You don't want to have to quit skateboarding do you? —Oh, come on it's just an arm —Just an arm!?"
You finished your lunch, and as you were about to get up while Reki was scolding you relentlessly about your injury, you tried to grab for your skateboard, and cut Reki's scolding off "Let's get our mind off of it and skate- —Our skateboards got taken away, y/n —Right"
You sighed, it felt empty without Langa. You felt silly for asking to skate into the school's grounds when you were the one refusing it this morning when Langa asked.
Did it ever feel this way when you were gone?
It felt empty even though Reki was still as lively as ever. If Langa was there though, you knew you wouldn't have been able to escape Reki's scolding, he's been pretty insistent for you to take care of yourself since that injury.
"Thinking about Langa, I hope he's doing okay…" you thought out loud, Reki nodded
Reki looked more quiet than usual, he was still talkative but less, it seemed he was thinking about something. No wonder why though, one of his bestfriends was in a hospital.
Well, bestfriend, that's understimating what the both of them really are. They have one hell of a bond. Even you can notice; their eyes contacts are everything. Even If they aren't romantic, they are still much more than bestfriends in ways words can't describe.
He got up and smiled "Well If It's Langa we have nothing to worry about, he always gets out of troubles somehow"
you nodded, chuckling a bit. It's true, Langa always get out of troubles.
The bell rang, you walked to your classroom together. You sat next to Reki, feeling weird that the seat next to you was empty, you missed Langa already.
The class passed, and when it ended it looked like Reki has fallen asleep while he was trying to take notes for you, but you were too zoned out to even notice.
A voice snapped you back to reality though.
"Just because the water is red doesn't mean you can't drink it… Langa what are you even talking about"
It was Reki's, you looked at him, confused, he was actually awake? You stood up and put your stuff back in your backpack, ignoring the burning pain in your arm.
"What do you mean? " you asked, before realising he has fallen back asleep. Reki is one to talk in his sleep afterall, he always does, you could still remember the day he woke up, stood up from his desk and screamed for Langa's name loudly in utter panick in front of the whole class when he was worried about his race with ADAM. You could also remember staying up with Langa when you guys were having a sleepover, just to hear what Reki would say in his sleep, there were no boring nights with Reki even when he was asleep, he was full of surprises, just like Langa, in a way.
"Reki?" you put your hand on his shoulder, he jumped and screamed "AH ?!!" you gestured for him to calm down. ~ Finally, the school day ended, more silently. You were in front of the school, Reki told you to wait here, you knew you had to stay one hour after class anyways to help the janitors clean, so it didn't reallly matter much.
"What are we even waiting for Reki? The teachers are waiting for us. —Just wait"
You stayed silent, until you noticed Miya walking up to you "hey slimes, so are we gonna go get the skateboards or what? You better pay me back after that. *You stared, confused, before turning to face Reki. —Reki, what is this about? *Reki sighed* —Long story short y/n… I'll have the two of you conduct a prison break ! —Wait you don't mean- —We're going to get our skateboards back and get away from here ! Reki exclamed himself, proudly —And then he'll become my cat. Miya added, killing Reki's joy in just a sentence —Don't act smug it's just one day ! —Wanna make it two?"
you stared at them, surprised, Miya didn't bring his skateboard.
So you were going to get your skateboards back and Miya was going to take Langa's skateboard back.
And then you could break out of school.
You stared the ground, your face frowned, and you spoke "They'll call our parents for that —Oh don't worry, i've done this plenty of time with Langa, you just never got into that much troubles before —What? But- you whole lots of crazy!- —They always forget! Infact, when i tried to wait for them to give me back my skateboard, they always forgot, so we have to get these back ourselves before they damage our babies ! —Fair enough i guess.."
You didn't want to imagine Reki giving birth to a skateboard, so you just went along with his plan hoping he'd stop using the name "babies" for the skateboards. ~ You were out of school with your skateboard, at the small skatepark you and Langa usually go to, you could remember Langa practicing tic-tacs here.
You were sitting with Miya as Reki was skating around
Miya yelled at his new human pet " drop, you must! —On it!" Reki dropped down the ramp, and failed, miya snickered
"Wow, and i thought i promoted you to a a golem! —You did!? Reki sounded happy Also If i failed, that's Langa's fault! Reki complained, which led Miya to be confused, he asked —How so? —Today I heard something new and unmemorable. Langa literally swallowed a sock because people on the internet told him to, i can't focus! —He did what!? So that's why he couldn't go pick up his skateboard himself!? Miya looked heavily surprised, he stared at the ground, hiding his concern"
Reki started skating again and raised his voice "Yes, he never changes!" Reki was obviously shaking and struggling to keep his balance, he looked tired and stressed, damn, you hated to see him like this. You looked away from him for a bit, and looked at Miya.
"Miya, how was school ? you asked, curious —It was fine i guess, you ? —You know how people get pregnant around their belly? Well i get brain pregnant, it's like i'm giving birth to so many neurons i'm gonna explode"
Miya stared at you and questionned your sanity. You looked back to Reki who was skating, you decided to cheer him on "Never back down never what!? —Never give up! Reki screamed in enthusiasm, before he falls on his balls and scream in more pain —Are you okay!?"
Reki sat up and gave you a thumb up, before standing up, visibly in pain. You started to wonder if you should join him, he seemed to continue skating despite his struggles, and you were just watching him with Miya, not doing an effort at all.
You can be such a burden sometime, you're almost certain being looked at this way while you're struggling must not feel cool. You remember being scared of people's looks when you started skating.
Reki went up to you, and asked you
"Hey, so y/n how are you feelin- —Meow for me, slime. Miya cut him off and Reki meowed, embarassed and annoyed, you laughed That's a good cat. Miya commented before Reki said —Oh shut it Miya, if we have a beef one day i'll make sure you regret that"
You looked at your phone and noticed that you had a message on a groupchat with Reki, Langa, Miya, Joe, Cherry and Shadow.
…You have a lot of groupchats. Like one that excludes Joe just for Cherry, and one to exclude Cherry just for Joe.
Shadow : " I'm racing a rookie tonight ! Watch me blow them off at midnight ! scary laughter "
It's scary how he used the scary laughters seriously as if he was talking to bots and roleplaying
Cherry : "I'll pass"
Reki looked at your screen, before saying "maybe we should go to Joe's… —Hm? you turned your head to face Reki, he seemed thoughtful. He turned to Miya and said —Miya, let's- —Call me master and meow. —Frick you! —It's apart of the deal —Fine- Master, let's go to Joe's meow —There there that's better. Miya pet Reki's hair and Reki looked like he was trying his best to compose himself, you tried not to laugh —Who's paying ? you asked —My cat is paying. —I didn't even- but yes that's true"
a few seconds passed, before Reki screamed
"WAIT I FORGOT I HAD A JOB !"
Your eyes widened, and you all skated to Reki's workplace, Reki apologized and you volunteered to replace Langa since he was unavailable tonight, since he… ate a sock. Miya was playing on his console while you two were working, you were pretty much zoned out and it looked like Reki would talk mostly to Miya anyways, you were zoned out but you could hear him complain whenever Miya told him to act like a cat, some things about this being inadequate at a workplace.
~ Finally, after that, you guys skated to Joe's restaurant, it seemed the restaurant was still open and Joe was waiting for you, Shadow and Cherry were all here, they seemed to know you'd come. Maybe Miya or Reki texted them to come.
You guys ordered some meals, and Shadow tried to steal Joe's kitchen to cook instead and show his great cooking skills, he wanted to cook you waffles or something… somehow, with his secret recipe. For shadow, excitement replaced fear until the final moment where Joe was able to stop him from using the kitchen furthermore.
Waffles are always better without fire ants and fleas, afterall. (This is an Italian restaurant).
It seemed the restaurant was originally closed but Joe made an exception for all of you because Reki convinced him to.
You were sitting near the window next to Miya, facing Reki. You asked : "So, what are we doing here Reki ? —I wanted to pass some quality time with my friends, you know.. eheh He looked like he was hiding something —That is your friend ? Miya pointed to Shadow which Shadow immediately noticed —Hey! I'm not your teacher or anything! Shadow raged, and Miya shrugged —You could have just invited everyone except Shadow on the groupchat excluding Shadow. Miya said, indifferent, playing on his console —WHAT GROUPCHAT?? Shadow yelled, before Joe told him to quiet down"
you stared at the table, a few moments later, Joe handed you guys over a few plates of food, as you guys ordered. Cherry was sitting next to Reki.
