#hey guys I found out how to beat the game isn’t that neat?

[spineless-lobster]

“Time cannot be stopped”

WRONG! stopwatch.

[detectivesvu]

Another Round (pt.2)

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Rafael Barba x Fem. Reader

Warnings: None.

A/N: Part 1 is here :)

Word Count: 1,761

“You’re better than this. You’ve told me before, these things happen.”

__

The next few weeks passed by casually. Your job continued as it always did. New customers as well as your regulars came in for drinks for all kinds of reasons. You didn’t even know it was possible, but you were now enjoying your job so much more than you already did. Especially knowing that Rafael would be in every week. You weren’t sure if it was a coincidence or not, but he seemed to be coming in more and more often.

You had to admit, you were growing rather fond of him and very quickly to say the least. Suddenly, you found yourself hoping to see him every time the door to the bar opened. Every straight scotch you served to other customers was known in your mind as “Rafael’s usual”. You had a connection with him that you wanted to explore. Which is why you had taken him up on his offer. The morning after your first real encounter with him, you sent him a simple text. It didn’t establish anything serious. It was just a plain “good morning” text with a little sweet message thanking him for taking the time from his busy workload to chat with you. 

You had expected to get a response later that afternoon, considering that his mornings were probably extremely hectic. However, you were pleasantly surprised when you received a reply only a few short minutes after. He returned the thanks and began a little small talk conversation along with a few more get to know you questions to break the through-the-screen ice. It wasn’t until the next day that you began discussing plans to possibly get dinner sometime. He wasn’t shy to admit that he wanted to take you on a proper date once things settled down within the case he was still plugging away at. 

Your schedules differed heavily. You worked ungodly late hours and he was never really off the clock. If he was working, you were off and if you were working, he was semi-off. So, for now, your in person interactions were limited to the bar you considered your second home. That was fine for now, but eventually you’d tire of only seeing him at your place of work. You couldn’t wait until this case was over. 

He had mentioned briefly in one of your text conversations that in many aspects of his life, his work was above all else. You didn’t love that statement for a couple of reasons. For starters, how would that affect your relationship if you decided to pursue something serious? Secondly, how serious was he willing to take things between you and him? And lastly, that made you extremely worried for him as a whole. You couldn’t imagine always feeling like the bottom could drop out at any given moment. You wondered how many forgotten dinners and lovers he had previously.

Despite your concerns, the way you felt about him seemed to outweigh anything else. A testament to this was when he walked into the bar around 9:00 PM on Thursday night. It was particularly busy for a regular weekday. Naturally, Fridays and Saturdays were when you were slammed with customers. You usually had to have a partner behind the bar with you to stay on top of things. You were busy, but not so much that you failed to see him enter through the door.

You smiled brightly, a warm sensation tingling through your limbs. Your smile was quick to fade, however, when you saw his drooped shoulders and blank expression. You were puzzled at this, because he had been perfectly fine earlier in the day. He took an available seat at the middle of the bar, offering a slight smile once you were able to tend to him.

“Hey, Rafael,” You greeted cheerily, but with a worried tone; “You okay?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but his attention was caught to the TV that was above you. The late night news was on and your heart sank at the headline. Barba had lost the case he had been working on for so long. He buried his face into his palms and groaned;

“Turn it off. Change the channel. Anything, please.” He begged.

You reached for the remote under the bar, switching to some Thursday night NFL game. The other men in the bar cheered at the sight, which was good because they’d be content until their beers emptied out. You had a couple minutes until then.

“I’m sorry, Raf.” You comforted.

His heart skipped a beat at the use of his nickname, but even that wasn’t enough to boost his spirits. He shook his head in defeat, watching as you poured him a scotch straight without any previous instruction.

“I really thought we had it. I really did,” He confessed, taking the glass into his hand; “I should have won. The damn defense can go to hell for all I care.”

You shifted your weight onto one hip, hand pressed, and arm extended against the bar. What else were you supposed to say? You didn’t have much experience with lawyers fresh off of a hard loss. He looked so tired and so empty. His hair was tousled out of its usual neatness. The dark circles under his eyes were much more prominent. Overall, he just looked so...disappointed.

“Rafael,” You began to say, stunned at how hard he was beating himself up; “You’re better than this. You’ve told me before, these things happen.”

It was true. The week after he had asked you about your favorite story, you decided to cautiously ask him about his. Shockingly, it was the first case that he had lost as an attorney. Of course, he had not wanted to lose. Not even at all. But he told you how he worked sun up to sun down to make sure the defendant went down for what he did. In the end, the guy walked free. As discouraged as he was, he explained how he learned a lot about life just by that experience alone. He told how he suddenly realized that there were two sides to his profession. One of them was never pretty.

He sipped his scotch, eyes trained on the amber colored liquid as he let it swirl around the sides and splash back into the center. His head was lowered as he let himself become consumed with what ifs.

“Please, listen to me,” You requested softly. You continued once his eyes were on you; “You did absolutely everything you could. This isn’t a reflection of your abilities as a counselor.”

He was quick with his answer, but no change to his expression;

“Isn’t it, though?” He asked.

“No, it’s not. One loss doesn’t-”

You were interrupted by a loud voice calling for a refill at the other side of the bar. Looks like your couple minutes were up. You put your conversation on pause, briskly walking to the man with the empty beer mug. 

“Same as before?” You questioned the man with a hospitable smile. 

He confirmed your question as refilled his mug as well as the other men in need of refills. Rafael watched intently as you interacted with the other customers. You had quite the undeniable charm and outgoing personality. No wonder you had so many regular customers. He had been thinking about you pretty much every free second he had. He wanted to learn all about you. He was amazed with how content you were with working at a bar. Customer service workers? Not always the happiest people on the planet. 

He adored your positivity. He couldn’t wrap his head around how caring you were towards complete strangers that walked into your bar everyday. How you were able to know when someone had a terrible burden on their conscience was a mystery to him. He found himself wondering if you ever took the time to check on and take care of yourself. How did you handle the weight of the problems of others that you took on without hesitation?

You returned to Rafael shortly after;

“As I was saying: one loss doesn’t define you. You’ll move on from this with time. You’ll heal with it. Then you’ll be ready to bury the next guy.” You encouraged.

For the first time all day, Rafael offered a real smile. One that was like a window to see into the real man with a heart of gold. He was an amazing human being. If only everyone could be like him.

“You have a lot of faith in a man just coming from a brutal loss.” He stated.

You grinned;

“Of course. I have the utmost confidence in my favorite counselor.” 

His cheeks went red at your kind words. As incompetent as he felt in this moment, hearing you so proud of him was heartwarming. You refilled his empty glass and tended to the other customers at the bar for a few minutes. He watched as you bounced expertly from person to person, mixing drinks like you did it in your sleep. As the even later hours were approaching, the more and more your conversation was being interrupted. Your busy part of the shift was coming fast, so he had to act fast.

“When is your next night off?” Rafael asked over the loud hum of the now crowded bar.

You had a shaker in one hand and a glass in the other, your eyes darted to the ceiling in thought before responding;

“Sunday. Why?” You replied back, hoping he was about to ask what you thought he was about to.

“How about dinner on Sunday? Just you and me.” He offered a real date.

Your smile returned brighter than ever as you poured the drink from the shaker into the glass;

“Sure. 6:30?” You suggested.

He grimaced, but gave a rebuttal back;

“How about 7:00?” 

“Deal. It’s a date,” You agreed; “Italian?”

He shrugged;

“Fine by me,” He smiled; “See you then.”

You nodded, dancing over to the opposite end of the bar to continue working. Whether it was the rush from all the customers around the bar or the joy from finally being able to go on a date, your heart was racing in your chest. He exited the bar after smiling at you once more and leaving a tip. He walked down the sidewalk away from your bar, head full and heart happy. He left you behind with a hard blush along with your bottles, glasses, cups, and more. 

It was just the beginning for the counselor and his favorite bar tech.

[naphis-twewy-screams]

damn.... i still haven't gotten over the neo:twewy ending:

like

holy hekk everything was just so good-

it took me

2 and a half days to beat the game

i started playing it as soon as it came out

and i barely slept while playing because i wanted to just binge it

and i wasn't expecting a lot of the stuff that happened-

so i just took a bit to process everything lol

here's some random incoherent all over the place rambles about my thoughts on everything since i just wanna express my feelings towards this game

it's *really* long and also heavy spoilers so imma put it under a read more:

i remember screaming when beat showed up

cuz i was already suspecting that hooded man wasn't neku

i mean cmon man neku isn't blonde and bones aren't really his style so it was pretty suspicious to me

and beat was a welcomed surprise i was so happy to see him-

i wasn't surpised when minami left the party

i was guessing that it was gonna happen since that's how it went in the past game

with having to change partners and all that

but beat staying with the group was something i wasn't expecting!

and it was obvious that shokie was gonna join the twisters like she's on the cover and everything it seemed pretty obvious to me

even the whole "oh shoka is swallow" thing i guessed pretty early on

i was still pretty happy when i turned out to be right though

oh my lord nagi's obsession with sho was hilarious to me

almost every time he was on screen you could just see her portrait gazing at him it was really funny to me

motoi's reveal of being kinda selfish wasn't thqt big of a surprise

but i was still pretty sad about it cuz he was really nice before and poor rindo man-

his death was also pretty depressing

fuya's death didn't affect me as much tho tbh

i never really liked the guy and there wasn't really much about him that i knew

though his death was a bit scary

even though i expected it

kanon's death though-

her death made me really sad-

poor fret man he was getting closer to her and they just killed her off-

she was actually a lot nicer than i was expecting

i thought she was gonna be some a-hole who just acted like some big-shot

but no she was actually really nice and was really helpful-

i wasn't actually expecting her to die so i was pretty surprised

and poor fret he went through a lot that day-

i wasn't expecting much from fret

i thought he was gonna be the basic "im the only one that nothing bad really happens to"

but no he has proper character development and sad stuff and honestly i was surprised

probably because my expectations were pretty low

nagi honestly doesn't have as much past stuff going on

but she also has some character development in which she kinda learns more about others

and her relationship with fret was really good!

she started of hating him but in the end they both grew to have a mutual understanding of each other

and i adore that so much honestly

oh ayano-

poor lady just wanted things to be like they've always been

she just wanted to stay with shoka and be happy

she didn't deserve to die-

i thought i wasn't gonna like her or shoka

but i ended up liking em both a bunch-

found family falling apart really hurts ;;;

i thought i wasn't gonna like shiba

but i actually ended up liking him a bit at the end

kubo on the other hand

i thought i wasn't gonna like him

and now i like him even less

he smells

i don't really know how to feel about haz

he's pretty mysterious and i don't really know much about him yet

he gives off josh vibes though

which i don't know if that's a good sign

nekuuuuu

i thought he wasn't gonna be in the game so when i saw him i started screaming-

it was 5 am and i was yelling about my boi nekuuuuu

i was so happy to see him i missed him so much-

i definitely wasn't expecting the whole "oh yeah im teaming up with coco" thing though

cuz coco literally *shot* him but ok-

also wasn't expecting tsugumi to be friends with coco but hey i ain't complaining-

i remember being really estatic when they showed a part of rhyme's portrait in that one scene

same goes for shiki

and i was even more happy to see them entirely like finally the group is back together again-

even josh showed up which damn has his personality barely changed why did you just teleport shokie somewhere random like that??

i mean yea you revived her but still dude she's gonna starve out there i mean she's fine now but still-

anyway-

shiki just knowing neku was there even though she couldn't see him that hurts man-

ngl i was kinda hoping to see eri or somethin

but oh well lol we still got the other girlbosses so it's chill and im still very happy

susy k was a pretty interesting character

i thought i wasn't gonna like him but here we are

uzuki and kariyaaaaa

was really glad to see em again

their interactions with the ogs was really funny to me cuz they barely remembered the poor reapers and it was just really cool lol

the fact that even they have like a lil bit of character development was really neat to see cuz i was pretty much just expecting them to just sit in a corner and do nothing but that wasn't the case so im happy

the whole time travel is bad actually was a really interesting twist!

poor rindo though he suffered so much-

the whole tsugumi showing visions to rindo and neku was also pretty cool

and i got one of the secret reports (the 3rd one) and

are these written by mr h?

i'd be pretty happy if they were cuz he's nowhere to be found right now in the game and i miss him

i remember not knowing how to get the legendary outfit set that you were supposed to get from preordering the game

turns out i had to quit and re-enter

which by the time i found that out i was already at the start of week 3 without quitting the game even once

so i got pretty annoyed but oh well at least i still got it lol

when i got the preorder bonus outfit

i immediately gave them to beat because i thought that to be a funny choice

until neku came along so i then gave the clothes to him because well they're his clothes and im sad

but yea that was a thing

the soundtrack is a bop i don't think ill ever grow tired of it honestly

it's so good and just aaaaa-

oh yea and another day was pretty funny

i love the mention of tin pin since that was a big thing in twewy's another day and it's just really cool to me

which reminds me of when reaper creeper was mentioned in week 3

that was also really neat

i think

im running out of things to say

took me long enough

ok that's all for now

ill try and post some fanart soon maybe?

if i ever get the motivation to do so lol

or maybe ill be back to ramble if i realize that i forgot something

toodles!

[blazingopus]

Diamonds and Pearls - Diamond is Unbreakable

I wrote this story for my sister, because she is really into Josuke. She read it and said that nothing much happens. It seems that I have much to learn when it comes to writing romance. Please enjoy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2IFeTVorFps8gukz51x3CU?si=zntwgGbeRq-E6JpuBQeH9g

Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Doing that thing with your face when you are happy. It's making me nauseous."

The little town of Morioh. If you looked at it on a map, you would think that it was just a normal rural town in Japan. It's only when you step foot inside that you find out about its true nature. A town with secrets and strange occurrences around every corner. Not all of them bad, not all of them good. After a little while, you get a used to it. Morioh is my home, and the home of many other stand users.

One of these stand users is a friend of mine. His name is Higashikata Josuke. His mother and my mother were close friends for years. We knew each other before we were old enough to remember. We went to school together, we spent our summers together, our families celebrated holidays together. Many of the people who see us walking down the street together think we are brother and sister, or boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't know if we are either of those, but Josuke is very important to me. That's all I know.

Things got a little more strange than usual a couple weeks ago. It all started with this Kujo Jotaro wanting to talk to Josuke one day before school. He had some important information from Josuke's long lost father, who is also Jotaro's grandfather. Apparently, Josuke is Jotaro's uncle, even though Jotaro is at least ten years older. He also had warnings of a serial killer loose in Morioh. A very strange message, indeed.

And that is how our adventure began. Along the way, we picked up some new friends. Hirose Koichi can be a little timid and worrisome, but he has a good heart and will always try to do what's right. Nijimura Okuyasu may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he will stick with you through thick and thin.

Koichi has some strange people that like to follow him around. He has a girlfriend named Yukako. She's crazy, but I can't tell if it is a good crazy or a bad crazy. Still, she seems very devoted to him and wants to see him happy. He also has a famous mangaka friend. You might have heard of Kishibe Rohan. He is the writer and author of one of the most popular mangas in all of Japan, Pink Dark Boy. He's also an asshole. Well, an asshole to everyone but Koichi. He seems to actually enjoy his company and is respectful towards him. Everyone else can go screw themselves, me included.

All this to say, we are a strange bunch. If this whole adventure with the stand bow and arrow hadn't happened, I don't think I would know all these people, and all the other people I have met around Morioh. Seriously, you need to go to Tonio's restaurant. He makes amazing food.

It was a Saturday, and I was heading to Josuke's house. He had bought a new videogame, and was really excited to show me how it played. I'm not very interested in video games, but I did it to make him happy. Just watching him get excited was enough for me. And I like being over at his house, his mom makes some good cookies.

I live a few doors down from him, so I walked over to his house and knocked on the door. A few seconds went by before he opened the door.

"Hey, how's it goin', (Y/N)?" he asked me with a smile. He was wearing his usual attire, hair neat as always.

I laughed a little. "Josuke, you just asked me that over the phone."

His eyes went wide for a moment, before giving a nervous chuckle and rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess I did, didn't I? Sorry about that, my mind has been all over the place."

"It's fine, Josuke. It doesn't hurt anyone. Now, didn't you say you had a new game to show me?" I dramatically held my chin and looked off into the distance.

"Yeah, come on in." He stepped out of the door with a grin on his face. I walked in and followed Josuke into the living room. In front of the tv, his console was hooked up and ready to play. Controllers snaking across the carpet.  A few of his games were scattered around the floor, like he had been looking through them. Josuke sat down and patted the spot next to him.

After I sat down, he held out a controller. I stared at it before looking up at him.

He blinked. "It has a two player mode. Do you want to try it?"

I hesitantly took it from him. "Okay, but I don't think I will be very good. You know I don't really play video games."

He shrugged. "That's fine. I don't care how good you play, I just want to play with you." A slight blush came across his face.

Josuke turned on the console and the logo came up on screen. After a few seconds, it faded away and the start screen popped up. He went through the menu, selecting the game mode he wanted.

It was a spaceship shooter game. You moved your ship up and down the screen and shot at things as they floated in from the right side of the screen. Other ships came in and you had to avoid their laser missile things and stay alive. Josuke did his best to explain the controls, but I kept dying despite trying my hardest. He did most of the work getting through the levels. He was having a lot of fun with it, really getting competitive. He was taking out other ships, trying to get the best score.

It was when we got to the boss level, even he started to die. He concentrated more, getting really invested in the game. The only thing he could see was the collection of pixels on the screen. After a few rounds and a lot of hard work, we were able to finally defeat the boss.

"Yes!" Josuke pumped his fist in the air. "We did it, (Y/N)! We kicked that boss's butt!" He beamed at me.

I smiled back at him. "Yeah. You did great." I don't know how we did it, but I guess beating the first boss is a good thing.

He reached over and turned off the console. "You did pretty good too. Hey, I have an idea. Do you want to get ice cream to celebrate?"

'Uh, yeah." I didn't understand why we were celebrating playing a video game, but I will use any excuse to get ice cream.

Josuke stood up before reaching out a hand to help me off the floor. We walked out the front door and stepped onto the street. We began to find our way to downtown where our favorite ice cream shop is.

"Hey, um, (Y/N)?" He managed to say. "I want to talk to you about... Something important."

"What is it?" I asked looking up at him.

"Well, it's..."

"Hey, Josuke!" A familiar voice called out to us.

Across the street, Okuyasu and Koichi were on a walk of their own. Koichi was smiling at us, while Okuyasu was waving crazily at us. They crossed the street and came over to us.

"Hey guys. Koichi trotted over. "What are you doing today?"

Josuke shrugged. "Nothing much. Just heading to get some ice cream."

Okuyasu's eyes got really wide. "Whaaaaat? Ice cream? I love ice cream! Can we come along?"

"Yeah, that sounds great!" Koichi said with a smile.

Josuke didn't look so happy. "I would love to guys, but I was hoping I could spend the day with (Y/N). It's been a while since it's been the two us"

Okuyasu's smile turned into a sly grin. "Oh, I see. Are you and (Y/N) on a date or something?"

Josuke started to blush. "It's nothing like that. We just haven't spent as much time together as we used to."

Okuyasu nodded. "Uh huh. Whatever you say, Josuke."

Josuke clenched his fists. "What's that supposed to mean, huh?"

I grabbed Josuke's arm. "It's fine, Josuke. They can come with us to get ice cream if they want."

He sighed and relaxed a bit. "Fine, if you say so, (Y/N)."

"YES! WOO HOO!" Okuyasu yelled out.

Koichi looked up at me. "Thanks a lot, (Y/N). I appreciate it."

I smiled and nodded. "It's no problem. I like hanging out with you guys."

Together we set off to the ice cream parlor. Okuyasu was thinking out loud, trying to figure out what kind of ice cream he was going to get, and what kind of toppings he was going to put on it. Koichi was politely adding to the conversion. Josuke was oddly quiet. We seem sad and a little disheartened. I found it odd, because he usually likes going on adventures with these guys. What was so different about today?

We finally made our way to the ice cream parlor. There were many people outside, sitting on the metal furniture. One of those people was Kishibe Rohan. He was busy scribbling away with a notebook and pencil, taking quick glances at the shops across the street.

Koichi waved to him. "Hello Rohan-sensei. It's a nice day today, isn't it?"

He stopped sketching and looked up at us over his notebook. "Yes, I do believe it is." He glared at Josuke. "What are you doing here, Koichi?"

