#had options on which way to go - of course i picked the version i did

[p1hypen]

y(ours) — P1HARMONY!maknae line

a continuation of what it’s like dating the younger one’s and their familiarity with your personal belongings. ft. non-idol!p1h maknae line x gn!reader

a/n: this is my attempt at easing back into writing, apologize if it’s super rough :(

intak

your vinyl record.

it was gifted to you on christmas about two years ago. you’ve always dwelled on wanting one of your own, but never had the balls to go out of your way to purchase one because they could get pretty pricey. a lot of your extensive research and effort you spent scouring the internet to find the perfect vinyl record you’d like pointed to signs of something completely out of your budget. well, not completely, but unrealistically obtainable with the numbers you’ve been receiving paycheck-to-paycheck from your job.

so, each time that the holidays were around the corner, and whenever your mother would ask for your christmas wishlist, you’d throw in several other items you’d like but never included the idea of wanting a vinyl record. that secret desire of yours was something you kept to yourself, something you never brought up in conversation, nor was it something you’d expect to receive unless it was coming out of your pockets.

lo and behold, on the morning of a wintery cold december 25, when you were gathered around the christmas tree with your siblings and parents to open your presents, there sat a box with a fragile sticker stuck to the wrapping.

to: y/n :)

from: mom and dad

since then your prized possession has followed you to college and your off-campus apartment whom you share with your three other close friends.

intak, especially, took a liking to your music player and never misses an opportunity to use it. whenever he visits your place (which is almost every day) he makes it his unrelenting mission to flip through your vinyls and place his pick of the day on to the turntable. his personal favorite is cigarettes after sex, a band you actually introduced him to.

while you don’t mind sharing things, especially with your partner, you’re pretty sure intak has used your vinyl record more often than you have. ultimately, you don’t mind. it’s rather endearing knowing that what’s yours also belongs to him.

shota

your nintendo switch.

“y/n can i play super smash bros?”

shota doesn’t even need to ask for your approval. in fact, he already knows your answer will always allude to a ‘yes,’ but he does it anyway despite the electronic device already in his possession.

“of course,” you would say.

naturally you grew up owning multiple generations of nintendo ds’s. when nintendo came out with a new updated version you’d go to the game store to trade it in for store credit just to get the latest release. this routine continued up until middle school when your gaming hobby no longer prevailed itself in your interests.

as months passed and 2017 eventually rolled by, the internet buzzed with life after nintendo’s announcement about the upcoming hybrid console came to light. rest assured that you were one of millions who preordered the device and waited impatiently for it’s hard launch date to release in store.

but again, school started to pick up and extra curricula’s were time consuming, that playing video games became less and lesser of an option for you to indulge in.

leave it to shota to pick up your slack. because if it’s not super smash bros that he’s try-harding at, it’s either the suika game, animal crossing (if he really feels like it), or pokemon. an odd rotation but who were you to judge.

“wHat!” he yelps from the couch. “how did he dodge that!”

you giggle at his typical gamer-behavior, closely reminded of yourself.

jongseob

your digicam.

the sony cyber-shot camera has been by your side since you were in the 5th grade.

it was a hand-me-down from your father’s box of electronic gadgets he owned back in the day; a lot of which were collecting dust in the garage for not being used in so long.

while tossing things away to relieve the clutter and deciding what to keep, you remember discovering the digicam at the bottom of the pile after laborious digging. your father briefly taught you how to turn it on and off, what button to press to take a picture, how to record a video, and the different settings you could play around with.

your digicam has followed you around the world to different countries for family trips, witnessed you graduate from high school, contained a lot of embarrassing photos of you and your friends, watched you grow since elementary to your first day of college, and captured numerous flicks featuring new faces.

when you started dating jongseob, your photo gallery has been nothing but candid pictures of you and him (mainly of you).

your boyfriend is constantly bringing it along with him to events or outings, because, in his defense, he just wants to create some memories for you both to look back on someday. sometimes he goes out of his way to point and direct you on how to pose.

once, over dinner, you asked jongseob if he’d rather upgrade to something better and not outdated, like a canon or even a proper film camera. however, he is not one to budge and refuses to give up the obsolete digicam he unintentionally took ownership of.

“it’s special,” he pouted. “and sentimental, too.”

you smiled, “i guess. i just can’t help but wonder if you prefer a greater upgrade.”

“trust me, this has everything i need. now show me that pretty smile of yours.”

[dranathedragon]

I’m a D&D nerd, who is currently obsessed with Dead Boy Detectives, so of course the “What class would everyone be?” thought has been tickling me. I’ve seen a few other people post their thoughts on it, and I’ve been reading the amazing “Messrs Payne and Rowland’s Adventuring Agency” by @terresdebrume whenever it updates. Seriously, it’s really good, highly recommend. So I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring and see what anyone else’s thoughts are while I’m at it. Just doing the core four in this post.

So let’s get the easy one out of the way first, Crystal. She’s 100% a sorcerer, her power comes from her bloodline, she was born with it. Because she’s psychic based I’d say she’s specifically an Aberrant Mind sorcerer, without all the deep space tentacle monster baggage. Though she does have disembodied floating eyeballs in her psyche so MAYBE!

Next up is the second easiest, Edwin. He’s a wizard, everyone knows he’s a wizard. What KIND of wizard though? I’m going with Order of Scribes. He loves that little notebook so much, it gained sentience. How awesome would it be, if in this D&D version of the show, Edwin’s notebook didn’t follow him to hell because it was his sentient spell book, and it stayed behind with a purpose? It stayed behind because it KNEW Charles would never leave Edwin there and he would attempt a rescue. It KNEW Charles would go, and it KNEW it had to stay behind to help him. It showed him the things he needed to see, the information and maps that would reunite him with their wizard. I just love that.

Next up is Charles. He was a little tougher. I’ve seen quite a few posts saying that he’s a barbarian, and at this, I must object. At least with the criteria I’m using I suppose. Charles’ power doesn’t come from his rage. The one time we see him using his rage to fight, Edwin’s horrified and worried reaction pretty much confirms this was wildly out of character for him.

Just as an aside, I’m a firm believer of when Edwin said, “That was extreme”, he wasn’t talking about knocking the night nurse off the cliff. He was talking about Charles’ reaction in general, it was an extreme REACTION. He’d never seen Charles act with that much anger, hate, and violence before. He’s not an attacker, he’s a defender. It scared him, but he was scared FOR Charles, not OF him. Our wizard just isn’t great at people’ing. That’s a discussion for a different post though! Back to the topic at hand!

So, if I don’t think he’s a barb, what is he? Well, I’ve got two possible options. One thing that’s said quite a bit in the show, is how charismatic Charles is. And let’s face it, he is. So, using that logic, I’d say he could possibly be a Paladin. Specifically, an Oath of Devotion Paladin. I mean, come on, his power would so come from his extreme devotion to his favorite wizard. That would be a fun one, but there’s my second option which I find slightly more plausible.

It’s shown multiple times in the show, that while Charles claims to be just the brawn, he’s actually very clever and capable of thinking outside the box. Not to mention, he’s all about magic items. Bag of holding, enchanted cricket bat, enchanted jar/paper weight, enchanted lullaby ball, the disguises, the list goes on. So he’s smart and specializes in magic items, that screams Artificer. I’d say he’s a Battle Smith Artificer, some of their specialty spells are based around defending/supporting their allies, and you can’t tell me he wouldn’t find having a little robot pet, sorry STEEL DEFENDER, completely aces. He’d also name it like “Steve” or something and treat it like it was his and Edwin’s child, fight me on that lol. (Jk, don’t fight me I don’t like conflict!) Update: Charles’ lock picking has been mentioned and it just added to this for me as Artificers get expertise in thieves’ tools. How did I forget this?!

So that leaves Niko, who is kind of the wild card. I saw at least one post saying she’d be a bard, but I don’t think that’s accurate. Bards are all about attention (well mostly, I guess whispers would be an exception but she wouldn’t be a whispers anyway) and the whole sprite possession thing seemed to kinda make her uncomfortable with it. Idk, it just doesn’t really fit right to me. On the same thread though, so far in the show, Niko’s only real power is to see the dead. That might be expanded if we get a second season (🤞🏻), but for right now, that’s all she’s got other than being a good friend and excellent reading comprehension skills (which I might revisit this using that last one later). That said, since she got that ability (technically) because of the sprites (more because they almost killed her, but also they’re with her in the igloo so this still might work!) I’d say Niko is a Warlock. Just by the by, I hate that the class is called “Warlock”. That’s a word that came from an old English word meaning “oath breaker or he who breaks their oath”. Warlocks are all about MAKING not BREAKING pacts. Just a weird choice but MOVING ON! Since the sprites seem kind of Fey, I’d say she’d be a Pact of the Archfey. Nothing to do with the pact’s skill set, since we’d have nothing to compare it to, just because they seem fey to me.

So that’s what I’ve got so far. I might think of other characters’ later, like what would Jenny be etc. What do you guys think? I like to hear other people’s opinions on this! It’s fun to bat around!

[enchantedchocolatebars]

A Winsome Witch And A Happy Human Chapter 1 : Our Story Begins

Written by 💕 enchantedchocolatebars 🍫 (me, lol).

Ao3 version.

Previous Chapter 1.

Commission cover art.

Cover art poll.

Chapter titles.

Fic playlist 🎵 💕 🎶 ✨️ <3

Cover redraw.

Enjoy!

Even though the Titan did enjoy watching his living son from the floating cubes that drifted around in the realm known as the In Between as doing so gave him the opportunity to watch his son grow up, he also liked spending time with his unhatched children.

Tonight was family game night.

"So," the Titan began, smiling what was a close approximation to a smile down at his three little titan eggs who were sitting in front of him in a pool of shallow water.

Egg number one wore a pink bow, egg number two wore a blue baseball cap, and egg number three wore an egg-sized 'Bad Girl Coven' t-shirt, which matched with the one its father wore.

Reaching behind his back, the Titan happily pulled out two board game boxes.

The box in his left hand had a picture of a checkerboard, while the other displayed the image of a black king chess piece.

"What game should we play tonight?" he asked his egglings, not expecting them to give him a verbal answer as he had the ability to comprehend them without verbalization.

He holds up the first option. "Checkers?" He lists off, shaking the box some before bringing it down and lifting up the second option, repeating the process. "Or chess?"

The eggs, of course, stayed silent about the choices, but still communicated to their papa.

"…,"

"…,"

"…,"

The Titan couldn't contain the buoyant laughter that decided to bubble up out of his chest when he heard them.

"Very well," he said with a second chuckle, stowing the checkers box behind his back once again before using a single beckoning gesture of his finger to raise a table from below the shallow surface of the water.

Once the Titan sets the chess box down on the table, he opens it and takes out the board before laying it out.

"We'll start with chess first and play checkers afterward. I'll even throw in an extra game just for the fun of it," he tells his eggs with a tender smile, placing the black and white chess pieces in their proper places.

He puts the pawns in front, then lines up the other pieces symmetrically with the king and queen in the middle.

Next, the Titan walks over and, with extra care and very gentle claws, picks up his little eggling in the blue baseball cap.

Heading over to its chair, he produces a plump white pillow from thin air onto it and carefully sets it down.

Two more plump pillows are conjured across from the table as the Titan picks up his other two eggs and settles them down on their seats.

They were going to watch their papa play against their sibling in a match.

Upon taking his seat at the table, the Titan casts a sunny smile across his scruffy face as he gazed at his child.

"I know this is your first time playing chess," he began in a kind and understanding voice before continuing.

"So I'll share with you what I know."

"…," went the egg to its father.

Such an innocently childlike response led to the Titan's soft chuckle, his bony smile reaching all the way up to his round, hollow eyes.

"Don't worry," he reassured to his unhatched egg softly.

"I'll explain all the basics to you, and we'll start slowly and take our time while playing."

Chess was a challenging and complex game, he knew that.

The Titan wasn't very fond of the classic board game at first when he first started playing it with a human man with blonde hair and a forelock.

However, as their games progressed and the man taught him the basics, his liking for it increased.

"…?" asked the egg.

The Titan nodded. "Promise," he said as their chess lesson began.

The two most crucial pieces in the game are reached for by clawed hands.

"See these two guys here?" The Titan asked his egg, holding the pieces in his hand before continuing.

"In chess, we call them kings. Each player only gets one, and they're the most important pieces in the game. You want to attack your opponent’s king while also keeping your own king safe and protected."

King.

Safe.

Protected.

The Titan's mind was filled with memories of his oldest son.

He sighs of bliss from the memories before continuing with his explanation.

"Once the king is captured, the game ends, so always remember to keep him shielded."

As the Titan lists off the other pieces, he points at them.

"Each player controls 16 pieces: 8 pawns, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 1 king, and 1 queen."

"…?"

Papa Titan chuckles.

"The knights are the little horse heads, and the rooks are the little castle towers," he told his little one.

"Each chess piece has its own unique way of moving across the board and potentially capturing your opponent's pieces as it goes."

He points at the pawns.

"Pawns have the ability to move one square forward per turn, except for their first turn when they have the ability to move two squares forward. Pawns move diagonally forward by capturing other pieces diagonally. They cannot move backwards."

After explaining the other pieces to his egg in great detail, Papa Titan moves on to the gameplay and strategy.

…

"… And that's the game!" The Titan finishes his final statement with a grin.

Hands are placed on his hips.

"Sounds simple, right?"

"…," the egg said otherwise as a multitude of thoughts swirled inside its shell.

The Titan nodded with complete understanding of the overwhelming feeling.

"It's a lot to take in, but I think you can do it," he gently encouraged with a fatherly smile before continuing.

"Since you're just starting out, focus on always protecting your king, and you'll do just fine."

He gestures for the egg to make the first move.

As soon as he blinks, he observes that a white pawn has moved two spaces forward.

The Titan smiles, doing the same with his black one.

Upon the second blink, his eyes detect an advanced white king on the board, causing him to let out a jolly laugh.

"You're already a natural at this," he complimented, moving his knight.

Blinking, he notices that his child has pushed his king piece up a space.

In response, the Titan opened up a rook by pushing a pawn.

After more pieces are pushed, the Titan blinks again and sees that he’s been checkmated.

He gives a playful laugh. “Well, that was certainly fun! You win!”

A hand hovers over the egg, gently patting the top part of its shell. "Good job."

…

After family game night concluded, the three eggs, who were now wearing small night caps that fit them just right, were curled up in bed under a thick comforter together as their father entered their room with a light brown hardcover book tucked under his arm.

"I'm hope you're all ready for tonight's story," he began, his voice so soft and tender as he took a seat in the rocking chair in the middle of the room.

"Because it's one of my favorites," he reveals with a gentle chuckle, showing off the cute cover to his children.

It was adorned with a gold border as scatters of sparkles and hearts were displayed in the background.

A happy human dressed in a pink suit and a winsome witch dressed in a blue gown were in the foreground, their respective palismen on each of their shoulders.

Behind them was another human with a beard, angrily spying on them in a bush with a bird perched on his head.

"It's titled 'A Winsome Witch And A Happy Human'," The Titan read as he opened the book and turned to the first page.

"Our story begins in Bonesborough…"

[dailycharacteroption]

Book Review: Pathfinder 1E Core Rule Book

And so we begin something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: Book Reviews!

In this special, I’ll be taking a look through various Pathfinder and Starfinder books that I own and generally talk about Their content, their artwork, and other things that offer pros and cons about them.

And what better way to start than with the Pathfinder core rulebook!

Ah yes, the storied ancient times of 2008. I had just graduated high school and was getting into community college. Before that point, Pathfinder had already been writing adventures for 3.5 D&D as a strange and controversial ploy to tap into the market of RPG gamers that had rejected 4th Ed. However, they had no intention of stopping there, starting with their Core Rulebook, which took the info in the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide of D&D 3.5 and revised it in preparation for the launch of their very own system and products.

What was tricky about this was that some things, such as summoning spells, had to be designed for a book that was technically not out yet: the Pathfinder Bestiary, so the writers had to figure out what monsters were going to be in the Bestiary but not be shared with the Monster Manual counterpart (which is why the 3.5 PHB has all the different sizes of giant spider/centipede/scorpion on them whereas Pathfinder did not, for example).

All in all, this was the effective launch of a new product off the bones of an old one, which really hadn’t been done to this scale before, pushing the limits of what was outlined by the OGL. It was rare, fun, and exciting times, and nobody can claim that Paizo didn’t succeed in that regard.

But let’s get down to it with the actual content of the book!

Now, it’s going to be literally impossible to list the content of the book without comparing it to the D&D work it was based on, so I’m not going to even try there, but first off, compiling the Player’s Handbook and DMG into one book was a good move on Paizo’s part, for while it made for a hefty volume, it was still less expensive to prospective GMs than the PHB/DMG/MM combo of D&D.

Inside, the actual content works hard to refine the formula of 3.5, developing a design philosophy that rewards the player for sticking with things instead of punishing them for diversifying. Favored classes are now picked by the player on start with no restrictions, and said favored classes reward you with bonuses rather than reducing skill points.

Speaking of which, skill ranks are no longer super costly for going outside your class skills, and while you get numerically less, they reward much more, giving bonuses for the class skills as well. Furthermore, the skills themselves are consolidated, with several being merged into one skill (such as Spot, Listen, and Search all being Perception now)

Furthermore, Classes had all been refined as well. Pathfinder introduced new versions of old abilities, such as making certain class abilities available for a number or rounds per day instead of daily uses of variable value that then run out, such as barbarian rages and bardic performances. Meanwhile, clerics gained the vastly superior channel energy, and if they actually wanted turning/rebuking undead in their arsenal, there were feats for it, and the system for doing so was simplified compared to the frankly absurd original system. And then there were quality of life tweaks like giving druids, paladins, and rangers options for not having animal companions (and making companions much more clear-cut), barbarian rage powers, rogue talents, and the like, and of course, giving sorcerers bloodlines to really help diversify them. (Not to mention giving sorcerers and wizards better hit dice so they don’t keep dying at first level.)

Meanwhile, while feats remain a core part of the system, they made little tweaks to old favorites and added important new options, including something as simple as “have another rogue talent” or “have more rage rounds per day”.

And spells! The spells in the Core Rulebook are pretty much all lifted from the PHB, but their design aesthetic was shifted, with save or die spells dealing massive damage instead of instant death (protecting player characters and monsters alike), while the polymorphing spells were much more balanced: adding set abilities at certain levels instead of just letting you become anything and potentially break the game with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Monster Manual, alongside other quality additions.

And moving on from the player-centric options, the GM stuff is somewhat stripped-down, but still very important, ranging from advice about how to build encounters to NPCs as well as general environmental rules and the like, all very fun and important stuff.

Throughout the book, the art also really helps convey the aesthetics and vibe of the world of Pathfinder, with not just primary Pathfinder artist Wayne Reynolds, but a dozen or so other artists as well. Additionally, the art helped bring to life the example “iconic” characters that became the stand-in representation of typical members of each class. Admittedly, a lot of this art is borrowed from the 3.5 books that came before it, but we’ll forgive that. It was their first book of an entirely new system, and that borrowed art was pretty dang good.

Additionally, each chapter sports an opening with a few paragraphs describing the scene of the chapter splash art, which really conveyed that the iconic heroes depicted therein were, you know, characters with personality, not just example art. Which I feel is an important thing when trying to depict a game where players are meant to bring their own characters to life. (I should note that Seltyiel, the iconic eldritch knight, and later magus, was the only one of the prestige classes to be considered a true iconic with his own lore, while the others were only just character art. Probably because he was specifically F. Wes Schneider’s baby).

Overall, the core rulebook has a lot going for it. It took everything we already knew from 3.5 and refined it to be less forcing players to build their characters in certain ways via punishment, and more rewarding them for choosing to build their characters a certain way, while also balancing and changing assumptions about certain feats, spells, magic items, and even the underpinning of how XP was awarded and NPCs were built. Not to mention all the effort to make it seem like the underpinning of a living world through the art and descriptions (name one thing about Pelor in D&D other than his domain list and the fact he’s a neutral good sun god. I dare you).

Now, that isn’t to say that it’s all peachy keen, though. In their efforts to make the core book mostly setting neutral, the core book fails to give more than a few paragraphs about the planes, which is fair, they were still hashing out their cosmology at the time. Additionally, a lot of the book’s novelty at the time was based on the changes that it had made to various otherwise familiar things. Some of that impact is lost if Pathfinder is the first RPG you pick up, and for all it’s simplifications, Pathfinder remains a very crunchy game with a lot of moving parts (I still get new players that struggle parsing the fact that “natural armor” is an entirely separate bonus and not a specific type of armor bonus), all of which can make it much more intimidating to get into compared to 5e (i.e., the one thing that 5e has over either edition of Pathfinder.)

And I think that will do for today. If there is any final thoughts I have, it’s that for it’s humble beginnings as a new system which was little more than a revision of an older one, the core rulebook was, and remains, an important lynchpin of the system (the core book being important? Shocking.), but as we do more of these reviews, we’ll also see how other books shaped the system and the lore. Look forward to more this week and in the future!

[prinnamon]

Hello! I saw your post about subtitling and fanworks other than fanart and fanfics and you mentioned being a subtitler yourself. If you’re okay with answering this could I ask how you started being a subtitler? (if that’s even how it works lol) I’m guessing it depends on what you’re subtitling but I’ve always super appreciated subtitles and the ppl that make them and think it would be fun to do

hope you have a nice day/night!

this ask sat in my inbox for a while because sadly my PC's power supply unit failed and made it less convenient for me to write lengthy posts. however! i'm back in the swing of things and im too excited to let it sit here any longer.

long post under the cut!

to start off, i wanna make it clear that what i do currently is write english-language subtitles for english-language content on YouTube! there is no translation involved. i'm not confident enough with any other languages to sub any other kind of content. so all the advice i can offer is gonna be related to my specific experience! (i'm learning that maybe i should have used the word "captions" instead of subtitles to eliminate confusion. you can tell i am an amateur and not a professional since i thought the words were largely interchangeable)

i started doing captions for fun several years ago as a fan of The Shrieking Wizard Co! that company/channel had an associated discord server, and there was a section for fans to submit captions for their videos using a service called Crowdscriber. i was not super good at it or familiar with any of the best practices at the time, but i could make out even overlapping voices pretty well and i had a lot of free time!

the SWC is no longer around as a company, but even before that i'd fallen off of doing captions for them since school started to eat up all my free hours again. recently, though, i picked the habit back up and started doing captions for a niche machinima series that a friend got me to watch! the first episode and a half already had captions, so i was dismayed when i realized the rest of the series lacked them. in a sort-of special feature video from a couple years back, the creator mentioned plans to enable community captions so fans could pitch in if they wanted! however, since then, YouTube has removed the community captions feature.* but the creator is still active and the series is still ongoing, and i figured i probably had the tools available to me to caption the episodes on my own. i reached out to ask if he'd like the help, and he said yes! so wahoo!

a lot of creators would probably be happy to accept volunteers to help them with captions. some larger creators may even be open to offering someone a paid job at it. the worst they can do is say no or not respond, so there's really no reason to be afraid of reaching out about subtitling one or more videos that mean a lot to you! sadly, this is not going to be as reliable for older stuff on abandoned channels. you may have the resources you need to subtitle something but no way to reach out to the creator so that your subtitle files can be uploaded and seen.

the first step of my process was to download all the episodes of the series that i wanted to caption! it's also fine to go one at a time if you lack the storage space, of course. i used VLC to download YouTube videos (check out this tutorial! it wasn't what i used at the time, but i think the one i did use is out of date and your odds with this one might be better!), but i know there are other reliable options out there.

YouTube's built-in caption/subtitle editor is pretty ass and not fun to work with! i find it frustratingly limiting. luckily, there are free programs which do it better. i've got decent experience editing videos, so the free version of the program DaVinci Resolve is my subtitle editor of choice since it feels very much the same as editing videos like i'm used to. i'd open it up and take some screenshots to show off the process, but my PC is currently not functioning. i will say that i found it pretty easy to muddle through after a couple basic "how to add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve" tutorials.

i still don't know if i'm the best person to give lessons on best practices for captioning, but here are some very basic guidelines i try to adhere to:

don't let captions take up more than two lines on screen at their standard size! three or more lines of captions cover a lot of what's happening on screen. there are times when it might be absolutely necessary because characters' lines are overlapping while other sounds are also occurring which are crucial to the viewer's understanding of the scene, and that's okay, but 3+ lines of captions should really be a rarity.

generally try to have one sentence on screen at a time! there are plenty of exceptions to this. for example, a character may utter several short sentences in a short amount of time (eg. "Yes. Okay. I understand.") which don't make sense to break up any further because the captions would be flashing on screen for such a short time, impeding readability. moreover, a character might say a sentence that needs to be broken up at a logical midpoint so it doesn't take up three or more lines on the screen.

preserve comedic and dramatic timing. sometimes the above rule must be sacrificed so that the punchline of a joke or the narrative twist of the knife is not revealed before it's supposed to be revealed.

sounds that characters acknowledge and react to, or which impact your understanding of the scene, should be represented with a caption. the audience probably needs to know about [distant gunfire] and [pained scream]. however, in a lot of cases, a sound is implied by what the audience can see or is unnecessary to their understanding of the scene. the audience probably does not need to be told that the door which they can see opening is making the sound that a door makes when it is opened. the audience can probably infer that the character who they can see walking is making audible footsteps. but then there are times when these sounds might be important because the characters comment on or react to them. it's situational. i say use your best judgment.

generally, above all, be courteous and remember that subtitles are a tool, and they're not something silly with. it's really not the place for jokes. it's more clear and useful when a gasp is captioned as [gasp] as opposed to [O_O] or [le terrified gasp]. it's more clear and useful to describe the sound of an airhorn as [airhorn] than to write [HOOONK!!!]. and please don't use captions for extensive easter eggs and inside jokes. like alt text, it's not a place to hide treats for people who click a secret button. it's an accessibility tool. (i'm pretty serious and passionate about this point, and i don't wanna see jokes about it in the reblogs or replies.)

if you can understand and transcribe what's being said, you Must do so accurately. this includes swear words. this includes slurs and disrespectful language and words and subject matters you're uncomfortable with. if you can't bear to type these things out, you're not the person who should be writing captions for this particular piece of media. if a hearing viewer can hear it, it must be captioned. deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers deserve to know exactly what is being said.

this page might be able to help you get started with some more specific professional guidelines! i disagree with some of these; for example, subtitling a foreign language as [speaking French] is really not ideal, because a hearing viewer who speaks French would be able to understand what was said, so you're giving the folks using the captions an incomplete experience. like i said above, if you can understand what's being said, transcribe it accurately.

