#had such ATTITUDE in the second one. cuz yeah they have emotions and stuff. i do wonder a lot about whether they have theory of mind

[sneefsnorf]

OH HEY!! do you have final thoguhts on ultrakill and gabriel and the v's and everything :333333 <- my agenda

machine. ive spent my life loved and revered by my people and my church. i trusted my institution and my Father because i never had a reason not to, machine. the council and the people had such high expectations of me and i always rose to meet them. my achievements were many. everything was perfect. and then you took it all from me, machine. i failed ONCE. i wasnt what the church wanted me to be exactly and they tore their love away from me. its not fair. not in the slightest. ive been thinking a lot. ive been reflecting on the churches and the institutions of mankind. so many of them have warped the word of the Father into whatever will give them the most power. they use his teachings to break down and bully those they hate. they grind them into the ground and humiliate them as much as they can, not just for their own self-gain, but for the sake of hatred. this is what the council has done to me, machine, and now i have joined your ranks. all their love for me revoked as soon as i couldnt be what they wanted, thrown from the gates of heaven like the queers and the freaks. i've joined your ranks, machine. i'm less than a person now. and i am filled with so much rage.

anyways thanks for driving me to the abortion clinic machine i really appreciate it

[amaiguri]

I redesigned my Main Antagonist

Kivihk, the God of Blood and Beginnings, has slowly risen from "antagonist of one story arc" to "main antagonist" and thus, he needs a new design and personality to match.

What was I working with? He had this arrogant, abrasive, "I'm waaay better than you" sort of attitude before. Imagine like... stereotypical misogynist college bad boy who drinks and parties too much and stuff. And he wanted to take over the world because he was an entitled baby.

So. He was evil and boring.

And also, he wasn't wearing enough clothes and this made him LESS hot, imo. I mean, look at this mess...

So then, I fixed him.

Initially, I fixed his second-in-command, Vanya, and gave her an actual tragic arc and stuff. And she went from "boring, evil goon" to "realistic depiction of a trad wife being gaslit into thinking giving birth was her only value, only to be put down for doing the one thing they told her she should do." So, she's this EMOTIONAL MESS and she hates him but she loves him cuz she doesn't think she has options...

Except the Demonic/Eldritch horror version. So her body will eventually be consumed and taken over by him. And she has to just be happy about this... SEE? That's FUN! (And by "Fun", I mean, it's horrific.)

So, next, I thought "Maybe, I'll remove Kivihk from the story except as a force-of-nature villain, with Vanya as his face!" Especially since "God of Blood and Beginnings" sounds a lot like "birth" to me -- so making him more of a feminine villain just made sense. I even started doing some sketches for this potential change -- Below: Vanya as she is now and Vanya as she could be as the avatar of a dead God.

But then I thought about how much editing that would require and died inside...

So I went and fleshed out the last 2000 years of backstory. And lo and behold, my usual trick of "just imagine going through their backstory" gave me a lot more empathy for the kind of people these two would be... And for one: Kivihk would not ACT like an entitled little baby all the time. He would, in fact, be pretty gentle, patient, and nice. He's a God, after all. He's a God who is superior to all other mortals and he has forever to achieve his goals. As I described it to my Discord:

He doesn't hate humans... he just doesn't see them as people. Do you gloat at cows? No. You aren't insane. You DO still get mad at them if they break your fence or refuse to eat the food you give them, though...

So, with this in mind, I went and redrew him to give him that "JRPG Final Boss First Form" vibe. In his human disguise atm, he's got darker skin because the majority of humans in that area have dark skin. But most of my Demons have ashy-silver skin, so that's kinda what I'm going for with his "Godling" form.

To be clear, in his TRUE true form, he'd probably have like 5 more of those black "burned" arms, 6 more eyes, and like 3 flaming halos or something. I also think his God form would be more fishlike, since fish lay a lot of legs, and take a lot of influence from sea angels (since they're clear/white but have a red core and I think that's a great aesthetic for a God of Blood).

So yeah! That's a list of all the changes atm. I'm not even sure if this is the final destination of my changes so if you have questions or suggestions, I am open to them. Thanks for going on this journey with me! Now I just have to do a proper illustration to update this banner already... Hee hee!

[bigskydreaming]

Tim Drake apparently threw ‘zero tantrums’ after being replaced as Robin, ‘unlike Dick.’

Sigh.

This is why I hate fanon sometimes. People honestly actually believe this stuff, and have no problem rounding off emotional reactions to their most extreme limit, so anyone who doesn’t know any better just walks away with the interpretation that Dick is just a big ball of childish fury and no emotional control, and Tim is just the coolest of the cool cucumbers.

Dick threw exactly ‘one tantrum’ after being replaced without warning, reason or explanation given, with the mantle HE and he alone established. And it was AT BRUCE, the person actually responsible, NOT Jason, and you wanna know the funny thing? Check out that issue. Check out how BRUCE responds. Dick comes in and is pissed, sure, but BRUCE is the one who loses his shit and breaks something just for the hell of it, cuz like, it’s just so infuriating that he has to have a conversation about feelings I guess. But does anyone talk about that? Does anybody ever examine whether Dick’s oh so infamous temper might come from being raised by a man who is his example of what to be like, and who apparently is capable of losing his shit any time someone asks him to actually emote? Naaaaaah.

And then we have Tim, who after being replaced in a TOTALLY different manner, with Dick standing there giving him compliments instead of criticism, and yeah sorry to break it to people, but Tim absolutely did get pissed too! And he stormed out of the cave while Dick was literally standing there begging him not to go, saying he NEEDED him, and Tim’s just like yeah well whatever dude and fucks off out of Gotham for a year, which yes, was because he was looking for proof Bruce was alive, but the willful refusal to pick up the phone and reassure Dick every time the latter called him to check up on him (because it wasn’t like Dick had just lost his second father too, and was likely terrified of losing his remaining family, especially when he didn’t even know where they were but knew wherever it was, it was likely dangerous)....yeah Tim refuses to ever talk to him that year even to reassure him he’s still okay, purely out of spite, and Dick has to resort to asking Tim’s friends to check up on him for him.....but none of this is Tim throwing a tantrum, unlike Dick??

Ugh.

See this is why I will never be over the myth of Dick’s temper. Fanfics and headcanons and meta all act like he’s so above and beyond the rest of his family and teams in terms of fury and lack of emotional control or maturity, when every single member of his family and most of his teammates exhibit the same (and often GREATER) displays of temper and ‘irrationality’ just as often as he does, if not more....it’s just NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT THEIR DISPLAYS OF TEMPER. No, everybody acts like they just don’t exist, didn’t happen, or if they did, they were just fully justified unlike Dick’s, whose are never justified, somehow.

And so Dick winds up with this reputation of being over the top angry at the drop of a hat, even though he’s also the ONE member of the family with a reputation as a people person that everyone likes and finds charming....which uh....doesn’t mesh with a guy that loses his cool at just about anything, especially with how often members of his family and teams and just the general public DO give him shit and habitually and casually insult his name, his costumes, his sex life, his circus background, his heritage, his status in the family and anything else they can think of lololol.

But meanwhile, his poor suffering family has to weather Dick’s many temper tantrums while NEVER exhibiting the same, and definitely never at his expense. It’s not like Dick is the only member of the family who has literally been punched in anger by EVERY SINGLE OTHER MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY EXCEPT CASS.....but nobody ever mentions that, do they? That Bruce, Jason, Tim, Damian....all of them have lost their cool with Dick and punched him to shut him up or make themselves feel better or just express RAWR IM SO MAD AT YOU.....but has Dick ever done the same with Damian or Tim? Just Bruce based on Bruce’s example, and Jason when he was actively shooting at him or others or presenting himself as some kind of active threat.

All of which i will never say is ideal and I wish hadn’t happened and I’m not defending Dick doing those things, I’m simply pointing out the double standard in how all of those things are brought up time and time again as Exhibit A of Dick’s temper and flaws, but how many people even KNOW that Tim has punched Dick, if they haven’t read that issue themselves? How many people hear about that fight between Dick and Donna back in the day, and walk away sure it was all Dick’s fault and he was an asshole for it, and never learn that Donna started it, said equally cruel things to him, refused to leave when he TRIED to de-escalate it and say he wasn’t in the right attitude to be having this particular conversation right now, and oh yeah, in response to what he said to her, SHE punched him through a WALL. And oh yeah Dick was also brainwashed at the time but lol what does that matter, context is for other Batfam members lol.

So yeah. This is why I hate fanon sometimes, because sometimes fanon is kinda a lying asshole about canon and to such an extent that everyone who doesn’t read canon (which is a large part of this particular fandom) writes all their fics and comments and posts based on the interpretation that everything they’ve heard about Dick from equally biased fans of other characters is totally true and accurate and we wind up with this fandom wide perception that Dick and Dick alone has anger management issues and he really just needs to cool it, unlike his family and friends, who are all just rational, collected cool, cool cucumbers even in the most emotional of situations.

[charlie-minion]

charlie-minion(.)tumblr(.)com/post/635987979304943616/could-the-same-spn-finale-make-a-little-more-sense Hey Love! Thanks for such an amazing post! It was still hard for me personally to deal with it for many reasons, but when you mentioned "yeah well we gotta work around Dean dying so let’s work around Dean dying then, stay with me" i understood why u went where u went with it. I just wanted to ask your opinion/suggest/question few things if u don't mind. 1) I can see Dean's speech (1/9)

“If we don’t keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing” make sense, except in psychlogy grieving and remembering people who died is not the same as not letting go. I feel this point could be GREATLY improved if we saw some memorabilia in bunker around Cas (without Dean paying much attention to them or being sad about them (2/9)

[?Miracle running to him for cuddles with mixtape in mouth and Dean freaking out about how it’s the best dog ever cuz he loves Led Zeppelin or sth, idk I’m making it up as I go with examples, dont mind me?]) and would either see that Dean is still grieving while working on letting go (not bc he can’t let go, but because grieving is a process and IT IS HEALTHY to grieve. Too many ppl are shamed for needing time to heal(!!) while it’s actually personal and normal and we know Dean doesn’t (3/9)

just insta forget (from experience), and grieving has more to do with emotionality and less with not being able to let go). OR we could be shown in some way that more time passed and he did already get to heal from grief. That would save Dean from seeming suddenly uncaring and emotionless (especially while knowing Cas is in super hell for eternity, not just ‘dead whatever it means’, and considering Dean WAS in hell and knows it’s not ‘fun and games’) towards anyone who isn’t his brother. (4/9)

I realize episode is Sam centered, but this picks huge focus on Dean by omission. 2) I feel it doesn’t matter so much whether Sam picked phone to call as that he easily decided to give up on calling while he could still stay with Dean, listen to him and continue to make the call. That death took like 7-8 minutes of the episode. The phone should be left in the car for example, it being crushed during fight is lame and cheap, but any excuse would be better than (5/9)

“Ok I guess I’ll stop calling and let u die, don’t tell me I didn’t try”. 3) That whole “I love you so much” really hit me hard when I was watching, while I fully agree with the point you made, I feel like adding “so much” was just too passionate. As you said, he needs to say it to Sam before anyone else. "I love you, my baby brother” – second part already makes it valuable and emotional. It does no business being passionate. He is dying (for a while now) adding words that don’t (6/9)

need to be there makes viewer question “Is he rly going to die? He seems to have no problem flowering his words” and to me at least felt like going from 0 (unability to say ILY) to million which just took me from the situation totally as I was questioning if I’m watching the right show/character. It’s like if Dean went to Sam in episode 1 about finding his dad, we would be informed just how relations between Dean and John looks like, and next episode they would go for burgers (7/9)

and Dean would be like “Yeah I got bored of looking for him” and show would end… 4) Also MoTW not being from journal would make world of difference. That’s a callback that rly puts the story back to years before and Dean dying finishing his father’s job seems like a joke in rly bad taste. That’s all that crossed my mind I think. What do you think about those? Sorry for a long msg. I can try to send it via phone in one piece if you would rather. I’m really interested in your opinion on it. (8/9)

I know you were trying to fix stuff with as small changes as possible in your post, but I felt those also were just small things that would mean world to fans and story. Thank you so much for giving yself to the fandom, you’re my all time favourite writer since I remember <3 (9/9)

Hey! Sorry again, I'm the anon from yday with that long question. I just felt it was worth adding: "“Dean is focusing on the task at hand. His attitude, as Ackles puts it, is, “I’m not going to think about what I’ve lost. In turn, I’m just going to focus on what I can fix.” That leads Dean down what Ackles calls a “hopeless road.”" (it’s interview about s13). Just to point out hopelessness in stopping yself from thinking of who u lost to forcefully direct yself to the future. :D 

Hello, Nonnie! Sorry it took me so long to answer. The post you are referring to is this one: Could the same SPN finale make a little more sense with some additions/changes?

I didn’t write that as the kind of finale I would want. I did it to prove the finale could have been the same: pandering to general audience, w*ncest and destiel shippers alike, while still keeping some sort of logic regarding the build up of the story. It didn’t have to be so bad, but it was, and it looks intentionally bad, if I’m being honest. Maybe it was better that way, because it made it easier for us to simply ignore the existence of it. 

Regarding all the points you sent in your messages to me, I’m just gonna post them all together because they seem interesting, but I don’t really want to spend more time thinking about a finale that already hurt me enough. The only two posts I’ve written about the finale were for me to cope, to kinda heal and let it go. Now I just pretend it never happened. I’m glad you had some space to vent and I’m posting your messages so others can read the whole thing and maybe let comments if they want to agree or disagree, but that’s all I can do. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and the fandom as well. Everything that helps us heal is valid. *hugs*

[starlightwrites]

For the Emotional Prompts, could I please get Anger 10. “Do that again and you’ll regret it" for Cori and Gage? There are a lot of reasons I can imagine either one saying that, to each other or anyone else, so I'm curious to see what you'd do with it! Thank you!

Hi @aliceliveson!

Thank you for asking! It took me a couple of days to land on a scene, but I think I found some context for this one. This was a challenging prompt; I really liked writing it!

For the Emotional Prompts (linked)

Anger: “Do that again and you’ll regret it.” (Gage)

Corinne was already at the arcade by the time he caught up to her.

He found her up front by the token machines, leaning against the wall and talking to Fritsch. Bit her lip. Didn’t look up as he entered the room; she shoulda’—should always have her head on a swivel when she was out. Especially when she was out without him.

And that was the real fucking problem, wasn’t it? She was just out. Hadn’t told him that she was leaving. Left him sleeping while she wandered all over the goddamned place alone. She could have gotten gutted or grabbed. After the shit that happened with Nisha? She should have known better. Should have thought better.

Fritsch nodded at whatever she said before glancing back over his shoulder, his gaze landing on the door. Cori finally looked up too. Took her long enough.

He raised an eyebrow. She nodded at him and then turned right back to Fritsch. Right back into the conversation as if she hadn’t gone awol and scared the living daylights out of him.

He crossed to stand closer to the middle of the lobby. From there, he could see into the rooms on either side. Some Disciples milling around the shooting game. He could hear folks out back, most likely Pack, given how loud they were. No one by the hoop-shoot game. No telling if there was someone out in the back closet, but there were enough people just from what he could tell that there was potential for this to go south.

“So, Boss,” Fritsch said. “You gonna kill it?”

Cori thought for a second. Sighed. Drummed her fingers on her thigh. She was nervous about something.

“I don’t think so. Better plan:  let’s put out a general bulletin with RedEye to open season on the thing. I’m sure there’s plenty of raiders around here who’d love to take a crack at a Super Mutant.”

“You might be right about that, OverBoss, but I’ll tell you something because I like ya.” Fritsch smoothed the ends of his moustache. He leaned in and spoke quiet enough where Gage had to strain to hear him over the constant noise from the old soundtrack in the background. Quietly, he added “Eventually, you’re gonna want to hop back in that ring. We all got things around here that keep us useful. This arcade is my pride and joy, but it’s also the only reason I get to stay here without a collar. Folks need some way to blow off steam, you know?”

Corinne nodded.

“You’re doing good work here, so far as I can see. But the gangs need reminding of how tough you are. Keeps them from getting too curious about who could take you in a fight. Pass this one up, but maybe take on the next asshole who gets caught in the trap, right?”

“Maybe.”