Shadow was renting, something along the lines "My dentist tells me that chewing bricks is very bad for your teeth. But no bricks can hurt my teeth behind this mask! I'm a true man!" you couldn't really understand what he was even saying, too zoned out to even try to understand. If Langa was here, he'd have been very happy to eat all of the restaurant's leftovers. You heard miya tells shadow "Well good for you idiot, just tell me if you want me to call a mental hospital for you"
You were happy you were all together, but you couldn't help but think about tomorrow's school day, you were definitely going to be even more tired than you were today tomorrow.
Joe kicked Shadow out of the restaurant for being a menace to his kitchen in the end as Shadow continued to try going back to the kitchen of the restaurant.
The first school day was tiresome, even if you were in Reki and Langa's classroom, you felt a sort of stress concerning your future, you didn't want to mess your life up. Life isn't just about fun…
Miya nudged your shoulder to get you to listen to whatever they're talking about, and he spoke "Thank god Joe was able to get Shadow out of his kitchen, if Joe ever lets Shadow cooks for us, I won't think twice i'll go : bye-bye-bye —This feels familliar you spoke, the way he said the end of his sentence looked like a song, strange.. —What does? Miya asked —Oh- nothing, nothing."
You stared at your plate and ate a bit, you were slow though. Reki was silent, after some time, Cherry spoke.
" Today I discovered something i never knew about carla before. —Which is ? Joe asks —Nothing. —If you want everyone to have a conversation so bad, atleast come up with something more creative."
the room was silent, Joe and Cherry wouldn't even speak, Reki looked at Joe, with pleading eyes, you were confused. Joe sighed and speaked:
"Say y/n, are you going to S tonight? —Uhm… You thought, S was really fun, and you really didn't wanna go to school and all, maybe you could just go to S and call it your life cheatcode- —I don't advice you to If you're still injured. Cherry said, glancing at your arm —I'm fine guys, i swear —You're not going to race anyone though, right ? Reki asked, looking concerned —Well actually i was thinking about it. you admitted, Reki looked at you with a face of despair and Miya spoke —You're so reckless y/n. —Y/n! please don't hurt yourself! Reki pleaded —It's no use Reki, they don't understand you… —What do you mean they don't understand me!?? —They zoned out again" ~ Long story short, the group convinced you not to go to S tonight, and Reki ended up convincing you to sleep at his place tonight for a sleepover so that you wouldn't be alone in skipping S tonight, but also to be sure you don't go there. He already sneaked to S without his friends knowing before, and he doesn't want you to do that too.
You walked out of the restaurant with Reki, Miya already went home, Cherry already left, and Joe had to clean after you. You already texted your parents that you would be on a sleepover with Reki tonight, you also mentionned that Langa would be there so that they wouldn't ask too many questions, even though Langa wasn't here.
"What a long day" Reki stretched, and looked at you "Let's go"
You both started skating, until it started raining, your skateboard wasn't set for rain, shit.
"Shoot! Y/n this way ! " Reki called out to you, skating away, the rain was getting slowly, no, quickly heavier and heavier, and you ended up falling off, you got up and took your skateboard and ran, Reki was already far away.
Big thunder noises
Oh, there's a thunder. ~ You reached Reki's house, panting and barely breathing, covered in mud, barely standing on your own. He panicked and apologized a thousand times when he noticed you got even more hurt, he took you to his house quickly not wanting to let you get even colder, and he checked your injuries once again, this time, in his bathroom, just in case something was missing in his bag, he was sure to find whatever it could be in the bathroom.
The bathroom looked clean, it was a small room but sufficient, you sat on a chair, Reki opened his bag and a drawer, before checking your arm first, your wounds visbly opened again as your bandages were red. How amazing. Reki probably didn't like seeing your bandages being red so often.
"Damn, now this must be my fault this time. Reki mumbled, as he got rid of your bloodied bandages and pulled up a disinfectant Thanks god the wounds aren't that big, you could have ended up in the hospital like Langa, because of me… —Hey, no, we're fine, we didn't predict the weather."
Reki seemed distant as he stared at your arm, he mumbled something inaudible. He was zoning out while lightly using the disinfectant, you didn't like this. So you spoke.
"You're not a god, you know. —And you're not either, so stop being so reckless will ya? He retorted, unhappy —Say the one who was blaming himself a few minutes ago! You didn't want to let this slide, Reki was done changing your bandages, and he spoke while putting back the bandages supplies into their places —I'm not blaming you! I'm just, well, worried for you you know! —There's no reasons to be. You stared at the ground, ready to deny everything, Reki spoke, almost reading your mind —Where else are you hurt? —Nowhere! You tried to stand up but your legs gave up pretty easily Agh- You almost fell but Reki caught you, some of the dirt of your clothes got to him, you both were still dripping wet, and you were covered in mud, it was a bit awkward, but Reki was there for you, he was like a brother to you —Hold into me, where does it hurt? —My knees —Shit "
Reki cursed and slowly had you sitting back in the chair, telling you to not move and not be reckless.
You and Reki held something in common, you both were pretty stubborn when it came to being fine.
Right now, Reki looked lost in thoughts as he checked your knees, and as he suspected, your knees were hurt, but it didn't look too bad yet, he sighed and looked at you in the eyes "We're going to get that checked tomorrow if it doesn't get better, okay? —Okay..? You sounded hesitant, as if it was weird for him to care about you,but it's not supposed to be —So you can't stand? —Actually yes I can! you tried to let go of Reki's grip, but you held into the chair instead, Reki sighed —Alright, uhm, you're covered in mud, do you want to take a bath? I have some spare clothes for you if you want? He politely asked, feeling bad that he let you get hurt like this —I mean, yeah alright you replied, not knowing why you could possibly say no, being covered in mud really wasn't pleasant"
This isn't the first time something like this happened, you smiled, this is why Reki always had spare clothes just in case, because you can recall the three of you getting all muddy so many times, and you guys would usually have sleepovers at Reki's house more than anyone's house. You knew what was going to happen was that you would take a bath, and then Reki would do so too when you leave the bathroom, clean and changed and as you go get your other clothes cleaned.
You might catch a pretty bad cold tomorrow. ~ After you took a bath and put on the spare clothes that were ready for you, you ended up in the living room, desperately holding into whatever you could hold into, you were told to sit down and not exhaust yourself. But to be honest, you uncounsciously wanted to exhaust yourself, so maybe you could ghost through the whole year, was it selfish? It's just the first day…
The family was really loud and lively, even at night, you recalled that it was often like this whenever you had a sleepover with Langa at Reki's house.
It's weird that Langa isn't here… It feels so empty even with all of the noises going on, Reki must be feeling stressed out. Just as he showed at the skatepark earlier, barely able to keep balance on his skateboard.
You heard one of Reki's sibling, try to tell a story to another sibling, something along the lines of "The llama couldn't resist trying the lemonade…", It felt very silly.
The atmosphere was warm, you sure never get lonely in here, this place is full of life. It was such a warm and fuzzy atmosphere, you couldn't help but smile a bit. Though the noises gave you a headache. Surprisingly enough, it still wasn't too late for Reki's siblings to be awake, somehow. Well, it's true that Reki's mother was desperately trying to calm the siblings down and get them to sleep, you were in the living room, your backpack out, you already had homework on the first day of school, and you could barely focus.
After some time, Reki came downstairs, he seemed to have cleaned himself up and changed himself faster than you did, he walked towards you and sat next to you, opening his backpack aswell.
You both tried to focus with the awkward silence going on between you, it was funny because no one could hear the silence as the house was really loud, but you could still feel it.
After some time, Reki scratched his hair, stretched and sighed "Man, I didn't listen to a single word the teachers said today —You didn't? —You did? —Yes, I mean… you hesitated, you mostly remember having negative thoughts about yourself today, you looked down at your paper I don't really remember anything…"
You felt Reki's gaze on you, you didn't know if it was a thoughtful look, a mocking look, a look of disbelief, or a look of concern, you didn't dare to move your head to know, sometimes it's better not to know, so you tried to focus on the printed writing of your paper.