YouTube accepts at least a few different file formats, including .sbv and .srt (if you're saving as an .srt from DaVinci Resolve, make sure to check ".srt Without Formatting"). proofread your work before sending it out/uploading it to catch surface errors! in fact, i recommend checking the captions in YouTube's subtitle editor by uploading them on a private video to see whether it throws up any errors at you or has any unintended formatting junk that you need to go back and eliminate.

i hope this was somewhat helpful and can maybe inspire you to go for it yourself! this mostly felt like me rambling about my personal experiences and opinions, haha. at the very least, if this didn't make any sense, maybe you can look at it and go "well if she's this incoherent and can still write captions/subtitles then certainly there's hope for me" lol. thanks for inviting me to talk about the thing i'm passionate about. it's a joy whenever someone asks me about this. i hope to get to do it as a job someday (though i'm not looking forward to when i inevitably have to caption somebody as [speaks Spanish] due to professional practices).

*i have heard from one or two folks that YouTube's now inviting viewers to contribute captions in a different way, by "providing corrections" to a video's auto-generated captions! even if this is true, i have to say it doesn't really excite me. in my opinion, trying to work around the automatic first pass is usually a worse experience than starting from scratch. the auto-generated timings tend to be really bad, usually not cutting naturally at the beginnings and ends of sentences, and that's ignoring the fact that auto-generated captions also censor swears and transcribe many things incorrectly. YouTube really should never have removed community captions. i hope they get brought back or replaced in a meaningful way

[purseowner4thequalityanimation]

400 Follower Special - The Trial of Obtaining and Using Lucifuge

Thank you for your continued support of my blog. Normally I would just post a GIF set and be done, but the demon I had planned turned out to be a huge pain in the ass so I thought I would share the pain. All images under the cut. Spoiler warning and flashing/bright lights warning.

I wanted to make walking/running GIFs of Lucifuge, a high level Tyrant of the Dark-Chaos alignment. He was one of the few remaining unique models in the game. Interestingly NINE appeared to be his playable debut, similar to Gemori and Seth. All three originally appeared in Shin Megami Tensei II as NPCs and would only gain stats in later entries.

NINE, like the name suggests, has nine different potential routes. The usual Law-Neutral-Chaos alignments make up only one axis of endings, with the other being  comprised of Dark-Neutral-Light for a total of nine combinations. From what I can tell by following guides online, you must be on the Dark-Law path in order for Lucifuge to appear and fight you. I realized he had to be defeated to be fused when none of the supposed recipes to make him worked. (Notice the words that are bolded, they’ll come in useful later.)

So I loaded an earlier save from before the alignment lock and got to work getting to the Lucifuge fight, which involved threatening to kill my in-universe little sister to gain enough Dark points for the route change. Prior to fighting Lucifuge himself, I had to fight the ugliest NPC in the entire game who supported himself with 3 Legions and could instantly kill me with Budufyne. Cool. I forgot to take a picture of him. Once he died, Lucifuge showed up to fight me. He was also a pain, as I was down to one demon from the previous fight and he nuked them immediately. But eventually he died, and I was able to proceed.

Now, this is all taking place in the final chapter of NINE so obviously a lot of plot stuff is popping off. Raguel the angel shows up to throw an energy ball at NPC lady Feris, and to serve as the next boss fight. Raguel was much less difficult to defeat.

Raguel’s dead, but this priest isn’t here to deliver a eulogy. The next big player reintroduces himself by throwing an energy ball at Raguel in a bit of poetic justice for Feris earlier, then asks us to join him on the roof. Damn, everyone’s throwing energy balls in here. Here’s a WEBM version if you’re into that shit.

We witness the digital world going to shit on the rooftop and get offered a choice between siding with him or against him (& Sumire, who you can kinda see in the right-hand background).

I choose against and we begin another boss battle. This priestly fellow turns out to be Sariel, another angel, except he’s a fallen angel and at odds with his fellow Shin Megami Tensei II alumni Raguel. Neither of the fights after the Legion Guy-Lucifuge combo were nearly as difficult, so Sariel also goes down. I say “neither” but I forgot to mention I also killed a childhood friend, Baraki, inbetween the Lucifuge and Raguel fights. But that’s not important.

What’s important is I got through all the bosses, and got to a point where I could finally fuse Lucifuge. Which I did, easily.

Finding a place to take GIFs of Lucifuge walking would be tricky, because at this point in the game my first pick, Shinjuku, was no longer an option. Maria, the holy mother, is waiting there to take me to the domain of Yaldabaoth, the false god, so that I may kill him and bring about the reign of Law, and I really didn’t feel like doing that. Even if it would mean seeing her cool not-a-statue-with-dinosaurs-on-it design that never appeared again.

Instead I made my way down to Roppongi, which usually has great music but during this endgame bit is instead silent. I went to summon Lucifuge into my party and got a message I couldn’t. Oh, of course, you can’t have Law demons and Chaos demons in the same party. Doy. Duh. You could never have party that was mixed Law and Chaos in these old SMT games. So I removed the Law demons, set my Navigator demon to neutral and then tried to summon Lucifuge again.

The message remained. What could the issue be? Why was I unable to summon Lucifuge into the overworld? What was this last hurdle between me and Lucifuge? If you have your notes from paragraph 2 and 3, you may want to consult them now. There’s also a hint in the previous paragraph! Put on your thinking caps. Get out your detective pipes. Don’t scroll past Sukuna Hikona until you’ve made a guess. Are you sure of it? Really sure? Alright. Here’s the solution to this locked room murder mystery that robbed me of half an hour of my time:

YOU CAN’T SUMMON CHAOS DEMONS AS A LAW-ALIGNED PLAYER, EVEN IF THEY’RE LOCKED BEHIND THE LAW ROUTE. 

For some reason I guess I assumed this wouldn’t apply to me, and I continued down the Law path subconsciously knowing I wouldn’t be able to actually show off the demon I was dedicating so much time to obtaining. Thankfully, once I realized this I thought to redo this endgame stretch from ANOTHER back-up I had.

And it worked! Instead of fighting Sariel I gave him a disc, murdered Miranda and was able to summon Lucifuge.

Lucifuge offers to hug it out in apology for causing me such pain. I still couldn’t make gifs of him in Shinjuku because Maria is still there, but instead of trying to take me to Yaldabaoth’s realm she’s trying to kill me. And I really don’t feel like taking her on right now. Not when she’s throwing out chains and sefirots like this:

Shin Megami Tensei NINE is a game that exists. Thanks for enjoying my blog. Hopefully I’ll have some neat stuff by the time there’s 500 of you following me.

Also somewhere along the line I did a shooting-energy-ball-gesture at my little sister to disarm her, who was trying to kill me. Probably because I threatened to kill her earlier. Oh well. Get logged out, idiot.

[thepariahcontinuum]

An MHA x Parahumans Crossover idea

Because I did the same thing for RWBY x Parahumans.

Which members of the MHA cast would each member of the Slaughterhouse 9 try to recruit for their "Try-Outs" the way they did in Brockton Bay?

Hatchet Face: Okay so in canon Hatchet Face doesn't get to make a selection, because he's dead and the others are picking his replacement; also we never got much of an insight into him beyond 'Serial killer vibes' now for the RWBY version of this I picked Tyrian for matching vibes and there is a very straightforward obvioucs answer here, but you'll see I saved that for later. The least important member of the nine can pick a minor character so: Moonfish, the guy with the teeth

Mannequin: For someone whose whole modus operandi is to find Tinker class Capes who are trying to make the world a better place and break them there really is only one option in the MHA cast and that is Mei Hatsume.....Try not to think about the fact that Mei's Quirk is related to her vision and not her genius and so there's an easy but symbolic way for her to pass Mannequin's challenge of "Change yourself"

Crawler: Crawler's nominations are a unique thing, he doesn't nominate people with any intention of the actually surviving and joining the Nine, all he wants is the strongest possible opponents to fight so that he can keep on evolving and that makes things simple; I considered Deku, Shiggy and Allmight but really, the best possible challenge for Crawler would be All For One, something that gives him a chance to evolve to fight multiple different threats at once.

Bonesaw: Easiet possible answer: Dr Kyudai Garaki/Daruma Ujiko, the Nomu scientist; of course Bonesaw wants a grumpy grandpa mad-scientist to join the family.

Burnscar: Okay so hear me out, in canon Burnscar forewent her opportunity to nominate in order to visit someone she was in the Parahuman Asylum with; so I think that yet again she'd forego her chance in order to basically veto someone else from being nominated. In this instance I'm gonna go with the idea that she saw Shoto's burned face and selected him/the Todoroki family as off limits for the rest of the Nine....Also because when she's not in serial killer mode she's a weeb and a dork and the idea of her being awkward as fuck but thinking that this is clearly the start of a romance is amusing to me.

Shatterbird: She takes fighters and cold blooded killers, or people she can mould into cold blooded kilers....I like the idea that she was weighing up several options, maybe Endeavour, maybe Mirko, maybe Lady Nagant but then she heard about Katsuki Bakugo; a promising young hero who has already proven his abilities, his capacity for violence and has already been kidnapped by one villain team seeking to poach him. Immediately she decides that he's the only possible candidate.

Siberian: In canon he recruited Rachel because she was an outcast who reminded him of his daughter and I honestly considered the idea of taking one of the Heteromorph heroes like Froppy or Mina but then I had to slap myself and realise that Himiko Toga is the obvious choice....Also Toga and Burnscar can be Yandere together.

Cherish: Again, in a situation without Alec Cherish would just pick whoever reminded her most of Alec and initially that was gonna be Todoroki; son of a bastard and clearly the favourite....When Burnscar denied her that I like to think she debated picking someone close to Shoto, like Momo just to be petty, but whilst scoping out UA she found someone whose personality reminded her of Alec; I think she'd nominate Neito Monoma....Granted Shinsou's power is closer to Regent's but Cherish picked her brother to get him killed, I think we all want Monoma dead at least a little.

Jack Slash: Okay this gonna be another 'Cop-out protag vs villain match up' but hear me out....I think Jack would go looking for Stain and be unimpressed in the end, the same way he was with Oni Lee and then start looking for other candidates, if Hatchet Face was dead than I can see him wanting Aizawa as a replacement, if not then maybe LeMillion for the potential and the opportunity to break someone heroic....But, in canon he forewent his chance to nominate in order to have his game with Theo; and I think if anyone's gonna piss him off like that and make him second guess himself and change his plans....It's gonna be Deku, the kid who started with no powers and who even the Hero Killer respects; of course Jack Slash is gonna want to tear him down.

[stemmmm]

Stem's thoughts on Harvest Moon: Back to Nature

This game is the first to boast a set of mechanics that I think are the most easily recognizable as how modern farming sims work. It’s the first to have cooking, a detailed tool-upgrading process, a mine…  All prior games have been leading up to this!

This is the first console release that I had no idea even existed. In hindsight, it explained why I kept running into game screenshots that looked like they were from a certain game but definitely weren’t whenever I went on random google-images sprees, because this is a straight up asset flip. It’s impossible to play this without comparing it to Harvest Moon 64, the console release that came out not even a year prior. Going in, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to assess this game without comparing it heavily to the remakes that came after it, considering Friends of Mineral Town was the first HM series game that I personally owned and I played it to death, but that proved to not be a problem at all, thanks to its relationship with HM64. 

To be clear, this game is absolutely on par with 64. Just in terms of things I liked about that game, this one has more events with NPCs, they’re easier to catch, they’re relatively spaced out to fill the full three years you’re expected to play (rather than only triggering based on friendship levels alone), the gameplay in general runs smoothly and naturally, and the addition of some new decorative assets on top of the old ones makes it look so much nicer while still maintaining the crunchy, old art style. The only thing I really hesitate to say is better than 64 is the pacing, but I’ll get to that. First, I need to go over the gameplay.

The new

It’s hard to say that the game is mechanically too different from 64, other than the inventory and the fences. Do fences finally work as advertised? Well, yes and no, but it’s at least better than when the fences were the thing summoning wild animals in the first place. 

The way fences function is most changed by the fact that the wild dog has finally gained corporeal form. After 6PM, if you’re on your farm and have animals out, the dog can come to visit and won’t really attack your animals, but it will bark at them and scare them. Your only solution at this point is to wack that thing with a hammer or other farming implement until it skitters off, or if your dog is well trained, he can help you fight the beast off as well. 

The effects of the beast (making your animals unhappy) can be prevented in several ways. Of course, there’s always leaving your animals inside, the time honored tradition that it is (and my personal choice). Alternatively you could put your animals inside a fence. Issue here is that the dog can absolutely bark through the fence, so it kind of does nothing to help you. However, if the fence is two posts thick all the way around, the dog can no longer reach your animals, so in that sense, the fences finally work! It takes up way more space and way more resources though, plus the fact that fence posts rot over time. You can’t really use rocks to compensate because the wild dog walks right over them. The final option is to just not be outside past 6PM. If you’re not there to see it, the wild dog does not exist. I rarely played days that long anyways, so I could have left my animals out all the time with no fences and no problems, but then you run into the issue that your field is massive and it’s way too easy to lose track of your animals. 

Oh, and there’s one other detail that I almost forgot– you don’t need to leave the animals out overnight anymore anyways. They finally eat during the day, at least my chickens did, and they were the only animals I bothered to put out because it was as easy as picking them up in my hands to put them back away. I love not fighting livestock hitboxes.

Inventory-wise, this game gives you a myriad of options for carrying things. Firstly, there’s your rucksack which you’re able to buy a larger version of, so you can carry more on your person. Then there’s a basket you can buy which allows you to pick things up in bulk, but not have access to them, so it’s kind of like a shipping bin that you carry around, except you still have to dump it in the shipping bin later, unlike the horse’s saddlebag which IS just a mobile shipping bin. I never got to use the saddlebag because it’s something you get with an adult horse, and despite my best efforts, Barley decided my horse didn’t love me enough and took it away from me. :( My horse loved me a lot though. In the end, my rucksack was big enough and my growing operation was small enough that I never even saw a real need for the basket or saddlebags. Maybe I would if there was any urgency to ship things before 5PM, but things won’t rot in the shipping bin here, so you’re free to take all the time that you need. I actually encourage taking your time, there’s three whole in-game years that you’re expected to play, after all.

In terms of other new additions, there’s now a fish pond on your farm, kind of like GBC2 had, but a little better. This time it’s not just for storing fish (something that’s much less of a concern when you can ship things any time of day), but you’re also able to breed and grow them. The store in town sells fish food that you can use to breed more fish, and just leaving fish in the pond over time will make them grow larger.

You can also finally cook things, rather than just buy meals or collect useless recipes. You have to upgrade your house to get access to a kitchen and then buy the utensils elsewhere, but once you’ve done that, you can make anything in the game and unlock new recipes by either being told them by someone in town or just trying things out for yourself! You cook by choosing both the ingredients and utensils, meaning you can make entirely different things while still using the same ingredient! Cooked meals make for fantastic gifts, and as a result, there’s a whole new feature that I love built around giving you the ability to cook new things, which is the shopping channel on your TV.

Every Saturday after you’ve upgraded your house, the shopping channel will sell items for your house at random. They’re mostly cooking utensils, but there's also a power berry in the rotation. Nothing’s cheap, so it’s a good way to keep the player working and making more money. This is one of my favorite new things, as it gives you more reason to engage with your TV, and it forces you to pay attention to what day of the week it is in game even more than usual. Having one day where you can do something as opposed to various days that you can’t (days certain stores are closed, for example) does so much for making the days seem different and makes you look forward to the next week on a regular basis, as opposed to only looking forward to town festivals which are less frequent and more varied in terms of quality. To buy things, you have to run down to the inn which has the only working phone in town– a charming little reminder that this game is set in a rural town in the 20th century, back when everyone wasn’t so easily connected and it was normal to only have four channels on your TV. Hell, back when it was normal to have cable.

Anyways, on the topic of buying things, while stores in SNES and 64 mostly had you walk up to an item on a shelf to select it and purchase it, this game still has that function, but it far more heavily leans on menus for just about everything aside from a few items in the general store, like the fish food, inventory items, and some cooking ingredients. The most bizarre shopping experience comes when you try to upgrade your house, where you’re forced to follow the very specific order of chicken coop upgrade, to first house upgrade, to barn, to second house, to hothouse for growing crops in any season. It’s kind of weird and confusing the first time you run into it, because it’s easy to imagine something went wrong or that you need to do something else to unlock your house upgrade, but I imagine this was the result of a couple of things. For one, having multiple tiers of upgrades on your house may have been a little strange to implement with their menuing system– I know that the way things worked in 64 was also very confusing and unclear, and in that game, all of it was presented to you the whole time. For two, this game is… really easy as an adult with a functional brain, so it’s a decent way to keep you working on stuff and bar you from having your house upgraded to maximum before the end of year one (which I still did anyways).

Getting all those upgrades takes a lot of wood, so it’s important early on to make sure you have a good ax. Tool upgrades now expand on 64’s leveling up mechanic by requiring you to gain experience with the tools and then take the tools along with a type of mined ore to the blacksmith who will upgrade that tool for a fee, which very nearly brings us to the way that upgrades are most commonly handled in farming sims to this day! It also gives purpose to the cave/mine, which has been a feature in nearly every console release up to this point but was never really fleshed out. Speaking of which, compared to 64, the mine is now available year round rather than just in winter. Instead, there’s a secret mine in the middle of the mountain lake full of higher quality ore that unlocks in winter. There’s no winter crops once again, so as long as you’ve got enough cash saved up, the lake mine makes winter the perfect time to upgrade all your tools, because as long as the tool is leveled up enough, you can skip straight to later upgrades.

The old

What’s truly the same as 64, or at least negligibly different, are the general mechanics for growing crops, caring for animals, and building relationships with people. The town– while arranged differently and with the addition of a specialized chicken store, a general store fusing the 64 bakery and seed shops, and a blacksmith –is generally about the same size as it was in 64, if you take into account all the offshoot areas that weren’t quite based inside the town-proper. Areas like the beach, woods, hot springs, goddess pond, mountain, and summit are all still here and generally serve the same purpose. It’s occupied by generally the same people as well, though only in appearance.

Even the number of festivals is almost exactly the same, though the subjects and contents are different. While there are a couple more minigames incorporated with the festivals here, I would say this game loses out in terms of the town having a sense of culture and life, in that none of the festivals have anything to do with personal beliefs or spirituality in any way other than the goddess festival, which is established as a dying cultural practice, and maybe the music festival which takes place in the church, and that’s it. However, the game actually has something of a narrative defense in this regard: the town pastor isn’t a religious man, which is kind of bizarre but it does track with everything else going on. Religion doesn’t really exist in this town, so rituals wouldn’t really exist either. I do still find the lack of distinct culture disappointing compared to 64, which was brimming with it, but it’s a small nitpick.

Another nitpick I have, one much more tangible, is that it lets you walk behind walls and buildings, which would be one thing if this was played at a straight-on viewing angle and with controls that easily mapped to that, but much like in 64, the camera is set at an isometric 45 degree angle which game controllers are not really designed for. If you walk behind something, a goofy arrow appears above your head to show where you’re at, but it’s still not clear enough that I didn’t regularly run into trouble just trying to go through doors. There aren’t a ton that are an issue, only two that I can think of off the top of my head, but one of those two is the entrance to your own bedroom after you’ve fully upgraded your house. Your bedroom is the place that you have to go to save your game and move time forward, it’s mandatory to go through this door every single day. 

What are you farming for?

The game opens with a flashback to your childhood…. If you’re playing as a boy. If you’re playing the version released later where you play as a girl, the story is completely different. This is the first entry in the series where you can marry men! But I didn’t play the girl version, so everything I share about the story will have to do with the original, boy version. There, in your memories, you were visiting your grandfather in the country who was too busy with work to play with you, so instead you met a girl who lived in the town and played with her the whole time you were there. Before you left, you promised to see each other again. 

In the current day, your grandfather has died and you’ve been given the option to take over his farm, though the townspeople are hesitant about having someone new in town. As a compromise, you’ll be able to take care of the farm for three years, and as long as you can bring the farm back to its former glory and get along with the townsfolk by then, you’ll be allowed to stay living there! But if you don’t use the land and don’t make any friends, you’re out.

This comes across as a really harsh ultimatum, especially if you don’t know what that “former glory” means, but what it actually translates to is “farm…. At all”. Just ship a couple things, and you’ve basically covered the farming requirements. The harder requirement is to make friends with the people in town, though if you aren’t managing to do that, you’ve missed out on the entire point of the game. In this iteration of the Harvest Moon series, your goal isn’t to farm for crops… but for cutscenes.

Much like 64, every marriageable person has special cutscenes associated with how close the two of you are, and additional cutscenes involving them and their romantic rival. There are also cutscenes to do with the various people in town, as a general story progresses over your three years there. Beyond the familiar mechanics, you’ll see some familiar faces, as every character is reused from 64, just a little to the left. Their families and careers are slightly different, as are the people they date and marry, thus bringing an entirely different story to the table. For example, instead of Lillia’s husband being Basil, a man who brings her loneliness because he leaves for half a year, her husband Rod isn’t present in the game at all, having gone off on a long journey to find a cure for her illness, something she didn’t ask him to do and is pretty peeved about. There’s also the little girl May, who instead of having a working father who’s so busy that she never gets to see him, was abandoned by her mother and lives with her grandfather.

Unlike 64, a lot of these relationship cutscenes, both for you and for your rivals, are slightly less dependent on your relationships with everyone. Instead, to fill out the three years of gameplay, they’re based on time passing. While it’s generally possible to get married as quickly as possible, your rivals will never get married until year three. To fill out all that time, there are a lot more cutscenes that don’t have to do with romance, and a lot more sidequests given to you.

Every marriageable character and rival has a sort of side quest of varying levels of difficulty which gives you a decent bump in their friendship. By varying levels of difficulty I mean it can go from just telling Gray “yes, you can spend a day or two working on my farm in a way that doesn’t inhibit my ability to do anything,” and then in return he weeds your entire field. Or it can be like Ann who needs you to bring her three eggs every single day for a full week without missing a single day or the whole thing ends, and your only reward other than friendship is to get the payment you would have gotten for the eggs anyways.

Probably the most famous example of these quests is Cliff’s, due to the fact that he will leave the town if it isn’t completed, and because it’s so important to his character that it was the only one of these side quests included in either of this game’s remakes. He’s a wanderer, depressed, without a job and without anywhere to go. For his quest, you’re approached by Duke from the winery at some time in fall, asking if you can help with the year’s harvest. If you can bring along a friend to help, that would be great too. The only person you can invite is Cliff, and if you fail to do that, he’ll be gone by the end of the year. What isn’t included in the remakes is the “minigame” you have to do every day of the week that you’re hired, where you walk up to all the grape vines and click on them until you finally pick up some grapes with zero visual feedback. It’s not the hardest quest, but it is certainly the most tedious, and the most punishing if you fail to get Cliff on board.

What you realize pretty quickly as you get on with the game is that the original prompt that you came back to this town to see your childhood friend again really isn’t relevant to anything. None of the girls indicate anything about that to you until the very end of the game, if you got married. What’s going on in the town really has nothing to do with you, and that’s fine. Everyone’s lives are rich and vibrant, and often pretty tragic, and it’s very fun to get deeper into the stories and get a peek into some of the town lore. There is one plotline in particular that overtakes the entire narrative, and it reveals to you what happens when you don’t manage to make friends with everyone in the town. It turns out the town is hesitant to let new people in because it’s full of bigots.

The real story

There are two characters depicted as being a different race than the town at large. One of them is Won, who is portrayed as a con artist and scammer, and appears to be Chinese. He’s introduced when the cop in town comes by one morning to warn you of a suspicious person spotted in town, and Won appears on your farm shortly after. I don’t know exactly how that storyline ends, because I didn’t report him on account of not being a fucking snitch, but Won occasionally sells an assortment of items inside the inn and sometimes comes to your door to sell very useful things like a vase and dog ball.

The other character, Kai, is the only dark skinned character in both this game and in 64, where he worked for the winery and came across as… suspiciously servile. In this game, he shows up in the summertime to sell food at the shack on the beach, and has gained the reputation of a heartbreaker, which has made nearly every man in the town absolutely despise him. At first you might get where they’re coming from, because his demeanor is pretty snarky and smug, but to me it pretty quickly came across that he only acted that way as a defense mechanism, because there are only so many ways you can manage people constantly attacking you for no reason and holding yourself as superior to them isn’t a bad choice. It’s obvious how deeply in the wrong the town is in one of the first events you can get after Kai shows up, where he gets cornered in the inn– the only place he’s able to stay while he’s in town –by at least three different men and you’re given the option to either pick a side or call the whole thing stupid, which it really is and Kai agrees.

The two who hate him most are Duke and Rick. Duke is an alcoholic with notorious anger issues. You can learn much later that his problem is that his daughter allegedly left town due to Kai’s influence (I imagine because he made her realize this town sucks). Meanwhile, Rick hates Kai because his sister Popuri is crazy about him and Rick probably fears for the same result. Popuri is a seemingly cheerful and somewhat childish girl who wants to be helpful. Her family runs a poultry business together, but she was never taught or allowed to do any work, which leads to a bounty of frustrations in her life. To make matters worse, her brother seems to be very possessive and is controlling over who she gets to hang out with, particularly when it comes to her hanging around Kai. The way both Duke and Rick behave gives off the impression that their frustrations with Kai have nothing to do with anything Kai has done, and everything to do with the fact that they’re miserable people to be around. 

As you follow the story of Kai and Popuri, you learn everything about the culture problem in the town, the double-standards of acceptance that let you get away with defending Kai while he continues to get teamed up on, and you choose whether or not you want to help Kai and Popuri escape from it (albeit temporarily, they both come back every summer). To be clear, I loved this storyline. The experience of helping the two of them, though on a heavily controlled course, made me feel like I was actually making a difference in characters' lives. And the resulting lack of Popuri’s presence in town afterwards made things feel tangibly different than they were before. Farming sims seldom have interpersonal conflicts that go this deep, and it really enhances the story! I know I spoiled the whole thing here, but in all fairness, I’ve known how this story ends for decades and still had a wonderful time going through the motions. It’s more about the experience than the destination for sure.

My critiques

To beat the game is extremely low-stakes and slow-paced. You’ve got a lot of time to see everything the game has to offer, and just about all of that comes from having good relationships with the NPCs. The problem with this is that if you’re competent with the mechanics, getting through the game can be a total slog. Part of this is because it loads pretty slowly, but there also isn’t very much to do with your time. Since you need a lot of money to get animals, and a ton of money to upgrade your house enough to get married since that’s locked behind other farm upgrades, you do need to do a little bit of farming, but I personally never even touched more than a quarter of my field between crops and grass for animal feed. The ending requirements didn’t ask me to ship that many crops, so I didn’t. I just grew what I needed, and after a certain point, the amount I needed was “nothing”, so I stopped gardening.