"We're getting ice cream," he replied excitedly. "What about you? What are you doing here Rohan-sensei?

He put his notebook and pencil down with a sigh." I was sketching some of the architecture around Morioh. While I am indeed one of the best artists in Japan, I like to keep my skills sharp. Drawing from life is important for an artist at any skill level."

"Wow, that's impressive." Koichi walked over to see Rohan's work.

"Yeah, real impressive," Josuke said with venom in his voice. "Let's get some ice cream already."

Koichi looked up from the notebook. "Oh, right. Sorry guys."

We walked in together. I ordered something I liked, while Koichi got vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles. Okuyasu ordered a little bit of everything at the bar, and put every kind of topping on his ice cream. Josuke ordered, strangely, a chocolate malt milkshake. I don't think I have ever seen him order a malt. He likes banana splits. Was he really having an off day?

When we walked out to the patio, there was only one table available that would fit all four of us. It was next to Rohan, of course. Josuke sighed as we sat down.

"Please try to keep quiet," Rohan said without looking up from his drawing. "I'm working."

Okuyasu huffed. "We are not the only ones here, you know."

"I know," he said unfazed. "I told the other patrons the same thing. They are much more accommodating than you lot are."

Okuyasu growled and began to stand up. I glared at him. "Sit down and eat your ice cream. It will cool you down."

He reluctantly did what I said. "Ugh, he just gets on my nerves sometimes!"

"Believe me, I know." Josuke took a straw out of the dispenser in the middle of the table. He took the wrapper off and plunged into his malt.

Koichi took a bite of sprinkles and fudge. "C'mon, guys. He's not that bad."

"To you, maybe," I said with my mouth full. "But everyone else is a lower life form compared to his majesty and grace."

Rohan tilted his head over towards me. "I would appreciate it if you didn't talk about me if I wasn't here."

I glared right back at him. "Don't pretend you don't do the same thing to us all the time."

He sneered at me, but turned back to his work without another word.

I smirked. I got him that time.

Josuke gave me a small smile before taking a sip from his straw. I looked between him and his malt. "Josuke," I quietly asked, "I thought you liked banana splits. Why did you get a milkshake?"

He glanced up at me. "That's true, I do like those." He looked thoughtful. "But I do like a chocolate malt sometimes. But it's not just a normal milkshake. The malt makes the whole thing better."

"Huh," I thought out loud. "Can I try some?"

He blinked at me with wide eyes. "Yeah, sure." He grabbed another straw and put in the milkshake. He slid it over to me.

I caught it and I grabbed hold of my straw. I took a drink. The malt added a little something to the chocolate ice cream and milk blend. "Hm, not bad." I slid it back to him. "I see what you mean."

Josuke grabbed hold of the glass. "Right? I mean, I don't like to have it all the time. But it's good every so often."

Okuyasu looked at us with a sneaky glare. "So, are you guys going to drink at the same time all romantic and stuff?"

Josuke locked on to Okuyasu. "Would you just butt out, Okuyasu? You're not helping!"

He just shrugged. "I was just asking."

"Helping with what?" Koichi asked innocently.

Josuke whipped around. "It's... Just... It's nothing, Koichi. Don't worry about it."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "If you really want to, Josuke, I don't mind."

He looked at me and blushed a little. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Don't feel like you have to, (Y/N)! It wasn't even my idea." He waved his hands in front of his face like he was trying to dismiss it.

I leaned over the table and took hold of the glass. I moved it to the center of the table. "I will if you do." I put my straw in my mouth, inviting him to do the same.

Okuyasu gave Josuke a little nudge with his elbow. After he gave him a nasky look, Josuke leaned over the table with me and grabbed hold of his straw. I giggle a little bit. This was so ridiculous, like this was in some cheesy romcom.

We both began to drink the milkshake. His face was so close to mine, I could look directly into his eyes. Our eyes met, and I started to giggle again. Josuke blushed some more. The glass was quickly emptying.

I pulled away and started laughing. Josuke also dropped his straw and sat in his seat again, a smile on his face.

"Yeah! Go Josuke!" Okuyasu announced and pulled him in for a side hug. Koichi gave a slow applause.

"Sorry Josuke," I said, feeling how warm my face was. "It just seemed so silly, I just couldn't stop myself. It was fun, though." A large smile was plastered on my face.

Josuke also broke out in a huge grin. "Yeah, kinda was." He gave out a chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Stop that." Rohan ordered from the other table, his eyes boring into Josuke.

Josuke leaned over so he could get a better look at him. "Stop what?"

Rohan narrowed his eyes and looked condescendingly at him "Doing that thing with your face when you are happy. It's making me nauseous."

Josuke pushed the chair out from under him. "That's it. I'm tired of this. CRAZY DIAMOND!"

"Heaven's Door!"

Both Josuke and Rohan were ready to attack, poised to beat the crap out of each other.

"Both of you, stop!" I ran out in between them, arms raised out to block them. Koichi quickly ran to my side, calling upon Echoes. "Now is not the time or the place to be doing this!" I yelled, looking back and forth between them. "Now settle down. You're already causing a scene."

Josuke looked around him, huffed, and then dismissed Crazy Diamond. "Alight, (Y/N), I'll do this for you." He turned and pointed at Rohan. "But next time, I'll beat the ever-loving shit out of you, Rohan"

Rohan smirked and grabbed his supplies. "You can certainly try, Josuke. I look forward to our next meeting." He walked away, leaving us to watch his stupid, sassy strides.

"Son of a bitch," Josuke muttered under his breath, his fist clenched so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

"Don't let him get to you, Josuke," I gave him a sympathetic look. "He's just trying to get you worked up."

He looked down at his feet. "Yeah, you're probably right." He looked back up at me and gave me a half-hearted smile. "Thanks."

I returned the smile. "Let's finish up our ice cream, okay?"

It was later in the afternoon. After a fun time with Okuyasu and Koichi, both went to their respective homes. They had responsibilities they had to attend to. It was just me and Josuke walking home together. It was bringing back old memories of all the time we had walked home together after school. We walked silently, letting the sounds of Morioh fill the space between us.

"Hey, um," Josuke said quietly. "I'm sorry about what happened today. I didn't mean for any of that Rohan stuff to happen." He paused for a moment and rubbed his neck. "I hope I didn't ruin it for you."

I shook my head. "No, not really. Rohan was the one causing trouble, not you. And nothing was ruined for me." I smiled at him "It's just another day in this crazy, noisy, bizarre town of ours."

He watched my face, looking for some sort of hidden emotion or answer. When he couldn't, he smiled back. "Well, I'm happy about that, at least."

We walked for a little bit longer, letting the silence get comfortable around us. A thought crept into my head as we traveled down the sidewalk.

"Josuke?"

"Yeah?"

"Didn't you say you had something important to ask me?"

"Um," He almost stopped walking. He was avoiding my gaze "Yeah, but it's not that important. Don't worry about it"

"If it wasn't important, you wouldn't need to ask me. Besides, you said yourself that it was important." I tried to get a good look at him. "What is it Josuke? You can ask me anything."

He stopped walking. "Well, I..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and looked me dead in the eyes. He was going to get it out even if it killed him, I could tell.

"(Y/N), I like you a lot. I like like you a lot." He paused. "I've wanted to ask this for a long time. Would you be my girlfriend? Don't feel like you have to say yes, or anything, just because we're friends. But if you really want to..."

I took his hand in mine. "Yes, Josuke. I will be your girlfriend." I giggled a little, my cheeks getting warm. "I like like you too. And not just because we're friends."

He stood there stunned for a few moments. Then a huge smile spread across his face. "Really?"

I nodded, feeling really giddy inside.

He leaned in and scooped me into a hug. He lifted me off the ground, my feet dangling under me. I let myself melt into him, enjoying the love and warmth.  We had given each other hugs before in the past, but this one was different. This one was special. I think we both could feel it.

When we finally pulled away, all we could do was look at each other and laugh to ourselves. "You know," Josuke mumbles a bit, "I kind of had this whole day planned out and everything." He chuckles a bit. " Guess I didn't need to go through all that, did I?"

I give him a smile. "No. I would have said yes, no matter how you asked me. Besides, you can't plan for anything in Morioh. At least one thing will throw off. your entire day."

"Yeah, I guess so."

I reached out and took his hand. He slid his fingers in between mine, and gave my hand a small squeeze. We walked the rest of the way like this, both blushing a bit. It felt a little like a dream, like this was never supposed to happen. But it did, and I couldn't be happier.

We walked until we were standing in front of his house. His was the first stop, while mine was a few more houses down. Josuke sighed and looked down at me. "Well, this is it."

"Yeah," I sighed back. I didn't want this to end. Like if I let go of Josuke's hand, the spell would break, and everything would be undone. The dream would end, and everything would go back to the way it was.

Josuke looked at me for a moment, looking unsure of himself. He took a deep breath and gathered his courage.  He leaned in, and slowly kissed my cheek. When he pulled away, I could feel my face flare up and turn red. I looked at Josuke. His face was just as red as mine felt.

"Well," I managed to stutter out. "I'll see you later, Josuke."

"Yeah, you too (Y/N)."

Then we both turned away. All things considered, it was a pretty awesome day. And I couldn't wait to spend another one with my boyfriend, Higashikata Josuke.

[mangomochi-yn]

[did i change your mind?]

aoba johsai. iwaizumi hajime x reader

g. kinda confusing fluff but fluff nonetheless

tw. hajime is shooketh   wc. 1.6k

If there was one thing you and Hajime never got along with, it would definitely be the topic of why one gets into a relationship. 

'If you like them—go ahead' was your thinking while as for Hajime— 'only if you like them enough to want to settle'. Maybe this was the whole reason why you two weren’t as close as two childhood friends should be. 

But when that third childhood friend, Tooru, suddenly asks you to fill in for him as Hajime’s plus one to a wedding, well things get kinda messy. 

And it all started when you asked him one thing, just as the bride and groom exchanges their vows and shares a kiss— 

“But isn’t it the heartbreaks that make true love oh so much sweeter in the end?”

"Hah? What the heck are you talking about in the middle of the wedding?" Your brows furrow at the fact that Hajime seems to have already forgotten what you two were debating about earlier. 

"You said 'why do people even get into relationships when they have no plans on settling'." He finally at least slightly looks in your direction. Maybe it was the fact that you were borderline whisper-shouting by now?

"Okay and?" You sigh, really you could never hold a proper conversation with this boy.

"And that's my reply— it's the heartbreaks that make the end game so much better isn't it? Kinda like gaining experience in a game so that the reward is so much better in the end." At the sound of the guests clapping along to congratulate the newly wedded couple, you two stand up as well, you never tearing your gaze from the boy though.

"I can't believe you're comparing it to a game." Jokes on him, he was the one that didn't even like saying the word love, pretty immature for someone that was so adamant against getting into casual relationships.

"How else would I get it into that thick brain of yours then? I would have thought of a volleyball phrase if I had more time." Finally, you look towards the groom and bride, clapping along with the rest of the guests as a smile adorns your face.

You said what you felt you needed to say, so maybe that's why you hadn't noticed how the spiky-haired boy was staring at you in awe— thinking deep about what you had said.

"Oi, Shittykawa, why do you get into a relationship?" Said boy's eyes almost popped out of their sockets as he stared at his best friend. Was he seriously asking him that? In the middle of a water break at practice?

"Eh? Are you and Y/N-chan in one of those little debates again?" Bullseye but not quite. Hajime actually hadn't noticed how he asked Oikawa that question.

The only thought in his mind was how he saw you earlier that day, it had been already a week after the wedding, yet your words still stuck in the back of his head — brought forward as he saw you walking around school— clinging to a boy he's never seen's left arm as well. 

He didn't want to admit it but for the first time in how many years, you were slowly driving him crazy. He found himself wanting to know everything that was on your mind, every nook and every cranny. 

"Oh! Y/N-chan, what brings you here?" Oikawa's booming voice echoes against the gym floors— effectively snapping Hajime out of his thoughts at the mention of your name.

"Hey, Tooru! I'm here to ask you about our one english project—" Sending a small wave to Hajime, he couldn't help but just stare at the way your eyes crinkled as you smile.

"—did I change your mind?" Wait, were you talking to him now? His eyes almost bulge as he racks his brain for an answer to your vague question. Did he change his mind about why people should get into relationships?

"—I told you I could do your part for the project if you promise to give me that milk bread recipe your mom always makes, so let me know if you’ll do it, Tooru."

Oh, but what a fool he was.

Noticing how your gaze was back at the captain's, Hajime's face turns a gushing red at how worked up he got by himself from assuming you were talking to him.

It wasn't until he heard your laughter at something the captain said did Hajime burst out his seat on the bench to march towards the locker room and wash his face to drown his senses.

"Oh and I accidentally made extra onigiris for you and Haji—" The bang of the locker room's doors were what made you aware of your other friend's sudden outburst.

"What was that?" Oikawa just shrugs. "He's been moody all day." But then as if a lightbulb went off his head, Oikawa then suddenly starts pushing you towards the locker room, a big smile on his face. You came to learn that that was never good news.

"Maybe he's just hungry, Y/N-chan! You should give him those onigiris and he'll probably feel better." You knew for sure that Hajime wasn't the type to lash out because of hunger, but before you could even argue back at your troublesome friend, you had already been shoved into the empty locker room, the door clicking locked behind you.

"I'm gonna murder Tooru, I swear." Deciding if you should just stay by the door until someone eventually opens it, you were finally greeted by the only other person in the room— half naked nonetheless.

You could only stare as he gazes at your form hunched by the door. After blinking for a few moments and seeing your cheeks turn a red hue, Hajime finally shuffles to wear a shirt, leaving you a blushing mess.

"Did Shittykawa shove you in here?" His voice was a bit gruffly but soft nonetheless, finally easing some of your nerves down.

"Uh.. yeah. He said that you might've been in a bad mood cause you were... hungry." How you made it sound more stupid than Oikawa himself, you didn't know.

But at least it didn't seem to offend or bother Hajime, instead he stared at your face with that pensive look in his eyes as if a million and one thoughts were all scrambling in his brain. 

And they were.

As he sees you stand there in front of him, a small bento in hand, Hajime couldn't escape the thoughts that plagued him since that day of the wedding.

"Dating someone just because you like them..." His voice came out a whisper you almost couldn't tell if you heard him right. Was he... thinking about what you said at the wedding? That's impossible, right?

"Uhh.. I accidentally made extra onigiris and brought some for you and Tooru." He only stares at your outstretched arms, waiting for him to take the small bento from your grasp. 

"Um but actually you can have them all. That stupid Tooru and his crazy ideas shouldn't get any—"

"I wanna try it." Thank god, you thought you were going to have to ramble off for the tension to ease.

"Oh, they're just normal onigiris, here—"

"I wanna try dating someone just because I like them."

Oh shit, he wasn't talking about the onigiris.

Wait... so is he saying he likes someone at the moment? And that he wanted to try dating them?

"Um, well good luck at that I guess then." You start to scratch the back of your neck awkwardly, earning a look of confusion from Hajime.

Did he want you to teach him or something? Did your childhood friend and one-sided crush of how many years really want you to teach him how to date someone else?

"You asked me if I changed my mind and that's your only reply?" Okay, now he was really getting confusing. It didn't help that he was starting to walk your way now, the doors were still locked, you couldn't exactly escape.

"When did I—" Then it dawns on you. Is that seriously why this airhead stormed out while you were talking to Tooru earlier?

"I was talking to Tooru, Hajime." 

"I know, but I couldn't help but think you were actually asking me too." By now, he had you trapped at a corner right by the door, your heart was beating at your chest. When did that start happening?

From this far you could actually smell the musk of his cologne, his eyes looked sharper than they were, and for a split second you were sure he was going to ravage you. Until—

"I wanna try it too— the heartbreak."

"Pfft." It catches him off guard how your once trembling expression suddenly easily turns into that of amusement. Your laugh lightly echoes across the room and he couldn't help but blush at your small giggles seemingly mocking him.

"That's not exactly the best way to ask someone out, Haji." Still wiping the tears off your face, his blush deepens as you shake your head. 

"But for you, is it okay?"

You would be lying if you said you expected that, but at this point anything was possible and hearing your childhood friend, your longtime one-sided crush, the boy that refused to go into a relationship unless it was to settle— hearing him ask you out so timidly was a whole new sensation in itself. 

A sensation you would be damned if you missed.

"Hmm, no, I actually take that back, Haji." His eyes widen as you loop your arms around his neck, pulling him closer despite his confusion. Yeah, you definitely couldn’t miss out on this.

"Let's scratch off that part I said about the heartbreak, Haji. Let's go straight to the ‘oh so much sweeter’ part instead."

a/n. yall are probs like what is she trying to say? where is this going? idk either guys 😪 i just thought that first dialogue was neat then i was like aight bet or whatever. sigh i did not give iwa chan justice im sorry.

a/n. everybody lets say thank you oikawa though— that little shit actually did something

[silverselfshippingchaos]

[dorky-self-shipper] 🎫 here’s a gush pass :3 feel free to gush about whichever f/o you want, however much you want, then send this ask to 3 other selfshippers

Oh, my friend!!! Ahhh thank you so much for sending this in!! I have been a bit iffy because some things in my life have been piling up, but!!! I am so excited to dig into this!!! I really need a good gushing session haha!

Today's target for gushing hours with your girl Ash is none other than Yaag Rosch!

This ended up being pretty long, and is a mix of lore, screaming, keyboard smashes, his gorgeous design, and more screaming.

Saying that this man lives in my head rent free is an understatement. He is all I think about it. Honestly, I think it's funny considering Yaag's role in FF13. He's only around in the first game, and shows up in like five cutscenes.

Also. We get crumbs of him in the novels. More on that later. Back to the game.

All he does is "hey yall suck" "your lives don't matter" "uhh i need to kill you guys" "oh wait no i'm not evil" "*dies*"

But!!! He's very cool!! His character is so interesting to me. He's so driven to do whatever it takes, but beneath his actions, there's always an edge of hesitation. He seems like he comes off as so sure of himself, but... I'm not sure about that. Now, I can't say anything for sure because the writers hate him, I really liked those few moments where we get to see his actual thoughts.

For example, "Do you think we want to Purge our own people?!" And things like that where you see him question his orders. I feel like there's a lot of underlying hatred, distrust, and overall fear of the system.

Also, his development from "They aren't people, they're targets." to "I'll trust in your humanity." Gets me every single time.

Also don't get me started on his "if this is my punishment... i accept it." when he's bleeding line.

I am here to gush, not analyze. But both are happening anyway.

I feel as though he puts a lot of thought into what he says and how he acts, and I really do admire that.

For context, Lieutenant Colonel Yaag Rosch is this military higher-up guy. I remember seeing him for the first time and my jaw simply dropping. I know that these games have a history with hot villains. After all, I am an FF7 fan. I have seen the SOLDIERS, I have seen the Turks, I've seen Rufus. They're all hot.

There. I said it.

This intro scene gave us some damn good food. Like??? The silver hair??? The ponytail??? The scar on his forehead??? The overly dramatic speech about how the protagonists need to be eliminated??AJKLFNAWKJFNAWKLJFNWILEN.

(Also, I'm beginning to see the resemblance he has to Felix. I am a very predictable woman, aren't I?)

I am actually going to scream. He’s so handsome!!! His jaw!! His eyes are such a pretty color too!!! I wanna give him a kiss ahhh!! Especially on his forehead scar!!! He's so... woah.

Also, he has a really, really nice voice. Like??? WOW. I want this man to like. narrate my life. Here, lemme find some clips of him talking.

Here. Enjoy.

This one is a fan favorite as well.

It's not a Rick roll. I promise.

..... Unless?

Anyways, as time went on, I realized that he's actually such a deep and interesting character?? He gets done dirty by the writers and the game, but the potential he has makes me so excited!! There's so much material to work off of!!! Truly one of the more interesting villains the trilogy has to offer. Honestly, it's kind of difficult going through the second game knowing that he isn't there.

However, it's also difficult going through the second game because I??? Can't beat?? The goddamn boss fight??? I'm also playing on easy mode. I didn't struggle this much during the first game either. What the hell, Ash.

Back to the actual topic.

I'm gonna start off with his design before we delve into s/i lore and fun tidbits.

(His coat is so cool... Do you think he'd let me wear it? I'd probably waddle around in it because he's pretty tall and I. I am not.