"Is this history? you asked, Reki gulped —I thought it was maths —But there are centuries on the paper —True… But you have to calculate the centuries right? —Reki…"
You sighed, this was getting nowhere, you were barely reading. Mostly reading with your own eyes but not your brain, a simple sentence was like a treasure hint, each simple little words just wouldn't reunite or make sense in your brain. At that exact moment you just wanted to spend time with Reki, you didn't want to work, it was selfish, yes, but you couldn't help it, you didn't want to drag Reki into troubles though. You knew you were tired, but if you slept right now, you knew that you'd still be unable to work the next morning, it stressed you out, you didn't want to mess up on the second day of school aswell. You couldn't let all these bad feelings stop you, you didn't want to make yourself up excuses not to work, you felt like it was your fault, like you were the one who uncounsciously made yourself feel bad to have an excuse to work less and feel better about yourself. Though it was doing the opposite, and maybe you weren't right about this.
Thoughts were spinning around inside your head as your eyes focused on the sheet of paper and your textbook, you were completely zoning out.
How are you going to do this? How are you going to handle all of this? You messed up, all you had to do was not overthink it and here you already tired yourself out for a whole period, and you're dragging Reki into it aren't you? How stupid can you be? This is important, school is important, you can't just ignore that, it's not all just about fun. Why would it be?
"Y/n" *Reki called your name, looking at you "Hey, Y/n" *he insisted, you shook your head as your eyes widened, you stopped your trail of thoughts* "Yes ?" you tried to hold in your tears, but instead, you yawned, which got a few tears out of your eyes anyway, you whipped those tears away: you were just tired, that was all. Why else would have tears left your eyes? You're tired, nothing more. It was just one or two tears, a natural reaction from yawning, isn't it?
That is, before you realized it, the tears didn't stop leaving your eyes, it wasn't caused by just the yawning, you couldn't control yourself and your thoughts right now. Reki panicked, "Woah y/n! Hey please don't cry uhm-" you hid your face. when you realized.
Fuck, this wasn't the time to be dramatic, your other bestfriend was in the hospital, and all you could think about was yourself. How selfish can you be? Why are you ruining everything?
You weren't looking at Reki but even you could hear his panic, you tried to wipe away your tears and to calm down, it wasn't working out. Reki spoke, trying to be reassuring and comforting "hey, hey, it's okay- it's going to be okay, look at me- Well it's okay if you don't want to look at me, do you want to talk about it? What's up? —It's nothing, I'm just tired you said, your voice was shaking, you couldn't even make your voice sound normal, Reki's siblings were staring at you, great, you're making a scene now. —Is this the school stressing you out again? He asked, you stayed silent and your eyes widened a bit as you stared at the ground, Reki put an hesitant hand on your shoulder and spoke —Hey, it's okay, we're in classes of 30 people, they never check our work- —But I can't mess up you cut him off School's important, life isn't about just fun, work exist too Reki stayed silent for a second, before saying —Hey, I have fun at work you know —Huh? But this is a part time job!- —Does it matter? "
You paused, questioning your life's choices, Reki continued
"Hey, let me show you something" He stood up and led you an hand, you got up and he helped you walk, you guys walked toward the place he usually goes to to work on his skateboards in his garden, it seemed it stopped raining a while ago, probably while you were trying to focus on your work.
"Remember this place?" He asked, you nodded. Of course you can't forget, Reki made you multiple skateboards for free here, it was loud hearing the machines sometimes, but you can never forget a place with such fond memories.
Reki walked and grabbed a piece of wood "your skateboard got wet right? It needs to dry, this can last months, so to wait, i can make you another skateboard before this one breaks" he said, taking the usual measurements of the wood and tracing some lines, you were confused, weren't you guys talking about school and work just now? Why is he suddenly talking about skateboards again? I mean, atleast he was really passionate about it…
You stared at him, a bit dumbfounded, as he work, and you asked, before he turns on that godamn machine that had your ears dying on spot.
"Why are you doing this? —Well, because, if i let you skateboardless and dying to the stress of school, what will i think of myself for letting you down like this? —You're never letting me down, and, as I've said, life isn't about just fun anyway- —But it can be. Why torture yourself? He turned on the machine to cut the wood, making sure to follow the lines he traced precisely, communicating would be harder now, you had to raise your voice —It's not that simple! —Pick some trucks and some wheels"
Welp, there it is, Reki was being stubborn again, does he even understand you?
You sighed and stared at the available trucks and wheels, Reki was a bit too nice, he always gave you wheels and trucks for free.
Small wheels are for tricks, big wheels are for cruising on rougher surfaces. You pick out some wheels, and some trucks. When you think about it, Reki could just make you a board and you could replace the trucks and wheels yourself, why was he doing this?
When he was done cutting down the board, he asked "you done picking your trucks and wheels?" you nodded "mhm" he smiled and looked at the wheels and trucks you picked before nodding aswell, not surprised by your choice. He spoke, almost teasing you.
"You know, you really never changed your style of skating. —I don't really want to. You replied, Reki chuckled —You don't have to if this style suits you"
Reki started taking his supplies to color and decorate your board, you looked at him do so, and he asked "The same theme as usual? —Yes, please don't get too silly about it. You said in anticipation of whatever was about to come, Reki can be all but predictable sometimes —Will do!"
Reki got to work after putting a support under the board so that the paint wouldn't go over all the desk, and you just stared at him, feeling useless. He was used to working on this now to no surprises, and he was extremely fast, he surely looked like a professional. To you, he was like the God of skating, and you're sure many other would agree with you.
"Hey, y/n, want to add a touch of your help too? Let's spray some paint together —Can I really? —Yeah, it's your board not mine, as long as you don't spray paint all over my face I'm cool with it."
You smiled, feeling excited, you chose a color, specifically your favorite color. You started trying to draw some lines on the back of your board, not really confident. Reki nudged your shoulders to tease you, so you fought back.
Before you knew it, your board was full of colors and failed drawings, this definitely wasn't your usual board. And you both had full paint on your clothes, and some on your skin. You both were laughing and hardly breathing, when you calmed down, Reki looked at your board and declared "I shall call it the double painted friendship Reki-Y/n creation board, aka the Reki y/n dp friendship board!" you sighed, there he went again with his ridiculous nicknames, but you didn't dislike it either. If anything, Reki's enthusiasm was cheering you up, at this exact moment, you couldn't even bear to think about school, you just wanted to have fun. So what if they say life isn't just about fun?
You turned to face Reki, your eyes widened, and you looked at yourself. This was a catastrophe, you both were full of paint. Reki looked at you and looked at himself and realised the mess you both have done aswell, he had a curious and surprised look on his face for a second, before his smile brightened, and proud of himself he declared "Well looks like we both had a relooking!" you sighed and smiled "this isn't very healthy" he laughed "Don't worry, the paint is offensive once every 10 years"
"Let's let the paint dry for now." Reki said, before turning to look at you "You good?" you paused and thought, before answering "Yeah, i'm fine, why do you ask?" Reki sighed and said "I was scared you'd flood my house back there. —Hey! I'm not that much of a crybaby! —I'd rather have you cry than stay alone though. Joe once told me to never end up on my own."
You paused and stared at the table "Yeah, that's a good advice" you mumbled, before turning your head to face Reki, a curious look on your face "Say, why did you do all of this? You didn't have to let me pick out some new trucks and wheels, we could have just put the ones from the old board on the new board, you know? —Y/n, this is not the first time your trucks got wet, and i'm afraid they're getting rusty —They are? —Even a 4 year old would notice. —Hey! "
You guys laughed, and you asked "what do we do about the paint? —Let's go get it cleaned before it dries on our face, it's not raining anymore so we can go back to my house and to the cabin when it dries"
You were able to stand on your own, but when you took a step, it really hurts a lot, but you felt like you could handle it, things are way much less painful when you're in a better mood, it's crazy.
Once you entered his house again, you saw one of his younger sister, Koyomi, eating an ice cream and directly turning to talk to you "Hey y/n, i've got something for you —You're not sleeping? Reki asked —Nope, couldn't sleep with all the charades our younger relatives put in the house"
Koyomi took some papers and handed them to you "Here, nanaka and chihiro made these for you, they said they hoped it would make you feel better"
You took the drawings, these were drawings made by one of Reki's youngest siblings, a stickman kind of drawing with some hearts. It seemed even they cared about you. you stared at the drawing, while Reki said "Hey Koyomi, don't stay up too late. —You aswell" ~ After you both cleaned the paint off your face and arms, you went back to the place where the paint dried. You already felt much better, you made sure to keep the drawings somewhere in your backpack, these were silly, but you wanted to keep them in your room or something when you'll go back to your house.
Your phone bzzzzed, you turn on your phone and checked the notification, it was a message from Langa on the trio group containing you, Langa and Reki.