Lack of requirement to do so wasn’t the only reason, though. I enjoy farming mechanics, so I would have done it if I wasn’t trying to focus my time elsewhere– on getting story events. By the later points of year two and three, that’s all I was after, and while they are locked by your relationships with the characters, I’d already gotten them as high as I reasonably needed them. I just had to wait for time to pass at that point, and I was getting impatient. The way cutscenes are locked off in this game is that they’ll see you’ve reached the relationship threshold, and then wait until a certain time-marker has passed. Once you’ve met both of those, it’s just about being in the right place at the right time. By and large, the time-marker is the turn of the new year, so everything fires off in a frenzy on the first day of spring that you go into town. I think my record was triggering four cutscenes in sequence by walking in and outside of the poultry farm area a couple times. 

Fortunately, the events for Kai and Popuri were locked until summer, when Kai would come to visit, so it wasn’t truly everything happening as soon as spring came up, but still, fall and winter usually had absolutely nothing going on. To make matters worse, once year three rolls around, chances are that you’ve gotten all the relationships filled and all of your progression finished, so it’s just a waiting game to get everyones’ weddings to trigger and then truly be done with story content until you’re evaluated at the end of the year.

This is where we loop back to the fact that I wasn’t farming. If my relationships with everyone were filled and I wasn’t doing anything on my farm, what was I doing? Sleeping. For months at a time. Just to get through things quicker. In year three, I got all the marriage cutscenes I could (one wouldn’t trigger, don’t know why but I had to just give up on it), and then went to bed until the end of the year. My last manual save was dated “Summer 9, year 3”, meaning I slept through three entire seasons to get to the end of the game.

And for what reward? I mentioned previously that this is low-stakes. Technically, all of the games prior to this are low-stakes as well– the requirements to simply not lose your farm are generally pretty relaxed. It’s the variety of “good” endings or praise that you get which often require a frankly obscene amount of work. There are many good endings to be had, but only one bad one. Not the case here! There are different endings for if you didn’t grow enough crops, ship enough things, or make any friends and therefore are kicked out of the town, but if you did manage all three (which is hard NOT to do), there is only one ending you get where the town gathers to tell you you’re welcome to stay in town and congratulate you on your hard work. Even Kai shows up! It’s a nice bit of fanfare but… do I deserve it? It’s on me for playing the game this way of course, but after just sleeping through almost a whole year, I don’t really feel like I earned any praise. The other reward is that you’re allowed to keep playing the save file, but why would I want to do that? I’ve already done everything there was to do.

Conclusion

The first half of this game is my dream Harvest Moon. I sincerely don't understand why FoMT was remade and not this, since this is by far the better game. The fact that the town feels like it has an actual narrative (centered primarily around Kai) is really enjoyable and I feel like there’s a lot of value gained out of each cutscene, and every new bit of dialogue is a joy. In particular, the quantity and variety of quests gave me a lot to do in the downtime between cutscenes. The remakes should have added more of those, not removed them almost entirely. I’m sick to death of Mineral Town because of how much I've played FoMT, so the fact that I enjoyed this so much says a lot about the quality of the game.

That aside, three years is too much time to pass through for how much content there is here. Two and a half would have been manageable, but I understand that the only reason that was the cutoff in SNES was because there literally wasn't anything to do in fall or winter. I enjoyed the lack of goals required to get a good ending because I was so fatigued by the intense grind of the prior games, but the game was so easy that I mostly ran out of things to do for fixing my farm in only year one, and I really just spent year two scrambling around for cutscenes which I didn't really need to even try doing, because I got swamped with them at the start of spring. Maybe if I was a child and worse at playing video games, three years would be okay, but if I was a child, I wouldn’t have made it to year 2 because I wouldn't have the attention span or memory to keep me going. I know this because that’s exactly what happened when I played FoMT.

I suppose how I’d recommend playing the game is to play until you’re satisfied (which will probably be by the end of summer year 2) and then watch or look up the endings. That is assuming you care about the endings at all, which you may not because there isn’t terribly much to them. I do sincerely recommend this game, I think it’s great to play, but you’re almost certainly going to be bored with it and have experienced the vast majority of what it has to offer well before you reach the end of it.

A closing thought in reference to my journey playing all these games in sequence:  there’s a chance, just going by my prior knowledge of the later games which I mostly have not played, that this is actually going to be the peak of this series in terms of both ease of play and quality of narrative. I’m sure there will be games with more interesting stories, and maybe a later game that feels better to play, but my bet is none of them hit both as well as this one did.

[diasporatheblog]

Hi! I'm new to the game and really enjoying it at the moment, though admittedly I don't know how far into the current version I am and wanted to ask a couple of things;

First; the harbour skirmish was a pretty fun one, and figuring out which ally would be best for each challenge was a nice little puzzle (even more surprising was that my first pick each time did pretty well). Is this something to expect from all the future battles, or will each have their own unique quirk to look forward to? The first battle set up the stats, after all.

Second; regarding the routes available in the game. So far it seems to be angling towards Castulian, Iskendi, and Neutral, but also every time I take a neutral option someone tries to tell me that I can't be neutral forever. And being as I am playing for peace at the moment, part of me is wondering if there won't be some way to make peace between the Castulians and Iskendi. So if it's not a spoiler, can you cast any light on that? Will you be forced to choose one or the other eventually? Can you make both sides let old grudges go (even if, say, certain major characters *cough*Adriana*cough*Baltasar* had to be bumped off to achieve it)?

Most of the battles have their own sort of quirks to them; none is exactly like the harbour battle or anything. Also, people are telling you that you can't be neutral forever because, well, you can't. The Cine don't really have the power to do that, and these two other factions just kind of are going to come to loggerheads, so you end up needing to throw in with one of them for the sake of the clan's future in the region.

You don't have to be totally pleased about that by any means, of course, but these two factions have been on this collision course for a while, and while the arrival of the Cine changes a lot, it doesn't change that.

[lowkeyclueless5137]

And ANOTHER P5 x Twst au :3

Oh god this is gonna be a trainwreck :v

But what else is new in here? :'3

Anyhow, I got like... Months ago an ask about another possible p5 x twst au and, of course, this derailed into shaping a whole thing.

Yet it wasn't enough for moi. It had a lot of holes in the plot and if you know me, you know that I gotta fill those up until I'm satisfied. :3c

So here we are✨

We are gonna reflect the whole time-line: top to bottom, explain every lore bit to the best of my pea brain's capacity and see what crawls out :v

How are we gonna do it? Well it's gonna be simple: we will go plot time-line wise and when things that do need explanation will pop out, they will be explained underneath the paragraph in smol text. If the marked section consists of a spoiler, it will be marked AND colored, which means it will be explained later, in a smol text, post the spoiler paragraphs.

Explanations will consist of:

plot irelevant information

games cannon points

the ooc lore that ties in the 2 games

time-line clearance :'3

I'm also gonna refer to the P5 protag as Ren Amamya, so yep. -3-

Fair warning: there will be spoilers for the whole P5 vanilla version along with Twst's latest story chapter. Since we are going cannon time-line wise, you can either go and read it until you don't want to be spoiled or you can simply read it after you saw your spoilers in the cannon games. :3

Now onto the fuckery! :D

We start off with how it all began :v

Ren's school had a letter exchange program, as a way to teach English to kids in a much more engaging and fun way. And what is a more fun way to learn a language than kids making a pen pal? He was in middle school at that time, pretty excited for this thing. They were given a few options as well.

Except that poor lil Ren didn't know how to write a school address from the options given. Instead, because of his excitement, he only wrote 'pen pal :3' in the bracket meant to have the address to send it to.

What Ren was unaware, was that, despite giving it in person to the mailman, the letter got lost among the hundreds of other letters meant to be sorted and sent.

It does get sent anyway.

And the answer is quite over everyone's heads.

You see, a few days later, Riddle was asked to pick up the mail by his mother. He would usually read the address, not expecting for anything to be addressed to anyone but his mother.

Watch his utter surprise when he sees a letter intended for 'pen pal :3'. Riddle was shook, but knowing that all the letters for his mom have her name on it and a fancy adress, the kid's brain makes the connection that HE is the one whom the letter was meant for.

So he hides it and keeps it to himself, until late at night. He uses a small light spell as he excitedly opens the letter. His mother always banned him from seeing her letters, so he believes this is also a very private moment.

And the contents were as follows:

'Hello! My name is Ren. I'm 7 years old. I live in Japan. I lika red and cads! What is your feivoriite color? Do u like cads? I'm exxcitd to be friends! -Ren'

Yes, it was short and yes, the errors were there amongst the sloppy writing, but it was authentic. The doodles did help Riddle understand that Ren liked cats actually. He even drew himself too! Even if it was a stick man with a lot of black for hair. And he even said he wanted to be friends! His very first friend!

Of course, being the very first friend, Riddle was over the moon. He didn't know how to even redact his letter. His mama always wrote hers, again, alone, without Riddle being allowed to see, thus the redhead believes that, again, it's a very personal activity.

And he got a letter. It would be rude to not respond to it!

So next morning, at individual study session, when Riddle is left alone, he pulls out Ren's letter. And uses it as an example. He puts Ren's address at the 'from' as he puts his full adress too, thus completing the destinations rubric completely. He quietly puts it in the mail needed to be picked up by the mailman and then off he was to continue his studies.

A few days later, Ren receives a letter with very nice writing. His parents think for a hot minute that their kid got a letter from a fancy school or smth. But no, it was from Ren's new pen-pal. The boy was so excited that he ran off the stairs and almost smushed on the ground. He left any breakfast he had on the table and almost spilled over a glass of water in his excitement.

Riddle's letter was far more difficult in terms of quality and English, yet Ren did make a big Boi effort to understand it. For the sake of pen-palling!

'Hello, Ren! I am Riddle Rosehearts. I am, as well, 7 years old (my birthday is in August) and I live in the Queendom of Roses. I am very happy that we will be pen-pals from now on! My favourite color is also red. And I do like cats, although I am not very sure what my favourite animal could be. I do want to ask: how is it in Japan? I never heard of such place. Is it nice? I would love to hear more from you and I'm very excited to be friends through the mail. -Riddle'

It took a lot to deschipher the letter itself, which only added more to the time for making another response.

Meanwhile, poor Riddle thought he made a bad impression for not adding doodles. He didn't really have time for such things. Yet, after a week, he gets a letter for him, from Ren and he's absolutely happy when he sees the response. Ren even made an effort to say that his pen-pal has very pretty hand-writing. As such, Riddle gets an idea of how Japan might look like, or at least Ren's little hometown. The redhead tried to research about Japan, but found nothing, thus assuming it was a local name for some country close to the land of the dragon. Meanwhile, Ren said promptly that his pen-pal is from the Queendom of roses, but everyone assumed he was referring to UK. No one questioned it, assuming that it was a thing in between the 2.

-they also believed such thing because in cannon of twst, time is reffered as our normal time

-in here, the time is the same for both worlds. Japan time is sage island time, so there's a small decalation of hour.

This letter routine continued. Ren was a fast learner, thus he had a quick evolution in his English, which gained praise at school. Meanwhile, Riddle was finding a warm and fuzzy spot whenever a new letter would come for him. Both found to grow very close to each other, like a brother you would tell all your Woes to. The letters came from simple things, to much longer ones, about one's week, personal problems or even funny side-stories.

Since Riddle was helping Ren with his studies, the latter found it fit to teach his pen-pal Japanese. This also shifted the contents of the letters, containing small notes in Japanese. Just how Ren's English looked sloppy at first, Riddle's Japanese was the same.

The letters also came more thick at one point. Ren would send small things, trinkets and candy, while Riddle sent in trinkets and pressed flowers. When the small objects were exchanged, Riddle unfortunately already was busted long ago for sneaking out to play with Trey and Che'nya. So imagine that Ren sending him such small trinkets, there was bound to be some sort of reassurance.

And while strawberry tarts were great, Riddle found Mochi to be his comfort food. It was small and was eaten easily. In his mind it was similar to a tart: comes in a big variety and it was given to him by someone he holds dear in his heart. Along with the fact that his first ever taste of one was always the strawberry flavour.

-he told Ren in a letter that he liked strawberries, so the latter made an effort to choose strawberry sweets.

Meanwhile, Ren was very happy with his own lil trinkets and things. He made a small glossary of all the pressed flowers as well, although at first he thought the 'sweet rose' was candy and ate it. Imagine his surprise when he discovered in the next letter that it wasn't supposed to be eaten. But it still tasted nice. :'3

-Riddle sent another 'sweet rose' for Ren's glossary after that, as to have the entire collection

This becomes a routine, that is followed all the way to high-school. Ren started first high-school and had to explain to Riddle how the Japanese sistem worked. Nonetheless, Riddle was expected to start his first year while Ren was around the middle-end of his. So there was that.

-Twst follows the European/American school model, thus it has some decalation with the Japanese school model.

Riddle also expressed his considering of taking on for the dormleader position once he got his acceptance letter. Ren, tho, said that it wouldn't be good to paint a target on his back so early. That maybe, first, he should gain a good reputation and trust of the others so he could be recommended rather than simply taking it by force. It would look far better in this case scenario, which would be easier to gain respect out of others once he does get the position. He makes some good points, which gives Riddle a much rounded idea of how he could raise as a much more respected Dormhead.

Trey inevitably thinks that maybe he managed to talk sum sense into the redhead, whom initially was dead set on taking that position. So for now, he got a bit of credit for this. :'3

Although, for Ren's end of the year, things get a bit messy. Like in the cannon of P5, he gets charged with assault for pushing off the man that tried to force himself on a woman. In his urgent letter, he stated that the man's name, which Riddle takes a note of for future reference.

Still, the redhead was worried sick for his friend. He did change his letters accordingly, in April this whole Tokyo probation would start, so Riddle still didn't finish his first year by then. Ren told him that for the time of the formalities of moving and getting enrolled into the new school, he won't be able to write, so Riddle could let off a worry if he didn't receive the usual letter.

-Ren had to pack things and move to Tokyo, thus, still waiting for the new address, he couldn't have Riddle write accidentally the same address and send the letter to the wrong place.

The night before Ren's first day of school, Riddle wakes up in a theater room. He was chained with ribbons by all limbs and a guy that was painfully similar to Jade, introduced himself as his brand new attendant. This Jade was strikingly different from the real one, mainly by the white hair in an undercut and the more punk appearance, which wasn't fit st all with the theatre's elegant presentation. Unfortunately, the master of this room was not availabile now, as he is tending to the other wildcard.

Despite that, Riddle feels like someone else is watching him. Like there are 3 persons in this theatre and one of them was the redhead himself.

Still... It was wierd af :'3

Imagine being in Ren's shoes. You have your brand new school day after a freaky prison dream. You are in your uniform, meet a kinda nice guy and together you head to the school, only to be found in front of a castle.

To add salt to the wound, they hear a scream from inside and rush in to see 2 guards dragging out a small, struggling guy. Ren recognised him as Riddle and the latter tried to free himself when the guards stopped to 'interrogate' Ryuji and Ren.

-the 2 exchanged photos with themselves at one point, after all they've been mailing to each other since 7.

Guess it's now getting Dormeo-ed and waking up in a dungeon cell. Riddle was freaking out since he was just heading out to PE, while Ryuji and Ren were just getting to school when they found themselves in this freaky place.

The redhead mentions how his magic didn't work out in here, to which the other to swipe it under the rug, in favor of finding a way out and trying to survive this crazy shit. :'3

Cue Kamoshida coming. Riddle is absolutely baffled that this is a PE teach. Like sure, Vargas had an obsession with muscles, but the man had sum decency, ya know?

The situation was overkill for Ren tho. Like this is the first time he meets his pen-pal, his brother in arms if you will, and he is now gonna get killed by his new PE teach who is in just a speedo with a wierd cape.

The first one on the line of execution was supposed to be Ryuji, but Riddle charged in and pushed a guard aside, which got him to be deemed as the first one on the chopping board.

Cue Ren's very epic awakening. Everyone is simply losing their shit atm. :3c

But that, clearly that had to be magic. Using that as a distraction, when the guards turned into your run-of-the-mill Jack-o-lanterns, Riddle spared 0 time in grabbing a sword and cutting one of those lil shits's heads. Ryuji stole the keys and together they closed off Kamoshida in the cell, trying to run away.

Cue realising that they are lost. :'3

So, instead of jumping on the other side of the river, they decided to look some more in here, try to find a sturdier bridge, because it was unclear if their adrenaline was yet to wear off.

They, unfortunately, stumble across a few cells with students that Ryuji recognises. The blonde explains to the 2 that these people are actual students at their school and he wanted to free them. Unfortunately, the keys didn't work and so they had to ditch them. Ren is very collected about this shit, preffering to not act rash in a situation where their very lives are on the line.

Riddle tho? Riddle sees it as unfair. And he's absolutely enraged. He insists to bargain with Kamoshida for the captive students, but, upon returning to the cell, they find no Kamoshida and that the whole door was blown away by smth. And not just anything, but something very powerful, as it left quite horrifying trails and marks. This gets Ryuji on board to finally ditch everyone else for now and try to get out before they get killed.

But, they have a run-in with a red-armoured guard, tasked with taking care of this 'intruders'. By how everything was shaped around, Ren looked drained from his transformation and Ryuji had a small halebard found on the ground to fend himself with. Everything was absolutely wrong and someone had to fix it before their heads get rolling. And Riddle deemed himself as more than fit for the job. He was well versed in the art of magic and his senses simply told him to protect his friends, to protect the people he holds so dear.

Cue epic af awakening.

With this new power, the redhead demands for Ryuji and Ren to run away while he deals with the guard. Because it didn't turn in any shadow, Riddle used that to knock off the guy from the horse and take the animal to ride and catch up with Ren and Ryuji.

Cue meeting Morgana, just as the 2 freed the cat-thing. Morgana introduces himself as a very skilled Phanthom-thief and as such, he sees some potential in the now 2 masked guys. So now they took it by steps towards the exit.

-the horse was also a shadow, so it had to dissappear, plus Morgana insisted to be discret.

Ryuji is lowkey all like: what's with the people burning alive and getting sick outfits????

The cat gives us drugs! (yes, I love that joke for sum reason) :D

Morgana also shows a demonstration of how personas work. Arsene was mainly using curse attacks and physical ones, while Judgement queen was had mainly fire and a tiny bit of bless, thus keeping the distance.

While escaping, the 3 return to Tokyo, which is bad, since Riddle was supposed to be at NRC. Everyone was, rightfully, freaking out about it. Thankfully the new badass outfits didn't come over as well. :'3

Riddle does look around and uses magic to change his uniform into something akin to a more normal school uniform. Cue Ren and Ryuji freaking out since that was actual magic and Riddle was not making shit up in his letters. Ryuji brings up that this is how the redhead dyed his hair so vibrant, to which Riddle replies that no, his hair is natural.

-In P5(not royal) universe, there are no wild hair colors. The dark blue is meant to represent a colder black. By Japan's standards, some would believe that a bright red hair could be either a delinquent or a J-pop idol. :'3

So Riddle does use magic again, to make his hair black, although still it retained a tint of red to it. It was absolutely sick for Ren and Ryuji, while Riddle was more concerned with getting himself back to NRC.

They re-meet Kamoshida and Ryuji with Riddle are immediately ready to square tf up. By sum miracle, the redhead understood perfectly Japanese, as if he was an avid speaker, which wasn't the case at all. No one brings it up, Ren and Ryuji assuming it was sum fancy magic shit.

-Cannon P5 has the group understand Morgana as a cat, so it can be expected that a more human language could be altered to be universally understood.

Riddle has to wait outside, which means the latter gets to explore around a bit. They exchanged phone numbers already and Ren with Ryuji asked the redhead to get them smth to eat post classes. Already they were through more than half of the school period, so it didn't take too long. Along with this, the 2 didn't want to catch the empty school shop, so Riddle was their errand boy for the day. :'3

On the way around, Riddle meets a nice tall guy who tells him where a cheap store is. That was a blessing for his already almost broke buget. :'D

The tall guy goes with Riddle to the store and with the extra given coins, Riddle decided to give them to the guy as a sort of thank-you, so he could complete his price for his food take.

Riddle has made a new friend: Yusuke! :D

Unfortunately both of them forgot to exchange phone numbers and only realised this when they parted ways already.

Ren and Ryuji are very happy with the food and together, the 3 discuss about what are they supposed to do. Ren offers for Riddle to sleep with him, but Sojiro might not allow it and Ryuji didn't have any space in his small place. They decide to sneak the redhead in when the latter shows them an invisibility spell he knows.

For the night, Ren and Riddle discuss a bit. The redhead admits that he was a few seconds, at best a minute or 2 before Ren and Ryuji came. Riddle also mentions about his freaky dream with the blue room, to which Ren is all like 'damn, me too'.

The 2 draw a few lines:

both are wildcards, whatever the hell is that

Igor is the master of both rooms

the theatre is not like the prison :'D

Ren got the short stick with the attendants/wardens

So they go to sleep.

And surprise, surprise, Ren is back in the Velvet room. With this opportunity, he asks Igor what is up with his friend and why is he also deemed as a wild-card. Igor says that he was chosen for another motive, but it has nothing to do with Ren's rehabilitation.

On the reverse side, Riddle asks about Ren's velvet room. Again, Igor wasn't here, but Jade says to not question his master's wishes, for they all have a purpose in 'delivering the perfect story' along with shaping Riddle in the 'worthy protagonist' he has to be.

When waking up and everything, Ren makes sure to spare half of his curry for his buddy, while Sojiro wasn't looking. As such, re-meeting with Ryuji, the 3 re-trace their steps post classes. Riddle was again sent through the city for things, meeting again with Yusuke and the 2 hanging out for a bit. This time they did exchange numbers. Yay! :D

They discover the metanav, the freaky app on all 3's phones. Riddle theories that since he came first, he has to also leave first, as to separate the 2 and thus return to their respective worlds.

-it was realised that since magic was common in Riddle's place, the latter was from a different dimension altogether.

This time, they re-meet Morgana, get more things explained and Ryuji promptly has an awakening post facing Kamoshida yet again. Really Riddle was getting impatient and wanted to behead for real the guy. Unfortunately Morgana said that if you kill Kamoshida in here, he has a mental shudown irl and actually dies.

This time, when they return to the real world, Riddle is back in twisted wonderland, while Ren and Ryuji are back in Tokyo. Their phones could still message/call one another, which only was used for them to confirm that indeed, they have to leave separately in order for everyone to go to their respective worlds.

Riddle had to call in sick for yesterday and today, which was plausible. He had a single room due to the Heartslabyul first years not being unable to divide evenly by 4. Trey was the first one to tell Riddle that he was really worried for him, while Cater managed to get him the lost lesson notes, from Jade.

-in cannon twst, the Heartslabyul dorm rooms for the 1st years are split 4 by 4. Riddle is still in his first year as of now.

Now, the redhead stood amongst first years at the one with an absolute perfect score at everything, including attendance, so it was pretty understandable that I'd he was sick he wouldn't come, as such no one really bothered to bring it up.

Still, despite all that, Riddle couldn't help but feel that someone was watching him. He tried to swat it off as being just over dramatic, but the feeling did not dissappear, whatever Riddle would try to force himself to believe.

Meanwhile, Ren makes a Gc, which is titled 'The Bois'. In here, Ryuji makes a list of people he saw in the palace and whom they should interrogate for future reference. They know that Kamoshida is abusing the students, as such they should be careful at how they could address the situation.

Riddle still was doing his best to help Ren and Ryuji with their investigations, via suggesting approach ideas or reminding them of rules and regulations that could be used as a shield for their actions.

Now there is a new routine, which also means that Ren, Ryuji and Riddle sync together when entering into the palace for investigations. Morgana came up with the code-name idea, so everyone was based off a motif from their own costumes, except Joker and Mona. So you have Skull and Rose, with their nice visual themes and then there's Joker and Mona. :'D

It's also time they discover what a wildcard could actually do. Both Riddle and Ren were spooked when their own negociations went a wierd way and gained new personas. Even weirder was the following velvet room trip, where the concept of persona fusions was presented. Ren told his buddy that he had to witness the gulittone execution, while the redhead said that he saw nothing, but heard a chainsaw for some goddamn reason.

Even so, you have Ann joining the group and expulsion hanging over Ren and Ryuji's necks. Now they did have a deadline and it was something that gained the loudest 'what' possible from Riddle.

The redhead tells the 2 that maybe they could avoid expulsion. They had to plead their case, because it wasn't legal to simply expel a kid with no backing motive and a proper investigation. And if there's a proper investigation, then Kamoshida could be shown as the absolute disgusting being that he is.

As such, their dead-line is given a bit more of a stretch, so that everyone could breath a bit in relief. Clearly they were forcing Kamoshida's hand and no doubt that he could find more 'plausible' accusations to give them. But that takes time. And they need that time for sure.

Cue these lil shits making a heist. :v

Ren was deemed as the main leader, while Riddle had to take over in certain situations. It was basically these 2 switching around. Riddle was a no-mercy fighting guy, while Ren was thinking more and stacking power.

Ann also had the brilliant shock of red to black that is Riddle's concealing charm. She brought up that, nonetheless, the guy was adorable and she definitely wanted to take him through the mall sometimes because there were so many pretty outfits he could rock. Riddle did not share the same excitement unfortunately. :'3

Ren and Ryuji realise that their buddy here has that cute charm that makes girls actually approach him.

Back in twst, not a lot of people noticed Riddle's absences. He wasn't that present post classes anyway, even so Cater did bring up that the redhead is pretty absent from the dorm post classes and/or clubs. The dormleader doesn't give it much thought, saying that perhaps he made a buddy and is hanging around. Trey seems to be pretty happy with this more outgoing change after all.

Meanwhile, our lil buddy here is getting traumatized by the horny castle. :'D

Kamoshida is horrible and Panther was more than happy to beat the shit out of him. Mona tried to be reasonable, but Ren said that if they leave the guy alive, then they could still beat him up to a pulp. >:3

Post that and the successful change of heart, the group wanted to celebrate. Ann made the great suggestion to go to this fancy buffet with the pawned money and treat themselves to their heart's content.

Riddle really didn't know how to prepare for such buffet. So he dressed up in smth nice and called it a day. Everyone had the same idea it seems, except Morgana, who is a cat.

Ann had a sweet tooth. And unfortunately she noticed that Riddle also had a sweet tooth, so the 2 indulged in the cakes and sweets, while Ren, Ryuji and Morgana went ham on the meat and other savory foods.