He's around 6'2 (around almost 188 cm..? I think?), but take into account his boots too. Which means that normally he's slightly taller. That means that he's about a foot taller than me. That means that I'm pretty much the perfect height to bury my face in his chest. *screams*)

Talk about a kickass design. He's really cool to look at. Not only, uhm, *blushes*, but because of how cool his outfit is too! It does a really good job of portraying that "heyyy i'm super importtanntttt" energy that he has. He carries himself like he's the shit. And you know what? He is.

He's pretty professional. Minus the times he gets kinda pissed. The novels say, and I quote,

"They said he was the most straitlaced man in PSICOM - if you put serious and stubborn in a military uniform, you'd get Colonel Rosch."

And yeah. That basically sums it up.

Also, there's this scene where he gets all pissed and pulls out his sword and I'm over here like *insert debby ryan hair thing here*. I'm telling you, it's always the sword boys that get me. I'm sure you've noticed that by now. I don't know what it is but. It's a thing.

Oh!!! Oh!!! Speaking of the *tucks hair behind ear*, there's this one scene where he's chasing the protagonists. And he goes, "Clever, aren't you?"

*SCREAMS*

That scene is truly a masterpiece. Thank you for the good food, Squeenix. I remember having to take a moment to just pause and regather myself. Actually, I had to do that the first time I saw him too-

I wasn't alone at the time when he was introduced so I was just silently like "ohmygodhellosir ajrfnaklwenjklwenjklrn" but oh my GOODNESS.

My s/i works with him! She's pretty much his right hand woman. She always has reports and intel on all their missions ready to go! I find it cute how well they work together, be it for mission-related matters, or just when they're relaxing together.

Just like pretty much all of my other s/is, she's a raging academic and total nerd. In the first game, they basically live on this human paradise called Cocoon. It ends up not being so great because the gods want to murder humanity but anyways! Education is pretty much free and you can study whatever you're passionate about. That's why she has studied just so many things.

She's not exactly the type who aspired to join the military, but alas! Things happened. I like to think of it as a "heyyyy y'all needed my help once and then once turned to twice and twice to thrice and then i never left" type thing.

Oh, and then she fell in love with Yaag while she was there.

Her cheery attitude is a direct opposite to his, but they're also able to have some very serious conversations with each other. I love their dynamic so much! Also, he can get a bit softer when he's opening up to her and,,, Soft Yaag??? Hoo boy.

Her motives and beliefs tend to align a bit more with the Cavalry branch, but i feel as though she fits in better with PSICOM. Also, the book describes the soldiers to be a bunch of dumbass dorks and just the thought of her smiling and cracking jokes with all of Yaag's men make me super happy.

Oh and she gets a cool uniform too! Because I said so.

Now, they've known each other for years by the time the end of the first game rolls around. They're happy together, maybe even engaged! It can go one of two ways here. He either dies or he doesn't.

I like adhering really closely to canon with my ships (*laughs in genesis angst*) but I also think it would be a blast if he were to survive.

In the novels after his death, some recordings of his are found. It's basically him talking about how the government sucks from the inside. A character finds these and reveals them to the public to get rid of the old government and an invite a newer one that actually cares about the people. However, it's never quite stated how he got those recordings. And that's where Ash steps in.

She brings them to his attention and helps him out, but then returns to live with the rest of the remaining soldiers in that camp they set up in the second novel. They all look up to her as a leader-type, which I find is really funny because she doesn't exactly have the qualifications? She worked with PSICOM, but was never exactly a soldier. But hey, it's right after the world (quite literally) fell apart, I don't think that anybody cares about that.

Also, there's another chapter where Snow ends up visiting, and she has a friendly chat with him!!! She helped out the protagonists a little bit near the end of the first game, so they have a slight idea of who each other are, but that doesn't exactly change the fact that she fell under the category of villain for a lot of it, despite not actually being a bad person. I also think that their dynamic would be fun. Snow also just makes me really happy LMAO.

I think that this version of Ash is really fun just because of how much the experience hardens her? She spends a lot of time grieving. Also!!! Whether or not she makes a cameo in 13-2 (maybe near the ruins early game?) is totallllyyyy up to you hehe! I think it would be neat for her to talk to the protagonists of that game, especially since Yaag was the one who orchestrated the Purge and at the ruins, there's a huge monument of the names of people who were killed there.

Also, whether or not she has a son here is up to you. I like to think of all my ideas all happening in alternate timelines so everything I want can happen without stepping on other events? I imagine their child to have Yaag's pretty silver hair with Ash's brown eyes.

Also, 13-2 is about time travel so like. The protagonists meeting their child in the future when he's all grown up? Good stuff.

But hey, in the main timeline she's alone after Yaag's death. She helps the other characters. I also think that in time, she does work for the Academy? I mentioned that she's pretty nerdy earlier, so that definitely helps out. She's super cool!!! Such a badass!!!

Now, on the flipside of things, what if he survived? Then what happens? shameless self promo

Yaag still has those recordings, and they do still reach Captain Rygdea. They both live in the small village that the remnants of PSICOM created. It's a sweet life. Are fankids a thing in their future? Yeah, probably.

I feel like Yaag would be a really good dad. I headcanon that he has a very strong relationship with his own father as well. He's caring and stern, but also knows when to turn down the serious scale. The novels also say that he likes kids!?!?!? I know I've screamed about this point like 24892 times on my blog. But.

It's so cute??? Who would expect this super serious and mean man who quite literally says that the protagonists aren't people, they're targets to like children of all things???? It really is my favorite thing ever just because of how cute it is. I also have a few tiny cousins in my family, so him playing with them makes me very soft too.

("Would you please stop tugging on my hair- Ash, this is not a laughing matter!" "Oh, but it so is.")

I think that detail really helps hint at him having a more gentle side? And I adore that.

Also, I mentioned how Snow pays a visit to the PSICOM camp after the events of the first game? I think that would be very interesting with Yaag there because before Yaag dies in canon, Snow says, "Stay alive. We'll see you when it's over."

And now he finally gets to see him. The conversation would get surprisingly deep and definitely dive into Yaag's motives and real thoughts about his actions in the game. I really enjoy the few interactions those two have in the game.

Anyways, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's dig into the meat and potatoes of this ship.

In 13-2, they get a separate dlc side story just to themselves. Because I said so. I'm not sure how the plot of this works, but it's basically them exploring Gran Pulse together. Maybe to map things out? Maybe to get better acquainted with the world they thought was a hell their whole lives? Maybe there's some sort of big mission they have to do? We'll figure it out.

Basically, it's a whole side story of them exploring and kicking monster ass together. The combat is regular 13 combat.

Yaag has his sword along with some explosives (we see him carry some grenades at the end when he blew himself up). And Ash also has a sword because I like swords.

In the game, usually only l'Cie, or magic god slaves, can use magic. However, after the fal'Cie (magic gods) go poof at the end of the end of the first game, some normal humans can use magic? It makes no sense and exists only for plot convenience, but I'm not complaining because it makes my plot easier too.

My point is, Ash can use magic! Because A) she's quirky mage material B) we need a balanced team C) Every single version of Ash so far has been a mage. D) I like magic a lot. Would be my go-to as well.

Also, if you're interested in how they work in battle, roles divide up very nicely between them.

Yaag has: -Commando (physical attacks) -Sentinel (beefy tanks) -Sabuteur (debuffing enemies)

Ash has: -Ravager (magic goes brrr) -Medic (i think you know) -Synergist (buffing allies) -Commando (physical attacks)

Maybe Yaag could get medic too to balance off the load in battle? They're a blast in combat because they really do compliment each other.

Anyways, back to the adventure.

It's the two of them traveling around. The main focus of it is their conversations as they travel. There's a lot of fun banter. Ya know how like when you're walking around in Naughty Dog games and your characters are just chatting? Yeah. That.

Their conversations are super random and they cover pretty much every single topic ever. They go from really serious to them just being stupid. I love their friendly banter.

Also, when they set up camp and are about to sleep, we get to see sleepy Yaag in action. And do you know what that means?

It means we get to see Yaag with his hair done a bit looser, maybe even down!!! Yaag with his hair down is all I want to see. It's what we deserve. It's what we need. The day that I see Yaag with his hair down is the day i achieve true happiness LMAO.

It's what we need.

Ash playing with his hair??? Yes, I most definitely think so.

Oh and there is totally a "Yaag, I'm cold." "Allow me to help remedy that. *pulls her closer*" type moment because they're cute like that.

All in all, their travels are really fun. Maybe somewhere around there they run into the protagonists? Either from the first game or the second game. I think that would be a fun mess.

I feel like Yaag can show a softer side of him around her and that makes me really happy. He deserves to be happy and I love him very much.

I think about him all the time, and just the thought of him holding me makes me so happy. He really is just adorable.

Before I wrap this up, I have a few more things I want to speak about! Firstly, allow me to share one of my favorite pictures of him because oh. my. god.

*screams*

The urge to backhug him!!! Ahh!!! He's so cute!!!! I just wanna hold him aelajflanef.

One of my favorite pre-relationship moments from them is this one time where Yaag is pretty down in the dumps, and Ash is talking to him about it and offering her advice. And as she talks, she gently places a hand over his (they're seated side by side btw). He looks up at her in shock, and she takes back her hand is like, "O-oh! I'm so sorry, I should've asked first, I just thought tha-"

And then he just snatches her hand back and gently holds it. You can see the tips of his ears burning red haha! I think that they're pretty cute ajfwnjklef

She always tries her best to take care of him, too! He needs a hug, and she is more than happy to provide. She always tries to remind him to eat his meals on time and such, even if she can be questionable at following her own advice at times. She can also be a bit of a tease sometimes, so he can get pretty annoyed (not really, he thinks it's cute) sometimes.

However, he also does his best to take care of her. Would he pull the "that's an order." card after she refuses to rest, pulling several late-nighters for work? Yeah. Probably. He's very caring, even if he can come off as very serious and scary sometimes.

To wrap things up, I love Yaag Rosch.

Thank you for your time.

[gold-pavilion]

Red’s Complete Guide to the SDR2 Stage Play

The following is a sort of walkthrough/summary of the SDR2 stage play, mostly focusing on what’s different in this shorter but also highly expressive version of the story than the game, and what extra content is in it. 

It’s mostly aimed to help non japanese speaker friends (or not fully fluent ones) enjoy this amazing play even without english subtitles available; in general terms, just having good memory of the game’s events will allow you to watch and follow it just fine, but anything else you could be missing, this guide will point out for ya! That being said, you can either read this all on its own, or keep at hand to check as you watch. I’m dividing it in parts according to what would be the game’s chapters, so you can easily find your place. Hope it’s useful!!

PROLOGUE / INTRODUCTION

The beginning is quite the same as the game: Nagito waking Hajime up on the beach, memory gaps, no one knows why they’re there when they should’ve just been at their entrance ceremony, etc. The minor differences would be that they’ve already separated and had a look around, thus cutting out the island exploration from the main POV. They’ve all warmed up pretty fast to the place too. The setting of it being a fun class trip is established and everyone’s excited to go to the beach, minus Hajime of course. 

More small changes: as you’ll notice, Hiyoko being unable to tie her own kimono sash, getting help offered by Mahiru and getting attached to her happens at this point (‘cause of the swimsuits they want to put on) instead of in chapter 2, so their relationship gets established this early. Also, Teruteru and Kazuichi are caught trying to sneak in to where the girls are changing, ahem.

As in the game, Hajime’s hesitating a lot about just relaxing like that. We get a cute little new moment where he sees that even “Byakuya”, though claiming it’s to “research the way to leave this island” is prepared to go play at the sea, and with some prodding from the boys overall, he gets convinced to join in and have fun too. All super sweet, before Monokuma hijacks the scene. The killing school trip begins!

The opening and character introduction sequence is absolutely amazing and stunning, but since the intros and the comments Hajime and Nagito exchange as they go from character to character together are pretty much the same as in the game, there’s nothing to note from me. Just how amazingly it was put together! 

After that, along with the basic intro to the killing game, there is an added rule for the students to see: the one/s who earn/s the right to leave the island will be given back the stolen memories of the last 2 school years. So, the amnesia period is immediately established, and Hinata’s own amnesia about his talent is taken as proof that it could be true. Teruteru is openly agitated about the possibility of having that two-year blank, more than anyone else, and while revealing there’s a restaurant waiting for him on land he tries to get reassurance from the others. He’s much more transparent here.

Monokuma gets the group under control with a different method than his monobeasts: he makes lightning shoot at them. Real lightning, no tricks, as Byakuya says. Here, he reveals he can control the weather so that’s what he uses to keep the students intimidated. Different, but easier for stage representation than robots and achieving the same purpose. After all is done and Byakuya has sent everyone to rest for the night, there’s a small added scene of Hajime and Nagito staying behind, and having the following exchange that I thought best to translate directly:

Nagito: “So it turned into this kind of despairing situation…”

Hajime: “Why would that Monokuma guy do something like this?!”

Nagito: “It’s unforgivable, right?! That killing game…! It’s absolutely...!

That’s it… we… we have to join our forces and stand against this despair!”

Hajime: “I’m glad that the first one to call out to me here was you, Komaeda.”

Nagito: “Yeah... me too, I’m glad to have [met] you, Hinata-kun.”

CHAPTER 1

The next day, Byakuya announces the party and the group accepts his proposal without suspicion. The old building is suggested as the place, cleaning duty is required, the straw game comes out and Nagito ends up chosen to do it. So far, no news. But on the party scene, we do have several differences:

From how they explain it, the old building consists of just the dining hall and the great kitchen. With this simplified setup, everyone is closer together, so there’s no messy deposit room, no office to guard, no fire door to take into account and Byakuya isn’t checking anyone for dangerous objects. Also, no guard outside and no Monomi, since she’s been locked up by Monokuma. The scene with Hajime speaking to Byakuya privately is preserved (though it doesn’t take place in the kitchen and he wasn’t dragged off to it, but rather, approached Byakuya himself to raise his suspicion that the party was planned for everyone’s wellbeing) and his mysterious dialogues are the same.

When the blackout occurs, they’re able to find the breaker and turn electricity back on their own. Only when the body is discovered do they get told there’ll be a trial, and how it will work. Investigation time!

When everyone scatters, they’re mostly talking about having things they want to check out or thought were weird, with a very active attitude about it. The times when the sound effect rings and the spotlight is focused on Hajime, is when he’s established a key clue, a class trial bullet, so he’s naming/explaining them out loud. Not much else to note, but isn’t the whole investigation scene SO dynamic and enjoyable? Such brilliant staging!! For the trial too!!

Not much is different in the trial until its very end, in fact it goes faster than in the game with all the complication factors that were skipped, so it reaches Nagito’s breakdown quickly. As I’m sure many people will want to know what the dialogue is in the famous getting-touchy-touchy-on-Hajime scene, I’ll note that it’s Hajime saying “is that your true nature?! Have you been deceiving us all this time?!” to which Nagito replies “that’s… wrong.” Quite sure the writing is the same as in the game, it’s just the acting that carries it differently.

After that, in the end, the way they figure out the culprit is from the existence of a passage to get under the floor that they’ve concluded the killer used: since it’s clearly not in the dining hall, it must exist in the only other room of the building, which is the kitchen, where only Teruteru was. Case closed in a much more brief, yet complete manner.

During the reconstruction of how it happened, the conversation Nagito and Teruteru had in the dining hall is very different from the game. Instead of the monologue focusing on his love for the ultimates and how he wanted to see them display a bigger hope, his words are much more manipulative. He asks Teruteru: “hey, Hanamura-kun… could it be true... we’re missing 2 years worth of memories? 2 years is a long time… if it were true… what then?” and insistently “Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to go back home?”, playing from the worries he was displaying earlier. He is also more straightforward in remarking that Teruteru wasn’t his victim nor acting in everyone’s defense, that he could’ve said something when he realized he had killed Byakuya instead of him, but kept quiet to save himself (a dialogue that, in the game, is said by Monokuma instead). He also claims to love that hope Teruteru had of going home, a hope so strong that Byakuya and everyone else could’ve died for it.

You’ll see that the execution is also very different, as almost all of them will be (personally, I love them even better than in the game). As Teruteru dies, his last words are: “momma… I’m sorry”.

Post trials comes another surprise: the group gets a freebie for their effort, which is a new piece of info. They’re told there is a traitor among them. Of course they suspect Nagito, but then, as they’re confronting him, we get this:

Hajime: It’s your fault! That Hanamura… and Togami...

Nagito: Ah, right, about that… that wasn’t Togami-kun.

Gundham: What are you saying?

Nagito: During the investigation, I found this.

Hajime: Togami’s e-handbook?

The name’s… different.

Ultimate… imposter.

Ibuki: Daaaaang! That Byakuya-chan wasn’t Byakuya-chan, then?!

Nagito: But what an amazing talent! Because, out of all of us, no one even thought it wasn’t Togami-kun! He sure got us! 

But… since he’s dead now, it’s not worth caring about, is it…

Akane: I’ll beat ya up, you bastard!

Hajime: Not worth caring about? 

The fact that he was a wonderful leader, who protected us with all he had, didn’t change.

That he’d tried to protect us till the very end… and not allow the killing game to happen… he was a proud, worthy leader.

Chiaki: Yes… that’s true.

With that very early revelation, the chapter closes.

CHAPTER 2

Shortening matters, through the night Monokuma already gave to everyone a piece of their past: the envelope containing the pictures of the girls in their Hope’s Peak uniforms and of Fuyuhiko’s sister’s body. They all have seen it by morning, but naturally don’t know what it could all be and don’t discuss it. As in the game, Nagito is being kept away, tied up, though here Akane helped as well; she intended to beat him up while she was at it, but Nekomaru stopped her claiming the strength of her muscles wasn’t meant for stuff like that.

It seems Peko is getting a few more added interactions with Fuyuhiko as well, mostly since she can be closer and take more physical actions in this medium. As she tries to stop him from breaking away from the group, she tells him “if we’re together, it’s certain you’ll be safer”, with this same nuance in English where she could mean together with the group, or together with her. Neat stuff.

Moving on: everyone knows Nagito’s situation. Mahiru suggests taking breakfast to him in front of everyone in this version instead of privately to Hinata, to which everyone reacts complimenting her kindness. No one actually goes to give Nagito food tho (ouch), since everyone starts taking off to the beach and to mess around, doing their own things. Also, Sonia’s interest in Gundham is already made noticeable. A fun little addition:

Hajime (to Gundham): Sonia wants to invite you though, so… will you come to the beach too?

Kazuichi: Hinata…

Hajime: What do you say, Tanaka?

Kazuichi: HEY…

Of course, everyone agrees and will be meeting at the beach house in 1 hour. So it’s not a girls-only meeting in this version, but for everyone who didn’t have other plans. Under Hajime’s advice they’ll try to stay together as much as possible to be safer.

The stage skips to what’s happening at the beach house not long after. We proceed to the murder, conveniently obscured, and body discovery.

As for differences in how the case unfolds, during the investigation, it’s Gundham and Sonia who notice the beach house has another exit: the small window set pretty high up. Then, as Komaeda joins in, he takes special interest in checking whether Hajime’s remembered his talent yet or not. He finds it pretty amazing that even without that, he’s out there solving cases, and expresses looking forward to Hajime remembering. He remarks that he’ll always be on the side of hope to clarify his position.

This class trial is also cleanly shortened without sacrificing anything important. As you’ll notice from the proof collected, the whole thing with the fake Sparkling Justice doesn’t happen. After concluding it couldn’t have been Hiyoko and the killer set her up, the point is made that the killer actually used the window to leave, which only one person could’ve possibly done: Peko. So that’s that.

Once again, it’s rather the reconstruction of the incident that changes. Hiyoko and Mahiru are talking about their friendship, how they’ll continue to be friends even after regaining their old memories, or might’ve even been friends before, when Peko knocks Hiyoko unconscious. The discussion continues. 

On the 2nd part of the case reconstruction, Fuyuhiko openly threatens to kill Hiyoko right there to get Mahiru to talk about the pictures and his sister’s death. You’ll notice the image on the screen is the other one, of Sato’s body, but since it was the only picture of a live actor, they used that one as though it were the sister (please be understanding)! Plus, the story about bullying and how they were both killed doesn’t come up, so there’s nothing to be confused over in this version. All we know on the play is that Mahiru took the picture, because Monokuma said so, so Fuyuhiko believes she did the killing too. Mahiru argues that she must’ve taken it as proof. “Us photographers… can tell the meaning of a picture we took ourselves”, she says, but it’s too late.