“I knew you were made of smarter stuff. Old Gage over there doesn’t trust just anyone, do you Gage?”

He grunted. The Disciples in the other room were still watching.

“That’s some glowing praise from Gage,” Fritsch grinned as he nudged Cori with his elbow. She smiled.

“I’ll remember the advice. And thanks for the tokens,” she replied.

Fritsch nodded and waved them off. The Disciples watched Cori cross the lobby but didn’t move. After a moment, Gage cracked his neck, nodded to the Disciples and Fritsch, and followed Corinne out into the midday sun.

She walked like there ain’t no place she oughtta be, and sure, not like she needed to be outpacing a deathclaw, but the unaffected ease of her stride was pissing him off. Looked back over his shoulder again. Some runt Fritsch had probably hired from the travelers scrambled out the door in the direction of RedEye’s radio tower, at the other end of Nuka Town. Disciples weren’t following, but he could tell at least a couple of them had thought about it just by how they’d been standing. Ears probably pricked up under their masks.

He waited until they made it all the way up to Fizztop before saying a word.

“And what the fuck was that, huh Boss?”

“Excuse me?” She flopped onto the couch across from the bar, feet up on the table. Half a smirk played across her lips like she thought this was the funniest damn thing.

“You ran off.” He folded his arms over his chest. Her eyes swept from his hairline down to his boots and back up again. The smirk faded.

“I went to handle some OverBoss business,” she said.

“By running off.”

“Yeah, to talk to Fritsch. Not to go fight Nisha or anything like that. Didn’t you want me to be more hands-on?”

Fuckin’—

Gage looked down at the shitty star pattern on the faded blue carpet.

Of course. Of course he wanted her acting like she owned the place, because that was the only damn attitude that raiders payed attention to. But she had to know that running off without a word to talk to an unaffiliated repairman wasn’t what he had in mind.

“You know this ain’t what I meant.”

“Do I know that?” She took her boots off the table and sat up a little straighter. “Because listening to my constituents seems like doing my job.”

“Listening to your what?”

“Fritsch. He wanted me to fight in the arena.”

“And you said no?”

“Absolutely!” She shot up from the couch, throwing her arms up. “He wanted me to fight a super mutant. There is no way in hell I am fighting a super mutant alone.”

At least she’d thought something through.

A super mutant in the gauntlet. If he weren’t so mad, he woulda said she’d made a good call in having the other raiders torture it to death. It should at least keep them happy and preoccupied for a bit, which was always good. But that didn’t erase the fact that she’d done all that alone. That’d he’d woken up and she’d been gone.

“Do you know what might have happened to you if someone had heard you say “no” to a fight?”

Corinne sputtered for a second. Mouth open. Mouth closed. Jaw clenched. Hands on her hips. Couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but she sure as hell wasn’t just agreeing with him, which meant that whatever she was about to say was dead wrong.

Finally, finger in his face, she hissed “so what? You’d have me fight a super mutant voluntarily?”

That wasn’t even the point. This wasn’t even the point of the whole thing, but somehow they’d spiraled off track and he couldn’t even begin to think about how to explain to her that she was fuckin’ mortal and that some of those raiders wouldn’t hesitate to gut her if they thought they had the chance.

“I ain’t sayin’ that,” he growled.

“No. You aren’t.” Her tone spiked, arms stretched out. “You aren’t saying anything helpful, really. You’re just yelling at me for doing my job, and last I checked around here, I was the one in charge. Not. You.”

Not him.

Oh, for sure he knew she was in charge and not him. Cuz if he was in charge? He wouldn’t make stupid calls. He wouldn’t put himself in danger just because. He wouldn’t argue with good advice. He wouldn’t go prancing off to a place where he was likely to get stabbed in the throat just to talk to a mechanic about some bloodsport, cuz he wouldn’t go fuckin’ anywhere without someone watching his back. Because he knew better.

Fritsch was smart and kept to himself for the most part, but he didn’t ever claim to know how to run this place, and there was no way in hell that he’d stick his neck out to keep her safe, push comes to shove. Can’t alienate the folks who pay for his meals; Frisch ain’t the type to shit where he eats. And she may not have had the time to ask him for help in the first place, because she probably hadn’t seen noticed the gaggle of mask-wearing jackasses sitting just around the corner, fiddling with their knives. If those Disciples had realized she was alone. If they’d followed her out of that place. If they’d gotten her by herself—

She’d be gone. If he hadn’t shown up, there was a fair chance she’d be gone and he’d be finding chunks of her all around the park.

Didn’t want to think about that.

“Do that again,” he said through grit teeth, “and you’ll regret it.”

“Mmhm.”

“I’m fuckin’ serious.” He stepped in close to catch her eye. “That was risky. You know how many people would be pissed off that you didn’t take the fight? If I hadn’t turned up, those Disciples in the back room might have gutted you for turning Fritsch down. You ever seen what the Disciples do to folks they don’t like? For once in your goddamned life, just think shit through.”

She blinked. Jaw locked up and lips pressed together in a hard line. He realized he was towering over her, right in her damned space, and he straightened out. Took a step back.

“I’m serious,” he said again. Just for something to say.

“I heard you.”

He wanted to retort. Tell her off. Remind her that he was on her fuckin’ side. But his mouth felt dry and his head ached and for a minute there, he couldn’t think of a damn word to add to the conversation.

“Is that all you had to say, Gage?” Her tone was crisp and sharp, like falling through the ice on a barely frozen-over lake.

Outside, the sun burned bright through the windows behind her. Vibrant blue, cloudless sky extended out like someone had spilled paint. In the distance, one of those mangled birds he saw sometimes landed and perched on the wall around Nuka Town, its dark wings a black splotch on the horizon. The flat, dusty earth stretched out as far as he could see and he had the strange thought that they were on an island but somehow, he was still alone out here. Stranded in this strange place that ain’t quite land and ain’t quite sky.

He looked at her again. Angry—her chest heaving, eyes hard, shoulders squared. And she coulda been gone. That’s what this was all about. Not that she made a bad call, cuz she’d made bad calls before. That she coulda been gone, and he wouldn’t have had a single say in that. Might not even have known till it was way too late. For all the times he felt like they were a team, this was the reminder that she was gonna do what she wanted, and that there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her.

And he was tired. Plain and simple.

He shook his head, then, turned around, and slunk back through the doors and into the quiet dark of his old room.  

[secret-kpoplibrary]

Mafia’s Girl Pt. 10 [End]

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Word Count: 1878

Warnings: None whatsoever 

Genre: Fluff asf

Summary: Being kidnapped and hired by the biggest gang leader in your city was never part of your plan. Yet here you are, working for him now, doing odd jobs here and there, nothing too dangerous. Little did you know he wanted more from you than to be just another employee. He planned to make you his. How exactly was he going to do that? With your attitude it wasn’t going to be easy, but what Suga wants, Suga gets, every time. Would you be the exception?

***

Standing in front of the mirror you give yourself one long look and take a deep breath.

"Why are you nervous? Out of all the shit you've faced the last two years this is not something to freak out about." You mutter to yourself gripping the bouquet in your hands tightly. A knock on the door snaps you out of your trance.

"Y/n? Are you ready to go?" Namjoon calls through the door when you don't respond to his knock.

"Yeah! Once second." You call back readjusting your veil. "Okay. You can do this. Time to kick ass, like you always do." You tell yourself once more before opening the door to Namjoon.

"Woah. You look gorgeous. Yoongz is gonna lose it." He smiles.

"You think so?" You bite your lip shyly.

"Aw is someone nervous? You've got nothing to worry about. Except making Yoongi pass out by keeping him waiting any longer. I swear I've never seen someone stress out so much over ten minutes." He chuckles. You smile a little at that.

"Alright, let's go." You say lacing your arm through Namjoon's.

"Great, cuz he'd have my head if I came back down without you." He jokes as you descend the stairs and make your way towards the back door. Given your line of work a church wedding felt mildly out of place with the amount of criminals attending the event so you and Yoongi chose to hold your wedding at his beach house. Wedding on the beach and "reception" inside. When you and Namjoon reach the door leading outside two of Yoongi's men open the doors for you. The sound of the doors swinging open draws everyone's attention to you immediately. You take one more deep breath before stepping out arm in arm with Namjoon. He tried to act calm when you asked him to walk you down the isle but truthfully he'd nearly cried when the topic came up. He was so honored to be the one to give you away, as though you could possibly have considered anyone else to do it. When you and Namjoon make your way down the isle Yoongi physically feels the air leave his lungs at the sight of you. He always thinks you look gorgeous, and he's not sure if it's the fact that today is the day he gets to call you his wife or the dress but he's giddy to the brink of tears when you reach the alter. He smiles at you as he takes your hands in his, and you return it happily. It's happening. It's really happening. You're standing here in front of the love of your life and at least a hundred other people to declare your love for him and vow to be by his side forever. When you imagined this day as a child you never could've thought it'd be a man like Min Yoongi.

"Miss Y/L/N?" The minister says snapping you out of it. You blink and then look at him.

"I-I'm sorry, what?" You ask him. The crowd erupts with gentle laughter at your absentmindedness. You feel your face heat up. You were so wrapped up in your thoughts you forgot to pay attention.

"You and Mr. Min have written your own vows, would you like to go first?" The minister asks with a kind smile.

"Oh! I-I'll go first." You say.

"Whenever you're ready." He nods.

"Okay, cool. Hi," you start off looking back at Yoongi who's obviously amused. "I wanted to have a really well thought out speech for this, but I wouldn't have remembered any of it anyway," You shrug. "I've always had a less than average life. I think I clung to this fantasy of a prince coming to save me from everything and take me far far away so, when I imagined my wedding day as a kid you would be probably the furthest thing from what I envisioned my prince charming would be like. I remember thinking 'man he must be out of his mind' when you explained the whole 02 thing to me. I didn't want to end up like my mom, I didn't want my child to go through what I did. I still don't. So you better not go all psycho on me and try to kill me or our kids or I will shove my foot so far up your, insert word here, you won't be able to reach us," he chuckles at that, along with a few other people. "I'm just saying what I'm thinking right now okay, I know yours is probably gonna be way more thought out and planned and sweet but you signed up to marry me so you shouldn't be surprised at all. Anyway look Yoongi, you chose me long before I chose you. I don't know why you did, but I'm glad. You may not have been the prince I wanted to rescue me but I'm not damsel in distress so it works out. I love you with all my heart and while you chose me first I will choose you again and again every minute of every day for the rest of my life. It's been a wacky two years, and I'm sure it'll only get crazier from here, but if we've got each other I'm certain we're gonna get through it just fine. So don't go dying on me. I don't think I can live without you anymore." You end your vow with a bright smile. Yoongi shakes his head to you a little.

"Mr. Min." The minister turns to him.

"Right. Look I could stand up here and tell everyone here about the first time I saw you, or about our first date, or even our first fight. I could talk about you for hours on end and I'd never run out of things to say. Writing this was so difficult because I never felt like I said enough. I drafted this more times than I can remember and it never felt right. So I decided against recounting memories or moments that mean the most, because each one we make together is too precious to rank. Everyday I find myself falling deeper in love with you, each time you smile, or laugh, or cry, or shout. I'd do anything to keep you happy. No matter how much I accomplish it all pales in comparison to this moment. To the day I get the most wonderful treasure I could ever ask for. The honor of being your husband, of calling you my wife. You're loud, and passionate, strong willed, and intelligent. I'm still learning about you, each day holds another surprise, another side, another trait. I've loved every minute of getting to be with you and I consider myself the luckiest man alive that you're allowing me to be with you for the rest of our lives. I've questioned a lot of things, with the life I live you have to, but I have never once questioned if I should be with you. You're it for me y/n. So don't go dying on me okay? I definitely can't live without you." He says with a smile. His ending draws a chuckle from your lips despite the tears welling in your eyes. The minister clears his throats.

"May I have the rings please?" He asks. Jin pulls them out of his pocket and holds his palm out to you and Yoongi who take each others rings. "Do you, Min Yoongi , take, y/n y/l/n to be your partner in love and life; will you honor and cherish ?her, for as long as you both shall live?" The minister asks.

"I do." He says sliding the ring into it's rightful spot on your finger.

"Do you, y/n y/l/n, take, Min Yoongi to be your partner in love and life; will you honor and cherish him, for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." You say sliding his ring in place.

"I pronounce that your wedding vows are sealed and you may henceforth be known to all as husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride." He announces. Yoongi quickly sweeps you into his arms and kisses you. It's a gentle kiss, but you can feel all the emotions he's pouring into it and you return each and every one as the crowd cheers happily.

"Alright everyone! Cocktails are being served inside!" Hoseok announces guiding people inside as you and Yoongi pull apart, staring at each other with pure adoration.

"As cute as this is Mr. and Mrs. Min, we need to clear the arch and stuff so if you don't mind joining the guests inside for happy hour that'd be really helpful." Namjoon says to you both moments later. You laugh as Yoongi rolls his eyes.

"Mrs. Min?" You ask Namjoon.

"You're married now babes, get used to it." He winks at you.

"I already love it." You beam grabbing Yoongi's hand and pulling him inside. The two of you travel together as you say hi to all of the guests, mainly Yoongi's people, but your girls from the club are also here. You stopped working there just under a year ago but you kept in touch regardless. Namjoon and the others make quick work of clearing out the beach and within an hour there's barely an remnants of the ceremony that took place earlier. There are people all over the place now, inside and out, drinking, eating, congratulating you and Yoongi. It's a night filled with celebration, as is to be expected and just when you think it couldn't be more perfect your husband whisks you away from the commotion for a walk on the beach. You've swapped your wedding dress and heels for a long sundress and sandals enjoying the night sky as the two of you walk farther and farther from the loud music and voices.

"I have, one more surprise for you tonight." Yoongi says from beside you. You turn to him curiously.

"A surprise?" You ask.

"Turn around." He tells you. You hesitantly turn your back to him.

"What's the deal Yoongz?" You ask. He wordlessly brushes your hair to the side and you feel cold metal touch your skin causing you to instantly reach for the pendant as he closes the clasp in the back. Yoongi turns you towards him.

"Perfect." He smiles pulling out his phone for you to use as a mirror to see the necklace for your self. It's a gold heart shaped necklace with two different colored teardrop gemstones in the middle. There's writing on the necklace, the four words in fancy script lining the two sides of the heart, Even After Forever Ends it reads.

"What are the gemstones?" You ask quietly.

"This one is my birthstone, and this one is yours." He points to each stone respectively.

"It's amazing." You practically whisper, gently touching the necklace. "Thank you." You say. You've made it the whole day without actually crying, but for the forth time since you woke up this morning your eyes brim with tears as Yoongi wraps his arms around you. In this moment you're convinced that no matter what you thought your life would be like this is more perfect than any of it.

***

A/N: Wow Mafia’s Girl is officially over!

I had no idea what I was doing with this story when I started it

And now it’s finished. Hope you all enjoyed it!

Part 10/10

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.13

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as we entered the second half of trial 4 (trial 4!!!), Kokichi stopped jabbing at Kaito’s issues for no particular reason and I was very disappoint, not that he wasn’t still getting under Kaito’s skin in other ways, Kaito was furiously trying to be right about at least something (and mostly still wasn’t), and Kokichi insisted everyone else hates lies when almost nobody really does, proceeded to throw a tantrum over Shuichi using one (1) lie against him, and very definitely didn’t ever want the mercy kill outcome because that makes no sense.

The intent behind him doing so aside, we left off the moment Kokichi dropped the bombshell that the culprit is Gonta.

Shuichi:  “…What?”

Gonta:  “…Huh?”

Kaito:  “Wh-What did you…?”

I like how those three are the first three to react, because they’re the ones you should be focusing on. From this point on, none of the others (except Kokichi) are particularly relevant to the narrative at all.

Gonta:  “W-W-Wait! When did Gonta kill Miu!?”

Gonta, no! Be more sure of yourself! It’s so heartbreaking that his immediate reaction is not a fervent “I didn’t do that!”, but a “wait, did I?”. He should be certain that it’s not the truth, because he has no idea yet that he’s missing a chunk of his memories.

Kaito:  “Why you… Now you’re trying to pin things on Gonta!? Do you really expect us to believe such an obvious lie!?”

Right now, Kaito means this.