Then it came time to name their group. Upon a vote, it was decided to be named simple: 'The Phanthom Thieves of hearts'. Riddle brings up that it maybe they should lay down low for now, since clearly police would look into it. And Ren was on probation, so any bad light can be a fatal move.

Later on, Riddle hears from Yusuke, who tells him of this art exposition. And him having extra tickets, he was thinking of bringing his friend to see the art of his master, Madarame. The latter couldn't possibly decline the offer, so he gracefully accepted to come by in the weekend.

But before that, Morgana said 'let's go into the mementos' and we get introduced to the Monabus. :'D

The freaky part is when they encounter a stalker, whom, after defeat, accuses Madarame of exploiting them. It brings out a very wierd situation. Riddle offered to properly face the man in an interrogation, for he cannot actually be identified in this place, while the others listen in.

Indeed, the guy accuses again Madarame, saying how he wishes for nothing that he put effort in to be taken from him. Unfortunately, that got out of hand when his ex decided to break-up, thus the stalking. But now, seeing actual reason and realising how horrible his behaviour was, the guy begs of our groups to try and use their miraculous ways to save the children under Madarame's 'care', so they couldn't be exploited anymore.

Post that, Riddle mentions how he has a ticket to the art exposition, courtesy of Yusuke, his friend. There is also this wierd alcoholic reporter, who tries to get a scoop on Madarame, having all kinds of rumors on him. Coincidentally, Yusuke saw Ann and deemed her as the perfect model for his next art piece.

So there are 2 different plans of action:

The exposition one, where Riddle is gathering info about the paintings displayed, along with how Madarame himself acts around. Frankly, the old man was quite humble and kind, addressing to Riddle as Yusuke's friend and being happy about more youth attending a traditional art exposition.

Meanwhile, Ann is refusing far and beyond to pose nude for Yusuke, once the true intention of the painting is. In between us, Ren was pretty down to be a nude model. :'D

Still, our group finds the Madarame palace and BOI is that thing FANCY. All gold, abstract building and whoever decided to put pots on the roof. :'3

-In the P5 game, you can steal art pieces on the roof, who coincidentally look like pots

Riddle had a very familiar, yet foul feeling about this place, but he mostly kept it to himself, in favor of how to deal with this place. The pupil paintings were almost the last straw, but still, Yusuke was loyal to hell and back to Madarame. Simply telling him that this guy is bad won't do anything but to sour their already complicated relationship with the guy.

Still, they couldn't proceed further because of the peacock feather doors. So Ann FINALLY accepts the modeling gig, but with a catch: she took all the closet on her. :'3

Meanwhile, Riddle and Mona were meant to sneak in and open the door itself. Using an invisibility charm, the 2 had to both open the door and have Madarame see it open as well. Morgana wanted to lock pick it, but Riddle said 'nah' and straight up opened it with magic.

Unfortunately, neither was fast enough to catch that hefty thing and so it slammed on the shabby floor, which was heard through all the house. So the 2 knew that now either Madarame reaches them first or Yusuke and Ann.

-Yusuke assumed something bad happened or something got broken and thus wanted to assure for the well-being of his master

In a panic, Riddle and Morgana go and hide in the dark room itself, leaving wide open the door. Yusuke and Ann come first and out of instinct, Ann switches on the light.

Poor Yusuke is in an absolute shock. Hearing the footsteps of someone also coming, Riddle uses his magic to turn off the light along with turning Ann and Yusuke invisible. Yusuke wanted to yell, say smth, but Ann shushed him, just as Madarame entered the room. Yusuke saw first hand how the man actually acted around, quite arrogant, yet panicky that maybe someone actually stole a copy of the Sayuri.

Now that he was invisible, Yusuke also saw Riddle and Morgana, which was far more confusing since, for him, it was wierd that Madarame didn't even notice their presence altogether. Fleeing the place, the group came with the metaverse escape, once Morgana accidentally knocked off a painting and Madarame was convinced someone was truly there.

Cue Yusuke freaking out. He was in this metaverse place. In here, all the charms Riddle initially made were lifted, so cue the briliant shock of red hair again. :'D

Rose decided to got directly to the point: this is how Madarame views this whole art business and himself. As a museum of himself, where his vanity knows no limit.

The 2 had to re-meet with Joker and Skull. Yusuke has just a bad time overall and Riddle could only offer to step back and protect Yusuke, while the others fight shadows upfront.

Yet Yusuke also awakens to a persona! Yay! Now we can kick that grandpa's ass! :D

After the whole escape, Yusuke is very down. Ren tried to comfort him, but ultimately Riddle got to send the message across: just because someone raised you, doesn't necessarily mean that you are allowed to excuse every mistake of theirs. You can admit that the person in question is bad, even if they had you since you were a baby.

-Since Ren talked sense in Riddle prior, the redhead is aware already of his own mother's wrongs and thus, is the best to talk with Yusuke about this

Yusuke is now determined to change Madarame's heart and have him answer for his deeds against all those innocent pupils he exploited.

But, Madarame's wary af and thus asked police to make an investigation of the place. The investigation proves to be futile, as no one could find any evidence, besides the lock being thrown on the floor. Still, they were drawing a few suspects, one of which is Yusuke. This puts on fire the group since if Yusuke is accused of breaking in, it's over.

Yet, Riddle gets his summer holiday now. He had to make sure his mother was out in town while he 'studied' in order to sneak out via metaverse. Even so, it hardly changed the routine, since Yusuke also had very lil time to slip up.

By the middle of June they manage to find the treasure, send in the calling card and have the heist. Yusuke gets even more traumatised by Madarame's greed and the group find out about a black mask roaming around.

The confession, of course, is followed by a lot of uproar from the public. Yusuke now was living the ✨broke✨ life and Ren, Ryuji and Riddle are roped in with Mishima onto investigating the maid service, discovering that Kawakami works it as a side-job.

We also see the fireworks! :D

But, later, Riddle notices smth wierd. They were followed, quite indiscretly, by a girl. Ren explained that she was the student council president and it could only mean bad things for them.

Riddle, being done and over with that feeling of being followed, confronts Makoto upfront about stalking them. Like damn, can't a guy have sum privacy and hang around in peace?!

Makoto confronts them back with them being THE Phanthom thieves. Of course, this puts the group in a tight situation as Makoto wants them to prove their ways by changing the heart of a mafioso boss. They need a name tho, so using the journalist Ren meet previously, they deduce the name of Junya Kaneshiro. Their problem was the need to see Kaneshiro in person and deduce the nature of the palace in question.

Riddle tho, stopped her, saying that he is the guy on the terrain and that Makoto shouldn't get involved with those guys directly. Makoto tho, dismisses him, which almost gets them caught off in trouble with Kaneshiro, but thankfully magic is a godbless in here and Riddle doesn't hesitate to use it in order to confuse the people around and thus avoided an insanely close bullet.

Still, in order to fully escape, they used the metaverse escape, getting yeeted in the fricking bank. Since Kaneshiro knows them now, they gained access oh so much before the 'bank owner' demands cash for their damage done in the club. And a quite exaggerated sum, which could put poor Makoto in a life long debt.

Cue awakening! Heck yeah! We have a motorcycle now! :D

Makoto has many shocks today. Magic, metaverse, personas, the very close escape from ruining situation... Really a lot. Even so, Ren reasons that there is a possibility that the cameras could've caught their faces. It would take a bit more to get the footage and identify them, but when that happens, no doubt that Kaneshiro would want a hefty payment to keep shut.

Still, with sum effort and a very nicely set calling card, the group pull it off. Kaneshiro drops for them sum info about the black mask, but it's not really helping them in this situation.

Cue summer holiday like pros and Riddle starting his 2nd year at NRC. This was marked as special, since last year he was named Dormhead, by the previous one, whom now is in his 4th year. Ren quietly congratulated his buddy, who insisted to be kept on the low.

Still, what Riddle didn't expect was the mountain of tasks that would get dropped on his shoulders. He had to oversee a bunch of things and along that, by sum unspoken rule, he was put in charge of confirming that every Dormhead would come to the entrance ceremony. So he wrote nicely a few notes for the Dormheads, handing them personally to themselves, vices or students who can safely take it to them.

All, well except Idia. Riddle brought this problem to Ren. Like how he could even get that guy out to attend the ceremony. It's not something hard. He could still bring his tablet and speak through it. He wasn't unreasonable. But attendance will be mandatory and to top it off, Ortho, the deemed younger brother of Idia, really wished for him to attend the ceremony. It's not like he was sick or anything. Ortho confirmed that his brother can attend the ceremony with no problems. So it's more of a 'get yo ass out and stay in a corner for 30 minutes' kind of thing.

The rest of the group suggest their own things, but it all boils down to 1 idea: go in person and confront the guy.

Despite Riddle expecting to have a shy guy that maybe needs a bit of a nice word of encouragement to get the things going, Idia was snarky. This guy wanted nothing to do with the 'Resident rule perfectionist' as he put it into words. And that, in turn, railed up Riddle too, which turned into a back and forth with only the closed door preventing Idia from getting his ass whooped into attending.

-being so absent during April and the end of the year, people didn't get to see Riddle as more than just a guy that follows rules to a T

So Riddle, upon Ren's guidance, guilttrips Idia into confirming his attendance for the sake of his brother, who was really looking forward to it. It was a success! :D

Except it wasn't, because Idia didn't show up, despite Ortho saying that he saw his brother in the ceremonial robes, leaving before him even, just how the dormleaders were required to. Add salt on the wound, this wierd magicless peep stumbles in, a cat-raccoon puts on fire the whole goddamn room.

And Azul is his partner in catching that cat. This night couldn't possibly get worse, could it? At least, being used to thief shenanigans, it is far easier to outpace Grim and catch the lil monster, not before collaring him first. It would've been easier if Azul didn't almost blast him off with a missed spell. :'3

Post all this, luckily Ren and him meet up to hang out. In the metaverse to blow off some steam, ofc. Riddle does mention about Yuu, but when Ren suggests to take Yuu himself over to this world, where they belong, Riddle responds that there is a chance that this stranger was brought by the dark mirror. Something was up with this Yuu and he isn't going to risk it until he has evidence that they could be truly sent back safely without them being brought back by accident again.

-Yuu mentioned their home when the mirror asked for them to be sent back, as such it was clear it was a place from Ren's world.

This gets reinforced when Riddle wakes up in the velvet room. He was never summoned there for anything than at first 2 times. He had to ask for different procedures that Ren discovered when he was summoned. So there's that.

But the velvet room this time was more eerie. Far darker around and the bindings were tighter, even hurting when the redhead tried to move. He called for Jade, but he didn't respond, nor was to be seen.

All Riddle knew was that someone had their hands on his seat back, tilting a bit as a way to gain his attention. The person in question spoke very quiet and softly about how this game is rigged and that Riddle should, under no circumstances, mingle in with the magicless human. The redhead is allowed to ask 1 question before their time runs out. And Riddle, naturally, asks who the hell is this person behind him.

The response is: Someone he should've meet much earlier.

Of course, the redhead shared this encounter with Ren. Something definitely was up. He wanted to bring it up with Igor, but Riddle insisted that this stays in between them. Who knows what velvet room shenanigans are truly going on?

First proper day of NRC school and Ren just calls in to check on his buddy, only to be hit with the 'these dumbasses charred a statue, broke an insanely expensive chandelier and almost avoided explosion by trespassing in an abandoned and, possibly, Hazzardous mine'. When Ace allegedly stole a tart, it was the last straw and Riddle collared him. He didn't explicitly kick him out, but the guy left the dorm puffing and huffing so he didn't stop him.

-the way Riddle phrased his nagging made Ace believe that he was kicked out

Ren just suggests that tomorrow he should talk with Ace and Deuce. And just make it clear that he expects the 2 learned their lesson and won't do that absolutely dangerous shit again.

It goes actually well! :D

Ren is also invited to the tea party. The others were a bit busy, hence Ren finally got to visit Riddle's world. There was fun and nice food, so he wasn't complaining. U-Ub

Ren also gets to see firsthand how it truly is in a place where everyone uses magic. The roses were turned red by a flick of a wrist, the dishes were flying off their table on their own, even Trey's Unique magic was amazing for Ren.

Ren also meets Yuu, the magicless hooman in question, along with Grim. Since Morgana also was there, Ren jokingly said that they are kinda the same. Yuu notes how, from Trey's Intel, they didn't expect Riddle to actually have other friends, outside the school. Well Che'nya was an exception, but still! It turns out Yuu was also from Japan, them casually mentioning how in their world, at least, there were those wierd mental shutdowns and sum rumors about Phanthom Thieves. It was very freaky and Yuu was actually glad they weren't there atm.

-Ren lied and said he was a magicless student studying around, coming from the Queendom of Roses as well.

Post that, Ren was pretty glad that Riddle called off the idea of bringing Yuu back home via the metaverse. So far, their idea of the thieves wasn't all pink and sugary, so there was a fair chance they would rat them out.

Post the party, Riddle and Ren talk as the redhead is 'getting back to school' the latter. Riddle does mention about the other Dormheads and how they kinda are in terms of personality. Not the most happy bunch, but NRC was notorious for stuck-up brats after all.

Discussing those matters, Leona's name gets dropped. And what you'd guess, the metanav picks it up. It halts the 2's convo as they realise that 'oh shit, the metaverse is not Tokyo exclusive'.

So until they reach the mirror chamber, they try different things. It does pick up 'coliseum', 'envy' and 'sloth', getting the 2 to come face to face with a more antique place, where gladiator fights were the main attraction. Still, they didn't venture too much. They had to talk with the rest of PTs about this palace.

It comes to a comune accord that this palace was something that needs to be dealt with. At least before inter-dorm magishift season starts. Azul was in charge of organisation so they had to take a leap of faith and get somehow a clue about what Leona might pose a threat to. His palace was cold and straightforward. Shockingly very easy to go through.

Their problem tho, comes with Medjed, back in Tokyo, taking upon a 'duel' with the PTs. For that, Alibaba, a misterious hacker, requested to have a heart change. So Leona's palace had to wait a bit more.

Everyone honestly was thinking that the desert tomb was mocking them with the endless heat, only to have back irl the autumn coldness. Still, they manage to change Futaba's heart, or more like she helps in changing her own heart. This does cause a collapse episode in the real world, something which Riddle can freely use some simple healing magic spells. Still, Sojiro, unaware, called in Takemi to check.

With Medjed dealt with, Riddle is informed of the string of accidents on the school grounds. Yuu, Grim and Adeuce were looking into it, so the redhead assigned Cater to also look a bit in this mess. Clearly, he knew Leona had something to do with this. His palace was straight out outing this thing, but Riddle had to play it right and not raise suspicions.

So he devises a plan to stop the sabotaging, all the while the rest of the thieves group go and steal the treasure. Riddle promised that he will confront Leona face to face, as such they won't need a calling card and make their presence also known in here.

-since Yuu knew about the Phanthom thieves in their world, a calling card would immediately raise suspicions.

Cue busting Leona at the magishift grounds, just as, in the metaverse, Ren was leading the heist.

Except that what wasn't taken in account, was Leona overblotting. This shook up the whole plan and not only did Riddle have to deal with an overBlot, the rest of the thieves got out with the treasure, only for the thing to crumble apart right in their hands.

Instantly, the metanav confirmed that the palace still was standing, so it was clear that now everyone meet in front of it, seeing the now abandoned ruins of the once prestigious looking coliseum. No more shadow readings, treasures or anything that would do with distorted desires. It was like a shell of it's former corrupted glory.

Riddle says that in the real world, Lilia came in between him and Leona and berated him so bad he actually overBlotted. Something like this was absolutely unexpected. And so far Leona was still preparing to play in the exhibition match. He had to return and arrange the Heartslabyul team, so the others decided to come too and keep an eye on the matches.

Magishift was, clearly, something that hyped up the whole group. It was also Futaba's first time outside, at a grand event such as this.

Still, Leona was acting like normal. He was sent to the infirmary to rest after this thing, while Yuu was sent there post getting bonked with the Disk.

For a few days, Riddle kept a close eye on Leona. The palace was in a state of decaying and the guy himself looked like nothing changed. No change of heart was made, but some sort of inner change was done by Leona himself. Something that compromised the whole palace.

After that, there is the Halloween event, where Riddle invited his Tokyo buddies at the open gates event. Magicam monsters like magicam monsters. Still getting a kick outta them. :v

The actual noteworthy thing is post that, when the endless Halloween night starts. In the land of the afterlife, Riddle could feel his personas brimming inside. It felt awfully like some sort of metaverse, but it wasn't his metaverse, more like some sort of extension.

And since WHEN did Lilia need glasses?! They were that hot pink, bedazzled with prints on their rims along with a colorful chain full of beads. Really standing out against his Halloween attire. Still, he said that it was his idea, as to cheer up Malleus for the inevitable end of this big school party. Pepaw, dunno if u have health insurance, but I'm sure af that Riddle doesn't give a damn about it. :'3

Following that, in Tokyo, people didn't really believe that much in the power of heart change. The thieves needed some big target to hit, but that could also be compromising. It does get into a heated argument, with Morgana ditching the group in a rage fit. Everyone is just all over the place. They decide to target Okumura and run into a spaceship palace! :D

Meanwhile, Ren and Riddle decide to solo investigate the mementos of twisted wonderland. They didn't really have a clue how to get to rotten souls, but Riddle suggested to try out students names. This mementos was an extension of the usual mementos, accessed through a cracked mirror and resembling an upside-down tower.

The 2 stumble upon the shadow of none other than Azul. It was surprising, since Riddle knew how greedy and perfectionist this guy was. He expected a more grandiose thing out of him, not a simple shadow.

Still, using the fact that they could easily change his heart and that also there was no trigger for overBlot rn, they do defeat the shadow. It was more as an experiment, to see if a change of heart actually works in twst or it is something else.

Azul had absolutely 0 change in his behaviour. Still he's scheemy and still he has that honey-sweet Demandour, appearing to be friendly and rope u in a deal.

In fact, a lot more people got roped in a deal. Ren wanted to say that they did worse, but Riddle reassured that this was absolutely no surprise: exams were coming up. With Azul as a dormleader now, along with his 'reliability' in the previous year, it was no surprise that the clients would come in more numbers.

So while the whole Octavinelle plot is going on, the PTs are managing the Okumura palace. They have Mona back, along with a new addition: Noir, or by her real name: Haru.

There are 2 things that result in this whole Aftermath: Azul Overblots and Mr Okumura dies live on press. This is pivotal, as the Tokyo public believes that the Phanthom thieves are criminals, while on the twst plan, Azul still is hunting for contracts, although he seemed to lower the actual conditions, to the point is outright too generous. It was a sign of desperation.

Haru needs sum time off to think. With the sudden public death, the voting was postponed at a later date, to firstly let this scandal die down and re-make the whole voting options. It proved as a good time for other prime-minister candidates to make PR moves and capitalise on the death of Okumura for the sympathy of the masses. The ballouts would be hosted in March now, Japan waltzing in the new year with a lack of a prime-minister.

So Haru spends the small winter vacation with Riddle, at NRC. It was away from all this Tokyo Chaos. The others still checked up on her, to make sure she was, at least, able to cope well with the situation. There was a nice atmosphere in the Heartslabyul gardens, nice tea and along those, Haru seemed to enjoy the company of the local small critters and flamingoes.

Of course, due to this, it was no surprise that a certain Floyd Leech would bust the calm, mostly since 'Goldfishie stood over!' and he wants to play with someone else. Esp since Azul and Jade always were with him during the winter break so it was boring. Last year's break was enough for Floyd apparently. :'3

Although Haru found it entertaining the said chase and the chaos Floyd brought, what she didn't quite appreciate was when Yuu and Grim crashed into Octavinelle in the middle of the night and Haru joined, not expecting to be put through a training camp. Still, there was nice food and Kalim seemed very kind at first glance.

Then evening rolled up and Kalim wasn't so nice anymore. Just how Yuu and Grim said, this guy had worse moodswings than Floyd himself. So they split up to investigate: Haru and Jade separate Kalim from the others, while the rest keep Jamil occupied.

On the Kalim side, things were going smoothly once Jade used his unique magic on the latter, now the whole thing boiling down to asking the right questions. Haru was perplexed that Kalim's willpower to keep his promise was so strong, but this is also what outed the whole thing as well if you count in Kalim's connections. It was ironic, really.

Meanwhile, Jamil takes note that Riddle is very precise in the board game, which made him quite the fearsome competition. The redhead doesn't ignore the given compliment, saying that is very simple to advance if you know the rules and don't loiter around thinking of the points, rather consider the penalties. Yuu also notes that the redhead had quite the longer hair, this time being braided around pretty nicely. Riddle says that he didn't really take in account his hair situation at all.

-Haru braided it for him as a sort of relaxing activity for both.

Regrouping back in the guest room, a plan is devised and put in action the very next day. Jamil is exposed and this guy has a breakdown and overblots.

Cue getting yeeted across Scarabia. It came as an absolute surprise, which, to Riddle and Haru's further horror, they discovered that, indeed, Jamil had a palace all along. Who would've suspected such humble guy to turn out like this?!

Haru has now rights to commit extreme violence in the real world. Haru is very happy. :3

Poor lil Kalim... He's devastated, but nothing much could be done about it. Haru has her lil pep-talk with him, which turns out on a nice note, with Kalim declaring that he will do his very best to improve, for the sake of Jamil and everyone else.

Jamil also got a pep-talk, but no one really has an idea if something stuck with the guy or if he's just playing along for the sake of getting out of it faster.

Following that and an oasis hangout, Haru decides that she should come back. She stood for 4, maximum 5 days and deemed that all of this small adventure helped her rewind a bit and clear out her head.

Post her leave, Riddle still had the rest of the holiday to spend with the freshly returned Adeuce. Still, Floyd didn't leave him alone at all. He did inquire to know if he didn't get bored of him post the Scarabia incident. They were put to hang out for days together, so how come Floyd didn't get bored?

-in cannon twst, Yuu called Adeuce before breaking out with the carpet, as such the 2 rushed in here as fast as they could.

The latter responds that he knows Riddle's getting more risks taken and that the redhead is mingling with forces he should fear. It wasn't a nagging, because for the end, Floyd says that he's curious of what would come out of all this and expects Riddle to continue this type of shenanigans.

Riddle wanted to ask what in the world is the latter on, but decided to leave it at that and mind his own business. He went to the velvet room, where the other Jade was patiently waiting for him and any questions he may have. The latter has only 1 question: does this Jade have a twin? The attendant hesitates before giving no response, Riddle taking it as a confirmation.

It verified Riddle's theory that this Jade has a connection with the actual Leech twin in real life.

Despite everything, Jade says that, unfortunately, he cannot disclose information regarding the other attendants or about his own position, which further vexes Riddle. Clearly he knew of the twin wardens from Ren's velvet room. And Riddle now knew that in this theatre are supposed to be another pair of twins. But it was only 1. This had to be some sort of parallel. Things so far seemed way too separated, yet they had to be connected. Riddle has never seen Igor, while Ren always was welcomed by the said misterious man. Riddle had 1 attendant, posing as the one and only, while Ren had 2, split into an equal duty.

With those aside... It takes a bit of time, before our group is blackmailed by Aketchi into clearing Sae's palace. It put this whole thing on fire for everyone. And if for Riddle it wasn't enough, for him, this year, Crowley gave him the duty of overseeing the organisation for the culture festival. Mountains of papers and a lot of places, with little time to even rewind for himself a bit.

Aketchi gets also aquitanted with Riddle, being quite taken aback by the fact that 2 wildcards are in the group. Sure, fancy pants... Sure... -3-

But, with all of those Woes and troubles, Ren suggests that the group should also take a break, in the form of the culture festival. An open gates event where they could take 1 break, preferably to clear their heads before the big heist day and to enjoy themselves. Riddle actually looked very forward to it. He liked when his Tokyo friends would visit him. So he marked down the date and he did everything in his power to clear it. Making sure everything was to a T, so that no unexpected worries appear on the last second.

It adds far more on his plate than Riddle would like to admit. But he had to push it through. He had to make sure everything went swimmingly. It all depended on him, the 3rd party that wouldn't be affected by Sae's change of heart. The palace was investigated in record time and add to it that Ren even offered to help the redhead with sum paperwork, so he could speed up the whole process.

What was a thing Riddle overlooked, was literally the other Heartslabyul students. He overlooked that some might mess up something. And when they did, it resulted in a quick lashing out, a collar taken down seconds after realisation settled in and a profund apology for the scare. Those signs also showed in the palace. The reason they advanced so quick was because Riddle adapted an approach of 'wanna negotiate or taste my gun'.

This problem was brought forth with Trey. Him being the vice, the others decided that he is the best person to snap Riddle out of it. Cater even offered to take some of Trey's duties off his shoulders so he could take some of Riddle's in turn and at least clear up some time. Adeuce were gone, an unbirthday party was planned literally 2 days before the VDC. Time was on fast forward and it seemed Riddle had a hard time keeping in the pace.

-Ace and Deuce were at the VDC camp.

Trey tho, swats off the others, saying that it's simply just a more hectic period. A lot of things need to have Riddle's presence or signature, so it's not far fetched to say that even if they wanted to help, there's very little they could do. Cater tho, insists that even that little help they could offer is better than no help, but Trey shuts down the idea, saying that he'll take care of it, the same way he did on Riddle's first year: have a talk with him.

And that goes as well as one would expect: down in the goddamn gutter.

To start off, Trey postponed the deemed talk, until before the unbirthday party. At This point Riddle was piling even more stress, after a morning call where his mother finally got to nag him about staying at school for the winter and also forgetting to give her the weekly report yesterday. It already put on the down mood for the day and that only added up when his dorm students reported that apparently one of the flamingoes escaped, a hedgehog had a bellyache and the roses will take a few extra hours to be re-painted because some first years accidentally turned them green and got lost in between the leaves.

Add to that the poor sleep schedule and the overall tiredness. He intended at first to stay in the lounge and finish some urgent papers he'll have to send over to the light music club, regarding their performance duration, when he fell asleep.

Trey woke him up a few hours later and told him about his slip, which made Riddle to spiral in a panic, asking why in the fresh hell didn't he wake him up earlier?! He had to send those papers today, because those are meant to confirm the presence of certain club performances and allow for the schedule of the festival to be posted. Those were PIVOTAL for the organisation. And he slept on them! Now he couldn't attend the unbirthday party, so he'll just postpone it post VDC.

Cue Trey telling him that already everything was set and they couldn't possibly postpone it, when only the redhead was missing from there. He tries to tell the latter that he should take a break, but Riddle panics, saying that he took a break just now and he destroyed all of his plans. He won't have enough time, he'll have to work even on the VDC day, thus he couldn't take his friends out through the festival. It was all a mess. His only free day was forfeit because he fell asleep. Everything just came in, crashing and burning.