The debacle of whether Peko is the killer or Fuyuhiko counts as it for using her as tool is, of course, maintained. Enjoy the actors’ amazing representation and another great execution scene!

The rewards for winning the trial this time: 1. The info that the traitor definitely came to the island with them. 2 The traitor belongs to a world-destroying organization called Future Foundation. (Which, in a fun dialogue I believe is new, Nagito calls a pretty hopeful name for something like that.) 3. Those who have talents will be given a present related to their talent. Nagito leaves to check that out, and with Hajime musing “will I be able to… remember my talent?”, the chapter closes.

CHAPTER 3

From here on, the stage play’s scripts starts to differ from the game more and more.

The gift Nagito received for his talent was the gun. Upon finding that it’s loaded with only one bullet, he understands it’s for playing russian roulette, a test for his luck aside from a present. I have to say, I find it insanely cool that he goes for 5 out of 6 shots instead of the 1 shot he did in the game, like holy shit??? But anyway, his reward for the game is the binder with the info on Hope’s Peak and the students.

As for the others, the gift Ibuki got is an electric guitar, Chiaki got a game system, Kazuichi got the communication/camera set that he would make at this point in the game, the one that plays an important role in the 3rd case, and so on; everyone got something related to their talent, except for Hajime. He already suspects it might be that he has no talent, after all, but the others comfort him, doubting that’s the reason.

Enter the despair disease. In this version, Nagito doesn’t get the disease; only Akane and Ibuki do, plus Mikan, who catches it from the start as well unbeknownst to the rest. The set up is like this: Mikan will be caring for the sick at the island’s hospital facility, Hajime volunteers to be there with her, and Kazuichi provides his comm set to link the hospital with the hotel lobby to stay in touch without spreading the illness. 

From his position at the hospital, Hajime sees the transmission which he supposes is taking place at the hotel, so he runs over there. But from the hotel, when checking the comm system, the transmission comes on again so everyone thinks it has to be taking place at the hospital now. On the road from hotel to hospital is where they run into Mikan and Akane. Once at the hospital, the bodies of Ibuki and Hiyoko are there.

This investigation process differs A LOT from the game’s. For starters, everyone is far too discouraged by now from so many of their friends being gone and Kazuichi doesn’t even want to investigate anymore. To top things off, when Nagito arrives...

Hajime: Komaeda… where have you been?!

Kazuichi: Mioda and Saionji died! Do you get it?! Both of them at once!

Nagito: Who kills, who gets killed… I don’t care about that anymore.

Hajime: What did you say?

Akane: You asshole… if you say that, I’ll kill ya!

Sonia: Owari-san!

Nagito: Hey, Hinata-kun… did you remember your talent? Did you get any present from Monokuma?

Hajime: … no…

Nagito: Then, this is true…

Hajime: What does that mean?

Nagito: Hush! A reserve course level guy like you… could you not talk to me like we’re equals?!

Hajime: Reserve course?

Nagito: I got this from Monokuma… documents from within Hope’s Peak. You… have no talent, you were a reserve course student!

After explaining what the reserve course is, leaving Hajime destroyed, Nagito steps away to do his own thing.

With Hajime totally out of commission from shock, it’s the other characters who do the investigating on their own this time, without the protagonist’s lead we’re used to. Pretty painful to witness, honestly, but a very clever, impacting and well-handled modification. Everyone lets him have his time. In fact, when Fuyuhiko asks what’s wrong with Hajime, Gundham replies “Do not ask… it is a trivial matter.” for him, and when Chiaki talks to him, it’s only to ask case-related questions, no personal prodding. They only get to go over the causes of death, how the monitors worked (the hotel one showing a feed of the hospital, the hospital one showing a feed of the hotel) and as soon as Fuyuhiko finds a bit of the pillar-wallpaper-thing, investigation time’s over with no more evidence pieces than that. On to the trial.

Like it would happen in chapter 4 in the game, Nagito’s undermining Hajime in the trial, but no one else minds that he’s from the reserve course. Hence the physical attitude you’ll see him taking throughout. Understandably, though, from how the set up was, Hajime looks very suspicious, so the first part of the trial is on the possibility of him having committed the crime. Once that’s cleared and they’ve got it down that Hiyoko’s body was already there when he woke up, hidden under wallpaper, it’s concluded that the transmission was a trick from the killer, who had to be female and at the hospital at the time: Mikan.

Her breakdown follows pretty much the same script as in the game, as well as how she finally gives herself away by mentioning specifically the camera angle. As for the reconstruction of the case, it shows that Ibuki was already healed at the time, that Mikan used some sort of injection to kill her. As for Hiyoko, all the same, except… well, you’ll see. “I’m sorry for being a disgusting, pervert woman…” is what she says, which kinda... adds a layer of to consider in their behavior to each other.

Just as in the game, Mikan reveals what the despair disease did to her, talks about her past and her old lover before she’s executed. No additions or changes on any of that.

CHAPTER 4

… well, kinda. Chapter 4 of the game pretty much doesn’t happen in the stage play. Instead, we get the scene we can see immediately after the execution:

Angry and at her limit from everything that’s happened, Akane challenges Monokuma, like she would go off on her own to do in the game. With everyone being right there in this version, Nekomaru, Fuyuhiko and Gundham are quick to back her up, while Hajime and Kazuichi keep the more physically frail members of the group safe, and Nagito simply stands aside from everything, commenting how awesome everyone is. Do note that he takes a spear from the Monokuma army for his own purposes.

While the whole Funhouse ordeal doesn’t happen, the main points and the weight of the game’s chapter 4 are preserved, with the self-sacrificing role Nekomaru and Gundham take during the fight. All the information we get from the game chapter has already been given in the previous parts of the play, the tensions and relationships between characters were also already set up, and the victim and culprit roles kept a last-effort, self-sacrifice spirit; it’s true that it’s less morally complex and takes exposition away from Gundham, but everything is still basically covered. Even the message to “not give up on life”. So, with their noble deaths, this chapter closes.

CHAPTER 5

Here the play realigns more faithfully to the game’s order of events.

Now knowing they’re Ultimate Despair, Nagito no longer has sympathy for the group or their dead friends. Since the binder he got has info about everything except the traitor, his aim is to uncover them through his bomb threat now. Here he’s immediately revealing his aspiration to wipe out despair from the island and become the Ultimate Hope, and as Hinata asks him to stop before he kills someone, Nagito tells him: “Hey, Hinata-kun… I believe… in my Ultimate Luck!” Words that will be very important.

Here, Fuyuhiko steps up to establish what to do with the situation: Hajime and Chiaki will be staying behind to go through the documents Nagito gave, while he and everyone else will go search for the bombs. “It’s got nothing to do with talent. I’m doing it because I trust in you… so leave that up to me,” is more or less what he says, like the cool heckin bro he is. Very neat modifications. What Hajime and Chiaki have on their hands, then, is the info about the deaths of the student council, Kamukura Izuru, the most despair-inducing incident in the history of mankind, Junko, the group that constitutes Ultimate Despair… pretty much what we’d be getting during the chapter 6 exploration of virtual Hope’s Peak.

Continuing, Nagito has been spotted going into a building, which would be the factory warehouse, so the group get all back together and chases after. The discovery of his body plays out just as in the game, the case itself has the same elements too, from the stuck door to the fire to the bottles. Enjoy the amazing and chilling staging!

In regards to the investigation, even the group recognizes it was too short this time around and that they have no leads. Chiaki already recognizes that “this might not be a trial to find the culprit”.   

Once again, the trial is more agile and short. Given that everyone was together most of the time and no one went in or out of the warehouse after Nagito, Hajime proposes it was suicide very quickly. A trick pulled to throw them off… and get them all executed? Although most of the others are ready to accept that as the conclusion, Hajime himself is quick to pause things and question it. Because Nagito said that he would expose the traitor, not kill everyone, so that shouldn’t be what he’d try to do. The trial goes on.

Hajime’s effort to understand the reasons behind Nagito’s actions is comes in the form of a truly fantastic change here, a new scene annexed to the case reconstruction. I’ll translate that conversation between the deceased Nagito and him:

Nagito: Hi there, Hinata-kun.

I really didn’t think you from the reserve course, of all people, would be the one to finally reach the truth.

Hajime: It wasn’t just me… it’s because everyone worked together!

Nagito: Hey, did you find the traitor?

Hajime: ...

Nagito: You haven’t found them, then. I’m glad.

Hajime: You, who obsessed over hope... 

Why would you go this far to get us killed?

Nagito: To make despair into a stepping stone for hope. That’s all it is.

If I were able to overcome this despair, then I’d surely become the true hope. The Ultimate Hope!

Hajime: So what… if you die it’s meaningless, isn’t it?

Nagito: Oh, no. [The next line, I’m unable to translate at my level, due to how fast the actor is speaking I can’t make it out properly. There is an “isn’t it natural” there, but that’s all I can catch. Apologies.]

Hajime: I… 

I was happy you’d called out to me at the start… when you were telling me I’d remember my talent someday… I was happy... 

I… with you…!

Nagito: That’s… that’s wrong, Hinata-kun.

You the reserve course student, and me with the Ultimate Hope…! You, as someone without talent, have no reason to be talking with me, do you?

Hajime: Komaeda!!

Nagito: I’m hope… I oppose despair! And hope… moves forward. 

Through this scene, Hajime has realized Nagito’s intention to save the traitor and kill the rest.

Now, quite similarly to how it goes in the game, Chiaki confesses and the nature of Future Foundation as the good guys is revealed through her. Plus, Monokuma delivers the reason Nagito wanted to save someone from that organization, the revelation that everyone else is Ultimate Despair. Why they were taken on the island is established. 

It is with all that already on their plate that Chiaki asks them to execute her. Trusting both Nagito’s talent and Chiaki’s bravery, Hajime makes the call to vote for her as blackened.

Chiaki’s goodbyes are the same as in the game, but damn, does it deliver differently on stage… 

CHAPTER 6

As soon as the execution is over, the graduation for the remaining students begins. It’s very confusing for me to pick apart the fine detail of what’s just like the game and what’s different, since it’s all small things all over the place, so I’ll just be thorough in summing up this whole part.

The survivors are immediately presented with the first choice, which is what appears on their e-handbooks and the stage screen: graduate and leave the game world, or don’t and stay in it. This is the first time anything about the island being a simulation comes up, so the explanations for that are due. Junko’s presence is revealed.

She explains that the group wouldn’t be allowed to graduate until a point where the Future Foundation member was dead. Now, they can. And if they graduate and wake up, their friends who died through the killing game will also go back to life (except Chiaki, of course). Hajime is unsure, so to convince everyone, Junko brings the simulation of the others back, who also pressure Hajime to choose to graduate. But he denies it, because that’s clearly not their friends. How does he know? Because Nagito just said to graduate too, and he’d never share that opinion, he wouldn’t agree in any way with the designs of Junko, who is despair. Therefore, it’s all an illusion!

The truth of that choice is explained: they WOULD all come back to life, but all of them would have Junko’s mind. So uh, yeah, that’s why they act and pose as you’ll see, and MAAAAN how I dig those once again incredible performances!! 

When Monomi appears, it is to reveal the other option: the emergency shutdown command, which will take the survivors out of the program without Junko (and of course without the others). No, Naegi, Kirigiri and Togami do not appear in this version, so she is giving that information on her own and without the 11307 code. But, the Junkofied classmates explain that would also cancel everyone’s progress in the program and return them to how they were before entering it, as Ultimate Despairs.

The two options are summed up: the “hope” option that Nagito is signaling is the emergency shutdown that sacrifices the survivors back to despair but doesn’t let Junko out into the world, and the “despair” option that Imposter is signaling would be the graduation that allows the survivors to wake up with their memories from the program, but also lets Junko out occupying the mind of each of their dead friends. 

On top of that, as everyone is physically restrained to pressure them into the final choice, when Hajime’s trying to talk back to Junko, she reveals he’s the one who brought her to the program to begin with. Since he has no memory of it, she goes ahead and tells him that he’s the legendary Ultimate Hope, Kamukura Izuru. “You are Kamukura Izuru,” she makes everyone chant repeatedly, to get it through his head. So, the shutdown option that reverts everyone to their despaired state, would also make Hajime return to being Izuru. And his current self? The chant is then “disappear”, which gives him the answer to that.

Just as in the game, Hajime is paralyzed. Retreating within his mind, he monologues about how he can no longer choose between hope and despair, themselves or the world, just can’t choose a future. And in much the same conversation, Chiaki hears him out and reminds him that he is himself, that he’s acted undeniably as himself within the simulation and, most importantly, that life isn’t like a game where the 2 options given are all there is; that he can create any other options he wants, create his own path. “You’re not doing it for anyone, but for yourself,” she says, before giving him a hope fragment.

It’s with that mentality, that decision to create his own future, that Hinata returns and convinces the others to do the emergency shutdown. Trusting each other and what should be a new beginning instead of their end, they press both buttons together which begins the process.

The final scene is a perfect replica of the game’s, as far as I can tell. With the digital world falling apart around them, everyone prepares for what may come after, hoping they won’t forget each other and what they went through, a bit scared, but happy to be together and determined to carve out their future. 

With that, the stage play ends. Enjoy the outro!

I hope you’re able to have as much of a great time as I did watching the play. The actors truly awed me with how much life they breathed into their characters, and I strongly recommend watching the play more than once through, ‘cause you can always notice new details, other characters doing their own things in the background when the main spotlight wasn’t on them, characters slipping into poses that are so much like the game sprites, etc. The modifications were also brilliantly done to make things shorter without messing anything up, keeping the plot perfectly together; something admirable and, in my opinion, the work of a very skilled writer. The stage work was just unbelievably amazing to me too. Wanting to show all this, so that other people could appreciate how well done it was, is a large part of why I made this long-ass thing.

Have a cool time reliving the fantastic story that SDR2 was!

[imgoingtohellsofuckit]

Falling In Love Isn’t An Option

Hawks x Reader

Warning - Drinking but it’s of age

Summary - Hawks knows that he isn’t supposed to fall in love but when he does god he doesn’t want to let it go

Falling in love isn't something you should do when you've sold your soul into your career. Hawks knew this. He preached this to himself every time he met someone. Every girl who flirted with him. Every guy who held his hand just a beat too long. He knew it could never go anywhere. And for a while he was fine with this. A lot of heroes don't have families or wives. The career choice is extremely dangerous. Not only is his life at stake his partners is as well. Besides the commission would freak if he had a distraction from his work. So his rational side was okay with this. He was okay with this. Until he wasn't.

He met her on his birthday. He didn't have friends to celebrate with so he decided to just treat himself to a quick drink then head back home. A nice quick break to help himself relax. So he found the closet bar to his apartment then headed there. Once he got inside he saw the crowd of college kids. He couldn't help but groan at the fact that he's stuck in a college party bar. But upon a second look he could see these kids were the messy drunks he saw on TV. But rather they were pretty calm. Having a good time from what he can see. He decides to move towards the bar. Ordering his favorite drink then takes a seat while he waits.

"Hey Parker can i have a beer?"

Keigo boredly looks to the owner of the voice. His eyes widen as he spots the beautiful h/c haired girl.

"You okay dude?" She asks him.

"Yeah," He says looking back to one of the bartenders working on his drink.

"I haven't seen you around here before," She says, "you go to school around here?"

Hawks was a little taken back. She didn't know who he was? No way. She's playing dumb isn't she. He's the number two hero of course she knows who he is.

"Funny."

"What?" She asks, "too good to answer my question?"

"Oh come on does it really need a answer?" He asks snarkily. She rolls her eyes as the bartender she called Parker hands her a beer.

"Sure it does," She says, "why would I ask a useless question? I'm sure you have better things to do."

"Hmm not really," he says, "no I don't go to school. I have a job and I live in the area."

"Fun," She says, "well what brings you here to drink alone?"

"It's my birthday," He admits, "the big 23."

"Yeah like that blink 182 song," She says smirking lightly, "'nobody likes you when your 23'"

"Plenty people like me," He says at once.

"Yeah that why you're drinking alone on your birthday?"

He chuckles. Man a girl with a fun sense of humor and she's pretty. His hearts practically racing.

"Funny," he says back. She smiles. God does she have a beautiful smile.

"I like to think I am," She says, "can I drink with you? I don't think anyone should be along on their birthday. Even if they have an attitude."

"Be my guest," He says with a sly smirk, "but don't expect me to buy you a drink."

"Nah Mr. Birthday man I'll buy you a drink," She says. The other bartender the one who isn't Parker finally hands Hawks his drink. She smiles looking at the Bartender. "Kei put it on my bill."

"Sure," Kei replies, "I'll get right to it."

"I've got the money to pay for my own drinks-"

"And I don't care," She says, "happy birthday- Huh you never told me your name."

"You never asked."

"I guess I didn't," She says looking at her bottle, "so what's your name?"

He thinks for a second. Wondering if he should just tell her. Give her the hero name and burst the whole who's a hero thing or maybe he'd just tell her his real name.

'No' He thinks to himself. 'Thats a terrible idea.'

It is. I mean he doesn't tell anyone his name. It's supposed to be a secret. He shouldn't even think about this.

"Hawks," He says cockily.

"Nice name," She says, "I'm Y/n."

"You've really never heard of me before have you?" Hawks finally asks. She raises a brow clearly confused.

"Am I supposed to know you?" She asks, "are you like famous?"

"I'm a hero ya know," He tells me, "you really don't recognize me?"

She looks at him carefully. As if she's trying to figure it out. Then finally shrugs.

"I'm not big on heroes," She admits, "don't know a lot of them. Is it bothering you that I don't recognize you?"

"A little," He admits, "but it's kinda nice you know? To feel normal." She smirks.

"Yeah I get it," She says, "I'm glad I can help you feel normal."

Hawks smirks lightly. She lifts her drink taking a deep sip.

"So you come alone?" He asks, "isn't that a little sad?"

"I came with some friends," She admits, "but you seemed interesting so I decided to come over to you. Ya know?"

"interesting?"

"Cute," She admits, "someone different. This bar doesn't have that many fresh faces and well my friends are nice but you were way to cute to ignore."

"I'm cute," He says, "Well that isn't new to hear but nice coming from a cutie like you."

She smirks lightly.

"Listen I have to get back to my friends so they don't think I went missing you wanna come with?" She asks.

"Nah I've got to get home," He says.

"Well then before you leave at least le me give you my number," She says. He smiles as she moves scribbling it down on a napkin.

555 5854 - The cutie from the barn

Hawks was more than excited. So much so almost all his attention was on texting the girl. During his down time, when he had slow patrols. He was more than distracted. He didn't even need to see the girl to have her on his mind non stop. Her pretty hair, her smooth skin, her sweet voice, the way she was so confident in talking to him. And it all carried over in messages. She was just so great. So when she asked him over to her house for a movie date he couldn't refuse. I mean an amazing girl was inviting him over. He was breaking his rules. But he hasn't broken all of them yet.

"I'll be there."

He's never left his house so fast.

He held a bouquet of flowers in his hand as he knocks on the door. Once she opens it she smiles brightly at the man.

"Hawks you made it," She says happily, "oh are these for me?"

"Yeah- do people still do that on dates?"

"The people who will definitely get a second date," She says with a wink. She takes the flowers and invites him in. His eyes skin around her living room. It's nice. Neat but lived in.

"Nice place you have here," Hawks says as he moves to sit on her couch. She moves to the kitchen sitting the flowers.

"Thanks," She replies. He sneaks a glance at her moving to the fridge. When she pulls away from it she's holding to beers. Then moves to his side.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" He asks slyly.

"Whatever gets you in my bed tonight," She says with a smirk.

"Oh you're bold," He says matching her smirk, "keep that up and you'll have me in your bed."

Things were going great with them. One date became two, became three. They were having a great time. They knew everything about each other and they loved everything about the other. After his hero work he'd come over to her house to unwind. She'd make everything worthwhile and he'd help her have fun after her boring hours of school work. They loved each other. Hawks broke all his rules but it didn't matter cause he had her.

Until- a little villain talked to much. He was fighting them. Trying to take them out quickly. He almost had them down.

"That girl Y/n! I'd hate to see something bad happen to her," The villain mocks. His eyes widen at the mention of her name. They were so careful. He was so careful to make sure she was out of the public eye. He did everything to make sure she was safe. Now how the hell did they know the name of his girl.

"Don't say her name," Hawks growls. The villain smirks.

"So she really is your weak spot," The villain says. Hawks doesn't even get them a second chance. Suddenly one of his feathers shoots the villain taking him out for good.