My own immediate reaction when I got to Kokichi’s bombshell line for the first time was “oh, shit, I guess Gonta probably did do it, didn’t he” – but that’s only because I had the narrative argument. It being Kokichi would be boringly obvious, whereas it somehow being Gonta would be absolutely heartbreaking and therefore the best possible story to tell. Characters in this story, though, don’t have the narrative argument. Given that, and without having discussed the evidence that points to the real truth yet, assuming Kokichi is trying to pin things on Gonta is the most logical assumption at the moment.

Despite the fact that Kokichi does not have a Rebuttal Showdown, he gets a fancy interjection thing here like he’s about to start one. It might be because he’s about to have a split-screen thing for his confession “with” Gonta, and the game’s coding requires that an interjection happens before a split-screen for some reason?

Kokichi:  “We formed a duo to end this killing game… As the Killing Game Busters!”

Gonta:  “W-What Busters!?”

Kokichi:  “We must win this killing game, in order to end this killing game!”

This “Killing Game Busters” concept might draw somewhat from Kokichi’s genuine hatred of this game and overarching plan. But winning isn’t the only way to end the game, and him acting like it is just goes to show that what he really cares about is the “winning” part, rather than the “ending” part.

Gonta:  “Gonta have no idea what he’s talking about…”

Kokichi:  “C’mooon, quit lying and tell us the truth!”

You absolute asshole; if Gonta remembered (which you still think he does) then he would be fighting as hard as he can to keep lying so that he still had a chance of saving everyone. You know, just like you’d be doing too if you actually cared about the mercy kill outcome yourself.

Kaito:  “Heh, it’s obvious what he’s trying to do. Gonta doesn’t understand the Virtual World, so Kokichi’s trying to trick him! He’s trying to sacrifice Gonta to escape from his crime!”

Kaito means this too, because this makes sense. Gonta is so goddamn unsure of himself that he’s liable to assume he said and did things that he didn’t really say or do at all – it’s happened multiple times in the past and even briefly happened right now with his reaction to Kokichi’s accusation. It’s not hard to think, with how confused Gonta supposedly is by the Virtual World, that Kokichi might really be able to trick Gonta into thinking he did it and confessing to it when that isn’t the truth, which would give a hypothetical blackened-Kokichi an out.

Kokichi:  “I’m sooorry… I did something horrible to Gonta…”

Yeah, you showed him a despair that you know isn’t the truth, convinced him that committing murder and lying about it is the only way to save everyone, and then stomped on his desperate, earnest desire to do that (or what would have been if he’d remembered it) by shattering that attempt in one sentence.

At this point, now that he’s shown his hand, Kokichi is actively trying to back up his upcoming lie that he’s a horrible person who enjoys making people suffer, so anything he says and does that makes a point of how overtly assholeish he’s being can be argued to be for the purpose of that. Which means I don’t get to complain about him being an unnecessary dick right now. He’s still being a dick, just with an actual purpose in mind behind it.

Kokichi:  “I didn’t want Shuichi to hog all the glory, so I told everyone the truth!”

Oh, really? Even though you’re the one who’s been heaping the most glory on Shuichi in the first place (for reasons that totally don’t have anything to do with Kaito)? Even though you’re going to continue to force him to explain why this is the truth (for somewhat similar reasons)? Sure.

Kokichi:  “Don’t you think I could’ve pulled the strings and made Gonta carry out my commands?”

See, this was the thing for first-time-me. I absolutely did believe this. I believed in Gonta and that he would never inherently want to hurt anyone, but I also believed in Kokichi’s propensity to be a manipulative asshole and in Gonta’s tragic gullibility.

Kaito:  “It doesn’t matter if it’s possible or not… cuz I say it’s just impossible!”

But of course Kaito believes even more strongly in Gonta’s inherent goodness and that nothing could shake that, because if anything did then that would be awful and painful and he doesn’t want to believe that it could be possible.

(But Kaito, I thought the impossible was—)

(Now is really not the time for that.)

Kokichi:  “There’s no need to bring emotions into class trials! All we need is logical thinking… Riiiight, Shuichi?”

And here Kokichi is again deliberately trying to hurt Kaito by drawing a contrast between his and Shuichi’s attitudes to this and pointing out that Shuichi’s is (supposedly) inherently superior. I’d count this as doing the thing, but that concept kinda unceremoniously fizzled out after the several missed opportunities for it last part, so it no longer really feels like A Thing any more. Maybe what it really is more about at this point is Kokichi trying to prove that Shuichi’s logical detective’s approach is more correct than Kaito’s belief in people, because obviously believing in people is always stupid.

Gonta:  “Gonta… not kill Miu. Gonta… really not know anything. And also… Gonta not tell lies. And Gonta not make trouble for others. Cuz that not how gentlemen act! That why Gonta *not* culprit!”

Kaito:  “Yeah, Gonta’s not lying… I can tell just by looking at him!”

See, Kaito is right. Gonta isn’t lying, and Kaito can be so sure of that because his judgement of people has always been correct. As far as Kaito’s concerned right now, Gonta being innocent is simply the truth, because his intuition is telling him so, and that’s always been what he’s relied on instead of empirical evidence.

(And to bring things back to first-time-me for a sec, I absolutely agreed with Kaito that Gonta definitely wasn’t lying. But since I was still also narratively sure that Gonta did it, this was the moment I realised that he had to have lost his memory, and oh god this is going to be even more heartbreaking than I thought isn’t it.)

Kokichi:  “If it’s not Gonta, then who’s the culprit?”

Kaito:  “You, of course!”

Kaito’s angry, but this is a reasonably controlled anger for now – because given his certainty that Gonta is innocent, the only logical assumption is that Kokichi did it.

Kokichi:  “Oh? Did you forget already? Then, let me make it clear again… why I can’t be the culprit!”

Kokichi has the gall to act like his innocence has already been proven when it hasn’t. The evidence that can prove it already exists, but it has not yet been explained in a way which proves it. This is just another instance of Kokichi acting like he’s obviously right and everyone is stupid for not immediately agreeing with him, even though he’s less right than he’s trying to claim he is.

Kokichi:  “I am not the culprit.”

“It not Gonta!”

“You *are* the culprit!”

“You’re lying.”

Kokichi:  “Didn’t I prove that to you guys already?”

“Gonta know nothing!”

“That’s obviously a lie!”

“I can’t believe you.”

I love how the white noise for these first two statements shows how intense things just got. It’s not just these three – there are six lines of white noise for each one, meaning literally everyone who can be is providing white noise right now. I’ve only included half of them here because the other three characters’ comments are just interchangeable vague confusion – but here are the ones that are quite clearly from Gonta, Kaito and Maki respectively.

Kaito:  “She couldn’t struggle much… so you could’ve kept strangling her, no problem!”

Kokichi:  “See, I told you I’m not the culprit.”

Kaito Refutations: 4! Now we’re getting into the good stuff.

I can’t do colours, but Kokichi’s statement there is a weak spot, not an agree spot. Again, they could have made it so you have to agree with Kokichi here instead – his statement might have needed a bit of rewording to be more specifically relevant to the evidence, but it could have worked – but instead they make a point of forcing you to refute Kaito, yet again.

Kokichi clearly knew the thing about his avatar from the start – hence his claim that it’s “already” been proven – but he made Shuichi be the one to explain it, because of course he did. If Shuichi says so too, then he’s even more obviously right and anyone who disagrees with him is even more obviously wrong and stupid.

Kokichi:  “So I would have had to kill her instantly, such as stabbing or hitting… I couldn’t have murdered her by strangulation, because it’d be game over if she touched me.”

And that’s probably precisely why Kokichi chose strangulation as the murder method. He wanted it to be explicitly provable that he didn’t do it, so that everyone would be forced to accept that Gonta did it instead. If he cared about the mercy kill outcome, the best plan would be to get Gonta to kill Miu in a way that could have plausibly been done by Kokichi, then make everyone in the trial wrongly conclude that it was in fact him.

(To be fair, he also didn’t have much choice in terms of available murder weapons – but Miu had a hammer, and Gonta could have snuck up behind her and stolen it off her while she was focused on Kokichi. So it would still have been possible to murder her in a way which left the culprit ambiguous.)

Kaito:  “Well… if you were using the toilet paper, you wouldn’t need to touch her directly.”

Sorry, Kaito, but no – Miu would have known that she could escape just by touching him to paralyse him, and he’d be close enough for her to reach. As soon as he froze, he wouldn’t be exerting force on the toilet paper any more and she could have freed herself. Assuming Miu didn’t want to die, it’s not possible.

Kaito:  “W-Wait! What if it was something besides strangulation, then? Like—”

Maki:  “There’s no doubt Miu was strangled. We already discussed this.”

And now Kaito’s starting to make arguments he knows don’t really make sense in his desperation to find some other explanation.

Kokichi:  “Nee-heehee… Kaito is reeeally desperate to make me the culprit… No matter how much you whine about it, you can’t change the truth!”

Yeah, because not wanting to believe that someone you care about and trust wholeheartedly could have committed murder definitely counts as whining, right, rather than being a perfectly understandable, human reaction to this.

Kokichi:  “The culprit who killed Miu is Gonta Gokuhara! This is the truth you all adore so much!”

I could get into how nobody adores the truth anywhere near as much as he thinks, but we did that last time. There’s also the sense from his furiously insistent tone here that, hey look everyone, it turns out the truth is that someone trustworthy whom everyone believed in is actually a horrible murderer! Which sure is mighty convenient for the point Kokichi has been trying to force down everyone’s throats for this entire game, and definitely isn’t cheating considering that it’s only the truth because he made it so.

That said, while I do believe that part of the reason he did this was an attempt to make his point and it wasn’t only about his plan to pretend to be the mastermind, I don’t think this was on a very conscious level. We’ve already seen that he’s just kind of instinctively trying to make his point without necessarily thinking about the best ways to do so. While this one is a very effective way to do so, it’s instead something he wouldn’t have consciously thought about because killing someone just to make a point would make him a terrible person. And Kokichi definitely isn’t really a terrible person who’s in the wrong; any instances in this trial of him acting like one are definitely all just lies for the sake of his plan to win the killing game and therefore totally justified, right.

Gonta:  “You gotta believe Gonta! Gonta would never hurt anyone!”

Oh, Gonta, you poor thing. I know. Everyone does.

Tsumugi:  “I believe you. You’ve been risking yourself to protect everyone. There’s no way Gonta would kill! He wouldn’t even kill bugs!”

Himiko:  “I… believe Gonta, too. I’m not gonna listen to Kokichi’s lies…”

Kaito:  “O-Of course! Who’d believe a liar like him!?”

Look at how Kaito is the last to speak up here. And how he’s stuttering. And his indirect phrasing.

He doesn’t truly believe it any more.

Kaito:  “He’s lying about Gonta being the culprit, so there’s no point talking about it!”

He’s afraid that pursuing this line of logic might end up revealing that Gonta really did do it, and he can’t face that. If he still genuinely believed Gonta definitely wasn’t the culprit, he wouldn’t be against talking about it more, because he’d be certain that doing so could only end up proving that.

Shuichi:  (I don’t know about that… If we want the truth, we might have to ask uncomfortable questions…)

Kaito:  “Right, Shuichi!? You think so too, don’t you?”

What Kaito’s really saying here is, “we should all just run away from the truth, right, Shuichi?”

Of course Shuichi wouldn’t think that, not any more. Not after everything Kaede taught him, and how much he’s been trying to work through those issues of his thanks to Kaito’s help, and with how many more times he’s faced the truth in every trial since then. Kaito is fully aware of this – but now he’s the one who can’t face the painful truth, even though Shuichi can. He knows Shuichi shouldn’t agree with him, yet he wants him to do so anyway. Because if not, it’ll mean that Kaito is having a harder time dealing with this than Shuichi is, and that’s unacceptable.

Shuichi:  “… I know how important it is to believe. But as the Ultimate Detective… I know we can’t solve this case with belief alone.”

I like how Shuichi says this in a way that isn’t remotely diminishing Kaito’s belief in people and brushing it off as unnecessary or unhelpful, like Kokichi is constantly trying to do. Shuichi Saihara, as opposed to the Ultimate Detective, still cares about believing in people, and he knows it’d hurt Kaito to try and act like his feelings about this don’t matter!

Kaito:  “What, you… wanna suspect Gonta?”

Of course he doesn’t, Kaito, just like you don’t! But… he has to.

Kokichi:  “Too bad, Kaito. Looks like Shuichi agrees with me.”

Shuichi:  “N-No, I’m not trying to—!”

Kokichi:  “Oh, the irony! It’s all thanks to Kaito that Shuichi got his act together as a detective… And now, Shuichi’s intuition as a detective has made him more suspicious of others. Welp, can’t be helped. That’s just what a detective does.”

Come now, Kokichi. As someone who enjoys Kaito’s suffering even more than you do (which I’m allowed to do, because I’m watching a genuinely fictional character and not a real person), I am very disappointed in you.

This really isn’t so much about belief. Shuichi doesn’t agree with Kokichi here – he was literally just stressing that he still values Kaito’s belief in people. At worst, he’s taking a middle ground between the two of them. Kokichi had to cut Shuichi off before he explained that he didn’t want to suspect Gonta and that he wasn’t agreeing with Kokichi in order for his attempted point to even hold any real weight. And Kaito already made it clear back in the investigation that he knows Shuichi should do whatever it takes to reach the truth, even if it means he has to suspect someone he believes in. Because, yes, that’s what a detective does, and Kaito is okay with that!

It’s not even really that Shuichi’s intuition as a detective is making him “suspicious” of Gonta, since he has so far picked up on none of the hints that Gonta did it. He’s only pursuing this because Kokichi brought it up and proved his own innocence, and given that, Shuichi can’t ignore this possibility without risking everyone’s lives. This is about his determination to save everyone, even if it means facing painful truths.

And that’s the real problem here. Shuichi is being strong enough to face the painful truth in order to save everyone, while Kaito isn’t. That’s what’s really getting to Kaito right now – and Kokichi should in theory be aware of this. This whole case, he’s been doing the thing by praising Shuichi in order to jab at Kaito, meaning that one way or another he’s clearly figured out Kaito’s jealousy issues. He’s been trying to hurt Kaito this entire time, and now that he’s started making an overt point of how cruel and evil he at least supposedly is, he should want to do so even more than he was already. Now would be the perfect opportunity for Kokichi to land the decisive blow and absolutely eviscerate Kaito by laying bare what’s really going on – that Shuichi can face the truth but all Kaito can do is run away from it like a coward, that Kaito used to be the one giving Shuichi support but now he’s the one who needs it, that Shuichi is the real hero here and Kaito’s just a useless failure. Kaito’s reaction to having all of that thrust out in the open in front of everyone would be delightful.

(Kaito’s actual reaction to this? He doesn’t have one – by which I mean he’s also not shown saying nothing, which is what the narrative has been gleefully doing every time something gets to Kaito in a way he doesn’t voice. Because Kokichi’s words here don’t get to him anywhere near as much as the thoughts that were already going through his head.)

…And, to be fair, from an out-universe writing perspective I can see why the hypothetical I just presented isn’t what happens, because if it did then Shuichi would realise what Kaito’s problem is, and they wouldn’t have the massive painful misunderstanding they’re going to have in early chapter 5 which is another of my favourite parts of this story.

But the in-universe reason for this not happening even though it’s the best way for Kokichi to continue doing to Kaito what he’s apparently been trying to do this whole time? Because Kokichi can’t stop making everything about his own issues and projecting them onto everyone else, of course. Despite him being aware of Kaito feeling inferior to Shuichi and having been jabbing at that for a while, he doesn’t seem to realise that that’s the main point. Instead, he sees this other potential angle of attack that’s focused around trust and suspicion and decides that this is obviously Kaito’s biggest problem and the thing he’d be most upset about. It couldn’t possibly be that Kaito has different priorities and issues to Kokichi and would instead be the most hurt by something totally unrelated to Kokichi’s trust issues.

This isn’t even quite about trying to get Kaito to change his views any more, since Kokichi appeared to accept that was impossible a few posts back. He just wants to watch Kaito struggle to deal with the idea that he’s obviously wrong, because Shuichi totally agrees with Kokichi on this (even though he doesn’t) and Shuichi is always right about everything, right?

That’s not the point of this, Kokichi. This upcoming clash between Kaito and Shuichi isn’t nearly as much about you and your bullshit philosophy as you want it to be. You totally dropped the ball here.