Cue a breakdown and an overBlot. Surprisingly, a quite weak one, since already Riddle was still tired and it was easier to knock him out.

So while the redhead actually does sleep in the real life, Riddle wakes up in the velvet room, again being dark and eerie. This time tho, the bindings were a bit more loose and his hands were smudged with ink. He knew that behind him was, again, that misterious someone. Fortunately, Riddle had a theory and a name for the one behind him.

So he calls out for Floyd to come forth. The latter does listen and presents himself as Jade's twin and Riddle's initial attendant. He was quite different, with longer hair and an attire fit for an actor on stage more than anything. Floyd explains that he waited for this moment. For things to crumble down and allow him a moment longer in here. Jade was very limited in this situation and he adds that Azul's initial plan of sneaking in was busted by that pesky shrimp.

Riddle doesn't really understand what's truly going on, but draws one conclusion: the velvet room twins and the irl Leech twins are one and the same. And Floyd here says that he's supposed to be Riddle's true attendant. Then what's Jade's role? And what does Azul have to do with this whole ordeal?!

Floyd doesn't explain, saying that time ran out and that someone is waking up Riddle in the reality, thus their time is cut short. Nonetheless, if he has any questions or truly wants to see what was truly hidden from him, then he reccomends Riddle would seek him out in any world he deems fit.

When the redhead really wakes up, Trey was holding him, while Cater and Che'nya were also in sight, both ferreting around like headless chickens. Riddle asks what happened, to which he's told that he overBlotted. Now he's lost even more time with his 'temper tantrum' and the inevitable knockout session he had. It immediately ends with Riddle crying, saying that he cannot handle it anymore, that he wants to simply stop time to do everything.

Trey doesn't know what to say, but he tells the redhead that he needs to take a break and recover, weather he wants or not. It doesn't reassure at all the redhead, so Cater steps in, saying that he will talk with the club representatives that have performances planned and have them come here and pick up the papers, as to cut some shortcuts at least.

This reassures a bit Riddle and he only demands now for a bit of privacy.

And he uses that privacy to go to Ren. Now, the latter was a bit taken aback by the sudden visit, but indulges in and welcomes the latter with an awkward hug. He doesn't ask what happened, he just waits for the latter to explain. Riddle does tell in between sobs what happened. Due to stress and using so much magic to patch up for his shortcomings, he overBlotted. He really just wanted a nice lil hangout day before they pull the big heist, but everything was compromised.

Ren, as a gud friend, does 2 things: 1. Comfort his buddy and offer to come with him and help him out. 2. Plan Crow man's funeral in advance and prepare a bat for Clover.

-Ren is aware Trey is a vice and therefore could've taken some of the duties and papers with no problem from Riddle's intel.

Riddle feels like he's asking too much from the latter, but Ren admits that the redhead did so much for him and the rest of the Phanthom thieves, by covering their traces, prolonging their deadlines and helping out with anything possible. He feels it's only fair that he will be here, with a hug and a helping hand when in need.

What Riddle does add is that something is wrong with the velvet room. At least his velvet room, for apparently he has a wrong attendant and both he and the actual attendant are real life people. There's also a 3rd person roped in this and it's none other than Azul, whom at first Ren and Riddle had under a close eye due to odd behavior.

Ren admits that it's wierd, but for now, he says that it would be better to take a deep breath and focus on the now. Not on the what they should do next. So he calls in the rest of the group, filling them up ONLY about the overBlot news. Clearly Aketchi had to catch up with the whole magic shit, but Riddle made it clear that overBlot is an external factor and cannot mean that a person necessarily has a palace.

Aketchi suggests that they still have a week or so until their deemed heist day. They said a week, because Sae is out of town, as of now, and on the first day she returns to Tokyo, she'll get the calling card. So, from his perspective, all the previous overBlot cases share a similarity: they were triggered by something. So he asks for Riddle to re-trace his steps of the day, because something doesn't add up.

So the redhead does that. He starts with the usual, but reaches the end, adding that it was just like any other day lately, until he snapped. Ann does ask if by chance he got upset over something, maybe a discussion, a mistake, something that would usually be brushed off easily. Riddle admits that he didn't think much about it, but now that he recalls, he had in the morning a call with his mother, which did make him upset for the rest of the day. It totally flew by him since just so many upsetting things happened lately that he didn't even realise that the call was actually the one who started the string.

Now Ren knows that his buddy's home situation is rather a delicate problem, so when Aketchi proposes to feed Mrs Rosehearts's name to the metanav, Ren intervenes and tells that they will all take action if Riddle deems it fit. This is something very personal and as such, the latter gets to call the shots.

Riddle decides that he has to finally address the flags he kept ignoring. He knew from a long time that something was wrong with his mother. Ren did help him see that. So he hopes to clear everything up one way or another. And if this is the fastest option, so be it.

Still, it came as a heavy hit for Riddle when the metanav confirmed that, indeed, Mrs Rosehearts had a palace. Unfortunately, his hunch was right and Riddle didn't miss a beat on the other words needed for the navigation process.

The group is meet with porcelain towers, over which are engraved different words/scripts, flailing with their colorful velvety flags. They seemed to represent things like 'honesty', 'loyalty', 'kindness', 'wisdom' and the middle one, the tallest, being 'obedience'. The treasure itself was visible from afar, sitting in the place of the top flag of the obedience tower. The towers were way too apart to grapple hook from one another and neither did they have walk-ways or anything interconnecting them at first glance, protected by gigantic spiky walls. Still, they didn't stay much and returned immediately back.

Ren asks again what shall be the call. Riddle stays a bit to think about it, before he demands that the rest of the team take no action regarding this one. Their most pressing issue is the casino heist right now. So everyone leaves it on a heavy note.

Ren tho, wants to have a heart-to-heart with the redhead, asking on why he doesn't want to change his mother's heart. Riddle explains that his mother is a well-respected doctor. It's clear that if her heart gets changed, not only his own living conditions will be revealed to the world, but no doubt suspicious medical records or less than innocent acts could also come to light. He says he fears for the consequences.

Ren tho, begs to different and says that maybe Riddle isn't afraid of the consequences of his mother, rather he fears what he'll discover inside. He offers to assist Riddle in exploring the place itself, promising that they will not change the woman's heart at all.

Riddle tho, admits that if they are going to do this mission together, he wants someone else to tag along too.

As such, one could see the next day the redhead going to Octavinelle. It was a surprise to see him asking for Floyd's presence, not that the latter wouldn't give it in a heartbeat. Floyd was very eager to find out what does goldfishie need so bad out of him. Riddle himself brings up that he wants Floyd to live up to his attendant duty and assist him in a palace.

And while the latter firstly brings up how Jade or Azul would've said a flat no, he wasn't them. And he was still absolved of his position until further action is taken. Clearly he points out what Riddle would even benefit from his presence in there. The redhead does admit that he has little to benefit, but he doesn't doubt that, as an attendant, Floyd would bring on the table something no other persona user could.

Floyd's response still stays yes, although he almost hesitated when he heard a big condition was to not tell anyone about it. Nor Azul or Jade. Still, the answer was yes and that's what truly mattered for Riddle.

Watch Ren's surprise to finally meeting another attendant that wasn't a smol child set on beating him up. We'll... Scrap that, Floyd was tall af compared to the twin wardens. So in his mind, he concluded that if u are tall, you get a shortie attendant, but if u are short, you get a tall attendant. Ah yes... The math is mathing.

Still, Floyd was the same old loose cannon. He had a glossary of personas, able to summon only the ones that Riddle discovered up until now. You could say he was a pelicular flavour of wild card.

Still, first 2 times it was more of sneaking around, seeing the place itself. It was disturbing at best how much everything was in order, nothing amiss, not even a beat or step of a shadow.

A noticeable thing was that Ren also had to drag off the twin wardens to see places they demand to see. So Riddle found it fit to tag along with Floyd as to entertain the guy for a bit and give Riddle peace with the whole 'goldfishie' teasing. One pelicular thing was that Floyd didn't recognise Justine and Caroline, but the 2 knew Floyd as 'Tragedy' and were aware that Floyd had a twin.

Then, you have VDC day. The day that, despite Riddle's initial pesimism, it went well at first. Only some early morning work before the meeting hour. The rest of PTs arrived at the established hour, and St first it was sunshine and rainbows. Going around stalls, talking with each other and having a great time together.

Although, Riddle did passively mention that NRC's VDC representatives are led by Vil Schonenheit, a famous actor and model. The name rings a bell for Makoto, who remembers that while they went in mementos without Joker or Rose, they encountered a shadow of someone named Vil Schonenheit.

-Joker and Rose were investigating the Mrs Rosehearts palace at that time, so the others were allowed to venture through the weaker levels of mementos.

This puts a question mark for Riddle, since Vil didn't overBlot, nor anyone said that he had any change in behaviour. Even the VDC started like normally. Thankfully Riddle managed to smuggle in the rest of the group in order for them to see the performances. Ofc, a vote went to NRC.

Yet RSA still won. Goddamnit Rook. :'3

Everything seemed way too fine. Still they had time until Sae turns back, so the rest of the day was spent goofing around a bit.

At night tho, the 2 wildcards and the attendant are wrapping up their exploration progress. The palace was so in order that it was shockingly easy to reach the treasure, while still seeing every nook and cranny of it. Indeed, as Riddle predicted, faulty medical records, decease notes, organs files, important documents and other medical illegalities were represented towards the bottoms of the towers, where one would find the underground tunnels meant to connect the towers one by one.

Except that in the obedience tower it was someone meant to be kept there: Mrs Rosehearts's cognitive Riddle. A puppet made out of porcelain, just like the towers, representing that just like this palace, Riddle was a product of work in his mother's eyes. The only things truly noticeable were the cracks through which roses would grow out and the strings that were attached to the ceiling, moving via a complicated mechanism over how it was dictated. Some were broken and thus the puppet was left discarded, in a corner of the room, hoped to never be noticed again.

Riddle knew well enough that Crowley had to inform his mother about the overBlot. Clearly she didn't outright tell him, but in her mind, already the redhead was a failure, a defective puppet. The puppet himself seemed to perk at the newcomers and as such he wanted to challenge them, for they aren't allowed to go further.

Rose demanded that this will be a battle in between him and... Well... Himself. So Joker and Floyd will stay on the sidelines as the 2 engaged in battle. Despite the puppet's best efforts, Rose still won and held the cognitive Riddle at rapier's point. He hesitated, which made the puppet mad and demand on why is he spared, why is Rose so weak that he cannot finish a given job.

Rose responds that, fortunately, he learned his wrongs and whatever his mother sees in him as 'obedient' and 'loyal', was truly something that died long ago. Because of this, now the cognitive Riddle is discarded and not wanted anymore. Because he disobeyed. And now is not worth to try and fix anything. The damage already was done and for once, it was a necessary evil.

So he cuts the puppet's head off, making it to shatter in a pile of shards and wilted flowers, who disappeared slowly. Joker does ask if they should go forward, but Riddle says that it's enough. That they won't return here at all. He got what he wanted and there's no more reason to go forward.

Floyd does ask why he is so prompt on not changing his mother's heart. The reply is simple: despite everything, Riddle still loves his mother. And if he makes the change of heart, he'll basically condamn her to jail, to a humiliating punishment. And he he only wants her to at least live in peace. It is no doubt that her actions will catch up with her at one point, but Riddle would rather first cut all the necessary strings in the real life before the punishment will befall her.

And even if he loves her, this was truly a more cruel punishment than simply changing her heart.

So this palace is left alone, to exist on its own and wait until it will destroy itself.

Except that shit cannot be easy at all, because the very next day, Riddle had a club meeting when they get busted by Charons. Despite putting his best fight with magic, the redhead is put down anyway, not after scorching a good chunk of the sports field. :'3

Oh, the other overBlot victims are here, which for some reason has Vil. Riddle asks what happened with Vil, to which the latter responds that he overBlotted, as a consequence of his actions. Not much detail it is given, nor Riddle pushes for more.

-At the end of chapter 5, everyone agreed to keep the overBlot a secret, as Malleus fixed the stage as well.

We are seeing Idia again! Not really the best place to meet your high-school aquitance, but anyway. :'D

Ortho was very happy for the fact that the others are here and they can play video-games together and hang out. Idia explains that they are here only for a few tests, so it won't take long until they'll be back to NRC like nothing happened.

Despite expectations, Idia allows for the others to have their phones, but they didn't have any signal, nor Internet access. Any photo/recording attempt was shut down immediately, rendering these things as absolutely useless.

What was not useless tho, was the metanav. Riddle discovered that since the thing worked with no problem. Neither his messages with the PTs were affected. He could still send them like normal. So it was no surprise that the others were shook at the news that their 2nd wildcard was in the magic FBI rn. :'D

Still, Riddle managed to look over the palaces history. Leona and Jamil still holded their decaying palaces, while Azul and Vil had no more mementos locations, nor a palace.

So with a wild thought, Riddle puts in Idia's name. The guy was pretty apathetic and despite his shy Demandour, he was snarky and mean when provoked. Add to that his high position in STIX.

It's not a hit.

So Riddle puts instead Ortho's name, not expecting much from a robot.

It's a fucking hit. And not just any simple one, but am entire palace.

Of course, Riddle has a hard time guessing what Ortho's distortions would really be. He guessed right that the latter has the entire world as part of his cognition. But what was surprising was that it was distorted as a torture room. He never expected for the kind robot boy who is so happy and cheerful every day to see the world as a horrible place meant for suffering.

Of course, Riddle had a few hours to himself as the results are rounding up post the VR tests. Those were literally the only tests done. As such, Riddle took the liberty to wonder through that palace.

He finds the ruins. A former shell of what it was supposed to be, depicted as a grueling place, where many lost their lives and lie there as decaying corpses. There wasn't any putrid smell, rather it was smelling like Sea-breeze.

This was a sign of overBlot, but something didn't add up at all.

Cue going back to the real world, just as alarms were blaring. This put Riddle on the spot as he firstly found the emergency door and opened it via magic. He did summon his magic pen insanely easy, so changing in his dorm uniform, Riddle got out on the main hall.

Which had him immediately bump into Idia. And not just any bump, the 2 barreled into each other. Of course, Riddle was ready to pin the latter to the ground and almost stab his staff into him, but then he noticed that Idia didn't wear his STIX attire, rather something more similar to his usual school uniform, with a few differences: the hoodie was fully opened and on the left leg it was a holster for a silver revolver. Idia also noticed the redhead holding his phone with the metanav still opened.

Pretty much is that spiderman pointing meme.

Idia insists that he has no time to waste, but Riddle says that he needs to come with him and find the others. Something is going on in the tartarus and currently, the 2 had vastly different priorities.

But, those get put aside when hacked Charons find them and are ready to blast these 2 off. Riddle wanted to use magic, but Idia is more faster in pulling out the gun itself. The redhead expected for Idia to shoot in the Charons, which wasn't that much of a smart move.

Watch his utter horror when Idia puts the said gun to his own temple and shoots with 0 hesitation. Instead of blood, it is heard a glass shattering sound as there is a boom of light and blue flames, before Riddle could clearly see a persona, in real life, which Idia used to put the Charons in their place.

It goes more like:

Idia: look... I know it's wierd, but you'll 100% forget it, so just roll with it for no- Riddle: YOU HAVE A PERSONA?! Idia: Yeah yeah... Detai-... wait... HOW TF DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PERSONAS?!

Screaming 101 with these 2 doofuses. :'3

Still, Riddle insists that they have to find the others, but Idia refutals that it's no doubt futile. Still, while they argue, the others find them, including the group led by the French he-man. Yay! Everyone's in here! :'3

So they bust in the main command room, dragging Idia by the scruff to also follow. Naturally, the whole situation is presented and so everyone has to split up. Idia additionally went with Azul and Riddle.

Upon entering the Tartarus, Riddle immediately was turned into his thief attire, sign that he stepped into a cognitive world. He's so fricking confused and Idia is also losing his shit about it.

Azul's all like: you 2 are done screaming or I'm gonna miss my appointment at 17 too?

The latter clears it up for the 2: they are both wildcards, but they hail from different sources of will. Riddle's persona was manifested because of his rebellion spirit awakened, while Idia hailed from the lineage of death itself, his will manifested as the embrace of inevitable end. As for Azul himself, he's simply an attendant of a 3rd wildcard.

Clearly, Idia and Riddle lose their shit at this new information, but Azul says that mayhaps they should mind their current business, prevent the gate of the underworld from being yanked open and allowing Ortho to crawl out. Riddle, naturally, is very confused, to which Idia explains that the Shroud's curse is a sign of godhood. Except that this godhood is limited by the mortality itself and the sacred duty of guarding the underworld. Ortho was lost long ago to the tartarus, thus his godhood coming in full swing and hence by the real Ortho breaking out without anymore mortality chaining him down, it brings out only calamity. As such, Idia had no other choice but to accept his status as a wildcard and give his own godhood in order to seal his younger brother away. This was the backstory behind Idia building Robo-Ortho, as a way to cope with everything.

Azul, unlike Floyd, doesn't summon any persona, nor shows how his attendant self looks like. He keeps it 'humble' and insists to not give it too much thought about it.

Cue going down and finally facing the true Ortho. The other 2 teams already did do their damage, so it was time for the last 3. Idia had to summon his best persona he had: Hades, which paired with the thunder spear, was enough to knock off Ortho back into the underworld.

Except that he also dragged the robot body and Grim down, which Idia couldn't allow. So you guessed it, the leap of faith. :3

Vil saves them tho. Idia managed to grab Grim, initially saying that he confused him for Ortho. The reason he did that was because grim coughed out Ortho's memory card, which is what Idia felt as his brother.

But old man Vil! Old man Vil! :D

Returning back to NRC, Malleus does one thing right and returns Vil's youth. Lilia was also there, mostly to supervise Malleus, yet he still gave a greeting to Azul, who responded as well before he was bodyslammed by the twins.

For Riddle tho, in a few days, he had to help with the casino heist. Immediately that one goes in the gutter as they are forced to split up and Joker is caught by the police.

But despite that, Riddle still made a slip for 2 days, staying overnight and helping Sojiro with the cafe, while he and Sae got back Ren, via a switcheroo. Get bamboozled, Aketchi. :3

-Post Futaba's palace, Sojiro was made aware of the phanthom thief business along with Riddle's presence and the magic :'3

So the group's new target? Shido! Riddle recognises the name as the name of the man Ren said he got him on probation in the first place, so clearly this makes things personal now.

Usually, the leadership decisions were taken in between Riddle and Ren, but since now it was personal, Ren had full leadership role now.

So they don't waste time. March was just around the corner and so they didn't have much time until the ballout counts will commence. So there was little one could do in this situation. They had a tight deadline and they had to cater to it.

Despite initial expectations, Idia returns after a week, with the brand new Ortho. It seems like, finally, Idia chained Ortho's godhood and real self in the robot body, thus returning his 'mortality' and allowing him to roam the world freely. With that, Idia also offered to repay Riddle for his immense help. And as a fellow wildcard, Idia accepted to join in the Shido operation.

Everyone else in the PTs are losing their shit when they see just how Idia summons his personas. No badass outfit and straight up giving people heart attacks. :'D

Idia and Futaba are now friends tho. :D

Despite expectations, when hanging out in Tokyo, Idia was pretty used to Japanese culture and used a charm to hide his flaming hair and blue lips. When asked about it, Idia admits that it's not his first time in Japan. Although he initially was on Tatsumi Port Island when he was around 8 to 9. That was the time when he sealed originally his brother. And forfeit his godhood for the greater good.

He explains that gods are chained down by the mortality or the cognitive nihilism as a way to prevent them from bringing calamity. The real world would crumble apart along the cognitive world if a god were to fully roam around the normal people, for it couldn't stand an imense power without reprecausions.

Still, the Shido palace has us facing Aketchi again and finally seeing his true look and his real persona: Loki. There's little to do against the cannon so I guess we say bye-bye to the sketchy detective. :v

For the calling card, Idia aided Futaba in hacking on with the video and everything. He wasn't a tech genius for nothing, so finally meeting his match in programming is smth that gets both Idia and Futaba really fired up. Plus they both like animes and can bond over the burden of social anxiety.

So the day of the big heist comes. Shadow Shido is not smth to play around with and everyone realises it when the shadow sees Joker as the deemed leader, so he separates him from the others and takes him on a 1 vs 1.

Joker ofc wins and they have to make a run for it. They think Skull bit the dust, but nah, he's alive! So all is well. :D

Except that once Shido does confess, nothing really changed in the public's opinion. They still wanted Shido to be prime-minister, but with the guy dipping out, clearly it was chaos in the political world.

Meanwhile, back in NRC, Lilia announces his sudden retirement. With things getting so messy back in Tokyo, Riddle didn't pay so much mind to it. Idia did do his part and filled him up on the necessary points, including the bigass farewell party.

So that's going to gutter when Malleus goes delulu and overblots, trapping everyone in their dream worlds. Unfortunately, for Riddle, he finds himself in the Velvet room. Except that Jade wasn't here, but Floyd. The latter admits that he summoned Riddle here as to avoid him falling victim to Malleus's unique magic and get wrapped in a fantasy.

Riddle does ask what is he supposed to do now. He needs to reach Ren somehow, he needs to fight the overBlot and get it over with, but he's bound to this damn chair and Floyd cannot do anything about it.

The latter admits to it, but also adds that these bindings were set for him by a fake god, who wanted ultimate control. And it all dials back to the first wildcard who defied fate: Idia.

Idia's attendant is Jade, the supposed macabre Comedy that Idia has to deal with. With Ortho falling into tartarus and thus being freed from his mortality, Idia had to forfeit his godhood. But that wasn't the entire story. Idia worked with Igor, the master of the velvet room. An entity that lives in between dream and reality. It was a loophole where gods could retreat and live peacefully, yet in solitude. Clearly, not a lot of deities liked the idea, so they either confined themselves by mortality, roaming among normal people or went into the cognitive world, seeking to have their control in there.

One such instance was a rogue entity that created the TV world. Azul was the interlude in between comedy and tragedy, as such he was the deemed attendant for that wild card: Lilia. Being such an old wildcard, Azul had time to shine as an attendant, as such, Igor deemed him to take over the twisted wonderland's velvet room. As powerful as Igor was, he knew that when it came Floyd's turn, there was going to be a tragedy. And it truly did when the fake God of control proposed a game, locking away Igor and denying Azul's soul from entering the velvet room. Jade was forcefully put to be an attendant, as such Floyd had access inside only when Riddle would start to crack from his expected evolution. As such, when tragedy truly struck Riddle, Floyd was able to freely go in and out of the velvet room, releasing his twin from his forced place as an attendant.

-Azul used the contracts to cover his soul with multiple ones as to try and by-pass the said ban condition

The magicless world was meant to have same fates as twisted wonderland. It was a reflection of fates and circumstances that was broken with Idia, maintained by Lilia and now it was Riddle's turn to either maintain the streak or do something else. And Floyd advises that he wants to see what Riddle truly thinks of this binds for now.

And Riddle, trying to break out of his seat, he manages to rip off the ribbons. They still left some nasty marks, but Riddle was free and he felt liberated. Still, he has to warn Ren about it, so he demands for Floyd to lead him up to Ren's velvet room.

The latter says that he currently cannot do this. Something is blocking him. The best he could do is reunite with his twin and Azul and get free from Malleus's dream spell before doing something more rash.

Meanwhile, with Idia and Ortho managing to find Silver and Co after promptly getting trauma dump by the war, Azul also manges to find the group, snapping Lilia out of it (via roundhouse slapping the Mcshit out of him).

-the dream version of Lilia was the general Lilia, henceforth he had to be shook awake from this.

We also finally see Azul's attendant look for the first time. He was more or so resembling some pirate mixed with mafia aesthetics if one wants to pinpoint. But maybe it's because of the frilly blouse. Unlike the twins's hetercromia, which allowed for 1 gold eye, he kept his blue eyes, them changing to gold whenever he summoned a persona or got extremely mad.

So we get to fight Malleus via different dream planes thanks to Silver's Unique magic! :D

Still, once Malleus was snapped out of it, there was one problem: back in the real world, Riddle still was in his thief attire, sign that something was wrong. Lilia admits that he never saw such thing, but Idia says it's akin to the dark hour, which wasn't supposed to happen. The dark hour was abolished, thus separating the cognitive and real planes for good.

Riddle concludes that he needs to go to Tokyo ASAP. But Grim ate Malleus's blot stone and went ravenous, into a gigantic beast.

So Idia and Lilia reassure that they could handle this. Riddle should go and hunt down that pesky god of control that made this mess of their worlds. And for their sake, to beat it up extra hard. >:3

Azul is the one that opens the velvet room prison door, telling Floyd to go as well and tell Igor that he did everything in his power to stop this. The latter doesn't want to go, but Jade and Azul insist that Floyd pulls to the end with his job as an attendant. This is what all of their siblings want.

Idia be all like 'wait you 3 are ACTUAL SIBLINGS?!' Sure... That's what's bothering u rn?

Nonetheless, thankfully Riddle comes into the prison at the time the fake Igor already left and Ren fused the twins into Lavenza. Now that's someone that Floyd recognised as 'his youngest sister'. Lavenza was also happy to be back, yet the threat of the false god hung over everyone's necks right now. Now free in Ren's world, it made the metaverse and the real world to crash into one another. Riddle confirms it by saying that in his world, already this is happening as well. Idia and Lilia are taking care of the overBlot Grim that is causing havoc.

So with finding all of PTs and roaming the new reality/palace of masses, we get to fight the false God.

Now, for the grand finale, imagine a double awakening. Both Arsene and judgement queen evolve into Satanel and Chernaborg respectively, ending with 2 bullets shot. One is through the false God's head, while the other goes through the chest, both killing it and making it to desintegrate as everything crumbles back to normal.

The Aftermath consists of Yuu coming back to their world as the false god originated from twisted wonderland thus by swapping places with Yuu, it allowed for them to defy fate and tip it in their favor of starting that ruin chain. Grim was merely created as a product of that magic exchanged as Idia explained later.

Speaking of Idia, he doesn't have many plans for his 4th year, but he said that Ortho kept insisting to visit around, so he guesses he'll comply to the wish and maybe travel in between his internship and work.

Lilia is still retiring, although he said he'll just go to his favorite town, Inaba, and live in there quietly. He promises he'll visit the Briar Valley from time to time tho. At least Malleus, Sebek and Silver get reassured that in the end it will be alright.

For our Octa trio, the 3 still have to finish their given lives in here before they will fully go back to the velvet room. Doesn't mean they won't stay over at their other siblings more often than not.