"Hey guys! I'm out of the hospital! :) The sock was no problem much, i'm on my way home!" Reki turned to you "Hm, what are you doing y/n? —Hey, look at this, Langa's out of the hospital you said, Reki immediately looked at your phone without any hesitation and said —Wow, so he really got out of troubles huh? —Yup, once again."
You smiled and typed a message on your phone "Hey Langa, I'm at Reki's house right now, I hope you have a good night, see you at school tomorrow!" you sent the message, before you knew it, reki took out his own phone and typed a message "Hey Langa, btw, i made y/n a new board, wanna video call to see it?".
You saw the message appear on the groupchat, and before you knew it, Langa already sent a videocall ask, you refused as Reki already turned on the video call and one was enough.
It seems the paint has dried already.
Reki picked the trucks and wheels you chose to put them and fix them on your board, you only noticed now but these also got colored in the process somehow, it gave your board a new type of look, you couldn't help but smile. When Reki was done, he took care of the grip tape, and when that was done aswell, he looked at you to present the final result while showing Langa through his phone the final result, and proud of himself, he asked, a big genuine smile on his face "Well! What do you think??" you clapped, genuinely amused. Langa praised Reki.
Reki grinned "I know, i'm the best when it comes to making boards —I helped painting the board too! —You sure are an artist y/n l/n."
Reki laughed, and you heard Langa laugh too. You were smiling, you didn't even know what time was it, you didn't really care about the time anymore, though you could notice dark circles under Reki's eyes, you didn't know if you had them too.
After a small moment of silence, Reki talked, in a low soft voice "Hey, y/n —Hm? —You're right, life isn't about just fun. you dropped your composure when he said this —What do you mean? —Life is about being happy, silly! He messed your hair up, leaving the screen on the desk and leaving Langa confused, he smiled you really are an idiot you know? he teased you, not actually meaning it —Hey! Atleast I care about my grades! You defended yourself, Reki grinned —You know, when it comes to school and grades, i'm not really worried, you build yourself a path towards the future by being happy and doing the things you like, don't you? —Well, it's true but… —So why torture yourself? You'll be just fine, a day of not doing homework won't kill you, hey, what makes you happy? —Being with you you blurted out and everyone else you added, Reki seemed a bit caught off guard, he scratched his head and blushed a bit, flattered, he spoke —Well then use your mind a bit more for us and less for school, I promise you you'll figure everything out at your own pace —Can I really? —Do I inspire you? he asked out of the blue, semi-hesitant, semi-confident —Reki! you nudged his shoulder and laughed —What? —Of course you inspire me! —But i'm not good at school and grades, I don't even care about school as much as you do. —Yes, but you're so passionate and good at what you do. I'm not even sure of what i want to do in the future. —All I did was enjoy what i enjoy. He paused and smiled brightly I love skating, the fun is infinite, it never ends!"
You heard Langa's confused voice through the phone, the lonely blue-haired teenage boy spoke "Y'know y/n, when it comes to school and work, i rather see you happy with average grades than stressed out and on edge with good grades, just like we found you were last year"
You felt a bit embarrassed and nervous, so you stared at Reki, internally begging for him to change the topic. He smiled, and said "it might not be easy, but hang in there, i promise everything will be okay, school won't pick your path for you, school will force you to pick a path, of course school is important, but a balance is important aswell, we can't have you so stressed out that you break down on one sheet of paper everytime, what kind of friends would we be if we let you alone to struggle like this? I don't think that would be very fair, you know. Life may not just be about fun, but sometimes it is. What's more important anyway is to be happy anyway isn't it?"
His confident and long monologue was interrupted by a big sneeze.
Oh, you had all that nasty stuff over your face, dear god.
Reki panicked and ran to grab some tissues, you tried not to laugh at the way he ran, welp, this was really worth not going to S for.
You stared at the phone on the desk and Langa saw your face and laughed as you picked the tissue Reki handed to you.
Through the phone, you heard Langa's voice "y/n, you know, I'm happy with you guys too —You better be." ~ You fell asleep in your sleeping bag, and the next morning, you both were completely sick. And you forgot to complete the homework you were supposed to turn in today. You still weren't even sure if it was an History sheet or a Maths one.
But did it really matter? You had so much fun yesterday, and you cheered up, sometimes it's cool to loosen up.
This is the type of memory you won't regret when you'll be at death's door. This is the type of memory that really matters.
Of course school did matter, but when it slowly kills you and you have no idea of what you want to do, what do you do? How do you balance personal life and school?
Life isn't just about fun sure,
It's about appreciating the moment that's happening right now. And right now, you didn't want to think about school.
Rather, you wanted to think about getting some meds, because you both were REALLY a sick mess.
And little did you know the papers you both left on the living room table didn't last long when Reki's siblings woke up.
Oops?
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wazzappp · 10 months ago
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First bit of graphic design I've done in a year and its a fake logo for a hyperspecific AU... don't know how I didn't see that coming honestly.
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Ok lets talk about why I went with 'Ghost Fighters' outside of the obvious name pun.
The main enemies the boys face would be ghosts. They are composed entirely of the suffering of people who have passed. The few memories that they have are of their worst experiences, but for the most part they just kind of exist as memories of suffering. Generally these spirits move on after a day or two, but if there is a specific strong attachment to a place or person or trauma sometimes they stick around longer. Someone who was murdered would probably not stick around as long as someone who died of old age.
The general appearance is of an emaciated figure with very few features. They usually have 'ribbons' that extend out of the backs of their heads, the ends of these are sharp and used for fighting. The elongated arms and sharpened two fingered hands with a thumb are also used for slashing.
Ghosts seek out similar suffering in their area. They cant move more than 1/2 mile away from where they died, which gives them a bit of room to roam, but if you live in a place where theres a high concentration of murder they have a higher chance of running into each other.
If they DO. It gets BAD and it gets bad FAST. Ghosts can merge together and so your'e dealing with double the ribbons and double the claws. Their roaming spaces merge which mean that they can find more ghosts to merge with. There isn't really a limit on how many ghosts can merge together. When things like natural disasters happen, you can get large ghost conglomerates and FAST.
It is very rare but sometimes the ghosts will haunt people. People who stay in one space the majority of the time are stuck in the same haunting area as a ghost. All they have to do is temporary move away until either a Ghost Fighter destroys the ghost or it dissipates on its own. If they do end up being possessed you essentially have a ghost in free roam. There really isn't bringing someone back from that.
Generally people cant see ghosts. Ghost Fighters can, of course, but there are also very rare 'psychics' who can see ghosts. Most people cant see them until they start to conglomerate in numbers of 20 or 30. By then it is a VERY large ghost mass and needs to be dealt with. The effects of the ghost can be seen (claw marks in cement, dents where they've been thrown into walls) but generally they go un-noticed by the population.
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ALRIGHT. RANDOM FUN DOODLES ASIDE lets talk Ghost Fighter physiology. (it is so so important to me that Roxanne has No Chill whatsoever. SO. IMPORTANT.)
All Ghost Fighters have 'nail polish' with their corresponding color. It used to help them identify each other, but after the rise of nail polish its uhhhhh. not very effective. It's really not nail polish though, thats just the color of the nail now :)
Connection Gems rest on the chest and are embedded into flesh. They allow a Familiar to channel magic through their person! Familiars are a lot like the 'paper flamethrower' metaphor. Lots of power, but unable to use it without destroying themselves. Ghost Fighters allow them a way to express their magic.
EYES. You already know what the fuck it is bro. I don't need to explain myself here yall know me by now but fuck it imma try and find a way to reason it out anyway. Humans aren't really built to contain so much magic, so it shows through in little ways, like shining out of their eyes just a lil bit.
Speaking of which, Ghost Fighters are a little uh. Weird. You know the whole thing with elves? Where they look almost too pretty and the longer you look the stranger it gets? They have that going on. Their hair is always settled just right, their skin is dewy and almost shiny, the light always hits their eyes JUST right. Even bedheads still manage to looks planned and perfect.
SO. When you get a guy like Robbie? Whose attractive to start with but scowls all the time? When he finally DOES smile? Holy Shit. Nobody is prepared for it. Nuclear levels of pretty. Almost hurts to look at. 100 Billion enraptured 30,000 gay / bi awakening.
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More stuff about familiars (Eli in particular. Need to think harder about his specific weirdness), transformation sequences, ultimate attacks, and interpersonal relationships on the way. I just. NEEDED. To get what I have so far out there dude. Brain too full. Door stuck. DOOR STUC K.