Shuichi:  “That’s not it, Kokichi! I’m just trying to make sure that everyone survi—”

See, even Shuichi agrees that Kokichi is missing the point and that the real crux of the matter is his desire to save everyone.

(Obviously he’s not saying this in the context of Kaito’s issues because he doesn’t want to hurt Kaito at all and has no idea that this would hurt him… but this statement still does work in the context of Kaito’s issues.)

Gonta:  “Shuichi… Gonta really not do it… Gonta… not culprit… Please… believe Gonta…”

Shuichi:  “…”

Oh, Gonta. I know you’re not lying! But, aghjadsfghda. This is probably making Shuichi feel like maybe Kokichi has a point about his detective role making him nothing but suspicious of his friends, jabbing right at his issues about his talent. He may be strong enough to pursue the truth and do whatever it takes for everyone to survive, but that doesn’t mean that doing so doesn’t still hurt.

Keebo:  “I think we need to seriously discuss whether Gonta was capable of committing this crime. …Only then can we arrive at a logical decision.”

Keebo is the only one other than Kokichi on Shuichi’s side in this upcoming Debate Scrum. The way he suddenly says this out of nowhere makes me suspect that his inner voice had a hand in making him able to be so rational and detached about this. The audience would want to find the truth too, and they wouldn’t care if it’s painful because that makes for a good story.

Kaito:  “You guys… Why don’t you get it? That’s just what Kokichi wants! He’s just trying to split us up! Shuichi! Open your eyes!”

Kokichi is trying to split everyone up, particularly Shuichi and Kaito (even though he just went about that in a much less effective way than he could have done). But what Kaito doesn’t want to admit is that Kokichi could be doing that by, for once, using the truth.

Kaito:  “Shuichi, why…? Why don’t you understand? Y… You’re my sidekick, aren’t you…?”

I absolutely love how pained Kaito sounds in these lines. This is probably the most pain we hear him in this whole trial – not because this is the most pain he’s ever going to be in, but because from after this point he starts to cover it up more and more with anger.

His “You’re my sidekick, aren’t you?” is particularly delightful. On the surface it just sounds like he’s essentially asking “Aren’t you my best friend? Aren’t you on my side?” which would be heartwrenching enough. But that’s not all there is to it, because that’s not really what the word “sidekick” means to Kaito, is it? Kaito’s “sidekicks” are supposed to be people who are weaker than him and rely on him for support. By questioning if Shuichi is really his sidekick, Kaito is questioning whether Shuichi really is weaker than him, or whether he’s grown strong enough to not need Kaito at all.

And the “Why don’t you understand?” could sound on the surface like he’s just talking about understanding the importance of belief (he’s not, because that’s not the problem here), or understanding that Kokichi is trying to split them up (that one’s probably what Kaito is telling himself he means by it). But I don’t think that’s really why he said it, not in the context of him being confronted with the idea that Shuichi is stronger than him. Based on that, and the pain in his voice, it feels to me that Kaito’s really talking about Shuichi understanding the way he’s feeling and how much he’s hurting.

But of course Shuichi understands that, because he’s hurting just as much – it’s just that Kaito can’t see that. Despite his words saying the opposite, Kaito’s the one who doesn’t understand Shuichi – he’s assuming that Shuichi isn’t affected by this at all, and he can’t comprehend how on earth Shuichi could be so seemingly invincible at a time like this.

Shuichi:  “Kaito…”

I wish text could illustrate the emotions in Shuichi’s voice here, because it’s amazing just how much gets across in a single word. He sounds ever so slightly frustrated, probably at Kaito bringing up the sidekick thing and making this more personal than Shuichi feels it needs to be when he’s just trying to solve this case and save everyone. (But of course, from Kaito’s point of view, the fact that Shuichi’s trying to save everyone while he can’t is extremely relevant to the question of if Shuichi is really his sidekick.)

But mostly, beneath that hint of frustration, Shuichi also sounds so concerned and sympathetic. I think here Shuichi is only just realising – from the pain evident in Kaito’s voice, and perhaps also from the fact that he did bring up the sidekick thing – that his friend is hurting this much. After all, on his end, he thought Kaito was supposed to be invincible. (But it doesn’t matter to him if Kaito actually isn’t – Shuichi’s just worried and wishes he could do something to help.)

Shuichi:  (Of course I want to believe Gonta. I don’t want to think that he killed someone.)

You could say that out loud, Shuichi, so that Kaito would realise you’re struggling with this too. It’d help, if only a little.

This is easily my favourite Debate Scrum in the whole game! Usually the statements are shared out as equally as possible between all the people on one side such that any given person only has at most one more statement than any other person on their side. But here? Everyone on the opposing side has one statement, except for Kaito, who has three. So while this is generally about almost everyone not wanting to accept that Gonta could have done it, it’s still particularly focused on Kaito and I love it.

Kaito:  “Shuichi, are you saying that Gonta is the culprit!?”

Kaito’s first statement is essentially lashing out at Shuichi, accusing him of having already decided it’s Gonta with no conclusive proof, when Kaito should know that Shuichi wouldn’t ever do that.

Tsumugi:  “Gonta is such a sweetheart. He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

If anything, this is the argument that best represents how Kaito feels about this. He wouldn’t phrase it quite this way, but the real reason he’s being so adamant is purely because of how strongly he believes that Gonta is someone who would never commit murder. But Kaito doesn’t make this argument, because he knows that that’s not enough in a class trial and he needs to say something more rooted in logic than that.

Maki:  “Could Gonta have even made it to the rooftop without being noticed?”

Honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised if Maki were able to remain rational enough to be on Shuichi’s side of this debate. So it’s fitting that, even though she’s not, her argument here is questioning whether it was logistically possible, rather than everyone else’s more emotional approach.

Keebo:  “The entrance hall is all that separates the rooftop from the mansion’s exterior.”

Kaito:  “There should’ve been witnesses at the entrance hall!”

Kaito. You were there when Kokichi decided which rooms everybody else should search. You know nobody was in the entrance hall.

He’s running away from the truth, desperately trying to make it sound like it isn’t really the truth at all even if the only way he can think to do so is using arguments that he should know full well are wrong. This is another of my favourite completely-innocuous-seeming lines in the game.

Kaito:  “But Kokichi confessed he was working with Monokuma!”

And as soon as that gets shot down, Kaito realises the witness argument is just making Gonta’s guilt look more possible and immediately shifts the topic to something else to distract from that. Kokichi’s an asshole, right? That totally means he must’ve done it and not Gonta!

Himiko:  “It’s all a lie! Kokichi is the one who killed Miu!”

But again, this here is not an argument that Kaito makes, because he knows that would be pointless as it’s already been disproven. His accusation about Kokichi working with Monokuma was nothing but desperate deflection and not a legitimate attempt to argue that he did it.

Gonta:  “Gonta not kill Miu! Honest!”

And poor Gonta has no idea what’s going on or how he could possibly make a proper case for his innocence when he doesn’t even know what happened, so this is the only “argument” he can give.

So… Kaito Refutations: 5! I could have added three to that count here, but at least half the cast is expected to be refuted in a Debate Scrum anyway. If Kaito had had only one or two statements then it wouldn’t have been the game making an overt point of Shuichi refuting him in particular. So I’m just counting this whole thing as one big instance of it instead.

Fun fact you probably knew about how sprites work in class trials: every character’s sprite stays on whichever one they used the last time they had a dialogue box, even if it’s been a really long time since they did so and you might expect their outward emotions to have silently shifted a bit since then.

Another fun fact you might be less aware of: while most trial minigames don’t do this, Debate Scrums reset every character back to their neutral forward-facing sprite once the minigame finishes (except the protagonist, because they’re always the first to speak once it’s over). Not sure why that’s the only minigame that does that; possibly it has something to do with the animated cutscene at the beginning of it resetting the sprite memory part of the game’s coding?

Most fun fact of them all: Kaito’s sprite at the end of this particular Debate Scrum is the sole exception to this. Presumably resetting the characters to their default sprites is something inherent in the way the game is coded, but despite this, the writers went out of their way to code in a specific exception for Kaito in this case. They knew that it just would not feel right to come back down from this scrum and have Kaito staring straight forward and smiling like nothing just happened, since he’s there on camera right next to Shuichi before getting any more dialogue. I am absolutely delighted that they cared enough to do this.

(It is a shame that they didn’t also do a similar thing for the animated cutscene of them flying up to start the Debate Scrum, in which everyone always has default sprites. It would totally have been possible to change Kaito’s sprite there as well, just for this case, since that’s a unique cutscene in every trial due to the different number of people still alive.)

(It’s also fun to consider that, when the artists were generally designing Kaito’s sprites and making some of him turning to one side and looking away, they had to make sure that he was turning away in the direction that would put his back to Shuichi in the trialgrounds. Otherwise this wouldn’t work at all.)

Tsumugi:  “You’re going to believe Kokichi over Gonta?”

Shuichi:  “That’s not it at all. I just want the truth. If we’re going to survive, I have to find the truth!”

Once again, Shuichi stresses that this isn’t remotely about him “agreeing with” Kokichi, or believing in him as a person more than he believes in Gonta, or anything like that. This is about him trying to find the truth in order to save everyone and nothing else.

Kaito:  “…”

And the game chooses this moment to pan over to Kaito saying nothing yet again, suggesting that he definitely paid attention to what Shuichi just made clear, and that that’s what’s really bothering him about all this.

---

[Next post]

[comicteaparty]

May 13th-May 19th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from May 13th, 2019 to May 19th, 2019.  The chat focused on Damsels Don’t Wear Glasses by J Alice Bown.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Damsels Don’t Wear Glasses by J Alice Bown~! (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until May 19th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. In so far, what aspect of the world-building catches your interest the most? Why is that so? Also, what theories do you have in regards to differences between places like Persephone and Hestia?

Delphina

For serious scenes, I think I gotta go with the big swordy magic scene where she saves Jake from being crushed by the statue (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=202) because the lighting effects are gorgeous and seeing Lave doing big magic stuff with her sword was really really cool. For silly scenes, the one that always sticks with me is Lave trying to be a host and failing miserably. (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=123)

keii4ii

2) I really liked this page. http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/index.php?comic=20180423 How she just asks a random person on the street for a magic shortcut and gets an answer right away. While it's always been clear that magic is an ordinary thing, this kind of little details really shows exactly how ordinary.

Capitania do Azar

I really like the prologue, particularly the part where they climb the lamppost. There's just so much character into the entire scene, and the exchanges are really cool. It's a very strong beginning for a story too, imo!!

2) http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/index.php?comic=20130423 I really think this part has a lot to show about world building like, here's this weird magical event going on, but everyone is just "I was just trying to show you something cool urg" and "well this ain't it"

duskglass

for the worldbuilding, i especially love the variety of creatures/nonhumans we've seen so far, and how well integrated they are with the setting! it's got a classic urban fantasy vibe while also being very fresh and unique

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. What do you think Lave’s backstory is? Do you think she got all her scars from her job, or might some of them predate her job somehow? How do you think Jake will change the way Lave handles and deals with her life?

ClauseArt

heeey I just saw this! This is my comic! Thanks for taking the time to read it! c8

RebelVampire

1) i definitely gotta go with the scene where jake is in dream world like place with aishe. I really love how this scene just suddenly adds 1000 layers of mystery. Plus, i really just love the change in color scheme. It really gives it this other worldly feel that gives me goosebumps. Plus, I also just like Aishe's design. 2) I've really been enjoying the differences in magic. Like, for example, how most zombies actually suck cause ya know...theyre dead. I feel this adds such a great twist what we expect, cause every change I feel fits a more logical setup for what the magic does. Again, like how the zombie thing makes 1000% sense cause dead bodies are not the sturdiest. I am curious about why Lave had such a reaction to Hestia magic schools, but I don't have any theories outside of magic must be viewed very differently in places.

3) Kestrel because he's such a precious failure at life. Like...he just cannot catch a break and for some reason that makes him super endearing to me. Plus now hes got the whole aishe connection thing going on so that makes him double interesting. But mostly I want to boop him for all his failures. 4) I would think some of her scares would have to predate her job. Cause she's...she's got a lot of them. And considering she mentioned having been in jail, I'm kind of struck with the idea that maybe she ran with a gang or something. She super gives me the impression of someone who mostly raised herself and didnt have a huge loving family involved in teaching her how to deal with life. I think Jake will be a good influence on her though and teach her to be more careful. Cause she seems very fun loving and reckless, and while that can work when youre solo, its not great when you have other ppl. Like i think the Kestrel thing was a good example cause I felt Lave perhaps was too loose cannon with it, which semi resulted in Kestrel almost kicking the bucket. And Jake is like 1000 times more fragile, and I think it'll force Lave to see that she cant protect anybody if she goes around without a plan.

ClauseArt

@Capitania do Azar that scene with Kest and lave interacting around the lamp-post was actually the moment I decided Kest worked well as a main character. He was honestly going to die in the original draft. @keii4ii thanks! I super love just....the mundane feeling of everyday magic. @Delphina Honestly Lave just being a f--k up is probably my fav part of writing her character, especially for comedic effect XD Next to drawing glowy magic scenes of course.(edited)

@RebelVampire Oh wow this is a lot. Thank you! ;-; dammit I really can't respond to these kind of questions cus spoilers. But I'm glad you noticed a lot of my characters having...well a habit of messing up (and Lave did not handle that first chap well cough) XD Also Aishe is my fav character to draw, because Kest is my fav character to draw only its + because glowy effects. I do really like when more real world logic is put in fantasy, like corpses making for bad heavy hitters unless they're in a swarm. So I'm super glad you liked that!

Capitania do Azar

4. If Lave's style has always been what we've seen so far, then all those scars don't surprise me at all! They'd be the natural consequence of past encounters, work related or otherwise. It just kinda feels that everything ends with someone getting punched around her

3. I've really liked pretty much everyone, but I think Lave's my favorite cuz she's sturdy but messy and I feel there's a lot to be learned about her aha

And also she prolly also has a lot to learn

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. Why do you think Jake is in Persephone with no guardian? What theories do you have on Jake’s hatred of non-humans? Will Jake be able to overcome his prejudice?

Capitania do Azar

6. Jake feels a lot like is somebody important's family but important could mean a lot of things. And has for his discomfort, I think it mostly stems from not knowing/being used to all this magic, which gives me the idea that some of these cities are less magical than others

5. Not an illustration, but I really love how in the last pages, as the sun rises, the colors become brighter and the sky becomes pink!!

It really helps bringing home the feeling that the night is over and the quietness of early morning, which is kinda fitting since they also stopped fighting

Delphina

I think I gotta go with Lave as my favorite character too because competent + ridiculous + magical +swordy is my entire jam so she's sorta the best of all worlds. Gena holds a special place in my heart too because she's clearly trying to keep a lot of things together.

Illustration-wise, I love how things like Jake's anxiety (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=198) or Chirovision (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=237) or Aisheland (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=225) traveling through magic spaces (http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/index.php?comic=20170501) make the palette and rendering different depending on the mood. Really good use of a more abstract style to convey tone and worldbuilding.

(Now I want there to be a DDWG theme park where there's weird places like Aisheland)

varethane

Lave is my fave!!!! I love her goofy attitude paired with how much butt she kicks when it's necessary. I love seeing people underestimate her and then get surprised, haha.(edited)

My favourite illustration is.... hard to pick, but probably this page: http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/?comic_id=206

Capitania do Azar

oh yeah, I really love the color work for those scenes, it carries out the emotions very well

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. For what purpose do you think someone sold Kestrel the cursed orb? How does this tie into the axe theft mystery Lave is asked to solve? What overall is going on regarding these illegal items, and how will it tie into the story?

Capitania do Azar

7. Anything that comes out of Kestrel's mouth is gold, but when he and Lave bicker it's even better!!!

Please just let them bicker more for my amusement

8. It really feels like someone's around trying to spread SOME mayhem and if one object was possessed then maybe it's not the only one... could be a tricky situation

Delphina

Will second that Lave and Kest definitely need to bicker more

RebelVampire

5) im kind of cheating by saying i really like the extra page about the leylines http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/index.php?comic=20160620 its really simplistic yet i think the illustrations work super well to help convey all the world-building information. its just a nice combo of huge info drop with some pleasant visual accompaniment 6) I assume Jake is probably an orphan from some important family? Or that Jake's family is super high up in rank somehow and just went "nah man we dont want this kid no more." while i def think some of jake's hate comes from ignorance, i also get the impression that jake had a bad experience with non-humans. something about jake's reactions just really strike me as ptsd. overall yeah, i think jake is gonna have to overcome it. plus, exposure breeds familiarity. its hard to be in the lion's den and continue to hate the lions.