As for Riddle and Ren? Well, Ren was bailed out of juvi and will go back to his hometown. And Riddle is settling himself to move out on his own and simply cut ties with his mother for good. Now the 2 do visit each other, via the shells of the palaces that had their rulers ob irl. Those are pieces of metaverse that cannot dissappear and thus are their gateway in between the 2 worlds. Still sometimes the 2 also plan to visit Tokyo and see their friends too.

In the end, everyone was free!

And that's it! :D

It was fun to make a plot line where you don't only include a different take on the usual elements you keep using, but also add sprinkles of lore that tie in much more stories and hint at the other persona games.

Other than that, I'm pretty proud of how everything flowed out.

And a smol tag of @grandstrangerwhispers ! Thanks for permission to use your ask idea for this! Hope you enjoyed this extremely long trainwreck. :'3

Welp! Until next time! Buh bye!

[writingsfromhome]

Endgame III

A/N: Long awaited final part of Endgame!! Thanks to everyone who read it all and waited ages (oops). I really enjoyed going back to the characters for this final scene, hope you do too <3

Part 1 / 2 /

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There’s a pit of dread that sits in my stomach, it’s made a home of it there all of Sunday while I work on Angels, and into Monday. It’s 8:30am sharp and I’m sat in the meeting room, nervous as fuck about this meeting with Mr. O’Neil. I’m scared that he hates me because I reacted too emotionally on Friday sending the manuscript back to him. I’m worried he’s going to find my comments on his new chapters worthless. And most of all, because I know it won’t go well, I’m scared about the way he’s going to react to the cover designs.

I don’t expect him to look so…giddy when he arrives 15 minutes later. He looks sharp in a crisp black button up and black slacks. I check my watch again, Harry was officially late which was unusual of him. I guess this was going to be a one-woman show until then.

“Mr. O’Neil,” I shake his hand. “Thanks for swinging by today.”

“Thank you,” he grips my hand tight. “You’re a spark Ms. Y/L/N.”

“It’s just Y/N,” I sit down once he finally lets go of my hand. “Now, I’m hoping those files in your hand are the last chapters?”

“They are,” he says slowly. “I brought them myself so they wouldn’t be sent back.”

My smile drops, “Ahm yeah about that, I-“

“It was the punch I needed,” he grins. He plonks down in the chair and begins pulling out more files from his bag. “Miriam has always treated me delicately, stern woman but always so delicate. You were the spark I needed, those chapters showed back up at my flat and you wouldn’t believe I wanted to chuck them across the room first--well, I did chuck them. Then I picked them all up because I’m afraid of my girlfriend. Then I laughed for five minutes solid, because nobody has slapped me like that without touching my face in a long time.”

“I…” didn’t know what to say. I was expecting major conflict today but this version of him is pumped and creative as he shows me his last chapters, takes in my feedback, and disagrees with me here and there. We flow well, that is until about an hour later. We’d done the copy edits live on the last two chapters together and he was going to take it back to fix everything Miriam and I had circled and underlined. But now it was time to reveal the cover options.

I glance miserably outside the glass room, but Harry is nowhere in sight. Leave it up to him to leave me presenting his shite.

“So…these are some of the options we have so far,” I flip over the mock-ups like I’m reading his tarot. From the look on his face, he hates what the future has in store. “They’re just some-

“No. No. These are shite. Steaming pile of shite, Y/N what is this?”

“Well,” I rack my brain for something. Anything. “We were trying for a modern and trendy cover as an option-“

“I hate all of them, why the fuck is this neon? It’s gonna blind my reader before they can even read my book! Is my book that bad?”

“No of course-“

“So why do the covers make my book look like something I’d wipe my arse with?” He stands in his chair, quickly collecting all the mockups. “These are insulting.”

“Right, okay well we’ve still got time to work on more!”

“I know we do,” he looks me in the eye and it’s intimidating, any traces of the happy-go-lucky O’Neil is gone. “But even presenting these to me is a fucking insult. I know you’ve read my book cover to cover so what’s the meaning of this?”

Ugh, it would be so easy to throw Harry under the bus. Shift the blame, say I told you so. But that wasn’t how I worked, I never wanted to create that kind of dynamic in the workplace.

“Look, Mr. O’Neil…I do sincerely apologize. If I’m honest with you, I don’t think they’re right either. But you know the book business is also now a marketing business and readers do judge a book by its cover. Our department was just trying to make something trendy, but I see very clearly now we should stick to an authentic cover that will show someone the heart of the book.”

He nods along to what I’m saying, and when I’m done he give me a once-over. “I like you kid, you know how to kiss up too.”

“I’m good at my job,” I say before I realize the weight of those words-I was good at my job and a man like Harry Styles wasn’t going to undermine the hard work I do like this. “I meet with you next Friday with your finished edits right? I’ll have new mock-ups then.”

“That’s grand,” he calmy folds over the neon cover, reopens it and tears it in two. I watch with a removed shock. “This is awful, worst of the bunch. Eh, I don’t hate the direction…just tone down those fucking colours.”

“Will do Mr. O’Neil.”

“And I want to meet this Friday for the covers and this fancy marketing bullshite. This book is my baby, I want to make sure it looks beautiful.”

I agree, mentally making a note to make room in my schedule. I shake his hand again and walk him through the office to the lift. He tells me again we work well together, and I remind him that I’ll see him next week.

Then I walk back to the meeting room, kick my heels off, and melt into my seat. What a fucking morning.

“Y/N?” I don’t know if I dozed off but my name startles me out of position. I blink the tiredness away and see a nightmare: Harry in the flesh way after the meeting’s done. “How did the meeting go?”

“What?” I look at the time, almost 20 minutes since I saw O’Neil out. I feel the familiar rage flare up inside me. “Are you asking me how the meeting went? The meeting you were supposed to attend?”

“I was supposed to be there?” Harry steps into the room. Almost sensing my impending explosion, he closes the door behind him. “I wasn’t informed.”

I laugh but nothing is funny. “You weren’t informed? So let me get this straight: we work on this together, we’re told by our director we’re on this together. And our client comes in and you didn’t think to attend? Did I have to personally email you to attend? Send you an email, a notification, maybe even an RSVP?”

“Hold on,” Harry holds his hands out as I stalk closer to him. He glances outside and it catches my attention, a couple of our colleagues stare at the entertainment. I move to the centre console and black out the windows.

“I’m holding on, what genius excuse are you coming up with?”

“No Y/N, I honestly didn’t know. I rarely attend the editing meetings, unless I’m told directly. I attend marketing meetings and-“

“You knew we were presenting the stupid mockups in today’s meeting right? Isn’t that marketing?”

“Right,” he doesn’t meet my eye. “I guess I could have came-“

“Yeah you guess?” I’m back to cornering him, my rage rearing its ugly face. “You gave me the worst covers ever, even though I asked and begged you to change them! Because you were too fucking stubborn to read the damn book or listen to anyone but yourself! And you left me all alone to present the covers I knew he would hate! And guess what? He hated them! And if I was any worse at my job, he would have eaten me for breakfast! All because you wouldn’t bloody listen to me!”

“I listened,” he crosses his toned arms. “I read through your notes and I tried! And you hated what your own notes produced!”

“Oh my god the notes?” I walk away from him, I was shaking. I take hold of the cover ripped in half and throw it by his feet. “You clearly don’t read shit if you’re saying this hideous cover was from my notes! I do my job well, and whatever this thing is, isn’t a product of my notes! It’s a product of your shitty work! And that’s exactly how O’Neil felt about it!”

He stares at the two pieces in front of him. And I don’t know how he’s still so calm, but he looks back at me with a blank face. “I’ll make new ones if he didn’t like them. I can call him personally if you want. It’s not that big of a deal at this stage!”

“Oh my god,” I whisper to the table, balancing on my clenched fists. I had moved past rage, past frustration, and into ballistic. He just didn’t get it: he was undermining my work with a client while I was trying to make a good impression for upcoming promotions, even stripped back he was a man undermining my skills as a woman, making me look like a fool while I presented his shitty work. He just didn’t get it.

“Just leave,” I say to the table because I couldn’t even look at him. “I can’t even look at you Harry just get the fuck out.”

The door opens, he hesitates, and then leaves, the door slams behind him. Only then do I go back to my seat, slide down under the table, and let the tears run freely.

This meeting, the pressure of this client, dealing with Harry and his brick wall…it was a lot but nothing I couldn’t handle. But I think seeing my ex on Saturday, reliving my past and realizing Harry giving me a hard time was an outcome of my toxic relationship. That a relationship I ended five years ago was interfering with my career today. That all men were the same…It got to me, and it just broke me.

***

I don’t plan on seeing let alone talking to Harry for the rest of the day but as I leave the office after staying later than I needed to, the lift doors open to him and him alone. He makes nervous eye contact with me, and it takes me back a little. That he was nervous seeing me. Usually he didn’t give a fuck no matter what happened between us, even bordering on snobbish and cocky.

The silence is a large presence in the small space. Since seeing him this morning, I’d cried under the table and then reapplied my makeup in the bathroom. I downed another coffee and got started on another one of my manuscripts. I could work hard as much as I cried hard.

“Y/N I’m-“

The door opening interrupts Harry which makes it ten times more awkward when someone from the third floor gets on and stands in between us. They must notice the tension because they step forward away from us, ready to bolt as soon as the doors open.

When they do, I hustle off but Harry and his damn long legs catch up. “Wait, I need to apologize.”

I glare at him but lead him out the door to our building courtyard. “Fine. Talk.”

“I am genuinely sorry. I can’t believe I let all that happen, and I don’t know why I let it get that far for something I…”

“What are you apologizing for exactly?” I ask. He was rambling, and some part of me understood what he was apologizing for, knowing what I knew from Saturday. But I wanted him to say it.

He hangs his head, “A lot. I’m sorry I didn’t have your back. I let…other things cloud my professional opinions and I didn’t support you when I should have.”

For a guy who worked with pictures all day, he wasn’t too bad with his words. But I needed more. “What ‘other things’?”

He looks at me with puppy eyes, begging me not to go there. But I wanted to, I needed to. I raise an eyebrow, he could talk.

“The past.”

“You mean other people’s opinions?” I demand clarity.

“I-sure. Yeah, just holding onto what happened in the past and I know it shouldn’t even matter anymore. We’re both adults, well you’ve been acting like one. I’ve been clinging onto the past and I know I should let it go. Even though it was…painful, I know I should put it to rest now. You could have thrown me under the bus and called me to defend my own covers but you handled it. I…thank you. And if I haven’t already said it I’m sorry.”

I don’t exactly follow him but I let my guard down a little. He didn’t need to know my past was clinging onto me, but if he could let go, maybe it would shed itself slowly.

“You owe me so hard,” I say. “Like, the weight of what you owe me indebts you for life.”

“A bit harsh,” he begins to argue but one look at my face and he puts his hands up. “Whatever you say.”

“Great, glad we’ve sorted this.” I move to shake his hand in a silly gesture of good faith. “Apology accepted by the way; thank you.”

“Great, you drive a hard bargain but...nice doing business,” he clasps my hand in his and-oh.

A warm tingle moves through my body and when I make eye contact I can’t look away. I don’t know what was happening, but I was in zero gravity and the only thing keeping me moored was the strong hand that held mine.

He drops our hands first, like he was burned. He looks down, staring at it. I’m embarrassed, and confused, so I do what I do best-confront it head on. “What the hell was that?”

The only way to describe Harry’s expression is wistful. “That wasn’t just me.”

“I think we just like, altered time and space by getting along.” I laugh it off.

“Who knew we were so powerful together,” he grins and I’m fucking floored by how much I wanted to kiss the grin off his face. I take a shaky breath in.

“Fuck,” I take another breath. “We could run this place.”

“Oh that reminds me,” he digs into his pocket for his phone and taps away until he finds what he’s looking for. “I want to change the font but I have a design to show you.”

He turns the phone towards me and I immediately love it. A warm semi-circle goes from orange to golden towards its edges, emitting a transparent glow over most of the cover. A faint moon is present on the back, and the background is an off-white.

“And the shape will actually be raised, either that or the font will be…still workshopping it but,” he scratches his head. “I re-read your notes. You don’t have the neatest writing so I might have…missed a few words. The way you write moon looks kind of like neon?”

My jaw drops, “An apology, a re-read, admitting to being wrong, and a new design?”

“Don’t get used to it,” he nudges me with his shoulder and I ignore the inner waves crashing against my beating heart. “Anyway I gotta go, meeting some friends but I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow?”

I wave goodbye and walk towards my station. What the hell was happening.

***

The office is a lot calmer now that Harry and I have called a truce. And he surprises me with this new side of him. He can still be stubborn, and a bit stuck up. But he’s more agreeable and willing to collaborate with me. And when he turns his dimpled smile at me, I can’t help but beam back. We made a bloody good team.

I sit in the conference room 8:30 sharp on Friday. I put in some more effort this morning, feeling good about everything. Harry comes in just minutes before Mr. O’Neil but we settle down after getting him a tea.

“This is the ‘marketing department’ huh?” Mr. O’Neil winks at me when Harry hands him the new cover. His eyes roam over the whole thing and I hold my breath until I hear him say it: “It’s fucking fantastic.”

“There’s nothing you want to fix?” Harry asks for feedback as I grin from ear to ear.

“My name could be bigger, you know I wrote the book.” He taps at it. “But this is it, you two.”

We chat a bit more about the final version of the book, Harry pretends to know what’s going on since he’s never read the full thing. And finally, Mr. O’Neil calls an end to the meeting to continue working on his manuscript. I walk him to the lift. When I get back to the room, Harry’s organizing the papers that had traveled across the desk.

“We did it!” I shout after I close the door. I walk towards him with both hands raised high. “He loved the cover and the manuscript is on track!”

Harry returns my high-five, but instead of the quick touch, he slips his fingers in between mine and lowers them to our sides. The mood shifts from joyous to…dangerous.

“Who would have thought,” he says to me quietly. “We make a good team.”

I keep the eye contact otherwise I would be making eyes with his lips. And I didn’t want him to know how curious I was to how that would feel. “Who knew respect was a two way street.”

“It…” he looks down at my mouth. “It is. I’m glad I left our disrespect in the past.”

“Right,” I’m barely paying attention as he moves closer to me. But then his words hits, “wait, our disrespect in the past?”

I disentangle myself so quickly he has to balance himself on the table so he doesn’t pitch forward. He blinks away the desire, leaving a puzzled look. “I’m joking…kind of. I mean, it did feel a bit disrespected but we were kids so like I said the other day I’m glad I let it go.”

“I don’t get it,” I feel an oncoming storm, and it kicks my anxiety up a notch. “I don’t get what you just said.”

“I’m just talking about that party it’s-“ he chuckles. “It’s not a big deal Y/N. Anymore. We’re both different people now right?”

“What party?” I demand.

Realizing I had actually known Harry from my first day of uni was one thing, but I didn’t remember him anywhere else. If there was a party where something happened…something that caused him to misjudge me…I needed to know.

“Like, around the end of our second year? Spring. Jared and Dru had this huge year end party? And, this is embarrassing. I don’t care anymore seriously. But Dru was being my wingman, he came up to you to tell you that-jeez saying this is more embarrassing than I thought-“

“Just say it!” I urge, feeling sick. I knew this party. It was the night my whole life changed for the worse but I don’t remember this version of events. I needed to hear this.

“Okay, so I had this massive crush on you? From that first day. When…y’know behind the shed.” Harry chuckles. “Anyway I was too nervous to ever actually ask you out I’m sure you caught me staring at you a lot. All my friends knew how much I liked you and they were sick of hearing about it. So, well Dru was convinced you weren’t my type but he agreed to check you out and ask if you wanted to give me your number?”

I listen numbly as he tells me his version of events. That Dru asked me about his flatmate Harry who had a crush on me, if I would give him my number. How I’d looked at him sweetly and then kissed Dru. My jaw is on the floor but I can’t stop him from talking.

“And it’s whatever now but it felt cruel, I was so sure you were this one person and you ended up just making out with my best friend. And…dating him. And don’t get me wrong, it was your prerogative I didn’t own you or something just because I liked you first but…when you’re 20 everything is just more personal right? Hey, are you alright?”

I wasn’t alright. My head was spinning and yet it was cataloguing everything Harry said against my own memories. And when I think harder, I pin him down; he was the one staring at us when Dru came up to me. Of course he was staring so intensely, he wanted to know if I liked him and Dru manipulated both of us. He fucked us both up.

“That’s not what happened,” I croak. “Harry you have to know I-“

“It doesn’t matter,” he laughs it off but I see the hurt in his eyes. I unknowingly hurt him, left a deep scar, because Dru had manipulated us both. Fuck Dru.

“No Harry listen, Dru is a fucking liar-“

“Okay I don’t want to shit-talk Dru.” Harry interrupts. “He’s a friend, I know you ended up dating him and breaking up but he’s still my fri-“

“Would a friend date the girl you had a massive crush on? If you were in that position, doing that for Dru? Wouldn’t you have pushed me away and feel sorry for Dru that he had to see that?”

“Yeah but Dru and I are different-“

“No! No, Dru is different. He’s not decent. Harry I’m telling you that’s not what happened on my end at the party!”

“You were probably too drunk,” Harry denies my truth. “Anyway it’s not a big deal!”

“I wasn’t drunk. I remember everything!” I insist.

“So you remember seeing me there waiting, and still kissing Dru?” He pauses and this is how I know he was still not quite over it.

“Yes, no-just listen. Dru manipulated both of us-“

“Do you remember it or not?” Harry asks again, his eyes blazing with hurt.

I touch his arm, try to get him to calm down and understand even though feeling gaslit again was driving me crazy, “Harry, Dru isn’t who you think he is.”

Harry shuts down but I try again. “Dru used both of us,”

He grabs my arm so suddenly, jerking me away so my hand falls off. He keep it gripped as he says, “Dru’s my friend, just because you had a shitty relationship doesn’t mean you can turn me against him.”

“I’m not-” I begin to panic as his grip tightens. “Oh my god, Harry please just—let go. Harry let go of me!”

I don’t realize how loud I shout, but the moment makes me feel trapped and small like I had time traveled five years back. The silence echoes my frightened emotions in the spacious room and Harry steps back, almost shocked by his reaction. He looks at where he’d grabbed me, ashamed and scared.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just got…”

“Is everything okay here?” I hear our director say as the door opens. “I heard a shout…what’s going on?”

“Sorry, we got carried away.” Harry plasters on a quick smile. I arrange my face into one too, turning to face her. We lie about celebrating too loudly, she relaxes and congratulates us on the small success before closing the door behind her once more.

“Y/N,” he chokes. “I’m sorry.”

I’m shaking so hard I can’t look at him, I was so fucking weak like this. He comes closer but I shrink away.

We stand in our aftermath in silence, I don’t know what he looks like, I can’t take my eyes off the stray red thumbtack on the carpet. If I break my focus from it, I was going to fall apart. I couldn’t freak out, not here.

Finally, I get through breathing normally, and my eyes dry up. I feel okay enough to look up. Harry’s already looking at me, his jaw set and his hands curled into fists. For a second, I think it’s because of me but when our eyes meet his gaze softens, his fingers uncurl and flex at his side.

“Did he hurt you?” He asks. When I don’t answer he takes a tentative step towards me. “Y/N. Did he hurt you?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly feels parched. “My scars aren’t on the outside, he knew better than that.”

His throat bobs up and down, his face hardening into something fearsome. I always thought Harry gave me his worst side because he had some issues with me, but seeing him look like this, I’m glad I never had this directed towards me. “Dru is…”

“Dru is a fucking narcissist,” I finally say and it’s so freeing. Carrying this around was so heavy, finally saying my truth out loud even if it’s to his friend feel good.

“He fucks people up Harry, including you-wait let me finish.” I hold out my hand when he tries to interrupt. “I only remembered you last Saturday, when you helped me through…my attack. It triggered the memory from our first day--you have to know I used to get so confused and lethargic after an anxiety attack, so I never remembered who you were. I didn’t even see your face! I looked for you a few weeks later because I remembered your jersey number but it was someone else-“

“I was kicked off the team for showing up drunk…” Harry pauses, seeming to process something but he doesn’t voice it so I take it as my cue to continue.

“I actually didn’t remember you at all from uni. I guess because I didn’t remember you from that first day, you never made a first impression on me.” I take a breath. “And as for that party, that awful party. That’s not what happened. When Dru came up to me, he told me he had a bet with his mates-you guys, that a ‘girl like me’ wouldn’t kiss him. So I thought I was helping him by proving to his mates that a girl like me might.”

With the revelation, Harry folds into the chair behind him, processing everything I’m saying. And I continue, telling him what happened that night from my end. I don’t tell him how Dru slowly began to gaslight me, manipulate and isolate me, toy with my feelings. I don’t want to tell him how much he really broke me, I just tell him what he needs to know.

Nobody speaks for a moment, and then several moments pass. He gets up in a rush, running his fingers through his hair. It had grown in the two weeks since he’d cut it and it grows volume as he runs through it again.

“He tried to convince me you were-” he cuts off. “You were high maintenance, you just wanted attention. He told me I didn’t want someone-I didn’t want endgame at 18 but…” he looks at me, crushed. A million thoughts must flicker through his mind as he looks at me for a loaded minute. “I did.”

My words are caught in my throat as I understand how he had felt. How fucking different both our lives could have gone if he was the one to approach me that night at the party.

Before I can say anything he grabs his phone and checks it, he grabs all his things in a frenzy and pauses. “I’m going to fix this Y/N, I’m gonna make it right.”

“Wait what? Harry!” I try to call him back but he moves past me. I rush to move around him, stopping him with a hand to his chest. “Harry don’t do anything crazy. C’mon, let’s just talk.”

“Y/N, there are so many times......” his jaw flexes as he swallows his words.

His hand reaches out to me but they freeze in mid-air before they reach my face. He clenches them, dropping like dead weight to his side. I almost grab them, place them where they would have gone if he had the courage to carry the action out. But he just look at me, a painful faraway look on his face. “I’m sorry.”

His long legs carry him to the door before I can speak another word. I reach for the centre console that make the windows transparent, but he’s out of view by the time I do. I rush out of the room and see him in the doorway of our director’s office. Before I can call his name again, he’s shot off and our director walks out behind him. She notices me, “Y/N. Bring me your notes on Angels--if you’re free right now. Let’s go over it while we still have the momentum.”

God the last thing I can think of doing right now is work but I have nowhere to go, no excuse to give. I get back to the desk and pick up my notes and my laptop, I breathe in and think of all my fragmented pieces reigning back into my chest. I breathe out all the confusion, I put it to the side. Then I go two doors down and present my progress like everything was fucking okay.

***

Rowan’s shows up with wine on Saturday afternoon. I’d been ignoring her calls all of Friday and Saturday because I didn’t know how to break it to her. There was so much I had to hold back from her because I’d never told her the truth about Dru. And it scared me when I thought about coming clean.

“You’re screening my calls now?” She asks, her pup in hand. She lets him down and he shoots through my flat, familiar with it from all the times I dog-sit.

“I’ve just be-I’ve been-I-” I burst out crying before I can finish that sentence. She wraps herself around me and holds me tight and I hate myself for never telling her the whole truth. She holds me until my sobs turn into sniffles.

“Got it all out?” She asks when she pulls away.

“Probably not,” I say miserably. “But come in, sorry for being a shitty friend.”

“Shut up,” she makes herself at home. Unloading the tote from her shoulder that’s filled with food. “I’m going to make you lunch and you’re going to tell me everything about Dru and Harry.”

“What?” I sit on a stool at the bar. “How do you know this is about-“

“I’m with Jared now? I have an ear to the ground!” I look at her shocked. Her and Jared were together? She answers as if she could read my mind. “Yes! Can you believe it? He asked me the morning after, if I wanted to have a serious go at all this. I was like, it took you long enough! But…anyway this isn’t about me. Tell me what happened.”

“No you tell me,” I lean over the countertop. “Did Jared say something? What happened?”

“Okay,” she puts down her ingredients and I take the moment to pick her pup up before he scratches a hole in my jeans. “So I go over to Jared’s on Friday and the house looks like it went through the war. Not like, physically. Well there were things everywhere, but the atmosphere was so dead quiet. Jared takes me to the room and we pass by Harry in the hall. Jared’s like, where are you heading are you alright? And Harry’s all like, I need to get out of here-“

“Harry was there?”

“Yeah he lives in their spare attic bedroom?” She surprises me with the information like I should have already known that. “So I ask Jared what happened when we go and he said Harry came back from work early on Friday. And y’know Jared has odd hours so he was home. And he said Harry was just like a maniac. Jared tried to talk to him but it was like he was going to kill Dru and nobody could talk him out of it. And Jared knew it was serious, because even though they’ve drifted a lot since uni Harry still acted like Dru was his best mate. Jared said…”

Rowan trails off, looking at me curiously. She had this way of telling stories that jumped from one place to another but I couldn’t handle the suspense. I nearly shout, “What?”

“Well Jared said Dru has this way of getting underneath people. He knew how they ticked and he used that against people sometimes. Apparently they used to fight a lot because of that until Jared really put his foot down…Y/N, did he do that to you? Fuck you up like that? Jared said he tried to talk to Dru once when you two were dating but Dru like, got up in his face and nearly bit his head off. He always felt like that’s why Dru and you broke up because that was like the day before you two broke up. Anyway, you never said anything but…did he?”

I swallow. I guess this was it.

Through a brave face, and then a crumbling snotty one, I tell Rowan everything. Everything Dru did, and everything he didn’t technically do. At some point she comes around to sit beside me, holding my hand, my shoulder, and finally pulling me in to hold me while I blubber about how hard it had been.

“I’m so sorry,” Rowan says gently once I quiet down. “Y/N...why did you keep all this to yourself?”

“I just-” I wipe my nose with my sleeve, not caring at this point how disgusting that was. “He took everything away from me, even my identity. I thought if I didn’t tell anybody, nobody had to know how little he reduced me down to. If I didn’t say it aloud, maybe it was only in my head.”

“Oh love,” Rowan’s bottom lip quivers.

“Don’t you dare cry or I’m going to find a whole new waterfall of my own.”

“I won’t!” Rowan laughs but tears trail silently down her face. “That piece of shite. And I...oh god and I always told you to get over it. No wonder you...”

“I always thought it was curious,” Rowan stares off into space when I only shrug. “I only remember Harry from uni because I always found him looking at you, no matter what room we were in, how many people were in there I was always like, this bloke must really like my mate an awful lot because he’s always looking! That or he was a creep. But when you started dating he-who-must-not-be-named, I never looked into it.”

“I didn’t remember him,” I tell her. “He was actually the footballer that helped me my first day. I didn’t realize until that party last weekend.”

“Shut up!” Rowan looks shocked. “That’s so cute.”

“Is it?” I hesitate, realizing Rowan still hadn’t finished her story. “Finish your story, about Dru and Harry.”