One of the other heroes move to clear up the scene. The cops helping cleaning up the rest. Hawks couldn't help but feel angry. Angry at the villains. Angry at himself for letting someone close to him be put in this danger. This is why he has rules! Rules keep them safe. Not only himself but the people he cares about.

"Hawks?" She asks softly. She looked so worried. He could see why. His normal fun expression was gone and replaced with the a mixed look of anger. "Babe you okay?"

"We're done," He says firmly. Her eyes widen.

"What?" She asks at once, "what do you mean we're done?"

"I mean that this little game we've been playing is over okay I'm done," He says harshly.

"Game? This isn't a game I love you," She says, "and you love me-"

"No I don't," He says harshly. He could see her body tense and tears start to well in her eyes. The look hit him to his core. Nothing hurts more than seeing her like this. He was destroying her. But he needs to keep her safe. If walking away from her keeps her alive then it's what he has to do.

"What do you mean?" She asks harshly, "Hawks come on just talk to me!"

"No I'm done talking," Hawks says, "it's over."

He didn't give her a chance to say anything else. He left and didn't come back. He went on with his life. Forcing himself to focus himself on his work. But he couldn't forget her. 1 year went by, then the next, and the next, then another and he'd still sit up at night wondering what he let slip through his fingers. For a while he left it alone. He kept his eyes focused on his career. But one night his lonely thoughts got way too loud. So he looked her up.

"How has she gotten prettier?" He asks softly. His eyes scan across her profile picture on the social media site. She's standing on a beach with a huge smile. She used to go on about how one day she wanted to go to a beach on a nice long vacation. She made him promise her that one day he'd take her. Before they broke up he was planning to take her to a private beach so they could have a great week together. He clicks off the profile picture and scrolls down to see her education tab.

"Graduated."

So she finished school. And from the looks of it she's got a new job. One that she wanted after school. She's successful. And she looks happy. God she's happy. Even after all this she's happy. She deserves it but- man he can't help but wish she there was a hint of her needing him. But he knows it doesn't matter. His life is too dangerous to have someone in it.

He sighs scrolling down her page. The first couple are pictures of her friends. Wine glasses at a fancy dinner, brunches. Living a life so calm and happy. Then he see's a picture that takes him by surprise.

'Happy Birthday Ren!'

In the picture is Y/n holding a toddler. They both are smiling as a cake sits in front of them.

She has a family. A kid at least- oh god is she married? Did she move on? He moves scrolling through her page looking for some guy any guy that could be her boyfriend or her husband. A wedding picture or something. He see's a picture of her with one of her guy friends he met. His hand's around her waist keeping a tight grip on her as he pecks her cheek. So he's it. She moved on. God she did. He wanted to be okay with it. God he really did. But he loves her and he wants to be with her.

He clicks on the guys profile. Guess it's not him after all. He's married not to her but to some foreigner named Lucy. But then who's the baby daddy? He goes back to her profile. Clicking the picture of her and her son. He's cute. He has her eyes but messy sandy blonde hair. The cakes candle has a 3 on it. So he was born not too long after he left.

"Oh god," Hawks says softly, "oh god. It can't be. She's not. It's not- I have to call her."

He tried. But the call kept going to voicemail. And there is no way to say "Hey am I your kid's father?" over a voicemail. Well theres another way to do it. Find her. It took two days and a lot of internet stalking but once he found it he couldn't stop himself.

And before he knew it he was banging on the door to her house. After a couple minutes the door opens. However prepared he thought he was for this moment well that melted away the second he saw her.

"Y/n I-"

"Kei- Hawks what are you doing here?" She asks.

"I- uh- well uh," He stutters over his words. Not a single thing is going through his mind other than her. Her soft hair her sweet voice. Beautiful she's just so beautiful.

"Whats going on? Are you okay?" She asks.

She's asking about him? Of course she was. She's so sweet.

"I'm fine," Hawks manage to say, "I just need to know something-"

"Mommy!"

She sighs looking back into her apartment. Hawks moves peaking inside the house to see the small toddler he saw online sitting in the living room.  The toddler is starting to lose it. She look back to the door.

"Listen Hawks it's not a good time," She says obviously a little exhausted, "can whatever this is happen later?"

"I just wanna talk-"

Suddenly the toddler is screaming. She moves away from the door to scoop him up in her arms. Before the door slams Hawks catches it.

"Ren baby come on," She says rocking him. He starts to relax. Hawks watches her softly. Melting at the idea of her as a mother. "Hawks I really can't right now-"

"So you  have a kid," He says softly.

"Yeah," She says calming the toddler down, "I do."

"You're life really changed huh?"

"Yeah well when you left a lot changed," She says softly, "why are you here?"

"Who's kid?" He asks her. She scoffs.

"Does it matter?"

"I just wanna know," Hawks says softly, "i need to know if it's mine."

"If he's," She says harshly, "why? You wanna be involved? You wanna pay child support? You wanna be there?"

"Are you mad cause I left you?" he asks softly.

"No Hawks I'm over it," She says harshly, "I made because you think you're entitled to things you aren't."

"I should be able to know if the kids mine or not!" He says harshly, "I feel like I deserve to know!"

"I invited you to his birth Keigo!" she screams, "you we're going to see you're sun's birth and you missed it. You choose that."

"You didn't invite me?"

"Yeah I did I texted you and you told me you weren't going," She says harshly, "you said that you wanted proof it was yours before you'd do anything. You wouldn't believe me. So I wasn't gonna fight to make you."

"I never got that message and I never replied-" His eyes widened. The Commission. God dammit. "Y/n you got stuck in this stupid thing this the commission does with it controlling me. Which includes dicking me over. Just- fuck Y/n I wish I knew about him." Hawks look over the toddler smiling lightly. "He's a cute kid. And he's got an amazing mom."

"Thanks," She smiles, "if it makes you feel any better- he's got your wings." He chuckles looking at the small red wings. "I'm sorry I was so made I just- when I got the message from you after everything else I was so mad."

"No you have a right to be mad," He assures her, "I'm sorry. You guys both deserve so much better than a half rate hero."

"Shut up," She says, "you idiot." He chuckles. "Wanna meet your son?"

"More than anything else," Hawks says softly. She moves handing the toddler over to him. As he looks at the baby he moves tearing up. "He's amazing."

"He really is isn't he."

"Yeah he is."

[ryttu3k]

Working out this little coterie! (Bloodlines and Night Road protags, plus a handful of others.) Present-day (we’ll call it 2021, for the sake of dates) San Francisco. Subject to change, probably!

Sierra Torres

Gangrel. Embraced 2004, apparent age 23, current age 40. Unknown sire.

Bloodlines protagonist. Had a rough upbringing, ended up in the foster system with her older brother. One of her longer-term foster homes got her interested in the environment, and as she grew older, she got heavily into environmental activism (and has definitely chained herself to at least one bulldozer). Went to college to study ecology, but found she wasn’t the most studious and ended up dropping out, drifting around LA and working odd jobs.

Was Embraced by a guy she met at a protest against logging (at night, obviously), and, well, plot happened. (Much to her irritation. She’s mostly gay, teeny bit bicurious, but damn the one time she hooks up with a guy...)

Definitely clicked more with Jack than LaCroix during the events at the theatre, and as soon as she could meet with the Anarchs, she jumped in with both feet. Would lowkey die for both Beckett and Nines and has decided they’re both her dads (Jack is Favourite Weird Uncle).

Post-game, she stayed in LA with the Anarchs until all that business with Tara Kearney and Vannevar Thomas made it a bit uncomfortable. Growing tired of the politics, she (and Wren, who she’s known since the Ankaran Sarcophagus event) left for San Francisco, although she’s still in contact with and on good terms with the LA Anarchs, still does the odd mission for them, and will meet with the SF Anarchs on their behalf.

Leader of the coterie. Dating Wren.

Elijah ‘Pyre’ Carter

Banu Haqim. Embraced 1999, apparent age 19, current age 41. Sire: Julian Sim.

Night Road protagonist. The Good End version of Night Road where Pyre realised that, hey, Julian’s plans are really fucked up and ended up bailing on Julian, running off to SF with his boyfriend Raúl (who also isn’t a ghoul), also known as the AU where Pyre isn’t a complete disaster.

Originally from Syracuse. Was in college, dropped out, worked three jobs to pay off his whopping amounts of debt, was deliberately targeted by Julian. Worked (and was romantically involved) with Julian for nearly a decade before Julian manipulated him into diablerising Aila; shortly after, Julian disappeared. Pyre spent ten years on the road working as a courier until the events of the game in November and December 2019, where he was instantly drawn back to Julian’s side, fighting between his loyalty to his sire and his own sense of ethics.

Raúl helps become his moral backbone, and they work together (without Raúl being ghouled). After absorbing - and making use of - the 2100 formula, he apologises to Lettow and tells Julian that he can’t work with him, and he and Raúl leave for San Francisco, meeting Sierra there.

While he’s the eldest of the coterie (both in actual chronological age and in how long he’s been a vampire), he has no desire to lead, and is happy to leave that to Sierra. Has depression.

Raúl Cañedo

Brujah. Embraced 2020, apparent age 26, current age, uh, 27. Sire: Nines Rodriguez.

Night Road supporting character. As per canon, he grew up in Mexico City. After his father’s death and the arrest of his mother’s companion Antonio, he, his mother, and several family members crossed the border. Raúl was the only one to survive. While trying to help other family members across, he ran across Pyre, later encountering him again at Camp Scheffler.

Unlike in-game, when Pyre said he wasn’t comfortable making him into a ghoul, he accepted it, and they continued to work together hunting the true monsters as-is, gradually falling for each other over the events of the game and leaving together for San Francisco.

After being badly injured in an attempt to save people from a remnant Sabbat group, he asked Pyre to Embrace him. Pyre was reluctant to do so himself, and eventually Sierra suggested that he would make a pretty ideal Brujah. With the coterie travelling down to LA together, they met with Nines, who agreed to Embrace him. Now, Raúl is still happily involved with Pyre, still trying to fight against the real monsters, working through his PTSD, and learning what it is to be Kindred.

Briar

Toreador. Embraced 2011, apparent age 22, current age 32. Sire: D'Espine.

Originally from Dallas, Briar was an autistic, nonbinary arts student on the verge of dropping out when they caught the eye of D’Espine, who offered them the position of model and dancer at her club. Bonus points - for the relatively low price of becoming one of her ghouls, they’d also be able to be shaped into the perfect picture of androgyny they always wanted to be (along with the help of the Tzimisce Ana). While the life was sometimes difficult, they enjoyed the opportunity to explore fashion, music, and beauty, and eventually agreed to be Embraced.

For a few years, it wasn’t a bad life. Plenty of creative stimulation, with Briar able to get involved in fashion design and having plenty of beautiful things to stimulate their mind. Those nights came to an end with the Second Inquisition attacked Dallas in 2019, which set Briar’s anxiety off in a bad way; D’Espine encouraged many of her childer and ghouls to relocate for safer environments, and Briar (along with Ana, who, by now, was a friend) fled to San Francisco. There, they met Sierra and eventually the others, and is now enjoying the quiet security of being part of a coterie.

Brianna 'Wren' Metcalfe

Nosferatu. Embraced 2002, apparent age... hard to tell but she was 18 when she was Embraced, current age 37. Sire: Mitnick.

Wren has a surprisingly common story amongst Nosferatu - a geek and hacker (and, let’s be real, a bit of a weeaboo), she had stumbled her way across SchreckNet, was amazed at the world she had discovered, and was promptly dealt with. Namely, they sent Mitnick (who had previously done exactly that) out to her, who explained what she had found, and her options were either becoming a hideous undead sewer-dwelling creature of the night, or death.

Wren was sufficiently geeky enough to go, “Well fuck, I’m not exactly pretty or popular as-is, I can stay online, and I get neat powers. Let’s go for it!” and happily agreed to the Embrace. It was pretty cool - for a couple of years, when, shortly after the Ankaran Sarcophagus incident, the NSA breached SchreckNet and really got the Second Inquisition ball rolling.

Diving right into playing information security games against the NSA and FIRSTLIGHT, Wren worked on keeping the few remaining Kindred information systems relatively secure, right up until the 2009 information blackout. Deeply put out by the sudden lack of freedom, Wren approached Sierra, the Anarch neonate who had helped her sire out five years earlier, joining their movement and working on encryption and message-passing right under the noses of the SI (and, cautiously, starting a relationship with the Gangrel). When Sierra relocated to San Francisco, Wren followed, and now works on keeping the coterie secure and protected from the SI.

Occasional singing partner of Mort Sheaffer and preeminent provider of pirated media amongst San Francisco’s Kindred. Dating Sierra. Autistic and ADHD.

Ana

Tzimisce. Embraced 2007 at 16 but uses vicissitude to look older, current age 30. Unknown sire.

Ana’s background is relatively typical, albeit unhappy. A closeted trans girl, she went to school, dated girls, played sports, and generally play-acted the part of a ‘typical’ teenage boy, longing for graduation (when she could move away and start over).

Things went rather badly wrong when she was sixteen. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time during a Sabbat War Party, she was Embraced and promptly knocked unconscious and buried alive (or, well, unalive). When the terrified and traumatised Ana finally dug herself out along with the rest of her follow ‘shovelheads’, she was crudely inducted into the Sabbat and sent on a hunt to track down a target she had never heard of, one of the disposable shock troops made especially for her elders to use as they wished.

She was one of the lucky ones. While her humanity had taken a beating during her Embrace, she was more scared than bloodthirsty, fled, and hid herself amongst the alleys and sewers, and had the exceedingly good fortune to stumble into a group of high-humanity Kindred who immediately recognised what she had gone through. They helped her, slowly and painstakingly, regain her humanity, and when they recognised the clan she had been Embraced into, even found an independent Tzimisce mentor to help her begin to learn to combine Protean and Dominate into Vicissitude.

The first person she used vicissitude on was herself, and while her ‘base’ appearance is usually the same (of a pretty young woman in her early twenties), she does delight in odd modifications or changes. While the discipline has a bad reputation as being used for pain, she uses it to help people, and by the early 2010s she had a reputation for helping people transition or modify their appearances in general. Working with D’Espine and her ghouls, she met and befriended Briar, and when the SI attack hit Dallas, the two fled to San Francisco together. While Ana’s PTSD still rears its ugly head, the security of her new coterie and the sibling-like relationship she has with Briar is helping her heal.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am. 

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted. 

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother. 

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren) 

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed). 

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I���m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be. 

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :( 

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t. 

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

[kpopfanfictrash]

Greek Life

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Taehyung / Reader

Word Count: 3,218

AU: Demigod / College Fraternity

Dialogue Prompt: "Are you suggesting an orgy?” (warning: this got a bit darker than intended but there’s light at the end!)

↳ part of my AU drabble game

“Alright.” Both arms crossed over his chest, Seokjin glared at Hoseok, son of Apollo. “I just want to be clear about one thing tonight.”

Without glancing up from his phone, Hoseok pushed dark Gucci sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, brother?”

“Not brothers,” Seokjin corrected. “Anyways, this is me reminding you that your set volume cannot be over 100 decibels tonight. If we get another noise complaint, this house is toast.”

If Hoseok did roll his eyes, Seokjin couldn’t see through the sunglasses. The generally dismissive slouch of his posture was answer enough.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Hoseok drawled.

Seokjin’s frown deepened. “Yeah, I’m afraid I’m gonna need more than that. The last time you said you’d keep it down, we hit 125 decibels and the house nearly collapsed.”

“A gross exaggeration,” said Yoongi, son of Hades, currently curled up on the sofa. “As the demi-god of earthquakes –”

“Actually, Poseidon is in charge of earthquakes.”

“– seeing as we have no son of Poseidon in this house, I am demi-god of earthquakes, and I can inform you that the house was not close to falling down.”

“Irregardless,” Seokjin said.

“Irregardless isn’t a word!” 

Namjoon’s voice drifted from somewhere on the third floor. As son of Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy, Namjoon took grave offense to grammatical errors.

Seokjin sighed. Rubbing his forehead, he contemplated whether his continued attempts at decency were worth it. At least if he tried, he could tell himself he did everything he could to stop chaos before it arrived. Decision made, Seokjin fixed Hoseok with his best no-nonsense glare. It was a good one, to be sure. As the son of Demeter, goddess of harvest and earth, Seokjin was the most grounded one in the fraternity.

“Hoseok,” he said. The younger demi-god looked up. “You will keep it down or I’ll personally call your father.”

The smirk disappeared from Jung Hoseok’s face. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, but I would.”

Seokjin sounded so stern, Hoseok didn’t feel like calling him out. Despite his cooler-than-thou appearance, Hoseok had major daddy issues – as in, he hated his. Apollo was a difficult guy to be be cuddly with, to be fair. On the surface, he seemed everything a father figure should be: personable, warm and awe-inspiring. Apollo was the god of the sun, healing, prophecy, music and poetry. As one might expect from the god of the sun though, he had rather high expectations for his offspring.

Hoseok didn’t care about greatness, so long as he had a good tune and good times. One time, he semi-jokingly proposed to Apollo that he become the demi-god of DJ’s and sick beats. Apollo wasn’t amused by the suggestion.

“Fine.” Hoseok placed both feet on the floor. “Dearest Seokjin, I will try to keep it down but know this,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. “You have ruined the soul of an artist.”

Seokjin tried not to laugh. “Yeah, cool. I’ll take my chances.”

Turning around, Seokjin exited the living room into the main hall. There, he found himself face to face with what could only be described as chaos. Taehyung, son of Dionysus, absently twined grape vines up the stairs while Jimin, son of Aphrodite and Jungkook, son of Zeus, argued in front of the door.

Taehyung cocked his head while he stared at the bannister, trying to make sense of it all. As the son of Dionysus – god of wine, fertility and ecstasy – he was not unaccustomed to parties. Even his origin story at the frat involved one. When the other men showed up this year for their first day of campus, they found Taehyung entrenched in their backyard, midway through the biggest beach rager the University had ever seen.

As to his method of arrival and when, even Taehyung was not sure on the details. General merriment seemed to follow him wherever he went. The moment he decided to attend University, obviously the party followed him to his new destination.

Regardless, Taehyung was welcomed into Beta Tau Sigma (BTS) with open arms, due to the similarities he had with its other members. Taehyung was descended from a god of the Greek Pantheon, as they all were. Most mortals were shocked to learn gods and demi-gods still walked amongst them. Most mortals were blind, though and rarely saw what was beyond their noses.

Taehyung looked up, surveying the chaos before him. Kim Seokjin, eldest of the house, usually adopted a parental role to the others. At that moment, he had both hands on his hips and was attempting to mediate a fight between Jimin and Jungkook.

Already, sparks leapt from Jungkook’s fingers while Jimin’s gaze burned ruby-red with his anger.

Jimin, son of Aphrodite. 

Sweet and beautiful, with a temperament to match until you spoke ill of his loved ones. Then, all bets were off and as lovely as Jimin could be, his temper was far worse. Sweet words turned poisonous when spewed from his lips, since Jimin was also armed with the gift of persuasion. Jungkook attempted to avoid said power by not looking Jimin in the eyes.

“Look!” Jungkook said, one hand over his face. “I didn’t say your mother was easy! I just said she has a lot of demi-god children. That’s all!”

“She’s the goddess of love,” Jimin hissed, attempting to swat Jungkook’s hand down. His gaze burned scarlet in an otherwise calm expression. “Obviously she has children! You’re one to talk, anyways. How’s good ‘ol dad doing? Impregnated any mortals recently? Turned himself into a ray of light? A cow?”

“Hey! He turned Io into a cow, not himself!”

“How is that better?”

Shrugging, Jungkook nearly stumbled as he crashed into an a thousand-year-old lamp. 

Appearing from nowhere, Yoongi deftly caught this and replaced it on the counter. “Welcome,” he mumbled, drifting into the kitchen.

For a minute, Jimin and Jungkook forgot their fight and stared. 

“Dude needs to announce himself more,” Jungkook said, momentarily thrown.

Shoving both hands into the pockets of his hoodie, Jungkook revealed a small rip in the seams. Despite his grunge, Jungkook was still one of the most handsome guys around campus. It was hard not to be with his chiseled jawline, tousled hair and dark, piercing gaze. If there were a student vote on who was most likely to be a demi-god amongst them, Jeon Jungkook would be the unanimous favorite.