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rashoumon-homo · 9 months ago
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"You want to kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid." - SKK Valentine's Week Day 2
Prompts used: Camellias | Floral Troubles | “You want to kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid.”
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The cubicle Dazai was paid to sit in from 9-5 every weekday was in a cluster of identical cubicles, of which there were a dozen or so clusters on his floor– floor eight of twenty-something in the particular office building he worked at. His desk held his computer, his plain blue mousepad, a pad of sticky notes, and a cheap, dime-a-dozen ballpoint pen. If he had it his way, the three and a half flimsy gray walls he was surrounded by for the majority of his time on earth would be decorated with photos, artwork, or at least a wall calendar. But, as outlined in the employee manual shoved deep in his desk drawer, “Alteration or decoration of your assigned workspace is strictly prohibited.” In his first year working at the company, he’d made the mistake of hanging a mini wall calendar– each month displaying a picture of a rare flower along with fun facts about it. His boss had assured him he wasn’t in trouble, necessarily, just that he should consider their meeting a verbal warning and that he would do well to re-read the manual to avoid further issues. And, of course, remove the calendar from his cubicle. Immediately. 
His only solace from the monotony of work was coming home every evening to work on his garden. He’d spent years gathering an impressive collection of rare and interesting plants which now filled every available space in his backyard. Each one required specialized care, the details of which he’d memorized along with every interesting fact there was to be learned about them. The overall look of his garden was, well, complete chaos. The colors and styles clashed ridiculously, and since he rarely planned out the layout of the outdoor space before bringing home a new plant, they were gathered in random clusters with absolutely no organization in mind. It was his personal heaven. Personality oozed from every square inch of the space; a complete contrast to his sterile work environment. It was here that he could truly express himself. 
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway next door put a damper on his mood only slightly. He and his neighbor had only one thing in common: a love for gardening. After that, the similarities ended. While Dazai’s garden was a sanctuary of personality and intrigue, his neighbor’s was as boring and flavorless as it could get. The rose bushes were meticulously groomed to the shape of perfect cubes, all set in rows that reminded Dazai of the cubicles at work. The colors of the roses in each bush formed a gradient, with each manicured block hosting a slightly lighter shade. It was disgusting how perfectly the garden conformed to the “ideal” suburban look. Honestly, who was he trying to impress with all that?
Meanwhile, next door, all Chuuya wanted was to get out of his scrubs and take a long, long shower. He’d been on shift for 12 hours at the emergency room, one of the busier days he’d seen. The whole day was just a constant influx of patients, and as the charge nurse, he was expected to direct all of that. Not to mention they’d had a teen admitted who was badly injured in a car crash— he ended up passing away during treatment. 
In his line of work, everything was constantly chaotic and out of his control. Even with his best efforts, he failed to save patients from time to time. A job as stressful as his would be unmanageable without some kind of escape, so he’d thrown himself into gardening shortly after taking the job at the ER. He’d come to love the meditative, repetitive actions involved in growing and pruning his roses. It was something he could control— the effort he put into their care had a direct effect on how they looked. On the harder days (like this one), even a quick glance at his garden was enough to boost his spirits a little. 
Chuuya dropped his keys and his bag heavily inside the door. One quick look at the garden and some deep breaths, then he’d head up to shower. But when he opened the blinds over the kitchen sink, he saw something that made his blood boil. 
He stormed outside and crouched by the rose bush to look closer at the offending item. It was a camellia, red and stubborn, rooted firmly in the dirt next to the path. He ripped it from the ground and stood up, trying to calm his breathing. This was fine. It was just one weed amidst a garden of hard work. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. 
But then he spotted another, just a few feet away. This one was younger, barely a bud. He let his eyes roam over the garden and was infuriated to find camellias everywhere. Fully bloomed, tightly coiled buds, and sprouts alike; all over his sanctuary. 
The sound of a plastic container being opened drew his attention to the backyard next door. Dazai stood near the fence, feeding his Venus fly trap dead flies with a pair of forceps. 
“You!” Chuuya hissed, marching over to the fence. 
Dazai glanced up, surprised. “What are you wearing..?” he asked. 
“Hah? I’m a nurse, dumbass. We’ve been neighbors for years, how did you not know that?”
Dazai shrugged and fed the plant another fly. 
“What the fuck is this?” Chuuya demanded, shoving the camellia in his fist across the fence. 
Dazai wrinkled his nose. “How should I know? I don’t plant boring shit like that.”
“It’s a camellia,” Chuuya sneered. “And I know you hate my roses. You’ve probably been looking for an excuse to mess up my garden since I planted it.” 
Dazai put the lid back on the container of flies and rolled his eyes. “It’s ugly as hell, yeah, but you overestimate how much I think of your boring-ass flowers.” 
“You’re a horrible liar,” Chuuya said, then pointed over Dazai’s shoulder. “You’re growing camellias right over there.”
Sure enough, there was a small cluster of the red flowers next to the fire lilies. Dazai scrunched his brow. “Huh? I didn’t plant those.”
“Suuure,” Chuuya said sarcastically. “And you didn’t plant them in my garden either.” 
“I didn’t!” Dazai insisted. Against his better judgment, he muttered, “Your stupid garden could use a little personality, though.”
Chuuya grabbed Dazai by the front of his shirt and pulled him forward harshly. “And yours could use a little uniformity, but you don’t see me complaining,” he hissed. 
To Chuuya’s surprise, a grin spread across Dazai’s face. “Oh I see what’s going on,” he said. “You created this whole fight just so you’d have an excuse to talk to me. Planted some seeds in my garden while I was at work, then in yours too so you could blame me.”
“The fuck?”
“Just ask for my number. You don’t need to do all this, chibi,” Dazai teased.
“Wanna say that again?” he growled, instantly bristling at the nickname. 
“You’re even pulling me in by my shirt,” Dazai said with a laugh. “You wanna kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid.”
Chuuya narrowed his eyes. “Do you try to get out of all arguments by flirting?” he deadpanned. 
“Only ones against cute guys.” 
Chuuya hated the flush that rose in his cheeks; hated that he broke eye contact for just a moment. 
“Is it working?” Dazai murmured. 
“You asshole,” Chuuya grumbled, then yanked Dazai the remaining distance. Their mouths collided harshly, teeth clacking. Chuuya kissed him angrily; desperately. It apparently amused Dazai to no end, as he smiled against his lips while holding him close with a hand on his neck. When they pulled apart, Dazai tugged Chuuya’s bottom lip between his teeth slightly. He was still grinning as Chuuya failed to hide his blush behind his hand. 
“Shut up,” Chuuya muttered. 
“I didn’t say anything!” Dazai said defensively. 
“Well… stop thinking then.”
Dazai laughed then, and it was a crime how cute it was. “Wanna come over for dinner?”
Chuuya sighed. “Fine, let me shower first. And take back your dumb flower.” He shoved the camellia into Dazai’s chest and started walking back to the house. 
“Chibi gave me a flower!” Dazai yelled happily, twirling in a circle and waving at a scowling Chuuya. “See you tonight, my love!”
A strong breeze blew through the early evening air, past the cluster of industrial buildings in the city, over the wheat fields by the high school, and finally through the flower fields less than a mile from the neighborhood Chuuya and Dazai lived in. Small red flowers bobbed in the wind, scattering their seeds where the wind blew them. The camellias looked beautiful this time of year.
@bsdfanweek Read this work on AO3
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absolutebl · 8 months ago
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This Week in BL - People of Earth we have VERSE rep in 2 Thai BLs! Amazeballs!
Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.
March 2024 Wk 3
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Ongoing Series - Thai
Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 2 of 8 (10?) - Everyone seems to be a bit of a player and I’m not mad about it. It’s nice to see high-grade flirting, and I really love how very gay the leads feel. Not BL gay. Actual gay. We shall see how it goes, I suspect we are in "messy gay" territory in which case, I predict utter carnage and that this show will drop ranks precipitously for me. But right now? Of all the Thai BLs airing, I'm enjoying this the most. How bizarre. 
I like the side couple (thrupple?) too, despite the prat fall kiss and possible cheating. They very pretty:
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To Be Continued (Thai C3 Thailand grey) ep 4 of 8 - oh dear NO honeychild, face masks are gross tasting!
Rule no 966 of the BL world. He’s never asleep. 