“Oh yeah,” Rowan glances to the other side of the kitchen. “I should get back to lunch too.”

She heads around, chopping the vegetables and finishes telling me what happened.

Harry:

I feel fucking on fire, I can’t sit still and the more I move the more I want to punch the living shite out of Dru.

“Just, hold on!” Jared tries to stop me for the fifth time. “What’s this all about?”

“Dru’s fucking-he’s-he’s dead!” I roar. “How did I not see it earlier Jared? That little weasel got in between me and everything I ever loved!”

“What? Har, I know he’s a dick but what did he do?”

“Everything!” I shout. “He’s the reason I showed up drunk to football, he got me kicked off the team! So she never found me! And that internship in first year, he convinced me to be young and free and turn it down! He-Jared he lied to me about her! He knew how I felt and he took her, he fucked her up! He fucked her up!”

“Wait, who is this about-” Jared tries to dig deeper but I push past him when I hear the door open. Jared’s barely taken his jacket off when I have him pushed against the wall, my arm pressed against his throat.

“Harry, mate, what’s-”

“You’re sick, you’re fucking sick for what you’ve done.” I let him go, and he gets a moment to glance from me to his brother before my fist connects with his face.

“What the fuck!” He falls to the floor, clutching his face. “What the fuck’s wrong with you!”

“You lied!” I push him back up. “You lied through your fucking teeth about everything!”

He shoves me in the chest and the narrow hallway catches me on the opposite wall. That only pumps me, I shove him back and with no more words between us we’re a tornado of fists, one to my face, another to his abdomen, his head in a lock, Jared trying to break us apart and gets clipped in the face by his brother.

By the time I have him laying flat on his back, I deliver another fist to his face, but Dru spits blood up at me and laughs. He has the fucking nerve to laugh.

“It’s got to be about a girl,” his voice is hoarse, his breath comes out shaky. “It’s about her isn’t it?”

I lift him by his shirt and crash him back down onto the floor. I vaguely hear Jared, his hand catching my fist before it hits Dru again. I get one more punch with my other hand but Jared is pulling me away from Dru’s defeated form on the ground, sitting my ass on the staircase. But Dru’s sick enough to still have an amused smile on his face.

Everywhere hurts, but I can’t even focus on my own pain when I still want to cause Dru more. Jared holds me back like he knows. Dru props himself slowly on his elbows, shaking his head.

“Did you two talk? Did she finally give you that number Styles? What did she say about me? I’m a monster, I fucked her up? She’s a manipulative bitch-”

“Shut the fuck up-” I jump up but Jared pulls me back again and his hand presses a sore spot on my ribs, I crumple on the step.

“She really did a number on you didn’t she?” Dru sits up. “She knows how to get in your head. Did she tell you I lied? She was obsessed with me Harry, she was a clingy bitch and you don’t know her-”

“I know her,” I use the banister to stand up. “I’ve been working with her since I started my new job, I know her more than you ever did. You were wrong about her. About everything, you only ever gave me shitty advice.”

It gives me satisfaction, seeing the look on Dru’s face. I’d caught him by surprise, he really never knew. “So you’re keeping secrets from me now? You’re letting her come between us?”

“I don’t owe you shite. You’re nothing to me,” I walk over to him still sitting on the ground. “Don’t you ever put her name in your fucking mouth. And if I ever see you talking to her, looking at her, you won’t be able to tell your face from your arse. I know exactly what you are, I can’t believe I was so blind this whole time...you’re fucking dead to me Dru.”

It takes a moment for Dru to focus on me, “I’ll see what happens when she breaks your heart, you won’t have me around when that happens. And it will happen, she’s a slut who’s going to-”

I’m out of body when I swing my fist at his face and it makes a sickening crunch. Dru howls in pain and I stumble back, my fist throbbing in hot flashes.

“Enough!” Jared shouts, jumping in between us. When Dru goes to say something about me Jared blocks Dru from my view. “Enough you fucking dick! Enough! You’ve done enough!”

Dru shuts up; in all the years I’d known them, Jared never raised his voice at his younger brother. I’d heard them bicker plenty, arguing behind closed doors, but Jared never shouted at him like this. The shock is enough to push me out of the fog I was in.

The pain comes to me all at once, I was pretty sure my ribs were badly bruised, and blood gushes down my cheek. My hand feels useless, like the bones had turned to dust.

“Both of you are shutting the fuck up, and getting into the car. I’m driving you both to hospital because Harry’s taken a beating and Dru your nose is broken at the least.”

“I don’t-”

“No,” Jared says calmly to his brother. “In the car. Now. Not a word out of both of you.”

“Shotgun,” Andrew says weakly. Jared throws his jacket in his face and looks back at me. I follow him silently and get into the backseat. ***

Y/N:

I knock and knock but nobody answers the door. I stare at my phone, but I didn’t even have Harry’s number. I move the bottle from one hand to the other, knocking and I take a step back when a face I wasn’t expecting answers the door. It’s Dru, his face is massively discoloured, his nose is bruised and a gash on his cheek is stuck closed with steri-strips.

His grin sends cold dread through my body.

“Looking for your lover boy?” he asks me when I go silent. I stare at his face, at everything that Harry had done and he notices. “He’s good with his hands, but I’m sure you already know that.”

“Y/N,” Jared’s voice comes from behind Dru. “Sorry I was in the shower. Are you looking for Harry?”

It was unreal, how Jared walks up to the door like Dru wasn’t even there. He steps around his brother and in front of him, as if he’d been the one to open the door. I head Dru scoff, mutter something distasteful and move back up the steps.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat when the word gets stuck. “Yeah, uhm, is he here?”

“He moved, you haven’t got his number?” I shake my head no and he texts it to me along with his new address, I have no idea how Dru had my number. He look behind him before stepping towards me, closing the door behind him.

“Y/N, I just want to say I’m sorry. The way my brother treated you, it was wrong. And I should’ve said something to him earlier, but by the time I did it was too late. And then you two broke up and...I know Dru’s younger than me but growing up the way we did...it’s not always been the easiest to stand up to him.”

“Oh,” I wasn’t expecting such a confession.

“Too little, too late—I know. Rowan...she’s not happy with me. I would never hurt her—I’m not trying to get you on my side or anything but I just want to let you know. She said she needed space and it’s made me realize how stupid I’ve been not paying attention to her earlier and...” Jared trails off when he noticed my surprised face. Jared had never said this many words to me, and I also didn’t know Rowan had asked him for space. It was touching.

“I’m talking a lot aren’t I?” He laughs, ducking his head. “You’re probably itching to get to Harry but...I just want to make sure you know I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

“Thank you,” I say stiffly, not quite sure what to do with his apology. This was the most we ever spoke and he got vulnerable very quickly. Maybe I would speak to Rowan about this break she’s on.

We depart awkwardly and I map out Harry’s new address, it’s less than a 20 minute walk so I go on foot.

My hands nearly drop the bottle in my hand twice, slick with sweat and distracted as I turn the last corner to Harry’s street. A housing complex with a staircase leading to the top level leaves me even more winded by the time I get to the top. I knock and wait a few minutes, just when I think I’m out of luck a movement behind the door stops me from going back down the horrible stairs.

“Y/N,” Harry says from behind the crack in the door he’s opened up.

“Hiya,” I say awkwardly, waiting for the door to open the rest of the way. When it doesn’t, I continue. “Jared gave me your new address...are you free?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good time,” Harry says.

“Right,” shite. “Right, of course sorry I should’ve called. I’ll go, talk to you later. Oh wait, this bottle’s for you and...” Harry still doesn’t open the door wider than a crack so I leave it on the doorstep and scurry down the steps.

What the fuck was that?

By the time I reach home, takeout in hand, my phone lights up with a notification:

Thanks for the wine, I can’t drink it right now with the pills I’m on but maybe I’ll wait to drink it with you.

I don’t know what to say to it, I had this whole speech planned to say in person and now it’s got nowhere to go. I simply heart the message and put my phone away, confused and a little heartbroken.

***

Harry doesn’t show up to work on Monday, apparently he’s out sick. He’s also not in a Tuesday meeting and I would’ve gotten worried but my manager tells me he was working from home. He’d had an injury.

“By the way,” she tells me as I head back after the meeting. “I’m liking the cooperation between you two. I don’t know what you two did to finally get over being enemies but I owe Miriam a big thank you.”

I choke out a laugh, “We realized we’re on the same team.” And even as I say it I realize it, we were on the same team now; he knew about Dru. But I still felt unsettled that he didn’t let me in on Sunday.

I get back to work, happy with the acknowledgement and hoping it gets me somewhere with a promotion. But work is slow moving without Harry, I realize I miss working closely with him. Or popping by his desk to bother him. I take out my phone to text him but upon rereading his strangely removed text he sent on Sunday, I decide against it.

I pour myself a glass of wine as soon as I get home, putting in a load of laundry and taking the work day off. As I’m going to heat dinner, there’s a knock at my door. Somehow, I think I know who it is.

Harry, bruises fading on his face and stitches on his cheek, leans on the doorframe with a massive bouquet in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says as soon as I open the door.

“I…” I suddenly don’t know what to say. “Do you want to come in?”

He peeks behind me, into my safe space. His expression is unreadable but I don’t know if that’s because of how nervous I am. He looks at me for a solid minute.

“I can’t,” he sighs. “I just want to give you these. And say I’m sorry. About everything. And for shooing you away on Sunday—I looked fucking grisly, I was embarassed and…yeah. I’m sorry. For everything.”

“Okay,” I say tentatively. I take the flowers from his outstretched hand. He flashes me a smile, pushing away from the wall to leave. “Wait.” I stop him from going. “Why can’t you come in? It’s not my murder house.”

“No? Is that a few doors down?”

“It’s actually in the basement if you must know.” I grin. This felt okay.

But he sighs, “I can’t come in Y/N. Not right now, okay?” He brushes back a lock of my hair back and I realize I was no longer wearing any makeup, and my sweatpants definitely had a few questionable holes. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Okay,” I whisper. I watch him hobble off.

The bouquet goes in two vases of water because they’re too big for just one. I keep them on my coffee table and I can’t stop staring at them all night long.

***

“It makes you look rugged, just hit up a few pubs with that mug and you’ll have yourself a girlfriend in no time,” a few colleagues stand around Harry in the kitchen examining his fading bruises. Even though my own floor has a kitchen, I came to his for a tea in hopes of bumping into him. I don’t think he’s noticed me yet since his back’s to me.

“Who’s telling you I need a girlfriend?” Harry laughs.

“Mate,” a few people laugh too. “You’re oozing single bachelor. You never come out to drink with us either, you’re the resident mystery man.”

“Yeah he doesn’t ever come out with us does he?”

“Maybe he does have a missus at home.”

“Not with the way him and Y/N are always going at it, those two are like an old couple. Have you heard ‘em?”

“Yeah what is it between you two?”

“Harry’s a pain to be around,” I finally say. Everyone turns towards me, and when Harry’s eyes finally meet mine there’s an inside joke there.

“I’m in pain when you’re around,” he shoots back.

“That’s because someone finally did something about your face,” I motion to his bruises.

“Oh there they go,” someone grumbles and it doesn’t take long for them to disappear.

“Hello,” I say as Harry approaches the counter. “Was that last hit too fresh?”

“My doctors say it’s healing.”

“Mmm this team of doctors you seem to have.”

He smiles at the reference to an old joke and we stand in silence until I ask him.

“And you? You alright?” I busy myself with steeping my tea, not wanting to know if he wasn’t okay with me anymore.

“Yeah, it’s an oxymoron but I got most of my healing done with some violence. Don’t recommend it but it did feel good. You?”

“Oh,” I look up. “I’m…closer to alright than I was before.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Harry briefly touches his pinky to mine. I get we can’t do anything right now in the workplace, but my sudden urge to go around the counter and hug him tightly scares me.

“You’ve already done a lot,” I link my pinky with his instead when he doesn’t move it away. “It’s just…a me thing.”

“Y/N I am sorry I-“

“Harry,” I cut him off. “It’s okay.”

“But I should’ve-“

“Stop,” I tug his pinky. “It’s neither of our faults.”

“Imagine how different everything could’ve-“

“Don’t do that either,” I pick up my tea and finally walk around to his side. “Trust me, you won’t come up for air in time if you drown yourself in that.”

He sighs. “I think I have been.” We begin walking towards his desk in silence, thinking about this last week. Even though I’m left reeling with all the new information, with the what-ifs and could-haves, I also feel like I could finally close a chapter. I had read it aloud to people I trusted and they believed me. They had my back. I felt supported and I felt stronger in the face of my past than I had in a long time.

“This is me,” Harry says outside his department. When I notice none of his team was around I motion my head towards his desk. We walk in.

“You don’t have to punish yourself y’know that?”

Harry puts his mug down on his desk and stares at me with so much sadness it makes my heart hurt. I realize on the way to his desk that’s what he had been doing, that’s why he wouldn’t let me see him. I’d done enough self-punishing, I knew it wasn’t effective at all.

“I sort of feel like I deserve it.”

“Oh Harry,” I put my mug down and finally give in to that hug. And it nearly takes my breath away when he wraps his arms around my waist, rests his head on mine. It felt so right. Dru had fucked both of us over, but we had found each other even if it was just as friends.

“I’m sorry-“ Harry chokes out before his body shudders and I squeeze him even tighter. I pray nobody walks in because I needed this as much as he did. I keep my own tears locked up tight, not prepared to ruin this morning’s makeup. I just hold him for as long as he needs.

“I should be comforting you,” Harry says, his voice a bit stuffy.

“Nah, things are getting better,” I say as he sits down. Now I’m looking down at him. His eyes are pink but it only adds to his bruised look. He takes ahold of my hand, strokes my knuckles.

“You really squeezed my broken rib,” is not what I expect him to say but he always knew how to surprise me.

“I’m so sorry,” I take a step back. “Are you okay? Did I break it again?”

“As if you could break my ribs, you’re too weak for that.”

“Who are you calling weak?” I demand. “I could flip you over now if I wanted.”

“The only flipping you’re capable of is-“ Harry holds up both fingers and I can’t stop my mouth from falling open.

“Seriously you two?” Harry’s teammate walks in on the scene, Harry flipping me off. “It’s bloody 9am.”

I laugh, and so does he. I apologize for the early morning profanity and head towards the door.

“Y/N,” Harry takes two long strides to reach me, away from his colleague who’s settling into her desk. “You forgot your drink.”

“Right,” I take it from his hands, mischief twinkling in his eye. We had inside jokes now.

“I’m okay by the way,” he says to just me. “My ribs were only bruised. I’ll see you later okay?”

I don’t even hide my smile as I walk to the lift.

***

“Y/N,” my name snaps me out of the focused state I’d been in. “Have you finally lost your mind?”

“It’s perfectly intact thank you,” I roll my eyes at Harry, leaning over my desk. “Did you want something?”

“Ehm yeah, it’s end of the day?”

I look at the time: 5:10. When did that happen. “Lost track of time.”

“I’m following you home,” Harry says as I gather my things and start walking to the lifts.

“Did you just invite yourself over?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Sort of,” he has the decency to blush. “I just want to be around…” he trails off as a few of our colleagues join us in the wait for the lift. I want him to finish his sentence so bad but we file into the lift silently and listen to the chatter going on in front of us. Harry brushes his hand against mine but when I glance at him he stares ahead. I can tell he notices me looking when his lips twitch.

I pinch his hand and he yanks it back, “Ow!”

The group quiets and turn to him. He gives an awkward smile, “pinched my finger.”

As soon as the chatter resumes he glares at me but I smile sweetly and stare ahead.

“How did I ever think you were sweet?” Harry says as he follows me out of the building and towards the station.

“I am. You force me to forget my sweet nature,” I shrug.

He bumps into me, “I think I romanticized you too much in my head. You’re really a prickly cactus.”

“Me!? A prickly cactus??” I push him playfully, not entirely forgetting the rest of his words. We part as the crowd sheppards us into the station and onto the tube. We stand side by side close to the doors. “If I’m a prickly cactus, I’m just protecting myself from assholes.”

“That’s not me.” Harry wraps his arm around my shoulder in the close quarters of the tube and my insides go liquid. “Let me in little cactus. We can protect each other.”

I look up at him as the tube rushes to its next destination, and smile. Because even though we’re joking he’s still serious. And it’s seriously sweet.

He notices me looking and raises an eyebrow, “Well?”

“Fine,” I say with a smile on my face. It falls when he presses a kiss to my forehead, my body flushing with heat.

“Good,” he whispers to me. He pulls me closer into the ring of his arms and I have to say it’s the safest tube ride I’d ever had.

***

“Here’s home,” I say once we reach my flat. The 5 minute walk to my flat was pretty silent. Harry had grabbed ahold of my hand as soon as we left the station and with my insides buzzing I couldn’t think of a single thing to talk about. Harry seemed content in the silence.

“It’s very you,” Harry comments. “That’s a lot of books. And blankets.”

My sofa had half a dozen throws and behind my sofa were stacks of books growing up from the ground; impractical but I never got around to installing shelves. Eventually I liked the way they looked and kept them on the floor.

“I’m in publishing,” I shrug. “Books are my life!”

He flicks through the top few and suddenly I’m nervous that he’s here. So much has happened. He was twenty-one, my innocent saviour on a memorably bad day. He was a thorn in my side, and then he wasn’t. He saw me for who I was, not who people said I was. I think I loved him for it. The intensity of that last emotion sends me into my room, mumbling about changing into something more comfortable.

I sit on my bed, making sure my thoughts were actually my own. This was really something I thought.

But it comes to me so easily, it’s like the drawbridge had lifted and the ship carrying all my baggage was on it’s way out. It left behind so much space and I finally saw so much so clearly. Harry and I had a boatload of twisted history, we were always in each other’s peripheral. Now he was here. In front of me. It was scary and exhilerating.

“Do you want dinner?” I ask as I walk back out in a sweatshirt and leggings.

Harry’s standing by my gallery wall, my certificates and art, and photos of loved ones all gathered above my desk.

“I remember her,” he says sadly. He points at me in a photo from a Halloween party in my second semester. It was the first time I went a whole night with zero anxiety, I loved the new friends I made. It held a special place in my heart. “Look there’s me.”

“What?” I move closer, there’s no way I’ve had a photo hanging on my wall with Harry in it for the last 3 years.

But he’s right, in the background slightly cut off is Harry with Jared and someone else I don’t know. Him and Jared are dressed as what looks like Peaky Blinders characters, he’s smiling and when I take the frame off the wall and look closer I notice he’s smiling in the direction he’s looking in and that happens to be where I’m kneeling. He had been right there and I never even knew.

“Wow,” I say. “I never recognized you there.”

Harry takes the photo from me, he stares at it for a long time.

“Dru, he told me back then I wouldn’t have wanted Endgame at 18, 19 whatever. But I don’t think I would have minded.”

“What?” My mind slows down, trying to understand.

“When he was…manipulating me. He told me I wouldn’t want someone like you. I was young! I could be free and not tied down. I didn’t want endgame at that age. But I think I did. I was just too blinded, and scared, to go for it.”

“Are you scared now?” I ask him.

“What? No.”

“So go for it now,” I point to him in the photo. “He’d be proud.”

He looks at his younger self for a moment, lost in thought, and then slowly puts the frame down. He stares at me, a million thoughts behind his eyes. He was overthinking it, I realize. I link my fingers through his belt loops and tug him towards me and it snaps him out of it. His hand cups my face gently and he finally kisses me. It’s unlike any kiss I’d ever have, I feel every emotion he’s trying to say as he presses into me. I feel every heartbeat that ached for me in the way he holds me. It’s gentle, yet passionate, and I was drunk on it.

“Wow,” I breathe when he pulls away. From the dazed look on his face I can tell he feels the same.

“I think I lo-“

I shut him up by pressing another kiss to his lips and he reacts by pushing me into the wall. When we part again I brush his hair off his forehead.

“I love you,” I say even though it makes me want to shit myself.

He freezes for a moment before closing his eyes, a smile creeping onto his lips. “That’s not fair.”

“It is,” I grin. “I said it first.”

“You stopped me from saying it first!”

“I win,” I pull him back to me but he tilts his head to the side so my lips brush his cheek instead. “Sore loser!”

“That was not fair play,” he whines again.

“Who said I play fair?” I challenge him. “I love you! I even said it to you second.”

“No wait!” I slip away from his arms and saunter away. I hear him come up from behind and he pulls my waist back so my back is flush against his chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

With each time, he presses a kiss into my neck and I’m jelly in his hands.

“3-5 is me,” he says as he turns me around.

“I was still first,” I say but with less conviction as I come to face him this close.

“Cheater,” he mumbles into my neck.

“I’ll break your ribs again,” I threaten but it sounds like a joke the way it comes out of my mouth.

“As long as it’s not my heart,” he says and even though it’s a joke I can hear the doubt. The past seeping into the present.

“Hey,” I push him away so we’re looking at each other. “I never would have. And I never will.”

He nods but I hold his face in my hands. His hands come up to grip my arms. “Harry, I might be a prickly cactus but you know I’d never hurt you. That wasn’t me.”

He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I know. And I’m not him. You’re the air in my lungs Y/N, if I can have you, I’ll never let you go.”

“You have me,” I swear.

This time the kiss is slower, a promise to each other, to stay tender. We move that way into the bedroom, under the covers. He’s perfect. His hands roam every inch, and then his lips. By the time his hands grasp mine in the sheets, I’m blissed out of my mind. But he takes his time and I savour it, even when he whispers about forever.

***

Harry:

“Something’s changed.” O’Neil states in the middle of our last meeting with him. “You two are calmer together. Have you finally slept together?”

Y/N’s cheeks burn with embarassment but before she can speak I laugh, “we finally figured things out.”

“Good.” He nods. “I like you two together. Even though you didn’t read my book.”

Now I turn red and Y/N barks a laugh. This makes O’Neil grin and Y/N kicks me under the table.

“He’s very good at reading notes,” she says, gloating that someone other than herself has finally called me out. “Unless you write moon, then it’s neon.”

“It’s all good,” O’Neil claps my shoulder as he stands. “You did my book justice. I know she’s the one that deserves the credit but you two are finally a team. Stay that way.”

“We plan to,” Y/N says. I stand with her as we see the author out of the final meeting. He shuts me up when I try to apologize and tells me privately to hold her close. I intend to.

“That was a success,” Y/N says as we tidy up the meeting room. “The book’s on shelves in four weeks and we made that happen.”

“We did,” I can’t help but lean over and plant a kiss on her cheek. I loved when she got flustered at work.

We thought nobody had noticed the change in us at work until last week when our manager asked if we had gone to HR yet. That was an awkward conversation but she didn’t seem too bothered so we’d made the trip to make our relationship work-official. Y/N and I had been spending a lot of time in her flat, wrapped in each other. Sometimes we went out with Jared and Rowan, and Rowan threatened me many times to be good to her. I told her to do the same with Jared.

After everything with Dru, Jared moved out as well because Rowan wouldn’t date him if she had to see Dru around every time she went over. I wasn’t sure what Dru was up to but I know Jared got lonely sometimes. I could never understand their relationship but I was happy to see him with Rowan, they were good for each other.

“What are you thinking about?” Y/N snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Stuff,” I say.

“Sounds juicy,” she teases.

“Might be,” I walk over to her, unable to keep my hands off of her. It was a problem at work since we tried to stay as professional as possible but here in the blacked out room I took the risk.

“Tell me more,” her eyes are glued to my lips as I lean into the table, towering over her.

I draw her into a deep kiss, her hands tangling in my hair which usually tips me over the edge. She knows it. She knows I know she knows it. So I step away instead and her sweet smile vanishes.

“Come back,” she reaches for me.

“I’ll see you at home,” I peck her on the lips and grab my laptop.

“Not fair!” She says after me.

“I’ve got a meeting and you,” I grin. “Have to learn to play fair.”

“You’ll regret this,” she crosses her arms, trying to look menacing.

“You look cute when you don’t get your way,” I say before opening the door and shifting into work mode again. “Great meeting!” I shout back as I leave the room. I wouldn’t see her until the end of the day and with her mounting frustration at me, I couldn’t wait for 5pm to come around.

[quinloki]

A Light Touch

Fem Reader x Eustass Kid

CW: language, assault, violence, sexual themes and situations, implications of non-con, loss of limbs, blood. 18+ Only.

Chapter 1 - Table of Consent -

Chapter 2: Handy Guy

Kid and Killer didn't come back until late afternoon the next day. They'd left their numbers with the nurse, and she got them into your phone for you. She filled you in on a bit more information as well since you were more aware the next day.

The man who had rear-ended you had been released from the hospital that morning, but he was in Marine custody currently. There'd probably be someone by tomorrow to talk to you about what happened regarding the accident, and she left some materials with you about your options for prosthetics.

Kid or Killer had made sure your bag had ended up with you in your room, and you were grateful for that. Not only did it have your phone and ID, but your insurance information was in there as well. When you gave it to the Nurse she smiled.

"Your costs have already been taken care of, Miss (Y/N), but I can run everything through your insurance still, if you like."

"Uh, yes please." You were trying to think how the cost of a hospital stay had been preemptively handled, but you didn't quite have the brain cells to sort it out. You were still on some pain meds and even then there was a good bit of soreness to be dealt with.

There was no way that the drunk who had hit you had been forced to pay for your hospital stay, or anything else so soon after the accident. You didn't have any family, in the Grandline Metro or outside of it. Your work certainly wasn't going to pay for anything they didn't have to, and you didn't have anything like a sugar daddy.

The only logical conclusion was that Kid had decided to pick up the tab, and something about that irritated you. You didn't know him well enough for him to be giving you charity like this. Even if he did feel guilty for you losing your hand – which was painfully obvious – this was too much. It was like he thought you weren't capable of swinging a hospital bill just because you'd been driving a beater.

By the time Kid and Killer arrived you had become irritated and snapped at them as soon as they walked in.

"What the hell, Red?" You growl, the smile on Kid's face melting away. "I know you feel responsible for me losing my hand, but that's no reason to pay my hospital bills! I'm not broke just cause my car was a hunk of junk!"

"Eh? Don't go assigning guilt to people like that!" He threw a wrapped box against the far wall, though for a second you were sure he was going to pelt it at you. "Damn bitch." He grumbles, turning on his heel and storming out of the room.

Killer stays behind, watching Kid leave before turning back to you. He put his hands up in front of him like he was surrendering.

"I come in peace?" He offers.

"Tch. Fine. Come in if you want." You grumble, sinking back into your bed. Being angry had already worn you out and you'd barely raised your voice.

Killer walks in, setting down a small bouquet of flowers by your bed before walking around to the other side and picking up the box Kid had thrown.