Still, he had problems of his own. Mainly that despite all his achievements, his father continued to insist he failed to meet expectations. A demigod of Zeus was powerful and as such, was expected to accomplish great feats. So far, Jungkook had only been the youngest person ever to climb Mt. Everest, written a collection of poems reviewed in Time Magazine, discovered a purpose for the appendix not previously thought of and contributed several designs to NASA’s most recent launch.

Zeus called it all child’s play. 

Shortly following, Jungkook stopped trying to impress his father and enrolled in University. Still, it wasn’t unusual to run into Jungkook at odd hours of the night, muttering corrections of Machiavellian theory with a bottle of wine in one hand.

All of this went to say that Taehyung understood why Jungkook was sometimes an ass. Jimin was lucky amongst them, as far as demi-gods went. He had intense, emotional power but he also had a goddess who loved him. Taehyung, on the other hand, had rarely seen his father since he had discovered what he truly was. It was hard having a father in charge of general celebration. It meant Dionysus was often called elsewhere, usually interrupting any father-son bonding time.

“Listen.” Seokjin rubbed his forehead. “You two are giving me an Athena-sized headache. Stop bickering and help Taehyung – his vines are out of control.”

Glancing at his hands, Taehyung realized Seokjin was correct. While he had been watching them argue, his vines had taken on a life of their own. They twined around his legs, the banister and sprouted large clusters of pomegranates (which, frankly, didn’t make any sense). Absently, Taehyung plucked one of them and took a large bite. Lately, he’d been very interested in pomegranates.

Clomping his way downstairs, Namjoon batted vines out of the way. “Are you going to clean this up before tonight?” he said to Taehyung, who nodded. To Seokjin, he added, “And watch what you say about my mother.”

“I was being literal!” Seokjin protested. “Your mom was literally born from Zeus’ mind, so obviously her birth was a headache. I don’t make the rules –”

“Thank the gods for that.”

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

This last statement was exclaimed by Jimin, Seokjin and Namjoon combined. Abruptly, Jungkook turned around on his heel and exited the lobby. Once he was gone, some of the red dissipated from Jimin’s gaze.

He looked sympathetically at Taehyung. “Need help cleaning?” Jimin offered, laying a hand on the bannister. 

His touch instantly trimmed the vines, sending blossoming roses over the rest.

Taehyung wrinkled his nose. “This looks… somehow worse.”

“Sorry, man.” Jimin’s lips twitched. “My botanical powers only go so far.”

With a wave of his hand, Seokjin transformed the mess into neat, tidy rows of vines up the staircase. As the son of Demeter, he had the best grasp over all earthly elements.

“There.” Satisfied, Seokjin dusted both palms on his pants. He looked curiously at Taehyung. “You alright, man? Lately, your powers have been, uh…”

It was considered impolite to comment on another demi-god’s powers; hence why Seokjin trailed off at the end. 

Taehyung tilted his head. “They’ve been what, exactly?”

Seokjin seemed distinctly uncomfortable. “Off?”

“On the fritz,” said Jimin helpfully.

“Borderline chaotic,” Namjoon added.

Taehyung considered their input. “Borderline chaotic is kind of my nature, no?”

“Yes, but…” Namjoon shook his head. “Not like this.”

Chewing on his lip, Taehyung was forced to admit they were right. His powers had always been intense, but they were usually controlled. Despite the influence he exerted over others, Taehyung could never party or grow drunk on his own power. In his opinion, this was his great curse. No matter what Taehyung did, he always found himself the eye of the hurricane, the center of the storm. He could never lose himself in the relief he provided to others; could only watch while they did.

Lately though, his powers had changed. They were darker, less controlled and had a frustrated edge. Glancing down at the pomegranate he held in one hand, Taehyung saw the seeds were an ominous shade of dark purple.

“It’s because of Y/N,” Jungkook said as he entered the room.

Taehyung’s head snapped up.

Leaning his shoulder to the wall, Jungkook stared lazily back. Power crackled restlessly about him like thunder. 

“What?” He arched a brow. “You know I’m right.”

Though Taehyung’s lips parted, he had no response because Jungkook was correct. If Taehyung retraced his magic to the moment it changed, it was around the time he met you. Or, more accurately, it was around the time you rejected him. 

Taehyung’s stomach twisted.

“Who’s Y/N?” Namjoon asked, glancing between them.

Taehyung tried and failed to look casual. “No one.”

He could barely push the words past his lips, which prompted Namjoon to arch a brow. “Doesn’t seem like no one.”

“She is,” Taehyung muttered. “She wants nothing to do with me – rightfully so. Which means that she’s no one.”

“That seems harsh, Tae,” Seokjin chastised. “How do you know?”

His gaze softened looking at Taehyung. Taehyung was the youngest amongst them aside from Jungkook, so the other demi-gods felt the need to protect him. No one else thought to, thanks to Taehyung’s abilities but in him, the others saw their younger selves. His powers drained him so often and left him feeling exhausted from their personal nature.

When Taehyung said nothing more, Jungkook sighed. “Just the usual,” he said, a bit gentler. “The same girl came to a few of our parties. Taehyung liked her. His powers got out of control. When she tried to kiss him, he pulled his powers away and she freaked. Ran out of the party before he could explain.”

“What would I explain?” Taehyung said, unable to help himself. The vines at his feet withered and turned an unnatural shade of black. “Hey, sorry about that! I’m just the demi-god of parties and wine. You got too buzzed on my power, so I tried to pull back and return your free will. Wanna hang?”

Even Namjoon had no response, rubbing the back of his neck. “Or,” he suggested. “You could just apologize about the party and offer to buy her a coffee.”

Taehyung looked up. “That’s just a temporary fix, right? Eventually, I’ll have to tell her and – let’s face it – who would stay? I’ve seen what these powers do to my dad. I’ve seen what they did to his other children. It’s pointless to become attached to a mortal.”

Out of all Dionysus’s children, Taehyung was the only one currently living. Most had been famous throughout history – musicians and actors known more for their parties than the talent they had. Many died young, unable to cope with the effects of their powers. Taehyung knew it was smart to push you away, since he couldn’t control himself and his powers often proved lethal.

Still, a pang entered his stomach whenever he thought of you. Whenever he remembered the shape of your lips, the way that you smiled and the uncertain way your fingers curled in your sundress. You laughed in two ways when you talked. One was a quiet, self-conscious giggle, but other was Taehyung’s favorite. It was more of a snort than a laugh, granted whenever Taehyung said something particularly funny.

The memory of this made Taehyung’s heart twist and he swallowed, looking away from the others.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jimin seemed distressed by his pain. He probably was; oftentimes, Jimin confused other people’s emotions for his own.

“I’m sorry, Tae,” he said softly.

“S’alright,” Taehyung muttered, even though it wasn’t.

“Can I do anything to help?” Jimin brightened. “Want me to use my powers, or something?”

Jungkook looked at him in amazement. “Are you suggesting an orgy? Dude, this hardly seems like the time.”

Jimin glared. “That’s not all my powers are good for, you jackass. I can make people forget their troubles, you know. At least for a little while.”

The tips of his fingers glowed faintly pink and Jungkook glanced at his hands, thoroughly unnerved. Jimin’s power of persuasion extended beyond simply telling others what to do. He could make someone else feel happy, sad, tired or angry – a hefty power, although it wore off after awhile and wasn’t quite as good as the real thing.

Taehyung shook his head. “No, thanks. Appreciate the offer, though.”

“Anytime.”

As he climbed the stairs, Seokjin clapped Taehyung on the shoulder. “Sorry, man,” he mumbled, understanding the fear. Truly, they all did. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m gonna bake later if you wanna stop by.”

Taehyung smiled despite himself. If there was one earthly power which could cure his longing, it was Seokjin’s cookies. “Thanks, man.”

Shooting him a sympathetic look, Jungkook nodded and Jimin poked him hard in the ribs. “C’mon,” Jimin said, jerking his chin. “Let’s go help Hobi with his playlist before Seokjin pops a vein worrying.”

A giant grin stretched over Jungkook’s face, which the rest of them should have found worrisome. 

“Cool.” Head bobbing, he followed Jimin down the hall. “Yoongi showed me this great eastern European doom metal band. Gonna see if I can get Hobi to play it tonight.”

Jimin snorted, his voice growing softer the further away he got. “Get the demi-god of the sun to play doom metal? Good luck with that, man.”

“Maybe if I tell him Mariah Carey covered it.”

The sounds of their conversation faded to nothing, leaving Taehyung alone in the hall with Namjoon. Turning quickly, Taehyung attempted to leave but was halted in his descent by Namjoon clearing his throat. 

Slowly, Taehyung looked up at his friend.

Namjoon looked back. 

No one could stare quite like Namjoon. He had a piercing gaze, as though he saw every piece of your soul and was able to size you up to expectation. It made Taehyung wildly uncomfortable, as it did most people.

“You know you’re only a half god, right?” Namjoon tilted his head. “Part of you is also human.”

“I know.” Taehyung’s voice came out somewhat petulant, though he did not mean it to be.

Crossing both arms, Namjoon leaned a shoulder against the wall. His irises glowed the gentle gold of Athena. “It’s hard to control our powers,” he admitted. “It is, but there are difficulties in any relationship. Don’t give up on your own happiness.”

A wan smile crossed Taehyung’s lips. “Are the difficulties in most relationships that the guy semi-drugs his girlfriend whenever he loses control?”

Namjoon winced. “You don’t drug them.”

“Feels like it,” Taehyung muttered, glancing down.

“Their natural impulses are already there,” Namjoon pointed out. “Your presence at parties doesn’t make people drunk. People drinking makes people drunk. You only lower their inhibitions, call out their truth, give people the freedom inebriation gives without intoxication. You grant people their truest form – which is a gift, not a curse.”

Taehyung didn’t respond. He knew Namjoon was right, at least in part. Still, there existed within him a kernel of darkness he couldn’t control. His power was linked to such horror and melancholy; it was hard sometimes to see the light.

“Hey.” Namjoon took a step closer. His voice took on that maddening wisdom which came from the goddess. “We all have burdens. Humans do too, along with demi-gods. Our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses. Someone who’s confident is prideful. Someone who’s humble? Inactive. Someone who rationalizes, often fails to empathize. It’s why relationships are necessary, Taehyung – they provide balance. You can’t simply close yourself off from the rest of the world.”

Taehyung’s gaze sharpened, looking up from the floor. The vines at his feet unfurled, reminding them that while Taehyung’s power was mostly parties and fun, there was a dark side of revelry which couldn’t be forgotten. Madness and misery emerged just as often as goodness when he called true selves forth.

“Okay.” Taehyung kept his voice level.

Seeing he wouldn’t budge on the matter, Namjoon sighed.

Truthfully, Taehyung heard his advice and longed to accept it, but found it too hard. It was difficult when his chest ached for you, when he couldn’t stop chastising himself for the moment you ran from his house.

Namjoon nodded and turned down the staircase. “Let me know if you need anything,” he called over his shoulder. “Gonna go and make sure Yoongi hasn’t turned the basement into another séance, or something.”

As he left, his footsteps growing quieter, Taehyung stared the sight of his retreating back. Uncertainty entered the pit of his stomach, wondering if perhaps Namjoon was right. The sanest to date Taehyung had felt was the past year in the house, living amongst others who understood what he was.

Maybe it was foolish of him to push you away.

As soon as he thought this, his phone chimed in his pocket. The sight of your name at the top of his screen sent his heart soaring, wondering if this coincidence was something he couldn’t ignore. Pushing blue-black hair from his eyes, he unlocked your text.

Y/N: hey. I just wanted to apologize for leaving so quickly. I think I drank too much, got carried away but… I really liked our conversation. Would you want to get coffee sometime? [4:15 PM]

Taehyung’s heart constricted, his hands trembled and before he could stop himself, he was responding.

Taehyung: yes, please. When?? [4:16 PM]

 Author’s Note: hey, I just got service at the hotel so I’m posting but I haven’t proof-read as much as I usually do! Please forgive any errors, I promise to read over it again in the coming days :) thank you!

↳ part of my AU drabble game

Greek Life!All + brainstorming fundraiser ideas for the frat

[vios-rockland-corner]

Life in Rockland 1

[Author’s note:  “Life in Rockland” is a creative writing project utilizing a specific OC in place of the MC for the “Rumors of Rockland” series.  I do not own any part of the Rockland universe, only my OC.  Fair warning, creative writing is not my forte.  This is a means of practice and a fun way to enjoy the content further].

Sasha Holmes is new to Rockland and just had quite an interesting day.

 Setting: After game events

Play: Rumors of Rockland- Article 1

[Spoilers below for RoR Article 1]

Sasha’s Choices:

[“Like the guy from Resident Evil?”]

[“Ah ha, what exactly do you have to do to look like you’re from around here?”]

[“Are you serious?”]

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

“I can’t believe you’re still not unpacked yet.  Hasn’t it been almost a week since you moved?”

The voice came from Sasha’s laptop.  She was busy multi-tasking while video-chatting with her best friend Pierce.  Well she could see his face IF she turned over from rummaging through boxes and laying out things on the floor.  Some might consider this rude, but Pierce just found it a little hilarious.

“Look it’s a lot of stuff okay?  Besides, I was busy this week going back and forth with work preparations and trying to get the layout of the place,” Sasha said with a huff, looking over her shoulder at the computer.

“Sounds like too much work. You should’ve just stayed home. What’s wrong with waiting a few more years before moving out?”

“Nothing.  Nothing’s wrong with it.  I just...”

“Wanted to break your best friend’s heart?” Pierce gives a very exaggerated pout.  Sasha turns around and smiles coyly.  She crawls over to the computer and lays in front of it, resting her chin on folded arms.

“No.  Even though you kind of deserve it sometimes.”

“I COULD always go easy on you in pool you now?  I don’t mind toning it down.  You’re not gonna beat me otherwise.”

“First off, I don’t want a pity play from you.  Second, you know damn well how close I got last game.”

“Yeah, only to hit the eight-ball into the complete opposite pocket you called. Gotta say, it was almost impressive how you hilariously made a masterful bounce into the wrong fucking pocket,” he grins, holding back his laughter.

“Well I mean that counts as skill doesn’t it?”

“Yeah like scoring a basketball shot for the other team.”

“Whatever, jerk.”

“But back on topic…”

“Okay yeah, look.  I love my hometown, my parents, and even your obnoxious butt.  But I just…didn’t want to get rooted.  I didn’t want to be living with my parents the whole time.  I didn’t want to know ONLY my home.”

“You worry too much.  The rest of the world’s not going to get up and leave if you take too long to hit the road Sasha.”

“I know that, but I wanted…a challenge.”

“A challenge?  You?  I thought you liked everything neat and controlled.  You want to throw things out of wack now?”

“Nothing elaborate.  Just a life challenge.  Take care of my own expenses and start from the ground up.  Meet people on my own and establish a career.”

“I feel like you’re letting your childhood slip away here.”

“Pierce, we’re not kids.”

“YOU sure as hell aren’t.  You always took freakin part-time jobs during college, and full-time jobs in the summer. I had to DRAG you out to the pub and parties for your own sanity.”

“Well moving and covering the cost of living is EXPENSIVE, Pierce.”

“Jesus, how much did you have saved up?”

“Enough so that I could get a place living by myself,” Sasha smiled proudly.

“Not that I don’t think that’s an impressive achievement girl, but I think I would have felt a little better if you had a roommate.  You’re out there by yourself I mean.”

“Look I worked hard for this, so I want my privacy.  I also didn’t really feel comfortable with finding a roommate way out here.”

“You didn’t pick your roommate in college either though.”

“Yeah, but that was our local college Pierce.  I had friends and family right nearby, so if things got weird I had help.  I’m a few hours away from all that now.”

“A ‘few hours’ you say.  It’s like, you’ve gone too short a distance to even warrant a move, and yet just far enough to making it a hassle with visits.”

“I disagree.  I think it’s the perfect distance.  I wanted to be able to visit home, but I didn’t want the temptation to go running home every chance I could get.  Not impossible to go home though.  The point here Pierce is for me to be ‘independent,’” she huffed.

“Whatever.” Pierce rolled his eyes.

“Say what you will, the deed is done.”

“So uh…Rockland.  Why?”

Sasha shrugged.  “No particular reason.  Just seemed like the best choice.  I looked at job advertisements for surrounding areas by distance, looked at their reviews and job pay and what kind of areas they were located at.  The job in Rockland was just better pay from my current job, and the place is small but still attracts tourists.  Means I don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed, but at the same time it SHOULD have just enough amenities and attractions to keep me entertained.”

“Oh?  Entertain yourself huh?  Last I checked that was my job.  Isn’t your idea of fun sitting at a café and going through files?” He smirked.

“Very funny.  Did you forget all the movies we’d watch together too?  I don’t need a buddy for that, and I’ll find other hobbies here. Maybe I’ll start running again.”

“Well good.  Not like you’re gonna get any excitement from your current job.  I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to push yourself to do something a little more interesting.”

“Thaaat’s what the hobbies are for Pierce.  The job is just for stability.”

“Could have added a little more drama to your life if you’d just decided to follow your namesake.”

“Pierce, literally no one in my family has ever been a detective.  DESPITE our last name.  It’s just a random name picked by a random author for a character that became randomly popular.  It is not a go ahead to pursue a career in criminal justice.”

“Seriously, why has NO ONE in your family ever tried to be a detective?”

“Because it requires you to see a lot of messed up shit?  I think I’ll pass.  I mean…if it makes you feel better, I had a great uncle who was a PI.”

“Really?? What was that like!?” Pierce looked a little excited.

“Honestly?  From the stories I heard, he just got a lot of crazies paying him.  People paranoid about being stalked or just using him as a way to harass others.  Wasn’t exactly fun work.”

“Bummer,” he said in a dejected tone.  “Well, I guess if you’re in a place like Rockland, probably wouldn’t get much action anyway.”

“What makes you say that?  Haven’t you been here before?”

“Just SOUNDS plain to me.  LITERALLY makes me think of rocks.  Yeah I’ve been there.  But that was like, when I was a kid?  Just visiting.  Was never for long.  Uncle was there.”

“Right.  Younger you was probably also too busy running around and sticking his hands in the dirt to actually pay attention to what was around you.”

“Yeeeeep that sounds like me,” he smirked.

“Well, I don’t know if the place has changed since you were little or you literally just have zero awareness of what’s around you, but I wouldn’t EXACTLY call this place boring.  Not after today.”

“Oh?” Pierce leaned in, curious.  “I’m so sorry, what WAS your day like dear Sasha?”

“Well, I was…looking for a place for a regular hangout.  I found this one bar in the Town Central.  At least it felt a lot more welcoming than some of the clubs around here.  Most of the people in general seem friendly here…but they can tell I’m new.  Like…ALL of them can tell.  It’s a little nerve-racking.”

“Look if you didn’t want to want to stick out like a sore thumb, you should have moved to a city.  I told you that.  Much easier to blend in there.”

Sasha shook her head.  “No, I didn’t want to get overwhelmed like that.  The best city choices were too big.  Then I’d really feel lonely.  It’s not bad here, I just…have to be sure I make a good first impression is all.  I don’t…think they hate new people?”

“You JUST said they were friendly, didn’t you?”

“Yeah but…see the bartender…” Sasha shook her head again, “No, no you know what?  I think I was just getting jittery since it’s a new place.  Forget it.”

Pierce tilts his head. “What about the bartender?”

“He…OH!  His name,” she quickly recovered and laughed.  “His name is Whesker!”

“Like Resident Evil Whesker?” Pierce chuckled.

“EXACTLY LIKE RESIDENT EVIL WHESKER!  Dude even knew what that was!”

“SHIT FOR REAL?!  That’s actually pretty sick.  Points for the bartender.  What’d you order from him?”

“Nothing, actually.  Him and the other bartender had to do something out back.  Didn’t actually get to drink anything the whole time I was there.”

“Boo.  Points deducted.”

Sasha chuckled, “Well I mean they were busy.  I wasn’t really mad.  Kind of got distracted with this one guy having…a mental breakdown?”

“Woah.  Like, what do you mean?”

“I mean he was…really off kilter.  Not gonna lie, dude was kind of terrifying.  He kept cussing up a storm and saying he was gonna slit someone’s throat. He did SOMETHING awful.  Could not figure out for the life me what EXACTLY he did. He had a friend with him and I was certain this dude was going to punch him in the face or toss him across the room. He didn’t though.  He just…kinda…slumped down into a weeping mess. It was weird.  He said something about drinking.  I think the dude was an alcoholic.  It was kind of scary to watch.  At first I was kind of quivering from the raw temper he had.  Then…I felt a little empty.”  Sasha went a little quiet.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Pierce said in a reassuring tone.  “Dude was probably just drunk.  Lots of people probably get a little emotional when they’re drunk.  Met a ton of guys who say a lot of shit they don’t really mean when they’re wasted.  Did he go near you?”  Pierce looked a little concerned.