7) jake and basically any non-human. I really just enjoy seeing jake's various reactions of "eww no" and then having to be confronted with the fact that not all non-humans are bad. It just makes me more and more curious about jake's past. plus, all these interactions really serve as a great tracking devices for how jake evolves in opinion. 8) With Kestrel, I kind of think someone is trying to draw Aishe out. I mean Aishe does have pretty neat butterflies and powers, so I can't blame them. Though I assume its a revenge thing cause I get the impression ppl arent all that happy with Aishe. But thus why other illegal items are being involved because you need powerful stuff to get to the powerful people.

Desnik

That leyline page is gorgeous and informative, I love the combo of worldbuilding and infographics

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. Who exactly is Aishe and what are their goals? What does this have to do with the undead from the first chapter? Why did Aishe help Jake? What will Lave do when she learns about Aishe?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. What do you think the story with Chiro is? How did he wind up as Lave’s roommate? Will Chiro and Jake learn to get along? Also, do you think there might be anything special about Chiro that might affect the story?

AshAngelV

6. I think he's come from an entirely different world that doesn't have non humans and magic.

AshAngelV

11. The world building and color scheme are definitely strong points. It feels fully fleshed out and magical, but also very grounded like it's this amazing magical place that's also totally normal. Also, the characters. Having a bunch of flawed characters with baggage is always more interesting than having perfect characters with no problems and even the bit characters feel dynamic. Like they have their own story and interests rather than being part of the scenery exsisting only for the MCs to interact with.

RebelVampire

9) The thing I appreciate the most details wise is just the physical flaws. Especially Lave's scars. Adding details like that can be really tedious, yet it really helps deliver so much character that I always enjoy when the time is taken to include things like that. 10) I feel like Aishe is probably some necromancer from the past who is trying to rectify a mistake that was made. I think Aishe helped for the reason they said: Jake did a kindness and gotta pay that shit forward. I feel like Lave is 100% not going to trust aishe and basically just encourage everyone to do the same. Maybe suggest Kestral seek professional help. But yeah, I don't see a green butterfly person flying with Lave XD 11) I think this comic's strengths lie in two areas. First, the implementation of magic. There are clear rules, there's enough deviations from the standard to be interesting, and the fact its presented as a normal culture thing is well-integrated. second, the color palettes are really amazing and suit the tone and atmosphere of each scene really well. 12) I feel like Chiro might be a bit special since that one person did wonder what species Chiro was or something like that. And that because of this specialness Chiro was outcasted. Hence why he wound up with Lave cause ya know, outcasts gotta stick together. I think Chiro and Jake will bond for sure down the road. Cause i mean Chiro did just help save Jake's butt, and thats gotta earn him some Jake points right?

AshAngelV

12. I think Chiro might be a vamp that just stays in bat form or maybe only has bat form.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. What do you think Kestrel’s role will be in regards to the larger story? Can Kestral and Aishe be detached from one another, or is the attachment permanent?

AshAngelV

14. I think he'll be the guy that's in a constant state of terror and peril. And I think the detaching will be up to Aishe.

ClauseArt

man its super hard not to chime in on these ahhh D8

Delphina

Rebel makes such good questions XDD

varethane

I am looking forward to several things! - what is Jake's deal and how is he linked to aishe -Lave's bite mark scar!!!! what is it!!!!!! -what will Kest do next -more Lave plz(edited)

RebelVampire

@Delphina thank you for saying so~!

13) im looking forward to more aishe doing aishe stuff just cause i dig that aesthetic a whole lot. im also looking forward to learning more about jake so more concrete theories can be made about wtf jake's deal is. and also why nobody else could take jake besides lave cause i mean seriously...theres gotta be more sane choices XD 14) Kest is gonna become a real mage and do magic stuff. also ya know, hide out with lave cause now the ppl he owes money too are probably gonna be out for blood. as for detaching...maybe not so much. i more feel like once Aishe is done with their tasks, their essence will just kind of disappear and merge with kest.

AshAngelV

Hang in there Clause.

ClauseArt

@AshAngelV I will try D8

I can at least promise a lot of these theories are gonna be answered sooner or later

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Damsels Don’t Wear Glasses this week! Please also give a special thank you to J Alice Bown for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Damsels Don’t Wear Glasses, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://damsels-dont-wear-glasses.com/

J Alice’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JAliceBown

J Alice’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/A732E2D

J Alice’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlicesBrainPad/

[write-havoc]

This Is How I Disappear Ch. 23

Summary: A girl named Chuck finds herself in the exact place she doesn't want to be, living with violent men in a desolate nursing home. After her former gym teacher finds her, will he be the savior she was looking for?

Fandom: The Walking Dead AU

Pairing: Negan/Original Female Character

Status: Completed (story continues in The Flame Is Gone, The Fire Remains)

Contains: swearing, violence, sexual assault, blood, smut

Readers 18+ of age only

Masterlists in my bio

——— Negan’s POV ———

I put my radio back on my belt after I finish telling Simon my fuckin’ plans for tomorrow. About twenty or so workers are headed off to RA outpost to get it fully operational. And I’m gonna fuckin’ oversee all that shit.

I put my fuckin’ plates in the sink and head out of my apartment toward the wives’ lounge. I’m not getting any off of Chuck tonight, so maybe one of them will oblige. I’d rather have Chuck, but... whatever.

I should ask the wives to make sure Chuck eats tomorrow, too, since I’m gonna be fuckin’ off site and she didn’t eat tonight. Her emotions have been all over the place lately and the first fuckin’ thing she does when she gets upset is stop fuckin’ eating. We’re not going back to being fuckin’ malnourished like before. I will _ not _ let that happen.

“Good evening, ladies,” I call out as I step into the room. The women are still sitting at their table, finishing up dinner of their own. And none of them say a word to me. Just fuckin’ staring at me like I grew a second fuckin’ dick. “Okay, then,” I say to myself with a chuckle.

I sit my ass down on one of the couches and wait for them to finish their meals. It takes me about three seconds to get bored as shit, so I clear my fuckin’ throat to get their attention. Get them to hurry the fuck up.

“What do you want, Negan?” Sherry says to me all bitchily.

“Je-sus Christ! The fuck is your problem?” I ask with a laugh. What the fuck has been going on up here that has her panties in a fuckin’ bunch?

The women start to clear their plates and Sherry comes out to stand in front of me, arms crossed, foot fuckin’ tapping impatiently.

“Well?” she spits out with a shrug.

The other women come out to sit on the couch behind Sherry. Apparently whatever is eating her is eating them, too, because they’re all giving me the fuckin’ stinkeye. Even Kayla! And she’s always a goddamn sweetheart.

“First of all, what the fuck is this attitude?” I wave my hand in front of Sherry. “And second, why the fuck are you acting like I need a reason to visit my own fuckin’ wives?”

Tonya lets out an incredulous huff and shakes her head. “You’re unbelievable,” she says under her breath.

I throw my arms up and look around. I have no fuckin’ idea what the fuck _ I _ did. I haven’t even seen the wives since yesterday morning when I took Kayla back to her room for some fuck time. Maybe it’s cuz a didn’t fuck any of them this morning. But I was fuckin’ busy getting on the road to the outposts!

“You’re gonna have to fuckin’ help me out here because I have no fuckin’ clue why you girls are pissed at me.”

Sherry moves back to stand beside Kayla, who is no longer giving me the fuckin’ stinkeye, but looks upset. Shit. The fuck happened?

“Yesterday,” Kayla begins, “when we were... I didn’t bring it up then, but when you were with me, you called me Chuck.”

Oh shit.

That can’t be. I don’t think I did that. Why the fuck would I do that? I’ve never called any woman by the wrong fuckin’ name before. Ever.

I chuckle to cover up my own shock. “You must’ve misheard, darling. I probably said ‘fuck’. They _ do _ rhyme.”

“Really, Negan?” Sherry groans with a disapproving look on her fuckin’ face.

“Were you fuckin’ there, Sherry? How the fuck would you know?” Goddamn, Sherry can piss me off sometimes.

“I know what I heard, Negan,” Kayla speaks up. “I know what this is here. My place. I know you don’t love me or anything, but it still hurt my feelings to think that I’m, you know, second choice when you’re with me.”

“Look, sweetheart, don’t think too much about it,” I direct at Kayla. I definitely want to end this conversation quickly. “I wanted to fuck you yesterday, so I did. Easy as that. You weren’t my second fuckin’ choice.”

That was _ mostly _ true...

The wives don’t look convinced, though. Of fuckin’ course. Anything to make my life fuckin’ more complicated.

“If you’re in love with Chuck, I don’t want to have sex with you anymore,” Kayla blurts out.

I can’t hold back my sudden laugh. Why the fuck do they think I love Chuck so much? That’s fuckin’ ridiculous. Isn’t it?

“Don’t be such a dick,” Tonya yells.

I stop laughing a little to respond. “I _ am _ a dick,” I exclaim as I gesture up in the air. “That’s the fuckin’ point. I don’t _ feel _ for anyone. You all know that.”

“Are you trying to convince us of that or _ yourself_?” Sherry scoffs.

Alright. Now Sherry is getting on my last goddamn nerve. “I don’t give a shit if you guys believe it or not. You’re fuckin’ stupid if you don’t, but that’s on you.” I look at Kayla. “And if you don’t wanna fuck anymore. Fine. That’s your fuckin’ prerogative. I mean, Sherry already doesn’t fuck me and Tonya and Frankie fuck each other more than me anymore, but what-the-fuck-ever. Your choice. But my dick will be ready when you want a ride.” I start to get up to leave.

“It’s not like your dick will be too lonely without us,” Tonya starts with a sly smirk, “since you’ll still be fucking ‘I’m-not-in-love-with-her’ Chuck.” She uses fucking finger quotes.

I halt my movement and turn slightly back to them. “You have a _ problem _ with her now?” That shit won’t stand if they do. Chuck is here to stay, no matter fuckin’ what.

Sherry butts in. “We don’t have a problem with Chuck. We have a problem with you lying to yourself. And her.”

I glare at her. Why haven’t I learned that fucking multiple women always gets fuckin’ complicated. And I don’t even fuck Sherry!

“Since you think I favor Chuck so much, why don’t you guys make sure she eats fuckin’ breakfast tomorrow while I’m gone. She’s not feeling good.” I say it all sarcastic, but I mean it.

I’m almost to the door before Tonya opens her smartass mouth again. “So _ that’s _ why you were here. To tell us to check up on your _ girlfriend_.”

I don’t fuckin’ turn around. I just continue on to my own fuckin’ room.

——— ———

Chuck wakes up to a soft knock on the door.

“Chuck. It’s Sherry,” comes from the other side.

“Come in,” Chuck calls out then yawns.

Sherry pushes the door open and enters. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Chuck greets after sitting up. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Negan told us you didn’t feel well and to make sure you ate breakfast. We have a plate waiting for you in the lounge,” Sherry says in a friendly tone.

“Ugh. Did he really tell you to do that?” Chuck gets out of bed to follow Sherry out the door.

“Are you sick or something?” Sherry asks casually as they head to the lounge.

“No,” Chuck drags out as they walk. “I went off site yesterday and some stuff happened. When we got back I didn’t feel like eating, so I just went to bed.” By the time Chuck finishes her statement, she’s in the lounge. “Since I didn’t eat last night, Negan apparently thought I needed assistance this morning,” Chuck drones with an unenthusiastic tone.

“What happened yesterday?” Kayla asks, having heard most of what Chuck had said to Sherry.

Chuck sits down, grabbing a plate of scrambled eggs and toast to eat with the other women. “I went to the outposts to teach first aid and a herd went through,” Chuck explains before she takes a bite. She’s actually very hungry now, her sour stomach from the night before having passed.

“No shit?” Tonya cries out.

“How big was the herd?” Frankie asks.

“About a hundred.”

“Wow,” Kayla breathes out in shock. “That’s scary!”

Chuck shrugs and finishes her food. She hangs out with the wives for a while after breakfast, but they seem weird. Like something is off. They are being nice and joking around, but something is different. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but everyone’s mood seems weird. Like they don’t want to talk about something with her.

Chuck says her goodbyes, telling the wives that she’s going to get dressed then take some books outside to read in the sunshine. She dresses in skinny jeans and her Misfits T-shirt and grabs one of the pregnancy textbooks and a Sherlock Holmes mystery and heads outside.

She finds an isolated tree on the property and sits down under it. It provides enough shade so her fair skin won’t burn, but the air is still warm enough to be comfortable. She begins to read the medical text until it starts to get too dry, then starts the mystery.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a streak of orange pass by. She turns her head to see that it is the mommy cat and she’s making her way away from the trailers in back.

“Shoot!” Chuck cries out to herself. She gathers her books and walks quickly to her room to get the key to the cats’ trailer.

_ I forgot to feed her yesterday! I hope she found something to eat on her own. I’m such an idiot! _

Chuck dumps her books on her bed haphazardly and pockets the key from her desk. By the time she gets back downstairs to the kitchen, she’s a little out of breath from rushing around, but she picks up the scraps from the kitchen anyway and makes her way to the trailer.

Mommy cat isn’t back yet when Chuck enters, so she sets the bowl down on the floor, noticing that the kittens are nestled back in their bed sleeping.

“Sorry, mommy kitty,” Chuck says aloud. “Whenever you get back, you’ll have some nice food to eat.”

Chuck crouches down to try to coax the kittens out to play with her, but they are fast asleep. Suddenly, light fills the dark trailer causing her crouching form to cast a large shadow over the kittens in front of her. The light seeps in from the door which had opened and closed behind her. Standing and turning toward the door, Chuck furrows her brow in confusion at who would be in this part of The Sanctuary.

When her eyes fully focus on the person now standing in front of her, a chill runs down her spine.

Brendon.

“What are you doing here?” she asks quickly. Her mind races to find a good explanation as to why Brendon is in the trailer with her. She hopes it is purely innocent, but fears it is something worse. That Negan had been right.

“I followed you out here,” he answers flatly as he takes a step forward.

“Why?” She tries to back up but there is nowhere else for her to go, her bottom hits the counter behind her as she takes a step.

“I’ve _ been _ following you. Watching you. Since I first saw you here. And I know what you’ve been up to.” He takes another step. “I’ve seen you head up to Negan’s floor. So... why did you lie to me?”

Her voice trembles as she responds. “I didn’t lie to you about anything.”

“Are you really going to tell me that you don’t fuck Negan?” he asks in disbelief.

She doesn’t know what to say to this. Yes, she sleeps with Negan. But, no, she didn’t lie about it. Brendon hadn’t ever asked that. He asked if she was Negan’s wife, and she had responded truthfully that she wasn’t. Not that she thinks it is any of Brendon’s business, anyway.

“Why should it matter to you what I do?” she asks, trying to sound assertive.

“Just admit it to me.” He takes another step.

Chuck swallows to try to center herself. “I don’t have to admit anything to you. I owe you nothing.”

Brendon’s cold laugh fills the small room. “Don’t admit it, then.” His laugh drifts off, leaving rage to seep onto his face. “It doesn’t really matter what you say now.”

“What are you doing here, Brendon?” A tear of fear falls from Chuck’s eye as she speaks. Her intuition is telling her that this is a very bad situation to be in.

“Negan ruined my life because of you.” The look of confusion on Chuck’s face causes Brendon to chuckle darkly. “Don’t act like you didn’t fucking know that, Chuck.”

“I _ don’t _ know what you’re talking about,” she chokes out.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” he yells, making Chuck flinch.

“I’m not!” Her fear is getting the best of her as her heart rate picks up.

“I had a full ride to UVA for baseball. But they pulled my scholarship when Negan cut me from the team. And I couldn’t afford it on my own.” His seething tone fills Chuck with dread.

“None of that matters now,” Chuck says softly, trying to convince him.

“It doesn’t matter?! My dad kicked me out for not going to college! He refused to talk to me! I had _ nothing _! And I never saw my dad alive again because of Negan! He had a heart attack and died still pissed at me for fucking up!”