"We didn't pay your tab, (y/n)." Killer says after a moment.

"Then who did? Certainly not the drunk." You grouch.

"No idea." Killer shrugs, stepping back around to the side of your bed that's by the door. "Kid did try to pay. I can't say if he does, or doesn't feel responsible for your hand. He just had the means, and I think he felt sympathetic toward you."

"I don't need-." Your words caught in your throat, and you groan. Kid had a big prosthetic arm. It was really hard to miss, and you'd seen at least two versions of it – a gnarly kind of metal one you remember from the accident, and a more subdued, almost normal looking one he'd been wearing while visiting you. Of course, he'd have some sympathy for you, losing your hand, given he was down a whole arm. "Aw, fuck, I am a dick."

"Eh. You've been through some shit the last couple days." Killer offers. "Kid just needs to cool off, and he'll be back."

"Are you everyone's voice of reason, or just his?" You question.

His shoulders shake a bit. "You seem to be doing better today at least, you've got more energy."

"Yeah." You breathe in deep and let it out. "I miss my hand, but if some money-fairy has descended and handled my hospital bill then that frees up some options."

"You could commission Kid." Killer offers. "He's made all the prosthetics he has now."

You smile. "I... don't know that I should. I think trying to pay him for something like that would just end in a fight."

"I wouldn't take yer money anyway, Mouse." Kid grumbles from the doorway.

"Ah, hey, look, I'm sorry about... uh, earlier."

"S'fine." He mutters, coming into the room.

"I still don't know what to think about you two." You admit as Kid sits down in the corner chair.

"Whaddya mean?" He still sounds a little testy, but you couldn't blame him. You'd read him the riot act earlier and it was unfounded.

"I appreciate you guys visiting, and, honestly, I can swallow my pride and appreciate you wantin' to help financially too. But," you chuckle a bit and smile sardonically. "This can't be how I make friends for the first time since school."

"You really ain't got any friends, Mouse?"

"Ah, I mean, I have some coworkers I get along with, but aside from that, not really. Most of my hobbies are indoors, and I don't dislike people, but well..." You clear your throat. "Most of my school friends moved out of the Metro, and there's a couple I keep in touch with, but they're miles away. I don't know, once my mom passed away a couple years ago, I've just kind of... worked." You shrug, and then look back to Eustass. "I have to know though, why do you keep calling me mouse?"

Kid turns his hand as he talks. "Your key chain." He sips whatever drink he'd gotten when he went to cool off. "You should put less charms on your key ring, Mouse. The extra weight can wear out the starter."

Admittedly, you had a lot of little knickknacks on your key ring. You'd find cute small charms while walking the malls, or from little gacha machines, and the ones you liked ended up on your key ring. Between the options he had to pick from, maybe Mouse wasn't such a bad nickname. The idea of someone like Eustass Kid calling you "kitten" or "maid" or "dog" just kind of soured in your mind.

"What if I really don't like that nickname?" You questioned.

Kid shrugs. "I'm not trying to be your friend, Mouse, so -."

Killer clears his throat, and Kid grumbles, taking another drink.

"If it really bothered you, I could... try."

"Eh. I imagine there's worse things to be called by walking volcano with a metal arm."

Kid tried to glare, but with his face turning pink it really diminished his intent. Killer nearly choked on his own drink, and was silently shaking in his chair, trying desperately to stifle his laugh.

"You're a real brat, (Y/N)." Kid grumbled and you laughed as much as you could muster between your injuries.

"Somehow I feel like you're the type to get along with a brat better than, say, a princess." You point out.

Kid opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it, and then finished off the rest of his drink. He got up and picked up the box he'd tossed across the room, that Killer had set by your bed. He turned it over in his hands, knocking crinkles off the wrapping.

"Do you know when they're releasing you?" He asks.

"Tomorrow, if nothing opens up. I heal pretty fast, not like Devil Fruit fast, but nothing's infected and they can't do anything about a prosthetic until it's completely healed anyway."

"Decided what you're going to get?"

There were several kinds of available prosthetics for people. There were mechanical-movement versions, which mimicked neural movements fairly well, but the control was all in learning how to manipulate the mechanisms. Most didn't have fine movement capabilities, and all of them required re-learning how to move whatever they replaced. Another type was single-join or stationary prosthetics, commonly for legs or people who were only wearing one to make other folks more comfortable. With only one or no moving parts, they were more for show than practical use.

The kind becoming more common over the last couple decades, were neurologically connected prosthetics. It was a painful primary procedure, and it required both money and capacity to upkeep, but they moved and worked like actual limbs. All the way down to producing sensations of touch and pressure.

You shrug. "Part of me wants a fully integrated hand. But I don't know if that's necessarily because I need one, or if I just want one. I mean, I've had two hands for my whole life. I'd like to have two hands for the rest of it."

"That sounds like a strong enough reason to go for it." Kid states, setting the rumpled box back where Killer had put it. "You don't have a car right now, Mouse, you need a ride tomorrow?"

"I could get a taxi, but uh, I guess if you're offering, I can accept." You thought about it for a second, remembering the fact that it was nearly the bumper of Kid's truck that slammed into you. You were not nearly as tall as the two men in your room, and you had logistical concerns. "Can I even get into that monster truck of yours?"

Kid grunts as Killer stood up and they headed out with a simple, "get some rest." And you were on your own again.

Admittedly, you were really tired, and as you dozed off you wondered if either of those muscle-heads had noticed. They seemed like really nice guys, especially for a couple of dudes who look like they'd fight god with hammer, a rusty screw driver, and nary a fuck to give between them.

The next day, just as the nurse had anticipated, you were visited by the Marines. A young officer with dark eyes and bubblegum pink hair asked you questions about the accident. He had a partner with him, but the taller blonde didn't seem to be interested in even being there.

You explained the turn of events as best as you could remember.

"Did you want to press charges?" The marine, who said his name was Coby, questions you.

"If he's willing to pay restitution, then I have no reason to do so." You admit. "I've already lost a few days of work, and will be out for another couple weeks at least, plus the cost of replacing my hand. But if he doesn't want to even try to pay for damages, then yes."

"That's acceptable, Miss (Y/N). Did you want to press charges against the secondary collision? Technically, you'd be at fault for it, but with the-."

"No, not at all." You interrupt. "The guys that were in the truck have been apologetic and have been visiting me regularly. They haven't blamed me for any damages to their truck, and it's not their fault that, uh, did you say his name was Mr. Vander?"

Coby nods. "Vander Decken the ninth." He reads from his notes.

"Yeah, it's not their fault that drunk bastard shoved me into the intersection." You say with an obvious irritated edge to your voice.

You catch a faint smile across the young marine's face, but he quickly composes himself to a more professional expression. "Very well, Miss (Y/N), that's all we need today. As things progress we'll be in touch. You're due to be released today, correct?"

"Yeah, later this afternoon."

"Alright. I'll reach out to you at your home in a couple days as a follow-up."

"Thank you officer Coby, I appreciate that."

Now all that was left to do was wait for Kid and Killer and go through the discharge process.

Next Chapter

[jokeringcutio]

Arthur Harrow x Assassin Reader Drabble

Prompt Fill: You are an assassin hired to end Arthur Harrow's life. But his lentil soup changes things. (Dark but decent version) Fandom: Moon Knight TV Pairing: Arthur Harrow x (AFAB) reader Rating: Teen Warnings: Assassin AU, poison, reference to non-con drug use. For @nicktremblaywayfu

Drabble: Assassin and Arthur Harrow

The bottle up your sleeve felt hot and cold at the same time. A mixture of feelings, as if it were burning through your clothes. As if everyone could see that you had it hidden there, cap ready to be popped.

But not yet. You waited patiently for your target to arrive. Around you, others said at the table, making pleasant conversation. You were blending in perfectly, dressed in plain clothes. An ordinary disguise for a not so ordinary assassin.

You could have chosen many way to terminate the life if this particular man. Swifter ways, perhaps even less painful ways. A gun to the head or a knife to the heart. Instead, you had chosen to stay under the radar and use a poison that would be hard to trace. All you needed to do was slip it into his drink. Or his soup, you mused.

You knew the leader of this particular cult usually sat to eat with his peers as a sort of bonding process. He was usually quite reserved and would sit in his private chambers for hours, hardly letting anyone near except a chosen few whom he trusted. Poisoning him seemed to be the least hard of all the options you had at hand, and the least messy as well.

Nervously, you waited for his arrival. The girl to your right kept chatting to you about all the things she wanted to see changed in this world. And wasn’t that ironic? You smiled politely at her, did your best to appear at your most charming. You knew no one noticed the tenseness of your muscles or the way you expertly schooled your expressions. You’d never been caught before and today wouldn’t be any different.

Finally, the man you had been tasked to assassinate appeared. He was followed by a handful of men and women, all eager to brush their hands past his shoulders and chest like he was some kind of messiah. You looked at them with contempt and bit your cheek. Why were you feeling all hot and bothered inside at seeing how others touched him? It must be because you could tell he took delight in it, right? That he was used to being revered as some sort of God. You wondered if he thought of himself as so, or if he truly believed he was just the messenger, tasked to speak for his Goddess?

It didn’t matter. After tonight, he would be gone.

Arthur Harrow did not have his own spot at a table. Rather, he liked to sit somewhere different each night, following a pattern around the room. And if you had not been mistaken, he would be seated at your table tonight. He did not disappoint, for he came over to where you were, footsteps slowly crunching.

You had prepared a plan to distract him. And you would use the girls by your side to enact it – they were unknowing of how you would lure them into doing the thing you needed them to do, of course. It would make tracing you down as the culprit that much harder – if the cult ever decided to treat Arthur’s demise as suspicious instead of natural.

You had to suppress a smirk at the thought of how you were going to get away with it. But it was in that exact moment that Arthur’s eyes met yours, and you felt as if he could look into your soul. Your smirk had gone, like snow in the burning hot sun. Was he onto you?

“I think, I’ll sit next to you,” was all he said, then waited for the girl next to you to scoot aside. It was clear which spot he indicated. It was on the same bench you were seated on, exactly next to you.

Shit, this ruined your plans. You had not expected for him to sit next to you. Somehow, that scenario had been off the table, because why would he pick a seat next to you when they had already been taken? You had to recalculate. The upside of it all was that it would be easier to slip the potion into his food like this. He was seated at the right side, at the right sleeve. And the potion would not take effect till at least a few hours later. You could get away with it. By the time suspicions were roused, you’d be long gone, back on the plane home.

The girl next to you scooted aside to make room for her leader. She looked up at him with lovey-dovey eyes, like most of the younger women here, you thought. And even some of the men.

Arthur had his charm, certainly. Yet you were determined not to let him work his magic on you. You flexed your fingers and waited with baited breath for the man to take his seat by your side. You instantly felt the warmth radiating from his body, and picked up his earthy scent of herbs and spices that enveloped you along with his presence. Everything about him was enchanting. You would almost believe that a Goddess truly existed and had claimed the man as her own. He was like magic himself.

“So,” he said, and turned at you smiling. “Have you tasted the soup?”

He gestured with his hand at the plate in front of you. The watery substance didn’t look very alluring, but it was highly recommended to you by the chefs. Of course, you had taken it, not to break character. You forced a smile and looked up at him until the two of you locked eyes.

He knew.

You didn’t know how you could tell, but there was a certain glint to his eyes that told you he was aware of what you came here to do. That you had come here solely with the purpose to annihilate him. And that you would do it by poisoning his food. Soup was the perfect medium for it. A liquid that he would devour enough from. He always finished his plate.

“I,” you hesitated, not able to conceal you had not taken a single taste of it. Then you shook your head.

“Pity,” he murmured, voice low while he bend his head closer to yours. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” and then he whispered, for the others not to hear, “I made it myself.”

You felt the stir around you, noticed how the other young men and women at the table grew restless at seeing their leader confide in you in hushed tones. There was a certain jealousy radiating off them. Especially the girl to Arthur’s right, the one who had to scoot aside and had been happy to be seated next to him, at first. She seemed angry now that his attention was on you fully. So his charm worked, you thought amused. He has them all in his palm, but could lose them just as easily by making the wrong move.

“Try it,” he urged you. And unable to break your disguise, to give away anything that might prove his suspicions to be true, you slowly picked up your spoon and sipped from the soup.

It tasted… nice.

Good even. Heavenly. You had not thought that such a plain looking soup could contain so much flavor. And you eagerly started to lap it all up.

“What kind of soup is it?” you asked after a few more hasty sips. Your eyes found his again and you could not but notice the small smile that played on his lips as he slowly started to eat from his.

“Lentil soup,” he answered, truthfully. “I am a vegan, but that doesn’t mean I have no taste.”

And indeed, the soup was heavenly. You sat there, hip against hip, while the two of you sipped from your soup in silence. Arthur radiated a warmth that made his presence undeniable. Suddenly, a weight plummeted in your stomach. It was the realization that you had been paid to come here and to murder this man. This hidden five-starred homemade chef.

“They say that the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach,” you murmured, catching Arthur’s attention fully. He tilted his head and looked at you from the corners of his eyes.

“Is that so?” he murmured.

You smiled. “It appears that you will have no trouble in finding yourself a bedmate, Mister Harrow.” Something in his eyes glinted, as if you had unearthed some kind of hidden secret there.

Your retort had given you away though. The expressions of the others at the table should have been a clue as they looked at you in shock. No one called Arthur by his surname except for his enemies. And what you had just done, was betray your identity without you even knowing it. Perhaps you could blame the soup. It was making you drowsy.

“It seems you’re tired,” Arthur whispered near your ear, then turned to the men and women by his side. “Bring her up to my room. I think she could use a laydown.”

Then he was above you again as he made you lie against his chest, vision spinning, head dozy. "Lay her upon my bed," you wondered if you truly heard him say that. Everything had started to spin and sounds became dull. It all was happening so fast. You could just make out his eyes, burning as they looked down upon you, and feel how his fingers slipped inside of your sleeve, taking the vial out between the tips of his fingers. For a moment you feared it had gone, that he had somehow used your own potion on you. But you knew it shouldn’t have worked that fast.

It was a relief to see all the contents were still inside, and to see how Arthur tucked it inside of his own pocket with a slight hum. Then his hair fell around his face again, the imitation of a halo of an angel.

“I had not heard that expression before,” he murmured only for you to hear, his hands gently on the sides of your face. “The way to a woman’s heart seems to be through her stomach indeed. And I promise you, I will cook my homemade soup for you every day after this, if you promise to stay with me.”

Your vision blurred, and with that promise, your consciousness was gone.

AN: Sorry, it became dark again. Ugh. I can’t help it… I have been feeling under the weather even more lately. Can’t wait for tomorrow, new hospital visit, hopefully they’ll find something.

Anyhow. I suppose Arthur became aware of the reader’s intentions and drugged her before she had the chance to poison him. I imagine she wakes up on his bed afterwards and gets a good thorough fucking to be put in her place. I’ll probably try my hand at a fill for this prompt again as it is too good and has so many possibilities <3

[whetstonefires]

10 and 29 for the ask game?

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

I try not to have expectations, so I'm sure it's happened a lot and I didn't remark upon it enough to remember.

I do recall that All the Roofs of Uncertainty was originally a one-shot that was much better-liked than I expected, so I wrote into the what-happens-next and changed the original open ending into a whole plotline, that consisted almost entirely of Jason Todd talking to people in a hospital.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Oh gosh I have so many fics that lie unfinished because the work necessary to complete them exceeded my interest in the premise. I could do this for weeks and not run out. Let's see.

Okay, the funniest fic that I will never ever finish is the one that was me trying to draw up a plausible background scenario for an AU (which I couldn't decide if it ought to be modern or not) where Su She was dating Wei Wuxian.

(This in turn was inspired by the fact that I kept reading modern AUs where various canon villains were cast as wwx's shitty boyfriend or ex and it was never Su She, aka the bargain bin version of Lan Wangji, who seemed to me to be the least improbable option on offer. Like if you feel the need to lampshade repeatedly within your fic that it's incomprehensible that Wei Wuxian would ever voluntarily date Jin Zixun, maybe that's a sign you should change that bit.)

The plot of the story that Su-She-uses-his-words-and-pulls-wwx embedded itself in would have revolved around Lan Wangji subsequently agreeing to a date with ten-years-younger Mo Xuanyu, presumably in an attempt to move on, and Su She picking up on his hopeless pining when both couples happened to be in the same room, as dates to the same function or something, and then following a characteristically self-destructive course where he got so wrapped up in rubbing it in Lan Wangji's face that he finally had something the Lan scion wanted and couldn't get that he wound up entirely destroying his own relationship.

Wei Wuxian is a very good judge of people who also attracts strong personal loyalty once people get attached to him in the first place, and notably something that simply never happens to him is someone betraying him who he trusted not to do that. (Jiang Cheng does not count; Wei Wuxian maneuvered him into most of it, he wasn't taken by surprise.) So it could be really neat to finesse the character work of him understanding Su She's basic character flaws, but not expecting them to manifest or affect him quite the way they end up doing.

In the same way he mostly gets Lan Wangji as a person from the start but, lacking insight into certain things he's hiding, is unable to reliably reconstruct his perspective. To an increasingly noticeable degree, as lwj acts on that aspect of his motivations more openly.

I am never going to write that though, because I just don't care enough about that kind of story, although concept free to a good home.

I did write out a little of the backstory to how Su She could have wound up in a position of wanting to date Wei Wuxian on his own merits, which was a fun bit of character study because Su She is basically Jin Guangyao's Wen Ning, you know? Evil Wen Ning.

His understanding of Jin Guangyao as someone who respects and values him earned an insane amount of personal loyalty from a basically very selfish guy--like sure, it's clear he got a steady stream of favors out of the bargain, but he also puts himself on the line way in excess of the practical value Jin Guangyao has provided and is likely to provide; the real inducement was the validation.

So, if Wei Wuxian had happened to be carelessly kind and supportive to Su She the way he was to Wen Ning, having met him in a weak moment before Su She had had a chance to make an impression as a petty asshole rather than just a bit of a dumbass (not that he actually in canon managed to make any personal impression even by shooting him in the arm) you could probably arrange for him to glom onto Wei Wuxian instead, as someone like him, who didn't get the respect he deserved because of his birth station.

And Wei Wuxian would be perfectly willing to reciprocate that friendship, even though (as with Wen Ning) if Su She didn't reach out promptly he'd have totally forgotten he existed until prompted lmao. Su She would never forgive that insult.

You can see in the passage here where I still kind of wanted it to be a modern AU so they're texting, but the setup I'd written previously worked as a clean canon divergence because that's my usual preference, and I really wasn't interested enough in a plot that's entirely about romantic relationships to figure that out and write the rest.

But I did enjoy doing this study of how Su She could have gotten stuck on Wei Wuxian, only to later go on to fuck himself over with his Lan Wangji complex.

It was nice to have someone to complain to who got it. When Su Minshan talked about having no family to turn to, about owing everything to the Sect that had raised him when, to the Lan, everything came down to the clan and he would never have a chance to truly distinguish himself— Sometimes I think about just leaving, Su Minshan wrote, because Wei Wuxian wouldn’t scold him for being ungrateful. You can, if you want, Wei Wuxian wrote, as if it was that easy. Only if you came too, Su Minshan had written back, shaken by his own daring. Of course, Wei Wuxian refused. Jiang Cheng would never forgive me if I ran off. Because he’s counting on you to run his Sect for him. He absolutely is not. Jiang Cheng will work himself into the ground before he lets me do his job for him. He didn’t admit that of course the Sect Heir was counting on him, but he didn’t disagree, which was basically the same thing. Wei Wuxian worked very hard and was rewarded for it, but Su Minshan knew that even in Jiang the equal opportunity only went so far—he was the Sect Leader’s pet for personal reasons, not just on merit, and even so he could never rise to be the equal of the blood heir. It was infuriating sometimes how that didn’t bother him. Have more ambition! You’re so lucky, Su Minshan wrote, because he was jealous, he was so so jealous. I am! <3 But let’s see, outside the main family how important can a person get in Lan Sect? You can make a plan. Weeks of effort did not produce any particularly good plans. The most realistic one took forty years to show results. Maybe I should just kill Lan Wangji and use a spell to disguise myself and take his place, Su Minshan joked. Haha! Minshan-xiong, I’m sorry, you couldn’t pull off being Lan Zhan. That hurt, an unexpected cold dagger to the ribs. Wei Wuxian was his friend! Why not! he typed angrily. Was his playing too weak, his swordsmanship, his deportment? Would even Wei Wuxian tell him he was just not good enough? Because you could never resist saying something bitchy when you had the chance, and he keeps all the bitching inside his head. Su Minshan put his head down and laughed until he thought he might cry.

I have the sneaking suspicion I already shared this one for one of these games, because it really is by far the funniest thing I'm definitely never going to finish, so I'll reblog this post later with another offering.

[fallowhearth]

David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, 2021

This is not a review. It will probably be a bit of a ramble about my approach to reading history and thinking through why I bounced off this so many times. This is also about letting myself off the hook - I'm going to let this one remain unfinished. I don't need to finish reading it.

After I dropped out of grad school (highly recommended), it took me a good few years to be able to stomach picking up a history book again. But, I do really enjoy the discipline. There's a reason I wanted to do it as a career. I eventually found a way back in - from YouTube video essays, to a few podcasts, to reading history from outside my field. I had the most success with ancient/pre-modern histories; obligatory Tides of History plug as I've loved all the deep dives into genetic history and archaeology (and gotten quite a few great book recommendations). I don't have any particular knowledge in these fields, I don't have the language skills or context to interpret sources myself, I've never even taken an ancient history course. So reading these I have no option but to basically rely on the expertise of the historian, to see what they say about various topics and about each other. It's the opportunity to read history like a layperson, and hey, it's pretty interesting!

On the one hand, Dawn is engagingly written - I'd call it kind of magazine style? - and tells a compelling story. But, the whole time I'm wondering, but is any of it true?

My impulse when reading something from within my area of academic expertise is to go and take a look at some of the sources myself. It's always a useful sense-check; it's due diligence. History is by its nature kind of subjective. Historians don't just deal in lonely facts (to paraphrase someone whose name escapes me), but in interpretation and argumentation. Everything has been passed through several human filters before a historian even looks at it. So, in a room full of historians you respect, you can have a lively, contentious discussion where no two people have quite the same reading of the source. There's a skill you pick up after a while - you get a sense for the range of defensible interpretations of a particular piece of evidence. You'll feel more affinity for part of that range, based on the things you believe about how the world works, your particular axe to grind, other things you've read, niche academic beef, etc.

I'm confident I've read at least a few of the sources Dawn uses, and I've definitely read within adjacent bodies of sources. So, I have an incredibly strong need to go and take a look at the specific things they're basing their argument on. I trust my own judgement; I want to establish that range of defensible interpretations, I want to see what readings I'd pull out first, I want to see what the distance is between Dawn's point on that range and mine. The problem is that I can't. Even if I wanted to dive back into the archive, I literally don't have any of the institutional accesses that would allow me to. Also I really don't want to. So I'm constantly feeling this itch I can't scratch at the back of my mind while reading Graeber and Wengrow's work.

The broad version of Dawn's thesis is something like: 'humans have experimented with diverse ways to live and organise their societies across space and time, in ways that are not accommodated by the teleological models developed within the colonial context'. I'd say, yeah, I pretty much agree with that! (In fact it's a thesis I'd love to nail to the doors of many popular history writers.) But I get the same sense reading Dawn as I did reading various provocative works of global history (many of which I really like): the broad thesis is generally defensible, but it falls apart on the page-to-page level. Of course I can't actually confirm this since, well, I haven't done my due diligence!

[lol-jackles]

https://tvline.com/2023/03/07/the-winchesters-recap-season-1-finale-dean-heaven-multiverse-jensen-ackles/

Lots to unpack with this one but some things to point out:

Dean identifies himself as a hunter (alias: James Hetfield) and explains that when he got to Heaven (in the Supernatural series finale), he took Baby for a drive through the multiverse in search of an Earth where his family had a shot at a happy ending. That’s when he caught wind of the Akrida, one of Chuck’s last creations to wipe out existence if he failed. With Sam still alive, Dean wasn’t going to let the Akrida possibly make their way to his brother’s Earth. So as he explained to Bobby in an earlier scene, he gave John the letter from Henry to nudge him in the right direction.

Jack shows up to warn Dean about interfering, but Dean argues that Sam deserves a good, long life, and if Jack wants to cast him out of Heaven, so be it. Of course, Jack gives him a pass and tells him to finish what he started. Dean gives John and Mary his journal, then warns Mary to watch out for a yellow-eyed demon, before handing her the Colt. Now that the Akrida are gone, John and Mary are free to choose their own destiny, which they do by leaving town together, and Dean believes that he may have finally found a version of his parents with a true chance at happiness.

So this did take place during Dean's drive in heaven. Robbie later in the interview even kinda admits they picked it because that's when Sam COULDN'T be there:

There was the spot that takes place in between Episodes 19 and 20, when what happens to Dean happens to Dean… So there was an opportunity to tell stories there, but that just didn’t work for me because we wouldn’t have access to Sam in that way, in a way that we could easily explain or at least emotionally explain, and that just didn’t feel like it was a story that certainly I wanted to tell and none of us did. And the other option was when he was, obviously, in Heaven, because we see him arrive there and he has the scene with Bobby, but then he goes for a drive. That was instantly very exciting to all of us in terms of a space for us to live in and tell our story.

But I think my favorite part of the interview is this blatant lie:

TVLINE | There is a lot of Dean in this episode, which I’m sure is going to please Supernatural fans a lot. What kind of conversations did you and Jensen have about Dean’s presence in this episode and his mission? Did Jensen have any strong feelings about any of the details? Did he have any ideas for this particular episode that you can share? RT: With the finale, [it] was really kind of the same talking points that Jensen had from the beginning, and I don’t want to speak on his behalf, but he was really very clear about he wanted to narrate, he wanted there to be a Dean story, but — I’m paraphrasing here — he didn’t want it to seem like this was The Dean Show. This needed to be a story about Mary and John. At the same time, he recognizes there is a strong desire to see that handsome face again behind the wheel of that car.

he didn’t want it to seem like this was The Dean Show.

he didn’t want it to seem like this was The Dean Show.

hahahahahhahahahha oh ok. Looks like he's taking a page out of the heller book where he thinks if he just says something enough it will make it true.

I must have zoned out from all the freaking expositions that I missed Dean's alias name.

Yup, the show was intended to take place on OG Supernatural and then somewhere between the wildly fluctuation ratings freefall they switched gears and took the AU route.

I have a feeling that Robbie wasn't supposed to reveal that the phone call was coming from inside the house this whole time aka it was actually The Dean Show The Whole Time.