“Oh no, no I didn’t get caught up in any of that.  His friend I guess took him to some place to cool off.  The alcoholic kept saying something about disappointing someone for…whatever he did.”

“That’s good.  If you were to guess what he did though, what would you say?”

Sasha shrugged.  “Maybe he got in a fight?  Broke someone’s nose?  Or maybe he’s got a gambling problem?”

“Yeah.  Could be those.  He could also literally have just spent all his paycheck on booze, and now he’s gotta figure out what to do for rent.  I’ve seen that a few times.  Whatever the case, just…keep your distance Sasha.  Dude was probably just being overly emotional, but I suggest you stay away from wildcards like that you know?”

“Oh yeah don’t worry.  I don’t do so great anyway with very…loud people.”

Pierce laughed. “Yeah I know.  Just saying that if it’s a small place, you MIGHT spot him again.”

“I’ll be careful.  Should be easy to tell if he’s been drinking again anyway.”

“Sounds like his friend can keep him under control.  Don’t worry, I’m sure the next person you come across won’t be as scary Sasha.”

“Well…by all accounts…I suppose you’re not wrong, even though I feel like you should be,” Sasha laughed nervously.

Pierce cocked an eyebrow.  “The heck is that supposed to mean?”

“I..ummm…I never thought I would say this in my entire life…”

“And that would be?”

“….I met a drug dealer.”

Pierce blinked. “YOU.  Met a DRUG DEALER?  You are shitting me right now.”

“No, no this is a thing that happened.  Right after the alcoholic left.”

“What, you parked close to the back alley and he came out to hassle you?”

“No this was in the bar.”

“Oh, oh so you’re telling me that a drug dealer just walked right the fuck up to you and said ‘Hey wanna buy some drugs?’” Pierce was grinning and trying to hold back his laughter.

“…Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“YES!  I’m not joking! This happened!  And the dude collects snow globes and friendship bracelets too!” Sasha blurted out, exasperated.

Pierce burst out laughing, “NO FUCKING WAY!  No, I’m not believing that shit for a second.  Sasha you must have misinterpreted something there or this dude was just fucking with you.”

“THERE’S NO WAY TO MISINTERPRET THE LINE WORD-FOR-WORD, ‘You want to buy drugs, kid?’”

“Sasha no drug dealer is going to deal that stuff in public.  Cops eat at those places too.”

“Yeah, about that…apparently the cops here are either inept or can be ‘persuaded.’  I don’t know. Tyler’s plan was apparently to give them a blow if he got caught.”

“Okay one, who’s Tyler?  And two, which blow you talking about?”

“Tyler is the drug dealer and…both?”

Pierce stares for a full 10 seconds, stunned.  He then burst out laughing again, falling over on his side this time.

“OH MY GOD!  OH MY FUCKING GOD! Sweet innocent Sasha left home for no less than a week and you’re already hooked up with the world’s nicest drug dealer.  Oh man.  Sasha I take back what I said about Rockland.  Sounds like a riot.”  He had a large Cheshire grin on his face, but was holding his sides from laughing so hard.

Sasha rolled her eyes and said in a deadpan tone, “Well I’m glad through this long conversation, the thing that finally seems to get you to approve of my move is my association with a drug dealer.  Of all things.  Your reaction also makes me understand Dylan’s pain even more now.”

Pierce sighed, “Oh man, that just, that just made my day.  Thank you….wait who the hell is Dylan?”

“You’re welcome, and Dylan is Tyler’s friend.  He was mostly horrified about how open Tyler was.  Probably one of the more sane people in the bar that night. He dragged Tyler away at the end.”

“Aww, so you didn’t get any drugs?”

“No?  No number, no drugs.”

“Why would you NOT get drugs?!”

“What th-YOU KNOW ME!  That’s not me.  Plus my parents would have a heart attack if I tried anything.”

“But Sasha!  It’s not enough to just not buy a product from a vendor whose actions you don’t approve of.  You gotta purchase from their competition whose conduct you prefer!”

“…Okay I get what you’re saying.  Like if I want to support humanely raised animals, buy the food in the store that’s only from farms with humane raising tactics.  But, Pierce…you’re talking about DRUG DEALERS here. That’s ALL illegal.”

“Same difference.  I’d rather pay the friendly snow globe collecting drug dealer in the bar than the creepy freak in the dark alley.  It’s how you make the world a better place Sasha!  Illegal or not, not like they’re going away.”

“You are…just…I think I understand Dylan’s feelings even more now.”

“Let me come visit sometime.  You can take me to see Tyler.”

“Oh hell no!  If I have any say in this, I’m gonna try my hardest that you two never meet.  I will NEVER hear the end of it otherwise.”

“Boo.  Fine, be that way.  …Hey can I tell your parents about Tyler?”

“NO.  You’ll make THEM start to question my choice in coming here.”

“Okay okay.” Pierce settled down.  “So in summary, you walked into a bar where the bartenders dipped out, an alcoholic was in hysterics and the drug dealer was trying to get you in his books….Eh, you know when I say it out loud it doesn’t sound like the craziest bar ever. May even be pretty normal compared to some standards,” he grinned.

Sasha chuckled, “Yeah, I think I’ll pay the place another visit sometime. It was…interesting.”

“You could use a little spice in your mundane life girl.  Sounds like this place could be a gem.  Let me know who else pops up there next time, kay?” he winked.

“I will.  Have a good night Pierce.”

“Say hi to Tyler for me!”

“GOOD NIGHT Pierce.”

Sasha clicked “End Call.”

Sasha sighed.  She felt emotionally exhausted.

Her eyebrows furrowed.  “Did I forget something?  I think that was all the news.  There was something though…” Sasha thought to herself.  Something was nagging at her.

“The…bartender?  What am I…oh no I mentioned his name!  Pretty sure that was it,” she chuckled.

Sasha looked at the boxes and just shook her head.  She’ll finish it later.  Right now, bed sounded like the best idea after all that excitement.

[hotforharrington]

Goody Two Shoes (Pt. 4/6)

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x reader

Warnings: swearing

Notes: In this fic, you are in the same grade as Steve (a senior) which means Billy is a year younger than you (a junior) ; here is part 4 of Goody Two Shoes :)) I am very happy with this part, so I hope you guys like reading it! I think there’s only going to be 2 more parts but I’m not 100% sure yet. Anyways, enjoy!

—

You walked into your home and your mother was cleaning the kitchen. Billy’s jacket was now lingering in your arms, hoping your mother didn’t notice it among your textbooks. Luckily, she was too consumed with her cleaning to study you.

“(Y/N)! I was about to call the school, I was getting so worried about you!” Your mother said to you.

“Sorry mom! I got held up helping someone with an assignment in the library at the end of the day.” You lied to your mother.

“You are such a good one!” She beamed.

You set your backpack down and were about to head up the stairs when the phone rang. You knew exactly who it was going to be.

You turned around to dart to grab the phone but your mother just barely beat you to it.

“(Y/L/N) residence.” She stated politely.

“Hello, Mrs. (Y/L/N)! This is Billy Hargrove, I go to school with (Y/N). I was calling to speak with her about our upcoming history project.”

“Oh, wonderful. One second and I’ll get her on the line.”

“I’ll pick it up in my room.” You said to your mom before you darted up to your room to pick up your landline. You delicately laid Billy’s jacket on your bed as you pressed the phone to your ear.

“Hey, B, so you’re gonna come over to work on that project?” You asked nonchalantly.

“Yeah, beautiful, I’ll be over soon, if that works for you.”

“Sounds perfect to me.” You said with a smile on your face and your fingers twirling through the phone cord. You prayed your mother wasn’t listening in on your conversation, because the two of you weren’t being very subtle.

“See you soon, princess.” He said before hanging up the phone.

You went straight to your bathroom and freshened up your hair and make up. After that, you made your way back down the stairs to tell your mom that Billy would be over soon.

“Hey mom!” You shouted at her over her vacuum.

“Yes, Sweet Pea?” She responded.

“Billy, the guy who just called, he’s coming over so we can work on that history project. He’ll be here soon!”

“Sounds good, sweetie.”

About 20 minutes passed, and your dad was now home from work. The three of you sat in your living room. A few moments later, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” You called to your parents.

You opened the door to be greeted by a form of Billy you’d never seen before. He was well groomed and put together. He wore a lightly colored button up shirt (which was surprisingly buttoned all the way up) and khaki pants. The blonde curls of his mullet were smooth and appeared soft, and not slightly tangled as normal.

Your heart felt so full that he took this so seriously for you. This was a huge sign that he actually cared, and wasn’t just playing games with you.

“H-hi, Billy.” You stuttered.

“Hi, (Y/N). How are you doing?”

“Um, I’m good, thanks... Please come inside.” You said to him.

He walked into your home and your parents stood to greet the handsome young man that now entered their living room.

“Mom, Dad, this is Billy Hargrove, my uh... classmate.” You said, slightly nervous.

“Mr. and Mrs. (Y/L/N), it’s so nice to meet you. “ Billy shook your parents hands with a polite smile on his face.

It was so odd to see him like this. It was like a completely different person was standing here meeting your parents, not the bad boy you had come to know.

“It’s good to meet you too. Are you new to town? I don’t think I’ve seen you around and, well, Hawkins isn’t too big.” Your father said to him.

“Yes actually! My family just moved here from California.”

“Oh wow! Must be a big change for you.” Your mother said in response.

“Yes ma’am it is.”

You were starting to get stressed about your parents questioning him so you interrupted and said, “Um, we’re gonna go upstairs if that’s alright. That history project isn’t going to start itself!”

You headed for the stairs, when your mother said, “Billy?”

You both turned back to see what she was about to say.

“Yes ma’am?” He responded.

“Are you planning on joining us for dinner?” She asked.

Panicking internally, you said, “Oh I don’t think Billy would want to join us-“

“I’d love to.” Billy said, surprising you.

Your mother smiled at him and you faked a smile, grabbed Billy by the arm, pulled him upstairs to your room, and closed the door.

As soon as the door was closed, Billy unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and said, “Fuck (Y/N), I don’t know how you do this every damn day.”

You chuckled at him and he sat on your bed.

“It’s not so bad,” You said, “But, hey, what was that about staying for dinner? You know they’re going to ask you all kinds of questions that you’ll have to lie about...”

In this moment, you felt kind of guilty about making Billy do all of this. You hated that he had to pretend to be someone he’s not in order to impress your parents.

You sauntered closer to the curly haired boy. He grabbed your hands in his and said, “Hey... don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine. Besides, I told you I wanted to meet your parents.”

You nodded and plopped yourself down next to him on your bed. “I really appreciate you doing this for me, B.”

“Of course, princess.” He responded, playing with your fingers that were now intertwined in his.

“But... maybe in the future if you want to hangout with me, we should just sneak out... or you could sneak in...” You suggested.

“Whatever makes you happy, beautiful girl.” He caressed your cheek and pulled your lips to meet his. Billy intentionally made this kiss a sweet one, to show you comfort since you were obviously stressed about this situation.

You pulled away from the kiss and smiled at him. Then, a realization came into your mind.

“Oh, shit! The project!” You said.

“I thought that was made up? We don’t even have a history class together.” He said, confused.

“Yeah it is, but we have to have something in case my parents want to see what we’ve been working on... or if one of them happens to come in, we’ll have to pretend like we’re working on something.”

You walked over to your desk where you had placed your textbooks that you had brought home. Thank god! you thought to yourself. You managed to bring home your U.S. history book, which would be a perfect prop.

“I’ll be right back!” You said to Billy before darting out of your room and down the stairs.

“Whatcha lookin’ for, Sweet Pea?” Your mother asked.

“Do we have any poster board?”

“Yes sweetie, in your father’s study there should be some in the cabinet.”

“Thanks!” You said, bolting into the study and opening up the cabinet. You grabbed a medium sized, white poster board and went back upstairs to join Billy.

Billy looked at you with a confused expression and you just said, “Trust me. This will only take a second.”

You grabbed a permanent marker from your desk drawer and placed the poster board on the floor.

You began drawing a bubble map and wrote ‘The Civil War’ in the center bubble. In your nice, neat handwriting, you began filling in the surrounding bubbles with detailed information about different battles of the Civil War.

Billy was amazed at your intellect. The history book remained closed and you were able to beautifully describe this information with out any help whatsoever.

You made sure to leave at least one bubble empty, to show that you were still ‘working on it.’ After you finished writing, you flipped the textbook open to the table of contents and found exactly the chapter you were looking for. You turned the flimsy pages right open to a display of pictures and bold letters that said ‘Chapter 7: The Civil War’.

“Perfect.” You whispered to yourself. You then turned to Billy and said, “There. Now we can plop down here and pretend like we’re working in case we hear anyone come up the stairs.”

A soft smile overcame his face from admiration of your determination to this whole thing.

“Your ambition is so sexy, you know that?” He said to you.

“Oh yeah?” You cocked an eyebrow at him and moved to straddle him on the bed.

You looked deep into his piercing blue eyes before going in for a passionate kiss. You both toppled over, him on his back and you on top of him.

He lightly bit your bottom lip and in response, your tongue invaded his mouth. Your fingertips lingered at the base of his neck, gently playing with his curls. His strong hands inched down from your waist, slowly moving lower and lower...

The two of you made out in your room for only a few moments before you heard your mother begin to yell out for you and then slowly ascend up the stairs.

The both of you jumped up. You wiped your mouth and Billy buttoned up his shirt. The pair of you plopped onto the floor with the project just in time before your mother opened the door.

She smiled and said, “Hey you hard workers! Dinner’s ready! I hope you like spaghetti, Billy!”

“Sounds amazing, Mrs. (Y/L/N)!” He replied politely.

Your mother walked back towards the stairs and you turned to Billy with a nervous smile.

“This is kinda fun.” He said to you with a genuine smile on his face.

You pressed up on your tip toes and gave him a small peck on the cheek before leading him out the bedroom door and down the stairs.

The delicious aroma of Italian food filled the kitchen. The table was set for four. Two chairs on each side. You and Billy took a seat on one side and your parents sat on the other.

After saying grace, everyone fixed their plates and began to dig in. It was awkwardly silent for awhile until your father spoke up, “So Billy, got any plans after high school?”

“Billy’s actually a year younger than me, dad.” You explained.

“Doesn’t mean he hasn’t already thought about where he’s going to school or what he wants to do with his life.” Your father stated, “He seems like a fine young man. Definitely the kind of man I hope you’d end up with, (Y/N).”

You turned slightly and softly smiled at him. You two intertwined your fingers underneath the table, in secret.

Your father continued his statement, “And with that logic, I would think he would be smart enough to think ahead.”

“Well, in terms of colleges, I am keeping my options open at the moment, sir.” Billy answered.

“Nothing wrong with that, son!” Your father said politely, “But as for, (Y/N), she doesn’t have much choice where she’s going!” He chuckled.

A confused look spread across Billy’s face.

“We’ve been saving for her to go to Harvard since we found out my wife was pregnant!” Your dad explained, “She’s gotta continue the family tradition. We’re just waiting for that acceptance letter to come in. Should be here any day now!”

“Our sweet girl, she’s never let us down before and I highly doubt she’s going to start now!” Your mother said with a joyful chuckle.

Billy slowly released his hand from your grasp. “That’s wonderful, (Y/N).”

You could tell Billy’s words were forced. You hadn’t thought about the fact that you’d potentially be leaving for Harvard at the end of the school year.

You could feel the change of energy from Billy. He had tensed up, when he had been cool, calm, and collected since he walked through the front door.

The rest of the meal went by with casual small talk and everyone managed to get through it. Your parents were too blind to see the shift in Billy.

After you cleared you and Billy’s dishes from the table, you announced, “Billy and I are almost done with our project, so we’re going to go finish it now, okay?”

Your parents nodded their heads and you retreated to your bedroom.

Billy walked in first and you closed the door behind you.

“So... Harvard huh?” Billy asked with a bit of pain in his voice.

“Maybe...” You replied.

Billy just looked down at the floor for a moment. It was silent and awkward in your bedroom.

“Is that what you want?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” You replied.

“(Y/N)... I know we haven’t been seeing each other long but I know you’re something special. And even without the idea of us being in a relationship, I don’t want to see you go at the end of this school year unless going to Harvard is what really is going to make you happy. And when I say you, I mean you. Not your parents. You know, eventually you’re going to have to be up front with them and speak your truth!”

You knew Billy was right, even if you didn’t want to admit it. “I know.” was all you could manage to say to the boy.

You sat down next to him and rested your head in the crook of his neck. He slipped his hand into yours and kissed the top of your head. Billy turned to look at the clock on your bedside table.

“Shit.” He said. It was 6:30 and he told Neil he would be home at 6:00. “I gotta go, (Y/N), I told my dad I would be home thirty minutes ago.”

“Okay, Billy, calm down. Just tell him we were working on this project. It’ll be okay, won’t it?”

“You don’t understand, princess. I have to go. Now.” He said with a serious tone.

You bolted up and escorted him out. He quickly, yet politely, thanked your parents for having him over and your mother for the delicious meal.

He scurried to his Camaro and sped off to get home.

You watched the boy drive away and couldn’t help but worry. What did he mean by ‘You don’t understand, princess’?

You decided to shake it off and move on with the rest of your evening.

When 9:00 rolled around, you decided you better catch up on your sleep.

You headed up the stairs, brushed your teeth, put on your pajamas, and drifted off to sleep.

Good thing you decided to get some extra sleep, because only a few hours later, you were awoken by a fairly loud knock on your window.

—

Read Part 5 Here

Taglist:

@the-marvelatic @p3nny4urth0ught5 @kellysimagines @countryday @kayln97 @gothackedalready

[cmagines]

Shoulder Pains

Summary: It turns out that seeing you taking a couple beatings was what gave Derek the motivation to make a move on you.

Pairing: Derek Morgan/Reader

Word Count: 2,293

           “Ow,” you mumbled after poking at the bandage over your shoulder.

           You waited for a few seconds, glanced at the doorway, and then poked the bandaging again.

           “Ow,” you announced, scowling at your shoulder for what you took as a personal attack.

           A low voice chuckled, reverberating around the room and vibrating in your chest. You knew that voice, and it belonged to one of your favoritest people in the entire world. With wide eyes, you turned your head around to the other side of the hospital bed. Derek Morgan sat forward on the edge of his chair, eyes gleaming with pleasure as he reached for you.

           You forgot entirely about your injured shoulder in favor of his attention. “Hey!” You muttered to him. He took your uninured arm and guided it back down to your side.

           “Good to see you awake, baby,” Derek laughed at you, smoothing down the sleeve of your hospital gown over your upper arm. He patted your forearm. “You’ve had us all worried for a while.”

           He didn’t say himself specifically, but you weren’t an idiot. You could read into it. And, in your mind – which was hazy with painkillers and anesthetics from your recent emergency surgical operation – that was practically a confession of love.

           “I’m sorry,” you apologized fervently, already having to struggle to keep your eyes open.

           Derek kept stroking his large hand down over your arm, squeezing your upper arm kindly and rubbing down your inner elbow, pushing your wrist to the mattress when you moved to take his hand. “You just pay us back by getting some rest, baby girl. You deserve it.”

           Tiredly, you stretched your jaw in a yawn. “You be here later?” You asked, shifting back into the blankets with most of your weight transitioning to your right side, taking some of the pressure off of your bound and wrapped shoulder.

           “I promise. And if I’m not right in this room, just tell Reid to run and come get me.” Derek soothingly vowed, continuing to stroke your arm while you quickly dropped back off into unconsciousness.

           You thumped your head down on your pillows, but you didn’t get a concussion. Unfortunately. Disappearing into the dark abyss would’ve been greatly appreciated right about then, while your brother sat in the chair Derek had formerly occupied and chuckled at your predicament. The scrawny little pest found the situation hilarious. It had been a long time since you’d last wanted to pull his hair, but you were getting the urge again. Unfortunately, he had moved the chair over to the left side of the hospital bed, so you couldn’t reach, what with your arm being stitched up in a sling.

           “This isn’t funny,” you grumbled, crossing your one good arm across your chest petulantly.