“I’m sorry-“ she tries to get out but Brendon cuts her off.

“You’re sorry? You should be. Because it’s your fault, too.”

“I don’t understand-“

“It’s because of you. And whatever shit you had going on with Negan. He overheard me in the locker room saying I liked you. The _ next day_, he cut me! That’s not a fucking coincidence.”

“That’s not true. He cut you for being late,” she tries to reason.

“Is that what he fucking told you?” His face seems to soften minutely. “He’s been lying to you, Chuck. How could you love him? He’s evil. Don’t you see that?”

“I-I don’t...” Her brain is short circuiting.

“He almost _ killed _ Mr. Hanson. And that was before all this. Before killing was the norm. Did he tell you that?”

She nods meekly.

“And you’re still with him?!”

“Mr. Hanson wasn’t a good man-“ she reasons quietly with her head down.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! He took me in when I had nothing! When Negan took everything from me. Even though Negan had taken everything from _ him_, too! He gave me a job in his workshop. He taught me everything he knew about woodworking. Everything that Negan wants to exploit from me right now,” he responds coldly.

“He was inappropriate with students.” As soon as she says it, she realizes that arguing with him is probably not the best thing to do.

He leans forward aggressively. “He never touched anyone! And you remember what you girls looked like! You think Negan wasn’t looking at you the same way Drew was?!”

It’s obvious to Chuck that Brendon isn’t going to calm down and just leave her alone. She knows she has to try to get ahold of this situation.

“Brendon, please,” she pleads softly, but Brendon is intent on not listening to her.

“Me and Drew, we knew Negan was still alive after the end. He had to be. And we wanted to show him what he did to us. We wanted to make him pay for it.”

Chuck holds her hands up in a placating gesture. “Brendon, we can talk about this. Us and Negan. We can work it out.”

“No! No talking! This is how it needs to be.”

“Brendon. Think about this. There’s no way for you to get near him. It’s suicide if you try to kill him.” She tries to explain to him.

“That _ was our plan. To kill him. We looked for him, but... Then Drew got bit and I had to put him down. And I thought... It was stupid to get revenge, now, so I stopped looking. But the universe thought different. It _ brought _ me to him. Like some sorta sign. And the second I saw _ you, I knew what I had to do. Killing him would be too easy for him. I want him to suffer.” Brendon takes another step forward. He is now about an arms length away from Chuck. “I’m going to take away something that he loves.”

“Brendon. Please. Please don’t do this.” She tries desperately to convince him to stop.

“Shut up,” he demands flatly. “I’m going to ruin you for him. I have to, Chuck. I have to do it. And then I’m going to take you away from him.”

“Brendon, no! Please!” she begs through shuttered breaths.

“Take your clothes off.”

“No. No. No.” She shakes her head fiercely. “Please!”

“TAKE YOUR FUCKING CLOTHES OFF!”

——— Negan’s POV ———

“We’re headed out,” Dwight says into the radio from the driver’s seat of my truck.

“Copy that, D,” one of my saviors responds.

I can’t wait to get fuckin’ home. I’m tired as fuck after spending all goddamn day directing those dumb fucks at RA outpost. Setting up chain of command. Laying out what I expect of them in terms of goods and fuckin’ services. Scheduling fuckin’ pickups and drop offs.

I just wanna eat fuckin’ dinner and bury my dick in Chuck’s fuckin’ wet pussy.

When we finally fuckin’ drive through the gate, I hop out of the truck, give a few orders to Simon, and head upstairs. Chuck should be up there waiting for me. Hopefully fuckin’ naked, but I won’t hold my damn breath for that. I doubt she would even fuckin’ think to welcome me home that way. She’s too fuckin’ sweet, doesn’t have the dirty as fuck mind for that. Maybe I’ll fuckin’ drop the hint that I would like that. See if she’ll obey me.

I peek my head in the wives’ lounge to tell them I’m back and get an unenthusiastic response from them.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m glad I’m fuckin’ home, too,” I say sarcastically as I start to walk away.

“Oh, Negan?” Tonya calls out to me and I fuckin’ walk back in to see what she wants. “Your girlfriend is feeling better.” She smiles a smug fuckin’ smirk and waits for me to react.

I let out a deep sigh and rub my hand over my face. “Stop fuckin’ calling her that. Jesus Christ, Tonya.”

“What?” Tonya says almost joking.

“Did you guys give her shit today?” I ask, getting irritated. “Because she doesn’t deserve that.”

“Calm down,” Tonya says with a chuckle. “I’m just fucking with you. Chuck’s a sweetheart. We wouldn’t be dicks to her. We fed her and hung out for a while, then she went to read outside.”

Fuck, Tonya’s hard to read. So fuckin’ hot and cold. Is she pissed or not? I looked at the other girls and they don’t seem too mad. Frankie is even chuckling to herself. I wouldn’t think anyone would ever have a fuckin’ problem with Chuck. She’s one of the only genuinely good fuckin’ people I’ve ever met.

“You’re a weird fuckin’ chick, Tonya,” I comment and walk out, hearing the wives giggle behind me.

I walk into my oddly fuckin’ quiet apartment, turning the lights on as I go.

“Chuck?” I call out as I enter my bedroom. She’s not there.

I let out a growl of frustration. Now I gotta get my ass all the way down to her room. Fuck, I wish she just lived up here. Or we had fuckin’ elevators.

Her room is fuckin’ empty, too, of course. Two books are thrown on her bed, which is kinda fuckin’ weird. She must’ve brought them back up here after she was done reading outside like Tonya said. But where the fuck is she now?

Maybe Carson needed her for something.

If she’s not down in the infirmary, I’ll be pissed. Fuckin’ traipsing all over the fuckin’ place looking for her. She’ll be lucky if I don’t fuckin’ lock her in my room for good after what happened yesterday.

Carson is just locking up when I get down to the infirmary. He goes to kneel, but I stop him.

“Chuck help you out today?” I ask, getting right to it.

“Not today, sir. I haven’t seen her.”

“Hmm.” I scratch my head.

I walk away from the doc, headed for the cafeteria. I doubt she would fuckin’ be there, but I take a look around anyway.

She’s not there.

Alright. This is weird. Something’s happened.

I walk out the doors, trying to keep calm.

She’s fine. Nothing could happen here, right?

Simon comes out of the doors just behind me, giving me a nod. “Something up, boss? I saw you in the cafeteria. You looked weird.”

“Have you seen Chuck?”

“I saw her this morning walking around with some books. Why? She wasn’t upstairs?”

“No.” As a last resort, I call her on my radio. She should have hers on her. I fuckin’ hope. “Chuck?”

No answer.

“Chuck. Where are you?”

Silence.

“Anybody fuckin’ seen Chuck?!”

“_You mean me, sir? _” Fuckin’ Charlie the savior answers.

“Not fuckin’ you! Chuck the girl. 25. Redhead. Works with the doc.”

No one answers.

Then a familiar voice comes through the speaker.

“She’s dead.”

Brendon.

I feel the blood drain out of my face. I look up to Simon who looks equally fuckin’ shocked.

“I killed her with my bare hands. Right after I fucked her raw.”

No.

No. He didn’t.

It’s not fuckin’ true.

I see red. I throw my radio to the ground, smashing the fuck out of it. I bring Lucille down on any pieces I can see until nothing is left. I grunt and growl, screaming at the top of my lungs, barely in control of myself.

“Boss.” Simon tries to get my attention. “Negan!” he yells, finally snapping me out of it.

When I lift my head, I see that several other fuckin’ saviors have grouped around me. I look down to Simon’s outstretched hand and take the radio from it. I take a few deep breaths to try to calm the fuck down.

“Where is she?” I growl into the radio.

“You’ll find her soon enough. Or rather, she’ll find you. You know... when she turns.”

I look up to the saviors around me. They are all staring at me, fuckin’ waiting for me to say something to them. Not only did they see me freak the fuck out, but they heard everything that fucker said on the radio.

“I want _ everyone _ fuckin’ searching this place for her. Start in the least populated places. The cells. The garage. The fuckin’ furnace room. Those kinda places. Search the fuckin’ grounds, too. I want her found. _ Now_.” I scratch my beard. “And no one fuckin’ touches her. No matter fuckin’ what you see. You call me first.”

“You don’t want us to put her down, sir?” someone asks.

I almost hit the fucker with Lucille. “She’s not fucking dead. She’s not.” I bring the radio up to my mouth and hold the button down with so much force that I hear the plastic crack. “You are dead where you stand, motherfucker. You hear me? You will never know another fuckin’ moment’s peace because I _ will _ find you. I will scorch the fuckin’ earth to find you. And _ when _ I do, I won’t fuckin’ kill you. No. I’ll keep you fuckin’ alive. But you’ll wish that you were dead. I’ll cut bits off you and fuckin’ feed them to you for fuckin’ dinner. You haven’t known fuckin’ pain like the pain I’ll inflict on you, fuckin’ cocksucker.”

“Nothing you could do to me will ever take away the fact that I won. I beat you. Because I took something away from you and that is so fucking sweet. Almost as sweet as she was.”

This needs to end now. He needs to fucking die.

“I want him found! Someone get a team outside the gates and find that fuckin’ piece of shit. He’s still within radio range so he’s no further than two fuckin’ miles! Bring him back alive! Simon, you’re with me. We’re searching the grounds.”

Me and Simon search for-fuckin’-ever. Or at least it feels that way. The longer it takes, the more desperate I get.

“Anyone got anything?” I hear Simon say into his radio. His voice is fuckin’ tense and choked. I know he’s struggling with this, too, but he’s keeping it together.

The radio comes back with a bunch of negative responses.

I flip the fuck out and use Lucille to hit a bunch of pallets I’m standing beside. A fuckin’ cat jumps out from behind them and it just about scares the shit outta Simon.

Fuck.

The cats.

“Simon!” I call out as I break out in a full sprint to the back of the property. I hear him running behind me as I round the building heading for the goddamn trailers.

The trailers that no one ever thinks about.

The trailers that haven’t been fuckin’ searched yet.

“Chuck!” I scream, hoping to hear her answer.

Nothing.

There are three fuckin’ trailers back here, but I know which one she would be in. The only one with a lock on the door. The only one she’d be anywhere near. That fucker must’ve followed her back here. Ambushed her.

Fuck.

I run up to the fuckin’ door. The padlock is locked. And I’m assuming the only key is inside. With her.

“Baby girl, you in there?” I call out as I pull on the door.

All I heard is a shuffling. No answer.

“No! No no!” I growl out.

She’s not turned. She’s not dead. She can’t be.

No time to break the lock. The cheap ass door is fuckin’ weaker anyway. I start to kick the door, trying to break it down. Simon jumps in, too, and we break a huge hole in it. I push him back and rip the rest of the door off so I can fit though.

She is there. On her stomach.

Fuckin’ naked and hogtied.

But I can’t see much in the darkness.

“No, baby girl,” I cry softly as I fall to my knees.

——— ———

“Take your fucking clothes off now or I’ll rip them off you,” Brendon growls harshly.

Chuck knows she has to do something to get out of this situation. Now.

She tries to run past Brendon to get to the door, but he grabs her by the waist and slams her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her and disorienting her. By the time Chuck stops gasping for breath and comes to her senses, Brendon had ripped her shirt, pants, and bra off.

“No! Stop!” She screams tries to push him away from her.

He punches her on the left side of her face hard enough that her head snaps to the side. “Shut the fuck up!” He bunches her underwear up and rips them from her body, leaving brush burns on her hips.

Her mind is hazy as he forces her thighs apart roughly. She barely registers the sound of his zipper and his weight on top of her.

“Please don’t,” she slurs. Tears stream down her face and pathetic whimpers leave her mouth as she waits for that familiar pain to register. The pain she thought she’d left behind at Rolling Acres. The pain she thought she’d never feel again.

But it doesn’t come.

Brendon lets out a frustrated growl into her ear and sits back up, stroking his soft dick. “Come on,” he growls. “I have to do this,” he hisses to himself between his teeth.

Chuck thinks quickly. This is her only chance to stop him. “Brendon. This is wrong. You know it.”

“Shut up!”

“Please. You’re a good man. You don’t want to do this. Just stop.”

“I said _ shut up_!” He slaps her face and roughly covers her mouth. “Shut your fucking mouth. Stop crying.” His own eyes are filling with tears. “He has to pay. This is the only way.” He leans back over her, one hand still covering her mouth and one still on himself trying to get him hard. “This is the only way,” he growls.

Chuck opens her eyes to look at him. His eyes are screwed shut as he continues to grunt and growl with frustration at himself.

“Fuck!” he yells in her ear causing fresh tears to fall from her eyes. He sits back up, wipes his face, and tucks himself back into his pants. He shakes his head, seemingly wrestling with what to do since he couldn’t go through with his first plan. “I can’t let him get away with this, Chuck. I can’t.”

Suddenly, his hands grip Chuck’s throat, cutting off her oxygen. She struggles under him, trying to get him to release her.

“I’m sorry, Chuck,” he says through his tears, which now flow freely. “Why did you fall for him?! He did this to you! It’s his fault! He made me do this to you. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

His repeated apologies start to sound further and further away as Chuck gets weaker. Just as she is about to black out, he releases her. She coughs and sputters, sucking in the breaths that her lungs desperately need.

He sits back up on his knees between her legs, bringing is arms up to put his hands on the back of his head. “I can’t!” He shakes his head. “I can’t do it. I can’t do that to you. Fuck!” He stands up, frantically pacing the room as she gets her breath back. “Drew could’ve done it. He would’ve done it. But I can’t. He was the strong one.”

Something in the corner seems to catch his eye. A rope. He picks it up and flips Chuck onto her stomach, tying her arms and feet together behind her back.

“I would’ve been good to you, Chuck. Without Negan... we could’ve been happy together,” he says from behind her, softly stroking her hair. “I know it.”

Chuck hears him pick up the radio that is still attached to her pants somewhere in the room. Then he leaves without another word.

Chuck wait several minutes before she starts to scream for help. Her throat is already raw from being nearly strangled to death, so her voice gives out very quickly. Next, she tries to get loose from her bindings, but it is no use.

A wave of nausea hits her hard. She leans up, trying to make sure to vomit away from herself. Somehow she manages to remain clean, and scoots herself away from the mess she made.

She takes deep breaths, trying to calm herself and her stomach. “Must have a concussion,” she says to herself as she turns on her side. She tries to take stock of any possible injuries she has, but thinks there is nothing major.

So she waits. And waits for someone to come. She knows that someone would find her eventually. Negan would search for her. Unless something is keeping him. Through the small cracks in the covered windows, she sees that the sun has set. The passing of time has Chuck even more worried.

_ What if something happened at the outpost and Negan won’t be back? God. Why won’t anyone come for me? What kind of a person am I that no one misses me? _

Her heart rate starts to pick up. Her exhaustion, the heat of the trailer, what she had just went through, all of it, has her on the verge of a panic attack.

For a moment, she thinks she heard Negan call for her, but she isn’t sure if it had actually happened.

Then she hears it again.

Negan is at the door.

She tries to call out to him, but her voice is too quiet for him to hear, so she tries to shift herself closer to the door, so she could be heard. There is a sharp bang at the door, which makes Chuck halt her motion.

Negan is breaking in.

She is going to be safe.

She feels him enter the room and get on his knees behind her. “No, baby girl,” he whimpers sadly.

“Negan...” she rasps as loudly as her damaged throat will allow.

Negan lets out an excited noise and scoops her up tightly in his arms. “Oh, fuck, baby girl. I thought you were dead. He said you were dead,” he whispers into her hair. “I thought I lost you.”

Simon goes around them and cuts the ropes from Chuck’s hands and feet, giving her head a soft caress after. “I’m gonna call the doc. Make sure he’s in the infirmary waiting for us,” he says quietly.

“No. I want to go home,” Chuck whispers as she wrapped her free arms around Negan.

“Home?” Negan asks in confusion.

“Take me to your room,” she answers.

“Tell the doc to meet us in my room,” Negan commands to Simon as he pulls away from Chuck. He takes his jacket off and puts it around her, picking her up bridal style afterward.

Simon follows after the pair, Lucille in hand, giving Negan’s orders to Carson through the radio.