Argh Achi wants Ji so bad. Nice mutual kiss tho, despite Ji's baggage. I guess Ji knew what would happen if Achi stayed? But why is he so scared? Just deeply closeted? The backstory is very high school achy and I feel like it explained Achi but not Ji. And the crying in the movie was lovely, so we totally understand Achi's but Ji is just messed up and confused? I admit to being a bit confused too. Why is Ji the one so angry?
On a totally different aside, I really like how the set dressing is done in Ji’s apartment. It looks lived in and not staged. Super rare in Thai BL. I'm reminded of Ai & Pond's dorm room in Love By Chance, which actually looked like a real college dorm.
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City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 7 of 12 - Why is it always the pulps that actually trot out the best communication, conversation, consent, and healthy relationships? Yes I'm still wincing over the truly bad acting but I’m enjoying their good relationship. The sex scene was sweet and tender, although the likelihood of rose petals getting stuck places wigs me out. (Flower petals + lube = terrible combination. Just FYI.)
ALL PRAISE VERSE REP! And a bottom who owns it! Yay! 
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1000 Years Old ep 5 of 12 - How ridiculously colorful and flirty they all are. There is nothing at all vampire about this show. I’m a bit bored by the restaurant plot but I'm tuning in for the bonkers approach to goth. How dare they be so cheerful with my precious emo youth, but also, how very Thai pulp of them.  
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Ongoing Series - Not Thai
Unknown (Taiwan Tues Youku YouTube) ep 4 of 11 - oh it’s SO GOOD. Reading the yaoi and crying. COME ON TAIWAN HAVE MERCY. The red wrapping of the hands (red thread, yes yes we get it). The boy who doesn’t want to box for so many reasons. Not the least of which is how unpleasant it is to spar with a lover. 
This is easily the best BL currently airing and it is going to hurt us. But I don't care. I love it.
AntiReset (Taiwan Fri Viki/Gaga) eps 8 of 10 - This show is dangerously cute and I’m scared for everyone involved, including me.
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Love is Better the Second Time Around AKA Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto (Japan Gaga) ep 2 of 6 - Poor baby thrown in all willynilly amongst a pack of queeny bitchy gay intellectuals. I'd be lost too. It's the worse kind of fight, one you have to philosophize your way out of.
Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 10fin - They are extremely adorable and it was a very good ending - mature, adult, and bittersweet. I liked it a lot. But I didn’t love it the way I wanted to.
The promise of this show, younger cook courts older divorced office worker, should have been my catnip. I mean if someone pitched this to me in an elevator I would have downloaded it by the second storey. Unfortunately, it did not exactly fulfill that promise, not in the way I'd hoped. Did I still enjoy the ride, yes, but I feel just a little let down. 8/10 
My Strawberry Film (Japan Thurs Gaga) eps 5 of 8 - Honestly now I’m just shipping the two girls getting together. Frankly, I really don't like this show, and normally I'd DNF but there's only a few eps left and nothing else is airing rn.
It's done, ready to binge, maybe I'll finally get to it this weekend
What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps
The Servant and the Young Master (Vietnam YouTube)
Began Beginning (Myanmar YouTube) - A Burmese BL? @heretherebedork vouched for it, so I will watch eventually.
It's airing but...
Time the series (Tue Gaga/YT) 10 eps - it's finished now, I dropped it at ep 4. Should I bother?
Close Friend Season 3: Soju Bomb! (Thai ViuTV grey) 10 eps - I'm exhausted by this franchise and the variety pack style of BL. If there is a particularly good couple (or installment) I might watch it, but I'm letting others decide for me.
A Secretly Love (Thai WeTV grey) 10 eps - I watched the first ep but grey is too much work for this inferior of a show. I may pick up and binge if it gets distribution but for now, it gets a DNF from me. KimCop might have held this crap together but Kim without Cop? No thank you.
Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school, not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing for some reason.
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Gossip
The choreo controversy - Deep Night vs OnlyOneOf. Look, like a musical rift, or a styling photoshoot, there are no new ideas in choreo, I feel like Madonna did this pose too, a long time ago. Certainly someone in the 80s. Or whatever. Anygay, it's an ironic thing to see a Thai BL being called out by a gay-branded Kpop group when both are exploiting eroticized homosexuality for commercial profit... just saying. (HOW DID WE GET HERE?) Not to mention that BOTH are ALSO exploiting the kink community. We live in interesting times, BLabies. In the end, it's a good publicity stunt all round. And I think Nine knows exactly what he's doing (and why he is doing it). Finally: Drama drama drama around coreo? That is V gay boys. Fun fun fun, carry on everyone.
Strike a pose.
You're being recorded for posterity.
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Next Week Looks Like This:
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Starting
3/21 Two Worlds (Thai IQIYI) 10 eps - One of those "he's dead Jim so time travel" thingames staring MaxNat. I'm over this concept but Asia flipping loves it and I do enjoy MaxNat. Phupha (Gun) and Khram (Nat) love each other but Phupha is murdered. Then Khram is pulled to a parallel world where, 12 years ago, Khram and Tai (Max) were in love. However, Khram was killed by Tai’s dad. Now Tai finds alter-Khram apparently alive. But then there is ALSO an alter-Phupha to deal with. (Phupha is played by Gun Thanawat who was Khom, the repressed butler bodyguard from Unforgotten Night. We like this, we scared of the love triangle aspect.)
Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.
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Forgive me a moment of industry noodling?
Have ya noticed that it's slender pickings right now but it shouldn't be? This is not the mid summer slump nor end of year lull. We should be getting some heavy hitters on first quarter release. (Side eyes GMMTV. Perhaps those painful Japanese acquisitions were a bigger issue than any of us realized?)
Anygay, IMHO, Thailand's BL bubble has popped and sponsor money is drying up. This is my shocked face:
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Look, the 2021-2023 level of release and growth (exponential) was never gonna be sustainable, so I'm not surprised. I suspect that in 2024 Thailand will actually produce fewer BLs than 2023 (73, 64 in 2022, and 40 in 2021).
I know I'm sticking my neck out predicting any film industry but... I have seen this kinda thing before and it just *feels* like shrinkage. Thai BL's load has been shot, my peeps. (Not to be crass or anything.)
Oh, don't worry you pretty head about it, it's not going away, just getting less prolific.
Don't we all in our old age?
THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS
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My favorite trope, sniff him!
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Queen. (both Deep Night)
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King. (City of Stars)
Verse rep verse rep verse rep!!! Can you see me doing a little dance this side of the screen?
(Last weeks summation)
Streaming services are listed by how I'm (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are too much work.
The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog
If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.
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benis-chillin · 10 months ago
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Thoughts and theories on Sonic Prime
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So, Sonic Prime has ended, good fellers, and since it's a Sonic thing, I shall simply say…
My feelings are mixed.
So, let's start off with just saying that the animation and voice acting? All good. If the English game cast blew up in a mysterious gas leak, these guys would make for fine replacements. The fight scenes are fluid, though do get a bit repetitive in the final few episodes(cause I think they were running low on budget), and everyone moves better than they have in the games…Maybe ever? Music is passable, but outside of the main theme, it's fairly forgettable. I think they used some game music in those sprites scenes that suck ass, so I don't see why they couldn't use a tune or two. At least use "All Hail Shadow" once, dude.
However, I feel that the writing and premise lets it all down. The premise feels like it would be better for a game or IDW arc instead of the rare animated series, especially since this show doesn't establish what Sonic's world is SUPPOSED to be like for new audiences. Sure, the games are at a decent level of popularity recently, and the movies have boosted the brand considerably in the public consciousness, but at least one episode before we start hopping around the multiverse would've made the stakes feel a bit tighter. Just because this is the game world doesn't mean you can skip basic shit like that. A status quo needs to be established for it to be shaken up.
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And yes, I did say this is the game world. Prime is, by standards I will explain in a bit, canon. Sonic fans have been arguing against this because of little details, like Green Hill being used interchangeably with Sonic's world(even though they never outright state that they're the same thing, leading me to believe this is simply a weird writing quirk), Sonic not noting other Metal Sonics exist when Chaos Sonic is introduced(even though he never says, "I have never seen a Metal Sonic before in my life!" Or anything like that), and Sonic having particularly shaky characterization(bad writing doesn't dictate canonicity, as otherwise the 2010's games wouldn't be canon either).