           Spencer nodded wordlessly, giggling down to his lap. You rolled your eyes. At three years older than you, Spencer had been your caretaker for most of your life, since he’d been in middle school and you’d been somewhere between the third and fourth grade. The transition was gradual; as your mother gradually lost her mind to schizophrenia, and your father up and ditched you both, Spencer and you became each other’s best friends and raised each other.

           “No, it’s not.” Spencer tried to say, but he was still grinning at you boyishly, fringe falling into his eyes. You scowled. His lie was about as transparent as the excuse he gave Hotch about being cleared to fly after being shot by “a doctor’s opinion,” said doctor being himself. He stopped even trying to master his poker face and outright laughed. “Yes, it is.”

           Your painkillers had worn off and been replaced with medicine less potent. Things were a lot less funny to you, and Spencer seemed less like a lovable companion and more like a pest that needed a shoe chucked at his chest. Unfortunately, your shoes were on the floor, which seemed like an insurmountable distance away from either of your hands.

           “Thanks for laughing, bro. I’m feeling more pain than I am love.”

           Spencer always knew when you were trying to guilt trip him, so it rarely worked. Still, he had the decency to pretend to be humbled. “It’s not like it hurt anything,” he reasoned. You hated when he did that; sounded all calm and collected and made you feel like you were overreacting or reading too far into something. He never did it on purpose, but you just weren’t empirical like he was. “He’s still bringing you Ben and Jerry’s.”

           “Yeah, and carnations,” a familiar voice piped up by the door, coming in through the ajar doorway, a plastic bag from the grocery store hanging from his arm while he carried a bouquet of get well flowers wrapped in plastic.

           You and Spencer both appropriately cooed and admired the flowers at the right times, both to be polite and to save yourselves from having questions asked about the exchange Derek had walked in on.

           The third FBI agent turned around with his hands in loose fists on his hips. “So, what didn’t hurt anything?”

           You turned bright pink. You’d never been shy around Spencer. He’d been around your whole life, and you’d done so many embarrassing things around him – from falling up the stairs, to breaking your wrist trying to play Quidditch after he read you Harry Potter, to walking face-first into a telephone pole because a cute boy who lived next door talked to you – that it was hard to be less than comfortable around him. You doubted you’d reach a lower point than when you’d… well, that was in the past, and you’d rather not think about it. Everyone did dumb things in high school.

           Derek, however, was another story. Not only had it taken you a long time to warm up to the warmly paternal Rossi and the sisterly and outgoing affection of Garcia, but you’d been intimidated by Derek when you met him. He looked like he could kill a guy with his bare hands. You soon learned that he was as gentle as anyone could be (unless you were an un-sub), and you became friends… albeit you remained soft-spoken and meek, considering that you had quickly gone over the moon for the profiler.

           “Nothing,” both Reid siblings chimed simultaneously, giving Derek equally wide-eyed looks of innocence. He narrowed his eyes at you both and pointed between you, slowly shaking his head. He wasn’t buying it.

           “Eeeeeek!”

           Well, you reflected while you braced yourself for impact, holding up your right shoulder and covering your sling with your right arm, protectively moving it to the side so that Garcia wouldn’t send you right back to the hospital, you knew at least one person whom had missed you during your medical leave.

           “Careful!” Spencer squeaked indignantly, fielding away Garcia’s deceptively strong arms from your sling while she squeezed with an arm around your throat. You giggled.

           “My baby’s back,” Garcia breathlessly cheered, taking a step back and looking you up and down. “Oh, my baby’s back! Yes!” You smiled tiredly. It was hard to comfortably sleep with a still-healing bullet wound in your shoulder, but you were ready to come back to work. Hopefully the cases would exhaust you into a good night’s rest. “Jayje!” Garcia leaned back to yell across the bullpen. “The baby’s back!”

           “Just because I’m the youngest, doesn’t mean you have to call me the baby,” you complained halfheartedly. Garcia was going to call you whatever she wanted, and you all knew it.

           “There she is!” Derek and Hotch both had to look over the railing of the mezzanine at the techie’s cry. Hotch smiled welcomingly at you while they spoke outside of his private office, and Derek gave you a wide, handsome smile, blowing you a flirty kiss.

           Spencer wrapped a long arm around you carefully while you looked down and studied your shoes, your face flaming red, and led you over to the kitchenette to collect some coffee. No one got between the Reids and their coffee. In fact, Anderson even made you your usual brew as a welcoming present.

           “It’s no fair, Kate,” you sighed mournfully, sitting at the female profiler’s kitchen counter after a sleepover with her and Meg. Despite being over ten years younger than you, Kate’s niece was a neat girl, and you spent a lot of time with Meg so that Kate could socialize without leaving her adopted child unattended for long hours.

           “Neither was that card game. I swear that girl cheated,” Kate confided.

           From the next room, the TV quieted into a lull. “I didn’t cheat!” Meg called back loudly before she returned the volume to its original strength. You and Kate both chuckled.

           “I know he cares about me, but he treats me differently than the girls we meet out of town.” You stirred a spoon in your coffee, mixing in the sugar and cream to the piping hot mug. A chubby, distorted reflection of your face looked up at you from your drink. “He flirts with them and then with me he just… he kind of… calls me pretty and winks a lot.”

           “Well, Y/N/N, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he cares about Garcia, JJ, and me too, but he doesn’t make a habit of winking at us.” The brunette pulled up a chair and sipped at her coffee contemplatively.

           Your shoulders fell. Your sling had come off just under a month ago, and yet Spencer still insisted on sneaking a bottle of OTC painkillers into your handbag whenever you went somewhere. For the most part, you were healed up. Your only restrictions were that you weren’t supposed to use that arm to lift things that were more than twenty pounds until your next appointment at the orthopedic clinic.

           “You see how he likes to prank Spence,” you said his name affectionately, even as you reminisced on how annoying it sometimes was to have to doubt your crush’s actions because of your older brother. “And I did tell you about what Spence did when my prom date ditched me. Maybe he’s just doing it to bother Reid the First.” Having been working with the BAU longer than you, Spencer had earned the title “the First” while you got to lay claim to “the Second.”

           “Come on,” Kate chided, putting her coffee down. “You know him better than that. You know them both better than that.” Kate stared at your eyes, scolding and friendly in equal measure. She really had the parenting thing down. “But if you’re really that unsure, maybe you should just… ask him?” She suggested delicately, rolling her eyes even as she proposed the idea.

           She knew you would balk, and balk you did, pushing away your coffee and crossing your arms carefully. Your head shook fervently. “Nuh-uh. Nope. Not happening.”

           Kate dropped her head, stared at her countertop for a few seconds, and took a deep breath. You sat a little straighter, sensing some serious advice coming your way, when you were interrupted.

           “Kate!” Meg yelled from the living room. “Y/N! Can someone help me with my trig homework?”

           “I’ve got it,” you sighed when Kate looked at you, apologetic for her niece interrupting your conversation. “As many hours as I spent with Spencer helping me, I ought to be passable at trig by now.”

           “Yikes,” you gasped, panting, as you and Derek both looked towards the pool. The surface rippled and sloshed, and you held your formerly injured shoulder tightly out of paranoia. Slowly, you rolled it back. Being surprise tackled by the un-sub you were pursuing hadn’t done any damage, thankfully. Spencer would’ve probably put you on bedrest.

           “Hotch!” Derek shouted as loudly as he could to be heard around in the front yard of the residential home. The un-sub, a ginger-haired man whose hair had been turned dark brown by water, gasped and choked on chlorine as he broke the surface. The glint of a knife was down at the bottom of the pool. The ten-foot-deep ground pool was large enough for you to feel reasonably secure with the killer floundering.

           The other agents that had come with you came rushing from both sides of the house. The un-sub spat out water and cursed colorfully as JJ started to Mirandize him while he doggy paddled towards the edge of the pool. Derek took you by the elbow and led you away from the scene.

           “You okay, baby?” He asked in concern, looking deeply into your eyes. You felt blood rushing to your cheeks and choked down a squeaky voice. He’s looking for concussion, you scolded your hopeful thoughts.

           “’m fine,” you answered, apparently unable to speak completely normally to him. You averted your eyes.

           Derek took both of your shoulders and turned you back to face him. “You’re sure?” He double-checked insistently, stubbornness and fury blazing in his eyes, enraged that someone had dared to attack you.

           You nodded, your breath catching.

           “Good.” The anger left his face and he yanked you in. You lost your footing and stumbled, falling right into your chest. Derek closed his arms around your back and held you tightly. You stabilized yourself with your hands hesitantly against his chest, cheek to his shoulder, and he rubbed a hand firmly up your back. “Because I’ve been meaning to take you out on an actual date for a while now, and a hospital seems like a lame place to do it.”

           If at all you were going to choke, it should’ve been when you had a serial killer body checking you, but no – you were so badass that you were spluttering when you were asked out on a date by the guy you liked.

           Smooth, Y/N. Very smooth.

~~~

~~~

A/N: Welcome to my new side blog! This used to be posted on my main but I took it down here and moved it to this blog, which is dedicated to Criminal Minds. If you liked this, please consider commissioning a preference, imagine, or oneshot through my Ko-Fi.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year.  Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

[chobit92]

Resident Evil: Albert Wesker/OC Part 2

Warnings: Swearing, Alcohol.

(Angel sits at the bar waiting to be served. Wesker is sat next to her. Chris picks up a tray of beers and carries them over to a table where Barry, Joseph, Enrico, Richard and Forest are sat. Ken is talking to a young woman at the other end of the bar. Rebecca is dancing with Jill.). Chris: Who’s up for a game of darts? Barry: I’ll whoop your ass Redfield. (Chris and Barry get up and head over to the dart board with their beers. Angel tries again to get the barman’s attention but he just walks off to serve a guy at the other end of the bar. She sighs as she then watches the barman serving two women while flirting with them. She wonders what it would be like to be flirted with. She’s used to guys not noticing her. She’s only had one boyfriend and it didn’t end up being anything much. She blames her father for that. Ben was so scared of him finding out that they were seeing each other he broke it off after only two months. She really liked him too. She told him that she didn’t care if her father found out. She’s an adult and she’ll date who she likes. Ben just said that her father wouldn’t see it that way. That he should never have started seeing the bosses daughter. She finally manages to get the barman’s attention and he walks over and smiles at her.). 

Barman: What can I get for yah? Let me guess. Wine? Gin and Tonic? Angel: Wow. You assume a lot about women don’t you? Barman: It’s just what they usually drink miss. Angel: I don’t like wine. It tastes disgusting. I’ll have a whiskey. Neat. Make it a double. Like half the glass yeah? (The barman raises his eyebrows.). Barman: Okay. (He pours her a whiskey and she takes a large gulp. Rebecca walks over and leans against the bar next to her.). Barman: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Coz you must be an angel with beauty such as yours. Rebecca: Her names Angel. Barman: Get outta here. Angel: Why are you still here? Barman: So uh...You seeing anyone? (Angel looks surprised.). Angel: I’m married. (The barman walks off.). Rebecca: I didn’t know you were married. Angel: Neither did I until about three seconds ago. (Rebecca laughs and Angel smiles taking another sip of whiskey. She turns to Wesker.). Angel: Did you want another drink? Wesker: Why not? Rebecca: You should come dance with us. Angel: I don’t really do dancing. I’d look like a right idiot. Rebecca: No you wouldn’t. Come on. (Angel tries to get the barman’s attention again. He’s too busy flirting yet again. She sighs and then gets up on the bar and gets behind it. Rebecca laughs. She pours Wesker a whiskey and the barman comes over.). Barman: Hey. Get out from behind here. Angel: Make me. Barman: Seriously I’ll drag your ass out of here. Angel: Oh yeah? You touch me you’ll be spitting out your teeth. If we didn’t have to sit here all night waiting for you to finish flirting with anything with a hole in it I wouldn’t have to pour my own drinks would I? (Angel slides the glass across to Wesker and hops back over the bar sitting down. She then slides a bill across the bar.). Angel: Keep the change asshole. (The barman looks stunned as he takes the bill and walks off. Rebecca laughs.). Rebecca: Jesus girl! You’re scary. Angel: Am I? Rebecca: Yeah. Now come dance with us. (Angel sighs.). Angel: Okay fine. (She downs the rest of the whiskey and gets up. She turns to Wesker.). Angel: Would you like to dance? Wesker: No. Angel: Okay. Back in a minute. (Angel walks over to Jill with Rebecca and they start dancing. Wesker watches Angel. She sways from side to side looking embarrassed. He takes a sip of whiskey and thinks about how she was with that barman. The anger in her eyes. Damn. He hasn’t seen that side of her before. He sighs as he realises she’s obviously one of those man hating feminist types. He’s wasting his time. Angel suddenly turns her head and looks over at him. She smiles shyly before turning away. Jill is showing her how to sway her hips and Wesker watches as Angel copies her. Jill then leans over and whispers something to Angel and she turns to look at him before looking back at Jill and saying something. Both girls start giggling. Angel shakes her head then shrugs. 

 ---Angel can’t believe Jill. Teasing her about how Wesker is watching her every move then asking if she fancies him. Ridiculous. But as she turns and looks over at him sitting at the bar watching them she wonders how ridiculous it really is. She hasn’t failed to notice how attractive he is. She’s thought about him several times since she met him. Barry walks over.). Barry: And how are you ladies doing? Jill: Fine. Barry: I don’t think Weskers enjoying himself. Jill: Hm. We were just talking about him. Weren’t we Angel? Angel: Stop. Barry: Hm. Jill: We should probably head home soon. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Barry: Yeah. God knows what we’re gonna find in those woods. Some crazy cult if you ask me. Angel: You think it’s just that? A cult? Barry: What else could it be? (Angel isn’t sure. Chris comes over.). Chris: You up for another game Barry? Barry: Why not? Well girls it’s been fun but I have another game of darts to win. (They laugh as Barry and Chris head back over to the dart board. Jill watches Chris go.). Angel: You like him don’t you? Jill: What? Angel: Chris. Jill: I... Rebecca: Yes she does. Angel: Have you told him? Jill: No. Rebecca: Have you told Wesker you like him? Angel: What? Rebecca: Oh come on. I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at him tonight. I’ve also seen you looking at him at work. Angel: Well...I dunno. I don’t see the point. He’d never be interested. Rebecca: I think he is. Angel: You what? Rebecca: Well he invited you for a drink tonight didn’t he? Angel: To discuss putting me back on the case. Rebecca: He said that yeah but I think he was after something else as well. Angel: Really? Rebecca: You didn’t get that? Come on girl. If he wanted to discuss putting you back on the case he could have done that at the office. He invited you for a drink. Then when you invited everyone else he looked...Disappointed. Angel: He did? Rebecca: Yeah. (Rebecca sighs.). Rebecca: When he invited you for a drink he meant just the two of you. (Angel doesn’t really know what to say. Or what to do. It isn’t that she doesn’t want him. Because she has thought about it...But he probably just wants a bit of fun. Nothing serious. She isn’t sure that she wants to just be someone’s bit of fun. She isn’t sure about letting a man use her.). Angel: Well I dunno. He might just want a bit of fun. I don’t know how I feel about that. Rebecca: How do you know he just wants a bit of fun? He might really like you. Angel: I doubt it. Jill: Nothing wrong with having a bit of fun. Right? (The girls giggle. Angel looks back over at Wesker.). Angel: You think I should just ask him? Jill: Ask him what? Angel: Well...If he fancies me or not. Jill: You could. He does keep looking at you. Rebecca: I’ve noticed it too. In the meeting earlier he kept looking at you. Angel: How do you know where he’s looking? He’s always got those stupid sunglasses on. (They giggle.). Rebecca: Why don’t you just go and sit with him for a while. Talk to him. Flirt with him. See where it goes. Angel: You think I should? Rebecca: Why not? Angel: But...Is it wrong to just have sex with a guy? I mean isn’t that...Slutty? Jill/Rebecca: No! Rebecca: Men do it all the time and they don’t get called sluts do they? Jill: Nope. Rebecca: Look you do what you want to do. Whatever you feel comfortable doing. If you want him then go for it. Who knows it might come to something. It might not. If it doesn’t... Jill: Least you’ll have had a good night. (Rebecca giggles.). Rebecca: Jill I never knew you were this terrible. You’re such a bad influence on me! (Jill laughs.). Jill: Seriously though. If anything does happen. We want to know. Angel: What? Jill: Oh yeah. You gotta give your friends the gossip. Rebecca: Jill! Stop. Just ignore her. You don’t have to tell us anything. It’s your business. Angel: I’m gonna go and get another drink. Jill: Uh huh. (They grin at her and she laughs before heading back over to the bar. She sits down next to Wesker.). Wesker: You didn’t get much dancing done. Angel: Oh I hate dancing. I just look like an idiot. Wesker: You didn’t. A lot of the men in here couldn’t take their eyes off of you. Angel: Really? Wesker: Myself included. (She freezes. Stunned. He is sat there staring at her. She swallows hard then turns away from him. The barman comes over.). Barman: Another drink? (Well...Damn. Maybe he does fancy her. But he probably just wants a bit of fun. She knows what men are like. But damn does she want him. She decides to just go with it. See what happens.). Angel: I’ll have another whiskey. Double. (The barman pours more whiskey in her glass.). Barman: You wanna go easy on that. Trying to forget something? Angel: No. I just want a drink. We ain’t all got little sob stories. Barman: Okay. So...You really married? Angel: What’s it got to do with you? Look I ain’t interested. You should really get the fucking hint and fuck off. Barman: Alright. Chill out girl. Jeez! Only trying to be nice. Angel: Yeah. Real nice to want to take a young girl home so you can treat her like a sex doll and then throw her away like trash the next day. Man you must be a catch eh? (The barman looks at Wesker.). Barman: Good luck with her mate. Jesus. (The barman walks off.). Angel: Fucking asshole. (She takes a large gulp of whiskey thinking about how Wesker probably wants the exact same thing the barman does. She finds herself again in two minds about this whole thing. Maybe she should just go home. But then she feels Weskers hand on her arm and she turns to him. He leans towards her and her heart skips a beat. He’s going to kiss her. But he doesn’t kiss her.). Wesker: Are you alright? Angel: Yeah. Wesker: We could go somewhere else. If you like. Somewhere away from that barman. (She smiles and turns away from him taking another sip of whiskey. Damn.). Angel: You wanna go out for a cigarette? (She stands up and downs the rest of the whiskey. Wesker raises an eyebrow then gets up and follows her outside. The night air is cool and crisp and Angel sighs and looks up at the starry sky. She then takes a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag and hands one to Wesker. He takes it and she lights for him before lighting one up herself. She shoves the packet and lighter back in her bag and leans against the wall. He moves to stand next to her.). Angel: So... Wesker: So... (She finds herself laughing. Rebecca suddenly appears.). Rebecca: Hey there you are. I thought you’d left. Angel: I will in a minute. You should get going soon too. Rebecca: Yes mom. Angel: Hey. I’m not old enough to be your mom. Rebecca: How are you getting home? Barry said he’d drive us. Angel: Um...I’ll probably just walk. Wesker: I can give you a lift. Angel: Really? Thanks. (Rebecca looks at Wesker then back at Angel then shakes her head and sighs.). Rebecca: Okay. Well I’ll see you guys tomorrow then. Angel: See you tomorrow. Wesker: Goodnight Rebecca. Rebecca: Night. Night Angel. (She winks at her before going back inside the bar. Angel sighs and shakes her head.). Wesker: Are you alright? Angel: Yeah. (She drops her cigarette butt and stubs it out with her boot. He does the same.). Angel: Are you going back in? Wesker: No. I’m going to head home now. Angel: Is it still okay to get a ride? Wesker: Yes. Angel: Thanks. (She follows him to his car and they get in. 

---Wesker drives through the city following Angels directions. This whole evening has been a waste of time. She clearly isn’t interested in him. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t just say so. Women. Now he knows why he never really bothers. Perhaps she just doesn’t know how to tell him she isn’t interested. But then she told that barman clear enough. He also hasn’t failed to notice how she kept looking at him earlier when she was dancing. How the girls kept giggling and looking at him. They must have been talking about him. Maybe she’s playing hard to get. He is now driving through the rougher part of the city. He looks around as he follows Angels directions. She then tells him to pull over outside a small grotty apartment building. She lives here? A woman with a father that is friends with the mayor lives here? She thanks him for the ride and gets out. He watches as she goes to shut the door then stops. She stands there for a moment before leaning down peering into the car.). Angel: Would you like to come in for a drink? (Wesker smiles.).