Chuck holds onto Negan as if her life depends on it, allowing him to carry her all the way to the fifth floor to his room.

[cozypancakes]

Hi there! I have another question if you're still up for answering them! I wanted to know who's your favorite character to write/develop in your series.

Always up for answering questions, thank you so much for asking. This sort of got away from me by like 1.8k words...I’d blame the voice to text feature I’m trying out cause it really encourages my ramblings, but this would’ve happened regardless. I also ended up talking about what I would write/develop about every character. My current answer to who my favorite is would be everyone (leaning towards Shirley at this very second, but basically everyone). All of the characters are fascinating so below is the short version of the parts I’d be most interested in developing.

Abed takes incredible precision to get his character right because his personality only changes in subtle ways. Chang has had multiple personalities and roles so now I don’t even know how to write him. Those two are awesome cause I love a challenge. Annie was a drug addict and has serious mommy issues. Addiction doesn’t just disappear. She has to have struggled/relapsed with that. Shirley had serious drinking issues and was a bully growing up. What was her rock bottom that turned her into someone who tries to always be nice and when did Christianity start playing a role in her life?? Frankie came to Greendale to take care of one of her “insane” relatives...nothing more was ever said on that! Britta is a mess but doesn’t deserve to be the butt of every joke. And also, why is she so afraid of herself? Troy’s lack of career ambition is valid so that would not be where I give him personality. Pierce is an asshole but his fear of being abandoned by everyone is not on the list of reasons why. 

What lies ahead is a lot of ramblings into every major character outside of Jeff and the Dean. Proceed at your own risk...

 So obviously since I write primarily deanjeff fanfic so those are the two I focus on the most. And I couldn’t possibly choose one over the other. I know Jeff has been getting more attention but I think the Dean’s journey is just as, if not more, fascinating. The people I think would be hardest to write about, would have to be Abed or Chang. with Chang it's difficult to really pinpoint his character after season 3. I think I need to re-watch it a lot more because personally I want to keep his crazy antics, that did not involve murder. He was such a narcissistic, sarcastic asshole in the first season and I kinda miss that. But he's really calmed down when he’s Kevin. Then they try to mix the two personalities together?  I don't understand the balance just yet. With Abed it feels a lot more like walking a tightrope. You need needlepoint accuracy to get Abed’s character right cuz it's very easy to slip into either incorrect exaggerations or misinterpretations of his personality. So if I'm ever up for a challenge one of those would be the two I'd have trouble pinning down. 

As far as who I would like to explore more, that's a really hard decision to make too. It would really be like the entire cast. Annie has so much stuff with her perfectionism and drug addiction that's never really touched upon and her issues with her mom. There's also the whole thing with her sexuality cause obviously I read her as a lesbian, though extremely repressed. Like how does her relationship with her mom influence her as she tries to define what kind of person she wants to be? And that is stressful to navigate by itself but then you have her addition issues. So it like can't really even begin to deal with one of them because they all feed into each other and they all feed into her bigger  anxiety about being the best and it's just a whirlpool of emotional trauma.

Shirley is, of course, another character that we just do not know much about. I’d love to dive into her character development. She kind of stays the Christian mom friend who has a troubled marriage for the majority of the series. They never even touched on the fact that she was a black business woman and any of the hardships that must come with that, even being at Greendale. Some of the questions I have is if her early life of excessive drinking is what drove her to Christianity so hard or if that was something she had from childhood? we also see that she was a bully in her childhood because she was bullied. So did that lead her to the drinking or was it strict expectations under a Christian household that made her drink. What was her rock bottom where she suddenly decided to change her entire life and like get sober and be nice all the time? What was her motivation for suppressing all her negative emotions? 

With Frankie, it wasn't until my third or fourth re-watch of the first season 6 episode that I realize she says she's at Greendale because she has to take care of one of her insane relatives like what is the story there? How much pressure is she under to take care of her family? How much of that has influenced her personality of being productive and in control all the time? Does she ever get a moment to just be weird or careless or insane herself? Did she have to be the parent when she was a small child? Did she ever get to be free? Does she know how to be? Is she a super private person by choice or because she’s learned to hide her family cause mental health issues are so taboo? What about her sexuality? Was she something she always knew about herself but, like with many other aspects of herself, never really felt bothered or able to celebrate or embrace outwardly? Did she view it was a fact of herself? ‘I have brown hair, light skin, and am pan/bi/lesbian.” Her attitude towards life makes it hard to imagine her having any sort of big reaction to her sexuality. Like, “Oh, I actually find women attractive. Okay then, I’ll have to research lesbian later.” in the most monotone, unaffected voice possible. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Like she’s had to deal with a lot of crazy things throughout her life so she’s adopted to focusing on fixing/adapting to the situation rather than reacting to it.  

At this point I've done almost every single character so I might as well add in Britta. I will admit I'm having a bit of trouble getting a grip on her character. I would definitely focus on having Britta be dysfunctional but not in such a negative way like the show makes it. Cause everyone on that show sucks in some way or another and yet Britta is the one who's supposed to suck more than all of them? The first time I watched the series I was really confused when they started picking on Britta. She wasn't worse than any of the other characters so why are you signaling her out and coining the term Britta’d it?? She doesn't even need a redemption, she just needs to not be made the butt of the joke unnecessarily. And then there's so much to explore with her white feminism and misguided attempts at activism and the fact that she does things that make her seem to care because she is trying so hard to not be the selfish person she thinks she is. And that's both incredibly sad and incredibly brave. Because obviously she isn't as bad as she thinks since she's making the attempt to be better. I really wonder what happened in her life that made her fear so much being apathetic and if that’s her issue with her parents. 

There's also Troy who I've never gotten to write about or in the perspective of since I'm focused on season 6 right now. First time I watched the repilot episode and Jeff said his entire identity was defined by his relationship with a man, I thought that was an exaggeration. But rewatching the series a couple times, it's really true and they point it out a lot throughout the series. Troy's basically just going along with whatever Abed wanted and other than the AC repairman plotline, which he obviously did not enjoy, he never really got his own thing. Which I think is completely valid. So I would love to show that Troy can be one of those people that has no ambition in life and be perfectly okay with that. His biggest goal in life is to be happy. Which in a capitalist society is really hard to admit and/or embrace. So after he comes back from his trip around the world, sure he'll have crazy stories and millions of dollars but I would like him to keep that innocent, carefree behavior. I don't want him to become Pierce in the sense that he's just spending money and doing nothing. But I don't want him to suddenly be anything other than what we've seen him to be. I also love all the posts on Tumblr about how Abed was the one that kind of taught him to be himself. So yeah he kind of adopts Abed’s fascination with TV shows and role-playing but at the same time I think he just loves being goofy and sweet. And maybe that's through a different medium. Maybe he finds love for music and he just makes amazing at it cough Childish Gambino cough. And it’s a natural talent like plumbing/AC repair. And everyone is telling him to go out there and become a great musician or rapper and he's just like this is just what I do for fun, don’t ruin it. 

Screw it, let's do Pierce now. I've already written an entire essay so I might as well finish off the one character I've been avoiding. So obviously there's a line of what is Pierce's character and what is the writer's exaggeration for the sake of comedy. Now, in this day in age, there is very little tolerance of old people getting a pass for being racist, homophobic, or sexist. And there's a lot of things that just would not slide where Pierce is concerned. Like if I met the guy it would just be a hard no immediately. You're not even worth getting to know, you're not even worth the effort. Pierce would definitely need a redemption arc (a real redemption arc where he honestly tries to do better not whatever that scene with Jeff tolerating his racism/homophobia in the barber shop was). I also think it's really important to note that ageism plays a role in how Pierce is perceived by the fandom. Because yes, he is an absolute racist piece of s*** (voice to text is censoring me, boo!). But the moments where he is acting out because he does not want to be left out oh, those are the moments where I think he is over judged by both the writers and the fandom. Because those fears are legitimate. They could have been developed and fleshed out. Progress could have been made. It's just a constant of his personality where he keeps being an a****** pushing people away so that they leave and he’ll be justified in his fear. Other characters do pretty bad things and yet are more easily forgiven than Pierce. I am speaking for myself here, of course. And there was this tumblr post that said something along the lines of  annoying perks are tolerated depending on how good looking and young the actors/characters are. And I think that happens with Pierce's character that is then amplified by the fact that he is racist and sexist. If I were to write Pierce, I don't know if I would even be able  to stomach the racism, but his self-destructive behavior would be something I would find interesting to address. Also, what made him leave all his money to Troy? I thought Annie was his favorite...In what world does he have enough emotional depth to not leave his favorite all the money??

Holy crap that took an hour and twenty minutes...if anyone bothered to read all of that, I would love to hear thoughts or headcanons. And bless you for being just as obsessed with this show as I am.

[tenthdxctxr]

NAME: Chavi GENDER: Male EYE COLOUR: Dark brown HAIR COLOR: Black RELATIONSHIP: SINGLE AF ZODIAC: Saggitarius

FAVOURITE COLOUR: Blue FAVOURITE SEASON: Winter FAVOURITE FLOWER: Probably blue roses! They’re impossible and I love impossible things FAVOURITE PLACE: MY ROOM Anywhere that’s outdoors. I love the outdoors! FAVOURITE HOLIDAY: Christmas FAVOURITE VIDEO GAME: Devil May Cry! Though Metal Gear and Mass Effect are close seconds FAVOURITE BOOK: Probably Percy Jackson: The Son of Neptune LAST SHOW YOU WATCHED: Doctor Who

WHAT’S YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: I absolutely love Tenth! Ninth was my first doctor and I adored him but Ten had a bit more of a spark to him, and his charisma and how he wore his hearts on his sleeve really made me love him. He was just too damn empathetic and happy and I loved that! I also love how, despite his bright, upbeat and happy attitude, he’s still a man weighted down by the choice he made and he REGRETS it but he chooses to do something about it. He chose to live up to his name and do what he does best, MAKE PEOPLE BETTER. ALSO, STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THE ‘I DON’T WANT TO GO’ IT WAS IN LINE WITH WHAT HE EXPLAINED IN END OF TIME. WOULD YOU BE OKAY WITH BASICALLY DYING IF YOU LIKE YOUR CURRENT BODY AND YOU WANNA LIVE MORE?

WOULD YOU DATE YOUR MUSE?: FUCK YEAH! I WOULD 

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE KINDS OF THREADS?: UMMM I’m not gonna lie I’m really interested in potential shippy things with Tenth, but I have no idea how to do that since he’s very emotional and he’s said that he prefers not to see someone he loves die when he won’t die with them (sorta).  In terms of genre, I LOVE angst, hurt/comfort, and some fluff to balance out the hurt. Anything that’s gonna give me more chances to explore Tenth’s personality, I’m DOWN. 

ARE YOU A SELECTIVE ROLEPLAYER?: A bit yeah. I say semi-selective and that’s true! I like to give everyone a chance because I know I want people to give me a chance too. BUT, I am selective when it comes to certain stuff like, if I don’t really click with your OC (for example) then I’ll pass, as much as that hurts me, or if you write one or two lines to a reply? Then sorry but I’ll pass. Same if you over embellish your writing, it makes it hard for me to comprehend. But generally, I’m a very open person. 

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE MUSE (IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE)?: I really like writing Big Boss (even though the muse is kinda iffy nowadays), there’s also my OC in the rwby fandom but tbh I have no favourites! I like writing all my boys.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO JOIN THE FANDOM?: I was already a Whovian before I made this blog but I had taken a bit of a break cuz I wasn’t caught up with Capaldi’s era. I was actually considering making a 12th blog but I sorta remembered Tenth and well... Things happened, I was SUPER insecure at the time and I made this blog to escape (cuz I thought if I can write a character as cheerful as Ten then that may help me) so yeah! I was also kinda curious to see how the fandom was since I haven’t seen that many Doctor Who RP related stuff before jumping into the fandom. I don’t regret it though! The fandom is freaking amazing, I love y’all!

DO YOU SEE YOURSELF STAYING WITH THE FANDOM FOR A LONG TIME?: I’m not sure, honestly. I do have a tendency to blog hop, especially since I have a few blogs I haven’t been paying attention to (don’t blame me. I can’t play the games and thus the muse suffers) but I love Tenth (and Doctor Who in general) to not try to stick around! 

TAGGING: @cammythighs , @followthedrums13 , @raidstombs , @ofnormandy and ANYONE INTERESTED!! I dunno who’s comfy sharing ooc stuff but go for it if you are! - tag me if we’re mutuals!!!! But I’m gonna talk some peeps:

TAGGED BY: TECNICALLY by @aheeh

[theboykingofhell]

(acting anon from earlier!!) i read ur whole thing and its FILLED with rly good info ty!! im british and im looking to start getting into acting but i always shyed away from it in schools etc cause there's always be a dance side to it and :/ no ty id rather eat nails than dance ever. but im rly interested in the acting techniques n stuff u mentioned and id defo read as many posts abt it as u wanted to write :0 ty for your time!!

OK YEAH now that i actually have time and by that i mean i have no time there’s like three things i’m supposed to be doing rn but i want to stall starting them lmfao I’MMA TALK MORE ABOUT THIS RN

imma be real i cant remember all the things i mentioned in that post i wrote and i cant be bothered to go back and look so IF YOU EVER HAVE A SPECIFIC QUESTION LITERALLY ASK ME ANY TIME

oooooooooooh... yeah.. love... babe.... go to acting schools lol it’s not even JUST the fact that they literally teach you how to act but. you. need to network. god. especially since you ARE british, acting schools are very important because a lot of companies will pretty much hire you based on what school you went to. just the short amount of time i was there made this VERY obvious that it is VERY hard to get picked up by a company if you haven’t gone to school, and getting picked up by a company is how you get consistent theater work for YEEEEEEARS...!!! also, usually a school will give you a rly good chance to network by having some sort of showcase at the end where you can get in contact with a bunch of agents and the more famous the school, the more agents see your work and try and help you out!!!!

and, like... the whole dance bit is just a hurdle you’re gonna have to jump. it’s def rly important to just partipate in the classes, you don’t have to be GOOD but it gives you just that little bit of awareness over your body and your movement that you might not have had before and that’s rly important, especially on the stage!! i felt the same way about singing but, man, the more you work at it, the more mangeable it gets. and you don’t want to have this grudge on you forever because it’ll really limit your work :/

but i mean man you don’t actually have to, there’s no set way to become an actor! if you find work, you have that work, it doesn’t matter how you get there t b h. i just think it helps and the more skills you acquire, the better of a chance you have to get that work...

(i RLY suggest lamda, it’s a hard school get into but it’s one of the best if not the best and also the education is beautiful and ALSO lamda-trained actors get the most consistent work because the uk just nuts all over itself about lamda-trained actors)

BUT YEAH. ACTING TECHNIQUES. GONNA FINALLY ADD A CUT LOL

i’m only gonna talk about these vaguely cuz tbh i’m not as ~studied~ as i should be because i’ve been far too lazy until now to actually sit down and read acting textbooks but HERE’S THE GIST....

stanislavsky is like... pretty much the most well-known most taught acting technique. so many of the other techniques you learn BUILDS on his work. there’s a huge range of shit that he’s got to offer because his and later similar teachings are SO focused on realism (which tbh is a very new thing in acting), but some of the most important is stuff like emotional recall and objective work aaaaand character building by using yourSELF and projecting it onto the character. it’s a very psychological form of acting and it’s... MY BASIS but not actually my fave!

now, a lot of parts of it is very useful. emotional recall, for one, is SUPER nice. it’s a very good way to build that vulnerability up, tear down a lot of walls and explore how to summon emotions up....

my first exercise with stanislavsky, i remember them making us lie down and pretty much meditate, and then you listened as the teacher described a bunch of things: your favorite beach as a child and what it felt like, all these sensory memories about the smells and tastes and sights of the beach. and then it moved on to the night of your first kiss, your first love, and then your first loss. a nice basic range of basic emotions, and then you build on that.

stanislavsky (and stuff like uta hagan who wrote a RLY great book that i havent finished reading yet but it’s a GREAT way to rly build on the technique) rly encourages taking yourself and putting it into the character. SO!!!! if your character is going through their first break-up, summon the feelings and memories of your first break-up and push that into your lines, so on and so forth.

the big criticism with stanislavsky and all the techniques like them is that it COULD be very unhealthy for you... considering it’s all about reliving and reliving old memories. and i agree, i mean, one of my favorite plays and one of my monologues of choice for auditions is from a play where the main character is kidnapped and raped, and i’ve been kidnapped and raped before so i am CONSTANTLY and purposely triggering myself just to perform that monologue well. THAT AIN’T RIGHT! helps tho! 