All of this is not good writing, to be sure, and Sega should've cracked down a bit harder on that stuff while making this show, but nothing here outright contradicts canon, if you know what a contradiction ACTUALLY is. It's an ongoing problem in the Sonic community that they don't know how to lore at all, and Prime is a good example of this. You don't have to like Prime, but if you count Colors or Lost World as canon, then you have no reason to not include Prime. Otherwise, you're just basing canon on what you do or don't like, which is an AWFUL approach to canonicity.
Personally, I slot it between Lost World and Forces for the moment, but this could change at a later date. Now, let's sit down and speculate on some things.
What are the Shatterspaces?
Long explanation short, I don’t believe the Shatterspaces to be a traditional multiverse setup. They aren’t variants of Sonic’s universe in the traditional sense, but rather partial worlds built on “fragments” of Sonic and company’s collective psyche, and this concept can explain a few things.
(Note: This is purely fan speculation, and not Objective Canon Zone. We’ve gotten past that point)
Let’s break down each Shatterspace.
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New Yoke is a dimension entirely overrun by the Chaos Counsel. Nature has been weeded out, and people live by the “mercy” of the Eggmen.
However, this Space is the only one with any Eggman variants, and this is very deliberate, because New Yoke is Eggman’s dream made manifest by the Prism. Remember, his robot was holding it when Sonic shattered it, so it’s logical that at least SOME of that energy came into his control. Hey, if anyone besides Sonic could control it, it would probably be Eggman, right? And when they make a giant construct at the end of Season 2, it looks like regular Eggman, so maybe there’s something to that?
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But of course, that begs the question: Why 5 Eggmen?
Well, 5 Shatterspaces.
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New Yoke-Mr. Doctor Eggman
The most similar to mainline Eggman, it feels best that he represent this Shatterspace.
Boscage Maze-Dr. Deep
The more zen of the 5, who may have more of a connection to nature than the others. For the crime of possibly having touched grass, I give this Shatterspace to him. The closest to a nature side that Eggman has.
No Zone-Dr. Don’t
This one is a stretch, but bear with me.
This version of Eggman is still a youth, likely to have wanted adventure and freedom before reality set in and he chose instead to zone out to his video games and other electronic forms of entertainment as a substitute for the action he craved. Eggman’s a playful sort when he’s not trying to rule the world, so it’s JUST possible enough.
The Grim-Dr. Babble
(Where the hell did he get a doctorate as an infant?)
A Shatterspace fairly undeveloped, its potential not yet fully tapped, much like dear Babble himself. Also a representation of Eggman’s childishness, though perhaps it more links to his feelings of being neglected as a child, as hinted at in the Frontiers audio logs? Who knows?
Ghost Hill-Dr. Done-it.
A shadow of the past, barely hanging on, just waiting to die out so the new hotness can take over completely.
Also looks oddly like Eggman Nega? Idk.
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However, these are merely reflections of what the Shatterspaces already represent, which are aspects of Sonic's Personality…Save for New Yoke and Ghost Hill. The former is mostly Eggman’s domain, and the latter is just what was left after the Shattering.
Also, I believe the Shattering to be an event localized to Green Hill, and not encompassing all of Sonic’s world, which would explain why they use the terms interchangeably. I can’t fully explain WHY I feel that way, just have a gut feeling this is how it works. My main basis for this is the flashback in New Yoke where Rouge and Knuckles are just in Green Hill when the Eggmen take over, suggesting that perhaps they were “localized” when the Shattering redistributed them.
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Oh yeah, let’s explain that. It seems that Sonic’s friends, along with ALL of Green Hill’s residents, didn’t have much control over how they were split among the Shatterspaces, but aspects of them clearly adapted to the worlds they were placed in. For example, Rouge and Knuckles both took charge of the Resistance in New Yoke, which fits them well enough. Knuckles commanded the Resistance in Forces, and Rouge is literally a government spy in the main universe, after all.  Amy likely defended nature in this world, and paid the price for it when the Eggmen turned her into a cyborg. Tails seems to have withdrawn into himself completely, becoming Nine. This universe was made by a villain, so these versions are the darkest ones we could get. The bad ending.
Anyway, back to the other ones.
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Boscage Maze represents Sonic’s love of nature, and is thus dominated by it. The people who live in this Space are thus devoted to their natural world, which adapts to be a primitive society led by more primitive urges driven by the need for survival. Rouge naturally leads again, and her more devious nature shines through as a part of her survival instincts, but she’s still doing better than her New Yoke version. Knuckles leans so far into his naivete from growing up on Angel Island alone that it gets remixed into paranoia, Big is Big, Tails seems to have still been isolated to the point of going somewhat feral, but is accepted nowadays by his peers(and has a knack for technology when he finds himself somewhere that it exists), and Amy vehemently defends nature to the point of absurdity. Much like how New Yoke is an example of technology being too dominant,  Boscage leans towards going too far in the other direction. The people don’t suffer as much, but they still DO suffer in the end if they don’t work together for a better tomorrow.
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No Zone is Sonic’s love of adventure, and everyone in this space represents that. Tails is at his best, being very sociable and accepted by his peers with no hesitancies, clearly. Knuckles' desire for “me beauty” might be a memory of the Master Emerald, but I wouldn’t put too much money in that. Another theory is that it ties into his role as a treasure hunter, without any echidna honor to reel in any greed. This is overall the most positive Space here, tbh. 
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The Grim is simple possibility. The future, what lies ahead for Sonic. He rarely looks to it, never plans it out, instead choosing to just live in the moment, but it’s always there waiting for him.
And yeah, that’s it. The only remaining question is where are these Shatterspaces now that the Prism is restored, and the main universe returned to normal? Well, Sonic gave the energy back that the Prism needed and it didn’t kill anyone, so it’s likely that they exist permanently now, stable outside of the main “multiverse.” Different from a dimension like Blaze’s, and the split timeline caused by Generations. But that’s just speculation. Who knows if these concepts will ever appear again?
Idk, could make for a good fanfic.
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loreholdlesbian · 1 month ago
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Duskmourn Play Booster Challenge
I always like to make a booster pack of custom cards to accompany each set, giving me a chance to play around with the mechanics and a bite-sized attempt at designing for a larger set rather than in a vacuum. (You may notice that I didn't do one for bloomburrow. Uh, moving on,). This is done in the style of a contest from GDS3, and in that vein I try to make cards that not only are reasonable additions to the set but also, whenever possible, are doing something novel with the themes and mechanics, not just rehashing the same old things. I also try to cover wide amounts of ground, in terms of color and themes, not focusing too hard on any one thing.
Art links
Wicker Dancer
Not Done Yet
Lost Prison // Crack in the Walls
Final Ghoul
Zealot of Terrors
Ominous Calm
Regal Simulacrum
Haunting Knowledge
Fear of Loss
Grasping Ghost
Torturous Blaze
Rotrue Remnant
Sinister Passage
Rare
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Card transcription
Wicker Dancer 1GG Artifact Creature- Scarecrow At the beginning of your upkeep, choose artifact, enchantment, creature, or land at random. Until end of turn, you may play cards of the chosen type from your graveyard. Each card you play this way enters with a finality counter on it. 3/3
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This was the last card I made for the pack, and was basically made to fill constraints. I knew I wanted an artifact in the pack, to have a diverse spread of types for delirium, and I knew I wanted it to be green since there was only one other green card in the pack. A green artifact, in this set, definitely wanted to tie into the delirium theme, but I didn't want to just do delirium straight up cause it was already on a few cards in the pack. After a few iterations, I settled on this design which encourages the same kinds of things as delirium does but comes at it from another angle. It's a very Johnny-y card; it can have a lot of power to it, but you need to be able to build around it to consistently use it. Normally I don't like to use randomness as a power limitation, but I think it works well here; being able to choose the type would encourage you to just put it in a deck that wants that one type. Doing it like this means you want to work around the randomness in a way I think will be fun.
Uncommons
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Card transcription
Not Done Yet 3WW Sorcery Return target permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield. If you return a Room this way, unlock one of its locked doors. Survivors never celebrate a victory for long.
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This is a pretty simple card for the white-black reanimator theme. I wanted it to be able to hit both creatures and enchantments to tie into the enchantment theme, and I thought it was best to just let it hit any permanent. Reanimating rooms doesn't really, work all that well though, and since they're a key part of the set I wanted to make sure this card did work with them, so i gave it an unlock clause. It's not really meant to be Room reward, so much as reanimation card that also happens to work with Rooms, and I think i struck that balance well.
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Card transcription
Lost Prison 2U Enchantment- Room At the beginning of your upkeep, you may lock an unlocked door of a Room you control. // Crack in the Walls 3U Enchantment- Room When you unlock this door, target creature you control gets +2/+2 and can't be blocked until end of turn.
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Now this one *is* meant to be a heavy Room reward. Putting it on a room itself let's me get away with a much more niche effect than I might otherwise, cause at minimum you can just use it as a way to use the second half over and over, but if you have other rooms you can use it with those instead and don't have to spend 4 mana every turn to make use of it.
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Card transcription
Final Ghoul 1B Creature- Zombie Final Ghoul can't block. 1B: Return Final Ghoul from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. Activate only as a sorcery, and only if you control no creatures. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.) 3/3
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From before the set even came out, I wanted a card named "final ghoul" and since we didn't get one I had to make it myself. Ties into the graveyard themes of the set.
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Zealot of Terrors 1B Creature- Human Cleric Artifact creatures and enchantment creatures you control get +1/+1. Delirium — 3BB, T: Create a 2/2 black Horror enchantment creature. Activate only if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard 2/2
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I came up with the first line of text as an off-beat way to encourage similar deckbuilding to delirium, but this card felt like it worked better if it just also had a straight up delirium ability to make it more obvious. I had the delirium ability make you enchantment creatures, in order to synergize with first ability. This also works well in an Eerie deck, and I like that flexibility.
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Card transcription
Ominous Calm 2W Instant Manifest dread. That creature enters with a lifelink counter on it. (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature and the other into your graveyard. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it’s a creature card.)
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This is part of a cycle of cards that are all instants/sorceries that manifest dread and put a keyword counter on the card. I just think it's a fun mechanic to combine with manifesting, cause it makes it more than just a vanilla 2/2 when face down and it sticks around when it turns face up and that can be interesting in useful ways. Like if you manage to manifest a big creature, getting lifelink on it is certainly fun.
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Regal Simulacrum 3W Enchantment Creature- Horror When this permanent enters, draw a card. Impending 3—1W (If you cast this spell for its impending cost, it enters with three time counters and isn’t a creature until the last is removed. At the beginning of your end step, remove a time counter from it.) 3/3 It spoke only in gibbers, but its manner evoked the forgotten royalty it mocked.
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Impending was only on a cycle of mythics but it's my favorite mechanic from the set and I was really hoping to see it more than that, and this is my booster so I can. You can't stop me.
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Card transcription
Haunting Knowledge 2U Sorcery Draw two cards. Eerie — Whenever an enchantment you control enters or you fully unlock a Room, Haunting Knowledge gains flashback 2U until end of turn. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
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Here's a simple Eerie reward that uses it in a fun way I feel like we don't see this kind of mechanic get used a lot. Conditional flashback is just a fun way to do things.
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Card transcription
Fear of Loss 2B Enchantment Creature- Nightmare When this creature enters, choose enchantment or creature. Each player sacrifices a permanent of the chosen type. 3/1 It bears the faces of everyone you grieve most dearly.
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This is a design I've had sitting around for a while, and Duskmourn felt like a great place to deploy it. It's a twist on the typical Fleshbag Marauder effect we've seen a lot of utilizing black's ability to remove enchantments.
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Card transcription
Grasping Ghost R Creature- Spirit When this creature enters, exile the top card of your library face down. You may look at that card for as long as it remains exiled this way. T, Sacrifice this creature: You may play the exiled card until end of turn. 1/2 It clings to what it knew in life, no longer remembering why.
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Here's a twist on red's impulse draw effects, that ties it into the graveyard theme by making you sacrifice a creature to get it.
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Torturous Blaze 1R Instant Torturous Blaze deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker. Delirium — If there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, instead Torturous Blaze deals damage to that permanent equal to the number of those card types. Razorkin delight in tormenting the uninitiated.
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I think it's fun to make delirium scale up, so that if you go all-in on diversity of card types in your graveyard you can get extra rewards for it, but that's difficult to do at common. I think this card makes it work though, since it has the baseline mode of dealing 3 damage; it has a very safe floor, it's only the ceiling that's raised, so it's not too demanding of your deckbuilding which feels safe at common.
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Card transcription
Rotrue Remnant G Creature- Elf Druid Survivor Survival — At the beginning of your second main phase, if this creature is tapped, add G. 1/1 Some elves live in the Hauntwoods despite the dangers, in memory of the forests of their ancestors.
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I'm kinda surprised we didn't get a survival mana dork, since it triggers at the perfect time during main phase so you don't need to add any clunky "you don't lose this mana" clause. I went with the powerful llanowar elves version, but to be safer you definitely could make this like, a 2 mana 1/3 or something. But I like to live dangerously.
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Sinister Passage Land T: Add C. T: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to turn a permanent face up. 4, T, Sacrifice Sinister Passage: Manifest dread. Activate only as a sorcery. (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature and the other into your graveyard. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it’s a creature card.)
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A land that can sac itself is great for delirium, and one that can turn itself into a creature later in the game makes for a good use-case for that. So this card kinda built itself. I added the "add any mana" clause just cause it felt right, and made it a bit better in a manifest deck.
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autisticgirliesbracket · 1 year ago
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What makes Baru Cormorant from The Masquerade Series the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:
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- Bracket art created by @anthyiess, used with permission. Baru-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!
Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.
[Image ID. White slide with a digital drawing of Baru holding a masquerade half-mask away from her own face. She is surrounded by text boxes which read,
"her canon low empathy swag whenever she tries 2 flirt she will just explain trade economics untill the woman shes talking to becomes enamoured with her whenever she sees a flock of birds she needs 2 count em (i also do this)"
"low empathy girl swag my favorite repressed lesbian accountant"
"For context, Baru Cormorant is the protagonist of a dark fantasy series about resistance to a vast trade empire. Baru's homeland was colonized by said empire, and Baru decides to join the empire in order to gain enough power within it to free her home. She ends up becoming an imperial accountant and is sent to a remote colony to suppress a brewing rebellion. As the series progresses, Baru becomes more deeply involved with both action against the empire and the empire itself, and has to make a lot of difficult choices. Baru is the most compassionate and authentic depiction of an autistic character who is "low empathy" and struggles to understand/relate to other people's emotions I've ever encountered in fiction. She is very blunt and logic-driven. She tends to view things through the lens of topics she already has a lot of understanding and enthusiasm for (i.e., math and economics) and has trouble with things that don't fit that mold. For example, at one point she begins to realize that other people also have complex inner lives (her low empathy swag!!!) and could only understand/convey this concept by comparing it to hashing (a one-way function, where a specific input will always result in the same output, but that output is not exclusive and may be shared with other inputs. So you can understand that any person you see was shaped by particular experiences or "input", but you can't always tell what those experiences were just by looking at the "output"). Baru struggles with social interactions (outside of the context of power struggle mind games), frequently missing "obvious" subtext in ordinary conversations. Baru can come off as "emotionless" but is shown to feel very deeply, particularly being motivated by deep love and grief throughout the series. She infodumps to people for fun and to express affection; for example at one point she decided to start courting someone and went about that by telling her a bunch of fun facts. There's also at least one scene where she gets overwhelmed and bites herself to calm down, which is a really common stim that I'd never seen depicted in fiction before! Due to the series' historic-inspired fantasy setting, terminology differs from the real world, and words like "autistic" are never used in the series. However, Baru is described as a "savant" by her imperial mentor, a term that in the real world has heavy association with autism. In summary, Baru is so thoroughly autistic-coded that I believe that she was intentionally meant to be read as such and personally count her as "canon rep". Particularly, Baru displays many common autistic traits that are rarely portrayed sympathetically in fiction, much less for characters who are also explicitly written as women of color. Her autistic swag is so massive, reading the books made me realize I'm autistic. I love her. Also she's canon lesbian. Thank you for your time."
"Baru’s canonical biggest character flaw is forgetting that other people also have thoughts feelings and agendas just like she does and her special interest is finance i love my low empathy bestie <3"
"Hiiii she is the most autistic narrator of all time. I don’t have the time to pull text but just trust me on this. Low empathy swag she’s just like me for real the way she connects with other people her special interests in birds and stars the way her mind works she gets me so well. Autistic swag. Also she’s pulled like 6 bad bitches with it"
"Had to have it explained to her that other people have inner lives and motivations just like she does one time. Low empathy queen"
"DIversity win! Your math savant with bad people skills is a lesbian!" End ID.]
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