(stuff like method acting falls under stanislavsky and his successors strasberg and stella adler, so....! you can see why not everyone fucks with it)

MY criticism about stanislavsky, which is why it doesn’t work as much for me, is that it’s very VERY heavily text-based. uhhh THIS IS LONG ALREADY SO SOMEONE SEND AN ASK ABOUT OBJECTIVES AND I’LL EXPLAIN but they want you to do a lot in the moment that makes it very distracting if you don’t have this process pinned down and that’s AGGRAVATING FOR ME ANYWAY

chekov is another technique that’s interesting, again not a fave but VERY helpful. this one builds character more from the outside in, it’s all about like... a lot of very subtle details that you can add to the background to add color to your performances. a lot of it is about atmospheres, attitudes, body language, and how that affects your character and how your character is thinking through the scene. it’s VERY reactionary and very fun because you don’t have to think NEARLY as much. 

pretty much you form... gestures, or moods for your characters, and instead of perfoming an ‘action’ (stanislavsky thingy, i’ll explain that in another post i guess), you’re using this ‘gesture’ to explain yourself. it is far FAR more abstract than stanislavsky, which is a lot more technique and exact, and it’s very vague, which does make it very hard for people. it also doesn’t stress realism like stanislavsky and company does, so it’s not as popular at the moment!

 meisner technique is my second favorite technique and kind of hard to explain because i haven’t rly gotten a comprehensive course in it yet besides a few workshops and activities, but it’s a technique that stresses STRESSES ‘listening’. that’s something you hear a lot as an actor, it’s one of the hardest things to really get but it’s also, truly, the essence of good acting. you can’t be a good actor if you don’t listen, because if you don’t listen, you’re not in the moment, and if you’re not IN the moment, you’re just... reciting lines!!!

it’s so hard to explain so i’mma link a cute video i just found because it shows a lot of variety and also shows the actors messing up a lot and it’s cute omfg

it focuses a lot of repetition (either of the same one line for each person or they’re both doing the same line back and forth) which forces the actor to not think about what’s being said but how it’s being said. you’re stuck in the moment because you KNOW what you’re gonna say, you don’t have to worry about saying anything else, all you gotta worry about is what the other person does and how you’re gonna react to it. if they suddenly start screaming in your face UHH YOU’RE GONNA SCREAM BACK HOW DARE YOU? and it’s automatic and SO natural and that’s why i love it, because you don’t have to THINK through it. you don’t rly think through your life like they make you do in other techniques, so i adore the ability to not have to do that on stage.

however i’ve never gotten far enough in the technique to find out how to apply it to a set script but it might just be about building that openness to just... DO and BE and let whatever happens happens, which is NICE

LAST THING THAT I’LL TALK ABOUT IS FUCKING GROTOWSKI YE  S. ok so a lot of techniques overlap, so by this i’m also talking about lecoq and peter brook’s acting techniques. it’s all physical theatre which is all about the GROTEQUE and like UGH there’s so many fascinating things honestly just google ‘theatre of cruelty’ because it’s FASCINATING

the emphasis is... not rly on realism altho the acting i’ve seen come out of it is the most realistic i’ve seen? it’s rly gritty and about accessing the most... EXTREME of emotions, it’s about rly grasping human nature and twisting it and bringing it on stage. peter brook especially (who has a book called the empty stage or something like that that i got to read) stresses that... theatre shouldn’t be about costumes and sets and whatever, it should be just about the actor, and that you can do a PERFECTLY GOOD show with a completely empty stage, with just the actor in the center.

it also has an emphasis on YANKING the audience into the show and being very interactive and like... nothing’s held back, it should be hard to watch, THEATRE SHOULD BE CATHARTIC AND FUCKED UP AND YES.

so physical theatre involves pulling emotions from the body through your movement. life isn’t just about the mind, after all, your body holds emotions through it, there’s chemicals and hormones and what your body does on its own and against other bodies and just. again, hard to explain so HERE’S SOME COOL VIDS THAT SHOWS DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND COMPARES THEM ALL

i lied there’s one more technique i wanna mention: it’s called alba emoting! it, again, builds on the idea that trying to access emotions through the brain is UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS and that you can, instead, try and access it through the body! how???? cuz emotions are PHYSICAL. you feel sadness and anger and love and whatnot in your gut and chest and through your head and all through every nerve in your body, right????? so why not try and mimic that for the stage???

it’s SUPER COOL because! what you do with alba emoting is: affix yourself a certain way. it involves certain body postures or positions, certain expressions sometimes... EVERY time it depends upon a different breathing pattern... and all you gotta do is do it. and your body doesn’t know better, it gets tricked into it...!

so, if i were to alba emote fear... it’s hard to describe through text rather than do it but this one might be the clearest one... part of the positioning is to have your hands up in front of you, as if you’re trying to ward someone off or shield yourself. you have your mouth open, you have your eyes stuck to the floor in a submissive sort of way, (there’s more that i cant describe but then) you start to make yourself hyperventilate by taking short, quick breaths through your mouth. after a few seconds of this, your body just starts SHOOTING adrenaline through you because it starts thinking WHOA SOMETHING BAD’S HAPPENING I’M AFRAID?FUCKFUCKFUCK

and that continues until you stop! you can stop at any time and then just go. you get left with a ‘residue’ (which is very chekov in nature in that it ‘colors’ your performance) where you can just act and do the lines and do your actions (stanislavsky) without worrying about needing to push any fear into yourself because it’s THERE, it’s PRESENT and whatever happens in the scene will either alliviate it or make it worse!!!

it’s a BEAUTIFUL way to prepare for a scene right before you go on stage too omg. last semester we were doing julius ceasar, and there was a scene where i had to play a servant who just witnessed a murder and just. go in and beg for my life and the life of my master. so i did the fear emote, and then my friend (playing my master at the moment) decided to talk to me in character and give me the order to throw myself in front of the murderers and LMFAO by the time i ran on there i was like fucking in tears i was so terrified HA

THERE ARE SO MANY MORE TOO IT’S SO FUN YOU JUST GOTTA GO AND SEE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU WHOO!!!!!! HOPE THIS WAS FUN AND HELPFUL YES

[newidaho]

7.  The New Idaho Museum of Oddities

Don’t have the time/patience/desire to read with your eyes? Don’t have eyes? Well, have your friend read you this:  You can check out the audiobook for free on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or Spotify.  Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday!

20 December 2054

Johnna Johnson had only been at work for 5 hours, but time was moving quickly.  After all, she was getting paid to do essentially what she did at home.  That was the beauty of the New Idaho Museum of Oddities—they gave you a comfy seat, some snacks, and they didn’t ask that you do anything but show off your Oddity.

Like many in NIMO, Johnna’s ‘Oddity’ was her weight.  Truthfully, Johnna considered this rather offensive, but the ease of the job made it worth the degrading job description most days.  And at 375 pounds, Johnna was well qualified to ride in the trailer.

Most days, it wasn’t so bad.  Johnna sat down in her seat, watched a Virtual Movie through her Lenses, read a Virtual Book, or browsed the internet.  An entire Virtual World lay just behind her Lenses.  It wasn’t a problem to spend six hours without moving around.  Who liked to move, anyway?

Johnna had always been quite heavy.  She was born in 2024 to John Johnson, a single father in Southern Idaho.  Having grown up on a farm, Johnna had had every opportunity to eat healthy growing up.  John, however, had never enforced this habit, and by the time Johnna learned the health benefits to eating her father’s crops, she was already well addicted to the junk food that was always kept around the house.

Johnna’s father had scrapped together enough money to move to New Idaho in 2030, already sensing that it might be the next big thing, and he brought the 6-year-old Johnna with him into the mountain ring.  He only had enough money to buy a small plot of land in Southern New Idaho.  Though farming was a much more lucrative profession in New Idaho than it was in the rest of the state, the size of John’s land was good for hardly more than subsistence farming with a very small profit on the side.  

As a farmer in New Idaho, John was exempt from all taxes, and was therefore able to live comfortably.  Johnna, however, was still heavily bothered by her family’s lack of upward mobility and became obsessed with the rich Lucid Labs children at Sky High.  In her attempts to jumpstart her own social mobility, Johnna went seeking attention wherever she could get it.  

During this quest for recognition, Johnna wound up pregnant at 17 by a man who subsequently wanted nothing to do with her.  She was too proud to take child support (a move she later sorely regretted).  The last she had heard, the father had gone to University out of state, and had never returned to New Idaho.  This was probably for the best—she couldn’t imagine him coming into the MoF to see her now.

Johnna kept her pregnancy a secret from her father as long as she could, but after 8 months, and with no way to hide the inevitable physical manifestation of her mistake, she came clean to her father, who immediately expelled her from his house.  He hardly had enough money to take care of Johnna, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pay for her sin.

Johnna found opportunity to visit her father a couple more times before his death in 2043.  Charlie, her child, was 2.  He would never know his father or his grandfather.  Charlie and his mother were all the family either of them had in the world.  

In search of a new family, Johnna stumbled upon FuTech Christian Church.  It was a beautiful opportunity—not only did their message provide her with hope going forward, but she never had to meet any of the congregation in person.  She could appear or disappear as she wished while she took in the messages.  She knew that many of those she saw in service were connected to the local network, but many also came from out of town, interested to see what a FuTech Service from New Idaho looked like.  This provided Johnna with a diverse community who only wished to build her up as she went through her always-difficult time raising Charlie.  They even offered him free enrollment on need-based scholarship to the FuTech Virtual Home School.

Thus, through her drive, her faith, and her gig with NIMO, Johnna had carved out a decent survival for her and her son.

The time was nearing 1400h, and there had been a good bit of traffic.  The New Idaho Mall was still rather busy with last-minute shoppers.  You could tell some of the visitors felt a little bad for staring at fat people, but it had been surprisingly normalized to a large extent in the New Idaho society.

Not everyone, however, was so tactful.  Johnna could sense bad energy as soon as the goateed man in the yellow polo stepped into the trailer.

‘Goddamn, Shelly, truck G is a heavy one indeed!’

‘Ricky, stop.’

‘I’m just saying, I’m just saying.  Look,’ he lowered his voice to a whisper that Johnna could still hear, ‘those two are even eating Oreos—it’s almost like you can see them growing as we speak.’

‘Ricky.’

‘No, really, I wonder if they get a raise in pay if they have a raise in weight.  Don’t you think that would just make sense?’

Johnna got up from her horizontal position and looked at the visitors.  A mistake— when you look into the eyes of a visitor, like staring down a vicious dog, you open yourself up to attack.

‘Hey there!’ Ricky said to Johnna.  ‘How’s the day going?’

Johnna nodded.

‘Do they not let you speak?  You’re human just like me—I can see that even if other people think there are four little men inside you pulling the levers.’

Johnna remained silent.

‘Come on, have a little fun!  Are you having a good day?  Getting paid a good bit?’

Johnna could tell she wasn’t getting out of this without a response.  ‘Yes, it’s been a pretty good day.’

‘There we go.  I knew you could talk.  So hey, then, let me ask you this—you happy doing what you’re doing?  You feel good about this stuff?’

‘Ricky, come on.’  Shelly hit her husband on the thigh.

‘It’s an innocent question,’ Ricky said.  ‘I really want to know.  Is this a good gig?  You like doing this stuff?’

‘Ricky, obviously she doesn’t.  And I’m sure she doesn’t like you talking to her this way, do you?’  Shelly asked Johnna.

‘It’s not obvious, Shelly.  If she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t be doing it.’  Ricky turned back to Johnna.  ‘So do you like it?  Wait, I have a question—were you always this fat, or did you put on the pounds to get the gig?  Can’t be that bad, huh, just sitting here doing nothing but talking to losers like me all day.’  Ricky laughed.  ‘No answer?  Come on!  Do you like it or not?  I won’t judge.  Oh, and follow-up to my last question—cuz Shelly’s gonna hate it, but I really want to know—how did you get that fat?’

‘Rick—We’re leaving.’

‘Come on, wait, give her a minute to answer.  You gonna answer?’

Ricky was looking at Johnna with a smile on his face.  It almost seemed like the man meant well—like he was genuinely curious and truly didn’t care about how rude he was being.

‘It’s not a bad way to make a living,’ Johnna said.

‘Not bad, huh?  Well, I’m glad you like it!’

‘Okay, Ricky?’  said Shelly.  ‘Now can we go?’

‘Wait wait, though—she didn’t answer my last question—how the hell did you get that fat?’

Johnna didn’t want to answer this man’s question—it was downright mean, though the innocent look on his face somehow communicated otherwise.  The question was, at the very least, objectively rude.  But for some reason she felt she owed him an answer.

‘Honestly, just what you would guess,’ Johnna said.  ‘My diet and a sedentary lifestyle.’  He had made her admit it to both him and herself.  She pushed down the emotions bringing tears to her eyes—she had affected an attitude to herself and others of pride in her body, and she did not care to admit that it could have been different.  She preferred to believe she had little to no agency.

‘Aw, damn, I guess I could have guessed that one,’ Ricky said.  ‘Oh, well.  I guess the rest of my questions will wait for another day.  Truck G!  Another one to check off my list, huh, honey?’

‘Alright, Ricky, let’s go.’

The blue-and-yellow-clad couple headed out of the trailer, leaving Johnna to herself for the rest of her shift.  Only an hour.  A six-hour shift altogether.  Based on the traffic today, her pay could very well come out to $75.  That’s 1/4 of rent in the Jungle.  Not so bad for a day’s work.  Three more days like this, and rent was covered, then just some extra money for—for—

Dammit.  That man, Ricky, had opened a wound.  She was now feeling guilty for thinking about the type of food she knew she would spend the extra money on.  But her weight—it wasn’t all just food, was it?  It was her genes, it was the fact that she couldn’t afford a gym, it was the fact that she hardly had any money, and the money she did get went to the survival of herself and Charlie.  And adding on to everything, she just didn’t have the time.

Yeah, screw him.  Johnna stuck out the rest of her shift, received her tips for the day, and walked down 11th street to Slick Business, the coffee shop across from the Government Building on the New Idaho Mall.  She went to the desk and ordered a Large White Chocolate Mocha with whipped cream.  The coffee shop was still busy at this time of day, but she found a spot to sit on the second level.

As she sat down with her coffee, Johnna flipped through different news articles on her Lenses, but her mind kept coming back to that man in the Museum today.  He had asked her if she liked working there, and if she had tried to get fat so she could have that job.  He had a point—if she lost weight, she would no longer be an Oddity.  The Government was basically paying her to stay unhealthy.  And if she was unhealthy, she wouldn’t have the energy to get another job.  When she looked at it that way, it seemed the Government was basically keeping her captive.

Johnna did a quick search for “New Idaho Government” and looked through the most recent news articles—nothing she wanted.  She tried “New Idaho Government Terrible”.  Now she was getting somewhere—certainly someone had thought like her.

One of the first hits caught her eye:  a website for a group called “NIANS”—New Idahoans Against New Slavery”.  She opened the page.  On the left side of her lenses, hovering over the table in front of her, was an image of a black stone fist raised into the air.  On the right side was a sort of manifesto.  She skimmed through it.

NIANS, apparently, was taking a stand against what they believed to be a new form of slavery or indentured servitude—the low-income government work programs, also known as Guaranteed Basic Income.  They argued that most of these jobs were demeaning (something clicked for Johnna when she read that one) or traumatic.  After that was a long paragraph explaining the negative effects of Mineshaft on the population, specifically the youth.

At the very bottom of the page, Johnna saw a call to action:  “NIANS hopes to eradicate poverty through common sense solutions.  We plan to force the New Idaho Government to raise our minimum wage to the federal level, something that should have been done a long time ago.  Additionally, we plan to ask for an increase in wages for those serving in such traumatic and degrading programs as MineShaft and the Museum of Oddities.”

Johnna’s eyes lit up.  she hadn’t known what she was looking for, but this was it—a way out for her and her son—a chance to never work again—NIANS.  As she drained the last of her Mocha, Johnna waved her hand over the link:  “How Can I Volunteer?”